Easter Angst Challenge Day 1: Anyone Can Die
Title: Anyone Can Die
Author: alexajohnson
Rating: PG13
Notes: This is my first attempt at second person, so I hope it's convincing enough! I wanted to break out of my comfort zone a little :) Written for the Easter 2009 challenge, I picked the second prompt. Enjoy!
Anyone Can Die
Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.
--Robert Cody
As far as you’re concerned, life is a fucking tragedy, but that’s what amuses you.
You think it’s funny that death continues to shock and surprise people when it happens all the time-everyone knows someone who is dying. But how many people can say they know someone who is truly living when living is more than simply being alive? You also realize that it’s taken being this close to death for you to finally understand that you don’t know how to live.
If you did, you would not be this tempted with this unexpected way out, an escape that can even leave your pride intact.
You have always lived for someone else. Things were easy with father’s orders and family expectations, when you did not have to make your own decisions yet deluded yourself into thinking you were. Since the end of the war, father’s life imprisonment and mother’s subsequent suicide, being a Malfoy has meant that you have had to work even harder for most people to even think of looking beyond the sins that are attached to your name.
You are tired of proving yourself to people that you don’t even care about.
Though your thoughts are your only proof that you still exist, you are suddenly aware of a slight pressure around your hand. “Malfoy? Malfoy, can you hear me?”
You know this voice, the voice of a woman you have hated most of your life because she challenges everything you once believed. It is also slightly ironic that this is the reason you have come to respect her, maybe even feel something for her. You say something because you’re not quite sure what it is, and you’re almost afraid to find out because you know you don’t deserve her, even if your almost friendship is the only truly good thing in your life right now.
“Well, if you can, I figure my voice is probably the last thing you want in your subconscious, but I know you can fight this. Since I’ve started working with you, I know you can be so much more than you allow yourself to be, and you owe it to yourself to be that person. You didn’t have to protect me, but that was enough to convince me that there is more to you than maybe even you know. So if it’s the only brave thing you ever do, you better live. Don’t you dare take the easy way out this time.”
Only Hermione Granger would say something like that to you, and you know that, in spite of the hardships you’ve had to endure, there might be a reason worth living for after all. You’ve been given another chance to live a life that you have chosen, and for the first time you think that, just maybe, that might not be so bad after all.
Anyone can die.
But you are better than that.
FIN
Author: alexajohnson
Rating: PG13
Notes: This is my first attempt at second person, so I hope it's convincing enough! I wanted to break out of my comfort zone a little :) Written for the Easter 2009 challenge, I picked the second prompt. Enjoy!
Anyone Can Die
Have the courage to live. Anyone can die.
--Robert Cody
As far as you’re concerned, life is a fucking tragedy, but that’s what amuses you.
You think it’s funny that death continues to shock and surprise people when it happens all the time-everyone knows someone who is dying. But how many people can say they know someone who is truly living when living is more than simply being alive? You also realize that it’s taken being this close to death for you to finally understand that you don’t know how to live.
If you did, you would not be this tempted with this unexpected way out, an escape that can even leave your pride intact.
You have always lived for someone else. Things were easy with father’s orders and family expectations, when you did not have to make your own decisions yet deluded yourself into thinking you were. Since the end of the war, father’s life imprisonment and mother’s subsequent suicide, being a Malfoy has meant that you have had to work even harder for most people to even think of looking beyond the sins that are attached to your name.
You are tired of proving yourself to people that you don’t even care about.
Though your thoughts are your only proof that you still exist, you are suddenly aware of a slight pressure around your hand. “Malfoy? Malfoy, can you hear me?”
You know this voice, the voice of a woman you have hated most of your life because she challenges everything you once believed. It is also slightly ironic that this is the reason you have come to respect her, maybe even feel something for her. You say something because you’re not quite sure what it is, and you’re almost afraid to find out because you know you don’t deserve her, even if your almost friendship is the only truly good thing in your life right now.
“Well, if you can, I figure my voice is probably the last thing you want in your subconscious, but I know you can fight this. Since I’ve started working with you, I know you can be so much more than you allow yourself to be, and you owe it to yourself to be that person. You didn’t have to protect me, but that was enough to convince me that there is more to you than maybe even you know. So if it’s the only brave thing you ever do, you better live. Don’t you dare take the easy way out this time.”
Only Hermione Granger would say something like that to you, and you know that, in spite of the hardships you’ve had to endure, there might be a reason worth living for after all. You’ve been given another chance to live a life that you have chosen, and for the first time you think that, just maybe, that might not be so bad after all.
Anyone can die.
But you are better than that.
FIN