Don't forget me - Lara, death post end of day 4

m a g i

Gas, out of time, out of money
You're doing what you can, just makin' it run
(There's only so much I can)

What happens on the margins, in spaces full of small print at the footnotes?

He stood over his fallen friend and listened to the croak of her voice. A plea that he does not leave her lonely. That he could not forget her – a lump formed in his throat – she begged, life fading from her eyes.

No one wanted to be forgotten. Magi knew little but he knew that much. To want to live on was only human. To have one’s name etched in history or attached to something less terrible than this tragedy kept them from devolving into monsters. But how much could he promise when his own life was not assured?

“I’m here,” His voice cut through as strong as he could manage, “You’re not alone, Lara.”

Her blood trickled out onto the earth under their feet. He kneeled beside her and moved to take his hands in hers.

Death sat at his back, a head torn from a boy’s body, and now in front of him, too. Surrounded by something wretched, unfair, and barbaric. He wasn’t any better than the people in here, that much was true.

“I’m sorry,” He apologized as though that could sew shut her wounds. “I won’t forget you. I promise.”

He determined not to leave the promise hollow. He’d last as long as he could, even if it meant his own name fell to the margins.

“Be still. It’ll stop hurting soon.”

Magi didn’t pray over her body, though he did his best to forgive.

The only way through all of this would be to find forgiveness. Because of all that he’d ever learned, forgiveness was the only thing that would ever give him the strength to get through it.

His mother had taught him that no matter the pain or who had wronged him, it did nothing to dwell on what they’d done. Revenge could bring a momentary pleasure, but it’d only disappear just as soon as it’d been achieved. Only a hardened heart could take pleasure in destruction of someone else. And his was as soft as they came.

Forgiveness was harder, a virtue. A feat that only a person who stood on his own two feet was capable of, to forgive was to meet the morning sunrise and still see joy. It was forgetting the power someone else determined to have over him. It was knowing that even as Lara lay dying, they had one another, two hearts, one slowing, one beating.

“I won’t forget you, Lara.”

[Note: GMs approved posting here for day 4!]