Can anybody hear me?

Come home, Mummy?

He had asked her to live forever.

He hadn't known what he was saying when the words tumbled from his sticky little grin, but the words still rung around her head on repeat. He had no concept of mortality, but of course he wouldn't. He was only six years old. All he knew was his mother's kind eyes and warm embrace; safety, security.

Of course he would want it to last forever.

No child was ever prepared for the day their mother's hands would go cold in theirs, or when they'd have to watch the memories visibly flicker out from their exhausted eyes.

But that was okay. They would have years to build a life of their own, slowly losing their childlike dependency as they created a whole new universe around themselves that made the pain hurt a little less when life's cold-hearted timer ran out.

Except... standing there, above the nonchalant and unaffected bustle of life strewn across the city below her, she realised that she wasn't stealing her own time away.

She was stealing his.

He had asked her to live forever, and staring down at her swift exit from the life she'd never wanted, she realised she couldn't break his little heart just yet.

She wished she was stronger. It wasn't his fault that her skin lay rippled and contorted under the extensive tattooing, scars from her past and a reminder of God's cold shoulder. It wasn't his fault that she lay on the brink of bankruptcy, due to her own inability to control her hands as they pumped gram after gram of poison into her blood, offering the tempting bliss of temporary numbness.

And it wasn't his fault that today, they had forgotten to lock the stairs to the rooftop of the grimy complex of flats... the tallest complex of flats.

She hadn't chosen him — she loved him dearly but had never planned for him — but she knew that if she didn't now... then he would never understand why mummy hadn't come back to kiss his goodnight.

So grasping tighter to the railing — so tight that her knuckles paled and the fingers cramped — she pulled her body back around from the road below, facing towards safety; towards her six year old boy.

But as she lifted her foot with a new determination for life, the cold layer of sweat that covered her palm slipped from the railing.

Her body lurched down as she desperately clawed for him, but the last thing she saw was the road rushing towards her with open arms that she so quickly no longer wanted to be wrapped in.

He had asked her to live forever, but after all, immorality wasn't meant for anyone.