Before the story begins
Is it such a sin
For me to take what’s mine
Until the end of time?

Arianria sang in her high, though not quite soprano, voice to the newest addition to her CD collection as she drove away from the small music shop by her home, a small city on the outskirts of San Francisco called San Mateo. Very creative, yes indeed. She made a habit of visiting it every two to three weeks to buy a new CD. Her favorite genre was rock, but this was by far darker than anything she generally enjoyed or owned. Shockingly enough, however, she fell in love with the song. The beat and rhythm amazed her, and the band that created it was incredibly talented.

Stopping at a red light, Aria lifted the CD case to examine the cover. The band was called Avenged Sevenfold, and their symbol was a skull with bat wings. She wasn’t a fan of skulls herself, but the icon was unique and intriguing. It would make for a really badass tattoo. She chuckled to herself at the crazy idea and flipped to the other side of the thin plastic case. She was a fan of spontaneity, but never made decisions without thoroughly thinking them through. Life only came around once and was too short for regrets.

The light turned green, and Aria steered her modest but dependable car into the nearby park, which was –thankfully- abandoned. At least for the day. It was a cool, sunny day with the perfect occasional breeze. She parked, leaving the music on. Laying back on the hood and windshield of her car, Aria closed her eyes and sang with her new band, Avenged Sevenfold.

The serenity she felt in the old park and beautiful weather astonished her. She’d grown up, bullied in a San Francisco orphanage since she was three for being the only Asian girl in a sea of Blacks and Whites. This lasted for six years before she finally began to fight back- fiercely. Five girls were sent to the hospital in the first half a year, and another eight in the year following. The orphanage was ready to leave on the streets, saying that a demon had taken over the once sweet child, when a miracle happened. An elderly couple agreed to adopt her, and the orphanage all but begged them to take her away.

But the couple, Samuel and Rosalind, did so much more. They instilled into Aria the only recollection she held of her parents as an infant- love. She had long since abandoned the notion, as her parents had abandoned her to the mercy of the girls in the orphanage, no one had ever helped her when she was tormented, and the staff had never been willing to believe that the other girls had so much as laid a hand on her.

Sam and Rosa, as she called them, believed her always. They were everything to her, giving her food, shelter, comfort, and a family. “God, why did you take them?” Aria squeezed her eyes shut as tears beaded out onto her lashes and leaked slowly down her cheeks.

The same song was playing, A Little Piece of Heaven- she remembered from her glance of the back cover. Her stereo would skip every so often, since it was old, but she usually didn’t mind.

-let’s make a new start
‘Cuz everybody’s got to die sometime
Yeah, yeah
But baby don’t cry…

Sitting straight up, she rubbed her hands once beneath her eyes to clear away the black tears that had stained there. She glared angrily and desperately into the sky. “WHY?!” she screamed, “Why did they have to die?!” Aria leapt onto the gravel, yanking her key violently from the ignition. The music silenced, leaving her grab her new CD case and hurl it blindly through the air, her eyes once again blurring with tears. “You’re wrong!” she cried to the band who couldn’t hear her. “Everyone doesn’t have to die!” Picking up the next object to throw, which happened to be her phone, ipod and lifeline, a voice interrupted her thoughts.

“That’s the newest model- are you sure you want to shatter it on a tree?”

Dropping what she now realized to be her iPhone 4, Aria swiped her fresh tears and mascara streaks away with two motions of her hand. Not that it mattered how she looked, but the past couple of months of wiping tears away had made her an involuntary expert. The man, who wore sunshades and a fedora hat, opened the passenger door of her MG MGF and let himself in. His lips curved upwards in a polite smile as he held her CD case out to her.

Accepting it expressionlessly, her face devoid of emotion, Aria stared with extreme disinterest into the Ray Ban aviators of the stranger before her. Her silence spoke volumes- or rather, screamed for him to leave.

His smooth skin, firm lips and wicked jaw didn’t deter her need to be along to hate, to scream, to mourn.

Aria’s eyes narrowed as instead, he pushed her key back into the ignition and purposefully skipped several songs on the disk.

Seize the day,
I’m done regretting the times we lost
It’s empty and gone without you here
Too many people to weep over

Now under normal circumstances, Aria would have asked him to leave, but she didn’t have the energy to force a tattooed, muscled stranger out of her car. She pushed the power button, silencing the new song. “You know this band, Avenged Sevenfold?”

“Fairly well, actually. You don’t like them?”

“Why would you think that?” Aria leaned back in her seat, feeling both drained and exhausted. Resigned.

“You just threw the CD case across the parking lot.”

“Don’t play around with me. If there’s something you want to know, ask it directly then get the hell out.”

The stranger paused, deciding against the fact that he had asked her a direct question and she had decided not to answer. Then again, it was true that his initial question was not intended to be his last.

“Alright then. What made you so mad about the band that made you want to throw their CD case across the parking lot?”