Well, this is angsty. That's all I have to say.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
WARNINGS: ANOREXIA, ALCOHOLISM, DRUG ABUSE, DEPRESSION, SELF HARM, SUICIDE, CHARACTER DEATHS
Perfection.
Everyone thought of him as Sadie's weak, goody two shoes of a brother. The one that you call if you need help with your homework or have a question about something, but where was everyone when Carter needed them? Nowhere.
After a while, he started to accept this, this image that people painted him to be. The image of perfection and he was going to live up to it.
If he couldn't be outgoing or brave, if he had to be invisible, he would find a way to make himself seen. Even if it meant not eating for days at a time and pushing himself so hard in training that he almost passed out more than a dozen times throughout one week. Even if it meant staying up all night to exercise or study until he was smarter than anyone at Brooklyn House.
Even if it meant biting Jaz's hand and screaming like a banshee as he flailed in his sister's arms, ignoring the fact that she's crying and she never cries, as the healer shoves a tube down his throat. He's begging and sobbing that he doesn't want nutrients; he doesn't want to gain weight, but Jaz and Sadie just stare at him sadly.
Even if it means joining his parents at age nineteen because he can't fight anymore. His weakened heart gives out and he collapses on the floor of the training room in front of all of the initiates, young and old.
It's worth it because he's perfect now, in control... Right?
Rebellion
Sadie was labeled a rebel as soon as she was out of her mother's womb, and that's why she wasn't really surprised when she started drinking at age twelve.
It was just too much. Isis in her head; her uncle's disappointment after Jaz; Walt; and her brother's rising temper and dropping weight. She broke down and stormed out of Brooklyn House the night before her thirteenth birthday before racing down to the liquor store and summoning a few bottles without being noticed. She knew it was wrong, but she was desperate.
Everything fades away with each small sip that she gulped down with a luscious burn. Liquid sloshes out of the bottle onto the floor and her body but she doesn't care because she is truly happy for the first time since her mom died.
When Carter's anorexia is discovered and he's locked in the Infirmary, she drinks about a dozen bottles of alcohol before promptly passing out.
It just gets worse after that. Carter dies many decades too early from anorexia nervosa and Uncle Amos hasn't spoken to her in weeks because he's busy in the first Nome, what with the pharaoh dying and all. She misses the way he chokes out the last few words abut the tragic death of her brother and screams at him because Carter was his nephew and she's his niece and that he should be there for her. That Dad was ashamed of him.
She didn't mean any of it of course. Sadie hadn't had a drop of alcohol in almost twenty four hours and her body needed it, making her cranky.
When Sadie was born, everyone knew she would defy all the rules and odds against her. Everyone thought she would grow and marry Walt and finally settle down, but she proved them wrong.
Sadie Kane died at age eighteen, one year after her brother, of alcohol poisoning. All because no one realized that she needed help.
Stoic
Zia Rashid appeared as stoic and strong as a stone, but inside, she was crumbling like pastry. Falling apart at the seams.
She's been in a bad place since her parents' death, in a world of isolation and hiding behind masks she created.
Just when she began to feel happy after the war, her boyfriend died of anorexia. Zia hadn't even known of this and it was a shocking blow to everyone because their brother, their friend, their nephew, their boyfriend, their pharaoh, their hero was dead. Many whispered that he did it to himself, but Zia knew that he couldn't help it. The anorexia killed him, just as it had taken several lives before his and several after. So why did she feel so guilty?
Zia started cutting a month after Carter's death, but she didn't know why this boy's death had affected her more than her parents' or anyone else's for that matter.
It only gets worse when Sadie died and Zia Rashid, stoic war princess as many referred to her in secret, slashed her veins opened and bled out on the floor of Carter's bedroom.
All because she felt alone and no one noticed.
Falling
Walt was cursed from the start. As if everything that had occurred to him wasn't enough, then his best friend, his girlfriend, and Zia Rashid had died. He didn't know Zia well, but he knew Sadie and Carter and if they liked her, then she was a good person and didn't deserve this. None of them did.
Walt remembered his Aunt Hillary that had suffered from depression and she described it to him as 'the fall is slow, but the impact is fast. Fast, hard, and inevitable.' She killed herself the week after.
She was right, though, and after Sadie, Walt began his slow descent just as the three before him had. It started with a skipped meal because he wasn't hungry. Then it was purposely slipping and bruising himself on the floor, wall, or an object. Before he knew it, he was getting into fights just for the rush of pain. He started cutting and going days without eating. He started drinking and doing drugs.
That was how he died. At age twenty three, Walt Stone died of an overdose on a series of pills because he had been left alone. Abandoned and afraid.
All because love murdered him.
Survivor
Jaz sighed as she ran a hand through her blonde hair and set to covering her best friend, Walt's, body with a crisp white blanket as she had done for Carter, Sadie, and Zia. It hurt like heck to see her best friends die. To unravel before her eyes and know that she can't do anything about it. They had to want help to accept it.
She was going to miss them dearly, but she would continue on. She'd keep going as an amazing healer; she may get married some day and have kids. She'd be able to teach the initiates about the path of Sekhmet. Jaz would stick around to share the stories of her friends and keep their memories alive until she joined them in her own time.
Because she still had so much to live for, like Felix and her little sister back home. Jaz would survive because none of the others could.
Control
Anorexia
Run down
Tired
End of his rope
Rumination (meaning to obsess over situations or life events)
Stricken with grief and depression
Alone
Down the drain (meaning lost)
Isolated
Exhausted
Zero strength left
Irrecoverable
Agony
Withdrawn
Abandoned
Lonely
Throwing in the towel
Jem
Alive
Zoom in on the good things (focus on them)
Like I said, angsty. I did warn you.
Thanks for reading! I know it was a downer, but I hope it was still well written.