Fan Fiction ❯ Without a Tomb ❯ Without a Tomb ( One-Shot )

Without a Tomb

Some of us, as human beings, see that our youth learns by their age, and others by experience. But I can tell you one thing, that only inevitable thinking starts that way. When you walk on and on, and the light up ahead is so far that one cannot grasp their fingers and grip it tightly long enough, before you slip away. Its as impossible as attempting to keep water in your cupped hands, because slowly it'll drain. You're memory, it'll drain too, and so does the memories other have of you. Its a sad way to live, but it's true. A hundred years from after your decease, if you have not done a single thing to be remembered by, then you might as well never have existed. I am only nine years old, and I have seen the clouded road ahead, which we are running into. A brick wall which you slam yourself in to stop the pain. Some call it paranoid, I call it insanity.

Maybe I should have listened as my sister called out to me, screaming and yelling for me not to go. Would I ever listen? Of course not. She was a selfish brat, abused by her father one day, and given the attention akin to a queen the next. She would grow up to see herself as a goddess, and others below her. She would shed the tears of other people, only to cause her own self pain. The slits on her wrists when she grows into her teen years will be proof of that.

Me and my sister quarreled a lot, often I, naturally, lost. But there was something about me that proved myself other than weak, because I never gave up. You could dunk me in water, hold my breath until my lungs burn and I can no longer breathe, my heart races faster and faster, and my skin becomes red from my lacking of air, I could be near death, and someone told me to succumb, I would refuse to bow down to them. Refuse to roll over and die. I can't live like that.

Never like that. I want to go through this world remembered, I do not wish to be forgotten. I have fought for my pride, even if it were to kill me. No one can ever take my pride away except for me.

That's right. Words hurt, but they only slip off my own tongue. Its like cutting your own self with a knife, and slowly, you watch you're blood drain with a demented smile upon your face. You grin, you'll even laugh, because you know that by the time someone walks in, screams in sheer terror for your blunders, that it was already too late. No one can save you anymore. No one will be there to hear you cry, or scream. You weep alone for hours, curled up in the grass like an infant who wants their candy, which had been stolen from them by some sort of cruel criminal. But here you are, alone, but is your pride gone? Have you refused to give in to you're fears? Not me. Not ever.

Never again.

She went to scream at our father, my sister did. If she thinks he'd give a damn, she can just go ahead and think that way. After all, it's only she he cares about. Only she he pays attention to. Only she he'll raise a hand and strike down upon her. He'll do it to me sometimes, he's even done it to me in front of my friend in the car. I remember him kicking our dogs as he passed by them, telling them to move without them getting a chance to hear a warning. I never understood why he did the things he did, but me and my sister, in spite of our differences and quarreling, our fear was shared alike. We hid in the darkness of the house while our parents fought, lashing harsh words at each other. Its bad enough when you are a teenager and you have to hear it, its even worse when you are a child, for you have to go about you're daily life, wearing a mask like everything is okay, but it's not. For a child, nothing is ever okay when you've heard the words being said by the people known as you're parents. I love them, I really do. I love them both, but when they fought, I was scared, and even glad my mother walked out. I thought the fighting would end.

Another war ensued afterward, our father started with my mother, and now my sister and (rarely) me. She took some of her anger out of me sometimes, too. A vicious cycle. There were only two people in my family whom I truly loved at that time, and that was my mother and my brother, who had been gone for a few years.

I didn't worry much about it. To them, I was unaware what the meaning of "devoice" was. My sister knew, I knew, we all knew. We know the meaning when a couple of adults fight. Its not like how it usually is, because when they do, that means there is going to be a lot of hitting, things throwing, its not a mere temper tantrum like what us, kids, have. But what do I know? I was just the careless, naive, heartless bitch like my sister, unaware, unseeing, unknowing....

Of course I knew nothing. I was a kid, what do you expect? Kids don't know much, they don't see much (as some say), they live life from what they have seen, not from what they know. They lack any other form of free will, right? Isn't that what they always have been portrayed as? Mindless human beings without a force of will?

So what about me? What does that say about my free will. Look at me, I can jump on one foot! Look, daddy, I brushed my teeth! Look, momma, I finished my peas. Its all irrelevant. Nothing. None of it matters anymore. Because one day, we'll grow up to see ourselves either as creatures of evolution, becoming greater beings throughout time, great, intelligent beings. Creatures who create colonies and form their own structures on top of another, we build, we add.... Veni, Vidi, Vici, I guess you could call it. "I came, I saw, I conquered." We take lands and other lives, is this the creatures we were sought out to be? Or are we truly beasts, enemies of nature and on earth. The wild despises us, and our own from other countries wishes to kill us. This is what we have been reduced to. It doesn't matter whether or not if we are Americans, or Hispanics, or British, or Russian, or even Arabic, we are still the same. We are human, and that is all that matters, right?

Well, momma, daddy, look at me, I'm being defiant.

It is sure cold here, isn't it? The forest which shines across the snow so brightly. Its so beautiful, like wandering through a wonderland. I am naught but a child, staring in awe at the wonders of nature, the origin in which our very lives first started out. I huddle in my own thick coat, I am a child, wandering, aimlessly. The cries of my sister had diminished, fading away like the winter's twilight when it first reaches the lamb. Let us walk aimlessly, freely. It is not an aimless mender, it is a quest! And adventure! I am not searching for treasure, or trying to act like a helpless damsel in distress, waiting for a prince to come to my aide like in the movies! I am enjoying what I see, I look around with eyes of wonder, I search for the beauty I only see every so often, hidden behind the flakes of falling snow.

Cold? Of course not. It is never cold for me. I can go out in the snow in a tank top and shorts, and manage to walk inside after an hour at play like I had just came in from a warm day at the beach. The cold is my friend, it's not my foe! It is what I seek, not what I dread when you see a black cloud taint the sky, and dropping waters puncher the swirling dust, I am filled with comfort and security, for no one can see me in the darkness or in the depths of my solitude.

Do I do this because I wish to be defiant, or because I am doing this on my own accord. Truth me told, I do not know. But an hour has passed, and the deeper I walk, the more trees that are in sight. I shift my gaze, not bothering to scan for a road. I did not need a path in order to know where I am going. I wish to seek a place where I can think and be alone. But the longer I am here, the more my hands start to burn, and I can no longer feel them anymore. I feel numb up to my waist, but I surpass the pain and agony that I am feeling. I see passed it all and see nothing but peaceful bliss. My mind isn't filled with agony nor pain. Pain doesn't exist in the world I have secluded myself to. Pain is a mere feeling that I get in my stomach like when I stand up on a stage, and people stare at my like I have abruptly sprouted three heads.

"Oh look, it's the freak show."

Go ahead. Laugh. You may think me slow and dumb, but inside, I know something you do not know. I have realized. Realizing something is a trait not most children pick up. I have seen, I have heard, and I am who I want to be. I can do what I want to do.

No string attached, Maestro, no strings attached.

I burry my hands into my pockets for warmth, but in a futile attempt to do so. My skin feel like sand paper, and my tongue is dry and painful whenever I open to breathe. I cannot breathe! I open my mouth and it hurts so much...but when I close it, I cannot breathe through my tiny nostrils, for the fear that I may not be able to breathe through there, either, for there had been mucus gathering up, clogging my air. I could not breathe either way.

Should I turn and walk back? No, for when I turned around, I was in shock when I saw that I did not know where I came from. My eyes widened in a shocking truth, and I had come to accept the thought that I was lost, and I was dying. If I didn't get to a place where there was warmth soon, then I knew that I would die. Would most kids come to this realization? Would most kids know death? Would most kids fear to see a black figure, carrying his weapon one would call a scythe, holding it high above your head just before you feel the very last drop of life drain from you? Would most kids know what death was? Who death was? Why death was?

Within a stagger, I stumbled away, searching for my tracks. But...where had they gone? I looked up, snow falling between the branches of the trees, little white shining orbs tumbling from the heavens and making a swift and graceful land upon my eyelashes and numb face. One landed into my eye, and I screamed, falling down onto my knees, and tried to warm my face up. My eye hurt so much.... I pressed hard with my gloved hands over my face, whimpering in pain.

I tried to stand up, but I couldn't. The snow was now up to my chest, and every time I made an attempt to jump to my feet, I would slip only further into the deep snow. I was a child, lost and alone, in pain but my nerves have been stunned, my breath grows shorter and weaker by the moment, which I could see my breath within a mist of vague, white clouds. I closed my eyes, my eyelashes caked with white flakes. My tongue was dry, and I was thirsty and hungry. When I thought about what I wanted to eat as soon as I got out of here, it only made me even more hungry.

Just...anything but a corndog....

Tears tried to roll down my cheeks, as though feel my sorrow. But they froze and turned into ice. I could barely feel them, but I didn't care. I looked up again, letting the white flakes come down on me. Let the snow take me if it must, for I cannot fight it any longer. It presses on all sides of me, and the cold was so immense it was unbearable. I wanted to cry, but the tears refused to come. I made a few tries to get myself out of this mess, but I only became weaker and more exhausted. God, was I ever so exhausted....

Why am I not afraid? I should fear death...but I don't. I am a child, who should be waiting for an entire life ahead of me. I am a human being, supposedly a strong and willed animal.

Music of the wild calls, playing a sweet melody in my frozen ear. I now comprehend that I was, indeed, meant to die here. It was my choice. If I had listened to my sister's cries, then I wouldn't have gotten myself into this mess. If only I had listened to her...if I listened to anyone at all, then maybe I might live to see another day. I could hear my family cry, and knowing that my sister, that girl who I hated yet loved so much, would live her life in guilt knowing that there might have, just might, have been a way to stop me from doing the most stupidest mistake in my life, within the last bit of life I'd ever live.

Again, I am but a child, alone, and cold. Shivering in the snow which reaches to my chin. I shudder, and close my eyes tighter. I cannot move. Why can't I move? Why can't I see when I open my eyes? Why is it that all I can see is white? Why can't I...breathe...?

And as I wait for the snow, the winter's furry, to take me away, to welcome me into her frozen embrace, I tell myself one thing. I am aware of my actions, I know what I have done. I am a child who has been through ordeals that a child should not have been through. I have lived a humiliated life, but now it's all paid off....

A voice called out to me, my frail body being held into a warm embrace of a stranger, and when I looked up, I only saw the face of the reaper. Of the merciful, callous soul who would willingly fulfill my last wish.

You did this on your own account you know. I told myself. This is all you're fault....