12:00 am, Shilo River Bridge
A dark wind howled, ruffling Lyra's hair backwards as she sat on the balustrade of the bridge, her eyes remained fixed down, looking for the deepest point inside the river. Her grip on the balustrade of the bridge remained tight, her hands turning red from the stronghold on the object.
Now anyone who would pass by or spare a glance at her figure would just wonder that she's here to appreciate the peace, the wonders of nature which are beautiful but she was doing anything but that. Her mind wandered into dark places, places where there's no light, no hope, no hand for help, just a gawking darkness which would swallow her eventually.
She wondered how would it feel like to be in the water? She couldn't swim so she wouldn't even try to break through, her lungs begging for air and her heart sending her signals of it's dysfunctioning, when she'd close her eyes and finally let go of this world.
How would it feel to finally be free of this world? Of this pain? Of every scar on her body and soul? Of every filthy human who roams around freely when they're equal to monsters or worse beasts than them, Of every breath that'll take everything away?
That...that was the only thing she was thinking from the past 30 minutes. Blood dripping from her right hands shows that she fought hard but she isn't free yet, she isn't at peace yet and she doubts she'll ever be. Just jumping into water and escaping everything is all she could think about.
She would've never even thought about taking a step like this but right now, she can't think. She could only feel right now and the only thing she's feeling is the urge to escape this agony.
Closing her eyes, she rips it off like a bandage, letting herself free from the support of balustrade, letting herself not to think about any regrets, just craving to leave this all behind m she jumps.
But she doesn't feel it. She doesn't feel the cold water touching her skin, doesn't feel any suffocating feeling, nothing. Just a firm grip on her wrist which was so strong that it held her whole body and she finally looked up, into the eyes of the culprit behind taking it all away from her, the person who stopped her from relieving from all this pain once and all when she was so close to achieving it.
"Try to co-operate at least, you aren't even bulging."
Her face still blank, her body remains still and she doesn't respond to any of his attempts of not letting her fall in the shallow water.
There he saw it, no regret, No struggle to live, no voice in her which suggested her a second chance. He managed to pull her up somehow and they both landed on the ground with a thud. She didn't speak anything and he drags her to a nearby station. He plopped next to the seat and made her sit on. The atmosphere was thick, no words were exchanged between them and that made her anxiousness rise.
"Why did you save me?"
Her eyes, they held so much despair, pain and they looked tired, tired of every single thing happening.
"That's the first thing you do when you see a stranger going for a swim at midnight. Do you even know how cold the water would be right now?"
Lyra scoffed, not finding his humour amusing.
"You don't have the right to save me. It was my fucking decision to jump in there and escape from this hell-hole. You just ruined the thing that was something I wanted the most." She exclaimed, her voice seemed teary but no liquid formed in her eyes.
"Of course I had the right to save you. I couldn't just let you die thinking this was something you wanted the most. I couldn't just...let you have one of the worst deaths possible...the one with incomplete purposes." His eyes fell onto hers, searching for any hint of hope in her eyes.
"Now what? You're gonna lecture me on how to not be suicidal? How I'm weak and don't know how to face things and I shouldn't be a coward? You're gonna call emergency hotlines for mentally ill people like me? Please don't. I really don't need your help, that's no exactly helping."
"Woah ma'am. I was about to give a candy to you first but you're really taking me wrong..." He took out a strawberry flavoured lollipop from his pocket, gesturing towards her. Lyra eyed it, craving the flavour since it was her favourite contemplating whether to take it or not.
"What if it's poisoned?" She tried her best to figure out why the hell would this person give her a candy instead of doing all the things she mentioned earlier.
"Woah you think so low of me. Why would I try to kill you after minutes of saving you?"
Lyra took out the candy from him, after giving it a thought. He gave her a warm smile.
"I am Alex by the way." He scooted closer to her, throwing away the stick after finishing the sweet.
"Lyra Adl- no. Lyra Athens." She stuttured, almost spilling the name she loathed.
"You have a pretty name, No Lyra Athens." He smiled brightly at her, earning an eye roll from her due to him trying to be funny. She tried her best to stay pressed, furious to him about the whole thing but she couldn't. She couldn't spare a thought to her thoughts or anything back there. No focus remained on the man in front of her. His smile, it was... beautiful. The only word defining it in the simplest form. It had a coldness behind it, yet doesn't mean it isn't comforting. It isn't that the warmest smiles are the source of comfort everytime. The coldness behind his smile was intriguing. It was broken yet so beautiful.
"Can I hold your hand?"
She got embarrassed when he caught her staring, managing to keep that smile stuck to his face. She nodded, like a spell chanting on her, getting lost in his gray orbs with a tint of bkue in them. They're dreamy, captivating her in a trance of gett lost in them and she wnats to, it's like she's in a hallucination and could wake up any second.
He intertwined their fingers together, breaking eye contact to look at the view in front of him but she couldn't take her eyes off him. It isn't that he's the most beautiful human she'd seen in her entire life but he seemed the most interesting one. He seemed so unpredictable and she's into it.
Minutes passsed but they remained in the same position, hand in hand without any word spoken by them. He didn't push her to talk, waiting for her to get comfortable around him and he was ready to wait for the whole it takes.
"I am married." Her gaze remained fixed at the ground, she felt a squeeze on her hand, indicating her to continue when she's ready to open up.
"I was 17...my parents married me off to a underground criminal named Azure Adler, one of the most powerful monsters out there. It was an illegal marriage but he was too enforced for anyone to question that. My parents thought of me as a disappointment."
"Paying for my studies, it felt a burden to them. I felt a burden to them. They wished for a son which I could never be but I wanted to orovide for them, to prove that I'm at least a little worthy of this world but they didn't listen."
"I was coming home from my college. I had my first novel written in my hand which meant the world to me. It was torn into pieces, I could never assemble again. I was thrown up into the pit of hell with the person they sent me off to. They sold me, the price that I'm most definitely sure they thought I was worth half of. But he was surprisingly good to me, that was the first lie he showed me."
"I thought I was finally worthy in someone's eyes, maybe this could go well is what I thought but it didn't. He would rape me everyday, calling it his form of showing love. I had to obey, being told I've been made to please my husband when I was a fucking minor and using the word rape for it is a sin. There's no word like that when you're married is what I was shut up with and I listened, like a porcelain roll."
"He would beat me with belt, bourbon bottles, with his hands, legs and vases and possibly everything, when he was in the mood to, saying that he loves but I shouldn't piss him. I shouldn't ask for it when in reality my mouth was sealed from day one of our marriage,"
"I couldn't understand what did I do wrong to him? I stayed silent because I didn't have anything left anymore. I had him, only him. Who didn't say I was unworthy, who hit me, saying I was worth it, who fucked me every walking second m saying I was worth it."
Lyra plastered a smile which wasn't glowing, seeing the look on his face as she wiped the goddamn tear which slipped from her eyes, despite her struggle to keep on.
"Don't worry, I didn't fall in love with him. Not like other wives of his friends who suffered probably more but still loved their dear husbands. I couldn't hurt myself more by loving him. Just because didn't hit the weak weakest spot of mine doesn't mean I'd give him that.
"I hate him. The abhorrence I have for him is enough to kill myself because his existence itself is so pathetic. It's sickening." She chuckled, no humour lacing her tone.
"I've been living in it for four years which felt like an eternity. Every hour, every minute, every second felt painful. That's all he could give me and I felt sick at the thought of even searching for something good in that poor excuse of a human, who killed people during the day and killed me when he came back home. Yet I couldn't die and that was fucking painful than anything else."
Alex moved closer to Lyra, his eyes glistening which made her toes curl. He asked if he could hug her as she nodded, breaki into tears which couldn't stop. He pulled her into his embrace, being careful seeing the visbile scars on her back, he closed his eyes harshly, his jaw clenching as his body fumed with anger.
"I couldn't anymore when I saw him sleeping with three different women at the same time. He smirked at me at that disgusting act that he pulled to bring me down and it did. That was the moment I felt the most unworthy. I never thought he'd cheat on me like that. I was a fool to believe every good thing spoken about him which was nothing but a fucking lie."
"He broke me everywhere yet he wasn't satisfied. I was about to leave that suffocating place but he would let me go that easily, I have every access to his private stuff, his underground world and his places hidden from the government."
"I was the biggest threat he could afford so he locked me in a dark room. I'm claustrophobic and it was one of the most difficult days I've faced. Death seemed easier, more inviting that that hell. But I escaped the place, with the help of his best friend who's the only criminal I've known that matches the characters we read in books and I think he pitied me or I just forgot humanity existed."
"It didn't take long for him to find out. He killed his own best friend in front of my eyes and I'm on the run from his men for two days." Lyra pulled back from the hug, her bloodshot eyes matched with Alex's, who cried along with her silently.
"I think I've lost them but I know not for too long. He'll find me and I'll be facing something more painful than death could ever be. So I was about to give up. I was tired of running Alex, I was tired of getting hurt for just merely existing."
"I know it's not my fault. I'm not dumb enough to blame everything on me. But in this world, these people aren't worth living for. I don't have a purpose for living anymore but I do have a lot of reasons to not live." Alex wiped Lyra's tears, waiting for her to calm down.
"You have a reason to live, many actually. These aren't scars, they are injuries and they deserve to be treated, healed, no matter how much it takes. You need to be healed. It'll hurt more when you'll treat them when youll try living despite everything. But it'll be worth it. I promise. And I'm not promising just to make you feel better, I want you to keep it."
"You called yourself weak for giving up and trying to be pain free? You're not weak for that yet, you've been strong for too long. I have no right to call you weak by just a moment of it. After enduring every pain you experienced, you had a moment. When you thought if it'd be okay to let go and you're not weak for that."
"That's one of the most difficult things to decide to do and choosing a way out of another doesn't make you weak. Just one change of way of dealing things doesn't make you weak."
"You're still strong. Strong enough to experience all that shit and just bearing it for too long. Everything eventually needs a break and im not judging you for that but convincing you that there's a reason to live, there is always one. You need to find it, no matter what. You need to make him pay for his deeds, killing yourself will just overpower that monster."
"Don't give him that advantage. Please try. As much as you can't anymore, please live. For once, think about yourself and believe in yourself."
"How? They're going to find me and there's no hope for me. I don't have anywhere to go."
Alex's thumb ran over Lyra's cheek, rubbing over a faint scar which still didn't suck an ounce of her beauty.
"Run, for as long as you can. You have a chance, you've escaped that place, you're out now and all you have to do is to outsmart him which you can. You need to make him pay for everything that he did, no karma will do it for you. You need to do it for yourself. He's a sinner of you, you're bound to destroy him."
"My words may seem hollow to you now but believe me Lyra, escaping from the world isn't actual escape. It's the demons imside our heads which makes us belie it is. The next day, he'll wake up and choose to do the same cycle to someone else and it will continue on."
"I know you're tired but you've survived for too long, you've come so far now and sucide is not the solution to this. It never was. Search for a way Lyra and believe me, the amount of mental and physical strength you have to endure all that won't throw your efforts in vain."
"So when you find it and you break him, more than he did. I want to see that smile on your face, the satisfaction and the proudness on your face when you finally do it. Trust me, you can. I assure you."
Lyra's heart swelled at Alex's attempts to make her feel good, igniting a light in her which almost faded away. A light of hope she never received in her life, maybe giving up was an option to her since she was never comforted, being foreign to the feeling but it felt good. Knowing someone she doesn't even know, cared.
"You seem to have some experience about this..." she said and Alex's face went pale as if she hit a spot. He weakly smiled, looking at his feet.
"I...had a brother. He was a drug addict. He wasn't a bad person, I promise. He tried to give up on his addict but he was never given words of hope. My parents disowned him and didn't even try to help him once. I was a child and I didn't know a thing that was going on."
"I would visit him without anyone knowing and all I could see was that he was lonely. People were around him, his friends that would encourage him to consume that killing machine but he was still lonely. None tried to pull him out of it, everyone gave up on him as if he didn't matter at all."
"I wished I was old enough to even know what was going on. Maybe then, I would've done something and wouldn't find him in his room, lifeless. His eyes still, lonely. So much that he took his own life before the drug could. It wasn't my fault. I was a child. But only if I knew what happened to him, only if I tried to tell someone about him. Maybe...just maybe he wouldn't have felt so lonely and he would've been here, with me. So, yes Lyra, I do have an experience, not of my own but kind of my own and I will try my very best to make sure that no one else feels that way, ever."
"He must be proud of you for being a really good person, Alex. You're really giving me a purpose to live when I thought I didn't have any." Squeezing his handsome Lyra's lips curved into a genuine smile that he saw on her face for the first time.
"I'm not someone who could give you a purpose in life, Lyra, you would always have it. I'll help you find it no matter what, so you're not alone anymore. I'm with you, I'm willing to be with you, always." He smiled as her heart felt like it was exploding. She could never get used to that smile of his.
He took out a handkerchief wrapping it around in her hand which she got from hitting her husband with a bourbon bottle. He was gentle and it felt mythical to say it didn't hurt at all. Lyra thanked him, wanting to stay in his embrace for a long, long while. She was deprived of the bright light which he was full of.
Lyra's eyes opened to see a few raindrops falling on her. Soon turning into heavy ones. She faced Alex, his features bright seeing the sight in front of him. He looked like a kid who just got his first toy ever. It was just rain and she wasn't someone who ever tried to see the beautiful things in life filled with anything but something beautiful as she didn bother.
"Will you dance with me, No Lyra Athens?"
Lyra chuckled at his sense of humour which was childish but it was admirable.
"C'mon I want to show you what you could've been missing after becoming a ghost, wandering around people's heads, crying, because you couldn't dance in this exquisite rain with a handsome fella like me."
Lyra gave in chuckling as Alex made his way to the empty dark, damn streets.
Water hitting their skin as their bodies cooled down from the burning sensation of their hearts outraging their feelings and everything stood still as he held her hand delicately, trying not to provoke her bruises when she just smiled at someone who spared these thoughts to her. His other hand, slipped on her waist as they started moving, as slow as possible. Feeling every inch of it, every emotion of it. Feeling every drop pressing on their bodies as they closed their eyes, imagining a soft melody playing as they only reacted to each other's presence and touch. Their smiles didn't detach from their lips even for a second.
"What is this? I was about to jump in that probably cold water and now I'm dancing in the rain with a pretty stranger. This seems so...like the novels I used to write." Alex swirled Lyra around, chuckling, pulling her closer as there wasn't any intimacy between them. They felt like home to each other, somewhere they felt safe in each other's embrace under any circumstances, their faces were inches apart but they weren't craving any physical touch, their souls felt like greeting each other as the rain poured which felt like music to their ears.
"I don't know and It doesn't matter. All I could focus on was the fact that you managed to smile whole heartedly and I feel...good after seeing that. Your smile is just as I imagined. It's heavenly, it shouldn't fade away for any individual, it doesn't deserve to. That's how precious it is and I wouldn't hold back from saying it a million times. Also, you can write a novel about me, you , about tonight."
Lyra's smile brightened. It's the first compliment she ever received. Alex seemed so genuine with his words that it affected her deeply. Words are so powerful that they could heal the most vulnerable hearts. That's what she felt, worthy. For the first time, she felt worthy enough for this world, for this life and for meeting this man. Maybe it was fate.
"I can't believe I fell into his lies and was manipulated into thinking I deserved the way I was treated back there. He made sure any kind of warmth wouldn't welcome me, to the point that I forgot how it felt or maybe...I never knew how it felt."
"The way he sounds, he must be a really ugly person, whatever he says and does shouldn't be relevant to you." Alex swirled Lyra around again with a smile playing on his lips.
"As much as I despise him and It physically hurts me to say this, I can't turn a blind eyes at his good looks," Lyra chuckled as Alex rolled his eyes.
"I wasn't talking about his looks, he sounds like a really ugly person from heart, his true self...his heart, it's ugly. No person should be classified as ugly based on their physical appearance."
How she wished she heard those words years ago, stopping her from being self conscious, always being told the opposite of what he just said.
"I feel your brother. He had everyone given up on him and I didn't have anyone to begin with. Our situations... weren't the same but they only pointed towards the loneliness we both felt. I'm glad that I got a chance again. Thanks to you, I don't feel lonely anymore."
And then they both danced for what seemed like hours, two broken souls trying to understand each other with a smile on their face, without a care in the world and their eyes lost in each other, just wandering without a search for anything. She got the comfort she knew she needed and he got the same, just being unaware of it's need to him.
The next morning,
The sun sparkled it's rays on Lyra's figure sitting on the bench m waking her up from her deep slumber. She looked sideways to find Alex, whose shoulder she slept on last night but failed in her attempts. She found an old man sitting beside her where he was seated last night. With a confused gaze, she decided to ask him if he saw Alex.
"Hello sir. I'm sorry for troubling you but by any chance did you see a man with black hair and grey eyes in his mid 20s around here?"
The man looked at her with a calm emotion.
"Are you talking about Alex Brown?"
That's his full name? Lyra thought.
"Yeah I am. Have you seen him? I just met him last night and--" the man cut her off in a rather soft tone.
"You tried to end your life..." The man said in a mumble. Confusion and panic eushed through Lyra's mind and his knowledge about her that she didn't even disclose to anyone.
"How did you know that?... perhaps he told you...?" She wondered if he's someone known by Alex.
"He didn't tell me. He can't tell me. He isn't here, Miss." The man looked up to her with a humble gaze.
"Lyra..." Lyra smiled at him.
"Miss Lyra, Alex Brown isn't here. He's been dead for over a decade."
Lyra's eyes widened as disbelief, took over her.
"How is that possible?" She stuttured. "There must be some misunderstanding sir. I met him last night and he saved me from jumping in the water. We danced and he consoled me like none ever did...you ...you can't tell me that wasn't real. That...he wasn't real..." Life must be playing with her.
"You're not the first one he saved from ending their lives. He's been doing that for over the past years. I haven't heard about the dance part from anyone but everyone meeting him leaves with never having such thoughts again. And nobody sees him in the morning again, that doesn't make the last night's events unreal, he's just not here."
"But he was there for me last night..." Lyra's heart thumped faster at every word coming out of her mouth. She couldn't believe it.
"He commited sucide years ago due to unknown reasons. Some say it is because of the drugs, messing up with him and others state unknown reasons, his family abandoned him and --" the man kept telling her the information he had regarding Alex which Lyra already knew as the flashbacks of last night hit her.
********
"Maybe, just maybe he wouldn't have felt so lonely and he would've been here, with me. So, yes Lyra, I do have an experience, not of my own but kind of my own and I will try my very best to make sure that no one else feels that way, ever."
*********
He was talking about himself. It wasn't about his brother. It was about...him..Lyra muttured under her breath.
"He was good man. He still continues to be." A small smile formed on Lyra's lips, agreeing with the elder's comment.
Alex made her feel alive again when he wasn't. When every person degraded her without any tint of humanity, he held out a hand for her when he wasn't human. She felt him, his touch, his gaze, his emotions, everything. And she was grateful to be able to feel that.
To say one person could change your entire way of living isn't false, he really did change her perspective. He gave her something she wasn't sure she was even allowed to have. Hope.
She is going to keep Alex's promise. She'll live. For her. She'll fight for herself and do everything she can to live the life she deserves and won't end it for any asshole. She's gonna make her husband suffer and have that satisfying smile on her face that Alex wanted to see.
***********
"Why did you tell her about yourself? You haven't done that before?" Arthur looked at the guy beside him who was too busy adoring Lyra.
"I don't know. Out of everyone I've ever saved, served hope in that past years, she was the first one to notice the glint of emptiness behind my eyes, to see how broken my smile actually is. It felt right to tell her. It almost felt like I was the one being comforted. It was something that just felt right at that moment and I don't regret it a bit."
"Do you perhaps...feel something for her?" Arthur tried to dig up more since this was the very first time he saw his friend opening up about his past to someone other than him.
"I can't put this feeling into words. It's just comforting and... refreshing." And just as Alex finished with his words, he felt something. Something inside him relaxing, the boy beside him widened his eyes witnessing the scene in front of him.
Alex was slowly fading away...
Not like they weren't already a little faded away, showing how they aren't alive but he was actually fading away...into nothingness. Alex didn't take long to notice it either.
"Arthur... it's happening -oh my god!" He put his palm against his mouth, feeling plenty of emotions rush through him.
Excited. Happy. Scared, he felt them all.
"T-this is what we saw happening to Oliver years ago...you- you've finally done what was needed to do. You're finally free--" Alex cut Arthur off by engulfing him in a bone crushing hug.
"It feels...good Arthur. I don't feel the pain anymore. I feel healed and I'm not gonna be wandering anymore.,,Arthur I--" he backed off from the hug, looking at Arthur with stars in his eyes.
"I wouldn't have survived this without you. It would have sucked without you. Thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being the person I always needed. Thank you so mu--" and before Alex could get a reply from the said boy, he wasn't visible anymore.
Arthur stepped forward, touching the air where his friend of over a decade was standing a couple seconds ago, feeling a few drops of tears falling on his feet.
"I'll miss you buddy." With a weak smile, he spared a glance at the figure of his grandfather and the woman beside him. His steps made their way to the bridge, now he was just alone. All alone without no one beside him anymore. Oh how he wished he got to stay beside his friend wherever he was but that was a long way to go. He promised himself to meet his friend one day and he'll keep it.
********
"My grandson, Arthur also died in a car crash just days after Alex died. I heard about Alex saving people and meeting them all over the years but nothing from him. I hope he's happy wherever he is right now." The old man sighed as he spoke and Lyra tapped his shoulder, comforting him.
3 years later,
Lyra closed her eyes, listening to every single thing he did in his entire lifetime as the judge spoke. Her fists tightened when she heard how he did the same thing to her...to eight other minors. How he killed innocent people they lost count of.
"He is a danger to humans and must be eliminated. Hence, the defendant ha been proven guilty and sentanced to death by electrocution." The judge broke the nib of his pen.
"No, Lyra! Baby you know how much I love you... I've been trying my best to change for you, my love. Please take it back. You can save me. I don't deserve to die like that." He begged and boy, he looked so pathetic. Lyra walked closer to him with no expression on her face.
"Admit it John. I won. You lost. I'm never letting you do the same to anyone else, ever again. You're going to a place you deserve, he'll. Just pray that you have a place in there at least." She smiled as he screamed and cursed some things she didn't bother to pay attention to.
"I hope you are watching how satisfying my smile is, how satisfied I am. I hope you're proud of me, Alex." Lyra smile, looking up at the skies.
~The End~
