So this oneshot is inspired by my other fic 'Fear is the Force'. I was sort of missing the fic a little bit and suddenly had inspiration one night. So I hope you enjoy. Thank you for reading.
Katie xx
What is the past could be erased?
What if there was no way out?
What if it had all ended so very differently?
The walls around her seemed ever closer, the not knowing of the time or the day was sending her in the wrong direction. Her mind kept losing focus. The past memories becoming a blur. She sat slump on the mattress her knees tight to her chest she couldn't remember the last time she ate, perhaps she was going mad. Insane. Out of her mind. But she was trapped. The fear of being burnt alive in her own hell. The hell that shed not created, the hell that she'd been forced into not by her own free will. The kind of hell you'd not wish upon your worst enemy.
The dusty smell of dying flesh, of broken lives and the stench of near death itself. The horror of living the realising that tomorrow could be the last day you survive. How do you cope with that/ how do you keep on going? How do you pretend it's all okay? The answer. You don't!
Her breath pattern shifted as her head slipped and bounce a little as it hit the mattress. Her body still curled up. The way a child lies to feel safe, for protection. Her skin pale, clammy and cold. The room falls silent again. Not a stir from the surrounds, no birds singing, no wind howling. Not a soul about. The rising scent of the end drawing ever closer, the minutes ticking by even though in this world that doesn't matter anymore. The only thing that matters is remembering to breathe.
The street was dull and the only light coming from the orange glow of the street lights. The early morning struggle as they reached the entrance to the old police station. A gap in the brick work that had allowed Tim to come and go as he pleased. Max climbed through the gap closely followed by two police officers. The stair well before them narrow and uninviting. Its darkness stretching up into the void. The walls seemed to want to swallow him whole. Max count move, he felt his breath catching in his throat. A hand rested on his shoulder, a brief reassurance that this was for Zoe, he was there to rescue her. His foot hit the first step and then the second. As he reached the third, then the forth and the fifth, his heel slipped sending his body crashing against the wall. In that moment the thought of just giving up wore heavily on his shoulders. What if he hadn't found out her location? What if he was too late? What if this could have all been prevented? What if all those years ago Maya hadn't died?
The steps lead up to a corridor. It was dingy even in the lacking light. The stench of decay grew stronger as they made their way towards the locked door. They all hushed as they listened for any signs of life. Silence…
Max stood back as he watched in anticipation. The lock was removed and the bolts unscrewed. The waiting game was most definitely not for him. The seconds' felts like minutes and the minuets felt like hours. All he wanted more than anything in the world was to hold her hand, to touch her cheek and to kiss her lips. Yesterday that had all felt like something that would never happen again, and now he was here. But it was different, he was detached, aloof. So caught up in the past that the present was a feared situation. The concept that behind those doors lay Zoe. Alone and broken. Her voice on the video rattled him, the over whelming silence in his head pierced by her deafening screams. The hopeless cried for help. The sounds of what he always though would be her last breaths.
The last lock was broken. They were in. max ran forward. Forcing his body through the doorway. He saw her. His beautiful Zoe. Lying on her side, facing the wall. The room every bit as horrible as he'd imagined. Images flooded his mind. Images flashed of her struggling in the early days, to the days when she began to lose hope, to the days when she'd sit and cry for hours on end, to the days when she'd scream for freedom for someone to hear her, to the days when she'd want nothing more than to give up when she'd wish the end would come sooner rather than later.
His eyes stayed rested upon Zoe, the automatic sense of relief that flooded his body. To know she was still real, that she was still here. He whispered her name. No response. He moved closer, beginning to panic again. The desperation filled his eyes. The hurt, the betrayal and the pain. The thought that this was the end. No!
He sunk to the floor beside her. He placed his fingertips to her cheek, stroking her pale soft skin. The chill radiating through his veins. The room around him faded away, the little bit of light turned black. The people become unimportant and unnecessary piece to this puzzle there only as support. But what is support when you've watched yourself fall apart and had to hold on to everything you can to just keep yourself afloat, when you've been so low you've been so close to giving up. To just walking away and leaving it all behind. When you lose all your faith and the hope runs out. What then? In those dark time what is there left? Strength? Determination? Life? No. the only thing that had kept Max going was love.
He lent over to look at her face properly. Her lips were slightly parted, the edges of them beginning to discolour, and adopting a blue tint. The strand of her hair forming her face in the cold light she was gone. Max had lost her. His worst fears coming true all at once. The paramedics arrived. Max refused to move. They confirmed her death with a nod and the room was vacated to give max some time alone with Zoe.
He broke down. Everything he'd ever feared was there right in front of him. He had to face it all there was nowhere to run and hide. No escape from the monsters he'd spent so long trying to repress. All his dreams, all the hope, the love all gone. Shattered. Lost. Everything he'd ever known and cherished taken from him. His whole world was nothing. His life a lie. And in the bitter light of day he was alone. Alone with his thought, his nightmares and himself. He was destroying himself. Bit by bit, chunk by chunk, piece by piece. No one could live like this. It was an inevitable death sentence.
As night turns to day and the shadows no longer conceal the secrets of the horror. The window boards are removed and the room is seen for the first time. The grey walls, the dust coated floor and the discarded faith that lingers in the air. Her body: lifeless, broken and pained. Max takes her hand, her nails are torn and blunt. The nail polish all gone except for a single fleck. Its ice in his hand. Her eyes emotionless, troubled and deathly pale. Max reaches out his fingers smoothing them down as his eyes begin to leak. Why did it come to this?
"I'm so sorry Zo, this wasn't meant to end this way. We were meant to grow old together, to live our lives. To go on midnight walks, have picnics on the beach. Fall asleep every night with you in my arms and to wake up day after day and never get tired of seeing your face before me. But that's never going to happen now. I should have protected you. That was my job. I failed you Zoe and I can't forgive myself for that. How can I move on after all that has happened? I'll never get to hear your voice again. Or see you smile. Never get to tell you I love you as you fall to asleep. All the times I've wanted to tell, everything I've been desperate to show you. Well I suppose that is something I'll learn to accept. I'll learn to remember the happy times. Our first kiss. The first time I set eyes upon you. The way I feel when I see you in front of me, the way you make my heart flutter and my stomach tie in knots. Because Zoe I want you to know I will never ever stop loving you. Till the day I die I'll remember it all. I'll remember you, for you not. Not for this. This is just something that tore me apart, that ruined my life and that ended yours. Zoe imp sorry, ill will never be sorry enough. This want meant to be it. There was meant to be another chapter for us both. Not just a one man show. This Zoe is something I hate myself for. You are beautiful, you are my Zoe and that will never change. I love you… forever and always."
The room begins to fill up again. Max bids his final goodbye to Zoe as her body is taken to the hospital. Max sits himself in the space she has just left. The feeling of her presence is just enough to be comforting after a few minutes thy all have to leave and head back to the hospital. Max cries as he begs to stay just a few minutes more. The bathe in the memory of his soul mate. The police needed to conduct investigations into the room, so Max was lead out. Back down the corridor and then down the stairs and out of the door that had been opened up. The street outside was now busy. People going about their everyday life. Oblivious to what had just happened a few meters from them. To what they had walked past day after day. Being none the wiser to the horror that had been occurring.
The light was so binding. Max's eyes were red and puffy. He looked like he'd died too. They reached the ED, everyone was gathered in reception in await of news. They saw a glimpse of max's arrival. A wave of nausea hit him, he bent over clutching his stomach. He straightened up again and took a step through the doors. He felt his heart beating through his chest, his palms slick with sweat, his temperature rising. The noise faded into a drone, the lights grew brighter and brighter, channeled into a single tunnel and the people blurred. He walked towards the centre of the light, growing closer and closer. The screams from people around him begging him to listen to them. To stop walking. Then blackness. No noise. No light. Nothing.
Max wakes up with a start. Dried tears on his cheeks. His heart racing, his breaths shallow and laboured. His skin sweaty. He sits up. His head resting in his hands. A gentle hand reaches out taking his hand in its. He looks up. Zoe. He pulls her into his arms. Squeezing her so tightly she fears he'll never let go. She looks up and kisses him. Her lips like rose petals as they touch his. Zoe's voice soft and soothing as she tells him it's all okay. That it's all just a dream. That she's still here, that he saved her.
It matters, it all matters, because it's not about the what if's. The what if's will kill you.