mama | 5sos [coming june]

mama : preface

we're damned after all, through fortune and flame we fall. and if you can stay then i'll show you the way to return from the ashes you call.

m a m a : p r e f a c e

a u g u s t 1 7 , 2 0 0 4

She was only seven when she first heard about it. It had been a couple of years since the last abduction and then randomly seven years later they started happening again. It slowly began in Europe and began to spread out like a wildfire, random time about ten would go missing same day different timing.

Skylar had been on the floor, front facing down. Many colors scattered around the floor as she colored in her coloring book, trying not to color outside of the lines. The television was playing on the news channel, Skylar glancing up every few times to see what was going on, but never really payed attention.

"Eight year old Arrow Lane is the first child in seven years to have gone missing," Skylar hears her best friend's name and smiles, looking up.

"Mommy looks Arrow's on TV," Skylar yells, giggling as if her best friend being on television was a good thing. Skylar's mother, Mrs. Landon comes out from the kitchen, drying her hands when she sees the eight year old TV. She reads through the description, eyes widening. "Mommy do you think I can be on TV next just like Arrow."

Mrs. Landon looks over at her young daughter, not sure how to tell a seven year old that her best friend is gone. "I um.. sure sweetie maybe one day, but for something good okay," Skylar nods her head, looking at her coloring sheet.

"I'm going to ask Arrow on Monday what good thing she did to get on the news," Mrs. Landon doesn't say anything as her daughter goes back to coloring.

When Monday had rolled around Arrow wasn't there and so as they days went by and a few weeks she waited for the taller girl to come back until the day they had gone to her funeral. Arrow's body was never found, but her clothes were and Skylar never understood what a funeral was or why Arrow's mother and father and siblings were crying. Arrow's alive is she not? But seven year old Skylar didn't know what had happened until she had figured it out a few years later.

1 2 y e a r s l a t e r

Skylar puts the daisies down on Arrow's grave. She sighs, shuffling on her foot and then shakes her head. Looking up with tears in her eyes and huffs. "I wish I would have known what all this shit meant when I was seven years old Arrow," Skylar tell her dead best friend. She blinks the tears away and chuckles. "I guess this is the part where I'd say I'd look for the bad guys, but up to this day no one knows what the fuck happened to you Arrow."

Skylar was expecting some kind of answer or some sort of sign, but nothing and she chuckles, shaking her head. "I'll visit you soon Arrow," Skylar mumbles and then turns to leave. It happened it every time she came to visit Arrow's grave. She'd cry and then she'd leave, not staying any longer than five minutes because she felt stupid for not knowing what had actually happened to her best friend. All she thought was that she was on the news for something good, but she knew understood why there had been a funeral and she's sure any other seven year old would have figured it out, but she didn't.

The cold London air nips at skin, turning her cheeks a rosy color and nose red. She tugs on her jean jacket a little closer, the black scarf covering her neck as she walks out of the cemetery. Skylar's phone rings and she takes it out, seeing the name Xavier's name pop up on the screen. She answers the phone call, "Hello?" She mumbles.

"Skylar! Where are you?" He asks her as she continues to walk. She had decided that she'd rather walk than take her car, but she may have made a bad decision on doing so.