Lest I should fall by Arianna Erickson (mystery books to read TXT) 📖

Ever since Ashe died I've never been the same. Not my life, my dreams, nor my heart. He's all I can think about, because he was so close to me. Now that he is dead, I don't know what to do with myself. Add to the fact that I'm still being hunted. Will life ever be normal again?

Whispering these secrets on high
Joining together
Forever we bind
Two become one
As we fall into place
Never forgetting those who have died
But missing them with each and everyday

My hair blew to the side with the wind, blowing my tears down my face. I stood over his casket in a black, knee-length, flowing dress, and watched as it was lowered into the ground below. I need to pull it together, I whispered to myself in my mind. Blythe held my hand, and didn’t try to hide his own grief. I finally gave in, and let the tears pour down. First, in drops, then endlessly, down my pale face. I turned away. I couldn’t watch. I had always hoped I’d never have to see this day come. The day… I would watch my own brother be buried.
Before I knew it, from my tears escaped sobs.

In my hand, I held a single pale, white rose and a single black one. Before I realized it, blood was dripping from the palm of my hand. I had squeezed my hand around the part of the two roses where the thorns were and noticed the blood was dripping down onto the casket in little drops. Leaning over the casket, I laid the roses down. My tears fell on the roses. Moreover, so did my blood. I’d never forget this day. The day, my big brother; my ONLY brother, was buried before my eyes.

< ------------------- >

I struggle to breathe, but I’m falling deeper into the abyss of darkness, the air from my lunges gone.
As I fall, I see his face, and a memory of ours we shared, playing before my eyes.

“Ashe!” I laughed, daring him to come after me for poking him as I started to run through the parking lot, my lower breast length brown hair flowing behind me as I ran for my life.
“My sandals are off Sis, I’m coming after you!” he called running after me, a slight smile playing on his lips.
I mistakenly looked behind me as I continued to run and saw him catching up.
“Oh shit!” I cried as I tried to run faster.
“I’m going to get you!” Ashe yelled getting closer.
Moreover, in no time flat, I let out a loud, high-pitched squeal as Ashe captured me with his arms around my waist from behind. We were both laughing as he ran with me back to the sidewalk in front of the doctors’ office.

Finally, the memory ended.

I watch as, like a tape, another memory with Ashe began to play.

We were walking down the sidewalk at night to the car coming from a concert.
“Allianna, do you know you are the only person in the world who has ever gotten this close to me?” Ashe said looking straight ahead.
“That’s because like you with me, I understand you completely like no one else does. I can tell when you’re upset and sad, even when you won’t admit it. I know what you’re thinking even without words. I know pain like you do, even if my life only comes close.” I whispered as I held his hand.
“I love you, bro.” I whispered.
“I love you too sis.”
That was one of the first times I ever heard him say that. It made me so happy to hear, but I knew how hard it was for him to say it because of the hurt he was put through. Which is how I knew it was true.

As it ended it began playing yet another memory, one of my favorites. Yet this one involved Aimee.

Aimee got out of her mothers car. I ran to see her. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year. I tackled her in a hug.
It fast forward.
I was trying to hold Aimee in a hug. When we least expected it, Ashe yelled, “Group hug!” and consumed us both. We laughed and held each other tightly, afraid to let go.
That same day, it was raining and Aimee, Ashe, and I huddled under my robe outside in the cold dusk light on my porch bench, laughing and reminiscing on our memories together.
Fast forward.
Aimee and Ashe were leaving, and we were by my front door saying our sorrow filled goodbyes. Ashe held me in a hug longer then usual as I began to cry, both of us knowing it would be the last time in a long while before we saw each other again. Holding me tight he whispered, “Sis, I love you so much. Don’t ever for get that. I’ll never regret meeting you. I’ll miss you so much…I love you.”
And I remember crying.

The memory ended as I began to cry. Cry hard.
As I fall, I see his image change. He’s watching me now, with sorrow filled eyes.
“This was never supposed to happen. You were never supposed to see me die…” his voice whispered.
“Ashe!” I scream falling, my arms reaching for his translucent image on the abyss above me, “you weren’t supposed to leave me! You weren’t supposed to go away!”
“I’m sorry…” his image said and faded away into nothingness.
“Ashe!” I scream over and over again until his name becomes a dying sob on my lips, lost in the suffocating darkness and my tears.

< -------------------- >


I woke up in a cold sweat, crying. Blythe was at my side in an instant.
“What’s wrong baby?” he asked, concern clouding his beautiful grayish blue eyes.
“I-I had a d-dream about A-Ashe,” I hiccupped in tears.
He gave me a look of compassion before wrapping me in his arms for comfort.
“Shh,” he whispered soothingly, “it’ll be okay.”
I looked at him, anger and pain filling my eyes.
“Will it really? Will it really be okay? How can you even tell me that? It may never be okay again…never ever!” I screamed hysterically. “It’ll never be okay! Ashe is gone; now you’ll be taken from me too! I don’t want to be alone again.” I sobbed pathetically.
“I don’t want to be alone again. I want you to stay. I want Ashe to come back. I don’t want to be, can’t be alone…” I cried.
Blythe gave me a look that said he understood more than I realized. He ran his fingers through my hair in a calming gesture before speaking.
“I…I know the pain of being alone, Allianna…I know it so well, like you. Too well in fact…Actually, it’s all I’ve really ever known ‘til you came into my life,” Blythe said softly, a look of despair covering his face.
“Do you remember how when we first met, I told you that my parents wouldn’t care if you came over because they were dead?”
“Yes…but you never told me how they died…” I whispered, feeling ashamed.
“The reason I never told you how they died, is because it was still too fresh; too painful a wound; an agonizing story, even now, for me to tell.”
Blythe looked at me with a regretful look of sorrow in his eyes. “I feel like such a baby,” he said suddenly no longer meeting my gaze. “Suicide…”
The unanswered question was hanging in the air, and was suffocating; sucking the life out of us.
“Both of them….” he finished, “because of me. Because...” He choked on the words as he spoke them, “because I…was their worst nightmare.”
Sitting on the edge of one side of the bed, wearing a black t-shirt and slightly tight pajama pants, he had his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, his black and red bangs falling in front of his face.
The moonlight was coming through the window and illuminated part of the wall and a bit of his handsome face. Subconsciously I leaned over and brushed the hair from in front his eyes. That’s when I heard a sob escape from his lips. I had seen him cry only twice before -Well, once, and heard him the other time when I almost died, but still...- but even I had never seen him cry to this extent. I looked at him, and noticed the moonlight reflecting off his tears. He looked so beautiful in the moonlight, even when crying. I put my arms around his shoulders in an attempt to comfort him.
He looked up at me, tears streaming down, sobbing and shaking like a fragile child as he spoke.

Brice and I are twins, when we were born, a demon from hell came to our parents. It told them we were cast out of Heaven by God as fallen Angels and our souls now belonged to him He told them that we were sent to gain control of earth.
He said Brice or I would become Lucifer’s vessel, then he vanished telling them as he left that if they tried to keep us from our destiny, they would die. At first they were scared, but didn’t know if they should believe it or not. When they looked at us, just normal looking infants, they let it go and decided to never speak of it to anyone.
Brice and I grew up normally at first and the demon’s warning was soon forgotten. But when I was 7 months old, just learning how to crawl, I saw something shiny on the counter in the kitchen while my mother was turned around, and wanted it. I looked up at it, and I somehow floated up onto the counter just as my mom turned around. I had the shiny object in my hands, which turned out to be a knife, and looked up at her as I heard her scream. I hadn’t understood what I did wrong that made her so upset. Floating had come to me as naturally as breathing or sleeping. I hadn’t realized that I was so messed up. Such a…a monster…
Mom and Dad may still be alive now if Brice and I were dead, but they could never bring themselves to do such a thing, even though it would have been saving the world. They could never bring themselves to kill