I walk into the room- or a least I think I did. I didn't even feel my feet move. I'm suffocating! The walls moving in all around me. My feet and hands feel numb and can't stop trembling. "Oh God, I can't even breathe!"

I snap myself out of it and steady myself against the walls. I don't know if I can support myself without the wall but after a few contemplating minutes fly by I attempt to move away on my own. Walking forward, I lean on rows of chairs, gripping them if I begin to feel light-headed and dizzy. Finally, I reach the front of the room.

I feel sick to my stomach. "Why did I even bother to come?" I bite my quivering lip. "Just peek and go." I will myself even further and up the stairs of the blood red velvet covered stage.

"Who are you?"

I whirl around, silently grateful for the interruption of a young girl's voice.

Or at least I thought it was a young girl's voice, but in fact, it belonged to a fragile middle-aged woman.

"I-I." I stutter. "I'm s-sorry."

I meant the last part more out of guilt but the woman didn't seem to notice. She just slowly walked up the bloody velvet steps and sighed when she reached the edge of the white roses. I kept my eyes trained on her glossy black pumps. When she finally spoke she sounded tired as though just walking up the steps was exhausting in itself.

"It's a horrible thing isn't it?" She said it more as a statement than a question to be answered.

"Yes, it is." I speak so softly I barely hear myself.

The woman doesn't answer she just instead walks past the white roses up to the bouquet of black ones.

I lift my eyes off the floor and look up to the study the ceiling. Beautiful crystal chandeliers hang from the wooden sky. A fool might mistake the dropping crystal glass as priceless diamonds. The flawless sight blurs as I stare and look back down at the carpet. A lone tear escapes and trails down my probably blotchy face.

The woman's fragile voice reminds me she's here.

"Did you know him?"

I glance up for a second. Her eyes are empty and hollow like that of a dead corpse. The woman has deathly beauty though. Her honey blond hair is thick and silky- I can tell even though it's pinned up in a tight bun. Her skin is flawless and if not for the situation would be glowing. The fine line that her lips make is a natural pink and I'll bet the teeth behind them perfectly white. But her eyes. I couldn't look at her eyes, they were too much like his.

The woman and everything in the room begins to spin. The walls, as previously before, begin to start closing in and collapsing around me. The weight of it all seemingly trapping me and crushing me under it.

The woman steps away from the wall of roses over to where I'm barely able to continue standing. She leans forward to press against my ear. She speaks in a cold whisper. The scent of her like the scent of him.

"I'll leave you alone now. It's a horrible thing, isn't it? Death."

I drop to my knees and fight to hold back tears that are gradually building behind my eyes. The full force of everything now crashing in.

I stay there until I hear the sound of the heavy mahogany doors slam shut. I am all alone. The sounds of low, hushed whispers that the small handful of people generated was now gone. The stillness surrounds me. It isn't a peaceful quiet, it wasn't even an eerie silence, it was as if time had stopped. Like beyond this room nothing else existed.

I slowly rise to my feet. My hands trembling only slightly this time. My lips again quivering as if stranded in the cold. I don't know how, but I make it to the wall of roses and peer like a frightened child into the casket.

Pale, ghostly, and hollow. I'm sure if I touched it, an icy sting would ring from it. The body so peaceful as if he were only sleeping instead of just an empty vessel with no life in it. So beautiful, even now it brings tears to my eyes. I realize I've been holding my breath for the longest time, my vision becoming blurry and dazed. I finally find my voice and speak softly down at the casket, my voice hoarse and low. I start off slow.

"I- I don't know what to say. I don't know if I should say anything at all. I don't really even know how to say it." I take in a shaky breath and swallow my fear and guilt. "I don't know if you remember, but, in fourth grade, you were the only kind person to me in the entire school. Nobody else would talk to me or sit with me or even dare look my way but you- you reached out to me, even if it was only once, you reached out to me more times than anyone in my life ever has. I still remember and treasure that day you did. You probably never thought about how deeply it touched me or ever thought to recall the moment. But I remember the time, the date, the weather, and temperature outside, who was sitting where, what the teacher was saying and doing, the layout of the room; I remember it all. It was 1:57 on April 18th in room 86 on the second and a half floor. You were sitting in the cluster to the left of the classroom, closest to the door, while I sat two group tables right of you, closest to the windows. We both sat in the front. Austin Lang and Peter Frinn sat at your table- Tabitha Gretsman was absent that day. Mrs. Sumner was handing out our arithmetic test, test number 6 I believe, factions. I had just lost my new, pink, sparkling pencil at recess. I wanted to watch it shimmer in the sunlight. But I dropped it in the dirt and couldn't find it anywhere and it was time to come in. When we settled down in class and preparing to take the test, I saw Brigitte Florestone had my new pink pencil. I know she knew it was mine because I had waved it all around when I first got to school that day. I was too shy to say anything to Mrs. Sumner about it, so I just let it go. I was going to have to raise my hand and ask to borrow one from the teacher's desk. I was scared for Mrs. Sumner frowned upon kids coming to class without the proper materials and I would be embarrassed in front of the whole class. I raised my hand timidly and asked quietly if I could borrow a pencil, Mrs. Sumner was about to begin her lecture about classroom readiness, when your hand shot up in the air. I was looking down at the ground, preparing to be lectured at, when I heard you call out to Mrs. Sumner. 'Mrs. Sumner, I've got a pencil Daphne can use.' You sounded so happy, so eager to help. Mrs. Sumner then told you to come over and give it to me and I heard your chair shriek as you came over. I was still looking at the ground. Every breath in the room was silent, you could almost hear a pin drop if not for the noisy air conditioner. You held out a red mechanical pencil a little chipped at the top but still working. I looked at the pencil and your shoes- blue and gray light up sneakers. 'Well? Aren't you gonna take it?" You said. My hands were shaking as I did and I barely squeaked 'Thank you'. I don't even think you heard me, but you didn't care and returned to your seat. After we finished the test, I mustered up the courage to walk over to you and return the pencil, but you said, 'Go head and keep it, I don't need it.' From that day on, I was dead-bent on repaying you for the single act of kindness you showed me that day. Even when we grew older and you began to dislike me, I still held onto that. The pencil still sits in my treasure box, reminding me of a different time in my life. I have you to thank for that. And now, I'll give to you what you gave to me so long ago."

With that, I take out the chipped red pencil and place it gently in the casket. My eyes burn with tears flowing freely down my face. My voice too choked up to even say I'm sorry.

"What you give isn't enough."

My heart stops cold. The tears cease from my eyes, too frightened to spill out. I know that voice. It shouldn't be though. I'm too scared to turn around, questioning my sanity.

"Too ashamed to face me now? You use to look for me in the halls all the time."

"What you're hearing isn't real. He's right here in front of you- dead. He can't be alive." To prove my conscious right I quickly turn around. I'm confronted by my dreaded fear.

"You look the same as the day I died."

I'm too shocked to speak, too terrified. Relief and fear flood my face and I manage to somehow find my voice again.

"L-Lester, I thought- forgive me, please. I couldn't stop you and I couldn't get up fast enough. If only I was faster, if only I saw it earli-"

"If only I cared."

His words shut me up like a slap in the face. I bite down on my tongue as he continues.

"You see Daphne I've already moved on. Forget everything that's happened before, it doesn't matter. That's the sweet something I've learned when I left. It doesn't matter." He comes closer to me and the casket, leaning down to look at himself. His words have an icy snap to them. "No, none of it matters at all. At least for me it doesn't- I'm dead." He laughs a humorless laugh then plucks the pencil from the casket. Examining it closely. "But for you, it means everything. You thought if you could be faster you could save me. You thought if you were stronger you could've gotten up and pushed your way through to me. But Daphne, don't take a menial gesture such as a pencil from a fourth grader as a sign of anything significant." With one motion he snaps the pencil in two. My gasp followed by the dropping sound of the other end.

"If you just let fate alone for once Daphne, then I'd still be here. If you had stopped trying to fit in with someone you wouldn't have ended up hurting someone who had something in his life to look forward towards. All the hints I gave you all the signs that were there. I never wanted to be your friend. Did you ever think I that maybe I gave you that pencil just to spare everyone the pain of having to sit through Mrs. Sumner's lecture or to see the ugly, outcast girl in the corner not show her blotchy face as she tries not to cry?"

"I-" I falter. My mind reeling as I try to take control.

Turning his back to me, he walks away from the casket. His voice still clear as if he were still standing near me."No of course not. But it doesn't matter. You'll just always have to go to sleep knowing what you did and what you didn't do."

I'm trembling so hard I can't see properly as I turn around to survey the area. He's gone but his voice lingers for one last second.

"Goodbye, Daphne. You better leave before you miss the bus."

Without a second thought, I flee run the room, desperate to get away. I'm positive now that there is no air in the room. My feet barely get me across the threshold. Tears blur my vision and sting my eyes. I fly out of the lobby front doors to be greeted by refreshing air. Once I'm outside and out of view, I throw up blood.