The End
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Or almost over. All the hardships, all the pain, all the grief, all the agony, all the failure, almost all gone. Time to start over. Heaven, hell, rebirth, she'd heard all the stories about what was supposed to happen to you after you died. She honestly didn't care about any of them. She just wanted this life to be over with. She wanted everything to be over with.
Perhaps this was the coward's way out. A lot of people would have said it was. Because of a 'few failures', they would say. Quite frankly, she didn't care. There was only one failure that she considered important enough to kill herself over: the failure of her entire life.
Things had once been fine for her. She'd lived in Stone Canyon, a good place to live with a lot of friends, and she'd had three friends: Aisha Campbell, Rocky DeSantos, and Adam Park. She had to admit, she'd had crushes on Rocky and Adam for most of her life, but nothing had ever really come of them. Not that she'd minded, for a while at least. Then when she was sixteen, things had begun to change.
All three of her friends had transferred to Angel Grove High, and from then on, communication between them had seemed to cut off. Aisha, whom she had known since the first grade, seemed to be missing contacting her almost on purpose. Even after they'd reconciled briefly at a gymnastics competition, Shawna had felt as if she'd lost a good friend.
There was something between her and Kimberly. Shawna thought dreamily to herself as she stared outside, her thoughts slow and tiring. Something they couldn't tell me. Shawna was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. The way Aisha had cut her off so abruptly, the connection between Aisha and Kim, a girl that Shawna's ex-friend had barely known a month earlier, the fact that she herself and Kim had been kidnaped by one of the monsters attacking Earth, all pointed to one thing: Kim and Aisha were both Power Rangers.
Not that they'd ever admitted it to her. Not that she'd ever told them she'd had it figured out. But Shawna still felt hurt by it. Wasn't she good enough to be their friend anymore? After that gymnastics meet, she had hoped to keep in contact with the two girls. Instead, both Kim and Aisha had pleaded 'other business' whenever she had tried to get in touch with them to arrange for some time together. After the third attempt, Shawna had just stopped trying.
After that, it was as if her life had literally gone downhill, and gone downhill fast. A couple of months later, while training for a very important gymnastics competition, she'd slipped and broken her leg in three different places.
That was the end of my gymnastics dreams. Shawna glanced down to where her leg still throbbed when it rained or snowed. Despite all the help modern medicine could provide, the leg had simply never recovered enough strength for her to get back into serious athletics. The only thing she'd ever really been good at: stripped from her by an accident. She could have dealt with that, maybe even tried to discover some other talent, if it hadn't been for a blow that came completely unexpectedly during her recovery time.
Kimberly Hart had been selected to train for the Pan Global Games. Shawna had lived and breathed with a hope for the Pan Globals, and the Olympics afterward, since the first moment she had entered into the life of a gymnast. But thanks to her accident, she could never achieve those dreams. The girl who had tied with her was going to have a chance to follow her own dreams. While Shawna had to stick with her books and hope she could find a job that would at least help her make a living.
Shawna kept an eye on Kim over the years, becoming very nearly obsessive about it. She didn't stalk the other girl or anything like that, but she did her best to watch and see what happened. No matter what events transpired, however, Kim seemed to lead a life that was charmed. She took the gold at the Pan Globals, cheered on by all of her friends, including Aisha, who had kept in touch with Kim and the others after she moved to Africa, and who had once again forgotten Shawna even existed. Later on, Kim took the gold again: this time at the Olympics.
I would love to be her. She has almost everything I ever wanted out of my life. Shawna felt a tear falling down, but didn't have the strength to wipe it away. Nor the inclination. All that mattered was that she at least do one thing right in her life: even if all it was, was dying.
Kimberly wasn't the only one who had done things and had things that Shawna wanted to do or have. Winning the gold medals Shawna wanted was only part of it. Aisha was shining in her own field as well: a veterinarian. She had discovered the cure for the African plague, just in time as the disease was on the verge of mutating into something that could very well have devastated the world. Aisha Campbell DeSantos was one of the most famous physicians in the world: and the only currently known doctor of both human and animal medicine.
Yes, Aisha had married Rocky. Shawna hadn't been there; she hadn't been invited. Everyone else Aisha had known from Angel Grove and Africa was, however. Shawna had heard about it on the news, and felt sickened. She hadn't ever really thought that much about marriage, but once again, it was the dream of a happy and successful life that someone she had once considered her closest friend achieved as she was denied it.
That wasn't the only blow, however. Two years after Kimberly won the Olympic Gold and made world history, she had gotten married: to Adam Park. The other boy that Shawna would have killed to have at least asked out, much less married! One of two that she had ever felt anything beyond a brief flicker of friendship for.
The years had rolled by, and things had not gotten better for Shawna. For Kim and Aisha, things had only continued to improve. Their marriages were flawless, happy, idyllic. Each produced happy, healthy children that seemed practically immune to childhood diseases. Shawna felt as if somehow they were mocking her. She knew it wasn't rational, but rationality didn't always work.
Shawna stared outside, not certain any longer if the fact she couldn't see much was due to the fact night was falling, or to the fact she was almost dead. Doesn't matter.. Her eyes fluttered just a little. She wasn't trying to fight to stay alive. She didn't want to stay alive. Life meant nothing to her.
They had shone all their lives, nothing had darkened them, even for a moment. She had lived with loss and failure and disappointment almost from the beginning. She had lost her father. Her parents had reconciled: but on the way to the second wedding, her father's brakes had went out and he was killed instantly. She hadn't even really graduated from high school: she'd dropped out in her junior year to get a job and help out her family. Naturally that had failed as well: the only jobs she was capable of getting were unskilled labor, and that didn't pay hardly anything.
Her life was literally the pits. Worse than the pits, it was hell itself. And on some of the bad days, she was convinced that hell would be preferable.
But it was over now. She couldn't hear the buzz from the streets any longer. Silence had fallen. All she could see was a small dot of light, right in front of her. Guess...this is it... Shawna felt no more pain. It had all receded from her awareness. All she felt was relief. She didn't know what would come next, but it had to be better than what she was leaving behind.
She had left a note. She didn't blame anyone but herself and possibly fate for what she'd done, for how her life had turned out. She envied Kim and Aisha, but wished them well at the same time. It was bad enough one life had turned out so badly, theirs didn't have to as well. Whatever it was they had that made them so special, she didn't. She didn't know why, it just had turned out that way. There was no bitterness. There was just...nothing.
Aisha DeSantos chuckled warmly. "I know. I really miss her. I wish we'd been able to keep in touch."
"Well, we are now!" Kim declared. "I know she's going to be glad to hear we've got a job for her! I heard she hasn't been doing that well."
"I know." Aisha frowned lightly, then began to knock on the door to the apartment. They really shouldn't have come over so late, but both of them had been occupied right up until it started to get dark. "Shawna?" she called out. "Shawna, are you home?"
Almost as if in answer, the door slid open under her knock, and the last light of the dying day spilled through the window towards them, framing a far too still figure, and a note stained with tears.
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