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"SOMEBODY HELP US!"
It was her last effort, but Casey knew it was useless. Nobody could save her now. She tried hard to not look at the members of her family, but their ripped-apart faces were omnipresent in the corner of her vision.
Stupid silverware in the trunk. Casey had told them often enough that they shouldn't take it wherever they went, or at least lock it up safely, but her mother always used to say "Keeping silver locked up brings bad luck, Case! Never lock up silver if you don't want to be unlucky!"
Her mom's favourite piece had been the butcher's knife that was now embedded deep into the back of her skull. Ironic. But she had been lucky.
Casey's father had always taken three enormous forks with him, the kind he used to grill with, and they had been bound together to mark them as a trio. Her mother had been ever-furious with him, but the opposition made him chuckle every time. Well, now the bound together forks stuck inside of him, one in each eye and the third one in his forehead, 'making him a unicorn', as Sherry would've definitely said with an enormous grin on her face. At least the forks were still bound together.
Casey flinched. She shouldn't have thought about Sherry. But she couldn't turn her head far enough. Sherry's face, or what was left of it, was mere inches from her own, and right infront of her. Turning her head as far to the right as possible and screaming for help for 3 hours straight had helped distract her, but now the pain of seeing her dead sister rushed back into her and punched her in the chest harder than the seatbelt had at the time of the crash.
Casey closed her eyes. This is not how she wanted her last vision of Sherry to look like. But it was no good, even with her eyes closed she could still see her clear as day.
Casey opened her eyes again and looked to her right some more. She didn't want to scream anymore. It was useless. Nobody would find them.
Then she heard a faint voice in the distance, shouting.
"Casey!!", it said.
That was when her Focus punched in for the first time.

Next flashback. Great. It couldn't have just been this one for once.
It had been three years since Sherry's death. Nothing had helped against the pain. No drugs. No medicine. No boyfriend. She had had no friends to stay with so she escaped into relationships, making her boyfriends think she actually loved them when she just needed a place to crash for some time. She was at her current boyfriends home right now, in the full bathtub, looking at her naked features and searching for the perfect spot to sink the knife into. The same one that had killed her mom, or at least finished her off after the heartattack. Of course she had the three forks that had killed her father with her as well.
"Never leave your silverware behind, or you'll be left behind as well, remember that Case!"
Another of her mother's stupid sayings. Another ironic one.
Just then there was a knock on the door.
"Sherr? Sherr, you're scaring me... I know you got your silverware in there with you...", Damion said through the door, "I've looked everywhere for them, so don't even try to deny it!"
Despite her desperate situations she had to smile. Damion had been different from the start. He seemed to honestly care about her. But Casey didn't intend to let that matter.
"Damion", Casey croaked, and she was caught off guard by how weak she sounded. She tried again and forced herself to sound stronger, "Damion, I'm alright, don't worry! You know I take those bastards with me wherever I go, I told you that my mom taught me to do that. I know it sounds drastic to take them into the bathtub, but one can never stay too safe! I didn't know when you'd be home after all."
Casey could basically feel the headshake coming from Damion.
"You greeted me when you came back from... work... this afternoon...", he said.
Fuck. How could Casey not have realised that? How could she forget that?
It was due to the nature of her work of course. Theft was by no means the cleanest job, and you only got paid what you stole, but it still was not the dirtiest. But for the low payment the effort was far great, especially for a job of this calibre.
To rob the sixtuplets of the Count during the light of day while they were occupying every imaginable room? Of course, Casey had managed, but only through triggering alarms on five different locations and knocking one of the six out clean. It was a mess.
"Sherr... what are you doing darling? It's not your time yet! Imma come in now, just so you are aware...", Damion called through the door and brought Casey back to reality through that.
She thought about protesting. But the truth was that Casey didn't want to die. She just saw no reason to live anymore.
Damion opened the door of the bathroom, made two quick steps towards her and took the knife away. Not once, Casey realised, did he look at her naked body. He just looked her in the eye.
"Sherr...", he said with a fierce and yet gentle voice, "Tell me what's wrong, and from the beginning!"
And Casey did. She had no idea why she trusted Damion, but she told him everything, from the day of the accident, from her experiences in relationships, from the drugs she had tried, how she got into thievery, and many other things Casey wasn't even aware she was still thinking about.
She left out her Focus, for he would surely deem it strange, but she told him, "... and my name is not Sherryl. That was my sister's name, but I just couldn't bear hearing my real name anymore. My sister's name... I wanted to hear that every day..."
Damion listened to every word, and still, not one glance away from her face.
"Imma tell you a story as well, alright?", Damion finally answered after a few minutes of them silently holding eye contact, "You met me three months ago in the library under the name of Damion Marquez. That is not my real name. I was born as Steven Rodriguez, but I was... well... forced to take a new last name. And my first name I disliked as well, so I just became someone entirely new. But anyhow, you and me, we began to talk, you flirted with me, really badly by the way, and we agreed to go out on a date. Then and from then onwards, I was not interested in you in the slightest way concerning a relationship. But I saw how broken you were, with your fake laughs and fake smiles and your real laughs and real smiles that you always cut off with a sad glance down to the ground. And that interested me very much. I knew immediately that you needed help. Not a relationship, just someone to talk to. A friend. And so I agreed to be with you, to even let you live with me, but I never told you. And you did open up to me, only slowly at first, but look where we are now! Now that I know your story I can help you. And girl, let me tell you, there are two things you haven't even considered yet. The first one is that you just need a friend, someone to talk to. Of course you have to get over it sometime, but you still are allowed to be happy! And you need to get over it in your own time, but a friend can help you with that, and I'd gladly be that friend! And secondly... Sherr, or... well, my dear darling... are you even aware that you are a lesbian?"
Casey blinked. Once. Twice. And a third time.
"I... no, I can't be, I... I thought I maybe just had bisexual interests, but... well, as boys really don't get anything going for me at all, I just... I thought I was asexual instead... no offense by the way...", Casey stammered, and at her last words Damion laughed out loud.
"Oh darling", he smiled with a big grin on his face, "I'm more gay than a male unicorn riding a male rainbow until they both cum and spread glitter everywhere that turns people gay as well when they touch it!"
Casey had to smile at that. Of course, that explained basically everything. She liked Damion even more now.
"But... Damion... what... what should I do now?", Casey asked, "I... look at me, I'm a mess, I... I wanted to kill myself, I didn't even fucking know my own sexual orientation, and I'm lying naked infront of a gay man... I'm just... done..."
Damion looked at her with a stern expression, and he said, "Darling. I will get you the sexiest dress you have. I will drag you to a lesbian bar. And then I won't let you leave until you are tounging down a drunk needy lesbian woman!"
Casey actually laughed at that. "Do I really have to?", she asked, and Damion laughed as well.
"No", he said, "get into your pjs, we're watching a movie tonight! Oh, and what is your name?"
Casey stood up, wrapped herself in a towel, and walked up to the knife that Damion had placed next to the three forks. "Don't worry, I won't do anything!", she said to him before he could get even more worried. "Not yet...", she thought as she picked it and the forks up. She looked at them some more and was about to leave the bathroom when she remembered what Damion had asked her.
"Casey", she said, turning around. Damion shook his head and asked, "No darling, what is your REAL name? What do you feel most comfortable with? I chose my name, you can too!"
Casey wanted to say Sherryl so badly, but it was never going to be her name and she knew it. She looked down at the silverware. The damned silverware. Why had her mother always insisted on silver? Why silver?
Y Silver.
"My name...", Casey said with the strongest voice she had managed since the time before her family had died, "is Sylver, with a Y!"
Damion smiled, "Because why silver?"
Sylver nodded.
Because Y the damned Silver.

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