*This is a HumanAU, and yes it is arasol Enjoy the story, and I would like positive reviews- duhh who wouldn't?- or some constructive negative reviews. No flames please X3*

Listening To Your Beating Heart

Prologue

October 7, 2013

Aradia looked to her left and stared at Damara who smiled back tauntingly.
"Go away.." Aradia whispered looking away and burying her face in her hands. "You don't really exist; that's what the psychiatrist told me." She heard Damara chuckle low in the back of her throat, and she groaned.

"Fuck your psychiatrist. She doesn't know shit from chocolate. I'm as real as the sun on your back." Damara's face softened, her pure milky white eyes looking attentive. "I'm real Aradia." Her voice was smooth, and low, but it sounded hollow. "I'm just dead."

"I know." Aradia said slowly, nodding her head, her shoulders feeling heavy. "That's why you can't be real." Damara died three years ago when Aradia was fourteen. She had quietly come into Aradia's room, and sat on her bed, gently shaking her awake.
"Aradia," She had whispered. Aradia slowly opened her eyes, and still half asleep, she sat up and looked at her older sister. She looked beautiful as always. Her long ebony hair, twisted into a tight bun, was held up with curved red chopsticks, her thin lips just as red. Her cocoa-colored eyes were rimmed with black eyeliner, and her eyelashes were long and curled. Her delicate chin came to a point, like a cat, and her high cheekbones had the right amount of rosy blush applied to them.

Aradia remembered that night like it happened yesterday. She remembered how Damara's favorite perfume- Gucci Guilty Black - had smelled, and how the tip of the cigarette caught between her blood-colored lips burned a bright orange in the dark, the smoke curling, wispy and billowing, around her.

"You're not allowed to smoke in the house Damara." Aradia mumbled, her voice groggy from sleep. Damara scowled, and rolled her eyes.

"Shut up would you," She said, her features hard. "I'm gonna go out." She said quietly, and Aradia looked at the clock on her bedside table. The blinking green numbers read 2:15, and Aradia furrowed her eyebrows.
"Damara, it's two o'clock in the morning!" She hissed, and Damara put a hand over her mouth to quiet her down. After a moment, she removed her hand and sighed.
"I know that, shit for brains. I'm not stupid."

"You are if you think that it's okay to go out right now." Damara groaned and rolled her eyes again, taking a hit from the cigarette, and blowing the smoke in Aradia's face. Aradia fanned the air in front of her, coughing, and scowled at Damara.

"Where are you going anyway?" She asked, and Damara smirked.

"Just promise me you won't tell mom, okay?" Aradia sighed, and Damara cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Okay fine, I won't tell mom." She agreed.

"I'm gonna go hang with Slick, and some of his friends." Aradia gaped at her sister, and then pushed the blankets off of her, crawled over to her sister and grabbed her wrists.
"Are you crazy?" She whispered, and Damara looked as if she might be considering the question. "Damara, those guys are dangerous! They're in the mafia; they've killed a lot of people!"
"Quiet down, not so loud you idiot!"

"You're the idiot Damara! You better not go out!"

"What're you gonna do, tell mom? I'll tie you to this bed and duck tape a pillow over her head, and you won't be able to do shit until the morning when she comes in here to wake you up." She said dragging another long hit from the cigarette, the cherry burning bright. Aradia glared at her, knowing that she wasn't kidding.
"Damara, they're dangerous." She said again, hoping to talk some sense into her idiot sister. Damara just shrugged, and exhaled.

"I know, that's why it's so exciting. It's a rush." Aradia felt anger bubble in her chest.

"They aren't the rush, the drugs are!" Damara's eyes widened for a split second, before narrowing into an icy glare. She stood up and turned on her heel, and Aradia scrambled off the bed after her. Damara reached for the doorknob, but Aradia grabbed her arm. "Damara I'm sorry, just please don't go. I don't have a good feeling about this." Damara pulled her arm out of Aradia's grasp, and glared down at her.

"Don't tell mom where I am." She said before opening the door and leaving Aradia staring after her. That was the last time she saw or spoke to her sister.

She felt a cold hand on her shoulder, and she was snapped out of her reverie. She pulled her hands away from her face, and noticed that they were wet with tears. When had she started crying?

"I'm sorry Aradia," Damara said, her voice clear as day to Aradia. "I should've listened to you."

"Go away," Aradia whispered, looking away from her. This wasn't her sister. Her sister was dead. This was just a hallucination, and she didn't want to see it right now, or ever again. "Just leave me alone."

*Okay guys, so I liked the way this turned out and I hope that you did too :T If you did like it shoot me a message of your opinion, and I'll start working on chapter 1. Also just to let you wonderful campers know, doctors and psychiatrists have diagnosed Aradia with bipolar depression, and schizophrenia. Please review!*