Prologue: Just the Way You Are
Inadvertently he had become my one and only friend, and he was miles away where he couldn't even help me when I was down. I felt so lonely that nothing seemed to have any colour in them anymore, my face was always turned down in a permanent frown, and I couldn't find any energy left to smile anymore. I guess this always happened to people like me so it wasn't unnatural that this was occurring, there wasn't much I could really do about it either. Had to push on through, push on past the bad, keep on surviving, one step forward.
I just really wished I had at least one person who cared about me, one person to tell me you're great and I love you, so don't do anything stupid. There was no one like that, not anywhere and that is why I simple couldn't face the world anymore. I looked down at the swirling water beneath me and realised how it welcomed me, how it taunted me. Oh god was I scared!
My hands were loosening and I let my grip fail, let myself be tipped forwards by the wind and my own faltering balance. I closed my eyes and let gravity and my body free. Soon I was falling through the air and it was the most liberating thing in the world, like I was flying. After what felt like lifetimes but was probably seconds my body hit the ice cold water below. The water began to batter and pull at my body, pulling my forwards and downward, sloshing me this way and that causing my body to his the large concretes walls of the bridge, causing the last breath in my body to be expelled by force. Then the water came flooding in and my vision dimmed and my body grew limp.
I was in a white abyss, no one could hurt me here, I was safe I was untouchable. I laughed and the echo was infinite, it carried on through the nothingness forever and forever. I felt so free floating here, and I finally felt a little drop of peace, I had always wondered what freedom and happiness felt like. I was there for years and minutes I wasn't even aware of time anymore. Soon noises caught me in my emptiness. Quiet distant noises but no matter which way I looked I couldn't see them.
A small quiet sobbing broke through my white world, and it made my heart hurt. "Arthur, please don't leave me" The voice echoed around my cavern, and I couldn't find it. There was no person to that voice, but it enticed me, it intrigued me and oddly it felt incredibly familiar.