A random idea that popped into my head. It's sad and full of angst and tragedy; you have been warned.

I wrote this for the 2013 version, but it can go with the 1970s one. I've never seen the other version (2002, I think?), but I'm pretty sure it would make sense to that one, too.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

WARNINGS: CHARACTER DEATH, MENTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE AND MURDER

Carrie White was dead. Chris Henderson couldn't believe it.

Chris had always thought Carrie White's death would be something that would go unnoticed. Invisible in life, invisible in death, and never did Chris think she'd be affected.

When Carrie White died, the entire school was hit hard. Months were filled with silence and mourning and grief and guilt. Especially guilt.

Chris was a bully. She couldn't- wouldn't- deny that. She was a jerk and awful and mean and a bunch of other words I cannot use in order to keep this child friendly (for the most part. After all, nothing about Carrie's death can be considered child friendly).

Chris wasn't stupid. She knew something strange was occurring behind the doors in that house. She knew that whatever it was couldn't be good.

She saw the bruises, the scratches, but she never did anything. No one did. Carrie came to school once with a broken nose and no one looked at her twice. She came to school missing clumps of hair- as though someone had ripped it out- more than once and all anyone ever did was laugh.

It took her dying for anyone to accept the truth and slip away from the sweet waters of denial and into the rough ocean of truth.

Chris was battered and bruised and beaten by this ocean, and she couldn't escape it. Denial was no longer a possibility. She had to accept the truth.

Chris liked to think of herself as strong, but that was one thing she didn't think she had the strength to do.

Chris closed the door to her room after school, and her knees hit the floor as she sobbed.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm sorry."

Before Carrie died, Chris never would have thought of Carrie White as strong. Carrie's death changed that very quickly.

Now, Chris wouldn't hesitate to say that Carrie was stronger than her.

Carrie White was dead. Rita Desjardins couldn't believe it.

Rita always believed that most of the kids at the high school she worked at were heartless and cruel. Her mind changed when she saw most of these heartless and cruel students crying real tears at Carrie White's funeral.

If only they'd realized how horrible they'd been to her before she died. Maybe she'd still be alive today if that were the case...

Rita believed that she could save Carrie, but her problem was... she didn't know half of Carrie's problems. She knew about the bullying, the insecurity; she'd suspected depression, and she'd known that Carrie's mother had something to do with Carrie's low self esteem, but she didn't think that Margaret White would harm her own child. Margaret was strict and incredibly religious, but Rita never thought she was abusive. After all, the Bible says provoke not your children and do not harm a child of God. By abusing Carrie, Margaret was committing at least two sins, and even if Margaret wasn't religious, Carrie was her daughter. Margaret should've loved her, cared for her, not hit her, or beat her, or locked her in a closet.

Why was the world so messed up?

Rita saw bruises on Carrie's arm a few times. Carrie had to sit out of gym class because of a broken nose once. She'd come to school in the clothes she'd worn the day before; she'd come to school with strange bald spots, frequent injuries, and reoccurring bruises on her cheeks (like she'd been slapped repeatedly).

How had no one put it together?

Rita wanted to deny how Carrie died. She hated to say this, but it would've been easier to accept Carrie's death if Carrie killed herself. Suicide seemed like a much more likely death for the timid girl in the back of the class. Dying by her mother's hand... it was even more horrible than if Carrie had died by her own because it meant that Carrie was betrayed by the person that was supposed to love her the most.

Rita couldn't help wondering over and over again: How did we not notice? How did I not notice?

Rita closed the door to her office and sunk to the floor, her head in her hands.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm sorry."

Carrie White was dead. Tommy Ross couldn't believe it.

He wouldn't believe it... if he hadn't been the one to find her.

She'd died-no, been killed- on the night before the prom and when Tommy arrived to pick her up the following night, no one was home. Or so it seemed.

He'd searched the house for her before finally finding her in that awful closet. Beaten bloody and nearly dead.

Tommy hadn't known Carrie White well, but after hearing her poem in English class, he'd begun to develop curiosity. Carrie White was a mystery to the world, and Tommy wanted to solve the mystery, unlike many others, who shied away from it.

Sue may have asked him to ask Carrie to the prom, but as the days passed, he became more excited, more enthused, about his date with Carrie. He honestly didn't know why, but... after Carrie died, he realized it was because he'd fallen for her. He'd fallen for the shy girl, the freak of the school, 'Creepy Carrie'.

As the day of the prom grew nearer, he stopped thinking of her as anything but Carrie White, and he didn't think or say her name like it was a disease. She was just Carrie and nothing more, and he wanted to know more about Carrie White.

He never got the chance.

He'd tried to save her. She'd been breathing when he opened the closet. He'd given her CPR, called 911, but she ended up dying in his arms five minutes after he found her and seconds before the ambulance arrived.

Logically, he knew that there was nothing he could have done to stop her from dying, but that didn't stop him from thinking that maybe-just maybe- he could have saved her.

He would live with guilt for the rest of his life. He would forever think that his only kiss with Carrie White was when he was giving her CPR. He could forever think that the only time he was touched by Carrie's heart was when he was pressing on her chest, trying to get her heart to beat. He could forever remember the closest he got to Carrie White was holding her lifeless body in his arms and when he cried over her casket a week afterward. His best memory with her was the day he asked her to the prom, and he wanted his best memory with her to be their prom night, which Carrie never got to see.

To his dying day, he would believe that he could've saved her.

He fell to his knees in the center of the hospital waiting room after Carrie was officially pronounced dead and burst into tears.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed. "I'm sorry."

Carrie White was dead. Margaret White couldn't believe it.

She'd killed her own daughter. Margaret hadn't meant to. Honestly.

Carrie had accidently used her powers, and in that single moment, Margaret saw the devil and not her daughter. She lost it- truly lost it.

The world went black, and when the black seeped away from her vision, she saw her only child lying on the floor, bleeding.

Margaret panicked. She tossed Carrie in the closet, packed her things, and ran. She's a horrible mother, and she knows it, but she's a coward. She won't deny it.

She'd been caught three days after Carrie is found, and she didn't resist as the officers shoved her into the car. They weren't gentle, and she didn't expect them to be. Child abuse is rare in this town, but when there's a case of child abuse, especially when the child dies, the entire town turns on the abuser. There was not one child abuser found not guilty in this town, even if there was only a shred of evidence that made it possible to convict. Child abuse was one of the worst crimes you could commit in this town; it's a horrible crime anywhere, but in this town, it's an especially heinous crime.

Margaret knew this, and she was willing to accept her punishment.

She killed her daughter, and she needed to pay the price.

Thou shalt not kill.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I'm sorry."

Carrie White was dead. She couldn't believe it.

Sue had made mistakes. She'd bullied Carrie, and she'd tried to make up for it, but it wasn't enough because Carrie died alone. Carrie died alone, and she died thinking Sue and so many others didn't care enough to try and save her. They didn't know what happened, but Carrie didn't think they would have cared if they did, and things shouldn't have been this way.

Sue would give anything for another chance...

"Please believe me, Carrie. If I could go back and save you, I would. Please believe me," Sue begged to the tombstone of Carrie White two weeks after the funeral.

Of course, the tombstone doesn't respond, and Sue can only hope Carrie heard her.

"I'm sorry," she cried. "I'm sorry."

Eight months later, Sue names her child Carrie, and she isn't entirely surprised when Carrie Snell grows up to look just like Carrie White. She even develops powers like Carrie (not that Sue knew Carrie had powers before her death).

The only difference between the two girls is that Carrie Snell reached her eighteenth birthday while Carrie White did not.

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