Clare's Chronicles

[moonmoon]

I have decided to start a new story on here, I will update every couple days if not more. It is called Clare's Chronicles. I would have called it Stockholm Syndrome but there were already two other stories by that name. So, please comment, and I hope you enjoy!


Chapter 1

"Clare, wake up."

"Clare, wake up!"

Clare's eyes shot open. It was dark. She turned to her side and nearly screamed when she saw bright, wild green eyes looking at her. She sat up, heart beating fast. "Did you have to wake me up? I was dreaming," she said sadly.

Max scowled at her. "What were you dreaming of?" He asked, in a tone that said he already knew. "Home," Clare answered simply. She had imagined she was rescued and was returned to her home. She was walking under the pine trees she used to climb in when she was little. Her family opened the door, and hugged her. Then she had woken up.

Max glared at her. He hated it when she talked about going home. He was jealous, she thought. His long dark hair fell into his face. She frowned. Max's face was sickly pale, and his eyes were brighter than usual. He was breathing hard, and seemed to be in pain.

"Clare, you've got to go." "What?!" He took out a knife and began to saw through her collar. The collar that had never come off in the three years she had been kidnapped. While he cut, he explained. "I'm sick. Very badly. I've got to go get treated. It's a dangerous journey to where I'm going. I have to return you back..... home." Clare shook her head wordlessly. She felt sleepy and dumb, like she couldn't understand anything. Home, home, home, the words echoed in her head.

"Just don't be brainwashed again, okay?" He finished cutting through her collar, and it fell to the floor with a loud clatter. He began pacing the room. "Don't be fooled into thinking everything's okay, because those people will try that." Clare began to feel uneasy. She could almost pretend she was just staying with a friend instead of being kidnapped, except for when he ranted about the government. She didn't really know that much about Max, except that he was part of a group of kidnappers trying to kidnap people and change them.

It was crazy, really.

He was crazy. He was pyscho, insane, and crazy enough to kidnap her and hold her for three years. She cringed as she thought of the "memory exercises," the pain of his trying to force her to believe what he did. And then those terrible days where she rebelled and made him angry.
"I'll drive you to the nearest civilization. Then you will have to manage it from there. Be good, Clare. I will know." Max's fingers closed tightly around her wrists and he pulled her to her feet. She glanced around the dark room, completely empty, with blank white walls. She hadn't been outside in three years.

He groped in his jean pocket before finding the key and inserting it in the lock. He opened the door and led her outside.
Clare gasped as the sunlight hit her face, flooding her eyes with light. She clenched Max's hand until he shook her roughly. She loosened her grip, still in pain from seeing the sun. When her eyes adjusted, and she could squint, she looked at everything. All the colors, from green grass to blue sky to red flowers. She drank it all up, until Max pulled her over to a white car and instructed her to get again.

The last time she had been in this car she had been blindfolded and unconscious.

Max started up the car and pulled out of the driveway. Clare stared at the house in front of her. It was a mansion. She had been staying in a huge Victorian mansion and never known.

Clare sat back against the car seat, her eyes eagerly taking in everything about the world, everything she had been missing for three years. Max turned on the radio, and Clare sighed in wonder as the wave of music washed over her. The road was small and lonely, far out in the country she guessed. Where no one would find her.

After half an hour, she saw more buildings, a gas station, houses. Other people (!) walked around. Max pulled into the gas station and filled up his car.

"Get out, Clare,"
he said. She did.

Then he drove away, no more words of goodbyes, nothing. Not even a wave. She slumped against the sidewalk. Then she pulled herself to her feet and walked, slowly, to a nearby house.

She rang the doorbell. After a couple seconds, a motherly looking woman answered the door.

Clare swallowed.

"Hello. My name is Clare Karaska, and I'm back."


To Be Continued.....