Ghosts of the Future

Butterfly Wings

Lily's POV

Saira doesn't look good. Her face is pale, paler than fresh snow. Her eyes are unfocused, and her expression is full of pain and sadness. I want to help her, this single girl that can see me.

"What's wrong?" I whisper to her during Biology. She doesn't look at me, but her ear pricks up. The teacher isn't looking at her, and neither are the other kids, so she whispers, "Nothing. Just a little tired."

I frown, floating forwards. Saira isn't rubbing her wrists together, which means either one of two things: she isn't nervous, or she hurts too much to do it. Saira flinches, and whispers, "Second."

Butterflies start flapping in my stomach. My words sound harsh in my head, but they come out softly as I ask, "Why, Saira? Why do you hurt yourself?" Saira shakes her head and lays her forehead against her desk. The teacher glances at her, rolls his eyes, and turns back to the rest of the class.

I stay by Saira's side as the class is dismissed. She doesn't get up, which worries me. I can smell blood, the thickness of life liquid that I would know anywhere. I glance down, and see Saira slowly unwrapping a cloth from around her upper arm.

Shock shoots through me. This is the first time I've seen Saira's arms not covered in black. And now I know why.

Etched across her skin are black marks like tallies. Around each is an area of red skin, dyed that color by blood. The dark marks cover her arms more than skin, each slash the length of her wrist. All of them rise up, small mountain ranges across the snowy skin.

Saira finishes unwrapping the cloth from her bicep. Across her skin gleams a fresh mark, though this one isn't black: it's red, which means that it's fresh. She probably carved it into herself today. At the earliest of last night.

"I deserve pain, Lily," Saira whispers, staring at the marks all along her arm. The teacher is gone, disappeared to lunch. The room is empty except for us. Saira clenches her fist, making the slightly-visible veins along her skin stand up, along with the tendon running along her arm.

"You didn't deserve what happened to you. I do. I've hurt people, Lily. Countless people, countless times. So, for each death, I carve a mark onto my skin," she continues, her voice soft and low, with an undercurrent of pain and anger.

I shake my head, and say, "You could not have seen so many deaths, Saira. It's impossible." Saira looks up at me, her eyes fractured shards of glass. She smiles, her lips dull and drained of blood. "Not in real life, no. But I have a long memory, Lily. A vivid memory. It's what makes me excel in school; I have a photographic memory, which works for everything. Even death. Especially death."

I float away, just enough to put space between us. Saira looks at me, but no surprise shows on her face or in her eyes. She's never surprised, not by this, I think to myself. Saira is so full of pain and anger, such a poison to herself, that she expects people to leave her. To go away and never return.

The door creaks, and Saira hurriedly wraps the cloth around her arm again. The job is quickly done, but not messy, which means that she's had practice at hiding her pain. She pulls her sleeve down just as the door opens.

And there's Max, in all his horrible glory. He smiles, and the butterfly wings in my stomach turn into raptor beaks, pecking at my insides. I feel like throwing up, like fighting, like crying.

Saira watches warily as Max closes the door behind him. My mind flashes back to my death, when he closed the door to his bedroom. His expression, then, held revulsion and hate. His expression now, however, holds fear and pain.

"You dropped this in the woods," he says, holding up a piece of black cloth identical to the one wrapped around Saira's bicep. Saira stares at the cloth, then looks up at Max, her expression neutral and giving nothing away. She would be awesome at poker.

"It's not mine," she says, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair. Max's face flashes with anger, and fear trills through my body. I want to hide, to scream, to protect Saira. I barely know her, but I can't have her suffering the same fate as me.

"I know it's yours," Max says, pulling a desk over to face Saira. She watches him levelly, not revealing an ounce of the pain she must be feeling. Her shoulders hunch, though, and I see more raised marks stretch across her back. How did she get a knife around to back there?

"And how could you deduce that? If it was true, at least," Saira says, leaning forward to balance on her elbows. Max leans forward as well, and says softly, "It was in the woods after you left. Well, ran, actually. It has blood on it. And you have marks on your arms."

Saira's eyes gleam, but when I drift closer, I realize that it's not from tears. It's from anger; hot, boiling hatred that seems to emanate from her very skin. She leans even further forward, stretching her shirt even more across her shoulders. The lower half of her back is revealed to me, and across her skin stretches intricate black lines, exactly like the marks across her arms.

"You don't know my life, Max Sello. So don't try to counsel me. Plenty have tried, and plenty have failed. You will just be another on the list, at the very bottom," Saira says, her fingers tapping the desk in front of her.

Max looks into her eyes, and I desperately wish that I could read his mind. I want to know what he sees in this suicidal girl, the girl that probably murdered her entire family. I need to know why he killed me, and buried me beneath a slab of stone in the construction room, the place everyone called Jerry Land.

Max leaned even further forward, until he was practically nose-to-nose with Saira. He whispered, "No, I don't know your life. But I would like to, Saira. I would like to learn about you." Saira's nostrils flare, and she leans back.

"Why? What interest would you have in my life?" she asks, her voice sharp and critical. Max watches her, and the naked love on his face makes my skin crawl. "I like you, Saira. Didn't you know that?" he asks, and I see Saira's expression clearly for once: surprise.

She shakes her head, and stands. Max stands as well, but she shakes her head at him, stilling his movements. "You shouldn't like me. I told you I'm a disease. My family paid the price. I won't have you or anyone else paying it too."

With that, Saira leaves, her hair the last thing I see. Max stays still, a variety of emotions flashing across his face. Finally, though, he leaves. And I am alone.