Gathering of the Figments

okay, this might take some patience, honesty, and organizational skills...

(heh, Oxford comma'd)

I've randomly put everyone into a list:

<s>The Bee
Trinity
pommie
marianas
Carrots
Shaye</s>
Hawkins
DarkWaltz
Figment
LadyArtamir
Fabby
Kidashka
Fly-by-Night
Skydekkerix
Robot_Gentleman
fbi_woman

So, I will post the start of a sentence. Bee will create a story from my prompt, but will write for only 10 minutes (the honesty bit). She will post her piece in this thread. Trinny will continue the story, writing for ten minutes.

Get it? ... Good.

This will take time and everybody has to wait his/her turn (the patience bit). And if you don't want to do it, say 'pass'

THE PROMPT: Halfway through a cup of coffee...

Ready... Set... GO!

... I realized that there was a man staring at me. His face was impassive but his eyes were strange. It obviously wasn't attraction--I knew better than to expect glances like those. It seemed a little like--like confusion. In a way. But it could always have been the reflection of my own confusion. Why was he staring at me? Did my mascara smear when that stupid truck hit a puddle and drenched my upper half? I was already dry, so it couldn't be that I was wet... Why was he doing that?
I looked away and pretended that I didn't notice--even though I'm pretty sure he'd seen that I was staring straight back. I looked down into my coffee and finished it. I looked back at the man.
He had dissappeared.
Where did he go? Did he realize that this would kick my OCD into over drive? Why was I spending so much time dwelling on this guy, anyway? So he looked at me...

I couldn't concentrate on anything for the rest of the day. Whenever I caught my reflection in a mirror I was constantly seeing his face right behind mine. But when I looked around there was nobody there. Not only did I get no work done, but I added hallucinations to my symptoms list.
My therapist was going to have a field day with this. I had never really met a woman--or any person, for that matter--who loved to torment as she does. But seeing as my boss made me go to her, I couldn't do anything about it. I hated not feeling in control.
I wasn't the only one who noticed that I was acting stranger than normal that day. One of my work friends, Nathaniel, spoke up about it.
"Are you feeling okay? You seem kind of distracted lately."
It took me five minutes to answer. Actually, it took me

We should probably figure out who wants to be involved that way if someone doesn't post because they don't want to we don't get stuck.
Bee just said yes.
Marinas said yes by making this.
And I'm saying yes.

I suppose I'll say yes; but if I don't respond in over a day, just skip over me.

I do want to play! I was just gone all day and didn't have the time to reply till tonight. So yeah. Here it is.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Seven minutes. I had to take a deep breath to help me try and think of a response.
“I’m fine, just have a lot going on is all,” I answered, and gave him a smile to show everything was fine. For the rest of the day I avoided mirrors and every time I passed by a window I refused to look out incase I saw the man’s face. I wasn’t looking forward to leaving work. It wasn’t that I enjoyed the job all that much, it was okay, but it felt safer there.

The time seemed to tick by extremely fast. Only on days I don’t want it to. I thought. Then folded another stack of papers in an envelope to send out. Nathaniel kept stealing glances at me when he noticed my odd behavior around the windows and mirrors. Whenever he looked at me I would smile, hoping it would make him stop worrying. Why was he worrying anyway, we were just friends. When the clock hit three I knew it was time to leave, I spent longer than I usually did packing up my things. Half the people had gone by the time I slung my purse over my shoulder and walked out of my cubicle.

My heels echoed off the walls of the car port as I stepped out to look for my car, I pulled the keys out of my purse and clicked the unlock button. My car beeped and flashed immediately alerting me to where I had parked it. I gratefully walked over to it and got inside, locking the doors as I did; I was so jumpy, and all because of a man staring at me.

Shaking the thoughts away I put the keys into the ignition, my hand was shaking so bad I dropped the keys onto the floor. I groaned in frustrated and reached between my legs to the floor; I groped around blindly and finally my fingers wrapped around the keys. Once again I attempted to put the keys into the ignition, this time I succeeded and started up the car. It made a healthy rumble

Hooray, we're doing this! Yes, I accept. Write, people!

Instinctively, I looked in the rear view mirror as I reversed away from where I was parked, and jumped straight on to the brakes as I noticed the man standing there. I breathed deeply for a moment and looked in the mirror again. He wasn't there. Had I hit him? I hadn't felt anything, but I needed to make sure.
Shaking terribly, I slowly got out of the car and walked around to the back, leaning on the car for support. No. There was ni doubt about it, the man was not there.
I noticed then that I was drawing some odd glances from other people - I realised my mind found nothing sinister about them - I quickly got back in my car and switched the ignition back on. I jumped on the accelerator, and a bit too quickly, I sped out of the car park, desperate to be in the safe, familiar confines of my own home.
I saw that the speedometer was ticking up over 70kms, and I was only in a 50 zone, but I didn't care. I couldn't take seeing that man again, I needed to be home.
Evidently though, someone did care about my speed. I groaned as I saw bright red and blue lights closing in behind me. I pulled over and put my head on the steering wheel in despair. I looked over at the officer who was by my door and recoiled. It was the man...

I threw myself away from the window and shrieked, covering my face. There was a tapping at the window. I finally gathered enough courage to peer through my fingers and found the amiable face of a middle-aged policeman staring back at me with a puzzled expression. I straightened in my seat and rolled down the window, feeling chagrined.

"I'm sorry officer." What should I say so he wouldn't think I was crazy? I pondered. Should I? Hell, why not? "There's a man following me and for a second you looked like him."

The officer's face was transparently honest. I could almost see the cogs of his mind turning. He thought I might be making this up to get out of a ticket, but he also realized that I was genuinely scared.

And what was I supposed to do? I couldn't explain that this man wasn't real... well, wasn't corporeal.

He had reached his conclusion. "Well, honey, I'll deal with that in a second. You understand you were going 20 km above the limit--"

I nodded, abashed.

"I understand you may have had good reason, but I still need to give you a written warning..."

"Yeah, yeah, fine, yeah," I said nodding. It was just a warning, and besides, it felt so normal, so real. I couldn't be scared.

He gave me a warning. I gave him a description of the man, leaving out the minor detail that he only appeared in reflections.

"We'll keep a look out for him. Now, you try to stick to the speed limit, miss."

"Yes, officer." I was calm now, collected, grounded in the real wold. I fastened my seat belt, rolled up the window, put the car in gear and slid back into the road. I glanced in my rearview mirror. The officer's car was still on the side of the road. But my eyes caught the reflection of the back seat of my car.

He was there, right there, in the car with me.

I whirled around

Nothing. What's going on? I started driving again.

I noticed a stray string. I needed to pull over. The lane between me and the edge was filled with cars. I tried to concentrate on driving. The stray string consumed my mind. Driving. Driving. Driving. Don't cr- The stray string rose up, gigantic. Don't crash. Keep your eyes on the- I had to cut it. I had to.

(I feel short... Well my excuse, it's 10:45 PM and I have my last final tomorrow. Plus my creativity has been sucked away for a tad.)

Wait wait wait...string? Where's the string coming from?

Carrots wrote:I noticed a stray string.

Remember, she's OCD.

Is Shaye not doing this or something?

yeah, she passed...

Hawky, it's still your turn...

Oh, Hawky! Your turn! *looks for Hawkins*

I need to focus. *headdesk* FOCUS!

Taking my eyes away from the road for a split second, I reached to just yank away the string--I'd trim it properly later, I quickly moved that up to #1 priority on my to-do list--when I happened to glance the other side of the road. There he was, just staring at me, with that cold look. My hands were suddenly too sweaty to even grip the string.

But this time, he didn't disappear. He continued standing on the other side of the road, just staring. I looked up and down the road, making sure there were no other cars, when I swerved to the other side. I didn't know what I was going to do; was I going to try and hit him? Was I going to stop, roll down the window and make small talk about the weather? My instinct got me this far, I thought, maybe it'll tell me what to do when I get to him. But it didn't happen. Instead, a massive truck was thundering down the road in my direction, with no intention of stopping anytime soon. I swerved to try and miss the truck, and possibly hit the mysterious man--but just before I blacked out, I realized he was gone.
-----
The hospital. I can't be in the hospital, I thought over and over again. But the snaking tubes and needles were a clear sign that I was. The doctor was leaning over me, waiting for me to wake up. "What happened?" was all he could ask. "There was a man," I managed to choke out. My voice didn't sound right. The doctor nodded, and leaned in closer. "Are you sure?" he asked. I tried to shriek, but all that came out was a strange gurgling. It was him.

Just finished watching some old B-movie on Chiller. XD Sorry it's so...um...progressive...so quickly.