Dropped Dead

Chapter 1

Chapter 1:  75 years later

            Shadow creep up toward the endless blue sky, signaling that the day is almost over. I still wander through the woods, not wanting to go back to terrible place that I call my home. The birds sing melodies up in the treetops and squirrels sprint up and down the trees. I envy the birds. I wish that I could just spread my wings and fly away. Away from all of the watchful human eyes.

Away from my small village. Away from all of the pain. But to my despair, I still cannot fly, the weight of my burdens and responsibilities holding me down.

           I am not going to sugarcoat it; my whole life has been scary, lonely and barricaded. The forest is my only place of freedom. My whole life has been about death. I never knew my father. My mother died four years ago to a rare disease that nobody knew how to cure. My best friend Bethany; well let me tell you it wasn’t my fault. I wanted to save her but I couldn’t. Bethany was always afraid of everything. The woods, the cliffs, and even the river because she was scared that some big animal might attack her, or that she would get injured. She believed all of the scary stories about the wilderness that she had heard, but one night five years ago I convinced her to go to the cliffs with me to watch the sunset.

 The cliffs are on the opposite side of or village from the forest and they overlook a small lake that is really rocky but good for fishing and is very beautiful. This was the first time Bethany had ever ventured beyond the village. Tears had welled up in her eyes; I had assumed that the beauty of the cliffs stunned her. We stayed until the sun went down. I got up to leave, but Bethany still sat staring at the darkening sky. I called her name and she got up. But instead of walking towards me, she took a step towards the edge of the cliff. Not knowing what she planned to do I ran to her side and grabbed her arm. Bethany glared at me, tears still streaming down her face.

“Let me go Claire.” She whispered. I shook my head no. She yanked her arm out of my grasp. Bethany took off running and before I could scream for her to stop she hurled herself off of the cliff.

            I was only eleven and I was scared, so I ran away. After a few days of Bethany not coming home the village sent out a search party, but her body was never found. The people in the village had concluded that she committed suicide, which I had told them. I still got dirty looks from most of the people in town that thought that I killed Bethany.

I used to be a nice person but now I am just a cold and empty soul who cares for nobody except for one person, my little brother Josh, the only piece of family I have left. He is eight years old and really doesn’t remember our mom. He is my little piece of sanity that keeps me tethered to the ground. Without Josh I would have left this hellhole years ago. I don’t know where, but I would have left.

I got up from where I was sitting in the woods, the light in the sky almost completely gone. By the time I get home the first star is out. I find Josh sitting on the front porch. I smile at the sight of our small house. It has two rooms, the kitchen/living room and the bedroom. Our bathroom was outback. It was quite small and not in the best condition-paint chipping off of the walls and holes in the rood- but it was my home. Through all of my crappy life this was the one place that held memories of better times, but it also held the memories of times that I would like to forget.

           “Hi Claire!” Josh said excitedly, standing up from his bench.

            “How long ago did you get back from Tom’s?” I ask. I don’t like to leave Josh here alone for too long. Even though our neighbors are like our family, people will do anything for food when they need it.

            “‘Bout five minutes ago. Want dinner?” He asked heading inside. He didn’t need me to answer him to know my answer, I always wanted food, but there was never quite enough. We headed into our small kitchen and I turned on our small kerosene lamp, it was all we could afford to have to light our house. He pulled some fresh tomatoes and some stale crackers.