No Answer - A Finished Short Story by Mo

by **Komoda** 8/9/2009, 2:31 am

This is based on one of my daydreams. XP

Maturity: Non-graphic romance. (Kissing, hugging, etc.)

Fantasy: Well, it's something that would never happen I guess.

No Answer

Part 1

Kayda scrolled through her Newsfeed on Facebook.
Daph's dating Wes, Jill got back from some party with Matt, Alana and Terrance had a photo shoot together, The Grudge is hiding under someone's bed... Wait, what? Oh, just a quiz result. But nothing else new. Everyone has someone... Everyone but me.
She sighed miserably. There was nothing wrong with her: She was pretty, she got fairly good grades, and she was middle-class. But for some reason, all the guys she didn't like liked her and all the guys she did like liked someone more popular.
But being popular wasn't an issue for her. She just wished that her crush would notice her.
I'd give anything and everything for him to notice me... she thought, her eyes heavy and her heart sore.

She sank into the plush mattress of her bed, pulling the silver covers over her head. For a moment, she just lied there, the fresh air streaming through her window and filling her lungs. Before she let sleep take over, she turned on her sapphire Ipod nano and switched it to "Back Burner" by August Burns Red. There was nothing like a good screamo song to match her mood and make her feel better. She absolutely adored listening to heavy metal.

Before she knew it, she fell asleep to the blaring tune. She was greeted by bizarre dreams of swirling stars, fading sunsets and dancing restaurant mints.

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The teenager rolled out of her bed and collided with the wooden floor, her screeching alarm clock waking her at 6:00 am, like every morning.
She sighed groggily and crawled to her mirror, checking to see how she looked. Instead of showering, she figured she'd just check her makeup this morning so that she'd have time to make another vlog for Youtube before going to school.

She looked at her reflection, scowling. Her makeup was a total mess; her bronze foundation was half wiped off while her mascara and heavy eyeliner was running. She appeared to have lost one of her pointed snakebites* while asleep, too.

Oh, joy.

She wiped the makeup from her face and re-applied it, outlining her eyes in black eyeliner to create a cat-eye effect. She then added charcoal eyeshadow to give it the smokiness. She closed each of her grey eyes, examining them to make sure they looked perfect. It took her a few seconds to add silver to the lids, some colossal mascara and foundation before she was ready. She then combed her naturally straight, unnaturally indigo hair. It was about to her elbows and one half of her bangs was above her eyes while the other obscured part of her vision. Once she shook it out to give it volume, she searched her messy bed for the piercing she lost.

It took her ten whole minutes to find the tiny, thorn-like silver stud before putting it back beneath the right side of her lower lip. She would barely have time to make a video now, because her dad drove her to high school at 7:00 and it was already 6:45! She slipped into a t-shirt with Deuce from Hollywood Undead's face on it, then she struggled into some bright blue skinny jeans. She threw on some black Converse too before practically flying down the stairs to her laptop.

But to her astonishment, once she reached the computer, the house was eerily quiet.

Her heart stopped for a moment.

"Hello?" she called, her voice ringing through the empty house. "Is anyone there?"

When no one answered, she panicked. But when she checked outside, all of the vehicles were still there.

Maybe they're at the barn, she thought. Kayda had lived on a farm her whole life, and she absolutely adored animals. But since she was a teenager now, she had other interests and didn't have much time to see all of their animals anymore, so her parents looked after their horse and 20 cats.
It wouldn't kill me to skip the vlog today; I'd be too late anyway, she thought, whipping open the door to the house and sprinting to the barn. She could check to see if her parents were there and visit with the animals at the same time.

But unfortunately, her parents weren't in the barn either..
"What's going on?" she cried out, scaring the cluster of tabby kittens that had gathered around her feet. The ginger horse behind her, who's name was Carrot, whinnied.
Ignoring the animals for now, she fled to the house in terror. Her first thought was that her parents were murdered, or taken away.

She immediately snatched the cordless phone and dialed 911.

But it kept on ringing. And ringing. And ringing. No one answered... And it was an emergency line.
Her eyes widened as she hung up, more panic and confusion flooding her thoughts. She then tried her aunt's number, but no answer. Then her grandma... No answer. The police; no answer. Heck, she even tried phoning the number to an add that was playing on the flickering TV screen infront of her. But surprise, surprise...

No answer.

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* - Snakebites are two piercings below your bottom lip. They're studs and if your canines extended to them, it would make them look like snake fangs. (By canines I mean your pointy, vampire-fang like teeth, btw... XP Or at least mine are like that, anyway. But some people's are smoothed down...)

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Part 2

Heart thudding wildly in her chest, Kayda put the phone back on its charger and sank onto the floor, clutching her knees.

Oh, God. What's going on here?

She bowed her head, hair spilling down in front of her. She felt hot tears run down her cheeks, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Kayda didn't care how hard and cold the tiled floor beneath her was; she just wanted to curl up and hide. The teen knew that she was probably panicking and that it was nothing... But everything was so unreal. Right now, she felt like she was completely alone in this world; the emptiness that was gnawing inside of her was almost too hurtful to bear.

Brushing away her tears with a wipe of her hand, Kayda shakily rose to her feet. Gathering her breath, she decided to try again. She pulled out a phone book from the granite counter where the phone was situated and flipped through the white pages. Her finger glided along the wispy pages, stopping at:

Andaray T & M 345 Ruby Ave................. 458-7532

Her friend's name from science class was Gertie Andaray. She knew her mother's name was Tiana, so she hoped this was the right number. The only other one was Hector Andaray, so it seemed Kayda had made the right choice.

After she had pushed in the numbers on the device, the girl tapped her foot impatiently as it rang.
She waited for a long time, but it just kept on ringing. It had been five entire minutes of ringing before Kayda slammed down the phone, crying out in agitation.

The pages of the phonebook whipped up dust as she flipped them over frantically, now dialing random numbers.

Ring, ring, ring, click.

Ring, ring, ring, click.

Ring, ring, ring... "Hey, what's up?"

The relief that flooded in on Kayda was unbelievable. The feeling poured down on her like a gentle, soothing waterfall. "Oh, thank gosh. I couldn't find my parents this morn-"

"Hello? Hello?" Came the voice from the other line.

"Hello?" replied Kayda, confused. "I'm still here!"

"Ha! I'm just kiddin'. You've reached Rick's message machine. Leave a message after the-"

Click.

Kayda screamed for a long minute. The sound ripped through the house, scaring away the chickadees lingering on nearby windowsills. If she had a high-pitched voice, it would have shattered glass for sure. One thing about Kayda is that she had a very, very short-temper. When she was ticked off, the whole world knew.

When her voice was too dry to continue, she cut off the noise with a choking gasp. Anger boiling deep inside of her, she slammed the phone against the wall, shattering it to pieces.

With a tearless sigh, she cupped her face with her hands. She had no phone now, no way of communication to the outside world. If only her parents would have let her have a cellphone, this situation wouldn't have happened...
But then again, she was the one who killed the phone, not her parents.

A little shaken from her previous fit of rage, Kayda knew she only had one thing left to do. She and her family lived twenty minutes away from the city when they took the car, so Kayda would just have to take an hour or three to walk there.

When she came to this realization, her heart glowed with adventure. Of course she'd be tired as heck, but it wouldn't kill her. She could stop by a house or two on the way to see if anyone was home. If they weren't- she'd just continue.

I can do this, she told herself.

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Part 3

Kayda glided over to her cupboards, where she shoved a few poptarts down her throat. She needed to be nice and full before she started her voyage. Taking a swig of apple cider to wash it down, she grabbed a granola bar and a bottle of water for the road; she had to keep her load light, so that's all she was bringing. She made sure to pack lots of money too so that she could buy something once in town.

She didn't have time to pack anything else, so she just grabbed a small backpack for her bottle and snack. It would have been a good idea to pack stuff for emergencies, but she didn't have time to think about that. It was almost noon and she wanted to get somewhere before dark.

After grabbing her watch and Ipod at the last minute, Kayda waved good bye to her home before dashing to the garage. She stopped halfway there and began to slow the pace, realizing she should have been conserving her energy. It wasn't long before she entered the doors of the building.

Inside, there was a shiny blue Mazda and a dirtier, black GMC truck. She debated whether or not to take one of the cars.. But Kayda couldn't risk crashing it and killing herself, for she didn't even have her learners' license yet. She was old enough, but she kept on failing the exam.

Sighing, she settled for the little silver bike that was parked in the back. The teen took it out through the walk-in door and began peddling towards the highway.

The highway was eerily quiet. All she could hear was the crunch of the stray stones that blew onto the road. There was no smell of car exhaust- just fresh, country air.
Kayda quiet enjoyed the peacefulness, but it bothered her. There were no cars, or trucks.

Except for the ones abandoned in the middle of the highway, that is.

And by middle, I mean that they were standing smack dab in the middle of the road, as if they just ceased to drive. But no one was inside of them; absolutely no one.

Her stomach twisted when she maneuvered around the vehicles, the tall shadows falling down on her. She couldn't even think why so many would be abandoned... And she didn't want to even guess. But even though Kayda would rather not think about it, questions subconsciously whirled through her mind.

They all ran out of fuel at the same time? Mass murder? Zombie invasion? Alien abduction?

The questions running through her were getting more bizzare by the second. But, the most important question of all...

Why me?

It didn't make sense. Everyone else was gone, but Kayda was left. There was nothing special about her, nothing significant.

Kayda exhaled roughly, abandoning her thoughts. She was about a quarter of the way there, but her legs were already aching. She stopped at the shoulder of the highway to rest.

She collapsed onto the dewy grass, flattening the emerald strands. She opened up her bag and took a gulp of water, while staring longingly at the wrapped, peanut-filled granola bar. Her breakfast had only been half an hour ago, but already she was hungry. Quickly, she tossed the food and bottle back into her bag to avoid temptation. She needed to save the granola for halfway, and the bottle needed to last her the whole time. Too bad Kayda consumed half of it, already.

Her eyes flickered down to her digital watch briefly, 12:00 flashing back at her.
I guess I have time to stop at a house, just to check. I could fill up my bottle while I'm there
She brought a hand above her eyes to shade her vision from the blistering brightness of the sun.
Squinting, Kayda spotted a cottage in the distance. Leaving her bike, she made her way towards it, denim bag in hand.

There was a cobblestone path that lead up to it, bordered with an array of assorted flowers on each side. The girl recognized irises, lilies, roses and petunias but she couldn't name the others . The sweet aroma of them all filled her nose, making her smile; Kayda quite liked flowers.

It wasn't long before she reached the deck of the cottage. It had more flowers, though in pots, along with a cast-iron patio set and a bench swing to match. It was a cute little set-up and it looked good with the house, which had the same stone coating as was on the cobblestone path.

Kayda took a deep breath, wrapping her knuckles against the screen door three times.

No answer, she thought, dim frustration glowing inside of her, Hah! That could be my motto.

She closed her eyes, in preparation, praying that the door was unlocked. She turned the wooden knob...

And to her delight, it opened! Cheering internally, she cautiously stepped into the house. "Hello?" she called, voice echoing through the empty house. "Anyone there?"

There was no reply, not even from an animal. Shrugging, she examined the room. It had a dark hardwood floor and the furniture was all the same shade of cream white. You would think that anyone with all white furniture was neurotic, but in this house it seemed to be more warm and welcoming than frightening. Maybe it was because the couches and matching chair weren't covered in plastic like most furniture seemed to be these days.

In the room, there was also a grandfather clock and a fireplace. There were no electronics, but what caught Kayda's eye was a water cooler sitting beside the staircase.

Yes!

She eagerly gulped down the rest of the liquid and filled her metal bottle back up again with the cooler water. Once it was to the top, she screwed on the lid and parted the house, shutting the door behind her. She didn't want to intrude on the people's privacy anymore and with a throb of guilt, she realized that she had stolen from them by taking their water.

"Oh well," she murmured to herself with a shrug as she placed the bottle back in her bag, "I'll go back and apologize some day... If I get out of this mess."

Swinging the pack over her shoulder, she mounted her bike and continued to ride towards the city.
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Kayda and Josh: Page 8, Post 5

Part 4: Page 4, Post 5
Part 5: Page 8, Post 1
Part 6: Page 10, Post 4
Part 7: Page 11, Post 2
Part 8: Page 13, Post 2