Played For A Fool

Broken Blue Eyes

Broken blue eyes looked at her as she screamed. The pain was consuming her whole, and she wanted it to end. Nothing seemed better than the thought of her heart just stopping. Her lungs stopping their contractions. Her blood to quit pumping. She wanted death, but it would not come.

The fire was consuming her bit by bit, little by little, until she became a human torch. The pain was beyond anything she had ever endured, and there seemed to be no relief. Tears had stopped coming and there was no moisture left in the air.

Glass crunched around her as the man with the blue eyes watched her. Waiting for her to die. Cinder wanted it just as much as he did, but something in his eyes made her want to push on. She wanted to prove him wrong. She wanted to make him pay for hurting her this way.

The scene didn't make any sense, but Selene couldn't figure out why. She was trapped in the burning car. She was being turned to ashes. The man was standing above her watching her scream. But he wasn't trying to save her, to help her evade death.

That was the only thing that didn't make sense. Why was this man just standing there, waiting for her to die? He should be helping her, trying to right his wrong, but instead he stood over the poor eleven year old girl, waiting for her sure demise.

Selene's breathes came in short rasps, as she tried and failed to get more than smoke into her lungs. Her head hurt, and her lungs burned, and everything else was beginning to numb. The world began to spin, and spin, and spin, and the last thing Selene saw before the blackness was a pair of broken blue eyes.

***

School was never something that Cinder enjoyed much, but that Thursday was a living Hell. She was behind in all of her classes, and she didn't know how she was going to improve that. She wasn't able to actually do any work, doctor's orders, so she had to just sit there, and get participation points. Luckily though, Cinder had a great friend, and her name was Iko.

Iko had come bounding up to Cinder before first period, linked her arm through Cinder's, and marched her to every one of her teacher to explain why she couldn't actually work. She had fixed almost everything with her teachers, and Iko was assigned to help Cinder with her classwork once Cinder had recovered.

Even though Iko was pretty and popular, and more boy-obsessed than any other girl Cinder knew, she also had brains. Cinder wasn't a dim person, but whenever she needed help on something, Iko was the first person she turned to. She was in good hands.

No, the reason why school had sucked was not truly because of her schoolwork, it wasn't even the people who bullied her. It was the dreams.

Cinder had always wished that there was a way to shut down dreams, like an off switch in the brain, but she had yet to find one. The nightmares of the past gave her restless sleep, and more time awake than she wanted.

After the fiasco with Thorne, Cinder had resolved to never tell anyone her personal life ever again. They couldn't be trusted. People were so unreliable. There for you one moment, lying the next and leaving you to the wolves. Whatever, Cinder was over it. It's not like she'd never been let down before, and it was sure to happen again.

Sure, Cinder still trusted some people with a few things, but she couldn't, wouldn't ever trust anyone as much again. She wasn't trying to be dramatic or anything, but when you tell your best friend the one thing that eats you alive everyday and they don't believe you, it leaves marks.

Cinder had only been as hopeless one other time in her life, and that had been when Peony died. She wasn't an emotional person, and hardly ever broke down. She remembered, because when she was little, her cousin would always call her a tough cookie, and then flex her arms as though she had impressive biceps.