The mother we share || Open

A boy wound his way through the graveyard. He looked at home here, occasionally touching the grave stones as if they were his friends. He found his way down to a gravestone - not one he had been looking for, but one that he felt drawn to. Quell placed his hand on top of the gravestone - not a light flicker of a touch, the way you'd touch a stranger or student, but a calming, confident hand, the one that a lover might have, or a mentor. Quell could feel the gravestone pushing back, and he felt it calming. As if the gravestone was holding his hand, telling him it was going to be okay. It had been a long time since anyone had held Quell's hand and told him it was going to be okay.

A moment of curiosity surged through him, and although Quell rarely moved to look at the names of the graves (he felt as if the anonymity was part of the beauty of these silent statues, they were ghosts in the fields of asphodel, forever nameless), he felt drawn to the name of the person in the same way he felt drawn to this gravestone. The name was dusted over slightly, wether from the mist of the morning or age, it was unclear. Quell wiped the dust from the name, slowly unmasking the person that had one lived and breathed at camp. Her name was Olivia, but all Quell could see was 'Liv' written in capital, bold letters. Liv's name, on a gravestone. Quell uncovered the rest of the name, but he couldn't see the rest of the name, or even his surroundings. All Quell could see was a flashing panic, one that seemed to grow with every breath he took. Every time he breathed in it became harder for him to breath, until he felt himself dizzying to his knees. "No!" Quell gasped, finding himself struggling for air. He knew what this was, a panic attack, and he'd seen it before with his siblings. He knew that deep breaths was the way to stop a panic but Quell found himself paralyzed, unable to even recall that information.

Suddenly, the world was looked at as if through a lens. Quell could see his own body in twenty years, crumpled at the edge of a grave. This one, indeed, did belong to Livia Malcolm, and it read that she had died at 17. Quell could feel the panic rising in his chest again, as he tried to remember how old he was. Sixteen. He breathed, realizing that if this was to come true, Liv would be dead within a year. "No…" Quell whispered, pressing his hands into his head. "It's not real. It's not real" he muttered, over and over again, as if that was the only thing he could do to keep his heart from jumping from his chest and his lungs closing up. But when he had calmed down enough to open his eyes, Quell saw Liv's name again and he spiraled backwards, almost jumping, his breaths become shallower and shallower. "No!" Quell cried, and he cried it as loud as he could possibly manage this time, although his vision was ringed with black and the world was spinning.

Quell could feel his voice crack, and his throat grow raw. He was unable to control his screaming; Quell wanted to stop, but couldn't. He had lost all sense of control. Blindly flailing around, his arms trying to steady him, Quell heard a voice, one that was all too familiar. He was imagining things, just like he had imagined Liv's grave, and he was going insane. That's all Quell could feel right now - panic and insanity. This was it, he had finally lost it. He knew that he would break one day and now he was. Maybe he shouldn't have pretended to be okay all of those times, because he sure was paying the price for it now. Quell's conscious couldn't think like that now- he was completely dismantled, his eyesight felt like it was going black and his face was coated with tears.

Hands grabbed at him and Quell pulled away, until a voice spoke again and he followed Faye's instructions. Quell trusted Faye unquestionably, but perhaps if he had not, he wouldn't have calmed down - he barely saw the girl approach him before. Slowly, he felt her arms wrap around him and slowly he stopped struggling, his breaths deepening. Quell's arms were pinned to his side by Faye's hug but he leaned his head against Faye's shoulder. Before Quell could fully calm down, however, he saw the tiniest red mark on the side of Faye's face. Quell let go enough to see the rest of her face, and he could only see red. Faye's face was red - a red more like the crimson that Quell knew so well. A red that could only be one thing - blood. Quell stumbled backwards again, and although Faye was holding him, he pushed from her grasp, feeling his panic rising. "No!" He screamed, stepping farther away, his arms now free to thrash.

Quell, in his moment of panic, had stepped too far back. His bad leg caught itself on the side of the stone grave marker, and although he might have been able to withstand the fall if he was uninjured, his permanent injury lead him to come tumbling to the ground. Quell screamed, but he stopped abruptly as a sickening thump echoed throughout the graveyard. Falling to his knees, Quell clutched his head, which was now gushing blood. He could feel Faye standing above him and the tears on his cheeks and suddenly, a scene that had seemed so blurry came into sharp focus. Faye's eyes were on Quell and he couldn't bear to look at her, his hands over his eyes, quickly filling with tears and blood.

It was hard to feel the pain that was rushing through his head, a blinding, searing pain that sounded to Quell almost as his screams had sounded to Faye. Quell could feel the blood rushing from his head in a thumping pattern, all too close to the  sound of a beating heart. Quell squinted up at Faye as he felt his head start to spin, trying to get a better grasp of the situation.

Faye had pried his hands from his head, putting her own jacket over his wound. Faye's hands were shaking, but Quell felt himself calm down. It had taken Faye seconds to get the situation under control, and she knew first aid like the back of her hand. Quell started to remember how he and Faye would work together to heal injured campers during battles- the knowing nods of complete and utter trust. Quell could remember how well they had worked together, how Faye was one of very few people whom he trusted. Quell realized how long it had been since he had trusted someone enough to let them take care of him - normally Quell refused to let anyone do anything for him.

"I'm… I'm sorry." He muttered, unable to look at Faye. Quell felt ashamed of his leg, of his stupid panic, of the fact that he needed someone else to calm him down. Quell was supposed to be a leader, he was supposed to be strong. He shouldn't need someone else to help him and he certainly shouldn't be breaking down like this.

Weakly, Quell dragged himself to a sitting position, leaning on the gravestone. He pressed his hand against his head, trying to ignore the throbbing or the feeling of blood seeping onto his hands. Faye's words were comforting, but Quell just couldn't believe it. "But am I really?" Quell asked, looking up at Faye finally. He knew the answer to that - no. Quell would never really be okay. Today was the first time he had lost it, but it wouldn't be the last.

Quell felt sickened to realize who he had become. No more was the quiet boy whom was too scared to even ask for help, so he did things alone. He had become the soldier who could no longer ask for help, because he couldn't bear to put a burden onto others, and he had broken that boy as well. Quell felt like he was drowning, in the blood of people who's deaths he had cause, whom he had lead to battle, to die at the hands of monsters that just kept coming. "It feels like we're fighting a war we'll never win." Quell muttered, sighing.

He had known these people, he had lived with them, played with them, trained with them, and he had killed them. Quell was able to realize that they were real people, and he had let them die anyways. They were his friends, his family, his comrades, and they had trusted him. Quell took the deaths the hardest, but no one seemed to notice. He liked it that way - he couldn't afford for anyone to notice, lest he seem weak. Quell needed more than two hands to count the number of funerals he'd been to of deaths he had caused. He'd sit there and feel out of place - how could he sit among mourners if he was responsible, if he had caused their pain?

It was then that Quell realized his head hurt. A lot. He couldn't exactly think straight because of the blood loss, but he knew he had sustained quite the concussion. If it was even that minor. Quell was starting to feel dizzy, even more than he already did, and he struggled to swallow down the fear rising in the back of his throat. Faye was crying, he realize as he looked at her, and Quell reached a shaky hand to wipe a tear drop from her cheek. "Faye, I don't want anyone else to die because of me." Quell whispered finally, his brain feeling like it was getting crushed in a vice but his voice as tense . He started to feel very tired, and he drooped his head slightly. Quell knew from his own medical training that after a serious brain injury, death or a coma could occur were the patient allowed to sleep. But that was all he wanted to do right now, and he was too dizzy to even think about what he knew about medicine.