Lone Star II
Elder Member
共感。Somewhere in the world, in an unnamed place, there is a forest. A forest of empathy, where everyone who can feel will go in a time of rest. By the commoners, the path there has not yet been found. But by the lonely, drifting souls, they made their way long ago. And have found each other to hold upon themselves. - Dallas E. Simmons
The smell in the air was something of a soggy, drenched wetness that had filled the air. Undoubtedly the falling snow in the near pitch black sky. It was night. A winter storm had been warned the day before last, but Ethan's father wouldn't hear of it. He had wanted to get the move over with, and there was no arguing that would change his mind this time. So, as they had been for hours, Ethan and his family, or what was left of it from his sister's death a few years back, was in a black, skinny, if not slender, car. The logo on the car read 'KIA'. Driving down the icy road as it did, the tires making strange, if not alarming, noises from the ice cracking beneath them as the car went on, down the road. A long, twisting, dimly lit road that seemingly never ended. Ethan was behind the passenger's side of the car, staring out of the window, off into the darkness to where he could barely see the trees near the car. His mother in the passenger seat, his father driving with both hands on the wheel, constantly messing around with the wind shield wipers from the snow and hail falling onto it.
"Richard. We need to find someplace to stop and wait for the storm to pass." stated Ethan's mother as she turned to him. "I understand that, I just think that we'll be able to get there in less time. Besides, we're almost there. Maybe ten minutes away." replied his father. Ethan's mother rolled her eyes, as Ethan's father looked up at the rear view mirror. "You agree with me, right? I mean, then you can go to bed a lot sooner." Ethan looked up at the mirror, and said, "Honestly, it doesn't matter to me. I won't be able to sleep." His father looked back down at the road in front of his gloss-like eyes. Ethan's mother turned he head around as much as she could. "Is it the insomnia again?", she asked, and Ethan nodded his head in reply. He then turned his head back to the window beside him and rested his head on it. Richard was staring at the road with a confused expression, and then he looked up at the mirror, realizing what must be happening to cause the insomnia. "You haven't been taking your medication, have you?", he asked. He looked back down at the road. Alexandria, Ethan's mother, knew better than to get in the middle of it, so she laid back in her seat, keeping quiet. Ethan gave no reaction, a sign that his father was correct with his assumption. "Ethan, you know what we talked about.", his father scolded him. Ethan did not turn his head. Instead, he simply said, "They make me feel like a druggie."
Ethan gazed upon the barely visible trees, not wanting to speak with his father about this anymore. Alexandria also rested her head on her own window, and began to try and sleep. Richard looked up at the mirror again. He stared at his son, as if trying to see what was so conflicting about the subject to make Ethan not even want to look at his father. Alexandria opened her eyes a bit and looked up. In the dim light of the headlights, was a figure that all she could make out of it was a deer. "Richard!", she yelled to him, which startled him to turn the wheel as his eyes curve back onto the road. The car swerved in a sloped curve away from the deer in the road, and Richard hit the brakes as hard as he could, not knowing that with the ice on the road, that was the worst mistake he'll ever make. As soon as he put on the brakes, the tires stopped, and the ice from under the tires just made the car move forward ever so quickly, not slowing at all. Everything went quiet all at once for a moment. Just a still, calming silence. And then it hit.
(End of Scene 1)
(Begin Scene 2)
Ethan woke with a faint, ringing sound, and he could barely make out someone whispering. Soon, the whispering turned into yelling, and Ethan's vision was completely blurry. He blinks a few times, and says something random that even he can't understand. He looks forward and sees a figure moving around, leaning over the passenger seat. His vision clears, and his head recovers. He releases his seat belt, and looks up yet again, to see Richard messing around with branches of a tree, that had impaled the window during the crash. Ethan scooted over to the middle seat, and it struck him like a bag of bricks. In the passenger seat lay an unconscious Alexandria Martin, struck by multiple branches and bleeding out as Ethan's father yells at him more.
He is able to make out the words. "Go see if you can find a place to get some help!", ordered Richard. Ethan looks around to see outside the windows wildly, trying to distract himself from the sight. He opens up his door, and falls out of the car. He manages to get up slower than he had hoped to. He spots a faint path, made of stone, jutting out through the snow. It seemed to be leading to someone's property, from the careful alignment of the stones side by side. He follows the path for a few moments, and spots a dim light through the blinding snow. It would have seemed to have been floating, had he not trudged on and found the faint outline of a house in his sights. He made his way along the path, following the stones.
He looked up again and saw that the light had been coming from only one window, to the right above the entrance of the house. He saw what looked like an average house; a decent-sized front porch, a chimney to the right of the peak, all was normal except for the fact that it wasn't painted. He couldn't exactly tell whether it really was or wasn't, though, because the only thing illuminating it was the light from the second story. He makes his way onto the unpainted wooden porch, surprised it did not creak or groan as he did. He stepped up next to the door as quickly as he could, ignoring a pain in his left leg, undoubtedly from the crash.
He knocked on the door, and waited. It seemed as though he had been waiting for a while, but it was most likely just a million different thoughts running through his delirious head. Finally, after a while, the door opened with a creak so long and loud, that it had seemed as if it had been stolen from the porch to use on the door. A light shone through the door, along with a woman. "Hello. Is there something I can help you with?", the woman asked. Ethan merely responded with, "We need help. There was a crash." Ethan started to follow the path back to the car for a moment, but stopped. He turned and noticed the woman already inside her house again. He stood there, staring at the door, wondering how they would be able to...no. He wouldn't do that to himself. He...couldn't do that to himself. It was his responsibility to take care of his family. His mind began to wander about to memories of his sister, before she had died of cancer. She had once told him to take care of his mother and father.
He snapped back into the present when he saw the woman walking back out the front door, this time with a flashlight. He started making his way back down the path, this time followed by the woman. Ethan stopped a bit away from the car, where he saw his father trying to carry his mother down the path. The woman ran to Richard, nearly tripping in the snow. She yelled something inaudible to Ethan, and it took him a second to process it. "Get in the house, you shouldn't have to see this.", she had told him. Ethan turned and followed the path, making his way back toward the house of the woman. The woman yelled something else. This time, she yelled, "Brian! Come help! There's an accident over here!" Ethan looked back, and saw that the woman was helping his father to try to get down the path. He walked toward the house, guided by the path and the light from the house. He heard footsteps in front of him, and looked up to see a man running in thick, clunky boots that basically allowed him to walk through the snow as if it were almost nothing. Almost, though, as it still appeared that the man had some difficulty.
(End of Scene 2)
(Begin Scene 3)
As the man named Brian jogged past him, Ethan didn't bother to look back, and eventually got back to the front porch of the house. He nearly stumbled up the steps of it as he tried to get inside as fast as he could, barely realizing just how cold it was. He got up to the front door, and stepped inside the house. The main hall was fairly short; to the left of him was another door, similar in design. To the right of him was an opening to what appeared to be a kitchen. To the left of the opening was a staircase, leading up to the second floor of the building. It was enclosed with wooden supports and a rail, as a usual staircase would. Toward the end of the main hall was a chair next to the staircase. Anything beyond that, Ethan could not see, because there was only a light on somewhere upstairs, illuminating them, and a light downstairs, above the inside of the front door.
He walked over to the chair, exhausted, and sat down. Not long after, they were back at the house. Richard and Brian were both carrying Alexandria, as the woman walked ahead of them and into the kitchen. Richard and Brian both followed, and everything Ethan heard after that was silence. He was too tired to think about what was happening. So he leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He nearly dozed off into sleep multiple times, but he couldn't. Something was watching him. And it made his spine trickle with an utter eeriness that filled the room, and almost seemed to swallow him whole. It filled the void that was his soul, and overcame him. He pretended to doze off again, and this time he left his eyes cracked open a sliver, and with the dim lighting, none would usually be able to tell.
He moved his eyes toward the stairs, and figured out what was the matter. On a step of the stairs, a figure was watching him. As quick as he could, he swung his head down and opened eyes. It was a girl, who was sitting on a step of the stairs. She seemed as though she was waiting patiently for him to wake up, and she hadn't noticed him awake for however long she had been there since he had satten upon the chair. She could see his eyes open now, but her expression never changed. They stared at each other, and after what seemed like an eternity in Ethan's eyes, she gestured him to follow her up the stairs, and said nothing. She started walking up the stairs, and Ethan realized she wasn't going to wait for him. He got up from the chair, and started to make his way around to the front of the stairs.
He had caught a glimpse of what was going on in the kitchen, although he didn't want to. He couldn't see much, because he was just turning to go up the steps of the stairs, and as he was walking up them, following the girl, all he could process was red, and the smell of it in the air was too much for him to think about. He pressed on, up the stairs, as the girl turned a corner to the right, and was no longer in his sights. Ethan walked up to the top step, and turned the right. From there, he saw a room at the end of the short hall. He walks toward it, seeing that the door to the room was open, and that there was a light on in the room. He continued toward the room, and saw that the girl sat down on a bed in the room.
(End of Scene 3)
(Begin Scene 4)
When Ethan got into the room, the girl turned her head toward him, and gestured him to sit down on her bed, still not saying anything. He, at first, was reluctant, but seeing as he didn't know what else to do, he sat down next to her. They stare at each other for a while again. Her eyes were a shining emerald green, which were shimmering from the room light above. He couldn't look away, seemingly mesmerized by the stunning girl sitting in front of him, and it looked as though she was the same. Neither could look away. Neither wanted to. "My name's Ethan. Who are you?", Ethan asked. The girl was startled by this question, as if not yet prepared for it. He noticed something about the girl that was rather strange.
A head twitch. Only slightly, and he ignored it and just passed it off as from what she might've seen from the kitchen while he was trying to rest. Maybe she was in the kitchen originally. It didn't really matter to him. "I'm Elizabeth.", she replied. He looked around her room, and saw multiple pictures of the same flower. "What kind of flower is that?", he asked and admired the elegant design of the flower paintings on the walls. She looked up at one of the pictures hanging on the wall. "Can't you tell? They're red roses. I know it's kind of silly, or cliche, but I've always had a fascination about them.", she replied to him.
They spoke for a long time, having multiple conversations, and they got to know each other fairly well. Ethan was tired of it only after a little while, but he didn't mind it too much, as he wanted to be distracted by what was happening downstairs. He did learn things about Elizabeth though, and some of them were very interesting to hear about. After long conversations, both Ethan and Elizabeth felt like they could trust each other, and since it was so late, and they were both extremely tired, Elizabeth told Ethan, "You can sleep here, if you wish to. I don't mind very much." Ethan nodded his head in agreement. He rested his head on the wall next to Elizabeth's bed, and she hesitated at first, not knowing what his reaction might be, and then rested her head on his shoulder. She was taller than him, so she had to scoot a little away to be able to do that without it being awkward, and she managed to adjust perfectly. They quickly fell asleep soon after.
Elizabeth awoke by the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer to the door of her bedroom. She took her head off of Ethan's shoulder, and turned her head toward the door, to which she was closer to. She saw her mother standing there with a blank expression on her face that Elizabeth couldn't read. She turned around to Ethan and shook him to wake him up. His eyes opened slowly. He turned and looked to see the woman from before, which is actually, he found out, was Elizabeth's mom, Madeleine. He got up from the bed. Elizabeth's mother stared at him, silent for a few moments. Then she spoke. "I'm sorry...s-she...", she stammered. That's all she could say before leaving the room and closing the door. Ethan fell to his knees, not sure what to feel at that moment. Elizabeth got off of the bed and crawled next to him. She got to her knees and rested her head on his shoulder yet again. She thought she could hear sirens in the wind of the blizzard from outside of her window. "Everything will be okay...", she told Ethan as she hugged him from the side. His vision was blury from tears.
(End Scene 4)
Continued at Chapter 2. Reply for more.
The smell in the air was something of a soggy, drenched wetness that had filled the air. Undoubtedly the falling snow in the near pitch black sky. It was night. A winter storm had been warned the day before last, but Ethan's father wouldn't hear of it. He had wanted to get the move over with, and there was no arguing that would change his mind this time. So, as they had been for hours, Ethan and his family, or what was left of it from his sister's death a few years back, was in a black, skinny, if not slender, car. The logo on the car read 'KIA'. Driving down the icy road as it did, the tires making strange, if not alarming, noises from the ice cracking beneath them as the car went on, down the road. A long, twisting, dimly lit road that seemingly never ended. Ethan was behind the passenger's side of the car, staring out of the window, off into the darkness to where he could barely see the trees near the car. His mother in the passenger seat, his father driving with both hands on the wheel, constantly messing around with the wind shield wipers from the snow and hail falling onto it.
"Richard. We need to find someplace to stop and wait for the storm to pass." stated Ethan's mother as she turned to him. "I understand that, I just think that we'll be able to get there in less time. Besides, we're almost there. Maybe ten minutes away." replied his father. Ethan's mother rolled her eyes, as Ethan's father looked up at the rear view mirror. "You agree with me, right? I mean, then you can go to bed a lot sooner." Ethan looked up at the mirror, and said, "Honestly, it doesn't matter to me. I won't be able to sleep." His father looked back down at the road in front of his gloss-like eyes. Ethan's mother turned he head around as much as she could. "Is it the insomnia again?", she asked, and Ethan nodded his head in reply. He then turned his head back to the window beside him and rested his head on it. Richard was staring at the road with a confused expression, and then he looked up at the mirror, realizing what must be happening to cause the insomnia. "You haven't been taking your medication, have you?", he asked. He looked back down at the road. Alexandria, Ethan's mother, knew better than to get in the middle of it, so she laid back in her seat, keeping quiet. Ethan gave no reaction, a sign that his father was correct with his assumption. "Ethan, you know what we talked about.", his father scolded him. Ethan did not turn his head. Instead, he simply said, "They make me feel like a druggie."
Ethan gazed upon the barely visible trees, not wanting to speak with his father about this anymore. Alexandria also rested her head on her own window, and began to try and sleep. Richard looked up at the mirror again. He stared at his son, as if trying to see what was so conflicting about the subject to make Ethan not even want to look at his father. Alexandria opened her eyes a bit and looked up. In the dim light of the headlights, was a figure that all she could make out of it was a deer. "Richard!", she yelled to him, which startled him to turn the wheel as his eyes curve back onto the road. The car swerved in a sloped curve away from the deer in the road, and Richard hit the brakes as hard as he could, not knowing that with the ice on the road, that was the worst mistake he'll ever make. As soon as he put on the brakes, the tires stopped, and the ice from under the tires just made the car move forward ever so quickly, not slowing at all. Everything went quiet all at once for a moment. Just a still, calming silence. And then it hit.
(End of Scene 1)
(Begin Scene 2)
Ethan woke with a faint, ringing sound, and he could barely make out someone whispering. Soon, the whispering turned into yelling, and Ethan's vision was completely blurry. He blinks a few times, and says something random that even he can't understand. He looks forward and sees a figure moving around, leaning over the passenger seat. His vision clears, and his head recovers. He releases his seat belt, and looks up yet again, to see Richard messing around with branches of a tree, that had impaled the window during the crash. Ethan scooted over to the middle seat, and it struck him like a bag of bricks. In the passenger seat lay an unconscious Alexandria Martin, struck by multiple branches and bleeding out as Ethan's father yells at him more.
He is able to make out the words. "Go see if you can find a place to get some help!", ordered Richard. Ethan looks around to see outside the windows wildly, trying to distract himself from the sight. He opens up his door, and falls out of the car. He manages to get up slower than he had hoped to. He spots a faint path, made of stone, jutting out through the snow. It seemed to be leading to someone's property, from the careful alignment of the stones side by side. He follows the path for a few moments, and spots a dim light through the blinding snow. It would have seemed to have been floating, had he not trudged on and found the faint outline of a house in his sights. He made his way along the path, following the stones.
He looked up again and saw that the light had been coming from only one window, to the right above the entrance of the house. He saw what looked like an average house; a decent-sized front porch, a chimney to the right of the peak, all was normal except for the fact that it wasn't painted. He couldn't exactly tell whether it really was or wasn't, though, because the only thing illuminating it was the light from the second story. He makes his way onto the unpainted wooden porch, surprised it did not creak or groan as he did. He stepped up next to the door as quickly as he could, ignoring a pain in his left leg, undoubtedly from the crash.
He knocked on the door, and waited. It seemed as though he had been waiting for a while, but it was most likely just a million different thoughts running through his delirious head. Finally, after a while, the door opened with a creak so long and loud, that it had seemed as if it had been stolen from the porch to use on the door. A light shone through the door, along with a woman. "Hello. Is there something I can help you with?", the woman asked. Ethan merely responded with, "We need help. There was a crash." Ethan started to follow the path back to the car for a moment, but stopped. He turned and noticed the woman already inside her house again. He stood there, staring at the door, wondering how they would be able to...no. He wouldn't do that to himself. He...couldn't do that to himself. It was his responsibility to take care of his family. His mind began to wander about to memories of his sister, before she had died of cancer. She had once told him to take care of his mother and father.
He snapped back into the present when he saw the woman walking back out the front door, this time with a flashlight. He started making his way back down the path, this time followed by the woman. Ethan stopped a bit away from the car, where he saw his father trying to carry his mother down the path. The woman ran to Richard, nearly tripping in the snow. She yelled something inaudible to Ethan, and it took him a second to process it. "Get in the house, you shouldn't have to see this.", she had told him. Ethan turned and followed the path, making his way back toward the house of the woman. The woman yelled something else. This time, she yelled, "Brian! Come help! There's an accident over here!" Ethan looked back, and saw that the woman was helping his father to try to get down the path. He walked toward the house, guided by the path and the light from the house. He heard footsteps in front of him, and looked up to see a man running in thick, clunky boots that basically allowed him to walk through the snow as if it were almost nothing. Almost, though, as it still appeared that the man had some difficulty.
(End of Scene 2)
(Begin Scene 3)
As the man named Brian jogged past him, Ethan didn't bother to look back, and eventually got back to the front porch of the house. He nearly stumbled up the steps of it as he tried to get inside as fast as he could, barely realizing just how cold it was. He got up to the front door, and stepped inside the house. The main hall was fairly short; to the left of him was another door, similar in design. To the right of him was an opening to what appeared to be a kitchen. To the left of the opening was a staircase, leading up to the second floor of the building. It was enclosed with wooden supports and a rail, as a usual staircase would. Toward the end of the main hall was a chair next to the staircase. Anything beyond that, Ethan could not see, because there was only a light on somewhere upstairs, illuminating them, and a light downstairs, above the inside of the front door.
He walked over to the chair, exhausted, and sat down. Not long after, they were back at the house. Richard and Brian were both carrying Alexandria, as the woman walked ahead of them and into the kitchen. Richard and Brian both followed, and everything Ethan heard after that was silence. He was too tired to think about what was happening. So he leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He nearly dozed off into sleep multiple times, but he couldn't. Something was watching him. And it made his spine trickle with an utter eeriness that filled the room, and almost seemed to swallow him whole. It filled the void that was his soul, and overcame him. He pretended to doze off again, and this time he left his eyes cracked open a sliver, and with the dim lighting, none would usually be able to tell.
He moved his eyes toward the stairs, and figured out what was the matter. On a step of the stairs, a figure was watching him. As quick as he could, he swung his head down and opened eyes. It was a girl, who was sitting on a step of the stairs. She seemed as though she was waiting patiently for him to wake up, and she hadn't noticed him awake for however long she had been there since he had satten upon the chair. She could see his eyes open now, but her expression never changed. They stared at each other, and after what seemed like an eternity in Ethan's eyes, she gestured him to follow her up the stairs, and said nothing. She started walking up the stairs, and Ethan realized she wasn't going to wait for him. He got up from the chair, and started to make his way around to the front of the stairs.
He had caught a glimpse of what was going on in the kitchen, although he didn't want to. He couldn't see much, because he was just turning to go up the steps of the stairs, and as he was walking up them, following the girl, all he could process was red, and the smell of it in the air was too much for him to think about. He pressed on, up the stairs, as the girl turned a corner to the right, and was no longer in his sights. Ethan walked up to the top step, and turned the right. From there, he saw a room at the end of the short hall. He walks toward it, seeing that the door to the room was open, and that there was a light on in the room. He continued toward the room, and saw that the girl sat down on a bed in the room.
(End of Scene 3)
(Begin Scene 4)
When Ethan got into the room, the girl turned her head toward him, and gestured him to sit down on her bed, still not saying anything. He, at first, was reluctant, but seeing as he didn't know what else to do, he sat down next to her. They stare at each other for a while again. Her eyes were a shining emerald green, which were shimmering from the room light above. He couldn't look away, seemingly mesmerized by the stunning girl sitting in front of him, and it looked as though she was the same. Neither could look away. Neither wanted to. "My name's Ethan. Who are you?", Ethan asked. The girl was startled by this question, as if not yet prepared for it. He noticed something about the girl that was rather strange.
A head twitch. Only slightly, and he ignored it and just passed it off as from what she might've seen from the kitchen while he was trying to rest. Maybe she was in the kitchen originally. It didn't really matter to him. "I'm Elizabeth.", she replied. He looked around her room, and saw multiple pictures of the same flower. "What kind of flower is that?", he asked and admired the elegant design of the flower paintings on the walls. She looked up at one of the pictures hanging on the wall. "Can't you tell? They're red roses. I know it's kind of silly, or cliche, but I've always had a fascination about them.", she replied to him.
They spoke for a long time, having multiple conversations, and they got to know each other fairly well. Ethan was tired of it only after a little while, but he didn't mind it too much, as he wanted to be distracted by what was happening downstairs. He did learn things about Elizabeth though, and some of them were very interesting to hear about. After long conversations, both Ethan and Elizabeth felt like they could trust each other, and since it was so late, and they were both extremely tired, Elizabeth told Ethan, "You can sleep here, if you wish to. I don't mind very much." Ethan nodded his head in agreement. He rested his head on the wall next to Elizabeth's bed, and she hesitated at first, not knowing what his reaction might be, and then rested her head on his shoulder. She was taller than him, so she had to scoot a little away to be able to do that without it being awkward, and she managed to adjust perfectly. They quickly fell asleep soon after.
Elizabeth awoke by the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer to the door of her bedroom. She took her head off of Ethan's shoulder, and turned her head toward the door, to which she was closer to. She saw her mother standing there with a blank expression on her face that Elizabeth couldn't read. She turned around to Ethan and shook him to wake him up. His eyes opened slowly. He turned and looked to see the woman from before, which is actually, he found out, was Elizabeth's mom, Madeleine. He got up from the bed. Elizabeth's mother stared at him, silent for a few moments. Then she spoke. "I'm sorry...s-she...", she stammered. That's all she could say before leaving the room and closing the door. Ethan fell to his knees, not sure what to feel at that moment. Elizabeth got off of the bed and crawled next to him. She got to her knees and rested her head on his shoulder yet again. She thought she could hear sirens in the wind of the blizzard from outside of her window. "Everything will be okay...", she told Ethan as she hugged him from the side. His vision was blury from tears.
(End Scene 4)
Continued at Chapter 2. Reply for more.
