The Lost

Prologue -- Part Three: Aria

It was as if someone had come through with a thick brush and painted everything in her life in black. Couple killed in house fire, daughter sole survivor— even the headline in the local newspaper, the details of the horrific arson that left Aria Stuart an orphan, hot from the press in black ink.

Now surrounding her in the cemetery were hoards of people she'd never met or hardly knew at all. Estranged aunts and uncles, family friends that stopped by once in awhile for the occasional party or holiday, coworkers, neighbors— they all came out to pay their respects to her parents. All dressed in the same dreary black that was stifling the girl.

Who were they to pretend they cared now? Aria scoffed internally. They weren't fooling anyone. She was the daughter of the deceased; she knew better than anyone how miniscule and meaningless the roles that these people played in her parents' lives were.

And maybe that was why the crowd paid little attention to the Stuart's daughter, or maybe it was for no reason other than the fact that they didn't know what to say to the young girl...

"How terrible!"

"What a shame..."

"They really were good people."

"I'm so sorry for your loss."

She'd heard it time and time again, and boy, was she getting sick of it. None of it was sincere... It was all nicety, people playing pretend so that they could say they were aware of proper social cues.

For that and so much more, Aria wished the whole lot of them would go up in a puff of smoke.

The eulogist stood at the front of the congregation, a priest dressed in a black as dull as the others, reading from a bible to commemorate her parents and their passing on to a better brighter place.

Surely, Aria thought, it was a more colorful place than the hell she was experiencing.

But Aria paid little attention to the proceeding, only finding irony in the red roses that the mourners had chosen to throw in her parents' graves alongside their caskets. Flowers the same ferocious color as fire. Ironic, ironic, ironic.

What really caught Aria's attention was the loud cawing of a raven above the ceremony, but no one else seemed to pay it any mind. Only Aria.

She slipped away from the woman who was supposed to be watching her that day— some auntly figure that she'd met only once when she was a baby. As if they actually expected her to remember that... She swerved in and out of the crowd. It was a rather large one, as her parents had been young and generally well-liked people. Pillars of the community, some said.

"Oh, what a shame to have lost them."

The raven that Aria had wandered of to investigate sat perched on one of the high branches of a leafless shriveled tree. It was winter, but even if it hadn't been for the chilled weather, this tree was clearly at Death's door.

The bird cawed loudly as she approached, ruffled its feathers, and flew off to another tree a bit further from the crowd. Thic continued again and again until the funeral party was lost from Aria's view, as well as her from their inattentive watch.

Even the birds in her life were black, Aria mused as she tipped her chin up to watch the raven as it landed on the lowest branch of a small white-barked tree.

"Don't tell me you're here for the funeral too?" She chuckled, turning to head back to the procession. By now, someone must have noticed her absence. They might not be worried, but she was going to get in trouble for wandering off like that. At least if she came back of her own accord, she might save herself some scolding.