Mad Maddie.
By DeceptiveSoftness.
Two girls stood on top of a building. Removed from time and space as their world collapsed around them.
The wind howled and whined like a child desperate for attention as it grabbed at the girls hair, twisting the loose strands around their faces. The sun was almost too bright up here, so close to the heavens that the grey concrete was turned a warm yellow by it's glare and the glass walls of the building gleamed in the reflected light like hundreds of burning mirrors. The mid-morning splendor was ignored as the girls stood on opposite ends of the roof in a silent showdown.
As far as the rest of the world was concerned it was Good vs Evil. A ruthless murderer who'd massacred hundreds of innocent people with a push of a button and a cold, controlled smile facing off against a tenacious survivor who was desperate to avenge her fallen schoolmates and bring the monster to justice.
You could never guess which was which just by looking at them. There was no ominous lightning crackling behind one girl while angels played harmonies by the other. There was no flowing black cape and high-pitched laughter. No gallant sword and noble steed. There was just two schoolgirls of average height and build. Both of them had brown hair and one of them was still holding onto the tattered straps of her school bag. They were just two friends. Just two normal girls who'd had their world turned upside-down.
One of the girls opens her mouth to speak. Her bottom lip is oozing blood from where she bit it on her way up to the roof and her hair is wild around her face, partially obscuring her pale eyes. She hesitates and then closes her mouth before looking down at her shoes. They had been gleaming when she'd left for school this morning; now the worn, black slip-ons were covered in dust and blood and God only knew what else. Her lips twisted. God? If he existed then he must be taking a fucking vacation or something because he sure as hell wasn't doing his job.
It was sheer luck that she hadn't died along with the rest of her classmates. Sheer dumb luck that she'd had a headache and had decided to skip school that day and hadn't been in the building when the bombs had gone off. There were supposed to be precautions in place to stop something like this from happening. There were security men and cameras and shelters all over the school grounds as was the norm in this day and age but no-one had done anything until it was too late. No-one had seen it coming. Not from her. Not from Maddie.
(Mad Maddie. That's what the papers were calling her, Mad Maddie, Maddie Massacre, Maddie the Murderer, Malicious Maddie, Maddie the Monster.)
The girl raised her head and looked across the sun dappled rooftop to where Maddie was standing with her hands clasped neatly behind her back. She didn't look like a monster. Not with her school uniform still neatly pressed despite the chaos she'd caused. Her shirt collar was folded against the grey material of her school jumper and her socks were pulled up over her knees.
She couldn't be a monster, not with her slim oval glasses perched on the end of her nose and pretty bow hair clip that tucked back wayward strands of her soft brown hair. Maddie looked like she wouldn't hurt a fly. She looked like she did her homework every evening and babysat for neighbors and helped old grannies cross dangerous roads.
Maddie stared back at her with impossibly kind, brown eyes. She smiled softly with the same hint of teenage sheepishness that she'd shown a week ago, a month ago, a year ago. A faint blush crept across her pale, freckled cheeks as Maddie raised a hand in greeting, waggling her fingers
shyly like a child caught with one hand in the cookie jar.
"Hey Sweets, what'cha up here for?" Maddie asked feigning innocence. She raised her voice to be heard across the distance and the wind and her tone was the same as ever. Quiet and even with a tinge of playfulness. When she heard her nickname the girl bit her lip again, wincing as she tore the skin anew, and glared uncomprehendingly at her friend.
"Why'd you do it Maddie? Why!" her voice was hoarse and scratchy from the smoke and fumes and spending too long sobbing hysterically over the ruins of her school. Maddie frowned sadly and shook her head.
"I'm not too sure..." she trailed off with a trace of uncertainty in her voice as she played with the straps of her schoolbag that sat heavily beside her, swollen with schoolbooks and copies. The girl raised her eyebrows in disbelief and made a harsh choking noise in the back of her throat. Maddie wasn't sure? How could you set a bomb off in the middle of a crowded school and not be sure.
"You...you..." the girl couldn't speak. Her rage and confusion both goaded and gagged her. Fueling her anger and halting her words. Her chest ached with grief as she saw, in her minds eye, the mangled bodies of her classmates and teachers sprawled beneath the smoking rubble. She imagined Maddie sitting up on this tall building with her legs curled beneath her as she regarded the school with indifferent eyes and firmly pressed a manicured thumb down on a little red button, the carnage reflected in her cocoa colored eyes.
"You killed everyone! You killed our friends!" she had finally found her voice and now it ripped across the open space in an agonized howl. She gestured outwards, flinging her arms wide as if to encompass the entire city. "And you're not even sure why you did it!" she spat. Maddie didn't show any outward reaction and just smiled secretively, like she knew something that her friend didn't.
"So." the word hung in the air like a guillotine, suspended by a single thread, just seconds away from falling and severing what little hope she had left. Maddie spoke it with perfect clarity and there was no trace of remorse or regret in her serene expression. "So. What." she articulated each word slowly and deliberately in the tone that people use when talking to small children. Calm and condescending with an underlying edge of sarcasm.
The guillotine fell. Ruthlessly slicing through the fragile bonds of her hope. Hope that perhaps Maddie hadn't really done it. That perhaps Maddie was not a monster. Monster. Mad Maddie. Oh God.
"Don't worry, I'm sorry that you're hurting Sweets. It was never my intention to hurt you. You were supposed to die too."
With a small giggle Maddie reached into her bag and tugged out a gleaming object. Even from across the roof the girl could see the smooth sheen of the guns barrel as it was leveled at her chest. Maddies slender fingers curled around the trigger and she gave her friend a lopsided smile.
"Bye Sweets."