Daemons

Prologue: The Nightmare

I sighed heavily as I looked out of the front windshield — my mom driving slowly down the dark, empty road that would eventually lead us home. The air was charged with the thick silence of unspoken words between us, it surrounded us and made me feel like I couldn't breathe. I just wanted to get out of the smothering blackness and stifling heat of the car, and into the moonlit night. I turned my attention to my window trying to ignore the feeling of her eyes burning into the back of my head.

 It was gorgeous out, a cool dark night that gave me full access to the breathtaking beauty of the stars above. I could see Phoenix, my constellation, and wished, not for the first time, that I could be as free as she was among the stars. I slowly dropped my gaze from the bright night sky to the glittering Chicago skyline. I stared out at the twinkling lights of the vast city and heard its distant hum of life calling out to me. For a split second I thought I saw every light in the city flicker off, but everything once again looked normal and my attention was caught by an unwelcome, yet familiar thought. I sat, frustrated by the fact that my mind could only focus on the too recent fight with my mom, a fairly fresh wound that had not yet scabbed over. It was officially the worst fight we'd ever had and it pained me to even think about it. It was the first time I'd ever seen my mom cry –– it was terribly frightening and, in a way, admirable. I wished I could say sorry, but of course, my pride would never let me do that. I thought that right then, I heard my mom whisper 'Sorry', but I figured that it was just wishful thinking. Then to my surprise, one of the many dark streetlights suddenly blinked on, brighter than I would've ever thought possible. 

The sudden glare of the intensely bright light in the dark street caught our attention and blinded us for a second, and that second was all it took for it to be too late. I screamed, my shrill scream cutting through the deathly silent car as I saw the truck speeding towards us that I could swear wasn't there a second ago. It felt like someone pressed slow motion on a remote control and I couldn't press pause, or even fast-forward. I could hear the unsteady beat of my heart. Fast. Hard. Loud. Any effort to move would've been futile, so I just watched helplessly as the truck slammed into our car with a staggering force, bending in the front bumper and throwing us off the road. The windshield shattered and sent pieces flying in at us cutting our skin. The airbags deployed and mine slammed into my face with such force I was blinded for a few precious minutes. I could feel my nose numbing and all I could see were stars. The car rolled over and over, following the tune to a deadly song, silent and never-ending. I thanked god and cursed myself at the same time for allowing me to put on my seat belt. It cut into my body and pushed against my broken ribs. I could hardly breathe and everything hurt. There were stars exploding behind my tightly shut eyes. The car had finally stopped rolling, but was still upside down. 

Jesus, my body hurt so bad, it felt like I was being tortured. The blood began to rush to my head and darkness pulled at the corners at my vision. My body was racked with pain and it felt like there were lightning bolts running up and down my legs. It was getting increasingly hard to breath, but I continued to struggle to take breaths. I opened my eyes and blinked the spots away, trying to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. I lost my vision yet again and black was permanently at the corners of my vision. I soon realized that I wasn't going to get enough air and began trying to turn my head to see my mom. I had to check up on my mom and see her, make sure that she was ok. An extremely bad feeling tugged at my gut when I thought about my mom, and that only made me struggle harder to turn my head. I turned my head as far to the left as I could, struggling through the pain once I could again see, willing my mom to be all right. It still wasn't enough, so I moved my head just a few more notches to the left. 

That's when I saw her. She was completely and utterly still, her face blue from lack of oxygen. Her eyes were still wide open, frozen in her last moment of terror, and her mouth had formed an o of surprise. So much pain radiated off of her face, and I let loose a wild cry full of sorrow. Her hand was outstretched, reaching for mine, maybe to comfort me, maybe to comfort both of us. There was a piece of glass from the windshield sticking straight out of the middle of her heart, its jagged edges covered with blood. Her blood. It was as if that one piece glass had a specific target, my mom. I shook my head and sobbed through that crazy thought. There was no magic in the world, and there were no such thing as miracles. If I ever believed in God before, I knew that any shred of belief had left my heart and the only thing I could feel was hatred, sorrow, and grief, not towards God exactly, but towards myself. But, if God had ever existed, he wouldn't have taken her away from me. She had been one of the only lights in my small world which had now turned almost completely black. 

There was blood smeared all over my mom's face and in her hair, gushing out of a wound whose location I couldn't pinpoint, and flowing down her face. I sobbed and my head began to pound with the start of a headache, the pain in my head was excruciating. My heart shattered irreparably, and there was a pain so deep, I knew that I could never recover from this grief. To do so would be a miracle, and there was no such thing as miracles. The new silence in the car was deafening and it penetrated deep into my soul and all I could see once again was darkness. 

My vision returned and I saw her once again, only to wish that I hadn't. I turned my head away, unable to bear seeing her face one more time, and stared out of the front windshield into the shadowy darkness. I stared into the dark and wished that I could spend one more minute with her alive, just one more. I remembered all the wonderful times that I had with her, and all the terrible times that we got over together, that somehow just made her even more special. I remembered the time that we ate ice cream on the boardwalk staring out to the ocean. Then a pelican came and swiped my cone out of my hand, I cried that day until my mom gave me her cone and smiled and said it was ok. She was always there for me, forgiving the unforgivable things that I did, telling me that it was ok, being the one person that I knew that I could always depend on. All we had was each other, no one else. We were the only two people in our life and we were ok with that. 

Then I saw her face again, forever etched into my mind. The cruel, haunting beauty of her face in the face of her death. I painfully pushed those memories out of my mind. I was alone and that was how it was going to be for the rest of my life. I fell apart into tiny pieces, most of which no one would ever find, and cried. I had no intention of ever stopping, and wouldn't be embarrassed if I cried for the rest of my life. I knew that I probably would cry for the rest of my life even if it was just crying myself to sleep. The nightmare of her death suddenly made me feel lightheaded and utterly alone. My headache increased tenfold, but the only pain I could feel was deep in my heart. A light again glared into my vision, this time it wasn't a streetlight, but I couldn't ponder over it because everything went black. And then I heard my mom call my name, an impossible sound, yet, it was sharp and crystal clear against everything that just happened and the impenetrable darkness.

"Phoenix!!!"

And then there were a billion screams and a painful silence.

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So guys... What do you think? I don't even know how hard I worked on this chapter, but I've finally done it. I've finished. Please comment in the section below, criticisms, praises, etc. Please help me make this book better! :) Love y'all. Till next time. Baiii!