• Chapter One
    Cause


    Snow covered the ground in droves, each flake dancing around on its own before falling to join the other flakes in the piles on the side of the road.
    I took a few deep breaths, backing away from the house that we were leaving for the final time. I said goodbye to the two little kids who were clinging to my legs. They let go, rushing into the house, finally old enough to feel embarrassed whenever we, the rest of the family, saw them cry. I tried to laugh, managing only a soft chuckle.
    Spinning around, I looked up at the face of the boy that I knew I loved. We were leaving him behind, letting him stay with his family. His arms wrapped tightly around my waist. He pulled my lips to his and we kissed, briefly. I pulled back from him, under the watchful eyes of the rest of my family. He left his forehead touching mine, his hands moving to push my bangs back behind my ears.
    “I’ll miss you.” He mumbled, letting me free from his grip.
    “Goodbye” I whispered, stepping toward the car again. It felt like a weight sitting on
    my heart, a thick, heavy pounding in my chest.
    I would not cry.
    I removed my eyes from the ground, looking up at my brother, Arjay’s, smiling face. He was a bit better than me at this; at least he was trying to be happy about it.
    “Come on Ari, cheer up.” He said, smacking me, hard, on the back, nearly pushing me to the ground. I growled as I caught myself against the tree. Arjay just sort of laughed, as if he had known that would happen, getting into the passenger’s side of the car.
    My gaze wandered back to the house and to the people inside. Mom, Arjay and I were going up with the moving van before my father arrived with our younger siblings. Parents always want everything to be perfect when they get places. They wanted the move to be as easy for the kids as possible, but it was me they should have worried about.
    I took another deep breath and opened the car door, sitting down in the middle of the backseat of my mother’s dark green Camry.
    “This will be a lot of fun for you Arianna, a new place, new people.” My mother said, speaking in a low soft tone, obviously trying for reassurance. It didn’t work.
    “Fun.” I mumbles as she fiddled a bit with her keys, probably trying to figure out which one actually went to the car that we were sitting in.
    The ignition started a few seconds later, signifying that we were off. I shrunk down in my seat, placing my feet on the armrest in front of me, much to Arjay’s protest. I pulled over the green bag, wanting to get out the only thing that I knew would keep me sane. The pink ear buds fell into my lap, along with a few other things as I dumped the contents of that green bag. I pulled on the ear buds, watching the old 30 gig video iPod that followed after. I flipped carelessly through the music, choosing to just put the darn thing on shuffle and leaving it at that. The first song started blaring through my ears as we started onto the highway. The Decemberist’s songs lulled me into a false sense of security and into a trance like sleep.
    ---------
    I drifted in and out of consciousness every so often over the course of that days ride, hearing little snippets of conversation every time I did.
    “Are you sure that they won’t try to follow us mum?” It was Arjay’s voice alright, but
    there was nothing of the playful tone that he normally had lining his words. No this was something different, something I had never heard before. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to hear that tone of voice again.
    Fear?
    I heard my mother speaking next, her tone fearful as well. “No, I’m not sure, but we were there for too long.” They both fell silent, maybe not wanting to discuss something so depressing, or they might have noticed that I was awake, I couldn’t be sure. It took me a few seconds to realize why it was so quiet; apart from the fact that my mother and Arjay were no longer talking, my music had stopped a long while ago. The iPod had died while I was sleeping.
    I shifted on the cloth seat, pulling myself to sit upright, stretching a bit. In that instant, their faces changed expressions, they hadn’t noticed I was awake before I had moved. They managed to flip their expressions in a mere second and it made me feel a bit more comfortable to see their smiling faces, the faces I was used to, though there was still something hidden behind their gaze.
    “You doing better now?” My mother still had her eyes on the road, but she was
    talking to me, I could just tell.
    “Much. Will we be there soon?”
    She nodded briefly.
    The scenery outside had changed almost drastically from when I had fallen asleep to now. It was pure white.
    It was almost black.
    ---------
    My eyes went back into focus, my head was throbbing. I could feel the wetness of my side, the sticky liquid soaking into my shirt.
    “Arjay?”I mumbled, pushing myself up and away from the seat, feeling pain from my wrist shoot up the length of my arm. It was more than likely broken in at least one place. I was... calm, calmer than I should have been considering the traumatic event that had just occurred.
    “Arjay?” I spoke his name again when he didn’t answer the first time. I was almost
    positive that he was never going to answer me; that I was never going to hear his happy voice ringing through my ears again.
    THUD
    My heart was pounding in my chest and every time it beat I could feel the crimson blood gush out that much faster.
    Using the arm that hurt just a wee bit less, I pushed open the car door. The first thing to hit me was the cold. It was freezing where we were, wreckage in the middle of the empty highway, alone.
    One of my legs wasn’t working very well, forcing me to crawl over to where my mother lay, sprawled on the ground. It was a painful sight; her body was just a jumbled mess on the snow, deep red a good contrast against the solid white. I moved closer, close enough to see her chest moving. She was still breathing.
    “Mum?” I whispered, moving her blood soaked hair from her eyes. She was still smiling, but her breath was going fast.
    “You have to show them that you are the true leader and you have to take charge.”
    She was just speaking nonsense. I pulled the cell phone out of her pocket, dialing the numbers with shaky fingers.
    “911, what’s your emergency?” I ended up dropping the phone into the snow, unable to hold it steady; thankful for the first time that it only worked on speaker phone.
    “There was a car accident just outside the city, I’m not exactly sure where,”
    The lady on the other end sounded just as calm. “Leave your phone on. We will triangulate your position and be there in a moment.” The Dial tone was the sound that I heard next as the phone line went dead; the 911 operator had hung up. I moved my mother’s hair around again, running my hand through the sticky mess, trying to untangle all the knots.
    “It’s going to be okay mum. Just stay with me.” Her hand reached up to grab mine; I noticed the long thin scar that ran across her wrist.
    “I’m sorry Ari.” She mumbled, hand releasing mine, head lying in the white snow. It was all quiet as I stared at her face, eyes still open, pale skin losing whatever color it had left.
    “Mum?” I mumbled. It was the same as my brother. I would never hear her voice
    again. Even in death she was beautiful.
    My eyes turned to the sky, staring at its wondrous blue, hypnotic color drawing me in. My mind was no longer on my brother, or my mother. I stared up at the sky in desperation, searching for an apparition that I knew didn’t exist. Right then, I really wanted to believe that there was a god, at least then I would have someone to blame.
    I could hear the ambulance in the distance and I could feel myself going weak. My hand pulled away from my side, stopping in front of my face. I could see the dark crimson liquid. It was my own blood, pouring out of the wound in my side. I must have been more injured than I thought.
    I fell to the side, letting the cold of the snow overtake me. It cooled the world down a great deal more, my hand back on my bloody side so that the blood wouldn’t freeze. The ambulance was getting closer, the flashing lights the only thing that I could see, the sirens all I could hear.
    I felt my body being lifted and I knew what was going on, even if I couldn’t move and react. Death was the only path in front of me, and death was the path that I would choose to take.