Glass Reality | Book One

Prologue

A/N

Thanks for checking out my book, beauties! 

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I was never one to really show how I was feeling. In fact, I would hide, hide, hide, until the brick walls around me were built up so high I was blocked from the world. At times, a brick would fall from that wall and I would peer out questioningly, trying to decide if I should cry or not.

The wall never was taken down, though.

At least, not until three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago, it seems someone took a wrecking ball to my precious brick wall and I was so stressed...angry...and betrayed, I instantly started crying. I didn't know how to react to the situation, staring blankly ahead of me as if a ghost had captured my attention. And maybe there was one.

I blamed it on the stress, the number of emotions running through me at a dizzying speed. Or maybe it was because Aunt Janice offered me a sip of her plain, red wine. I don't know what it was, but I saw it.

It was leaning over my parents, it's head cocked to the side in question. It held something around its neck before moving closer to my parents laying down, lifeless. Seconds later, I could've sworn the room grew to glow a warm yellow. I had a blink a few times in order not to get blinded, but I swear I saw my parents. They wear standing next to it, smiling and crying, holding each other's hands.

They looked so familiar, I gasped. My mother had her famous curly hair up in a tight ponytail, and my father was lazily smiling. How could they smile at a time like this? A time when death circled like a hawk?

Then their gaze flicked over to my sister and I. I could see the pride in their eyes as I sat up front, crying rivers as I stared at the wooden coffin. I stared at them a moment longer, gazing at them curiously. I longed for their arms to wrap around me and embrace me in their warm cookie smell. I didn't want them to leave me with Ravenna, my evil twin. As if sensing I could see them, they suddenly disappeared and the shadowed thing turned slowly.

I made sure my eyes were locked on the front of the room, tears brimming my eyes. I was so confused. What had I seen? What had just happened? And more importantly, why was that black thing secreting mist like saliva?

I was about to walk over to it, my curiosity so strong it took over my fear, but Ravennas cold hand grasped mine. I gasped and looked down, slapping her arm away as she tried to make my fingers crush together painfully. Ravenna, my twin, looked nothing like me with curly blond hair and blue eyes. I, on the other hand, had piercing black eyes and black hair I normally leave alone. I swear my hair has a mind of its own. Other than our hair and eye color, Ravenna and I look exactly the same. It's scary actually. 

Our facial features match exactly; high cheekbones, rosy cheeks, almond-shaped eyes. We were mirror images. Only I have something she doesn't: a soul. Just kidding, I have a mark on my chest. The mark looks like a bare tree, all the empty branches reaching out to nothing. I remember asking my mother about it and she told me it was a beautiful birthmark that traced my veins. I believed her at first, but now, whenever I look at it, it looks more like a branding symbol. It's a deep red, and the lines really do follow the veins in my chest perfectly.

Ravenna lacks anything remotely wrong with her body. She's tall, skinny, and confident. Everyone loves her. Everyone except me. Ravenna is anything but nice to me. She's evil, constantly trying to make people hate me, always telling me I look bad, and pushing salads toward me with wide eyes. I get what she means, I just don't get why she does it.

We look exactly alike, yet I somehow turned out ugly? Sure we have different hair color and eye color, but our faces look like God just got lazy. 

I stand beside my Aunt, my eyes gliding through people again. I try to knock off the odd feeling that something else is here with us. But then I see it again.

It is standing beside my father's cousin, Jared, it's blackface peering around in front of Jared. I wonder why Jared doesn't push the black thing away from him, but then I realize: he doesn't see it.

I'm hallucinating. It's not real, I tell myself.

Aunt Janice moves around me suddenly, jerking my arm to the right. "Cass, come on," the sadness in her tone makes me want to hug her. Ravenna is impatiently stomping on the floor beside the door, her face empty of any tear marks. I should've known she wouldn't cry for our parents funeral, she doesn't cry for anything. She sneers at everything.

My eyes turn back to the black shadow, only to see it staring at me this time, carrying something wooden and long in its hand. My eyes widen as I look upward. A giant, curved, blade sits on top of that wooden stick.

I'm dreaming.

It's a Halloween prank.

At a funeral?

At a funeral, yes. 

Please tell me I am not seeing this.

Am I in the Sims? 

Before I can do anything, the thing takes a step toward me, the mist now forming into something that looks like a man. The thing solidifies before me, a hand forming as it grasps the dark, stained wood of the scythe. I want to stare more but Aunt Janice is pulling me again. I know the thing noticed me staring, but I cannot seem to look away, even as it suddenly shifts into something resembling a boy with zero mist in sight, but its face is shadowed by the lighting. It's scythe hovers right over its burly shoulder, the rain outside pattering against the colored glass of the church.

"Cassie!" Aunt Janice snaps. I look over my shoulder once more. We are leaving? Now? Everyone's still here? Suddenly, I feel talons on my shoulder.

"Come on, you idiot," Ravenna growls. "Let's go."

I allow them to pull me out of the church, my eyes locked on the thing between the church doors. As the rain starts to wet my hair, I trail backward as I stare in. I refuse to look away. It's as if the thing has me locked in a trance. Thunder strikes somewhere, scaring me out of my trance, but the thing is suddenly between the church doors, squeezing through them. Its head is cocked to the side, curiosity lining it's burly shoulders. Then, as if I'm dreaming, the thing disappears with another clash of thunder the thing disappears into that ominous black mist.

"I'm seeing things," I murmur to myself as my arm is yanked forwards again. More thunder clashes somewhere, even as the door to my car is slammed shut and Ravenna slides into the front seat, instantly turning on the radio. Aunt Janice starts yelling at Ravenna for blaring music and I'm sitting in the back wondering about my sanity with one question running through my mind: did I just see the flubbing Grim Reaper?

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