Just as a cough paralized her lungs, her knees gave in and Rose dropped against the rocks and debris. Her skin split in cuts and she screamed. No one around could hear her — not anymore. Dust mercilessly tried to choke her and blind her, while one of her eardrums bled and the other rang in the highest of pitches.

She couldn't get up. Not again.

Rose miscalculated and the wall beside her was too far away. Instead of resting her back against it and sliding down, she tripped and hurt her left side with the rubble — thigh, hip, and shoulder. Her head bounced against the concrete and she couldn't supress another yelp, no matter how much she wanted to. The echo of her own voice amidst the dead gouged an uneven hole into her heart. She couldn't get comfort; she didn't have the right.

Barely, she sat as straight as she could and tried to breathe, to hold on, and identify her surroundings. Or whatever was left of them. But the disaster had left nothing, absolutely nothing standing. The very wall she was using wasn't taller than her head.

Her hand touched something that wasn't freezing. It was caught beneath the rubble. With a pull, Rose discovered a journal. Old, brown leather cover, busted lock, and almost completely blank. The first page had an adress annotation and that was it. No owner, no purpose, and lost, just like the entire city. Just like her. Her eyes strayed again to the broken dimension cannon wristband and she swallowed a sob.

She wanted to laugh her misfortune off, use a clichéd phrase or two. Her voice wouldn't come out. With as much of a sigh as she could manage, she felt pity for the unused book; for the undone plans it had, for the unlived life its owner had had; one out of millions of collateral losses that drenched the once-city. Maybe they could relieve each other; the consolation of being heard, a frail moment of fulfillment. Rose pulled out the only pen she carried inside her jacket and considered for a moment that it didn't matter if no one got to read her final words, as long as she got them out.

But the pen didn't write.

A rush of burning despair raged through her entire body and she wailed through gritted teeth. She didn't stop — couldn't bear the thought. She forced the pen against the pages over and over and over until the marks caved in through every single page underneath it and ripped the few that dared to oppose resistence. Her bitter tears tainted the paper and slid off the leather as if nothing could get past its barriers. They only carried dust and shattered against the cold ground.

She lost her voice through growling and weeping.

Mickey found her — hours later — and Rose still kept the leather book tight against her chest. She didn't know why, but she clung to it as if her sanity depended on it. Maybe it did.

She didn't let anyone else see it, touch it, read it. She took it home that night after the medical check-up and hid it deep in her room. Somewhere she could be certain it laid, somewhere no one else would dare look for or at it.

Surprisingly enough, deep didn't mean under layers and layers of secret compartments. Deep meant something different for Rose in an intimate space such as her room. So much that, if someone were to live with her, they'd bump into it sooner or later. She hid it under her lamp, on her nightstand. The leather matched the wood's color and no one really noticed it was there. The lock was still busted, leather had been worn down, and it had grown colorless on the corners. The marks were still imprinted with the same utter hopelessness, though, no matter the time in between. They could still be read.

FUCK THIS

FUCK HIM

ENOUGH

HELP ME

Would you tell her you found it? Would you tell her you read it? Would you be able to look at her the same? Or would you leave it back, hidden in plain sight, broken and twisted, ashamed, revisited, and guarded by leather?