Dear readers,
This story was supposed to be a oneshot but it became to long so I decided to make a short story out of it. This is a quite personal story and I know that some of you might think that Pan is just a cry baby, that is your opinion. I just wrote this story because I needed to write it, it made me feel better, because partly it's about me.

I would like to dedicate this story to my little Angel, Tycho.

Filling the empitiness

“Pan… Pan, wake up sweety.” The woman said as she touched the shoulder of the girl lying in the bed.

“Mom, go away. It’s way to early!” The girl, named Pan, grumbled as she turned around, trying to get back to sleep.

“Pan sweety, it’s time.” The woman besides the bed said softly.

Pan turned around curiously, now facing her mother. She wondered what her mother meant by ‘it’s time’. For as far as she knew, her alarmclock didn’t go off, so it wasn’t time to get up and she couldn’t figure out something else. “Time for what?” She asked, staring in the deep blue eyes of her mother.

“It was his time, Pan. I’m sorry sweety, he died last night.” The woman, named Videl, whispered, staring at the shocked face of her daughter.

If a thunderbolt hit her, she wouldn’t even feel it. She was frozen, frozen and broken. Her tiredness was completely gone, it was like her heart was riped out of her chest and torn into pieces. She turned around and slammed her fist in her pillow, before hiding her face in it. A sob that seemed to emerge from the deep outskirts of her body, escaped from her mouth.

“I’m sorry, sweety.” Videl whispered. “But maybe it’s for the best. He was very sick and suffered a lot, but now he’s gone to a better place.” She said, trying to comfert the crying girl.

“How do you know that? He was happy here!” Pan said between sobs, as she lifted her head up. “He was my best friend, my little brother! I would’ve done anything to stop this from happening, so we could stay together.”

“You can’t stop death, Pan.” Videl whispered. “I know you loved him and that you would do anything for him. But he was your dog, Pan. It’s logical that his life is shorter, you knew that one day this would come.”

“He was not only my dog, he was my best friend!” Pan yelled as she started crying.

Rain softly started to fall down, softly ticking against the window. It didn’t matter to her, she was alone. In her own world, here she could cry or laugh whenever she wanted and no one had to see. She wore a mask for the real world, she would laugh and look happy even when she was not.

She staired aimlessly into space, her thoughts had long drifted away, her mother had left the room. The world seemed to stop, time seemed to have frozen, sounds died in the silence and the wind stopped howling. Everything was quiet, everything was different, all was empty.

Silently she stood up and walked to her door. She opened it and stared into the corridor, luckily no one was there, she didn’t feel like talking right now. She crossed the corridor and walked down the stairs, towards his basket.

There he lay, in his basket. It looked like he was peacefully sleeping, yet she knew better. She sat down next to the basket and stared at her former friend, she stared into his beautifull dark brown eyes, the same eyes which often let her drift away into the deep outskirts of her thoughts. His favorite blanket lay next to him and Pan silently covered him with it, so you could only see his head. She hoped that somehow he would get up and greet her, like he did every morning, or that she would wake up and realize that it was just a bad dream. She lifted her hand and softly touched his head, she caressed his raven black coat and felt the cold of his body where it used to be warm and welcoming.

With lustless eyes she stared down at her friend, tears began to cross her cheeks again. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, she looked up to meet the eyes of her mother. “Sweetheart, you have to get ready for school.” Videl said as she hugged her daughter.

“I don’t want to go mom, I want to stay here. I want to stay with him.” She said between her sobs.

“It’s better if you go, sweety. You need some distraction. Atleast try, if you really want to go home after a while then you may.” Videl said comforting. “Now go get dressed.” She said as she helped her daughter get up and guided her to the stairs, forcing her to get dressed. With one last look around, towards her friend, she walked up the stairs getting ready for what would be the longest day of her life.

Her hair was rocking on the wind as she walked to her school. She didn’t wait for her friends like she normally did but kept walking, she wished she could walk untill her feet couldn’t carry her anymore. That she would be so far away, that everything would just be in the past, or maybe just a dream from which she had to wake up.

From the corner of her eye she saw someone running towards her, when the person was getting close to her she recognized him as Trunks. He was a good friend of her, atleast he used to be, but she hardly every talked to him since he began hanging around with the popular group. That group was so quick in judging people, only by looks they would place you in a corner with the rest of your so called group. But she didn’t have a group, she had her friends but wasn’t placed in a group, mostly bacause she hung out with several groups. Or maybe just because she refused to be placed in one, she hated that narrow-mindedness.

“Hey Panny,” Trunks shouted when he came close to her. To her annoyance, he was in a good mood today, a very good mood. It gave Pan the urge to punch him or better strangle him, just to wipe away that smile glued on his face, she didn’t need laughing at the moment, she didn’t need any emotion.

“Hey Trunks,” she said quietly, trying to stop herself from running away or killing him, either way it would be bad.

Trunks rose his eyebrow, normally she would either greet him with ‘Boxerboy’ or punch him playfully in his stomach, something was wrong. She was not looking at him and was biting on her lip, where she normally was so confident, she now was so shy almost scared. “Panny, what’s wrong?” He asked, striking a bit of hair out of her face before letting his hand rest on her shoulder.

Her body shook as a small sob escaped from her mouth as tears began to fill her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it, Trunks. Please leave me alone.” She whispered as she stared at the ground, fighting back her tears. She refused to cry, though that attempt failed. “Please, don’t ask anymore.” She whispered between sobs.

They silently walked on. Trunks wanted to help her, wanted to comfert her with whatever was going on, but she refused to let him. This was her way of dealing with things, to hide in a corner, stay silent for a while, watch the world continue. Sometimes she told a friend, but only one she really trusted, but mostly her secrets were hidden, to the world she wore a mask. ‘I don’t want to cry, not in front of him, not in front of anybody. They would just think I’m pathetic, crying my heart out because of a pet. I know then, they will think I’m weak, a loser. Some might say that the death of a pet means nothing, that it’s something small and stupid and not something to cry about all day. But then why do I feel like my world has collapsed? I guess you never really know how you react to someones death untill you actually experienced it.’ Pan thought as she silently walked on, not paying any attention to the curious boy walking besides her.

When they arrived at school, Pan went straight to her locker, not saying any farewell to Trunks. She opened her locker and grabbed her books for the first few periods, she had five minutes untill first period would start so she went to the girlsbathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror, she was even paler then normal and her hair was a mess because of the wind.

Suddenly she heard a voice behind her, ‘hey sweety, why so sad?’ The voice whispered in her ear.

Pan turned around to see who said that, it was Marron, one of her best friends. She was the one who helped her when her dog became ill six months ago, she was the one who comferted her during his operations. If anyone should know first, they she would. Next to her stood Nathalie, which was also a good friend of Pan so it wasn’t a problem if she knew as well. She sighed and started talking, “It’s my dog,” she stammered, “he died last night.” Tears began to fill up her eyes again. ‘Oh God,’ she thought, ‘I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to be seen as weak.’ But it was to late, tears began to stream freely over her cheeks and a sob escaped her mouth. Silently she cursed the tears as she leaned her hand against the wall.

Suddenly she was pulled into a hug by Marron, “Oh my God, are you okay sweety?” Marron asked. “If there is anything I can do for you, just tell me, okay?” She freed Pan from the hug to see her face.

Pan nodded slightly, just to show that she understood. She leaned back against the wall with a sigh, tears were still crossing her cheeks silently, she could see herself in the mirror. She looked awfull, her eyes were read, her face was pale and her hair was a mess. “Pan, if you want to go home then you should, you can’t focus on your class right now.” Nathalie said as she gave Pan a worried look.

Pan silently shook her head. “No, I promised mom I would try and besides it’s not like I really have to be focused during art class right?” She said showing a fake smile. Fortunately she was saved by the bell. “Bye guys, I got to go, see you later.” She said as she quickly left the bathroom and went to her art class.

She softly tapped her pencil on the table, staring at the white paper. Her eyes drifted away to the window, it was raining outside, she could see people running for cover. Sometimes you come at a point that you have to start something, but you can’t because your mind keeps drifting away. You stare at your paper, your mind is empty, every thought slowly drifts away and you can’t seem to find a way to stop that.

From the corner of her eyes Pan could see her teacher staring in her direction, somehow argueing with herself if she should come over. She was glad that her teacher decided to stay where she was, now she had some peace. She stared at the rain outside, it looked like it would go on forever like this. Falling down from the sky, hitting everything that comes in their way. ‘In some way rain is like death, you can protect yourself from it but eventually you’ll get hit.’ She thought as she saw some soaked freshmen running into the school.

Finally the two houres, that were meant for painting but which she used for pointless staring, went by and she could move on too her next period. She packed her bags and walked out of the classroom as the bell rang, she noticed that the teacher wanted to say something to her but she was too fast in leaving the classroom. She walked down the corridor and up the stairs, she had to go too the second floor for her Dutch class.

She dropped her bag on the floor and sat down with a sigh, she let her head rest in her hands as she started to stare pointlessly again. She noticed that her best friend Bra was walking towards her. Bra sat down in her usual spot, besides Pan. “Hey Pan,” she said in a normal way before she started unpacking her things. Pan answered with a soft hello and luckily for her, Bra couldn’t answer because the teacher wanted to start. ‘Thank God she didn’t ask anything else, I don’t feel like talking right now.’ Pan thought as she was pretending to be interested in what the teacher had to say.