Opening and Chapter 1
PART 1: THE PROLOGUE
Fee Athaym, Ihnahll Fythayll“Breakers, Makers, Binders, Takers
All we have is time
Our Gods live to love and give
For our eternal lives”
- A recovered hymn from the Third Wave. Subject unknown. Author uknown.
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CHAPTER 1
“I can still feel it—the…”
“Amelia, put your damn seatbelt on!”
The voice rang through the car, shaking Amelia from her half-earned sleep. She grunted, turning over on her side, neck sore from the position she laid against the window. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the seatbelt and yanked it across her as loudly as possible. She huffed. It clicked. She could practically hear her stepmother’s nod of approval.
What am I, seven? Amelia thought to herself.
Cracking an eye, she watched her stepmother fall back into driver mode. The sharp hiss of talk radio garbled against the low hum of the tires across pavement.
Amelia slid her hand slowly back to the buckle, covering it with her shirt to muffle the sound. Slowly, she pressed down and unclicked the seatbelt. For four soft breaths she waited. Her stepmom didn’t notice. Amelia smiled to herself and let the seatbelt retract slowly back across her body.
I’m not your kid, anyways, she thought.
“You wear your seatbelt in your own car, right?” her stepmom asked, cracking another sunflower seed between her brand-new half pressed nails.
“Of course,” Amelia said quietly, repositioning herself. No matter how much she didn’t want to talk, she knew it was useless. Guess I’m not getting a nap before softball. Amelia huffed and opened her eyes. Her backseat window was a dirty smear of fingerprints and face grease—the only dirty window in the car. It was just how she liked it. She pulled her worn-out hoody sleeve over her palm and rubbed a small enough patch of smudge away to peer through.
The sky outside was a vibrant blue unwilling to be outdone by the muddling clouds. The sun flickered brightly off in the distance, its rays splitting the sky in two. She hated the day-time practices of summer but any excuse to leave the house was a good one.
“Why are we still talking about this?” Amelia said.
“Because it’s important, that’s why.” Her stepmom sighed. “I know you’re not used to me driving, but I don’t deserve you being rude. After we get your car back from the shop, I’m going to make you drive with me in your backseat to see how you like it.”
“I’m just in the backseat because I wanted to take a nap—”
“Before softball practice, I know.”
Amelia squirmed, trying to sink deeper into her dark grey hoodie. I hate it when she does that.
They fell to silence. Her stepmom clacked her nails along the steering wheel. Amelia hated that too.
Her stepmom cleared her throat. “How’s choir going?”
“Worse than ever,” Amelia mumbled. “I’m terrible at singing.”
Her stepmother shifted the rear-view mirror, making eye contact, her eyeliner taking up most of the view. “Your dad is very happy you took it up,” she said with a smile.
Amelia sighed. “I know. But I swear the choir director hates me because I’m terrible.”
Her stepmom sighed. “Amelia, you should be nicer to yourself.”
“No, I mean it. I’m actually really bad.” Amelia smiled into her reflection, watching the trees pass through her window self. “I just kind of sing as loud as possible on purpose because...I’m so horrible...”
Amelia trailed off.
The sky was changing.
The trees shimmered along the road, shifting colors from brown to orange, from orange to blue. In a flash they disappeared, leaving only the blank sky beyond, before popping back into place one by one. The sky shifted overhead; green, grey, then darkness.
The world flashed white.
The world flashed gold.
The gold broke apart, shattering into endless, tiny motes of dust.
Amelia’s stomach lurched.
She blinked, rubbing her eyes.
The world returned.
The night sky stared at her, looming doom before yet another grueling nighttime practice.
Nighttime practice?
Amelia’s head lurched.
Why did that feel so wrong?
Amelia sat up. She tapped on the window. “Hey, uh...did you just see something?”
“All I see is you huffing about,” her stepmom said, rubbing her temple. She sighed and leaned towards the passenger seat, grabbing Amelia’s duffle bag of softball gear—filled with Amelia’s hat, bat, glove, cleats and uniform— and turned to toss it. “Here, go ahead and put your stuff on. I’ll be late if you don’t.”
Her stepmom froze as she turned around, her face twisted in anger. She stared at Amelia’s unbuckled seatbelt.
“Amelia, for the last time!” she screamed. “Put your damn seatbelt on!”
The world flashed white.
The world flashed gold.
Her stepmom never saw the tree coming.
Amelia screamed. Her stepmom yanked forward, swerving as she twisted the wheel in response. The tires screeched. The road ended.
As the car crashed through the trees, Amelia’s seventeen-year-old body was thrust through the front windshield. The top of her skull hit a tree head on, splitting the dome across cleanly. Her neck retracted in response, the vertebrae snapping at the force.
Amelia Grae died on impact.
As her body hit the dirty forest ground, the car screeched in the distance. A shrill scream pierced the air as her stepmom came to. The car door creaked, luckily undamaged enough that it was still moveable. Her stepmom shoved it open, scraping herself on shattered wind-shield. She crawled her way out and fell to her knees, puking instantly. She whipped out her phone and dialed something, screaming something else. The words were muddled, the phone call fading.
“Ka feth,” a feminine voice said, high and airy. “That was brutal.”
Amelia stopped.
That wasn’t her stepmom.
Who said that? She thought.
“Who said that?” the voice said, repeating the words.
Yeah, that’s what I said, Amelia thought.
“Yeah, that’s what I—” The voice gasped. “Wait, hold on! Can you hear me?”
Yeah, I guess. Amelia tried to look around. She stopped, panic shooting through her. There was no around. There was only endless darkness.
“I know it’s hard, but you should enjoy the memories before you can’t anymore,” the voice said softly. “I don’t know how many times you can watch this before you fade off.”
Look around? Amelia thought. Fade? What do...you mean...?
Amelia’s thoughts exploded, expanding outward as if being stretched thin. Everything in her was on fire, pulled at the seams into the darkness, the all-enveloping nothing. Her senses dulled. Her mind faltered.
The world flashed white.
It faded as the scene repeated.
“Amelia, put your damn seatbelt on!”
The voice rang through the car, shaking Amelia from her half-earned sleep. She grunted, turning over on her side, her neck sore from the position she was laying against the window. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the seatbelt and yanked it across her as loudly—
Amelia gasped.
I’m in the car. She stared at the seatbelt in her hands. How was the seatbelt in her hands? I've been here before. The memory lurched forward. Her stepmother screamed. The tires screeched. Amelia crashed through the wind-shield. Amelia hit her head. Amelia died.
The world flashed white.
“Amelia, put your damn seatbelt on!” Tires screeched. Her stepmom yelled. Crashing glass. Tree. Dead. Fading forever. Gone for eternity—
“NO! I WON’T!” Amelia screamed against the memory, punching with no fists, raging with no body.
The world didn’t care. It flashed white again, the memory repeating. It weighed at her, pressing her from all sides. Seatbelt, white, car crash, death; the scene replayed a thousand times and then a thousand times more.
“GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Amelia kicked and shoved, moving whatever was left of her, trying to push the thoughts of her apparent death away. Her voice rang through the memories, stuck in the loop like fingers on the edge of a cliff. Crash. Crack. Death. Amelia struggled against nothing, but the nothing seemed to win.
“I”M!” Amelia screamed.
Memories raced. The oncoming tree, the twisting world, her stepmom’s scream.
“NOT!”
Memories slammed. The car spinning, her skull cracking, her body thudding.
“DEAD!”
The seatbelt unclicking, the smudged window...the duffle bag of softball gear...
Memories slowed. There in the darkness, Amelia felt something. A form, a thought, a need. All of her shook, all of her compacted. Light split through the darkness, tearing through fading veil of thought. Emotions rushed in. Fear, pain, loss, elation, joy; the emotions gathered, turning into memories. Her mom, sick and dying in bed, clutching their grandma’s blanket. Her older brother Thomas, distancing himself after the death. Amelia’s seventh birthday party, her dressed as her favorite superhero. High school prom and the heartbreak of her first kiss. The summer sun beating down as she spun plastic swords against fake enemies. Days spent in the dugout, deftly spinning the bat in boredom as she was punished for being too aggressive with the baserunning again. Karate lessons forced by her mom because she needed to let the aggression out. The first time a boy messaged her over instant messenger. Her dad, remarrying, and how happy he looked. Herself at the reception and how sad she was. The dull hospital room as she cried alone in the corner.
The memories fused with the emotions.
They settled.
Amelia opened her eyes and the waking world returned.
Something struck her and her skull split apart from the impact.
Amelia jolted up, grabbing her head. Below her, her body struck the tree and fell to the ground in a clump.
I’m watching from above.
Somehow, she was dead on the ground, but alive in the air.
“Holy damns, you actually did it!” a feminie voice said behind her.
Amelia spun to face the unknown.
Through the treetops, barely three feet away, a two-foot-tall woman floated behind her. Tiny in stature and with pale blue skin, the woman was naked from head to toe, though she was smooth across the skin like a barbie doll with no discernable genitalia. Wings sprouted from her head and back, the top wings smaller and flittering, the back wings sparkling like a myth.
The woman gasped, suddenly looking down at herself. “Oh my god, I’m naked!” She held a palm out beside her, resting it against something unseen. She pushed against the unseen object, grunting slightly. The air whooshed as she did, revealing a massive, metal inlaid chest. Flipping the chest open, the woman dug in and pulled out a set of green and black leather armor, rushing to strap it on.
Amelia only stared.
“You did great by the way,” the woman said as she finished dressing, dismissing the chest with another push. “What did you do?”
“Do?” Amelia said, raising her hands. She stared at them. No, she stared through them. They shined translucent in the moonlight. Amelia spun, looking herself over, now floating in the air. She was in the same outfit she’d died in; softball jersey, workout shorts and her favorite hoodie. “I...don’t know. I think I screamed a lot.”
“Well, I’ve never seen anything like it. Ka feth, I thought it was impossible.” The woman flittered forward, flying around Amelia, both sets of wings sparkling a trail of dust. “You know, I'm not supposed to talk to y’all during collection, but it’s just been so lonely—and then you responded. Actually responded! No one’s ever done that before!”
The woman stopped her circling, hovering in front Amelia. She bowed her head with a smile. “My name’s Mot.”
Amelia smiled awkwardly. “Uh, hi Mot. I’m Amelia.”
“Hello Amelia,” Mot said with a giggle. “How do you feel Amelia?”
Amelia stared at her dead body on the ground, now lying in a bleeding slump.
“I feel very, very dead.”
ORIGINALLY DRAFT V1 NOVEMBER 2020
UPDATED V1 SEPT 2025