Rank: Dau
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:34 pm
Sun May 20, 2012 4:37 pm
Monochrome
She lived in a world without color. Gray doctors moved through gray hallways, their gray coats rippling in slow motion. Their voices were a din of white noise, their footsteps, muted and muffled. In the crowded lobby, nurses and doctors and patients busied around her, through her, never seeing her.
That was for the best, she supposed. She was dead, afterall.
She had been among them, once. "Living." Had a good family, good friends. Never drank or smoke or so much as kissed. Earned decent grades and got accepted to the state school. Not very remarkable. She was not the A plus student. She was neither sad enough to be a goth, smart enough to be a nerd, or strong enough to be an athlete. She was perfectly normal. Perfectly average. Perfectly forgettable.
Thank god for the cancer. It made her... interesting.
People visited her when the news reached the school. They sent cards. The generic ones: "Get well soon!" "We miss you!" "Love you xoxoxoxo.." Why so many Xo's? She hardly knew the league of guests who dropped by with their teddy bears and bouquets of flowers, faking a friendship neither party truly felt. They bought her cute clothes that draped her emaciated body, colorful scarves to hide her balding. It was a game of pretend, and she was their doll. When she posed for pictures, raising her bony fingers for peace signs, she knew that she was keeping up this charade not for herself, but for them. She was a symbol to adults: Your child die like her. She was a symbol to her peers: This could happen to you. As long as they could pretend she was getting better, that she would be all right, they could pretend that they were all right.
When they held a memorial at the hospital for her - they spelled her name wrong on the banner, that's nice - the pastor waxed and waned about the sacredness of life. "She lived every moment to the fullest," he preached to the whimpering crowd. "We do not know why she was taken so young, but she is now free, and--" Yada yada yada. She left before the eulogies ended. Funerals were to reassure the living. It had no use for the dead.
He was right though. She was free. Released from the prison of flesh and bone that had shackled her, she was as wild as a raging storm. There were no rules to abide. She had no consequences to her actions. In this world without color, she was more alive than she had ever been.
She had powers. She overload the medical equipment with electricity. Dim lights, explode them. Crash computers. Whisper nightmares into the dreams of young children, reach into the chests of old men and squeeze hearts. She breezed through the hallways, formless and ethereal, and left calamity in her wake.
But there was one new ability that she loved the most. She could only do it for a few seconds, but with the right timing it was worth it.
The pealing scream of a siren was loud even in her gray world. Floating to the window, she could see the ambulance bolting toward the last intersection before the hospital. With a thought, she was there, and gathering up every ounce of strength, she solidified her form into something almost-but-not-quite physical, a phantom image of her former self. The ambulance swerved to avoid the girl who wasn't there, careening on its side towards a....almost....almost!...No, it didn't hit the oncoming van as planned, but skidded along the pedestrian divider, stopping, comically, on a stop sign. What a let down. Her mouth made an annoyed frown before she disappeared. If only it had burst in flames like last time. That would have been interesting.
That was for the best, she supposed. She was dead, afterall.
She had been among them, once. "Living." Had a good family, good friends. Never drank or smoke or so much as kissed. Earned decent grades and got accepted to the state school. Not very remarkable. She was not the A plus student. She was neither sad enough to be a goth, smart enough to be a nerd, or strong enough to be an athlete. She was perfectly normal. Perfectly average. Perfectly forgettable.
Thank god for the cancer. It made her... interesting.
People visited her when the news reached the school. They sent cards. The generic ones: "Get well soon!" "We miss you!" "Love you xoxoxoxo.." Why so many Xo's? She hardly knew the league of guests who dropped by with their teddy bears and bouquets of flowers, faking a friendship neither party truly felt. They bought her cute clothes that draped her emaciated body, colorful scarves to hide her balding. It was a game of pretend, and she was their doll. When she posed for pictures, raising her bony fingers for peace signs, she knew that she was keeping up this charade not for herself, but for them. She was a symbol to adults: Your child die like her. She was a symbol to her peers: This could happen to you. As long as they could pretend she was getting better, that she would be all right, they could pretend that they were all right.
When they held a memorial at the hospital for her - they spelled her name wrong on the banner, that's nice - the pastor waxed and waned about the sacredness of life. "She lived every moment to the fullest," he preached to the whimpering crowd. "We do not know why she was taken so young, but she is now free, and--" Yada yada yada. She left before the eulogies ended. Funerals were to reassure the living. It had no use for the dead.
He was right though. She was free. Released from the prison of flesh and bone that had shackled her, she was as wild as a raging storm. There were no rules to abide. She had no consequences to her actions. In this world without color, she was more alive than she had ever been.
She had powers. She overload the medical equipment with electricity. Dim lights, explode them. Crash computers. Whisper nightmares into the dreams of young children, reach into the chests of old men and squeeze hearts. She breezed through the hallways, formless and ethereal, and left calamity in her wake.
But there was one new ability that she loved the most. She could only do it for a few seconds, but with the right timing it was worth it.
The pealing scream of a siren was loud even in her gray world. Floating to the window, she could see the ambulance bolting toward the last intersection before the hospital. With a thought, she was there, and gathering up every ounce of strength, she solidified her form into something almost-but-not-quite physical, a phantom image of her former self. The ambulance swerved to avoid the girl who wasn't there, careening on its side towards a....almost....almost!...No, it didn't hit the oncoming van as planned, but skidded along the pedestrian divider, stopping, comically, on a stop sign. What a let down. Her mouth made an annoyed frown before she disappeared. If only it had burst in flames like last time. That would have been interesting.