Preface: Sam

I stayed there for what seemed like hours knelt over Damon's lifeless body. My jacket that I had used to stop the bleeding coming from his gunshot wound on his upper chest was covered in his blood. I didn't dare move it, hoping that somehow, he could still be alive under his pale skin. He can't… he… My mind couldn't comprehend the thought of his death, ignoring his eyes that were looking to the end of the universe. He's been there my whole life. His death couldn't be possible. He saved my life. Tears rolled down my cheeks stinging the cuts the old man left on my face. That stupid old man that couldn't go a day without his precious drugs got what was coming for him. His body leaned halfway over a chair he broke when he fell. Damon shot him before he could attack me next, saving my life.

Poor Damon sat there in the cold, shivering and bleeding to death. When I tried to get up to get help, he grabbed my hand tightly and whispered to me, begging that I stay. For five minutes I said his name, telling him to let me go to get help and save him while he just stared at me like his own child. My voice bounced around in my head, my voice that was calling his name. His whispers that were hushed in my mind would forever be stuck in my memory. Five minutes after he was shot, his grip on me loosened, his eyes were no longer fixated on me but some other world I couldn't see, and his chest that moved when he was breathing was still.

"Damon," my heart spoke. My mind, which was telling me I need to leave to get someone, was no longer in control of my body. My mind only helped me get into this situation. I wasn't sure I could ever trust it again.

Fast paced foot steps came towards the direction of the old, run down house the druggie lived in. It was cold and dark, not the best place to be in the middle of winter in Maine. The sound of my cousin and his friends called for me and Damon. We had been missing for a few hours now. I looked back at Damon's body. "Damon," I moaned as I pushed my palms against his body, still in my own world where he's alive. "Damon, you gotta get up, man," I whined through the tears. When he didn't magically come back to life, I rolled my hands into fists and pounded the useless jacket that was still across his chest. I found myself not being able to breathe the freezing air that numbed my fingers while I choked. Strange noises came from my throat, noises I had never heard coming from me before because I hadn't remembered the last time I actually cried, and it sucks.

"Damon!" I couldn't stand it; the rusty smell of blood, how cold his hands were, the darkness in the room that traveled outside, and the moon that could be so miraculously bright in such a horrid moment. I hated everything around me in that moment. I hated how I was living and someone as innocent as Damon wasn't because of me.

"What the hell happened?" Tom said faintly. I hadn't even noticed he was there, but he was already well through the entrance of the death room and standing next me over the corpse. I had never liked Tom and he never liked me. He thought it was a waste of time for my cousin, John, to take care of me. And now, he had somewhat of a real reason to hate me.

When I didn't reply, he became impatient and kneeled down to me. He got uncomfortably close to my face. His breath was stained with smoke. "What did you do kid!" He grabbed the collar of my hood with both hands as he screamed in my face then pushed me back away from Damon's body. I could barely catch through the water in my eyes that he was checking for Damon's pulse and the look on his face when there wasn't one. I started to cry again, I tried not to but I had never been through any crap like this before. Once Tom heard my pain, he turned to me with a dangerously portentous look. "I'll ask one more time. What happened?" I attempted to regain my voice to speak again but it was like my throat was swelling up and I just couldn't. Tom came towards me and grabbed my hood by the collar again except he picked me up by it. "Grow up!" he yelled as he threw me to the ground. In fear, the tears stopped and so did the swelling.

"He stopped the guy from shooting me!" I yelled as I stumbled back on to me feet. It wasn't worded very well but my mind was foggy, I was cold, numb, and scared. There wasn't much I could do.

"Why did he have to stop him from shooting you?" Not only was it dark and hard to see him, but it was just hard to read his expression. I couldn't tell if he was my ally or enemy at this rate.

"The old man thought I was being noisy and I," I stuttered through the cold and the guilt that I couldn't cover. "I talked back at him when he threatened me." My words grew dimmer and dimmer as I admitted that I was being stupid and hazardous when I talked like that to a drunk with a gun.

Tom didn't like my answer. Watching him was like watching a man turn immortal. He was so still at first but it wasn't long before he hit me to the ground. He punched me twice in the stomach by the time John, Lance, Tony and Mason came along. Tony and Mason were just friends with my cousin. He probably got them to help look for Damon and I. Lance was Tom's younger brother and my best friend. He was somehow nicer than Tom which boggles my mind. The others were most likely already back at their own place. Our large group of friends would spend everyday in either John's or Damon's house. At the time, it was probably midnight. It was just us for now.

"Tom, stop it! Stop!" John yelled as he pulled Tom away from me, not noticing Damon or the old man in the dark.

"This stupid kid is the reason Damon got f**king killed!" I didn't blame Tom for hating me. After all, he was right. Damon's death was my fault and the bruises that were left on me after he punched me were well deserved and only a small part of what was coming.

John, who always was prepared for the worst of things, only took a couple seconds to take in Damon's death after Tom explained what I told him. I could tell, though, it was difficult for him to stay strong. "Tom, he's just a twelve year old. He couldn't have done anything," he defended me. For a while, they continued to rant on about what happened while I huddled in a corner, deploring my actions from earlier that day and watching my lifelong friends mourn over Damon. I lost one of my best friends over a few stupid, worthless words. Damon was the most considerate person in the world. If he could talk to me, I know he would say something about how saving my life was worth it, that I'm young and I have so much to look forward to. He was only a sophomore and so much of a better person than me. Why did he risk his life for a trouble making kid like me? I wasn't worth it! Tom and John finally shut up when the police came and answered as many questions as possible which wasn't many because they weren't there when the shooting actually happened. They asked me questions for about an hour and came to the conclusion that I wasn't guilty of anything and what happened was because a twelve year old was being a twelve year old and because a drunk man was being drunk. There was nothing to do except take the bodies away. Before they left, they told me I was lucky to have known Damon. I was. I really was.

About a week after everything settled down, Tom came by again. He gave me a few nasty looks then started yelling again, saying I was worthless and that I killed the person that brought us all together, that made us who we were. Tom started threatening to kill me then John told him to leave for good. A few of the others that were good friends with Tom agreed with him and left our friendship. When I went back to school, I noticed Lance had been ignoring me. I tried to talk to him one time. He cussed at me, punched me then got suspended for a week. The only time he ever talked to me after that was when our groups had encounters.

Tom had turned my best friend away from me. When he was being shoved out the door by John, his last words to me were, "Someday, I'll make your life Hell!" but he already had.