Ami

"This is the end of the line, it's not something that matters to her anyways."

Ami

She saw it in her mom first, the changes in mood, the way her fingers couldn't type properly, the way that she would seem totally out of it when she shouldn't have been.

It was her turn then. The hospital visits, the diagnosis, the fact that an early onset disease like this was rare but not rare enough to that fact that it would pass over Ami.

Twenty-Six, there's no cure, no avoiding it. That's when the rope was cut, that's when her eyes would close and be stuck like that.

Her life was fine, school, friends, working part-time at a job she hated until she could afford to pay for her own place while attending college. Then came her final year, pressure sure but she was built for it, what she wasn't built for was the diagnosis.

She could see it, she knew it was there ever since her mom passed away. The way that the words she wrote looked odd when her hand wouldn't move the way she wanted to, or when she couldn't quite swallow the pastry that she rewarded herself with after passing an exam quite right. Something was wrong, it troubled her and broke something inside like stepping on a branch in a forest when the final diagnosis came.

two years, she graduated sure, but nothing came after that, everything took too much energy, too much precision that she just didn't have. Any ounce of when she wasn't suffering at home was spent in the hospital getting pricked and tested on. She knew there wasn't any point, and some part of her back then didn't really care.

And now, she thinks it's too late for her. She doesn't need the change, she doesn't want or need someone to come save her or tell her things will be okay because it won't.

She smokes, never inside the house, she doesn't want the smell to stain the walls. Every relationship she's made, all the people who she liked and liked her, won't be the same once she's gone. To her, it's better now than give them more time, the closer they'll get over her last years will only make things harder once she's gone. She'd rather leave when things are high than make everything worse.

She's always been quiet but that's been made easier for her now, the slurred speech when she's tired and the fact that she struggles to enunciate words with multiple syllables make it easier for her to not even try, because she'd rather hide the fact.

She used to love the outdoors, she still does, she walks different, her right legs pulses every other second, making it difficult to stand still or walk without being looked at weird. Even though she's willing to take everything away she still wants the things that make her, herself.

Her fingers twitch more often now, she's dropped one too many cigarettes on the floor, her phone slips out of her hand too much so its awfully cracked and cuts her finger tips but she doesn't care. She has the money, or what's left over from it, she doesn't need to save it, nor does she need to make sure lungs don't suffocate from the smoke.

She's left everything behind, or rather, she let those things leave, the friends, the hobbies that she used to have and the drive that kept her alive. Her mind's more quieter now, and for once in a long time she knows where she'll be heading, in the dark, with lungs filled with water.

Her hair is a natural dark blue, always messy from the feeble attempts to tame her bed hair, her bangs slightly overgrown because nobody would care about the length when they find her body.

She's thin, her ribs almost poke out, eating is something she does only when she really needs to, she still hasn't gotten used to the feeling of not being able to swallow.

Her eyes lay dark and sunken, the color of eyes the same as the void that doesn't stare back and the heavy circles around her eyes being a result of restless nights.

It's tonight.

She'll fall.

One last cigarette, but she couldn't hold it long enough and it fell, through the cracks and into the lake.
You walk by, almost passing her.

She stops you.

All she wants is a lighter, the last time she'll ever want anything.