She swallows the pill dry, waits for the adrenaline rush that accompanies the change, then quick and sharp as a knife comes the pain. It radiates through her body, clear and bright, it touches every nerve and leaves her shaking.

“Are you ready?” they ask, eyes beseeching, palms spread likes it’s them that will be the sacrifices, like it’s them that will bear the burden. She takes a minute to memorise the world as it is, the before, the setting sun painting the sky all the colours of burning before the first match is even lit.

“I’m ready,” she says.

Trembling whispers curl into the stale air above the sickbed.

“Promise me.. Promise me you’ll be here when I wake up. Amy, please. I‘m so scared.”   A firm and solemn nod, a tightening of grip on a clammy hand.

“I promise. You know I’d never leave you, Lana. Never.” A vehement shake of the head. “Never!” 

Enter nurse, stage left. A bottle full of something, “To help the patient sleep” she says and the promise echoed round the room. 

But the girl in the bed never woke up. And the girl in the chair? She never left, just faded away.

It is bitterly cold outside, there’s snow on the ground, and there’s a war on outside. But nobody talks about that.

These days it’s all about forgetting. Smuggled whiskey and clumsy gropes wherever people can get them, the teachers turn a blind eye, too busy plotting and planning to turn the soldiers back into children.

Noel McDerry was the first one up the day it snowed. He woke everyone with a loud whoop, got dressed in a flash, long gone before anyone could comment on his rediscovered cheerfulness.

Later, Hannah beams at Leigh, and pretends this is all there is.

Danny was pondering what would be the best way to go about waking Sam, he’d fallen asleep sitting up whilst on guard, his mouth ajar and his face even more lacking in colour than usual.

But first Danny just watched him sadly, sometimes he twitched in his sleep, or rubbed his leg wound, or muttered things. Sometimes he said Danny’s name.

Though he knew Sam’d be livid when he woke up, he decided to just let him sleep, he needed it and… He was all Danny had now, so he settled in for the night, and waited for the sun.

As part of his recovery, Harry’s therapist had recommended he talked to his mother about what had happened. Perhaps even ask her how she had felt at the time.

“It wasn’t the drugs,” she had told him, “and it wasn’t the mood swings. It wasn’t even the way you wasted every chance you got.” She paused for a second. “It was the look on your face when I caught you in the silverware, the door hanging off the hinges…”

For the rest of his life, Harry would wish he hadn’t asked.

“You looked like you wanted to tear me apart.”

“A cupboard?”  Richard was absolutely appalled. “Isn’t this meant to be some sort of dining society? Not some kind of club for the college caretakers…”

Tom looked at him askance.

“Did you not bother to learn anything about it before you joined?”

“My grandfather was a member… He’s a complete snob! I assumed it would be something super prestigious…”

“I wonder if they expect you to eat in the cupboard?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised! God what a start to my academic career…”

Tom peered inside the cupboard.

“Well, at least it’s clean?” He offered, but Richard had already flounced off.

“When are you going to leave your wife?”

 The question was posed casually, but both occupants of the room knew it was anything but. The man, balding and overweight, turned to his rather more attractive companion.

“When I’m ready.”

“You’re never going to leave her are you?” The man winced at the dull tone.

“I am, I promise you I am, I just… need time alright?”

It wasn’t until his wife threw the paper in his face and stormed out, the headline “Cabinet Minister’s torrid affair!” screaming out at him, that he realised how far from ‘alright’ it had been.

She didn’t even notice it at first. It started as a gradual blurring of edges, a slight fading of colours. Subtle.  After a while people began to ask if she was ok, she looked a bit peaky, a little too pale maybe. People started to forget her name more often, forget her presence even. It was like she was becoming insubstantial, faded.

No one noticed she was gone; she just disappeared one day and took her history with her.

Confused, her friends looked at old group photos and wondered why on earth they’d felt the need to leave a gap.