A/N- this story is sad. If you want to find a happy story please look elsewhere. This is story came to me when I was reading Rurouni Kenshin (Go figure). It's my first real romance. So yeah. Just read the story and review.
Disclaimer: I don't own Slayers. Damn lawyers won't let me, but the plot is totally mine. TAKE THAT YOU LAWYERS! Laughs insanely
Lawyers: come and beat me senseless. Open a closet door revealing a bound and gagged Lina
ofwmuith aka otakufreakwhosemessedupinthehead: I was feeding her and giving her water. I swear.
The lawyers advance.
ofwumith: Eep. I was going let her go! Please don't hurt me.
Lawyers: beat me senseless, and take me downtown for trial with Lina as the witness
ofwmuith: ON WITH THE STORY!
Please Help Me Find My Way PrologueLina Inverse, who everyone thought was the strongest there is, was crying. It was dreary day in March, the Ides of March they called it. The 12 year old tugged at the sleeves of her black dress, which people might think was cute if it hadn't been at this certain occasion, crying and occasionally hiccupping. She was there after all. It was the funeral for Gwenevere; Gwen was whom her friends knew her as, Inverse, Lina's mother. Larson Inverse looked over at his daughter wondering what to do. He was never very good at parenting that was Gwen's job, being both the Mom and Dad for Lina.
"Oh God how I wish I was home more." He murmured to himself.
"There was nothing you could do." Timothy, his best friend and advisor, said.
It happened on a warm and sunny day in February. Lina was on her way home from Jr. High school. She expected to be smothered with kisses and hugs from her mother when she got home, but when she got home the house was quiet, deathly quiet.
"Mom?" She called. "Are you home?"
Lina walked into the kitchen, a small gasp escaped her lips. There before Lina laid the body of her dead mother. Apparently the stress from supporting a 12 year old and a collage student alone had taken its toll. Her body just couldn't handle it, so it gave up. Lina fell to her knees.
"Momma? Please wake up. Please oh please wake up." Lina shook her mother's lifeless body, as tears escaped her eyes.
Soon she was crying all out. Lina was all alone. Her sister, Luna, was away at collage, and her father was in Russia for a 2 month long business trip, so she was all alone.
It wasn't until late at night until one of the neighbors, Nick Gromwell, struck it as odd as he noticed the lights out in the house, the car in the driveway, and the front door wide open. So he went to investigate.
"Gwen?" He called. "Your front door was open so I came in to see what was wrong."
Nick walked into the kitchen, and saw two bodies. One alive and one stone dead.
"Oh my god." Was all he said.
Lina opened her eyes, she had cried herself to sleep next to her mother, and sat up.
"Wha-?" She asked.
"Oh Lina." Nick pulled Lina into a hug. "I called 911. Everything's gonna be all right."
"Huh?"
"Lina I'm sorry. But I'm afraid to say that your mother has passed away."
"You mean Momma's dead?"
"I'm sorry."
Lina began to cry again. Just then the flashing lights, and sirens of the ambulance could be seen and heard. The doorbell rang.
"Stay here. 'I'll be right back." Nick got up.
Lina nodded and sniffled. She could hear talking at the front door. A couple minutes later two paramedics and Nick entered the kitchen. Lina hiccupped. The paramedics walked over, put Gwen on a stretcher, and covered her body with a white sheet.
"NO!" Lina yelled.
She grabbed onto her mother's arm.
"You're not gonna take her." Lina went into a new round of tears. "You're not gonna hic take my Momma from hic me."
Lina kneeled on the ground grabbing onto her mother's arm, crying, and hiccupping. It was a pathetic site to see. Nick bent down and pried Lina off of her mother's arm. Lina kicked, and punched at him.
"You're not gonna take my Momma from me! You're not. You're not. You're….not. Lina's exhaustion caught up with her, and soon she was asleep.
A restless sleep, but sleep none the less. The next time Lina woke up she was not at home. The air did not smell familiar. It smelt sterile and sharp. It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the dark. It was then Lina realized she was in bed. It was not her bed.
"Where am I?" She thought.
She pulled the blankets up to her chin knowing that she was once again alone. Lina heard a click. She let out a small "eep". Lina pulled the blankets over her head. It was her way of protection. The door to the foreign room opened.
The nurse looked over at Lina's bed. She walked over to it and sat down on the edge of it. She gently shook Lina's trembling form.
"Dear it's alright. Everything going to be alright." The nurse stopped shaking Lina, and switched to rubbing her back.
"Momma?" Lina mumbled; she was beginning to drift back to sleep. "I had a bad dream that you died."
"Shh. It's alright. Just go to sleep. Shh." The nurse continued to rub Lina's back.
"Ok." Lina drifted off to sleep again.
The nurse continued to rub Lina's back for a major portion of the night, and into early morning before her graveyard shift came to an end, and she had to go home.
Lina's internal clock went off somewhere around 6:30 a.m. She sat up, and rubbed her eyes. Pale light shafted in between the blinds on the window. Lina noticed that she was in her pajamas; her clothes were draped over a chair.
"I'm definitely not at home." Lina said stating the obvious.
A couple of minutes later the realization of last night's events hit her at full force.
"Mom's dead." Lina whispered. "She's dead."
Lina sat there for a few minutes in silence, before quietly beginning to sob.
"She's never coming back." Lina wiped her nose with her pajama sleeve. "I'M GONNA HAFTA LIVE ALONE!" She yelled.
Lina buried her face into her knees.
"I don't wanna live alone" She mumbled between sobs. "I don't wanna live with Luna or Dad either. I wanna live with Mom."
The room's door opened, and in came her father.
"Oh god no." Lina groaned.
"I came as soon as I heard." Larson said.
These events led up to Gwen's funeral.
Lina sobbed, and hiccupped as she watched a two men lower her mother's coffin into it's grave. Larson walked over and put his hand on her shoulder. Lina jerked away and moved over a couple paces.
After the service, during the reception, Luna walked over to Lina; hugged her and began to cry. This took Lina by surprise, because Luna was never nice to Lina. During their childhood all Luna did to Lina was beat and or torture her until their mother yelled at Luna to stop, or until Lina would run away and lock herself in her room.
"I'm so sorry. I wish I could have been there to comfort you." Luna hugged Lina some more.
"It couldn't be helped." Lina said. "You couldn't skip classes to be with me. Besides you didn't know till the next day."
Luna nodded mutely, said one more "I'm sorry", and walked away. Lina sighed, fell into a nearby chair.
"This is so boring." Lina thought.
There were no kid's at the reception. Lina sighed again. Then she heard a familiar high-pitched voice.
"Miss Lina." Amelia called. "Where are you?"
"There she is over in that chair." Sylphiel nodded in the direction of the chair.
"Well then lets go." Amelia commanded.
With that the three friends, Amelia, Zelgadis, and Sylphiel, headed in Lina's direction.
Lina wiped some excess tears that had escaped her eyes away with her sleeve.
"Hi Miss Lina. We're real sorry about what had happened." Amelia said.
Zel and Sylphiel nodded in agreement. Lina waved it away with her hand.
"Don't be. It wasn't your fault." Lina said. " It just happened at the wrong… time."
Lina felt new tears erupt into her eyes. She collapsed into the nearest person's arms. Zel caught her.
"Don't cry Lina." Zel patted her back.
Lina's small frame shook with the sobs.
"I said don't cry." Zel took Lina's face in one hand, and with his other he wiped away some tears with his finger. "It stifles your beauty."
Lina couldn't help but put on a weak smile. Amelia and Sylphiel smiled with her.
"That was three years ago." Lina thought.
She was 15 now.
After her mother's death Lina's father had quit his job to stay at home, but the only job he could get was in an illegal drug company.
Lina had tried to run away from home 7 times. Twice to Amelia's, once to Sylphiel's, and 4 times to Zel's, but she always got caught, and grounded for a week. Once she actually made it to Zel's house, but his parent's sent her home immediately. She got grounded for a month for that.
Shortly after Lina's 13th birthday Larson moved himself and Lina. So Lina couldn't have anywhere to run away to. That didn't stop her from trying though.
After Lina entered high school she dropped out of school. The stress was just too much. Not only was she stressed out she was depressed too. People picked on her because she was small and because her mother had died.
Lina sighed. "It not like Dad cares that I dropped out." She thought. "I think I'll run away to Arizona tomorrow."