Status: ongoing (updates every Saturday @ 5pm uk time)
Jeremiah is the last person Dee should be friends with - after all, he broke her best friend's heart. But when both of them get entangled in a strange extraterrestrial experience, they're forced...
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JEREMIAH.
The smell of pastries wake me up from my nap and after I do, I just sit up on my bed, confused as to why. Mom never bakes this type of stuff and she hasn't cooked for months so she's not about to start now.
The smell doesn't go away for a long time. It's strong, and it fills up my entire room. It's just like Friday, when I woke up in the morning to the smell of lemon, or yesterday when I felt the taste of Frootloops on my tongue while eating an apple.
I'd tried my best to ignore it, chucked it up as me just slightly losing my mind, especially since Dee said she hadn't noticed anything different about her so, I didn't want to be the one who has. But at the end of the day, I know this weird phenomenon has a lot to do with whatever happened to the both of us four days ago.
Soon, there's a sweet taste on my tongue, seeming a lot like donuts, specifically the ones from Gina's, I'd know because I always get one everyday after school. It was a tradition Jeremy and I started and even after his death, I couldn't find it in me to stop.
Death.
I hate that word so much. I hate the whole idea of it. But, hating something, I've realised, doesn't really stop it from happening. When Jeremy was in the hospital, I'd pray, literally, everyday for his recovery, tell God to not let our family break apart but, he still ended up leaving us. It was such a heart-wrenching experience and even though it's been 4 years now, it still feels so fresh.
I'd been trying my best to move on, trying to focus on my life and just when I started to get the hang of it, Grandma Nan had to go too. She was the only family I had left that I didn't hate. The only one who still cared about me. She'd had a stroke a month ago, and had been in coma ever since. Doctor told us straight off the bat that she didn't really have a good chance at surviving and so, we'd basically just been waiting for it to happen, for the bandage to be ripped off and it did Friday.
Mom called to tell me at school, talking about "It finally happened" with no single ounce of emotion in her voice and even though I'd been expecting it, it still hurt so much. I'd ended up crying like a baby at school.
The smell and taste of donuts slowly starts to dissipate. I flop back on my pillow and just stay there, somehow trying to savour them before they completely disappear. As I do, I think about how crazy it is that I'm not going crazy about this, about possibly getting abducted by aliens. If this was months ago, I'm sure I'd be freaking out more. But right now, I can describe the state I'm in as numbness. I really want to care more about what happened to Dee and I, I really do but I've gotten so used to this numb feeling, it's drawing away every form of energy I have. I'm not the Jeremiah I used to be, or more accurately, the Jeremiah I tried to be, anymore.
My eyes flit over to the Pillars of Creation poster hanging on the left side of my wall. It's a colorful photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of a region of gas and dust where new stars are forming. Grandma had gotten it for me at 12 after I went to a science camp and came back obsessed with Outerspace and the likes. I wasn't used to getting gifts - Jeremy and I. That was how we were raised. No Christmas gifts, no birthday gifts, nothing. This was the first time somebody ever got me anything and I'd cherished it.
