𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻

Prologue

Trigger Warning: Suicide - just for the first half of this chapter.

Screaming winds and booming thunder strikes the busy city as car horns are heard in the distance. On the ledge of an apartment building stands a tearful brunette teen, her hair dancing in the wind as she steps closer to the edge of her window. Gazing through blurry eyes at the city lights she stops for a moment to memorise every brick and every star as she appreciates the small amount of peace she feels in this very moment.

However, that peace is interrupted by a shout from her father along with his loud strident footsteps advancing towards her locked door that can rival that of the thunder from outside. Heartbeat picking up, the girl whips around to face her bedroom as she realises just how pathetic it is that the only thing she can really say goodbye to is the room she's found sanctuary in from time to time. The four walls she has stared at everyday in numbing silence for hours on end has seen her at her very best with a smile on her face, but also at her very worst... like right now.

"Maddison Lockheart! Get out here this instant. Those dishes need to be done so you can cook our food! You brat!"

Tears fall like a waterfall down her rosy cheeks at her fathers harsh words, the pounding on her door getting more impatient as the time drags on. Glancing towards the family photo on her dresser, the girl wonders when everything went wrong with her family. They used to be happy when she was young. But now looking back on it she realises exactly where everything went wrong... when she was born. She was an oblivious and nieve child, unknowing to the anger and hatred brewing in her parents hearts. But it was when she found out that she was conceived through an affair her mother had initiated with a man on a night out she had realised exactly why sometimes her 'father' would cringe when he looked at her or took every opportunity to reprimand and punish her when she did something wrong. It explained everything. But it also caused a spiral of events that has led her here today...
on the ledge of her bedroom window.

Sucking in a sharp breath, the brunette turns her back on her home. The place she was meant to feel safe in. The place in which she was meant to feel loved and cherished. Yet it is the exact place which has caused her the most pain and loneliness.

Looking up into the sky, she smiles. And for the first time it is not a fake smile she would give to strangers or her teachers, it is not a tense smile she would give to her parents when she was afraid she had done something wrong. No. It was a smile of pure relief. A smile that won't be wiped from her face along with her tears of sadness and disappointment.

So hoping someone was listening wherever they were, the girl made one wish. The same wish she would make on her birthdays she didn't get to celebrate, on New Year's Eve just before the fireworks went off to honour a new year and every night just before she went to sleep. So, closing her eyes the girl whispered her once and final wish. Her words twirling in the wind as the rain soaks her from head to toe.

Feeling at peace with her final moments, she opens her eyes one last time to gaze at the city lights before she takes a step just as her bedroom door is slammed open. Letting out a breath as she falls from the ledge, the girls smile still in place as pure relief floods her body before she reaches the ground.

Everything turns blank and quite. Blissful silence... finally.

——

In the stomach of a lady from a far away universe, two small foetuses float next to each other in silence. Hearts pulsing together at a strong beat, the formations of eyes and ears developing on the future children as their evolving bodies move peacefully in the amniotic fluid.

A few months later, the woman gives birth to the twins. The baby girl with incredible knowledge of the future, looks around the hospital curiously with eyes that hold wisdom no baby should hold. Laying next to her sleeping brother, the girl is picked up from her place in the crib and is passed over to a very familiar looking woman who gazed down at her with so much adoration and love she starts to cry at the newfound feeling blossoming in her tiny heart.

"Oh, shh. It's okay sweetie. Mommy's here."

The nice woman reassures the child who is overwhelmed with everything. Finally coming to a pause with her cry's, the baby girls beautiful brown eyes lock with her new mothers before they are interrupted by a nurse.

"Miss Lockwood, it's time to start trying to feed the children."

Miss Lockwood? The baby questions herself as she furrows her brows which honestly makes her look a little constipated. Looking up at her mothers face, the child suddenly recognises the nice older woman and realises exactly why she looked so familiar.

"How about we start with baby Maddison and then try baby Tyler?" The nurse questions my mother with a kind face.

Wait a second!

Taking a moment to process the woman's words, the baby girl looks over at her brother and scans his dark head of hair along with the grumpy man sitting on the small lounge chair in the corner of the room and almost pisses herself.

Oh shit.