Written in 1998 for 9th grade English class while studying Romeo and Juliet. We were meant to write a story of how a character met the love of their life. Having recently seen the movie Air Force One my story took an interesting direction.
“I got an idea,” Andy, my best friend, said. “Let’s go to a party.”
“We party all the time,” Jeff said.
“I mean a real party, you know, like the ones you see in movies, where Ph. D. dudes talk about BS. You know, where everyone wears tuxedos.”
After some debate we thought it might be fun to crash a party like that. Now, none of us had tuxedos, and we weren’t going to rent them, so we made do with what he had, and wore bowties with our church suits. Then we headed out to the rich part of town. It took some time but we found a mansion with a party going on and we decided that that would be the place. It was a formal party, like one’s I had seen in movies, where guys are in tuxedos and girls are in formal dresses. Naturally lots of champagne, but if anyone got drunk they would be brushed out of sight before any kind of disruption occurred.
We walked up to the mansion’s gate and attempted to enter the party. However, a man was standing by the gate in front of the house. There seemed to be something awfully fishy about him. He asked to see our invitation, but we had none, so he would not let us in. We tried a different approach. We jumped the wall out of sight of the gatekeeper, and attempted to climb in a window. When we tried this, we saw some people inside giving us funny looks, so we thought that maybe we shouldn’t enter that way. We went around back, and soon found that the door was open. We found ourselves walking through the kitchen, and suavely slipping into the ballroom where the party was at.
Inside, the party was great. There was punch bowls with those floating fruits in them, and every kind of snack that ever existed. People were talking, dancing, and having a good time. Waiters were holding snacks I’d never seen before, hors d’oeuvres I think they are called, and drinks were being served. Andy grabbed a drink and disappeared. Jeff soon followed. This was definitely a high class party, not really meant for the likes of me and my friends, but I was having a good time nonetheless.
As I walked among the guests, I came across a fellow who seemed decent enough and asked him the purpose of this party. He told me that the host’s son had returned from war and it was in the son’s honor. I did not care about this, so I did not ask him to point out the son.
A few minutes after my arrival at the party I saw the guy that was taking invitations at the front gate. I wondered why he was no longer taking invitations. I didn’t want him to spot me so I hid. My friends had gone off on their own at this point, so I hoped the gatekeeper wouldn’t spot them either. I watched him closely. He was talking with some shady looking men. Then he left, and the men he was talking to followed. I came out from my hiding place, and began to converse among the other guests. I was enjoying myself lavishly, and then I saw her.
My heart pounded at the sight of her. It made me feel that the sight of any other girl was slime. Nothing could compare to her beauty. From the top of her head, to the bottom of her feet she was the most beautiful sight on the face of the planet. Her hair was the color of the sun shining on a warm beach. Her eyes were a deep brown they sucked me in unaware. Her skin looked smoother than silk and softer than cotton. Her body was perfect, all the right curves in all the right places. No beauty could compare with that which was hers. I wanted to reach out and touch her right there, but I kept my cool.
She happened to look in my direction. I looked away immediately as I did not want her to notice my stares. It was too late, though. I couldn’t hide what I was thinking. There was no lie between us. I looked back to her, and found that her eyes met mine. The smile on her face gave me some confidence, though I wasn’t certain if that confidence was warranted. We gaped at the sight of each other, I more than her. After I got a hold of myself I approached. There was a moment of hesitation in her, and I feared she would withdrawal, but this was not the case.
“Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” she said.
“Nice party,” I continued.
“I suppose,” she said.
“I wasn’t really invited,” I confessed.
“I’m glad you came,” she said.
“Why don’t we dance?” I asked.
“Why do we dance?” She said with a laugh.
“To have fun,” I said.
I was glad at that point that I had taken a dance class in high school, because as I took her in my arms we flowed like stream water. I was nervous at first, I didn’t know how close she would want to be to me, but was relieved when I discovered that she was comfortable with very close dancing.
“You know,” I said, “I don’t usually care for parties like these.”
“Me either,” she said.
We continued to slow dance and converse. I lost all worries about what my friends were doing, or anyone realizing that I wasn’t supposed to be there. As we conversed I discovered that her beauty was only the beginning of the wonderful things about her. There was more to her than makeup and pantyhose. She was intelligent, sexy, and passionate. She was the girl that I always dreamed of. She was the girl I fantasized about being with. We talked about our personal views, and though we didn’t agree on everything, we did agree that we could learn something from each other. Being with her was like being in a dream.
Suddenly that dream was shattered. I saw the guy that was taking invitations was coming towards us. Six large men were behind him, all carrying some kind of submachine guns. They started shooting at the guests. I grabbed the girl and ran. One of the men started shooting in our direction. Bullets whizzed by me. I found myself shuffling through guests trying to get away and my hand lost grip of the girl. I looked back to see if I could spot her, but there was too much shooting and too many people running around to notice. With the bullets still flying I managed to jump out a window. I felt like a coward, leaving the girl behind. Some other guests were jumping out the window too, and I couldn’t see much inside.
After a minute the shooting stopped, and one of the men started shouting. Since I was outside I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but I was certain that the men were terrorists and that everyone inside was being taken hostage. I had no idea what they wanted, but I knew one thing, I had to save the girl if she was still alive. I decided to sneak back in. I went down a cellar door and found a stairway leading up.
I slowly stepped up the stairway. I opened the door slightly, hoping no one would notice and glanced out. I was looking down a hallway. There were two men guarding one of the doors in the hallway, and I was sure that was the entrance to the ballroom. I was sure the hostages were still in there. I had to get the men off guard. I yelled at them and the two of them looked at me and started shooting. I dived back into the cellar dodging the spray of bullets. I didn’t know what to do. I saw an old marble statue sitting among some other junk and grabbed it. When one of the men came down the steps I bashed his legs, knocking him of balance, then bashed his head as hard as I could. I grabbed his weapon, and when the next man came down I opened fire. He went down immediately.
I went back up to the hallway and spotted two more men approaching. I didn’t even hesitate to open fire on them and they went down. I waited with the weapon’s sights on the door to see if any more terrorists would come out. No such luck. I approached the ballroom door slowly and waited.
A man yelled, “Give up your weapon or I will start shooting hostages.” It was the lead terrorist, I was sure. I didn’t say anything. “You have until the count of ten then I begin shooting.”
I waited.
He counted.
“Ten,” he said finally. Bang. The hostages were screaming. “Throw your gun in the room, or more die,” he demanded. The hostages begged me to give up my weapon as well.
“Alright,” I said, as I didn’t want to risk the death of the girl. I grabbed one of the dead terrorist’s weapons and tossed it into the room.
“Now come in with your hands up.”
“I’d rather not be a hostage,” I said, “I’ll just be leaving.”
He said something to one of his men and I heard feet scrambling. I saw a man coming out of the door. I opened fire on him and hit the terrorist in the arm. He started screaming and his biological reaction must have been for his grasp to tighten on the trigger as bullets began spraying from his weapon. I ducked low. It happened to be that one of the other terrorists was behind him and as the body of the terrorist I had just shot convulsed he spun around and emptied the rest of the clip into his companion. The wounded terrorist fell to the ground and grasped his arm where I had shot him. All of the terrorists except the leader were out of the equation.
On an adrenaline rush I walked into the ballroom with my weapon sighted on the terrorist leader. He returned the favor. It was a matter of who shot first. I knew enough from movies that there was no reason to hesitate. I pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, I was out of ammo. Bang! I found myself falling to the floor grasping my chest. It hurt so much.
“It’s over,” the terrorist leader announced.
I couldn’t speak. The bullet had knocked the wind out of me. I saw the girl, she and some other hostages took action and they immediately ganged up on the terrorist leader taking him out of play. The girl approached me. I looked to her. “I came back for you,” I choked out.
“I know,” she said.
“Pretty rough,” I coughed, “for a first date.”
“I like it rough.”
I blacked out.
I woke up and could hear the beeps of a heart monitor. The girl was sitting next to me. “Where am I?”
“Central Mercy, you’re going to be alright,” she said.
“So all that wasn’t just a dream? I really thought it must have been. I mean the terrorist part was pretty real, but meeting you was unbelievable.”
“Don’t try to talk too much,” she said, “Anyway, I got a better idea.” She leaned over my bed and we kissed. Overall it was a pretty good day, I had saved a beautiful girl, a ton of hostages, and the day.
“I don’t even know your name,” I said.
“Does it matter?”
No, I thought, it doesn’t matter. We continued kissing. It goes on, but that’s not part of the story.