Personal Narrative: C4

I love living in a small town, it gives me a sense of guaranteed safety and simplicity.

It was a normal chilly sunday on September 13th, 2015. My dad was in the garage with some of his friends watching the football game. It was the Dallas Cowboys vs. the New York Giants. My dad and his friends were making hot dogs and burgers on the grill but I don’t like those so I asked my dad if I could go to the store and get the ingredients to make taco dip. He handed me $20 and I headed off to the store with one of my dad’s friend’s son. The store was at the end of my street so it wasn’t a far walk.

I grab the handle on the door frame, and pull my five foot self up into the driver's seat. Leaving the door open, I turn the key in the ignition. Doesn't start. "Try again." Daryl hooks his hand around the top of the door. I nod and twist the key forward again. This time it clicks for a few seconds, then starts right up. The purring of the engine enlightened the mood a bit. Tara jogs over to Rick. "The van works." "We have our transportation." Rick nods before signaling the rest over. "Want to get out of the city before dark, we'll find a spot in the woods to settle for the night and go from there." I made sure I was in the same car as Daryl, even if it meant not being in the same as Carl, but I need to comfort one of the biggest father figures

School was letting out for summer and there was pure excitement in the air, or at least that’s what I thought. I was 15 years old and I had a huge summer in store since I got my first car and I could drive anywhere I wanted. I always had a great relationship with my grandfather ‘Pop’ and since he lived in town we did a lot of stuff together. He was 79 years old, but you couldn’t tell it because of his energy and health. I knew ‘Pop’ had been sick but I never thought twice about it, because he had always been really healthy. Being the young stupid kid I was I never went to check on him because it was summer and I would hate to miss out on something with my friends. That was my immature mindset, which made me feel very lonely for the majority

I was an only an 11 year old child with only my dad to raise me up, my mother had passed away from a heart attack when I was only five years old. My dad was a boxer that would always come home beaten up. I would have to patch him up every time that he would lose a fight and come home with cuts and bruises on his head.

The most powerful moment that has happened to me involving music happened in the middle of my seventh grade year. Prior to seventh grade, I played the violin but desired to learn the Double Bass. I asked a few times if I could switch instruments so that I could fulfil that desire, but my teacher always turned me down telling me that I should just stick with the violin, this of course made me devasted. Then the following school year, the teacher asked if anybody could play Bass because Alex (the bassist) had moved to a different school and we had only one bassist left in the orchestra and at that moment I got my chance to learn an instrument that I not only loved to hear, but also loved to look at, listen to and play. My teacher was skeptical

Two years after we had signed the gas lease my father stopped farming. The cows and the pigs were sold to the Baker’s farm on the other side of Iberdeen. So were his two tractors along with most of the other equipment that had taken up real estate on our land. Now our house sat on almost three hundred acres of dirt, grass, hay, fieldstone, history.

My eyes filled with hatred as I stepped foot in the bitter cold cabin and made eye contact with the man that betrayed my brother and I five years ago. And this is where I would be for the next five weeks.

It was the last day of school and I was so excited for summer. I was going to do all kinds of stuff and go out of the state. In reality I was going for one of my worst summer ever. All I was going to do is travel most of the time. It was going to be the most boring summer ever.

I got out of bed at 3 o’clock in the morning to my mom shaking me. It was a Saturday in the middle of summer so I was a bit confused, then it occurred to me that I was leaving for a mission trip. I remember getting to our church as everyone was praying and about to leave. I apologized for my timing and we continued to pray. We left for Springfield, Kentucky caravaning with 4 toyota mini vans filled with luggage and kids. The drive there consisted of sleeping, cramping, and a horrendous odor. We reached the center of Kentucky and arrived to the church we were staying at at about 1 p.m. Saturday. All the boys in our youth group went to check the place out and immediately started to play basketball in the gym. When all the other youth groups showed up from Nebraska and Georgia, they began to join in our game. We played basketball for about 15min before we all gathered together to have our introduction to the week.

Chelsea woke up with the most peculiar feeling on monday. She felt like she had had the most vivid dream last night—one of those really disturbing ones that you couldn't quite remember but you seemed glad it wasn't real when you woke up. Shrugging off the thought, she quickly got changed into her uniform and headed to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat before heading off to high school. It was the last week of term before the holidays, and she was looking forward to spending some time with friends over the break.

I attempted to draw air into my lungs but my throat was too tightly shut by the force of the sash wrapped around my neck. Neither would sound come out, nor air stream in. From afar, I could hear laughter and conversations going on in the near rooms. Louder in my head were muffled noises coming from my nasal passage in its final attempt to breathe in its last breath. Life and death, in this very moment, were all under one roof. My hands, still in my pockets, involuntarily clenched into a fist. My toes cleaved to one another as if to say to each other “We are in this together.” They curved in towards my heel and would have fain clenched into their own fists’. This pendulum of a girl and noose no longer oscillated. Time had stopped. The initial

I would go into a desperate panic when all a sudden I could not hear. I would get this hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach, my throat would become dry as I gulped and tried to gather my senses. It was as if the volume button was turned down and all that was left to hear was a weird gurgling static sound. Reality hit me hard and fast, I had hearing loss. I thought that was the worst of it, a fluke thing, little did I know about the next ten weeks ahead of me.

The day began like any other: the sun’s high in the sky, white fluffy clouds dot the horizon; dogs barking – murder!

All I could think about was how bad my legs hurt. I had scratches from branches that tore away at my skin on my arms and legs, a terrible headache and my clothes had so many rips and tears that I couldn’t remember how I got. I couldn’t remember anything, not my name, what had happened or anything. I just didn’t know. All I knew is that I had been stumbling through the woods for quite some time. Well until I came to a road with tons of cars coming from every direction. I stepped one foot at a time onto the noisy road filled with commotion and so abruptly it all went black. I woke to nearly blinding lights shining above me and looked around to see the room of a hospital. As I tried to sit up I experienced a piercing pain that lasted until I finally