What doesnt doesn't kill me,
doesnt kill me,
So fill me up for just another day
~Just Another Day, Next to Normal
I am running. I don't know where. The landscape blurs around me and I cannot stop moving.
Still, I do not worry. This is quite normal.
I look around, trying to find an explanation for my sudden sprinting, or at least a location.
Seemingly endless woods surround me. It must be auturn by the looks of the trees around me. I have been shot forward a lot, last I was conscious it was summertime.
There is a small house in front of me which I soon recognize to be my friend Aaron's.
The next thing I know I am in his house. I am thankful, but that is how life goes. We skip over the unnecessary parts in order to move us a long.
"Cecily!" a small voice calls. I look down and see Aaron's little sister, Melanie, run towards me. Her long, blonde hair flows back as she runs towards me, grinning widely.
I scoop her up when she gets close enough. She is very small for her age, being nine, and I am able to pick her up with ease.
"How's it going, munchin?" I ask, placing her back down.
"My mums gone," she replies, on the verge of bouncing up and down.
"Aaron's waiting for you in his room. He told me to send you up." She beams, proud with the success of her task.
"I'll tell him what a good job you did." I promise and pat her on the head.
I love Melanie. She is the sister I never had. Always full of energy and bounce, she is like a rabbit.
I begin my way down the hall to Aaron's bedroom. They have a small house, it is all that they can afford. Their father left them when Melanie was two. Aaron found work apprenticing a butcher the town over, and ever since summertime he was staying wit's the man at his shop. I haven't seen him since.
I hear music fron Aaron's room as I approach him. He is a musician, or at least wants to be. Prior to his apprenticeship he was given an old, worn down violin, and he has turned out to be a beautiful violinist.
The soft, sweet music serenades me as a gingerly open the door.
Aaron sits on his bead, carefully playing and deep in concentration. His Blonde hair is ruffled from the rapid bobbing to the beat, and his wihazel eyes are intense and passionate.
I sit beside him, waiting for him to finish his song. The melody is beautiful, calm yet vivid and deep. He is truly amazing, well, in comparison to me. If I even picked up an instrument I'm sure I would kill everyone in a three mile radius.
When the music finally concurs, he looks over to me.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey," I reply, glad to hear his voice again.
"I'm glad you came." He places his violin on the floor.
"Yeah," I say, shifting a bit.
"I missed you, Cece," he weaves his hand into mine, and I grab it back.
"I did too," I reply. He seems different since we last met, and the awkwardness is killing me. It seems like he's still over at his apprenticeship and I'm talking to his clone.
"Hey Aaron I-" I try to tell him about things I did since he's been gone, when just like that, he kisses me.
His kiss is warm and soft, but it is not pleasant. I do not feel for him in this way. I push away from him.
"Cece-" he starts.
"No," I say, and walk off. "I'm sorry, this, this just isn't the you I love."
I walk out, holding back tears. When I walk past Melanie I use every ounce of effort that I have not look at her. I hold my stomach to stop from being sick.
'What the hell just happened I think' as I walk through the forest. The world is blurring by again, but this time not by speed but by emotion.
I don't know what to do. Confusion and anger and sadness fill me and I feel like breaking down and crying, right here in the middle of the woods.
The next thing I know, I'm in my room. I fall down on to my bed and start the cry. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I've been isolated, I guess. I've only ever once had a boyfriend before, but that was when I was twelve and nothing was ever going to happen.
I am face down into my pillow when my little brother, Iver, walks in. "Cece?" he asks.
"What?" I ask as he walks over to my bed.
"Mommy needs you to come down now, Cece."
I bounce him on my knee. I love him more than anything else in the world right now. The tiny, brunette, six year old in my lap is my sun and I am the planets. Nothing else matters.
"Cece there are people down stairs." he tells me.
"What?" I almost yell, and cover my mouth.
"Mommy says she wants you to come down and talk to the men," he insists.
Iver looks light he might start crying.
"Did they say why they were here?"
"Mommy says they want to take me." He starts to cry. "Mommy says they want money."
"Shh, shh," I say to him, wiping away his tears. "It's going to be o-"
I am cut off by the sound footsteps coming running down the hall.
I grab Iver and cover his mouth and go to duck behind the bed, but I'm too late.
I man with a pistol barges into the room.
The last thing I see is my brother screaming as another man grabs him away from me.
My head is hit with a burning hot sensation and my vision blacks out. I feel my eyes roll back into my head and then it stops.
I am submerged in nothingness.
