The air was thick with death and hopelessness. The stark chill of it cut through clothing, seeping into bodies and corroding souls. Street lights stuttered, as if shivering in the sicking cold of the night. Under the stuttering lights the garbage of the city street was transformed into diamonds, sodden with dew. The world seemed lifeless, only coming alive to dance in the October breeze. The emptiness was suffocating, not a single body walked this night.
That is, except for a single teenage boy, scarcely clothed in only a worn pair of jeans that hid dirty sneakers, a black jacket and white T shirt. His face was concealed with a hood, but he walked in defiance. He walked without fear or woe. Down the city sidewalk he strode in silence, he paused for nothing and no one. Death had taken all that loved or cared about. His only company now was sparkling street garbage and the sicking winter air.
And yet, he was alive. Walking amongst torched city shops, broken dreams, and broken dead bodies. As the Alive Boy walked he made a vow. He would not become a broken dream, he would never let his body break and rot like those he had seen on the street every day and night. He would never be like the broken neon signs he saw from time to time, bleeding their luminescent light away into the filth. He would survive in this fragmented post-apocalyptic world.
With his vow the Alive Boy looked to dark night sky past the shivering city lights to his only form of comfort. Stars brighter than anything in the broken city shimmered back at the Alive Boy, illuminating his soul. And as he whispered his vow to the universe his hood fell. With eyes closed tears slipped down his face, leaving streaks in the blood and dirt there.
Alive Boy stood like that for a long time, his slovenly blond hair becoming a halo in the wind. Finally, his long lashes matted with tears rose as he opened his eyes. And from that point on there was something brighter than the stars in the night sky in the broken city. Glazed with tears his gold speckled hazel eyes shimmered. While they held great sadness, happiness lived within them as well.
With his auroral eyes locked onto the stars Alive boy smiled, because he knew he was going to make it.
Miles away another teenage boy was looking to the stars as well, his black hair and sharp features hardly visible in the night. But Far Away Boy was looking to the stars because knew he was going to die. He had bled though every rag he had peeled from the dead and put on and he could smell the stench of his flesh rotting. The wound on his side was far too great.
However, Far Away Boy did not know that he was not alone in the fragmented city, and that a boy only months younger than him, who was brighter than every star in the sky, was going to be his shimmering salvation.
But neither Far Away Boy Or Alive Boy knew this as one of them walked on through the city and one collapsed from blood loss. Only the universe watching over them knew of how their fates intertwined.