Hey! Second drabble/one-shot/short-chapter-thing. Just to be clear, I wanted to mention that the chapters aren't in chronological order. This one is set before Tris and Four meet.
we've got heavydirtysouls (help me out)
The sunlight filters through the glass panes and falls on the ruled page of her notebook. She's thinking about her family. She's always thinking about her family. It's been almost two years since she last saw their faces. Her father. Her mother. Caleb.
It's been a year since she met him. Peter. It's been eight months since she found him making out with Nita on the couch in their apartment.
She'd been so desperate for love; to be loved.
She didn't love Peter, of course, she'd never loved him. She didn't even like Peter. Maybe, if she hadn't been so blind, she'd have realized that earlier. She'd have realized that all love ever does is break and burn and end. She wonders why people even bother with love, wonders why she bothered with love when it never lasts.
She directs her gaze back to the gray notebook that her mom gifted her. She'd been rummaging through the attic a few weeks after her parents died, deciding on a whim that she wanted to sell the house (until her godmother convinced her not to); it boxed too many memories, too many phantom noises, when she found the book.
It was a journal of sorts that Natalie had given her shortly after she revealed at a family dinner that she wanted to pursue a career in writing instead of going into politics like her parents. Andrew had thrown a fit but Natalie had embraced her, planting a kiss on her head. The next day, Natalie had given her a copy of Roald Dahl's Matilda, and the journal, inscribed with "I love you, no matter what."
Tris still feels her mother's hand ghosting over her shoulder, her fingers weaving through her hair as she runs a finger over the intricately sketched birds on the cover, flipping it back and forth.
It'd been Tori's design, but Tris had practiced and perfected her own version of the ravens, three birds in flight.
She imagined the birds often, strong strokes of their dark wings carried them further away from her, people she'd loved and lost. Once, she'd contemplated adding one for Peter, then laughed for a full minute afterward.
She'd never used it, preferring to type and now the neatly ruled lines give her sudden inspiration and the words start flowing, her ink bleeding into the paper. She has to meet a deadline in two weeks and send in her draft for the final novel in her high fantasy trilogy and that wasn't much time to write three-quarters of a novel.
.
.
Her vison is murky. Gray. (The world is clear when she writes.)
White noise everywhere, like she's underwater. (The music flowing through her earbuds sounds perfect.)
And she wants it to end.
She wants to be like them. She wants to take flight, soaring up, up and then plunging deep down.
She wants to dive into death.
:::
His father's eyes were pitch black, two soulless pits in his mind.
His eyes are red. He stares at them in the mirror, his face a replica of his father's.
His periphery pools with a blinding mix of black and red and white, black and red and white, black and red and white.
Tobias sits up with a shout. He pulls in air and runs a hand over his eyes, through his hair, chest heaving with relief.
He's in bed. It was a nightmare.
He hopes Zeke hasn't heard his scream. The nightmares descend upon him every now and then. They never make any sense; all he knows is he has to relive his sucky past over again every time he has one. Phantom lashes on his back tingle, and he breathes heavily. A sudden fear flares up – he knows its stupid but he still springs off the bed and whips his shirt off, running his palms over his back awkwardly to make sure there's no blood.
He crosses over to the mirror in the bathroom. His eyes are still blue.
He stares at the parts of his scars that have managed to make their way to the edges of his chest. They are reminders of his weakness. His cowardice.
And he wants to make them reminders of his survival. His strength.
.
.
The next day, he's opening the door of the tattoo parlor Tori mentioned.
I apologize for any mistakes. Thanks to twenty one pilots for inspiration. Please leave a review!
xo
