It was chaos in my head; I did not know where I was. How did I get there? What to do? Where to go? I only heard a voice in my head...a word..."Amnesia." Sadly, I didn't understand. My memory was blurred, the past a fading dream and nothing to prove if it was real. I did not know anything and sat here all alone...with no hope... nothing but sadness and confusion to live with.
I breathed in and out but air wouldn't enter my lungs. Starved for air, my heart raced at tremendous speeds, and my lungs shallowly rose and fell in time. I stood there for what felt like an eternity but was actually only five minutes. Satisfaction of security was nothing but a distant memory , and an invisible force crushed me from every possible direction. Each second submerged in fear made a permanent mark on my heart, and a vivid imagination made me wander whether it was just my mind playing tricks or reality. I was awake.
I couldn't remember anything, not really. I know that whatever I am doing here is wrong, that I shouldn't be here. It wasn't natural, I was sat here soaking wet and cold. Oh so very cold The cold breeze blew right through my wet sweater and I bowed my head to one side, closing lashes weighed down with mascara to keep out the salty sting. The wetness of my clothes made me shiver and I hugged my knees close. My hair fell loose about my face, tousled, tangled. Under the moon my hair shimmered like a raven. I could here the ripples in the river like the ticking of a more leisurely clock, but never telling me the time, never demanding that I move on. When more light of the moon peeked through the clouds, I stood and walked over to the road, my feet were bare and now icy.
My thoughts that were spinning chaotically calmed down, for they weren't making any sense. What was I doing here? What was happening?
Dizziness took me, the world beneath my feet spinning as I stumbled.
"Ah!" Crying out with pain, I looked down to see I had landed on a large decaying log of woof, the momentum of my fall jarring through my shoulder. Great, just bloody great! Clutching the bruised joint, I staggered back to my feet, my eyes wide as I slowly spun around, trying to work out where on earth I was, and, more importantly, how I had gotten here in the first place.
It was then, and only then that my memories caught up with me, the river next to me was familiar, I used to run along its edges more times than I could count as a child. However something seemed different, and for the life of me I couldn't figure it out, this whole place seemed eerily sinister, as if something terrible had happened here, but what I wasn't sure. Gone were the welcoming woodland I recognised, and instead was a dark menacing forest. I was about an hours walk from Mystc Falls, just on the other side of the wealthy town. Maybe half an hour if I cut through the forest. My brows drew down in bewilderment. What on earth was I doing here?
The longer I was awake the more thoughts started to come back to me. The party, I had been at a bonfire..of course.
Looking down at my clothes, I grimaced at the drenched, ripped skinny jeans and the blue tank top I'd chosen as an outfit last night. Picking up a lock of my matted, waist-length hair, a shiver of disgust travelled down my spine as I caught sight of the countless grains of sand littered throughout the once pristine mine.
Ew.
Turning around, I looked up at the pale moon before picking my direction and setting off at a brisk walk towards town. My parents were going to kill me, how on earth was I going to explain waking up deep in the forest, clearly havingsomehow slotted her way up to a small riverbed? That just..things like this, things like that just don't happen!
"What's wrong with Elena?" Her Father whispered to me with concern as I slipped inside, closing the car door behind me.
"She broke up with Matt," I explained, sharing a look filled with understanding with my mother as I clicked the seatbelt into place.
I lost my footing, barely managing to catch myself at the last moment as the image flashed through my mind.
What was-? Of course, last night. Shaking my head, I tried desperately to navigate the confused mess of my memory, pressuring myself to remember more.
I'd been at the party, but then…
"Elena," I groaned, throwing a look at Caroline's amused face before reluctantly following after my sister's figure. "Elena, come on, let me just get Tyler to walk us home, alright?" I didn't want to bother our parents at this hour, especially with Elena as tipsy as she was, but my older sister was having none of it.
That's right! Elena, she was-she was upset about Matt. They'd…had they left the party? Resuming my walk towards town, I carded my fingers through my slowly drying locks, glaring at the pine-needle covered ground as I silently berated myself for my uncharacteristically muddled thoughts.
Glancing back over my shoulder, the orange glow of the bonfire illuminating the tops of the trees, I felt my face drop with disappointment before I pulled herself together, nodding silently at my parents as I followed Elena into the backseat.
So I had-! Yes. I remembered getting into the car. But then why-?
"Grayson! Look out!" Miranda screamed, the headlights cold on the empty bridge road.
The memory ripped through my mind, freezing everything in its path.
My feet froze mid-step.
No.
No, it wasn't-! It wasn't possible!
I would have remembered!
My stomach dropped as they crashed through the safety barrier, my mother and sister's frightened screams not able to drown out the sound of my Dad's yell as he lost control of the car and they went sailing through the air.
No. No!
My legs were moving before I'd even fully understood what my memory was telling me. Flying through the forest with a speed I'd never before achieved.
Please, God, don't let it be true, I prayed, closing the distance between me and the Falls swiftly.
It couldn't be true!
Skidding to a stop at an outcrop, my heart plummeted as I saw the dozens of police officers and park rangers dragging the water, a tall crane lifting a familiar car from the depths of the water.
No
0o0
I groaned as I looked up at Jeremy from where I was lazily laying across the brunettes bed.
I didn't know how much longer I could take this. When I had imagined death, it certainly hadn't been an eternity watching my friends and family go about their alive lives while I was forced to simply observe. It wasn't pleasant. Four months of watching, I was done. Something had to change, otherwise I was in serious danger of becoming a ghost with insanity issues.
"The black one," I murmured, her tone depressed as I pouted up at my oblivious brother. Jeremy was holding up two jackets, probably getting ready to try and impress Vicki. "You never did listen to me," I snorted, leaping from the bed.
Storming down the corridor, I walked through the open front door and set off towards the school at a brisk pace.
I was just so tired of being dead. Which sounded as bizarre a it was, but honestly, I'd give anything for the oblivion of nothing. I was going to be forced to watch the world, alone, unable to interact with anyone, for the rest of time?! It was like a joke, some sick, twisted joke.
0o0
"It's all about the coffee, Aunt Jenna," Elena smiled tiredly at her young guardian, saying nothing when Jeremy rudely took the cup she'd just poured for herself out of her hands.
"Your first day of school and I'm totally unprepared. Lunch money?"
Elena shook her head. "I'm good."
"Anything else? A number two pencil? What am I missing?" Jenna stressed, clearly at a loss.
"Don't you have a big presentation today?" She asked, looking at the clock on the wall behind Jenna as she did so.
"I'm meeting with my thesis advisor at…now. Crap!" Her aunt cursed, her face falling as the morning she'd envisioned going completely differently collapsed around her ears.
"Go," Elena urged, making a shooing motion with her hands. "We'll be fine." As soon as Jenna was gone, throwing her a thankful smile over her shoulder, Elena turned to Jeremy. "You okay?"
Light brown eyes snapped up to lock with hers, a warning fire in their depths that told her more successfully than words ever could how little he was interested in talking to her.
"Don't start."
Watching her little brother stalk out of the kitchen, she couldn't help but sigh, her eyes catching on the mug he'd been using and for some reason had left, full of coffee, on the bench top.
Her heart clenched painfully when she recognised the silly 'cool as a cucumber' mug that Amelia had used religiously every morning since they were twelve.
Elena had bought her sister the mug for her birthday, finding the words funny, especially when her twin's love for the vegetable was a well-known fact to the family. But Amelia had loved that mug, much more than Elena had thought she would. The blue-eyed girl would smile every morning she took the mug from the spot she'd reserved for it in the cupboard. In fact, its appearance was often the only thing that could improve Amelia's notoriously bad morning mood.
She set down the plain black cup in her hand, having loss whatever enthusiasm she'd felt for the hot beverage it contained.
Would it always be like this?
Constantly thinking what they would be doing if they were here? What they would say? How they'd react?
She'd gone to say something to Amelia so many times this summer she'd lost count. Small things, like when she noticed the tulips that her sister loved so much growing just outside Mr Dowd's back door. And the big things, like how she was supposed to act around Matt now that they'd broken up? How she was supposed to act so that the awkwardness would go away. Her sister was always the one she'd ask.
Always.
Taking a deep breath, Elena pushed down the lump rising in her throat, mentally telling herself to get it together as she heard Bonnie's car horn blare from outside.
They weren't coming back. None of them.
She had to accept that.
0o0
Breathing deeply, Caroline took a moment to compose herself before plastering a bright smile on her lips and pushing open her car door.
"Caroline! Oh my God! It's so good to see you!" Casey Chambers, a wanna-be cheerleader, immediately cornered her, her beady brown eyes running over Caroline's figure, looking for imperfections. "I feel like it's been ages!" The strawberry blonde girl exclaimed dramatically.
Caroline smiled, forcibly shoving down her anger as the insipid girl unknowingly made an insensitive comment about her summer of grieving.
She hadn't believed her Mum when she first told her the news. These things happened, she, of course, knew that. But they didn't happen to people she knew!
When her Mum had finally managed to get her to understand, to realise that this wasn't some wacked-up joke, she'd been…it hadn't been pretty. Caroline had refused to come out of her room for days. She hadn't eaten, she'd refused every plea her mother called through her bedroom door to come out so they could talk about it. She didn't want to talk about it. What was there to talk about?! Her mum couldn't make this go away! She couldn't turn back time and stop Amelia from getting into that car. Talking about it wasn't going to change anything! Help anything!
After four days of doing nothing but laying in her bed listening to Amelia's voicemail message over and over again, her mum had finally called in reinforcements, not knowing what else to do.
"Pumpkin?" Caroline's eyes darted to her locked bedroom door at the sound of her Dad's calm, warm tones. "Pumpkin, it's me…Dad."
A sob bubbled up her throat as a new wave of pain crashed over her and Caroline had to clamp a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.
"Go away!" She shouted, only it came out as a broken sob, only worrying the pair of adults on the other side of her door even more.
"Caroline," Bill's voice was soft, filled with shared grief. "I know you're sad. I know you miss her. I do too. So does your mother. But locking yourself away from the world isn't going to help."
Staring out her window at the blue sky, Caroline felt her heart pound angrily against her chest as her father's words echoed inside her mind.
"If I open that door,…" She began, and she could practically see her parents leaning closer to the wood to hear her voice. "…Amelia won't be there. If I open that door,…I'll be…it'll be real."
"Oh, darling," Her mother's tearful voice was clear through the wood and Caroline suddenly remembered how very much the stern Sherif had loved her best friend.
Amelia Gilbert had practically lived at the Forbes house, her presence was a constant fixture inside its walls.
"It will be real whether you open that door or not, Caroline," Bill cleared his throat uncomfortably, searching for the right words. "But you'll never forgive yourself if you miss the chance to say goodbye."
Without permission, Caroline's eyes found the simple black dress hanging over the back of her vanity's chair.
"…It's today?" The question was small, afraid, and Caroline clutched the stuffed rabbit in her arms closer to her chest.
"If you want to make it…we'll have to leave in thirty minutes, darling," Her mother's sad words came through the door, making the image of the dress blur as tears once again gathered in her eyes.
The funeral. Where they'd bury her best friend.
"Yes, Casey," She smiled a fake smile at the girl, despising her presence. "It has been a while, but thankfully for you, I've had time to make up some new routines this summer." Just as she had been expecting, the girl's face dropped.
She knew very well that Casey had practiced the old routines over the summer, determined to know them by heart by the time try-outs came around. Unfortunately for her, Caroline didn't like her, and she certainly hadn't appreciated the pointed comment about her having cancelled cheer camp this summer after the news.
What? Did the girl think she'd gone soft?
"B-b-but!" Casey stuttered, her face devastated.
Caroline smiled sunnily. "See you around, Casey."
With that, she side-stepped the strawberry blonde girl and continued on her way towards her locker, determined not to think of the girl who'd always occupied the one on her right for as long as she could remember.
