Polaroid (A Phan AU)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Trigger Warnings: mentions of suicide and just overall a depressing chapter, really.

Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

~Phil Donahue

To this day, I don't know why or how I woke up that night, but somehow, I did. My eyes flickered open to face the darkness and my gaze fixed on a section of my bedroom wall.

My mind was blank until I had a sudden, insatiable need to talk to my sister properly.

I hopped out of bed and crept out of my room. Soon enough, I began to walk normally, remembering that Mum wouldn't be in anyway.

I reached Cassie's door and knocked. Twice. Three times.

I pulled open the door, popping my head around and glancing about.

The light was on and the bed untouched, smoothed out sheets and unruffled pillows.

I opened the door wider, entering the room fully. Cassie was nowhere to be seen.

I made my way across the room and towards her bathroom, and knocked at that door too.

"Cassie? Cass?" I called softly. The reply I awaited never arrived.

What was the harm in risking seeing something I didn't want to just to check she was OK?

I slowly pulled open the door, thankful that it was unlocked. The lights were off in here, the light from the main room casting one ray across the floor.

She's not here, I thought, as I reached for the light-switch.

My fingers froze on the icy switch.

There was a noise.

A quiet slosh of water.

I pressed down.

The room flickered to life. And there she lay. Fully dressed and soaked in bath water.

Soaked in blood.

I flew to my sister's side, silent screams emitting from my soul, but unable to make a sound. Taking ahold of her eerily white hand, I took in the three identical horizontal slits across the inside of her wrist.

Across her pulse.

Across her veins.

I cradled the limb gently, quietly sobbing. Her beautiful, fluffy cloud of lilac hair was now sticking out in all directions, crimson matter clinging to it in clumps, dying it blood red. Those once sparkling, crystal blue eyes were dull grey and devoid of emotion, devoid of life.

But then I saw a flicker.

I don't know of what, but just something. Maybe it was a tiny flutter of her pulse, a shallow rise of her chest, a twitching of her finger.

But there was hope.

She wasn't dead yet.

I flew into action, hooking one arm beneath her knees and wrapping another around her shoulders. I lifted her gently out of the deadly bath and stepped backwards. Her one arm swung lightly and the other rested on her stomach as, with difficulty, I carried her into the bedroom.

Light flooded my eyes and Cassie's seventeen year old weight rested in my arms. My next step was to lower her gently down onto her bed and wrap the quilt around her, turning her into a pale burrito. I reached for the phone on the bedside table and my eyes set upon the three envelopes laid out in a row: For Phil, For Mum, For Kenji.

I kept my gaze on them, absentmindedly caressing Cassie's forearm with my thumb as I shakily dialed the number.

"Hello, 999, what is your emergency?"

"Can I have an ambulance? My sister... She's in trouble..."

"We need to know what kind of trouble, Sir. Would you require police as well?"

"No! No, I think... I think she tried to kill herself."