Bear People - Fiction, PG-13(?) (cursing)

[Adelaide]

Stupid, I know. I wasn't really thinking. My feelings took over and, as everybody knows, emotions don't have to make sense. Besides, thinking only made me feel worse. My car, or I should say the car my mom and dad gave me, began to slow down for lack of gas. Not only was I lost without gas, I had no means of communication and there wasn't any sign of civilization to be seen. Common sense would have told me to stay on the highway, keep my cell phone instead of throwing it out the window, or at least fill up the gas tank before turning off the main road—if only I had been using it.
More regret wouldn't help anything, though, and I knew it. Somewhere deep inside myself I knew that I was glad to be rid of my cell phone. It carried memories of lies and deceit that were just too agonizing for me to handle. Those memories made me feel weak, naïve, and utterly gullible. Being The Joke carried quite a bit of emotional baggage, I found out. He never loved me. Maybe I never loved him. That was easy. I never loved him, I never loved him, I never loved him. It was simple to think it because it was true. I NEVER LOVED HIM.
As my car rolled down its last gravel hill through pure momentum, I realized I needed to put my mind on the present. I sighed to try to clear my mind, but agitation made my breath come out all at once. I tried again with a nice, slow inhalation. My diaphragm expanded and I rounded my lips in preparation for the cleansing sigh, only this time I yelled:
“FUCK! I NEVER FUCKING LOVED YOU, YOU BASTARD! FUCK YOU!”
In a rage, I jumped out of my car and stomped on an imaginary head and continued to yell obscene phrases into its imaginary ears. I took out all my frustration on the gravel beneath my feet, as if it would really do anything to help me. It felt amazing, though, right up until I hit an emotional wall and crashed, completely fatigued. My body seemed to throb right along with my heart beat and it was all I could do to climb back into the car and recline the seat. I closed my eyes and managed to relax for quite a while. For the first time today, my mind was blank.
Eventually, my heart rate slowed and I could hear rustles and insects from outside of the car. Eerie, unsettling noises, as far as I was concerned. As my body slowed down I began to feel the cool temperature creeping through the cracks of my car. A breeze forced my car to rock, and it made me dizzy even though my eyes were closed. It would be a realization, it turned out, that brought me fully out of my trance.
I was going to have to spend the night there, in the cold car. I hadn’t seen a house for miles, a car for even longer, and I was completely surrounded by thick trees. I didn’t even remember seeing a street sign. My thin jacket wasn’t enough to keep me warm in this temperature, so going out to look for help wouldn’t do. It made much more sense to wait till the morning when the sun was out and it was warmer. I wanted to believe that, anyway. The more I thought about it the more scared I was. The moon and the woods played tricks on my eyes as I kept seeing creepy shadows.
I forced my eyes shut and found myself wishing I could be as brave as I was before, when I jumped out of the car and yelled at an imaginary person. I should have been screaming for help. I probably just scared away any chance of salvation. That thought made me feel awful. Since I was already in a bad mood, I thought it would be okay to reminisce on the day.
I had woke up at the crack of dawn, forced a bagel down my throat and been on my way. A discomfort in my stomach reminded me how that happened to be the last meal I had eaten. Being careful to be quiet so as to not wake my parents, I crept out to my car and turned on the engine. My destination was far away, and my goal, to get my boyfriend back. I didn’t want to remember what happened when I got there, it wasn’t important. What was important was the fact I was hours away from home. My mom called me as I was on my way back. Her voice sounded so disappointed and full of pity, I couldn’t take it. I threw my phone out the window trying to forget the way my mother had spoken to me. For some reason, it was worse than anything else. The need to escape was so powerful; I turned at the first country road.
I felt warm tears pool at the corner of my eyes and spill down my cheeks and neck. It didn’t help to keep me warm but it was enough to make me tired again, almost instantly I dozed off and let myself drift into dreamland.
I was dreaming that I was lost in a house chock full of blankets and house plants. Shadow creatures were chasing me and as I was trying to run away from them I tripped over a potted tree and got wrapped up in a quilt with a leaf pattern. All of a sudden I was lying at the base of a giant tree with its roots jabbing at me from underneath. The shadow creatures hovered above me. I tried to yell for help, but they took my voice away. I saw my mother appear from behind a nearby tree; her face was twisted into a grotesque picture of pity. Her voice reflected the same degree of disappointment as she spoke to me. I tried to tell her to hide and not to speak or the shadow people would take away her voice. She wouldn’t listen and instead of attacking her, the shadows disappeared inside of my body and my mother cried out the most terrible ear-splitting shriek.
I was unsure if I was still dreaming, but my body was shaking. Did the shadow creatures take over my body? No, my car was rocking. My head hurt, but why? Was it my mother’s scream? No, my mother was safe at home, but I wasn't. I was awake then. Something had woken me. I looked around and saw that the roof of my car had been dented in and my back window had shattered. I could see that that must’ve made the deafening noise, but what had caused it? My heart was racing so fast I could barely focus enough to hear the crunch... crunch on the gravel outside. Maybe a branch had fallen off a tree and hit my car, I thought. I wanted to believe that, but branches didn’t get up, start walking, or make the kind of sound I didn’t want to believe I was hearing. I clenched my eyes shut and began to panic as I heard something viciously scratch at my door and rock the entire car. I told myself that it was just an animal, and that I shouldn’t freak out.
The next time I opened my eyes, events played out in slow motion. The large silhouette outside of my window somehow managed to lift the doorknob and tear off my car door. Its paws reached in to roughly latch onto me and rip me out of the vehicle. The cold night was offset by the intense warmth of the creature that imprisoned me in its dark fur. I couldn’t see anything and I was suffocating against it. I felt weightless as I felt the creature bounding through the air. Lack of oxygen increased my sense of disorientation and I felt myself giving in to it.

Up for constructive criticism, corrections on verb confusion, anything! Please help me improve my writing!

[Adelaide]

Next Part:

As I drifted back into consciousness, I didn’t lose that sense of disorientation. But I had noticed something pressing on the side of my body. I pulled my senses together to notice that it wasn’t really pressure, but heat that had caused that sensation. It was hot, almost scorching compared to the rest of my body, but not all that uncomfortable. It was covering me, albeit not entirely, nearly like a soft, warm blanket. It felt quite like being half-shaded on a sunny beach. I allowed myself to indulge in a memory of playing in the wet sand and forming what would have been an excellent sand castle if swimming had not seemed like a more comfortable activity then getting dirty and having sand scratch at your legs.
A scraping sound tore me away from my silent reverie. A terror like molten lava spread through my veins and gradually took over every one of my limbs. The whole of the evening came back to me in that instant and I knew that something had made that sound. Whatever it was doing, it had the potential to be very dangerous to me. I cursed myself when I noticed my breath came louder and more rapidly, giving away that I was awake. That meant that any chance I had at silently slipping away were ruined by my carelessness. If only they taught you what to do in this kind of situation in school, then maybe I could survive this whole mess.
Though my body was shivering in fear, my mind fought to enter survival mode. I could still hear the scraping sound, so maybe whatever it was that was making it was too involved with it to notice me. I forced my eyes open to take in my surroundings to figure an escape plan. My eyes immediately drifted towards my left, opposite of the scraping sound, to the source of heat. It was a basic fireplace, with only a circle of rocks and a certain formation of the firewood to keep it from catching on to something it shouldn’t.
Though I was close to the fire, I was at least far enough away to avoid getting singed by the ashes. It was almost as though someone had put thought into where he or she placed me. Why would my captor care if I was warm, anyway? And, if my memory was correct, it was a creature that had kidnapped me, not a person. Was it even capable of such a though? Unless, of course, it was a person in some kind of fur suit, which was almost more unsettling than if it had been a monster.
In any case, it was time to examine what was to my right, which I had been dreading more than I realized. The thing was to my right, still scraping away. Carefully, I opened eyes and turned my head ever so slowly… my eyes were greeted immediately with a bony spine of a man’s bare back. From my position I could see blood gathering on a piece of cloth he held to some kind of wound on his side. Keeping my fears of the possibility of a psychopath being so close to me at bay, I found my eyes tracing four parallel lines running from his left shoulder to the middle of his back.
A terrifying thought filled my mind as his scars reminded me of the beast whose paws dragged me from safety earlier. What if the man was attacked, too? What if we’re both just prisoners of the same monster, waiting to be eaten for supper? I felt my face turn red and I realized I was holding my breath. The scraping sound stopped, and then restarted. I couldn’t break my charade to form any sort of camaraderie just yet.
Though the pace took some time to get used to, I resumed taking deep inhalations and slow exhalations. I sneaked another look at the man and realized that the scar was pale and look old. The man was becoming a real mystery to me. Had he been attacked once before? Did he escape? I saw the man remove the bloody cloth to reveal a deep gash that looked nothing like the pale scar on his shoulder. With his other hand he spread green goo over it, and I could hear him whimper slightly as he prodded the wound. His muffled cries of pain and the bloody green mess were enough to make me wince. A feeling overcame me, and I assumed it was some deep maternal instinct. Like a mother to her child, I wanted to help him and make his pain go away. He pulled out a long, clean piece of cloth seemingly from nowhere and wrapped it around his middle, covering the gash and putting pressing on it.
With a sigh, he picked up something in front of him and placed it behind his back. I had a moment of hysteria as he slightly turned around to place it, but I surprised myself with how well I dealt with it. He wasn’t paying attention to me, fortunately, and was focused on something in front of him. I looked at the object he placed in my view and saw that it was a mortar and pestle… that must’ve been making the scraping noise. The smell coming out of it was strong, and I could see some of the green goo on the side of it. I don’t know why I didn’t notice the smell earlier, because it was so strong that I felt like it was burning my nostrils. It must’ve been some strong antiseptic, since he spread it over his wound. And to be frank, it smelled like one.
The man began to turn around, grunting with effort and pain, I supposed. I was too busy worrying about him to remember my charade, though my heart rate had definitely risen. All too suddenly, I was staring into the eyes of the man. Big, dark eyes that were settled deeply in his skull stared straight back into mine. Before I could even think about anything else besides his eyes, he opened his mouth to make a low, grumbled sound that formed a question.
“You’re awake?”