Chapter One.

You gotta remember that life isn't all about fun and games, it isn't just something you can blow through and expect to be an easy ride. Some people wonder why they hear about kids- no, teenagers, committing suicide daily. The big cases spread like a wildfire around the news for a short amount of time, before the whole world forgets about it.

Nobody actually cares, isn't that obvious? They might look like they do, or often say they do, but they're all liars. Everyone lies.

My boring, brown eyes stared out of the car window while I listened to my parents quarrel about nonsense. Who cared what they were talking about. I was sure not listening. We were moving from South Dakota to Florida- and of course, I'm happy about that... But driving there? My parents are insane. Both science lunatics who hooked up over the chemicals that were in their relationship- literally. My father and mother both work in the same general area of nanotechnology, though when you look more specifically, it's way different. My dad, his name's Greg. He works as a coder- putting together the nanobots coding. While my mom, Lucia, she's the actually builder of those things.

This always means we have little gadgets around the house- well- we did. It was insane. I'd sometimes wake up to loud pounding, which sounded to be a sledgehammer- and my dad would just tell me that they were doing a little fixing on something that wasn't perfect. That didn't meet their standards.

Our old house was fine, I thought. Dad had gotten recruited to become some sort of co-CEO of a company that Mom could work for too, so I guess they're doing it for the money.

Not that we're poor or anything.

"Are you doing alright, Luke?" It was my mother with her soft tone and innocent blue eyes.

"Yeah, I am."

"You don't seem like it." A smart remark, and I shot a glower to my little sister who was snickering as if she was happy with the idiotic words she'd put together.

"Like you know anything," I snapped back. She was nine, still in her little 'butterflies and rainbows' phase. Lily was her name, and she thought the world was still all candy and lollipops- that war didn't happen, people didn't die, and everything was perfect.

I wish it was like that.

"We're going to be to Florida soon. Aren't you excited?" Mom tried to change the subject in a hasty way.

"Yeah!" Lily cheered, shooting her fist up into the air with her eyes focused on Mom. "It's gonna be epic!"

'Like you know anything.' I repeated mentally, bringing my knees slowly to my chest and shuffling around for my earbuds. I had enough of these two shits, I wanted to just- get away from everyone for a bit. I always wanted to do that. Dad wasn't talking, and that made me uneasy. He usually was fun and happy, though during this ride he was quiet. As if he knew something that everyone else didn't.

I was overthinking the whole situation, it was obvious. My dark blonde locks of hair were rather messy, I could tell when I looked at myself in the semi transparent reflection of the car window. My eyes started to close as I plugged in my tangled earbuds and popped them into my ears, engulfing myself in the calming music. I fell asleep, the world fading.

xxx

To be completely honest, I don't remember what had happened next. All I knew when I woke up was my mother's eyes widened, her mouth half opened- and there was a red liquid leaking from it. I smelled smoke, and was starting to put the pieces together. A sharp pain started to make itself known on my side, and instinctively put my hand on the agony- I was bleeding.

Maybe then I was stupid for a fourteen year old. I was defiant, thinking that everyone was shit and I was indifferent. Soon, I found out that was a lie, and that a lot of people were ruthless.

Pushing the car door open and rolling out, I saw the red car crashed into the side of a bridge- there weren't any vehicles passing the empty road. Dad was no where in sight, nor was Lily. I only found Mom, who was obviously dead.

I guess I didn't know what to feel when I saw her lifeless body. Of course, I felt my throat lump up and my eyes start to water- but there was no way in hell I was going to admit that I wanted to mourn her. No fucking way.

By now, I just wanted the truth. I needed to find out what had happened. I didn't know where I was going, my feet just started to move and carry my body down the abandoned road. The sky was light out, birds chirping as if everything was A-okay. And to everyone else around the world, it probably was. They didn't care, this wasn't affecting them.

My journey had just begun. The journey to unfold the truth about this situation, to find somewhere comfortable to stay, and- of course- to find Dad and Lily.