Fiona
You look at the teenage girl collapsed in front of you, then at the crumpled piece of paper in your hands. Your boyish, illegible chicken-scratch is giving you a headache; you've read every scribbled word more times than you can count. You turn away from the note's sickening monotony, and back to the girl. She's only wearing one sneaker, you notice, but that's the least of this poor girl's worries.
Her head is bent at an unhealthy angle, and both of her arms fall crippled and useless by her sides. You wince at the crimson-stained ivory of bone in her left leg. Her shirt, torn and filthy, is rumpled up to her ribcage, revealing multiple wounds in her abdomen, and you can't tell for sure, but you're certain she's missing a few teeth.
Her already too narrow eyes squint up at you. Your heart wrenches when you realize that your ugly, dirt-smeared face is going to be the last thing she ever sees. You squint back. Her eyes well with tears; she understands.
"It's okay," she whispers through cracked and bloody lips, and you're surprised. You know that if it were you lying there, making eye contact with your indirect killer, you'd have many more choice words than 'It's okay'. You nod desperately in response, unable to assemble your thoughts into words, and she closes her eyes. They don't open again, although the careful rise and fall of her chest continues, comforting you. With the little amount of light in the room, her silver hair doesn't glow as brilliantly as when you used to know it. But more drastic things have changed since then besides her now-lack luster locks. Staring at the torn up notebook paper, you realize you can no longer make out what it says. You know the entire note backwards and forwards. It's imprinted in your mind, but in the grind of the moment you can't bring yourself to remember. You can't remember anything. Except how her hair used to shine....
Your eyes clamp shut, and you rack your brain. You really, really wish you could remember this dying girl's name. But again, you can't bring yourself to do it. Guilt and self-loathing boil in your abdomen. You had known this girl - loved her, even. At one point, your life had revolved around her. Yet her name somehow escapes you. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Yet a little voice inside of your head reminds you: She loved you back, and she, too, had forgotten your name once. When she was alive and well, when she didn't have blood smearing her exposed stomach. She had forgotten your name.
That was a long time ago.
Now, you're simply waiting. For what, you're not sure. Maybe for death, for the pain and hatred to wither away with your decomposition, long forgotten, and hopefully forgiven. You know that no one will ever truly be free from your disaster. They could survive. With a little more luck than this girl, they could live. But not happily. Not at ease. You run your fingers through your hair, and picture the one person you can remember - Fiona - laughing, warning you to stop that. "You'll be bald by age twenty-five!" For a short moment, you are lost in old memories, and you think that you might have even been smiling. But Fiona isn't coming, and neither are the others - whoever they are. You run your fingers through your hair, and this time, you don't smile. You shed those relentless tears and let them soak your unwashed tee-shirt.
Then you scream, and you wail, and you kick the wall until your foot's numb and bloody and there's a hole in the plaster. Nothing makes the pain go away, but you try nevertheless. You scream for hours.
And then, when you have no more fight, no more anger, no more resistance left, only then do you cry.
You cry for yourself, for Fiona. For this helpless dying girl in front of you, with whom you used to be in love. You cry because no one's coming to save you. Not this time. And you have no one to run with and share the chase.
You cry some more. At this rate, you don't think you'll ever stop. You don't want to. You never want to stop crying.
Because Fiona's not coming, and nobody's here, and this stupid dead girl keeps making your heart hurt.
Because you're all alone, and all you can do, is cry.
