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// Fading Wish 
// Story: Gilded Sister 
// by Kind of Brony 
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I focus on my breathing; a steady in and out that perhaps took more effort than it should have, though I wasn’t really sure. Breathing has always been a bit of a chore for me for as long as I can remember. It will always be like this, just like how I will always have the same bad food to eat or the same white ceiling tiles to count.

Mom and Dad tell me not to think that way, that it only hurts my recovery, but I know the truth. I’m never going to leave this hospital. Oh sure, maybe I’ll be transferred to a different room or another place altogether, but they are all the same to me at this point. I’ve spent the first twelve years of my life here, and I’ll probably still be here twelve years from now.

… Or maybe not. It was hard to tell how long I had left, but twelve years seemed like wishful thinking. Would I even want it to go on for so long?

I shake my head. Those thoughts would only get Mom crying again. Somehow, she always seems to know when I think such things. "You’ll be better soon, sweetie, you just have to have hope," she would say, and I would always smile back and tell her I know.

It would be nice if I could talk to her more often, even if it was the same every time, but my parents are always working. They have to on account of all the medical bills. I asked dad one time if I was costing them too much. He seemed shocked and told me never, that he’d give everything to make me better. “You shouldn’t be worrying about money, what even brought this on?”

I showed him the book I had been reading at the time, a high school economics textbook from the hospital's pitiful collection. I had burned through all the fiction they had and was forced to move on to whatever they had lying around. Admittedly, I never really try to remember what I read anymore and just sort of do it to pass the time, but that musty old textbook unsettled me.

My dad simply stared for a minute before chuckling. “Sometimes I think you’re too smart,” He reached forward and patted my head. “You’ll do great things when you get out of here. I just know it.”

I didn’t really think I was that smart, but then again, I hardly ever spent time with other children, so I didn’t actually know for sure. Instead of voicing this, I gave my father a shy smile and accepted the praise, spending the rest of his visit going over what I had read with him.

Eventually however, he had to leave and I was left alone again. The next visit was two days later from both of my parents. I had been nearing the end of the textbook at that point as I had hoped to impress Mom and Dad for when they came, but Mom wasn’t too thrilled with my choice of literature.

“Oh sweetie, you shouldn’t be reading such boring stuff. You should be doing things that make you happy, it’ll help make you feel better.” She had grabbed the TV remote and turned on the old tube television that sat up high in the corner of the room. Flipping through the channels, she stopped on some cartoon about three heavily deformed girls fighting a monkey.

I never watch the TV because of how loud it is. The sound and flashing colors always gave me headaches. Mom sometimes forgot that on account of how little she could see me. I didn’t blame her for it of course; she worked a lot more than my dad and just didn’t have the time. Dad blamed her though when he snatched the remote out of her hand and flipped the TV off.

I don’t remember much after that; just the sounds of their fighting and knowing I was the cause. I couldn’t stop the machines by my bedside going off or the nurse rushing in. By the time I woke up, it was already night and my parents had left.

From the family album my mom brought in once, I knew they used to be really happy together. There wasn’t one photo of the two of them without wide, loving smiles before I started to show up. After that, each smile seemed to fade more and more and their eyes dimmed with fatigue.

I wish they could be happy like before I was born. They didn’t deserve to have such a broken daughter weighing them down. It was like my sickness was theirs too; like I was a cancer to them sucking away their lives. Maybe I should just be cut out of the world; stop hurting the ones I love.

A familiar beeping rang through the room, but it hardly seems to be there as my eyes grow heavy. Breathing is a particularly hard challenge today as my eyelids droop. A strange sensation overtakes my body, like pins and needles as it feels like I'm floating out of my bed. Despite the darkness creeping up from the corners of my vision, the ceiling lights begin to glow painfully bright, but I can't look away from them.

It’s been so long since I’ve seen the stars, was this what they were like? I wonder if I can make a wish right now. If I can, I wish things were different. I wish that I wasn’t sick and worthless, that I could finally stop dragging my family down, that I could actually make someone smile a happy smile for once instead of the pitying ones from the nurses or the tired ones from my parents.

I wish I could have another life where I wasn’t such a burden.

And maybe for whoever it was standing over me to stop trying to crush my chest in. That would be nice too.