Stolen Serenity

Destiny Island.

It's one of those islands that you picture in a vacation brochure. Palm trees that sway in the wind as if they were made of rubber, white sand beaches that you swear could be as soft as silk as the grains travel over your bare feet, crystal clear ocean water that seems to lift up into the air and instantly cling to your cheeks as your walk to the shoreline.

Laughter echoes throughout the forests and the waterfalls roar down from the sky, as if they come from Heaven itself.

But oh so many secrets lie within this tropical paradise. Hidden within the deep forests that smell strongly of crisp melon and paopu fruit, are mysteries just waiting to be solved by someone.

And that someone is Serenity.

---

"Where is he?!" she screamed down the narrow corridor of the hospital. Beeps and buzzes of operating machines blared in her ears as everything else canceled out, leaving only her shouts and her heartbeat thumping in her ears.

"Ma'am, we're going to have to ask you to calm down," a nurse tightly grabbed her shoulders and tried to steady her in one spot. "We need you to sign some papers before you-"

"Papers!?" Serenity sobbed as tears streamed down her cheeks, her eyes red from crying. "I-I don't have time for papers, I need to see him."

She pulled herself out of the nurse's grasp and raced down the corridor, looking left and right into each patient's room as a doctor rushed by with a squad of nurse's behind him.

"According to these forms he's only nineteen years old. Just graduated Genovesa High and has a younger sibling. The police say it was a accident involving a drunk driver. But this boy was sober," the doctor trailed off as he continued down the hall, his eyes scanning the paper. "His name is Jack Harrington."

"Jack!" Serenity shouted as she turned her attention to the doctor who was already rushing into a room and pulling back the curtain. The doctor stepped back at the bloody sight of the boy who was severely injured. Gashes and cuts covered his entire body and drips of blood were quickly running down his forehead.

"Doctor, we're losing him. He's lost too much blood," shouted a nurse who was attempting to apply pressure to his bleeding wounds, a failing attempt to clot the bleeding.

"Check the IV, Louis," the doctor instructed as he flipped over the papers on his clipboard and he looked up at the ceiling. "I'm afraid it's too late for this one."

"Jack," Serenity mumbled as she quickly walked down the hallway to the open door. The voices and screams were still blocked from her ears and only the slowing beep of the heart monitor filled her mind.

"Jack," she repeated as she pressed her hand up onto the door. "Please..."

Tears began to fall from her eyes as the heart monitor began to slow even more and longer beeps filled her ears. Each second, the lines on the monitor descended, along with the tears in her eyes.

"Please don't leave me," she sobbed at the doorway. As she spoke the words, Jack slowly turned his head towards her, and through the blood stains in his hair and on his skin, shined his two, emerald green eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as he smiled towards her and she couldn't help but smile back.

"My little Serene," he spoke, catching the doctor and nurses off guard as they glanced towards the lone girl in the doorway.

Serenity rushed into the room, ignoring the doctor shouting at her, saying it wasn't sanitary. Serenity pushed by a nurse and soon she was at his bed side. She leaned down towards him and placed her hand upon his cheek as she smiled down at him.

"Jack," she spoke between tears as they fell down onto his cheeks. He smiled at her voice and weakly clutched her hand in his.

"Everything..." he paused as his voice caught in his throat. "Everything is going to be okay."

"But you're hurt," Serenity cried as she moved closer to him so that he would not have to try so hard to speak loud.

"I love you, Serene." he whispered as he placed a gentle kiss upon her forehead. "I'll always love you, my little Serene."

"I love you too, Jack." Serenity whispered back as she held her brother in her arms, ignoring the blood that was staining her white school uniform.

Before another word could be spoken, Jack slowly closed his eyes and his grip loosened on her hand.

"Jack," she whispered again as she tried to block out the heart monitor's noise. "Please."

The heart monitor slowed and slowed until all the sound remaining was the long, dreaded beep. Tears formed in her eyes as she willed the doctor to pull her off the bed and out of the room. She sank to the ground as tears began to form a small puddle around her hands.

"Jack..."

Serenity leaned up from her soaked comforters that were tightly folded around her mattress. In her hand lay an open book that she assumed she fell asleep while reading. She pushed away the drying tears that rested on her cheeks and she pulled her thoughts away from the accident that had occured two weeks prior.

"Fictional lies and fairytales, it's all rubbish that's what this is," Serenity groaned as she slammed shut her classic novel of Snow White and shoved it away under her bed. Greeted by smelly socks and unpacked knick-knacks, the book soon found itself filling vacancy in the land of worthlessness.

"It's sad that such words can twist one's life into believing there really is a prince charming to come galloping on a white steed to save his damsel in distress from evil. As if a kiss could awake a princess who has fallen faint to a poisonous apple," she whined as she pulled a black sharpie out of her desk's drawer and sketched an inky black skull onto a green apple she had picked fresh from the grocery store bins this afternoon.

"Rubbish, bull, nonsense and poppycock," she muttered as she threw the apple at her opposite, watching as it smashed into hundreds of juicy pieces and slowly slid down the drywall.

A knock erupted on the door as Serenity was about to unleash a stretch of words unfit for ears of children. She quickly sat upright on her bed and pushed the remnants of the apple with her dirty sneaker under her bed. Another guest for the world of clutter that was never to see the light of day again.

"Serenity, why don't you come downstairs and have dinner with your father and I," spoke a gentle voice from the doorway as it slowly cracked open to reveal her mother dressed in a light pink dress, her hair high into a messy bun.

"No," Serenity stated as she laid back down on her bed, her head hitting the pillows as she closed her eyes, pretending that if she did so her mother would disappear into thin air.

"We need to discuss some things," her mother dragged on, ruining the vision that she had vanished. "Your father and I think you should get outside, introduce yourself to everyone. Every since we decided to move-"

"You mean ever since you decided to move," Serenity interjected, her anger past it's boiling point.

"Honey, I know you wanted to stay in Genovesa but you father and I thought it was best we left. It wasn't fit for you," she tried to persuade Serenity onto her side, but she had already had an earful.

"It was perfectly fine for me. Jack would have wanted me to stay there," Serenity argued as she turned over from the doorway to face the window that over looked the sparkling blue water outside. It swayed back and forth, back and forth, as if taunting her with a sandy grin.

"Swim with us, Serenity," it seemed to call. "Swim and you can escape this all, vanish forever. Swim, swim... drown."

"Come downstairs for supper, Serene," her mother demanded as her grip tightened on the doorknob. The doorknob inaudibly screamed in agony, a pinch more pressure and it was well on it's way to crushing.

"Don't call me that," Serenity fumed as she turned towards her mother. But where she expected to find her face, she found the bare back of her door smirking back at her in content.

She pushed herself up off the comforter and glanced back out at the sea.

"Swim," it called to her.

"Swim I shall," she replied as she grabbed a bundled blue towel that laid stray on her floor. She propped open her window, and within the length of the tide flowing in...

She was gone.