Cold Case » Luke Patterson ¹ ✓

1│The Beginning

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Chapter One
THE BEGINNING
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Life is a beautiful thing that so few of us actually get to enjoy. Tragedy strikes, and our world turns upside down without an explanation. We don't always understand why something terrible happens to us. All we can do is manage and try to move on. We can try and prepare ourselves for the worst, but even our minds can't comprehend what will happen. We think that we know what to expect when our time comes to an end, but the truth is no one ever truly knows. We don't know when our last day will be or if there will be people left behind to mourn us after we are gone. What we do know is that after you take your final breath, it's the people left in the world that feel the impact.

It could be at work, your position is left unfilled, and the work gets piled up on someone else until they can hire a new person. It can be at school, where your empty seat stays empty until a new student comes and takes it. The void the we leave behind only remains until someone decides to move on with their lives, and then we are gone, reduced to nothing more than a memory.

But if we are lucky, there are those who keep us alive in their memories. They never let go, they grieve and accept the loss, but they never let go. They still celebrate our birthdays, buy us presents at Christmas, or even talk to us in our bedrooms.

Every person grieves in their own way, and there's nothing wrong with that. But we can't always just think about what will happen in the world after we are gone. We got to live in the moment and touch the lives of those around us.

We aren't here for long, just a moment in a sea of millions, and then we fade away as if we were never here. We aren't given the privilege to know how long we have left in this world, but maybe it's for the best. But there are some who leave before their time, from those who take their own lives to the ones who are murdered. Rosalie Adams was one of the few that were taken away from life earlier than life planned. Life had prepared for her to live a long and happy life, but as fate would have it, she didn't. Instead, her life was cut short, and because of this, she had the chance of a lifetime.

Rosalie Adams, a sixteen-year-old girl, had her entire life planned out. She wanted to graduate high school and go to an art school. She even had a plan on how to get enough scholarships to be able to afford to go to college. She had it all planned out in her head, but she failed to plan for one thing. The one thing that ruined everything for her. She failed to plan that she would not survive long enough to graduate.

The day started out like any other school day for her. Nothing was out of the ordinary. She didn't wake up with a bad feeling or a sense of dread. She woke up excited because she had been chosen to make the art banner for the parade that would take place during homecoming. Her and two other people were put in charge of or designing the banner. She loved art, and she was good at it.