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Penny Lamb had only been out of the hospital for three weeks.
She was still bandaged and bruised - unfortunately coming back to life doesn’t erase what caused you to die, but I guess a missing leg is better than a missing head.
Penny could remember the warehouse, how cold and clammy it was. The odd ringing in her ears whenever she stepped towards the machine. The panic and twisting of her stomach when she saw herself in that funhouse mirror.
Seeing someone who isn’t yourself in the mirror is an uneasy feeling. She would need to get used to that. The Penny Lamb she is now is not the same as she was before. That Penny Lamb is dead.
Yes, while she’s back in her old body with her own head, the Penny that’s operating this body is different. She’s changed. She acted like a new person now.
She stopped staring blankly into the mirror and spat out her toothpaste. Rinsing and putting away the toothbrush, she adjusted herself on her crutches and headed to her closet.
She was getting ready for Constance Blackwood’s funeral.
Her hair stayed in her twin braids and she has thrown on a long, black cloak-like gown just above her ankles.
As she walked down the street with her umbrella, she stared at the ground, the reflections of her on the wet sidewalk staring back.
Penny thought she could handle death. She experienced it. But oh, was she wrong.
Throughout the funeral she stayed in the same place, in the same pose, staring at the same thing. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything. Everything, from the moment she heard that roller coaster break, still hadn’t clicked. It was too much to process.
She couldn’t even bring herself to eat the pastries Mrs. Blackwood had brought.
Strawberry shortcake, Constance’s favorite.
Choking back any tears, Penny lifted herself up from the bench and directed herself over to Constance.
The terribly inhuman look of a dead body did not make Penny feel any better peering into the open casket.
If there was one thing she could process the least since the incident, it was everyone’s deaths.
The once full-of-love girl was now cold and lifeless in front of her.
The girl who deserved so much more than ‘nicest girl in home room’, the girl who had so many younger siblings looking up to her, the girl who deserved love more than anyone else, the girl who only loved life when she didn’t have one anymore, was right in front of her, dead.
…no, that isn’t Constance.
Constance was warmth and love. Constance was the smell of vanilla and strawberries. Constance was a big sister who was looked up to.
The girl in front of her was just a body.
She could never get Constance back. No matter how hard she tried. She could never get the choir back.
She would have to walk into all her classes and see an empty desk that was once occupied by a friend. She would have to walk past the choir room on her way to leave the school.
The now empty choir room.
The now empty choir room that only contained sheet music, the smell of people who once stayed in that room, the smell that would soon be wiped away and never able to return, ripped out notebook paper with handwriting on it, handwriting that could never be rewritten, a notebook that could never be claimed.
Penny couldn’t tell if the aching in her bones or her heart felt worse.
The choir was gone.
The choir was gone forever and there was nothing she could do about it.
Poor Penny Lamb.