Madeline Curtis, a runaway from small town in Washington, finds herself in the streets of Hollywood looking for a place to stay when she encounters a strange hooded man. In less than a second poor Madeline's entire life was flipped upside down and s...
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twenty-three
'Miss me?'
The water was freezing cold. Goosebumps covered my skin as they struggled to reach the surface. I knew how to swim didn't I? I'm positive I knew how to swim before. Had something changed? Was I truly like a newborn now that I was dead.. would I have to relearn things I should've known?
My breath was quickly escaping me. What was happening?
All of these things never mattered before so now that I was underwater, why did they stop? First it was the swimming, now it was the breath. I was slipping farther and farther underwater by the second. I didn't have time to worry about the small things like.. drowning.
I attempted to swim out of the water but it seemed like it was out of my reach. The water was warming up and slowly my goosebumps are disappearing.
The heat was rising too much too fast. My goosebumps were turning into burns, turning my skin into a pink melted mess. It was inhumane, it was terrible.
I opened my mouth to scream, to shout, to cry. Nothing came out and now I floated throughout the water with no movement. I watched the surface escape my grasp and fell deeper into the water.
Until she appeared.
Her blonde hair twinkled in the sunlight along with her sun kissed skin. "What're you doing, silly? Playing drowned girl and waiting for me to save you, huh."
We were in my old backyard. My sister sat in a beach chair with a fan of soda in her hand and Cameron and I swam in the pool.
I gasped for air as my head finally wrapped around the fact that it wasn't real. Cameron smiled her warm bright smile she had always smiled. It was all just a dream. I had imagined an entire life — afterlife — without her. Imagined her doing terrible things that I knew she'd never do.
"Maddy? Got your head stuck in the clouds again?" She laughed and pushed me slightly.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm alright." I smiled weakly and dipped my feet back into the water. "Swim with me, won't you?"
She smiled before planting a soft kiss on my cheek and slipping into the pool. I glanced back to my sister, nose stuck in her phone as usual, and followed her into the pool.
Underwater, my eyes blurred, stung even.
I pushed myself back out of the water and rubbed my eyes, pushing my hair back and out of my face. When the water was finally out of my eyes, Cameron emerged from out of the water. Her blonde hair was turning into a dark brown, almost black like mine.
"Cam?"
She turned into a mirror of me. She was an exact copy of myself. I opened my mouth to speak but shut it closed right away.
