Title: The Horizon's Edge
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Zombie Cantos
Characters/Pairing: Diana Reid - gen
Genre: Horror/Drama
Summary: In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
Warnings: Minor Character Death
…
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests, slapping,
The strata of color'd clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity it lies motionless in,
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.
There Was a Child Went Forth – Walt Whitman
.
A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world.
Agatha Christie
…
The Day of the Zombie Apocalypse
Diana Reid is more perceptive than most people give her credit for. When people think "Schizophrenic" they think of people chained in strait jackets, locked in padded rooms. That's not what it's like at all. Often, the mind is more of a prison than the real world can ever be, but she has her good days, too.
On the good days, she reads the letters that Spencer has sent her, and sometimes thinks about sending one back, but she never gets the chance. Diana can't be sure, after all, that she isn't going to lapse in the middle of the letter, and call him by his father's name, or even just forget what she's trying to say altogether. More than that, though, she doesn't write because she knows that it's a constant reminder to him, of the possibilities. He's scared of becoming like her, even if he's never told her.
A mother knows.
A mother knows when her son is in danger, too; she doesn't know where he is, or what he's fighting, but she knows that he's being brave, and being strong, and being all of those things that he always is.
A mother knows when she'll never see her son again.
'What's going on?' another patient asks – when you start losing your mind, you start to see things a little differently, and for some reason, they can sense the danger before it comes. They sense the danger before they hear the moans, before the front doors start splintering, before the screams start.
The orderlies and the nurses and the doctors – they aren't prepared for this kind of insanity. They're so used to their textbook diagnoses and their ordered world, that they can't see past the madness. If you want to find your way in the darkness, then find someone who can see in the dark. If you want to make sense of the insanity, then find someone who's insane.
The good thing about being trapped in a place where people aren't supposed to get out is that it's hard to get in, too. Heavy doors that are designed to withstand the strength of a patient in a psychotic break. A single patient is one thing, though, dozens of strange, undead creatures quite another.
Diana's world is a topsy-turvy mess, no longer Chaucer and Proust, but rather breakfast at eight a.m sharp, and bingo tournaments with people that can't even remember their own name.
It doesn't take long for them to break through the door.
Though she doesn't know what they are, or what they're going to do, Diana does know one thing. She isn't going to let them take her.
In a mad world, only the mad are sane.
Once the medication runs out, and the visions and the hallucinations and reality mix into one horrendous nightmare, her world will be a living hell.
She's not going to let that happen.
Even in the darkest of hours, she had never been suicidal, never considered taking her own life. This isn't an act of depression, though. This is an act of self-preservation.
Maybe one day she'll see her Spencer again, she thinks, taking the knife from the body that's lying, bleeding on the floor.
'I'm sorry, baby,' she whispers to herself. Spencer will be able to keep going where she can't. Spencer will survive.
A mother knows.