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 ^{(it's beta!)}

Sitting underneath the tower, we played tic-tac-toe through the patterns of metal bars. 'Play' may be too soft of a term, though. We were actually forced into going through the motions of the game by a subconscious monster within us. Whatever the term, it was a temporary distraction from life.

You grew up without parents, siblings, or relatives. Holidays were spent with alienated voices laughing through black mesh. You were tired of toys before you actually had any. True entertainment lay in rays of light. There was never enough light, either. Never ever enough light because the tiny space of the world you lived in had an aversion to it. But you grew up and that's all that mattered.

You had small hands, fingers like raindrops and eyes that constantly mourned. Since the sunlight was hidden from you, cloudshine composed your complexion: A light slate, slightly translucent. Very much unlike your internal workings, though. I always hated your deceptively sorrowful eyes. I knew you never actually cried. You were grown up after all.

Sitting underneath the tower, we waited in the shadows of the crossing metal bars. It was coming to take you away soon. But I smiled on the inside. Every fiber of my being rejoiced knowing the burden would soon be lifted.

"You're really happy about this?"

Maybe my joy was more external than I assumed it was, "What do you mean?"

"...these skies. Without me, you know they'll start annoying you again."

I had family. I had people to spend my holidays with. I absolutely hated the fact that you had taken me away from all of the love I'd once known. I grew up blissful. I wasn't even aware that I'd grown up when I met you. In fact, I hadn't grown up until I met you.

"Yeah, thanks for that. Thanks for giving me the illness of self-awareness," I sarcastically muttered.

"Zero, zero, nine, two, nine."

You recited numbers to remind me of my bad habits. My bitter sarcasm was number nine hundred twenty-nine (I still have a lot of bad habits). You always rattled them off with a stupid grin on your face because you enjoyed annoying me. There was an actual hint of sadness in your voice this time though. You were saying the numbers out of habit over intention, it was a sentimental reaction.

I looked over at you. With your elbows on your knees, you sat with a slumped posture in the thin blades of grass all around us. Admittedly, you did appear to be a child. A pale, lanky child who was perpetually an outsider.

That was another thing I hated; being around you. I felt like a sooty giant whenever we were together. And although in physical comparison to me you seemed a fragile snowflake, it was the exact opposite personality-wise. You had immense confidence were I was utterly lacking. Your ability to forgive and forget surpassed mine in light-years. And you didn't care about hurting someone else's feelings if it meant improving their perception. I was a splendid example of that. I cared to a fault about other people. You called it disgusting and self-destructive, so you did everything you could to awaken me to this "blunder" of mine. In the long run, I learned even one snowflake can beset a giant.

But I learned many things from you. Mostly negative.

No. All negative.

"This has never happened before...," you quietly reflected to the cloudwall.

I squinted at you critisisingly, "How many times are you going to say that? It's your entire fault you're leaving."

You weren't listening to me. You weren't talking to me, either, but my annoyance was pressing with each word you uttered. I wanted so badly just to leave. I wanted to get up and walk away from everything without ever looking back again. I also wanted to smash your face in, but that certainly wasn't going to happen. Of course, I couldn't leave any way. I had to make sure you left. I had to see that you were taken away by it. That was going to be my happy ending.

"If only you really understood how weird it is that I'm going back," you continued staring up, "This just doesn't happen. We help you, we show you, we enlighten you, we---"

"'Make you better'," I mocked bitterly, "Spare me. You have done nothing like that to me. Maybe there are others out there that help and show and enlighten, but you certainly don't. If only you understood that."

You turned your head to face me and I glared back.

"We're not supposed to love you."

I kept my stern face but was honestly confused by your solemn statement.

A quiet breeze picked up for a moment and caused the stiff metal around us to sound instead. You tilted your head back up at the cloud-grayed ceiling, letting the breeze calm down again.

"...I guess that's why I'm being sent back."

My heart sank. I felt nauseated, apologetic, at fault, but most of all, repulsed. I could not for the life of me understand why or how you came to love me. It was a truly wretched emotion coming from you. I tried to ignore it for the longest, but your concept of love wasn't one of this world. Maybe other human beings would've accepted your love, but I detested it. And that was why you had to be sent back.

I pulled my knees into my chest and gazed at the horizon that gazed back at us. It seemed to leer at me, though. It was watching. We were waiting for it, but it was just watching. I knew the only thing holding it back for the moment was the angry jungle-gym of a tower we hid beneath. Each of its buildings was one tooth in a soul that was a capricious mouth. The soul of a city is very benevolent one, but when it's little people trudge through it in hopes to defeat it, it becomes a constant harassment. Like a mosquito, it buzzes around you in mechanical hums and reminds you that inconveniences are but a small bite away. It feeds off of you until you either find it and kill it or move away. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to locate one, irking mosquito amidst a forest of lazy gnats.

"I still think you've made the wrong choice."

I wanted to shake my head in repugnance but my chin was buried in my knees. I finally realised my arms were wrapped rather tightly around myself, too. I assured myself it was because of the cold breezes. It actually wasn't, but I reassured myself again.

"Was it...it was my timing, wasn't it?"

Timing. Yes, you had an impeccable sense of timing. A vending machine was laughing out change when I met you. It was eleven thirty at night and I just wanted a snack (something ridiculously frivolous and unhealthy). I pressed the wrong combination of numbers and had to feed the machine more money so that I could feed my boredom. I dropped the last coin I was about to insert onto the dry tiles of scratchy, leech patterns below and had given chase. It wheeled in a wide circle slowly away from me, suggesting the building's unbalanced architecture in a teasing way. I specifically remember the passing glares on the floor from the tired fluorescent lighting. They were all the same shape, same intensity...same thing. Over and over again, the same thing. . The only thing that really changed was my shadow.

The coin fell dead-flat after colliding with the toe of a shoe.

I quickly looked up without even straightening my posture and smiled, "Ah, sorry about that."

That was your shoe. That was your shadow.

"Clumsy, eh?" you grinned back, "That'd be zero zero one."

I held my stupefied smile of kindness, "...what?"

You reached down and retrieved the unruly coin. That's when I first noticed your strange hands. They weren't exactly bizarre, just somewhat abnormal looking.

"The vending machine's having a little fun with you," you gripped the coin, "You've already played into its game once."

My smile had long since faded within me, but I remained politely intrigued, "Its game?"

You walked silently past me. A subtle electric charge that seemed to come from your presence startled me a few steps backward. I watched you keenly as you stopped in front of the vending machine I'd been nourishing. You looked down at the coin in your palm and then at the machine before you. Both looks were calm, composed examinations of the situation. But there was something wrong.

Suddenly, you drew back with your right arm and hurled the coin at the machine with an incredible amount of fury. I was utterly appalled and concluded that you had to have been insane. I began to turn around to retreat when I heard a small, tinging sound. I looked back at you. You'd returned to a cool stance in front of the vending machine, which now had a coin embedded in its thick, plastic face.

I looked up and all around the room, "What's that sound? Is it...glass?"

The sound of breaking glass was fading in and had grown deafeningly loud. It was a piercing, virtually physical sound that made me crouch down and cover my ears. It sounded like the entire building had been made of glass and was disintegrating on top of us.

"It's not glass."

Abruptly, the noise of breaking glass stopped. Everything stopped. An otherworldly silence swallowed up the clamor of the surroundings and disappeared immediately with the noise.

I glanced around the room, "Wha---what was that?!"

You walked up to me with your right hand behind your back, "It wasn't glass."

I pulled back as you approached me. Even the florescent lighting seemed to wince.

You then held your hand out to me, a gaudy packet of snack biscuits beamed from it.

"Biscuits?" I inquired, completely baffled.

"No, I don't think it was biscuits, either," you replied half-laughing.

I gaped pryingly at you, "Who are you?"

You opened the packet, sending loud crinkling sounds out to bait themselves for the bits of silence still hiding in the nooks of the room to eat.

Peering into the bag, you made a gross face and then examined the packaging further, "Is this actually food? Like, edible food?"

"How did you know that was even what I wanted?" I asked, overlooking the fact that you'd ignored my first question.

You popped a biscuit in your mouth, "Oh, I know you."

I was worried at first, but quickly presumed that it was all just a joke, so I brought my societal smile back, "You know me how?"

Your reaction to the taste of the snack biscuit was obviously negative as you cringed and handed the package to me as if it was burning you, "That is the most revolting thing I've ever tasted."

I took the package, but remained intent on having my question answered, "You know me how?"

Brushing your hands off and rebounding from the awful taste, you took your time replying.

"How?" you finally responded.

I nodded briskly after I realised that, oddly enough, you were looking for direct confirmation.

"Well, I've been sent for you."

I refreshed the grin that had started to fade from my face. I couldn’t respond to a statement like that with words. I gave you a look of utter disbelief instead.

And you returned my disbelief with a semi-nod that assumed any further questions would be put to rest before they had even been woken up.

You turned and had begun walking away when I finally found the speech to address you, “Hey, hold on, hold on. What?”

Looking over your shoulder, you waved to me with a few fingers, “We’ll be in touch, no worries.”

I would have argued against that, but I could hear just faintly the same sound of shattering glass as before. It was increasing in volume the longer I stared at you, but I was frozen. I felt myself seizing up because of the pitch in the sharp, breaking noise that was closing in around me. It was rapidly taking place of the silence, rapidly filling up the space you were clearing.

There was something very wrong with you. Rather, there was something wrong with your presence. I managed to focus on your appearance over the noise as you were leaving. You were small. At least you seemed small in the oversized sweat jacket drooping from you. And you had very dark hair. I squinted and concluded it was black even though it seemed bluish in the artificial lighting. But more importantly, as the distance between us increased, the more severe the crashing became. Where was it even coming from? It’s impossible for a human being to make that kind of sound.

Just as the intense splintering reached a peak, I managed to break my stare and see the packet that I’d involuntarily let loose drop to the tiles. But it wasn’t falling in a normal way. It was crawling to the floor at an extremely slow pace. And when it finally hit the floor, the splintering stopped. The splintering scream of breaking glass stopped, but the packet didn’t. I watched in a slow-set astonishment as the opened packet rolled across the floor, just like the coin had previously done. It followed a smooth, confident trail from just before my feet all the way into a wall behind me.

I turned cautiously to face the location of where the packet had at last laid: It had hit the wall you’d just been standing in front of. In fact, if you had still been standing there, it would have hit your shoe, just like the coin.

Without moving, I scanned the area around me with my eyes. Then when I was absolutely sure that you were gone, I ran. Never before had I run so fast. Upstairs, at that.

Seeking safety in a fifty plus year old dormitory complex, I continued my panicked race up flights of stairs for what seemed like hours. The feeling of static on my skin was still strong so I thrashed about, hoping pointlessly to knock it off somehow. I also kept imagining the horrid screaming of glass shattering beginning to sound again which is why in addition to my artless thrashing, I stomped and made as much noise as possible. I’m sure the mere sight of my fit would’ve quite frightened anyone who happened to spot me.

“That wasn’t normal,” I finally managed rational thought, “That wasn’t normal at all—who was that person?!”

Looking at my feet plod over the carpet below me, I finally realised that I’d reached the eighth floor lounge area. It wasn’t well-lit, but I knew it had surveillance cameras. I pounded to a stop and leaned forward, hands on my knees, and tried to catch my breath.

“There’s an explanation for what just happened, I’m sure of it,” I wheezed, talking to myself in a desperate attempt to calm down.

For some reason, the idea of the snack packet rolling like a coin continued to spook me. It was so strongly against all laws of physics that I couldn’t even accurately re-visualise it for myself. The packet was opened and the streamlined roll it took on didn’t cause even a crumb to tumble out. Moreover, the sound of breaking glass made even less sense to me. Where did it come from? Why did it cease so quickly?

As I panted, I kept talking to myself between breaths, “Maybe I’m just hallucinating…nervous breakdown, maybe. Yeah, that makes more sense. More sense than that lunatic who ate my snacks…there’s an explanation for everything. There has to be.”

“Why?”

I stumbled backward and barely suppressed a shriek of surprise. When I looked up, you were sitting in a window beside me rather nonchalantly; you weren’t even looking at me.

It was at that moment a bitterly cold breeze slammed me in the face. The window was wide open, letting late November ravage the lounge with its smoky aroma.

“What do you want from me?” I questioned between frightened gasps.

Your hair was blowing around by the air streaming in behind you and the only thing visible was your pale countenance, “An answer.”

I just stared back at you, contemplating the possibility of my own insanity.

“Actually,” you held up a finger and scooted off of the window ledge, toward me, “Several answers. But not immediately.”

I was still beyond intimidated by you but I could not for the life of me understand why: Tiny frame, gentle voice, modest features. But your presence. From our first encounter, I obsessed over your almost electric energy. You seemed like you were charging, preparing with everything around you, for a catastrophic event.

And the catastrophic is what I would come to wish for.