Work Text:
A soccer ball made its way across the street, landing right near her feet. She looked over to see where it came from, A group of kids playing in the park until one of them kicked it out of bounds. She could recognize them as the 5th graders from her school. None of them made a move and the entire group looked at her expectantly, unspeaking in their request for Zoey to throw it back to them so they could get right back to it.
She kicked it with all the enthusiasm she could muster and watched it lazily travelled until stopping halfway across the street. She didn't give it enough force. She turned back, continuing her walk as she heard footsteps running and a kid saying "Bitch," near her, most likely to her. She couldn't care less.
She couldn't give a damn to care about anything at all, really. It was nearly an odd sensation, a feeling that she thinks would make her sad if she could feel at all.
Instead, what was inside her was a black hole of an emotion. It sucked everything in and it left her feeling nothing. Nothing at all, like she was just an empty body walking through the motions. It was like a big, gaping hole inside of her that showed up and stuck around ever since her....
She bit the inside of her cheek hard and begged herself to think of quite literally ANYTHING but that. There were a lot of other things to focus on. Like how the sun got in her eyes and burned her skin, or the dog shit sitting gracefully in the middle of the path, or even the... uh....
She tried to imagine all the microscopic bugs crawling on the floor, on her boots, on her skin. Millions- or was it billions? She wouldn't know, she wasn't paying attention- of bacteria and viruses making their way through their existence. It grossed her out but it was better than the alternative. The thousand of legs that could be squirming their way on her, she stared down on the ground as she walked and tried to hone in on it, wondering if she could feel it.
The taste of metal filled her mouth and she was forced out of her train of thought.
There was just too much to think about, and too little of anything else.
She tried to imagine some of the music she liked, she sure was a fan of that. The squeal of an electric guitar, the thrashing of drums on the most unconventional rhythm, how a bass could complete the entire picture of sound.
Or perhaps something softer, the gentle, acoustic guitar strumming its melody, the flow of a flute and how it ties around the listener into a sweet hug. The soft, melancholic humming of a voice that says everything is fine, it will all work out in the end, that it loves you and to not miss them when they're gone...
...Fuck! There she goes again. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape the grief of her mother's passing. It hit her hard, harder than a freight truck going 90 crashing into her. It was painful to think about, but she couldn't avoid it being brought back again and again into her mind.
It was a horrible feeling, one that physically hurt and made it hard to breathe. It would leave her unable to speak or to move, helpless like a newborn baby. It was an emotion so strong all she could do is lay on the floor and try to cry it out, but it never ended, and always came back.
She felt the tears beginning to well in her eyes as the pit in her chest began to form. She tried to act like she was shielding her eyes from the sun to get it to stop, but it was worthless attempt. She wasn't able to hold back the first tears and she knew that once they started she could only wait them out.
There were only a few streets left until she got to her house and she tried her best to not start publicly sobbing. However, how life commonly does, it didn't go her way. All she can do at this point is try to muffle her whimpers and hang her head low as she speed-walked the rest of the path. She could almost FEEL the glares and looks people gave her.
They would all tell her how sorry they were, how they knew she was going through a rough patch, but none of them could ever know the type of pain she felt. They couldn't just say "keep going" when they didn't know how hard it was to stay. Even during the night she didn't have any break from the grief because she was an aware dreamer. She continued fully conscious during the night for more hours of laying still and waiting for it to be over, but it felt like there was no end to this.
She had lost her mother, her entire world. Her mother was the one who took care of her, the only one left to love her after her father left when she was still a baby. Her mother stayed by her side and helped her get through everything even though Zoey knew she was struggling herself. She taught her how to sing and how to play, she showed her what there was to love about the cold world before in unfairly took her away.
Without her, she felt undead, like a complete void of a person. Zoey herself was the absence of the missing piece where her mother once was. It made her upset, it burned her insides with rage and her eyes with tears she refused to let slip.
She looked up again when she came face to face with her home. As soon as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her, she burst into hysterics. She couldn't hold it back anymore, she felt it all get expunged out of her body like bile.
All around her where only things that angered her more. The plants her mother used to care for, the old instruments she could play, even the big bed with the comfiest mattress that sagged slightly from use, where she used to snuggle with her mother when she was younger and having a bad day. It would never be used again, it was empty just like Zoey herself, purposeless. Everything around her, empty and soulless, as if all meaning had left with her mother when she died. All the life stemmed from her and now that she was gone, everything just became a meaningless husk of what it once meant to someone.
Perhaps that someone was Zoey herself, but what does something mean to a human that no longer feels?
The paradox she found herself in tore her apart bit by bit. She felt nothing for anything but she felt absolutely everything for something. It was as if her soul was ripped apart, shattered glass that would forever be broken no matter how hard anyone tried to mend it.
She knew there were people who would still care for her, someone who would take her in soon once everything settled down a bit, but it wouldn't be her mother and it could never be her. It was a hole too big to ever be filled in.
Nothing would ever mean what it used to and it hurt her heart so much she wished she could vomit it out. She wished she could rip it out of her own chest and stomp on it until it was nothing but a splotch of red. She'd rather take the worst pain in the world than this mental one. Maybe then would she be able to feel SOMETHING other than the harrowing grief that squirmed violently inside her. She cried loudly as if she was pleading for help. Like she was crying out to her mom and just wanted her to hear her so she could pick her up and tell her everything would be okay.
But she never came, despite how hard she wailed for her. She waited and waited, knowing how stupid it was but being unable to hope for anything else.
No one else ever came, either. Not her friend who she hoped she was on good terms with who hadn't asked her a single time if she was okay, not any family, not a single person. She was left alone in the emptiness and no one was coming to even try and fetch her out of it.
The home she had spent her entire life in was now truly empty, and there was not a single thing full of life in it anymore.