An Open Sky

Prologue ~Alexa~

*First of all, thanks for reading!!!! Please let me know what you think, for comments are much appreciated. :)

 P.S. There's a sneak peak of the sequel (A Dark Night) at the end so don't miss it!!

I didn’t want to be there and I did everything in my power to let him know it. I sat in the front seat of our virtually brand-new Nissan GTR with my arms crossed and my music blaring. I kept my eyes glued to the view outside of my window, which wasn’t much, just a bunch of rolling hills and trees. There’s nothing exciting about some trees, I tried to convince myself, even though I knew it was beautiful. The sky was a perfect shade of blue and there were a few bulbous clouds that seemed to give the sky some life. Everything was green; not a sickly green, but a dark, luscious kind of green. Even though there wasn’t a building or shopping mall in sight; everything seemed so alive. I took my eyes off of the greenery around me and reminded myself how miserable I was supposed to be, how miserable I was.

I looked down the valley that was growing along the road. The way the plants were growing up reminded me of the world. The young plants grew up a luscious green out of the decaying ground under them. They grew up fresh, but eventually they will fall and rot back into the ground, preparing the way for new plants who will endure the same fate. There was no escaping the corruption that was rotting beneath them, just like us.   

                I took a sideward glance at my dad, careful not to let him see me. His eyebrows were relaxed and he seemed generally happy. It was weird to see him like that, especially in a car. Normally, his eyebrows were knit tight together and his knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so hard. Maybe his boss was right; he did need to get away. He was different ever since the accident.

                A few months ago my mom died in a car accident. My dad found himself behind the steering wheel and I guess they’d hit a red light so my mom unclipped her seatbelt and turned to get something from the back, like she normally did when I was younger to remove an object out of my hand. She didn’t see it coming. No one did. A truck hit them from behind. After the moment of impact, mom went right through the windshield. The event took place only a few blocks from our house when it happened; the street was straight enough that I could go out to get the mail and see the whole thing.

I watched the neighbors come out. I watched the cell phones go to their ears. I watched them step closer to me, pull me to them. I wouldn’t go. I couldn’t go. I didn’t witness the event, of course, but my eyes caught enough to replay the scene for me. My mom was lying on the hood of the car, which was silver, but it appeared almost crimson. There was just so much blood…I shook the thought out of my head and glanced back out the window, my eyes burning with the risk of tears.

There was a sign. It looked out of place because we hadn’t seen one for over an hour and there was still no sign of civilization whatsoever. I squinted to try and make out the words that were obstructed by the enormous trees around it. My guess was that they weren’t there when they put the sign up. Finally, the car flashed by at just the right angle and I could barely make out the sign that read:

Flaxville

Population: 71

10 Miles

                Seventy-One. Yep. Welcome to Montana, guaranteed to have the smallest towns in America.

After the accident, my dad was pretty much useless, and his boss knew it. He recommended my dad get away from where it all happened; there were too many memories. Unlike the irritable boss that people always complain about, I liked my dad’s boss, and so did he. His boss told him if he wanted to move somewhere more remote, he knew just the place and he could hook him up with a steady job in the area. Well, the whole job issue is the only reason we hadn’t moved, so there we were.