• I saw it before I felt it. The gleam bounced off a metallic magnet on the refrigerator.

    I knew it was wrong, but I drank at a party. I...got drunk, at a party. I remember trying to tell myself to stop…I remember other people telling me to stop, but I didn’t listen. After I was completely unable to function, I decided it was time to go home. Knowing I was too intoxicated to drive, Aubrey pulled up out of nowhere to save me. Aubrey knew where I lived; she used to be my best friend. We where inseparable. Not one of us thought we could live without the other. Stuff happened, fights brewed, we ended up cursing each other to hell. I forgot what all our little bickering was about, but I do remember standing up in class one day, and screaming at Aubrey at the top of my lungs. After that, she didn’t go one whole week at school. She failed every class. I’d always thought it was my fault, so you can only imagine how eager I was to accept her offer to help me get home. She wasn’t drunk. I’d didn’t even seen her at the party until then.

    We got in her car, and she drove me down the few streets to my house. I stumbled out of the car with a bit of help from her. She towed me to the door, fetched my keys out of my back pocket, and opened the entrance. I meandered in, using the walls and such for support. My feet led me to the refrigerator, where the touch-sensitive light forced me to squint. I groped a bottle of water and tossed half of it down. It tasted funny.

    Aubrey had silently made her way toward me. Here’s where the bad stuff happens. The fridge closes, and the metallic magnet winks at me, I spin around, Aubrey’s hand falters. I feel an immense amount of pain, almost to the point that it seems numb, between my shoulder and throat, just under my collarbone. I try to suck in a breath, but Aubrey’s hand prevents it. My terrified eyes wander down to see a knife lodged into my body, directly after the realization of what had happened; I feel a warm, sticky substance cascade over my left breast to my ribcage.

    The kitchen wobbled, like it was being held by a bad camera-man. I wasn’t sure if it was from the loss of blood, the pain, or the suffocation. My hand reaches up, an attempt to rip her hand away from my mouth and nose, but I’m far too weak to pull that stunt off. Aubrey, tears flying from her eyes, yanks the knife from my shoulder, (ow) and spikes me in the gut. I see the entire room shudder, and feel myself collapse on the ground.

    This is where the gates come to save me. The un-named colored floor. Here’s where Ty came and rescued me. This memory floods back to me because Ty gave me an instruction. He said, “One of the people you’ll be watching over is Aubrey…” He gave me more names but I didn’t hear them.