As she woke, she studied the dirty ripped photograph, still clasped tightly in her hand, and wondered if she had ever felt so alone. Tracing the smiling faces with her ragged fingernail, she allowed herself a moment of sorrow as salty tears stung her drooping dry eyes - they shut instinctively, her seconds of solace gone, and she pushed herself from the hard metal bench, pulling her bag further up her shoulder.

Crying didn't get you anywhere. She was well aware of that. She shook her head and dragged her feet along the stone floor until she arrived at the platform, her near-skeletal frame struggling with the weight of her bag. The five meters she walked felt like five miles and she wheezed quietly for breath - she would stand and wait instead. Maybe then she would stay awake.

Feeling the forceful rush of air of a train passing behind her, she turned to watch it stop, its busy contents spilling onto the platform. Smiling. Laughing. All cheery and innocent, as if no tragedy had ever occurred here. This is how everyone must have been acting when it happened, she thought.

He must have observed everyone else's happiness, as she was now, and felt his ache of loneliness and desperation grow stronger. For the first time she had a flicker of understanding for her brother, as she too felt unbearably lost. Letting out a small whimper, she again looked at the picture in her clammy hand - instead this time she looked at the face of her love. Her horrible, selfish love.

Fuck him.

Sighing, she slowly tore the paper in half over his face. And then tore it again, and again, and again, until she was tearing it with such ferocity that her bag collapsed down from her shoulder, her emaciated arm buckling under its weight so that it fell to the floor with a light thud, her torn paper pieces of memory fluttering peacefully to the ground.

As she blinked back tears she spotted him. He was completely still in the bustling crowd, his pearly white teeth sparkling and full lips stretched into a hellish grin, with wide demonic eyes leering unblinkingly at her. Her cracked lips puckered painfully as a sob forced itself from her throat, and with bloodshot eyes wide, she felt all air disappear.

"It's not him," she whispered, taking deep breaths. "It's not him." She was louder this time - choking, almost. Eyes of passersby bore into her so intensely she could feel them burning her skin, but she felt nothing besides panic as she squeezed her own eyes shut and began to shout the words.

A harsh horn snapped her eyes open, and hastily she grasped her bag and threw herself onto the train. Her tiny legs shook as she stumbled down the aisle, searching desperately for a seat.

After a few minutes a broad man with a full beard and warm brown eyes stopped her and gestured to the empty chair next to him. She fell into it wordlessly, clutching her bag on her lap, and shut her eyes, still shaking with adrenaline.
"Are you alright, love?" he asked in a thick northern accent. She finally dared to look at him, and he tried to stifle his shock as he looked back into her pale gaunt face. He could see that once she had been a pretty girl - her eyes were large for her tiny head and a hypnotic shade of blue, but they were clouded with broken blood vessels and had heavy dark purple bags hanging from them. Her skin was a foggy grey, and seemed loose over her hollow cheeks.

"You look... Broken," he stammered, overcome with pity as she stared emotionlessly into his kind eyes.

"Broken," she croaked back after a long silence, and her red lips stretched into a smile. "Yes. Yes, I think I am,"