Fandom: Super Mario & Xenoblade
.......
The tip of the cigarette is burning. Ashes fall from it and shatter on the sheets of her bed, but Madison could hardly care less. Eyes wander over the ceiling, but gaze never focuses. Her room used to be her place to hide: she smoked, listened to loud music, got high, spent countless nights awake drinking and wishing to leave the hell outta Sunset Bay. It's distant now, somewhat unrelated to her, but memories of her brother are still branded on every inch of it.
The desk with a map spread onto that they used to plan their escape; the closet in which Shulk stored some spare clothes 'just in case'; that same bed in which they had sex for the first time in a moonless night after a wild party. Shulk's touch burned her skin and melted her soul, her body aching and always asking for more, and more.
Shulk draws the cigarette closer to his lips and inhales. His phone has gone dead, won't even play the voicemail. His parents knew nothing, he just left the house one afternoon and never got back. The police couldn't find a single evidence and closed the case as 'missing'.
And really, hadn't Shulk said he wanted to forget about Sunset Bay and all its shit? Hop on a car and flip off that damn city? He was smart, charming and a boss at being liked by everyone, and hell if he was aware of that.
Shulk could make it out there without her and Madison knows it – has always been. But they promised to leave together, made plans that always involved both of them, and Madison clings to that as a tight rope in a raging storm. Her life is a mess once again, every plan destroyed by his disappearance.
He was like fire. So fierce, so bright and warm. Always unpredictable, short-tempered and impulsive in her reactions. But he was so alluring Madison couldn't help but let him storm into her life, take it in her hands and turn it upside down with the same force that started the fire that burned the woods of Sunset Bay.
Another drags of cigarette. Smoke slips out from her mouth and vanishes in the air. What's left now? She has a tattoo climbing up her arm, red hair casually died, and some old pickup parked outside. The hell is she supposed to do now? Steal some money and run away? She's not her boyfriend, no wit, no charm, no ability to be liked by people. But Shulk liked her. More than just 'liked' her, if actions spoke something of her feelings. He said that he trusted her, that Madison could have been the one and only person she was able to trust in his life. And as far as he seemed sometime distant and out of her reach, Madison trusted him, too.
She tosses the cigarette butt in the ashtray on the floor and exhales the last bit of smokes out of her lungs. He won't leave. Shulk could never have abandoned Sunset Bay without her.
What's left now is to find him, yell at him for disappearing without a word and flip off that hella town as they dreamed so many times.
Madison sits on the bad and brushes away the ashes from the sheets. Maybe if there's no spot, her mom won't scold her for smoking in her room and leaving a mess. She gets up and her toes curl for the cold floor under them. She gazes at her room and needs to punch every inch of every wall until the pain in her knuckles would make her forget about the pitch-black terror that twitches her stomach.
She heads towards the window upon the desk. How many times did she and Shulk sneak through it to make it to her room without letting anyone notice?
Madison opens it and a gentle gust of wind ruffles her hair. The night blurs the line between the woods outside Sunset Bay and the starry sky.
Some immense fire born from anger and resentment burned for weeks, took down hectares of forest and made ashes fall from the sky as it was snow. It's gone now, only a slight column of smoke lifts to the sky.
