atlas white {district nine

The ice against warm skin is sobering, snow crawling in tear drops off bloody fingertips. I didn't mean it. The words, sliding in and out of deaf ears- ringing with rage and alcohol, I didn't mean them. It was an accident. But understanding isn't something found within bars, within cold streets and dark alleys.

For eighteen years, I have had everything. Money, food- I had love and a family who cared. It's funny, how eager one can be to throw that all away. For empty sex and drugs that fill a perfect life with strife and heartache.

It took them three months to notice the coughing. The lungs turned frail with smoke and chemicals that made me feel as though the world was nothing beneath my fingertips. That made me feel a god among men. And I thought I was strong- as they all do, I suppose. Strong enough to resist the gentle calling of a world I had only ever intended to set one foot upon. But there is no such thing as having your cake and eating it too.

But I would wonder why anyone would buy the cake to begin with.

They kicked me out after finding the track marks upon swollen veins.

"Y'know what they say?" An arm finds aching shoulders, shit-eating grin plastered to beautiful lips. "When you're addicted to fuckin' cocaine, you know got too much money." The words sting, elbow finding a former friend's ribs and palm finding his throat.

"I didn't ask for this." Because for so long I have looked for an out, for blame to place on any shoulders but my own. Tonight, I find his. "This is your fucking fault, Wayne. This is on you." No, I didn't ask to become an addict, for my body to become little more than skin and bones- to chase a high I can never achieve. But I asked for this, for release. There were so many outs, so many times I could have turned my back and ran back into the arms of a family who would have had me anyway. But I didn't. Because I wanted this, in some sick kind of sense, my life was too good to be true and so I let poison eat away at everything I once was.

"Last I checked you paid, Atlas. Last I checked, you bought the drugs you fucking whore." His voice is cold, strained by the fingers tightening around his throat and I can feel his pulse. His heart is literally in my hands. It's almost as intoxicating as my favorite sweet and sour smoke. "I didn't ask you to beg, to get on your knees and promise you'd do anything for-"

Rage. It turns my blood blue and my vision white, skull shattering against a brick wall as though it were nothing but the eggs my mother once broke against burnt pans. She could never cook. It was always a mess, yolks sliding down the brick wall and I just keep staining the wall red. Painting worn bricks a black kind of crimson. She was so good at making messes. I guess I got that from her. "I didn't. This isn't my fault. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't!"

I have never known mercy, never tossed a penny to the beggars on the streets because it was their fault anyway. It was their choice. Life is something precious, yet something I wasted and so I waste his. A kind of unjust vengeance. I hate him. I hate this. This is my fault, I know, but I punish a man who is less than innocent. Whose name I cannot remember in this moment but one that I know is so familiar. It doesn't matter. He's a stranger now.

By the time he is dead, my vision is black, shaking hands cupping chapped lips and weakness spilling from the corners of closed lids.

"Well, that's unfortunate."

I hadn't seen him, a man dressed in all black- the whites of his eyes the only thing I can make out in tonight's red twilight. But he had seen it all. I'm fucked. So is the flaw of a life ruled by emotion, mistakes are bound to be made. And so I cover my tracks the best way I know how, balling a fist drenched in a friend's blood and swinging.

His gun is cold, kissing the exposed skin of my stomach and, well, I freeze. There is no other option. "Follow me." He murmurs, pulling down a black bandanna to reveal lips curled into a cruel smile. "We have much to discuss." He's quiet for a moment, eyes travelling the length of a blood soaked body. "I could use a savage like you."