it all fell to pieces

by orenjijunsu

Akasha is sixteen years old when she dies unexpectedly. What happens next is some things good, most things terrible, but she's alive. She's alive, and she knows where she is, and she knows that her sister is out there somewhere, waiting for her. So she plots, and she steals, she scrapes by, takes what she can get, and she waits. She will find Amaryllis. She knows it.

1. the end of it all

A/N: Context - this is going to be a series of scenes from my WIP "and it slips through loose fingers" but from the POV of Amaryllis' sister, Akasha.

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Without meaning to, she let go. Her sister's hand slipped from her own.

She grabbed at her neck, pushed at the window with all of her might, even though in the back of her mind she knew the harder she fought, the faster she'd go. Her tears were stolen by the water surrounding her.

Her chest, lungs, neck, face-all of her burned like lava had been poured into her. She flailed. She yearned to breathe in, forced herself not to until her lungs felt as if they were about to collapse in on themselves, and then she drew her very last breath. The water was piercing in its journey: sharper than a razor, pricking deeper than any needle. It hurt. Fuck, did it hurt. She felt as if she were about to implode from the pressure.

She thought she'd die, then. She thought that's how everyone went, when they drowned. One last "breath," and then they were gone.

But that wasn't it. She took that deep, deep breath and her lungs burned past what she could bear; they burned so terribly that all she could do was cry out for her mom, though the water stole her words, too. She wanted someone, anyone to come and save them. To come and save her.

Her heart beat so fiercely that it overtook her-her pulse was all she could see, in the dark waters, all she could hear, all she could feel in the very tips of her fingers. Frightfully quick, steadfast, and then suddenly, quiet.

Calm. Though her eyes were open beneath the water, and all she saw was black, she felt at peace. Tranquil. As if all of the horrors of the night had been stripped away, leaving behind nothing but this. Nothing but peace with the knowledge that this was the end, and no one was going to save her, and it was okay.

Her limbs no longer felt heavy. They floated about her, freely. She felt something touch her-her sister-and wished to hold her hand again. To squeeze her little fingers between her own, and kiss her hairline, just once more.

With the last vestiges of her strength, she reached her left hand out and grasped her sister's wrist.

Akasha smiled for the last time, and finally let herself drift away.