It was a miracle, the doctors had said. Apparently if Grace had been found even 5 minutes after she had, there would have been no hope for her. But with the urgent but calm actions of the people who had found the girl stumbling out of the woods, she had been delivered to the hospital in time to receive treatment.
Of course, there were moments where the doctors thought they couldn't do anything but Grace always pulled through, showing them they needed to continue trying. After multiple surgeries, too many medications to count, and a coma that lasted 2 months, Grace was released from the hospital. Her body good as new, but her mind as broken as could be.
She was like a puzzle, you see. A puzzle that someone picked up at the thrift shop. At one point, all the pieces were there. But when someone picked her up, some pieced were missing. And those pieces could never be found. Grace was once whole. But now she felt as if her heart was ripped to shreds, her mind was falling to into bits, and her eyes could never unsee the poison it had been exposed to.
What made the whole situation even worse, was that she came out alone. When the news of her return spread across the town, it raised some false hope within the family of her deceased friends. And when the news was broken to them that their son or daughter wasn't a survivor, their lives fell apart again. The guilt from this ate Grace alive, little by little each day. She frequently thought about why she left them there. Why she didn't try to help. Why she didn't just stay to die along side people who she considered to be family.
Disturbed thoughts arising from the emotions she felt and the images she saw haunted her brain both day and night, Grace couldn't complete day to day activities because every little action reminded her of the house. Grace couldn't go to sleep because when she closed her eyes she saw her friends' deaths replaying. Grace couldn't do something as simple as eat without feeling an aching in her heart. Grace simply wasn't herself anymore.
"I'm sorry, Ashton. I'm sorry, Luke. I'm sorry, Calum. I'm sorry, Michael. I'm sorry, Clara. I'm sorry, Malia. I'm sorry, Emma." Those words were almost all she said. She would mumble them over and over again, rocking back and forth. It was as if her brain's only function was apologizing, and making her feel even more guilty than she already did.
"Grace?" Her dad spoke softly as he entered her room. "Grace, are you hungry?"
She didn't speak, only shaking her head as a form of saying no, and continued to stare at the floor.
"You need to eat, sweetheart." He told her, placing the food on her bedside table and sitting on her bed. "I don't want you getting sick."
Grace simply shrugged in response.
The same thing happened almost every day. One of her parents would try to get her to participate in every day activities, and Grace would refuse. She didn't want to do anything, she didn't want to live, she just wanted to disappear.
Living a life in which every object reminded you of past horror wasn't a very good lifestyle. When she looked at a kitchen knife, she imagined the bloody one that removed her hand from her body. When she saw a tree, she imagined the forest that she ran for her life through. It broke her a little more each day, until one day, she imagines, that she won't even be a person. Only the empty shell of what she once used to be.
"Grace, I need you to go to the store to get some milk." Her mom walked into her room and told her.
Grace shook her head.
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you." She used the most common bossy parent line. "You need to start functioning like a normal human being or you're never going to get better. Your father and I are worried for you and we let you do nothing for 4 months, but it's time to start getting better."
