broken - phan

six

tw: mentions of suicide and self harm

Phil's POV

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

The sound of twigs and leaves snapping filled the air as I raced through the forest. There was no sign of safety anywhere.

"Come back here, fag!"

Lucas had caught up now.

I walked backwards as far as I could until my back hit a tree.

He inched closer to me "You're cornered now, Philly." "There's no one here to save you. Not this time"

I thought back to the first time he did this. It was at the park. That's when I met Max.

"Hey, asshole!" A distant voice shouts. It was Max.

Lucas loosened his grip on me as we both turn around. He turns to run but it was too late. Max had already ran up to us and was on top on Lucas punching and cutting him.

My head screamed stop but nothing could come out. My lungs screamed no but I couldn't breathe. My body screamed don't but I couldn't move.

Even after years of Lucas and his friend bothering me, having someone die, and the fact that they torment me is the reason that is happening, isn't right. No one deserves to die. Especially not because of me.

Max now had him pinned up against a tree and a gun pointed to his head. I couldn't do anything. I was useless. Broken. Curled up in a ball next to the tree, staring at the sight right in front of me.

I looked around. I looked for someone else to stop him, to save him. And to my surprise, there was. The curly-haired-freckled-faced boy was standing in the distance. He was on his phone, a panicked look lurked across his face. I wanted to call out to him. Tell him to get help and to run.

I knew that this was probably kicking up old memories. I thought back to what Dan told me. About witnessing his father's death. About how he saw his own mum do it. I just wanted to go over and hug him. Tell him that everything was going to be okay. But I couldn't. And suddenly we made eye contact.

He stared with a blank expression almost like he had never met me before. He looked back down at his phone. It looked like he pressed two numbers and his finger hovered over a button before he looked up again. And that's when it happened. I averted my eyes back up to Max from my seat on the forest floor just in time to see him pull the trigger. And boom. If there was any other noise after that, I couldn't hear it. It was like a slow motion movie on mute. I was breathing but it felt like my lungs weren't taking in any air. Like I was scuba diving and my oxygen tank had run out of air and I was only breathing in water. I couldn't take it.

I turned around. The pool of blood that surround Lucas was the last thing I wanted to see. Yet again the boy's eyes locked with mine as I stood up. It was like he had a moment of realization before running off in the opposite direction. This brought Max out of his own world. He now had the gun pointing at Dan.

Max shot the gun only merely missing Dan, instead hitting a tree. I stared at him in shock but still nothing could come out of my mouth. It only took one glance down at the lifeless body for me to break down in tears. And then there was that look again. The look of pity.

The look quickly changed to anger. "What are you waiting for, Phil? Go after him!"

I nod and do what he says, now chasing after the boy who I managed to hurt without even knowing much about him. He kept running and wouldn't stop. Like he didn't even know where he was going. It was almost like he was running from something. Running from his past.