I stay there, standing still, weak limbs hanging from my shoulders and dark eyes gazing up at what stood above me. My lungs filled with the air that gracefully ran through the frenzy of my hair. For a second, I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see, I wanted to feel. The air whispering, kissing my skin and lifting my fingers with a cold touch. My ears hearing nothing but the rustle of leaves that I knew lay above me, but for another second, I pretended as if those leaves weren't there. My head stayed fix on the sky but my head was flying with the birds, determined to glide to a much better place. I pretended nothing was around me, stuck in determined darkness, and like a bird's wings take off to soar, I felt my legs get weak and my hands grow stronger. At the same time, the wind stopped to lavish my skin like it was gold, instead it penetrated against my body, shocking my dizzy muscles back to life. Forcing me to take control of my body, grounding my feet on the hard street.

My lips stole the air as quickly as it came down on me and my eyes opened as fast as lightning striking ground. The leaves that lied above me shook feverishly and the branches they were connected to, moved with them, determined in not releasing them. But my eyes strained to be open, because as beautiful as it was looking at the withering leaves aganist a sky stained of thundering clouds, when I looked up, it was as if everything was falling. The sky, the thunder, the clouds, the leaves, the air, the rain, the birds. Determined to compress me down.

A plane in the sky soared through heavy clouds, and once in a while, it’s great light sparkled in the gaps of the clear night. A second did not past before the plane was emersed in the fog that so desperately wanted to erupt on the earth. The big flying wings hid away from the world and if only I hadn’t been looking at the plane seconds ago, I would have never known what lied above the pandemonium of the thunder.

But who knows? Maybe it's not all black and white. Perhaps turbulence would strike the glide of the passengers. Perhaps the plane will fall from the clouds, a star's promise of death.

But perhaps I'm just good at wondering

The absolute worst.

#prose

Trigger Warning: The scene you are about to read contains attempt of suicide, it is not

heavily detailed but thoughts and feelings that lead to suicide are

incorporated. Read at your own risk.

The night had grown heavier, all under the influence of heavy sleep. It was as if the lights had dimmed, and the moon had been patient in making its light radiate over the city, for though the sky was only alighted with faltering stars, which would too fall into the steady pace of the resting city, for once giving into exhaustion. Nothing could have disrupted the night. For though the lights didn’t heat without a command and the sirens didn’t penetrate without an order, and humanity was half dead to give any.

No humming of traffic rested on the streets, only the gelid breeze that breathed on the pavement cradled the city, but in a neighborhood, drowned out by high buildings and shivering trees, walked a faint shadow through the maze of still houses. He walked in the middle of the road, cars parked inside the garages of the homes, no light coming from inside the houses, no sound or faint singing of a cricket that indicated the world still held living things. It was dead silent.

The only noise that he had heard that night was the clicking of the doorknob when he had exited his house, leaving no note behind to his whereabouts nor his intentions. Abandoning a family who had yet to figure out what that felt like. But either way, his fingers had created the small strength to open the door and had invited the frenzy breeze inside when the door had groaned in annoyance, but it only made a sound for a few seconds before it fell dead. His feet had stepped outside into the entrance of his home, his lungs breathing in the last bits of breath he would soon get rid of. And into the night he strode.

His figure weighed a dark hoodie that held his knotting hands in its oversized pockets’. The hood falling limply over his head, almost as long to cover the hair which hung over his eyelashes that let fall the heaviness that his chest so desired to get rid of. He walked as calm as the first drops of snow would fall, his footsteps basically vapor on the rippled street, and his lips pressed tight, not daring to perturb the silence around him. But as he walked, his hands only tugged angrily at each other, tears kept swelling and collapsing on the delicacy of his skin, the urgency in his head only grew, and the thoughts that gave strength to his numbing legs were so loud that it drowned out the racing of his heart. Although he didn’t want to disrupt the dusk, his throat and his chest ached to do just that. Though for a reason that didn’t happen, and his pain was just mixed in with the dead of the darkness, but it was the closest thing there was to living, simply because there was nothing as vivid as this.

Licking his lips, he felt the swelling that his teeth had created and tasted the saltiness which his tears had caused. He had imagined that by this time, they would be ripped. His lips marking his haunting emotions more than the mask he was beginning to remove. But when he finally did gain the weakness to remove it, the world was dead. Gone, completely removing its hand from lending care. A pull at his chest only picked up his pace as a swollen tear fell to the undisturbed floor.

It was then that he stepped out of the rows of houses, and faced an empty road, yellow and white lines directing vehicles where to go, useful in other times, useless now. No cars rummaged in the streets, but he found that to be of no importance because his only focus was the fence, opposite of where he was. His breathing grew heavier and his brain more demanding, if he thought he felt a weight in his chest, it was right here and then that it felt as it were finally going to kill him. Because it was. His feet went from walking to strides, and although his hands gripped at each other, the cold still snaked into the open parts of his sweater, sneaking inside his sleeves and falling behind his ears, but like the breeze, gently. As he approached the slick fence that separated pedestrians from falling off, he saw the darkness that lied below it, the sleeping city lights unable to glow all the way downwards to the pit of the ebony. But he knew what met. The empty canal which was meant to prevent streets from overflowing with rain was empty. And it too appeared frozen in place, not a flicker of a light or a holler of laughter from a drunken unknown proved him that time still existed, only the distant movement of his shadow and the beating of his hands proved to him that this wasn’t a dream.

Slowly, his body pressed against the fence that was waist high and unexpectedly, his chest pulled, grasping on any bone, any beat, anything that still longed for his life, that still pleaded for him not to give up. But there was nothing he felt like he could lean on. Nothing that felt like he could fall on, and the one thing that could, was right in front of him, almost chanting him to collide into comfort. Though his tears kept swelling and the pain was inevitable, it was as if he were disappearing but appearing again, like going unconscious then receiving his conscious repeatedly. His soaked eyes stared at the emptiness below, and it no longer felt like he had to comply with the silence.

So his mouth released a yelp of hurt he didn’t recognize his chest was holding, and his hands gripped on the freezing, metal fence in front of him, tired of frantically holding onto each other. He sucked in shaky breaths as his tears painfully slithered away from him, his back aching, his legs numbing, his arms shaking. His lips stretched and let out a painful yelp, his hands still holding his slouching figure, preventing him from collapsing to his knees.

“Please,” the hoarseness of a voice broke as he whispered. “Please, take me home.”

He didn’t expect anything to change, but he desired nothing more in the world for exactly that. For the glow of the moon to point him out, for the lights to blind the city awake, for the streets to get overrun, for the breeze to collapse down trees and shake off buildings. He wished that the door had creaked louder. That the lights in the homes were bright, that the stars in the sky would notice. That someone could stop him.

With full awareness, he felt as his legs had begun to climb over the fence, his chest leaning towards the darkness. But his hands still keeping him balanced.

“Please,” he said, a whimper tracing after his words.

But the heaviness, the emptiness, the hurt still persisted, as a tattoo would’ve. Nothing had stopped for him, but he had realized before that he had not expected anything to change, but yet, the pavement that lied 70 feet below him swallowed his supplications. Leaving his hope to no avail, like a stone would sink into water.

“Please!” he yelled, his chest constricting as he let out every word.

The pain tearing him inside as his throat yelled at the below. A body sitting on a fence, slouching to the emptiness, supplicating.

“Help me!” He cried, his hands tightening on the fence.

“Help!” He yelled. “Take-” he breathed, his voice sobbing to no one, yet anyone.

“Take this away…” He whispered. His eyes shut and his throat felt hoarse.

His hands slowly weakened, he felt relaxing in his muscles as they stopped keeping him together. There remained the pain that stuck to his chest, his tears doing the same to his face. He breathed in the cold air. And his hands slowly began drifting upwards, the beat in his ribcage pounding in his ears.

“It will be okay,” he whispered.

He breathed.

“It’s okay.” He breathed.

He stopped. Breathing.

There was a moment when it all ached. Peace was lost in the profound emptiness of pure ebony. My legs have dragged me that day, to the road. And I felt my shoes step on the hard cold floor. Although I did not know it was cold. I felt the wind though. That was growing heavier. That day, my hands traveled to my face. And my hands did their best to clean up the mess. It was heartbreaking. My chest was clinging to every part of my bones, trying to find something to hold on to. That day the pain was inevitable. And I was partly dead.

The wind curled around my body and its tingling breeze reminded me that I had nothing to hold onto. That once again there was nothing for me to lay my head on, nothing to lean on. But there was the road. For me to fall on.

That day. It was that day, that my tears were swelled with rocks. With tears of the very past that I do not remember shedding. And my heart was heavy. It was bothering. It weighed and weighed and hurt. My lips shredded the scream that my throat ached to release. That day, the road was there for me to fall on. But I was conscious enough to know it will not catch me.

____

Hi, this is a piece of work that I have already posted in my account, but for this challenge I saw it fit. Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

-e.j

In his bed, he stared at the darkness with wide eyes, feeling the stiffness in his rigid back, the blood in his veins slowing along with time. There was an alarming way the shadows stared at him, the dark waiting for his feet to meet the creaking floor to let him fall down into the unknown. And Rey felt the anticipation, so strong and desired it was, that it left him immobile. But it wasn’t just his room in which he felt this wrongness, and that only intesified his unsteadiness.

He shut his eyes, his lashes enterlacing and his hands gripping on each other and the sheet around him. Forcing himself to say something, call his father, to not give into fear, to speak, to leave. But it was as if his heart was elevating to his ears, for though it thundered against him, the only noise Rey's body unwillingly gave away. And so he sat with the covers around him, the wrongness lying stiff in the air, his body capturing the tension and yet, eveything perfectly still.

With a gulp, Rey held onto his fingers and croaked, ″Papa?″

It was like a stroke of a feather on the ground, gentle and unnoticed. There was no reply, no sound of his father nearby, nor the feeling. Rey’s eyes split, letting the darkness in again, his hands gripping the sheet only harder. His hands feeling the rapid pulse that navigated through his whole body, and it only got faster, like a clock whose seconds had been altered.

He didn't let himself wait for the heavy footsteps stopping outside his door, or the husked, gentle voice that so belonged to only one person. And Rey ached to find him. In his mind, he could hear the kind way his father had chuckled the previous morning when Rey walked into the kitchen. The wooden drawers shining with the daylight and shut they were, obscuring the delicate glassed-potions that filed in rows in most of the room.

That morning, his father had given him his first cooking lesson. Grabbing Rey by the wrist and carefully placing the big, rusted spatula in the palm of Rey's hand. In the darkness, he still recalled how big and misplaced it felt in his hands, his small fingers barely being able to grab it completely. But Rey had wanted to learn. Not just cooking, anything, in general, he wanted to learn how his father made any task appear flawless and flexible under his hand. So that morning, he was willing to learn any lesson given to him, any task, anything. And if it started with learning the basics of scrambled eggs, at least it started.

With his back to his father, the pan lied with shivering raw eggs waiting for the spatula that was tight in Rey's fist.

"Now Rey," the scratchy whisper of his father prickled his ears, "those eggs are not going to stirr themselves."

Rey had wanted to look at his father, gain the reassurance that anything he does, no matter how, will be done right. But instead, his eyes remained focused and he moved the spatula across the pan. His father gave a low laugh behind him, the vibrations warmed Rey and continued him on.

"Thatta boy,'' he said, and softly he grabbed Rey's loose hand and placed it on the handle of the pan. "You got to hold it in place while you're stirring or else."

Rey frowned at the hand loosely holding the handle, "What happens if I don't hold it, Papa?"

"What do you mean 'what happens'?", his father laughed. "It runs away with all your food, that's what happens."

Rey felt his back tense, his grip on both the stirring spatula and the handle strengthening and with a whisper he asked, "It can do that?"

His father leaned in even more, holding Rey's torso with one hand and his other hand, traveling to Rey's closed fist on the spatula.

"With what you can do," he whispered, "a pan running away is nothing."

The memory vanished like a whisper, and the daylight in a kitchen was replaced by the darkness in his room. Rey's eyes were open, facing the darkness again, but this time, with a steadier rythm beating in his chest. Letting go of the sheets which were damp with sweat where he gripped them, Rey slipped out of the bed, his feet making contact with the cold of the floorboards.

Slowly, he walked blind, aware of every step he took and where his hands told him to go further or change to another direction. It went on like this until his hand rested on the knob, metal and cool. His senses remained highly strained over the stiffness in the air, so when he twisted the knob and the door creaked open, it felt like he entered an unwelcoming part of fear, and this was simply because Rey had never made it this far.

With a packed swallow, he stepped into the hallway, and at the end, he noticed a small yellow light peeking at a corner, lighting a small part of the living room. Quietly, Rey traveled, the fear stuck in his throat and his nervousness reflcting through his knotted fingers.

"Papa?" he croaked.

For a few seconds there was no sound, only a faint humming of the city, but as abrupt as a blink of an eye, there was a hitch, a small hint of struggle coming from the living room and immediately, Rey flinched. Without much control, he had taken a step back, his body freezing in place. His eyes were fixated on the yellow light at the end of the hallway, focusing for any movement or sound. More than ever, he felt the door of his room behind him, still open, welcoming untrusted safety, but safety.

Rey shook the thought off and took a tentitive step.

"Papa?" his voice grew louder. And as much as he wanted an answer, he didn't know if he'd like it.

With no reply, he took in a deep, short breath and walked quicker to the end of the hallway. His heart speeding as he approached the faint light, and his eyes aching to close and run and hide. But he remained them open. And at last, at the end of the hallway, the faint light was in front of him, coming from a small flashlight his father always used for small tasks. And next to it was his father.

A body who was capable of great strength lied stiff on the ground with a pool of crimson expanding beneath him. There was blood coming out of multiple tears in his chest, the slashes in the shirts pointing out how the harm was done.

"Papa?" It was hardly a whisper or anything at all.

Rey collapsed next to his father, on top of the whirl of blood, and tried to put his hand around him. But it felt unnatural. It felt wrong to try to comfort anything that was lying stiff, unresponsive, dead.

Those eggs are not going to stir themselves.

Rey took in a deep breath, remembering the closed drawers and cabinets, remembering what they hid inside,

With what you can do.

Rey looked at his father's closed eyes and then down at his chest that went up and down in varying paces, he felt the blood sticking to his knees and staining the ends of his toes. It wasn't time to think, so with all the strength he had, his hands pressed on the slashes of his father's chest. Soaking his hands bright red and feeling the holes which were dug with a knife. Rey pressed and closed his eyes.

All of a sudden, the world was spinning. The strength in his arms that squeezed the injury felt as if it were cramping up, but with deeper concentration, Rey focused. And the freezing and numbing feel in his fingertips submerged, as if he were squeezing on ice. The powers on the palm of his hand were moving through Rey, like if blood were being drained from him. Making him more exhausted.

"Please," Rey groaned, his back clenching, his eyes shutting out the tears that swelled in his chest. "Please!"

His fingertips were growing colder as his attempts to heal his father grew. Beads of cold sweat were enveloping Rey's body as he pressed harder and harder. He remembered the potions his father gave him so he could acquire his gift quicker and the practices he'd do by healing small injuries, but never had he done them when they were this grave.

You got to hold it in place or else.

Or else it leaves you.

"But you can't," Rey croaked, feeling the loosening in his hands. "you can't leave me."

His eyes began opening and he saw the red flame sinking in his father's body. But no more was there a fall or a rise to his chest. The dread in Rey clawed him, yanking his heart with pain that only sunk like a body in the ocean.

"You can't!" Rey shouted, tears trailing down his cheeks, his hands steadying on his chest getting ready to try again. "Please, you can't!"

And with all the force packed, he squeezed and forced the power to come back. Forced himself to give it his all, forced himself to feel the cramping in his arms, forced himself to feel the healing working. But just like a fire can't start under water, neither can a man be healed when already dead.

And Rey collapsed. His body shrinking on his father's wounded chest. His suplications increasing. His weakness growing.

"Please." Rey cried, but his begging, his gifts, his efforts were now only useless.

Petals will flinch at the touch.

A sea at rest, drowned her. Her body lied, the gaps between her fingers, spread. And she was caressed. Like a small whisper, the water creeped. Holding her pain in the water, like it was an object that required the care. It was heavy. A tunnel too profound to declare full discovery. There will be parts not fulfilled. Parts undiscovered. Did the sea feel the stains of her tears? Did it feel drops of warmth over the biting water that it was so accustomed to?

Did it feel?

''I was ten years old and I was at school. My mind was taking a while to accept numbers and see them as they are; just numbers. The point is, because of my unhurried state, I was added to an after school class. There, two older girls came from a high school near by, they came to tutor us. I remember I thought both of them were dull and stiff looking. I mean, they both had brown hair, brown eyes, and in my ten year old brain I guessed one was smarter than the other. But one of them had curly hair, I admired that. And I thought her whole body lightened when she smiled. Maybe it did. No, it definitely did.

They came every Monday and everytime they came, I would gaze at the girl with curly hair, she held a welcoming smile. So welcoming. The one beside her, gazed uncomfortably at her phone or somewhere random. Later, I found out the one with the curly hair was named Erika. It didn't fit her.

When the teacher told us to do a simple addition and subtraction problem, I got excited. I wanted to demonstrate to these older girls that I was capable. Of what? No idea. But I solved it and soon enough I walked towards them. They were also working on the problem. Like my teacher, I wanted to see their paper so I can draw a star or a smiley face. Erika, looked up at me first, her curls were in her face, I presumed that she was just too lazy to pick it up in a ponytail. But now, lazy is not fitting. In fact, I think she was just exhausted of having to clean it up. That day, though, when I walked to her, I noticed something that I didn't realize when I first saw them. When I first saw her. Her eyes were gorgeous. They were a clear brown, shimmering, drowning. Perfect. Although her eyes and smile shone brightly, her face, almost was strained. Did she fake it? Her jaw was sharp and her nose was bony and sharp, but she, she was beautiful. Just beautiful.

I remember I saw that instead of using paper, they both used a white board. Their erasable markers on the desk. They had solved it. I grabbed Erika's board and dared to smile at her. She smiled and at that I felt emerced in warmth. I checked to see if she had gotten it correct. She had. I grabbed the marker and drew a perfect star. When I was drawing it, I thought how much that suited her a lot more than her heavy undereyes or worn face, or her name. Because that's what I thought she was, a star. When I finished drawing it, she smiled again and said ''Thank you'', like she really was grateful. I turned to the other girl staring at her phone, I drew a smiley face. Simply because she was smiling at her phone. I was ready to turn, in fact, I did turn to go back to my seat. When a small movement from behind made me peek at the corner of my eye. And it was Erika. She was erasing my star. It didn't even take two seconds to get rid of it. It happened in one swift motion of her hand.''

She sighed, a cigarette dangling on her finger and a cloud of smoke erupting into the snowy night. The man next to her gazed over at her.

''What's wrong?'' he asked as softly as a drop of snow plummeting to the ground.

''Unlike anything,'' she inhaled a drag of the cigarette, and then exhaled smoke. ''that girl taught me more about the world.''

There was a moment when it all ached. Peace was lost in the profound emptiness of pure ebony. My legs have dragged me that day, to the road. And I felt my shoes step on the hard cold floor. Although I did not know it was cold. I felt the wind though. That was growing heavier. That day, my hands traveled to my face. And my hands did their best to clean up the mess. It was heartbreaking. My chest was clinging to every part of my bones, trying to find something to hold on to. That day the pain was inevitable. And I was partly dead.

The wind curled around my body and its tingling breeze reminded me that I had nothing to hold onto. That once again there was nothing for me to lay my head on, nothing to lean on. But there was the road. For me to fall on.

That day. It was that day, that my tears were swelled with rocks. With tears of the very past that I do not remember shedding. And my heart was heavy. It was bothering. It weighed and weighed and hurt. My lips shredded the scream that my throat ached to release. That day, the road was there for me to fall on. But I was conscious enough to know it will not catch me.

The sun had glowed the brightest when it began to set. It had traveled completely around the ring of fire, of ice, of life. It had flared fiercly at the world below and it had pushed through the crowded canopy of the earth. And it gazed at the creations at their minds, at their skillful hands, at their diligent work. At the end of the day, it had done its job. But with the most illuminating brilliance it fell under the horizon. And it remebered when it traveled far below the sea, when it had overcome the monstrous waves. And yet managed to stay intact with its own magintude. And as it set, that's when its luminescence whispered farewell to existence.

Go on, it said, Go...

Step after step. Echoing through the stone walls of a mountain. Steps as loud as the blood pulsing in her ears. Solid enough to shatter the barriers in her mind. She could almost hear it. Crystal glass falling around her, as if she had passed through a glass wall, and all it took was a simple stride forward.