Prologue

Cassandra and Vada's Deaths

Cassandra walked out of class with her messenger bag over her shoulder, not even bothering to put on the fuchsia scarf she had worn to school that day. Her long brown hair was braided down to about mid-back and the bangs, which were dyed a little more auburn, hung framing her pale face. She was wearing her favorite blue jeans, long, light, and tight, with the writing and paint spatters on them with a dark blue three-quarter-length sleeved shirt. She wore no make up, as usual and was not quite as "in-style" as her friends. Vada had a style all her own. On this particular day, her hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, with little layers sticking out all over the place and today her hair happened to be black with blue highlights. She was wearing a short black skirt with lots of frill and fluff over dark blue jeans and a corset over an old slightly cut up black t-shirt.

Cassandra and Vada had science class together and were really great friends despite the obvious differences between them. They had had a particularly hard test that day and were completely wiped out afterwards. After class on a normal day they would have gone to Vada's locker that they shared despite school rules against it and they would have made their way to the commons area to meet Annette for lunch. As they walked out of class they didn't know that this was not a normal day. This was their death day. They should have heard the screams and gone the other way but they didn't. They were discussing the answers they got on the test and attempting to project their grades. They weren't paying attention as people started running the other way, screaming something about guns. They walked right into the line of fire without ever realizing it. Both of them were dead before the shooting was even over. They were the first to be shot and didn't even have time to register what the loud pops meant. Annette would stand outside the school for hours looking for them, asking if anyone had seen them since the shooting. No one would.

Annette's Death

Three years after Cassandra and Vera's deaths

Annette's alarm went off at seven in the morning, just like any other day, and she was dismayed to find the inbox in her cell phone painfully empty. She and her boyfriend had just gotten in a fight yesterday during school and Annette had gone to bed early hoping that he would have texted her by the time her alarm went off and she woke up. She sighed in dismay and sulked as she walked out of her room and into the bathroom across the hall. She took a long cold shower before finally scampering back to her room, wrapped in a towel. She checked her cell phone again; still no message. She went to her closet and tried on what seemed like a million outfits before settling on well-worn jeans and a tight-fitting light pink top. She was going for comfort today rather than fashion.

She walked downstairs to get some juice for breakfast. She opened the fridge and decided to settle for apple juice. She poured herself a glass and walked back up to her room and sat down at her computer to check her messages and to print off her English homework. She replied to the few messages that she had as the printer turned on and finished making all of it's little noises. After she drank her apple juice and printed off her English paper she made a pit stop in the bathroom to brush her teeth before taking her empty cup down stairs and rinsing it out in the sink. She put her paper in her over-stuffed binder and grabbed her purse and cell phone before going to catch the bus. She could drive but preferred to ride the bus where she could do her makeup without having to get up earlier. Throughout the bus ride she kept flipping open her cell phone to check for anything from her boyfriend. It was during one of these searches through her voicemail and text inboxes that it happened. She didn't even notice as the out-of-control-crane hurled the beam in through the side of the bus. Her death would later be classified as a construction accident. Her boyfriend would mourn her death and spend the rest of his life wondering why he decided to buy her flowers and wait at school rather than call her.