Dying to Breathe

3.1: she was cosmic (unedited)

A/N - Hello again, don't get too used to my double updates in one week. I'm still uncertain I want to do that. :) Thanks for reading, though, it means a lot.

Optional hearing aesthetics: Deep End by Holly Humberstone

*trigger warning: there's some blood near the end*

Chapter 3, Part 1: She was Cosmic

When Penelope and Millie had their 11th birthday, they camped out in their backyard. Penelope could still, to this day, remember the bright lights of the fireflies that visited them that night. In hushed whispers that could be heard from the house, they giggled all night long as they gossiped about everything two little girls could gossip about.

When morning came, Penelope awoke to find Millie had captured the fireflies in an air-tight jar.

They were all dead.

For their 12th birthday, Millie wanted a trampoline. As Penelope sat in the middle of the contraption, pretending to be popcorn, Millie jumped around her with a smile that could light up the entire world. Penelope watched how with each jump Millie's eyes came alive—she had never seen her sister's eyes so bright.

Later that evening, Millie had jumped off the balcony and onto the trampoline—only to end up in the hospital with a broken arm and cracked ribs.

Once again, Penelope had never seen her sister's eyes so full of life.

During their 13th birthday, Millie had discovered boys. Penelope watched Millie grab an older boy by his hand and disappear for the first time into the infamous camp shack at the lake. Penelope never found out what exactly it was she did.

But after that, he did everything she asked of him with a scowl on his face.

Millie still told his girlfriend the following week.

By the time their 14th birthday passed, Millie had the entire town wrapped around her finger. Penelope watched as she flirted and whisked away every heart within reach. She was a natural charmer. Her words flowing so perfectly as she batted her eyes with the perfected method of hers.

Millie got what she wanted. It didn't matter what it was, she would get it with a megawatt smile and a careful touch of the arm.

And her eyes would glimmer with unsatisfied bloodlust every time.

When their 15th birthday rolled around, Millie finally showed Penelope just how fearless she really was. Trying to keep Millie from sneaking into the old, abandoned haunted house, Penelope blocked the doorway. Without a moment of hesitation, Millie climbed into the broken windowpane. As the glass sliced deeply into her arm, Millie's always smiling face stopped smiling. Something dark passed her eyes as a calm settled around her expression. Removing the glass, she simply watched as the blood gushed out of her wound; streaming down her arm in bright red streaks that stained everything.

Penelope thought she looked completely empty—like a shell of a person.

Accidents started occurring more frequently after that and her sister's eyes were never so alive.

Their 16th birthday came and went too fast. Millie wanted more. Penelope tried to keep her from going too far to get more. Every night was a constant struggle; Penelope trying to keep her reckless sister alive, Millie trying to satisfy her bottomless hunger. But as mentioned, Millie always got what she wanted.

She never knew where her sister would go. When she would come back home, her eyes would be alit with flames consuming the recent victim of her hunger.

And like she were casting a spell to make Penelope forget all her unspoken indiscretions, Millie would say: "We're not dead yet, L. Forget tonight and live your story, why don't you?"

Penelope was no fool: she knew since the suffocated fireflies that her sister struggled with something dark and disturbed. She watched as her sister evolved into something that scared her and impressed her all at the same time. Millie was something untamable. She was cosmic. She was an abstract idea made into reality. Every single second that ticked by was ultimately controlled by Millie—her power was as endless as it was terrifying.

And Penelope loved her. It was that unconditional type of love—the type of love that wanted, with her whole being, to save Millie from the darkness breathing and growing inside of her. Because Penelope was the only one that Millie let in. She was the only one that saw the demons she internally struggled to hold back everyday. She was the only one that could see Millie fight the rising tides inside of her—and lose—time and time again. All Penelope wanted to do was to help: to be her lifeboat; to be her medicine; to be her cure.

And then, on their 17th year of life, Penelope found herself in the same waters Millie had struggled her whole life in, and Millie... Millie finally went under.

A/N - What do you think of Millie? Any thoughts? "An abstract idea made into reality" I love that line. It fits her perfectly.

Thank you for reading! Thank you for your support!