Sunny Smiles

Prologue:

We sit together, a perfect picture of what best friends should be. Her Blond hair dances behind her as the wind blows, shining as the sun light bounces off of it. The field of grass seems to go on forever around us and we are exposed but there is comfort in the light and happiness in each other’s smile. These are the small simple moments that I will carry with me forever.

“Hey Ally….” Her eyes are bight, the brightest blue I have ever known and I can’t help but be jealous.

“What.” I say as I empty a bag of chips into my mouth.

She smiles as she pulls a few blades of grass from the earth under us.

“I need you to promise me something, right now.” the seriousness in her voice was unlike anything I have ever heard from her. It was startling.

“Sure, Anything.” I meant it then, when I said that.

Anything.

Her eyes met mine and held my gaze in place.

“Promise we will always be best Friends, no matter what.”

A grin spreads wide across my face.

As long as I can remember she has been there, wearing a smile. She’s so bright, her light shining and ready to fend off the darkness that creeps its way inside me.  She shelters me from the dark and protects me from my own pessimistic outlook on life. She is my light and in turn I am her reality.

“I promise. No matter what.”

 Chapter one:

I can feel her bones crack as my punches land rapidly, turning her beautiful face into a deformed, bleeding mess.

This is one of those times when the world slows. Screams turn into whispers and my body numbs to the world around me. What am I doing? A blend of hair and blood lay beneath me, I’m not even sure if she’s still breathing but my hands are wrapped firmly around her neck, pounding her skull repeatedly into the concrete below.  I can feel my lips twitch into a smile. Am I laughing?

 My peers scatter in fear and confusion and watch in horror as their friends and random faces they’ve only seen on Facebook, drop before them. They scream and cry and run like any group of panicking animals would. Trampling over one another in an attempt to find safety that I had insured wouldn’t be there. A young girl runs and trips landing then sliding to a grinding halt before me. Her eyes wide, begging me for help as the tip of a gun finds itself behind her skull.

The soft chatter of gunfire pounds distantly in my ears.

What am I doing?

I stop. The screams are deafening now that the world is turning. I stand, my heart beating hard against my chest. What have I done? I look down at Amy, her face almost unrecognizable, her blond hair soaked in dark crimson. I glance to the nameless girl who now lies face down in a warm pool of her own blood.  She couldn’t have been older than eight. She had so much life left to live.

Blood is on my hands.                                                                                

Her blood.

Amy’s blood.

The blood of the countless that lie dead with expressions forever graced by the fear of death.

I wanted this.

I needed this.

What have I done? 

“Amy I’m sorry.” I whisper. Shaking now.

Amy looks up at me with swollen bloody blue eyes, even now they are more brilliant then mine could ever be.  I lift her up and hold her in my arms. For a split second it is only me and her, sitting alone on a field of grass, laughing as the sun warms us, but that passes and reality hits. It is us. I hold her limp body, sitting on a field of asphalt while the evening air chills us to the bone, as countless other people run, screaming from the terror that I had so carefully planned.  I can hear sirens in the back ground and see the refection of blue and red flashing on the concrete. I gently lay Amy down and stand, pulling a small pistol from my back pocket. I know it’s not loaded and I know the safety is on but I hold it out in front of me.

I close my eyes and breathe.

A sharp pain hits me square in the chest. Then another...Another. My vision blurs and the world goes quiet as I hit the ground, hard. Before I am plunged into darkness I witness a single tear roll down Amy’s cheek as she closes her eyes.