December 24th - I remember that day, like most other days thanks to my photogenic memory, perfectly. It was not the beginning of my entire life, as some stories begin, but it was the day that I began the path I am on today. It was the day that, if done even slightly differently, I would not be telling you this story at all.

The snow was falling outside my bedroom window, drifting downwards from the clouds above at a leisurely pace. I watched one particular snowflake make it's decent to the ground below, where the grass that I imagined must still be there, hidden under a great frozen blanket of snow. The sunlight through the clouds was glaring blindingly off of the white, shining into my eyes, but all the same it was strangely gorgeous. Had I not been alive for seasons before this, I would not have known there was green beneath the whiteness at all, for there was no hint of the ever-abundant plant peeking through the surface - the snow was too thick.

It was because of this particular snow that I was home at that moment. I should have been at kindergarten, like every other Thursday of the year, but instead I was cooped up inside my mother's apartment on a Snow Day. I did not ever call this apartment "my" apartment, mind you - I did not own it, I did not pay the rent, and my name was not on the property contract. Just because she was my mother did not give me right to claim possession over her belongings - I knew that even at the fragile age of five and a half. Not that I even desired to own the apartment - it was a pretty shabby place, especially the bathroom. I tended to not like to use that bathroom, and was usually sure to use the schoolhouse restroom or public restrooms as much as I could in effort to stay away from the toilet, which looked, and I assume was, as dangerous as I made it seem. It was a challenge, but in my five year old head, it was worth it.

Despite the overwhelming presence of the frozen H2O and my lack of knowledge-gain (actually, there was a lack of knowledge gain at kindergarten anyway, since I was already secretly reading my mother's collage-level books and studying any high school textbooks I could get my chubby five year old hands on, but that wasn't the point) this day seemed like a pretty typical one. At least, it did to everyone but me.

Then again, I was not everyone.

A better example of one of these so called everyone's would be my little sister, Lovely. Yes, I understand what you're thinking, but yes - her name was sincerely Lovely. My mother had a strange taste in names. There was no lie nor nickname about it - Lovely Birthday.

I knew this for certain, for I could see it above her head, dancing there in red letters as she sat on her bed, bouncing on the creaky mattress as my mother struggled to pull her out of her clothes. Even as said child continued to complain, loudly and for the world to hear, my sweet dear mother continued to dress her little child, ebony hair falling over her face. Above her head, too, were the red letters, the symbols, the numbers. Angela Birthday. I didn't understand why I understood what they meant, those numbers above their heads - I had never actually learned this language from anybody, been taught by no one how to understand these numbers that floated across everyone's head. The knowledge seemed to simply be imprinted into my mind already.

Their numbers were running out. On their clock they both had less than twenty four hours. I knew, in my five year old heart, that they were going to die. They were going to die together, one's life stolen away by some event right before the other.

Lovely would be the first to go.

I turned and went back to watching the snow make a blanket over the world, the knowledge still there in my mind, daring me to die along with them.

I did not, in fact, die along with them, but there was a time that I wished that I had.

My mother was not a healthy woman. She was what you would call clinically depressed - she never slept, she rarely ate, she didn't go into work anymore, she barely took care of her children. She spent all her time in bed, never really sleeping, just staring blankly at the peeling wallpaper of the wall in front of her. I would watch her, sometimes, as she did that, her dark brown eyes wide and perfectly round, jaw usually clenched. Sometimes she would tremble or start whispering to herself. She would whisper names, sometimes. I never understood what she meant, when I watched her from the doorway. I was within her line of vision, I knew, but she never seemed to notice I was there.

Sometimes, because of my mother's long escapes in the bedroom, Lovely would cry. She'd bawl and shake her tiny fists in the air outside the door, pleading with her mother to let her in, or to feed her, or to play with her, or some other worldly desire. I would watch her as she begged and cried, her frizzy brown hair everywhere, unbrushed or tended to because Lovely was dependant. Useless without Angela or some adult around. She was helpless.

Helplessness, no matter how cruel or blank the woman, is what a mother responds to. The door would always open just for her, just enough to let the brunette slip through and cuddle into bed with Angela. I never got that luxury. Mother loved her best - I was just a mistake. So yes - she was the favorite.

That must be why it was Lovely was the one she chose to bring with her.

I was not there to witness their deaths. I had gone out to stand in the snow, to feel the frozen air on my skin. I've always loved the feeling of cold, the way it makes you feel clean. The snow was making intricate dances around me as I watched, eyes following it on it's spiraling path to meet with the ground below.

I was just getting up to go back inside when their numbers ran out. By the time I entered the building, my family was gone.

They were not gone in the usual sense, of course. They were dead.

Toting my five-year-old self into the house I slammed the door shut, eyes scanning the house. I called out for my sister, to yell at her for leaving her boots out in the middle of the floor again, but I got no response - that was unusual, since Lovely was always such the talker. A frown flickered over my face, causing my nose to wrinkle in irritation. The bathroom door across the hall was open, so I hurried across the room to peek inside.

I knew she was dead even before I noticed she wasn't breathing - the numbers were gone. My mother was laying on the bathroom floor, her ebony hair falling across her face, hiding her soulless blue eyes. My little sister laid loosely in her arms, frail body completely limp. It made her look like a lifeless porcelain doll. You might think, if you hadn't had my vision, that they were simply asleep at a glance, except that Lovely was soaking wet, her brunette hair sticking to the lifeless features of her young face. She was only two, and she had been drowned by my mother; Angela had drugged herself to death, dooming them to this final moment, dying with her daughter in her arms.

I wonder to this day what Lovely was thinking as the only person she ever trusted sent her to her death?

Five years of age, standing in that bathroom with them, I did not scream. I only stared. I was not scared or angry - I had seen their deaths coming in the cruelest of ways, as simple, obvious numbers above their heads, just like everyone else's. I did not love them - Angela ignored me, and all Lovely did was cry. I had seen their deaths coming - I was unsurprised. And yet, standing there looking at them, I was disbelieving all the same. I had expected an accident, a murder, perhaps a freak accident to kill them, not… this. I was not prepared for this cruel scene. I wasn't prepared to see them looking so…dead.

They always tell you as a child that people look like their asleep when they die, but they don't. They just look dead.

I turned away and walked out to the living room the call the police, not a sound uttering form my mouth, not a scream nor a wail. Most five year olds would have done something, but not me - I was just blank, as if following instructions on the box, monotonous in my mind, telling me what I had to do. Walk away, Beyond. Reach for the phone, Beyond. Call 9-1-1, Beyond. They're gone, but call them anyway, Beyond. Good, Beyond… Now tell them what happened.

Tell them that your family is dead.

August 2nd.

A's story began as it would end - with death.

This was not something I was there to witness, but I will tell you the very best that I can, even if it tears the slim remainder of my heart in two.

Nurses scrambled through the white-themed room, frantic yelps and shouted orders flying through the room, doctors marching through the room as the woman was rolled in on a stretcher, screaming and crying. There was no man at her side to comfort her, but rather another woman, who claimed to be her sister. The receptionist that allowed her access knew this much be bullshit, but said nothing about it.

Hospital-folk pushed the stretcher through the double doors of the hospital room, hastily lifting the person onto the hospital bed. Or rather, lifted the two people onto the hospital bed - in this body was not just the woman herself, but a little boy as well.

There was pride in the woman's eyes accompanied by frantic pain as she broke into sweat, shrieking uninterruptible words at the top of her shrill voice, British accent obvious even in her pain, hands tangling in the bed sheets. Nurses whispered words of empty comfort to the blonde woman, only good intentions in their hearts, but the woman only continued her shouting, tears springing to her eyes - she couldn't hear them, her ears ringing and her entire body going into spasms.

The woman who had accompanied the soon-to-be-mother spun around to face the doctor in charge of this operation, a look of panic on her delicate young face, blonde hair messy around her oval face. "What is wrong?" she demanded, voice shrill and thickly British-sounding, her 'what' sounding like 'wot'. In almost any other situation, the accent would have been adorable to the doctor, but Dr. Hasher's mind was elsewhere. A grave look had fallen upon his bristled face as he eyed the files, glancing over his clipboard to look at the convulsing woman. Something was going very wrong.

But Dr. Hasher was not one to give up. He sprung into action, shouting orders to scrambling nurses and diving into the operation. Mr. Hasher was an excellent doctor, world class they said; he would do his very best for this woman and her baby.

His best was not good enough.

The woman died whilst giving life her son, the labor too much on her and sending her to a painful death. She would never see her baby boy's face, nor would she ever know him or love him. The last thing she would ever see was the face of the woman who was not her sister but her lover, sobbing above her before she lost consciousness. Begging her to stay but knowing all the same that she was a goner.

I do not know her last thought, but if I know correctly, she loved her. And her son. I do not even know her name, this mother, but I respect her for how she was. She was too brave to hate the baby she brought into the world, even if he killed her in the process.

And so the life of Aidan Aycott, better known as A, began.

August 5th. Again I say, this is not a story I want to tell you, because it is more painful, to me, than my own family story. But I will tell you none the less, because you knowing is crucial, despite my own selfish résumé.

Andrea Brown loved him immediately.

She couldn't imagine why she loved him so much, of course - he had, weather he had meant to or not, killed the love of her life. And yet she could not possibly hold a grudge - despite not being physically related to the little child, despite the fact that this child was the result of her lover being raped, despite the fact that this child was not her's to love, she loved it anyway.

She loved how little Aidan's big blue eyes looked up at her when she was asked to hold it, even when his mother was dead on the hospital bed. She was fascinated by the way Aidan never cried, simply watched, oversized gray-blue eyes always seeming to see straight to your soul. She adored him and his weird gray hair, and his pouty lips, and the way that he had his mother's eye-shape. She wasn't sure where the color of his eyes came from - the rapist, now in jail, had dark eyes, and his mother had a mint green, but she adored his blue anyway.

Andrea brown loved her lover's little killer.

But the baby was not hers, not legally, despite being the only one in the world who seemed to care for him. He was, by law, to be taken to Joshua and Peggy Aycott in the unexpected situation that Ms. Aycott would die. Andrea had no rights to this baby, even though she loved it, even though she loved the mother, even though she pleaded and begged, even though she had been beside her through the entire pregnancy and the years before after her parents, the people to be taking this baby from her now, had disowned her for her sexual preference.

It's not my place to judge in this situation. I'm simply the narrative voice. But if my tone has somehow seeped through onto these pages and tainted these words, and if I sound disgusted to the very highest degree, that is because I am.

Andrea lost the baby and her partner that day, and could only watch, wailing and sobbing, as the gray-haired infant was carried away in another woman's arms. Pleading with Dr. Hasher to do something, do anything, her manicured fingernails digging into his arm helplessly. He could do nothing, though, and could only look away in pity and disgrace.

Maybe the doctor could have done something. Maybe the lawyer could have done something. Maybe someone, anyone, could have done something. If anyone would have acted instead of just viewed, had someone decided not to turn their head away in quiet sympathy and instead fight for this little boy and his not-quite-mother, perhaps I would not be telling this story. Perhaps A's life would not be so bloodstained and tragic.

Nobody did this something.

Andrea watched in distain as the car pulled away from the hospital, her nails still digging into the doctors arm, staring down the woman in the window. Peggy, better known to the public as Mrs. Aycott, glanced at her for only an instant through the passenger window, but Andrea knew. She could see the blame there. She was being blamed for this incident, even though it was an infinity away from being her fault.

Andrea hated them. She hated Peggy Aycott for taking that baby away from her, that baby that was her's by love and not blood. She hated the doctor for allowing this to happen, for allowing the baby's mother to die and leave them to this fate. She hated her lawyer, for not trying hard enough for her. She hated the random pedestrians staring at her as she collapsed, screaming at the top of her lungs, her words crude and accusing as she turned to face the sky, her tears streaking her mascara down her cheeks in a trial of black.

"Damn it! WHY! Why the hell did you let this happen! She prayed every day! She was a good person! She LOVED! She was GOOD! Why did this happen to her! Why did this happen to us! What did we do to deserve this!"

Andrea didn't know who in the world she was screaming at anymore, and thus the world gave no response to her pleas.

August 9th

Aidan did not stay with his grandparents for long. The curse he seemed to have did not spare these people. But you should not feel bad for them - they did not love the little boy. He was just a reminder of their failed attempt at a decent daughter.

The little gray-haired boy was only a week old when Peggy died. She died in the most innocent of actions - she was in the bathroom, listening to Blues music on her old-style stereo, humming along as she relaxed into the hot water. She was having what she'd like to think was well-deserved chill-time. She was too old to be taking care of an infant, especially some bastard child of her dead fag-daughter. Why she'd even fought to adopt the little bastard was beyond her. Probably to cause that bitchy Satanist, Andrea, pain.

She would repent for that thought later, probably, but for now she just wanted a nice warm bath and some good music.

As she laid there she was interrupted by the sound of Aidan wailing. He was asking for food, which had been neglected to be supplied to him, waving his little arms through the air. Not crying, just letting out shrill cries as always. Peggy groaned angrily, too comfortable to get up and comfort him.

She died turning up the volume on her radio to drown out the pleas of her grandson. Killed, in a way, by her own selfishness.

When Joshua returned home from a busy day at work, he arrived to the sound of humming. It was a weird sound to hear - usually he would get a hello from his wife, or be annoyed by cries from Aidan, or be greeted by the noisiness from the television or stereo. It was a strange thing to hear humming. It was even stranger, perhaps, that it was not in his wifes voice but rather the timid, quiet young voice of the week-old Aidan. It was a ghostly kind of noise, strangely rhythmic and velvety sounding. A strange noise to be coming from a week-year-old, but Aidan wasn't a typical five-year-old at all. His smoky gray-blue pools of eyes stared upwards in search for the person he knew must have just come in, that was walking past the crib he was trapped in.

Joshua did not pause to take a second glance at the tuneful boy staring up at him, though, with those smoky-blue eyes he secretly despised. He waltzed forward into the bathroom to take a shower, muttering to himself about possessed infants.

Joshua Aycott found his wife dead, staring back at him with enlarged, fried gray-green eyes, killed in her own place of relaxation and peace. Death by electrocution.

Aidan let out a joyful little giggle, completely oblivious as his grandfather collapsed to the floor and wept.

August 6th. Aidan Aycott becomes a full legal orphan when his grandfather is sent to a psyche ward after an attack on Andrea Brown. He will never leave this institution, rather dying of a mysterious heart attack at age sixty-seven, never seeing the outside world again. Aidan is set loose into "the system."

Andrea Brown never saw the little boy she loved again. On September 3rd, unable to successfully claim ownership of Aidan, she leapt off a bridge and killed herself, joining the ranks of the people who died for Aidan Aycott, later known as A.

They were a small price to pay.

A/N: WELL. This was slightly morbid. But it's from B's POV, what do you expect, I mean really? Well, anyways, I hope nobody kills me for making another multi-chapter… *sneaky nervous eyes* I'm going to make another chapter of Heartburn now, kay? Kay? Yeah, ok.