• CHAPTER 1




    Far past the reaches of the green hued meadow, sunlight washed over the snow-laden mountain top beyond, growing ever closer to the horizon. The contour of the jagged mountain against the pale grey sky was alarmingly beautiful, and this she admired from the worn, wooden bench from where she sat.
    She drew her cream colored knit sweater closer around her thin, frail arms and leaned back, the bench gently groaning under the pressure. It was late February and yet the irises had already begun to bloom. Their soft, light purple petals brushed across the grassy meadow, their hue congruent with that of the early morning sky.
    This was a thoughtful place, where she often spent hours immersing herself in the serenity of the land. She felt at peace here, it cleared her mind and allowed her an escape from reality.
    However, reality itself is respective of each conciousness who experiences it.
    A mild breeze swept through the arid meadow, and she could feel her body temperature rise as the sun's rays encompassed her as well. Though it would hardly reach forty degrees at this point in the morning, she broke into a sweat and ushered herself out of her repose. '
    Clinging to the back of the bench with a free hand as she pushed herself up, she winced as her weakened knees attempted to support her meager weight. Once she regained a vertical posture, she exhaled a sigh of relief and ambled slowly back to RV that had waited alongside a rough dirt road east of the mountain side.
    She paused, her slim knees aching from the pressure of gravity pulling her towards the earth, coaxing her to buckle down at any moment, and took a few short winded breaths. The entirety of her chest felt as though there was a great force squeezing her, making it very difficult to breathe. Pressing a cool, clammy hand over her partially uncovered chest, she continued on with only a slight limp.
    Without looking back once, she climbed slowly but surely into her reliable camper and gently hoisted her small body into the driver's seat. She promptly fastened her seatbelt and adjusted her mirrors, indulging herself in one last view of the mountain ridge and the field rampant with her most beloved flower, before throwing the vehicle into gear and driving the old white camper directly off the ridge of the plateau.
    The familiar smell of cinder smoke and flowers was more vivid than anything in her last moments, where she clenched her eyelids shut and grasped the wheel with such clenched fists that her knuckles where completely white. During the very last moment, the last second, she smelled autumn, and could have sworn that she heard someone calling to her, belonging to a voice that had not uttered a single sound in ten years, calling her name. Whether it was a delusion, euphoria caused by an on-set of panic or a near death experience, the sound of his voice brought her instantaneously to tears, tears of joy, of bitter sorrow. She forced herself to believe that she would soon be joining the only person that she had ever loved and hated and adored and despised. The only one that could make her feel anything at all.