Her feet were scratched and cut up. The wind blew her hair around her face but the cold didn't seem able to touch her. Slowly, Bella lifted her hand and pushed the brown strands away and finally started to take in her surroundings. Trees everywhere she looked, dark clouds up in the sky that promised a storm soon. But the scariest thing for Bella, what made her heart nearly triple its frantic beat was the blood on her clothes and staining her hands.
"What!" Bella shot up, whipping her head in all directions to try to find if someone or something was around to have hurt her. Her eyes zeroed in on the tree about 10 feet away from where she stood. A body. Her sister's body. Before she had time to even think she sprinted over to Cassie and fell to her knees. Dead. There could be no doubt that she might possibly still live, nevertheless Bella tried everything she could think of to wake her up. Faster than usual all the energy was spent and Bella could barely remain conscious.
Stubbornly Bella summoned whatever stored energy she could find and continued to stroke her sister's face. In the back of her mind she realized that her legs were starting to sting but she didn't care enough to find out why. All she focused on was Cassie's eyes. They were open but empty. Why? What caused her sister's life to end so soon after it started? What were they doing in the woods when it looked like a huge thunderstorm was about to open up the sky? Bella had no memory to any of this. When she stopped to think for a moment, there was a huge void of memories from the past several months. The last thing she could recall was moving here to Forks, Washington with her sister but that was nearly 6 months ago. Bella knew the pain would eventually come to her. The cold reality that her sister was gone would hit her heart. Right now, however, she was numb. Nothing made any sense to her. As the first tear filled her eye, Bella gently laid her head down on Cassie's stomach and closed her eyes, finally giving in to the extreme exhaustion that clouded her thoughts.