The night Elak fell down from the moon, Elise was there.
Elise saw it happen with her own eyes, she saw it right from the moment Elak entered the roof to when he fell down from the 13-story high building.
She could have prevented it.
She could have talked him out of it, but at the moment, she couldn't do it.
The exact moment she saw him on the roof, she immediately froze.
Her lips were sealed tight shut, and she stopped in her tracks.
She was just so scared, she couldn't find herself to do anything out of fear.
Seconds after his body hit the ground, that's when it finally registered in her head that she just watched a person kill himself.
Tears couldn't stop flowing out her eyes, she had nothing to do with it, but deep down, she felt guilty.
She could have done something, she could have prevented him from thinking suicide was the answer in the first place, but none of her many regrets couldn't fix what happened that night.
She immediately dialed 911 after he fell down to the ground. They arrived a few minutes later and checked his body.
He still had a faint pulse, was on the verge of death, and was greatly injured. They brought Elak to the hospital immediately, and he was quickly rushed to the ICU.
A year after, Elak was still in a comatose.
The only thing that changed a year after is that suddenly, people started caring about Elak, and that they started treating Elise the way they used to treat him.
Several weeks after the incident, rumors spread around that Elise lead to Elak's hospitalization.
And thus, in just a year, Elise became one of those people who ruined it for everyone.
Every word she said, every thing she did, would be belittled and ignored.
Even if she didn't know Elak, she found herself starting to hate him.
She blamed everything on him, because the guilt was consuming all of her.
She told herself that if it weren't for Elak, she would still be the same as she was a year ago.
"If it weren't for Elak," she cried, "I would be laughing right now," she wiped away her tears. "Not this."
She didn't know if she was crying out of guilt or pain. To her, it hurt the same way.
It was not any of their faults. Elise was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Elak and Elise were just two very different people, whose worlds collided on one harrowing night.
The problem was, she couldn't realize that herself.
So, on the anniversary of the night he tried to commit suicide, she went to the building where he jumped off.
Candles and flowers were scattered around the rooftop in his memory, as if he died, yet he was merely in deep slumber, like how the Sleeping Beauty waited for a kiss by the Prince to wake up.
Elise wondered whether things would go back to normal when he woke up. Elise wondered if he would even wake up in the first place.
She felt a faint presence reach her shoulder. She shuddered in fear.
Who else beside her would be on the rooftop, yet alone on midnight?
She tried looking at what was behind her through periphery --- and there, she saw.
She saw him. She saw Elak Burkett in the flesh, alive and breathing.
YOU ARE READING
The Boy from the Moon {Hiatus}
Short Story"How's life as a single ghost?" "Oh, it's great. The only problem is that I have no body be with." --- That night, Elise saw it all. Elise saw a random kid who went by the name Elak Burkett, the boy from the moon, jump off a building only to fall in...
