MORTAL ✰ ISAAC LAHEY

[CHAPTER 4]

A FINAL WISH

[ ✰ ]

SIRENS WERE RINGING IN THE NIGHT—disturbing the slumber of the creatures of the forest, disrupting the lives of those within Beacon Hills, and displacing the world's moments of stillness—and piercing the silence.

When the ambulance arrived on the scene with a police car in tow, fear and panic raced through the hearts of the first responders. The mangled car was clearly in the middle of the road, and the fuel slowly leaking from it was a ticking time bomb. The adrenaline rushing through their veins fueled their rescue mission, but as always, success was merely a possibility and not a probability.

At the same time, Skye's blood flowed through her body and escaped through her injuries, pouring out by the pints and painting the asphalt red―and it wasn't long before her soul flowed out as well.

Beside the car was the crumpled form of Lydia Martin, the true first responder in the situation. Her car was parked several feet away. Her phone had fallen from her shaking hands and onto the floor after she had hit 911 and reported the sad scene in front of her robotically; she was monotonous as she responded in increments to the questions spoken by the operator. It had fallen from her fingers as she trembled and struggled to clutch her driver's side door open.

Her shaky legs supported her decision to open the door and see the accident from a closer angle, but after a few mere feet, she had collapsed among the scattered glass. The pain she felt in her heart had intensified, but everything else felt numb to her as whispers surrounded her and bombarded her.

She heard the internal cries of the girl in the passenger seat—the last thoughts of someone who yearned to live. She could so clearly hear the pain she felt, the thoughts running through her head, and the utter devastation of the realization that she was mortal. She heard the last thought that her soul managed to spew out and with an I wish Isaac noticed me before it was too late, Lydia felt her heart break. She felt it shatter like the glass that surrounded her, and she knew that everything had changed.

It felt as if the world had been pulled out from beneath her feet—as if the ground was no longer solid, as if a chasm would suddenly appear beneath her and swallow her whole, as if the world had stopped caring whether.

The air was electric—buzzing with the almost synthetic metallic scent—and the world was churning.

The cops found Lydia Martin balled up on the road with glass cutting into her bare legs and a single tear running down her porcelain skin. They didn't feel the Earth's axis shifting like she did, but they felt something. They felt the sadness radiating in the air and it clawed at their deepest fears and wants.

Sadness took hold of them as two deputies and an EMT reached the car at the same time that another EMT reached Lydia Martin. Three felt the agony of the shell of a girl dangling from her car seat with only a seatbelt keeping her nearly dead body in place, and another felt the torment racing through Lydia Martin's mind as she realized who the girl was.

It was the girl who sat beside her in nearly every class. It was a girl she had known for her whole life, and the only one that really knew Lydia Martin. It was her. It was Skylar McCall—Skye, her best friend.

[ ✰ ]

[EDITED] APRIL 9, 2017
[EDITED AGAIN] AUGUST 30, 2017

sup