Remains (ON HOLD)

prologue

There was a little girl, and a man she called “Papa”.

They were right there when the accident occurred. In fact, they appeared the exact moment the truck made contact with the other car. It was horrific, except neither of the two reacted to the screams that ensued and the sound of metal crunching against metal. In less than two minutes after, nine-one-one had been dialed and the distant sound of wailing sirens could already be heard, surprising for the close to impossible morning traffic in New York City.

The girl and her father went unnoticed in the swarming and growing crowd of onlookers, and quietly slipped into the ambulance, the paramedics oblivious to their two new passengers. As the ambulance sped away, its sirens screeching, complicated, questionably legal maneuvers were made to weave through the traffic and reach the hospital.

The man and his daughter remained silent during the ride and managed not to topple over from the wild, desperate driving being done. They had done this many times, and with well-practiced precision, prepared to perform an intricate sequence that had been perfected over the years. They stepped off the ambulance, and watched,  emotionless, as three broken bodies were hurriedly carried to the hospital on stretchers.

They quickly navigated the sterile halls of the hospital with startling familiarity, and reached the hospital's cafeteria, the beginning of a long wait for the family's surgery to finish. The man reached into one of the many pockets of his dark coat and withdrew an ancient pocket watch, though it glinted with the shine of something new. The six-year-old knew it would take some time, so she looked over at her father, who absent-mindedly nodded, knowing where she wanted to go. She left the cafeteria and skipped outside, smiling to herself. She hummed aimlessly as she crossed the street to the small park directly across from the looming hospital, and played by herself in the playground for awhile. It was a sort of lonely existence, but, she concluded somberly as she puffed into her small hands and rubbed them together, it was to be this way for forever. Or the rest of her “existence”, as her father said, but she didn’t know the difference from that and “forever”. She shrugged it off- the man spoke in riddles anyway. The girl didn’t know how long she had been there, but when she returned to the white-washed cafeteria, the sun was beginning its descent, and slight shadows of the stars were visible.

The man smiled at her when she came skipping through the doors, and let her lie in his lap as he read an old, worn book he had read many times before. Soon, the tired child’s eyes began to droop, and she dozed off into darkness. Only seconds later, it seemed, she was being shaken awake by her father - they were now in a hospital room. The meek rays of dawn peeked through the curtains of a window, landing softly on a small form that seemed to be swallowed by the hospital bed.

The two uninvited guests stepped towards the bed, which revealed another, slightly older girl that was seven - perhaps eight. She had a cast on her leg and arm and many bandages, one of which was wrapped around her head, covering her right eye. The man pulled on his cloak’s dark hood, willed himself to appear, and hesitated. His daughter’s eyes widened at his hesitation, that had never happened before. Absolutely never. He wasn’t allowed.

He knelt at the side of the bed where the girl was curled. She turned in her bed, now awake and her one visible eye staring at the man in her hospital room, her sharp gaze piercing and bold.

A few, soft-spoken words exchanged between the two, the little girl’s shock increasing as she watched the exchange between her father and the older girl. She narrowed her eyes and looked to the heart of the other girl, realizing that even though she and her father had come for the girl, her soul was still burning bright in a mass of swirling color- but nevertheless, it was their duty to extinguish it, especially since the girl had seen him. The younger girl decided firmly to call the older girl Greenie because her one eye was green- it made sense to her like how one would name their favorite stuffed animal their color except with an -ie ending.

The girl’s eyes widened even further when her father reached out to touch Greenie’s heart- she was certain that he was definitely breaking the rules that he himself had warned her to never break. She watched silently in horrified curiosity as he made contact with Greenie’s soul, spreading an epidemic of grayness where had once been full of life and color.

Papa, she thought, what have you done?

Suddenly, her father stood, and stiffly walked out of the room, leaving the two girls alone. The younger girl hesitantly willed herself to appear, and stared at Greenie with intent curiosity, wondering what had caused her father to let this soul go. Greenie, seeming unable to be surprised anymore, especially after escaping Death himself, evenly returned her gaze. The two girls’ eyes met in a clash of black and green, neither of the two breaking hold, surprising the younger girl- anyone that had seen her and met her eyes had instantly turned away. The black-eyed girl was the first to look away, the first time she had done so.

When she looked up again, Greenie had fallen into an exhausted sleep in her enormous hospital bed. The little girl walked up to the bed and tentatively lifted the other girl’s dark hair to see her bandaged eye. In her six-year-old mind, if her father had done something taboo, then it would balance it if she did something too… She considered guiltily for a second if she should really do it, but then squeezed her eyes shut and focused as hard as a she could, softly touching the spot on the bandage where Greenie’s eye would be. There. She’d done it. Another rule broken alongside with her papa. When Greenie opened her eyes again, she would be able to see with both of them once more- except, unbeknownst to the two girls,  one would be completely and irreversibly the color of obsidian black. Not dark brown like what most humans claimed to be black, but black black, a dark foreshadowing of the things to come.

The law-breaking father-daughter duo met outside of Greenie’s hospital room. The young girl caught the name on the sign outside Greenie’s room:

                                                         LEVINA DELILAH LIMERE

Papa smiled at her. “Let’s go, Never.”

A/N

Thanks for reading!!! :)

If it's not too much to ask, please comment what you think, or typos/sentences that are confusing/constructive criticism in general... maybe vote? (wink, wink; nudge, nudge... No? No? Okay)

Right now, this is pretty much all I have written, and it may take a bit to work everything out and write the next few chapters. However, please stay tuned and I'll update as soon as soon as I finish them.

~elaine :)