Beyond Death

×Chapter Five×

The silence between the two felt awkward, but the more Ivan looked at him dead in the eyes, after a while the discomfort turned into a satisfying silence between two life-long friends. 
"I don't know if I should call it suffering, it might just be an ephemeral sadness, a weird sensation of being alive or just how I am supposed to feel like."
Ivan nodded and lifted himself up, laying against the backrest of the bench. The kid sat in the same position, still looking at the ground.
"So, what's your name? My name is Nikolaevici Ivanov, they call me Nikolai often and Ivan sometimes."
"My name? Georgyi. Kovalenko Georgyi. I come here often, almost every night, to calm myself down and ponder. Yet, this is the first time I see you here."
"I don't usually walk on the streets during the night because you never know when someone might strike you in the head with a bat and steal all your belongings. It happened, and I saw a few of these incidents from my apartment window. Speaking of which, these last 5 days, I've spent them inside my house."
Georgyi sighed after Ivan ended his dialogue, it seemed like he barely has the motivation to even speak. It's not that he didn't care what he was talking about, Georgyi was caught in a trance like state, Ivan could see it on his face how Georgyi did nothing but emotionlessly stare at the ground and day-dream.
"You will never make a good friend out of me if you treat me with your back, Georgyi."
Georgyi's reply consisted of an incomprehensible mumble, Ivan took this as a personal offense so he placed his hand on Georgyi's back, to try to wake him up from his dissociative state.
"What do you want from me? Not only did you disturb me, Ivan, but also want to be my friend. Who'd want to be my friend, who'd want to befriend someone like me, a man with no purpose in life. I stay here every night hoping for what you said, hoping my heart would start rotting inside of me."
"You shouldn't say those harsh words about yourself friend. The wish to die only makes you more inclined towards wanting to keep living." Ivan got off the bench and stood in front of Georgyi, and as he looked down at the back of his head, Ivan felt a sudden urge to strike him with his fist, but the urge was easily repressed with a swift twitch of the shoulders. Georgyi looked up at him."Your life might not be precious or valuable, but is that a motif for you to end it?"
"You're wrong Ivanov. You're wrong. Did I ever say my life has no value? My life is as valuable as the entirety of Petrovskaia City, if not more. The emotional fluctuation, the intensity of my emotions, they would be the best inspiration for a poet or a writer. But I don't have talent, I don't. My poetry is bad, worse than my writing skills Ivan. My mother didn't give birth to a genius, sadly. For the last two, maybe three years, I have been feeling like this. Each emotion comes with a pain, a deep cut inside my chest, so far it hasn't started bleeding."
Looking at him, Ivan felt nothing but pity. Pity for a man without purpose, he could smell how miserable Georgyi was, a kid who already lost his life. He just described his slow and awful death, sometimes Ivan idealized this type of decadence, he wanted to feel it just like Georgyi but the only time he felt something inside his chest was when he displeased his hallucinations. Cain hasn't appeared in a long time, almost a week since the last time he tormented Ivan since then he has patiently awaited God'd arrival. In the eyes of Ivan, Georgyi became a saint who could describe death to him, Ivan became impatient with Cain and slowly began losing hope in his words as he stared and thought about Georgyi.
"Who are you, Georgyi? Do you want a greater purpose in life? You should befriend him, don't be afraid of me, I am nothing but a man. The worst I can do is kill you." Ivan stretched his hand towards Georgyi, wanting to shake his hand as a sign of friendship. Georgyi gazed at it for a few seconds then got up, standing in front of him and shook it firmly. Georgyi was shorter than Ivan, shorter with around 5 inches. Without exchanging any other words, they looked at eachother in the eyes and walked in opposite sides, Ivan towards his apartment and Georgyi headed to his house. They both knew they'd meet eachother tomorrow at around the same time, in the same place, and if not tomorrow maybe the day after.