Caged, Chapter One

Signing in...

This is the first chapter of the community fiction I mentioned in this post. I think it started off fairly well, as I suspected, it completely built off of the characters... primarily here at first, off of Sarah's Emily Miller.  Thanks Sarah.  =)  Also, thank you Sara Stacey for the character you contributed.  It was Andromedea that inspired the "ability" that resides within Emily.  And don't worry, Andromedea will definitely make a (major) appearance later on.

At this point, I don't really have a strong direction.  I'm kinda just going with this.  This whole first chapter just evolved as I wrote it.  Like I said though, I think it's definitely started well.  I like it.

I dedicate this first chapter to the previously mentioned Sarah.  It was her pokemon fanfic that inspired me to do this in the first place and also, as I already mentioned, her character that got the story rolling.  Thanks a billion, Sarah!

Btw, the title is kinda just something random I came up with.  It will most likely change in the future.

And without further ado...

Caged, Chapter One, 1, I

The tamarin peered down at the simple girl who had entered its cage with an assortment of fruit for its morning meal.  The tamarin’s brother swung, climbed, and scampered down from the branches in which he had been sleeping until the creak of the gate had wakened him.

“There ya go, Michael.  Hope you enjoy it!” the girl said sweetly, holding out a hand in accordance with custom.  As was natural on these mornings when the girl was the one to bring in the food, Michael jumped straight up and gave the girl’s hand a slap before picking up a piece of fruit and nibbling on it.

“Sam, are you gonna come down also or just stay up there all morning, you lazy bum?”  Ignoring the allure that the girl always had, unlike most humans that passed by or even most of the other zookeepers like her, Sam neglected to come down.  Still, to show her that he wasn’t just being lazy, but rather just didn’t have an appetite, he jumped into a nearby nest of branches and settled down, letting his long, golden-brown hair, slightly damp with the morning dew, soak up the warm sun.

“Well, fine then!  See if I care!” she said with a fake annoyance.  As she left the cage and closed the gate behind her, she called back up to him with a large smile, “See you tomorrow morning, Sam!”

“Her name is Emily Miller.  She’ll be a senior next fall at Southwest High and works here five mornings a week during the summer.  This is her third summer here and tends to get along well with most of the animals she works with.  Beyond her excellent work ethic, she has no outstanding accomplishments or other characteristics to set her apart from the crowd,” said a tall, pale, and thin man in his forties, reading from a clipboard to his partner next to him, a shorter but equally pale and thin figure.  They were sitting on a bench just within hearing distance of the Golden Lion Tamarin exhibit.  The girl, Emily, shuffled passed them without acknowledgement.

“Hey there!” said the shorter one with a crooked smile.  “Excellent morning, isn’t it?”

“Er, yeah,” Emily replied softly with a tiny smile as she quickly continued on her way.

“So, that’s our objective?” asked the shorter man, also roughly ten years the other man’s junior, once the girl was out of hearing distance.

“Yes.  Daughter of Patrick and Stacy Miller.  Youngest of four and the only female child.  She keeps average grades in school and-”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Get to the important parts, Catch,” cut in the younger man impatiently.

“I was just about to get to that, Press,” Catch replied sternly with a slight air or authority in his voice.  “As you should have seen, she has a way with animals.  They react with energy when she is around and while they most likely do not actually understand her words, it seems likely that they can better sense her intentions than with most people.”

“Okaaay,” Press replied, now slightly annoyed in return.  “Jeez, how did I get paired with such a stick in the mud like you anyway?”

“Don’t complain,” Catch said flatly.

Press stood up and stretched his legs.  “Well, are we gonna get after it or just sit here all day?”

“So long, Daniel!” said Emily cheerfully as she headed towards the exit, finished with her duties for the day.  Daniel was one of Emily’s managers, the one who had hired her the summer before her sophomore year, and one of the very few people Emily was comfortable talking to.  Only a year her elder, he had started working at the zoo at a relatively young age due to his family connections to the head zoo-keeper.  His experience toppled with strong leadership skills had raised him to manager status by his sophomore year in high school.  Having now graduated, this was his last summer at the zoo before he would be moving one hundred miles away to attend college.

Before Daniel even had a chance to say anything in reply, the seventeen-year-old girl was out the door and headed to her beat-up hand-me-down silver sedan.  Collecting himself, he ran through the door and after her.  Emily looked back with surprise at the approaching footsteps.  “Did I forget something?” she inquired.

“No no,” he said as he slowed to a trot and then stopped next to her with a bit of a smile.  “You know, this is my last summer in Tripton.  I’ve put this off for far too long as it is.” He stopped, beginning to fidget with his fingers and slightly stammer.  Emily’s heart on the other hand, began to race and a radiant smile slowly crept onto her face.  Daniel continued, “So… so, I was hoping that maybe… well, that maybe you’d like to attend the festival with me.”  He paused as Emily smiled up at him, and gaining confidence, went on, “You know, it’s always fun to just wander around and see what there is to do by the river side during the fest.  It’ll be fun and...” he spit out this last part extra quickly, “I’d love to be able to spend the time with you.”

Emily, unable to respond, just wrapped her hands around him above his waste and buried her head into his chest for a few seconds before retreating and, now blushing, said with radiance, “I’d love to!”  Without a second thought, she spun around and ran off to her car, leaving a slightly stunned Daniel standing in the middle of the parking lot.

Catch and Press, observing the exchange from afar, watched as Daniel walked with a jovial briskness back into the zoo.

“Aww, now wasn’t that cute?” Press cooed.

Catch, unaffected in the slightest, replied, “If you say so.  It’s fortunate that this is the farthest extent of a romantic relationship she has.  It will be easy to break.”

“Well aren’t you a heart breaker, hmm?”

“Simply doing my job.  As you also should be doing.”

“Hey!” said Press defensively, “who says I’m not?”

“I do.”

Inside the safety of her Camry, Emily let her heart’s beating slow to a normal rate.  She had been kind of hoping for this for a while, but never actually believed Daniel actually held a real interest in her.  It was all she could do to keep from running back to him and giving him another hug.  That could wait.  She’d get another hug in time.  Another wonderful hug.

Next to her in the passenger’s seat, her cell phone buzzed.  It was a text message from her best friend, Natalie.  It read, “Hey Emmy whatcha up to this afternoon? ~Living Like My Last Day”

She replied, whispering what she typed to herself as she entered it into her phone, “Nothing planned. Why? Just got off work.”  She hit send as she thought, “I’ll tell her about Daniel the next time I see her in person.”

Natalie’s reply came quickly, “Great! I’m going for a walk at the park.  Wanna come? ~Living Like My Last Day”

Emily texted her that it sounded like an excellent idea and that she’d meet her there after changing out of her work clothes.  Setting the phone back onto the seat, she turned the ignition and the car started up.

Emily lived only a few miles away from the zoo, just on the other side of the river.  As she approached the bridge that would bring her to the west side, Emily noticed with great alarm that the gas pedal was pushing in of its own accord, quickly increasing her speed from thirty-five to fifty.  To further intensify her anxiety, the brake pedal seemed to be doing absolutely nothing, regardless of how far down she pushed it.  Before she could react in any other way, the wheel suddenly turned right violently, sending her off the road right before the bridge and straight into the torrent below.

“Holy shit!  That worked better than I expected!” exclaimed Press, watching the scene from the back of a van about one hundred yards offshore downstream.

“She better not be dead,” said Catch in his normal monotone.

“I assure you she’s perfectly fine,” Press paused, “well, er, maybe not fine, but she’s definitely not dead.”  He waited for some kind of reaction from Catch. Receiving nothing, he continued, somewhat awkwardly, “Right, um, I’ll go get her now.”

The next morning, Sam awoke earlier than usual; having suffered a series of terrifying dreams in which he’d watched Emily endure various forms of torture.  Trying to distract himself from the memory of the dreams, he scampered up and down and through the trees that made up his habitat.  Still, the dread that had accompanied the dreams remained and so he finally settled down in his favorite nest, waiting patiently for Emily to come as she’d promised the previous morning.  This time he would come down promptly and maybe even give her a hug if she crouched down to his level.  Time moved by slowly as the morning got brighter and brighter and the hunger gnawing at his stomach grew stronger and stronger.  She would be here any moment; she was never more than a few minutes late.  He’d see her walk around the bend in no more than a couple minutes.  He could hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of seeing the only being in the world he cared about besides Michael.  She was just about here, he could feel it.

She never came.

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And there you go!  Chapter one!  So, personally, I think I feel worse for Sam than I do for Daniel.  Haha... 'Course, I am his namesake.  On another note, I really like Catch and Press.  They play off of each other well and I was pleasantly surprised by how naturally they came out.  I was also surprised by the relationship between Emily and Daniel.  Originally, Daniel was simply gonna be a co-worker that Emily was saying goodbye to.  Then I realized that Emily wouldn't do that unless she was close to the co-worker.  Before I knew it, Daniel wasn't just a good friend, but a love interest.  Holy crap, the ways in which characters shape the story! Haha!  Hope it was enjoyable!

Keep in mind that this is aiming to be a community fiction... so while I of course want comments and criticism... I also want YOUR ideas as to where this should go... and of course that includes additional characters you'd like to see make it in.  So stop hesitating!  Leave a comment!  Thanks!

...signing out.