Flickering lights glimmered in the eyes of the beholder – Lucius. Each blink, a grim reminder of how beautiful the world can be, yet, there he was, standing on the brink of his life. The hum of insects crept upon his skin and the muted glow of houses stretched further into the distance, yet so did the ground beneath.
He relaxed his body as he stood up, slowly leaving his fate to the howling winds.
"You're going to jump?" The voice cut through the insect's cry. He glanced at her with only the greatest disdain in his expression. He didn't know her. At least he thought he didn't, but the unknown face bared some sort of familiarity. The girl wore a uniform meant for someone of his senior.
Yet, despite everything, she had a gorgeous face. Her blonde hair reflected the lights of the city, her blue eyes held the galaxies in her wake, and her smirk could freeze her universe.
"Didn't think the school's first place would be so down in the dumps." She continued to lie upon the tiled roofing as she brought her arm up to support her own head. "Tch. Underwhelming."
Scars.
Lucius noted on her forearms and predominately wrists before he looked to the city's bustling life. As everything quietened, feint noises of cheerful clamour. He clenched his fists. Somehow, that phrasing had pissed him off.
The winds continued to tug at his thread of life, but he finally sat back down as the urge had died down.
"Is this your method of saving me?"
"Saving you? Why bother saving your rival?" She scoffed, "We just happened to be in the same place at the same time, with the same intentions dumbass, not everyone wants to save you."
Lucius rolled his eyes. Finally realizing he didn't even know of the others in the combat rankings, not that he intended to try and find out either.
"Whatever, you going then? Talking big for someone with similar intentions?"
"I was, but you ruined the mood." She muttered as she stood back up and climbed up the tiles onto the platform above before disappearing. Leaving not a trace of her existence except a lingering scent of a subtly sweet perfume.
Lucius grabbed his coat. His gaze locked on the horizon as he took in a deep breath. He then looked up to the skies, the heavens he hoped existed, "Wait for me a bit more." He muttered under his breath.
He put on the coat as the cold started to seep through the uniform into his skin, climbing up the tiles onto the platform and down the stairs.
He walked through the same path, the same streets, the same crowds and closing stalls as he walked through, turning at an alley and through a thin line of trees. Behind it emerged a pair of rusty gates.
He shoved them open, each motion causing the joints to creak and groan, giving way to the garden of forsaken flora and flora. Brown, rotten stalks and withered petals littered the mossy cobblestone path. Countless rotten carcasses of rodents and insects punctured the air with a putrid mess.
He walked through the same empty home. The once bright red carpets are now dull with black imprints all over, each extending into the various disgruntled rooms and their broken doors.
Lucius could not bother with cleaning, not since it didn't matter. The floor above was worse, bed sheets flung out of the windows and the algae growing on the window panes. The nightly winds pounded against the walls and window, echoing a eery hum of old, sending chills down his spine.
He opened the door to his room and closed it as he always did, finally going into his personal toilet.
He stripped off the heavy uniform and took a warm shower as he sobered himself back up, yet the memories kept flooding back into his mind, accompanied by an urge welling up inside of him.
He quickly turned off the shower and wrapped the robe around himself, walking up into his room, blasted with cold wind as he shut the windows and pushed through the dozens of beer bottles laying on the ground before sitting down at his usual seat beside the door. A single syringe sat by a box of vials and a table filled with empty ones.
He lit the candle by the box with a snap of his fingers as he stabbed the syringe into the vial to take the liquid in before tapping the air bubbles out. He tied his upper arm up and braced his elbow as he tightened the string, pulling it with his teeth.
With a deep breath, he quickly jabbed it into himself.
The room felt like a tomb. The darkness around suffocating the air itself. Lucius felt the stillness coil around his chest. The candle flickered with another gust of wind, the shadows dancing on the walls as he dragged himself to the bed, wrapping himself in the mouldy blankets.
Yet he still felt cold, not something visceral, but something deeper inside him. The sheets offered no comfort. The cold was touching his bones, his soul. His mind quickly emptied. The world blurred and spun around him.
Then, the laughter came. The laughter came from the hallways. Silhouettes of his late family are in his eyes, surrounding him in his bed. His father's deep laughter was accompanied by his sister's hearty giggles and his brothers' never-ending jokes. The sunlight seemed to shine through the windows; everything was fine.
Lucius laughed as well. He had no clue what his father had said, but it was such a joke that he would have said. And so did the family. He could feel it, the warmth of his family, everything coming back again, joking about how he had left the state of the house in.
Everything seemed too real. He reached his hands out trying to touch it, but it shattered, the fragments of memories breaking into a thousand pieces and ground into dust before his very eyes. The sound of a distant scream shot through his ears. It cut through him like a blade. His heart tightened. It was their voices, they were drowning dying. He has to go save them.
The next thing he knew, he was no longer on his bed but in the dungeon. The blade of his family splattering before his very eyes. Their faces of horror reflected in his eyes as the darkness swallowed them whole. His hands stretched forward, "Grab my hands!" he tried to shout but nothing. Nothing came to fruition as their bodies simply slipped through his fingers like smoke.
The darkness then came for him, closing in around him, filling his lungs, and pulling him into the ocean of pain. He gasped, choking. He couldn't breathe. His muscles seized, and his lung burned like it was in lead. He could hear his own heartbeat, each single beat, the only sound as he descended into the sea of nothingness. Arms coiled around him as he resigned to his fate, the pain, the guilt, the regret, and the unbearable emptiness.
He gasped awake. The room spun around him as he threw himself off the bed, almost gagging, but nothing came out. The room was bright. Too bright. Their screams still ring in his head, and the question he could never get out of his head: "Why me?"
He dragged himself up, his body even heavier, each motion popping a joint with a crack. He went in, the mirror reflecting a stranger, a face he didn't recognize anymore. A face he knew was his, but it didn't belong.
His hands moved as per routine. Applying the makeup from his sister and mother's cupboards and drawers on his face. He didn't want to see the hideous person staring back at him anymore, so he painted over it. The bags under his eyes, the hollowed cheeks and deadpan expression. The scars on his arms and cuts on his wrists. But it changed nothing, he knew it. He could vaguely see it even beneath the layer of make-up, the hideousness.
The only thing he could feel every morning, a hatred for himself. He stared at the reflection, his fingers trembling as they smoothed the makeup into place. He slapped his face twice, the sting a temporary distraction from his headache and the tightness in his chest.
He looked to the mirror once more and forced a smile. A cracked mask. To live a life he didn't want to live without any questions. But it was a smile, nonetheless. And it was enough. For now.
"Another day," he whispered, his voice barely a breath.
He straightened his shoulders and looked at the other set of uniforms he had in the room. The weight of the world was settling on his shoulders once more. "Let's get it over with."