Before and After

Chapter 1 "The Beginning"

"Ciara, Jamiee it's time for breakfast!" mom yelled at us from the front porch. "Ok!" we yelled back in unison. Ciara and I raced each other back home; and of course I won. "Haha, I won again." I said while laughing. Ciara joined in with my laughter, playfully pushed me down into my seat, then said: "So, I still beat you in everything else."

"Well I see the two of you had another racing competition this morning." daddy said smiling at us."Yep!" "We sure did." Ciara and I said at the same time.

After breakfast, I ran up stairs to my room to play 'Kinectimals' on my Xbox 360. Shorty after I began my game, Aiden came into my room. Just great... "Hey Aiden..what you want?" I asked in my sweetest baby voice. Even though he was two years old, and pretty smart for one too, my family and I still treated him like a little baby-sometimes. "I-I wanna pway game." he said pointing to my TV screen. Of course I didn't want him to play but by the look on his face, it was impossible to say no.

"Sighh...Come on munchkin. I'll help you play." I sat down on the floor and placed Aiden in my lap handing him the remote. "Don't press anything yet, ok?" "Okway."

I guided his tiny fingers over each part of the remote making sure he couldn't press on any wrong button. "Aiden, Jamiee, Ciara-ya'll want to go on the beach!" our mom yelled from downstairs. Without replying, I lifted Aiden off of my lap, turned off my game, and grabbed my beach bag from my closet.

Since Aiden had already left my room, I didn't have to worry about helping him down the stairs or getting his bag, so I ran down the stairs by myself praying that I wouldn't fall.

"Whoa there track star!" daddy said picking me up before I could reach the last step. "Daddy, I'm not Aiden's age anymore..can you please put me down?" I asked giggling. " Ok, ok. I guess you're not my little girl anymore." he said poking his lip out and letting me down. "Don't be silly daddy! I'll always be your little girl." I said embracing him into a big hug.

"Ok. Everybody ready?" mom said before opening the front door. "Yep!" everyone except her replied. "Ok then lets go."

The second mom opened the door, Ciara and I ran outside heading for the water. Since it was only around 9:30am, not many people were on the beach-and thats just the way we liked it. When the beach becomes over crowded that's when the problems begin; so we were happy that we were fortunate enough to be able to come before anyone else showed up.

"Hey Jamiee! I bet I can hold my breath underwater longer than you can!" Ciara shouted at me. "Nu uh!" I shouted back. "Ok then lets see. Dad watch us and tell us who comes up first please!" Our daddy held up the 'thumbs up' signal, meaning that he understood and for us to begin.

It couldn't have been no longer than 2 minutes before I rose to the surface of the water. And after about 2 minutes after me, Ciara came up.

"Haha, I beat you." Ciara said sticking her tongue out at me. "So." I replied as well as playfully splashing water on her. "You punk!" she yelled while laughing. "What I do?" I said trying to sound innocent. Still laughing, Ciara splashed water back on me then said, "You know what you did."

At around 11:00, mom called Ciara and I out of the water so that we could eat lunch. Usually when we come to the beach, mom would pack ham and turkey sandwiches, but today was different. "Mom why you giving us Luchables?' Ciara asked in a disgusted tone. Immediatly, mom gave her the 'you better fix your tone' look and Ciara did just that. "I mean..thank you very much for the Lunchable, but why you didn't fix sandwiches." Nice save Ciara... "Because we ran out of ham and I know you and Jamiee don't eat turkey." My stomach churned at the thought of having to eat turkey and I was instantly thankful to be eating a Lunchable instead.

After about a hour and a half, our parents allowed Ciara and I to go back into the water. This time though, we were joined by more people; including my daddy and Aiden. I swam over to the edge of the water where daddy was holding Aiden letting him sit and splash water in his face. It was actually kind of funny. "Hey daaaddy, Hey Aaiiden." I said smiling at them. "What you want missy." daddy responded smiling back at me. I looked away from him for a while to see if I could find Ciara then looked back and said, "Nothing, I just wanted to come over and say 'hey'." "Well ok then. And Ciara's over there." daddy said while nudging his head to the left. "Thank you!"

As I began to swim to the area of the water where I spotted Ciara, I felt something on my leg. The part of the water that she was in was a little more shallow than where we were before, so I just thought that I swam between a rock or something. Annoyed with the fact that I had got suck, I quickly tried to unloose my leg from whatever it was caught on to and swim to Ciara but I was too weak-that's when I began to get nervous.

Immediately, I started screaming for Ciara to come help me and swam as far as I could to the nearest rock I could find. I couldn't yell for my parents because I knew that I was too far away from the shore and they wouldn't be able to get to me in time just in case something happened.

"CIARA!! CIARA!!"I screamed in horror. I could see her looking around for the person yelling her name. "IT'S JAMIEE! HELP ME PLEASE I'M STUCK!!" Ciara quickly spotted me and started swimming in my direction. "I'm coming Jamiee! Hold on!"

I felt tears starting to form in my eyes and the thing that had got my leg was now pulling on it aggressively. That's when I realized that whatever had my leg wasn't no rock or ocean animal; it was a person.

The only thing that was keeping me from going completely underwater was the rock that I was holding on to; but slowly I could feel my body going deeper and deeper into the water. I could still see Ciara trying to swim over to me but because of the many rocks beneath the water it was taking her longer than I expected her to.

"JAIMEE!" I heard a voice say behind me. But before I could answer, my hand slipped off of the rock and into the water along with the rest of my body.