Chapter 1 & 2

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Chapter 1
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Relentlessly the tears flowed down her face leaving in the wake a trail of moisture and exposing the pink skin that was overshadowed by the dirt on her cheeks. Her cries made my heart clench as I knew what hurt she was enduring.
"There was nothing we were capable of doing. Fate has taken him away, but has been kind enough to leave you living. We must remember Nathaniel by what he has done for us, saving our lives by sacrificing his."

She tried her best to respond with a calm and quiver-less voice, but her emotional wounds showed through, "I know Draden. I had just hoped that he would know that I loved him before he went about bringing his demise. I wish he had left with a peaceful heart!"

"He knew you loved him Cinthle, he just didn't want to hurt your heart anymore than he knew he was going to. His heart could not have been any more peaceful than it is now, beat-less in his chest, for he loved you as well. He loved you with every fiber in his existence and wished nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with you."

"I just wish that we could have been together. I miss him."

Her hurt continued to well up inside of her being, threatening a new flow of tears. We stood over Nathaniel’s body, sheets of rain glinting down around us. Nature was shedding tears for our friend it seemed. Sharing our pain of a valiant friend deceased. Glistening from the fading sun, the crystalline droplets formed a cold embrace on Cinthle's frame, making her feel more alone than she really was.

"How long?" she questioned herself, "How long must this pain endure? Will this be our future? What good could ever come about such destruction and misery? Is there such good in such evil?" There was so much that she did not understand that she thought it would take eternity for her thoughts to be sorted out. "Hopefully it will all end soon. Hopefully is all we have left."

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Chapter 2
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Sometimes Cinthle wondered if happiness was truly worth the destruction it usually caused others. She often woke up dreaming, dreaming of things slightly outside of her grasp. Barely unreachable and so close to being achievable. This particular morning she woke with an undeniable sense of loss, as if she had lost something dear to her, something as close as those waking dreams she usually lived. Something dear to her and long loved, a young man in her dream named Nathaniel. She recalled parts of the dream, or nightmare, that she had just arisen from, but everything was fragmented into small pieces. A face, honest and tender, soft rain descending in sheets as thin as the faint rainbow it produced. She recalled a soothing voice, comforting the sense of loss that still grasped onto her consciousness with a relenting hold. A sinister smile as the honest and tender face she had witnessed before in her recollection was dwindled from existence. No longer holding the light of life behind its soft skin, nor the warmth that supported that light.

"What could this mean?" she thought to herself. She continued to go about her daily routine as she continued to wander these images throughout her mind. She couldn't ward off the feeling that the events experienced in this dream would come true in her near future. Her life had always held the feeling that it meant more than it portrayed, but she had always disregarded these feelings as a normal paranoia that was shared with most everyone. She now doubted her disregard of these feelings and now looked upon them as warnings of things that may come to be. A sense of foreboding now accompanied her sense of loss, making her increasingly uncomfortable, but a small shred of light glistened through her current dark predicament. She suddenly remembered a piece of her nights wanderings that comforted her. Draden. She had never met him before, but in her dream he seemed as real to her as the sense of loosing Nathaniel. She had comforted her in her dream and here he was comforting her again, putting some warmth back into the chilly December morning she had awoken to.

So many things were happening to her right now, so many objects fell into place or rather the wrong places. She didn't quite understand any of this yet, but she felt that she would be required to sooner than she cared to think of. She wandered about the rooms of her small abode, feeling as if something were out of place. She looked out the window and the feeling grew stronger. She opened the door creating the low moaning creek that always accompanied it, and took a step outside into the glistening sunrise. Shades of pink, orange, and yellow danced upon her face as they were painted across the low rolling clouds as if the sky were a blank canvas being painted for the first time. The picture was astonishing, taking up all of her attention as she scanned the skies. Her vision was sharp, more accurate than normal. She blinked a few times curious about the unfamiliar clarity. Her body filled with warmth as the sun fell upon her and soothed her restless body and mind. It seemed to revitalize her whole being and filled her with insurmountable joy.

She then noticed what was out of place. The surroundings weren't familiar to her at all. The trees were not supposed to be there, she lived in a crowded neighborhood. It was supposed to be July, but it felt like late October to early December. She turned around quickly and she looked to her house for the first time. "No... I... What is happening???" she tried to come up with an answer to all that she was seeing, but nothing could be discerned. Her house was completely different. From the color of the walls to the overall shape of the building! The grass was much shorter than what she was accustomed to, and the sky seemed to have a different tint to it. Colors were brought out in different patters and layers than she usually witnessed. Dread filled her mind as she continued to wheel about the events of the morning.

A puddle had formed from the morning dew and she rushed over to it. Her gaze lowered to the puddle to look upon her reflection. She stopped in shock, blinked four times and looked back. "What is happening!!" she screamed. Her features had changed. She was not the ordinary looking red head she had grown up as. Her face of pale skin and soft lips, blue eyes with moderately long lashes, thin sharp eyebrows and angular jaw bones. But she wasn't looking at even the shape of here face, just the overall contrast of her skin and her eyes. She wasn't Cinthle anymore.