Last wish. . .

The rubble around her intrigues her barely awake brain while she is quietly indifferent, to all that chaos and cacophony of the dying.  She is careful not to walk upon any piece of flesh whether a part of an alive being or dead and it is not a conscious effort - it is involuntary.  She is so numb with exhaustion that she is incessantly aware of every infinitesimally small change in everything around her. She extends her hand to feel the morbid air, thick with the thoughts of so many thousand weeping and feeble souls, most willing to die quickly than live the horrible pain, while clinging dearly to the little of life left in their atoms.  She braces herself against the raw cold, and walks without paying heed to the calls of the few sane people trying to help the helpless.  She is sane enough to watch and understand the hurt and gauge the gross damage. She is not sane enough to help anyone there beyond dragging herself away from them before she kills everyone to a quicker, more peaceful death.

She slowly comes around to hear her mother's voice; opens her eyes to get a startlingly clear picture of her mother with eyes that seem wise and strange - worn out eyes, sore with dried tears - reflecting a hardened soul, cold with strength, fighting against the weakness of emotions.  She sees her nod towards the doctor.  She understands at that precise moment.  Her mother did not let her down even now.  Her mother is always right - she smiles towards her gently - she knows her mother would have heard her think - I love you!  She looks at the single pearly tear that trickles down her mother's cheek, the one she always loved to rub against.  She can still recall the smoothness and the smell of it.  I love you mom!  She closes her eyes to the tiny pin prick of the needle – the last of pain she was to endure, the last of anything she was to feel in her short life.  She closes her eyes, gratefully!