Title: Atonement
Author:
KeppiehedRating: G
Warnings: none
Word Count: 311
Prompt: “Random Acts”
A/N: Written for week #2 of
Brigits_flame.
She is bathed in blue, the glow from the screen eclipsing all else. It lights up the night around her, a beacon in the darkness, that square of salvation in an otherwise empty room.
She has been called many things: angel, savior, but she knows the truth. They make her out to be their Madonnas, but it is a reality as flat as the glass they can't reach through. It sustains them, so it works. But she is no saint, merely the specter of one.
The taps of her fingers on the keyboard are her music, the pings of the incoming messages her melody. The need is vast. The cruelty in this world is too great to be ignored, and though she knows she is only a speck against the tide, she must try. Each message she sends might be the one. Each e-mail that she responds to could make a difference.
They do not know that she is a black hole of despair, that she is driven by a guilt so fierce that she is a shell of a person. The gulf between her life and reality is sheer and fathomless.
They don't want to know. They don't need to. They are overwhelmed with needs of their own; their conversations never center on the girl behind the screen. And perhaps she cannot save herself, but she might still save them.
She sighs and scrolls through her inbox: You have mail. More every day. The need to be heard, to have a friend, is overwhelming. She clicks a random message open and begins to read, drawn into the hopelessness that she sees before her.
Outside, the snow falls like lace in the air, but she doesn't see the beauty. The human heartbreak obscures her vision and she begins to type. “It's okay. Don't give up hope. I'm here to listen.”