Welp, Firepower has been absent for a long two months. I've done very little work on my assassin!Ace fanfic, and after July's Camp session I have been trying to keep up with my other fanfic account. And failed at that. Ah.
This is not related to Dear Gravity, in any form or fashion, even though there is the relation of a vehicle accident in the first part. The characters in here are without name, and this story is a oneshot that shall not be continued. During Camp, my mind felt literally torn apart and though I love the challenges with all my heart, sometimes the stress of life plus Camp bleeds into my writing and creates, well... this. It's a temporary feeling for me, because I adore the three months devoted to NaNo every year, and I am a generally happy person. Please do not think differently, nor assume that I am portraying my life in the form of this story.
Ahead of time, I apologize for any and all mistakes: this was written during Camp (explanation enough) and revised from nine o'clock to two in the morning yesterday. I have not looked over it again, so therefore there will, undoubtedly, be plenty of mistakes.
-Trigger warning, just in case. Depends on how you look at the story, so I'm just going to put it there. Read at your own choice.-
/ / \ \
The skylight was dimmed, the clouds thankfully shielding the sun. The entire scene would have seemed completely ironic had the sun shown through the thunderstorm that was inevitably going to take place in a matter of hours. It was predicted by everyone; a storm following the thick cloud cover, adding to the somber tone of the evening. But today, he would not have wanted the sky to be any different than it was. As it was right now, it looked best for what had taken place.
He overlooked, standing atop a small bridge lifted above the scene below, a dried creek that lay quite a distance down. It wasn't the depth of the drop that was disconcerting, it was the thick metal railing. More specifically, the section that was bent and broken, fractured and partially splintered. Maybe it was the vertical descent, the fact that something had quite easily been able to break through the railing that was stationed there to protect and prohibit vehicles from doing so. It hadn't taken but a simple collision for the entire thing to shatter, for the situation to go from, "hold on, I've got this" to "we are going to die". It hadn't taken but a wide-eyed moment for them to plummet to the floor below, the stiff, rocky, jagged ground. It was a simple nosedive for any car, including trucks and all other vehicular contraption, and the windshield - he could see quite easily from his high vantage point on the edge of the bridge - was busted. Glass was strewn about carelessly, surrounding the area, and not just from the front of the automobile, either. The side windows took great damage, as did the entire forepart of the truck. It was in a sorry state of demolition.
The situation looked devastatingly hopeless, staring down at the single vehicle that had been so lone as it moved smoothly down the peaceful road. There was no visible sign of help available to assist those who had been driving and riding in the truck. No one would even notice it, should they just happen to disregard the segment of railing missing. For there had been an admonition alluding to the loose, frail roadside protector not but half a mile ahead. And no one moved from down below, there was no implication that any form of succor was desperately needed.
Everything was suspended in time. Except for the approaching storm. No, that was not going to relent, that was not going to pause in the freeze frame, unlike all else. It was going to happen, as prevised, and it would add to the despairing mood surrounding the wreckage, the scene below his paws, below the bridge.
Why didn't he move into action? Why didn't he go find aid, or flag someone down, or see if everyone was alright and had survived the plunge off the bridge? Because, really, he couldn't. He was as trapped, as stuck or unconscious or dead as whoever had been manning the vehicle when it hit rock bottom, both metaphorically and literally. He had no choice but to sit along the side of the road, watch as no one drove past. Watch as the ominous storm approached slowly, yet all too quickly. Watch as over his head grew tightly clumped together masses of dangerous, darkening clouds. Watch as nothing stirred nor moved in the area beneath him. Watch, as nothing happened and nothing changed. Except, of course, for the advancing storm. He was horribly numb, a sensation that suffused throughout his body and sent his heart battering against the bone prison it was being kept in.
He could begin to hear thunder rolling from the distance, the low rumbling reverberating inside his skull and jarring his bones, causing him to shiver. Lightning could been seen by the naked eye, a web of jointed bolts arching through the sky and striking so near the ground he could have sworn sparks rose. It wasn't going to be an exceptionally welcomed storm, rather unpleasant to say in the least, in the form of what it would bring about: quite a distressing amount of rain, sonorous thunder that vibrated the ground he stood upon, lightning that threatened to lash out and spit an electrical strike directly at him, to make his fur rise and send alarms racing up and down his body. The dismal clouds promised weather that did not come off as appealing, not in the least, and it was not going to be something he wanted to stay and endure.
But he was unable to go elsewhere. He could not choose where, per se, he wanted to go. He was rooted in spot, observing the still, hopeless scene below, watching as no help came, watching the storm draw closer, closer, closer . . .
Sighing, he took a step forward to the broken section of the bridge, the part of the rail that opened up to the unchanging incident lower his level. His tail drooped further when he saw that nothing had become different, when he saw that no help had come - still - and that no movement had been made since he last looked. But, oh. The storm did not withhold, did not take even a minute to mourn the situation, only brought about rainy gales of wind and crackling thunder and wild strikes of lightning. Maybe that was its way of honoring the helpless destruction underneath the bridge, by creating a storm that felt quite like his emotions at the moment. That's what he felt like. He felt like a storm. A storm of mingled and disorderly chaotic feelings and emotions, and this new realization made him reflect differently on the advancing thunderstorm.
Yes, he was terribly sorry for what occurred down, down below his paws. He was very dispirited and disheartened that no one had exited the car since, that not even a sign of life had been shown since the incident happened - which he had not known when, exactly, that was. He had been slightly disturbed by the approaching rain, but now, in the new method of looking at it, no longer did he dread it entirely. The rain represented his sadness, the mounting urge he had to collapse upon the empty road and cry, tears like the droplets from heaven above. The lightning was the striking impulse he felt to assist, to do something more than stand around and just . . . wait. But like the bolts that angrily cut across the darkened sky and aimed for whatever they could reach, he couldn't grasp land, he was left hovering just above it, never being able to touch the safe, steady surface. The thunder could only be marked as his disquiet upset, over the fact that no one was making obvious attempt to help, that no one was going to arrive soon enough to save those who were in the wreckage below him. Should they still be alive. The flustered, raw wind, which he could feel just now caressing his face, was the emotions swirling hopelessly around his head, all bleeding into each other and concocting an undecipherable feeling he could not quite place. He could not move into action, he could not do a single helpful thing. He was forced to sit, to wait, and to remain useless.
The first blow of the harsh gale that struck his face was surprisingly bone-chilling, and indeed his interior body structure did feel as though it were melding together from the frigidity. He didn't so much as shift as it drove his ears back, as it streamed through his fur and caused him to nearly lose his balance, though he was once again sitting down. The rain that came next battered down upon him in a slanted motion, pounding him in the face, forcing him to try - and fail - to keep the tears of the sky from streaming into his eyes. But it didn't take long after the storm commenced for him to realize that the warm streaks that he brushed from his eyes were not droplets of rain, but rather his own salty yet water diluted tears. His coal black eyes widened in a squint, facing the arrival of the storm.
"Hold on . . . I've got this."
"We are going to die."
Shut your eyes. Kiss me goodbye. And sleep. Just sleep.
He languidly trudged over to the ledge of the bridge, his heart sinking the distance when the light around him was so dim and blue and black and such a deep shade of incomprehensible grey that the scene below was blackened intensely. He could not see fully the shape of the broken truck, nor could he observe the remaining shards of shattered glass against the ground. Everything was covered by the storm. There was no changing color, there was nothing but the persisting menace of the growing form of the wicked weather.
I can't. I can't wake up.
He let out a sob for those in the truck, for the lost days and years that lay ahead of them. Each moment that was lost and could never again be regained. The lives that could have been lived, survived. The driver was going to get a promotion at work the next day. If someone had joined them in the vehicle, which he knew was the case, they were going to find true love the next week, and after that everything was going to be happy. Happy, happy, happy. Like the sunshine and light blue skies. Happy, happy, happy. Like smiles and giggles and just pure, uncensored happiness.
But instead - sad, sad, sad. The situation. Sad, sad, sad. The accident, the storm, the disconsolate sense that hung in the air. Sad, sad, sad. A bleak outcome. There wasn't any hope for those down below in the destroyed truck. There wasn't any hope for himself, either. He would be permanently stuck on this bridge. He would be forever condemned to remain a watch over this scene, to forever stare back and forth, up and down the road, searching for some form of help that would never come. And if, indeed, a car did eventually pass, he doubted anyone would stop for him. And he most certainly could not wave them down. That was not in his capability. They wouldn't see him. They would just continue driving, maybe make a remark or two about the oddity or worrisome missing link in the railing, but no one would ever detect the event that took place. Or him. No one would ever find him, either.
The wind blindsided him completely in the next minute. He stumbled to gain traction of the suddenly very slippery road, the sudden lack of floatation never once crossing his mind, but the effort was useless. He was flung into the distance, across the scratchy, painful road, though the effect would not be lasting on him. He didn't even quite understand how he still felt it, being who and what he was, but he did not question it. Nor did he continue to fight against the gust, the gale that caused him to be sent flying, scrambling for whatever purchase he could manage, slowly being whipped and pushed further and further from the safe place he had been before, sending him closer to the section missing from the bridge. The wind knew exactly where, perfectly precise, to throw him - out and down upon the scene before. He was undoubtedly going to become part of the scattered, sharp-edged glass. He was going to be as crumpled and still as the unmoving truck. As those inside. He, too, was going to die.
He didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.
As he felt the cut of his paw against the ledge of remaining railing, he felt a twinge of sadness course through him. He couldn't hold on forever, nor did he have that desire. He did not want to continue living this dream, this . . . was it a dream? Was this just his pure imagination, creating a situation that felt to go on endlessly, that never seemed to end? The storm that returned every evening, was it all just a mental creation? Could he actually have another chance at life?
What did it matter? He was forever stuck either way. There was no way, dream or no, to escape the bridge. No other way other than letting himself fall - his grip lessened on the tight, instinctual hold it had on the sharp edge of the split railing - and crash to the ground like the heavy truck had forever ago - the air rushed past his ears as he fell - and he had no choice to do anything.
He was already dead.
/ / \ \
I don't know what could have altered the events that occurred, something that would have changed the result of how everything ended. Other than being born entirely different, with a different life and a different name and brand new and completely refreshed memories, I don't think there would be any possibility that it all would have . . . changed.
And I realize that maybe, if we did have an entirely new life and a choice to start back over again with a clean slate at our feet, perhaps we would have it worse. Believe me, I know things can get worse than they are. But you understand a lot of things when you are at the bottom, when you've sunk as far as you can go, and one of them is that there isn't always light above the surface of the water. There isn't always a rescue boat waiting for you to resurface. There isn't always a diver coming to look for you, or your body. Sometimes, you've just sunk, and it works better that way. You don't have to live with all the disappointment anymore, the feeling of worthlessness, the longing sensation you have just to be seen as normal so that someone can love you. So that someone can be your boat when you frantically kick through the water and swim up for air.
We all deal with things differently - some of us are stronger and can fight off whatever negativity they are given in favor of creating friendships to help, perhaps even cure, people of their own dark thoughts and lives. And then there are some of us who, apparently, are not as strong as they others. Who might not go through the worst in life, yet can't envision their world as any better. They can't see a reality where the sun is shining past the dismal and obscuring clouds, can't cut through the thick veil of darkly shrouded thoughts and destroyed dreams and can't climb and conquer the mound of depression. I know that I, personally, am not as strong, mentally, as most, and I feel that I have nothing to blame nothing but myself; one might assume my intensifying depression, I have the problems, and they have absolutely nothing to do with anyone else. It only affects everyone else.
Is there ever really a happy ending to any story book? In fairytales, surely it would end with the sun setting on the horizon, or the moon rising to join the cluster of stars, but did no one ever consider that, during the course of the people's life, surely they would run into more problems? There isn't just one major component of sadness and a threat to tear you apart and change you completely, there isn't always just one villain out to get you. Life itself is the only villain that can claim such a high title, as the single most impossible malefactor against you. No one ever thinks about what happened after. So long as they heard that the single situation was resolved, that the story itself ended at happily ever after. The end. Smiles and sunsets and romantic heart escaping from your eyes and beating in your chest, with someone beside you who makes everything you had struggled through seem bearable, because you had the vision of this . . . this fairytale ending. Not only does life not work that way - it's a constant battle, and while there might be a sprinkled handful of moments like that, it's an up-hill trek without rest - but there is no actual happiness. If one thinks about it closely, the problems never really go away. And if they are seemingly over, it only leaves open space for more to enter, ones that you are less capable of fighting away. You are a single soldier against a flock of dragons, and the wind is against you on the day of the battle.
No one has anything perfect, and I most certainly do not envy anyone's live. Sure, I might fantasize about what it would be like to have things turn out differently, but as I had nothing that could change fate, there was no coveting anything or anyone else. You and I live together, yes, and while your life is more put together and less scattered to the winds as mine, I do not have a desire to take your place. I wouldn't want to bestow my life upon anyone else; that would be like deciding their death wish for them. It is very much like a death wish, my life. I did not choose it, I was placed in it, and it was predestined for me.
I make it sound like all my life was just building up to this end, but that's not exactly what I am getting at. Life itself did not kill me but for physically, I killed myself. Mentally, that is. I could have possibly continued on through life with hope that it all would get better and that I would find an island to which I could have even a quick respite from swimming through all my problems, but I feel like that would be too hard to hope for. When the waves are crashing over your head, suffocating and pulling you in a spiraling, watery grave beneath the surface, drowning, choking . . . you really can't continue holding out any hope for someone to save you. You are relying solely on your own strength, but you know that, eventually, it will wear out and you will be left with absolutely nothing. You will be at the point you started out, with no hope, but with less than you originally had. Less energy, less willpower . . . your desire to live will have diminished as much as an actual candle would have, should you submerge it into a flowing current of water.
I don't think I didn't have much to live for. I had people to live for, I had everyone else in this world to live for; you, among others, and all the friends around me, everyone who was more than willing to include themselves in my life, to try and make it livable. I just don't think I had it in me to live for myself, I am not worth any of what people believed me to be. I am not even worth your care, the ultimate love that I have ever received. From no one else did I ever feel the devotion and care more, and for no one else did I ever love and adore so much. You were an unmoving rock in the center of the ocean, an iceberg that allowed me to grip with pleading, begging paws, to rest upon as the torrent of water washed around me. You were a break in the choppy, choking waters. You were a saving grace from the sky above, an angel that provided me with just enough light so that I could see that not everyone's life was so dark, that perhaps mine could have been lit as well.
But it wasn't. Isn't. There's no more of a chance to sit around and wait, to dream about what it would have been like should things have turned out differently, should I not have been given this life that unfurled as it did. Had it taken another path, gone down a different road. But as it didn't, there is no time for us to ponder what would have happened if something different had resulted then this.
Sadness will definitely be a prominent result from what happened, and this I know. From people who may not have liked me, or even known me that well, they will still be an epitome of sympathy for the death of just about anyone. It will be nothing more than a flashing face of someone no longer on the face of the earth, and eventually, for them it will wear down in the memory and it will never again return to the front of their brain. And for those who were closer, who will no doubt be messed up horribly with the change in every day life - the difference there will be because I no longer will be present - I know it will be an everlasting sadness, a lingering pain that will strike your heart immensely upon first I leave. But as time goes on, it will only be a soft prick against your skin, my name mentioned, seeing my face inside a glowing screen, framed in a photograph of when all used to be normal, and as it continues moving on you will no longer feel that overwhelming sadness. You will be able to get used to my absence, you will be able to look back into our life, when we were still together, and smile. Perhaps even laugh at the good memories. It will not always be this sad, you will not always cry every time someone mentions my name or refers to something I once said.
I did not say much, and I do realize this. I chose to stay quiet when there was a chance I could speak and maybe, just maybe receive help for what I was going through. But why trouble another soul with my problems and all else when I can just work through it alone? Who would want to add all my problems to someone else's, to create such a depressing life. Because I doubt you will ever find a single person who has had an easy life, who doesn't fight daily demons of their own. Adding your unrelated troubles to theirs is something that I couldn't do, wouldn't do. For if I, alone, could not manage to hold the weight of my problems, what assures me that someone else could, along with their own?
If I can live through this, I can do anything. But what if I can't? What if I wasn't strong enough to live through it, does that mean that I couldn't live through anything? Which "this" are we talking about, out of all the problems in the world that we have, uncensored and building upon each other. What if I can't live through any of them, let alone all of them? I feel like those lyrics were supposed to be uplifting, if nothing else, but I only found it as questioning. Because, like I said, what if I couldn't live through this? I obviously couldn't - I can't live through anything now. Not anymore. I think you reach a point in your life when you realize this, and then it is just a difficult decision on how to heal yourself.
I couldn't stand to suffer through each mental attack that caused physical pain for myself, caused everyone around me pain in the fact that they had to witness what I suffered through. I hated - absolutely abhorred - the faces of sympathy I would receive, the help that everyone thought would cure everything. I don't know what I was looking for, because no one exactly had an answer for anything at all. No one could help me, and of course, I had even been told as much.
This probably is a very difficult thing for you to read. Because while it sounds dark already, there is an even more pressing matter, and we both know it. A darker topic of importance that we are avoiding. Or perhaps we aren't avoiding it at all; we are discussing it, we are going over all the things that I couldn't say before. We are voicing our problems, or at least I am. And although this is very different than doing it in a way everyone else suggested, at least we are talking about it, right? I wouldn't be surprised if you could hear my exhausted, humorless laugh that followed that sentence. You are always like that, you know me so well that you can predict things about myself before even I know of them. There have been so many times that you have offered your help, your hand, your shoulder to rest on. And while it never failed to make things in the moment the least bit better, it never healed me. Nothing can. We are back to square one, where I stated that there is no absolute cure, no complete happy ending.
That did not mean there was only bad in my life - that is far from the truth. But the bad outweighed the good. For me, that is. Perhaps not for you, or for someone suffering through much more than I was. But I, personally, could not deal with the weight of the world upon my shoulders. For all I was worth, which wasn't much, I couldn't keep my head above the waters. I couldn't keep swimming. I couldn't jump over the waves. I couldn't survive. I couldn't . . . just couldn't . . .
I know that you will go through a great many stages of emotions after you read this. Shock would have been the first, and perhaps you still are in shock. Shock and denial, twins in the moment, will become less as prominent, after you have reached over the hurdle of realization. And then there is this disappointment, this sadness, this immense wave that hits you when you suddenly understand that this has actually happened. That it's all over. That you were too late to saving me. I know you won't believe me or understand, and you will, at first, take that sentence as an accusation, but I swear, and you better believe me when I tell you this - I didn't want to be saved. I am more than thankful that you did not save me. But you will undoubtedly go through these stages, and heavens knows what else. You will fall into a pit yourself, you will feel hopeless and helpless, you will refuse anyone's help, ultimately turning you into what I was. A recluse, someone needing help but not accepting it. And then, slowly, you will realize that it's not what I want. Because you know what I do want, and it is for you to fly with your wings straight, keep your mind set on the future you are going to build for yourself. I do not want you to be sad, I do not want you to suffer through any of this. But you see, there is no more hope for me, because I will have suffered through this my entire life should I not have done what I did.
I want you to think about this situation in a logical manner, as much as you can after you get over the fact that I am gone. I am dead, but we will see each other again. It's just that I am not around constantly, I am no longer where I always was. Life will be drastically different, but it's okay. Because you can, and you will live through this. I know you, and I know you will be fine. I know it. Trust me. You can do this. You were . . . you are stronger than I am. Whereas I couldn't rise above the waves, you have not only done that but have found a way surpass them, and you have swam in between the channels and made the best of every downfall you ever had. You constantly searched for a way to help me, and while I turned away from all that possibly - possibly - could have saved me, you did help me. And I want you to remember all the words you spoke to me, and I don't want you to look upon my face in the back of your mind and feel sorrow and guilt and grief. I want you to know that you did everything in the world that I could have possibly ever asked for.
We are all going to die. Some of us just go sooner than the rest. But that is okay. It will all be okay. I promise. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, I know you feel like your heart is literally shattering inside your chest at the moment, and that you probably feel like you are being drowned by an ocean of tears, but it will all be okay. Everything will be fine. Because I am happy now. I am satisfied with this ending, because I couldn't deal with anymore sadness, anymore self-hate, anymore depression, and ending it all like this is the answer to all my troubles. I know you don't think so, but I think, after a while, you will understand.
I love you, and I will always. In life and through death, through it all. You will always be my best memory, and even if I have no more to create, have no more to relive in my mind, the last thread of thought that will pass through my head will be your smile, your touch, you love, just you in general.
Thanks for everything.
With never ending love and a drowned heart full of thanks,
- X.
She gulped back the sob that entered her throat, finishing the letter for possibly the fiftieth time in the past day. Countless times before that, the days prior, the weeks before. She scanned the final lines, and again her heart felt like it imploded, her eyes filled with more than an ocean of tears, and she trembled.
The glow from a dimmed streetlight nearby cast her shadow across the road, and she stood there, crying and holding the letter for all she was worth. While from the far away window of a building, Nine In The Afternoon played, the sound echoing down the streets and catching her ears only faintly, carried away by the choked sounds of distinct, pained grief.
/ / \ \
Nine in the Afternoon, played in the distance in the middle of the night when you're all alone is actually rather freaky. Something about it just makes me shiver. Hehe.
But anyway, I hope you enjoy this confusing mess of a story that I cobbled together from my stash of things I wrote during Camp. This is by no means a professional work, I just wanted to revise something and put it out there. I'm working on the prequel to Dear Gravity, (eventually) and the assassin!Ace fic (maybe?), whenever I feel in the right mood.
Thank you for reading, and if you made it this far without questioning my sanity or anything else, you are my favorite person. XD Lol. I don't anticipate extreme depression as a continued concept in the majority of my writing, so expect future differences that bring about happiness and hilarity.
-Firepower