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Post by emma elizabeth logan on Apr 14, 2011 18:15:21 GMT -5
12:55 PM…
”Have you ever felt like dying?” She whispered. ”Have you ever felt like each and every moment of every day was suffocating you slowly, stealing the life out of you in tiny measurements? Have you ever drowned while absent of water? Have you ever choked on nothing? Have you ever felt so numb that nothing could affect you? Have you ever been so empty that you could stand on the edge of a cliff and trip off the side and you wouldn’t even feel the adrenaline hit you? Have you ever been gone while you were still there? Have you ever been lost when you were at home? Have you ever thrown up without eating? Have you ever lost hours of the day and not known where they went because you weren’t aware of what was happening in your head? Have you ever seen something that wasn’t there? Have you ever heard something that didn’t make a sound? Have you ever fallen while holding still? Have you ever….” She stopped and took a shallow breath.
Emma Logan sat alone in the girl’s dormitory. Everyone else had gone to classes or taken free periods with friends. She had ditched Charms. She’d stayed in bed for hours, unmoving, unfeeling. Every movement after she dragged her fragile body from bed seemed labored. Her skin felt tight against her body. She couldn’t remember things, important things. Like when she’d last eaten or drank a glass of water or even smoked her last cigarette. She couldn’t remember who she’d last spoken to or made eye-contact with. She couldn’t remember… She felt like she couldn’t even remember her own name in certain moments. And not because her memory was taken or broken. She was broken. Her mind couldn’t stay in the present. She couldn’t think. She could only desperately attempt to feel and even that was a failure.
She stared into a mirror. It didn’t belong to her. Perhaps it was one of the other girl’s possessions. She was only borrowing it. Not to check makeup or admire herself or become self-conscious, but just to make sure she was still there. She wanted to be sure she hadn’t faded over night and disappeared entirely. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t become as transparent as the ghosts that floated aimlessly about this school. Because, for a whole ten minutes while she was lying in that bed, she felt as though she wasn’t even human. She wasn’t real. She was a mere figment of someone else’s imagination. And that only made things harder, made every breath less honest. She couldn’t be anything. She couldn’t process her surroundings or herself.
She looked down at her legs. Thin scratches lined up her thighs. Had she done that? She couldn’t remember. Dried blood smeared in little circles along those lines. Her nails had a similar substance just beneath the surface. She looked at her hands and realized she was shaking. Hunger. Her stomach was growling in an unhappy roar. She clasped her hands tightly and felt as her nails dug into her palms. More blood. Why couldn’t she even feel the pain? She gave the mirror an empty glance. She picked it up in one swift movement, despite her shaking hands, and she slammed it down against the floor. It smashed into fragments of reflective glass all over the stone flooring and deep emerald rugs. She kneeled down, and grabbed at the shards with a manic look stowing itself in her eyes. She grabbed the largest piece and ran it along her arm gently, watching the blood surface. It wasn’t a deep cut, just a tiny scratch, really. She dug the glass into her leg, trying to bait herself into calling out but no sound came from her. She felt a tiny flicker of anger and rose from her spot.
She glanced down at her legs to see tiny specks of blood from the minuscule shards of glass she had leaned on. Her knees looked wobbly, messy, disgusting. She started to run her hands through her hair repeatedly, mixing blood with her dark and tangled knots. She looked wild, like some kind of ravaging beast. Why couldn’t she feel wild? She wanted to feel wild. She wanted to feel panicked. She wanted to feel human. She wanted to feel alive. But she couldn’t. And that tiny flicker of anger was vanishing. Leaving her hollow. Leaving her vacant. Leaving her empty.
She went to her trunk and pulled out a pair of jeans. She skipped into them like a skeleton. The blood soaked up into the fabric and she ignored it. She grabbed at a white button-up shirt that she wore to classes and slid her arms into the sleeves. She shook like a drug addict as she tried to do the buttons up. She got half-way and left it, ignoring the fact that her lacy white bra was showing just slightly. She didn’t care. Empty people couldn’t care. She wanted to. She wished she could slip into some small act of obsessive compulsion in order to distract from her horrifyingly hollow reality, but she couldn’t. She could only grab at her school robes and put them on so they would cover up her bloody mess. She slipped her feet into worn out flat shoes. She grabbed her bedpost and took a long breath, attempting to stop her shaking. And then she tried to braid her hair. It seemed such a lost cause, but she tried to do so anyway. She needed something to do with her hands. Two loose braids hung about her shoulders, a mess of dark locks escaping and claiming their freedom as wisps around her eyes.
She needed out. She couldn’t go to class, but she needed out. So, she began to wander. She would wander the halls and be reckless and lost and exist. That was all she was capable of… Existing.
10:58 PM…
Emma stood before a tall window in an empty corridor. She stared out into the dark before her. She watched as the stars lit up, creating beautiful, entrancing art before her eyes. Relief. She felt some tiny sense of relief. The first feeling she had been able to tap into since that desperate glimpse at anger she’d felt in the morning. She could only attribute the relief to the knowledge that it was finally ending. She’d left her note upon the school’s bulletin board just that morning. In an hour, she would no longer be breathing. Her heart would no longer be beating. Her body would merely be an empty shell. She felt so close to an empty shell already that she wondered what the difference would really be. She tried to think, tried to process her actions. She wondered for a moment if there was a heaven and a hell. She’d believed in God as a little girl. She would pray when things got bad, she would pray when things got good. She’d look up at the sky and fancy that something out there was looking out for her. But as she’d grown up, God had started to seem like nothing more than a fairy tale. And, right then, Emma thought that even Hell would be a blessing. She would rather feel eternal pain, burning in an everlasting fire, than feel nothing at all for even an hour more. She would take Hell over the life she was living.
The stars were dancing. They were playing tricks on her. She tried to remember how many hours had passed since she’d dug the glass into her leg. She tried to remember the last person she had seen walk by. Had they noticed her? Had they known her name? Would they come back tomorrow and say, ”This was the last place that I saw Emma Logan, the girl who killed herself.”? Emma didn’t care. They’d most likely forget. And that would be easier. It was one thing to leave a world where others would cry over your death, but Emma had very few who would even pay her that honor. She thought only of her sister, her parents, and Severus Snape. Even her professors would only ever know her as a name on a list. She’d done it all on purpose. Part of it knew that this was how it would be.
She started to turn, she knew her time was withering away. And then she caught a tiny glimpse of something. There, in the corner of her eye, someone was moving. They were dashing out of her sight. Had Emma been functional, she would perhaps have chased after this person. But she could only think of what was ahead. She could only feel the uplifting weight of a few stolen potions ingredients in her school robe pocket. She could only let her lost-feeling feet carry her through those halls in an unaware kind of absence. She didn’t think of professors and prefects and others on patrol. She knew she was invisible. This was the last time that invisibility would matter.
The second floor bathroom had once been her refuge. She used to come there to get away from everyone else. Myrtle lived in this particular bathroom, but even the ghost didn’t like Emma. Emma was much too abstract to fit into even the most temperamental of Hogwarts ghosts’ reality. So, when Emma entered the girl’s lavatory, Myrtle promptly flushed herself down the toilet in the third stall down.
She took staggering strides toward the sink. She stared into the mirror and felt herself trapped in the morning. Should she break it? Should she attempt to feel something? Should she cry? Or lash out? Or yell? Or just speak? She could only stare. She could only stand as still as one of the many statues and look into her own glassy, stony eyes. She tried to get lost in some kind of distraction, to put off what she knew had to come. She tried to describe the exact shade of blue her eyes were. She could only go as far as to realize that it reminded her of glass. She felt as if she was a walking paradox. Here she was, staring into glass with glass. It was endless, reflecting back and forth, back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth. She realized her feet were teetering slightly. She was rocking back and forth on her heels. The movement was soothing. She felt a tiny fragment of calm take her, capture her.
She’d finally stopped shaking. Perhaps there was a God and he was guiding her now. He was taking her hands and steadying them. He was guiding them to her pocket where she pulled out the beautiful little bottle that contained her potion. The bottle was lavender. Emma had always been fond of lavender. And it had an icy quality about it that Emma would associate with death until she passed away in a few moments. There were times in life that were made for thinking, that were made for over-analyzing. This wasn’t one of those times. The movement was as casual as reaching for a goblet of pumpkin juice and taking that first refreshing gulp. Emma downed it like a shot. It tasted terrible, like tar and rust and gasoline. Yet she needed it. She needed it more than she’d ever needed anything else in her life. So, she swallowed it. All the finality washed over her. It was finally over. She was finally over. And she felt her knees buckling beneath her. It was too soon for the potion to take affect. This was emotion. This was everything she’d been dying to feel. And it was hitting her like a tangible object. She could feel the wind knocked out of her. She could feel the world becoming dizzy, becoming hazy. She could feel her eyes singed around the lines, her throat burning as if doused with alcohol and set ablaze by a flame thrower. She felt the tears she had so desired as they began to make their hasty escape. They drizzled down her cheeks so slowly that Emma wondered if they were made of some other liquid and not water.
And she felt as the numbness receded. She could feel the cold, dirty tiles that her palms were pressed against. She could feel the cuts on her body. She could smell the stench of the girl’s bathroom. She could hear the distant sounds that the castle offered. The occasional creak, the dripping of a faucet, the leaking of a pipe. She heard the screech of an owl outside the window and she looked up. She looked up to the stars as they continued to dance. She wondered if this was how Vincent Van Gogh had felt so many years ago. As he painted such beautiful masterpieces. Could he feel all of those sensations over-coming him? Did he do it because it made him feel alive? And Emma knew that those would be her last thoughts. She wanted them to be her last thoughts. She wished she could whisper a single word, Goodbye but she didn’t dare attempt to speak. She could only be lost in that haze. Her body sprawled out awkwardly on the damp floor. Her arms and legs flailed off in different directions. Her potion bottle having rolled beneath a stall beside her. Her hair resting in tangled tresses about her shoulders. This was her farewell. This was it.
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Post by severus allen snape on Apr 14, 2011 21:30:50 GMT -5
Rain splattered across his face, pounded into his pores. Severus gasped for air, his white knuckles digging into his knees, bent over in breathlessness. The heavy front door slammed shut behind him, blowing the gray, moist air at his back and pushing him down the steps. In his throat Severus could feel the beat of his heart, erratic and hard. His deep gulps of breath stopped cold at the lump his heart made, like a lump of coals never to be fired. He clutched his side, desperate for air, feeling the weakness spread over him from a lack of oxygen, and he buckled, almost hitting the stone below. But he turned his head and stared at the closed front door through a wall of watery blue eyes. The corners of his eyes warmed with tears and they billowed, pushed to the edge, broke the surface, and fell down his cheek heavier than any drop of rain.
Not one day could pass where Severus walked the halls alone and safe. Not once could he imagine life as anything but a long and narrow rode, hands and feet locked to move constantly, leading him to the next foul word, the next gentle but horrifying shove, the next curse flowing directly into his veins and kicking him when he's down. As Severus stood before the school bulletin board, worry welling up inside, chilling him to his core, and his eyes moved from note to note memorizing the loop and crosses of the scrawled black ink, Severus was being watched. The Ravenclaw quidditch team slopped in from practice, their voices distant rumbles of the storm approaching. Most dragged their feet to the steps and ascending towards their ivory tower, but two stayed behind and locked their cross hairs on Severus.
He, normally acute to the changes of atmosphere when young boys got it into their heads to make a little ruckus, kept his back turned to the boys. He kept his mind pinned to the bulletin board, analyzing the scraps of parchment with carefully worded paranoia spreading across them. The two boys, still wearing their bronze and blue, mud streaked jerseys, silently edged up to him baring their sharp teeth and claws. As Severus' pale hand reached for the last note, his finger resting on the raised question mark, they attacked. Their hands grabbed him, wrapped their claws around his shoulders and his neck, and pulled him back into their clutches. He grabbed, ripping the parchment and crushing it in his palm, and as he flew backwards into their callused hands and flexed, strong arms, his eyes flickered shut, knowing the familiar feeling that was about to wash over him.
He could feel finger nails digging into his skin, and one trickle of blood as the stronger of the two kept him down. The other laughed, his cackle deep and full, and he pointed his wand at Severus. You know that Potter, I don't think he was a good enough wizard to really teach you that lesson. He sneered at Severus, his words wrapping around the high pedestal he stood on. Let me have a go! The tip of his sturdy wand stabbed into Severus' flailing legs, steadying them. The boy holding him down, gripped his shoulders tighter, his thumb finding the crevice between his collar bone and his stopped heart. Severus opened his eyes, and kicked, his whole body revolted in anguish, and he knocked the wand away. It scattered across the hall, the clink of wood on stone echoing as Severus bit his lower lip in angered silence. You've got some fight in you, ain't that bloody right Snivellus? The boy dropped him, his body thumped against the floor, but he wasted no time wallowing. Severus scrambled to his feet and bolted from the castle.
The rain drowned out their laughter, and Severus stumbled on, knowing full well he was still on that narrow path. He would never escape. His legs wobbled across the courtyard, beyond the pale stone arches that dripped with dark, murky water. His right hand still crumbled the parchment, his left instinctively took hold of his wand, and as the strength slowly flooded back into his muscles Severus ran away. He stopped in the grass far behind the whomping willow, his knees dropping to the ground, and his hands falling at his side. His body convulsed as he wept, his shoulders heaving up and down with the sobs that poured from his eyes, from his wounds. Not one day could pass without torture.
He lifted his fists to his eyes, and forcibly pushed away the dried stains of tears. His wand dropped from his hand and landed silently beneath the tall grass. He pulled his hands away, opened his right palm and gently unfolded the parchment. The rain still pounded down through the sky, muddling the ink, running the words together. Severus had already made up his mind who wrote these things, he recognized her handwriting faster than he recognized his own when scribbled in old text books. He just hadn't the time to understand her final message, her final words...but they hit him now. They raced across his synapses, and jolted him in his gut. The rain poured through, the parchment becoming weaker every second he stayed in onslaught. Emma Logan. Had he seen her today? Severus gulped, the air once again stopping at his cold esophagus, he hadn't. He knew that for sure.
In the castle, perhaps waiting for him, were those boys. In the castle, the whole of the student body waited, but Emma Logan didn't wait, she had already begun fading. Without a thought Severus was up and running again. His sneakers dug into mud and pulled out again, letting the wet fly up against his black trousers and stain his gray uniform sweater. The rain had flattened his hair, it dangled before his eyes, passed his nose in some places, and plastered against his skin. The stones of the courtyard darkened under his trampling, and he flung open those heavy doors in a flurry of strength. The Hall was empty, but the orange glow of fire burst from it and spilled into the darkening night. Severus jolted inside, his body still cold, the fires seemed miles away. They flickered, teasing him, reminding him that nothing here was capable of feeling what he felt, except for Emma. She understood, she played along and complimented the orange flames with her black and blue life.
Instinctively Severus climbed the grand staircase, his hand flying up along the banister, dragging the soaked parchment with it and leaving trails of ink along the smooth alabaster stone. She'd be somewhere no one else would, somewhere so distant and prone to pain that people generally avoided it like a sickness. Moaning Myrtle cried out, her agony depressing even the most cheerful of souls, and that was enough to send people off in the opposite direction, but not Severus and Emma. They sought out those places, those tiny moments where loneliness was a synonym for survival. She would be there, he hoped beyond all hope that she would be there breathing and warm to the touch. His insides were cold, and hers were like ice, but her touch, her flesh still building cells and tissue was like a fire that ignited his own passion to burn. He didn't want to give in, to be put out, and this time, with his own flame, he'd keep hers alight.
The first floor corridor was crowded, Severus' panicked eyes found Alice's golden hair floating amongst the group. Alice! He screamed silently, his mouth agape, his eyes wide. Snivellus! was the response clamoring after him as he pulled himself up another flight of stairs. It rang against the halls but this time it didn't reach his ears. He nearly flung himself against the flat surface of the second floor, his hands scrambling against the dirty floor, his nails digging into the cracks, picking up all grime. He spat, his hair flying away from his face and his legs pushed up once more to carry him to the girls bathroom only a few feet away.
The door was slightly ajar, and in the flash of time that Severus spent just outside he could see her dark hair desperately trying to pull free from her braids, wildly searching for freedom across her face. She lay motionless on the floor, he now knelt beside her, his knees stained with grass. "Emma! Emma please!" Severus moaned at her, his hands wrapping around her shoulders, a tight grasp that felt gentle all the same. His own thumb now rested between her collar bone and heart and he could still feel it beat. He knew it wasn't his beat, it was her always steady tone. He shook her, pleading with her to be anything that resembled okay. She didn't move under his slender hands, and Severus leaned over her, his hair falling against her chest desperate to hear the beat, and his eyes lingered level with the ground.
The glint of a lavender vial caught his glance. It lay under the stall, left a trail of clear stone where it had wiped away the dust of years of isolation. The potion dribbled from the end, spilling the last drop of poison onto the floor. He watched it drip, his eyes following the edge of the vial to the floor, his heart racing with the knowledge that she had only swallowed it a moment before he came for her. He reached for his wand, the parchment fluttering out of his hand and landing on her stomach -- so thin the ribs poked through. His trouser pocket was empty, and his mind traveled fast down the steps through the entrance hall, flew down the steps and lingered in the tall grass so far away. No wand. He dug, desperately into his pockets, the creases and folds of his sweater and into the confines of his robe. The life saving lump of his bezoar, a last minute project before the potion exam next week, rolled into his grasp. He shoved it into her thin, dry lips. He held her close to him, his heart racing, his lungs depleted of all air, knowing that he wouldn't last long without her friendship, knowing that he might not ever want another gulp of air.
one thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven words |
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Post by emma elizabeth logan on Apr 14, 2011 23:16:47 GMT -5
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Emma was drifting into an endless blackness. She could feel her own heartbeat fading. Something was touching her, but her senses had shut down. Nothing was processing anymore. She had always expected bright light or Hellish fire. But this was different. This was nothing. This was an emptiness that could only parallel the life she had just begun to escape. Part of her wanted to panic, to turn back. Maybe this was what Hell was for those who ran from their lives like cowards. Maybe she should have seen this coming…
And then she was choking. Literally, choking. Not some kind of insane half-life state. She wasn’t dying. The blackness was fading and she could see light. Not the light of Heaven or Hell or an afterlife. It was the same eerie lanterns that were hung in the girl’s bathroom she had just passed out in. She was alive. She was breathing. She was choking. Her heart was still steadily thumping, slowly but surely. And someone had her in their arms. Someone that felt familiar and warm.
The air seemed to sting her. Her mouth still felt thick and sticking from the potion. And something else was there. A stone? Had she just swallowed a stone? That didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Why was she still alive? Who was there? She searched for those feelings of emptiness, but instead felt only a dizzying confusion.
It was him. It was Severus. That was who was holding her. Emma was shaking. She felt uncontrollable. And she was crying. When had she begun crying? The tears were falling in unmeasured pleats. Her head was aching and her chest felt heavy. And yet she remained there, being held like a child by her only friend. And she didn’t want him to let go. He couldn’t. She couldn’t be alone. She couldn’t be by herself. She truly felt like a ghost and she needed someone to be there to physically touch her and assure her she was alive.
Her mind raced. She was desperate for words. She had to explain herself, but she couldn’t. How could she explain this? This was something that was beyond her. She, who was always analyzing everyone, could not diagnose herself. She could not go through the task of putting words to her reality. She couldn’t sound like a normal human being. She could only shake. She could only lay there, fragile and broken and desperate and vulnerable. This was the most vulnerable she had ever been in her entire life. She tried to conjure up her first memory, her youngest state, and even then she couldn’t possibly remember ever needing anyone as much as she did then.
She was thankful. But nothing in life could ever be that simple. Along with that, she was furious. She was more angry than she’d ever been before. It was as if year’s of emotions were catching up to her, flooding through her body in such a fierce way that Emma was sure she would be better off dead. She wanted to hit her head over and over and over again until she bled to death because she was too angry to cope with her own actions and being saved and being found out. That was how she felt. She felt as if someone had discovered her great big secret. Someone had unmasked her and now she would never, ever be the same.
She sat up. She released herself from Severus Snape’s caring embrace. She pushed herself back. She was still so shaky. As she scooted away from him, she locked eyes. She could only assume she wore a kind of maniac, insane look. She wasn’t rational, she wasn’t presentable. She was psychotic. She was completely insane. She simply kept her eyes locked on his. She couldn’t move her gaze. Her lips remained slightly parted in an indescribable expression. And then, she felt the wall at her back. She couldn’t move any more.
”Wh…” She started to speak and found her throat aching. She ripped her gaze away. She looked down at her knees which she had slowly inched closer and closer to her chest. Now she had them wrapped up to herself and her arms came slowly into a kind of embrace. It was self-protection, although from what, it was hard to say. She was rocking back slightly, her head bobbing. She was trying to regulate her breathing, but it was still hard to understand what was going on around her.
”Why?!” She suddenly screamed. Her voice was a high-pitched kind of rasp. Her tone had always been raspy, but not like this. This was even worse. She didn’t sound like herself. She sounded possessed by something, her own fury perhaps. And once she found her voice, she honestly didn’t know if she’d be able to quiet herself again. ”Why did you do that, you fool!” She was howling at him, her pitch only heightening by the second.
”I was so close! I wouldn’t have to feel this anymore! I could have…” She stopped herself. Could have what? She didn’t know what would have happened. She had only felt as empty as she had before. She wouldn’t have wanted to be trapped in that kind of afterlife anyway. An eternal nothingness? Maybe Severus had saved her and brought her back to something better. Yes, she was now doused in over-whelming amounts of emotion, but it was so much better than that empty feeling. How could she be angry about that?
”You’ve felt pain. You know how I feel.” She tried, her raspy voice simmering down to a quiet, deathly whisper. Each word was so weighted. She was being manipulative without even trying. She was attacking the only person who had helped her. She was attacking her lone savior. And she was feeding him her pain on a silver platter. And she was becoming still. So still that she didn’t know if she could take it. Was she slipping back to nothing? She couldn’t do that. She needed to yell more, to feel anger, to light up with that emotion that she knew she owned, she knew she possessed! She let out a long, throat-scratching, whistle-pitched scream. She let it go for as long as she could hold it and then she coughed as her throat couldn’t take the pain anymore. She couldn’t feel nothing! She couldn’t go back to that!
”If I handed you a knife and I told you I’ve gone mad and I begged you to kill me, would you do it?” She croaked after her coughing ceased. She knew she looked terrible. She was so raw and real and dark and tormented. She was as exposed as she would ever be. And somehow, she saw that in him. She knew that inside, he had so many of those qualities too. So maybe, just maybe, he would understand her.
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Post by severus allen snape on Apr 20, 2011 22:36:19 GMT -5
When she began to weep, that's when it got to him. Up until that moment, as she lay in his rain soaked arms, he pleaded with all the energy he could muster that she would be okay. But when those tears hit her already soiled, taut cheek, he knew that this wasn't a simple fix. This wasn't something that was going to go away with a bezoar. Her body trembled, he clutched her tighter and felt every shiver, every shake of tears that rolled on out in waves of emotion, of raw human feeling. The only thing that kept him still was the bathroom floor, like sheets of thick ice. He was sure he'd fall through at any moment, sure that nothing could be so stable, but he never did. He held on to her, letting her cry, letting her experience, but keeping her safe to him. Her tears pelted him, and his own stung the edges of his eyes.
Nothing had prepared him for this, and nothing would ever compare. He was holding his friend, now the only friend that lived and breathed with him always in the back of her mind. Severus hadn't experienced anything quite so profound before, not even that moment when he mouthed the foulest word to the girl with bright green eyes. For a long time he had thought that her eyes were a reflection of him, that her eyes in some way proved that he could exist among them as an equal. Now Lily's eyes were like shards of a emerald that he had shattered to the floor, carelessly letting it slip from his hands. She left him with angry words, hurting words, that proved just how much damage he had done. Emma Logan was a black ruby, and Severus sat holding her, his fingers clenching around her bones like he was afraid of dropping her too.
But how could he help it when instead of slipping, she pulled away? Emma pushed out of his arms, and like some sort of a coward he let his arms just drop to his sides. As she slid back and away from him, gliding on the icy floor ever back and away, he could only watch. He felt for a moment a long, haunting stab of pain, that she was cracking around the edges and ready to burst. He had been the one to bring her back into the world that she was desperately escaping for the selfish reason of never wanting to be alone. Severus dropped his gaze, giving his tears an easier path out of his eyes and down to the pool of mud and water that gathered around him like a fence of despair. It wasn't until her back hit the wall and her knees pulled up, locking her behind her own fence, that he realized the absurd notion already filling the air.
Emma didn't need to die in order to feel. She just needed to live. Her anger was pain, her tears were knives, and all of that was hurtling toward Severus. Whether he had saved her or hurt her, that wasn't the issue that needed confronting right now. He nearly felt a physical need to raise his arms over his face as means of surviving the rage that she was throwing at him. He became the fool before her eyes, the jester with his mismatched and baggy clothing all ripped and soaked from the storm. Severus was the one who single handedly destroyed her future, or lack of one, but he was prepared to be that man. If he was that man then Emma was still alive. If he was that man then Alice still had a sister. If he was that man then he would still survive another day, month, year until the school boys left him alone once and for all. Severus kept his arms down at his side and took all of the brunt force of her spat out words.
"Emma." He spoke, just her name. As if that was a signal to listen. For some deep rooted reason Severus felt obligated to call her by her first name, always to think of her as just Emma and never Logan. Somewhere in the back of his mind the memories of Petunia being shadowed by Lily, and her anger at her sister made Severus picture Emma being known only as a smaller, messier version of Alice. And that didn't sit right with him, but that spark of thought flickered past and Severus simply laid his palms on the stone floor, bringing him back to reality. "I wouldn't." He stated, his words steady and loudly ringing against the room, like he wanted to take charge now that her fit had been given wind.
"I wouldn't for any thing. I wouldn't even for your most desperate pleas, because Emma I can't be selfless." He kept himself still, kept his distance from her knowing that she couldn't possibly move any farther away, and knowing he was still very much before the doorway out. Truth and stillness seemed like the only thing he could muster right now, the simplest way to keep breathing. "I can't let you go into that void and leave me be, alone. I won't let you drag me through the drains of this lavatory searching for you for the rest of my days. I will keep you here, by my side, because Emma I know that your death is the death of me and for the world I can't die yet." Even amongst all the pain and torture that he experienced each day, death was only an eternity of it. Severus couldn't die because he hadn't begun to glue the jewels he had broken back together, and he said all of this aloud because something in his heart thought she should know that with him she can always feel wanted.
nine hundred and eighty-one words |
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Post by emma elizabeth logan on May 5, 2011 18:50:10 GMT -5
Emma was motionless. She was still. It was as if she’d been frozen in that moment, petrified. She could only listen as Severus Snape’s words met her ears. She processed them slowly, attempting to understand each and every word. But communication was a lost art in her jumbled, chaotic mind. She felt this frenzied tsunami of thoughts flooding everything within her. She couldn’t physically respond to anything, because her brain was exploding internally, over-whelmed by layers and layers of thoughts all attempting to be processed at once. She took in his words and countered back mentally…
I only need to disappear. I only need to escape. I can’t breathe. Is that my breath? It’s caught! It’s trapped! What should I do? He’s speaking! He’s speaking to me again! I called him a fool! I begged him to kill me… Why am I alive? Why am I breathing? There it is again. My breath. I am breathing. I am breathing. Calm. Calming myself. My name is Emma. I am Emma Logan. I am alive. I am breathing. I am real. I am not a ghost. This is real. This is not a dream. This is not a nightmare.
I must give excuses. I must cover my tracks. I must pretend this never happened. If I try my very hardest, I can plaster on a smile that will convince them all I am okay. I will be fine. I feel things. I feel…. Emotions. I have all these emotions. I’m not empty. I am breathing. That’s my breath. It just slipped away again. And I’m taking in another. Count them Emma. One…. Two…. Three breaths. Good. I am keeping myself alive.
And he’s talking. He’s saying he can’t be selfless. Selfless…. How to define such a word! He’s giving me this speech. He’s…. He’s communicating. He’s telling me something. It’s important. I must listen. But I also must breathe. There it is. My breath. One…. Two…. Three…. Good Emma. Listen. Listen to what he’s telling you. Understand him. He gave you these breaths you steal. One… Two… Three…
Alone. He doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to die. The way he says it…. It makes it sound like I am important to him in some way. He needs me. Perhaps that is too much. I read too far…. He needs my presence. As I need his. As I did tonight. Or else I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t breathe… One… Two… Three…
I must think of what to say. He wants a response. I must be… Comprehensive. I must make sense. But I can’t. I can’t make sense. I can’t move my lips or else my breathing might stop. It’s so confusing! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Stop this screaming in my mind! End it now! If there is a God, he would stop all this screaming!
”Do you have a sleeping potion?” Emma whispered, the words slipping through her lips as if by accident. He’d said such meaningful things to her, but she couldn’t really, honestly process them. She could only ask a stupid question. She could only ask for something that would help shut her mind off. And part of her knew she shouldn’t even ask, but she needed to. She was still so unmovable. She sat so still, so statuesque. She longed for the shaking to over-take her once more and reassure her she was still there. She could only stare blankly, stealing into Severus’ own gaze. She could only offer him that long, icy stare that spoke all the things she couldn’t say. That whispered her truths to him. That told him her mind was exploding and she couldn’t possibly cope. She could only hope that this fanatic insanity within her was being expressed in that look, because there wasn’t any way she would ever be able to explain it.
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Post by severus allen snape on May 9, 2011 1:59:53 GMT -5
He could sort of sense the way she filtered from one sporadic thought to the next, with her thoughts juggling between the steady inflow of air and the confusion of life when only a few moments ago death had been crawling inside. Severus sat still in his spot, his body weight seeming to melt into the stone floor like glue settling between to pieces of parchment, taking a little piece of each and digging it into the other. He wouldn't have been able to get up without leaving a little bit of himself behind, and that spot on the floor of Moaning Myrtles bathroom would never be the same. It would always kind of slope downward for him, as he remembered this moment. Right then, Severus wasn't in the moment. He was, instead, thinking of all the moments to come where this would only be a memory. All of those moments, in the hallways, in the dormitory, in the world outside of Hogwarts, where Emma Logan is still alive and breathing. Like now, as her lungs seem to jump from full to empty and she tries to focus on letting it in while wondering if it will ever leave her for good.
In a flash Severus sees her lifeless body once more, her hair laying against the stone and settling down from the last few moments of her chaos. He still sees that vial of potion resting on the floor, pushed back a few inches from Emma's quick clamor back and away from Severus. And in that flash he is overwhelmed with a great happiness. Though everything in the world seems to be weighing in on the bad side of things, the very fact that he had stuffed that bezoar into her mouth and watched her cough up and out of death was enough to send his heart into all kinds of uplifting beats. But it only took one look back in her direction for his heart to sink once again. She seemed to be in pieces. One part of her was simply breathing, sitting still alive. Other parts were drifting in and out of consciousness. And another part, Severus worried, was still embracing death.
She looked up at him and whispered, called for a sleeping potion. Severus sat up straighter, his hand gripped the edge of his robes and crushed them between his fingers. Sleeping potion for the girl who only moments ago was making it so she'd never wake again? That was too much to ask of him, and he broke down, his brain unable to formulate strategic sentences that would sound, in some way, reassuring and hopeful to her frantic ears. His mouth mumbled words as they came to him instead, raw emotion from the confines of his sheltered facade. "I might. But really Emma, can it wait?" He let his body lean towards her, his arm extending to a couple stones before where he was sitting. They were warm, from the weight of her nearly dead body. "I have so many questions, so many thoughts. Why Emma? Why!?" His voice raised, not in anger but in sadness. Severus hadn't seen this coming, he had only seen a friend slip into a usual stupor. Not sleeping, not eating, not caring for cleanliness, that was all a normal Emma thing to do, but this, this was father than he had ever thought it would go.
"Why didn't you tell me you were thinking of this? Why didn't you try and seek some help before it came to death? Why did announce it like you did? Why didn't I see it before? Why has it all just come crashing in? Why was I too busy thinking of myself when you were up here? Why a potion, something I could have made? Why here? Why now? Why, Emma, why did you go through with it!?" His voice cracked and shattered, his arm felt weak and it trembled holding up his body from collapsing before her. It had taken all of the breath out of him to ask her, his lungs were now depleted and screaming for air. But the air in that room was stuffy and it felt like it was smoldering the back of his throat and into his lungs. He coughed, the fiery air being momentarily quenched by saliva. It was like his body closed up, blocking out the possibility of her frightening answers.
Which part of him would win? Severus wanted both to know why and to keep quiet and help her feel at ease. The moment those questions had filled the room Severus panicked that it was the wrong thing to say. What if all she really needed was a sleeping potion now to calm her nerves and later, over time, Severus would find the real meaning behind all of this. Behind her attempt at suicide. Behind the lucky fate that brought him here to save her at just the right moment with just the right ingredient. And then his heart started beating faster again, in the momentary silence before she replied. He was hanging onto that silence like it was the only thing in the world, because he desperately wanted to know why. Severus knew that he couldn't move, he couldn't let her sleep, he couldn't close even his own eyes until he knew why.
eight hundred and ninety words |
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Post by emma elizabeth logan on May 9, 2011 22:55:21 GMT -5
She could feel the tears somewhere locked away inside her. She could feel her throat aching, her breathing changing again. She was still shaking, still trembling. And he was declining her. He was saying no. No sleeping potion for the suicidal maniac, Emma Logan. No rest for the wicked! None! And then, the tears started up again. Quiet, muffled, disastrous tears. It felt as if her tears were made of lava and scalded her cheeks as they traveled downward. Perhaps she was hallucinating. It wouldn’t be the first time. She was alive and she wasn’t supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to be there in that moment at all. And it wasn’t until he asked her why that she felt this moment in full.
She was still trembling and her movements seemed more labored than they had been before. But she moved forward nonetheless. She moved closer to his outstretched hand. She inched slowly, so slowly that she felt like a broken clock attempting to tick from one second to the next. And the tears were this onslaught of vulnerability, of this whole person she never was. And she could only keep inching forward more until she was close enough to touch him. She felt this weigh inside her, dragging her down. Maybe Hell was trying to grasp her and pull her into its depth. Or maybe it was just a side-affect of the potion that was supposed to kill her. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Emma’s desperate, weak, shaking hands were touching Severus Snape’s face. She had him in her hands, forcing him to stare at her.
She couldn’t imagine how she looked, she didn’t care how she looked anymore. It didn’t phase her because the only thing that mattered was this strange boy with the blue eyes and the darkness around him that was like her. She literally had him in her hands and he was demanding an answer and she had no lies, no magical solutions. She had only the truth and even that was almost too hard for her to grasp. So, she cleared her throat with a long, scratching gulp of air. And she wished her tears away, but they remained her constant companion because this wasn’t the type of conversation two people could just have. This wasn’t a source of communication, this was a source of emotion. It was emotion Emma didn’t want and had been cursed with. And now, she was offering her curse to her best friend.
”All my life… I’ve… I’ve never made any sense.” Emma began, her voice hollow and empty and her eyes dark. Her brows tugged together from tension. Her whole body was so tense all the while shaking. She was like a wire that was being tugged tighter and tighter and still sending out strange little vibrations, signals to some far away place. ”I was different. And then I was… I was wrong. I was broken.” She couldn’t make sense. She just couldn’t. ”I was empty.” She stopped for a moment. She was still staring at him. It was so deep. Emma had this connection to this young man that was more meaningful than any other she had ever made before. It wasn’t something romantic or even friendly. It was the kind of depth that went without describing, went without defining. She asked nothing of him but only that he remain as he was right then, existing and hearing her words as she spoke them.
”The thing about being empty… Sometimes tiny things could fill me up a little ways again. Like Alice. Or sometimes you. Or something. I know I don’t seem it, but I really love life Severus. I love the littlest things. I love people. A lot. I know I say I hate them and I hate them too… But I love them. I love to watch them all and see them be real and be human. I love to see how they feel the things I can’t feel. I can’t possibly feel those things.” She was speaking quickly, but the desperation in her eyes spoke far more than her words. Her raspy voice was telling him the truth, but her eyes were forcing him to feel her truth, to feel her love and her emptiness and her life.
”And some days, the emptiness just gets to be too much. To walk in a haze and feel like I didn’t exist at all. It was like I was already dead. And emotions… They go away. It’s like being lost in nothingness. It’s so hard to deal with feelings, especially big feelings. But it’s millions times harder to feel nothing. I would… I would get into that space and I’d know. I’d know how hopeless it all was. Because people think they can help. Or they say they can help. But no one knows until they’ve felt it, until they’ve been lost in the nothingness. You’re not even human anymore. You’re like air. Just blowing about. No thoughts, no feelings, barely in existence. ” Her tears were still falling steadily. Her shaking had let up slightly. Her hands were still on Severus’ face. They stole at his body heat and took the tiniest comfort from him. So little movement, and yet this was more contact than she’d ever truly had with him. This was more important.
”And so, I thought I could handle it. I could force myself to feel. And sometimes, that’s why I would stop eating. The ache of my stomach was a comforting kind of pain. Pain was better than nothing. And then I couldn’t sleep. I just couldn’t. And that made things worse. I just got more and more hazy. And I was growing numb to the ache in my stomach. And then… I thought if I could find any pain that would wake me up from all this, I would treasure it. But nothing was good enough. And I wasn’t thinking. But I was. And it was clearer than ever. And there’s this point where you just give up. And it’s not something to be proud of. It’s a point where I felt like there wasn’t any returning. I needed to say goodbye so I left a note. And I shouldn’t be here right now. I shouldn’t be alive. I shouldn’t hurt you more than I already have. I can’t fix anything. I don’t know how.” She spoke the last part softly and felt as if she was choking on the words, like she could vomit if only she had something to throw up. And she had no idea how to talk to him. She could only hope that was enough to make him understand. Because none of it was rehearsed or thought out or perfected or manipulative. It was all raw and real and honest and there was no turning back from anything anymore.
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Post by severus allen snape on Jul 5, 2011 21:48:11 GMT -5
Her hands touched his face and it felt like the world, previously spinning round and round in the great scheme of things, had just stopped and weighed in on the pair of them on that stone, bathroom floor. His knees hit the crevice that one stone made with another and dug into it, nearly hitting bone to solid coldness if it hadn’t been for a thin layer of fat. In one insane moment he thought of the fact that Emma’s knees must be rough against that floor. He could feel the bones in her fingers, that little bump where your arm met your hand, the flesh that seemed so little and yet so drenched. She grabbed onto his face and tugged, and it sort of forced his eyes on hers. They were dark, even behind the wall of tears. They were these two worn out lumps of charcoal. Just behind them, the last sparks were flitting out of existence, the last bit of her fire was dying down and the lumps of charcoal rolled around and around inside of her head, uselessly turning because that’s all a rock is good for anymore.
His own eyes weren’t anything better. They were this glassy sort of transparency, almost like you could see through them and right down to his core, but there was nothing behind them to see into. He built up a wall of tears, his throat clenching around the pit of his stomach that had risen to meet them at this confrontation. And except for the tears and the lump in his throat, Severus was the empty shell of a sixteen year old boy, and he was staring at those pieces of burned out charcoal that was Emma Logan. She was telling him everything that she knew, like her words were frothing up from inside, and he sat there absorbing it. Just staring and listening and filling himself with her words. He couldn’t place his finger on that exact feeling she was describing, the feeling of nothingness, but he was sure he had felt it before for at least a brief period of time. Then again, Severus was usually filled with emotions whether he wanted them or not. Sadness. Anger. Regret. Fright.
Could he possibly explain that to her though? Could he look her in the eyes, like he’s doing now, and say, Emma, I wish I felt nothing. No he couldn’t. Instead he blinked, sent a wall of tears crashing down his cheeks and into the spaces between her fingers, and gasped for air. The bathroom suddenly felt smaller; at least it was containing less air, that, Severus was sure of. Emma’s hands, still pressed gingerly on his face, tied him to the spot. He wouldn’t have wanted to run anyway, until the awful sound of a high pitched, mournful screech filled the lavatory. If Emma hadn’t been looking straight at him, her words just barely escaped from her lips, Severus might have clutched his chest and ran. Moaning Myrtle had a way of making you feel guilty on top of whatever other damage it was that brought you running into her solitary prison cell. Severus, on a normal day, would waltz right on out if Myrtle was in one of those moods, but this wasn’t a normal day.
Myrtle screamed again, and he jumped slightly. He put his own hands up to touch Emma’s and he sighed into her palms. ”Emma, I understand you. I’ve felt empty before. Sometimes I wish I was numb instead of feeling the things I do, but death scares me. Didn’t it scare you?” Severus’ train of thought stopped dead there, though his chest filled with air ready to spill the rest of his desperate words, and his voice was flushed out by the sound of all the toilets and drains rushing with water. Myrtle flew out of the top of the second stall and perched herself above the two of them. They must look like drowned rats from her high view, not that Myrtle ever looked much better. Her beady eyes peered at them through her glasses that appeared to be still moist and slightly fogged over from her time crying back in 1943.
”Death isn’t scary! It’s just dreadfully boring. You think you’re alone now, ha! They’ll leave you at the funeral!” Myrtle called down to them. Her voice cracked at different intervals, and ranged from a deep, sad tone to a screeching wail. Severus jerked his head up to her, angry. This wasn’t the time. This was something important, something that really mattered. He could come running here crying at any other time, worried over Lily or upset at Sirius, and she could scream at him then. But now!? When Emma was lost but still right there before him. Now wasn’t the time for lectures on death. He couldn’t stand it. ”Myrtle! I didn’t ask you!” He shouted, his voice hoarse though he hadn’t been screaming until now. ”I didn’t ask you!” He called again, dropping his head from Emma’s grasp and staring at the floor that flooded up around him with water and dirt, and a few flecks of grass from outside. A drop of rainwater, or tears, fell off the hook of his nose and hit the edge of his robes.
Severus reached his hand out for Emma, touching her arm gently. She was still there, and he could feel a sort of lively heat rising out of her. ”Just ignore her Emma.” He spoke, softly this time, his words before now lost to him. But what was it that Severus was so angry about? Myrtle had only just reacted out of the resentment that filled her non-beating heart, and didn’t her reaction matter? There was something about this girls lavatory that attracted the badly drawn characters of Hogwarts into its chambers. It was always empty, cold, and had a general feeling of being broken, and yet it was a safe place to hide, and in Emma’s case, a safe place to die; safe from the outside world that continued living in the midst of your destruction. And maybe that’s all Myrtle was reacting to.
one thousand and twenty-seven words |
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Post by emma elizabeth logan on Aug 1, 2011 21:54:24 GMT -5
Myrtle’s screeches rang in her ears. Emma let them pierce through her wildly. She felt as Severus stole her hands into his own. Part of her craved what little warmth he offered. Some small fragment of her sparked with the last flickering her life’s flame could offer. Maybe he understood her. Or maybe not. Maybe Emma was somewhere in between right now. Somewhere floating around in the world between Severus Snape and his pain and Moaning Myrtle and her resentment. Emma couldn’t help but wonder if either of them could even fathom what it was like to bask in the nothingness that Emma so desired to leave behind her. And then he was speaking again and it was all just as Emma had feared. He didn’t understand. Of course he wouldn’t! Who would? Emma was mad! She was completely insane. And that was when it hit her; just how bad it really was. Even Severus, who had been as broken as her, had never been where she was now.
”How could I feel fear when I feel nothing at all?” Emma whispered as a delicately pathetic smile offered itself to her expression. ”As for you Myrtle… Had Severus here let me kill myself, I would have become your constant companion in this petty lavatory. And perhaps you’d receive some payback for all the annoyances you’ve offered to the students of this school. Do you honestly think anyone wants to listen to the sound of your voice?” Emma’s tone was harsh, undeniably cold and cruel. ”You think you know everything about life just because you’re dead. Where is your God Myrtle? Perhaps you’ve been given a gift, turning into a ghost. Maybe there’s nothing out there after life and you were handed a second chance. But you waste it. You whine and cry and go on and on about how horrible everything is. You’re alone because no one can stand you.”
Emma stopped. Her breathing had sped up and, her slight anger at Myrtle had offered her emotion. But part of her was shocked at her own words. Was that it? Was that why she’d been wallowing in nothingness? Was it because she didn’t believe in God? Or whatever God was out there had abandoned her and left her feeling numb and alone? Who could trust a God that had left them when they were most vulnerable? The thought of being abandoned by something Emma couldn’t even physically see or touch made her feel ill. And that was when she felt Severus’s hand on her arm. She couldn’t remember when he’d moved away from her and when he’d reached out to her once more.
”Leave Myrtle. Now.” Emma commanded in a whisper. But Myrtle didn’t leave. And she didn’t speak. She merely hung her floating form above the stalls and gaped down at them. Her eyes spoke her emotions quite simply enough. She was offended and hurt. But Emma refused to take even a word of it back. This night had been a night of no reservations. Emma had drank the potion and intended to die. Everything was word vomit and free falling chaos from here on in because, to her, none of it was ever meant to happen. What was she supposed to do when she felt as if she wasn’t supposed to have survived?
”What do I do Severus? How do I fix myself?” She asked him with wide eyes. ”Where do I go from here? Please, just tell me.” She was pleading. She felt like a drug addict and he had her medicine. ”I won’t try to kill myself again if you please just help me.” She was speaking quickly now, feverish and desperate. ”Every human being in entitled to their darkest hour as long as there’s the promise of light somewhere in the distance. Offer me some light. I’m begging you.”
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