there's nothing we can do, she hears. it's over. she crumples to the floor, yet no sobs escape. she looks at him - he's skinny now, everything about him all paleness and angles, skin and bone. yet there's such a peaceful look on his face, and she doesn't understand why he looks so peaceful when he's dying, he'sdyinghe'sdyinghe'sdying and she can't breathe. she can't breathe.

in. out. in. out.

there's no such thing as gravity and she's free-falling, floating and falling, numb but not. as the doctors murmur empty condolences and they leave her to herself, she knows now that hope is no longer a feeling. instead everything is cold, cold, hard and numb. being happy is a foreign thing, could it be that she was happy only yesterday?

yesterday she was laughing. yesterday she was happy, sparkling, a gem. yesterday is a foreign thing, now - because such beautiful happiness is gone. yesterday she was at a carnival, yesterday they had gone together. yesterday was a beautiful day filled with laughter and glowing lights. yesterday, yesterday, yesterday...

and she rocks back and forth as she screams out and laughs, a bone-chilling laugh, one that's filled with misery. and the blue scrubs surround her and she's

s

h

a

t

t

e

r

i

n

g

breaking, breaks, broken. she's screaming, she thinks, or maybe that high-pitched noise isn't coming from her? seems like it is, though.

she is nothing. nothing can't feel pain. some things she can't bear. some things she can't handle.

she's drowning, drowning. spluttering, gasping for air, head dragged under. repeat until strength is gone.

dimly, somewhere in the back of her head, she wonders what that peculiar beeping noise is, it's as if a monitor is flatlining.

the thought soon disappears back into the recesses of her brain.

***

a doctor escorts her back down to her car once her sobs subside, his manner calm and respectful.

she waits until he's gone, she doesn't know how, to break down into a fresh round of sobbing.

everything is unfamiliar. the world is changing shapes and rearranging itself. she feels like she's a blind person walking in a forest of moving trees.

being happy is a foreign thing too. she remembers yesterday, when he took her to the carnival. she remembers yesterday, when they got drunk off laughter and happiness. she remembers yesterday, fingers and lips covered in cotton candy: hers blue, his pink. she remembers a sugar-sweet kiss.

she remembers shattered glass, the screech of tires of asphalt. she remembers blood, sticky and scarlet, staining everything -

then it seems like the blood is on her hands and she needs to get it off, getitoffgetitoffgetitoff, and she's choking back a scream that's rising up in her, bubbling up, poisoning and corrupting her -

the blood is gone.

maybe it wasn't ever there.

the shine of sunlight off a passing car's window catches her eye, and she's recoiling, shuddering back.

glaring headlights barreling down, a wild, desperate swerve.

'no' she whispers to herself. 'no, that's not it.'

for her the world is ending, for her it's nearly gone.

the following monday, headlines scroll across her neighbors' tvs.

it seems as though she's blanked the world out, taking it upon herself to scribble over the world in black marker. it's over now. she's over.

the cruelty of the world she once lived in is nonexistent to here, now, and she's now in a world of painless oblivion.

dreamless sleep.

she is just a number now, one sad story in the middle of millions of others.

for her, the world has ended.

FIN.