리틀팍스

 Please read it till the end. I want to know whether you feel the same as I do.

 Today, our soft-shell turtle died. 

 You may be asking, of what a soft-shell turtle is. Well, they're a sort of turtles, which has a neck almost as long as itself, with sort of fluffy shell, as its name clearly states, and always flail its four legs mightily when we approach. In Korean, it is called [Za-Ra]. 

 My younger brother brought it from his after-school class two and a half years before. I couldn't believe it was really the soft-shell turtle I knew-it was not so much bigger than a cap of a bottle. It always dug, making noises, so we named it in a Korean name which meant 'Digger'.

 It lived in our house for two and a half years I mentioned. Half a year before now, a crayfish, which my brother had also brought from his class, had passed away. He had had it for three years. My brother was despairing beyond common despair. I was despairing beyond common despair. Many, including my parents, tried to cheer us up, that it was such a long life for a crayfish, that it must had a happy life with us.....

 Yet Digger remained, always flapping its cute little limbs when it noticed us.

 Now it's dead, or just simply seems so.

 It had a sort of a cold since last week-we could recognize it, as we have been watching a Youtube channel which helped us learn about turtle kinds. My brother tried warm-water therapy, and tried to feed it. It refused to eat.

 A post about turtle colds warned us that if the owners doesn't treat their turtles with good therapies, it will become a turtle pneumonia, and that it will be almost impossible to treat them then. It must have had a turtle pneumonia, because we had been too lazy.

 It moved, and hardly showed any sign of its life this evening. My brother, worried, tried the warm-water therapy once more. I was writing The Planet_41 in this website then, when I heard him let out a despairing moan.

 Digger wasn't moving. He tried everything, but it didn't move. Mom burst out of her room. He put Digger back in his tank. It remained limp, and just floated hopelessly.

 He cried out of his head. He cursed himself, for not caring his own animal-his own family. He wanted himself to be dead instead of our soft-shell turtle. I felt exactly like him, too, but being fourteen years old, and having experienced this feeling two times before, I was able to fight tear down, and calm myself.

 I stopped writing what I had been writing, and clicked a button to write how I feel now. So I am writing this.

 I wish that you were still with me, Digger. I wish that you would suddenly flip back into life, and that mom, my brother and I will be able to exclaim in delight. I wish that we have tried more than just convince ourselves that we were being good owners, yet it's too late now.

 Today, our soft-shell turtle died.

 Or it just seems to be.

 I want to know how Digger had felt in its last moment.

 - - - - -

 You may not be understanding how I feel when I'm writing this. I'll summarize my feeling now;

 World has ended. Doesn't someone ought to know?

_O.Light