FLY BEFORE WE FALL
PROLOGUE: Crash
Dying hurt much more than River Morrigan suspected it would. He was hurled sideways, cracking his head painfully on the window of the car as the horrific screech of metal on metal seemed to shred the air. His seat belt sliced into his neck and somewhere, someone screamed before agony ripped through him and blackness overwhelmed his sight.
He awoke to a soft, mechanical beeping noise and pain in too many places to count. He tried to open his eyes but they felt glued shut. He tried again and the sliver of light that passed through his lashes was so bright that River thought he had been shot in the face with an arrow of some sort. He wanted to cry, but his head already felt as though it had been savagely beaten with a hammer, and the pain would surely only worsen if he allowed those throttled sobs to escape.
Footsteps. They made his skull throb but he had to see who was coming, see if it was the Grim Reaper come to collect him from whatever hell he was in. For a moment the light was too bright to see through, gleaming and cold as sun bouncing off snow, but gradually the kind face of a man swam dizzily into view.
"How do you feel, Marissa?" He asked in a pleasant, quiet voice.
"Not 'Rissa," River mumbled.
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm. Not. Marissa," River said more clearly, concentrating hard to make his thick tongue form the words.
The doctor blinked. "Is Marissa the name your parents gave you?"
River hesitated, then gave a glum "Mm-hm."
The doctor proceeded to ask him more questions, River doing his best to answer them without truly comprehending their meanings. It felt as though ten years had passed before the man finally left, turning out the lights and letting River drift back into the welcoming arms of oblivion.
The next several days were a blur whenever he looked back upon them; memories melted together into a murky stream of watery recollections. Surgery rooms bled with anesthesia as inaudible, worried voices trickled in one ear and out the other. The one thing that River remembered with picturesque clarity, however, was being propped up on several fluffy, feathery pillows, watching as the doctor slowly closed the door to the room.
"Where are my parents?" River asked for what he felt was the hundredth time. The drugs had cleared somewhat from his head, but he couldn't remember receiving an answer before.
"Marissa, I have something to tell you," the doctor said gravely.
"My name isn't Marissa," River protested, as he did whenever he was addressed by his birth name.
The doctor ignored this. "Your parents..."
"Where are they?" River asked impatiently. "Why haven't they come to see me?"
"Your father is in a coma," the doctor said gently, sitting down in a chair at the edge of River's bed. "Do you know what that means? It means that he's sleeping and we can't wake him up."
"He sleeps for a long time at home," River said knowledgeably. "He takes long naps and my mom doesn't like it."
The doctor shook his head. "It might be a very, very long time before he wakes up, Marissa."
River shook his head. "My mom knows how to wake him up. Where is she?"
The doctor took a deep breath, dropping his head and studying his hands for a moment. "Your mother was killed in the car crash, Marissa," he said.
River blinked, suddenly feeling nothing at all. The words sounded like they had been spoken in a different language. He heard the sounds but didn't understand them. Dead? How could his mother be dead? He knew the doctor was lying—his mother was always there, always around to treat scraped knees or ask about his father's day. She was perpetually present, smelling sweetly of floral perfume and light.
"She died on impact," the doctor went on. "She didn't feel any pain."
"She's not dead," River said defiantly.
"I'm sorry, Marissa," the doctor said somberly.
The reality of his words slowly sank in like a terrible shadow, a suffocating cold, and River screamed, a banshee howl of disbelieving grief, and no sooner had the sound been torn from his anguished heart than all the light bulbs in the room exploded in a high-pitched shattering of glass. The doctor nearly jumped out of his skin in fright as River crumpled forward, curling into a ball and beginning to sob, the sounds physically painful just to listen to. His mother was dead and his father wouldn't stop sleeping... He only vaguely registered the sound of the doctor leaping to his feet to fetch an electrician, but River didn't care where he went. All he cared about was that he would never see his mother again. He was all alone in the world, and he wished that the terrible car crash had claimed his life as well.
CHAPTER ONE: Seems Like Magic
River sat sullenly on his bed, rolling a small wooden ball back and forth across the hard mattress. He had found it in the dump not far from the orphanage he had been sent to after the car crash that had, essentially, claimed the lives of both his parents three years ago: his father still hadn't woken up. River went to see him every holiday, sitting by his side for hours, the hands of the clock going round and round as River read him books, told him about what had happened at the orphanage, or just described what the weather was like.
What River hated most about the orphanage, however, was that he could not be adopted. As one of his parents was still alive and had been loving in the years he had been lucid, the manager felt that it would be unethical to allow him to be taken in by another couple; she had a good heart and always felt that his father would wake up and come for him.
River stared at the wooden ball on the mattress, he felt a sudden rush of hatred for it. He couldn't bring himself to pick it up, so he fixed it with as ferocious a glare as he could muster and the ball shattered as though a stick of dynamite had been implanted inside it. Splinters flew across the room, embedding deeply in walls and flesh alike as River flung his arms up to protect his face.