Every once in a while

by ravenousbee

Every once in a while, Eva Rosalene shatters into a million pieces. trash, as always.

Every once in a while, Eva Rosalene shatters.
She finds herself next to a black hole of thoughts, and is dragged into the center only to be shattered into a million fragments of humanity.
Sometimes that black hole is her co-worker and friend, Neil Watts. A young man with ambitions who stuck with her from high-school, as much as annoyed she was with the four-eyed companion, she found him taking a special corner in her heart and building his forte castle.
That castle would sometimes crumble down, and thus the black hole of her life would shape; dragging her, clawing at her, clinging onto every piece of her existence until she was ruined, and formed again.
Sometimes Neil Watts would sneak some pills while he supposed she wasn't looking. At time, Neil Watts would remove those one-way mirrors and she could see each and every form of pain in the emerald of his eyes. He would then again, conceal the hurt with the reflective glasses, leaving her with nothing but an image of Dr. Rosalene and her black hole. And seeing him pretend to be fine would hurt her, his act sharp as a dagger in her heart and into his castle, and Eva Rosalene would die.
Eva Rosalene would be born again only to face another challenge in her fragile heart.
At times the dark void of vacuum would occur after a patient's case. Let it be a success or a fail, Eva would find herself alone with yet another gravity core, threatening to tear her apart at any moment.
Her head aches as she removes the helmet, her heartbeat accelerates and her breathing uneven, the marine craft of her heart hitting onto a rock, just as if another Titanic was occurring within her.
And she'd find herself gasping, looking at her partner for any ounce of comfort, only to observe Dr. Watts struggling with his own logic and heart.
No matter how hard she tries, no matter how hard she works, there's always this vacuum inside her just as she leaves the safe space of the machine. Realizing what they've done. Granted the wish of a person, ruined the hopes of another.
Colin and Sofia were just like that, weren't they?
They granted Colin's wish –or at least Neil liked to think so – and gave him the regretless, full-filled life he wanted, only to watch her wife fall into broken pieces as her husband went farther into the procedure.
River didn't leave her life sparing a trace. An electric pulse runs down her spine whenever she remembers the static figures who took River away, and for a time-span longer than a few moments, she imagines what would have happened if River never came back to Johnny's life.
Neil wouldn't forgive her.
Johnny… The Johnny who remember River would never forgive her.
River, wherever she was, wouldn't forgive her.
Dr. Rosalene herself wouldn't forgive her.
And the scars would all fall onto another, keeping her the edge of a cliff, threatening to push her off any second into the center of the gravitational pull, her breath would be stuck in her lungs and she'd struggle to gasp for air against the force.
But in the end Eva Rosalene would fail.
Eva rosalene would fall into the embrace of the black hole and shatter into worthless pieces of her previous existence.
She would be shaped again. An elegant form, a palette of colors escaping the prison of heaven. But each time she's less of an Eva that she always was.
Each time she takes a glance at the dark mirrors in her house after her creation, and notices fragments missing here and there.
No one else notices them of course, other than Neil. Even though he's too occupied messily gathering his broken soul to come and help her retrieve whatever she's lost.
The breaks got worse after she found a curious cyan bottle of pills.
"A concrete wall", he says.
"You're not addicted, are you?" She ponders.
"Match made in heaven", he responds.
Eva doesn't believe that, of course. And that denial and disbelief itself causes her to find a rather pathetic fracture in her figure.
She ignores it. That's what Eva Rosalene does. She filters unimportant issues out of her life and focuses on thoughts that actually matter. Such as how she's going to help a boy on a paper plane reach happiness. Rather how she's going to help a lost child reach his lover on the moon.
But what is the universe if not against her? If small fractures are considered unimportant in her life, the entity will worsen the situation until she gives out a cry of pain, die, only to be born again, more incomplete than whenever else.
Therefore it doesn't help when every force turns their weapons against her and target her beloveds. From her job, to her family, to her co-workers.
More specifically, the old-timer, Neil Watts.
It all begins with a small issue called a seizure. Neil Watts stops dead in his tracks in the lounge, the echoes of the McMillans' laughs filling the room and hitting against his eardrums. Minutes pass and he's still standing there, frozen.
Roxanne decides to tease him about it. Telling him he's failing so hard in his own love life that he's actually interested in the oldest couple's stories. Robert, as always, about to lecture Neil takes a few long steps towards him, only to catch Neil's glasses sliding down his face, beads of sweat covering it and white sclera staring ahead at nothing. His body locks up, shaking, and with the crash of a coffee mug, Eva challenges the mug to break as much as her mind shatters.
Eva Rosalene's reborn again.
The castle Neil built in her heart's collapsing. Not that it's Neil's fault, or that he's losing the slightest of importance in her mind. It's rather Neil's life falling farther and farther away from her faint grip, her pieces are lost in the hurricane of her universe, and she feels each and every time she gets closer to losing Neil.
Her deformed shape is already at its verge. Cracks trespassing her brown iris, and Roxanne struggles with herself not to mention anything about her image.
She visits Neil in the hospital. What a broken masterpiece was her friend, shattered pieces brought together for the sake of IV tubes. On this day, Eva Rosalene's heart shatters. For the nth time in the time-span of her life. She sits by the bed, holding the broken shards of his hands, and all that is exchanged between them is looks of pity and regret. Pity for one another; regret for a life they missed together.
"Addiction, hah." His weak voice soothes her ears.
A tilt of her face, "I told you so, didn't I dear?"
"Lethal, that's what they said."
"Don't you have a wish, my precious friend?"
He doesn't have a wish. Neil Watts was an entity of his own. Played by his own rules. Believed it was for the best if no one delved into that mind of his. And when the doctors finally decide to throw the useless suit of flesh in the ocean of a comatose, she loses her final chance to prove to herself and her universe that she can go against the rules, just like Neil did. She could deal with her grief, indulge in a friend's memories and make the most out of his final moments in his mind.
But she failed.
Eva Rosalene wakes up in a corrupted body the next day. And the next. And the next. And the next.
For a few months that pass by lighting, she breaks and shatters every day. Each one passing with her look at the mirror, admiring the missing pieces of her being and drowning herself in the bliss of another's life, another's mind.
Roxanne reaches out to her. Robert holds a hand towards her. Traci moves in with her, just to keep her company and make sure she doesn't mess around with thoughts she should not. They can't help, although. She keeps breaking, breaking for Neil, breaking for the hurt, shattering at how hard everyone tries to help her and she can't heal, she can't be cured; all she's left with is a valise filled with guilt, prepared for the day she finally chooses to leave.
She gives herself some time to move on.
She tries to give her body a chance to heal.
And first thing she does for that matter, is to pay a visit to her unconscious friend in the hospital room number 403.
And she finally decides to face the dying friend.
"He's on a timer." They say. Tick, tock, Eva, she mutters.
A few of Neil's family members are there. Devastated. They're feeling worse than her, she knows for sure. They're shattering as well, shattered by a bond that never formed.
Eva Rosalene finds herself in the doorway of the room 403. Finds herself twisting the knob and entering the blindingly white room.
There's a corpse there. Not a corpse, rather a look-a-like. Pale, fragile, and broken. Living only by a dozen tubes connected to his body. Showing efficiency of the tubes only by the constant beep of a monitor. Living only to die, in an hour, in a day, in an eternity.
Sorrow and regret swallowing her, she falls down on a chair by the bedside of her co-worker. Her lips part, voice hoarse from having kept imprisoned for so long.
"Can you hear me, I wonder?"
Her hands reach out to hold the broken figments of Neil Watts. Shaking, she inhales, exhales, just to keep herself together, not to shatter by the deathbed of a friend. Fingers caress each and every trace of his broken fragrances, her heart burning out every ounce of energy that's left. Although his heart seems to be calmer than ever. Steady, like a child stepping up on a hill, preparing for a ride through the endless entities of the sky.
She loses herself along in that daydream. Searching for a trace of him, searching for a trace left of herself.
Who knows where he is right now? Whatever is he doing? Perhaps he's busy gazing upon the stars, their endless shines reflecting in the emeralds kept within his iris. Maybe she's around there, somewhere. Behind a tree, watching him drown in his hopeless dreams; maybe she's sitting next to him, hands reached out for another, hearts calm next to one another.
Eva Rosalene breaks as she lets go of his shards.
She breaks as doctors and nurses come running in the room. Struggling to pick up her own ruins, she takes a yearning look at the debris of her daydream, their daydream. They're still beneath the same sky. Same time, the clock frozen at the sight of the missing figments.
"...We're going to be fine, huh?" Her broken voice whispers, interrupted by hands pushing her out of the white, blinding room.
"…Guess we're going to be fine." Neil musters weakly, observing the stars around them lose their light. Fading away himself, leaving the feminine figure alone under the shadow of a vast night sky. And she finds herself scared, terrified in the neglected daydream, in her abandoned haven.

A flash in the real world. The unending scream of the heart monitor. A cry, which she finds out later was her own. An insignificant pain, one Eva Rosalene knows well. That day, Eva Rosalene breaks yet another time. For the first time in her prolonged life, Eva Rosalene fails to keep herself together.