woven for you

"Vae!" Kit calls from a hallway across the room. Vaelyn follows the noise as it bounces off the walls of the hall. She meets the frozen smiles of several family images as they hang eternally from a rusted nail. The room ahead shows an open door with tiles to neatly cover the floor and a sink hanging below a mirror. Two doors rest on either side of the hallway, and Vaelyn takes slow steps to find the one who called her.

"What is it, Kit?" Vaelyn asks, listening closely.

"I made you a gift!" Kit calls again, her voice crawling through the crack of the door on Vaelyn's left. Vaelyn holds onto her coat, pushes onto the door, and peers through the slit as it opens. A white bed rests across the smaller room with another bookshelf resting across from it. She finds the child working on a craft at a desk that rests next to the bed, its pillows covered by the fur of stuffed animals. Vaelyn approaches the child as she finishes her craft, a dozen pencils and a bottle of glue sitting next to her, and she spins her head around with a wide smile on her face.

"Awe, what did you make for me?" Vaelyn smiles brightly, staring over the child's shoulder. Kit stands from the chair and spins her body to Vaelyn.

"I wanted to make you something to thank you for helping me all the way here," Kit bounces. She unveils her creation as she brings her small hands back to her chest and holds up a small string that she cut from a shoelace that has been tied into the shape of a noose.

Vaelyn freezes, staring at the string, and looking to the child's side to find a shoe without a lace next to the desk. She kneels silently, reaching for the hands of the child as she does, and stares deep into the bright irises of the pure, gentle sun. A few moments pass by in silence, and the rolling tears of a storm come to cover Vaelyn's pale face as she releases a heavy whine. She stares at the miniature commitment in the child's hands, knowing she is unaware of what it truly means. She cries harder as she holds Kit's hair, pulling her into a deep, shaking hug. She pulls the child in close, her light swallowed by the pale of the moon, an eclipse breaking through the atmosphere of the earth.

Tears start to form in Kit's eyes as she holds Vaelyn back, unsure of why her present brought her friend to such distress. "I just wanted to make you happy."

"You do, oh god, you do," Vaelyn cries. She holds the child close. She takes the gift that the child made and hides it deep within her coat pocket, hoping that it will never be mentioned again. The child has unknowingly brought Vaelyn out of the ink, dragging her from her void, and held her hand to a new light just as she took Vaelyn back to the home she thought she belonged within -- six feet beneath the ground without another beat for her heart to sound. "All you have to do is exist."

"I will as long as you do," Kit says, the point of their journey shining through the clouds of Vaelyn's hallucinations.

"I promise, I'll keep doing it," Vaelyn sniffles. She gives the child another tight hug.

Kit releases for a moment from Vaelyn's grasp and crawls to reach in the corner of her bed. Her wrist is swallowed by the fur of soft, inanimate plushies, and she pulls out an alternative gift for Vaelyn.

"What about this?" Kit asks, pulling out a white bear with small, round eyes and a golden bow tied around its neck.

Vaelyn stares at the bear, taking it from Kit's gentle grasp, and hugs it tightly in the same way she did to the delicate flower sitting before her. It is the same plush that was pulled from a paper bag with sparkled dots within the ivory walls of a hospital.

"Are you sure?" Vaelyn asks quietly.

Kit nods. "I know you'll be good to him. I trust you."

"Yes," Vaelyn whispers roughly, "I'll take good care of him."