Author's Note: It's been a long time since I wrote something and posted it here. This is somewhat of a preview for the story I'm currently writing, entitled I'm Still Here as of now (though, as all of my titles are, it's subject to change before I post it). I have yet to finish it or even really get into the storyline, but I plan to complete it before posting it within the next year. However, since I had this separate piece almost finished, I decided to polish it up a bit and post it in time for Halloween. This is the first Person of Interest fanfic I've posted. Constructive criticism is welcome. Please take a bit of time and review; it means a lot to me. Thank you!
People often told me that, for one reason or another, life wasn't fair. They were wrong; in life, there were options to choose from and countless chances to build yourself up and improve. A living, breathing person can often control their own destiny and steer their fate. Life, thus, is completely fain. What isn't fair is what follows that vivid, self-driven existence.
It wasn't fair, how I was torn away from them; how I has suddenly just stopped existing and melted away from the world of the living. I wasn't ready to die that day, there had been so much more I had wanted to do with my life. I had wished to watch as my son grew into the compassionate, selfless doctor I had already seen him becoming. I had desired to continue teasing the hell out of my friend – or I liked to think of her as a friend, though I may be flattering myself – Alicia Corwin. I had longed to help people; to give something back to all those I had let slip through my fingers without saying anything for years. And then there was him.
I wished I would still be woken up in the dead of night by the insistent chiming of my cell phone and end up talking for hours in the darkness about everything and nothing. We both knew deep down that it was because he – like me – couldn't bear to be alone with his thoughts anymore, but neither of us had cared or needed to acknowledge this. I longed for those blue eyes to peer at me from behind thick-rimmed glasses as I stared hopelessly at a chessboard, wondering how I had managed to back myself into a corner with only seven turns. I wanted to push away the walls he had built around himself to hide from the rest of the world and finally understand what it was that made him retreat into the shadows, and somehow, someway make whatever the cause easier to bear.
But I was torn away before I could do any of it. I was torn screaming from the colorful, sensual world and plunged into this dull, frigid world beyond life, where I lingered. I wasn't ready to move on; I still needed to be close to my family. I couldn't bear to even think of moving on to the warm, bright light that appeared in my darkest moments; those moments of cruel torture, knowing I couldn't quite reach him, knowing he would never know I was there.
I was with both of them, my best friend in the world and my treasured only son, when they found out I was dead. It was the first time I had seen Harold break down and cry as he held Will close. I had tried to reach out to them; to tell them I was still with them and watching over them, but neither of them could hear me or feel my touch.
That was the most torturous part. I could see them, hear them, and hurt for them. Yet they never saw me standing before them, never heard my attempts at comfort, and never felt my touch as I struggled in vain to reach them. It wasn't life that wasn't fair. Life was perfectly fair, always had been. There were choices and you had the ability to be there for those you loved. Those things were robbed from me because of a stupid mistake, a slip of the tongue. It is death that isn't fair.
A/N: Please review!