The Prologue

It's only the beginning

To those who supported my dream of becoming a published author. To my favorite singer for the inspiration of Willow Halliwell.

 

“I cry a lot-I don’t know why, but it just helps me. I cry over bad and good stuff-sometimes sadness can be beautiful.”

--Amy Lee of Evanescence

 

 

Prologue

The Darkness of the Night

 

It was a quiet autumn evening. The neighborhood outside was dead silent. Few people walked the streets outside. One person who did stealthily approached a lone house; his face could not be seen because of the black trench coat he wore.

A young girl resided in her room in that lone house. On the carpet, she played innocently with her Barbies. A soft thud drew her attention away from her toys.

“Mommy?” the six-year-old called out.

She quietly stood and made her way to her mother’s bedroom door. Willow peeked into the thin crack of the door. Then there came a groan as she noticed her mother, Lily, lying there. Lily was lying face down on the carpet, moaning in pain, and she saw a dark figure standing above her. She silently gasped. Thankfully, the tall stranger was too absorbed in his task to hear her.
            “Where is she?” the figure, obviously a man, rasped, kicking impatiently at her mother’s side. “WHERE IS SHE?”
            “W-why...w-would I...t-tell…you?” Lily murmured weakly through the thickness of the carpet.
            The man turned her over and grabbed her by the neck of her collar, slamming her against the wall with all his might. Lily moaned, her body rippling with pain.

“Because your life depends on it. Tell me!”
            “N-n…never…never…”
            The man chucked her down onto the carpet face up.
            “So be it.”
            The man whipped a gun out from under the darkness of his long coat and pointed it to Lily’s heart. He held her to the ground with his foot. As soon as he pulled the trigger, the fidgeting Lily lay still and pale. The man was gone out the window before Willow could catch a glimpse of him.
            “Mommy?” Willow whispered pushing the door open all the way. “Mommy? Mommy…are you…okay?”
            Willow started sobbing as soon as she saw the gaping bullet wound in her mother’s heart. Darkness seemed to have overcome her soul, draping her entire being from any kind of possible light. The pain made her heart burst with more sadness than ever, making her heart cold as ice.

Willow kissed her mother’s cheek and laid her head across her mother’s stomach. She lay there for what seemed like a very long time, shedding tears of bitterness. For her, it was just simply too much to bear. She closed her eyes and cried until her eyes went dry and she could weep no more. When she finally opened them, Willow felt reborn and confused like she had just awoken from a heavy sleep.

She stood slowly and wobbled a bit. Blood stained her face and hands; an empty look invaded her innocent eyes. Willow gazed at her dead mother for a long time. The thoughts that were running through her head were crazy. She knew that she had no other choice.

She then bitterly said goodbye.

“M-mommy,” she choked out, “I-I’ll love you forever and ever. I don’t wanna leave you, but…bye, Mommy.”

And she turned around just as she said those very words and ran swiftly out of the house that had once been her home for six long comfortable and loving years filled with utter happiness.

Sirens wailed in the distance of Wayview and, still, Willow kept running. Running away from her fate and to it.

_____

            Willow shook from winter’s cold breath, rubbing her hands together for warmth. The pain that her mother’s death had caused her was unbearably dark and sad. She longed to forget about it somehow, but she knew that she couldn’t. It would be with her for all eternity.

            She moved the old, torn blanket down over her chest, shivering like mad. She remembered the time when, in the hot summer, they had gone to a carnival and had gotten all loaded up on sugar. But it was the middle of winter already, and it had started to get colder than she had expected it to.    

Willow sat down on a doorstep, trying to squeeze as much as she could into the small space to get far away from the cold weather. The door behind her opened abruptly, revealing a fat man with beer in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. The man sucked in and exhaled a cloud of smoke that rose into the air and disappeared into the smoggy night sky.
            He looked down and finally noticed Willow crouched there on the stoop. “Hey, you, kid, get outta here! Shoo!”
            Willow looked up at him, showing that she refused to move.
            “Go on, shoo!” he said, waving her off like some annoying animal. “Shoo!”
            He kicked at her back and Willow went flying into the air and landed in dirty, yellow snow. The man laughed cruelly. Willow got up, wiped the snow off her, and rubbed her sore backside. Tears choked her; there was nowhere this poor child could go. Willow walked down the alley and rounded a corner. She was so caught up in watching the fat man that she didn’t notice the dark figure right in front of her.
            “Oomph!” she grunted as she crashed into the figure. “I-I-am  sorry. I...,” she trailed off as she noticed something in the man’s hand. She bit her lip.
            “You’re coming with me.”

He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down the alley.

Fear stabbed her heart as adrenaline rushed through her veins and into her blood. Her brain willed her to run as fast as she could and get away.
            “Where are you taking me? Help! HELP! Someone, please! Help!”
            “Stop struggling, you brat!”

This only made her scream even louder. In the distance a siren wailed and a dog barked. He stopped suddenly, whipped out a damp cloth from his undercoat, and held it over her mouth and nose. Chloroform choked her breath and throat. She slowly began to fade away into the darkness of the night.

Reviews

[Forest Green]

Compelling, troubling beginning to your story. The sorrow is palpable, the horror of events very convincing, causing the writer to hope for an element of justice.

Nice writing...your prose flows with confidence...

Good work...! Will read more..