Soulless

| S O U L L E S S: PROLOGUE |

"Ade, are you wearing your seat-belt?"

I lifted my head to see my dad squinting his eyes at me through the rear-view mirror in suspicion; his face made me crack an amused grin as a small giggle escaped me. I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to muffle the noise.

"Yes, daddy!" I groaned yanking on the black strap to make a point, "Are we almost there yet?"

Outside the car, rain lashed down hard and heavy. It made daddy mutter under his breath and sigh in annoyance, which made me giggle every so often and he would scowl playfully at me as I tried to hide my smile. 

Today had been so long, daddy worked forever and it had been so boring without Jules at preschool today.

"Almost, how you holding up?" He questioned turning down the CD that was retelling a story for me. I shrugged and tried to play it cool but I hated it when it rained in the dark, and daddy knew it.

"Well, I like it. Tonight's the super moon, daddy!" I grinned pressing my nose against the cool window.

Through the blurred screen, I could see it beaming in the sky like a silver beacon. It kind of looked like a bright white splodge on a really big piece of black paper but Jules had been talking about it non-stop forever, I don't know what he liked about it so much. 

I sighed thoughtfully, I kind of liked it when the moon was so bright in the sky and I wished that it wasn't so stormy.

"Do you know why there aren't any stars out tonight?" Daddy suddenly asked making my nose scrunch in thought, "No." I answered through an annoyed sigh and I could tell that he was already grinning.

Daddy loved telling me stories and I hoped that this one would be good, "They're in the moon, every star. Tonight. They all banded together to make the moon extra bright just so that they can guide us." He spoke with certainty and my eyes widened in awe, "You see, the people who are lost need the light."

"Where does the light take them?" I asked leaning forward and daddy tsked at me to sit back down.

His face stretched into a grin and I could tell that this would be his favorite time, "Home, Ade." Daddy said in a nostalgic voice, "The stars together, will guide us home."

"I like that one-"

A throat searing scream escaped me as a blast of electric light suddenly strikes down from the center of the obsidian sky, colliding with the hood of daddies beloved truck like a train on the track.

I heard him yell as the wheels screeched against the ground and before there was anything daddy could even think of doing; the car swerved off the road. The sound of glass shattering rang in my ears, and my gut clenched at the sickening crunching sound that came from metal meeting the gravel. 

The bone shattering impact of the car hitting the gravel was soon softened when the car skidded off the road and I heard daddy cursing words that I didn't even know how to spell as we continued to roll downwards through the wind.

Tears streamed down my face and my throat burned from the screams that were erupting from me, I could feel my heart battering against my chest without mercy and the sharp sting of glass from all the broken windows. 

My head was spinning like a merry-go-round and I could feel myself slipping away... and all I could think of was my daddy but it was like someone was dunking my head under water; it was so cold and everything was echoing, and my mouth tasted of metal.

"Adriana..." A ghostly voice whispered softly through the wind and I blinked blearily at the woman who was suddenly hovering over me, almost transparent, "Don't cry, shh. I'm sorry, I had to."