"Even then the saddest sounds were nothing laughter could not drown

But we are not laughing now.

I see your face in my sights

I hesitate

I look for a sign, somewhere in the sky…"

~ Rise Against, "Whereabouts Unknown"

Empty.

That is the only way to describe him now; an empty shell, once so filled and overflowing with life and love – now shattered, broken, dead.

No, not dead; death would be better than this suspended existence. Every day is the same endless hell; he wakes – alone, never to the comforting warmth of the other's presence; he eats – the food tastes like ash in his mouth, ashes of his scorched heart; he works – without concentration, like a machine merely fulfilling its programmed actions.

Without even knowing where he could search, he cannot begin to look for the other, the missing part of his soul, and so has no choice but to endure the weightless helplessness of ignorance. He searches the skies every day, scouring the oppressive blue expanses for some kind of answer, some sign, some indication of how to move on or begin to assimilate his loss.

Black feathers.

They are scattered everywhere, on every surface of the room, floating through the air like burnt snowflakes. In the centre of the whirling objects sits the eye of the storm, blood streaming from his back, tears streaming from his eyes.

Outwardly he remains the same cold, emotionless being he always has been, though altered a little; maybe he is a little colder, slightly more distant – but, surely that is understandable from someone who has lost his best friend.

Only he and the other know that it is more than losing a mere friend.

Only they know how deep their bond ran; deeper than the deepest ocean, closer than their own skin. If they were in the same building, they knew the other was there; they knew every move the other would make, every breath, every word, and still they watched each other so closely that they could do nothing unnoticed.

He rushes to the other's side, paths, questions, reassurances on his lips; he touches his hand to the other's face, tears warm on his fingers and in his own eyes. The feathers whirl and catch in his silver hair as the other shifts, trying to shy away from the touch.

No!

Don't touch…

A monster?

No!

He couldn't be!

The wing flaring from the other's left shoulder flexes and folds in on itself as its owner tries to bring it under control, tries to push it back into his body.

Get rid of it!

He can do nothing but try to stop the other from damaging himself even further. He prises the other's desperate fingers from the wing and then holds him as he collapses against his body, fresh tears of frustration and horror flowing from glowing eyes.

But now he has no idea how the other will act; he could never have predicted this, the audacity of not only stealing himself away but a sizeable part of their forces too. He had thought the other's allegiance ran deeper than that, but now, as the memories of that one day flash through his mind he knows that he should have guessed.

He wishes that the other had only told him, so he could have left too.