Post by Jack Lupus on Jul 6, 2007 0:10:19 GMT -5
Dying didn’t turn out to be half as painful as she expected it to be. It didn’t hurt at all, thinking back. She’d been scared, that she remembered clearly enough. The mind numbing terror that left her immobile long after the sheets were pulled over her eyes. Oh, she’d put on a brave face for Xander, she’d played cool and vindictive but in the end she couldn’t stay angry with him, even if he’d been a cheating son of a b*tch. He’d cried for her but then he’d moved on and where the hell did that leave her?
Alone. That’s where. Dead and alone and so f**k**g sad the room dropped a good twenty degrees.
She’d followed him, had to really. The other alternative, moving on, not being with him, it was too much. You’d be surprised how quickly you can get used to not being seen or heard. She’d screamed at first, at Carrie or Xander or whoever happened to be close enough. She broke a mirror once, but she could never get anything else to move and eventually she gave up, content to just watch their lives. Sometimes, at night, she could put her hand just over Xander’s cheek and make him shiver. She gave that up too, eventually.
She didn’t remember making a conscious choice to leave, to go to sleep, but the tedium of watching wore at her. Years passed like that, without her notice, people came and went, but Xander was there and his presence was reassuring. But there was someone else now, a presence that wouldn’t leave, that was stuck there like her. And that was what woke Cassandra up.
The baby could see her, and she spend her first five minutes awake just trailing her finger in the air over the girl’s head, watching the baby watch her. But a baby couldn’t talk, couldn’t be manipulated, and so Cass went back to sleep, just a quick nap this time.
And when she woke, it wasn’t as a ghost or a spirit, it was as an imaginary friend.
“Daddy,” Madeline, at the urging of Cassie, was out of bed past her bedtime and standing in her daddy’s study. “Sally can’t sleep.”
Alone. That’s where. Dead and alone and so f**k**g sad the room dropped a good twenty degrees.
She’d followed him, had to really. The other alternative, moving on, not being with him, it was too much. You’d be surprised how quickly you can get used to not being seen or heard. She’d screamed at first, at Carrie or Xander or whoever happened to be close enough. She broke a mirror once, but she could never get anything else to move and eventually she gave up, content to just watch their lives. Sometimes, at night, she could put her hand just over Xander’s cheek and make him shiver. She gave that up too, eventually.
She didn’t remember making a conscious choice to leave, to go to sleep, but the tedium of watching wore at her. Years passed like that, without her notice, people came and went, but Xander was there and his presence was reassuring. But there was someone else now, a presence that wouldn’t leave, that was stuck there like her. And that was what woke Cassandra up.
The baby could see her, and she spend her first five minutes awake just trailing her finger in the air over the girl’s head, watching the baby watch her. But a baby couldn’t talk, couldn’t be manipulated, and so Cass went back to sleep, just a quick nap this time.
And when she woke, it wasn’t as a ghost or a spirit, it was as an imaginary friend.
“Daddy,” Madeline, at the urging of Cassie, was out of bed past her bedtime and standing in her daddy’s study. “Sally can’t sleep.”