• Jenny held the world together.

    Every day, every hour, every minute, every moment,
    She'd never been told, but she'd never had to be- she simply knew that if she didn't hold the fabric of the universe together, then nobody would.

    Every second was a conscious effort; she couldn't simply do it without thinking, like a heartbeat. Jenny had to constantly and perpetually concentrate on holding tight, keeping everything normal, right, and together. Able to do nothing else, burdened as she was with this unimaginable responsibility, she simply sat on the floor in a corner, eyes shut tightly and constantly reminding herself of her duty. She'd once thought that it could all be done while living a normal life, just like anyone else… but she'd realised that no, that wasn't right. It wasn't right to concentrate on herself with the universe at stake. If she didn't grip and claw at those ever-bursting seams of reality, all would be lost.

    She'd been found in her home, wasted and near dead from starvation and thirst, and doctors proclaimed it a miracle that she had not actually died. Jenny knew why, though; she couldn't die. She simply couldn't; her sense of purpose was too strong. Her goal too important. Over the time Jenny had been alone, the weight of responsibility had grown stronger, and the world now relied even more heavily upon her.

    She was committed, of course. Locked in a hospital for the mentally ill, where the best of the best attempted to cure her affliction. None succeeded, however, and for a year she neither slept nor ate- the doctors connected her to a feeding tube to ensure her continued existence.

    But then, a new doctor arrived, a woman by the name of Jacqueline Shepherd. She was young, brilliant, a rising star, and she talked to Jenny. Talked for hours, for days and weeks on end. Jenny never responded, but Jacqueline continued to talk; about life, how wonderful it all was, how it all hung together on a fine sense of balance, not one person's back.
    Jacqueline talked and talked, and one day, a miracle. Jenny moved. Looked up. She opened her eyes and her mouth, and with the croaky, hoarse, destroyed voice of one who has not spoken in years, she whispered, "I believe you."

    And at that moment, the world fell apart.