Things Fall Apart

11. Planetary

And everyday Cherri Cola and Kobra Kid would wake up next to each other.

But Kobra never noticed.

Kobra never noticed anything, apart from Poison. Poison was all he knew and all he cared about.

And it was a shame, really, because Cola did care, but he never saw.

He felt extremely lonely, but he never had been.

And maybe his eyes were a little bit blind.

And maybe his heart was a little bit hurt.

And maybe his brain was a little not right.

Cola knew but said nothing.

Because Cola loved.

But the thing was that there was no room for Love in the Wasteland.

The ground was too dry for anything to grow.

The air was too thick for anyone to survive.

There was only Rage.

Cola loved, but a dead-end kind of love, a love that would only wither and dry him up.

Ghoul loved, but in a hopeless pitfall kind of love. He loved simply because he knew that We must love one another or die.

Kobra loved, and once had been loved, but what once was his was now someone else's. Love had been ripped off his chest and stuck all wrong onto Someone else's.

Poison loved too. But Poison loved and was loved back.

And it hurt.

And it wasn't fair.

Because there was no room for Love in the Wasteland.

Kobra was out of breath, out of tears. There was a throbbing hole in his chest.

He had been ripped off from his Hometown, forced to abandon his identity to become someone else.

His life had been torn apart and stuck together again all wrong.

And now the only person whom he loved had been taken away from him.

By Her. It was all Her fault.

And every time a little bit of him died to her, she laughed with effrontery.

She had stolen his breath, stolen his tears, stolen his life, stolen what once was his.

She had stolen his love.

He was falling to pieces.

He could see his skin crackle like an egg, delicate, fragile. He could watch it through the cracks. His whole life falling apart. He could watch it through the cracks. The Void.

It was All Her Fault.

He woke up after dreaming of Home again.

He cried about it, but the bedroom was still dark and everyone still asleep, so nobody saw, so nobody knew, so it didn't count, so he should have stopped thinking about it.

But he didn't.

He knew what he had to do.

He softly pushed Cola's arm aside and got up. Everyone else was asleep, and he almost envied them.

But he had something important to do.

The good thing about the Wasteland at night was that there was nothing to light out the stars. They were brighter than anywhere else, here.