Spirit Broken
By heartbrxer
Prologue
It was a millisecond and it was forever.
Dark hair streaked with blood, her neck twisted at an odd angle. The feeling, the smell of her blood all over me. The overwhelming silence as I realized the only one breathing was me.
My pale hand reaching out to touch her already cooling forehead, pushing dark hair out of the way. Something pulling within me, a warmth in my chest.
A calloused, warm hand holding mine at my parents' funeral, squeezing until I squeezed back.
A bitter bottle of schnapps on a warm night as we skipped class together. I had traded my favorite pair of sandals for it, but this moment was worth it.
Her grass-stained ultimate frisbee jersey on top of the washing machine.
The feel of her hair in my hands when she finally let me braid her hair. Scowling, she had painted her toenails painstakingly and yet incredibly poorly. She had scowled even after I had fixed it.
Warm hands gently wrapping my wrists, covering me with her sweatshirt when I shivered.
Dark, coarse hair tickling my face as I read my magazine in the soft glow of the dorm-issued lamp.
Brown eyes red and puffy from crying, looking at me with love and concern.
Snowflakes caught in a tangle of dark hair, her smile brighter than the snowbanks.
A loud and un-ladylike snore echoing in my ears as she snuggled closer to me in her sleep.
A slim hand raised in farewell, my chotki dangling from her wrist in the early morning sunrise.
Blinding, blazing, incredible pain that for the first time–and the last time–rips me out of my own head and into hers.
My mother and Dimitri are on the other side of the caved-in rock wall, pulling out rocks to get to me. They will be too late.
There are too many greedy hands and too many red eyes and too many teeth. Too much drinking and pulling and ripping. My arms and my legs are too heavy to lift anymore.
I do not have it in me to scream. I wonder if Dimitri will. If my mother will. If they will hold my broken body the way I held Mason's.
Everything seems to blur at the edges and I think of her. How I never got to say goodbye to her. I should have done more, hugged her one last time, told her I loved her.
Lissa, Lissa, Lissa. I love you.
I barely register the long grass scratching exposed skin as I collapse, screaming. Screaming her name.
Rose? Rose? Rose? Rose! Rose!
There is no answer.
