Demi's POV
My mind had begun playing tricks with me, the moment we stepped into our cabin. It's as if she were still alive. As if she could walk past me to climb onto her bunker at any moment. Her voice was still laughing in my head. Grinning and talking. Speaking vague words, too vague to understand. She was only 12. She was way too young. She was the only family I had left. She was everything I had. The tears streamed down my cheeks like waterfalls when I saw the 2-year-old girl right in front of me, sleeping in my arms as I walked miles and miles on end to find a safe place to stay the night. Worrying about her safety, always worrying about her safety. I was only 9. I had failed, after so many years of trying. I had failed...
"Demi?" Selena placed a hand on my cheek, as it seemed to be the only way to shake me out of my thoughts. "Hmm?" I looked up at her with my puffy eyes. "They're burying her tomorrow. There will be a small ceremony. Commander Kingston will be there too." She spoke, knowing the words the woman had said on our way to the cabin hadn't come through to me in the slightest. "Hmm." I looked back at where I was staring at, as my feet dragged me to my bed, sitting down. Selena sat down next to me. "You should talk about how you feel." She said. Her voice was like an echo, blending with Eleanor's laughter. "Maybe you're still in shock. It'll help if you talk." She tried again, guiding me to the wall so I could rest my back on it. I nodded with a frown. "I don't know what to say.." My voice was hoarser than I thought, hoarse from screaming. Another tear slid down my cheek. They had become red and irritated, just like my eyes. I hated crying. I didn't remember the last time I did cry. I sniffed, looking down at my fingers.
"I can hear her in my head.." I said, pointing at my temple. "Wh-what is she saying?" Selena looked a bit concerned at me now. "No, not like that.. It's just.. She keeps grinning and laughing. Maybe I'm trying to forget that she's gone." I said. The tears kept coming, there was no end to it. "I see.. Maybe it helps if you realize that you'll have to move on eventually. For now, you can cry all you want, but you will live on." She said, trying to help me. I nodded. "I could've stopped her.." I said. "No.. No, sweetie, you have done way too much already. You've given your entire life for the safety and freedom of that child while living in a dangerous world. You can't blame yourself. She's probably so, so thankful for giving her a life. Without you, she would've been dead 10 years ago." "She's dead..." I repeated how her words were translated in my head. Things kept translating in my head weirdly. Her face was stuck in my head. The moment I spoke the two words, I could see the bullet nestled into her brain. The blood gushing out. As a record, it kept playing, how the force of the bullet made her fly to her left. More blood was spilled. How the blood tickled every inch of the asphalt, creeping further and further away from its owner. As if her soul creeped out with it. How her skull malformed, how I saw her flesh...
My body shot up, running towards the garbage bin, standing only a foot away from my bed, near the desk. Everything I ate before the mission came out. My mind had such a hard time processing the cruel things I saw, that it made me throw up. Even as soon as everything was out, I still gagged, as if my body wanted to get rid of my entire stomach. The pressure hurt my head. "Oh god.." Selena said, kneeling down next to me to hold back my hair. She carefully rubbed my back, for as far as her wounded arm allowed her to. I didn't like it. "Fuck off." I snarled in between my gagging. "Stop pitying me." "Demi, you just lost your sister." She tried reminding me why pitying me wasn't the weirdest thing to do, but her words hurt me.
"I said fuck off." I quickly got back on my feet but was greeted by immense dizziness taking over my sight. My head bonked like a madman. Lea's grinning slowed down for a moment, so did the blood gushing out of her head. Luckily I was able to pick things back up, realizing Selena had caught me before I got the chance to faint. She hissed due to the pain in her arm. "Wow there." She let me lean on to her and felt my forehead. "You're getting sick." "I'm not." I frowned, letting her walk me to bed. I carefully laid down, feeling a great relieve of stress and pressure once I placed my head on my pillow. She sat down at the edge, tucking me in. I sighed, trying to ignore the fact that I felt burning hot, but at the same time, I shivered due to the cold. "I'm not sick." I repeated out loud, trying to keep myself convinced. Lea's laugh would be forever stuck in my mind, I assumed. Her voice with someone else's. And another. A man and a woman. "Demi.. Demi.." They all called my name. They all watched over me as I fell asleep.
Selena's POV
"This morning, a young girl, who we had promised to protect, has fallen during our hunt in Kenston Burns. Eleanor had only just joined our team, but we are very sad to let her go. She was only 12 years old. Of course, I don't know every individual person of this camp, but I remember her sitting at my table when her big sister tried protecting her from any harm. And I immediately saw what was worth protecting this much. She was innocent, yet she had this fire in her eyes. She will live on with her parents, up above, forever returning her big sister's duty to protect her."
Commander Kingston ended his small speech while looking in Demi's eyes with a compassionate smile. His words showed his respect for her. She gave a small nod, got up from her chair and walked towards the ground the body had been buried in. She placed a small picture she had hidden in her bag pack for years. A small picture of a very young Demi, smiling brightly at the baby sister she held in her arms. She stepped aside for me to place something on her grave too. I made sure the small picture leaned against the blue bunny I had given her. I stood up again, as the tears rolled down my cheeks. We both watched the small stone, with letters carved in it. 'Eleanor Collette Lovato. May she become one with the stars.' Demi had a strong protective feeling over her last name, so protective that I didn't know the name until I saw the stone that was carved. But we wanted Lea to rest with dignity. "You have to get back to bed." I placed my hand on Demi's arm, not wanting her to get sicker than she already was. "Yeah.."
"I bought you some soup." I placed myself on the edge of her bed, waiting for her to slowly sit up. "Thanks." She took the bowl and started drinking it. Her hands were trembling. The bags under her eyes gave away the fact that she wasn't able to get as much sleep as she needed at the moment. "This is good." She looked at the soup, stirring the spoon a little. I smiled slightly at her. "I'm glad. I've been doing some chores to get more coins." I explained. She looked up at me, the guilt was visible in her face. "Didn't you use my pouch?" She asked. "Your pouch is empty. So is Lea's. You've been in bed for days." I looked at the blanket I tucked Demi further in. "I figured it was time to start doing chores."
"Let me do a chore tomorrow." She said. "No. You're too sick, Demi." "I'm not. I'm not letting you do chores for me." She frowned. "It's fine. For you, I do it gladly." "I'll sleep the illness off tonight, I'm sure." She said determined, coughing afterward. "You're barely able to hold a bowl of soup, Demi. It's fine, okay? When you get better you can do as many chores as you want." I smiled at her. She nodded with a frown, taking another sip of her soup. We both knew her mental state had affected her body, that it had made her sick. She wouldn't get better until she started feeling at least slightly better. Until then, I promised myself to take good care of her. "The pouch is empty..." She repeated to herself, as she gave the bowl of soup back to me, almost mindlessly. "Don't have any coins left..." She laid herself back down. She had been saying random things to herself lately. The things turned more random each time she did it. It concerned me.
A loud bang of thunder woke me up that night, realizing I had fallen asleep at the desk. I had tried to write a letter to my dad since I was so harshly confronted with the meaning of family. I hadn't written more than 3 sentences before falling asleep on my arm. I looked around, seeing someone had placed a thin blanket over my shoulders. Demi's bed was empty. I quickly got up, walking towards the bathroom. But the door was open and there was no one inside. I was alone in our cabin. My heart sank after I turned around to see if her bag pack was still on her usual spot. The bag pack was gone. Did she go for a walk all on her own? I walked towards my bag, where hers had stood next to, with a frown. I then spotted the knife she had taken out and placed on the desk. She had returned it to me. The sign was clear. She had left and wasn't planning to return, otherwise, she would've taken the knife with her. I looked around, panicking, thinking of what to do. She was all on her own, which is something that wouldn't concern me, but she was incredibly sick. And the weather was cruel and dangerous in these woods.
I took my own bag pack and ran out of the building to find her. I had no idea where she could've gone. The rain and the wind made my surrounding unbearable. "Demi!" I yelled, looking around. I stepped into the mud and started running around. "Demi!" I yelled again, knowing it was no use. I remembered the whistle inside my pocket. I quickly took it and started blowing it as hard as I could. The screeching sound of the thing overmastered the loud wind easily. Still, there was no response. I tried to figure out what way she could've gone. I decided to follow the rivers of rain streaming down the mountain, whistling as loud as I could. For countless minutes I kept blowing, looking for her. It was no use. I lost her. I hit the brakes after my legs could no longer keep running. I panted, panicking. I had to find her, even if it were the last thing I could do. I cared about this lady, more than I ever expected to do. But I knew it wasn't going to work anymore. She left without me to live on her own again, or to die of sickness somewhere in the storm. She was bound to follow her little sister into heaven. It made my eyes fill with tears.
Without much hope left, I blew the whistle once me, looking around. An echo of the thing sounded far further in the woods. I looked up at where the sound came from, not sure if I heard it correctly. I whistled one more time, hoping for another response. Again the whistle echoed through the rain, and my body received its last bit of adrenaline to follow it. I ran again, the noise I made me go crazy. At last, I reached a river, aggressively streaming. I watched a figure clumsily strapping the last plank onto a raft. "Demi!" I yelled, running towards her. "Go back to the camp!" Demi yelled, harshly coughing afterward. "You can't leave! You're too sick!" I yelled through the loud noise of the river and the raindrops crashing into it. "I'm going home!" She replied, shaking her head. Her reply concerned me deeply. What did she mean, home?
"You're not going anywhere!" I tried stopping her from pushing the raft further into the river. "Leave me the fuck alone!" She pushed me away, almost tripping. Her push made me fall in the water, but I was lucky to be able to grab a rock to remain ashore. "You're gonna get yourself killed!" I tried to convince her, but she didn't seem to care. She seemed to do pretty fine pushing the raft onto the river. She quickly crawled on top, letting go of the stick that kept the raft from streaming down the river. Her eyes widened and met mine as soon as she started streaming away backward. Almost as if she woke up from her hysteria. "Demi!" I couldn't believe she allowed herself to be doomed this way. It almost looked like a suicide attempt. Was it? Whatever it was, her eyes told me she regretted it.
I let myself go swimming after the raft. I had never had a harder time trying to keep my head above the surface. The force of the water made me tumble around, not getting anywhere near the raft. "Selena!" "Help!" "I can't swim!" Demi shouted, trying her very best to hold on the bundle of planks that was starting to sink slowly. "Stop the raft!" I screamed. Demi tried to stop the thing by holding onto another branch heading her way. A wave of water snatched the raft from underneath her body. She sunk under the surface quickly, as she tried to her best to keep breathing. I managed to hold to another rock. "Hold on!" I yelled. My heart was going wild. The rock was too slippery to hang on to, causing me to stream further and crash against an even bigger rock, right on my stomach. I tried climbing from rock to rock while processing the pain I felt in my rib. I could see Demi searching for air to breathe, as she still held on to the bungling branch near the edge of the river. She started taking off her bag pack to lose weight.
I finally managed to reach her, trying to swim my last part towards her. For a second I forgot to keep the aggressive current in mind, and my body crashed right onto Demi's, causing her to let go of the branch. I quickly took the strap of her backpack she still held in her hand, using it as a rope to keep her close to me. I swam towards a bush and stopped both of us from streaming any further. Demi still had a hard time fighting against the current. "Hold on!" I yelled, trying to pull her closer to me as her head went up and down the surface. I gritted my teeth, the pain in my rib made pulling against the current feel impossible. She finally climbed ashore and helped me climb up as well. I turned around and leaned on my elbows, panting wildly. "Fuck." I squeezed my eyes shut, placing my hand on the rib that was hurting like crazy. Demi had turned away from me to throw up, vomiting mostly the water she had swallowed while almost drowning. "Are you okay?" I asked. She nodded, sitting up. "I'm sorry.." She frowned avoiding eye contact. I carefully laid my back on the ground, feeling the raindrops finally decreasing amounts.