𝑯𝑨𝑳𝑪𝒀𝑶𝑵 𝑶𝑩𝑳𝑰𝑽𝑰𝑶𝑵 •𝒃𝒙𝒃•

Monody ~ Age 13

There was no telling how much time passed.

Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

The petals had fallen around him, surrounding him in their circle of lightness and softness. His fingers gripped onto his hair, tightly pulling at the strands. He felt that if he let go, he would have long since have fallen. But somehow, he didn't mind something like that.

The harshness of the bark dug into his back and he leaned as far as he could, hoping that that pain would drown out the pain of everything else. He tried to stop it—the trembles of his body—but it was no use. He shook and shook, body twitching with each second that went by.

The cold was eating at his skin, freezing him deep within. He wanted it to freeze him whole. He wanted it to freeze everything there was of him. He wanted it to completely encase him in ice so that he wouldn't feel anything anymore.

He hoped that the sun wouldn't shine any time soon.

He hoped nobody would come to search for him.

Never had he felt so lost, than in that very moment. Never had he felt so incapable of doing anything.

There was no way for him to scream his sorrows. There was no way for him to let it all out. Everything tensed up, everything clenched around his very being, keeping him in place, keeping him still even as the thing he wished to do most was run away. There was no way for him to do something like that.

Was everything about to turn into a mere memory? Just a shadow left to linger in the depths of his already dimming mind? Was this how it felt to have a limb torn from one's body, with no chance to save it?

The one thing he never thought he would lose, was now far, far away from him. A best friend. A brother. The first companion he had ever made.

Lost.

His skin prickled, the cold settling onto his still frame, just waiting for the perfect moment to swallow him whole. He would let it. He would let it have its way with him. He would let it do whatever it wished, even if it meant for him to forever stay frozen under the cherry tree.

The cherry tree.

There was a light whisper of a promise at the back of his mind. Whispers of something they won't be able to do. Whispers of a promise broken too early.

A promise he had looked forward to.

His chest ached as a blinding grin flashed behind his closed eyelids, so he curled deeper into himself, willing the images away.

What he needed will never come. He will never come back. No matter how much he searched for him, for his blinding smile, he will never find it.

It was spring—a season that brought forth life.

So why?

Why did it have to take his?

His lips parted, soft breaths slipping past, "Goodbye...?" He muttered into the dead of night.

There were no words that mirrored his own.

_

He raced through the streets of the village, looking left and right—searching for him.

It was a mistake on his part to let him go. He should have stopped him the moment he turned around. There was that look in his light irises, a completely shattered one.

He took a sharp turn and immediately caught traces of him. The trail was weak, but he was sure that his little brother was there—there was no mistaking it.