Forget-Me-Not

      Sometimes, all Lilou wanted was to give up.       To stop fighting an endless battle against the world just to survive. Just to exist. She wanted to stop searching for shelter every single day, stop worrying about the lack of food and animals nearby, stop patching up her worn, old clothes — and, most importantly, stop blaming herself.       The overwhelming guilt had become a familiar part of her life.       Wherever she went, whatever she did, that heavy, dark cloud followed her, always reminding her of the mistakes she had made.       All it took was thinking back to that cursed winter — the one that, despite the endless, raging blizzards, was somehow one of the warmest — and her head would start pounding, while that relentless voice in her mind kept whispering that she had messed up.       Lilou should have gone home.       She should have gone back to her family.       The medicine she had fought so hard to find was supposed to save her mother.       Her mother wouldn’t have spent every day lying helpless in bed anymore. The medicine would have worked — Lilou was sure of it — and her mother would’ve gotten up. Would’ve smiled again. Would’ve wrapped her arms around her husband and daughter, holding them tight like she’d never let go.       Her father wouldn’t have been so distant. So cold. Maybe he would’ve smiled, too. Maybe he would’ve finally looked at them — really looked — and seen a future.       And Lilou… Lilou could’ve breathed. Could’ve finally let herself believe things would be okay. That there was still hope.       But none of that happened.       Lilou still regrets it.       And regret is all she has left.       Her home had burned to the ground. Her father wasn’t there. Her sick mother wasn’t there. By the time Lilou reached the town, it was already too late — there was no one left. Nothing but the thick, choking stench of smoke and burnt flesh, and the ruins of houses that once stood firmly on the ground.       She searched. She called out. She hoped. But it was useless. No one answered. No one was there. No matter how hard she searched, she found no one. It was all in vain. All she had were questions, gnawing at her from the inside — until she finally learned the truth about the catastrophe, and the awful, crushing reality sank in.       She was alone. Truly alone.       Lilou went back to the village where she and her sweet, beloved Sally had once waited out the snowstorms, desperately trying to recreate the medicine that could save her mother. But just as she had feared, all she found was crushing silence and the complete absence of any sign of life.       Not even Sally was there.       Now, when she looks back on those moments — the moments when she realized that everything she loved was truly, irreversibly gone — the memory still stabs through her with sharp, aching pain.       And that pain is something that will stay with her for a very long time.