My first story! Aren't you guys excited for me? … No?
The one and only disclaimer – I do not own any of the MR books, characters or plotlines. BGS, however, is all mine and all original.
SUMMARY: Max sees people. A boy, a girl, and a sister. They aren't real — they can't be real. But Max sees. She feels. She knows they're something more ... She just needs to find out what they are, and who.
EDITED: 4/29/13.
— PROLOGUE —
I see a boy, hair the blackest black flopping into his face, the messy strands covering one midnight eye. His eyes stare back at me, alluring, entrancing. He is possibly a year or two older than I am, and perhaps five inches taller.
I see a girl, curly blonde hair falling to her shoulders. Her large, bright blue eyes gaze up at me, emanating innocence, purity. She is six, maybe, but you can tell she knows much more than she should for her years.
I see a sister. The sister, my sister. She doesn't look much like me: her hair is dark brown, her eyes like melted chocolate, with skin the perfect shade of tan—Hispanic, like my mother. I look nothing like them, albeit for the eyes. I knew her, the sister, from before it happened. She was real. She was alive. But now she only appears to me.
The boy takes a sure step towards me. He reaches out a hand, places it on my cheek. My heart stutters. He feels so real—but I know he's not. I don't know who he is, what he is, where he came from. All I know is that the four of us—me, the girl, the sister—are the only ones that can see him. Feel him. Touch him.
His hand slides down to rest on my shoulder as the girl walks forward, her steps confident. Her small, thin arms wrap around my waist in an unexpected hug, almost loving. Yet it is just as it was with the boy—I don't know her. But at the same time, it is almost as if she is a part of me.
The sister doesn't come forward as the other two did. No, she kneels, head bowed, and I watch as tears fall from her eyes. I hear her murmur something ('I'm sorry, I'm sorry'), but I can't go to her. My feet are frozen where they are.
Suddenly the dark room where the four of us linger disappears, replaced by a graveyard. I can't see the three anywhere, nor feel their presence; it's almost like I dreamt them.
I stand before a tombstone, three white roses placed delicately at its base, tied at the stems by a black ribbon. It reads:
Ella Valencia Martinez,
Loving sister, daughter and friend.
Never forgotten.
January 5 1997 - November 7 2010
I gasp and fall to my knees. My head pounds. Memories, not my own, rush through my mind.
I am sitting in the car, one earbud in my ear, the other in my sister's. My right foot taps to the music's beat in a steady rhythm. My earplug is yanked out suddenly and I turn to glare at my sister. Her features, so unlike mine but for the eyes, are set into a scowl. "Change the song, El," she says, "or I won't give you your earbud back. This song's crap."
"Max!" I cry. "That's unfair."
She rolls her eyes. "Stop being such a drama queen and change it, yeah?"
"Jesus, guys, shut up," says our older brother, Iggy, from the seat beside Max. He's seventeen, one year older than Max and three years older than me. I'm the youngest, and Max never lets me forget it.
"Yeah, come on, kids," says Dad, from where he drives in the front seat. "This was supposed to be a fun trip, without the bickering, okay? Try to enjoy yourselves."
Max sighs. "Whatever." She flicks the earplug at me on its cord, annoyance mixed with feigned nonchalance showing in her expression.
I take it and shove it in my ear, turning to glare out the window. The song I like is still on, at least, and just to annoy Max I turn it up two bars louder. The sky outside is cloudy and grey, casting a gloomy pallor over the city. We've been on the road for an hour, on the way to Colorado for a week-long family holiday. Numerous rain puddles are on the sides of the wide street, rippling with each drop of rain that hits them and whooshing up under car tyres. The storm has been going for hours, and I vaguely I wonder when it might stop.
Mom screams all of a sudden, breaking the tranquility. I jerk my earplug from my ear, sitting up straight and scared. "Jason!" she yells. "Hit the brakes! Jason!"
But it's too late.
I barely even register it as we crash, spinning off the road and colliding with something I can't see. There's agonizing pain and I open my mouth to scream, but—but I can't. I try to open my eyes and I see darkness. I try to live but I am dead.
I come back to myself, raising a hand to my cheeks and finding hot tears. Ella.
Slowly, without taking my notice, the scene fades and changes to another graveyard, where I stand before another tombstone, carved from white marble with black dirt in its cracks. A huge bouquet of daffodils blows with the wind at the tombstone's base, the petals still bright with yellow color but beginning to droop and rot.
I scan the tombstone. It's written in Latin, and though I can't speak the language, I understand the words as if I've known them all my life.
Daffy Angelica Walker.
Heaven has gained an angel,
And while we grieve our hearts go on.
May 13 1990 - July 21 1996
My head pounds again, harsh and painful and taking me by surprise. I clutch my skull and squeeze my eyes shut, and I'm in a child's body—
"Mommy!" I yell. "Mommy, stop, please!"
She laughs maniacally, like the witches from my nightmares. 'Oh Ange, sweetie. I told you, this is for the best. Please understand. Your daddy is a mean man, and so is everybody else on this wicked earth. We can't stay here, honey."
"Mommy," I sniffle, crying now. My protests are feeble. It's as if she can't hear me, like my voice is muffled and she isn't catching my words. "This isn't going to make things better. I don't wanna die, Mommy! Mommy, please!"
"We'll be safe, finally, Angel!" she says, elatedly. She's looking out the windscreen but she's not seeing the road. She's seeing another place entirely. "We can be free! No more war— We will truly be in Heaven."
I bang on the door of the car, desperately trying to escape. It's locked, and I knew it was locked, but I need to get out, I need to get out... My attempts are worth nothing. I can't see through my tears anymore. I slump down in my seat, the seatbelt's edge digging painfully into my neck. I don't try to shift it. What use is there?
"Mommy, please," I sob, even as I know it's no use. "Please..."
"The cliff!" she cries. "There it is, Angel! Are you ready for freedom? We are—"
Her voice breaks off. Even if she was still speaking I can't hear her over my screams. We're plummeting, fast, and there's the sounds of metal tearing, breaking glass, and I'm not sure whether I'm trying to see through tears anymore, or blood.
Something hard hits my temple. It doesn't hurt. I barely feel it. It's kind, even, easing me away from the pain, easing me away... It's dark, and I welcome it.
I read the inscription, like I know I have to.
In memoriam of Nicholas Ride
Brave soldier, loved son, and trusted friendOctober 26 1897 - December 9 1915
This time I expect the memories as they come.
"Wait," Ari says. His voice cracks. "The whistle's coming."
"Ari, I'm not even in the first wave," I reply, torn between annoyance, frustration, and sympathy. "I'm in the third."
"I am in the first. So shut up, Fang." His voice is trembling, with anger or fear I'm not sure. "I might be prepping myself, yeah?"
Unsure of how I should reply, I just say, "Good luck, mate."
He nods. We clap hands, and then he goes to his regiment, and I retreat, standing back against the trench wall. The soldiers prepare themselves, tense and rigid as they wait with their bayonets drawn.
The whistle blows.
They rush over the trenches.
We hear their screams in less than a second, along with the sounds of gunfire. There's blood already coming down on us, pooling out from bodies and running down to where we stand. I feel nauseous, and I pinch my arm, steeling myself.
A man beside me lifts his head slightly above the trench to see what's happening—are we being slaughtered, or are they? My question is answered promptly enough—before the man can blink, before any of us can warn him, he is shot through the head. I recoil and stare at his body, limp and crumbled where he stood just a moment ago. There's some of his blood on my face and I don't have the heart to wipe it away.
A body rolls over the top of the trenches, dressed in our uniform. Men with red crosses stitched onto their armbands rush towards the fallen man, but he's already dead, face-down in the dirt. Only when I come closer do I realize it's Ari.
The screams from up above fade, then stop. We wait, tense. I glance at a comrade and see he's pissed himself in his fear, but he stands strong. We all know what happens to deserters, anyway, but none of us want to leave, not now. Our friends are fallen. We will avenge them. T
he second wave are readying themselves, getting into positions, white-faced and white-knuckled around their weapons.
Daggers have been stabbed into the hard wall of the trench, pinning letters beneath their blades. Letters addressed to family, friends, loved ones, with names scrawled on their envelopes. Some are streaked with crimson. Beneath some of the daggers hang treasured possessions or family heirlooms, from men who know they won't return.
I spot my letters, and my family ring. I am one of those men.
The same thing happens to the second wave as it did to the first. We hear their screams and their slaughter, and it goes on until we're almost driven mad. And then it stops, and we know it's time.
The lieutenant, standing behind us while we get into positions, desperately waits for his radio to work. Once it finally does, he pleads, "Please, sir, not another wave. We're getting slaughtered! The third will die, just as the first and second, and so will the fourth—"
An angry British voice replies, voice crackling with radio static. "Hurry the hell up and send the wave! I don't care about losses! We will win! We must win! The Turks stand no chance against us."
"But, sir—"
"Send the wave." The voice has turned low and deadly. The lieutenant grimly nods, his eyes forlorn as he looks over us and shoves the radio into his breastpocket.
I'm angry at what I heard, and I know the men around me feel the same, but there is naught we can do.
We will fight for our country. Even those who were not born Australian, like me, will stand proud and tall, and will fight until we can't fight any longer.
I take a deep breath. The whistle blows.
We run up, a mass of men whose shouts and war-cries are cut off as abruptly as they begun. The gunshots are loud, the loudest things I've ever heard. The field is horrific, something from the worst of nightmares, covered in the red of blood and the beige of Australian uniforms. Blood splashes beneath my feet as I run, run, not stopping, shooting where I can. My friends and comrades fall around me, one by one. I hear the sounds of their death.
I am the last one standing. My feet pound against the hard dirt. I hear cries from the Turks—"Shoot him! Shoot him!"
There are three quick shots.
The pain burns through my body like hell's fire as the bullets lodge themselves in my chest. I fall to my knees, but I am still breathing. I refuse to collapse. I will not fall. I will not fall.
There is another gunshot, between my eyes. I fall.
I shake, back to myself once more. I can almost feel the pain of the bullets in my body and the sight of my friends, dead, around my feet; the glass and rocks and metal as I was Angel, falling from the cliff; the screams that won't come out when I'm Ella, the agony—
When I was Ella, in her body, I could hear my screams, and Iggy's. My mom's and dad's. I feel the guilt that I always feel when I think of Ella's death. Why did she have to die, and we all got to live? Why couldn't I die in her stead?
Dad blames himself for El's death, just as I blame myself. We tell Dad that it wasn't his fault, obviously, but he doesn't listen. It's like he can't hear us at all.
I close my eyes and breathe deeply, sucking in cool air. When I open my eyes, I already know I'm no longer in Fang's graveyard. I'm back in the blackness where I started, with the boy, the girl and the sister standing before me, waiting, knowing what I've seen.
None of them open their mouths to speak, but I can hear their voices in my head.
We are trapped, they say. And you are the only one who can help us.
Read and review, chickadees!