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Why did Greyhound buses have to smell so terrible? I didn't know if it was because the countless number of homeless people traveling on them constantly, or if the baby next to me had just dumped a gigantic load. I didn't know what it was, but it smelled like pure a**. The kind of smell you get from passing by a septic truck or getting too close to a filled dumpster sitting in the hot heat. It smelled like rotten diapers or decaying fecies.
I started questioning wether or not I could stand another twelve and-a-half hours of this stench. Wether I could live through this toxic fume long enough to reach Los Angeles. Sure, Las Vegas was a great city full of sin and lust. Any person with a speck of evil would enjoy it thoroughly. It almost dripped with sin. The lights. The casinos. The women especially. Even though I was "legally" underage, I still enjoyed everything on the outside, even the hand fake ID I had paid for to get on this stupid bus.
I sat there in my -some what- comfortable seat and peered out the small window next to me. Instead of sheep, I started counting cactuses, or cacti, I didn't know. But there was a lot them.
The desert was just like what Vincent had told me, "bare". There was nothing for practically miles, save the telephone wires that were lining the roads, and the multitude of cactuses/cacti. Except there was a vulture, eating the driven-over carcass of what looked to be an armidillo. I stared as it passed by. Then I wondered how long it took for the armidillo to die. Did it die instantly? Or did it suffer? Or maybe the vulture sat picking at it during the last few minutes of its life. That's how I felt about Los Angeles. Instead of the armidillo, the people were the victims. They either died instantly or slowly when they arrived. Of course, they didn't actually die -maybe some did-, but slowly changed into someone else. Or at least, that's what I've heard.
After the vulture, the sky grew terribly dark. Sleep easily enveloped me. Instead of the dream I've been having for the past month, this time, it was different.
I sat unblinking at the two figures in front of me, and when I tried to stand. I only fell to my bottom. Then I figured I was just a toddler. The two figures were my father and someone else. A woman. She was beautiful. Same deep, emerald, exotic eyes as mine and fair skin with plush red lips. She had black hair that flowed to her shoulders and formed almost a halo around her figure. Her shoulder had a tattoo of the Norse God Fenris, the wolf that swallowed the sun. At second glance she could easily be mistaken for a satanist, but her eyes were too soft. After awhile at looking at her, it came to me that she was my mother. I had gotten this from the pictures that I had seen of her. My father looked almost the same, but his beard was replaced by a slim goatee and his head wasn't bald, but cut almost like mine, same color too, am auburn brown. I had always looked like my father.
They were yelling about something, but my infant ears couldn't understand. Then my mother ran into another room and gathered a duffel bag and briskly left the house, leaving my father in tears. I think that could have been the first time I had seem him cry. I sometimes would hear him sobbing in his study while drinking his life away, but he would never show his face to me. I guess that's where I got most of my pride... My father went into his room and left me there, not knowing what had happened.
I don't think I've ever cried in my sleep before that night

After tossing and turning all night long, we were finally within the city limits of Los Angeles. When I looked at all the crumbling buildings and groups of homeless people, and potential gangsters, I realized that man in Las Vegas was right. The city felt like its own entity; eating people and then spitting them onto the streets for eternity. If I could describe Los Angeles in one word it would have to be Musty... Definately musty... Not only did it have a musty smell to it; just everything about it was musty. They way the traffic was; the way the roads were loosely paved; the condition of the streets; and the people. I'm not saying Los Angeles isn't a great place to live, you just need to get used to the must. That or have a ton of money. I didn't have or want either.
After all the depressing streets, we finally came to the bus station near the heart of the city. The people sluggishly got off the bus and gathered their belongings from the compartments overhead, and under the bus. I grabbed my beast of a duffel bag and headed down the street, when a quick thought surfaced to my mind when I realized I still had money. I went to the closest pay phone I could find. So, I scurried my way through the dense traffic, getting honked at and various curses spat at me. I made it to the other side of the street, my heart racing of course, and immediately went to the pay phone I had eyed in front of the convenience store. The clerk was gabbing away on the store phone in some language I couldn't understand. I ignored him and picked up the pay phone. Upon hearing the endless dial-tone I dug quickly through my deep pocket for the number I had gotten from the receptionist I met in Denver. I threw the last fifty cents I had inside the pay phone coin slot and punched the numbers in wildly, almost getting the number wrong. After three long, excrutiating, long rings, I heard someone pick up. Instantly feeling warmer, I said in a small voice.
"Mom...?"
Then was interrupted by a monotone voice that said,
"I'm sorry, but the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Please hang up and try another number."
I have never wanted to destroy a phone so badly.
My fifty cents popped into the return slot as I fell to the ground, on my knees. I ran my fingers through my dirty, greasy hair. After everything that had happened, after all of that traveling, stealing, lying, and torture; I was back to square one. With no money, no food, no clean clothes, and no direction. I realized how alone I really was in the world. I thought about home and everything I had left behind. My friends, my security, and most of all, myself... Sure, I had gotten all the way to Hollywood, and met with the man who started all of this, but who was I kidding? A seven-teen year-old could never make it as a director... As far as I could see it, my life was -frankly put- over. I had tried my best, but it got me nowhere, except for lost. I could feel a dull pain rise in my chest and I thought that I would burst out in tears.
Wait, no, that's not tears.
In a flash my mouth filled with the taste of bile and just as fast, my stomach emptied itself onto the pavement next to me. As I watched the last of my lunch fly onto the ground. I noticed a shadow standing over me. I quickly looked up and noticed a man in a very dark blue suit with sunglasses just as dark. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and his once-brown hair was lightly buzzed. In a stern, authoritive voice he said.
"Are you Ziggy Thorn?"
With the taste of bile in my mouth I slowly nodded then thought. Ziggy, what are you doing? He's probably a cop or something!
The adamant man reached into his pocket and slowly pulled out a badge.
"I'm with the Child Protective Services. I need you to come with me..."
Now it's all over.

Wait...
Let me start over; let me go back to the beginning.
To where it all started...