Chapter One

Prologue Oo1.

Elle

One, two, three, four. One…two…three…four…

The incessant counting in my head (something that, on occasion, annoyed me to no end) ticked on as my feet pounded the trail. It was a dirt trail, the sort with loose gravel that pressed bumps into my Asics as I ran over it. Dust kicked up behind me, and I tried not to think about how my shoes were probably orange by now from it. If I thought about it too much right now, my run would be ruined as I sat on the side of the trail and tried scrubbing the dirt off with nothing but my spit and some pine needles. That would be highly ineffective; thus, thoughts of this sort were best to be…delayed.

I turned a bend and saw the light forming over the tops of the trees across the pond from where I stood smiling. My morning ritual, running the two miles from my home, down the highway, then down the trail my uncles owned to the 'family pond' to watch the sunrise, always made me smile. I took a deep breath, catching my stride and sitting on the edge of the pond. It was green, dirty, and the thought of even putting a pinky into its thoroughly polluted waters made me want to be sick. I still sat beside it every morning to watch the sun. The pond and I had a bit of an agreement; we would share the sunrise, but any other contact between us was highly prohibited.

Did that sound weird, me contacting a pond? Well, it happens.

I took another deep breath, relishing in that fact that my lungs slightly burned and itched from the run. It wasn't nearly as bad now as it had been when I'd started six months ago, though. I literally laughed at the thought of my first run. Well, if we were all being honest here, it wasn't even much of a run. It was more of a trial run. The driveway of my house is about a quarter of a mile long; I hadn't even been able to jog it before doubling over in wheezes.

I had to admit, I was proud of myself for being able to run the two miles to the pond every morning. I would jog back, too. I'd slowly built up to my goal, and here it was, complete in its fruition. The thought made me beam even more as the sun peaked even farther above the treetops.

Soon, I decided I should head back home. I stood, dusting off my shorts and legs, before stretching lightly and jogging my way down the trail again. As I watched the trees pass by me, I tried to tune in on everything around me. The one and only thing I loved about growing up in a small town was the nature that surrounded it. The trees, the birds' chirping, the sound of leaves rustling: these were my focal points as my legs pumped up and down and my arms maintained my balance.

Before I knew it, I was home again. I heard the sound of my mother and Aunt Bea in the kitchen, making breakfast. I walked silently to the doorway. "Morning, Elle," my mother called to me, looking over her shoulder as she scrambled eggs in front of her. Aunt Bea looked up from her coffee at me, her eyes crinkling as she smiled. I just smiled softly back and waved, moving away from the door to the bathroom so I could get my shower.

I know this Prologue is decidedly dry; I just decided to write it to acquaint you with Elle before we really start into the story. (I honestly wouldn't care if you just passed by this one entirely and skipped to Prologue Oo2.)There are four more Prologues; I'm going to post the second one today to give you something that's actually sort of interesting to read, to see if you want to read this through. I have a feeling this story's going to be kind of...longer. I'm not sure. I've not got a completely structured chapter setup planned out, so it could go either way. We'll just see what happens, yeah?