What It Means To Be Dead

From me to you, a little gift.

I looked up at the sky. There were clouds. Rain clouds.

"Looks like it's gonna rain."

I look down to the guy walking besides me, Aaron. My best friend for as long as I could remember. His hair was long and light brown with a single blond streak. Surprisingly, all natural. Despite what the frizzy nature of it may hint at.

"Yeah, we should probably pick up our pace if we don't want to get wet. I'd assume that mop of hair of your's won't appreciate it any more than I would if it started to pelt."

He walks in front of me and stops. He then gets close to my face and starts to yell.
"Hey! Watch what you're callin' a 'mop'. It took me years to grow thi-"

I grab his face with one hand covering the vast majority of the front, and push him back. All whilst trying not to die of laughter.
"Dude chill. You seriously need to learn to take a joke. It's been 17 years since you were brought about this life by your mum and dad and yet still, can't take a little poking fun. Learn to live a little will ya?"

He stares at me for a long second. I can feel the tension in the air fade out as he starts to laugh and turns to run.

"I'll catch you at school tomorrow Ryan! If you're late again I'm gonna tell Aria about your feelings!"

As he runs away to where I'd persume is home, his words hit me like a sack of bricks. Aria, although kind and caring to the rest of our group, was the one person I pledged to never go out with. She was skittish, and had the worst case of ptsd I've ever even heard about. Worse than most war veterans.

You can't blame her though, being a survivor of 5 years of sex trafficking, being moved and sold like livestock can be damaging. We try our best to help her but sometimes she'll have something trigger her and we have to get the counselor involved. Thankfully her medication makes her less susceptible to panic attacks, but even medication can't take back what happened.

To know Aaron would even think to tell her that is detrimental to the guidelines we as a group put in place to protect one another. I don't even like her in the way I'd assume he means when he says "feelings".

She's like my little sister. It'd feel wrong to like her. Just because I let her lean on me, and let her hug me when she needs it, doesn't mean I like her. She's simply a friend.

I look down at my hands. " these hands really don't even deserve to touch someone as gentle as her, let alone love her."

I've been walking for a long time. The rain has long since stopped and the sky is clear again. It's dark outside. I can see all the stars in the sky twinkling back at me when I look up.

"God, it's so beautiful."

I stare at the night sky for what felt like a lifetime, but in reality was just a couple of minutes. Walking to a narrow alley I slide down against one of the walls and begin to drift off. I can ask someone in this town for directions back in the morning.

I jolt awake to a blood curdling scream. Before I can even properly get up I'm approached by a frantic woman. Her hands are bloody and her shirt is torn. No. She's been stabbed in her torso. She grasps frantically at my shirt trying to keep herself from collapsing.

The first thing I think to do is wrap my arms around her to help her better steady herself. She looks into my face with hurt and scared eyes. All I can do is shush her and tell her I'll get her through this. I balance her in my right arm and pull my phone out to call the police. They'll know what to do better than me.

I pull my phone on and go to turn it on. I get a big flashing empty battery in return. Fuck. I have the lady lay down with her wound raised at least a little bit and run to get help.

As I'm running I see someone running in the same direction. I call out to them and the turn for a moment. I see who I assume to be a girl's eyes widen and she stops right in her tracks.

"Hey! There's a girl! And she's bleeding! My phones dead! she needs medical attention quick!"
I yell at the girl inbetween breaths as I run towards her. She puts her hands up to her mouth and yells back

"Get back to her! I'll call the police."

I felt relieved that I had found someone who could help. When I got back with the girl close behind screaming for the ambulance to hurry, she was fading. And fast. As the girl loomed over me and the quickly fading lady I saw her look in despair at the girl standing above me, before passing out.

Hey, Cypress here! This took quite a bit longer then I expected. Like a whole month longer. Sorry about that. I kept forgetting it existed but hey it's out now!
You have to understand that writing an entire world and making a story make sense in said world is very difficult. But I hope I'm doing okay thus  far!

Word count: 866