Smells Like Winter

34: The White Room

She was in the white room.

A boy with dark brown hair was lying on the white bed, wearing white hospital clothes, tangled underneath the white sheets. Even his skin was white, pale as a ghost. His lips were dry, chapped, colourless. His face was gaunt, his high cheekbones protruding. His clothes were hanging loosely on his too-thin body, the bones jutting dangerously in weird angles. His chest was moving up and down slowly, too slowly, and his breath was barely audible.

And he had those green eyes, like two precious emeralds, almost identical to hers, but somehow very different. Those eyes that she knew so well were once overflowing with naughtiness, briskness, vividness. Now they were emotionless, faded, glassy, and so persistently fixed on hers, as if they were pleading.

What were they pleading for?

"Please," he begged, and his weak voice cracked. She didn't recognise that voice. That voice was once strong and teasing and mocking and friendly, and even pissed at times, but it was deep and soothing.

Now it was weak and it broke from the scorching tears filling the corners of those beautiful eyes of his, threatening to overflow and roll down his colour-drained cheeks.

"Please," he repeated, a single salty droplet spilling down his cheek. He stretched out a shaky hand toward her, the knuckles bruised on his emaciated, scrawny fingers, the muscles gone from his once perfectly toned arms.

Maddy took a cautious step towards him. She couldn't bear the sight of him like this. She had to touch him, hold his hand, squeeze it twice and tell him lies, tell him that everything was going to be okay. She had to brush the sweaty hair off his forehead and kiss it gently. She had to hug him the way he used to hug her when she was little. She had to do something, if not to make him feel better then at least to make herself feel better. So she took that step, hesitant but unfaltering, and shortened the distance between them, if only by a fraction.

Then suddenly he was coughing blood, and his breath came out short, sharp and unsteady. He flailed on the bed helplessly, and Maddy went to rush towards him, eyes wide and heart thundering in her chest with each skipping beat. But she was paralysed, pinned to the ground, unable to move as much as a single muscle. She tried to scream, but no voice came out of her lips. She stood there, watching him die slowly, pain slicing her up.

It all went black around her. Like someone had turned off an invisible light switch, and she was suddenly swallowed by the darkness surrounding her. Free falling into its abyss.

The terror that flooded her in that moment brought her down on her knees, like some heavy anchor was pulling her down. She hit the solid ground beneath her with such force that her very bones rattled. She felt as though her hands were tied in cold, rusty chains, like cuffs on her wrists.

Some odd intuition told her to look down. So she did. She trained her eyes down on her hands.

Which were covered in blood. Crimson, hot, human blood.

His blood.

The world seemed to be spinning around her. The shadows were moving. Her body felt numb.

"You did this," whispered a voice in her ear.

Her heart rose in her throat, choking the life out of her. The blood smeared her hands, trickled down her wrists, her fingers, her palms.

"You did this."

She felt herself breaking, collapsing, shattering-