Whistle Through The Ghosts [Spring Awakening]

Whispering

Her brown hair hung loosely over her shoulders, her smile so sweet. Her eyes held so much curiosity, so much sweet innocence, longing to know what the universe held. Her skin was so soft, so delicate, just like her. Her laughter was carried on the wind, blowing through tree branches, gracing the leaves with a gentle caress. She was wonderful, magical. She was so good. Her white dress hung around her, painting the perfect image of the perfect young angel. Everything changed so suddenly, her white dress losing its lacy frill, turning black. Her bright eyes dimmed and welled with tears, her voice no longer sang with laughter. She was screaming, begging, hands flying. She was tainted. She was hurting. She was dying. She was wilting. She was fading, fading, fading....

Melchior woke up with a gasp, his entire body coated in a layer of sweat. He sat up, body trembling with the aftershocks of his nightmare, trying to ground himself in reality. He took deep breaths, chest heaving as he gripped the sheets in his fists tightly. He blinked repeatedly as his eyes adjusted to his darkened bedroom. Another nightmare. They didn't seem to ever go away, it was one nightmare after another each night, haunting Melchior like ghosts. This one had been about Wendla, poor, sweet, innocent Wendla. Melchior had killed her, he knew that he had. He had violated her, had stolen from her, had hurt her. Her death was on his hands. Melchior swallowed thickly, laying back down and letting his back hit his matress. He closed his eyes and tried to let himself be lulled to sleep again, but his eyelids flashed images of Wendla, not letting him have any peace. It wasn't just her either. It was her and Moritz, his best friend who had killed himself without Melchior even knowing that anything was wrong. It was his fault. He had killed both of them.

Melchior's eyes fluttered open again and he fixed his gaze at his ceiling. He counted his breaths, the number of seconds between them, anything to just be able to get out of his head. He head rustling beside him and he turned his head, seeing Hanchen asleep in the bed across from his. Melchior still wasn't used to sharing a room with his new step-brother and he didn't exactly like it. Melchior and Hanschen didn't exactly get along, being too similar to coexist. It didn't help that Hans had everything. He was at the top of his class, he was well-liked by teachers, he was knowledgeable in most things, he had a boyfriend who loved him more than the world itself. Hanschen had everything that Melchior had lost. Melchior hated him for that, not to say that he hadn't hated him before, because he had. Hanschen was cocky and competitive and pretty. He never stood up for anyone or anything, letting everyone do whatever they wanted as he watched quietly in the background. Melchior hated that anyone could be that complacent.

Melchior sighed and shook his head, sitting up again and running a hand through his hair, letting his bangs fall into his eyes. He stood up, wincing as his feet hit the cold wood of his bedroom floor. He took a breath, feeling the coldness of the room surround him. He shivered, grabbing a coat from his closet and wrapping it tightly around himself. He slipped out of the room, being sure that his footsteps were as light as possible so as not to wake Hans. He creeped down the hallway, letting the darkness blanket his escape, slipping on a pair of shoes as he snuck out of the house. He just needed an escape, time to be alone with his thoughts. He walked down the street, hands in his coat pockets in a vain attempt to keep warm. He liked the cold in a way, the feeling of the air burning his throat, the way it tickled and hurt at his skin, the emptiness that it seemed to create. He wondered if this was how Moritz had felt: cold. Melchior supposed that it would make sense, coldness, emptiness, and sadness seemed to all correspond with one another. Moritz had been so sad, so empty. Their hands had always been so cold to touch. Wendla used to insist on the "cold hands, warm heart" philosophy. Melchior was more convinced that his friend most likely suffered from anemia. His hands and feet had always been freezing to the touch, but he had refused to wear gloves, claiming to hate that he couldn't feel when something was covering his fingers. Wendla had knitted him fingerless gloves to solve the issue one Christmas. He had been overjoyed, thanking Wendla over and over again. He had lost the gloves within the week, but for that week he'd had warm hands.

Melchior smiled to himself at the memory, thinking of how happy Moritz had been to receive the gloves, how he had cried when he figured out that he'd lost them. Moritz always had seemed to grow from the extremes of being absolutely overjoyed to being horrifically depressed depending on the day. His miserable days were always followed by happier days where he seemed perfectly fine. Maybe that was why Melchior never realized that it had gotten as bad as it had until it was too late. Maybe it was just because Melchior hadn't cared enough to notice. That thought was a painful one, the thought that the signs were there and that Melchior had just ignored them, that he had let his best friend die. It wouldn't surprise him. He hadn't realized that Moritz was failing as poorly as he had been until he flunked out, he hadn't realized that Moritz was being abused at home until his own mother had told him and showed him the series of emails sent between her and Moritz during the final week of his life. Melchior had always believed himself to be intelligent, to know close to everything, but he hadn't known anything at all. What could he have done differently? If he had been there for Moritz, if he had found out and had held his hand through the hard parts, would anything be different? Would Moritz still be alive? The idea made Melchior's whole body feel numb in a way that had nothing to do with the cold air around him. If there was something he could have done, why hadn't he done it? Why hadn't he saved Moritz? Why hadn't he done anything?

Melchior didn't even know where he was walking, just following where his feet led him. He walked down the sidewalk, the streetlights he passed being the only lights he could see. He found himself walking in the direction of the woods. Those woods. The woods where he and his childhood platemates used to run around, laughing and playing pirates. They had built a treehouse somewhere within the trees, not that Melchior could remember exactly where. They used to have sleepovers inside of it, laughing and playing silly children's games. The woods used to be Melchior's favorite spot for thinking, he used to write for hours under a large oak tree until nightfall. The woods were where he used to walk with Wendla by the river. The woods used to be a place of magic and memory and wonder, a place where anything could happen. The woods seemed so dark now. So dark and sad. The woods were where Melchior had first wanted to steal Wendla's innocence. The woods were where Moritz had taken his own life. The woods no longer seemed like the happy place that they had been in years past. The woods just held pain now, pain and tainted memories. Melchior hated those damned woods now. Hated them and everything they were.

Even so, Melchior found himself walking through them, being careful to step over tree roots and ducking below branches. He didn't know why and he didn't care, didn't want to think about it. He let his body lead him, walking and walking and walking through the complete darkness that the trees provided. The branches blocked out any light that might have come from stars or from the moon or even from the nearby town. Melchior found himself standing before the tall oak tree that used to be his safe place, the limbs that used to be so inviting now appearing threatening and twisted. He felt a lump form in his throat as he gazed up at it, hearing the soft rushing of the nearby river. He slowly sat down at its base, closing his eyes and listening to the river, feeling the breeze, just experiencing the world around him. In the bittersweet peace of the woods, he didn't catch himself falling asleep.