Broken

Prologue

There are a few moments in life that are perfect and surreal; like a beautiful dream you don't want to wake up from, but when you do, you can't seem to remember what it was about. Then there are the terrible moments, absolute nightmares that nothing you do can make you forget them. This was that moment.

Seattle, 2018

It was mid-July, the night air was cooling off the day's hot air and the warm pavement in the dark alleyway where she lay. She stared up at the night sky at nothing in particular from where she lay, her vision blurred, as the numbness took over her entire body. Oh, she was feeling a lot of things on the inside but she was numb on the outside.

She paused every moment to catch her breath even though she wasn't really out of breath but it felt like she was suffocating. Her heart, felt like it wasn't even in her body like it was missing. She felt empty, completely drained of everything that was supposed to make her who she was. Her heart, her feelings and emotions, her spirit, her willpower and herself. She was drained physically, mentally and emotionally and everything in her just wanted to give up. She just wanted to let go.

Her hands trembled lifeless at her sides as the tears threatened to spill but she was weak, she was tired, she'd cried all the tears she could cry but her entire body just shook like there was a storm ready to burst out of her like a volcano. Her lips trembled as her vision blurred even more.

She was empty. She was lost. She felt worthless and she didn't see any reason to carry on. But there was a part of her, a very tiny part that had hope, that shined a light in the darkness of her soul. That wanted to carry on for one reason only.

The shaking of her body downed and she gasped for air, her vision clearing slowly. Her trembling hands calmed and she began to feel herself come alive, even if every part of her was dead. She watched her breath escape in the cold night air. She was starting to feel the cold in her bones, or maybe that was just her, but it jerked her back to where she lay in the dark and narrow alleyway a few blocks from the pub she'd left with her best friend just half an hour ago. Slowly, she turned to look down at her hand, turning it palm up as she stared at her trembling bloodied hand. She wasn't entirely sure whose it was; hers or her best friend's whose body laid lifeless in a pool of her own blood next to hers.

She looked up into her friend's lifeless eyes that stared at her, willing her to fight for the both of them. Sirens blared in the distance, nearing. Her breath escaped through her lips one last time as she succumbed to the darkness that tugged at her soul.

She was lost. She was gone.

She belonged to the darkness now.