𝚠𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚘𝚠 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚝𝚜 𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚝 // 𝑀𝐻

thirty-six

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"Wake Me up When September Ends"
-Green Day

November 19th, 2012
6:32pm

You were completely disoriented, lost inside the labyrinth of skeletal branches. The burnt orange sky had slightly faded, giving way to a listless fade of colors. As you look around yourself, you saw no waypoints by which to navigate.

Beneath the plethora of colors in the sky, the silhouettes of trees reached up into the oblivion, a hand waving for help. The trees' gnarled roots lay just beneath the surface of the damp ground, anchored weakly as if they had no want to remain. As you look around, your breath hung in the air in front of you, a harsh reminder of how very cold it was. Stepping forward, you tripped on a tree root and threw out a hand to steady yourself. The tree was coarse to the touch, full of knots and ridges.

The evening air was silent and damp, the moisture in the air crawled up your skin like an insect. The sound of your shallow breathing echoed within the chamber of tall decaying trees in which you stood. The sound of your heartbeat, only just audible, resonated inside the centre of the grove. Without you, the woods were silent. Without you, the woods had no life.

The silence wasn't peaceful – it was threatening.

It terrified you.

The crunching of dead leaves below your feet mixed in with your unsteady breathing—almost as unsteady as you felt, as well as your memory of the last seven months. Wiped.

Though your eyes had landed on something—run down but a shelter nonetheless.

Silence swept thought the trees, dancing with beams of shining sunlight that leapt across the fractured concrete. The golden glow illuminated the decaying brick work as the tiny shoots of saplings stood proudly, their small leaves swayed in the breeze, like millions of emerald soldiers marching gently.

The once solid structure submitted to nature's embrace, its crumbling carcass cradled by the sunlight and the flora that once ruled the world before being tormented by mankind.

Your footsteps seemed to be as loud as a jet engine as you stepped into the building, your eyes taking in every little bit of building space you could, down to every flake of the paint.

Your hands slid across the chipping walls, dragging your feet across the cement floors littered with rubble and god knows what.

Your feet stumped dead in your tracks.

Your blood ran cold, the fight or flight entering your consciousness as you could faintly hear the mixture of sobbing and borderline screaming.

Your hands trembled as you began to walk towards the noise, your walk morphing into a run, then a full on sprint as it became more and more familiar.

You could barely let yourself hold back as you ran towards him, eyes training on a man you haven't seen in a long, long time.

   "Tim."

   Your hand touched his shoulder, his head held down as he sat on the concrete floor.

      You embraced the man, so many questions running through your head in that moment. His shaky hand reached out to your shoulder, pulling you down to him.

   You sat next to him as his breath shook. Your hand stayed placed on his back, your eyes trained on the chipping walls and the floor.

   Tim is a man you've trusted for years, and you still remembered a lot about him.

          The only time his hands were ever even close to steady was when they were pulling a cigarette from his cold, dry lips. He didn't talk much—around others anyways. He had this look on his face as if he's about to say something, but never did.

     His dark brown hair was wildly untamed but that was the last thing he cared about. Whenever it got in his way he would just comb it straight back with his wiry, but gentle fingers until it fell in his face again.

      Sad, miss-directed eyes looked as if they had missed countless nights of sleep yet somehow they still remained a transparent, deep brown.

   Those same eyes told a story of trauma, mental instability and a lifetime of pills.

    The two of you didn't speak, only let the silence consume you as you both just listened to the wind as well as each other's breathing.
   
   Both of you had a plethora of questions, none of them being answered due to neither of you wanting to begin that rabbit hole of a conversation—especially not right now.