Everything seemed to scream. Her mind, her blood, her very veins. It seemed as if everything had faded around her, and nothing else mattered except for what she saw in front of her.

It was a body, but not any body. It was the body of her best friend.

It seemed so strange. At first, it seemed like she couldn’t absorb the information. It was as if she couldn’t accept that her best friend, was well, dead.

And it broke her. To see a limp body of the boy she had called her best friend. People had always said that your heart sank.

But her’s didn't sink. It shattered.

Into tiny pieces of glass. It was as if the glass had dug itself into her insides, tearing her apart. Cutting her in places where other people didn't see.

Her hands were still holding her best friend’s cold fingers. It felt so unnatural to hold something fleshy, yet icy. Is this what true pain was like?

A numbness spread through her heart. It was frost spreading out from a central point; her heart.

She didn't know what it was. Maybe it was just the hardening of her heart, maybe it was just the numbness of the pain. She didn't bother to wipe away the salty wetness on her face. She didn't bother to hide the tears streaking on her face, glistening like an icicle.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

Slowly, numbly, she clambered to her feet. She didn't notice the pitying glances of other people walking by. She didn't notice the way that her own parents looked at her. Her thoughts were mush, numb, sluggish.

A whisper of the wind grazed her cheek. She looked up into the sky as if cursing God himself. Why? She asked. Why him? He didn't deserve it. It was my fault.

And she already knew the reason why. There was no better way to get back at her than to go through him. And it enraged her, but she was too weak to fight it.

It was as if ice was piercing her heart. Cold, sharp, and deadly. Everything seemed to be falling apart, everything seemed to be crumbling.

Yet she took another step forward. It pained her, it shook her, and it made her uneasy. Made her want to just crumble down in a heap. Because she didn't have the support she would usually get. She didn't have someone to lean on, someone who’d help her limp through the tough times.

Because that person was gone.

She had almost everything she had wanted. A family who looked at her with love. Teachers who treated her like an ordinary student, not someone who was depressed. She had people who didn't throw her pitying glances. And most of all she had her best friend.

But that was all taken away. It only took one gust of wind to make every dream, every hope, everything she had ever wanted, to vanish, to splinter. To be carried on to someone else, who would have those things, to a million other people who would have perfect lives. And she was just the one misfortunate soul who would stay where she was, the one who wouldn’t ever have the perfect life.

It made her want to scream. To cry, to do anything but keep walking.

Drawing another shaky breath, she took another step forward.

Her heart was heavy in her chest. It was almost as if nothing existed other than her pain.

She took another step.

It made her want to collapse.  Her cane, her walking stick, was now gone. Ripped from her like everything else was. Any dream she had, had been shattered.

She took another step.

It was like climbing up a gigantic wall. She had been climbing the wall for all her life until finally, she collapsed at the top of it. After obstacles, words that had sprouted out of people’s mouths, after everything she had faced through, she had made it.

But the only reason why she had made it, was because of the stepping stones. The bricks that had shifted, so she could step on them. The one thing she could rely on, to help her get to the top.

And she made it. She had made it to the top. Had climbed over every obstacle she had faced, with the help of her stepping stones.

And now? Now it was as if another wall had climbed up in her way. And every time she tried to climb, she would fall because there was no help from the stepping stones.

Drawing another breath, she took another step.

Something salty hit her lip, but she hardly noticed.

There was a curling ache inside of her, one that made her just want to shrink. To fall off not only the wall she was climbing but also the one that she had already climbed.

Because she would do anything, anything, to go back to the stepping stones. She would’ve started all over again if it meant to see the stepping stones again.

But she knew no one would help her if she fell. She knew the void would suck her in, and she wouldn’t make it.

Another step.

So she would climb. She would keep climbing, over and over again. Even when it broke her, even when everything around her would blur, and shatter.

But she would keep going.

Because there was no other choice. She couldn’t go back. So she would keep climbing, even without the support of the stepping stones.

She took one more step, and then another. Every movement hurt, but she refused to let it break her. Refused to let it shatter her.

Her eyes gazed at the sky as if she was imagining a wall as if she was imagining the long climb to the top.

She took another step, and her hand closed around the next brick on the wall.