Afterlight ✔️

chapter one

— Chloe Romano

It just all seemed like a whirlwind to me. What was I doing alone in this car with a stranger who has been driving me around for all of these hours? Since when was I all grown up? Was I ready for this trip? So many questions were flowing through my mind.

It took years for my brother to be convinced to let me travel out of the state, across America. It was a miracle to say that I've finally made it to Canada, which had always been a dream of mine since I could ever remember. I clearly recall watching Hockey with my father and my brother, while my mother would be at work. I would usually go for my favorite team, The Leafs– I guess I could just say those were the good days of my life.

My life wasn't perfect, I wasn't perfect, I knew that. I used to have a good life as a child though, I couldn't complain. I had two loving parents who provided for me and my brother– I was loved, I was safe. Everything was pretty much intact until the car accident, the car accident that wrecked my life for good.

June 14th, 2005.

I was nine years old, coming off of the bus from my last day of fifth grade. It was an exciting feeling, thinking I'd take a family trip to Disneyland, or get to go shopping on Rodeo Drive with my mother the next day. Summer was always an eventful thing– especially at the age of nine. At that age, you didn't have to think about SAT preparations, college applications, or how difficult the next grade level would be. Elementary school just consisted the relaxation years. Walking off the bus, I carried my favorite Spongebob Squarepants backpack into the house, only to find a couple of police officers, investigating our home. I had no idea what was going on, but my heart dropped– I knew something was wrong. I recalled a Caucasian officer who appeared to be in his late 20's, sitting me down to tell me, well, specifically in his southern accent.

"Your folks died."

Eight years later, those words still entered my mind at least once or twice a day. The fact that my parents died was already horrifying enough, but knowing that I was the reason they lost control of the car was my fault ate me alive. I can't remember what I was crying about when I called my dad, but what happened afterwards was anchored in my brain like a disease– I heard the crash, my mother's screams and then... nothing.

Living without my parents wasn't the only thing that changed in my life. My brother, Brad, was an actual angel sent from heaven above in my family, but as soon as my parents died, he changed dramatically. At the age of 16, he decided to take care of me. After all I had to admit, he was pretty good at first, then at school, he got involved with the wrong crowd. He was soon hooked on drugs which lead to my brother becoming a gang member in a group called The Razors. He soon slacked on taking care of me, leading me to have to do everything on my own.

Our parents death changed Brad in every imaginable way, and I was paying for it. Pretty soon, word on the street was that he involved in a murder. Even though I never wanted to have anything to do with his business, I knew that Brad wasn't a murder but that one night, he did something unforgivable, causing other gang members from a different gang to want to seek revenge on him.

By wanting to murder me.

The revenge game these other gang members wanted to play on me caused me to want to go all the way across the continent, leading me to want to be in Canada. There, I felt like I could safe, far away from my brothers corrupted lifestyle. It took ages to finally convince my brother to let me go there. But why? He wouldn't want his little sister to become murdered by a rival gang member. He went from abandoning me, to becoming one of the most overprotective brothers anyone could think of. He gave me a list of information not to share with others, because if my identity is found, I'd be gone for good. Because of him.