You read books.

We all read books, though.

Many people would say You read for fun, or so you can be top in every class.

Many people would be wrong.

You've always thought there was something special about books.

The way You learned, at a young age, that to bury Yourself in a book was to block out any noise.

In those forst few years, that's all it was. Noise.

At first it was the noise of Your parents. They shouted. You read.

You read fiction books.

Alice in Wonderland was Your favorite. You loved her escape from the world, falling down a hole.

You never hoped, though, as most others did, that You could be the one falling down the hole.

You never wished that you could switch places with Alice, as she ran around Underland, and saved them all.

You never dreamed of living her adventures, or meet The Hatter or the March Hare, or Absolem.

Because that's just silly, and Your parents taught You to keep Your head on Your shoulders.

You moved on from that, though, when you started Hogwarts. You never did like the fact that you were living some kids' dreams.

Dreaming is silly.

You found the wonder of the theoretical world, where things worked the way they were supposed to, and there was no nonsense about falling down rabbit-holes because the author couldn't think of a good story about a normal girl.

You found the wonder of textbooks, where everything had an opposite, and stunning spells always worked. Where you had to be precise and logical and things worked because they worked, and not just because it would be better that they did.

It got harder and harder to tear you away from your books, and eventually you stopped.

You didn't die, You didn't get depressed, you just stopped.

You didn't care that your teacher gave you detention because you burned a book because of it's title. It was called Potions in the Real World.

You didn't care that the headmaster told your friends to keep an eye on you, but you knew they wouldn't, because they, like everyone else, looked without seeing, and if they had seen you, maybe they would've talked to you. Maybe they would've understood. Maybe they would've stopped too. You'll never know.

You didn't care that the taunts of the green got worse and worse, because you couldn't hear them.

Because you stopped

You stopped the day the world stopped.

Your heart still beats, your blood still flows, you still eat, and drink, and breathe.

But you've stopped, and only one person notices.

She only notices because she's stopped too.

The white-haired ravenclaw stopped long before you did, but, like everyone else, you didn't notice. Because that was a time when you still worked, and when you, like everyone else, looked without seeing.

The white-haired ravenclaw sees you. She sees that you've stopped, and she looks. You see her looking, and you push her away, like so many others pushed her away. She sees that, too.

Maybe if you hadn't, she wouldn'tve given up.

Maybe if you hadn't, she would've lived for a few seconds.

Maybe if you hadn't, she would've brought you back.

But you did.

You bury yourself in more books. Any textbook that's theoretical is perfect for you.

So when you died, and you died young, there were four people at your graveside.

The green-eyed boy, but he would stop soon too. He would know that you'd stopped, and he would understand. He stood by your graveside, and he punished himself for not seeing you. Because that's when he realised.

The red-haired boy, who stood there, crying his eyes out, because no-one did anything to help you. He forgot that he did nothing, too. Later, he would tell his children that you were a hero. He would tell them you fought a disease. Hewould not tell them that he could've cured it at any time.

The ravenclaw that you pushed away, because she understood, and she had lost count of how many gravesides she had stood at. She had tired of counting people who stopped. She had realised many years ago, and she had understood that she had stopped, as you had refused to do.

And the echo. The echo of you. You stood by your own graveside, and you cried. You cried the tears you could not cry when you stopped, because the echo had seen the world you were in now, and it knew that stopping had been the beginning. It realised that stopping, compared to this, was the height of life. You stood by your graveside, and you cried tears for yourself.

And that is why no-one should stop. No-one should hide from the world. That's what she was doing, remember:

She was hiding.

A/N- I realise this is slightly strange, but tell me, what do you think? I think I'm weird in the head. Klav and Krissie think that too. Do you?