okay so this part is somewhat of a short prologue, and as the title suggests, it's sort of intentionally vague , but comes into focus as the story goes on. The dialogue in-between is supposed to be 'the present'—Seto's words are the regular text, and Joey's are bolded, except for the bold and italicized part at the end. The excerpts set off with slashes are 'flash-backs', and Joey's slant to the right "/ /" and Seto's to the left "\\". I'm still trying to figure out how to configure the first chapter, so I'll explain the format of it when I do lol. In the mean time, let me know if it captures anyone's interest! oh, and the title is def. the name of an Underoath album that i'm in love with btw!* * *
|Lost|in|the|Sound|of|Separation|
"Watch where you're going," came a familiar flash.
/ /I watched curiously as several cars shot cherry-blue strobes through the pitch black alleys between the apartment complexes, disappearing in and out of sight. Please, please, please I bounced nervously. My eyes chased the unpredictable flashbulbs around me that were snapping my neck in every direction they were cast, dissolving everything into colored dots. The vibrancy vanished every time I blinked and the image in front of me became an inconsistent blur of lights and shadows./ /
Reality streaked colorlessly, "Then get out of my way."
\\My motions fractured as I morphed in and out of eyesight, and discolored spotlights splintered me into a flipbook. My arms and legs felt just as choppy as the disjoining freeze-frames that leapt from shadow to shadow. ShitShitShitShit. I sputtered a spastic, but constant rhythm that slurred the sound together after repeating it indecipherably in my head. I squinted and strained my eyes to see through stormy strobes as the disorienting shades flashed and flooded in constant motions.\\
"I was never in it," an emotionless intonation continued to fade.
/ /Don't turn, don't turn, don't turn, I pleaded blindly, with my back facing the stepping-stones lining the walkway that I was always stumbling over. I didn't really know why I'd suddenly forgotten how to navigate something as simple as my way home, but I think it was because it started to look like just another house. I could have stayed outside for hours, it was better than waiting inside, and if the sirens surrounded the cul-de-sac, then I knew the only compromise was having the door broken in./ /
And my response consecrated the chase, "You went out of your way to be!"
\\There was no way in hell I was going to stop because there was nothing for me to go back to. I was on a one-way track because my entire life was derailed. I didn't know where I came from, and I sure as hell didn't know where I belonged. So I spent a lifetime trying to run away but this time I wouldn't let them catch me. They would back me into a corner and like an animal, I would be trapped; I really don't think they knew how hard it was when they tried to help me, because I couldn't respond to the first question they always asked; and the answer was my name.\\
Eyes fell austerely, "So did you."
/ /I had hardly allowed myself to breathe, sucking in a sigh of relief when all I could hear was a distant echo that only illuminated an auditory resonation, but my heart dropped. There was a pitter-patter that outpaced the palpitations in my chest, and I turned around long enough to see a blinking blue orb shoot across the sidewalk in a streak of unchallenged, white light. I had enough time to see it coming, and exactly enough after to avoid a casualty; but I gave into inaction and chose to close my eyes. I lost all sense of direction, and I lost direct control, but what I would never know was what made it so effortless to get lost in the light. / /
"And you let me."
\\I started crying against my control because there were two blanks, but I only knew how to fill in one, because it was the only name I had. They always wanted me to go back with them, but how can you go back to nowhere? How can you accept going back to being nothing when all you have is the freedom to fling yourself forward? I didn't care about answering that though, I was sick of trying to figure out all the answers, and so I chased the biggest space in front of me that I could fix into a focal point, and tried to run until I became its shadow.\\
"You ruined everything..."
_ _ _x-*-.X.-*-x_ _ _
We were begging for a head on collision, and we've been lost ever since.