I honestly have no idea what this is or even if it makes any sense. I just kind of…wrote it, after Extraordinary Machine (part 1). It's not a prediction or anything like that. I guess I centered it more around raw emotion rather than a plot. Clare's POV.
So, um.
Yeah.
Enjoy?
You know how sometimes, something plays out before your eyes, and for just a few seconds, you wonder if you're just imagining it? You wonder if the scene before you was an actual event, or a simple mind trick.
He didn't just light the script on fire.
It's a trick of the light.
Right?
No.
Wrong.
Because Eli Goldsworthy, in all of his manic glory, set his play on fire. His words were still ringing in my ears as the flames licked at the air, the edges of the paper turning black , destroying everything he had worked for.
Destruction.
That word hit a nerve, and I felt it run through my veins as the crowd gasped and oohed ahh'd. Fire was destruction. I felt it send an eerie shiver down my spine as a manic smirk formed on Eli's lips.
Lips. The lips I had kissed, the lips that formed around sweet, comforting words. The lips that had trembled as he opened up to me, telling me his story. Once a crooked, familiar smile, I no longer recognized it. I no longer recognized the boy on that stage. Eli was so far gone, he was scary. It was as if every single layer had been pulled back, revealing the terrifying madness that had lain dormant underneath witty remarks and reassuring expressions for a very long time. I was no longer sure if I had ever truly known who Eli was, or the depth of his problems. It made me sick to my stomach to realize that what Eli said, despite the play's disruption, was true.
I felt the air around me dissipate, and suddenly I was left gasping, my breaths short and shallow as the flame continued to eat the script in Eli's trembling hand.
Why isn't anyone doing anything? I wanted to yell. Why hasn't anyone helped him – were we all blind? Were we all too wrapped up in moving on to notice that his sanity was slowly slipping away?
Was I?
Simpson scrambled from his seat then, rushing down the aisle and to the stage, his wide eyes trained on Eli. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the aftermath of whatever this play had become.
It should never have even started to begin with.
I rose from my seat, tears stinging my eyes as the pen I had been clutching clattered to the theatre floor, my notebook laying forgotten in my seat as I ran hurriedly out of the auditorium; drawing looks from confused audience members around me. No matter how fast I ran, though, I knew that when I stopped and leaned up against the locker, gasping for air, everything would come crashing down around me.
A sob escaped, and my hand went to my chest, where I felt my heart beating erratically beneath the skin.
Everything was a lie.
I never knew him.
I could have helped him.
If I had just seen.
I slid down the locker, tears streaming down my face as I reached the floor. I rested my forehead on my knees, breathing in the smell of my perfume as I wrapped my arms around myself.
Even when he's gone off the deep end, you still feel sorry for yourself.
"It's not fair!" I wailed, though I wasn't sure what I was talking about. It could have accounted for so many things.
It wasn't fair that Julia had died.
It wasn't fair that I was so bitter about coming in second to the deceased mystery.
It wasn't fair that I had fallen in love with a boy that was so intricate and fragile, a volcano waiting for eruption.
It wasn't fair that I had left him in the midst of a mental crisis, or that I had never taken into account how serious that crisis was.
And it wasn't fair to anyone that I still loved him now, still longed to hold him in my arms.
Part of me wanted that so much. To hold him, I mean. To take every ounce of pain he and I had ever felt away. Part of me knew that despite all of the madness, I would never be able to stop myself from caring about him in a way that went beyond being friends or even being romantically involved. Eli had maneuvered his way directly into my very soul, and left a mark there that now ached.
Despite that though, I knew everything was gone. I knew that everything we had ever built had crumbled to the ground long ago, and that any chance of rebuilding that was lost at sea.
There was no one left to blame besides fate, and the cruelty that she had cast upon us both. How had something so wonderful turned into something so absolutely destructive?
Destructive like fire, burning its way through our lives. Once it demolishes everything in its path, the flame dies into the awaiting darkness, leaving us nothing behind but the ashes of what used to be, and the bitter smell of smoke.
Reviews really would be lovely.