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Chapter 55, Eighteen Months Later (Ep. 1: The Crawl)
NOVEMBER 3, 1987
To grieve someone who was still alive was the cruelest of retributions.
Eighteen months were spent hanging between the balance of loss and denial. With one came another, and the long hours of supposed recovery couldn't mend the fractures of someone who was far beyond reach.
What was lost would forever remain lost.
Ever since that night, Steve had become the shell of the person he once was. A sorrow from within clawed its way through the surface of his skin, tainting his surroundings with the sheer solemnity of a defeated faith. He had never been a believer of religion, but desperate times came with desperate measures, so he often wandered into church and spoke to the heavens.
Sometimes he believed if God was real, then He was cruel for writing him a destiny meant for sinners. No one was perfect, but he considered himself somewhat decent, so why was he handed a ruthless sentence?
The owner of his heart was gone and he was left standing like a fallen soldier, threatened to remain captive by the grim trenches. Often, he pondered on various ways that could offer a final rest. If there was no one holding him back, then what more did he have?
He knew right then and there that he couldn't discuss this with anyone. Not even to his best friend. Everyone had their own problems that burdening them with another was selfish, so he did what he knew best.
Stay silent.
Eighteen months later and life was painted with the cruelest of colors. The things that used to bring him joy were no longer of his interest. They were painted with despair and brought down from the pedestal they once had been rooted in. He tried searching for any ounce of thrill, something meaningful and of importance, because it was expected of him.
Normalcy.
Pretending.
Forgotten concepts that used to be so simple. He once had preached their beauty and believed in them as if they were a deity. He had been so devoted to pretending that it never occurred to him that years later, he wouldn't follow his own word.
It was strange the way life worked, because in spite of not believing in feigned acts, it was now his only option.
Everyone had moved on and he was still the same person from that night. He was stuck, eternally haunted by the memories and forced to pretend grief wasn't rotting him from the inside out.
