Lullabies

I stood up and was looking around the party. The music had been killed no one was talking anymore and an ambulance pulled up in the front yard. I watched it all unfold and decided the party was no place for me since I was incredibly squeamish. I went through the kitchen to say goodbye to my friends. But they were all hugging each other and a few were crying. What was going on? I just smiled sadly and walked out to my car. My head still felt numb and I knew I was no where near sober. So walking home would be my best option. It wasn't too far of a walk. Just a couple of blocks. I started my walk west.

By four  in the morning I was back. It had been around ten when I'd left. I walked in through my front door. Feeling quite drained at doing so. And went hunting for a snack in the kitchen. I found nothing that interested me so I walked sluggishly up the stair into my room after pausing long enough to hear Jack's snores in his room. I snickered and went into my own. Just dropping onto the bedspread as I was and trying to sleep. 

It was only a half hour later the phone rang. My eyes shot open. I'd like to sleep a little longer...

I roll over and press my face into my sheets. They smell like the lilac dryer sheets mom uses. I hear voices down the hall. Urgent and the rustling of people getting up. So I figure I should probably too and go see what is going on. Before I o out the door. I yank the dress over my head an pull on a tank top and a pair of jeans I rarely use and head out my bedroom door. Dad is pacing the hallway with the phone to his ear.

Mom only a few steps behind him. 

“How did this happen? Is she ok?... Ok we will be right down.” he said before hanging up. Mom went to Jack's room to wake him up.

I walked around the halls and went downstairs and pulled on some boots which made my feet feel uncomfortable. But I tied the laces anyways and was ready to go when everyone was heading out the door and climbing into the car. I snuck around dad like I always do And hopped over the console and sat in the backseat with Jack. We drove around through the still dark familiar streets until we were parked in front of the hospital. Why were we here? Who was here that we had to visit that couldn't wait until morning? I couldn't think of anyone. We all jogged inside and my dad planted his palms on the edge of the counter in the lobby. Out of breath he demanded the name “Kirsten Abnathy.”

“Yeah dad?” I ask. But he doesn't look at me as a nurse describes to him where to go. And we are jogging again and I remain clueless.

We meet the doctor in the hall. He holds a chart in his hands and his expression somber. As we approach my dad asks “Where is she? Is she ok?”

“Your daughter received a fatal shot to the lungs.”

Daughter? What the hell? I'm his daughter...

“Is she ok?” mom asks.

The doctor studies each of their faces. Missing mine entirely. Jack, mom and then dad. He shakes his head slowly “I'm afraid not. She's gone.”

My mom lets out a loud sob and cries into my dads chest. I don't get what's going on. I look around myself, 

“Can we see her?” my dad asked. A dead body? Seriously he wants to see some dead girl. Wow dad, way to nerd out.

“I don't know it that'd be be—” the doctor began.

“We want to see our daughter.” mom demands. The doctor looks at her sadly for a moment before nodding and laying his chart on the desk and leading us through the chrome double doors at the end of the hall. The elevator ride to the basement was long and was filled with anxiety. My mom was trying to control her emotions around her family. But I could see her on the brink of holding onto sanity. 

We got off and passed through another hallway entering another doorway into a room I could claim to be called morgue. 

I winced as we walked past cubicles with different covered up, pale bodies. Each of which whose lives had been ended in various ways. It sickened me to know how many had been killed in the prime of their life.

We entered one of the cubicles. There was a table with a girl. Around eighteen from her shape though her face covered in a towel. She was dressed in a hospital gown of a deep aqua color. Mom began to cry again and I couldn't rip my eyes away from the body. Cold and still and had a whole life beyond her. Ended in some case.

“Who shot her? What happened?” dad asks. He is even fighting off waves of emotion.

“She was at a party tonight according to one of her friends, Ashley Crowley. She had had a few drinks And then participated in a dart gun war. But one of the guns was real, rather that was intended or not. She took a shot in the back. And if the wound wasn't bad enough, the blood loss took her. Three boys and a girl were helping her though. Trying to bandage her up.”

“Who were they?” dad asked.

“Billie Armstrong, Michael Pritchard, Frank Wright and Erica Paleno.”

Dad nods. “I'll have to thank them...” the tears welled up in his eyes and his sniffed. “For trying to make my daughters life last...” he sobbed and him and mom hugged each other.

I reached out to comfort mom. But my hand went right through her. I gasp and yank it back. I turn around to see Jack hesitantly pulling back the towel from her face— my face. I scream. I'm dead?! I can't be... I can't be. My face is pale and eyes closed. Blond hair brushed off my forehead. I stare at my face in utter shock at what I had become.