The Awakening - Visitor's Story

by Zoe O'Callaghan

It was winter, snow was falling and the ground was covered in a thin layer of ice which in turn was covered with a blanket of snow. Nothing covered the snow apart from the still, cold air.

Lily Alison was making snow angels in her front yard. Her mother Rachel Alison was standing on the porch in her slippers, she was holding a hot cup of coffee in both hands. She was laughing at something, presumably Lily's best friend Seth who was trying and failing to ski backwards, he kept falling over.

"Argh! More snow in my ears!" Seth complained, trying to get the last of the snow out of his ears while lying on the ground. Seth's parent were standing on the other side of the road arm in arm, they were also laughing about Seth's stupidity.

Lily was staring up at the sky, the clouds had parted and it wasn't snowing anymore. The blue sky was showing itself at last and for some strange reason that Lily couldn't explain she knew that today would be the last day she would see snow for a while, tomorrow it would be officially spring. Lily let the sun warm her face. She was waiting, listening for the sound of birds signaling the end of Winter.

Her mother stepped down from the porch and walked over to where Seth was lying, she offered him her hand except before he had time to accept it, a car screeched down the road, sliding and skidding. Rachel looked up in horror and then she pushed Seth out of the way as hard as she could.

Lily wanted to look away but she was completely frozen as she watched the car got closer and closer and then in the last second she regained control of her body and buried her head in the snow. Not a second too late, she heard a scream and that was it-everything was silent. Lily could see people moving their mouths and communicating, but the sounds didn't reach her ears.

A paramedic came over to her. "Here," the paramedic said handing Lily a blanket. The paramedic sat down next to her and put her arm around Lily's shoulder. "Your mother didn't make it," she said quietly.

The arm felt strange around Lily's shoulder. She wanted to shrug it off. There was only one arm that she wanted around her shoulders. There was only one voice that she wanted to hear right now and that was not the voice of the paramedic.

The next day as Lily had guessed was a real spring day. The sky was a beautiful blue, the birds were singing, the light that was sifting through the green trees was dappled on the grass and the smell of the spring flowers was drifting through the air. It was a beautiful day, but there were people that were grieving on this day and one of those people was Lily, she was distraught.

She was sitting on a large moss covered rock. Her face was resting in her hands, but it was impossible to hide the fact that she was crying. Tears were dripping through her fingers and landing on the soft earth.

Lily glanced up she had heard quiet footsteps approaching her and sure enough from the other side of the clearing came Seth, Lily's saviour, her knight in shining armour, her best friend.

He sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulder, this time Lily felt comforted, she felt the love from him to her in the arm and this calmed her enough to take a deep breath and start talking.

"Seth! What am I going to do now? I have no parents! I have no one ...," Lily said trying not start crying again.

"There there, I'm sure it'll turn out just fine," he murmured gently, rubbing her on the back.

"It's all my fault! I should have stopped her from going onto the road!" Lily said in anguish not being able to hold the tears in, she let them spill over her cheeks.

"It is not your fault! I shouldn't have fallen over! Hey look! It's a herd of wild horses!" Seth said in excitement, following the horses with his eyes. "Wow!" He breathed quietly.

Lily didn't say anything, the way the horses were so wild, free. The way their lives were so easy scared Lily.

Suddenly it hit her, for horses it was easy for them to run away from what scared them. There was no thinking about it. They just did what their instincts told them to do, but for humans it wasn't that easy. You couldn't just run away from what scared you, you have to face the fear. You have to overcome it and then keep going like nothing had happened.

Lily was sure that her mother wouldn't have wanted her to be afraid of life but to be friends with it. This hit her hard but suddenly she knew what she needed to do. She stood up and walked purposely to the edge of the forest.

"Lily! Where are you going?" Seth said hurrying to catch up.

"If you can't go back to before, then you just have to go on with life, " she said grabbing his hand and she purposely walked off into the forest.

Hand in hand they walked back to the graveyard, to the funeral. Lily hugged Seth tightly before leaving, "Thank you, " she murmured and then ran after her grandparents.