A Foundation of Glass

"Why are you here?"

Sitting at the edge of the room, various tables strewn about sat a girl of teenage years. Her body frail, yet her eyes gave off such a fierce aura towards the man that stood directly across from her at this point. Seeing the kneeling figure of the girl, his eyes relax.

“I’ve found you.” His voice conveys a hint of relief, but the glare of the girl doesn’t seem to reciprocate the emotions he holds out for her. She clenches her fist tightly as her eye twitches at his comment. What do you mean ‘I found you’ as if there was anywhere else I could go at this point. Such thoughts ran through the girl's head as she just sat there, not wanting to even meet him in the eye.

“Well? Are you going to answer my question, or do I have to repeat it again?” she glances at him for a moment as she grills him for an answer. Though it probably never even mattered if he gave an answer or not.

“I was told by your sister to take care of you.”

“Of course you would.” she scoffs at his answer, raising herself to meet him in the eyes. “Not like that means anything though. You just went and broke my promise, so what makes this situation any different from before huh? You let my sister die, and now you want to act as though you’re the better man.” she cried out with animosity towards him as the volume in the room continuously increased. All the while, the boy stood still, whether paralyzed or lost the picture remained the same to her.

“She made a choice-”

“So you just let her die like that? She had her whole life ahead of her, and you’re just going to let her sacrifice herself for a-” 

“She died for your sake, so just shut up and take it!” Lashing out at the girl, she stumbled backwards with a frightened look upon her face; the boy regretted his outburst, and both sides ended up seeing aspects of each other that neither wanted to see.

“I never asked her to do something like that for me.”

“None of us did, you don’t have to be so hard on yourself.”

“You know she loved you, right?”

“So I’ve been told.” he responds with a coldness the girl was not expecting.

“If I was the was there-” 

“If you were there, maybe it would have been different, but you weren’t, and now things are how they are.” cutting her attempt to bargain off, she found herself unable to reply as she could only stare wordlessly towards the ground. Trying to say anything in this situation only led to her voice continuously becoming stuck in the web of her throat, desperately trying to escape only to get caught. She felt a warm sensation wrap around her as she saw arms embracing her, but she could only stare at his feet as time passed.

Only after a significant amount of time passed was she able to pass her voice through her throat, “Are you going to let me go?” her question softly echoed within the room.

“I made a promise.” The boy whispered into her ear as he held her close to him, and dictated his answer aloud as if he was trying to convince himself of something as he paused. “I was told by Maple-” he paused for a moment before finishing his sentence, “to take care of Sally.”

“Didn’t I just…” her voice trailed off as she began to understand his response, and what exactly he meant by that. “I really hate you, you know that right?”

He doesn’t respond to her attempt at hurting him as he continues to hold her within his arms. “I won’t break any promises.” Hearing his serious response, she isn’t even able to look him in the eyes from this point as she just lets the situation continue, out of her control; as that feeling slips away from her, something deep inside her starts to fade away.

“Why are you like this?”

“I’ve always been like this.” she wants to say something, but finds herself unable to, instead opting to push herself away from his grasp of her and returning the two to a reasonable distance. The boy doesn’t resist this action and lets go of her easily. Remaining in the classroom in awkward silence, the two of them convincing themselves of various matters before seemingly coming to an agreement.

“Okay Leo, what now?” the girl responds, calling him by his name for the first time in a long while. She seemed as though she was forcing herself to call him that as she held her arm by her side. After a pause, the boy named Leo responded.

“Are you hungry Sally? It’s around 3pm and you probably haven’t had lunch yet.” He says point a finger towards the door. “Maple would always say that Sally liked sandwiches; there’s a sandwich joint close by, so we should be able to make it.”

“I’m surprised you can still manage to tell the time with the sky like this.” She says while looking out the window.

“Well, I have an analog watch.”

“That’ll do it.” She looks outside the window for a second, before responding to his initial query, “yeah, roast beef sounds nice right now.”

“Then shall we go?”

“My legs are a bit sore from standing so long, how about you bring the food back.”

“I guess that works.” he shrugs before exiting the room, closing the door behind him as the girl called Sally continued to look outside the window. Outside the building, a haze seemed to surround everything, with the ground barely being visible, a sight that’s only gotten worse over the years. To the girl called Sally though, at least there remained a single candle in this fog, even if that candle was lit by snake oil.

The sound of the door opening caused the lone person in the room to turn their head towards the entrance. Looking towards, there was a black-haired girl with a kind look in her eyes as she approached. “Hey darling, you wanted to speak with me?” the girl said with a wide smile plastered on her face as she approached.

“Yeah I did.” Placing his hand onto the table, leaning back, Leo glares towards the girl with a serious tone in her voice, contrasting the rather cutesy tone the girl introduced herself with. “Why are you here?”

In response, the girl gives a rather puzzled look on her face. “What do you mean? Weren’t you the one who said ‘Maple, we’ll set up the portal at 8am today, so make sure you wake up.’ I woke up at 7 am for this, don’t tell me you forgot.” she says with a voice as if she was mildly offended by his forgetfulness, which causes the other party to have furrowed brows.

“Yes, while it’s certainly true I said that...let me rephrase my question.” He glares at the girl with an animosity that caused her to have shivers run down her spine, realizing now that this situation was an interrogation. “Why is Sally the one who came instead of Maple?” 

“Are your eyes going bad Le-Darling? Even if we’re twins, you should be able to recognize your own girlfriend.” Sally avoided his eyes as her facade instantly crumbled

“Oh okay, my bad then, I’ll just make sure to leave a mark so that I can tell the difference, come over-” 

“I’m sorry.” She lowers her head, no longer able to meet his eyes. Seeing her like that, he becomes unable to admonish her any more than he already has and just sighs in frustration before exhaling his next question.

“You do realize that we’ve been preparing for this day for many months now? Also, how’s she not here right now?”

“Sleeping aids are really effective.”

“You drugged your sister?”

“You make it sound worse than it is.”

 “If you had objections to your sister doing this, then you could have voiced them more than a couple hours before we left this place.”

“If I did that, there’s no way my sister would have-”

“That’s all the more reason to talk through this with her.” slamming his hand on the table, he mistakenly rams his hand onto a picture frame, causing the glass frame to break and some of the pieces to puncture his hand.

“A-are you alright?”

“...yeah…” the momentary pause lets him catch his cool again as he moves to grab a first aid kit nearby. He moves over to a chair and starts to open the case, intending to grab a couple bandages after removing the glass from his hand.

“Let me help.” She moves to try and grab the first aid kit.

“You don’t need to-”

“I want to help.” Hearing her plea, he understands where she’s coming from and extends his hand out to let her pick at the glass. Slowly, she picks out the glass, and though it was painful, she managed to get out each and every piece, albeit somewhat clumsily. They both sat in silence as she wrapped his hand in gauze, wrapping it tightly to stop the bleeding, and let the wound heal. After finishing the wrap, the two shared an awkward silence before Leo opened his mouth again.

“You’re quite good at this.”

“I’ve gotten enough scrapes bandaged by my sister that I’ve learned, she’s only older than me by 2 minutes.” a hint of frustration lies in her voice as she speaks, yet there is also an aspect of care she conveys as she speaks “She doesn’t have to baby me all the time anymore. Little Sally can make her own choices now.” She rises from her chair and begins to leave towards the door before Leo raises his voice again.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He looks up towards the girl, who looks at him with a look of certainty that he doesn’t remember ever seeing before now. In fact, when was the last time he ever actually got a good look at her? He always saw Sally in relation to Maple, Maple as a dependable older sister for Sally, and so he saw her as someone he needed to take care of as well. Neglecting her decisions on the matter, Leo has now come to regret that.

“I’m sure,” she responds with conviction as she stands in place, not turning back to look at Leo.

“We could still talk it out with your sister.”

“After our parents died, there’s no way she’ll let me do anything. We’d miss the deadline, and one of us has to fuel the teleporter.” He lowers his head, as the situation cannot be avoided. 

“Do you want to tell the others first, your decision that is?” She hesitates for a second before settling on her response.

“No, they don’t have to know.” her voice soft, but without a hint of hesitation in it.  “After I leave this door, I’ll be Maple, and the one who is still sleeping is Sally. The one who dies will be me and she’ll be the one who lives.” 

“She’ll be terribly sad you know, don’t you think it’s a bit selfish to leave her behind like that?”

“Yeah, but it’s my job as the little sister to make problems, so I’ll leave it to you to comfort her, okay?” Leaving him to clean up the mess left behind. As the girl who calls herself Maple exits the door, having made her decision to leave the two of them behind, the door closes behind her. 

Leo meanwhile, stares at the desk, the broken picture frame being left lying on the table. Its irreparable state haunts him as he looks at the photo of the three of them together, as he starts to hold his head in his hands. 

“You’re really just going to push it all on me…” He leans backward in his chair, closing his eyes as the memory etched itself into his mind. “How will I explain this to her?