The pounding in my head painfully knocked me awake. It pulsed through me violently, punching at my temples and chewing at my palms. It wrenched me from a dreamless sleep, prying my eyelids awake and surging my body forward. And then the pain vanished, replaced suddenly by a seemingly endless flood of blinding light. "Sonya?" A familiar voice rang around me. As my eyes adjusted to their surroundings, they pieced together the form of my little sister, Breonna. For some reason, both of us were sat reclined against the hardness of a suffocatingly small bathroom stall. The stained, sloped ceiling looked as if it might cave in at any second. On the surrounding walls, marble paneling was decorated with canyon-like cracks and scribbled nonsensical messages. '_Cooper was here_' _'I miss you xx' _ __ _'God protect us all'_ __ __ The chalky notes went on and on. "**Sonya**, look at me..." Still disoriented, I looked back to face my sister. Bre's eyes looked almost charcoal as the room's shadows danced across her round face and curls. Her eyebrows furrowed familiarly under my inspection, indicating discomfort. But it wasn't until she raised a painted purple thumb to her teeth that I sat up anxiously. I hadn't seen Breonna bite her nails since our father had died. "Sonya, something is really wrong." Her voice broke as her hands found my shoulders. "I-I think...I think there's a body outside." If I hadn't been paying attention before I _definitely_ was now. Breonna choked back a sob as her eyes welled with unshed tears. "Breathe, sissy...Breathe..." I cooed. I wrapped my arms around her protectively whilst trying to steady whatever was left of my own heartbeat. "Breathe," I instructed again. When the rise and fall of her chest matched my own, I relaxed my hold. "Now tell me slowly what you saw...I-I can't remember anything about how we got here." Breonna willed herself into another deep breath before speaking once more. Her voice was strained but noticeably more steady. "I woke up a little bit ago...I can't really remember much either. You...you wouldn't wake up so I opened the door to call for help and..." I watched as she braced herself for the final detail -- the nail in the coffin. "Right outside...I only peaked out but it was right there on the side...Sonya, I swear I saw a dead body!" Before she could begin hyperventilating again, I staggered from the floor decisively. "Bre, close your eyes and turn around!" Breonna shut her eyes tightly and slid from her spot at the door to let me pass her. I wasn't a professional by any means, but I'd wanted to be a doctor since I was in diapers. Our mother was an emergency room nurse working in the most populated region of the city. She'd begun letting me walk to the hospital after school had let out early, tailing along with her on light shifts. She taught me the frivolity of fear -- how manufactured it could be. How deadly. "Rather than cower from a patient's injury, brace yourself. Turn the fear into bravery." My mom had chided. _Turn the fear into bravery_. I looked back at my sister. Her back faced me as a shiver raked through her. "Stay here, Bre. Stay safe...I'll be right back.” Bre peaked back at me over her shoulder, fear evident in those shadowed eyes. "Sonya! It could be dangeous!" I bent down to give her another quick hug. "I'll be careful, sissy. Don't worry...just stay here and stay safe. Focus on your breath. Someone may need help...and at the very least I can find us some help!" Breonna gave me another weary look, a frown and furrowed brow, before allowing the tiniest nod. She raised a thumb to her mouth as she turned back into position. "I'll be quick!" I promised again, wrapping my fingers around the bathroom door handle. I slipped out quietly, staying vigilant as I closed the door back behind me. This room was full of colors -- not just whites and beiges and blinding lights. Here was green and pink and yellow and Chips Ahoy and Twizzlers and black, long steel shelving. A storage room. A dirtied brown wall was painted with familiar white grafiti. _H Street City _ _Angels_ My high school's mascot. I recognized then that Breonna and I had awoken in the bathroom of our local bodega -- _Zippy's Corner Store_. I kept silent, still painstakingly careful in appraisal. The walls, the shelves, the floor... My body froze for a moment before I forcefully fought it back for composure. To my right was a body, just like Breonna had said. On the tiled floor, hidden slightly by a fallen shelf, was a limp body and a thick trail of darkened blood. The body lay belly down in the maroon pool, surrounded by scattered unlit candles -- which I presumed to be from the fallen shelf. The unconcious child couldn't have been any older than Breonna. I knelt to grab an exposed wrist, fingers still wrapped around a pack of Skittles, and checked for a pulse. _Nothing._ It was just as my sister had said...they were gone. I looked at my hands, surprised to see that none of the blood had tracked, before pulling myself back into a standing position. If I hadn't been sure before, this had confirmed that I needed to find help. _Turn the fear into bravery. _ My mom's voice echoed in my memory as I braced myself against the tendrils of panic fighting for space in my chest, soothing them back into long, stable breaths. Meticulously, I crept around the shelves of the storage room, listening for any viable signs of life. As the back room corridor funneled open into the main store, I heard the faintest humming. I ducked lower in the aisle, listening cautiously for the owner of the sound. In the silence, the humming seemed to rumble in cacophony, dipping and rolling in waves. Someone was sobbing. I rose back up, being attentive as I peaked over the aisle beside me. _It hadn't just been one body_... In the center of the shop, surrounded by burnt out candles, lay the body of another victim. My eyes widened as I took in the full scene. Flowers, beautiful white daisies and carnations, decorated the floors and ceilings. They were tucked between hundreds of little pieces of paper of all shapes and folds, from hearts to paper cranes to more flowers. And at the center, on their knees before the body, bent with hands in prayer, was a very familiar face. "Mom?" I called, voice ripping from my throat before I could process. I sprinted from the aisle, tripping over toppled food and soda cans, as I raced towards my safety. My guardian angel. "Mom?" I called again, arms outstretched as I grew closer. Her head never so much as raised when my arm passed completely through her. I tumbled to the ground in a _whoosh_ from the momentum. "M-Mom??" I screeched, this time my voice breaking on the word. I landed hard against the industrial floor, now face to face with the cadaver on the ground. A scream ripped out from my throat. Lifelessly staring back at me, was **_me_**. My curly hair had been matted with blood and my skin had paled to a sallowed grey. _Breathe_. I turned my head back to my mother, whose head still hung solemnly into her lap. Each sob hung heavy in her chest, strangling its way out. I'd never seen her so broken. So devasted. "**_Mom_**?" She can't see me. _Breathe_. I turned back to the body, plucking a long canary yellow sheet out from the wreath of flowers adorning it. '**_In memoriam_** _of Sonya M. Abara_ _Wrongfully shot and killed by Police Officer_ __ _Michael Degotti Jr._ __ _While walking home from track practice with her _ __ _sister Breonna Abara_ __ _and two other teens on the team. _ __ _The children were mistaken for burglars_ __ _In their Track uniforms_ __ _And were stalked and later shot at by Degotti._ __ _Due to Sonya's bravery, two of the teens were _ __ _promptly treated and survived the ideal. _ __ _However-'_ __ __ Breonna's distant scream broke me from my daze as I sprang up and darted back through the store. _Breathe._ __ __ My mom's traumatized expression swamped my vision until I was sure I was drowning. __ __ _Breathe._ The image of my own face staring lifelessly back at me. _Breathe._ __ _"_**_In memoriam_** _of Sonya M. Abara" _It had read...__ __ _Turn the fear into bravery_. When I found my way back to the storage bathroom, the door was ajar, and Breonna was stood over the first body. "I-I heard you scream and..." her voice croaked. She'd moved the shelves and other trinkets covering the body to reveal the upper torso. "_Sonya_...Sonya, **am I dead?**" Fear pulsed back through me, red and hot and painful, beating at my lungs and tearing through the pores of my skin. It was Breonna. Her body was laden with flowers and letters, just like I had been, with an eternally empty expression. Fear knocked the wind out of me as I fell to my knees, it squeezed on my chest and bled from my nailbeds. "Sonya, _Breathe_..." My little sister comforted. "It's okay. It's okay. I had a strange feeling..." Her arms wrapped around my body before taking my hand in her own. I watched her expression as she stood, pulling me to my feet, almost unrecognizably. She didn't bite her nails as she walked hand-in-hand with me out of the storage room. "M-Mom's here." I croaked as we reached the final aisle. I stopped walking suddenly, feet too heavy to move any further. Fear gripped at my throat and latched at my heels. "Sonya, it's okay..." Breonna smiled softly, turning to face me. "You're always so brave for me. It's...it's my turn to be brave for you." Breonna let go of my hand as she stepped out into the center of the store. When she approached our mother and my lifeless body, my eyes widened as every candle outlining my figure caught fire. The glow of the candles illuminated our mother, reflecting gold across her dark eyes and the hazel specks in her coiled brown hair. Mommy's head raised at once and her expression softened. "_Sonya? Is that you?_" The last of fear's hold on me dissipated when Breonna leaned in to wrap her arms around our mother. "_My_ _babygirls...You're here. You've both been so brave for me._" I left the aisle to join my sister at the base of the altar, tangently wrapping my arms around my mother. The fire of each candle burned even hotter and brighter. I felt a third set of arms wrap around us then, much bigger and warmer. "_Daddy_!" Breonna squealed before I could even turn and look. Our father embraced us just as I had remembered him, strong and healthy, before the cancer had reduced him to skin and bones. And we stayed like that until my mother left. Holding her together while the fear took hold. Lending her strength. And we stayed like that as the chants of protest and calls for justice lit the streets outside Zippy's ablaze.