The Broken Crystal

Chapter Four

Everything was a lie.

Even though Crystal tried to turn her mind off, nothing had worked to make the thoughts stop churning.

She felt a rare mixture of fear and relief, anger and calmness, sadness and happiness. All those feelings were consuming her, eating her alive. Her head felt completely empty and unbelievably full at the same time. The thoughts played hide and seek in her mind, making it impossible for Crystal to concentrate.

Her whole life was a lie.

No, she shook her head, it just can't be true. Seventeen years. How could she not have figured it out in seventeen years? There was only one possible explanation: Dean was lying. 

Yes, she heard his scream and yes, it did sound terrifyingly real, but that only proved that Dean was good at pretending. He was just pretending to be her friend, he was pretending to have the hallucinations.

What Crystal didn't realize was that she only pretended not to believe Dean. Because deep down she knew he was right.

♢♢♢

The next day, Crystal's head had cleared enough for her to make up her mind. All the doubts that had been swarming in her head the day before, seemed to have vanished. Her brain was finally accepting the bitter-sweet truth. Still, Crystal had a hard time wrapping her head around all of the things she had discovered. Finding out your whole life had been a lie wasn't exactly the easiest thing to deal with.

In the midst of her inner turmoil, Kent arrived with the food. Crystal glared at her meal, the grumbling in her stomach stopping as soon as she spotted it. The mere thought of what was inside of the rice was enough to make her lose her appetite.

It was not like she was planning on eating it, anyway.

Crystal stole a glance in Dean's direction, gasping in surprise when she saw him stuffing the poisoned meal into his mouth. "What are you-"

Dean shot her a warning look and Crystal frowned in confusion. What was he doing?

"Aren't you going to eat your food, Crystal?" The girl jumped, whipping her head around to see who had spoken. It was Kent, he hadn't left yet. Now Crystal understood why Dean was acting so strange. "I-I, um, y-yes of c-course, sir" she stammered and grasped a handful of the rice, munching on it.

Kent stared at her, clearly waiting for her to swallow. So, pushing the food to one side of her mouth, she did, careful not to let a single grain of rice descend down her throat. She could see Dean do the same in the corner of her eye.

After that, Kent nodded, seemingly pleased. He walked away, his steps echoing in the hall long after he had disappeared from their sight. 

When he could no longer be heard, both of them spat out the food.
Dean let out a huge breath. "That was close!"

Crystal nodded in agreement. It scared her that the guards had suddenly become suspicious. Had they heard their conversation? Neither she nor Dean had bothered to whisper. 

"We can't do this forever, Crystal."

Crystal's fingers began to twist her hair again. "Then what are we supposed to do?" Her voice was merely a whisper.

Dean crawled over to the bars separating them, reaching out his hand for her to take. Reluctantly, she did, inching closer to him.

There was a pause as Dean thought of how he was going to propose his suggestion. He couldn't say anything that might scare her from doing what he had in mind, which he realized would be extremely difficult. Crystal was highly sensitive.