1004 {{ aiden reaction

It's funny when I think about it now. We were used to the uncertainty, the days when we woke and the world felt like it was ending. The days our fingers felt like corpses, warm to bodies just as cold, were nothing. Mere child's play to the damned. There was no knowing which day would be our last. And it was okay because at least we could not know together. I'd be a fool to state that I was not scared of death- of leaving so many loose ends. Not much will matter to me when I am dead but those I leave behind - at least those I hoped I would leave - I didn't want to bring anything but a smile to their lips in my wake.

None of that matters now. With mere months tacked onto my lifespan I guess I'm damn near hanging by a thread. A dead man walking. ("Danny when I'm gone-" "Aiden stop.") But we both knew I was going to die first. I was crashing, through the sound barrier and I was igniting, I was falling to pieces in front of them all and it was so hard just to hide the pain. To act like I was happy. But I tried. The days I could not catch my breath I simply smiled and grit my teeth so hard I thought they might break. I begged a god I don't believe exists for strength that I never received.

The first five days I still smiled. Through the pain and the breaking of a broken heart. It's what she would want, I told myself, searching for eyes that could not find me and giving her the biggest grin I could. The one reserved for only her and Gun. My friends. I've never had many and I know this is the reason why. I was never scared of hurting them, of placing the burden of my illness upon their shoulders. I was scared of having my heart torn to shreds, of soft hands sinking through my skin and stealing a soul that was only ever temporary. 

The sixth day I cried. I cried for the first time since my mother's funeral and the tears were just as angry- filled with as much anguish and blame. Because it's her fault I'm hurting, because her name wasn't called and yet there she stands- an angel in an arena. I cried until my eyes were swollen shut and blood stained dry lips like iron diamonds. I cried until I ran out of breath and the world was made of nothing but black stars.

The sixth night I fell asleep hoping I wouldn't wake up.

For eighteen years I have fought tooth and nail, I have wanted to live. No matter how many times I told myself it was okay- how many times I told others that I was ready to go I've never fucking been 'ready to go'. I've always wanted wake up, to fill my lungs with sweet oxygen and the pain didn't even matter because to hurt was to live. To live was to love. And I have loved with everything I have.

I regret that now.

This day, the seventh day, I sit and I write. The paper is gray, frail and torn at the edges. It seems that even a breath as feeble as mine could turn it to dust and destroy the poison ink I have so carefully penned.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry to whoever finds this and whoever finds me. Hopefully - if I do this right - the doors will be locked tight and it will be a peacekeeper and not my father who finds these corpses. Don't cry for me because it's okay. I was dying anyway. I've maybe two months left by the time I write this and for the first time in eighteen years, I'm fucking ready.

I'm sorry Gun. I'm sorry I couldn't make it. I'm sorry that I befriended you because I shouldn't have. You're too good a person to have to go through this.

and I'm sorry Danny.

Because I told you to fight, to try to come home because we both know it's your only shot at survival. I never planned on fighting along with you. It's better this way, if you make it home you won't have to watch me crumble. And if you don't, well, I won't have to know.

I love you all. With everything I have. With everything that's left of me. Even if that's not much.

-Aiden

For the first time in almost a year I feel no pain. I feel hollow apart from the churning of my stomach and the bitter taste left upon my tongue. Powder has stained it white, two empty bottles sitting beside a hand too heavy to move. The world is honey, oozing in and out of nothingness- colors mixing and burning themselves onto decaying flesh. Am I already dead? I can see him, a reaper, out of the corner of my eye. His scythe is pressed to my neck, frostbitten metal turning me to stone beneath its gentle caress.

Snip. The thread has been cut. I am dead. Finally.

Finally, finally, finally.

There is screaming somewhere in the distance, words that I cannot make out. I'm too busy flying, drifting away into a reality that is anything but. It's okay. Nothing matters anymore. It's okay. It's all okay. Nothing is okay but that's okay.

I've said my goodbyes.



The eighth day, I wake up.

My stomach is hollow and the sheets beneath me are white. Every breath is painful, razors drawn across shallow veins but for the first time it has nothing to do with the tumor sitting somewhere in my lung's lining. The minute I feel again- the minute the beating of my heart starts up and the rush of oxygen down my throat turns white cheeks bright red I am filled with disappointment. With terrifying, bitter rage that crawls down my cheeks in warm droplets.

It seems I am a child born to suffer. The easy way out has left me in more pain than I've ever been.

She's on the screen. A small, dirty screen with static interrupting every other second but Danielle Brooker is unmistakable. With her image comes dread. It tears through my throat, blood seeping from dying lungs and turning white sheets a dark sort of red. I press my face into a pillow, trying to scream but I have been eaten whole. Anguish has been torn from my throat and laid in bloody heaps upon the hospital floor.

It is not her body but her silhouette of white smoke painted upon gray clouds. A ghost of everything she was supposed to be and a reminder of what she never was.

Danny Brooker is fucking dead.

And for some reason, I'm not.