Miniature Adventures

Round One~Her Journal

A/N This story is dedicated to OrtonCenaRKO, because she made the cover. Isn't it pretty? 

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Daisies lined her mahogany casket, which was carefully opened. She said that she wanted an open-casket funeral, she wanted her friends to see her before she was buried.

Danny Curtis could see over the top; the delicate lavender dress, and the daisies in her hands. She always loved white, the pureness, she loved chastity. She had such a sweet face, one that brought so much joy to so many people he had never met. Those sparkling eyes, the ones that showed how much love she was truly capable of. The cherry red lips that held that wonderful smile, she was always smiling. Was. Ellie was gone. Forever. She died such a horrible death, tormented by that horrific disease. Why do all the good ones die? 

Danny couldn't last one more second in that church, staring at that casket, which held the body of his friend. Best friend. The love of his life. The girl who was everything he had ever dreamed was lying dead inside of a wooden box, going to be hidden away under a pile of dirt, never to be seen again. All they had left were pictures, memories, and those few beautiful things she left behind. She was alive for only twenty years. Twenty. She deserved more than that, more than two measly decades. Eleanor Barnett deserved a lifetime. A lifetime. But that thing robbed her of that.

That terrible sickness robbed them all out of the most amazing girl on the planet. So many people came to the funeral, even the children she worked with her church on Sunday; tutoring, mentoring, and teaching. She loved everyone that came, every single one of them, especially those children. She called them her own; she loved them all so dearly that she called them her own. They were on the front row just across from the trio. All seven of them. With their heads bowed, hands in their laps, trying not to cry.

You could tell that they treated Ellie like their mother from the way they sat; quiet, meditative, and solemn. Danny admired how hard they were trying to not cry, he was struggling with the same thing, as well as his friends. The dreary music sounding from the hidden speakers was painfully reminding them that they were at a funeral. Ellie wouldn't have liked this, all the gloom, she would want everyone to be happy for her. She would want everyone to celebrate, not mope around like zombies, dressed completely in black.

She hated black.

She told him that herself. She always said it made her feel like she was going to a funeral, and how she didn't understand why anyone would want to wear that color if they went to a funeral in it. Well, they were at a funeral, why should they not wear black? Even Rebecca wore black, she was sitting right beside him, never once looking up towards the casket. Austin wasn't faring much better, he was on Danny's other side, staring at the floor.

Unlike his friends, Danny was so focused on the coffin that he didn't notice one of the children come up to him and his friends.

"Are you Mr. Curtis?" A sweet voice asked.

With a hazy look in his eyes, Danny tediously turned his head to look at the source of the voice, and was floored by what he saw; the girl in front of him reminded him so much of Ellie, the reserved tone, the bright eyes, and the loving aura. The little girl's auburn hair fell in large curls, a childish, ebony dress covered in grey ribbons hung loosely over her body.

"Yes?" he answered, slightly dazed by the little girl.

"Miss Ellie always talked about you, and she wanted to give you this." he noticed she held a small notebook in her tiny hands, "She said it was for when you got married to her." The little girl held out the journal for him to take.