--Title Undecided--

Darkness.
Where was she?

         Caty felt small and vulnerable in the pitch blackness that enveloped her like a sea of tar, engulfing and swallowing every quick breath she attempted to make. She needed to find some sort of exit and excuse herself from the dark silence. Out of desperation, Caty took a small step forward floating on hope that there would be something below her toes to step down on.
         With that one step of faith taken her foot found ground, and a throaty voice echoed throughout the darkness.
         “Take no more steps. You tread on unknown ground.”
         This voice she heard spoke in a tone that sounded slightly sarcastic and if given another landscape she might have been apt to inquire. However, under the circumstances she made no effort.
         “When lights reveal your surroundings you might understand.” The male voice rang out once more as the unknown speaker chuckled. Within seconds lights with hues of blues, gold’s, and silvers shined in the abyss like headlights in the night. As she marveled at the forming lights before her she noticed that there were pictures, like movies, inside them. They seemed to play at the same time and the sound became deafening to her like that of a crowded arena. Music and conversation swarmed around her body as the pictures flickered with a life all of their own. People she knew, and places she had once visited, once shadows on a blotch of color, took full form in front of her.
         Memories, Caty thought, these are my memories.

∞∞∞∞∞
         Jake and Marcy Warner had known each other all of their lives before they became engaged shortly after graduating high school. The young couple said their vows in a small, quaint white church in the backwoods of Iowa and greeted their small daughter, Caty Marie, nearly a year later.
         As Caty grew, her parents knew she had a very overactive imagination. Her flair for words and drama over the fictional and fantastical worried them to the point of considering punishment. In  their eyes, her fantasies were lies, and not to be tolerated. Consulting other parents, Jake and Marcy found their minds eased. Most said it was only a phase, and one grown out of after the real world and boys set in. Caty’s  parents there after saw no need for punishment, but kept a close eye on her.
         Being the well intentioned parents that they were Jake and Marcy decided to encourage their daughter’s creativity and imagination process. Perhaps something would come of it one day, and Caty would look back on her parents dotingly and beam her thanks upon them.
         “Caty,” Marcy yelled down the hall, “wake up and come to breakfast!” Sighing, Marcy headed back into the kitchen to check the eggs now burning on the stove.
         “Shit.” Cursing to herself she turned down the heat and removed the skillet to a cool burner.
         “Ah, those must be Caty’s eggs this morning.” Jake said in an amused tone. Smiling, he stroked his wife soft, straight black hair and kissed her fair cheek.  Jake could always make her smile. Turning to look into his piercing green eyes her heart pounded with love in her chest, and she threw her arms lovingly around his neck to return the kiss he had given her.
         “They will be if your daughter doesn’t get up!” Marcy said, struggling to keep a straight face. Jake kissed her on the forehead lightly, rolled his eyes and stepped out of the kitchen into the hallway.
         “Caty! Get up or I’m coming in there to wake you up myself!!” Jake called harshly down the hall into Caty’s room. Marcy raised an eyebrow at her husband, but continued to dispose of the charred eggs.
         Moments passed by without any sign or sound coming out of Caty’s room. Exasperated, Marcy marched out of the kitchen, down the hall, and turned left into her daughter’s room.
         “Caty Marie, I’ve lost all patience with you young la—“
         Jake heard Marcy’s piercing scream and bolted down the hallway just in time to catch his hysterical wife and stand agape at his, seemingly, dead daughter’s doorway.

∞∞∞∞∞