When I was younger I used to say seventeen was the perfect age. Well I'm seventeen now and I don't feel perfect. The scars on my wrists are a testament to my imperfection. I wish I could say that the creation of these scars on helped me find meaning, but it didn't. I wish I could say that seventeen was perfect but it isn't. I wish I could say that I needed something mind altering to feel this way but I don't. I wish I could say that I still felt the hurt and the pain but I don't. The only feeling left is numbness. Numb to the world, to everything. Numb to the pain of the blood shown crimson by the moonlight pouring through my windows. I wish I could say I remembered feeling complete but I can't. To go back to the days when nothing had to have a purpose. I wish that I could stop this train of thought but I can't. I wish I could say that I wasn't lost, but I am. And I wish that someone could find me, save me, but there isn't anyone. Slipping through this second reality I wish I could say I knew the reason for this numbness but I can't seem to find the cause. Does anyone know the cause? Can someone fix me? Is there anyone to fix me? I would like to believe there is. I would like to believe I'm not alone but I don't have the heart to believe that lie. I wish I could believe that this wasn't the last sentence I was ever going to write but it is, so I guess I will have to end it with my final utterance; perfect.



As if he knew what had just happened, Henry awoke with a start in the room next to the room in which the word "perfect" had been almost inaudibly uttered.

"Maggie?" He whispered, sliding out of the covers. Henry wrapped his blanket around himself and inched toward his door. Upon reaching it he stuck his head out and glanced both ways down the hallway.

"Maggie?" He whispered again. At no response he walked down the hallway five feet and came to a halt at her door.

"Maggie?" He whispered again for the third time. This time at the lack of response he slowly opened Maggie's door. As he entered the room he gasped, and dropped his blanket. Maggie was laying across her window seat; her arm draped across onto the floor and was covered in blood that slowly trickled into a puddle that was beginning to appear on the floor. A lone candle was lit in the room on the small table next to the window, next to which was a folded up sheet of paper, tarnished by a single drop of red.

Henry was frozen to the spot. He didn't dare to move. Finally after a moment that seemed like an eternity to the ten year old, he slowly paced across the room until he was standing in front of his sister. As he looked at his sister, he would have noticed, if not starting to be encompassed by grief that a smile shone on her face, as if in death she had finally achieved her perfection.

For the last time Henry whispered, almost as inaudibly as the word "perfect" had been uttered

"Maggie?" This time Henry was sure there was to be no response although he grasped at one grain of hope that maybe Maggie would sir, and disprove what he was now seeing. He waited a moment as to see if maybe his wish would come true, but Maggie still lay motionless.

Too shocked for tears Henry then turned to the table next to Maggie. Without realizing what he was doing Henry blew out the candle extinguishing all light besides the moon, and placed the bloodstained paper in the pocket of his pajama pants. As he stood in the moonlight next to his unmoving sister the true reality of the situation set in. As he began to realize that Maggie wasn't going to wake up the tears started to come. Unable to contain himself Henry fell to his knees sobbing, next to his dead sister.

Awoken by the sounds of Henry's sobs his mother ventured down the hall to his room. Surprised at Henry's lack of presence there she entered Maggie's room, confused as to why Henry would be there. Henry's sobbing form obstructed his mother's view of Maggie and she did not understand yet what was wrong.

"Henry?" She asked. At the sound of his mother's voice Henry lifted himself from the floor and turned to face her. Henry's front was spotted with blood from the puddle which was now apparent on the floor where he had been sitting. Distracted by the state of her son Henry's mother still did not realize the real situation, and she rushed over to Henry.

"Sweetheart are you alright?" She asked, frantically eyeing him for cuts from which the blood on his clothes could have came. Henry, still sobbing managed to mutter the words

"No, Maggie," as he said this his mother had already begun to turn away from him and towards the lifeless form of her daughter.

"Oh god, no," She explained and began shaking violently. Within a moment she had regained her composure. Bending over the sobbing form of Henry she locked him in a tight embrace, as if feeling the life of her living child could bring the dead one back.

"It's going to be alright, it's going to be alright" She said repeatedly to Henry, although it appeared that she was trying to convince herself of this too.