This is a non crew related story, but a story I had written almost a month ago and was persuaded by the lovely epicburgers to post (give her a follow if you haven’t already!).
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She grabbed a pen and a piece of paper she had kept in her back pack and began to write.
‘This hill held a lot of memories for my parents. For instance, it was the hill where my parents first met, the hill where my father proposed to my mother, the hill where he married her and the hill where she told him she was pregnant. Ever since my twin sister Leann and I were born, this hill had been a big part of our life. First steps, first picnics, first time we rode a bicycle without training wheels, everything. This was also the place that we met Audrey.
We had been playing with each other there when we heard a girl crying. A little blonde girl who looked to be seven years old like us stood by the base of a tree whose branches clutched a little ragdoll. Leann, wanting to be the stronger twin like always walked up to her and told her that she would get her doll, and surprisingly enough, she managed to climb the tree and get it. Of course, she fell down and injured her arm, but to her it was a small price to pay for being the hero. When she thanked us, she also introduced herself as Audrey, and we became friends. Soon, we were an inseparable group of three – the three musketeers people would call us.
Then came August tenth, 1998, two months after Leann and I celebrated our tenth birthday. Late at night, a man entered our house and shot our parents. Leann and I tried to escape, but we could only get so far. Thankfully, the killer had activated a silent alarm, and the police were quick, but he managed to shoot Leann, and I held her as she took her final breath, eyes filled with pain and tears running down her cheeks. I lost it after that. I became an entirely different person; I was a silent, withering mess. I was broken, and I wasn’t fixable. Yet, despite all this, Audrey stayed by my side. It was because of her that I managed to continue living without them. I guess, in a way, she saved my life.
It had become tradition to have a sleepover every month and we decided to have a sleepover to celebrate us finishing our midterm papers. We sat in her living room, simply talking about anything that came to mind when we heard it - gunshots. Looking out her window, we spotted people shouting in a foreign language as well as dead bodies on the streets. Our ears were filled with never ending screams and cries, and we knew we had to hide, so that was what we did.
Yet, after a month of hiding, it was obvious that we couldn’t go on like this. We were starving, and we were slowly dying. Eventually the enemy found us, and they forced us to start training and fight alongside them. I hadn’t wanted to do it but, if it was the only way of keeping my last fellow musketeer alive, I’d do it.
It was obvious that Audrey’s family was dead, but still she kept on fighting. Audrey had turned from a girl who screamed at bugs and hated exercise to being the most fearless, strongest soldier the team had; to me, at least. The war had clearly changed us, but although I’d never admit it, I knew it had changed me for the better. Had I been forced to use a weapon when I was younger, I was sure that I would have saved my parents and my twin sister. Now, Audrey was my only ‘family’ left, and I was determined to save her.
We fought in their team for months. The longer we fought, the more I felt myself slipping away. I hated it. I hated the screams of people as they watched their lovers, their parents, their siblings die, all because our team wanted to prove a point. Audrey, however, didn't seem scarred. She kept her face calm, even as she raised a gun and ended an innocent child's life. Though I would never tell her, I felt as if she was slipping away too. Like we went from best friends to strangers with memories. That scared me the most. Together we stood at the beginning of time, together we stood at the end of the world.
Pretty soon, we had arguments that went from small things such as whose turn it was for cooking dinner to accusing each other of being heartless thieves. It was as if our friendship was a house; she and I were just standing in the doorway, not knowing how to step into the house, back into our friendship but at the same time not knowing how to step off the porch and close the door on our friendship.
We had another argument one night, and the next day, we stood as far away as we could from each other as our team attacked a town on a hill we thought was defenseless. It turned out it wasn’t. They had soldiers surrounding us, but we kept on fighting. I was filled with adrenaline and determination to survive, and I became overconfident, so overconfident that I didn’t see a soldier aiming his gun right at me until it was too late. A gunshot rang, but before it hit me something barreled into me, causing me to fall and roll down the hill with it beside me. When we hit the bottom, I was filled with cuts and the adrenaline had disappeared, living me almost breathless with pain, but when I looked up, I realized that it wasn’t a something that had hit me but rather a someone. Someone who just so happened to be Audrey.
Her body was next to mine, and she had a bullet wound in the exact same place Leann had hers. The pain that I had felt seemed to have evaporated, and I held her in my lap, trying to put pressure on her wound. Her eyes sparkled, something I haven’t seen in a long time, and she smiled, ruefully; she knew she was going to die. My breathing became heavy, and my mind flashbacked to holding Leann’s body in this exact same way, watching as she died without any words to me. Unlike Leann, however, Audrey was quick to speak to me.
“I’m sorry that I changed. I was just trying to protect the both of us, and I took it too far. I’m sorry that I’m putting you through this pain again, and I wish more than anything that I was quicker, so that we both could have been safe, but we’re not and it’s because of me and please don’t cry or beat yourself up over this. You have always been good enough for me and you are amazing and I know you will get through this but listen. Leave them. Don’t let them change you like they did me. You can still protect your sanity. Please, leave them. Fight… fight for me.”
Just like that, I held another person as she died. This time, I wasn’t going to leave her body like they had forced me too with Leann. Carrying her in a bridal position, I ran as far as I could, my tears never ending. That is how I found myself here, a day later, in our favorite hill, under the tree where a seven year old child had once gotten her ragdoll stuck in. The sun is beating mercilessly at my back, and I can feel sweat trickling down my spine, but I don’t care. I know that I at least have to do this for her, seeing as I can’t do anything else. I know I have to at least bury her in a place where she was happy.
-Lily Green’
Lily ended her note. Why she had written it, she had no idea. She just knew that she had to express her emotions, and writing was the only non-violent thing she had in mind. Letting the paper fly off into the wind, she watched it disappear as she let one last tear fall down her cheek. Wiping the last tear, she forbade herself from crying anymore, knowing that tears only betrayed the sadness she had to hide. She continued to dig up the earth with her hands – the hole was nowhere near big enough yet, but soon it would be.
