Shadows of the World

Once upon a time I was a girl who had everything I ever wanted, and in that, had nothing at all. I was a dreamer, I was sleepy and I was an escapist. Then I met a boy with an apathetic facade. And we taught each other how to live, for real. He was magical and I was magical and we had beautiful dreams and we had terrible dreams. In the end, he and his best friend, one of my best friends now too, got sick. And they both end up together, in the same room in the hospital, lying side by side, while I watched from the doorway, wishing I knew how to stop it.

I wasn't as powerful as they thought. Not emotionally...not with what I could do. Watching James and Carson sleeping in their hospital beds made me feel so empty and sad. I knew that it was me who was in control of their fate, but I didn't know what I could do. Especially in the daytime, it was harder and harder to feel out their ever-fading stars. I tried to keep their souls bright and beautiful by making them happy, but they always seemed on the verge of tears. They didn't want to die, and I didn't want them to. They were both beautiful human beings and I wanted them to live a full, long life. So it was then and there that I decided if I had to, I would do anything I could to make sure they were saved, to make sure they were spared. I'd give the Lady in Blue anything she wanted...even my life.

Nana had gone to get something to eat, so I was left to watch over them, to make sure they didn't all of a sudden need a nurse. I knew they didn't and they wouldn't. Their deaths would not come quickly, it would be slow and probably painful. So I took in a deep breath and entered their small and sterile hospital room and sat down on the edge of Carson's bed. He had an IV in him, which allowed the nurses to check his dosage of morphine. If he was in pain and was feverish, they'd give him more to make him fall asleep. Right now, though, I was pretty sure he was just sleeping on his own. It wasn't fair, James had had more time than Carson. But I knew that the fact that Carson's time was running out had something to do with the those strange people that were here.

Carson opened his eyes just a little and we looked at each other softly while the heart monitor beeped consistently. Sometimes, he and James's heartbeats would match each other, and they'd smile and laugh, as if it were all one big joke. "I guess we're going to die anyway...no matter what you do," Carson finally said.

I nodded, feeling my skin tingle in a strange sort of pain. "I'm so sorry," I told him, "I tried." Carson just smiled and turned his head to look at James, who was sleeping peacefully. I knew that was because of the morphine, though. He'd just been up, screaming in pain and coughing up blood. My hand was then taken by Carson's and I looked from it to him.

"You're going to have a wonderful life without me, Clio," he said finally, a slow phrase with a smile on his face that did not meet his eyes. I remembered the words he told me, some time ago, 'For the first time in my life, I really want to live,' and shook my head no.

"I'm not staying here without you," I replied.

Carson looked upset at that and propped himself up on his elbow. He took my chin in his free hand and looked deeply in my eyes. "Remember what you told me that day in the cafeteria?" I was quiet. "You said, 'How could you dare try and kill yourself? How could you do the world such a horrible injustice?' Yeah well...the same goes for you," he told me. I swallowed and felt a tear form at the edge of my eye. I didn't want to cry, though. Not now. "You will live, Clio, a wonderful life. And even my star fades, you will still have me..." his hand left my chin and touched my heart, "here." I swallowed and suddenly, a beautiful image of the first dream I ever had with Carson in it came to my mind. He touched my heart and we'd become each other. Now we'd done that in reality, too. Each of us had a little part of the other inside them. He was right, I'd never be without him, not really. But I knew it would be unbearabley hard to live without him. He was the first person I ever truly loved.

There was a noise from the other bed and we watched as James blinked his eyes open. I smiled. "Feeling all right?" I asked him and he turned his head, smiling just a little bit. He was groggy, I knew, but Carson and I watched the sleep blink from his eyes until he finally was awake enough to push the button on his bed that would make him sit up. Carson laughed and did the same thing. "You guys are so weird," I told them and James cracked a smile. I got off of Carson's bed and sat down on James, picking up my purse. I pulled out his copy of the poems by William Blake and handed them to him. "You forget it at the house. I wanted to make sure you had it."

James nodded and looked at me quietly. "Thank you," he said softly, sleep still thick in his voice. I watched him carefully as he opened the book. His eyes shifted in and out of focus, so I knew he wasn't really reading, just looking. His face was sad and, for the first time, I noticed it was beautiful. I'd never really looked at the dark-haired James, but now I did. He reminded me of a gothic hero from an old novel. He had bright eyes and soft, light skin, but now there was a heavy flush in his cheeks from the fever.

I looked back at Carson, who was staring at me with a soft smile on his face. I felt my own cheeks become warm and looked away from him. James was thumbing through his book, his eyes focusing more and more every second. He smiled finally and I looked at the book, and yes, he had found his mother's poem. I watched James carefully and wished that I could have known just a little more about him. But right now, we had no time. We might have time later, but not now. If we survived all this, I made a mental note to make sure to find out more about James; his past, personality and future.

Nana came back then, with some food. "I just visited your nurses and they're going to bring you up lunch, if you two would like it," she told Carson and James.

James nodded his head no. "I don't think my stomach could handle food," he told her but Carson smiled.

"I'd love something to eat," he answered his grandmother. Nana looked at me.

"This is for me and you, you can have something if you'd like. I'll go get the nurse and let her know to bring Carson up something." I smiled to her as she left the room once again and picked up a Jello and a spoon. I wasn't exactly hungry, and this would do for now. I ate my red Jello in silence while James read William Blake and Carson watched me.

Finally, I looked back at Carson. "What are you looking at?" I questioned.

Carson laughed and shrugged. "I guess I just wanted to make a picture of you, so I'd never forget you, at this moment in time."

I laughed at that one. "Yeah, that's me, the hottie eating Jello." We smiled at each other, smiles that were thin masks of heartbreak. I finished my Jello and tossed the container into the trashbin and sat in the chair opposite of Carson's bed, my knees pulled up tight. It was quiet, then. The door to the rest of the hospital was open and we could hear everything that was going on in other peoples lives. There were young children, getting stitched up for a bad fall they took out of a tree...expecting mothers who were told to 'Just breathe!' and then older folks who were being wheeled around, shouting strange things that they probably didn't know they were saying. No one here knew what we knew, no one here knew of the magic that existed in the world.

But I was starting to understand why Carson said it wasn't magic. I remembered him talking so perfectly on how the beauty of the human soul - that was magic. And remembered holding his hand in the dark and think that was magic. "Maybe in the end," I said very suddenly, "at the very end when you think everything is going to just dissapear, you realize that life is the magic you were searching for all along."

Carson and James both looked at me and Carson smiled. "Life," he said, "is the most magical thing of all."

We were so silent after that, until Nana came back in with the nurse, who was carrying Carson's lunch. Nana looked at me softly and put a hand on my shoulder. "You should get out of this room and take a walk. You look very tired."

I looked at Carson and James then. Carson grinned at me and took his lunch from the pretty nurse. "Clio, you really need to get out of here. Just take a walk around the hospital. See what's going on. You can come back and give us a full report. We'll just be in here...eating and stuff," he told me and I smiled, getting up.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," I told them and left the room quietly. It was strange, the hospital room had been dark but the rest of the hospital was bright. Fluorescent lights lined the ceiling and I watched them as I aimlessly wandered through the halls of the hospital. It smelled weird, a kind of filth mixed with a sterile, clean smell. It was a smell that I didn't like and didn't want to get used to. I didn't want to be back here often, and I wanted to leave as quickly as possible. I wanted the doctors to miracuosly cure Carson and James and let them go, so it wasn't on my shoulders anymore.

I got coffee from a vending machine in one of the vending machines. It was terrible and some strange, foofy flavor, but I didn't mind. I just needed a little caffeine perk to help me get through the rest of the day. I'd told my parents that me and Carson were visiting his friend at the hospital, which wasn't a total lie. I knew they weren't worried about me, and I'd just come home tonight, finish the homework I had and come back here the next day. Maybe I'd even get into a routine, as much as I didn't want to.

I was a quiet figure in the hospital, just watching things rush by me. I was quiet, until, well, I heard something very strange. Behind me, I heard someone talking, just some voice talking to another person. But the voice felt familiar, like I knew that voice from somewhere. When I turned around, the woman the voice belonged to looked like no one I knew. I shook it off as just deja vu and continued walking. The voice still followed me, though. The person and whomever they were talking to were walking behind me. The voice became clearer in my head and I continued to get this strange picture in my head...a picture of my dream. A picture of a woman, a lady in an old fashioned blue dress, talking to me. And I realized, with a chill up my spine that the voice belonged the Lady in Blue. It was her voice I was listening to. And then the voice stopped, but I still felt footsteps behind me.

Taking a deep breath, I decided to loop around the hospital and go back to the room. I would just pretend as if I didn't know she was behind me, didn't know that she even existed. I would go back to the hospital room and I would be safe there. Why? I didn't know, didn't care. I wanted to run but made sure I kept walking slowly, so she didn't know I knew.

I passed a waiting room and there was a flash of curly red hair. My stomach turned and turned in knots. The lady from the mall last week was there too. She joined the woman with the Lady in Blue's voice and they started talking softly. I strained to hear what they were saying, but I couldn't. The Lady's body was there, her hair. Her voice was there. All that we needed was Mr. Morrison, who had the face of the Lady in Blue. I picked up my speed just a little, but I could hear their feet picking up speed just the same. There were doctors, nurses and patients around me, but I couldn't appeal to them for help. I was all alone now, all alone and scared to death. I wanted to turn around and scream for them to leave me alone, why did they want me? I was nothing, no one special. I couldn't even control the minimal power I did have. I was just some kid, some stupid kid.

I could see Carson and James's hospital room now, and watched as another nurse brought in food for James. Good, I thought. He's getting food, he won't be hungry. This is good.

My feet were about to take another step, when out in front of me came someone else. Mr. Morrison stepped out of one of the other, open hospital rooms. Only I really doubted his name was actually Mr. Morrison. He was some strange entity, with the face of the Lady in Blue. He smiled to me. "Hello Clio," he told me. I stopped abruptly and noticed that the two women behind me had stopped walking, too. I was surrounded, now. Mr. Morrison, with the lady's face, the woman with her body and hair, and the other woman with her voice. They all made up the Lady in Blue and it was not just some strange coincidence. My breathing became heavy and nervous.

"I-I...what do you want with me?" I asked, frightened. I turned to see the woman with the voice smiling kindly down at me.

"Oh Clio, you don't need to be scared. We're here to help you," she told me, and her voice gave me chills. I knew that was why she'd said something. She knew that her voice was frightening to anyone who knew of the Lady in Blue. The red haired woman smiled as well, but her smile looked malicious. I turned to see the hospital room in front of me. Could I make a dash for it? Could I make it?

The woman with the lady's body spoke now. "No, Clio. You won't make it, you cannot escape us."

I swallowed to turn to her. "You can...hear what I'm thinking?" I asked. The woman just smiled. "Who...are you?" I asked them.

They all smiled the exact same smile, a smile so creepy and strange, it gave me chills like I'd never felt before. "We are the council of elders," they said to me, speaking in unison. It was the strangest, strangest thing.

They surrounded me, one on either side of me, a sort of triangle. They were right, there was no way I could get out. I tried to minimize my thoughts, to make it so they couldn't hear me, know me, anything. I knew, though, that I would never be able to outsmart them. They all touched each other on the arms, making a triangle around me. And with that, the hospital dissapeared. We now all stood in a strange, dark, windy place. And I could feel in my bones that this was where it would all end.