Deception

A random story that i did a rough draft for in an exam once
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The face was everything they said it would be - sunken eyes, cigarette stained broken teeth, and a puckered scar that compelled my gaze towards those thin, cruel lips.

But maybe I should be starting at the beginning. Yes, that probably would help you understand it all better, rather than starting towards the end.

So, anyway, I had been playing football, it was an awesome game! We won, not that I did much, but it was fun. So me and some of my team mates where going to celebrate, we were headed down towards the main street, towards a milk bar.
We were walking along joking about some of the things we had done together recently when an old lady walking past suddenly did a double take and stopped me, grabbing my arm.

“Oh, my lord! Finally! We were wondering when you would come and save us!” She had tears in her eyes; she looked like she had a strange mixture of relief, joy, surprise, desperation and hope.

For such an old lady she was rather young looking, if she had dyed her hair, she would’ve looked at least thirty-five, those eyes, so full of life and emotion. Yes, cliché, but it was true. Her hair was what gave her age away. It was halfway between grey and white, and it had no movement. If she turned her head, it stayed in place, like she used a whole economy sized can of hairspray every morning. Except you could tell she didn’t.

“Umm... who is she? Charlie, do you know her?” Marcus whispered uneasily.

He was the kind of guy who always suspected the worst. That’s why we never put him in goal. His attitude was “We’re going to lose anyway, so why bother?”

So he was a mid. Then if he had an attack of "meh" we had a chance to fix it. He was still a good mate though. He was always there for you, no matter what, though his negativity could be a bit of a downer.

I shook my head slightly to answer Marcus. The others were standing there, gaping at me. They didn’t really get on with me. But they were my team mates, so they had to put up with me.

“I’m sorry, how am I meant to save you. And what do you mean by ‘us’?”

“You don’t know?!" She looked shocked, "But you have to know! You’re the One who is to save the town from the horror, the terror, the unmitigated revulsion of… Mavis.”

As she went through what she was saying, she got more and more intense, until she came to the name, then her voice became barely a whisper.

A chill crept itself down my spine. It was a rather warm day, sunny, and yet suddenly an icy breeze blew through, was overcast, cold.

Marcus became very uneasy, even for him. He was mumbling something under his breath. I couldn’t make it out.

“Please, help me and my town.” The pleading in the voice and the face was almost unbearable, but I couldn’t.

“I’m sorry. I might come back later and help, where would you want to meet?”

“Senior citizens centre. They’ll know who you are. They will know the answers to your questions.”

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The centre was filled with that old people smell, like musk and disinfectant.

As I walked in, the room that had been full of a mumble of conversation went dead quiet. All eyes were on me. Then the mumbling started up again, but more animated, more intense, and everyone was glancing at me every now and then.

“Excuse me, but I came here to find out why I should, be… here…” After I spoke I realised I had made almost no sense, but it seemed not to matter.

“Well, dear. Legend speaks of an ‘athletic young person’ who is to save this town. There are other physical descriptions, facial structure, height, et cetera. You, you are the One who fits the description.” This elderly man had a very shaky voice, I wasn’t sure if it was from excitement, or just his age. But it was a good effect; it made me think he had been waiting for this for a long time.

“O.K. what do I have to do? Is that written in “The Legend” too? Or do I have to work it out for myself?” I was starting to get irritable, all these old people, staring at me like I was a god! I couldn’t help them, O.K., so I was sixteen, almost seventeen, but I wasn’t ready to help with all this. They either needed to get over this “Mavis” or run her out of town.

The tension in the room increased, it seemed no one wanted to answer me.

“So, I’m meant to just march up to this Mavis, tell her what’s what, and everything is peachy? BULL! Listen, I can’t do this, I don’t even live here, I just came here to play football, ok?”

The shaky voiced man stood up, MAN! Was he wrinkly!

“Now listen here CHARLIE! We have been waiting here for YEARS! Some of us since BIRTH! You can’t walk out, our only hope!” The man was shaking with rage, and not just his voice.

Then his voice changed, the shaking stoped, it was low and threatening.
“Anyway, if you do leave us, you wont have long to feel guilty.”

Did it mean what I thought it meant? No one will ever know. Because Stupid me took it at face value and went to Mavis’s.

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As I walked up the hill, to the old lord’s house a chilled wind blew across my face, I had wished I had brought a jumper.

I came to the door and knocked. You remember how I started? Well, this is where it should come in.

Just to jog your memory:

The face was everything they said it would be - sunken eyes, cigarette stained broken teeth, and a puckered scar that compelled my gaze towards those thin, cruel lips.

Mavis was ugly, looked almost a thousand years old, I kept thinking she probably was, she seriously looked like a zombie form tose old horror movies.

I introduced myself; looking back I shouldn’t have bothered.

Mavis laughed a cruel, cold laugh, “How lovely, they’ve sent another one…”



Charlie stood, and with one last glance at me, he calmly walked through the wall.