𝘙𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘺

Chapter 1

Everything feels so... different.

I wasn't sure how long my childhood lasted. Let alone if I even lived one.

I know by now, it's long gone. It's over. It's dead.

The old me- is dead.

I think maybe I was just mad I should have picked more flowers on the way home. I should have drawn more pretty pictures with the chalk that they offered during recess. I should have watched more sunsets- should have taken the longer routes home. I should have spent less time looking for the parents that never existed, rather enjoying the ones I had created. The ones that I had found.

Should have relished in the way Inko would smother me with kisses on the cheek when I returned from UA littered with scrapes and bruises. Should have paid more attention to the way her cheeks burned and she grew out of breath every time she berated Izuku and I over dinner for being far too rambunctious.

Maybe I should have spent longer at the table with All Might for meals; rather than being so fixed on racing to my room and relishing in the thick silk comforter, he had searched for... for so long. Just for me. I guess maybe I should have spent more nights on the couch with him watching some stupid old-time American Tv show he insisted we watch for the hundredth time.

I should have focused more on what I had; rather than what I didn't.

Find what you love and let it kill you.

I think I read that in some book from All Might's study. I thought nothing of it- simply some line said by some damsel in distress once her husband was sent off to war for the second time. I think it made my heart feel all fluttery and weak because no matter what type of romance novel it was; I always imagined it was Izuku and I.

At the time, I found the line so romantic. Some of the most beautiful words I had ever read.

Now... lying in this hospital bed... those words had a completely different meaning.

Nana stared at me from the end of my bed. Her hands were wound tightly around the bars of the bed frame, her eyes brimmed with tears. Maybe she was happy... or maybe she was afraid.

The other members were lined behind her, staring back at me. I could only identify Nana and Daigoro Banji... the others seemingly unidentifiable ghosts staring back at me. Two of them stared out the window, the same windows now rid of the glass and simply but an empty pane of metal. I couldn't see their faces, leaving me to see nothing but their backs and hands interlocked as they continued to stare out the window; unharmed. Unfazed.

Through all of the chaos, the nurses screaming and picking up shattered shards of glass- through the alarms and patients worried cries; Nana continued to smile at me affectionately.

I lay there; unable to speak or fight against the wires and heavy blankets weighing me down against the cot. My arms far too wrapped and bound by wires to even flinch. My chest was squeezing; my throat burning as I continued to try and settle my breathing. The alarms began to terrify me; the pounding sounds beaming off the walls and back at me as the nurses inside the room, and in the hallway, continued to frantically scream.

They're scared of me.

A nurse screamed that I was awake and immediately, I heard the pounding footsteps of the man I had grown to recognize all too well. Between listening to him walk down the stairs every morning and into my room late at night to offer chopped fruit while I studied; I tried to smile at his presence. Tried to sit up and offer him some sort of welcome as I listened to his hoarse and pained voice call out my name.