Ethereal

part one: desolation

     "I remember... I remember waking up from my Mom and Dad fighting, and trying to drown them out with my pillow. It- um, it didn't work, so I tried imagining what the park would look like at dawn, and how the ruins would glimmer with the early morning dew. I remember thinking about how sad I was to miss school that day, and..." I stopped, shifting in the uncomfortable seat and sniffing. 

   "It's alright," She said, staring at me through cat-eye glasses with cold blue eyes.

    "Take me back to that day. Take your time, and grab a tissue when you need one. This isn't going to be easy, Auraleste." She pointed to the red tissue box in the middle of the table and wrote something down on her giant yellow notepad. She could tell I was uneasy. Instead of taking a tissue, I wiped my nose with my sweater sleeve and took a breath. She blinked, but waited for me to continue.

   "I got up and went to the bathroom, and when I came back I realized the shouting had stopped. A door had been slammed, and somebody was at the kitchen table crying. But I ignored it, and I opened my curtains and then my window. I- I... I didn't know what to do. I knew something was going on again, but I...ignored it. Like I usually do, since it's not my job to fix things. If it was the weekend, Julianna would've already come into my room searching for comfort, since the battles can get rough." I stopped and looked at her, expecting the confused face my eyes arrived on. 

    "I told my sister stories during my parent's fights. I told her my Dad and Mom were fighting in a big war, but they were both on different sides. I assured her the fights were just battles, and it wasn't their fault. They were only fighting because the big colonel would make my mom spy, and try to get information from my dad's army. I would hide her in my closet and draw war scenes on the wall, and make the stories I was weaving come alive. But, um, back to that day-"

   "After a few hours, I could hear somebody pacing downstairs, and I immediately knew it was my dad since he's in a wheelchair and can't pace.." I gave a dry laugh and smiled, but she looked at me and wrote something down on her notepad.

I stopped smiling and continued, "The TV was on, and when he called my name I thought he would be asking me to make him some food, since he usually gets settled when he's watching TV. But when I came downstairs, there were tears streaming down his face, and his phone was to his ear, and he... he looked miserable. He looked afraid, and that made me panic. That made me really scared."

"He told me to call my sister immediately, and to get dressed. I told him she was at school, so her phone would be off, but he yelled at me to do as he said, so I ran upstairs and grabbed my phone. I could see 3 missed text messages from Julianna, but I couldn't understand them at first. They were kinda scrambled words and looked like broken English, which I knew couldn't be her since she's such a spelling freak, and loves all of her writing to be perfect. She had a 94% average in ELA, and I swear to you she'd wear it like a badge of honor. She'd always manage to bring it up and tell me how easy it was to get good grades in her English classes. This one time-"

   She shook her head and looked me in the eyes, and when I looked at my shoes she said, "Let's try to focus on the first story right now. Later on, we'll discuss the other aspects of Julianna, okay?" I nodded and continued my story.

   "Um, okay...so... Julianna had texted me these words that didn't fit together, and I couldn't read them at first. My dad called my name from downstairs, so I ran back to him and told him Julianna had sent me a few messages. His face kind of dropped, like a ghost just flew through him. I asked him what was wrong, and he started stuttering like crazy. He stutters when he feels a lot of emotion, so it can get hard to understand him. You have to wait a few minutes for him to calm down and get the words out." I looked at her, and she nodded and made a note.

  "He looked back up at me after he had calmed down a bit and told me there was a shooting. A-at Gables, the middle school she went to....and over 30 students had been killed. They were in the middle of identifying the....bodies. The bodies. They were calling the victims' families at that moment, but my dad wanted to know if my sister was okay. H-he needed to know if he still had two d-d-daughters. Two daughters. And then he started sobbing, just full-on crying in the middle of the living room, and this time it wasn't about my mom. I started shaking, and tears were making it hard to see as I started focusing on the text messages and trying to decipher them." 

Suddenly, I was back in my living room, watching my dad breakdown, watching the man on TV announce a new name, Tamera Montgomery, and watching my world crumble as I read the first message.

Congratulations! You've reached the end of Part One: Desolation.