The cries that makes the ends of world [Polytrix]

What could be sadder than the sound of a voice cracking just before it breaks?
The total absence of sound. The total absence of sound when there used to be one.
That was it. That was the saddest thing.

Zoey understood that this performance had been their last. That it would never happen again. The rapper felt a little lucky: it's rare to have the privilege of understanding when it's the last time. It comes without warning, and you realize it far too late, when you've forgotten to say goodbye. You never know at the last moment that it's the last. At least they had that: the choice to say goodbye. The last bow for the last return, the last kiss just before the breakup. Like their last waltz, doomed abandonment, right on the unspeakable and almost unshakeable point, right there, just before the record stopped.
And Zoey cried a little inside because Rumi hadn't had that honor.

Rated mature for graphic depiction of violence, description of wounds, no sexual violence, alcohol addiction (not central), mention of occasional self-harm