297A/N: Hello readers! So I've been gone for a while, but I've been fooling around with several plot bunnies. With help from SUNFLOWER3759, I've been able to get this story on the move. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to slip me a review :)
Prologue
We walked for what felt like hours. None of us wanted to say anything because we feared that we would reveal the awful truth. I glanced up at the bruised sky as day tried to appear; not even the sun could provide comfort under these circumstances. Pain radiated through my feet from the endless walking. Tree after tree, rock after rock, the nature that had once brought me considerable peace was now horribly monotonous. Well, I guess it had been horribly monotonous before, I just hadn't minded it. Now I had the sick desire to light a match to the forest.
I glanced at the faces around me. Rosalie clung to Emmett's thick arm, Jasper towed Alice's large bag, and Edward followed behind, sticking in their company. Once again, I was in the background, not only because they were excluding me, but because I refused to associate myself with them even in times like these. Alice glanced back at me, an unidentifiable expression appearing in her eyes. The look changed into a glare, whether it was conscious or not was yet to be determined. I lifted a hand, lowering my fingers until only one, lonely digit was left. She returned forward, no longer acknowledging my existence.
As if I could care less.
The day began to change, the scorching sun beginning to disappear once more. I could feel my resolve and confidence begin to crumble with every fat teardropreleased from above. The sky returned to its signature grey, the cumulus clouds swarming and dominating the atmosphere. I stopped walking, entranced with the doom that seemed to be rolling our way. The sky laughed at us in the form of thunder, while veins of lightningstretched across its darkened skin. I no longer couldtell which tears belonged to me, and which belonged to the sky above. I sunk to the ground, allowing the rain to pool around me, hoping that it might actually just drown me. That had to be a better death than the slow one we would be enduring in the oncoming days.
I could see it on their faces too as they stopped and looked at me. Instead of making fun, and instead of whispering as they always did, they looked at me with understanding. They all understood what was happening, even though none of us wanted to say it aloud. It was then that I realized I would have to rely on these faces –on my former friends, the ones I hated so intently. And because none of us would say it, I volunteered myself to state the words that would begin the hardest, most trying time of our lives.
The words that would inevitably bind us together, alive, or dead; whichever way we came out of this.
I stated the words that were the agonizing truth,
"Guys," I whispered, glancing at the trees around us that seemed to stretch forever in all directions …
"We're lost."
I suppose a disclaimer should go here.
~Christie Hart