A girl stood at the top of the building, a note clutched tightly in one hand and her necklace in another. Tears streamed from her face and fell over twenty stories below, mixing with the light beginnings of rain. Nobody knew she was up here, nobody cared. She slowly leaned over the railing and then swung a leg over, then the other. She let go of the necklace and clutched the railing with one hand the other around the note. She breathed in a last breath then as she breathed out she let go.
She wondered if this was what it was like to be superman, batman, wonder woman. All these people who were so much stronger than her, if only she had been that strong… her body shifted and for a moment she was looking at the ground before she turned around an instant later. It seemed as if the world was going in slow motion when something hit her and everything went black.
When she awoke standing over her was a dark figure. Rain came down from the smog-covered sky and it looked strangely familiar to her city. "God, so this is where I've gone, no place better than where I was before, I guess this is hell then." She spoke to nothing in particular, sitting up with a massive headache. The dark figure muttered something before turning around.
The figure was a boy younger than her; he had a mop of messy black hair and wore a cape around a bright yellow and red suit. She stared at him curiously, was he her angel? The boy took off his cape somehow and draped it around her shoulders. "I'm dead, why am I still here?" the boy looked at her, well at least she thought he was, he had some sort of mask over his eyes. He sat down next to her and cradled her in his arms, humming a song under his breath.
Suddenly she felt very tired, with one last look at the boy, she fell asleep in his arms, the melody in her head.
She didn't know how long she slept for, but her dreams were vivid. First it was the good days from the past, the days wandering the forest with her notebook, the leaves so green, the sun shining so harshly and the old tree that had the perfect size roots to lean on and stare up into the sky through a gap in the tall trees. Then came the memories that were much worse.
Dark, crimson colors flooded her vision and sharp pains racked her body, some came from her back then from her leg, most of it from her wrists. Those went on for a while before fading and everything went black again.
When she woke, she was in a run-down old apartment on an old couch that looked like it was ready to be thrown away, yet it smelled clean, sorta. The walls were brick and nearly rotted wood, a small kitchen sat in the corner, a dirty fridge and a sink. Movement came from the corner of her eyes and she shifted her body up and towards the movement.
The boy came out of the corner with a cup of what smelled like tea. She took the cup and sat with it, warming her hands and waiting for him to speak. What happened to hell? Her being judged? Was this heaven then?
She clutched the blanket closer to her body, realizing that it was actually the boy's cape, the one he had given to her in the rain when he sang her the lullaby. She sat there in silence for a while, sipping the tea slowly. When the mug was nearly empty he began to speak.
"Are you ok?" she stared at him oddly. If this was heaven, she was dead, so why was he asking if she was ok.
"The song was lovely." was all she could think to say. She fiddled with the nearly invisible seam on the cape and then asked him a question. "Why is heaven so run down? Shouldn't it be pearly white gates and puffy clouds?" she hardly gave him time to speak before answering her own question. "I mean I guess I'm in hell, but why is it exactly like how life was before? I guess that's my punishment, eternal punishment for what I did."
The boy put a hand on her shoulder and she stopped rambling. With his free hand he pulled the mask off his face and staring back at her was two of the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen, but inside was what she was interested about. It was so faint, that most people wouldn't catch, not if they didn't know what it was. It was the dullness of defeat. His eyes, right near the center dimmed in the slightest way, showing that there had been some sort of pain in his life, something that he had been through, something terrible.
He pulled one of her arms out from under the cape and she shuddered at the cool touch of his gloves against her scarred wrists. They were scarred horizontally, perfectly even, healed and new, from the edge of her wrist to the inside of her elbow. It was the same on her other wrist.
He let go of the one wrist, but she left it out in the open. He pulled off his left glove and placed it on his knee. On his arms were the same scars, some were a bit uneven, probably done by inexperienced hands, and one very large cut, right at the edge of the wrist. It had healed over, there was no sign of it being recent, but the scar was still there.
She took the wrist in her hand and traced over the scars nearly identical to hers. She could only imagine what his story was, was he anything like her? Was he scared too? Did he do it too? Is that why he was here with her? Were they both in hell right now for what they had done?
"I was nine when my parents both died, they were murdered." The boy whispered and she ran her thumb over the scars, almost methodically. Her thumb paused for a moment before continuing as he spoke. "I was scared, I was shoved in an orphanage, bullied, hurt, and I finally thought I found a home and it was safe." He choked and a few tears began to well up in his eyes. "They ambushed me at school. I was in so much pain. This got rid of the pain though. It was nice to be away from the pain for a while."
The girl nodded, she had felt the exact same thing, maybe hell wasn't going to be bad after all, she could become friends with this boy and they could talk.
"He found out though, and he helped me." The boy looked into her eyes. "He can help you too, I can help you." He smiled a very small smile. "It's been four years since I did that." His eyes flicked to the large cut. "I'm better now and I know you can get better too." The girl just shook her head.
"This is hell, there is no getting better. Only getting worse. I can't die twice right?" she took her hand off of his wrist and brought her arms around her body, it had seemed to get a few degrees colder in there. "Besides, I can't get better. There is no better for me." She began to cry. "He raped me. And I couldn't stop it. I could've said no, I could've shouted, but I didn't. He said I liked it, but I didn't. And he kept on doing it. People hurt me for that, they called me names, sicked dogs after me on my way home, they sent me terrible notes, and this was the only way to escape it." Tears were pouring down her face. They rolled down and hit the cape, then gathered in the middle.
The boy suddenly leaned forward and gave her a large hug. He didn't let go. She pushed against her chest but when he didn't let up, she just let herself be, he couldn't do anything worse than what had already been done. He loosened his grip just a bit to reach her ear.
"I love you, there are people out there who love you. You just have to find them. But please, I need you to stop. When you hurt yourself you hurt the people who love you. I promise I will make things better for you, but you have to try. Please, for me?" He let her out of the hug and looked in her eyes.
They were both crying and the tears fell onto the cape, gathering in the center, mixing together. When her tears ran dry and they had both sat there for what seemed like hours in the silence, just having each other's presence, but then the boy had to leave.
"He'll be looking for me. I have to leave now." He pressed a piece of paper into her hands and then got up to get out of the room. She sat there on the couch as he pulled on his glove and face mask, leaving the cape around her body on the sofa.
He slid open the window that faced towards the city, and stale air rushed in most likely from the nearest factory. He turned back to her and she gave him a smile.
"That's perfect," he said. "Smile like that all the time, you look better that way. And never stop believing in yourself because when you do that you give up all hope and when you give up all hope nothing is left. Don't ever give up hope ok?" The girl nodded her head quickly and the boy saluted to her and shot off something into the night sky, it caught and he swung off on the cable, the sun beginning to rise from the East, illuminating his body for a brief moment before it turned around the corner.
She opened her hand and inside was a piece of ripped notebook paper, her words were scribbled out on the front and on the back was an address written in she assumed the boy's handwriting. She stood up, and fastened the cape around her neck, she wouldn't give up hope now. She wasn't in heaven or hell yet, she was somewhere in between, someplace where she could choose to get better.
She walked out the front door and down the stairs to where the sun was starting to shine on a new beginning.
A/N: Um, wow, just wrote that in about 30 minutes, sorry if there's any grammar mistakes, I'm very tired and my other story should update soon, so much going on right now though. Hope you enjoyed? Night!