Sometimes days are spoken of in colours, others in sounds, still more in feelings. This day could very well have been described in any of these; even more appropriate would be to use them all at once…
As the surprisingly calming greys of the overhead clouds sent the world into a misty glow the slow risers began to walk amongst their peers. Listening to the hidden children running and playing sent happy chills down the spines of most crowds, even more so in the screeching players. All in all this day was one of light, of joy, of overwhelming rightness.
Dawn saw the last day for many and the beginning for even more. In between the beginnings and ends, before and after misty glow and the shrieks of young children, two friends met. Standing together in a small knoll in the forest, they spoke shortly. As they spoke the light seemed to intensify, the morning brightening seconds before the clouds came crashing back to cover the sun again, the mist thickening and glittering in the little light.
It was hardly a good idea. Killing ones friend is never a good idea, let alone a best friend. It seems a sort of blasphemy, not to a god, or deity, but to the whole concept of friendship. What was it that he was supposed to do? There seemed to be no way to show them, no way to make it clear that he was not a child, and that all those who he was connected to were in danger.
It was not his choice, how could one possibly choose to destroy that which keeps them sane, that keeps them centred on the earthly plain? He had no options. If he was to protect the one he loved he had to act drastically, radically, completely unlike himself, if not his enemy would know.
He could not define his enemy in any acceptable way; there was no term for the evil he faced. The constant writhing memory of this existential morphing being haunted his conscious mind. Death’s song would be a lullaby compared to the screams this life gave him.
Death was not often quick but if there was one thing he could do, it was to make it fast. Maybe…maybe he would not realise, maybe the one he called his best friend would take to the heavenly plains with love still in his heart. It was a small hope, one he did not think was plausible since, after all, he was killing his best friend.
It was harder than he had realised. Standing before him was perhaps the one person in the world who he trusted above all, who he loved with endless light. Standing before him was the one person he was truly regretful for knowing. All the others along the way, each and every face that had stared at him over his years meant nothing to the soft features before him now.
Regret hardly pierced the surface of the emotions crashing about in his mind, his heart. It was on this day that this one star, this amazing, bright, shining star would be extinguished by his hand; regret was infallibly lost among the halting thoughts that forecast the occasion.
He walked to his friend, arms open in welcome, and the two embraced. He closed his eyes tight, squeezing them as he did his friend's warm torso. Hearing the small gasp of surprise he blinked his lids open and whispered his sorrows into the ear of his first and last friend. The loss that day would hurt him much more than the instant of shock his friend had felt. As a tear shook itself free from his eyes he lowered his friend to the ground, eyes grazing over the face that he had known so well. He ignored, with pain, the glistening bubble of blood upon his friend’s lips and instead chose the eyes to search for the forgiveness he felt he did not deserve. Looking down into those soulless eyes his heart ached, shattering over and over again into the smallest of pieces.
In the misty glow of the newest day the sound of one broken heart went unnoticed.
