The Alpha Flame - Chapter 1 Excerpt

Drowning in Silence - Beth

I’d never known silence like that before. The kind that creeps under your skin and settles in your bones, sinking in so deep it feels like it might smother you. When I opened the door, that silence wrapped itself around me, choking me, filling me up until there was nothing else. I didn’t even know what I was seeing at first. I think maybe my mind tried to protect me, tried to shield me from what was right in front of me, even though I knew, deep down, that everything was about to change.

She was slumped there in the bath, water cold and still around her, her face as blank as a wax doll’s, skin washed out, lifeless. The first thought I had, the thing I’ll never forgive myself for, was how wrong it looked. It felt surreal, like a trick. This wasn’t her. It couldn’t be. My mum wasn’t a drinker, not like this, not ever, but there was an empty bottle lying on its side beside the bath, rolling slightly as I opened the door wider. It felt like it was mocking me, daring me to believe what I was seeing.

I felt sick, my throat clenching, my stomach twisting, and for a moment, I hated her, or whoever had done this to her. Hated the absurdity, the impossibility of it. She’d never have chosen that bottle over me, over herself. And yet there it was, an empty accusation, staring at me from the floor, her face pale and her lips blue. I couldn’t make sense of it. I just stood there, a dead thing staring back at her, just as lifeless as she was.

They say your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but I think they’re wrong. I think it’s the people left behind, the ones who have to see it, who have to stand there, watching their entire world collapse around them. I saw everything; all the tiny pieces of a life she’d held together for me, every smile, every reassuring word, every single thing that had kept me safe. And I realised, right then, that I was all alone. Utterly and completely alone.

There’s something that breaks in you when you lose everything in one heartbeat. It’s like the walls inside you just give way, crumbling into nothing, until all that’s left is this empty shell. I felt it, that shattering, like glass splintering into a million pieces inside my chest. I remember gripping the doorframe so hard my knuckles turned white, the pain grounding me, keeping me from slipping into whatever dark pit was opening up beneath my feet. I couldn’t look away from her. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I was frozen, trapped in this nightmare that wouldn’t end, a part of me hoping that if I stared long enough, I’d wake up. That this would all just go away.

But it didn’t. And I knew it wouldn’t. Because that was the moment my life ended too. She may have been the one in the water, but I was drowning right along with her...