By The Lake

"Just shut up." I muttered. "I-" Kelli started to talk about my parents divorce again as we swung on the swing set my dad had made.

Getting off of the swing, I couldn't help but forgive her, tell her I didn't mean to be rude. "Sorry." Kelli gave me a forgiving smile. "It's okay." I walked over to the middle of the yard to pick up a big blue and red striped ball. "Volleyball?" I held it in my hands as Kelli got off the swing. "Not a very fourth-grade-like sport but okay." I blinked my blue eyes and watched Kelli as she made her way over to the opposite side of my yard.

I made the first pass and we hit the ball back and fourth as Kelli talked about her crush and how she thought it was "true love". Crushing her dreams, I mentioned the fact that she didn't know if her crush even knew her name or not.

"Whatever." She scoffed, purposely missing the ball when I passed it back. "Wanna go to the lake by McHenry?" I haven't ever really left home with my dad gone before, but he always said to leave a note if I ever did.

I agreed and wrote on a tiny slip of paper, "Kelli and me are going to McHenry park's lake. You'll find us there."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I ran down the track-like pavement on the steep hill. My dark blonde hair flew in my face, blinding me. Treading left, Kelli yelled from behind. "Acacia! Watch out!" I moved my hair out of my face, and I only had time to try to stop myself from falling down the small hill before falling down it and tumbling. The weeds scratched my legs, arms, and face up until I hit my head on a log, and fell face first into water before I blacked out.

"ACACIA!"

....

"ACACIA!!"

....

Kelli's voice didn't ring in my ears after that. I woke up with Kelli sobbing, it getting softer and softer as leaves crunched for a bit, then stopped. A bright light flashed in my face, then I fell asleep again.

I woke up for the second time lying in my front yard. Getting up, I felt something drip down my face. I wiped it, and red liquid covered my fingers. I was bleeding everywhere; on my legs, hands, even my face. I closed my eyes, rubbed them, and opened them again. The next time I opened them up, there was a boy about eleven, one year older then me. His hair was black and his eyes were two different colors, not like you would think, though.

Circling a thin line around the pupils was a bright blue, but as it went out more it turned to a navy blue. Both of his eyes were like that.

He was wearing a necklace with a blue crystal that was being held in metal wires. It was honestly really pretty. "Hey, I heard about you just a few hours ago." He bent down and started bandaging my legs. "What are you doing..?" I asked, squirming around. "What does it look like?" He asked, chuckling.

"I'm Chase," the boy said, wrapping a bandage around a nasty cut. "Okay, uh...hi.." I made that sound more like a question then a plain response.

"What's the one thing you wanted to do before you died?" Chase asked. "Number one it's 'die' not died, and number two it would probably be to kiss the boy that loves me but that'll probably never happen."

"Oh. Well we need to find your necklace, it's quite far away." Chase said, pinning the bandage around my leg.

"What do you mean?"