Cold Case » Luke Patterson ¹ ✓

2│This is Not the End

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Chapter Two
THIS IS NOT THE END
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Rosalie knew before she even opened her eyes that something was wrong. Everything felt different, the air around her felt colder, and the damp sand beneath her even felt different, as if she couldn't even really touch it. She opened up her eyes and saw the darkness that surrounded her. She was unable to make out any of her surroundings, just that there was sand below her and all around her.

Realizing that sand completely covered her she began to panic. She frantically moved her arms around and felt a plastic bag beside her and something hard inside of it. Dread instantly filled her, and she came to the conclusion that she had been buried alive. She screamed for help for what must have been hours before she realized that no one was coming to save her.

She tried to dig her way out but was shocked when her hand went straight through the sand. She quickly pulled back her hand and examined it carefully, wondering what was wrong with her. Shrugging her shoulders, she sat up and mentally braced herself to hit the sand above her, but she didn't. A small smile appeared on her face, and then she quickly rose to the surface.

As she sat on the surface of the ground, she took in her surroundings. She was on the beach that her mother used to take her all the time. From behind her, she could hear the waves washing up on land as the birds sang in the early morning. The sun was just beginning to rise, and she realized that she had been out all night. She never even thought twice about being buried at that moment. All she thought about was getting home because her mother was going to be mad at her.

She didn't notice as she ran through the sand that she left no footprints behind or that the people walking along the beach couldn't see her. She didn't notice that she wasn't alive.

She ran towards the crowd of people and weaved her way through them. Then another thought hit her. She was going to be late for school. Being late to anything stressed her out, so it only made her run faster. She wondered what her friends would think when she didn't arrive at school for first period. She barely ever missed school. Then her mind drifted back to her mother. She was going to be furious when she found out Rosalie had been out all night. Rosalie could only think about how long she would be grounded for.

In her mind, it didn't quite hit her yet that she had been buried on the beach. She had tossed that aside to the furthest part of her mind and pretended like it never happened. Maybe a part of her didn't want to believe in the possibility that she was dead. Maybe a part of her wanted to keep living in the fairytale that she had created in her head where life was perfect, and nothing like this could ever happen.

After a while of running, Rosalie eventually made it to her house. She stood outside the brick walls of her house and wondered what she was going to tell her mother. Her german shepherd, Willow, barked from within the pin that she was in. They had fenced in the back yard after their last dog ran onto the road. They didn't want that to happen again.