Excerpt from 'Forgotten'

*Okay, so this idea has been sitting in my head for quite awhile, but I've been so busy this summer that I really haven't had a chance to write anything. Hence, the lack of posts of late. BUt I've decided that it's high time to delight you all with a new post ;) Enjoy!*


Annie's Prologue:

When I was seven years old, I wrote my name in the sand near the ocean. Waves lapped delicately at my name's tip, but went no further. I was sure that I had written it high enough to avoid being washed away. I ran up the slight sandy slope to where the rest of my family was seated, and grabbed my mother's hand to show her what I had written. Upon my return, I found to my horror that the waves had come up further and washed away my name. Annie Shorner had disappeared from the sand. My mother said that such a thing was to be expected, and not to be worried by it.

As she retreated back up the slope, it made me wonder if that's how life was. You go through every day, doing your business, trying to leave a mark in the world. But when you die, you're just forgotten. No one remembers you after a few months. Who cares if you won employee of the month five times in a row? You've done nothing to deserve a prominent place in the memories of all mankind. Only a few select achieve that high honor. And that scared me. It scared me more than anything else to think that one day I would be forgotten, that one day I would be erased from the memories of all. I made up my mind there and then to make sure that I would always be remembered, to make sure that no one would ever forget me. Ever.

I think it was that day that changed me, that day that set my fate to be what I have become. That fear of my name being washed away from the memories of men by a gentle wave made me realize that I couldn't engrave my memory into sand, but into stone. Annie Shorner would not disappear ever again.



Jessie's Prologue:


I sit in this cold, white room and listen to the hushed voices issuing from behind the curtains that hide Annie and her bed. A face peeks out and looks at me.

"Miss, we're going to have to ask you to sit in the waiting room until you're called in," the nurse says. I mutely stand and leave the E.R., walk into the waiting room and plop down into an empty seat there. A woman in a business suit approaches me.

"Jessica Borite?" she asks, her voice stern but trying to be friendly. I look at her blankly and nod. She glances down at a pile of papers in her hand, her lips pursed tightly together. After a few minutes, she looks back at me. "My sources tell me that you were very close with Annie Shorner before she rose to power. Would you care to give us some important information about her, perhaps some details about this whole mess. I'm told you were indirectly involved. We have the best psychologists and professors on her case, and we were hoping you could help us." I remain silent. "You'll be an anonymous source, of course," the lady adds. Again, I say nothing. "Will you say nothing at all?" I confirm her question by doing exactly that. She sighs in exasperation, then walks away.

Who do they think they are, trying to pry into Annie's life, her mind, her heart? They know nothing about her, they don't understand. She wasn't always like this. She never wanted to hurt anybody. None of this is her fault. My heart aches for the sight of Annie's smile again, just to see her how she used to be, when we were best friends. I want to hear her laugh, hear her tell me this is all a big joke to test our friendship like she used to when we were younger. But she's lying unconscious in a hospital, with unfriendly people penetrating her personal bubble, as she would have said. My head aches as I try to think of anyway this all could have been prevented. My whole body aches to feel once more one of Annie's suffocating hugs.

I watch as a man who had been talking to the lady in the business suit walks over to me, a friendly smile on his face. He sits down in the chair besides mine and says, "My name's Justin. Your's is Jessie, right?" I barely nod. "Want to be friends?" he asks cheerfully. I stare at this twenty-something year old using five year old tactics to make friends as if he's gone crazy. I shrug, not really knowing what else to do. He grins. "So. What's your favorite color?" At this, my whole body tenses. I can still hear Annie's six year old voice asking me that same question twenty years ago. Something inside me breaks, and tears start pouring down my face.

Through my weeping, I manage to choke out, "She asked me...that... once, too. A long time.. ago." I wrap my arms around my self and cry and cry, my sobs wracking my entire body. I feel a consoling arm laid gently on my shoulder, and Justin's voice tells me to just let it all out. "We were...six," I begin between gasps, bawling my eyes out, unable to control myself anymore, "that's how...it all...started."