stop fighting : a self-para
How hard can you fight? “You’re sick, Ms. Blake, but we’re doing everything for you we can.” The conversation seemed to come daily, each second passing into the next hour of being stuck in the hospital walls. Stir crazy was one thing, but the mere wish for fresh air was a whole other. Friends had visited, family trips had been cancelled, her father had sat at her bedside for more hours than ever before. Making up for lost time, she supposed. And she appreciated it, all of it, the visits, the flowers, the way the hospital were going out of their way to make her more comfortable. Yet it was still exhausting, knowing she wasn’t getting better. One step forwards just resulted in another ten backwards. Infection after infection, her body attempting to shut down organs that’d been internally damaged from smoke inhalation. Yet, somehow she managed to fight. To push a smile upon her face with each passing visitor. To play down her injuries, give me a couple of weeks, I’ll be running around again. Honestly, she didn’t even believe it anymore, but it broke her heart to see the looks on their faces when she told them she was really sick.
But in the end, i’m going to be fine wasn’t enough. Fluid on the lung, they’d call it when they called her parents to tell them they needed to urgently get to the hospital. Aftermath damage from the fire at the masquerade. The terms had been technical but when she couldn’t breathe anymore she knew something was really wrong. It hurt, it more ways than it had before, her body feeling like it was shutting down and this time it felt different, her vision blurred, her body felt an agonising shake of pain. Her heart thud against her chest, as though attempting to burst out. But then, then it stopped. Stopped dead, and suddenly it didn’t hurt anymore. Cardiac arrest: It’d happened before, the night she’d been brought in. Though, this time she didn’t respond to the treatment, her lifeless body falling flat down against the bed with every chest compression going by, her body wasn’t even pleading for air this time, it wasn’t trying to wake up, instead it’d given in. Fully and completely. And it didn’t hurt anymore, her thoughts passing silently through everything she’d accomplished in life, how peaceful her body finally felt. Weeks of fighting were never going to be enough.
Time of death... 17:53.










