Echo in Her Mind

One.

Death. It's a horrible thought; terrifying, even.

To think about the possibility of never waking up one day, a tragic accident happening, to where you're suddenly ripped from this earth as if you had no purpose in life. To be living your life, day by day, and then the next it could be as if you never existed in the first place.

This is something that Bethany had thought about a lot lately: what it would be like, what it would feel like; are you reincarnated into another life? Or merely burned or buried and that's the end of it? The thought of not living anymore is seemed to grow stronger each day.

Death is natural; a way of life. It happens to others every day, but what if it happened to you? Or someone you loved?

Have you ever thought about dying?

Bethany Lash had been thinking about it every day since her best friend was suddenly taken from her at the age of 12. They were playing in Amanda's yard, like any other day after school. They weren't harming anyone, weren't doing anything wrong. But then suddenly the world got quiet, as if everything was moving in slow motion. The gunshot, the screaming, Amanda's crying; all of it.

She stared at the gaping hole in her best friend's stomach; the bullet hole that they weren't sure was even meant to hit her, but it did. And Bethany couldn't do anything but stand there and stare; helpless, but not as helpless as Amanda was. She felt like a coward.

Bethany had never experienced death before that night. She was happy; innocent, but without Amanda, she was nothing. She didn't understand the concept that she might not see another day, or that she might never see her again.

She watched as the ambulance and police arrived, tending to Amanda, and looking for any sign of where the gun could've been shot from. Not one trace of evidence besides the bullet jammed in her stomach.

The world was spinning around her, but no one took notice to the healthy, unharmed girl standing to the side; watching. She was fine, but the shock of it all was certainly getting to her head.

Bethany took one last look at Amanda, not realizing that this would be the last time she ever saw her, and ran.

She ran as if someone was chasing her; as if she were next to get a bullet shot through her. Everything was a blur as she busted through the front door of her house, meeting her parents confused faces.

"Mandy got shot."

No emotion whatsoever filled Bethany's voice. As her parents told this story a few years down the road, it still seemed odd that she was never able to cry, even after the death of her best friend. Her parents used to say the shock had caused her mind to block out the dreadful events of that night at the time.

But here she was 13 years later, and still had yet to shed a single tear. Not just for Amanda, but for any other death sweeping incidents that have occurred throughout her life.

She had basically forced herself to not feel any emotion as if that day, were every day. Feelings were tiring; who actually wants to feel anything.

Fear.

Anger.

Sadness.

Joy.

Amusement.

Love.

The list goes on.

Bethany loved Amanda, but the day of her funeral she lost any sense of feeling. It was as if she didn't exist; vbarely spoke words, and never smiled. Her parents wondered if she was going through severe shock syndrome from what she saw the night of Amanda's death.

But all the doctors said was that it was normal for someone who went through such a thing, to act that way. Who would've known it would last thirteen years.

She was a ghost amongst the cheerful residents of New Jersey, having moved away from home in California on her eighteenth birthday, not able to stand another day in the sunshine state.

Her mother and father had divorced some years back, not being able to handle that fact that their daughter was no longer normal, she supposed. She got stuck living with her mother, who even though she didn't say it, silently blamed the divorce on Bethany herself. So, once of age, she left and never looked back.

She needed to live somewhere that received other seasons other than summer 24/7. It was best for her; however, her emotions still never returned, regardless of her change in location. Now seven years later her 25-year-old self still hadn't managed to accomplish anything.

The tragic formality that happened to her best friend wasn't her last encounter with death. Not even a year later her grandmother was diagnosed with lung cancer; she never smoked a day in her life. One day she was the lively grandmother Bethany always knew, and the next it was as if the life was sucked out of her overnight. There was no explanation for this, but really, is there ever an explanation on why bad things happen to good people?

No.

She died within those six months of being diagnosed. Everyone around her mourned for the loss of their family member and friend. Bethany couldn't seem to shed a tear regardless of how empty she felt. It was Amanda's death all over again and she didn't know how to make the emptiness go away.

Her parents were worried, yet again. More doctors, more tests to find out what was wrong with her, and the same results were given: "It's normal for a child to feel shocked by such drastic events. It'll pass."

It never did.

By the age of 13, Bethany began to wonder herself what was wrong with her.

It was not normal for someone to be unable to feel anything, regardless of what the doctor's said. People were born with them, lived with them, so how all of the sudden could they disappear?

She remembered all of the happy and thriving feelings before witnessing the shooting of Amanda, but where they went was a mystery to her. So, it's not as if she never had emotions to begin with, they were just taken away from her. And Bethany didn't know how to get them back.

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A/N

So i've went through this story and broke all the chapters up into smaller ones!

I plan on having this book be published, so that's why the chapters are so long, but I figured it would be easier to read if each of them weren't 5,000 words! haha.

I hope you guys enjoy it!