The world's a rollercoaster
And I am not strapped in.
Maybe I should hold with care
But my hands are busy in the air, saying
I wish you were here
-Incubus, Wish You Were Here
Like The Mist
Long, pale fingers wrung upon the painfully cold surface of metal. Green eyes shut tight behind crinkled eyelids. Bared teeth gnashed at the mental sting. Dark brows slanted down, angry at the futility. A hand momentarily left the support of the frosted handrail only to slam the knuckles down at the surface to the effect of a ringing sound and a throbbing upon her ungloved hands.
Anything to distract her from thinking.
But it wasn't working.
The rail sung with the impact of a second blow.
And a third.
A cry of rage, a bracing of feet against the cement buried beneath the snow. Another note of the rail's violent song.
Why her? Why now?
It was useless. No matter how many times she cracked her knuckles upon the frozen metal, the images still flashed across her mind's eye.
It began with peace. Just a cup of coffee and a book. A simple chair and a table to rest her feet. Just like any other Tuesday night. But everything suddenly became so fucked up. An intruder was there. The tormenter had just appeared there. "It" wasn't supposed to be there. "It" stood across the table from her, so close that green eyes had been forced from the book in her hands to investigate the perceived threat to her solitude.
She swore to the gods that her heart stopped upon realizing who was before her
In the blink of an eye, the intruder was gone, dissipated from the air like a fine mist of breath into the cold, winter air. Shaking hands had dropped the book they held, and propped feet had left the tabletop so quickly that the coffee cup sitting next to them had been bashed to the ground, where the steaming liquid from inside bled out like a wound.
Just as the lifeblood of the woman poured out from the fresh gashes on her knuckles.
Green eyes looked impassively from the abused hand to the fresh blood upon the icy railing and down to the red-splashed snow. She couldn't feel the bodily tears at all, though whether it was from numbness of the cold or numbness of the mind, she didn't know. She couldn't bring herself to care to know.
She hadn't even notice that she'd spilled her beverage in her mad dash to get away from that place, nor had she stopped in her flight to pick up her discarded book. She'd just fled down the stairs, taking the steps in leaps and nearly tripping in her haste. She'd bashed through the doors and out into the snow, sprinting into the cold without her coat, which still lay peacefully upon the chair she had just fled.
The woman realized then, and only then, that she was without a coat. She felt the cold keenly once that realization hit her, but she didn't backtrack to the entrance of the nearby building to retrieve it. She welcomed the cold to continue to numb her body, and even went so far as to push the sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows so she could feel the breeze more intensely.
Anything to forget.
Too bad nothing worked.
A bloody hand reached into a side pocket of her pants and fished out a white pack of cardboard and a lighter. Disregarding the crimson stain now marring the khaki cloth of the pocket, she opened up the pack and tipped it towards her open mouth. A single cigarette slide between her lips, and a moment later it was lit. The pack and lighter were slipped back into her pocket, and the woman took a long drag from her lifeline. She took the stick between the fingers of her uninjured hand and, closing her eyes, blew the smoke out through her nose. She felt the dull buzz of tobacco and nicotine filter her off from the world around her and sighed in the closest thing to contentment she could muster.
She focused on the frost in the air and the mild drug going through her system. She felt the smoke swirl in her lungs, suffocate her, kill her from the inside out. Funny how the process of destroying herself was the only thing that made her feel alive. If funny was the right word for it. She shrugged the thought off. It didn't matter. She took another drag and flicked the ashes off as she exhaled.
Weary green eyes looked from the white paper of the cigarette to the snow. She mused that cigarettes and snow had a lot in common. Snow was beautiful. It was pure and all consuming. It never tried to trick you, you always knew that snow was white and cold. That much never changed. It covered up the leaves of grass and skeletons of trees, the black roads and the stalwart houses. The ugliness of the world was invaded by a pure white blanket every year, hiding it away from the eyes and consciousness of men. If only the snow could remain, to constantly re-cover the unsightly things around her, but she knew that the snow would always melt, to reveal that which was once kept underneath, to advertise all the disgusting things one had ignored while the flakes had been there.
A cigarette was much the same. It was wrapped in an unadulterated package, to be lit aflame and wrap you up; to cover up all that was wrong and ugly; to provide a few seconds of winter to those with preference to the cold while trapped in the midst of a blazing summer. Try as tobacco companies may, cigarettes never fooled you. She knew that to smoke was to dance with death; to stare mortality in the face and accept that it was always there, always watching you. That was part of the thrill, it was always killing you. One may think that the looming presence of death was a deterrent, but those people would be making the assumption that she actually gave a fuck about being there on Earth.
They assumed too much.
The cherry reached the filter hanging precariously between her lips, forcing her to spit the butt into the snow. She frowned at the loss of her two minute companion, as good a friend as she'd had in a long time, and closed her eyes to relish in the quickly diminishing buzz. A dizziness came over her at the action, and she couldn't tell if she was spinning or not, but she didn't open her eyes to find herself.
That was another reason why cigarettes were just like snow. When the tobacco was gone and you were alone once more with just yourself, all your troubles were back, revealed under the blanket of daze and smoke. Arguably, worse than before.
What was she to do?
A shuffle of pockets and a burst of flame.
Light up another, of course.
She didn't bother to take the stick from between her lips as she breathed the smoke into her being and released it back out. She just watched the smoke of the embers fuse with that of her breath. As the smoke left her lungs and dissipated into the air, all that was left was the soft curl of smoky mist twirling in the air above the cinders in a pale gray dance upon the dark landscape.
Like a curl of hair.
A soft, playful, brunette curl of hair.
That thought had the woman immediately spitting out the cigarette, not wanting to further encourage the memory flitting about her head. How could a recollection of such a wonderful experience turn so grotesque not long after?
She shook her head so violently that her brain soon pounded in fury, but she didn't stop. She was afraid of what she would see if she didn't distract herself with self-destruction.
Crunching of snow behind her had her stop her thrashing and perk up her head, her body, on the alert. The crinkling of snow under foot got closer until the person moving towards her stopped only a few paces away. Silence filled the air between them a few moments before the figure behind her moved forward again, getting uncomfortably close. The woman began to breathe deeply and slowly, fear and trepidation coursing through her body.
Was the newcomer "It"? Was this person even real? Was any of this real, or was she dreaming again?
A gentle weight was set upon her shoulders, and warm fabric brushed the sides of her bare forearms. In a moment the woman realized it was her abandoned coat that hung from her squared, tense shoulders. In complete surprise at actually feeling something tangible, the woman snapped her head towards the sound of retreating, crunching feet. Green eyes locked onto the back of a head of long hair, of a pleasant shade that wasn't quiet blonde and wasn't quiet brunette, in wonder. Emerald orbs watched the figure walk away without the chestnut-haired head turning back even once to regard her, listening to the regular cadence of crackling footsteps through the white blanket that covered the other woman's path, until the woman was too far away to make-out nor hear.
She'd had mere seconds within that presence, but she was already caught up. Caught in the abnormality and mystery. What had just happened? Who was that? Why had she shown such uncommon human kindness? She'd never seen that woman before, so surely she wasn't an old friend.
Excitement. Curiosity.
After yet a few more moments of staring at the figure, the dark-haired woman slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat, but immediately felt an abnormal weigh clunk into her from inside her pockets. Dexterous fingers pulled out the book she'd abandoned in the upstairs lounge and a long bandage. The woman looked at the items in her hands a few moments before looking back at where she'd seen the figure walking down the sidewalk, only to find the woman was completely out of sight; to become an enigma; a light-haired, faceless enigma.
A distraction in the form of a search. That was definitely something that she needed right now, and this stranger-purposely or not-had just provided her with one. A debt was to be repaid, and Natsuki wasn't one to allow debts to stand for long.
A flicker of adrenaline; a moment thinking that there was chance for change. She sloppily wrapped her numb, battered hand in the bandage before turning to begin the return trek home.
Mystery soon gave birth to over-exaggerated hopes that were far too absurd to come true, but she had to allow them to flourish. She needed something to save her. A dash of the absurd was just what she needed.
AN: Yo. In case you recognize the name, sorry about going MIA for so long. College is crazy.
This is just something I started writing when I was feeling especially deep. Kinda morphed from there. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.