Saving Tommy

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"Wh-wh-wh-who a-are you?" breathed the girl, her whole body jittering in nerves as the ginger-haired intruder stared at her in pure shock. A few drops of silence passed.

"How... how can you see me?" the ginger asked, finally.

The girl stared.

What type of question was that?

"How did you get in here?" the girl retorted quickly, more strength in her tone this time. She grasped the metal object between her hands, drawing courage from it—not that she would have to use it, she hoped.

The ginger blinked, those green eyes flittering from the girl's face to the weapon in her hand. More excruciating silence passed, and it began to rake on the girl's nerves for, so far, only questions had been asked, and she wanted answers.

Rising from her slouch, the girl pointed the metal stick at the ginger in a show of strength. "You tell me what is going on right now," she threatened. "Or I will tell the doc—"

But the doctor is frozen.

"Tell me what you did to the doctor this instant!" she concluded impulsively.

The ginger's eyes widened, flashing to the doctor's form which still stood undisturbed and attached to the door handle. "Oh," she said, slowly, her breath quickening, her body rising. "Oh!"

"'Oh,' what?" questioned the girl, but the ginger wasn't listening. She only repeated her exclamations, her hands rising to thread roughly through her bright carrot hair. The girl stared in horror. One of the hands... one of the ginger's hands was disfigured, veined, a knob with three spindly fingers.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" cried the ginger, causing the girl's eyes to snap from the disfigured hand to her face. "I didn't know—I didn't mean to—this wasn't supposed to happen!"

"What wasn't supposed to happen?"

"This!" exclaimed the teenager. "I was only supposed to drop off the note, but then the machine began to malfunction and they tried to pull me back but—"

"'The note?" 

The ginger stopped in her babble, her body freezing, her eyes growing wide. The room seemed to hush immediately. Only a silence remained... an intimate silence.

"Did you read them?" she asked.

The girl flinched at the hoarseness of the question, a whisper of breath with a world of meaning. She opened her mouth.

"...No."

The ginger took in a shuddering breath, a small pitiful sound accompanying it. The green eyes welled, and the girl tried to ignore the twist in her heart as the young intruder began to wipe away silent tears. Shame threatened, yet she pushed it away.

"Why do you cry?" the girl spoke harshly. "You know nothing. You don't even care."

"I do care!" the ginger cried. "I care about him, and you, and all the rest who are waiting—" she stopped with a sob. "I love him so much, and I can't..."

The girl flinched at the intruders words—yet she didn't know why. It was odd. She was supposed to be the weak one, the inconsolable one, the one plagued with tragedy and haunted with nightmares. She was supposed to be drowning. But as she looked across at this other girl who was breaking down in tears, she felt that it was this girl who was trying to stay afloat. And here she sat, on the floor with a stick in her hand, staring like an empty shell.

Perhaps she was already dead. That would explain alot.

The girl stared for a little while longer, watching those tears fall, but then an unsettling sensation began to form inside her chest, twisting her mouth.