inception

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He stood with his feet in the moist sand as rain poured around him and the wind dishevelled his hair. The salty water lapped at his feet every now and then; calming him, soothing him.

Ezra Richards had just created havoc yet again at his umpteenth foster home. Where there was once a garage, now stood nothing but charred ash and scattered shrapnel, much like Ezra's insides. The guy that was supposed to be taking care of him was about to take one step further out of line and Ezra knew that nobody would have believed him if he had told them how screwed up this man was.

The wind's pace picked up slightly as he took another drag of his cigarette. He smoked cigarettes to feel less lonely. Cigarettes weren't some filthy addiction he'd taken up at some rebellious age just for the heck of it. They were there for him in the raw moments where he felt like he was loosing grip of the life around him. They were there for him when nobody else was. And in the short five minutes that he'd spend with a cigarette, he knew it was the only thing that would glue all his precarious pieces back together. It was quiet and there was no judgment. Cigarettes were there for him in moments of desperation, joy, devastation and boredom. He'd spent a lot of his worst (and many of his rare but best) times with a cigarette in his hand.

His eyes were set on the moon's pure reflection on the rolling waves and his ears were filled with the melody of raindrops splashing into the sea. This was the one place he could unleash his inner demons and fight a one-on-one battle against them. He would let his thoughts gradually swim up to the surface and listen to them one by one instead of being caught in the midst of thousands of them. He didn't need water to feel like he was drowning.

The rain sensed his aura and decided to simmer down a bit, allowing him to focus on his dilemmas. Splash, drip, swoosh. He imagined the look of utter shock on his foster parent's face once he found out what he'd done. Splash, drip, swoosh. He took a deep breath. Splash, drip, swoosh. He saw a girl's silhouette a few feet away from him. Splash, drip-

Shaking his head as if to clear his mind, he rechecked that the girl wasn't just a figment of his imagination; it wouldn't have been the first time he'd hallucinated. Dropping his cigarette and still hesitant on trusting his eyes, he decided to approach the feminine figure to make sure he hadn't lost it completely.

As Ezra watched while he got closer, he saw the girl fall to her knees, heard a cry pierce the still sky. Discarding his doubt, Ezra sprinted up to her and crouched down. Her hands were covering her face and her shoulders were shaking violently, their movement matching her now tumult of soft sobs.

"Hey." Ezra said softly as he reached for her shoulders. "Hey, you."

The girl flinched away from his touch but kept her head bowed down causing her chestnut hair to curtain around her frail face. After a short pause and a quick breath, she hastily wiped her tears away and was already on her feet when Ezra grasped her wrist. The sudden contact pulled the girl's swollen eyes to his. She saw the dying wind still making an attempt at tousling his shaggy black hair and how the moon's light reflected off his grey eyes. Slowly, she became aware of the delicate grip he had on her hand, soft but rough.

At the same time, Ezra beheld her. Her tense petite frame and wide eyes told Ezra that she was scared, but not of him. Ezra's fingers trailed the scars on her wrist , scars of which he knew the origin all too well.

"I'm Ezra." he whispered to not startle her. He had redirected his gaze to her big hazel eyes, intrigued. "What's your name?"

"Iris." she answered, her tone just as hushed. "Iris Bane."

Ezra nearly lost her name to the sound waves crashing onto the shore, but he just about caught it. The rain had completely stopped and so only a light breeze reined the skies. Ezra wavered on how to continue the conversation.

"Uh...What's going on, Iris?"

Something dark flashed in her eyes, as if she'd absorbed the light of the moon rather than reflecting it. Her shoulders slumped as she settled down on the sand next to Ezra and grabbed some loose sand in her hands, letting it gently sift through her graceful fingers. Both broken beings were sat facing the shore.

"I don't even know where to start." she sighed.

 Ezra knew that he would've said the same thing if he were to answer his own question."Okay, let me rephrase that. How do you feel?"

"I don't." Iris looked at him dead in the eye without the hint of any emotion on her face.

He understood, he understood more than he would care to admit. Ezra was aware he would be intruding Iris' personal space but he felt the urge to know more. Crossing his legs, he looked back at her, waiting.

"What's your worst fear?" she asked, staring at the Moon. She stretched her jean-clad legs in front of her and leaned on her arms, as if soaking up the pureness the Moon offered.

"Not being good enough." he immediately said. It was something he had pondered upon countless times. "Yours?"

"Society."

The swishing of the waves took over the silence around them yet again, submerging them both in their own thoughts.

"I've always hated that word." Ezra started, a forlorn look dominating his face. "I once read something: 'Everyone's so full of shit, born and raised by hypocrites'." She snorted, amused and he continued. "How can this world change if we talk shit about 'society' and we are society? How can this world change if we talk about what people do and we are people? We all criticise each other and then blame everything on so-called 'society'. We tell you to be yourself and then reprimand you for it. We discriminate against you for the stupidest of things and judge each other on everything, yet we still expect us to form a 'we'."

"I always felt like these... collective pronouns excluded me." Iris responded. " 'We' and 'us' require a unity which is impossible to achieve. Especially within such a vast expanse of opinions that overflow everywhere, drifting you apart from your own judgment and..."

"Yeah."

Ezra and Iris had just dissipated their feelings into the night, and in doing so, they had also allowed the other to soak up a bit them-self and clear a bit of the mist blurring their eyes. The stars finally fit into an alignment, a correlation. And they knew.

--

Hey there,

Thank you so much for being as patient as you were for this first part of this short story. I would just like to say this has helped me vent out many emotions and therefore I apologise for the extra literary-ness of the content. Sorry :/

Anyways, as always I hope you enjoy and if you have anything to say or any concerns, go ahead an comment.

Thanks guys :3

-Del xx

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