The Goddess’ Gift

Chapter 2

Lucie Pov

    It started with a light. No, maybe that wasn’t right. It started with an argument. I woke up that night, my body covered in sweat, knowing with every fiber of my being that something was wrong. I ignored the screams of my foster parents telling me to shut up as I jumped out of bed and raced down the hall, going to his room. There were three rooms in this house. One for the parents, one for the girls, and one for the boys. Four boys and four girls, that’s how many kids were in the house. Including me and Chris, my little brother. Well, he wasn’t my brother by blood, but when he was a newborn he was paired with me, and from then we were inseparable. We looked nothing alike, but it didn’t matter. His black hair, olive tanned skin, dark eyes, deep Italian features were nothing like my pale creamy skin, my long untamable red hair, or my icy blue eyes. Despite our differences in appearance, he was my brother, and he was the only person in the world I cared about. Which was why when I opened the door to the boys' room, turning on the light and ignoring the groans as the other three boys he shared a room with yelled at me for waking them, I grabbed at Chris’s blankets and yanked them off the bed. Nothing, nothing but two pillows set longways under the blanket, to look like his body had been curled up underneath the blankets. Crude, it was a crude way of pretending you were sleeping in your bed but our foster parents didn’t care, not really. They looked in the rooms, counted bodies, turned off the lights, and left, most likely to go downstairs and count all the money they were making off of us. 

    I had been taking money from them when they weren’t looking, had a few hundred saved up, on top of the money I made from the job I had at my last foster home. Enough, enough to adopt Chris and take him away when I turn eighteen, away from all of this. That was my plan…before I discovered him missing. They refused to report it. Keep it hidden, they said. Why should I care? They asked. One less kid to watch. I graduated high school early, being home schooled and smart. Unlike my last home, however, these adults didn’t let me get a job. The other adults always tried to push me out of the house as fast as they could, feeling weird around me, eerie, they’d say. This home is my longest so far, over a year now, but then again the adults were never home. Kids of a variety of ages lived here, and I was the designated babysitter. Never allowed to leave, always forced to watch them, while they went out and spent the money they made off of us that the government paid them for being foster parents. They didn’t care that Chris was gone, they just wanted me to keep quiet about it, so they’d still get paid for him. Disgusting, they were disgusting. I argued with them, tried to explain. He’s a runaway, they said. It’s normal, they said. I tried to tell them Chris wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t leave, not without me. He’d never leave without me. 

I didn’t want to wait anymore. I snuck out one night, went to the police, forced them to listen. File the report. They tried to argue, saying he was a runaway, foster kids tend to run away, they couldn’t bother with every single runaway. Even still I pushed them until they finally took his picture and description. I barely made it back home before we got the phone call, telling us Chris was in the hospital, in a coma. The argument. I was in the backseat of the car, not caring. They were going to go to the hospital without me. I forced them to take me. There’s another boy who lives with us, he’s sixteen, the second oldest. They left him in charge so I could go with them. It didn’t matter that it was almost midnight, I didn’t care how late it was. If they were going to see Chris I was going too. Honestly, I’d have gone even if they didn’t. 

I was in the backseat furious, screaming at them. ‘This is all your fault,’ I told them. ‘If you had just reported it earlier,’ I screamed. But what? What would have happened? A coma, they said. He was unresponsive. An accident, right down the road from us. I was quivering in the backseat, ignoring the vibration of my phone in my pocket. One of the girls at home was texting me, telling me happy birthday, but I didn’t care. Drive faster, I screamed. Faster, faster, go faster. We sped up, despite his frustrated voice screaming at me to shut up. Bumped as he sped onto the bridge, the tall bridge overlooking the lake. Even still, faster. It was irrational, why make them go faster? He’s not going to be sitting there waiting for me, he’s in a coma. Even still, he was all I had, my brother. He needed me, and I needed him. We were all we had in the world. My foster mother cursed in annoyance as a few long semi trucks drove towards us. They weren’t supposed to be on this bridge, and it made my foster father shift onto the crosswalk to avoid their large frames. Then she was yelling at me again. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she told me. ‘If you didn’t have to report him we could have just kept gathering the money.’ She screamed. Money, it was all she cared about. With him in the hospital, the government was sending his checks to the hospital instead. She was furious over the damn money, not Chris. They didn’t care about him. Angry, I was so angry; and then it happened: The light. 

After all, if it didn’t start with the argument, then it started with the light. Those on the outside of the car driving past would claim I opened my phone, blinding them, distracting them. It wasn’t true. My hands, they were shaking, and then suddenly they were glowing. A bright white light, pouring from me, illuminating everything, the light. It was so bright, shining, and warm. How could something so deadly be so warm? My foster father swerved and a semi-truck honked his horn, making him swerve the car to the other side, too far, too fast…we never had a chance. We drove straight over the side of the bridge, and for a moment everything faded away. The light was gone, and everything went in slow motion. I watched with wide eyes as my foster parents rose in the air, clearly neither of them were wearing seat belts. They were probably screaming, right? Maybe I was as well? I couldn’t hear much over the pounding in my ears. Then the crash. Everything was so…loud. My eyes closed on impulse as we plunged into the water, and I heard a crack. I have no idea what it was, but I have to assume it was one of them slamming into the front windshield, because how else did it crack so fast? I squeezed my eyes shut, tighter, tighter, then the cold was spraying everywhere, the loud roaring of the water as it filled the tiny space, making it heavier, sinking it further and further, until there was nothing left. No air, no space, nothing. The pain, it was unbearable. They say ice cold water makes you numb, but it’s not true, or maybe not at first. It was painful, like a thousand needles piercing into me, or maybe that was the glass lazily floating around me from the crack in the windshield? It doesn’t matter, I couldn’t see it. I opened my eyes, and I could barely see anything. My hair, it was everywhere. Strangling me, covering me, devouring me. I could see them, floating absently around the car, dead. They were all dead, every one of them. I killed them, I did this. Even as I was scraping my nails against my throat, trying to untangle the strands, my lungs burning for air, I felt like giving up.

Why should I struggle? What was there to fight for? He’s gone. I know people don’t wake up from comas. Miracles, I should…believe in miracles. I believe in God, but miracles? They don’t happen to people like me, people like Chris. The unwanted, rejected. I’ve struggled enough in my life to know I’d never get a miracle. What’s the point of fighting? Another home, another family, all alone…forever. I should close my eyes, stop trying, and accept fate. My fate. After all, it always all comes to an end, right? No, I couldn’t do it. I could see it, Chris’s face in my mind, that adorable smile, the way his dark eyes lit up when he saw me, the feel of his arms wrapped around me. He was still alive, waiting for me. I couldn’t give up. Even if he never woke up…he wouldn’t want me to give up. He’d be disappointed if I didn’t at least try. 

I moved my hands absently, searching for the windows, feeling the metal that was enclosed around me. It was stupid but I was struggling, the darkness settling in the corners, waiting to take me under. I punched the metal, scraping my fingers against it, feeling my nails ripped off in the process. Even still I searched, until I found it. The hole. I slid through the broken window, swimming out. The glass was shredding my legs, and distantly I wondered how mutilated I’d look if I survived. No, it doesn’t matter, keep going. I was getting weaker, either from the lack of air for a long period of time, or the loss of blood pouring out into the water around me, it didn’t matter. Drowning, I was drowning. So far from the top, so very far. I lifted my hand towards the top. Something dark was coming towards me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. My brain was getting fuzzy, lack of air, and I wasn’t sure what I was seeing was real. Was it a person? Was it the grim reaper? Satan? An angel? God? Who comes to gather the dead? I couldn’t remember, to be honest, if someone is sent to us, or if we see a bright light. But there were no lights, not anymore, just endless darkness, billowing around me, dragging me down into the nothing that was enclosing around me, calling for me. I could hear it in the pounding of my heart in my ears. ‘Stop trying,’ it said. ‘Give up,’ it chanted, like the dark angel that sat on your shoulder. Then again, if there was a dark angel, shouldn’t I have a good angel? Or has the good angel given up on me too? The dark figure was closer, so much closer, but I wasn’t sure if I should reach my hand towards it, or try to run away. 

Give up, should I give up? The numbness was settling over me now, the pain fading away. I want to…live. I have to live…this is not the end of my story. This won’t be the end of my story, I won’t let it. Ignoring the chanting of the dark angel on my shoulder I lifted my hand towards the dark figure coming towards me, as high as I could, opened my mouth, and screamed. Then, as soon as I felt a tap against my finger, my eyes closed, the darkness pulling me away, down. Am I going to Hell? I…killed them, after all. It was my light, my fault they were speeding. I felt my body being moved, an arm wrapped around my waist and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was my angel. But which one was it? The angel of darkness? Or the angel of light?