Chapter Text
The world as it once was before.
There was a before. The utter fact she could divide her life so distinctly baffled her. A deep cut in the thin fabric that held the threads of her life together. Before. Did it still exist? Yes. Yes, she…she remembered. It was weird, it felt like watching a movie in the back row. It wasn’t her body, those weren’t her actions and that could not possibly be her life. Too bright, too carefree, too hopeful. She could remember, but now, what was the point?
She was sure it was useless, as well as terribly cruel. Pouring salt into an open wound. She could feel tears pushing fiercely and viciously, eager to stream down her cheeks. She knew that if she let them, they would overflow. Splashing her face with the sour taste of salt and defeat. And what she didn’t know was if she would be able to stop. So she sniffed, and rubbed her eyes, swiftly and with faked nonchalance, as if behind the forest of her gaze she wasn’t hiding the Niagara falls. And yet. And yet, all the atrocities she was been through, that awful knot in her chest, whose strings were reaching down her stomach to squeeze it like an old rag, recalled her, as an oxymoron, those days when smiling didn’t seem so inconvenient.
Her thoughts were scanned by the deafening noise of the blades whipping the air. Glimpses of light. Flashes. Sunrays in the darkness that still burned in her eyes, in her mind, in her heart. Tar dripping down her skin, slow and inexorable, sticky and toxic.
She flinched, startled. Something brushed against her shoulder. She felt her heart racing and heard it pounding in her ears. Din. But she was safe. She knew she was safe on that goddamned helicopter. However, the horror was too fresh to allow her to keep calm. Sam could not help it but feel at risk, danger followed her like the scent of her favourite perfume. It was always behind her back. Blood was still on her hands, death lingered like an acrid smell and… “you can’t tell me what to do!”. Something inside her snapped. Branches scratching her gut.
She turned quickly, facing Chris’ hand hanging in mid-air. He stared at her through a pair of squared lenses. He was shocked, clearly shaken, profoundly upset. Like the others, after all. But she recognized something in his eyes, something the others lacked and she shared. Sadness. Agony. Guilt. Regret. Dawn didn’t save them.
Although the girl nodded almost imperceptibly, Chris managed to understand the cue. He gingerly placed his palm overs her shoulder. Then, he clutched it. She welcomed the pressure. It was a reminder: she wasn’t alone.
Sam eventually gave into crying. Strangled, silent, reserved. Chris noticed her body tremble, though he remained silent. His vision was blurry, too.
The Washington siblings belonged to the before. Their place was among the memories of a past severed from the present, completely unrelated to the future.
Beth, Hannah… Josh. Shadows. Spirits. Ghosts who would haunt her for a long time. Sam asked herself if she had killed them. Surely, she wasn't able to rescue them. And wasn't it the same?
At the same time, she kept seeing them, when she could have touched them, when she could have joked with Hannah and listen to Josh laugh. It was a cold comfort. Pain, more than comfort. But it was everything she had. Slivers. And no one would've ever been able to take that, at least that, from her.
Sam spent her life pretending. Pretending she didn’t care, pretending she didn’t wish, pretending she didn’t need. But she cared, she wished, she needed.