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“You can’t be too hard on them.”
Hero had known this was coming. Every time he closed his eyes after finding out what happened to her, he’d expected to see her.
But she had never appeared, leaving him waiting with a growing anxiety in the form of a lead ball in his stomach.
His brain had a sick way of torturing him, its favourite being playing back multitudes of precious memories whenever he slept. Whispered secrets, holding hands when no one was looking, giggling over silly inside jokes that neither of them could remember the context for. But those bygone dreams had come to a grinding halt with just a few uttered words.
I have to tell you something.
It was supposed to have been a massive relief.
Instead, it had lead to her never appearing again in his dreams, her absence leading him to believe that she was mad at him.
Which was ridiculous of course. She wasn’t real. Most of what he saw were fuzzy impressions of things that had already happened, things that would never happen again.
Because of them.
Hero couldn’t begin to describe the anger he felt. He didn’t try. He’d let it loom in the air over Sunny and Basil as he walked out, sparing them not even a glance.
He had left it unspoken but obvious, obvious in the way he’d left again for college without so much as a word to either of them, any of them.
Selfish? Of course. Which is why his brain had stopped letting him experience his memories of happiness.
Punishment.
But now, she stood in front of him. A beautiful bright light in an otherwise endless void.
She was still wearing the dress she’d had on in her casket, white silk floating around her shoulders. And she still seemed to lack the colour of the living. But when Hero looked at her face in just the right way, he could see her beautiful brown eyes and the shine in her hair.
“That’s not much of a way to greet me, Mari,” he said with a tired smile.
She smiled back, and internally he celebrated, having charmed her just for a moment.
“You know why I’m here,” she said, staring him down with ethereal poise. Hero missed her desperately. He missed the way she had always spoken with a slight smile, as if she was always one step ahead, and she usually was. Her smile now seemed a bit cold.
“I do,” he answered, speaking in the same formal way she had chosen to speak. If she would speak to him like a stranger, he would too.
“You can’t be too hard on them,” Mari repeated, staying at the same distance, just an arm's length away.
“I haven’t done anything to either of them,” Hero said, resenting the sulky tone in his voice.
Well, he’d lost that battle of wits quickly.
“That’s the problem! They need you,” Mari said, suddenly looking desperate. Hero blinked in surprise. She had also dropped the emotionless pretence. She usually held onto her superior, maybe even smug facade for much longer than that. Though, this wasn’t a little joke they were both in on.
She really did care about him. God, he missed her.
“They… need me?” Hero repeated incredulously. He couldn’t help the scorn and bitterness from creeping into his voice. As much as he tried to play it cool around everyone else, Mari could force his mask away without even trying.
Mari nodded vigorously, inching ever so slightly closer to him. “And you need them too. To move on in your life.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “It’s been a while, and while they’re okay on their own, they miss you Hero. And I know you miss them too. Forgiveness is the first step.”
“Forgiveness,” Hero mumbled. “I forgive them plenty. I just don’t want to–“
“Face them? Or talk to them at all?” Mari put her hand on her hip, looking at him sternly. He watched her, fighting back the impulse to grin at the way she was acting. “I believe you sooo much.”
“How are you here?” Hero said, watching her reaction closely. She tilted her head at him endearingly.
“I'm sure I don't know what you mean.”
“I mean, do you know what’s going on?” Hero’s stomach gave a lurch. He ignored it.
“I know as much as you do Hero,” Mari said, almost cheerfully. “It’s like… I’m your conscience! I’m here to tell you what you already know.”
Mari always spoke as if everything was a game that she was leading and everyone else was playing along. Hero loved playing along. He missed it. So much.
Hero sighed, a long drawn out sound. “My conscience, huh…? Well conscience, you’re saying I should talk to Sunny and Basil?” He nearly stuttered at their names, but he prided himself in his composure.
Mari brightened immediately. Hero could have sworn she even started to glow a little bit. “Well, I know it’s what’s best for you, to help you move on. All of you. It’s been… such a long time, you know, and—”
“What if it had been me?” Hero stopped her, watching her spirit dull immediately.
“It couldn’t have been,” Mari said. Hero knew from the way she ended her sentence that she had nearly added a ‘silly’ on the end there and his heart wrenched with nostalgia. “You wouldn’t have done the same things I did.”
Hero watched her, waiting for her to elaborate, but she had no need to. He knew her like the back of his hand, still knew her, after all of this time.
“Do you think… because you weren’t perfect, you deserved it?”
Mari’s eyes widened, her mouth open as if she had been about to say something. She closed it just as quickly.
She swallowed, now avoiding eye contact with him. Her graceful demeanour had completely evaporated.
“You think… you think, because you weren’t the perfect sister, you don’t matter anymore?”
“We… we were both to blame, Sunny and I. And I— I yelled at him too you know. I pushed him too far and—”
“You’re not angry?” Hero said gently, cutting her off.
She watched him carefully, raising her eyes back to his level.
“Not anymore.”
“But you were.”
It was a second before she answered.
“Yes.”
Both of them stared at each other in silence. Mari’s form was flickering. Hero wondered if he had caused her too much distress. Maybe she would disappear again for even longer than four years, and he’d never see her again. Maybe this time it would actually be his fault.
He felt his eyes slipping shut and he leaned against a wall. Old splintered wood creaked and sunlight streamed in through the window. The treehouse… When had he gotten here?
And the state it was in… It was the same as it had been the last time he’d entered, with Sunny leading the way.
Sunny, poor Sunny. His malnourished form shuddering as he climbed the ladder, refusing to look at any of his friends as they waited patiently for him at the bottom. The lack of emotion emanating from him, formerly present in the way he’d squinted his eyes, the slightest twitch of his mouth as a kid. All gone.
Mari would have hated to see him like this, Hero’s mind had whispered.
Hero blearily opened his eyes, his gaze landing on a tattered plushie… Mr Plantegg.
Aubrey had cried, tears spilling from her blotchy eyes as she was forced to confront the remnants of her broken childhood. Although she had been looking anywhere but the faces of her friends as they’d wandered about Faraway Town, Hero had seen their glassy look the moment he laid eyes on her. That look seemed to have become a permanent part of the girl now.
Mari would have fixed it with a single hug, his treacherous mind had muttered.
His hand closed around something solid next to him. One of Kel’s shoes, the ones he’d left in this place for four years. Well, they were probably still there. Going on five years now.
Kel, persistent Kel. Hero could always sense a pretence, and Kel filled the room with one of happiness. He’d excitedly scurried about the treehouse, looking at his old toys and beaming all the while. Hero wondered when the facade would drop. His shoulders fell when nobody was looking, as if he had the weight of the world on them.
Mari would have known how to talk to him about it.
And of course, the absence of one of their dearest friends choked the dusty air right out of the room. Basil’s calming presence was missing and a tense uneasiness permeated the treehouse.
Maybe Mari would have been able to bring him out of the house.
While the semi-reunion of the old friend group had only made it more apparent, Hero couldn’t deny that those kinds of thoughts seemed to be the only ones he had in the waking world.
Mari stood in the centre of the treehouse, her ghostly form having stabilised. “It doesn’t matter how I feel,” she said softly. “I’m dead. Remember?”
Hero did remember. How could he ever forget? He only ever forgot when he was fast asleep, reliving memories, the sunlight ripping her away from him each morning.
He shifted against the cracking wood, his entire body tilting to the side. He didn’t say anything.
“But you, Sunny, and Basil are still alive,” Mari prompted. “And Kel! And Aubrey! You can all be there for each other, even if I’m not. Even if I’m—“
“Dead,” Hero finished for her. “You died. And I never got to tell you.”
Mari choked up, and went silent.
“I love you, Mari,” Hero whispered.
What would she have said, if we were both alive?
“You idiot, I was supposed to say that first!” Giggling, she buried her face into his shoulder. Hero knew she was trying to hide that he had managed to fluster her for once. “I love you too… but oh, it’s so much better without the too! Herooo…”
The scene dissipated faster than Hero could blink.
“You can’t,” she whispered back, tears brimming in her eyes. “You have to move on now, Hero. You can have a life. You have a future, you can grow old—“
“You’re real,” Hero said stubbornly, his tone accusatory. He slid further down the wall, splinters scratching at his back. “I know you’re real.”
“I’m not,” Mari’s tone was desperate, as if she was trying to convince herself as well as him. “Why do you— Hero!”
“I saw you, while I was asleep. I mean, I always did, you know?” Hero stumbled over his words. “But it was different this time, you were— you were crying and I never saw you do that in my dreams— after you— yeah—and you know, we were always happy and—“ He broke off, coughing.
He could remember this vision so clearly. It had been almost a year since the funeral. Give or take a few months. During that foggy episode, he had no idea of the date.
But Hero had been in bed for a very long time. He hadn’t drank in a few days and had eaten even less. Being asleep was easy. Everyone was happy there.
But sleep came less and less. Hero had spent most of his time awake, staring at the ceiling, misery trickling slowly through his mind.
When he next saw Mari, he ran towards her, but she didn’t look like how he remembered her. She emitted a slight glow and he could almost see right through her, though there was nothing to see, for she was alone in a cold void.
“Mari,” he’d cried. “Mari—“
That’s her!
As she turned, tears streamed down her face. Right as his hands were about to reach her, Kel’s heartbroken voice had ripped through the reverie. The anger was like nothing he’d felt before.
But she was here now. He gazed up at her wonderingly, back in the present (or as much as he could be).
“Hero,” Mari gasped. She stared down at him, when had he gotten so close to the ground?
“You don’t deserve this,” Hero spluttered, choking out the words. “You’re the one who needs to be forgiven.”
“Hero, what have you done?” Mari cried, finally rushing to him as the world collapsed around them.
The emptiness around them flickered, giving way to a dingy bathroom. Gross. I’m on the floor. Think of the germs.
Hero laughed in a self-deprecating, yet victorious way. “You need to forgive yourself. And if you can’t on your own—”
“Hero! Hero, you idiot!”
Mari sobbed, trying to grab his hands. Hero couldn’t feel her, couldn’t feel anything at this point. The concoction of common bathroom drugs had numbed every nerve in his body. His advanced medical knowledge had had some use after all.
You selfish prick. You could have helped people.
His stomach swerved violently again. Guilt. Hadn’t he felt enough of it? Wasn’t that why he was leaving this way?
“You’re real,” Hero said stubbornly. He thought of himself lying on the floor, talking to the bathroom walls. He thought about the poor person who would find him there and his breath constricted.
At least it wouldn’t be…
Kel was strong. Kel was a better person than he. And this way… this way he’d see his big brother the way he truly was. A weak and selfish coward. The one who’d failed to protect them all, all of those years ago when they really needed it. And the one who was leaving them now.
“Heh…” Hero laughed deliriously, his eyes stinging painfully. “Ha… I… I’m sorry, Kel. Mari. I wasn’t strong enough.”
“I can’t believe you,” Mari whispered, holding his face as ghostly teardrops rolled down her own. He could feel her now, cold as anything. “I can’t…”
She could be mad at him for all of eternity. Anything to be by her side.
Or this could simply be a cruel conjuration. His brain’s feeble attempts to soothe him into the unknown after his spiteful self-betrayal. Mari wouldn’t have experienced anything like this. She simply didn’t have the time.
A faint stab of anger permeated his unfeeling bliss. Sunny and Basil… better off without him. He’d only serve to hurt them more alive.
Maybe Mari spoke some more. Maybe he made one last quip, and she laughed despite herself. Or maybe it was all made up, and his brain simply couldn’t process the illusion anymore.
Either way, the pain came to an end. Hero slipped into a senseless sleep, and didn’t wake up again.