Random short story's

Staying Behind

She sat and watched as the world went on around her.

It shouldn't have.

Everything that had happened in the last week flew through her head in a jumbled mess of confusingness. The road flying underneath her, getting out of the car at the service station, the lorry, huge lorry with pealing red paint on its oil drum, the crash, the careless smoker, a small spark and voilà a fiery ball that destroyed anything within a twenty metre radius, including thirty or so empty cars, sevral trees, the petrol station and her her being.

It was so clear. Death. So simple. Quick and easy, but leaves the place in ruins. How can that be clear when the rest was so confusing? There was a hospital, home for a bit before coming here, a cobbled street in the heart of Oxford, next to an old church. A bench in a graveyard.

A boy with ginger hair and brown eyes came and sat next to her, taking the girls hand in his own. His name was Stephen Andres, aged seventeen and the girl's, Nina O'Hannaganh, aged sixteen his girlfriend. He had been with her at the time, when her parents and brothers weren't.

"How are you taking this?" he asked, Nina didn't answer, so he continued. "Your aunt spoke to the paper this morning. Here." he handed her a local newspaper, with the entire front cover dedicated to the incident, she had seen it that morning before opting to walk the half-an-hour journey to the church, stopping for breakfast at nine halfway through and then sitting on the bench for the last hour and a half. But now that Stephen had pointed it out she saw a small interview at the bottom of the page.

"Service is starting." he told her but she ignored him and preceded to read the article.

A family torn apart, we speak to Alison O'Hannaganh sister of Nicholas O'Hannaganh on the matter. "Nick was a good man so was his family, whatever happened to cause the fire was not just, but fate is ever searching for ways to undermine us and every good man revives the justice he deserves. However his heart beat for the things he believed in and I know that everyone will miss him as well as the rest of his family." at this point Miss O'Hannaganh was overcome by tears and could not continue the interview. As she mentioned we will always remember them as the brave, wonderful people they were.

Nina read it through once and set the paper down before looking out at the rows upon rows of grave stones, from since the Middle Ages, and will still be there for century's to come when all humanity was gone and something else walked the earth.

"I want to go home." she said finaly and slipped her hand into Stephens. He nodded.

"I know." They were still sitting there when everybody came out of the church, hours later, when only a few people remained next to the three new graves one for her farther Nicholas, one for her mother, Christina, and one for her two three year old twin brothers, Mark and Thomas.

"everything will be okay. Trust me." Stephen looked at Nina and she nodded. Together they got up and walked towards the five people remaining.

"It was fine." a man was saying. He was Stephens uncle a doctor who was first on the scene, Nina vaguely remembered him in hospital. "They felt no pain, their nerves failed, overloaded. Just be pleased that you weren't there."

"We should go home." said a woman, they agreed and moved on, leaving Nina and Stephen alone. They stood side by side staring at the graves before simultaneously tuning and leaving the place.

Life never got back to normal, everything blurred together and nobody spoke to them, they didn't even acknowledge that they existed. But Nia was fine with this, losing everything had changed her, made her feel less real. Like she was the dead one and was back as a ghost. She never returned to the graveyard not when they put the headstone up, not when her life got so unbearable she was all for joining them, it wasn't until Christmas the next year she even considered it.

The holidays had started and a small layer of snow decorated the city, turning the world white, someone in the park had mentioned that the churchyard was being redone and would be closed, and some graves moved further away. Now she couldn't get it out of her head, until finaly she cracked, dug out her mobile and called Stephen. Ten minutes later they stood outside the kissing gate to the graveyard, and after some deliberation, they entered and walked over the the three graves. The headstones were made of granite and had a slightly weathered look about them. They boy and the girl stood side by side as they had done so long ago, hands locked together and carefully avoiding reading the names on the graves.

"Do you still want to go home?" Stephen asked

"yes." Nina replied.

"Do you know where home is?"

"Where ever you belong. But Stephen I don't belong here, I don't know where home is, I don't fit in and nobody remembers me!" Nina said staring at him and blinking back tears.

"you belong with me." Stephen replied, and squeezed her hand gently. "We could ask, the graves, they might answer why or make you feel better, I don't know about you but resently I've been feeling very cut off from everyone else." Nina nodded that was exactly how she felt, all the time.

"Do you want to look?" Stephen asked and Nina nodded.

"Together, close your eyes." she commanded and he did so, they then turned and faced the direction of the headstones.

"one." said Stephen.

"Two." said Nina.

"Three." they said together and opened their eyes. The first name Nina saw was her Dads, the other two which should have been her Mums and brothers weren't.

"oh!" now she knew why she didn't fit in, why she was cut off. "You were right, they did answer and it made me feel better, she smiled at Stephen who nodded.

"Shall we go home?" He asked a faint smile on his lips.

"Yes." Nina replied, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him full on his lips. A soft glow surrounded them and when it vanished they were gone, nothing was there to say that anyone had ever stood on that spot, the snow was untouched, and somewhere in the bushes a robin started to sing.

Minutes later a small boy came in and walked over to the graves Nina and Stephen had been looking at.

"Merry Christmas Daddy, Nina." he laid down a small flower before turning and leaving the graveyard. The boys name was Mike O'Hannaganh and the names on the gravestone wasn't his or his twins or Christina his mother.

They were Nina O'Hannaganh and Stephen Andres.

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Ha bet you weren't expecting that we're you? If you did well your random. This story was really random, I just wanted to make a short story, and I'm rubbish at them so it's realy, really random, but if you like random stuff you should have liked this. There wasn't a category for random or confusing so I settled with short story and spiritual, and I said random way to many times there but yeah it was random. Pease vote and comment and bye or whatever.

Dedi to SuperBatman4 and Lonny5789 for being even more random than this story. :) Sandwich!