There were two kids playing in the backyard by the woods named Billy and Samantha.  They were always playing kickball. Billy never won. Samantha rolled the ball for Billy who kicked the ball as hard as he could; it went into the woods.  Samantha went looking for the ball while Billy ran around the bases.  While he was running, Samantha came upon a big puddle of quicksand.  Sam thought she was going to play in the sand, but Billy got worried and went looking for her.  Billy saw Sam trapped in the quicksand and quickly removed her from it. 

“What were you thinking? You could’ve just died if I weren’t here to save you,” Billy said, feeling bad afterwards because his sister began crying. “So, did you find the ball?” 

Sam shook her head no.  Billy, then, took Sam down a path where a rattle snake had been resting.  The snake was about six foot long.  Sam wanted to play with the snake, so the snake started to hiss. But Sam, only being six, wanted to play with the snake so bad, and the snake bit her. Billy was on the other side of the yard looking for the ball, so he couldn’t hear Sam’s scream. Sam then went back to the yard and showed Billy her bite mark on her arm.  This caused Billy to freak out.  Sam’s arm turned black, so Billy applied pressure to it. 

“Billy, am I going to die?” Sam asked.

“No, you are not going to die.  I’m going to save you, but if I can’t, I will die trying,” Billy said, being the older brother.  Billy started walking his sister home when she passed out.   He pulled Sam onto his shoulder and took her into the house to show their mom.  Sam hallucinated and thought she saw her father who had died before she was born.

Sam thought she heard her father say, “Sam, I’m so sorry that I never got to meet you.  If that truck wouldn’t have been going so fast on the wrong side of the road, I would have known you.  Billy is just like me. He cares for you more than anything, and he loves you, so stick in there, not only for me, but for Billy.”

Sam passed out, so Billy began crying.  He saw this girl running towards him from the other side of the road.  It was Billy’s crush from school. He was in too big of a hurry to stop.  He had to get his sister to the hospital.  Sam had almost died, but Billy saved her by getting her to the doctors.  The doctors had to perform CPR on Sam to bring her back.  Sam opened her eyes, which sent Billy to happy tears.

Billy had to stop for gas on the way home. At the gas station, Billy held a $100 bill in his hand when some guys came out into the parking lot and pointed their guns at him. They told him to give them his money. After taking his money, they rushed into his truck and drove off. He had been mugged. Miranda, Billy’s crush, had witnessed the whole incident. Immediately, she called the police and told them everything. The police asked for Billy’s license plate number, but he didn’t have records on hand.

The police continued with the interrogation and asked for other witnesses. No one but Miranda had witnessed it. The interrogation had come to an end, and the police officer thanked Billy and Miranda for their time and went to the police station. Miranda gave Billy a ride home, but his mom is not home.  So Miranda decided to hang out for a while. Billy finally had the courage to talk to his crush.

“Thanks for the ride home. You know… I’ve been crushing on you for...like, three years now. I was wondering...would you like to go on a date some time?” Billy asked.

After a moment of silence, Miranda nodded and said yes that she’d love to.  This made Billy full of joy, so later that night, Miranda and Billy went into the woods and came across a cabin that Billy had never seen before.  After a while of discussing whether or not to go inside, they decided that they would.

The cabin looked to be abandoned, but as soon as they entered, they realized that someone else was in the house.  The sound of a pan hit the floor, so Miranda ran to investigate. There wasn’t anything in the front room or the kitchen, so they decided to investigate upstairs. They ran into the door and noticed something on the bed.

It appeared to be a witch.  There was a long pointy hat, a bunch of moles, and warts. The girl looked like a girl from school that no one really knew.  It was obvious that she had lived there alone, and this made Miranda and Billy both fill with a deep sadness. They felt bad about how they thought of her, but now they knew why she didn’t have the best clothes or the prettiest hair.

They noticed that she was really thin--so thin that you could see her ribs.  She coughed a sickly and nasty cough.  She opened her eyes slowly and looked at the two.      “We should leave, Miranda.  We never should’ve come in here,” Billy said, tugging at her arm sleeve.

“No, we have to help her!” Miranda said, running over to the girl and lifting her up in her arms. She was so thin that she hardly weighed 60 pounds.  Billy took the girl from Miranda and ran out of the cabin.  “I’ll grab some blankets! She must be cold.”

Billy ran up the path, setting the girl in Miranda’s car.  Miranda came up the path and jumped into the drivers-side seat and drove off, not even putting her seatbelt on.  When they got to the hospital, Billy ran the girl inside.  They immediately gave her some medicine and injected a booster shot into her arm.  Later that day, they told us she had died from lung cancer.

After the day, Miranda and Billy put their money together to give her a proper burial. They gave their respects and went home to mope.  Late the next morning, the hospital called to say that Sam had died from the snake bite.  This immediately crushed Billy.  Billy broke down and asked God what happened and why it was happening.  Later that night, after finishing his silent dinner, he took his sister’s jump rope and hung himself.