A Letter Away From You

Chapter 13

Like robbers with their eyes deadset on the goal, the finish line waiting for me was the symphony of texts imprinted in the blazing computer screen in front.

Uriah Beckett

New York

Reading is my passion, and so is pop music. I'd sing songs for you, only if you were the one to compose the lyrics.

Uriah, huh? Not too shabby for a New Yorker. I could only picture in my mind the amount of time it took this guy's parents to name him.

The recent conversation I had on this website pecked me to do a personal survey of what I'm dealing with first and foremost. However, the drawback is that I'm playing with only a few cards.

Lives in my city; we're probably neighbors.

Does he like to read? Try reading my well-written stories, then.

I don't feel my voice is fit to please other people, so we're pretty much done at that part.

A common principle that most kids around my age follow is to yolo. We do live once, right?

The view flashing in the screen plucked both top and bottom of my eyelids as a countdown below the guy's description just appeared out of nowhere.

10.

9.

8.

In a trance, my fight or flight response clicked the button to enter the conversation. Then and only then, I realized how I'd be the first one to lay dead if an evil clown or a chainsaw-wielding maniac was chasing me around. I've had my own share of horror movies.

No turning back, it may go well this time around. Fate must be the one pulling the strings this time. I hope so.

The eyebags sitting in my face began to weigh in as my brain interpreted the first set of words from this Uriah.

"A rainy night, do you think?"

Wow, I'm impressed. This guy has some chivalry lying in him for his age. Oh wait, do we even share the same birth year? It would suck to talk to an older senior, not that I'm that picky.

"You're indeed from New York." Giving a calm response was the right way to go. Although it's my only excuse from "not being able to have small talk with someone."

"Just moved here a couple of months ago."

A newcomer I see.

"By yourself?" Why state the obvious Faye, of course, he's with his parents. How in the living world would a kid survive in this hellhole alone?

"Yes, I ran away from home."

I was right after all, not that I did want to be correct.

"How old are you, ten?" Being straightforward in here is much easier than face to face. The barrier is there, the anonymity is there, everything is already set to ensure a good experience.

An image of Dad rocketed into my mind. "Don't you ever talk to strangers." He said.

But little do you know my dear father, this level of technology here encompasses even the fear of talking to people you don't know.

"One year older, eleven."

So at least he's only a year older than me. A little more than that, my cloud of comfort would just disperse.

"Why are you here? Aren't you worried your parents might be looking for you?" I palmed my face cheeks in the gall of the little interval before the message will be sent. The modem, or this laptop? All I knew is that one of these is what's ticking me off.

"That's the reason why I left home."

I moved around as my buttocks couldn't afford to wait for another set of minutes just to receive his response.

"School. Parents. Friends. Money." Replies from him barraged one by one.

Oh dear all of us have these problems, it's just up to us how we decide to deal with them. I see why you're in here also.

"We're pretty much going through the same set of problems, except I didn't leave home." Sympathizing with the guy on the other side of this blank screen, I sent my own side.

"I just locked myself in it." I continued.

"There's this one thing I do, that clears my mind almost all of the time." The screen projected white, but the aura lingering around me hinted into floral colors. So there are people like me.

"I grab a piece of paper, any kind. And just draw or write anything that is happening inside my head." He continued to showcase his rather unusual technique through messages.

His replies continued, "Whether it may be random patterns or lines, or words I can't quite understand myself."

"Do you think it will work for me too?" I raised a question, not just for him but also to myself. Writing my characters' lives is a piece of cake for me, it takes no hassle. Yet, never did I note down the thoughts I was holding into the simplest words I brag about. I could take a walk in the park if I wanted to, but it was in a prison that I chose to fastened myself in.

It turned out in the end, I was my own downfall.