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CHAPTER TWO. even werewolves deserve gifts. ( paper crane no. 760. )
FROM A YOUNG AGE, MINT REALISED that being predicted with a short life span came with many cons. Probably more cons than pros.
Life was something most took for granted; the unlikely possibility of being the lucky winner of the race to fertilisation. People took the art of growing, developing, and experiencing this world and the realities far beyond it, and discarded it, choosing to instead worry about the rain or prattling on about which t-shirt to buy, rather than contemplating how to better cherish their loved ones. Life came with the unprecedented moments to love, to hate, to scream, to cry, to laugh. And nobody ever really realises how lucky they are until they're hit with a split moment that shakes them to their core.
But Mint grasped onto every moment she could. She knew her time was limited and her memories halved in comparison to her peers. While the people she grew up with had their whole lives ahead of them - to get married, have kids, travel to wherever their hearts desired, maybe even open their own business - Mint's life was rather... behind her. As a young child, she'd been so free-spirited and excited about life. So naive - like children were. During her weekly hospital checkups, happily scribbling in the colouring book the hospital had provided, she babbled on about all the things she was going to do when she got older, oblivious to the sympathetic looks the nurses would give each other. The thought of death lay dormant in her mind- the mind of a child.
Though, as she became older and the after-effects of the accident set in, Mint realised the clock was ticking and desperation to live grew stronger. She was determined to live. No, she was going to live. She was determined to do all the things normal people could. She wanted to get married; continue the dumb tradition her father had started by naming her first-born after a random plant; combat one of her fears; travel to all the countries in Europe and Asia, or even fall in love with someone she never planned to.
All these cons and Mint couldn't even think of one pro. She guessed there were no pros when it came to gradually dying. It was just slow pain and then... nothing.
So, naturally, Mint became very bitter about things in life. She never took life itself for granted, but she wished things were slightly easier. Like the fact she had a crush on some schoolboy with round glasses who would sooner or later ruin her life; the fact she relied on a myth and sheets of paper to save her life; the fact she couldn't even watch Quidditch matches with her friends because of what happened with her stupid, fucking heart; and worst of all, the fact she had to drink a specially brewed potion every few hours just to function properly.
That wasn't living. That was surviving.
And she was tired of surviving.
Yet, like every other day, she found herself on her way back to the Hospital Wing for a refill of her medicine. Like always. Nothing new. Her life didn't really consist of any new things. It was always the same routine. Wake up, medicine, breakfast, classes, medicine, lunch, more classes, more medicine, homework, medicine- do you get the point? Some days, she felt like she was stuck in Groundhog Day- reliving the same day over and over again until one day... it would finally stop.
