*For ages 10-18, for brief mentions of a kiss, and also death.
When I finally, finally muster the courage to even try to remember the past few days, I immediately regret the action as it hits me. No one is coming. I’m no more than a thin, sallow girl dying alone in the cold. How hard it was already, to survive with the raw ache of loneliness after he died, like a tender wound bleeding in my heart. And now, I have the deadly arctic snow and gale to bear through, the storm that rips and tears at my bare limbs like a blade. I have no will to live.
I’m nothing.
I never lead a happy life. Well, before, at least. I was left alone as a newborn, abandoned in a rickety structure near the sea. My powerful mind was too strange, and wrong, for my people. Although, I shouldn’t call them my people when they deserted me as they did.
Anyway, difference was not accepted. Even my family agreed, giving me over willingly to the elders, who then left me to die. Even though I never really knew those ruthless people, I somehow comprehended what my name was, only after hearing it a few times as an infant. It was Amara, and it means “grace.” Why did my family give me a name with such a meaning when they threw me away days later? They didn’t want me alive. I don’t even know how a helpless baby survived the wrath of nature. Yet, I did survive.
I grew up learning how to fend for myself. I watched the lions and rattlesnakes hunting. I remember thinking about how graceful they looked, catching their prey with ease. It was magical to me. I imitated their movements, killing with a spear instead of claws, with nightshade berries instead of venom. I killed my first buck at the age of ten, months, years, after living off plants. At the age of twelve, I already had the mind strength of an adult.
Nevertheless, although I had powerful hunting skills and defense, and I had been alone all my life, I wanted someone to hold me. Someone to keep this lonely girl safe as she slept in peace for the night.
I was thirteen when I met the one person who had ever made me happy. It was a warm spring day and I had decided to take a break from my scavenging. The warm sun beat down on my face as I lay in an open field of violets, inhaling their fragrant scent. My eyes slowly closed as my tense body relaxed.
“Who are you?” an angry voice said.
I opened my eyes again. A boy in tattered shorts and no shirt on, maybe two years older than I was at the time, stood over me. He was glaring, with a dead doe slung over his shoulder. The first thing I noticed was how perfect he was. He was strong and well built, with a tan darkening his body slightly. I stared at his flawless form, shocked.
I was speechless for a moment before he repeated his question.
“Who are you?”
I mentally scolded myself and broke out of the trance. I answered in a soft voice.
“Amara.”
“Amara who?”
I closed my mouth and tried to ignore the pain in my heart. I didn’t have a family, least of all a family name.
“Just Amara.”
The boy, or should I say man, shook his head and rolled his eyes. He lay the doe on the ground and held the tip of his spear to my chest.
“What are you doing on my grounds?”
I put my hands above my head and sat up.
“Sorry, but I need to eat too. And I had no idea that these were your grounds. What did you think? I’m all alone,” I said sarcastically, quickly getting annoyed with the tall boy I had just met. He threw the spear on the ground and held a hand out.
“Sorry. I’m Emmett,” he said, his voice taking on a softer tone. “I’m alone too.”
“It’s fine,” I said, taking his hand. He pulled me up. I noticed how beautiful his deep blue eyes were and my breath caught in my throat.
“So…um…?”
“Wanna hunt?” he asked uncertainly. Well, that was quick, I thought.
“Sure?”
Emmett nodded and motioned for me to follow him. He lay the slain doe from earlier in a small hut he had built. Then we set off. He showed me all his best hiding spots, the places he would conceal himself from the animals, so they didn’t see that he was there.
From then on, as we grew to know each other better, Emmett and I quickly became best friends. We relied on each other to survive and even thrive. I still remember how we used to laugh by the riverbank as we fished. He knew all the best jokes and for once, I was happy.
I didn’t think that life could get any better, but it did.
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The snowstorm had just begun. It wasn’t as brutal of a winter as it is right now, but it was close.
Emmett and I huddled together in our cave shelter, trying to stay warm. I was fifteen by then. Emmett and I had known each other for two years, and we were just like siblings. Or so I thought.
He looked at me and I turned up to look back at him from his arms. Something switched between us, and I found him leaning in. His perfect face came closer and closer to mine. Before I knew it, his lips were on my own and his arms were wrapped around me. I blinked, then kissed him back. It was blissful oblivion for God-knows-how-long, just me and him, kissing. I never knew about kissing before he did it to me, but it felt so natural. So peaceful. That was the best moment of my life.
Of course, because everything good in the world will end one day, my luck had to stop. A few months later, we were out hunting. A mountain lion prowled around us as we held our spears. Quickly, it cornered us against the mountain and pounced, aiming for me. Emmett yelled and jumped in front of me before I could be killed, losing his life in the process. As I watched his lifeblood spill onto the ground, anger overtook me and I stabbed the lion with my spear. After it was dead, I ran over to Emmett’s limp form and took his head into my lap. I held his hand as he made an effort to speak.
“Amara…”
His hand slipped from mine and I knew he was gone.
I could not bring myself to get up for hours after. Fierce sobs wracked my body and made breathing almost impossible. But I knew after I had mourned for some time that I had to bury him.
I laid him to rest where we had first met, in the violet field. The grave was messy, but it had to do. I couldn’t let his body be ravaged by nature. I had to give him a proper goodbye. So I brought his body to the grave and said a prayer for his soul.
Oddly, I feel peace. And I realize why.
The pain is going away. I can feel myself slipping in the present, and my consciousness is dimming rapidly. I am ready. Nevertheless, I want to remember one thing before I die. One memory. Well, two, I guess. That blissful kiss, and my Emmett himself.
I close my eyes and fall.
The Lighthouse 