BlueBird

Chapter 1

Death.

It's unavoidable. Death comes to everyone, one way or another. It is an unforgiving force of nature that steals from you in the blink of an eye. If you don't pay attention, you'll miss it, and life will slip through tour fingers like the sands of time.

John always thought it'd be old age, or.. maybe getting diabetes. But no, It was a car accident. One little accident, and the most important person in his life was gone. His father, his dad. He vanished.

John was at school when it happened, when he heard the news. An announcement was made for him to come to the front office, and John grabbed his bag and went. His friends watched him go, only to return back to their school work.

There was a phone call for him, and on the other line was a doctor. He could remember his voice being soft, caring. The man explained what happened very slowly, and took his time with John.
He explained the accident.

His fathers car swerved on ice, unable to break in time. He went straight into a turning van, and his small vehicle was no match for the larger one. He said that he died almost instantly. There was no pain, nothing. He went fast.

Fast. Like slipping into a dream. Like opening your eyes, blinking, twitching. So fast did he go, and so fast did life slip through the young boys fingers.

The doctor explained that he needed to come to the hospital, and then slowly hung up.

John collapsed to the floor and cried, holding onto that phone desperately. He sobbed in front of everyone, but for him, he felt alone. The most pain he had ever felt in his life wasn't physical, but it hurt like it was. There was nothing to compare to it, not ever.

There was a void, like suddenly a giant abyss opened up inside of him. It squeezed his throat, making it hard to breathe. That kind of pain is unbearable. Where you can't think, you can't breathe or see or smell, all you can do is cry and scream.

His entire body shook with a kind of tremble that he could feel in his core. John let the phone go when the principal pried it from his hands. He couldn't hear anything the man was saying, but John knew that only a minute later he was picked up and hugged by someone.

By now the world around him was just grey space. He was one person in a lonely room, and it looked like a black and white comic, like the ones he saw in his father's paper.

John's small hands covered his face, and he kept crying until he couldn't cry anymore. When the tears dried up and he was left with the heavy heaving of his chest, a police officer came and took him to the hospital.

The drive was quiet, and John never once looked at anything in particular. He still couldn't think, couldn't fathom the idea. He didn't want to believe anything, so, he just kept quiet, and rode in the back. The cop didn't say anything either, because they didn't know how to. How do you comfort a boy who just lost his father?

When they arrived the officer led him in, and one of the nurses was there to take John to the recently received ward. The hallways were long and white, empty of life.
He could see the door. Of all the others in that hallway, the one white door stood out. He knew what was behind that door. He knew what he'd see, and yet, he went inside anyways. Blindly, he walked in. John's eyes then rested upon a shape.

It was the shape of a man, covered in a white sheet. He was lying on a cold metal table, and had a single light overhead. The doctor stepped in next to the nurse, but didn't say a word.

John approached the table slowly, his eyes unblinking. It was here that time slowed down. Here that John knew his life would change forever. If he saw what was under that sheet, he didn't know what would happen next. Everything was changing rapidly, and the boy didn't know what it meant.

He was standing at the side of the figure, looking down at it slightly. When he was ready, John gently pulled back The white cloth and gazed down at a face.

His father, the man he had known his entire existence, lied lifeless on the table. He didn't look disturbed, or sad, he just looked peaceful. The expression was one of calm, and it looked like he passed away easy. There was no struggle. No pain. He looked the same way he did every morning when he woke up John for school. It was the face he loved.

The tears welled up again, and for the first time in his life, John held his father's hand and leaned over his body, holding onto him. He cried as he said everything he had ever wanted to say to the man. His fears, his dreams, how school went. He went on for a long time, saying "I love you" every chance he got.

Because he knew he'd never get to say it again.

.....

The funeral was two days later, on a Friday. The winter snow came down and coated freezing grass, People gathered around a grave. John stood in the front, by himself. Around him were people he and his father knew. The neighbors they were friends with, coworkers, John's friends and guardians. They all mourned the passing of a great man, and while some cried, John didn't. He just gazed down into the deep grave where the black casket lied. One pile at a time the grave was filled, and John watched his dad disappeared from his eyes.

Words were said, and after awhile people began to leave one by one. Only a few remained, those being both Egberts closest friends. The lalondes, the Striders, and Jade with her foster family.

John was sitting on his knees in front of his father's grave, a breathtaking hollowness inside of him. Rose held onto one side as Jade did the other, and Dave stood next to them, gazing at the cold slab of marble. They were there for their friend, no matter what, and they wouldn't ever leave his side. He had no kin now. His only family was gone, and all he had left was his friends, their house.. the possessions left behind by his loving father.

The house, along with everything in it would be put under John's name. It would he held by the state until he came of age, and then given to him. Until that time though, he had no place to go.

His neighbors didn't know them well enough to take him in, and the coworkers couldn't. John wouldn't dare ask Rose or Jade, because he knew that Roses mother was intoxicated most of the time, so if they tried to look after John, they'd be inspected and Roses mom would probably be deemed unfit to care for her child. The same went for Dave and the Strider household. They lived in a dangerous place, and if child services ever found out about it, they would have probably taken Dave away as fast as they could. It was normal life to them though,

Jade was out of the question too because her family had already adopted her. He couldn't imagine another kid.

John took a handful of the dirt, wet with melting snow, and crumbled it in his hands. It slipped past his fingers and back onto the soil, where it would stay forever. This was it.

This was John, alone.