The Dreadful Story of Cassidy Harper *Discontinued*

Chapter 1

A/N - Hey guys! So this chapter is all backstory, but it's pretty interesting. We will get to the present part of the story in the next chapter, so prepare yourselves! I welcome comments and suggestions. If something didn't make sense, seemed out of place, or you just plain didn't like it let me know! Feedback is appreciated and welcomed with open arms!

Pitiful is one of the best words to describe Cassidy Harper. To find a person's life in worse shambles than her's would be a larger feat than one might think. From the age of seven her life has been a string of one misfortune after another.

It all started when her parents died in a car crash. Her father, who was driving at the time, was well over the BAC limit. Their car swerved into the oncoming traffic and collided headlong into another car containing a mother and two small children. The mother and her father died instantly, the two children and her mother later in the hospital.

Cassidy received the news when a particularly insensitive cop came to the house later that night. She was transported to the hospital to sit in a waiting room outside of surgery trying to wrap her young mind around what had happened. A tired doctor came up to her later and said that he didn't believe her mother was likely to survive the surgery, and that she should be prepared for her to perish quite soon. The shocked child just stared at him and nodded, unable to even cry.

Suddenly a very distraught man burst in the waiting room shouting quite loudly.

"I heard that this bitch is still alive! My sons and wife are dead because of her," he howled pointing to the door leading to surgery. "How dare she....she.... It's not fair!" Tears streaming down his face he locked eyes with the child sitting on the bench. Without much warning the deranged man grabbed Cassidy and flung her to the ground, and Cassidy's head violently smacked the tiled floor. The doctor fought to restrain him while he shouted words that would echo in Cassidy's head for years to come...

"Little bitch! You don't deserve to live! I've lost everything! It's all your fault!" The room was spinning as a nurse lead Cassidy to a quiet room. After looking the girl over and bandaging her head, the nurse tutted.

"I can't believe Dr. Michael let slip that your mother survived. And then let him walk out of there! Very irresponsible, I say. There you are, all patched up. Now I guess you should be heading back." Before long her mother passed away. The doctors tried everything, but there was nothing they could do. Or at least, that's what the nurse told Cassidy. Whatever they said didn't matter much, seeing as Cassidy was now sitting in a room with a couple of corpses trying to say "goodbye" or whatever that meant.

It was decided that her mother's sister would be watching over her for now. For reasons unknown to Cassidy her mother had never mentioned that she even had a sister. This was due to events that predated the birth of her mother's only child. Both born in relative poverty the sister's had a reasonably good relationship through adolescence. That was until her aunt scampered off into a well-off family with a handsome groom, and refused to look her birth family in the face.

Years later she had the misfortune to be settled with her sister's brat after she'd gone and gotten herself killed. Her aunt's concerns were not monetary, but rather social. She'd worked very hard to keep her original family out of her new life, but she couldn't abandon the child to the system. It would ruin her reputation! Then again if this child turned out to be a trouble maker or a dirty rat, then she'd be the shame of the neighborhood!

It was due to these initial concerns of her aunt that the two never had a particularly good relationship throughout the remainder of her childhood. These events and lack of a good home would be enough misfortune to satisfy the normal "tragic backstory" of any reasonable character. Unfortunately, the world had no plans to stop throwing all it had onto poor Cassidy Harper.