In an Instant

"Life is filled with choices, you only are given one life. And a limited number of years to make it worth while. Even if you're given only the negative choices, there's always a reason to turn it around and make it something great. Even when you are walking into a storm, there's no reason you can't dance in that storm and try and have a good time." - Sabrina Cartwright

"Travis where have you always wanted to go, but where unable to when you where you know, actually alive?" I ask Travis as we walk across a busy street, the cars going right through us and I laugh at the feeling it gives me.

"I got kicked out of the mall a few years ago...haven't been there since." He tells me, "Is there a reason for this?"

"No reason!" I laugh turning around to face him, throwing my arms at my side and balancing on a log in front of me.

"Alright then." He catches up to me and we walk down the middle of the road, and I think to myself even in what is supposed to be my death. I've never truly felt more alive than what I do now.

Out of no where Travis then pushes me into a snowbank, and I fall face first. I get up, with my face still filled with snow and throw a snowball back at him.

We finally reach the mall and enter it, people walking about going about their business not even knowing that we are there in front of them. We wander around for some time, just enjoying being some what alive in each others company, forgetting about the true problems we at hand.

After a little while we are getting ready to leave the mall to go venture off else where when an over whelming sensation comes over me, I don't understand it until I feel Travis tapping me gently on the shoulder. I glance up at him and he has a look of fury painted on his face.

"If I were you, I wouldn't turn around."

"Uhm why?" I laugh looking at him cautiously.

"Just trust me on this." He puts his arm around my back and ushers me away from the part of the mall we are in, I shrug and just go with it.

"Was there a reason for that?" I ask him as we step out of the mall and back towards the road leading back to the hospital.

"I'll tell you later, just continue trying to enjoy yourself for now." He says and I nod in agreement even though I really want to know what he's talking about.

"So, Delilah, where have YOU always wanted to go?" Travis asks me as we pass the hospital but don't go towards it, as the day was still young.

"There's this park I always loved going to as a kid, you might know it as it's by our old neighborhood I haven't been there in years. Stephan always hated going to parks, as he finds it too childish for him." I tell Travis my shoulders slump down in sadness.

"I know exactly which park you're talking about, I haven't been there in quite a long time as well and I don't find it childish at all." He tells me as we begin to make our way towards that exact park.

As we reach it, I notice that it's almost all covered in snow but we run towards it anyway and we both laugh as we swing like crazy on the swings going as high as we possibly can. Travis surprises me by jumping off the swing as it's still very high in the air and landing in the snow. I do the same and get shocked as the snow falls down my back.

We both just lay there in snow for a moment, staring up at the clouds and taking turns guessing what shape they where.

"I think that one is an elephant." He says pointing up to one cloud.

"No way, that's clearly a fat cat!"

"With big ass ears?"

"Yes!"

He just laughs and gets up brushing the snow off of his pants and walking towards the road, I follow him with curiosity of where he was headed. We walk in silence as he approaches a very old run down house.

"Is this your house?" I ask him as he walks up to the door and pushes his way in, as he steps into the house I can tell the feeling is over whelming.

"It was..." He walks around the house, looking around at almost everything in sight and never stopping to take it all in.

"Travis, we don't have to be here." I tell him as I come to realize where we are.

"I need to do this." He says turning around and glancing at me before taking a deep breath and walking up the nearly broken staircase. I follow him and we reach a bedroom, there was a large stain in the middle of the floor.

Travis turns to me with tears in his eyes, "This is where he killed them."

"Travis... I'm sorry." I say to him, not knowing if those are the right words to say to someone in a time like this.

"Don't be sorry, how where you to know the monster that your father truly was? You were just a kid too." He leaves the room, and enters another smaller room and walks towards the closet. He opens the doors and reaches towards the back of it and pulls out a small notebook.

"Mommy told me about her and the man from next door today," Travis begins reading the scribbles of his writing in the notebook. "She made me promise not to tell daddy about it, I don't like the man from next door every time he comes over mommy starts acting weirdly and I don't like it. She says they are all friend's but I don't know if I like him. He has a little girl but she's very shy and doesn't come over but I went there once. She really like's to draw, but her daddy doesn't let her draw for some reason."

"That was you I was writing about, I went over once and you were in your room crying because your father ripped up one of your drawings but... I kept it." He searches through the journal until he finds the page he is looking for and finds a torn up paper and drops it onto the ground and puts it together right in front of me like a puzzle. I feel astonished, I remember this drawing with every ounce of my memory.

Its of me, sitting on a bench watching the snow fall from the sky. But I am not alone and I have someone sitting next to me, and I'm also older in the drawing.

"I can't believe you kept this." I tell him staring in amazement at the drawing that laid before me, he just smiles and picks it up placing it back inside the notebook.

"I just can't believe no one ever found the notebook." He says holding it in his hands tightly.

"Maybe we should get back now, we've been gone quite a long time." I tell him and turn to start leaving the house.

"Not so fast! I thought I'd find you here." I hear a sinister voice from behind me, and turn around with fear in my heart.

My father and his friend are standing at the door frame, an evil grin plastered among their faces as they inch towards us and Travis and I run towards the window and jump out of it.

The same window my father did when he killed Travis's parents.