Everything Else

Pages turned in a text book in the wee hours in the morning. Far too early for anyone to be up, but there she was at 3 AM, thumbing through her text books. Memorizing one equation here, another there: Her transformation pen sitting as a bookmark on another page. Weary, her eyes focused on the blue crystal, trying to make her mind focus on the natural cadence of its inner workings. But it was no use. All she could think of, was the blood she had washed off of her hands only half an hour earlier.

Ami breathed heavily, her hands gripping the sides of her desk. She tried, and failed, to steady her breathing as the flashes of battle, and civilian cries echoed through the night. Her eyes stared unfocused at the page of calculus before her. Another cry, another flash of red in her mind's eye, and the images faded to nothing more than a bad memory.

Her delicate fingers picked up a pen, then began to write. The familiar rhythm of the gesture calmed her further, as her mind began to focus once again on the task at hand. She wrote and wrote, until the equations were memorized, and her mind was numb.

And everything else went away.