A Promise To Keep

Prologue

The sky was a mucky colour, along with grey clouds, as rain began to pour down steadily, gradually getting heavier and heavier. The heavy rain hit the floor hard, spatting into many droplets as it made contact. Some rain drops would land on windows, running down and leaving a watery trail behind. With this much rain, umbrellas were out to protect the people walking down the streets and windows were closed to stop the rain from entering. 

Hiccup was not one of those people. His window was open, allowing some spatters of rain to enter his room, along with the cold wind. Last he checked, the sky was a bright blue with white clouds, as the sun shined down on the streets, hence why his window was opened. Now, like a switch had been turned off, everything was being battered with rain. Not that he noticed. Not that he cared.

He was lying flat on his bed, his head buried into his pillow. He could hear the patter of rain behind him, but he didn't draw attention to it. He was motionless, barely moving even an inch of muscle. He had been like this for the past hour, though he wasn't aware of the time. Nor did he care. Finally, though, he managed to move his head to his side, now staring into the distance. His pillow was soaked and his eyes were a deep red, causing his eyelids to be swollen. After a while, he mindlessly reached his arm towards his bed counter and grabbed his phone. Still lying down, he unlocked it and went to the message application. The moment he did, he froze. 

His eyes began to fill up with tears once again as he saw the name on top of the list – Astrid.

After much hesitation, Hiccup tapped on her name, revealing all the messages between the two over the past five months or so as he scrolled through them. Out of all of them, the last few messages were the ones he was staring at the most:

'Promise me you'll change '

'I promise '

'Thank you '

'I'll see you after school '

'OK '

His eyes were now watery, tears pouring down his face again as he gritted his teeth in agony, staring at his last texts to her. He immediately locked his phone and slammed it down next to him before burying his face once more. Loud sobs escaped him as he gripped the sides of the pillow in pain and sorrow.

"...Why...?" Hiccup sobbed. "...Why her...?"

He didn't have to ask. He knew this day would come. He was told many times by her. But it didn't change the fact. The fact that his entire world crumbled all at once when he was told. When he was told that Astrid Hofferson, the girl who always smiled no matter what, who changed him in a way he could have never imagined, had passed away.