Like summer days, they slowly fade away

[Melusine]

It was a soothing place. Somewhere she didn't need to think about her family or her friends, in a world where she mattered as much as the scenery around her. Everything around her was meant to destroyed, and everything inside of her too. Dreams were just a manifestation of that, really. It was an easy place to forget pain and misery and other things that made the Earth spin and the wheels turn. Simple as that, Willow enjoyed her dreams.

Which was why she wanted to win, desperately. It was easier to admit in her dreams. Yeah. She really wanted to win. She wanted to win and she wanted to live a life that was worth living for everyone that had lost theirs and she wanted-

she wanted-

she-

No.

No, she didn't want to win. Willow didn't know what she would do if she won. She didn't want to win because she didn't see the point of being alive. The only place that had felt like home was this island that she had cherished and praised for two weeks with her tears and blood. Whatever was back in Tennessee wasn't home as much as everyone around her wished it was.

The island felt like home because she had been herself for two weeks without fearing the world. Perhaps, it had been a bit of hypochondriac response to the fact that she was going to die, but who hadn't? Everyone here was sick. Willow wasn't even the sickest, she just tired.

She had to go home and pretend that she enjoyed being near people, that she liked them, that their words didn't hurt her - fuck, it felt good to admit -, that the world around her didn't feel crushing and suffocating, and that this island wasn't the best thing that had happened to her in her entire life.

She had to pretend.

Maybe for herself, maybe for others.

But she had to.

Her eyes fluttered opened. The stars greeted her