The Runaway

[GirlzRule]

Shayla was an ordinary thirteen year old middle school girl. She went to school, had a few friends, hated homework. She was what everyone expected a thirteen year old to be. On the outside. On the inside, at her home life, she had a scene (emo) younger sister, an alcoholic stepfather, and a cigarette-puffing mother.

Her father wasn't as bad as drunkies on TV who beat their children, but he'd scream at her and her sister and her mother. Occasionally he'd slap one of them. He swore and spit and fought with Shayla's mother. There were holes in the wall from all the times he'd punched through it.

Her family hadn't always been like this. When her father had been alive, everything had been wonderful. Her mother painted. Her sister, Charabelle Fay, was a little ray of sunshine. And Shayla had a Tamagotchi.

But two years can change everything. Shayla still had her Tamagotchi under her mattress, and batteries in her desk drawer. It seemed to be the only thing she still had from her old life.

And one day, Shayla decided enough was enough. She packed her things in the morning when her mother was asleep and her father was at the bar. All the money she had, two changes of clothing, a map of the town, some dry food she'd stolen from the kitchen, a few bottles of water, and her Tamagotchi, its batteries, and a miniture screwdriver. And she walked right out the back door and into the woods.

Then she ran. She ran as fast as she could, over a rock, around a tree, over a stump, around a bush, until she couldn't see her porch light any more and the sounds of the highway had vanished.

She sat down on a stump and pulled out the batteries, her Tama, and the screwdriver. Battery in. Back back on. A moment later, it hatched, and Shayla named the baby girl Fay, after her sister.

"Looks like it's just you and me now, little guy."

Rules~

♥ Don't be too random (stuff coming alive, stuff appearing out of nowhere, etc)

♥ Don't be too gross (boogers, poo, pee, puke, etc)

♥ Don't be too violent (shooting, breaking bones, punching/kicking violently, etc.)

♥ Don't kill any characters. This is an important rule I want everyone to follow. I've read a few team stories where the first poster just kills everyone and recreates the story. If someone does kill a character, skip that post and pretend it never happened.

♥ No plot killing. Example: "Oh no, the big bad wolf is attacking the town!" "It's okay I killed him with lazer eyes" If you see this, skip over it and pretend it didn't happen. This one is also just as important as killing a character.

♥ Use correct grammar, spelling, capitolization, and punctuation. Nothing like "i lyke pie lolzzzzz haha omg u didnt do that noo sayla souted!!!1!1!1!one!!1!!eleven!!!!1!"

♥ At least four sentences an entry.

♥ Shayla can NEVER come home willingly. EVER. Skip over any entry with Shayla returning home on her own. The police or something can bring her home, but she can stay for ONLY the next two entries. Then she has to leave again.

 

[Tamagotchi-Ashu]

And so the day carried on. Little Fay grew into a Mizutamatchi, just as Shayla drifted off into a deep sleep. The next morning, she woke to Fay's attention beep. Shayla yawned, stretched, and looked up at the sky. The golden sun shone brightly in the light blue sky. Shayla couldn't help but smile. The world was already a better place.

 

[GirlzRule]

After a delicious, filling breakfast of four crackers and a sip of water, Shayla began to wander the woods looking for shelter.

She walked for hours. And hours. And hours, farther and farther away. SHe came across a rocky hill and climbed it, stumbling and falling and scraping her arm halfway up. Eventually she reached the top, to discover several weeping willows bent in a perfect position to shelter from the wind and rain.

Shayla crawled in, setting her enormously heavy backpack down. Her feet ached from the climb, and she decided to reward herself a little with some relaxation time.

She fed and played with Fay. The little plastic toy beeped at her, playing the happy music. Scrolling through the stats, she came across her username. Hope.

Hope was exactly what Shayla hadn't felt in two years. Hope was what had seemed lost for so long. Hope had been stuffed under the mattress and forgotten, unable to function. And now Shayla was determined never to lose Hope again.

 

[Tamagotchi-Ashu]

Days had passed. Shayla lived happily under the weeping willows, watching over her little Fay.

It was one day while she was taking a nap that she heard something that she hadn't heard in days. A voice.

"Shayla," it whispered. Shayla was quickly awoken, looking around her.

"Shayla," the voice said again. "Over here." Shayla looked over to the left. There standing in the shade of the trees, stood someone Shayla had longed to see.

"Charabelle Fay?" Shayla called. The girl nodded. It was Charabelle Fay all right, wrapped in her favorite black blanket with the skull on it.

"Nice to see you again." she said.

"How did you find me?" Shayla asked.

"I'm your sister. I'm not stupid." she replied with a smile.

"Why are you here, then?" Shayla asked.

"Because I want you to come home. Please." Charabele gave her sister a pleading stare.

"No, Chara, I'm never going back."

"Fine then. We should probably get moving. Mama called the police, they'll be checking the woods."

"We? What do you mean WE?" Shayla asked.

"It means I'm coming with you, dum-dum." Charabelle answered. She removed her blanket, revealing her dark purple knapsack.

"C'mon, Shayla, let's go."

 

[GirlzRule]

"Just call me Fay, it's easier. or Charra. Whatever you want." Footsteps sounded not too far away. "We need to move," her younger sister hissed.

The girls ran quickly and quietly, though Charra had some difficulty running through the thicker part of the forest. She tripped and fell a few times, and the girls lost precious seconds to get away from the police.

Panting hard and out of breath, the sisters stopped behind a big rock. Charra breathed hard and bent over. It didn't matter how strong she acted, running three-quarters of a mile through an unfamiliar dense forest was incredibly difficult for a ten year old.

Suddenly, voices were heard not five steps from where they were standing. "What's this?" asked a woman's voice.

"It looks like a toy. That girl must have dropped it," a man's voice answered.

"We can take it back to the lab." There was a pause. "I think she got away." The voices got fainter and fainter, until they disappeared.

"Oh Charra, they have Fay!" Shayla wailed.

"Who?"

"Do you remember my old Tamagotchi? I started it up again, and the girl on it was named Fay, after you! She's been kidnapped!"

 

[Absolute_Enigma]

"I think gotchi-nappedwould be a more suitable name." Charra said with a giggle.

"This is serious!" Shayla said. "Oh, what am I going to do?"

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(Back at home)

There was a knock at the door.

"Coming." Shayla's mother said. She opened the door, expecting her husband, but found two police officers waiting.

"Are you Mrs.Smith?" the policewoman said.

"Yes, I am." Shayla's mother replied.

"I'm Officer Paller, and this is Officer Johnson." the policewoman continued. "We found your daughter's little toy in the woods. No sign of her there, so we thought we should bring this back to you." She handed Mrs.Smith the small Tamagotchi.

"Thank you so much." Mrs.Smith said with a smile. "You don't know how much this means to me." The police officers smiled, then returned to thier car and sped off.

Mrs.Smith scrolled through Fay's stats, stopping when she read the username. Hope.

"Hope." Mrs.Smith whispered. "Oh, Shayla, you don't know how much hope means to me. Hope that you're alive and well." She turned around, and went upstairs to Charabelle Fay's room.

"Charra," she whispered. "The police found Shayla's Tamagotchi." She went up to the bed, and shook what she thought was Charra. Finally she took off the blanket to find a bunch of pillows, and a note. She picked it up, and unfolded the purple paper. It said...

 

[GirlzRule]

Mom~

 

By the time you read this, I'll be gone. I'm sick of home. I hate it here. You and Stepdaddy always fighting and smoking and drinking. I've run away to find big sister Shay-shay. Maybe we'll be able to be happy somehow.

 

It's not your fault, Mom. Really. It's Stepdaddy's fault. You shouldn't have married him. Maybe we could still be a family. I'm sorry Mom, I really I am. Love you.

 

~Charra

Her mother puffed on her cigarette a bit before folding the note and shoving it carelessly in her back pocket. They'd get hungry and crawl back here. Not that they'd be allowed anything for a day or so. How dare they run away? When she and Walter worked so hard to provide for them? Ungrateful brats.

Mrs. Smith walked downstairs for a fresh cigarette, smushing the end in an ashtray as she walked out of the room.

 

[Absolute_Enigma]

(Back in the forest)

Charra looked down into her knapsack. It had already been two weeks.

"Shayla," she said quietly. "I think we're running low on food."

"Oh, no." Shayla replied. "Do you think we could head over to Wilton? It's the town right over, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I think we could make a stop." Charra said. "But we can't go like this, people will recognise us if Mama put up posters."

"What should we do?" Shayla asked. Charra smiled, pulling out some brand new clothes and hair dye from her knapsack.

"What we need," she said. "Is a makeover."

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(Back at home)

Mrs.Smith was sitting at home, angrily puffing a cigarette.

"After all I'd done for them, they run away on me?" she muttered. "Takin' everythin' for granted. Just like children. They'll be back." She stared up at the wall, at a picture of Jonathan. Shayla's father. Anger boiled up inside her, her face beginning to grow red. She picked up a handball, ready to smash the picture. But then she slowly put her hand back down, her rage turning to sadness.

Just then, Walter came into the room, holding a Bud Light in each hand. He stumbled as he walked, his eyes spinning. Suddenly he collapsed, falling for the carpet.

"No, no, no, Walter!" Mrs.Smith screamed. "That's where Shayla's Tamagotchi is!"

 

[GirlzRule]

"This was the ONLY color hair dye you brought?" Shayla moaned, glaring down at the distasteful neon pink bottle.

"That or green, and the green's mine."

"But why not natural colors, like red or blonde or-"

"I have to keep up on my streaks," her little sister rolled her eyes at Shayla, pointing to her head where purple and green streaks were fading.

"Don't you dye your hair black?"

"I used up my last bottle the day you left," she said sheepishly. "C'mon. If you don't do this we'll starve." Charra walked to the river and knelt beside it. She gestured to the elder Smith daughter.

Shayla opened her mouth to protest, but shut it quickly and joined her sister by the river.

~*~

The drunken man had collapsed inches from the plastic toy. Mrs. Smith knew better than to try and wake him up when he was passed out, and so scooped up the Tamagotchi. Walking into the hall, she glanced at the screen. The Ichigotchi character was gone, replaced with a round egg with wings.

Mrs. Smith knew from experience that the winged egg meant death. She vaguely remembered a ten year old Shayla running in tears to her, clutching her dress and crying.

A swell of lingering affection for her eldest daughter crashed over her, the same way one had when the police came to the door those weeks ago. She realized in that instant that she missed her girls.

 

[Absolute_Enigma]

(In the forest)

"Ugh." Shayla groaned, looking disgustedly at her reflection in the water.

"Come on, Shayla, it's not that bad." Charra said, her hair now a bright green. "Put this hoodie on, and I have two pairs of jeans. Skinny or bell bottom?"

"Bell bottom." Shayla replied, putting on a mohagany hoodie.

After Shayla and Charra were dressed, they looked at themselves in the stream. Shayla's face turned red when she saw her hot pink hair, her oversized mohagany hoodie, and the large blue jeans.

"How long does this hair dye last?" Shayla asked.

Charra laughed.

 

[GirlzRule]

"After this, we need to get home and get Fay back."

"Sure, sure."

"I mean it! I haven't seen her in two weeks!"

"Don't those things die anyway? She's probably dead then."

"Not funny, Charra," Shayla turned to glare at her sister, who dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"What?"

"Your hair's pink!"

"Stop it!" she cried, smacking her playfully on the shoulder. "I want that Tamagotchi back! It was my only company before you! And it was special!"

Charra was still giggling. "Your eyebrows are pink too!"

 

[Absolute_Enigma]

"Oh, Charra, be quiet." Shayla said crossly. "Let's go."

She and Charra began to walk, Charra in a fit of laughter.

"You got the dye all over your neck, too!" she choked out in laughter. Shayla crossed her arms, and they continued to walk.

A few hours had passed, and they finally reached a little town.

"This is it." Charra said. "Welcome to Wilton. There's a supermarket over there, let's go."

 

[GirlzRule]

The two walked out, arms heavy with dry foods like crackers and pretzels. They'd refilled their water bottles in the fountain inside the door.

"And now we go back and get my Tamagotchi." Shayla said.

"Are you still going on about that thing? It's dead, get over it."

"It is not dead! It was named after you, don't you care about that at all?"

"Not really, I'm more concerned about the HORDES OF POLICE that will be surrounding the town," Charra said matter-of-factly.

"You don't even know what a horde is. I'm going back whether you like it or not."

"Shay-shay you can't do that! You'll get sent home!"

"Excuse me, but are you girls lost?" said a voice behind them.

 

[Absolute_Enigma]

The girls looked behind them, to find a tall man looking at them.

"Uh, no sir," Charra said. "We're fine."

"Hmm," he said. "You girls look familiar."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Shayla said nervously.

"No, no," the man continued. "I think I saw your picture before. Say, are your names Shayla and Charabelle Fay Smith? I heard those girls ran away and they look a bit like you two." Shayla began to shake, and Charra stepped in to speak.

"No sir, my name is Grace and this is my sister Karen. We're not from here, we just came to pick up some food for the road." The man eyed them, then shrugged and walked away.

"Thanks, Charra," Shayla said. "I mean, Grace."

"Oh, no, Shayla, hide!" Charra whispered.

"Why?" Shayla said. "The man left."

"No, no!" Charra replied. "It's Stepdaddy!" She nudged her head to the side, where a seedy looking bar was. And sure enough, headed to the beat-up car, some beers in his hands, it was thier stepdad.