One
467 Words
Heat built in his stomach as Auros stepped up to the ledge, the silence of the frigid winter air cutting clean through him.
He’d never made it to the ledge before, always stopping and looking out at the lights of the city.
He whispered to himself, “There’s nothing stopping me right now, nobody to argue with me, or pull me back.”
A gust of wind shook him on the spot and he felt the heat rise from his stomach to his chest as mild panic crept in, dropping him to his knees, the impact of hitting the stone of the ledge shocked him, the pain chasing some of the panic away.
The note he’d written was damp in his hand from his sweat, its texture unfamiliar to his fingers.
When had he written it?
Was it when his partners left? When he’d lost his job? When he’d lost his home?
How many times had he written this note?
Enough that it felt like he was just being dramatic, maybe.
“Everyone goes through a hard time,” he said aloud, though he knew nobody would hear it.
Maybe that’s all this was, just a hard time that he needed to get through, a particularly rough patch in what he regularly described as a lifetime of rough patches.
Pulling the note from his pocket, he tried to read it again.
It was generic, at best, apologies to someone he’d hurt, thank you’s to the people who were there, and down at the bottom, a line about not being able to take it anymore.
“Is tonight the night,” he asked.
The wind blew again, snatching the note from his limp grasp and throwing it to the mercy of streets.
He pushed himself up, wiping tears from his eyes with his free hand and looked at his phone.
“Ten...Mark and Luna are probably getting ready for bed right now...I wonder how long it’d be before they notice I don’t come home. I wonder if they’ll worry…”
Looking around at the other rooftops, he had the realization that he was much farther from their apartment than usual. If he backed down, it would take at least an hour to get home, and its dangerous at night.
He regretted not wearing his gloves this time, and as the cold bit at his fingertips, he felt that heat inside him intensifying.
He sat down, kicking his feet on the edge of the stone, trying to fight the tears that were welling up inside him.
Tonight was the night, he thought.
Tonight was the night he ended it, when he finally found the relief he so desperately craved.
In the darkness above the lights, for just a single instant before the tears came, his brown eyes flickered bright and glowing red...and without a sound, he fell.
- Writer
