Sage ? Carl Grimes

TREES by TWENTY ØNE PILØTS

SAGE

"Honey, look at me."

"Leave her alone, Beth. She can't hear you. She's shutting down."

"I'm not just gonna leave her here like this, Maggie!"

"I know how this works—"

"Maggie. She's losing it."

I felt hands clutching my shoulders and gently shaking my body. These hands let go of my shoulders and coddled my cheeks in their palms. Their skin was soft; eliminating the numbness of my own and replacing it with their frail and delicate touch. These hands cradled my face, and a dainty voice only came to follow.

"Sage, it's Beth. Please don't go away, stay right here. Stay with me, Sage...don't go away," Beth begged, holding my face in the futile attempt to bring me back.

I was lost.

I was in my mind, my head, my thoughts and my dreams. My body was laying there on those hospital floors, my back pressed against a hospital door and my hands cloaked in the blood of my mother. I was trembling and I was present; but my mind was absent. I was traveling through realms I had never dreamt of and thoughts I had never grieved for.

My mind never reconciled a single thought: it was always a collection of my biggest fears.

It was a scattered array of the colors blue and red. Blue waters, red shoes. Blue plaid, red hands. Blue eyes, red blood.

And to think that I had maneuvered from the color blue to the color red with one uncautious action haunted my bones.

My mind was spinning and the gaze I had mustered was almost as absent as my empathy for the dead. My head was throbbing and my heart was aching and my mind was fading.

"Sage, listen to the sound of my voice. Carl is gonna be alright, you hear me? He's gonna pull through, I know he will."

I blinked a few times, finally glancing up from my frozen position. My eyes were crystal with tears that had risen to the surface, but had no empathy to allow themselves to leak onto my skin. My vision was testing me with clouds of black and darkness; fading in and out of what was real and what was another sick dream beneath the skin of my head. I had continued to let my eyes scan the hospital hallways, until I landed on a body.

A woman in a police uniform was fallen on her back on the ground, her legs mangled and her dark blood drowning what used to be a beating heart. Blood cloaked a puddle on the tiles and had curled down her neck, a slit cut from ear to ear. Her grey eyes were wide open, and a few hospital crew members were gathered around the fallen officer. A few were softly discussing what to do with the body, while one or two of the women had their backs turned and their faces in their hands as they wept for Dawn Lerner.

Next, I studied my hands. The blood curling her neck and the blood masking my hands were matched and identical in color.

My knife was clattered on the ground beside me. I shoved Beth off of me and went for my knife, clutching it in my palms and rising to my feet. I stumbled on my heels but hardly found my balance as I started forward towards my dead mother.

"Sage—"

"Sage, don't..."