saladlove | Unwind The Salad: Chapter 2-Clash

Alright, here's chapter 2. The writing is a little unorthodox, but it's from Clash's perspective, and he's a very unorthodox person. :P

This is such bull, why the hell was Clash being unwound? Clash did like nothing wrong…

I mean, all he did was blow up that restaurant, but they totally deserved it! I mean seriously, He stayed after work for an hour and fifty eight minutes, but his boss was all like ‘No! You only get payed for one extra hour of work!’

It’s not like he killed that many people with the explosion, only eight. Not including his boss and co-workers, but who cared about them!

On second thought, yeah, Clash kind of deserves to be unwound…

Clash is currently running from three truant officers while being shot at with tranq bullets, any normal run-away would have been caught by now, but not Clash. Clash has been running track for six years as of now, plus he does gymnastics, he can easily out-run these cops!

At least, that was what he thought.

Clash kept running, he was currently running through a state park, using the surrounding trees and even pedestrians as shields to block the oncoming tranq bullets.

Clash knew he could out-run these guys if it came down to it, but he didn’t want to take that chance, Clash’s plan was to keep running on foot until he could hijack a car. This plan was obviously fool-proof!

Clash kept on running, jumping behind trees and throwing innocent people behind him, occasionally hearing them scream right before getting shot with a tranq bullet. Up a head Clash saw exactly what he was looking for, a hospital! But more important than the hospital were the vehicles in the hospital parking lot.

Clash ran into the parking lot, several truant officers still on his tail. It wasn’t exactly difficult to follow Clash, his apparel consisted of bright red track shoes, blue jeans, and a black hoodie with a giant phoenix on its back. The bright colors of the phoenix’s flames were a dead giveaway, that in addition to the fact Clash was never the most subtle person to begin with.

Clash ran up to the vehicle closest to him, and he tried to open up the door, and he realized the one flaw in his otherwise perfect plan, he didn’t have the keys to the car.

It was around this time that Clash began to lose any idea of what he could possibly do.

Then he saw it, a man and a woman were running into an ambulance, there must have been some kind of emergency. So Clash, caring more about his own safety than that of whomever the ambulance was going to, jumped into the ambulance. He grabbed the woman by her collar and threw her out the door, before the man had time to react he quickly kicked him in the stomach and threw him out the door as well.

Clash turned the keys to the ambulance, and slammed his foot on the gas. He got about ten feet till he realized the second flaw in his plan, he had no idea how to drive.

Despite being 17, his parents had never allowed him to drive one of their vehicles before, saying something about him being untrustworthy. But when had he ever done anything bad?

Clash had driven the ambulance right into the side of the hospital. He was trying to stay awake, but he could feel the cold hand of sleep taking over, before he knew it he had blacked out.

He woke up; He didn’t know if it’d been several days or just a few seconds, but after looking around and seeing he was still at the hospital, his guess was for the latter of the two.

He looked next to him and saw another kid, not much younger than himself by the looks of it.

Clash thought he could use this kid as a shield to block the truant officers chasing him, but after looking around he saw no truant officers.

“C’Mon! We’ve got to go, now” yelled the kid, barely able to pick himself up off the ground.

Clash had no idea who this kid was, but he was willing to help him, and that was worth a lot when you’re an unwind. Clash got up, and helped the other kid gain his balance. Neither one of them wanting to waste time with introductions, they just ran.

After about half an hour of running, Clash could tell his new companion was getting weak and tired. They had managed to get away from any sort of life that would attack them. They ran into some nearby woods, and actually escaped.

Clash and the other kid had found a small area in the woods where they could rest for a bit, Clash plumped himself down onto the soft ground.

“So, what’s your name?” asked the kid, breathing in heavily from the long run.

“Clash” was Clash’s short response.

“Clash, that’s an odd name” said the kid.

“Sure is, that’s cause I’m an odd person. So, how ‘bout you, got a name?” asked Clash, curious of this kid.

“Scott, I’m a runaway unwind, just like you” the kid said, still seeming extremely winded from the long run.

‘No wonder this kid didn’t get far, that run was a breeze’ thought Clash.

“So, why are you being unwound?” asked Scott.

“It’s totally stupid, all I did was blow up some small restaurant that a few people were inside.” Clash watched the expression on Scott’s face turn to fear, but then quickly change to an expression of what appeared to be interest.

“Oh, that’s something, I’m just getting unwound for the normal reasons, I mean, if there even are normal reasons for being unwound. Y’know, got into one too many fights, couldn’t keep my grades up, told my parents I hate them.” Said Scott, rather nonchalantly. Clash hadn’t talked to any runaway unwinds before, but he assumed that they’d be a bit more on edge than this. Then again, he shouldn’t be one to talk.

“Well, we need to get some serious rest, but we should probably get someone to be guard, so…” said Scott looking at Clash, obviously wanting Clash to take first shift as guard.

“Fine, get some sleep” Clash said, slightly upset he had to take first watch. But he decided he didn’t care too much, as it gave him time to think.

Clash lay on the dirt, looking up into the sky, which was slightly blocked out by the foliage. He let his mind wander and think about whatever it wanted to think about. Most of the time it was just something silly, such as ‘I wonder if I’ll get to eat those delicious cookie hot pockets again’, but occasionally Clash did actually think of something semi-serious.

The one thing Clash did miss about his family and home, and all the things inside of it, was the small robot toy he had. Clash would read stories about how before unwinding existed; people use to replace their body parts with robotic ones. It had always confused Clash on how that worked, as the arm wasn’t really alive. But it at the same time it did peak his interests.

When Clash was 15, he took an engineering class that was meant to teach kids to fix things like AC units and maybe their car. What Clash did with the information he learned from the class wasn’t that however, he tried building robots.

Most of Clash’s attempts were epic failures, but there was one small toy he had made when he was 16 that actually worked. It was about 11 inches tall and could walk around and had a voice chip that allowed it say over 1000 different sayings, though, the sayings were on a timer and completely randomized.
The small robot Clash had made also functioned as an alarm clock (though most of the time Clash ignored it). Clash had loved this small toy robot he had created more than anything else in his life, more than his parents, more than his friends, and much more than any girl he had dated.

Clash had decided to name this small toy robot ‘Seven’, as it was Clash’s 7th attempt at creating a robot with these functions. If there’s one thing that would ever make Clash want to go back to his old house, it would be to get Seven.

After a few hours of thinking Clash decided to wake up Scott so he could get some rest. He got up and slowly walked over to Scott, nudging him on the shoulder.

“Get up” was Clash’s lazy comment towards Scott.

After a few minutes of rolling around, Scott hesitantly got up, obviously wanting to keep sleeping.

“Fine, I’ll take watch, but you better enjoy that sleep for me” said Scott.

“Um, Okay?” Clash didn’t really know what that meant; he figured it was just Scott’s way of
wishing him good dreams. Good dreams however, were the exact opposite of what he had.

Clash woke up startled from the awful nightmare had just had, he looked around quickly to see if something was amiss. Sure enough, something was. Scott was missing.

Words: 1,519
Big thanks to may official beta tester Sharpie!
Questions? Comments? Concerns?