AN: Did this on a dare.
Have you ever wondered about what life would be like if things were different?
A different choice? A different outcome? Maybe if you said something else that day or chose not say anything instead? What if you wore a different shirt, ate a different cereal, came to school just 5 minutes later than you would've had?
You can't control every factor though. You can't force it to rain that one summer day, or have the flowers bloom just before spring ended. You can't decide where the wind would blow as you threw away your mother's ashes, or whether the stars would show up on the night of Christmas Eve.
Sasha was a controlling person. She wasn't very good at letting things go and definitely wasn't very good at allowing things to be free of her influence. It was something she inherited from her parents, both genetically as well as historically. When you've suffered so much at such a young age, the experiences tend to warp you as a person.
Sasha was a controlling person but she couldn't control everything. If she could, she would've stopped opening the music box.
10 years have passed since that evening in her childhood playground. Sasha and her two best friends, Marcy and Anne, had found an antique music box. Sasha wanted to give it to Anne as a gift for her birthday; she knew the girl wasn't a fan of frogs, so it would've been something like an ironic gift. Truthfully, she could've bought it herself – she had the money – but where was the fun in that? So, she had Anne, the birthday girl, to steal her own birthday gift.
Anne didn't like it but that was just her being a goody two-shoes. She just needed a little push, that's all. And when she got it, the trio celebrated at the same playground where they first met, opening the music box to listen to whatever old tune it carried.
That was the turning point.
Since then, Sasha was transported to another world inhabited entirely of frogs, toad and newts. "Amphibians!", Marcy would say, had she landed with her. Sasha would meet a terrible toad soldier by the name of Captain Grime and using her wits and natural charisma, she would befriend the toad and sparked an equal, respectable relationship that she never once had. Under Grime, she would train as his lieutenant and once exiled, she would travel the world with him to enact their righteous vengeance on those that wronged them.
She would do the impossible and lift Barrel's Hammer. She would lead a coup against the strongest empire in the world and she almost succeeded too. For a brief moment, she was the ruler of a new, alien world.
But her friend had to stop her; had to get in her way. She was always good-natured and heroic, something Sasha never noticed before. And when the coup ended and the teenager on her knees, that's when everything broke apart. Or rather, it was always broken and she just never noticed it.
From then, the roles switched. She was no longer a girl who wanted to take over the world. No, she was a girl who wanted to save it. The empire turned evil, its lands slowly dying from its own actions and her two friends, gone...
She didn't have time to weep. She did for a day but no longer than that. People needed her. They depended on her and these people were the last vestiges of her best friend. She couldn't just leave them to die; they were all she had left to remember her by. And slowly, she grew, not just as a person but a leader worth following.
As the war raged on and battles hard fought, one of her friends returned to this now-ruined world, safe and healthier than ever. With her help, the resistance grew in numbers, gaining unlikely allies from places and people she never knew. With her help, they would storm the empire's stronghold and, after some hiccups and fantastical transformations, they would save the entire multiverse and defeat an ancient evil that has existed for countless millennia.
It was over. It was all over a for the first time in a long time, Sasha was ready to go home.
She lost a friend that day. Anne Boonchuy – that's her full name. Gave her life to prevent the destruction of her second home. Ancient evils tend to be the petty type apparently, something she painfully learned. Anne disappeared into a trail of leaves, flowing away in the wind. There wasn't even a body to bury or a memento to hold. Just an empty casket on a cloudy day, surrounded by countless friends and family.
It didn't rain that day. Sasha wished it did. It would've made it less obvious.
Her other friend moved away, as she always was supposed to. They tried their best to keep in touch over the years. A phone call there, a video call here, and online games to share. Yet, they drifted apart even when they didn't want to. Life went on, things got in the way and it got harder and harder to stay connected.
Years later, Sasha graduated from high school. She was even awarded the prestigious title of valedictorian, something that shocked half of the school's staff. She would get a degree in Children's Psychology and open up her own office in her hometown. She would help children deal with their traumas and help them grow as individuals. She wanted to help them in a way that she wasn't, to give them aid in a way she never received.
She wanted to prevent them from becoming Sasha Waybright.
At the age of 22, after years of silence, she received a call from an old friend. A call she had been waiting for so long and yet, a call she dreaded ever since.
For a year, her office was closed. Before she could help the children, she needed to help her friend. She moved across the country and took a job with a low pay and more hours, all just so she could stay there. Everyday without fail, she would visit the hospital and they would talk about all sorts of things. Their pasts, their memories, their stories and the lives that they've touched. They would laugh and they would cry. They'd play games together, eat together and on some days, even sleep together. For as long as she could, Sasha didn't want to waste a single second without her.
A year later, Marcy Wu passed away. Apparently, her biology got tampered with due to the event from almost a decade ago. She could've lived a long life if they had the same technology that changed her but there was no possible way of accessing it any longer. Without the support, the alterations eventually caught up to her and her body slowly began breaking down. Sasha tried every avenue she could think of and poured all her savings into the effort. From the local hospital to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, no one had a solution.
The funeral was small. Smaller than Anne's but unlike hers, at least they had something to bury. Marcy's friends came by to show their condolences, none of whom Sasha recognised. She really did have a separate life so unfamiliar from her own. It was also clear skies that day with naught a speck of clouds in sight. Marcy would've liked that, though Sasha would've still preferred the rain.
Because of that one box, a music box that she ordered her best friend to steal, Sasha lost the two people that she cared about the most. Everything that happened, everything that occurred to lead up to this point, was because of her. She had a choice; she had control.
She could've made a different decision that day and all of them would be alive and healthy.
But she didn't. Because she's Sasha Waybright. And she was always to be alone.
...
...
...
It's been a year since that funeral. She didn't visit their graves – the memory would've been too much. Her office had reopened and business was booming. She took a hobby in woodworking and joined volunteer groups. She liked to imagine that she was doing a sizeable contribution to the community but it wasn't like she had the statistics to back it up. Still, she tried anyway, taking patient after patient, helping young boys and girls cope with the hardships passed to them.
Life was relatively normal again.
Today, however, her office was closed. It wasn't for a holiday or anything but rather, she decided to take a leave. On that very day, she took her car out and drove to the suburbs at the other side of the city, far from where she lived. Normally, she'd never come here, not even in her free time but today was different because today was a special day.
Today was Anne's birthday.
Sasha parked her car next to the sidewalk and with a press of a button, locked the doors. The place she wanted to go was just a block away but there was never any parking there. Not that it mattered to her; a little walk harmed no one. Tucked under her shoulder was rectangular item, wrapped under some cloth. It was a bit heavy despite its size but it didn't bother her. For the whole walk, she said nary a word and simply absorbed the view.
Minutes later, she finally arrived, box in hand and the clouds giving her just the right amount of shade. Her destination was a broken-down playground, its grass overgrown, the paint chipped from the metal and only one of the two swings still functional. It looked like it hasn't been used for a while.
Best part? No children in sight. That way, it wouldn't be weird for her to be here.
"Hey there, old buddy..." Sasha Waybright, 23-year-old children's therapist, said to the playground. No reply was given nor expected, yet she smiled as if there was.
Sasha stepped into the antiquated area, taking a seat on the sole swing left available. The structure creaked under her weight but despite the rust, still held strong. She placed the object on her lap and from her pocket, pulled out a pack and lighter.
She started to smoke when she was in college but at one point, for a year, she stopped. Only after reopening her office did she continue; old habits were hard to kick, especially in her line of work. But she tried to reduce it, keeping it at most once a day.
Flick, flick, flick. She lit a piece sticking in her mouth and after a whiff, blew out a cloud of smoke. Gently, her nerves settled and her heartbeat subdued. Just for this day, she raised the limit to three. It was way over her usual amount but she needed it, just for today.
For the next two minutes, she didn't say a word. Lost in her thoughts, Sasha gradually burned through her first and when reduced to a nub, she threw it away and took her second one. Just as quickly, she would burn through that one too and like the first, she'd threw it away, stomping the light out of it.
Then, she picked her third. Flick, flick, flick.
Flick, flick, flick.
The lighter didn't go off. She must've forgotten to refuel.
"Heh..." Sasha chuckled. All that anticipation and her day was ruined by the one thing she could control. "Well, that's just great..."
She sighed and then, looked at the wrapped object on her lap before taking off the cloth. It was a music box, almost like the one from all those years ago. But it wasn't the same one; it was crudely carved and chiselled from memory. The were no gemstones – just empty sockets – and it was empty inside. She never did get a glimpse of what's in it, definitely not through the blinding flash that came out. At one point, she considered putting an actual music box in it but she didn't remember the tune.
This wasn't a music box. It was just a box, one that held nothing but her guilt and grief.
"... Anne, Marcy..." She said out loud, not looking for a response. "I don't know if you can hear me but if you can, I just want you to know that..."
Sasha stopped and carefully pondered her next words. So many things to say, yet time was already up.
"... I love you guys. And I will love you till the day I die."
Sasha stood up and walked to a nearby bench. She's said all that she could and with one last look of the box, she placed it there and left the playground.
She didn't look back. What's done was done and she would have to live with it. She would continue her life to be the best she could be and help as many she could. She'd eventually quit smoking, build a family and share her stories with her loved ones. And many, many years later, she would leave them like her friends did too.
She would never visit that playground again.