Okay, so hi guys. I haven't posted in a while as I've been really busy with choosing classes and such for next year. I'm going to be a junior in high school next year and (as my teachers remind me daily) that's supposedly the most important year of high school. So it's been a lot of pressure, but in that stressful, anxiety-causing mess I found some light! I finally discovered what I would like to do after college! Okay, so in college I plan to get a Master of the Arts degree in Professional Writing (hopefully at the University of Southern California, but I have backup options as well), and then I want to become...

a freelance writer.

I'm not going to get into details here, but yes, that's my final decision.

So anyway, this is a story I'm writing by request of diamondsintheroughhh. It's a really amazing story idea and I'm so excited to see where it goes! If anyone else has story requests, please don't hesitate to leave a comment about the idea or PM me if you have an account and I'd be MORE than happy to try it out! I love you guys so much, thank you for every comment you've ever submitted to me, every PM I've ever gotten, and thank you so so much for encouraging me to write. You guys are the best and have influenced a lot of my future as have my friends, family, and teachers. Thank you all(:

Talia let the breeze rustle her hair as she leaned out of the open car window. It was a perfect autumn morning and next to her in the driver's seat was her best friend, Natara Williams. Natara hardly ever had time to go for drives like this to places unknown, what with her career taking up much of her time. It used to be one of their favorite things to do, going on long car trips to unknown destinations, just enjoying the day, before she and Natara went their separate ways in career choices. She never understood why her friend took such a risky job, but had learned long ago to not badger her about it: her father did enough of that. Even so, Talia brought it up that morning:

"Nat, I'll never understand why you chose a job that could kill you any day now."

Natara sighed and looked over at her friend tiredly. "You do know everything we do is a risk right? Crossing the street is risky, but we do it anyway because we have to get places. There's just a fine line between reasonable risks, like getting out of bed, and unreasonable risks, like-"

"Like putting yourself in close proximity to serial murderers?" Talia finished. "Yeah, I'd rather take a reasonable risk like driving here with you today than worry about my best friend dying at work. I mean honestly, what are the chances I die from crossing the street?"

"Fifty people a day in the UK…" Natara began.

"It was rhetorical, Nat. And anyway, I think most drivers here would watch and be wary of pedestrians."

"Yeah, maybe. But not if they're…"

A series of crashes assaulted their eardrums as a car smashed into them and cars driving behind them piled up, sandwiching them in the center.

"Talia are you alright?" Natara gasped, being crushed by the steering wheel slammed against her chest. The airbag had failed her.

"Yeah," she breathed. "Yeah I'm still here…"

An open window had killed her. Talia survived the crash, Natara felt relieved. But moments after Talia had uttered her last sentence, an object hurtled through her open window at full speed, smashing into her skull, murdering her through brute force.

People can drag out explaining the details of someone's death. They can exaggerate it; they can repeat themselves. They can tug at your heartstrings so you pity them, but when it truly comes down to the facts, that's all death is: quick. Death happens in the blink of an eye, one minute someone could be suffering, fighting for their life, or just minding their own business enjoying the warm sun on their face, and then they blink and they're gone. People tend to admit they fear dying when, in fact, that is a blunt lie. Most people do not fear dying itself, they fear the pain, the unknowing, they truly fear the fear itself. What happens after you die? Only someone who has already died can answer that for us. Is dying painful? Not dying itself. Dying is falling asleep from life; dying is being put into a permanent, irreversible slumber. You may suffer before you die, yes. Cancer, epilepsy, car accidents, you name it, it can be painful. But that's not dying, that's living. The fact of the matter is that life is painful, and for some it just ends with that pain.

When you lose someone close to you, sometimes the events of that particular day become a blur. Sometimes you forget little details because your mind was so preoccupied with having to be sad, having to cry, having to feel the pain that your body is too numb to feel. For Natara, she remembered bits and pieces. She remembered sirens, being pulled out of the crushed, claustrophobic wreck of a car, people identifying her when she couldn't form a coherent sentence to answer the questions on her identity. She remembered more police from San Francisco had showed up not long after, as they were just outside of the city. They recognized her immediately. One thing she remembered and still didn't fully understand was the first thing they said when they saw her was "Call Mal."

She didn't really assess these events until much, much later. Her esoteric brain collected the details, pushing them away until she could contemplate them. She knew Mal showed up and as he held her she began to sob. Her brain reminded her it was okay for her partner to see her cry, and that she was safe now. But that was just an instinct, really. Her brain was only telling her one thing.

Her lifelong best friend was dead.