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This chapter goes out to OhHolyCow for reminding me that this story is overdue for an update.

Nada: Read carefully. Everything happens in a blink of an eye.

Warning(s): None(?)

Chapter Seven

I'm tired.

If I leave now, I'll end up in my room and hide under the covers just like the turtle Sora said I was. He'll come after me, pull me out and throw me back into society with our friends like he always did.

This is our routine.

I'm so sick of this game.

I was the yo-yo, reeling back and forth between sanity and insanity and Sora was the yo-yo player, always trying to pull me up.

This is our relationship.

Aren't you tired of it?

How shallow.

Sora deserves better than this. He deserves better than me.

An escape is what I need.

If I wasn't running from Sora, I was running from Marluxia and Larxene. And if I wasn't running, I was hiding. Always the coward-too scared to face your fears. Too scared to be close; too scared to be alone; what kind of existence is this?

I'm so sick of running. I'm so sick of hiding. I'm sick of trying. I'm sick of lying.

I just want to give up.

At least in death, all you have is numbing silence. There was nothing to fear; nothing to feel. All you could see was darkness-if anything at all. You couldn't taste, you couldn't breathe-why would you? You're dead. And if there was something beyond, something after death, I would much rather pray that I was too numb to feel, because being alive in Heaven-with my feelings intact and my memories untouched-would surely still feel like Hell all over again.

I was alone in my thoughts, like I always was, sitting on the roof of my house with nothing but perpetual twilight lingering in the horizon. I was calm, eerily so. I had never felt this calm in such a long time. I almost forgot what it felt like to have no worries or troubles. Would death be this peaceful?

I get it now, the thing she did. I understand why Larxene wrote silentium on my back. It wasn't just to keep me silent, to keep their dark dirty little secret between the three of us. It was supposed to mean so much more than that. It represented silence in its ultimate form, the silence that only death can bring; the one silence eternity could never break.

Sweet silentium…

I groaned. No, stop it. Don't think about it. This is the kind of thinking that will get me in trouble with everyone. If this is what Olette was talking about, now I understand why she was so worried.

Screw Olette. She was the one who kept that secret from me in the first place!

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," I chanted under my breath. I ran my fingers through my hair. "Why couldn't silentium work on my brain too?"

I wish I could stop thinking. It might do me some good if my brain could just-

Thunk!

Something heavy and metallic fell out of my pocket. It slid down the arch of the roof, the rays of twilight flashing against the metallic twin blades for a brief moment. I scrambled toward the scissors and managed to snatch them off the roof before they slipped over the edge and stabbed any poor animal down below. My house wasn't exactly tall enough to cause any major damage. In the off chance that I wanted to jump off, the worse that could happen would be a broken bone. It wasn't tall enough to kill me, but I figured something as sharp as these scissors would be enough to impale a squirrel. Or worse, a person walking by.

I twirled the scissors in my palm with eerie fascination. Using it meant I was consciously aware of what I was doing. I would prove Sora right and give evidence to what everyone suspected I was: a cutter. Not using it would prove everyone wrong and that my temper tantrums on the train and in my room were all subconscious impulses…unless Sora brought up the whole "why are you doing that subconsciously?" argument again.

Either way, Sora would have blurted out my secret to everyone else and today would be the last day to enjoy of what little freedom I had left. I had nothing left to lose now. It wasn't going to hurt anyway.

With my mind made up, I pulled the twin blades apart to examine their level of sharpness. Compared to all the other scissors I've seen in my life, these were definitely sharper than usual. How sharp, exactly, I was about to find out.

I pressed the blade against my skin, a lot harder than necessary, and dragged it across my arm experimentally. Too much pressure made the edge of the scissor go deep into my skin. It punctured through layers of skin and slowly tore through flesh as I brought it across my arm. Blood oozed from the wound, faster than I was used to, but just like I expected, it still didn't hurt. It made a dull sting, but it didn't hurt like it should.

Something stirred inside me. It was an emotion I hadn't felt since homecoming last year. It wasn't a very common emotion, I guess, so I wasn't surprised that I wasn't familiar with it. What did surprise me was how strong it felt. I was relieved, so utterly and completely relieved about nothing and everything at the same time. I didn't understand it, but I wasn't going to question it. If one cut made me relieved-just one tiny little insignificant cut on my arm-I wondered how relieved I would feel had I made more?

I forced my brain to blank. Logic, reasoning, sanity and irrationality-I forced it all to clear and divulge into the sea of relief that washed over my body like warm water. I wasn't counting, I didn't care to. I wasn't sure how deep or shallow I was going, I didn't care to. I mindlessly brought the blade's edge against any pale, unmarked skin I had and slashed. Too light, too hard, no blood, too much blood-it didn't matter as long as my relief didn't go away.

As long as this calmness could stay… I was prepared to do this all day if I needed to.

"Roxas!"

Or until someone stopped me.

I jumped at the unexpected voice, nearly losing my footing against the slanted edge of the roof. The scissors, whose blades were now stained with smears of my blood, fumbled out of my hands. It crashed onto the roof and followed the force of gravity over the gutters. I watched forlornly as my new favorite instrument vanished behind a bundle of bushes my brother was too lazy to trim. Crap. I need to get those later.

"Roxas are you home?" I heard the door bell ring a few times followed by impatient knocking that sounded ironically like the knocking Riku did the last time he abducted me from my house. So Sora hadn't come alone this time?

As stealthily as I could, I climbed the arch of our pointed roof and peered down the street. I couldn't see Sora or Riku or Kairi from my vantage point, but I did see a concerned looking Olette, an infuriated Hayner, an impassive looking Pence and my twin standing on the sidewalk. Naminé must have left her keys inside again; otherwise they wouldn't have to stand around the house waiting for me to answer.

A furious knock pounded against the door. "Open this door right now Uchiyama or I swear I will break your damn window!" Riku demanded, slamming a fist against the door again.

I snorted. My peaceful tranquility now gone. And now that my scissors were no longer in my hands, I felt more vulnerable than before. I was stuck here on the roof. Climbing down now, with my left arm looking like a scratching post and bleeding rivers of blood, would seriously get me into a world of trouble.

Why should I care? What are a few more scars for the collection?

I sighed. "Up here!" I waved at them with my unscathed right arm. I used my left to keep myself stable on the roof.

The others on the sidewalk stared in my direction while the trio I couldn't see finally came into visual view from the porch.

"What are you doing up there, Onii-chan?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm, um, twilight gazing."

"It looks like you're stuck." Pence pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. We were too far from each other for him to see me do it anyway. Thank you Captain Obvious.

"I told them the truth," Sora confessed. My heart started to race. "Can you please come down? We just want to talk."

"Don't think about jumping off the damn roof either!" Riku yelled, his green eyes blazing with anger. "Because I will catch your sorry ass!"

Some how I didn't doubt he would. With a sigh, I slunk back behind the roof, disappearing from their view. I carefully leaned over the gutter to judge the distance between me and the grass below. It wasn't that high, but jumping off wasn't wise. I climbed here through the front. It was easier to use the porch as a stepping stone, but since my windows were on the same side as the porch, it was a lot easier to climb on to the roof through my windows instead.

I had two options.

Option A required me risking this jump. I could jump from the back and pray my numbness extended toward my feet so in the off chance I actually do hurt my ankle in the process of landing, it wouldn't be so bad.

Or option B: climb down through the front. Doing so would expose exactly why I was sitting on the roof, but I guess it didn't matter. If Sora told them what he knew then they already suspected I was a cutter. What reason did I have to hide now?

I continued to stare down at my backyard. My mind was already made up. I had to turn around, climb over the arch, slide down the roof and crawl back into my room. That's all. There's no point in risking any broken bones to hide a secret they already knew. Suspected. Knew. Suspected.

My mind went blank. I blinked.

Would it hurt?

No it wouldn't.

Would I survive?

Did I want to?

I could break a bone.

I could break my neck.

Did it matter?

Not to me.

"Roxas!" / "Onii-chan!" / "Don't do it!" / "Life is worth living!" / "Don't you dare jump off that roof Roxas!"

I snapped out of my thoughts, surprised I was still standing at the edge of the roof and not in front of my window like I should have been.

Sora was standing in the backyard now, looking around frantically for something to break my fall in case I really did jump. Naminé had her cell phone pressed against her ear, her eyes wide with panic. She wasn't crying, not yet. I still had the choice. I knew who she was calling and wished she wouldn't. Today really would be the last day of freedom.

Riku and Hayner were both infuriated at me. They stood just below me, their arms held outward as though their strength combined would be enough to break my fall. They don't get it. Don't they realize they would get hurt too if I fell?

Pence stood with Olette and Kairi. He held both their hands, as if trying to calm them down, but they were both trembling. Olette's green eyes watched me with the same panic Naminé did and Kairi… Kairi was actually crying.

Kairi Uchida never cried in front of anyone. So why-why-was she crying now?

It bothered me. The way her tears spilled down her usually vibrant face. The way her nose grew red when she sniffed. The way her violet-blue eyes looked at me, so wide and terrified; so shocked and disbelieving-don't pity me Kairi Uchida. I don't need your pity. I don't need your tears!

I'll be just a memory in that pretty little head of yours.

The Pandora's Box unleashed itself for the third time that summer. The anger, the hatred; the guilt and the grief; the violent terror of being discovered, the constant fear of what stood beyond the shadows; the anxiety of abandonment; the warmth of falling in love, of being loved, of having friends who cared, of having a family that loved you-the poisonous suffocating envy-exploded violently within my mind.

And just when I thought I would detonate from the pressure-I felt light, like a feather in the wind. I felt free, lost in this world of messed up colors, without any regrets, without any despair. So blissfully free! A part of me-that ever so logical part of my brain-registered the fact that the sky was no longer above my head, but below my feet and that the roof had strangely shrunk in size.

Yet, it didn't matter. I was free. I was going to be free.

I closed my eyes, ready to embrace the never ending silence, ready to accept darkness as my home for all eternity… until realization settled bitterly within the pit of my stomach. Logic pushed through the forefront of my mind again and reminded me something I wish I didn't know.

My roof wasn't high enough to kill me.

Nada: Silly Roxas, it's not the roof that will kill you, it's everything else that will.

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