An Afternoon Jog (open)

Sylvania Legend

Sylvania woke up to the smell of pancakes. She opened her door, feeling groggy. She needed food. She was hungry. Really hungry. For over a year now, there had been a hungry hole in her middle, consuming her from the inside out. A hole that could only be fixed by the morphling she so dearly loved. As she walked out to the kitchen, she passed the locked cabinet that held her beloved drug. She tugged on the handle, knowing it would be locked. It was worth trying.

Her mother had a plate of steaming pancakes waiting for her. Her face was concerned, as it always was in the morning. "How are you feeling sweetheart?" her mother asked. Sylvania grabbed the plate of pancakes and sat down with it. It seemed like she was missing something...She couldn't think of what, so she just picked up the first pancake with her hands and started to eat.

"I'm fine, Mom." Her mother still looked concerned. She picked up a fork and set it gently beside her daughter. Oh, yeah. That's what she was missing. "Do you want any butter with that? Or some syrup?"

Sylvania shook her head no. She didn't want her mother to think she'd forgotten those, too. Ever since she'd been forced to give up her morphling, she'd been very forgetful. Her parents never would have found out about the morphling if she hadn't tried to commit suicide. She traced the thin scar that went down her left arm. Damn arm. She should have chopped the whole thing off. It would have been quicker that way. Her arm didn't even work, anyways. That was thanks to the stupid tree she'd fallen out of. She'd broken her shoulder, and not long after that, she'd lost use of her arm.

After Sylvania finished her stack of pancakes, her mother announced she was going out to the office. Both of her parents were doctors, and quite busy most of the time. She was used to being home alone. Years ago, she'd had her sister Arissa to keep her company, and after that, the morphling. But now, she didn't have much to do alone.

She got dressed and brushed her teeth, then hurried out the door. She even even remembered to grab her ID card. Her father had made the ID card for her so people could help her get home if she ever got lost. Which actually happened a lot. Her parents didn't have to worry so much when she had her ID card with.

Sylvania wandered aimlessly through the streets. Around lunchtime, she stopped at the market and bought a cold sandwich with some money her mother had given her. Pigeons gathered around the bench she sat at. She tossed them bread crumbs and smiled at them. They cooed at her, and she cooed back. It wasn't perfect, but it was her life. And these pigeons were about as close to friends as she would ever get. They didn't care that she was forgetful. She was just a nice lady that gave them food.

Sometime later in the afternoon, Sylvania noticed a rather chubby boy running down the street. Why was he running? Was he going to something, or away? Then he stopped and mumbled something, obviously not seeing Sylvania. There were a few other people on the street, but they were farther away.

"Why are you running?" she asked, hoping she didn't startle him.

Sylvania Legend

Sylvania blinked in surprise at the boy's words. He wanted to die? She barely noticed as he took a seat beside her. Why would he want to die? Life here in District Two wasn't that bad, was it? But then she remembered the thin scar that wound down her left arm. It was just a whisper of the wound that had once been, a wound that had been meant to kill. Yes, life in this District could be bad. Sylvania was proof of that. Once, she'd been so consumed by anger, pain, and morphling, that all she'd wanted was death. Her parents had found her, though, her arm split wide open, blood staining her bedroom floor. That was how they'd found out about the morphling. And because she'd lived, they'd taken it away from her. They'd lost one child already, and they wouldn't let morphling take another.

Did she still want death? Or was she happy now, happy with the life she lived? Sylvania couldn't be sure. The life she lived was simple, but could it be considered good or happy? Every morning she tugged on the handle for the medicine cabinet, hoping by some chance it would be unlocked. Even if she didn't use morphling on a nearly daily basis anymore, her life still revolved around it. It was all she thought about most of the time.

Sylvania traced the scar on her arm with a single finger. "I think I wanted to die, once." She shook her head. this wasn't about her, not this time. She looked at the boy, at his face, his eyes, and wondered what his problems were. "Why do you want to die?"

Sylvania Legend

Crap. She'd done it again. Once again, Sylvania cursed her morphling-addled brain for making her not understand. Of course he was joking. What person admitted they wanted to die to someone they'd only just met? No one. Even Sylvania herself wouldn't do that.

Why couldn't she just be normal? Why couldn't she just take all this pain and hurt and aching and that was her life and be rid of it? She needed something, anything, to clear her head. Not just temporarily, like the morphling was sure to do, but permanently. That wasn't possible, though. After growing up with both parents as doctors, she knew that once a drug destroyed part of your brain, it never came back. The brain wasn't like skin cells. It didn't come back with nothing but a scar.

The worst part was, now that Sylvania knew this, she couldn't turn to morphling anymore to solve her problems. And suicide wasn't something she'd try again. That wasn't the type of failure a person could stand to face twice. So what was left? Sucking it up and dealing with it? Trying to pull her life together and make it resemble normal? She wasn't even sure she could do that much. But maybe, just maybe, she could.

"You should just leave. My life isn't a mess that's worth getting tangled up in. So go on. Just keep running. Leave me here. I'll be fine." Her words could easily be seen as the lies they were, for there were tears streaming down her face. She could say she was fine, and wanted to be alone, but really, all she wanted in this moment was for the boy to stay. It didn't matter what he said, or if he said anything at all. She just wanted someone that could be here, for a moment, and not tiptoe around her. Someone that would treat her like a real person, and not the fragile shell that morphling had made her be.

Sylvania Legend

Sylvania's laugh at the boy's words mingled with her tears, giving it a mournful sound. She liked this boy who made her laugh when she had no reason to. She brushed the tears off her cheeks, hoping no more would come to replace them. She didn't want to be sad. She didn't want to have regrets about life. It wasn't worth it. Oh sure, she'd tried to kill herself once. And maybe she wasn't better just yet, but she wanted to be. She wanted to be okay, and she wanted friends now. She needed them. People needed others to support them, and right now Sylvania was walking a tightrope with no safety net to catch her should she fall.

Perhaps she couldn't be normal on her own, but with help, maybe she could. She turned her face to the boy, swiping it once more for tears. A weak smile spread across her lips, but she couldn't keep it there. "My name is Sylvania. And you'd better remember it, because sometimes I don't."

After digging around in her pocket, Sylvania pulled out the small ID card her parents had made her. On it was her name, address, and the names of her parents and their places of work on the back. On the front, above Sylvania's name were the words Hi! If you find me, please take me home! Sylvania slipped the card into the boy's fingers. "My parents made that for me," she said. "They wanted me to be able to go out, but they were worried I'd get lost. I didn't used to be like this. All scatter-brained and such. But the morphling does that to you, I hear."

She looked down at her hands. He shouldn't care about her. Her life was far too complicated, her story too long and boring to be told. But if he wanted it, Sylvania would tell it. If she were to be friends with him, he had a right to know about her. Of course, if he didn't want to know, Sylvania was fine with that as well."

Sylvania Legend

There was a pause of a few moments before Barry answered. For a heartbeat, Sylvania was afraid his answer wouldn't come. Had she said something wrong? Offended him somehow? But then his answer came, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't said a thing wrong. She'd merely told him the truth. The only reason he'd taken so long in answering was because he'd been thinking. She was only over-reacting because it had been such a long time since she had talked to anyone about this sort of thing. She didn't want to say the wrong thing and make Barry leave. She wanted his friendship.

So what was next? He remembered Arissa, so what was left for Sylvania to say? She supposed the logical thing to do was to tell him more about why she'd started on the morphling. Looking back on those days after Arissa'a death, she realized how dark she'd been. Oh, she'd pretended to be happy so no one would worry. But she'd wanted nothing but to fill the void Arissa had left behind. She'd become the daring one in her place, risking things she never would have before her sister's death. A fall from a tree had been the thing that had rendered her left arm useless. And after that had been the morphling, so easy to get to because of her accident...Yes, back then she had most certainly wanted death.

"We were very close, even though she was four years older." Thinking about Arissa was like flipping through a photo album of someone else's life. Arissa didn't belong to her anymore. Those bright summer mornings with her were distant memories now, and they hardly belonged to Sylvania. She was surprised they hadn't been destroyed by the morphling. It probably would have been better if they had. Sylvania was a different person now, not deserving of the wonderful childhood she'd had. "Her death seems like a million years ago. I don't even remember being at her funeral. It seems like I was just watching from the sidelines. Maybe I was. Maybe I'm not even Sylvania Legend like they say."

She took a deep breath, realizing again how reliant she was on others. She wouldn't even know her own name sometimes if there wasn't someone to supply her with it. Almost everything she knew now was because someone else had told her it was so. How did she know it wasn't all just lies? There was no way of knowing. She hardly had any memories that were completely her own, with no holes worn into them by drugs, and patched up by her parent's words. "How do I know my whole life isn't all a lie? I believe everything people tell me because I don't know any better. No matter how hard I try to remember, I can't. I just can't. So how do I know I'm not someone else, and I was just thrust into this role?"

She put her face in her hands, trying to bury emotions that were rising in her chest. She was so frustrated by all of this. No matter how fast she ran, or how hard she gripped to it, all the things that made her life her own seemed always to be slipping through her fingers and running that much further ahead. There was no catching up. There was no winning.

Sylvania Legend

It took Barry a while to answer. Sylvania sat staring down at her hands, tears welling in her eyes. She should just leave. What reason did she have for being here? All she was doing was further complicating this poor boy's life. She shouldn't have burdened him with her problems. But finally, he answered.

Her eyes widened at his words. He had a good point, but it didn't make her feel any better. If the whole world was a lie, what was the point in living at all? Wouldn't it just be better to be dead? Sylvania rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her head. She begged it to make sense, but it didn't. Not even for a moment.

And then, suddenly, a rare burst of clarity. If everything was a lie, then she had nothing to live for. So why not find something to live for? Why not make life worthwhile again?

"If everything's a lie, then I guess I'll need something to live for, right?" She looked back at him again, managing to find a smile to put on her face. It felt weak, but it was a smile nonetheless.