Part 6
A/N: I checked Johnson Hall and the room I gave Rowen and Tom is a single occupancy room, oh well, anyway just for future reference the room is a two person, not one and would be like room 511 if you're ever in Johnson.
Also beware of imagery!! I'm trying to make the reader feel they're in the story more than before; I want you to feel what Rowen does.
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"And soon to be
Blinded by tears
I can stop the pain
If I will it all away"
-"Whisper" by Evanescence
Rowen woke up in the middle of the night and found himself unable to get back to sleep. He lay on his back looking at the top bunk where Tom was sleeping. Rowen closed his eyes and listened as Tom began to snore. The only other sound Rowen could hear was the occasional sound from the traffic.
Sighing once he pulled himself out of bed and walked to his closet. He opened the wooden door and grabbed some clothing; quickly he pulled pants over his boxers and put a shirt on. He then made his way across the mostly dark room to the door. Glancing once at his sleeping roommate, he opened the door and walked out into the lit hall.
Rowen blinked against the sudden light and then made his way down the hall and to the stairwell. At 4:30 a.m. almost no one was up, especially when there were classes the next day. Entering the stairwell he had still failed to see anyone, and for that he was glad. He didn't feel as if he could deal with any questions anyone may have right now. He didn't feel as if he could deal with anything at all.
He didn't know exactly what he looked like, but he knew he had to look like shit. For the past couple of days he hadn't been able to sleep. He had gotten out of the hospital and found a letter waiting for him on his desk. Tom had gotten it for him from the mailbox and had left it waiting for him. Rowen had glanced once at the letter, but hadn't had time to open it and read it. Then the next day when he had gotten back to his room, Jenny was waiting for him. She had all ready opened the letter and told him what it had said.
Rowen almost tripped going down the stairs and forced himself to focus on what he was doing, not the past, as it was now the past. Without meeting anyone he reached the bottom without almost falling again.
He left the stairwell and made his way across the lobby and to the glass doors to go out. Security glanced once at him but didn't say anything, after all he was an adult who could take care of himself. While he was a freshmen, they really couldn't do anything to stop him. After all, for all they knew he may be going out for a smoke.
Pushing open the glass doors he made his way down the short staircase then hit the exit button by the second set of glass doors. He then pushed the doors open and walked out onto the stoop of the building. Ignoring the others that were out there, most of them were smoking (what he didn't want to know), and made his way down the stoop and turned right.
There was almost no traffic at this time of night (or was it day?) so the group that normally hung out in front of Rhoads, another freshmen dorm, was somewhat in the street. Rowen ignored the noise they were making as he made his way toward his one destination.
That night it had rained a little and a thin mist hung in the air. While it was some what warm out, for a fall night, Rowen could feel nothing but cold. He didn't see the way the little clouds of mist seemed to dance and almost form into human shapes if one would let their imagination get carried away. He also didn't notice how that night the moon was at its fullest, the rain clouds having passed hours ago. The light of the moon caught the wisps of mist and seemed to set the stage for something to happen, and only the night seemed to know what would happen. And it was not likely to yield its secrets.
Rowen made his way closer and closer to the fence around where the new dining faculty was being built. So lost in his thoughts of what he planned to do was he that he didn't even notice when he walked though a little puddle. He especially didn't notice the one human wisp of clouds that was more than just a wisp.
Reaching the fence he cleared it in one jump, and at the same time he landed he never noticed a gasp that sounded through the night air. Nor did he realize 'life' was glowing brightly on his forehead.
The new dining hall was only halfway done, if that. So during the day the sun would reflect off the plain metal, while at night it caught the light of the moon. The skeleton structure wasn't the least bit frightening during the day. However at night it seemed almost like something out of a horror movie. The shadows seemed to play with ones mind and could make someone think they had seen something when in reality there was nothing there. To add to the effect even several hours after a rain storm, the site would still be dripping, almost sounding like a metal waterfall as the droplets of water would hit one metal part after another, only to fall the several stories down to the cement slab that would one day be a floor. And to add to the effect the whole thing would catch any noise that sounded in the night air and reflect it back.
Never noticing the feeling of 'horror' that seemed to hang in the night air around the building Rowen made his way inside of it. One of the construction workers had left a ladder leaning against the wall and he used that to go up to the second story. Then as an almost mockery of what he was about to do, he carefully made his way to the roof by using one of the unfinished walls.
The roof was nothing more right now, then metal welded together that one could fall through if one was not careful. Rowen made his way to the middle of it without falling and sat down.
Thinking himself alone, he began to let all of the emotions of the past month spring forth. He had gone from one hell only to fall into another, Jenny was worse than his dad had ever been. At least his father had just beaten him; Jenny used him, forever staining him, making him unworthy to bear his armor.
Every time he had tried to leave her, the same thing that happened with his father would happen. Mentally he knew he couldn't leave, no matter how much he wanted to. He just couldn't, his mind wouldn't let him leave. The same thing happened in battered spouse syndrome. No matter how much you were hurt you would always come back to the person. It's not that you didn't want to leave, it was that you couldn't. Whether it be because you simply felt that was the way the person showed they loved you, or because you were scared to leave. Or it was the fact that you knew the abuser loved you, and you were getting beaten up because you had done something wrong, and if you only tried harder and loved the person a little more then they would come around and show their love back to you in some form other than abuse. The victim would sometimes feel that the abuser was just learning how to be nice; at some point in the future they would come around and stop hurting the person in love with them.
Rowen knew that Jenny wouldn't come around and show love for him. She was just using him, taking out frustrations on him, and using him as a show-off item. That's all he was to her, just something to show off to her friends, 'hey look I got this and you can't have it'. She had begun to tell him how to dress and other things abusers sometimes did, and something Rowen's dad had never done. She had also told how he should run his life, when he should get up, eat, and other such things. Jenny had also been hinting that he should get his hair dyed blond and get a new haircut.
He hadn't submitted to her as much as she would have liked and had paid for it. While he should have been able to stop her, he hadn't been able to, fear stopping him from even telling her to stop. 'Telling her, yeah right, more like begging her' Rowen mused.
Rowen knew Jenny was cheating on him, yet he didn't care. He just didn't care anymore.
He fished something out of his pocket and brought out a pocket knife. He opened it and the moonlight glinted off the blade. Pocket knives were considered weapons and not allowed in the dorms, and if they found out that he had it he could be kicked out of school and sent back home.
Home right.
There was no one there for him.
*flashback*
Rowen had walked into his room after class and had seen Jenny as his computer, the letter from Japan in her hands. She had opened it and appeared to have read it.
"Rowen, I'm so sorry." She told him.
"What do you mean?" Rowen asked, and reached for the letter.
She pulled it back so he couldn't get to it.
"Your friends, the ones you told me about, they were in a car wreck…" she began and trailed off.
"And what?" Rowen asked, dreading what he was about to hear.
"They were all killed. Oh Rowen I'm so sorry." She told him.
He didn't answer and collapsed to the ground. They were…dead? That couldn't be… they couldn't be dead. He would have known if they where dead? Right? Shouldn't have Kayura or someone shown up and told him? Shouldn't he have been able to sense it if they had died? Was the link between the armors that weak due to what Jenny had done? Was he even still a Ronin now that he had been corrupted by her?
He'd just sat there and cried. At some point Jenny had thrown away the letter and left, but he didn't even notice. Nor did he even wonder how Jenny had been able to read the Kanji the letter was written in.
He had managed to pull himself together and had stuck the letter, now crumpled up into a little ball, into his coat pocket. By the time Tom got back, it was as if nothing had happened.
*end flashback*
For that matter there was no one here for him.
He took the knife and got ready to take his life and placed the knife against his skin.
"Stop! Whatever it is, it isn't worth it!" A female voice called as the form of a young woman materialized out of the fog.
"Death before my eyes
Lying next to me I fear
She beckons me
Shall I give in
Upon my end shall I begin
Forsaking all I've fallen for
I rise to meet my end"
-"Whisper"
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A/N: No this isn't the song fic, I just think Evanescence seems to fit this fic so well. The whole thing is written while I listen to them.
And no the female character that just showed up is not a Mary Sue, I don't write Mary Sue's.
