undeveloped
The Others in the back of the room had always confused me. Whilst I talked about the previous night's party with the rest of the class, they would sit there in silence. Voices echoed against the wall and whenever someone were to rush past them, they would send gusts of wind blowing against their faces. However, that never seemed to bother them as their intent gazes never left their books. They looked at those printed letters the same way I looked at the guy I fancied; with intrigue and passion and undeniable curiosity as they just couldn't peel their eyes away from it.
So I sat there and stared. And stared some more. And some more. I stared at their concentrated faces and could only imagine how the world seemed from their point of view at that very moment. I thought about the characters they were picturing and the emotions that were stirring in their stomachs.
I later found myself at the library checking out a dusty novel hidden on the bottom shelf of the third aisle.
The next day I found myself sat with the Others. Opening the pages, I began reading and felt myself get swept up in a life that was so unlike my own that it became addictive. I read, and read some more, and felt as if there was a thousand miles between myself and the girl next to me. The journey that the protagonist took me on was one that I both loved and was envious of and had no intention of leaving anytime soon. I lived a life that I could otherwise never even dream of.
That's what being part of the Others did to you. It left you at the mercy of every single author on top of every word they wrote. The pages are holy between your fingers and you can barely stop your eyes from flying across the sentences as the eagerness nearly becomes too much. And God, that feeling that you get when you finally read the last line of that book you've been loving recently, well, let's just say that the buzz of alcohol pales in comparison to it.
In all honesty, we were all different. I came from a different country to the girl on my left, and she had a different hair colour to the guy on her left. Yet we all had the same motive; we all wanted to live and that, in some strange way, made us all the same.