Gen 3- Safe and sound

Beep...Beep....Beep...

I could hardly feel my body. Everything was numb and blue. I rested my head on something soft and warm while a haze formed around my thoughts and kept me in an oblivion. "Ande..." a distant voice called into my ear and slowly got louder. "Ande, wake up, love." My dad sat over me with a bright flashlight in his hand. My eyes opened just enough to let too much light in and blind myself for a few seconds. "Is she okay?" my mom asked, sitting up next to dad and looking down at me. I felt tiny, meek, weak, frail....Insecure.

"Ande! Listen to me. Keep focused." He flashed the light into my eyes again and more people gathered at the other side of my bed.

"Can she talk?" an unfamiliar voice whispered with such ferocity that I could have believed it to be my own little sister...but she was only a child.

"She'll have to tell you that..." dad answered, picking up my arm and examining me. I let my eyes slip shut again and more people began to fondle me.

 "She's too skinny...how did that baby make it one day? Ande, when was the last time you had anything to eat? ANDE...Open your eyes, pay attention to what I'm saying."

"Adam..." Mom had started to cry. I didn't try. I didn't care. She didn't help me when I needed it way back when, so, why should I accept the help now?

The room slowly emptied and I was left alone again. Dad tried to stay but mom convinced him that I needed rest and that he should leave me be.

"Maybe soon everything will be back to normal. We'll be happy again and so will she." I opened my eyes the slightest bit to catch a glimpse of what all these departing people were doing...Just to realize that there were only two left in the room. Aphrodite tilted her head and dropped down on her knees next to me.

"Hey, Andebug." She whispered in her sweetest voice. "How are you? Will you please talk to me?" I felt a pain almost like a knife stabbing me in the heart. Aphrodite should hate my guts...She should want to claw my eyes out with her fingernails for leaving her here alone...But she didn't even seem to want to. I shut my eyes again as to not let anyone else in.

Aphrodite reached up and stroked my cheek with her finger before heaving a sigh and standing up. She began to talk to the other person in the room whom I believed to be Eden or someone...until she started to talk. "God, she got herself fucked up."

Riley Goodman just laughed.

 "Be nice, Riley. You know that you're the reason that she left in the first place." Riley scoffed.

"I tried to get along with her that morning at my house. She ran away then too. Don't blame me for what happened to her."

 "I'm going to blame you. You're the reason her mom and dad got all mad at her. The reason that she woke me up early that morning to say goodbye."

 "Oh stop being so mushy. You know I hate it when you do that."

 "I know...I'm sorry." Aphrodite giggled and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What on earth happened while I was gone? Why was Riley here...especially with Aphrodite... I opened my eyes in just enough time to see my best friend give her a kiss right on the lips.

 Remember how I spent so much time wishing that I was home? Well, this home was some distorted universe where my parents cried all the time.

This was a universe where my kid sister wasn't so kidish anymore.

Where Aphrodite and Riley were a couple and Arley was blonde.

This was a universe where I never got out of bed...I stayed there for as long as I could with occasional visits by my beautiful daughter who was named Genesis. The first couple of days, I didn't sleep...I just laid in bed with my eyes closed. Being force fed and my heart kept monitored on the screen next to my bed.

When I did finally allow myself to fall asleep, I didn't wake up. In a sense, anyway. I could hear and feel what was going on but moving was impossible. Genesis sat on the edge of the bed as a doctor examined me...my parents nearby. I was half in a world of darkness and despair as they talked over my slowly dying body. "What's wrong with her? She's just lying there..." My mom pulled her hair behind her ears and the doctor felt my forehead.

"Mr. and Mrs. Langly...I'm not sure exactly whats wrong with her but what I am sure of is that your daughter has lost the will to live." He paused for a few moments before starting again. "Though...she's still strong enough at this point that saving her is possible....It will take a lot though on both of our parts."
And in my mind I was silently screaming for them to just leave me be..

"Mom...Dad...?" Eden poked her head into the room, carrying something in her hands. "I found this in Ande's bag." My dad took whatever it is that she was giving him...I didn't know...I couldn't see it. All I knew was that whatever it was...It was gonna tell them exactly what happened in Bridgeport...Everything that I had put in my bag did just that...

*Adam*

 "I screamed for help for hours...No one ever came to my rescue." I read in a whisper to Della who sat next to me. "The only reason I'm writing this down is so that if someone finds me dead, they'll know exactly what happened. I don't need these memories." She looked up at me, terror written in her features.

"God, Adam...How could this have happened? Is it my fault?" I pulled my wife closer and looked into her eyes. "We didn't pay enough attention." I went on reading as soon as Della got quiet again.

"It was all over eventually, he stopped coming downstairs and I was left alone for days with nothing but a tired old maid who occasionally gave me bits of food. Convinced I was going to die, I stopped accepting them."