Lucy

Sleep was starting to take Lucy over. 1:00 was taking forever to come. She had to stay awake. Lucy was lying in her bed; her bedroom was painted blue and had posters everywhere. Right above her bed was a large framed collage of all her trading cards. The set that she had was the Angels of Avalon set. She had nearly all the cards in the set except for the blue healer card. Whenever she went to tournaments she would take down her cards off the wall and take them as a deck. All her cards were won in tournaments and each one had its own story. Her watch finally beeped to 1:00am. “Yes!” she cried as she leapt out of her bed, light shining in her eyes as she ran over to her bedroom window. Her first task was to sneak into Jamie’s house before 2:00. She had an hour to get into her house, get the card, and slip out of the house. She picked 1:00 to leave because it is the only period of time when there is no guard in front of Jamie’s house. There was a rotating shift around Jamie’s house that was especially made so that there was always a guard; however Lucy’s long hours of studying have shown that in between 1:20 and 1:30 am there were no guards. So she had 30 minutes to get to her house and sneak in. Lucy was already dressed; she had a black ninja suit that she got off eBay. However it wasn’t completely black so it could more easily blend in with the surrounding environment.

         1:15 and Lucy was running. She was behind. Jamie’s house was nearly another 30 minutes away so she had to run. Lucy’s breath’s started to become heavier. And she felt what seemed to be blood in her throat. Her legs were feeling weaker and she eventually stopped and began to hyperventilate. Lucy was something of a nerd, she didn’t run much, she had put on a bit of weight lately, and tonight was the first night that she had tried on contacts. And she wasn’t enjoying it. She needed to find a faster method to get to Jamie’s house. As if on cue with her thoughts, a pickup truck started to approach. Lucy climbed up a tree and got ready to jump onto the back of the pickup truck. The truck zoomed every closer and Lucy jumped for it, only the night can make you do things like that, at night it’s so dark that nothing feels real and you can do more. Plus you’re more tired at night so your decision making is slightly blurred. She jumped onto the pickup truck only to find out that it wasn’t a pickup truck. It was a 4-wheeled drive.

         Lucy landed face first onto the car. The driver inside was listening to “alchemy of the black sun cult”, A very loud death metal song. And what’s more, it was turned up loud. Tears flooded her eyes as she felt around desperate for something to hang onto. She eventually slid off the car. As she fell she grabbed onto the spare tire at the back. Inside, the oblivious driver started air guitar’ing a solo. As he got caught up in the music, he’s foot went onto the pedal harder causing the car to speed up. Lucy hung on for dear life as the car started travelling at an incredible speed. As the pressure crunched onto her eyes one of her contacts fell out and smashed across the road. Lucy fell off and skidded across the road. Her black hair was flailing everywhere. She then slowly got up of her sore body and looked up at Jamie’s house.

         The house was 3 story’s high and about 30 metres wide. The house looked like a smaller version of Buckingham palace. There was a large hedge surrounding the house and a golden gate at the front. Lucy looked down at her watch. It was 1:25. She immediately set off for the side of the gate. A part of the hedge. She got out a pair of garden hedge cutters and started to cut through the hedge. She had been cutting this part of the hedge at the same time every night. She started to cut through until the hedge snapped and a path through the hedge was revealed. She climbed through and picked up all the spare grass off the ground, blocking off the path. She then proceeded forward. She found herself inside a hedge maze. “Oh yes, only Jamie would be arrogant enough to get a hedge maze in her house”. She ran fanatically through the maze hoping to get to a window before the guards came in. at 1:30, it wasn’t just guards that returned. The security system also turned itself back on. What that consisted of was a mystery but there was a rumour that she had laser’s all around her house ready to trip up intruders. She was also passing by an awful lot of cameras. She finally escaped the maze, only to find herself at the front entrance. Right were the fountain, main door, and guards entry point, were positioned. Her watch beeped and Lucy instinctively dived for the nearest hiding spot, the fountain. At that moment, 200 cameras’ and a laser system on the floor activated. As well as the 20 armed guards that entered in through the front entrance.

         Lucy could see it all from underwater; the guards had already started patrolling, if she got out now she would be busted. And her air was running out. She frantically looked around the pool looking for something. She started to shake as realisation dawned on her, she was trapped. She then noticed something, a rectangle with water pouring out. She raced for the hole and squeezed herself through the tight hole. As she swam against a current she reached out and grabbed an object. She used it to lever herself into the hole. She used her other hand to reach out for the other nail that was sticking out. Her breath was running short. All she could see was darkness and all she could hear was water rushing past her. She was staring to get light headed; she didn’t want to die like this. Cramped up in a small space. Her head finally caught air and she finally noticed something that looked like an air bubble. It was a plug. She pushed it out with all her strength, numbing her hand. Air rushed into the hole. The pipe groaned under her weight and eventually collapsed. She fell into a heap under the floorboards of the first floor.

         Soaking wet, bruised and traumatised, Lucy crawled through under the floor boards. She checked her remaining contact lens to see if it was alright, it had a crack running through it but apart from that it was intact. She crawled under the boards until she found what appeared to be a tiny hole. She looked up through it.

         Through the floorboard she noticed a kitchen. She soon after saw a huge bare foot covering her view. What was once the view of a kitchen was now the view of Jamie’s manicured toes. From underneath she heard her speak on the phone. “No, I’m actually serious, yes I’m serious, and I’m actually going to give her the card.” She listened intently on the phone conversation “Yeah well it’s like, not cool to have enemies so yeah that’s why I’m giving it to her”. Lucy turned back onto her stomach and started to crawl as fast as she could for 2 reasons. The first was that she had to get that card as fast as she could before Jamie gave it away. And knowing her, that could be any time, even now. The second reason was a lot more pressing; the broken pipe that Lucy came through was spewing out water and any second now the space underneath the floorboards would be flooded. The water was already half way up. Eventually Lucy reached the wall. She tore out an old plank of wood and crept through the opening. She was now in the small space in between the wall on the inside of the house and the bricks on the outside. The water was pouring in faster now. Even though she was standing almost fully upright the water had already reached her waist. She started to use the protruding nails all around her to climb up the wall. As the water came rushing in faster Lucy was forced to climb just as fast. Lucy’s breath quickened, she wasn’t normally claustrophobic but now she could understand the fear. Her hyperventilation began again. She didn’t even care that she was pricking her fingers on the sharp nails; she just didn’t want to drown. Her fingers were bleeding and Lucy didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up. Her vision was blurred and she could barely see. One contact was cracked and wet while the other was blurred. She eventually hit her head on the Attic roof. Out of pure panic she smashed the nearest thing. A plank of wood making up the Attic wall. Then, just as she thought she was going under she let go. She let the calm of the water take her in. the gushing sound filled her ears. She smiled, so this was what death felt like. It was a lot calmer than what she expected. Slowly, she slipped away.

         The Attic wall, weakened by Lucy’s manic punch. Burst under the strain of the overloading water inside itself. The water that flowed out had hints of red in them. Red from the blood coming out of Lucy’s hands. A limp and near lifeless Lucy flowed out of the wall. She was soaking wet. She immediately started to cough. Out of energy, she crawled over to a nearby box and laid her back against it. The attic she was in was made of wooden planks and resembled a tree house. All along the walls were boxes, old pieces of furniture and old portraits. The large jagged gap in the wall had a fast stream of water coming out of it. Lucy didn’t take notice and squeezed the water out of her hair. She decided to ditch the ninja suit. She thought that it was so wet that it would leave a trail. Underneath her suit were perfectly dry clothes. She walked around the Attic looking for a way out. As she searched a gold glint caught her eye. Standing on an old looking pedestal was a gold piggy bank. The glint of the light drew her towards it. She picked up the piggybank. The bank was heavy with coins. She shook it and heard thick chinks as the money clashed with each other. She put the pig back onto its pedestal. Nearby she saw a large hammer. She couldn’t see a plug or anyway to open the plank so she decided to smash it open. She raised the hammer ready to smash it open. The hammer split the pig’s head and Lucy’s life changed forever. Gold coins flooded the floor and she fell forever under the spell of money. She loved the colours and the way the money sat in her hand. The money scattered across the floor. The Attic walls were all flooding now and what was once a musty Attic was now a shallow lake with cascading waterfalls everywhere. 

         Meanwhile, Jamie was sleeping in her Queen sized bed. She was oblivious to all that was happening around her. The entire first floor was already underwater. And the water trickling down the stairs and onto her clean and dry bedroom floor went unnoticed. In between her toes was placed the blue healer card that Lucy had come for. Jamie figured that if anyone tried to steal the card they would have to be careful not to wake her up in the process as she was a very light sleeper.

         Outside the guards were watching in shock as they saw the Front door of the manor burst open with water. The water flooded out over the grounds taking out the laser system. All around the house water started to flood out of the windows.

         Lucy was in hysterics now. She was on the floor rolling around and laughing. The water was everywhere and the attic was nearly about the depth of a pond. The money was floating around at the bottom of the pool. The coins weren’t normal coins but seemed to be of a different quality. As the water hit the coins a strange humming noise emanated from them. Eventually the floor under her broke and Lucy fell down with it onto the 3rd floor. She got up and looked around the hallway she had landed in. The coins had now broken its hold on her. She immediately ran as far as she could from the coins before they spilled into the 3rd floor and returned their hold on her. She ran until she reached the 2nd floor and headed straight for Jamie’s room.

         The water was now flowing faster than ever. The 2nd floor was already completely flooded and the water was streaming down the stairs in large gushes. Lucy raced for what seemed like Jamie’s room. Inside she saw a massive bed and a whole heap of miniatures all over the room. The miniatures were what really caught her eye. All over the room were what seemed to be hundreds of shelves all lined with miniatures. There were tiny shoes, tiny farmers, tiny businessmen, and even homes. Lucy was just as surprised to see that her bed posts, both sides, were lined up with miniatures. The most surprising thing however was that Jamie had miniature people in between her toes. Along with that was the fact that there was a card in between 2 of her toes, bingo. She crept forward and started to slip the card out from between her toes. Just as she thought she was safe the bedroom door burst open with water.

The entire house was now completely flooded. The guards had long ago called the ambulance and they all watched in awe as water gushed out of the windows. Lucy, however, had another priority in mind, escape. She frantically looked around looking for something to help her out. The first thing that caught her eye was a floating bed blanket. She grabbed the blanket, smashed a nearby window open, and jumped out putting the blanket over a power line that was just outside the window. She slid out of the house with the card in hand. As she slid she saw a real pickup truck this time and jumped off into the truck abandoning the blanket. From there she took the truck home. As it drove on she looked behind her. The sun was rising and right in front of the sunset was a glowing mansion with water flowing out of it. Now she had another card to complete her set with.