There are people. There are stories.There are memories. Too late, now. It was too late. Pain isthe only solid thing in a world so brittle, so fragile like theirs. It hoversin vividbright spots in the periphery of her vision. She wonders when was thelast time she felt so terribly human.The past falls in heavy, thickclusters around her; pristine white sheets shiverinto a thousand fragments, each bearing a momentlong gone. They spin && they turn in slow, graceful pirouettes. The world keeps on turning && she might be dying. There’s an avalanche of days tumbling down the slope of hermind, days when family was a wordsaturated with warmth. &&then came the screams, the horror,the blood – a manic red nightmare. It rings in her ears – a highpitched note – the howls of mothers, theexploding riot of footsteps. && then there was the skin,flapping in tattered flags – a symbol of peace? Or that of death? &&then there was derangement – when sanity was nothing but a chewed up pulp of hope.EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. Choking, gasping, slipping && slidingover the slick, liquid scarlet, a moaning mélange of fear. && there shewas – a squatting, shivering creaturein the dark, watching shadows waltz across the ground to a tunelessmelody, no, a shriekingcacophony. War: a ruby wound inthe fabric of time. Theworld keeps on turning && time heals nothing. She watches the clouds on hiscloak – will the rain ever stop? Hisvoice holds her down like paperweight, words scuttling across her tongue in a game ofhide-&-seek. Exhaustion tugs herdown, tries to drag her into a bottomless void. It’s almost funnyhow people always compared death to elevation.It’s a fall, the splash of a pebblein the dark, && then the silencethat follows. The scorching sting of her cut floods her senses, yetshe remains quiet, except – ❛ …Kisame ❜ How different were they?Both knowing all too well the taste ofdeception, the grasp of loyalty. ❛ This time it’s going to be different, I believe in – ❜ —-you? They have fought together. Once. Twice. A mission here && there. He jumped into theirbandwagon, joined their organization for a reason. It was an oddity – criminalswearing their atonement like shrouds, each step carrying them closer to a meaningless death. They’ve watched theworld implode one too many times. Enough. Was that his reason? One word. Twosyllables. Six letters. No more lies. Just a world of truth. A world of peace. Does she think of him as a friend?Part of a dysfunctional family? She knows there's more to him than just violence, than the unreleased, the unspoken anger&& bloodthirst. The world keeps on turning&& maybe they can save it.
