Breaking the Silence

Prologue

Prologue

Conner

 Sweat oozed from the pours of my skin as I crouched in the engine room. My hands were smeared with black inky grease and two of my fingers were prdoucing a venoumous blood. Like, seriously, my blood is venomous, is poisonous. I squinted trying to see through the thick black smoke that swirled through the small compartment, filling my nostrils and making my effort to breathe all the more difficult. I let out a hoarse cough and got back to work on my sputtering dying engine.

Gears were groaning in relentlesley as I tried screwing different parts together, tightning fossits and playing with different knobs. My hair was plastered to my face and the heat radiating off the piece of machinery in front of me was so intense it burned my eyes. The smoke once more grabbed hold of my lungs and I took a shaky breath and coughed once more. I felt bile rise in the back of my throat but swallowed it, feeling frustration start to swell from inside my gut. Im narrowed my eyes and stood, crouching as to not hit my head on the ceiling. I kicked out at the engine in rage and it skipped a sputter.

I watched, half in a we but mostly submerged in terror as the engine's lights slowly faded and blinked out and how the knobs refused to turn on their own. The engine caughed out some more smoke and then the fossits popped with an ear piercing BANG! Steam shot out of the circular openings like mini gysers and I screamed in surprise. I scramled back to my feet and ran for the small set of steps not looking back once to the engine room. I threw open the door and felt smoke rush out behind me.

I was now in my cockpit and rushed to the controls, flinging my useless body back into my seat. A warning sign flashed on my dashboard and I grwled to myself. I know there is engine troubles! I quickly did up my seat belt and grabbed hold of the joystick trying to steer myself back onto course. I got close. Not right on but close enough to land near my desired location. I shouldn't have come alone but I had and now I would just have to suck up the fact I was in need of a proper engineer.

The starry night sky flew by my windshield and I stared frantically down at the earth below me. I became relieved when I saw farm fields under my shuttle. I pulled the joy stick back as I lost altitude. Therre was a great light from the window and I knew it was fire. The friction of the atmosphere rubbing with the front of my ship. I clutched the steering tighter and pulled harder towards me. The ship dipped downwards and I braced myself. The space shuttle I was inside hit the field with a sickening shutter and I was thrown forward. There was the sound of shattering glass and a far of explosion from the back, probably the engine.

My vision blurred and I quickly unbuckled and threw myself from the boarding entrance of the ship, felt myself flying through the air and my body slammed against the earth like a rag doll. My head jolted backwards and I faw a light and knew it was the burning reamins of my shuttle. I could feel the presence of a forest behind my head and I tried to get up and make for some sheltered area but my body protested. I groaned and managed to push myself from the earthy dirt, half crawling to the tree line before shuddering and collapsing on the ground by some bushes. The world spun and I felt my eyes grow heavy. Darkness closed in on me and I eventually fell into a peaceful nothingness.

Katie

 I stared up at the night sky from my perch in the sicamore tree. I was clinging to it, like I was hugging my own mother. Mother. I wish I could seen her just one more time. As I stared into the dark night sky I thought of how my house was not my home anymore. I had a horrible foster family. Horible, I stress the word. At the thought I rubbed my bruised shoulder wincing at the pain arising from it. The work of my so called father. My foster father. Not my father. I would surely get another beating, that is maybe for not being home, but I would definaetly be getting one if they found out I was in the woods.

Now you're probably wondering how I got into this mess and why my foster parents who car so little would want their hands full with a 17 year old girl who was skinny and useless. Well I'll tell you why. They want me to help them on their farm. Do their dirty work. Feed the animals, plant things and so much more. All my fat ass 'father', or as I like to call him, Richy, does is sit on the trackter and drive around the wheat field rocking out to his I-Pod. "Tears streaked my face and I felt my maskara run in black line down my cheeks.  

I sobbed silently. I always came here. When Richey was out working our closing a deal. When the evil wife Margaret goes to bingo, I come here. Into the woods where this tree stands. It is quite far into the dense forest and there is a clearing around it. Like all other trees have left it. So that it stands cold and alone. So that the weather pummels it and the rain soaks it through. Just like me. I have no one except for the trees the animals on the farm and the memories of my mother and I. everyone has grown away from me and I have learned not to grow close to anyone in fear of being broken. No, that could not happen. I could not be broken once again.

A person can only be cracked so many times before they are shattered. Each and every one of us are like a fragile window. On good days we enjoy the sun filtering through us, the joy of life constantly arurrounding us, but on rainy days, we must face the rain bullets pounding on us relentlessley. We must, we have no choice. It's just how it works. There can never be a good thing in life without a bad thing in return. Never. As my mother would ahve told me. You can never get a free lunch. I couldn't agree more.

You see, I didn't get those sunny days, where the light comes through my windows like so many others. It is usually raining, and if it isn't raining, it's at least clouded over. I feel like a patch of blue sky surrounded by dark menacing clouds. Clouds threatning to crush me without any warning.

I looked up into the air once more in search of stars for comfort. I loved their twinkling little lights. Then I saw it. At first I thought, maybe a comit, but no, the thought was quickly rejected by my logic. This was too close, too thinly shaped. It was definaetly man made. And it was going to crash on the abandoned field next to the woods. I watched in amzment as flames quickly blossomed on the front of the falling object. It hit the earht with such force the earth trembled slightly and I lost my grip on the tree. I reached out with my hands frantically, desperate for another chance to latch on but none arose. Instead I fell at least ten feet.

My back slammed into the ground and pain spread through me. I twisted my face in pain and disgust at myself for being so stupid. Slowly, as to not bring on any pain, I got up from the ground. After a few careful stretches I found I was fine. I glanced through the trees to the field to hear an explosion of some kind and a yell, semmingly coming from a male source. Was someone there? Were they okay?

Before I even knew what I was doing I was running though the woods toward the flickering orange of a fire. Leaves crunched beneath my bare feet and I hoisted my jeans higher up my waist so they didn't slide off. My tank top caught on the twisting claws of tree branches ripping in several places.

"Hello?!" I screamed over the roar of the flames letting my eyes scan around the field from the edge of the forest.  

There was no response and then I saw it. A man's body just metres from where I stood. He was crawling and soon fell limp on the earth. Was he dead? I ran towards him but just before I reached him his form flickered. Air wrapped around him incasing him and soon he dissapeared right in front of my eyes.

One second he had been there onesecond he wasn't. There was suddenly a loud bang from the engine sending me running back towards home ina panick. What had I just witnessed? I was terrifyed and I just kept pressing myself to run away from there. Something inside me told me to fear what I had seen. To never think about it again or there would be concequences. Something did. But I chose to ignore it. There was no sound all of a sudden.

Only the pound of my feet on the forest floor, breaking the silence.