A/N: Chapter one here. Yes, this is from personal experience. I hope you like.

Dedication: To my best friends Ashleigh, Megan and Jade for being the best people ever.

Chapter One

White

The light in the hospital seemed too bright. It reflected off the shiny floor and the cloud-coloured walls like they were mirrors. Beeps were emitted from siderooms and telephones rang incessantly from the front desk. Nurses, doctors and paramedics rushed around the corridors as fast as bullet trains. Outside, pressing against the windows was a fog that gathered in huge patches. It obscured objects that were more than a metre away and the cars that contained people (either brave or stupid to be out in such conditions) entering or leaving the hospital were travelling clower than a snail might.

The side room that my family and I were in was eye-burningly bright. There was a small sofa and two armchairs that were less comfortable than the floor was. A single window showed the pearly swirling clouds outside and, somewhere, a fly was buzzing. Littered around the room were leaflets on bereavement and how to organise funerals. Earlier, I had picked one up listelessly and read it. The words were cold, detatched, as if they were meant for people who were grieving nothing. They were just flat words on some glossy paper. Nothing more.

My cousin, Anthony, was sat at one end of the sofa as he had been all night, his girlfriend Chloe next to him, her hand on his knee. Comforting him. I hadn't met her before tonight. I thought that she was nice. My aunty, Louise, was in the room where my grandmother's body was; my grandfather and mother were there too. As soon as we had gotten to the hospital, she had rushed off there. My father was sat heavily in the chair nearest to the door, arms folded across his chest, staring up at the ceiling. It was patchy with dark beige patches that showed damp had settled in from the toilets above us.

I was on the sofa too, tissue clenched in my fist; my tears hadn't stopped flowing for hours and now that they had, my eyes felt as though they had been dusted with sand and ground around in the sockets for a while. Tasha, my twin sister, was sat next to me, clutching my hand tightly with her own. She was clearly trying to be strong, but she was devastated.

After what seemed like an hour of waiting, my aunty and mother entered the room. Both had eyes that were puffy and rimmed with red, pale blotchy skin and pain that shone in every move they made. I felt like I was going to throw up thanks to all the crying I had been doing. My eyes felt dry for now, though, and I was exhausted.

"Louise will be taking Granddad home," my mom announced in a shaking voice. "Tasha, Ellie, Daniel and I will be going home now." With that, my mother turned to her sister and hugged her tightly. "Call me when you get back safe." she said as a means of saying goodbye, and then we all followed her out of the site room. Tasha still had my hand. As we exited the hospital, everyone turned and stared after us. The silent family, grieving the loss of another dead human.

The drive home was a blur. Tasha plugged two sets of earphones into her fancy MP3 player and we both immersed ourselves in high tempo rock music. We needed to take our mind off of our lifves, or else we might fall apart.

All I've ever been able to do in my life is to escape, whether it be through loud music in the backseat of a car the night of my grandmother's death, or running away from the arguments that my sister had with her ex-boyfriend. That's why he called me Houdini.

A/N: Hope you liked it; these chapters are only going to be short, so I want to fit a lot into them. Review please!

-Lauren