The Voices

Chapter 1: La-la, I can't hear you!

Last night, I woke up in a cold sweat. My head swimming. My name is Avery Revis. I'm an orphan. My caretakers say that when I was really young, my mom came rushing up to the steps of the orphanage, baby me in her arms, my dad right behind her, tears in his eyes. The owner of the orphanage, who saw them running through the window, ran down to meet them.

"Mother, please, take her!" pleaded my mom, holding out baby me.

"Please!" my dad added.

The owner immediately took a shawl from her neck and wrapped it around me baby me. When the owner looked back up, they were gone. The only trace that they had ever been there, was a silver necklace my mom had been wearing. Anyway, back to the present! I read a lot. And in most of the books I've read, the orphans hate the orphanage they live in. I don't know about the other orphans, but I love this orphanage! I've got food, books, shelter, friends, freedom, education, books, what more could I want? The only things I don't like are my caretakers. But my friends care for me, so I try to forget about that. The food is bad (ugh), my books are interesting (kinda), and right now, I'm going to ignore the voices in my head! Yeah, that's right, voices. As long as I remember, I've heard voices whispering in my ears, as many times as I turn around, there's nobody there. For a few years I convinced myself that it was just my imagination, that would have explained a lot, but of course, I grew out of that. You would have thought that I should have gone insane by this, but the voices only annoy me, they do grow stronger year by year, though, but that's a problem for future Avery! By now, I think you know that I'm not a worrying type. But right now, I'm going to push the voices out of my head (at least I tried), and march straight to breakfast. When I got to the breakfast table, my friends were already there.

"Av! I saved you a seat!" said my closest friend Leli, patting a seat next to her.

"Thanks, Leli." I said, looking at my best friend. She has long goldilocks hair, which was in braids, dark brown eyes, that has a look of happiness and longing. She was wearing a light pink hoodie with bright blue overalls. Completed with black shoes.

Leli has been since day one. As far as I can remember (which isn't that long), Leli is my number one friend. I was really really small when I first entered the cafeteria, hugging the legs of my caretaker. My eyes were closed most of the way so I can't really describe it. When I finally took a breath and opened my eyes, I immediately spotted a very loud girl who was wearing a very bright yellow shirt and blue shorts. She was on a table. yelling "HELLO, MY NAME LELI! DO YOU WANNA BE MY FRIEND?" I still get giggles when I think about it. My caretaker looked down at me and said:

"Dear, why don't you go over and say hi?" she said, emphasizing the 'dear'

I didn't want to go. But my caretaker pushed me forcefully so I started walking

Past Leli grinned and jumped on me. "Friend!"

"Avery! Avery!" said Leli, shaking my arm.

"Huh? Oh! Sorry I zoned out." I said, shaking my head. I ignored Leli's gaze and looked around the cafeteria. When you first enter the caf (short name for cafeteria, make it so much easier), you would think it's pretty small and it is (LOL), but when you walk in and absorb everything, it's really small(DOUBLE LOL). The ceiling is covered in flickering yellow light, the floors are kept neat but that doesn't disguise the very annoying squeaky noise it makes when anybody walks on it. Blue chairs and tables are laid out and spaced perfectly from each other. On the right corner was a table full of pots and trays and a variety of cups (seriously, who needs that many cups?). On the left side, the lunch lady was sitting behind her desk/food/counter server thingy (what do you call those?), her face buried in her magazine (Who is going to win? Ly or Uma? The epic battle between makeup!). Leli pushed a tray of beans and mashed potatoes toward me.