#cd;

You can’t remember the last time you truly felt whole. Okay, that’s an understatement. As a kid, you definitely felt like there was nothing more to life than family and friends. You had a brilliant little brother who wasn’t as daring as you (not many people were) but he made up for that in a pure heart. Where you would use your charming smile to get out of trouble, Nate would use his to combat a frown. You couldn’t be anymore different from your brother of course, but that was the beautiful thing about being brothers. You could be complete opposites but still love each other more than anything in the entire world. You have to wonder if it’s because you adored your brother so much that you started to feel restless at home. You saw the ways that he could excel while staying in place and reflected it upon yourself and your struggles at being more than just average. It was never a negative observation of course; you never felt an ounce of jealousy or envy towards your brother, only love and adoration, yet it did end up leaving you wondering what exactly you were lacking that could help you succeed. So you began to travel. By the time you got your learners permit at the ripe age of sixteen, you were taking the car on the weekends and exploring the towns on the outskirts of Seattle. It started out as a hobby, a sort of thing to fill your time when you didn’t have time with your friends; but your restlessness continued to grow as you got older and your trips away from home extended from hours into days and days into weeks. Your parents weren’t exactly thrilled but they couldn’t exactly argue with you if you kept up your grades in school. Traveling became less of a hobby and more of a lifestyle. After you graduated you never stayed in one place for too long. You’d settle somewhere for a few days, explore the city and listen to the stories of the people that you met there and then you would become restless again and continue on your way. Of course, there were towns that drew you in for more than just a fleeting visit. Sometimes it would be the atmosphere of the area that kept your rooted for a few weeks. A few times it would be an experience that kept you around. Once - and only once - it had been a girl. Her name was Cara and from the moment you saw you, you knew that she was just as lost as you. Her parents had hopes for her - academic, familial, financial - and you both continued to pour out your hearts and discover similarities to each other that you thought you would never find in a person. Both of you had parents that wanted you to follow their footsteps; to teach and mold young minds with your wisdom as they had. You both wanted nothing to do with that life - you wanting to travel and she wanting to become an artist. 

It all seemed so perfect. You found yourself finding more reasons to stay, more reasons to postpone the next hop over to the next town. Of course, maybe you should have been a bit more skeptical. Even with your optimal view on the world, you knew more than most that perfection - true perfection - didn’t exist. You were one to look at a sunset that most would call perfect, and even though you could take in and appreciate the beauty, you would also see the trash litering the horizon. Maybe Cara had been the sunset that had been too breathtaking. You didn’t see the litter. The college applications that arrived at her doorstep. The longer and longer phone calls with her parents.

Three months later, you woke up alone to a note that read ‘Ben, I hope you understand. I’ve got to fill the shoes given to me instead of trying to craft my own from nothing. - C”. To borrow the words of your favorite writer, ”A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too big world.”

You flew home the next day and crashed at Nate’s place, desperate for some sort of familiarity. It took a week before you felt the restlessness stake claim of your heart again and you were back on the road again, trading manual labor or odd-jobs for a place to sleep and a warm meal. Years came and went. Sometimes you would pick a city and stay there, ignoring the habitual flight mechanism you had whenever you felt too ‘claimed’ by a place, other times you would travel across the country in a matter of days, hiding yourself among throngs of tourists as you observed and took in the world around you. 

Even after all of these years, you still thought about Cara. 

Was she happy with her choice? 

The dirt in her mouth was bitter and she could hear each grain rub against her teeth. She clenched her jaw as she thrust her hand once more through the darkness. The light, although dim, broke through the abyss. She panted, frantically taking breaths before she screamed loud enough to conjure the last bit of strength inside of her. She felt the dirt fall away around her, and she wiped away more of it from her eyes.

She was surrounded by numerous tombstones, and the dim source of light came from the church she recognized at once. As memories flooded her, her hand sprang towards her neck to check her most recent wound -- except it was gone. It was replaced by impossibly smooth skin, almost like the carved marble of a renaissance sculpture. 

Her body was shaking and unstable, but she willed herself to stand. The last of the dirt fell away as she stood and began to walk towards the church. A faint footstep stopped her in her tracks. “Who’s there?” she hissed.

“Daughter of mine,” an unfamiliar voice began, “You no longer belong with the living.”

Rose turned around towards the voice in the shadows. She could not see the woman’s face. It was hidden by the shade cast by her large-brimmed hat. “They will plot your demise. Neither you nor they are the same, therefore nothing is as it was.” 

Rose burrowed her eyebrows. The way this woman was talking annoyed her more than her ominous warning. She pushed aside her impatience with the stranger and instead asked, “What’s different about me?”

“Ya ain’t human for starters,” chuckled another stranger. “Any chance you’ll come with us without a fuss? I’m mighty tired today.” The hooded stranger moved forward into clearer view.

It felt like a mistake. She was taught to stay away from folks like them. Her old self was already running towards the church, her safe place, but her feet were anchored where they were.

“Tell me your names,” Rose demanded. Her own assertive tone surprised her, and it mismatched the way her guts seemed to twist and jerk in anxiousness.

The hooded man shed the hood of his jacket and held out his hand. “Clemence,” he nodded with a sinister smile.

“Constantine,” the older woman answered behind Clemence. She didn’t offer a hand, but she did remove her hat.

The two strangers looked normal, plain even. Rose shook Clemence’s hand.

“I s’pose... there ain’t no point in askin’ who you are,” Clemence added with a slight chuckle, “--only b’cause we saw which grave you climbed out of.”

Rose blinked in reply. “You’ve been waiting on me then?”

Constantine nodded. She pointed to a car in the distance. “We must leave. We do not have long before the hours until sunrise threaten your safety.”

Rose considered all of the suspicious things the two had said since they met only a few minutes ago. “Daughter of mine” or the way they had known she’d climb out of the grave she’d been buried in. It was like they had planned all of this. She had no idea if she could trust them, and she also had no idea what Constantine meant by “threaten your safety”... She knew she could trust her church and her family, but they had buried her like she was dead. They were unlikely to welcome her home...