"As soon as there is life, there is danger."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Prologue
When a funeral procession rolls by you rarely think about the family that passes by you. Sure, you think about them, but you don't think too much about the situation they're in. You will more than likely think about how it was the last time you went to a funeral, you take a moment to pause and think through the details of the person who passed and the way the day went, but you rarely think about the suffering. Which is exactly what happened the day Thatcher Warren died. His funeral procession rolled through in a line of thirty to forty cars, each one filled with beloved friends and family. It was hard to decipher who was who to him. If you would have asked him he would have told you that some of his family were more friends, and that most of his family was made up of people he met in the military, serving his time in the Black Ops overseas. It didn't matter how much time passed between the times they spoke or what corners of the country they lived on. They were family. The people who watched the procession paid their respects by stopping and allowing them to pass, knowing nothing of the crying wife in the front seat of the car behind the hearse.
The attendees knew everything about the suffering. They watched with heavy hearts as she cried her way through her speech, having to stop countless times to choke back a sob as she thanked everyone for coming. Her mother had to hold her up at the podium while she spoke, muttering a prayer under her breath every few minutes. Samantha Warren swore it should have been her in his place inside the cherry wood casket that contained what was left of his remains. He had more people that cared for him, which was evident in the crowd that sat before her. He served most of his life in the military only to come home and die in a car accident. It was a cruel and twisted situation. All of those missions he was on, the most he had was a scratch or a headache from the heat. He died in a car. On a bridge. All because some trucker fell asleep at the wheel and hit them head on.
The last few days were filled with nothing but hatred and alcohol filled rages. The people who pulled them out of the car should have gotten Thatcher out first. They shouldn't have worried themselves with her. Her left arm was missing, severed, laying a few feet behind their car, her head cut and bleeding, left leg broken to hell. With her job, she knew her outlook wasn't good as she watched the hot, thick, red blood squirt out of her arm. Her vision was hazy and a dark halo outlined everything she looked at. The people who dragged her from the car spoke, but she couldn't hear them. She screamed for Thatcher feet away from the car, his head slumped over the steering wheel, eyes shut. She screamed his name like a broken record, deep and throaty, yelling for him to wake up. The trunk of the car caught fire and she scrambled to get to him, to pull him to safety. Someone cradled her against their chest as she beat him with her only hand, clawing at his skin to get to her husband. The front of the car went up in flames and the noises in her throat stopped. She was physically unable to produce the sounds she needed to, hot tears streaming down her face as the firefighters arrived and ran towards the car they were dragging her away from.
None of the attendees knew the details. They didn't know the events that took place. They knew the car had caught fire, but most did not know that Samantha had watched her husband burn. They knew her arm was gone now, but they didn't know why. Samantha braced herself against the podium with her right hand, her head down, promising herself that she would sleep later. That she would take as many pain pills as she could to stop from feeling anything, not just the pain. Suicide was too scary for her to try. She knew no amount of courage would enable her to take her life. She prayed for the strength to do it, but it never came, leaving her with the nagging question of why. Why it was so important for her to stay without him and why she wasn't taken too.
This is what no one watching the procession could see from the outside. The broken one left behind.
Author's Note: So, I have writer's block and I have been seriously wanting to write this. I know it's not a popular movie, but it's been rolling around in my head and I feel like I just needed to get it down to get it out of my HEAD. More to come later this week. This prologue sets the scene for the story. It's not going to be entirely grimy and sad like this, but it helps character development and changes, etc. Will be rated M for language and content.