The End Of Us

2. Ashes

-
Show me where it hurts
And I'll make it worse
Are you holding on?
Still holding on?
-

The thunderous clouds were rolling up on the grey sky evidently signaling the storm. Her short puffy hair flew as the wind whizzed past the crowd of students gushing out of the school ground. They all hurried pushing each other and cussed under their breath when nobody seemed to pay heed to their urgency.

She was one amongst many other. The only difference was, this girl seemed too lost for her own good. Her fuzzy, warm grey sweater was a little oversized for her pale fragile body. Her cheeks, the color of the blooming rose and her nostrils flaring as she struggled to inhale the cold air.

"Darn! Watch it gurl." Someone exclaimed as they shoved her out of the way, leaving her stumbling for a foothold. Balancing herself just at the right moment, she prevented the fall in to the muddy ground.

She jerked the hair away from her face that had temporarily obscured her vision- only for her eyes to be opened up to an agonizing sight of some group of boys laughing at her unawareness.

These boys- or rather the delinquent teenagers, seated menacingly in their outfit looked like thugs as they puffed the hot cigarette out in to the bitter cold air. Some of them had bandana around their heads while some other had chains dangling down their exposed waists.

She straightened herself up taking in the environment before steadily walking towards them. The group seemed fazed at her sudden and daring approach. But the boy with blonde spiked up hair seemed amused as he smirked at her. The ringleader she thought as she stood before him.

"What's the matter doll?" He snickered. But her response was the stare that pierced a hole, burning a blinding light in his blackened soul. His forehead creased in to an ugly scowl as he shook his head breaking the eye contact between the two of them.

"What's that?" She finally broke the tension clouding them.

Her curious eyes were fixated on the burning cigarette he had placed between his fingers. She watched the smoke erratically mingling in to the atmosphere, hesitantly leaving the dying orange spark. She also watched with those pitiful eyes as the ashes fell down out of the stub, melting in the dampness of the ground. What a shame!

The boy moved his gaze from her form on to the roll he was holding. He threw it down just so he could pull out another one out of the fresh set he had hidden in his pocket. He then surprisingly handed her a new one, pre readying the lighter.

"Life." He had said.

"Try it out!" He then urged. The vile person stood in front of the innocent soul, whose only purpose seemed to create another personality like him just so he could watch them suffer the same fate and feel less guilty about himself.

She stood in her place, for a moment or two, observing the thing in his hand what he had called life before she took it from him. His cold hand brushing her warm one's in the process. One would be foolish if the thought of her being hesitant ever dared crossed their mind. She wasn't the hesitant one, never had been. She was always just the curious one.

The boy lit it for her and one for himself. She watched him intently as he smoked so she could imitate him. And she did, exactly like he puffed. It felt strange at first, when the warm smoke filled her pure lungs. The tainting feel left her coughing. Now that she had already impured herself with the cancerous smoke, she decided to continue.

She was so engrossed, her curious eyes forgot to notice the shrewd glances the group was giving her fourteen year old self.

Innocent little brat. Indeed!

That evening when she got back home, she reeked of the impurity. Her worried mother had asked what she had been doing. But she shrugged her off saying, "Life." Just how he had said it for her.

But as days went by, she started showing signs of sickness. She had wondered, yet once again, about life. About the deceitful meaning the boy had given to it. It seemed so wrong now. So wrong.

She remembered, she had went to him that day. When he was sitting with some of his boys. Few of them she recognized from before. His head was bowed low. He had the pack, a fresh one, the usual he seemed to have when she used to go to him asking for life. Only this time, it was unused. The cigarette in his hand, unlit. When he looked at her, her glare burned him the same way it had the first time he met her.

He remembered, how brutally she had slapped him making the cigarette fall from his shaky hold. Spiteful eyes watching them, the one's that never seemed to disappear from the background.

"You were wrong." She had yelled. His puffy bloodshot eyes looking at her in horror and astonishment.

What she said before storming away left him agape- dumbstruck.

"Life is not about ending it in pathetic manner."