First To Be Last

1. Her

HE WAS GOING TO DIE.

There was no doubting it.

Trying to get away from powerful people, being a hero, but still ending up dead in an empty field. That's how it was going to be.

Barefoot, cold, scared and alone, he didn't stand a single chance against anyone, let alone them.

They were getting

closer

and closer,

and closer.

And he kept running

faster

and faster,

and faster.

Then, without the slightest bit of a warning to prepare anyone— A humanly enough seeming hand came, ripping him and his tragical story away from the captivated bright blue eyes of the Shelby girl.

"Watcha reading?" it asked, bringing the object upwards to glance over it with eyes of its own.

"Why'd you care? Give it back, John" the girl persisted, reaching over from the boring living room couch.

"Why wouldn't I care?" the glancing had already stopped, but his right hand in which the boy's story stood proudly, kept getting higher up.

"Seriously John, give it over!" She felt just like the boy in the book, little and unable to fight, except she wasn't trying to run from any dangerous persons, on the contrary, she was now chasing one of them.

"John, please, can I just have my book back?" She was somehow experiencing shortness of breath, even if the running match had lasted for lower than one minute. Observing her brother's annoying smirk getting bigger led her to sighing. "Please, John?"

"Jesus, fine. Look at ya', I would go as far as sayin' you're about to have that breath thing, if you hadn't told me over n' over that it's called 'asthma attack' " He swung the book to her, but his teasing didn't go unnoticed by the girl, who was now searching for a smart remark to throw his way.

"To have 'the breath thing' you would need to have asthma, which I most certainly do not,-" There it was. Not a remark, a stupid remark is nothing compared to the masterpiece she was thinking about. "-so maybe I was just simply not trying to run after yo—"

She started coughing. Boom. Heavily breathing. Her eyes went big and scared. She dropped her book. Her hand quickly travelled to her chest. Then to her neck.

She watched carefully as her brother's smile turned into a concerned expression. This performance was something she could win many things from is she were an actress.

And the final act, ladies and gentleman, her legs suddenly 'gave out'.

"Dorothy?!" He ran near the girl, gently positioning her backside on the spiky old carpet and looking at her face with terror. He didn't know what to do, it was crystal clear. But he surely did know how to annoy someone, anyone, for that matter.

The coughing and the breathing struggles stopped all at once. It was now the girl's turn to laugh. He wasn't very pleased with that.

"Oh piss off honestly" John irritatedly remarked, getting up from the crouched position he stood in near his sister.

"Come on now, it was pretty funny" she continued while grinning at him with a slight proudness in the corner of her eye.

"Funny my arse! You're a terrible joker, you know that!?" he shouted as he opened the door to the betting den.

It was going to be a very busy day, judging by the many known and unknown voices coming from the inside.

"What was that bloody racket for?" the girl's aunt asked, without sounding too impressed at whatever she thought just happened between the two siblings.

"Fuckin' psychopathic that one is, 'm telling ya'!" he surely did tell her..

There was one thing no one ever questioned about Dorothea Anna, and that was her sanity. Surely enough, they made jokes about it, but that was all.

They knew that she was smart. A witty child whose sighting can go beyond the surface of one's skin, seeing directly into one's soul. What they didn't know, and nor did they ever think of, were the costs that were bound to come with it.

Dorothea realized, from a very early age, that the world wasn't going to adore her. Not one bit. Not if she acts like herself or if she speaks about what comes to her mind. They all seemed so happy, and at the same time so clueless. Unaware of anything. 'It's better to see the full part of the glass rather than the empty one' they would often voice. But they wouldn't ever ask who the hell filled it only halfway.

Reading made her feel better. The authors were carefully picked by her own self strategically. She wanted to understand her mind, and if someone was going to help her do that, or at least have a try at pretending to, it were the authors whose books she read with such devotion.

Why wasn't Finn that way? Why wasn't he like her? They were born at the same time by the same woman after all. She didn't know. She didn't have the slightest clue. And that— That is what made her anxious. This poor girl was able to question anything. Nothing seemed of actual worth to her. Because once you question something so much, it becomes irrelevant, worthless.

The beginning of her downfall

was her very own birth.