Kart's fantastical journey!

Mia Barleybone

I am Mia. Today I am sitting on a bench outside my house. The beautiful light-blue sky is precious to me. I like to discern the clouds as anything. One cumulus-cloud looks like a wyvern and the other one like a flower.
And one specific one resembles my brother Dwayne. It looks like a baby embraced by the warmth of its mother.
I lost my brother to polio. Doctor Yuan told my parents that if I had been born second, or never at all, Dwayne would have survived. But since my mother weakened after giving birth to me, Dwayne didn't survive long. He only got to live 10 months. Not even a year.
I wasn't supposed to hear what Doctor Yuan had told my parents, but a curious child can't be stopped, so I had eavesdropped on them.
I wonder every single day of my pitiful life if I could have somehow saved Dwayne. If I could right a wrong, even if it's at the cost of my life, I would do it. Because then, my family and I could have lived a happier life, with Dwayne. Ultimately, Dwayne wanted the same as every other living organism on this planet. To live. If he hadn't been diagnosed with polio, or if we had been more wealthy so we could afford proper medical treatment, he could have survived and lived a happy life. He would have been sitting here, right next to me. I try to imagine how Dwayne would look like right now. I don't want to forget him. I couldn't even if I wanted to. My parents and I have been scarred for life. We will eventually have to move forward, so Dwayne can be at peace. But a lot of people don't seem to understand how difficult it is to continue life without a loved one. They don't seem to comprehend because they've never lost a dear one, or because they swallowed all their emotions. I can't hide my emotions, it just hurts too much, but at some point in life, I will have to fake my facial expressions to not hurt the people around me.
I don't want to continue without Dwayne. But if I stop now. If I follow the life I choose against my will, I will come to the cognition that I am not living my life anymore, but someone else's. If I evanesce now, I will put everyone who cares about me in pain. I can't do this to my parents. They never show their pain and suffering in front of me. They are too afraid it would affect me and could change my life forever, but it already has, because now I know what death means at a very young age. An age where you are supposed to live with zero worries. As a child you shouldn't understand what it means to be alive yet, you should only play. Play as long until you finally understand the mysteries life had hidden from us. Because if you finally get the meaning, you will never be the same again. You will look back at your memories while being wistful and wonder how you managed to be so happy, how you didn't think about all the problems the future would throw at us. Simply, as a child we just don't have the ability or will to understand life. Because if we do, then we will continuously live wrong. Our mental health will begin to appear to the front at the stage of adolescence or late childhood. If we don't manage to save ourselves before our adolescence ends, then we will be scarred forever.
If you already experience such vivid pain as a child, then your path has already been created. The route to a different and hard life. Unless you try, you won't succeed. In life we can't show our weakness, or else we will succumb to the strong lifeforce. The weak become the prey of the strong. It reminds me of a familiar situation. Having clung onto life for 10 whole months, only to dive into your very own grave the moment you lose momentum. I could have saved Dwayne if I had turned back time. Because I was blessed as the only child in South Africa with a power not from this world. However, using my power would cost me my life. I might be able to freeze time for a couple of seconds or minutes without a deficit, but turning back time would remove me from the timeline I came in. Time is not something you should mess with. That's why I didn't turn back time until now. I had been too afraid of disappearing. I didn't want to be forgotten by everyone. Nonetheless, I don't fear oblivion anymore. Because at some point in life, everyone will forget you. If you weren't important to society, you'll be forgotten in a matter of weeks, months, or years. If you were a prodigy, you would be remembered for decades. But if someday, humanity ends, nobody will be remembered by anyone, because then there won't be anything to remember if everything is gone. Maybe life will repeat itself somewhere else if humanity ends, but to wait or see when that happens, is not what I wanted to use my one and only try for. It's not like I could tell anyone about the end of humanity either way, and for what reason anyway? To put people in fear?
What I did, was save it for a moment in life I would need it the most, and it had finally came, the perfect time.
It was the actual end of humanity, no, existence. I never thought it would ever come to this calamity, or to the point I would have to save everyone and everything. Because I wasn't only protecting my friends, I was helping existence regain its former shape. I will not be remembered by anyone except the 11 people who were with me. They will think of me as the hyperactive and happy girl who saved life. The unknown heroine. At least I will live on in their memories as a girl who was happy. Because at times, it was difficult to hide my emotions. But I didn't want to make anyone sad, so I acted happy. And I can't deny the fact that I was happy. Acting happy made me happy. I wasn't lying to myself or faking my expressions, I had been protecting my friends. Being forgotten by everyone is fine by me. At least I saved existence from vanishing completely. Thinking about it makes me tremble. But I should know that after I disappear from this last memory I am in, I will become one with nothingness, and then there is nothing I have to worry about anymore.
Currently, time has gifted me one last wish. Since I gave existence another chance to reshape itself, time wanted to give me one last wish before I would accept its punishment.
So here I am. Back at home, many years ago. I already saved humanity and existence, so now before I go, I want to save my brother. He will soon be born as the first and only child Dwayne Barleybone to Dalia Barleybone, my mother. She is married to Kenma Barleybone, my father. I was once apart of their family, but now I will never even be born in the first place. I think that's better. I won't be sad about it, since soon I won't be able to anyway. However, at least my brother Dwayne will now be given another chance at life, and my parents will be happy.
Before I fade away, I want to see Dwayne one last time.
A few years in the future from where I am right now.
Unfortunately, he still has polio and is wearing a leg brace, but now, Dwayne is already old enough that the disease can no longer torment him. He is exactly the same age I was when I saved the Earth and everything else.
I look into the house's window and see them. Dalia, the mother, Kenma, the father, and Dwayne, the son. All of them are happy. It seems today is Dwayne's 18th birthday. I wish I could celebrate with them. But I am no longer apart of this world.

I am already long gone.

Goodbye, Mia Barleybone, it was fun living as you.