A collection of short stories

1

   In the second it takes to make a decision, a million thoughts cross your mind. Every scenario playing through, every doubt holding you back.
   For Kate, it was different. Her body started forward before she could comprehend what was about to happen. It was like she was watching someone else control her body.
   She remembered waking up that morning and thinking today's going to be different. She was right of course but not in the way she expected. She was hoping to get a cup of coffee and head to work, then go home and curl up with a good book and a glass of wine.
   It was strange all she could think of was an old memory of her father. Her dog had just died and she never forgot the words he said to her "Every life has a beginning and an end Kate, that is never going to change. But how you live that life is what really matters.At the end of the day your either going to think about others or about yourself. What kind of person are you going to be Kate?"
   'If only you could see me now dad.' she thought bitterly.
   The next memory was her father's funeral, it was sunny, too sunny for her taste. Almost like heaven was mocking her and everything she had lost. she had walked out the muttering and the whispers. Determined to have one last moment of normalcy before her world crumbled. She walked away as they lowered him into the ground.
   The shouts were starting to get louder but her mind pressed on. She couldn't remember why she went into the alley, just that she knew something was about to happen. She can still feel his body pressed against hers, his muggy breath enclosing her, suffocating her. She can still see his body on the ground. She can still see the life leave his eyes. His blood still trailing down her chin.
   Kate was forced back to the present when she felt the truck hit her. The next couple of hours were a blur. The paramedics declaring her dead on site. The person she pushed aside alive and well thankfully. Then being driven away to the morgue. Just like always.
   This was the hardest part. The waiting. She got back to how this all started. The day her father died.
   She had never met her mother. Anytime she brought her up to her father he shut her down. She should have left well enough alone. She shouldn't have opened Pandora's box but she had to know. She didn't like what she found. A past full of pain and a future full of suffering.
   She understood why her father tried his best to keep it hidden from her. Her mother was a monster from the depths of hell, feeding on others to survive. Her curiosity has led her to have the same fate.
   At the end of the day she is her father's daughter at her heart, even if she is cursed to live the same path as her mother.
   'Enough time has passed, I think.' she swung her legs off the table and looked around the empty room. She spotted her stuff in the corner and got dressed. 'Time to move again, I guess.' she thought.
   Walking into the night she smiled and knew that she was the kind of person her father would be proud of, even if she was a monster on the outside.