Prolouge
Soft waves crashed gently against the surf, making ripples in the crystal blue water. Pine tree's lined the oposite side of the shore, and bright coloured wild flowers grew in the medow on the other side of the lake. Birds chirped softly, as if they were magically humming a tune, as they searched for food for their morning breakfast.
Shyla Dennison leaned back in the sand, putting her hands behind her head. I'm just like those birds, she thought. Always scrounging around for food... never knowing where your gonna end up... I wish I was a bird...then I could be free to fly wherever I wanted to - I could get away from my troubles... Shyla shook her head, and sat up, looking out to the lake. It was so peaceful, so gentle. She wished she could stay there forever, but she would get a real beating from her father if she didn't return home as soon as possible. She stole a quick glance at her watch as she ran through the woods that she knew so well. It was six o'clock AM, and her father hadn't known she had left. Shyla had a half an hour to get home before her father woke up, and really gave it to her for not being at home.
The sand felt warm, and soft beneath her bare feet, as she ran frantically trying to get home. She could see her house in the distance. The lights in the kitchen were on, and Shyla was praying that it was her sister getting her breakfast. The Dennison family wasn't very well off. It was hard enough that their father didn't have a job, and spent his days at the bar, drinking, but it was Shyla and her sister Landry that did all the working to earn the money, and for what? More drugs for their father? Sometimes Shyla wished she could run away and never come back, but she couldn't abandon Landry, not now. She was just an innocent child in all of this. She was only ten years of age, Shyla being fifteen, but already feeling as though she was an adult. Rather than being Landry's sister, she also felt like her mother. Angela Dennison had passed away the previous year due to a head-on collison, when the driver of a pick-up truck fell asleep at the wheel, crashing into Angela's car. It killed her instantly. Shyla still grieves her death as though it had just happened yesterday. When she had first heard the news, it was like a blow to the stomach. She couldn't breath; couldn't talk. Sometimes she felt as though she was alone in the world. Her only friend besides Landry lives on the other side of the lake. His name was Taylor. He was her life saver. When things were down, he cheered her up, and made her think of all the good things in Shyla's life, like Landry, and just to be thankful that they had a roof over their head. Shyla would die without Taylor to be there, and give her strenght to go on. He was her best friend; and he always would be.
Chapter One
