Early Morning Autumn Winds (Jayda)

"When people get asked the question about love they usually go straight to love being about being with a partner, but love comes in different forms."

Three years later...

Elsewhere, Florida (Jayda Rose) Age: 17

I was awakened by the annoying sound of beeping. I toss my body over to glare at my alarm clock like a predator about to pounce on its prey. It was 5:30 in the morning. Track practice had started at 5 o'clock, which meant that my alarm had been going off for a while. Still lying in bed, I continued to eyeball my alarm clock until finally I mustered the energy to outstretch my arm and turn it off.

Retracting my arm back into the safety of my comforter, I reached for my phone which was under my pillow. I needed to see it. I needed to know. "Stop while you still can kid," said a grisly voice from the dark depths of my room. I thought he was awake. But, I shouldn't be surprised because he's always awake. He never sleeps. Out from the shadows, he formed slowly but surely. The shadowy silhouette of a man wearing a pitch black tuxedo, red collared shirt, and black tie appeared on the edge of my bed. A smouldered fiery black and red aura enveloped his body. His face was a ball of black and red flames. The only facial features that he had were piercing hot red eyes that could burn into your very being. He was huge. A towering imposing force of dominance that demanded respect from anyone in the room. Well, that is if anyone except me could see him. The being was a figment of my imagination. Something that I could see, but not touch. He was something that represented my thoughts, my emotions, my inner demons, my KARMA.

Karma glared at me in the darkness. His body was producing an eerily, faint red light that illuminated the room. "He's waiting on me to do something stupid," I thought to myself. "Damn straight," he muttered under his breath. That's right. I keep forgetting that he was aware of everything that I thought. Karma really was a living and breathing version of my brain... if my brain were a 6'5 monstrous shape-shifting giant. Karma turned his head in the direction of my phone. In the blink of an eye, he moved from the end of my bed to the side where I lay and swiped it up. I didn't even try to fight him for it, because it would have been pointless. The main reason is that Karma could touch me, but "hilariously" I could not touch him. An odd predicament we had, and an annoying one at that.

The other reason I let Karma take my phone is because it would be for the best. Ever since HE started texting me, I have been obsessed with my phone. Yes, HE was the boy who shall not be named HE. Like a stalker, I foamed over my phone waiting for the moment when HE texted me back. But, waiting for HIM was not mentally healthy, not in the slightest. The reasons for that were.... Complicated. Well, they were complicated to me anyway. I don't like talking about it, and no-one asks.

Karma had unlocked my phone and was now going through it without a care in the world. I hated how he knew my password like that. I also hated how there really wasn't much I can do about it. Seeing as he was a part of me and he knew everything about me, there was no hiding, lying, or deceiving him. "You have one new message, bighead," Karma started to mutter under his breath as he casually tossed the phone to me."My head ain't that damn big," I said as I caught the phone and quickly looked at it like a starving animal. "Oh," I said in disappointment. It's not who I had wanted it to be. Instead, it was something that I had been trying to ignore. The message read, "Backstage at the club at 6. ACTUALLY SHOW UP THIS TIME!!" from Lucius.

I didn't want to go. "Nor do you have too," Karma added. This was very true, but not the brightest idea if I wanted to keep friends. I closed my messages and opened my Snapchat. HE (the boy who shall not be named) hadn't answered, yet.

I sat up in bed to examine my room. It was a complete and utter mess. Dirty clothes, plates of food, and piles of trash had started to consume it. Also, a pungent foul odor was starting to also linger in my stagnant domain. The reek of feet and must have overpowered me as I became more aware of the smell. "It's beginning to smell like teenage BOY in here," I said in disgust. "Karma can you open the window," I asked. Karma, who had turned on the T.V., was currently trying his best to clean up my room. "Sure," he said. I began removing the comforter, remembering that I was completely naked, as I watched Karma open a window. The cold autumn air flowed in calmly, softly scattering the remnants of trash on my floor . "Woah, that's brisk," Karma said as the wind blew at his fiery aura.

I looked at my phone again. "Still nothing," I mumbled aloud. I hopped out of bed and was welcome with the cool breeze that was being vented into my room. I welcomed the breeze and it's coolness as it danced around my naked body. Weirdly, something about it relaxed me. The wind somehow reminded me of a better time, a more peaceful time. It reminded me of a time when I was more carefree and indeed more ignorant in my ways. Atlast, those were just distant memories. " I'm in my last year of highschool, a full-fledged senior," I thought to myself. I am about to be an adult. I was about to be independent.

"Do you really feel independent, Bighead?" said Karma. I turn in his direction to see that Karma was currently kicking several empty small bottles of Pink Moscato wine underneath my dresser. "Do you really feel like an adult?" he questioned me once more. There he was, repeating everything I really thought out loud again. Boy, I hated when he did that. But he was right, I didn't feel independent. The way I feel now with how this year is currently going... I felt like a small child wrapped in ice cold chains. Forever trapped, never aging, never... "Put some clothes on," Karma interrupted, "I'm not trying to get sick again because you like to sleep naked."

"Sorry," I apologized. Karma has been around me so long that I forgot that he literally IS me. I grab my comforter from off my bed and wrap it around my body. I, then, quickly darted my head and looked at my alarm clock. "6:23," I gasped, "Where did all the time go?"

"Time flies by when you're staring off into space," said Karma who was now sitting on the end of my bed in the form of a small black cat. All that was left of him were his piercing red eyes which were dots. His aura was still glowing reddish black, but it was more faint. He was curled up in a sleeping position which was odd because he never sleeps. I looked around the room, Karma had done a "decent" job cleaning my room if you ignore all the things he swept under the bed, dresser, and into the closet. He even took the time to light several of my candles. My room was beginning to smell a lot like pumpkin spice and nutmeg. I took in a deep breath. The autumn air continuously rushed into the room; the smell of waste was leaving.

I looked at my alarm clock again and it was now 6:30. "You don't have school by the way," Karma said. I turned to be greeted by Karma's piercing red eyes. "The school's twitter tweeted out that we have a school holiday today," he said enthusiastically.

"Welp you know what that means," I muttered as I stared into the souls of my bed. With the skills of a snake, slithered slowly into my bed. Karma eyed me during the whole process. I wrapped myself into a cocoon and lay there waiting for sleep to come. Karma sat there, watching like always, with his tail whipping slowly back and forth. Eventually sleep did come, it always does. My vision began to fade as everything around me grew dark. Karma's piercing red eyes were the last thing I saw before I was washed away into the silent, ambient sea of darkness.

(Being in love with a person is more than just the person themselves. It's also about their thoughts, fears, likes and dislikes. It can spawn from the little things they do not want many people to notice to the bigger things. It's more than loving their appearance because anyone can love the way a person looks.)