Hey, just as a heads-up I might not update this every day like in the past. Most of my writing is stress-writing (meaning I write like crazy when I'm stressed. I pretty much pour my emotions out here so I don't flip out on undeserving bystanders O.o) and since the summer holidays are almost here I certainly won't be under as much pressure as usual. Plus, I won't be stressing as much about my friend (the one I was talking about in another fanfic who has lukemia) because she's doing pretty well! They actually caught the lukemia in a very eary stage so they're hoping she'll return to school in the spring!
But anyways, I pretty much wrote this because I've wanted to write it for the longest time and it's been bugging me. I most likely will be continuing this, so please review and tell me what you think!
Thirty-two is no age to die, not for anyone. Think about it. It means, for that person, sixteen is middle-aged.
Sixteen should never be middle aged, sixteen is when you learn to drive. Sixteen is when movies and books say magical things will happen to you, when really they don't. No one sits down on their sixteenth birthday and says "I am half-way through with my life".
I didn't do that, but thirty-two is how old I was when I died. Looking at me, at what I do, you'd think I would have been shot. Or blown up. I think it would have been easier if I had.
I drowned, which is one way I never thought I would have died. I could swim, I spent a lot of my childhood in the woods and surrounding ponds and steams! How on earth does someone like that drown? That's one of the first questions I ask myself. But in truth, my drowning couldn't really be helped.
Mal and I were on the way to work, he had just picked me up that fateful morning, when we heard a child's scream. We weren't officially on duty, but what person with even an ounce of decency could just ignore it? We were passing by some docks in a poorer part of town at the time, and I assumed a child must have fallen in the water. Mal and I split up, him going right, myself going left. That's when I saw it, a man drowning a little girl, holding her tiny figure under the water. I yelled something, but I can't remember what. There was a fight, most of which I can't remember, but I know he overpowered me. I'm proud to say I fought hard, and in the end my blood wasn't the only that was spilled.
The last memory I have isn't a pleasant one. I was on the ground. There was hot blood seeping out of the back of my head, made from him hitting me with something heavy. My gun had somehow been lost in the fight, most likely falling off the end of the dock. We weren't in the short part of the dock, where the little girl was drowned, anymore. We were at the end, where nothing but ten meters of open air and a few centimeters of wood separated me from falling into the cold water below. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened after that.
Now, I keep asking myself what would have happened if I had gone right. Or if I told Mal we should have stuck together. All my questions are filled with that horrible word. If. If I had hit the snooze button on my alarm that morning, meaning I would have been running late and nowhere near where the girl was being drowned. If I had gone right. If I had drew my gun earlier. I know it does no good thinking these things, most of the answers are self-explanatory. If I had been running late, the little girl's killer would have slipped off into the early morning mist and girl's body might have never been found. If I had gone right, it might have been Mal that had died, and I don't think I could live with myself if that happened. If I had drawn my gun earlier…well, that was my mistake. And it might be the one that cost me my life. The truth is most of these things have so many 'if's and so many 'maybe's that no outcome is certain. Of course, nothing is certain anymore. Not here.
To be honest, I don't really know where 'here' is. I don't remember how I got here. I don't remember waking up. All I know is somehow I found myself sitting on a hillside, my feet dangling off the side of a cliff as I watch what's happening below. I watch the world like it's a TV screen, and I hate it. It's like the people I watch, all of whom I know, are actors on a TV show, like I don't know them anymore. As if they were old friends in high school that I had long since moved past. I can watch, but I can't touch. I can't help.
I watch Mal the most. He called out to me, as I was pushed into the water, and his voice was the last that I heard. He doesn't know it, but as I left the world I felt like I brushed him. Like he was someone I was responsible for now. When I watch him it feels like I'm living through him, like I'm following his life because I've lost my own. I want him here with me, but at the same time I don't. If he were here, he would be dead. Really, I want to be with him. I want my skin to feel warm, to feel breath enter my lungs and the heat of the sun on my back. I want to live again, but I know I can't. So I watch as life goes on without me.
I think that hours have passed since my death, but they still haven't found my body. It had sunk deep into the water, and because of this I don't think Mal can accept I'm gone. He saw my blood, he saw me fall in the water. He saw that I never came back up. But blood, no matter the amount, is not a body. To him, it proves nothing. I think that he figures we'd both survived crazy things before, so why not now? But my luck's run out, and I think part of him knows that. That part of it hit the minute the search went on for my body, the minute someone saw the red-tinged water, approaching him and saying
"I'm sorry for your loss".
After that, calls were made, calls that no one wanted to receive. I was still trying to get my head on straight as the search for my body went on, but I as soon as I got myself together I watched as Mal left soon after hearing the news of my supposed death. I expected him to go home, but instead he went to the station and threw himself into his work. My killer hadn't been apprehended, they had DNA from his blood, but that was it. Mal hadn't even gotten a glance at him before he slipped away. I guess in his mind, catching him had the power to resurrect me. They had identified the little girl, Katelyn Keehl, whom had gone missing two days before. Her heartbroken father had shown up at the docks to identify her body, but Mal didn't stay to watch the scene. I didn't either. That's where Mal starts, looking through file after file for everyone and anyone little six-year-old Katelyn might have known. He could take what he knew down to the lab and have results in minutes, but I think he's doing it manually to keep his mind off things. He acts normal, as if nothing has happened, and for a while no one says anything. They don't know. But within minutes word had spread, and it was Jeremy, Jeremy Redbird, who first approached him.
"I'm sorry for your loss. She was a good Agent" he says.
Mal looks up at him, his face filled with anger as if he's just been horribly insulted. For a moment, I thought he was going to shoot him. But before Mal can say anything Jeremy's walking away, looking slightly flustered. Many others come along, saying the same thing, but Mal barely reacts to the others. Anyone who didn't know Mal like I did would think he's taking my death lightly, that he doesn't care. But I can see it in the way his shoulders droop, the way his eyes look defeated. People talk about me all around him, but he shuts them out. He's focused on finding Katelyn's killer, on my killer.
It's nearly midnight when Captain Yeong sees him, a rather sour look on her face, telling Mal to go home. Her voice is stern, but her eyes are soft and sympathetic. For a moment Mal only glares at her, looking like he's going to protest, but gives up and leaves when he sees her hardened expression. I thought he would wander around, maybe go to a bar, but he doesn't. He goes straight home, and it's as soon as he gets in his door that everything he's hiding from prying eyes comes out. Upon closing the door he turns around, slamming the sides of his fists on the door as if the wood itself has offended him.
"Dammit!".
I watch as he just stands there, and it's clear that he doesn't know what to do. I want to tell him, I want to help.
'Go to sleep' I tell him in my mind 'It'll be better in the morning'.
But he doesn't move, he just keeps standing there. I can't tell what emotion's written on his face. Anger? Grief? Both? I want to reassure him, tell him everything will be alright, as if I'm comforting him because someone other than myself has died.
"Natara?".
I whip around, unsure who to expect to be behind me. I expect someone I know, certainly not a stranger. But when I turn around I know I've never seen this person before. It's a boy, nineteen at the most, with odd roan-colored hair and amber eyes. As our eyes meet he gives a slight nod, as if suggesting I follow him, and walks away. I want to ask him who he is, how he knows my name and why he wants me to follow him, but my questions are suppressed in my throat. It's like I've forgotten to speak. Still, the further away he goes, the more overwhelming the desire to follow him becomes. Without speaking, I pick myself up and run after him, only giving one last glance at the cliff behind me.
'I'll come back' I silently promise myself, running a little faster to catch up to the odd-looking boy.