InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones ❯ Prologue

`Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!'

It's funny, really, that saying; that sticks and bits of rock can hurt, but words thrown at you from some ignorant jerk that doesn't understand anything can't. Like I said, funny. Who ever made that up was definitely not someone like me. Not a paraplegic, cancer victim who had been in and out of the hospital more times than all the normal kids put together. But anyways, the idiot who made the saying up obviously had no idea what it is like to be laughed at behind their back, or asked stupid questions about what happened to their hair or why they need to be in a wheelchair, or stared at because they look different than others. It hurts, the names that you get called when you are different (especially when you are in high school), it really does.

I used to come home in tears; crying over what had happened that day. The new names that people came up with, and the new ways to embarrass me. I once was very touché and bitter about what happened during school. But that was a long time ago.

See, I wasn't born paraplegic, no; I got that from a car accident. It was my reward for getting in the car with a drunken boyfriend. We were at a party and when it started getting late, we headed home. Darien, who was driving, had had more than a couple drinks. But, being the little girl who was still totally shocked at being asked to a high school party, (me being in junior high) let him get behind the wheel and take me home.

Everything was going good when the next thing I knew, the car was out of control and spinning like a top on the iced road. I must have blacked out after I was thrown out of the now nonexistent window. I woke to people screaming and yelling. My head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton and something warm and sticky was running down the side of my face. I slowly opened my eyes and looked up at the night sky. Amazingly enough it seemed that my senses were just fine. I could see flashing lights and hear a strange grinding noise (later I was told that it was the fire fighters cutting away the windshield and ripping the top off of the car trying to get to Darien). I could feel the cold, wet, hard ground under me. I could taste the salty, iron like blood sliding down the back of my throat.

I tried to move, but nothing would obey me. And then the pain hit me. Oh god the pain! Never in my life had I ever felt this much pain. I screamed and ended up choking on my blood. I screamed until I couldn't scream any more; and then, when I thought I would die from all the pain, someone came and placed me on a stretcher and sent me off to the hospital. I don't remember much after that, just bits and pieces really; the ride over, the bright lights of the operating table, and then blackness. The sweet, calm blackness where I couldn't feel anything, hear anything, or see anything. I didn't even have a body, just a mind floating in space, never to leave, or awaken.

* * *

"Kagome, Kagome honey, can you hear me?"

I opened my eyes to the smiling, tear stained, puffy eyed face of my mom. Wow, mom sure is beautiful. I thought, feeling slightly drunk, but those tears will never do. Wait, tears, what? Why was mom crying? Mom never cries unless something really bad happens, like someone dies, or we lost our house. Dread shot through me at the thought of one of those happening.

"M-Mom?" I forced out through my dry and scratchy throat, "are you ok? What happened? Did someone die?"

My mom looked startled for a second and then broke down in tears.

"Oh, my poor baby! I thought I was going to lose you! I knew I shouldn't have let you go to that party. But I did and now look what happened!" more tears spilled out as she placed her head on the side of my bed and just cried.

"Mom, mom, please don't cry, see I'm alright! I'm fine." I said, trying to cheer her up. I tried to sit up and move my legs into a more accommodating position, and that's when I realized that I couldn't feel my legs; I couldn't even move them. What the Hell? What's wrong with my legs? I looked down and swung the blanket off them, upsetting my mom in the process. She gasped and sat up, looking at me with wide eyes full of worry.

"Honey, don't-."

It came too late and I was not prepared for the sight that I was greeted with. My legs were considerably shorter and wrapped in white bandages somewhere around what used to be the middle of my shins. I stared in shock and mounting horror as what I saw slowly sunk in. I suddenly couldn't get enough air to my lungs and I started to gasp; the world was turning black around the edges and slowly closed in on me. Everything started to fade, there seemed to be a spotlight centered on my legs; I couldn't stop looking at them. By then the lack of oxygen must have gotten to me because I stared to feel light headed and dizzy and the world was fading much faster now. The last thing I remember hearing was my mom say, "Kagome, Kagome! Are you alright? Oh my god, Sota, call a doctor, I think she can't -" I never heard what she thought I couldn't do because right then the world turned black and I fainted clear away.