She could hear the ripping sounds from all the way down the hall.
The sounds of growing pains, as another one gained their wings, she pulled the door closed, shutting herself away in the sound dampened room.
Pausing in front of the mirror set over the basin, before padding back across the room to the bed; if she turned away, and craned her neck just so, she could see her shoulder blades sharp beneath pale skin, utterly unremarkable, but for pale scars; where once in a fit of desperation, she had attempted to claw the flesh from her back.
After they had patched her up one of the nurses, the one with the kind face and sad eyes, had sat her down and explained that's not how it works, but could not provide her with any more of an explanation as to how it was supposed to work, than a shrug and “It’s different for everyone”.
Flopping back down on the mattress, she turned to face the window, planting both elbows on the sill, dropping her chin into her palms, she starred dejectedly out at the swallows and martins swooping in and out.
When they bring in the newbies they sit them down, teel them that it hurts real bad, that it’s not something you should aspire to, and that it may not ever happen but in case it does, they have brought you here so they can look after you, and get proper help to you if the time ever does come. She'd sat in one of these groups years ago, and had starred in disbelief when they said it was something you shouldn’t want, she couldn’t ever imagine not wanting it, it felt so natural, but they were cloistered away from the world like something fragile, or something deadly.
What they never told them, in any of the talks she had seen, was that when it happened, you didn’t stay, in fact she was the last of her group, had been for years, the others disappearing one by one, sometimes at night she would hear distant sounds, muffled by the sound proofing, and in the morning there would be one less body at the breakfast table. Sometimes, like today, it would happen during the day the sounds ringing down the hall, creeping round the gap in the door that she left habitually ajar, pretty soon nurses would be hustling to and fro along the corridor, ensuring everyone is in their room, the first time she had left her door open and one of the nurses had come in and made her drink a glass of bitter tasting water, when she finally woke up the sun had set, she learned to close the door and feign ignorance after that.
Today there was a new group arriving, so they were hustled out of their rooms into what they called the ‘activities’ room’, little more than an empty space scattered with chairs, for the ‘greeting’, she had often asked why she had to sit through the same talk over and over, each time she would be scolded and told they should all be there to make the new arrivals feel welcome. Prepared to once again sit with the others in impassive silence, as the same old platitudes were doled out, her eyes alighted unexpectedly on one new face in particular, slightly older than the average crop, what the nurses called a ‘late bloomer’, pale blue eyes, and light blond hair that floated as it she were permanently facing into a soft breeze, as if sensing her gaze blue eyes locked with her own.
She came and found her at meal time, settled across the table from her and nodded her smile broad and beautiful, and each communal time from then on she came to settle beside her, alighting like the swallows beyond their walls weightlessly perched on branches.
One meal time their hands brushed reaching for the pitcher, another they came to rest beside each other, finally fingers intertwined under the table.
The first time the girl with golden hair snuck into her room after lights out, she couldn’t sleep a wink with worry they might be discovered, but morning came, blue eyes slipped out, and were safely inside their own room before morning count.
With repetition anxiety faded, and she finally began to feel like these halls were home, in quiet moments at the table, and snatched hours of darkness, there was no need to speak they understood each other implicitly in a look, gesture, a touch.
It began as a dull ache, a tension in the muscles that made movement unpleasant. That night, for the first time she slipped by moonlight, into the room where the bluest eyes dwelt, and took comfort in their connection, slipping into a peaceful sleep in each-other’s arms.
That's when it happened, a stabbing pain, like blades under the skin fighting to be free, the shock of it made her cry out at first.
Blue eyes wide in alarm, cradling her head in her arms, as she tried to bite back the screams.
Why now, why did it have to happen now? For the first time in her life she did not want this, she did not want to go, not now she had the blue of the sky, and the gold of sunlight to hold on to, to hold on to her.
Nurses burst into the room, arms moved to restrain, and she was dragged towards the door, blue eyes held on as tight as she could, but all of a sudden she lost her grip, the last she saw was her reaching arms, and the blue overspilling to drown the ground, as a glint of needle moved to sunlight's arm.
She was dragged down the corridor of shut fast doors, towards the big double doors she last passed through when she was first brought here.
The nurse with sad eyes held the door open, whispered “I’m sorry” as she was carried past in tears, the door shutting behind them with a conclusive thud.
[Short story by PhoenixShaman based on the prompt: “She could hear the ripping sounds from all the way down the hall.” from writeworld]
