She frowned as he dropped the coat, stamping out the flames that tried to consume it and his fake rose. Her gut twisted. The flames hadnāt consumed him. Why hadnāt he been burned? When sheād burned Maryās portrait, it had been instantaneous. The glass had shattered, the painting had gone up in flames, and Mary had been turned to ash. So why had it only burned the coat? He was a painting. He had to be. He wasnāt real she hadnāt just attacked a real person sheād attacked a painting so why wasnāt he burning.
She took a step towards him, frown morphing into a scowl and eyes squinting up at him. Something had gone wrong. Her flame hadnāt been enough, thatās what it was. The twisting in her stomach wouldnāt go away, but she could squish down her anxiety with that thought. A larger flame, getting it closer to his arm or torso, then heād burn just like any other painting. She got ready to dart forward again and-
-The world stopped around her.
She watched as a blue petal drifted from Garryās rose and to the ground, as a gash opened near his collarbone. No no no no no. A paintingās rose couldnāt do that. A painting wouldnāt lose a petal. A painting wouldnāt be hurt because a petal had fallen. The previous energy sheād had drained out of her, leaving her feeling worse than she had when first waking up. Her body throbbed with pain, but that was nothing compared to the pain of realization.
He was Garry.
He was Garry.
Sheād attacked Garry.
She could feel bile pressing against her throat and the twisting in her stomach grew. She felt sick and light-headed and it was like the world was spinning around her. Her hands began to shake and the lighter slipped past her fingers, clinking against the ground. Her rose went next. She blindly tried to catch it before it fell, unable to look away from Garry, but missed. It quietly fell to the ground, small and fragile. Just like the girl who looked down at the burnt coat and then up to the purple-haired man, shaking her head in disbelief.
Sheād attacked him. Sheād tried burning him. Heād been trying to help and all sheād done was lash out. Sheād tried burning him.Ā
She couldnāt breath. She gasped for air, chest raising and falling but no matter how she tried she couldnāt get anything in. It stopped right at her collarbone, leaving her gasping for more with no relief. And the world was still spinning, tilting on its axis and leaving her dizzy, disoriented, confused and lost. Heād taken care of her, heād sacrificed his own rose to get hers back, and sheād attacked him.
Hot tears ran down her cheeks even as she continued to shake her head, stumbling backwards a few steps. Mary, Phoenix, Garry. Sheād hurt them all. Sheād attacked without thinking; sheād tried killing them. She looked up at Garry, opening and closing her mouth in an attempt to say something, but all that came out was a strangled cry.
And then everything shut down.
Thereās only so much a child can take. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her body slumped over, slamming against the ground. A red petal wavered before falling off her rose and she shuddered. Even in her unconscious state, that rose still dictated everything.
SOMETHING WAS WRONG-- horribly, horribly wrong. Eyes widened as the girl began to gasp violently, as tears started from her eyes. Lips parted to call out her name, but his voice died in his throat, cut short by the sight of Ib collapsing to the ground. At once, a ghostly hand seized his heart by the arteries. As if someone had plunked an ice cube into his stomach, the manās gut twisted.Ā ā Ib......? ā He managed no more than a hoarse croak. Fingers dug so deeply into the stem of his rose that the thorns dug sharply into the palms of his hands, drawing the faintest drops of blood forth from his flesh.
Then, all at once, time marched forward once again-- jarred from his frozen state, the man darted forward to the girlās side, throwing himself to the knees.Ā ā I-Ib!! No... no, no...! ā Hands trembled uncontrollably as he moved to put a hand beneath her head, pressing the other to her heart. Panic surged through his veins; the man could not immediately feel a heartbeat beneath his palm, and so moved to pick up her small wrist. Never before in his life had he checked a pulse. Feverishly scrambling to feel something, anything, the man murmured:Ā ā P-please... please, Ib... ā
Only in his thoughts did he dare finish the sentence: ( Please, Ib... i-if... if I caused you to die... I would never forgive myself!! )
Yet even the sensation of a pulse, even after laying eyes on her discarded rose with but a single petal left clinging to its stem, any relief he felt was barely tangible. Scurrying to grab his jacket, he scooped the other up as carefully as he could in his arms whilst holding both roses in one bleeding hand. No time to lose, he started out of the alley and into the streets-- looking down both directions of the sidewalk to find the closest pedestrian. Eyes met a young woman; running after her, he called out:Ā ā W-wait!!Ā ā
The woman turned. Watching the other approach, it seemed it took a moment for the girl in his arms to register in her mind. Hand rose to cover her mouth as Garry came to a halt in front of her. Breathless, he dared not give this woman time to ask questions.Ā ā T-this girl... I... I need to know where the nearest hospital is...!!Ā Or a clinic, a doctor... anything! P-please, you must help her...! ā
And how thankful he was that heād ran into exactly the right person for such a predicament. Of course the woman had her questions--Ā āwhatās wrong with her?ā being at the top of the list. But sheād the sense to ask them along the way, as she led the man and the girl in his arms through a tangle of streets to a building marked with a distinct red cross above the doors. Heart pounded into his ribcage, each beat a sharp ache. Only after the girl was settled in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical staff, did the ache grow a little less intense-- replaced instead with a pang of melancholy every time he stared into her unconscious face, knowing that he was the one responsible for this.
Staring down the girlās rose, still clutched firmly in his hand after all this time, he knew he could not be here when she finally woke. But first, he would take a plastic cup from beside a water cooler laid out for visitors. Pouring water into the cup, he set it on the table beside the girlās bed, then slid her rose inside hoping that it would do something, even return a single petal to its wilted frame.
And then, casting the girl one last heartbroken glance, he would slip from her room, telling the overly-concerned woman heād met on the streets to pass along a message to Ib upon her awakening.
( Tell her that I... I-Iām so terribly sorry. I should have listened when I was told to go away... it was never my intention to upset or startle her so badly.. Iām... absolutely ashamed of myself... and I want only the best for Ib. Also... please, be sure to tell her... that I promise I wonāt bother her ever again.Ā )
A difficult promise to make, but one he vowed to keep so long as it meant the girl and her rose were safe.Ā
That, after all, was all that mattered.











