"Grieving, grieving, constantly grieving.
I mourn what could have been, what will not be, what I can't save." - Unknown
Trigger warning: Death of a minor, talks of loss and grief.
Lucy's pale face - too pale, cold and blue, brown eyes open and unseeing - rested in Gwen's arms. Dark lines etched across her cheeks, sucking away any remaining traces of warmth. Gwen desperately tried them brush it away, salty tears dropping from her cheeks onto Lucy's, her heart shattering over and over again with ever-unresponsive touch. Her chest was still - too still - and even though her lips were parted, nothing escaped. Gwen's scalp prickled, her arms lost feeling long ago, her tears seeming endless, the eerie silence of the forest around her broken only by Gwen's ragged sobs and the sound of her own gasping breaths. Every part of her being screamed in agony as she clung to her friend, refusing to let go. This was all Gwen's fault, and she couldn't bear the weight of it.
"Why did you do this to me?" Lucy's voice rasped, her mouth forming the words yet still her chest remained unmoving. Gwen's sob hitched in her throat as she scanned the other girl's lifeless face, her dirty hand softly cupping Lucy's freckled cheek in disbelief.
"Lucy?" Gwen's voice was equally raspy from the hours - or was it days? She couldn't tell, time felt inconsequential now that Lucy wasn't here to pass it with her - she'd spent screaming her anguish into the silent woods.
Lucy's unseeing eyes turned towards her, looking through her, her blue-tinged lips twisted into a snarl. "You did this to me, I was your friend and you killed me."
Gwen shook her head vigorously, though she knew it was true, "No, I-I didn't mean to—"
"You're a monster," Lucy cut her off with a growl. "I was scared of you in the end. All I could think was that I never should have helped you. There is nothing I regret more than knowing you."
A knife to the heart would have been less painful than hearing her utter those words. The only one to truly know her and all her secrets, who she'd loved more than anything, had been afraid of her. She was right to be afraid, Gwen was a creature of nightmares, but that didn't make it any less painful to hear. The weight of the realization pressed down on her chest, like a heavy stone threatening to crush her. She couldn't blame Lucy for being afraid, but that didn't make the pain any easier to bear.
Apologies stuck in her throat, unable to escape for no words would ever be enough to convey the depths of her sorrow, her regret.
"I miss you," she whispered, her heart longing to hold her still, to feel her warmth against her cold skin, to be graced with her bright smile despite her own being grotesque. She was a beast who'd bitten the hand that fed her, and Lucy had paid the price.
Lucy's skin started to flake away like dust in the wind, flying out of Gwen's grasp, "I miss my life, before you took it."
Gwen's heart beat frantically in her chest as she watched her friend crumble to dust in her arms. The gentle breeze seemed to mock her, pulling pieces of her friend away and scattering them into the air. She desperately clutched at the remaining fragments, trying to keep them together, to keep her friend close for just a few more precious seconds. Her fingernails dug into the dirt as she clawed and scrambled, desperate to hold onto something tangible, something that could bring her friend back. But she couldn't go back. She could beg and scream but she could never go back.
With Lucy's name a silent cry on her lips, she was wretched from the scene, pulled like a ragdoll towards wakefulness, towards where she tossed and turned in her tent, drenched in a cold sweat, and so very, very alone.
YOU ARE READING
Yet Broken Still You Breathe
Fanfiction- 'I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so I would not break.' - Mary Hornbacher Gwen had spent so long on her own, distanced from the w...
