She misses them and she guesses that's why she's here. She made me come here with her once and now I'm going for her because today is that day, the day they died, the eleventh of the eleventh at eleven o'clock which is pretty funny actually if you think about it. They were too young to die but she knew they'd seen it coming, she knew they had excepted it because they knew nobody who'd done what they've done could ever have a happy life, a long, safe life. They knew it was coming and in a way so did she.
She would live forever and they would be in the ground and so that's why she was here today of all days. To honor two people who were the best and the bravest, the most selfless and the most loyal. She sounded so soppy but no one would know and anyway she figured even heroes had to be soppy sometimes. Maybe heroes most of all.
So as she walked threw the ward and saw all the innocent babies all she could think about was how unfair it was that they never got to have one of them. She was here to read to sick children, dying children, children who would most likely never get to experience all the wonders of life, the good or the bad though perhaps they did get to see the bad and it was only the good they would miss out on.
She sat down in the chair she had sat in many times before or at least one similar too because she did this once a year. She looked out at all their little faces and found herself almost moved to tears because some shone with hope and others looked like the life had been sucked out of them. They were far to young, she thought sadly, far to young to be so hopeless.
She opened the book and started to read. In the middle of the story the doctors brought in a little boy and when she saw him are had to fight even harder to stop the tears from flowing because she had known him because he was one of them. The one who's death she was here to mourn.
He was so small, barely five, and he sat in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank. He was wheeled next to a little girl, one of the ones whose face still shone with hope while his looked as though he had nothing to live for whatsoever. It was both of them she realized, together. Both of them. And then she couldn't fight it any more, the tears that had been threatening to spill came gushing out.
She ran from that room faster than the speed of sound, people tried to stop her, tried to ask what was wrong but she just kept running. She burst out the hospital doors and lent against the wall, gasping for breath. She missed them, oh gods she did. She couldn't believe that after all they had done this is what they got. More pain and suffering.
She fell to her knees and screamed at the sky, anyone who saw would have thought she was mad but she didn't care. She screamed at the sky, at the gods for their cruelty but there was not thunder, no reaction and she screamed until she could scream no more. She curled up into a ball and sobbed until she could sob no more. She cried silently until she could cry no more. Then she just lay there until she felt warmth invelep her.
"Come my child weep no more. Come my child and sleep tonight by the hearth where you are safe. Come my child and feel the warmth and the welcome of sleep for you have suffered much and deserve it more than you know. Come my child and rest at last."