During November

Chapter 1 - Isaac

Chapter 1: Pity Crown

It took yet a split-second, but it felt as though a million years passed during that moment. The screams had rung on for an infinite amount of time. Even now, I can still hear them. The world had flown past in slow motion, a blur of colour and noise. The screeching of metal against metal had sent the moment into a frenzy, everything speeding up as though someone had hit the fast-forward button. Shattering glass, skidding tires and a constant ringing in my ears.

And it's in the moments like these, the ones where silence is broken only by the soft pattering of rain on my window, feet grazing the cool tiles of the floor, darkness filling up the room, hands barely visible in front of my face. It's the moments like these that I can't help but remember. Torture myself with the memory of that night, let it engulf me, swallow me whole. Trying to find an alternative ending.

But I never can. No matter which angle I watch the events unfold from, the outcome is always the same.

The reality is, it is my fault. Her death is my fault. But I will wear my pity crown with my head held high and accept the apologies and condolences that I don't deserve, because that is who I am. I am weak, and I am selfish, and I refuse to let anyone know the truth of that night, because I don't have to think hard to know how that story ends.

It ends with looks of disgust, resentment and shame. The truth would not set my pity crown askew, it would rip it off my head and replace it with a bodysuit of shame.

But they don't know. Not yet.

So, I can still play the charade of Isaac Matthews, the boy who lost his sister in a tragic accident. I can still pretend that I am the boy who can play with fire and not get burnt. I can still pretend that I am okay when the truth is my heart shattered along with the glass that night.

She was a queen, perched atop her throne as the masses worshipped her. She could have had anyone beside her, yet she chose her half-decent, good-for-nothing brother, held my hand the whole way, bared her soul to me and for what? To be killed by the one person she thought she could trust.

The moment she took my hand she sealed her fate. Her destruction became inevitable from that day onwards, and now she has been reduced to ashes, her crown burning along with her. Because I can play with fire and not get burnt, but everyone around me will. They all turn into nothing but a pile of ashes to grieve and cry for.

It's been five months. Five months and the guilt of my deeds has done nothing but increase. The pain, the scars, the tears are never going away and I will forever remember the scent of her sweet perfume tainted by alcohol. The way her beautiful, pale skin glistened beneath the moonlight, her blonde hair whipping around her face in the wind, green eyes gazing up at the stars, and her voice, like silk, telling me that I have had too much to drink. Then listening as I tried to convince us both that I'd barely had anything.

Most of all, I will never forget her screams. Slicing the cool night air like ice, freezing my heart. They echo wherever I go, a constant reminder of what I did.

One day, they will know. They'll know that I no longer stand beside her on that throne, that I am slowly descending the stairs to join them all as they await someone to take over her place on the throne, that I am just like them, but so much worse. One day, I will reach the bottom of those stairs, and I will let them dress me in the body suit of shame, let them see the truth and let them pick me apart, piece by piece.

People are a universe in themselves. In every universe, you will find black holes. And while they might look beautiful from afar, the closer you get, the more you see. And by the time you fit all the puzzle pieces together, before you see everything, you're being sucked into a whirlwind of their own invention. Sucked into their pain, into their trauma, into their guilt that is never going away.

One day, someone is going to get close enough, and they will know. But until that day, I will still be walking down those God damn stairs, never quite good enough to be on either side of the spectrum.

One day, they will know. They will know that I was the one who killed their queen. They will know that I was the one who killed my sister.

They will know that I am the destroyer.

***
A/n
Hello everyone! I did publish this chapter a while ago but it didn't load and deleted it, so I had to rewrite it. My apologies!

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the chapter? Is there too much figurative language?

Thank you all for reading and I hope you continue!

Have a nice day/night!
-Emz