The Time of a Life

Started: February 9, 2009

Ended: April 4, 2009

Author's Note: I started and finished this last year, when the word prom still instilled a fear in me. When I reread the whole story, though, it felt incomplete. I was my own toughest critic after all. So, I rewrote the story once again, put more events, and made my characters even more real. Hope you enjoy reading this the same way I enjoyed writing it!

“…hers was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness.”

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“How could you cry for me?

Cause I don't feel bad about it.

So shut your eyes,

Kiss me goodbye,

And sleep.

Just sleep.”

Sleep by My Chemical Romance

The downtown burnt in the fiery hue of orange streetlight. I watched the shadows of emotion going about their final hours of the day with debauchery. Behind me, every junior in high school was having the time of their useless lives. Tonight was our prom night.

An eldritch tree that had watched almost 150 generations of human cancer grew on top of a cliff. Its branches lingered farther than where the rocky cliff dropped, and they stood frozen in time as they waved goodbye to civilization. It was on one of them where I sat.

I guess I would rather watch the world burn than get burnt with it. Hours before, I tried to convince myself that if I would give the people around me one more chance tonight, I would see that there was still hope in this crumbling inferno; I tried to get out of my misery, but I was used to it that I knew my attempt for this night would be a failure. Anyways, for one thing, I didn’t have a prom date, so why should I even try?

The rustling of the winds mocked me. Their peaceful ululations narrated to me my future if I had not secluded myself from human contact and gotten used to it - if I had become a shallow apathetic murderer. In one way, I was a murderer because I killed Kevin Dolan, a classmate of mine whose death and my evasion of conviction was another story to be told in another time. It was the first time I had ever felt alive, to have the power of a god, to flip the tables upside down and exact revenge. My despondency, though, is an effect of that event.

Heck, it had a lot of consequences on me. Though I visited Kevin’s death in my daydreams, his soul would visit me in my nightmares. Kevin was always there watching over me, like an angel of death waiting for the right time to strike. He floated in a malicious wind of putrid red color and his eyes were of the endless sufferings of Hell. Kevin was the first ghost that had haunted me and he wasn’t the last.

I had a vision last week while I walked down the halls to my room. I could probably say that it was nearing midnight at that time. Footsteps echoed in multitude as I gaited, and a burst of black spread through my eyes. A cold wind passed through me, like a sheet of sifting wire, and when I looked behind me, I saw a humanoid shadow floating.

“Kuh-Kevin?” I said, shivering. I was used to his presence now that I wasn’t afraid to see it anymore. But the apparition was different from Kevin’s; it didn’t have a face, just one black form shaped like a guy the same height as I was now.

A series of noises echoed in the hallway, a soundtrack of incongruent noises coming from the shadow figure itself. These sounds crawled up my spine and hit the walls of ears like maces. I gaped at this rip in reality and listened, immobile out of fear.

Listening to the humanoid shadow was like hearing an fm radio in the center of a war, for it was mere parts of a whole that I could receive from it.

First, a voice shouted from what seemed like a concert: “… eveni… …timore…” followed by a sporadic wave of a cheering crowd. The noise faded into silence, and then I heard the next one; it was a different man, with a deep stentorian voice, announcing, “…unpoi… Fiction wi… autogra…” It all faded once again. Finally, the most horrifying of all the noises I’ve heard: a teenage kid, desperately saying through shaking lips, “No, no, no… I know… plea-!” He screamed and asked for help. I heard electrocuting noises and at near-end, glasses breaking. As a final word in the world, the kid said, “Fuck you, Leon Rogers. Burn in hell. I’ll wait for you there.”

The noises, without my knowledge of the last one, would have seemed to me as an illusion of mental breakdown; nothing but random hallucinations made up by my mind. The kid mentioning my name, though, was a dosage of the uncanny injected into my mind. Looking back to the man of the first strip of audio, I realized that his accent and his voice were akin to mine. There was no doubt that it was me shouting, “… eveni… …timore…”, 10 years, 20 years into the future. The shock clouded my thoughts and shook every nerve in my mind that I didn’t even notice the shadow figure disappearing.

I believed before that ghosts of the past haunt the present, but I figured ghosts of the future haunt the present too. Reflection in my most serene hours impressed upon me that ghosts are part of a dimension split from time. They linger wherever their unfinished business are in eternity. Kevin Dolan was not the first and last person I would ever kill, and the shadow guy proved to me that. The shadow was the soul of the teenage kid I would kill in the future.

The rustle of the leaves retrieved this experience from my memory and every sound I heard was an echo of that night. An anthology of urban horror tales played in mind and I was in the verge of running away from this place. Even the sight of the peaceful city and the guarantee of people near me in the covered courts did not keep me relaxed. My palms were sweaty as they held onto the wrinkled tree branch.

I was reminded of the story of a ghostly experience here in this exact place. It was believed that a student hanged himself from this very tree. The story goes that a group of people went ghost hunting around the campus. Everywhere was dark and quiet, a perfect scene where a ghost would appear. When they pointed their flashlights to this tree, they saw a guy floating below the branches, moving left and right, as if he was on a string. The guy looked like a pendulum swinging in a clock eternally set at midnight.

Having been reminded of these stories, I tried to inspect my surroundings to reassure myself that there were no ghosts to be afraid of: above me, the leaves laughed at my cowardice; in my right, the covered courts flickered and boomed in celebration and self-destruction; in my left, the tree branch stood like a sentinel; below me, a ghost of a lady was about to fall off the cliff.

The cliff was tilted to the side; if you slip down it, you’ll probably slide down fast. She hung onto a tree root protruding from the cliff. She was a silver paint sliver on a black canvas. Her skin reflected the light of the pale moon, ghostly and mesmerizing. I could not see her eyes, her hair casted shadows of paranoia on her face, but I knew she was looking at me. Her features assured me that she was, indeed, a ghost. Anyways, even if she was alive, I wouldn’t give a shit. I would pretend I didn’t see her.

I tried to ignore her at first, tried to remain my eyes on the city, tried to block out every impulse to my brain by forcing myself to listen to the music in the background, but my shaking increased so vigorously that I was about to jump from the tree branch and run to the covered courts.

Then, I heard shuffling of feet below me. I looked behind me and a girl was walking towards the cliff. Her eyes were twinkling under the moonlight like a ballad of mourning.

She stopped at the edge of the cliff, looking at the city. She did not seem to notice me or my ghostly friend, so I remained quiet. The rustle of the leaves grew silent in her presence, and for about a nanosecond, the Earth remained soundless. What broke the serenity was her sobbing.

Her cries were a symphony of anguish and pain, of regret and despair. I could sense it because I heard the same music when Kevin was dying. The rustle of the leaves narrated to me scenes of love with her. I longed to be with someone; maybe she would rid me of my anguishes.

I was about to talk to her, to tell her words of comfort, to be the knight-in-shining-armor just in the nick of time to save the damsel in distress, when the time just ran out. She turned her back and started to walk towards the covered courts. I guessed I would be forever alone in this world.

Then, words started to come out of my mouth. It was not my will to speak, but the despair in me commanded me to. “Hey, it’s alright,” I spoke, in an alien voice of deep monotone.

She appeared to be shocked. She looked around her surroundings until she saw me sitting above her. Her face crumpled to a look of anger. “I’m sorry?”

“I mean, it’s alright, whatever you are crying about.”

She wiped tears off her eyes and said, “I wasn’t crying.”

“You were sobbing.”

“Not sobbing either. You should know better than to mind other people’s businesses.” She started walking back again. Game over for me.

Disappointed, I looked back at my city again. The leaves laughed at me, shouting at my failure. My hands gripped on the tree branch as if I was strangling it.

I was reminded again of the ghost lady down at the cliff. The girl’s rude attitude ignited anger in me that I forgot about everything. I looked at the corner of my eye to see if the ghost was still there. She wasn’t. My pulse returned to normal again, and I was back to relaxation once more. The city glistened in its reclaimed serenity and the streetlights blotted my vision as I stared.

A putrid smell emanated around me. It lingered in the air, salvaging the receding terror in me and amplifying it. It was a scent of rusting metal that made me feel like a mouse about to be slaughtered. I looked around for the source and I found it: the ghost woman was climbing up the trunk.

Run, Leon, while you still can, my mind told me, but the scent instilled a fear in me that rendered me unable to move. I tried to repress the sight of the ghost climbing towards me, that it was just the product of my imagination. I hoped that if I forgot about her, she would disappear.

But she didn’t. The smell grew worse and worse until her face leaned on mine. She stared at me with eyes whiter than the moon’s light. Every feature in her face was covered in a sea of shadows except her pupils, which were orbs of blood-red smoke. I tried to ignore her, like I always did when Kevin’s ghost was present. It was harder because I was unfamiliar with her. At least, with Kevin’s ghost, I could remain in the ecstatic thoughts that I killed him. Her face tilted to the left, then to the right, in a movement of a snake’s head. Coupled with the smell, it made me want to vomit.

I looked down at the ground, relying still on false hope. Please, please, disappear, you don’t exist.

Below me was nothing but an ocean of malicious darkness. I could not keep my eyes down at it because her movements tempted me to look at her.

My survey of the ground made me see a glistening bracelet. I inferred it was the bracelet of the girl who gave me the cold shoulder. I looked back to where she walked to and saw her shadow moving slowly towards the covered courts.

“HEY!” I shouted.

A moment passed until she looked back at me. A “What?” made its way to me.

“You dropped your bracelet!”

She checked her arms and with a second’s worth of thinking, started her way back to me. It took her an eternity to come back here, every second I tried to remain myself looking at her shadow so that I would not think of glancing back at the ghost woman mocking me. When the girl finally retrieved her bracelet, she said, coldly, “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Silence. Five seconds. I realized the stench was gone. I looked behind me and saw only the trunk of the tree, no ghost woman with alien eyes. The girl below me started walking back again.

“Leon Rogers,” I said, awkwardly, with an honest right-cheek smirk. It was probably the first time I smiled in weeks.

“Luna Lacap,” she replied with a grin, a childish grin of a four-year-old given a lollipop.

Silence, the leaves telling me that no matter what I do I would never find someone to love in this miserable world.

Then, she spoke again, “Fuck him; I could just kill him with a knife or something.” I was surprised when I heard this. She appeared to me as a shallow woman, crying over some break-up, but I realized some deep anger in her that proved my thoughts about her wrong.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, confidently.

“Why? Have you killed someone before?” she asked.

At that time, I wanted to be honest, to be frank, to be as honest as the grin I gleamed at her. I wanted to say “Yes, fuck, I was the one who killed Kevin Dolan. I led him to the janitor’s closet where I stabbed him many times with my mother’s syringe,” but reason stood against that. I didn’t want to have a police confession with a girl I just met a while ago. Instead, I said, “No… but I can imagine the ghosts that would haunt you after you kill someone.” Yes, the whole of it was real, and I experienced that fate with Kevin’s spirit.

“You sound like you’ve really done it,” Luna said, and that smile of hers grew larger.

“Well if you think so, why aren’t you afraid of me then?” I asked.

“I can scare off more people than you can.”

“Give me your best shot.”

“I don’t want you to run away.”

Instead of challenging her again, I said nothing. I really thought about on what she said. I just smiled my right-cheek smirk at her.

I saw her move towards the tree trunk, and I looked back at my dying city. I listened through the ruffles of silk gown as she climbed up, and I felt my penis hardening up like the branch I was sitting on.

Her fragrance was an explosion of different delicacies. A faint smell of citrus lingered above, but with an undertone of summer roses. My penis wanted to get out of my pants and smell it itself.

She snorted as she approached me, and then said, “Ghosts… heh…”

“What’s so funny?”

“You take them so lightly.”

“As if you don’t.”

“I don’t. And well in fact, I’m pretty much well-acquainted with them.”

“Are you some ghost-whisperer?”

“Well what do you know about ghosts?”

“They’re… scary….”

“And cold, right?”

“Yeah, cold.” What could she have meant?

“So you’ve met one already?”

“No.” Yes, three so far.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fine, yes. You really are persistent, are you?”

Her messages continued flashing double-meanings. They kindled a light of hope inside me that I was not alone in this world, that I was not the only one who had experienced the fate of a murderer. Though this was so, sadness also mucked the water of my mind because a beautiful face like Luna’s was experiencing that same fate as I was.

Awkward silence veiled between us, and all I heard for a long time was my heart nervously beating fast. I tried to retrieve anything from my mind that could salvage this opportunity, but I could not grab at anything. The leaves were laughing at me, telling me my efforts to talk to her were pathetic. Then, out of nowhere, I suddenly asked, “So, why were you crying?”

I thought this was the coup de grace to the chance of me being with her. The silence I broke prevailed once again, reducing what I said to mere echoes that dissipated into nothing after a short while.

Suddenly, sniffles pervaded the ear-piercing silence; Luna was crying. “I… I couldn’t do anything about it. Blake is really to blame; I’m supposed to be blamed too. I watched him beat her up, I watched. God, I only watched.” Tears fell down her smooth white cheek, a storm created by a hurricane of anguish and pent-up despair.

I didn’t say anything. I just remained my look on the city like what I had done to the ghost lady a while ago. Truth be told, I could not think of anything to say.

She leaned her head on my shoulders, an act I was surprised to have been done by someone I had only met just this night. Her cold tears dropped onto my skin and I felt her misery.

“I killed Nikki. I fuckin’ killed her. Even if Blake killed her. I also did. I watched. I killed her,” she said, words merely dropping from her quivering lips.

“I… I… didn’t know… he would… he would do such a thing. I knew he hated dykes. I knew… but what could I have done? Nothing… ‘cause I was drunk. She was drunk. Blake was drunk. Everyone was drunk at the party. The alcohol, it commanded me, I kissed Nikki. I made out with her. Because I was drunk. Couldn’t control it. Blake hates dykes, he really does. He walked into the hallway that leads to the restrooms and saw us. Saw us, making out, wasted, committing something he hated.

“He screams, ‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?’ He pulls me from her, I hit the walls, he pushed her into the men’s restroom. Door slams, funeral bells ring.

“I enter the restroom, sobered by the impact to the wall. Saw Blake, veins popping out of his face and body, I knew he was drunk… because he is aggressive when he’s drunk. I was already too late: Blake had thrown her into a wall. She lay against it, unconscious. Blake shouted, ‘DON’T YOU DARE KISS MY GIRLFRIEND EVER AGAIN! I’LL FUCKING GET YOU KILLED. I SWEAR.’

“Something was wrong then. I saw, in Blake’s eyes, a murderous desire in his eyes… first time I had seen it. I shouted, said, whispered, thought, ‘Blake, stop it! She didn’t mean to… please, Blake…,’ but it had no effect on him. He wasn’t satisfied with Nikki being half-dead, probably already dead. No, Blake walked towards her, party music muffled by the walls of the restroom, the people outside were too busy dancing or being drunk to even care about the loud noises in the restroom. He was in a murderous rage, couldn’t be stopped, I wouldn’t dare stop him, he might hit me, but you know what? I should have fucking stepped up, instead of watching, I should have been the one Blake killed, because I can’t handle the guilt. I see Blake, taking out a gun, to my surprise. He shoots. The bullet, hardly even seen. Nikki dies. Everyone in the open-party runs out, including us, I shouted, screamed, ‘NIKKI! NIKKI!’, Blake grabbed me by my right arm and literally dragged me.

“Investigations went on for about a week, we were included in the suspect list. At the police station, Blake threatened me, ‘If you fucking squeal on us…’ He held my arms firmly, hurting, painful, as if he was about to take it off. I saw once again the black in his eyes, different and so alien. I think he saw my fear and his anger receded. He let go of my hand and whispered to my ear, ‘My father’s got this. I won’t get convicted, unless you squeal. If I got found out, I’ll tell them you were also there. ‘Course we won’t go to jail, but think about it – this will go down our personal record, you’ll get expelled, I get expelled, goodbye future.’

“Of course, I didn’t snitch. Two weeks after, what he said was true, he didn’t get convicted. Was supposed to. I was supposed to too. Because I killed Nikki. Every night, I see the restroom walls where Blake had thrown her. Everywhere, I see her, looking at me with eyes shining malevolently red. Everything I had done in my past life was infected by her image. I haven’t had a day… a night… without her sight. I was to blame for her death. I killed her.”

I fell silent upon hearing her story. It was a jigsaw puzzle of blood and guilt. Emotions clouded my brain. Deep inside I felt both furious and depressed at how Blake practically evaded a cold-blooded murder with his name written on everything. Our generation was a generation of prostitutes, where God was found on rectangular pieces of paper and lives were sold, by the bulk, at a local mall. I shook with fury.

Then again, I, too, evaded conviction with Kevin Dolan’s murder. Was I really just as evil as Blake? The only reason I had murdered Kevin Dolan was that I had had enough of the strict caste system in our school. Blake’s murder of Nikki was flat-out unjustified. I just took a stand against the cancer that was eating the World. Kevin Dolan’s murder was proof that we bottom-feeders also had power. Besides, my avoidance did not involve anything as low as feeding carrion to the vultures; it just happened that fate supported my revenge.

In the coldest chasms of my heart, a beast growled for vengeance. Kevin Dolan was dead, yet I found someone as foul, if not fouler, than him – Blake. I wanted to run towards him and rip off his face. I wanted to put him in the center of his own worst fears and let him feel like how I felt everyday.

All of these were true, but I knew I didn’t have the guts to go against something as rotten as him. My anger was caused not so much as by the desire, but by my fear.

I hated that I couldn’t do anything to Blake; I was positive that he would as easily kill me as he had done to Nikki. I thought of the same with Kevin Dolan at first, but even so, I did not want to murder anyone else again. I was afraid to go through that whole experience–the planning, the hoping that everything would turn out in my favor, the having of second-thoughts, and finally, the most hard to overcome of all, the forming of enough courage to be responsible for the loss of life.

Of course, I could not tell this to Luna. Her leaning on my shoulders insinuated that I was the only one left whom she could trust in this burning world. To hell how she knew that I had done murder; takes one to know one, I guess; or probably she saw it in my eyes, you know, the murderous desire that she saw in Blake’s eyes. In any case, we were damned to this fate and we only had each other as company. I needed to show that I could protect her, even if I couldn’t. Perhaps she would be the catalyst of the beginning of a new life, my spark of hope whom I believed was nonexistent before everything that had happened tonight.

Slowly my left arms made its way to her left shoulder. She did not do anything to prevent it. I pushed her nearer to me; she did not resist. Her head leaned on my chest, and we sunk into waters of silence: the leaves turned mute, the music from the prom mere vibrations beneath us. There were no words that were uttered from either of us; we merely watched the city.

“Why had I even told you all of that shit?” Luna broke the serenity. She snickered, even with tears in her eyes. “I’ve only met you now, but, I knew you would understand; deep-down inside, there was something that told me you belonged to our kind. When I walked below you, when you talked, my hair stood up, I shivered, I looked up. At first, I hoped I could talk to you, but I had kept on denying that I killed Nikki, so I started back to the covered courts. It was only when you called me back again that I gave in. This bracelet, here, the one you saw on the ground, Nikki gave this to me. This is my reminder of her memory, a scar the feeds my guilt so it won’t feed on me. I killed Nikki and this is a fucking sorry excuse for my absolution.

“I’m afraid, to tell you the truth,” she looked up at me, and I stared at her beautiful eyes, “I’m afraid of doing anything. I’m afraid of telling someone about it, Blake might kill me, and I’m afraid of keeping it in me alone. Everyone looks at me suspiciously. Nikki’s mom still cries when she sees me. Because I brought her daughter to the slaughterhouse. Blake seems to have changed since the murder too, I could not confide with him or shit. The only reason I’m still with him is because I’m afraid. A while ago, he was all possessive of me, he wouldn’t let go of me. His classmates had greeted him, but he only stared at him with untrusting eyes. I knew the murder affected him as well; no person ever pulls a trigger and drops the gun the same person again. All night long, I was shaking, because I knew something would happen if Blake’s rage was triggered.”

She waited for me to answer back. Here was the big moment. I wondered if I should engage in a clandestine relationship with her. How fucking romantic. But it was not all that simple – I knew the dangers of courting Luna, what with how Blake was now, no doubt he would kill me if he found out. I was afraid, but I felt the responsibility of caring for her, of being her companion down the inferno. I also believed she was my last hope to ever find someone of my own kind. I never liked being alone; at least with her I could have someone to hold as the darkness surrounded.

I started, “November 22, 2008, I experienced what you did, Luna…” I narrated to her my own story of Kevin Dolan’s murder, down to every bit of emotion I felt. We just stared at the city as I progressed and I could not help but shiver as I went back to the whole afternoon where my life changed forever. I also told her about Kevin’s soul that lingered everywhere darkness was. Nothing disturbed my narration.

When I was done, I needed to calm myself again because in the middle of the whole story were fear and pleasure. The evening receded to silence when my echoes faded. Luna still had her head on my chest; I still had my arm around her. Here was a new life set out before me and I vowed that I would treasure this last and only hope. We delved into soporific serenity as we waited for the world to end.

Then, something vibrated between us. She almost jumped as she hurriedly fumbled in her bag; someone was calling her cell phone. From her face, wrinkled up in fear and despair, I knew Blake was calling her.

Blake’s voice was a crashing boulder, loud and booming. I heard him say from the phone, “Where the fuck are you?”

Luna answered, softly, in perfect contrast to him, “Restroom. I… I... I needed to wet my face ‘cause I felt dizzy a while ago.”

“Get out of there and meet me at the promenade. Now. We’re going.” He dropped the line.

Hurriedly, Luna crawled on the branch toward the trunk where she could easily jump down from. Through nervous lips, she said, “This is goodbye, Leon. Nice to know I’m not alone in this world.”

I reached for her arm. “Wait. This is not goodbye. I… I don’t want to be alone. Please.”

She looked back at me and turned. She stared at me and I stared back at her. Her eyes sparkled in a light-brown hue. I could not detect the fear that gripped her awhile ago when she was talking to Blake. She sat once again on the eldritch tree branch and time paused. We were stuck in an endless vortex of a frozen second. The opportunity rose from the sea of sadness, and our heads made their way to each other.

Her lips were cold and shivering as it held mine. She tasted sweet, fireworks of ecstasy exploding around us. The moon grew brighter, and everything faded into a white canvass of insignificance. We were the only ones left in the universe; society had burnt down, the human race was extinct, we were now the center of the cosmos.

My eyes closed themselves as our tongues met in an embrace. I felt my penis hardening up and it wanted to get out. Her smell caressed my mind into carelessness for there was no tomorrow, present, nor past. This was the time of our lives.

As our bodies got warm, the hair from my skin stood up. There was something wrong. A putrid smell wafted and I knew from that instant the impending event: the ghost lady was in our midst once again. I opened my eyes as my lips and tongue continued to taste Luna. She still had her eyes closed; I surveyed the area for the ghost lady – I didn’t see her. I realized I was looking at the wrong place. I stared back at Luna and for about a split-second, she turned pitch black. It was all I needed to see the ghost lady’s sole distinct feature: her glowing red eyes. I shook with terror, yet I did not stop making out with Luna.

Her normal self faded into reality again, but I did not relax. I knew the ghost lady was an omen, a soul to warn us of an impending doom – it’s that or the ghost lady was Nikki. How come I could see her now? She was Luna’s angel of death after all. I guessed that with this act, we entangled our fates with each other. Her ghosts were now also mine, as my ghosts were now hers.

The realization that I saw Nikki was what made me remove my lips from her. She opened her eyes and looked at me. She saw the terror, but dared not ask. I knew she just realized what an idiot she had been for entering a dangerous relationship. She knew that Blake would kill us both if he were to find out about tonight. All of that, I saw in one second of a glimpse of her eyes. I said, “It’s alright.”

A sense of comfort eased into her. She replied, “Here’s my number, Leon. Contact me as soon as possible. I need you now.”

She crawled hurriedly down the tree branch and jumped down. I stared at her running shadow.

Days of texting her turned to weekends of meeting her at this spot which then turned to months of us keeping each other company in a world of darkness. In that duration of being with her, I found out several things about her.

Luna was the daughter of a rich business man. She studied in a school in the most developed city of this shithole of a country. She was the sole heir of their fortune. When Nikki died, her parents fought more than often. I heard one of their arguments when Luna sneaked me into their mansion. Her dad was shouting, “YOU THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO LET HER BE WITH FRIENDS LIKE NIKKI?” Her mom then replied, “HOW SHOULD I KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? AND I COULD NOT CONTROL THE GIRL FOR FUCK’S SAKE.” They continued fighting, but I didn’t hear what they were saying anymore. The whole time we were listening, Luna was sitting beside me on the floor. She was crying once again.

Luna met Blake at an organized interaction with her high school and mine. Blake was the fifth son of a governor of a province. After the interaction, Blake started texting her and did all the courting shit, went out with her friends, and eventually went out with her on a date. They would always go to parties often and that was what Luna liked the best. With Blake, Luna cared shit about life. I once asked where Blake got the gun that murdered Nikki, and Luna told me that it was his dad’s gun. She, too, was surprised when Blake brought it to the open-party. She found out while they were on their way there. They were cuddling at the back of Blake’s BMW, and Luna felt the gun hidden in his jeans’ right pocket. She didn’t bother to ask why he brought it.

Luna texted me with a number Blake did not even know she had. Whenever Blake needed her company, Luna would try her best to make an excuse to meet with me instead. She told me she couldn’t break up with him because he would know about me eventually. Blake was apparently a part of a big group of moronic jocks from my school. We were better off together in the shadows; as if there was a different life for us aside from that.

Every weekend we would just guard the burning city with each other as the source of warmth up that same eldritch tree where we had met. We would tell each other how we were feeling and when we felt like it, we would make out. Everything was silent when I was with Luna. She was now the center of my life and when depression attacked my mind I would think about her soft and soul-stealing kiss and all would be well. Kevin appeared less often now. In fact, I had the most comfortable sleep I had had since the murder – a slumber in which I felt the balm of hurt minds applied to me, a sleep in which, in exchange for a nightmare of Kevin’s staring eyes, I had a dream of Luna and me flying above the city.

Our fourth monthsary came and we celebrated it, as usual, on our tree branch. We had several dates at the mall, but all ended up with Luna in tears; she would always see humanoid shadows wherever we went. Anyways, the site of the stars comforted us. It was a childhood habit of Luna to watch the open night sky.

The leaves rustled, the crickets chirped, the stars sung a symphony of silence. I suddenly remembered what had happened in our prom night – the ghost lady and her putrid smell; no, scratch that, Nikki and her putrid smell. I had not told Luna about her in the risk of making her paranoid more than ever. After our prom night, Luna did not seem to see her anymore, because whenever I asked who she saw she would always say that she did not know. I guessed Luna deserved to know that Nikki was present when she was talking about her the night we first met.

“Luna,” I said, as my arms wrapped around her body, “you remember when we first met here?”

“Yes.”

“Nikki was with us that night.”

She looked at me, lips shaking, fear emanating out of her. “What?”

“I saw Nikki. Red-eyes, long hair, hanging from that root over there.” I pointed down the cliff that dropped below us.

She scouted the area around us. There were tears about to drop from her eyes.

“She’s not here anymore, Luna. I don’t see her anymore.”

“Le-Let’s go, Leon. I don’t want to be here. Please. I’m afraid.” She grabbed my arm and scooted towards the trunk. I felt her fear crawling up my arm.

“Luna, it’s about time you stop being afraid.” Her eyes looked at me shockingly. “You didn’t kill Nikki, all right? Blake killed Nikki. You just were there, powerless. You couldn’t do anything. Your conscience is killing you because you let it to. It’s about time you know that. I… I am sorry if I hurt your feelings, but it’s my duty to stop such a beautiful girl turn into a mess. You saved my life, I should be in my room right now, sulking in the darkness, but you reached out your hand to save me. It’s my turn now Luna. Don’t blame yourself for something you didn’t do. I love you, and I don’t want to love a mess.”

Tears rained below us, and I held her arm firmly. She looked at me the same way she did before we first made out: a painting of a girl’s face, perfect curves, bright onyx eyes, but if you stare at it, you’ll see misery and despair lurking beneath the face.

“I know that,” she said, “but it’s hard to not blame myself for it. I loved Nikki, she was my best friend; I couldn’t help but think that I could have done something to stop her getting killed. There was always a way. People always vow to their cherished loved ones that they would do anything for them, but once you’re in the real thing, your vow falters. It’s hard to forgive myself.

“You know, when we met and I told you my story, I didn’t see her anymore. Your presence eased my guilt. Tonight, you’re finishing the job and I’ll let you do it. You were my light, Leon. I could be dead by now, if you weren’t there with me in my times of paranoia. I love you; I’ll try to convince myself that I didn’t kill Nikki. I know you’re right.”

She scooted towards me; her eyes didn’t lose sight with mine. We would make out again. I slowly opened my lips to receive hers, and in contrast, my eyes slowly closed themselves.

I expected that everything would be quiet as we delved into romance, but it did not. Footsteps walked below us and as we veered our eyes towards the source, the shock petrified us both – Blake walked below us, leniently, with a smirk on his face.

“So,” he said, once he noticed we were in total fear, “this is where you go to when you’re with your family, huh?”

“Bla-“ Luna tried to say through quivering lips. Blake interrupted her.

“Stop. I don’t want to hear your fucking excuses. I saved your life. We were supposed to be found out, but it so happened that I cared about you that I tried my best to save us both. This is how you repay me, you fucking two-timing ingrate of a dyke. I loved you, Luna. I really did. That’s why I fucking ki-,” he stopped at midsentence, then began a new one, “I forgave you the first time you did this to me, but you weren’t sorry were you? This is what you trade me for?” He pointed at me. We just stared at him as he ranted on the ground. Luna’s hand held on to my arm like a rattlesnake constricting its prey. We just knew Blake had something for us; he wasn’t the type of guy to just orate all his emotions; he was the guy who acted with a knife. “Leon Rogers. Third Year, as well. My batchmate. Pathetic. You dumped me for this twig?” He looked at me. “I COULD FUCKING BREAK YOU IN HALF, LEON. YOU KNOW THAT?”

I just said nothing. I was completely trembling. All of my fears summed up to this being of terror; I knew this was coming to me, and I was so stupid to engage myself into this.

“I wanna tell you something, Leon. Grab the bitch you’re with and come down here. I wanna tell you something,” which was a euphemism for, “Come down here, I’m going to kill you.”

We just sat on our tree branch, petrified. For all my times with Luna, this tree was our home. It kept us safe, and it did not stop its duty even now.

Blake got something from the back of his pants with swift that it took me three seconds to focus at the thing until I realized what it was. The realization was an anesthetic that made my whole body numb – it was a gun, probably the same one he used with Nikki. Luna almost jumped when she saw it.

“Blake, please…” She pleaded. She was crying once again.

“You two go down. Right now!”

“Blake…”

“GET THE FUCK DOWN!” Echoes boomed, surrounded the whole area. It veered towards the city and merged with its sex and crime. Silence spoke out our terror. I whispered to Luna’s crying face, “Luna, I’ll be the one to go down. I’m the only one he needs. Stay right here.” I jumped down from the tree and walked towards my death. Fear and anger battled themselves for my heart. I was trembling, but I did not know what made my shaking stronger – was it because I was afraid? Or was it because my hate towards Blake flared within me?

Blake approached me with funeral drums as footsteps. He kept the gun pointed at me. I merely stared at him with contempt.

“Leon… Rogers,” He smiled.

“You think you can kill me?”

“This gun surely can.”

“Go ahead, then,” it pained me to say. If Blake was planning to kill us both, I would let myself go first. I knew Blake did not have the will power to kill another after his experience with Nikki. If ever I was wrong, I’d let him shoot me first so that Luna could have time to run away. “Kill me, Blake. As if you‘ll be doing anything different 20 years from now. You’ll be a corrupt politician, a lying lawyer, a two-timing businessman, a disease that can only be remedied through amputation. You trample above the weak, now; you’ll sure as hell trample on the weak later. Pretty soon, what you’ve done, what you are doing, what you will be doing, will catch up on you. In the darkest moments of your life, they will be staring at you with eyes thirsty for your blood… and I’ll be staring at you, as well, and those other kids you’ve relentlessly bullied every day. We will watch you, Blake.”

I saw the monster inside his eyes turn back a bit. The gun pointed at me lowered and tilted. I felt the power growing within me. He looked down at the ground, irises boggling about.

Despite every impulse of my body telling me not to, I smirked for a moment at his pathetic look. I saw his misery and dementia; his conscience bothered him like mine did after I murdered Kevin. “See, you’re a wreck now, Blake. It’ll get worse. The nightmares will get darker every night. In no time, you’ll be under the same ground you put Nikki in.”

When he heard the word Nikki, he stared back at me, and straightened his gun again. He smirked.

“You think I’m afraid? I had the time of my life killing Nikki. No doubt I’ll have a ball killing you both.”

“Not afraid?” I smiled. “Not afraid? Look at you now. You wouldn’t have that gun if you are not afraid. I know your conscience is eating your mind. I know you see Nikki everywhere you go. She watches every second of your existence because you fucking killed her.”

“My conscience is clear, the bitch deserved it!”

“The nightmares will get worse, Blake. You’ll sink into her realm – the realm of the dead. She approaches in a lenient pace and one night, you’ll see her face, claiming revenge.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

“I’ll be fucking content watching you getting nearer to your grave, dead or alive. Nikki’s happy too in your misery.” My fists shook with fury and time passed like it was in fast-forward. All of my five senses magnified what it could retrieve. I felt the same elation I did when Kevin was on his deathbed. I was torturing Blake. Fear me, Blake. I’m on top of the food chain now.

His teeth gnashed and his arms reached into his ears. Worry dropped into his face and I could not be happier. Through the mouth of a schizophrenic he said, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

I merely smiled. Though I was afraid myself and unaware on what was happening, I tried my best to not show it. I was winning.

“STOP THAT! THAT GODDAMN AWEFUL BEEP! STOP IT!” He screamed. His arms flung around all directions. At one moment, I had a glance of his face. I saw his eyes scanning the area. “GO AWAY! I KILLED YOU! I KILLED YOU!”

I looked back at Luna, but darkness concealed her whole body. All I saw was a shadow. When I returned to my prey, he shot me, two times.

What happened next was a blur of several scenes that happened so fast. I felt the bullets hitting a lower part of my body. I could not identify which, but I was falling. My ears culled in a monotone beep all around me. It was all I could hear. My surroundings faded into blackness. The last one to dissipate was the portion behind me. My head turned back as it came crashing down the ground, and I saw the ghost lading behind me. Her eyes still shone malevolently. After that, I found myself in a sea of darkness. I merely floated as if I was underwater – but something was missing, I felt lighter and hollow inside.

An invisible current southward took me with it into the darkness; the beep faded a bit. I heard Blake’s voice, randomly fading in and fading out of nowhere. “It was not my fault,” he shouted, “The gun told me to. The gun told me to. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’ll go to jail, they’ll lock me up – I can’t be locked up! Dad’ll be furious. SHIT! I CAN’T! YOU!” He paused for a bit. “YOU! YOU SAW EVERYTHING! YOU’RE ALWAYS HERE WHEN I FUCK UP!”

Even though it wouldn’t make a difference at all amidst the darkness, my eyelids slowly drooped themselves down. I suddenly grew tired. The weight of my body was completely gone and a certain peace ran through what’s left of my being. Everything was silent and still. Like the first night Luna and I spent up on the tree.

There was no doubt I was dead. I was going somewhere, into nothingness probably. Here was where I would leave the dying world for the world of the dead. I waited all my life for this moment.

I hated my meaningless life. I spent all of my years engulfed in the shadows of those above the social food chain. Meaningless lives surrounded me in every corner of my existence. We all follow our innate animal instincts that destroy our own selves. Whatever we’ve done will fly away with the wind never to be seen again like the dust we will become. It is only then when everyone will be equal.

For now, the powerful prevailed once again – over me.

Through slits of vision, I saw lines of light all around. I opened my eyes to see what was going on. Images of memory floated around me like television sets. The memories of my childhood were the nearest to me, but as the current took me farther down, the images became those of recent memory. Finally I reached the part of my life where I went to our prom night. The first image I saw was of the dying city. The light of my memory was bright first but as I stared longer, I grew used to it. Suddenly, I was pushed into this memory.

I looked around and found myself on the ground that the branch overlooked. For a second, I thought I was back again in time, that I was alive, but I realized I was floating. I was nothing but a mere soul with no body.

I looked up and saw Luna and my past self admiring the city before them. There was no sound anywhere.

No doubt this was the memory I would forever lurk, past, present, and, future. Like the man who swung like a pendulum under the tree. Like Nikki who will forever watch Luna and Blake.

Yes, like Nikki, who also dwelled in the land of the dead. I wondered, since I now resided in this period of time, could Nikki’s ghost still be here too? I walked towards the cliff.

She was not there. I was alone here, forever to watch this eldritch tree like a guardian.

I looked back up to Luna. Here, in this period of time, I met, comforted, and dated Hope. Luna was the only person I had ever met to have a meaning to me. Let all the people in the world burn, Luna would stand unscathed like a goddess. I loved her, and I was leaving her to suffer with a madman.

As I stared at her figure, she eventually dimmed into blackness – like she was a ghost. Her eyes bled red smoke, but my past self didn’t seem to notice it. I felt the same amount of fear that struck me when I deduced that it was Nikki’s ghost I was seeing. The leaves above me laughed and applauded at my fear. It grew louder and louder until I cringed my eyes out of pain.

I felt a strong pressure to my left. I tried hard to open my eyes once again, and I saw time fast-forwarded. Night became day, and day became night in seconds – the four months I had been with Luna flashing before me. I saw my past self and Luna climbing up the tree and then back down once again in brisk moments.

Then everything went to normal speed when I arrived to the fateful night I met Blake. I stopped the minute I was shot, behind Blake. His ramblings as I fell to the ground could not be heard, silence surrounded us. I looked towards the tree and searched for Luna, but all I saw was the shadow figure running towards my corpse.

I looked at Blake, saw his mad bloodthirsty eyes focusing on Luna. He opened his mouth and said, in echoes, “YOU! YOU SAW EVERYTHING! YOU’RE ALWAYS HERE WHEN I FUCK UP!” He pointed the gun at the shadow figure, which, when it saw the danger, ran away from him. I screamed, “NO!”, but nothing came out of my mouth.

Blake ran after her with the gun held at arms length. Luna the shadow figure dashed crisscross. She sometimes looked back at Blake. When she did, I hoped she saw me. I hoped she could see that I was watching her and I forever would. Luna was my purpose in life and in death. I wished I could do anything but stand here watching her. I wished I could have fulfilled my vows of protecting her.

Blake fired two shots at her. At first, they were booming noises that smashed my ears, but eventually their noises lowered to nothingness. All of a sudden, darkness enveloped me once again.

Amidst the black velvet that was around me, I felt being lifted by a great force. No. I wanted to see what happened to Luna. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to do something about Blake. Blake, the motherfucking asshole. I wanted to show the weak could still fight back. Blake hadn’t prevailed yet, I kept denying to myself.

I was lifted to a great height. I did everything I could to fall off from the grip of the invisible force carrying me. I needed to go back to that period of time I was cut off from.

Suddenly, I was free. I fell, swiftly being dragged by gravity. I glanced at what I was falling into and saw nothing. Nothing is really nothing. Amidst the debauchery and the despair lies hope – omniscient hope that keeps people alive, comforting hope that assures the past, present, future to be better than what we think, irrational hope that Luna brought upon me. I hoped that I would be led back to that period of time.

The end of my fall came; it was an impact that, if I still had bones, would render me all in pieces. I realized I had my eyes closed. I felt my five senses feeding my brain information of my surroundings. My nose needed air desperately, and my lungs responded - my chest heaved up and down fast. My face was surrounded by cold droplets I did not know what. The grass that I lie on was prickling. The leaves sang a song of sorrow to me.

I was alive, and I tears of joy dropped down from my cheeks.

I scouted the area with my own living eyes. Directly across me stood the eldritch tree that had been our home for four months. Everything came back to me, every detail, every scene that I saw in the realm of the dead.

I shouted, “Luna?! Where are you?” Despite the pain in my left thigh and left part of my abdomen, I stood up and walked. I looked around and didn’t see Blake. “LUNA!” Echoes mocked me and reverberated back to me with the same despair as the original ones had.

I reached the tree and checked the tree branch where we always sat. No one. I shouted her name once again.

The worse thing hit me – was I going to check the cliff? Farther from the tree trunk, there was nowhere to go, but the cliff. Shaking, with the hope that I would see nothing, I glanced down the cliff.

Luna hanged on to a root protruding from the cliff.

The realization hit me, slapped me, stabbed me. I shook with fear and anger. I was so stupid. It was not Nikki’s ghost that stalked me, but Luna’s. She was haunting our past, like I had.

“Leon,” she said softly. Her face was filled with trickles of blood; her eyes were fountains of tears. “You’re alive…”

“Luna, just hang on, I’ll help you,” which was bullshit because no matter what I do I wouldn’t be able to reach her. The branch she hanged on was too far away from where the cliff fell.

“I can’t hang on any longer. I broke my left arm and leg. I deserved this, Leon.” Her eyes squinted themselves and produced even more tears. “I killed Nikki.”

“No, I told you before. You didn’t kill Nikki. Luna, I love you. Don’t fall. Please. Don’t leave me here.” Tears blurred my vision as I stared at her. I knew she was going to die, but I hoped she wouldn’t.

“I’ll get help, Luna. Just wait for me.” The pain in my lower body aggravated when I stood up, but nothing felt more pain than my heart. I shook with a flurry of mixed emotions that flooded my mind.

I heard her say, the minute I ran from the cliff, “I love you, Leon.”

These were the last words of Luna.

I was too late. When I reached the place where the guards of my high school stayed, they called for an ambulance. I needed the soonest medical help; they wouldn’t let me come back with them to save Luna. As soon as I told them where they could find Luna, I fainted into blackness.

Next time I would open my eyes, I would find myself in a hospital. My mom stood beside me with worried eyes. She grasped a rosary in her left hand. My sister stood up from the chair she sat and looked at me as well. I closed my eyes once again.

The minute I was completely conscious at the hospital, my dad told me everything that had happened after I fainted. The guards ran as fast as they could towards the tree, but they were too late. Luna already fell from an immense height. They saw her corpse, sprawled, floating in blood.

Of course, I cried once again. The tears, though, were not only of sorrow, but also of anger. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to save her. I hated Blake for killing her. I hated my life. There was one night that I attempted to run out from my room, find the nearest balcony, and jump to join Luna in the world of darkness.

I ratted Blake out. I told my dad – he was the chief of police in the city – everything I knew. A formal investigation was instigated afterwards, and it was proven that Blake shot and attempted to kill me, through gunfire residue on his hands. We could have sued Blake and his family, but my dad, one night, revealed to me that Blake’s family bribed him to not file any legal case against them. I got their son to the mental hospital, they said, wasn’t that enough payback for you? My father, who knew how powerful Blake’s family, agreed on the bribe. We were also engulfed in loans and financial crisis, so my father had no choice.

It took me more or less two weeks at the hospital to recover from the damages of that night.

Two months into the future, where the weather was a lot cooler, more humid, more akin to the land of the dead, I sat on the eldritch tree branch, looking at the dying city.

The leaves whispered to me of things that had happened below them: of our first meeting on my prom night, of our nightly dates watching the sky, of the tears that had fallen to the ground.

The leaves blamed me of killing Luna; I couldn’t agree more. I didn’t do anything after all. I just watched, in the abyss, as Blake ran for her. I just fucking watched. I could have saved her. We could be together now up on this tree guarding the burning downtown.

Here I was now trying to pretend that Luna was still here with me, trying to imagine her in my arms, pretending that I did not kill her. We would be staring at the city for hours. No matter what I do, though, I could not see anything but mere nothingness.

-END-