Dark clouds were quickly rolling in from the view of my dining room window. Set on the counter beside me was my iPod which sat on a tiny black doc that was plugged into the random electric outlet by the sink. The tiny speakers of the doc vibrated as the loud volume of the music pulsed through them.

Singing along with the new playlist that I had just organized last night, I washed the dishes that had collected overnight and throughout the morning.

It felt weird and almost eerie having no noise in the house other than the noise I was making. Mom and dad had taken off for their weekend getaway this morning, leaving me the keys to both the house and the cars. Sure, I was a little upset that they had decided to go to Disneyland without me, but I couldn't be badgering them all of the time. They needed time for themselves. In return, they had trusted me with the major responsibility of taking care of the most expensive items they owned.

It was a relief to know that spring break started on Monday. The weather was already starting to warm up, hitting the thirty and forty degree mark. Of course there were the occasional April showers, but I was actually shocked at how little precipitation the East Coast of the United States was getting, especially around this time of year. Meteorologists predict that this spring would have the least rainfall they've seen in over a decade. From the looks of it, it was going to be a pretty dry Spring.

Lucky for my parents, they didn't have to worry about cold weather. They were going to be in California from now until this Monday.

When I was done washing the dishes, I took a towel and dried them up. I then placed the dishes in their designated area in our, trusty, light brown cabinets. Stepping back, I smiled while taking in how beautiful the kitchen scenery was: the beige painted walls, the brown cabinets, the coffee maker. Everything fit perfectly together to make this place feel like home.

My father had bought this house when he was only eighteen years old. This was the place where he and my mother had called home when they first married, and it also was the home to their first and only child, me. The two story house was of a decent size, with a spacious kitchen and dining room, a cozy living room, two bathrooms -one upstairs and one downstairs- and three upstairs bedrooms. Many memories were made in this house such as the Christmases we spent together, the birthday parties we threw for each other in the backyard, and even the simplest things such as telling each other funny jokes. My house was a place that I would always cherish.

When I had finished putting the dried dishes away, I unplugged the iPod doc, went upstairs to get my phone, and texted my mother.

Hey mom. Just wanted to know how u guys

r doing. I know u might be on the plane rn,

but when you land, let me know how ur doing.

Throwing myself backwards into the soft cushion of my pillows and stuffed animals, I laid back and online ordered a pepperoni pizza for myself. Mom had left me leftover in the fridge, but let's face it. There was a choice between leftover mac and cheese and freshly baked pizza, and I was sure that anybody in their right state of mind would pick the fresh pizza. I wouldn't  dare tell that to her though.

After laying in my bed for a few minutes, my phone vibrated. I had received a text from my mom.

We're good baby! We're at the food court in Chicago

airport. You remember how we had that connecting

flight, right? Well, it's really windy here in Chicago so our

flight to LAX is delayed for another 45 mins :(

I texted her back:

Well that sucks! Make sure you send me pix!

My phone rang again.

4 sure! Well, gtg. Your dad is stalking me to go buy

him a meatball sub, so ttyl. Love you, and please

don't burn down the house! XOXO

I replied:

Love you too!

Suddenly the doorbell rang. I ran downstairs with ten dollars in hand to pay the pizza man, but to my surprise there was no pizza man here. There was only my best friend in the whole entire world. He was the one that kept my world whole world afloat when I was drowning in my struggles and of course he would arrive just before the pizza came.

I shot him a face of disgust, "Ew. Why are you here?"

He made an ugly face back at me and mimicked what I said to him. Then he bursted out laughing. " Okay, let's start over. Hi, I'm Seth." He held out his hand for me to shake, and I began to playfully close the door in his face and then opened it again. Though I was dying of laughter, he shook his head and gave me puppy dog eyes.

" I don't know why you're so cruel to me KL Kiyano." He then shot me a million dollar smile and walked inside of my house. He walked and sat down on the couch.

" What's up?" He asked me.

" Nothing much. I just ordered some pizza, so of course you'd manage to make your way over here." I said through a smile, rolling my eyes at him.

Seth raised his hands up in front of him, as if pleading his innocence. " Hey, I had no clue that you even ordered food. But I'm glad that you did," he said with a grin.

I plopped on the couch next to him, " I'm sure you are. You always manage to eat my food. The last General Tso dinner I got was halfway devoured by the time I actually got to it."

He smiled and his cheeks blushed a slight rosy color. "Aye, I said I was sorry. I just couldn't help it."

" Alright, you couldn't help eating my food but what happens if I were to eat your food?"

" I'd be upset, but I guess I'd deal with it since I did it so many times to you," he looked down, as if he felt ashamed.

" I still don't know how you don't gain a pound. I would've gained like twenty pounds if I ate as much as you did."

He laughed and patted his stomach, " I have a great metabolism. What can I say?"

" You can just stop eating my food. Or at least wait until I'm done eating. Then you could have leftovers."

A slight smirk took over his face, " Whatever queen KL says. But just cause you're a queen doesn't mean that all of your peasants will obey your laws. There may be some rebels." He put his arms behind his head in a relaxing way.

"I'm done with you Seth. I am so done with you." He smiled and turned on the television as I shook my head at him. As he flipped through the channels, I stopped him. "Hey, I thought we were supposed to watch a movie. It's my turn to pick this time."

He sighed. "Fine. I guess we can. But I swear, if it's Twilight again, I'm leaving."

Once I laughed, he automatically knew that I was picking a movie he had no interest in watching.

" KL, c'mon. Have some mercy upon me. I'm a guy. I don't want to have to suffer through another chick flick."

" What's that Seth? You want to watch the Notebook?"

"No!"

" Real men cry, you know."

He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, "I surrender. I'm never going to win this argument."

As I slipped a movie out of my dvd rack, a smile appeared on my face. "We're going to watch Eclipse." I looked back at him, and he glared at me, but said nothing. Then he cracked a smile.

After the movie was in the DVD player, I went and sat down next to him. Looking out of the corner of my eye I said, "You know you secretly love these movies."

He smiled, " Yes, I just love how the main female protagonists always go for the guys that randomly appear in their lives and," he made quotations with his fingers, "'save' them versus going for the guys that they knew practically their whole life. That just makes so much sense," he said sarcastically. He continued, "It's not just this movie either, it's all of the franchises that have a main female character. They always leave the guy they knew for forever in the dumps and go for the guy that randomly appears halfway through the problem."

" Oh, stop being such a hater. Those franchises are great," I replied.

" Yeah, easy for you to say since they're filled with estrogen."

At that moment, we both cracked up for two minutes straight. Then we focused on the movie until the doorbell rang.

Seth shot up and smiled, " I'll answer it."

" Of course you will," I scoffed.

Chuckling, Seth walked over to the door and paid the delivery boy, even though I had told him to complain about how long it took. The pizza took over an hour and a half to get here, but he insisted that it was "his treat" to me for eating my food the multiple times that he had before. He smiled and took the box over to the couch.

"Seth, you know if we dirty this couch my dad is going to kill me, right?"

He smiled, "He won't ever know. Just clean up all of the evidence."

" Seth, I'm serious. What happens if we end up staining it?"

"Then you're in trouble, not me," he replied with a smirk. I playfully slapped his shoulder.

He let out a sigh in defeat and walked the box over to the dining room. A victorious smile took over my face as I walked over and got some napkins for us to put our pizza on. I wasn't going to grab any plates after I had just finished washing all of the dishes.

Making small talk as we ate, I asked him, "So how's Melody?" Melody is his girlfriend. They were about to celebrate their four month anniversary within the next week or two. It was the cutest thing to watch your childhood friend grow up and sit back and see things unfold right before your eyes.

Seth's cheerful expression instantaneously turned to a grave one. Suddenly, the atmosphere became a bit more tense.

" I thought I told you...." He looked down at his pizza slice, avoiding eye contact.

"Told me what?" I asked cautiously, now regretting even asking the question.

He looked up at my face, "She broke up with me."

I almost spit out the piece of pizza in my mouth. "What? Why?"

" She said we were 'too distant'," he said, making air quotations.

" Well that's dumb. I thought you guys were perfect."

An awkward silence lingered between us until Seth sighed and spoke again. " Things are better like this anyway," he said more cheerfully than I could've expected him to. His girlfriend just dumped him and he's acting like he had just won twenty bucks. Right now, I was just baffled. He took another bite of his pizza and as I finished chewing a bite of mine, I simply asked him, "Why?"

" I just don't think we would've worked out."

" If you felt this way, why didn't you just break up with her?"

" Because I wanted to see if we could work on things versus just taking the easy way out and quitting." His light, chocolate colored eyes looked up and pierced through mine. "When you really want something, you'll fight for it regardless of the measure it'll take."

Though words could not form in my mouth, I managed to utter, "I'm so sorry."

He shrugged as if it were nothing, " Things happen. I mean, we're not on the best of terms anymore, but ya know."

" Why not?"

" Apparently she had some emotions building up about certain things and I didn't realize that they were bothering her because she had never even mentioned the topic before."

" That's just not right. She didn't even give you a fair chance."

" Oh well. As I said before, it's all for the best. Things will work their way out."

"You're definitely confident in that."

" I am," he said, sending me a smile that seemed to melt my heart. I've always seen Seth as a brother, but I'd be lying if I said that he wasn't good looking. His jet black hair framed his face perfectly and really made his light brown eyes outstand. He was lean, with some muscle and no stubble. I told him that stubble made him look older, and since then he's always been conscientious about shaving it off. The thing that really made Seth outstand from the others was his personality. Since we were little, he's always been compassionate and caring and just an all-round goofy person. We've been best friends since we were toddlers, and I'm proud to say that nothing has changed since then. He was the one person I could vent my deepest, utmost feelings to and he'd understand. In return, he felt the same security with me. We knew each other like the back of our hands, and we were thrilled that our friendship had lasted this long.

"Hey," Seth asked while cutting my concentration off, "have you heard from your parents yet?"

" Mom was texting me a while ago and her and dad were going to grab a bite."

" Oh that's good."

" Their flight was delayed forty-five minutes due to the high winds in Chicago-"

"They had a connecting flight?"

I nodded, "Yeah. They had to stop in Chicago and from there they were going to LAX. They were lucky they managed to snag two tickets on this plane because it was the only flight going on this route for the entire day."

He smiled, "Man, that is lucky."

A happy grin formed on my face. Soon enough, they'll be in tropical weather enjoying the beach and the illuminating sun. I had to admit I was still a little jealous about Disneyland though.

Seth's attention suddenly darted to something behind me. "KL, can we please shut this movie off? She's becoming outrageously obnoxious right now and it's starting to annoy me."

Through my giggle, I nodded my head. He walked over and shut off the movie, leaving the TV on a random news channel. Happily chomping down on another slice of pizza in the dining room, Seth's laugh echoed from the living room.

" Ha! This person from Oakland managed to capture this dog doing this weird smile! Is that even possible?" He continued to laugh.

" You're such a dork!" I yelled at him.

The jibber jabber of the television could be heard from a while away.

" Seth, there's some pizza left."

" Don't worry! I'll devour it. Just give me a minute."

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Suddenly, a loud and frightening gasp echoed from Seth that sent tremors down my spine. "Oh my-" He stopped himself. His voice crackled and I automatically dropped my pizza slice and ran to the living room. As I approached, he was staring straight at the tv with glossy eyes, tears rolling down his face.

" What's-" and before I could even finish my question, I had gotten an answer. In a large red banner at the bottom of the screen read, "BREAKING NEWS: PITTSBURGH PLANE HEADED TO LOS ANGELES CRASHES". Footage of the crash was playing, showing bright flames of red and yellow devouring the plane. Suddenly the caption changed to, "INVESTIGATION HAS STARTED, NO PASSENGERS FOUND".

All of my senses had gone numb, locked up, and just for a moment, I felt winded. All of the breath had escaped my lungs and the more I tried to come back to reality, the more farther from it I felt. My knees buckled in and the world felt like it couldn't cave in anymore. My eyes could see that the news reporter was speaking, but my brain could not process any word he uttered.

A wail escaped my lips, "NO! No, no, no, no! This can't be right! This can't be right!"

Seth sat down beside me, and tightly embraced me. I nuzzled my head in his red throw over-hoodie and cried and cried and cried. " Seth, they're gone! THEY'RE GONE! Seth, my parents are gone! I knew they shouldn't have went! I knew it!"

"Hey, you can't jump to conclusions. Try getting ahold of them," he answered, trying not to let his expression falter to one of defeat.

Doing what I thought was best, I texted them. If they had any chance of survival, they would most likely be going through with security protocol and wouldn't have time to have a conversation.

Seth looked at me, a hopeful gleam in his eye. My heart paced, continuously pounding against my chest. If it were to beat any harder, it would have no choice but to pop out of my chest. After waiting in fear for about three minutes, I had given up.

"I have to call them, Seth. I have to." He nodded approvingly, anxiously biting his lip. Shakily, my finger pressed down on the word, 'Mom'.

Please answer, please. A knot formed in my stomach and a lump in my throat as I tapped the icon that said 'Call'. Tightly shutting my eyes, I waited and hoped for a dial tone. My heart dropped when I didn't get the response I wanted.

"Hi! Sorry I couldn't get to the phone right now but if you leave your-"

In that very instance, all of my walls crumbled. My sanity, my peace, the sole reason of my existence just crushed, shattered, and ripped out of the core of my heart. A noise so loud erupted from the depths of my chest, that I couldn't even believe it came from me. Having no control over my emotion, my phone flung across the room and luckily didn't shatter as it bounced off a wall.

She was the one that always answered her phone. Dad answered most of the time, but mom answered all of the time.

"They're gone!" I screamed to no one in particular. My cries echoed through the living room as Seth stared blankly at the wall, paralyzed in a state of shock. Tears rolled down his face as well.

On my knees on the cold floor, I couldn't seem to get a hold of myself. Every time I would compose myself, another fit of cries followed. This pain was much too unbearable for anyone to experience, and I couldn't understand how anyone could even bare to live through these emotions and feelings.

Suddenly, I felt Seth's arms wrap around me.

Shaking, I cried into his shoulder, "This is all my fault."

He whispered in my ear as his tear fell on my face, " You couldn't have prevented any of this. This wasn't your fault," he said in the most soothing, calming voice. Deep down, I knew he was just staying strong for me. Seth may be what he is but he is also human.

I tried to speak, tried to form words but Seth began to blur, wave, fade away from my sight. Suddenly, I found myself slipping away from him and into the deepest, darkest abyss I had ever seen. All that surrounded me was an empty, black atmosphere, which left me no choice but to drown in my own depressing thoughts. I floated down, down, down into the darkest slumber where Seth continued to slip away and I continued to reside in the biggest nightmare of my life.

(C) Lightning_Stryker 2015