Good, Evil, and the Gray Area (FIRST DRAFT)

Chapter 28

on the side is the other cover by heartbeat456. im soooo exited that it worked last time and u guys got to see that cover!!!!:) anyway, on to the chapter. sorry i havent been uploading much,really. i hope i havent been scaring off any potential readers. i do have an excuse tho- ive been at camp and we dont have wifi there. anyway, here it goes. vote, comment!:) oh and by the way, someone is voting. i know they r. if u vote please take the time to comment! seriously!

oh yeah, and i have another story posted. its called secrets. just the first chap is up so far. i wont post the rest if no one else seems interested.

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 The woman looked at me, pity in her eyes. My breath caught in my throat, and my eyes filled with tears. I hadn't realized how much Ava ment to me until she had dissapeared, but now it was even worse. Ava was the closest thing to family that I had.

Zahir walked in behind me, and stood at my shoulder silently. I turned to look at him. He looked at me, his big brown eyes watery and sad.

Silent tears streamed down my face, cutting through the grime. I grimaced. The pain felt almost like phisical pain, like someone had ripped a hole in my chest. I collapsed in a heap on the dirt floor, and started sobbing.

The sobs became uncontrollable, and I started shaking. Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I felt bile rise in my throat.

I couldn't do this. Not without Ava. I had nothing.

My breathing was growing heavier, rasping in my throat. My eyes had long since squeezed themselves shut, but tears still managed to leak between my eyelids.

I didn't know what to do. I felt like I was dieing. I was curled in a ball on the floor, which was also the ground, since the tents had nothing under them. The dirt was packed tight, therefore wasn't exactly comfortable.

The ground was digging into my sides in places, but I wasn't even noticing it anymore. My body was going numb.

All I could feel now was the pain in my chest. It grew bigger and bigger, expanding, consuming my whole body. When it got to my head blackness seeped over my eyes, and I couldn't feel anything anymore.

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Someone was shaking my shoulders. I groaned, sheilding my eyes from the stinging light with my hand.

"Whaaa," I groaned, swatting at the person shaking me.

"Lee, it's Zahir," a male voice said softly. Then, I remembered. Ava was dead.

I curled into an unresponsive ball. My teeth chattered as I once again sunk into the shocked state I had been in before I had passed out. It felt like someone had once again ripped a hole in my chest, this time right where it had been healing.

The pain was too much. I could hear Zahir talking to me urgently, but I didn't care anymore. Ava was dead.

My chest throbbed. What do I do? I thought, how do people get through this? Loss like this? It's too much.

Then, the black started coming back. I welcomed it, welcomed the calm. It was a place where the pain wasn't so bad, where I could forget, even if it was only for a little while.

But it wouldn't come. I squeezed my eyes tightly closed, waiting for it, craving it, needing it. How was I going to survive otherwise?

Then, shivers wracked my body once more as I thought of Ava's smiling face. Her delicate nose, the spray of freckles. I never found out if those really were freckles, or just dirt.

That simple thought put me over the edge, and I thankfully fell back into the deep abyss of sleep.