228Yellow
Victoria Best
Prologue
It was a Sunday morning and there I was, minding my own business, walking back from my friend Jonah's house. It only hit me that I was still drunk when I walked diagonally into the road and nearly got myself splatted by a passing car.
Feeling quite pleased with myself for avoiding it and cheating death like that, I started skipping instead of walking. Why is skipping in public frowned upon? Deer and gazelles don't get dirty looks for skipping, right? So neither should we.
That car and me. Wow. I found myself grinning. I was definitely some kind of holy, immortal being. I started running through all the ways I could use my immortality for good, like being a fire-fighter, spy and professional bungee-jumper all at the same time. This was genius. I would be the all-in-one, the pair of one-size-fits-all-socks, with no need for any fancy equipment or clothes, just my own steel self and…
And then I found myself squished into a pretzel shape on the pavement, with a strong, heavy, beautifully-smelling body flattening me.
Every bone I possessed was screaming in agony. Especially my hipbones. They were screaming like the whole cast of the Walking Dead.
"Holy shit!" A voice was yelling, which I assumed was the voice of God. Who knew God's voice would be so low and sexy?
Panic took over my limp, aching body and I immediately started bargaining for my life. "You can't take me yet! I'm only eighteen! That still has a 'teen' on the end of it! So I'm still a child! Let me… Let me play you at chess, at least! If I win, I get to live! There's always a chess game! Right?"
I didn't know why I was challenging him to chess; I was shit at chess.
Well, I supposed chess was better than Monopoly. I played that once with my siblings and it lasted a week, no joke. By the end of it I was wondering whether I would ever see daylight again.
"Fuck! I'm so sorry! I was practicing my roof jumps and… oh, shit!"
God started trying to pull me up – the movement shot piping hot pain through me and I let out a shriek. Jesus Christ. Dying was awful.
My yelping must have worked – he instantly stopped pulling me – and I used the brief pause to continue bargaining.
"I have so much more to learn, God! I wanted to travel the world and film it. Maybe go into media one day? I wanted to watch the new Star Wars film!"
There was a thick, greasy silence and I wondered whether my bargaining was working.
"Are you… are you drunk?"
I finally opened my eyes, to meet grey. Intense, beautiful grey. What iron would look like if it were a gem.
I worked out that the grey I was staring into were two eyes that drooped a little at the edges, set against a smooth, tanned face, with a rectangular jawline. A young guy, probably my age, or just a little older. I realised two things at the same time: one, he was holding me up to a near-sitting position by my waist and back, his face close enough that I could see freckles and smell deodorant. And two: he was attractive. Very. And I…
I suddenly felt pretty hot. The colours around me slewed together; sense trickled in, shocking and shaking, like sudden slithers of cold water down the spine. I wanted to do nothing but liquefy and drip away into the cracks in the pavement underneath me. I had called this gorgeous person God.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot!
I mentally smacked myself in the face. Only mentally; I didn't want God's gift – no, honeymoon – to women to think I was crazy or anything.
My heavy, stodgy brain had finally caught up with me, and, feeling very much alive and in my own body, I let loose.
"What were you doing? You could have killed me! I think my legs are broken!"
"Bit over-dramatic," were the fast, cool words thrown out of his cute little lips.
I looked carefully at him. His forehead was creased and he seemed to be caught between glaring at me and gawking at me. His thick hair was ruffled, I noticed, like it was in need of a hat, and, sure enough, when my gaze drifted down to the pavement, I noticed a cap lying awkwardly beside me.
"Hey, is that your hat-"
All at once, I found myself hurtling backwards, and then heard, and felt, the clunk of my head slamming hard against the ground.
My hands instantly rose to head, while my body cringed in a muddle of shock and surprise. It took me a moment to realised he had dropped me. He had dropped me! Like a sack of potatoes! Or a weird ex! "What-"
"It's you," he said darkly.
Huh? With a manly, not-sexy-at-all grunt, I managed to get myself up. I focused on him – he was already standing. He pulled his hood up and over his fluffy auburn hair; brushed his black tracksuit bottoms off and did a sort of athletic mini shuffle, on the spot.
And I realised then that I knew this person. This person, the broad-shouldered, sporty shape of him, the oversized hoodie, the slight slouch. He was a page out of a colouring book: I had never seen his face, never seen inside. But the outline? That was ready-imprinted.
"No, it's you," he spat. "I told you to delete the videos and you didn't. So... that's why this happened."
"Fate?" I said stupidly.
"Karma."
With that, he turned and started into a sprint, feet moving quick, sharp, finessed. Can feet be sexy? I think so.
"Well, karma is going to eat your arse too for committing a hit-and-run in broad bloody daylight!" I shouted after him. And then, in a softer tone, I added, "dude. You forgot your hat." I lifted it from the pavement, thoroughly inspected the worn cloth, and wondered if sticking pins in it would work like voodoo.
When I was done thinking about that, I contemplated the very shit death I'd been handed. There was not a single zombie present, for a start, which completely went against all my life goals – not to mention the facts I was going to die still broke, still a loser, still a virgin, and with no clue of how the BBC's Sherlock was going to end.
But wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. That's not the beginning of the story.
This is the beginning of the story.
A/N: hello, hello! Great news - I am in the process of rewriting and re-uploading Yellow. There will be some differences - some big, some not quite as big. We'll see. All reviews are returned (I review back).
All work by Victoria Best (id. 657454) is copyright under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.