It's been a while since I have been on this site. Around two years if I am correct. This story is one that I started a long time ago. It was under the same name and was around 10 or so chapters if I recall it right. But here it is as a second go around. It will not be the same as I originally planned, but maybe that's a good thing. Who really knows?

Chapter 1: It All Falls Apart

It was simple. Focus on taking in breaths. In. Out. In again. That's all there was to it. The familiar, burning sensation blossomed in my legs. Ignore it. Push on. Breathing was all that mattered. In and out. Getting needed oxygen into my body. Rhythmic thumps as my feet hit the ground. Pain didn't matter if you didn't let it get to you. Then, it all melted away. Aches in legs were forgotten, burning lungs felt clean and soothed, arms could feel blood pumping into them again. Green went past me as I finally began to take in the scene around me. Paved sidewalk made its usual reverberations in my legs as my feet hit it with the weight of my body before pushing off just as quickly. I had passed the worst part. I beat the worst part. The beginning. Now, I just had to keep going.

Everything needed to blur away. I needed to focus. I could go further. I knew I was capable of going farther. If I just let myself go, I knew I could go much farther than I would if I focused on it. That's what held you back. Your head. It was your worst enemy. I had to get back to where I had been. If that was even possible. Twinges of pain would still occasionally bother me, at least the physical pain. The mental pain never went away. Not completely that was. I fumbled over my own feet as my mind got the best of me. Dammit, I was not letting this get the best of me. It had controlled my life for too long. Hours had felt like days, days like weeks, weeks…. Weeks felt like months that were plainly unbearable. I had waited and waited and waited. I had never stopped hoping that things would change, go back to the way they used to be. They wouldn't, I knew they wouldn't. It was foolish to think that they would.

My feet stumbled again bringing me to the ground. I heard the sob come out of my lips before I even knew it was going to happen. Wetness hit the tops of my hands as hot tears. I didn't want to cry, it was weak. Or that's what had been endlessly pounded into my head in the previous months. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get them to stop. It felt as if a river was running down my face. A hot river filled with the shame and guilt that had built up inside of me over months. Sobs continued to rip from my throat as I pounded the ground with my fist. This wasn't what I signed up for. None of this had happened according to my decisions. Everything had been taken out of my hands for others to decide and my life had been the one that had taken the harsh blows. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. The same familiar ghost of pain and loneliness settled in my stomach. That was what finally broke it for me.

I let my forehead fall to the pavement as the tears decided to roll quietly down my face just as quickly as before. The battle had been completed and I was not the victor. After fighting for months, I could no longer hold it inside of me. The sobs had turned into small, child-like cries as I lost the energy to hold back the pain. Curling my hands into my hair, loosening the elastic's hold, I tried to pull it together to no avail. My eyes only took in the grey pavement under me. There was no reason to worry about someone coming up behind me as I had my break down. This path was rarely used anymore. It was old and forgotten, abandoned by the ones who used to use it daily. As I watched the tears puddle onto the path below me, it was almost like I felt sorry for the running trail for a moment. It had done nothing wrong. Simply been there, but it had still been abandoned. Being a simple object, it got off of the guilt train easily. It couldn't use the way things had turned out, the decisions it had made in quick response, as a reason to hate itself. I, on the other hand, oh how I did.

Black self-hatred had slowly started to make a tiny place in my heart. Over time it had grew and grew until now, almost nothing had been untouched by it. I loathed myself. Whenever that oh so familiar feeling washed over my stomach, it made me physically ill to think of what a sick person I had become. It had been selfish, disgustingly inhuman, but I had went through with it anyways. At the time, it was the best solution. How wrong I had been. If I had only listened to those around me. Now everything was gone. All melted away due to foolish mistakes and rash decisions. I had been a coward. A fucking hardheaded coward who had ran away from what was before me and not taken the advice of those before me. If only I had listened maybe things would have been a little better than they were now. Maybe I wouldn't be on my knees on a running trail in the back of a park with my forehead to the ground sobbing like a child without his mother, but I had not been that lucky or that smart.

I needed to accept the fact that it was all over. There was no restart, no looking back, no second chance. It was over and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. When everything had crashed down, I hadn't even known. No one really had. There was always that slight hope that things would go back to the way they were, but we had all known they wouldn't. Denial had caused me to be in this place, laying on the ground helpless, and it was time to face the facts. But facing the facts meant accepting what I had never seen coming. The simple thought made more tears escape my now tightly closed eyes. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I didn't want to let go. It would kill me. If what I had been feeling before had almost drawn me over the edge, this definitely would. There would be nothing else to keep going for. My fate was sealed. I knew there was no way out. At least I could allow myself one last hopeful cry as I let it all slip away.

The tears ran freely down my face. There was no reason to hold them back, they would have found their way out eventually. Somewhere the sobs found a way to continue ripping through my chest and throat. Every time I would get close to cutting off the tears, the thought would echo through my head that it was all over. Then the cycle would start all over again.

I don't know how long I laid there on the ground sobbing and even screaming out my pain until I felt the warm hand on my shoulder. At first I was startled. No one was ever back here. Then, the voice that belonged to the hand spoke quietly to me.

"Akane, I think it's time for you to come home now," the voice said calmly. I picked my head up off of the ground and turned to look at the person standing behind me. His gentle smile settled me slightly. "Come now, let's get you back," he said with an encouraging smile and a gentle squeeze to my shoulder.

Nodding slightly, I stood on shaky legs. He kept a hand on me to make sure I was stable. Looking at him, I couldn't help but hate myself even more. I knew I shouldn't have, but I did it anyways. Hugging him around the waist, I hid my head in his neck and cried more. He didn't comfort me with words, but he patted the back of my head in such a nurturing way that it broke me into even more pieces as we stood there. Him holding me up as if to keep me from drowning in my own tears as the trees whispered quietly in the wind.