The Strongest Stone

The Strongest Stone - Ch. 1

Prologue

Life isn’t predictable.

Maybe it would be easier if it was predictable and when you were born you were given an itinerary of events for your life. Of course, knowing what was destined to happen, but not being able to do anything about it would be a kind of torture that I’d not wish on my worst enemy.

It doesn’t matter though, because life is unpredictable.

You can plan with the best intentions, only for something to suddenly tear your life apart and change everything.

All it takes is one small ripple to set up a chain reaction of events.

Chapter 1

I groaned as the obnoxious sound of my phone ringing roused me from my very welcome sleep. It was finally the weekend and I was finally able to sleep in.

“Answer it!” My roommate Sue hissed sleepily from across the room “I need to sleep”

Hastily I padded my hand across the bed side table and I picked up the phone and swiped the call across without looking.

“Hello?” I grumbled with a yawn

“Is this Charlotte Stone?” A stern male voice said on the other end

“This is she, can you hold on a sec?” I murmured sitting up. I looked at my alarm clock and frowned.  Hopefully something funky was happening, because the clock said 4.30 am. I escaped the room and put the phone back up to my ear.

“Listen sir, it’s like 4 in the morning, why are you calling me?”

“Miss Stone, You’ll know your parents were due home a few hours ago, yes?” The man replied, ignoring my less the impressed tone.

“Yes, I was going to call them in the morning, wait how did you know?” I asked suddenly completely confused

“The babysitter your parents had employed advised us around 10pm that they’d not arrived. She tried calling you a couple of times but your phone was off”

I frowned; I’d turned my phone off between 6pm and 11.30pm so that I studied, now I was regretting it, maybe my parents had broken down somewhere.

“Did she call them? Are they okay?”

“She tried calling them yes, but they didn’t answer. We sent out patrols around 12am and around 2am one of our men found a car… one matching your parents’ car just outside of stokesville.”

My hand flew to my mouth and my heart began racing, a couple of drunk students stumbled down the corridor past me.

“Please, tell me this is some kind of elaborate prank” I whispered down the phone line, the last tiny shred of hope was beginning to weaken.

“Sorry Miss Stone, but unfortunately your parents were found in the car, we’d have sent a patrol there in NY to advise you, but when Judy Jones initially called us about them not arriving home she was unsure of your dorm details, and once we had discovered the wreckage we needed to advise you as soon as possible.”

 “Are my parents okay? You said you found them. Are they are in hospital?” I interrupted him, begging and pleading for something.

“I’m sorry Miss Stone, but unfortunately the accident was too severe. You’re parents both perished.”

My mouth suddenly felt very dry, and a tsunami of nausea began swirling in my gut. Surely this was just some kind of vivid nightmare I was going to wake up from any minute now?