I barely have memories of it all, but it's all been told to me by secondhand counts. And not even by all of them, which sucks, cause I'd love to know. I've always loved to know how it was to everyone, before and after. Beautiful and ugly. Light and dark. The very definitions of Heaven and that other word where fires roam on without end, the one word I've been afraid of. Afraid to think about, and wonder, just wonder...

But for one, there is no way my place was there. Couldn't have been, right? Not me and surely not any of us, if the After was true- Oh, I didn't doubt anyone, I've seen how serious they'd get when the After is mentioned, too few times but such dreadful times at that. Yes, I do believe them even when I have no memory of anything relating to it. Not it or my birth parents, but there have been pics on old phones that were shown to me. I have Lana and Lola to thank for that, they were the closest ones to my age around the small house, the two greatest sisters I could ask for. Them, and those nights in the same bed, them by my sides of nights where it ended in fairy tales of happy endings. I loved those, miss those but I make sure to hold onto them often, such beautiful memories I dare not ever forget.

Opposed as to wondering what became of them... The pop-up reminder works to sting my heart and make me cry, no matter how hard I try to get it out of my mind. It comes from many forms, I see the triggers in most places, but I suppose I shouldn't continue to act like it's some huge shock. Maybe it is a shock, or maybe it's just too much of the same horror that I must realize I may never get over. But I'd like that at least once, to escape it or numb myself to it. It's not the ideal life a little blonde girl like me should live, but we can't all be winners.

Speaking of winners, there was a Lynn Loud in the family, notably the one who had a thing for sports. Come to think, I have seen her around in my earliest years as the one brown-haired teen in a red jersey and white shorts. She disappeared, went off to college and had herself a life away from us. I don't know if that was supposed to be the life of a winner but I hoped to see her again later in life. Her, just like the others before her, and the twins who'd then go after her- I mean, if it had gone that way for them-

Why didn't it happen to Lana and Lola? Why is it that when I blink my eyes, it's not darkness I see, but the house fading from view as I ran? They've given me time to run and gave up their lives so that I could live-

Lily found nothing yet again, only yellow tape that sealed off the entire house, which had told her she'd find nothing and that alone was terrifying. Suppose she went past the tape and looked inside. What was awaiting her? Blood stains? Evidence of a fight? Never mind the shattered glass windows, Lily had her stomach churning badly over the very worse. An empty house with no lights on, devoid of human interaction, and the front lawn that guarded before it needed a grass trim. How long until someone came? Just how many more times did Lily have to come back to find her twin sisters stare about upon Aunt Rinn's foreclosed home?

When are you coming home? When are you coming back for me?

The flies buzzed about, trees blowing away with the medium breeze, air of which struck her face and messed about her fair blonde hair. The day was still and steady as any other day, but quiet and uninterrupted.

What am I supposed to do?

Lily raised her hands to her face- no sunlight had touched any part of her face, meaning she wasn't outside. And she wasn't. Instead, she was sitting on a seat right next to an older man. She faced him and noticed his unnatural white hair that had taken up her whole attention, stared at it with rude manners, and then looked down on her lap to see that she had been actually holding this stranger's hand. She let go, and he reacted by looking down on her with a puzzled look. "Lily? What's wrong?"

"How do you-?" Lily leaned back into the corner of her seat. "Who are-?" But her voice felt different. Older. She was a different Lily in whatever this was. A teenage Lily who had already grown through the puberty phases, body still developing. "Why do I sound like this?" She forgot she had been thinking out loud and turned red from the sheer embarrassment that snuck up on her.

"Relax, Lily," the ghost-hair individual said with a calming charisma, setting their hand over her to console her, pulling her close. "It's okay to be scared, but you're okay now."

"Scared?" Lily repeated, nearly shaking in her shoes. "I- I am not-"

And the man looked away from her, facing the front of the bus to see a door go open in the middle of it- it wasn't a bus, but a bullet rail much to her surprise. However she got there had just added more mystery, fogging up her logical thinking. The man was oblivious to her confusion, focusing only on a trio of adults that were coming up from the cab in front. And then a gun had been drawn-

This is my destiny.

Bullets would fly. Screams of the people. A visual of terror, the audio of fear, more intense than the break-in at Aunt Rinn's. It was out here in public, in broad daylight.

This must be my end-

And there was a great big boom that blinded her eyesight and stopped her world, her life. A blanket of burning inferno had kept her warm long enough before all became cold again. No, not cold. Nothing. She felt the nothingness, which was, in itself, the coldest thing to ever feel in the final moments. Pity she never met up with her sisters-

Lily arose from the nightmare, glad that it had been but a very surreal experience that could possibly and only be unreal. But she was yet again a little girl alone, another lost soul to wander the dirt without so much as a clue to get anywhere. Wherever anyone is...

I barely have memories of it all, but in time, I'll lose whatever I've ever had in due time. I'll forget their faces and the times we've had. I'm sorry...

She never knew what life would really bring from here on out, but Lily had accepted the ugliness for what it was.

Sorry, guys.

And an incarnation of that ugliness had accepted her back when it came for her. When it came in the form of Lincoln Loud.

I don't know how to be strong.

Memories of the Past, Chapter III