Revelations (South, Manda, Alex)

In this world of ancient scars,
A promise still remains.
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I've always been broken, but I will admit that the tears are unexpected even to me. Yet, it somehow fits perfectly into this horrible twisted nightmare where the air smells foul and people are all too quiet when before the noise filled my ears and gave me a headache. I keep on expecting to awaken and find my sister standing tall over me, hazel eyes becoming two glowing disks as the moonlight hits them just right. But no, the hot tears that burn my eyes and spill down my cheeks are real, and the horrible sickness in the pit of my stomach is real, and the broken teenager in front of me is real. It's all real, real, real and it's all I can do to keep from retching as the last wisps of my beautiful fairytale is wiped out of existence by the very boy who helped me so carefully create it.

The thousands of pieces of my heart scatter in front of me, each individual shard carrying it's own individual regret and agony as my nails sink into into slightly damp floorboards that creak under the sudden pressure (if they held not just me, but all of my sorrows and regrets, I'm sure that they'd have split in two the moment I stepped into this horrible place). Flashes of memories too quick to grasp fly in front of me, filling the emptiness in my chest with night's silent tears and broken promises. Through my sobs I hear my charm bracelet jingle quietly on my wrist, and I am thrown even farther into my despair, feeling as if I've fallen into the river again because these tears fill my very soul and it just hurts so much that I can't even stop to fulfill my great wish of yanking off the golden chain and throwing it at him.

Now I know the time has gone,
I'm holding on too long.
You were the sunlight in my day.

I hear Imi's words from a great distance, and they make no sense. What is she saying? How is Luke reacting? I hear my name but don't bother trying to guess what is being said- I'm too far lost for that. But then there is the crunch of breaking glass and I am forced to look up, my eyes wide as I peer through the strands of ink black hair that have fallen into my face. And there is Luke, on the floor, and Ink towering angrily above him. For a moment, my sobbing stops, because this is wrong right wrong, she shouldn't be hurting our older brother. And then I am crying even harder, squeezing my eyes shut, with a pounding in my chest that can't possible be my heart because my heart has been broken beyond repair the moment I realized that all of the angry words in my mind wouldn't leave my lips- the moment I realized that as much as I hate myself for it, I still love him.

The momentary silence is deafening- I can't stand the way they just stand and watch as if we are a show put on especially for them. We are a broken family and that is nothing to be laughed at or thought of as some sort of source of entertainment for them. They are the very lowest our district has to offer, and yet I expected more from them than this. I should have realized that we are only strangers to them- faceless and nameless, forgotten in the disgusting liquid that fills their cups. They watch the hate bloom in my sister's chest, it's petals of fire wrapping around and around our older brother and burning him beyond repair as I melt like wax under the heat of her rage. Hate is the most delicate and rare type of anger, but also the most dangerous- while the outside wounds can be healed, it leaves scars inside that ache every time our regrets surface in specific moments of sorrow. And to them, that is entertaining.

You saw the storm clouds rising,
When I still had my dream.
It's been so dark since your away.

I feel so lost and alone in this place and I just want to runrunrun but my sorrow keeps me rooted to the spot, unable to escape the horrible pain these moments are causing my heart. Every whisper in the bar is met with fresh tears, because they won't come and help or comfort- they don't even care. No one cares anymore- Imi is too far away and my parents are lost in their own sorrow and my friends too plastic and so I am alone. No one cares about me- I am left to dealt with my own inner monsters because there is no warmth or compassion or love anymore. Before this moment, I didn't even realize the horrible abandonment I feel in my heart, but now it hits me full force. I'm all alone here, anywhere, everywhere.

And then, suddenly, I'm not. His arms are around me, squeezing me tight, sheltering me and warming me and comforting me and I am not alone. My older brother is here in my icy cage with me because he loves me (right?), and because he cares. But no, he doesn't care, he left, didn't he? Confused, I cry harder than ever, feeling like a little girl again in my older brother's arms. Everything is just so empty and cold and even with him here, I am still trapped in a prison made of cold stone and guarded by the multiple monsters that have made a home inside of me. Heartbreak cannot even describe this horrible pain- it all hurts and try as he might Luke cannot heal it this time. The cold metal against my wrist just makes it burn more, and though Luke begs me, I find that I cannot stop the tears.

No more tears,
Every time I'm all alone with this feeling.
No more tears,
Every time I close my eyes and wish we were still in love.

Just this once, would it be okay to give in? To forget the unforgettable past and allow him to fill me with love and warmth just like he always did when we were young? But he left and that is unforgivable, and I know that if I let him heal me now the scars will tear right back open when the moment ends and he has vanishes once more. I remember sitting in a wooden chair by the door days after he left, staring out the window at the old dusty path that leads up to our door and waiting to see his bright smile as he approaches, arms wide open. I would have sat by that door for eternity if I had known that it would eventually happen- if I had known that he would come home. But I didn't know which made me weak, and they pulled me away from that door and shoved me into the place called school that was filled with too many faces and not enough love. People were plastic, and I suppose I was too, answering all of their sympathetic glances with a small smile to let them know that I was doing okay when I wasn't.

And years flew by without laughter or smiles or stories or stargazing or him, and all that he had meant in our family. I don't even know if my parents ever looked behind that locked door in the hall after he disappeared- it was filled with too many memories that filled our hearts with stars and sunshine and summer laughter, yet shattered them at the exact same time. I can't help but remember his melodic voice every time I catch a glimpse of Dad's old guitar that has been locked in it's case and shoved into the back of the coat closet, where it holds so many nights filled with smiles and laughter and shining eyes.

No more tears, no more pain,
No more crying in the rain.
No more tears. No more tears.
Not again.

Yet none of that matters all of the sudden. There is just me and him and all of the brotherly love that he is pouring into me right now, and I let him because I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to only feel cold and numb- I want to know that someone cares. I feel like all I've been doing is giving, giving, giving, but never receiving, and by the time I realized that I was running low, it was already too late. The feeling was nearly gone- just a ghost of happiness remained in the place that had once been filled with laughter and childish innocence. And the last of my strength and regret and anger vanished, and I bury my face in his shoulder, still crying because what else can I really do in a moment like this?

"I'm s-so alone, Luke," I sob, my words muffled. "So alone and s-so empty." I think of Imi and her hazel eyes shining down through the darkness and the nightmare with the river and the dozens of times she's walked away from me and I just don't understand because she was always there. I am a horrible person to expect her to still be there for me even after I have left her to fend for herself for four long years. And then I think of Luke and how he left first, before her, and I think of the charm bracelet on my wrist and of how it wasn't enough. It didn't fill the space he left behind. "I love you, Luke. I l-love you, and that's why it hurts s-so much."

There are days when Luke Marling wakes up and absolutely loves his life.

It’s all so easy, so fun, so mindlessly blissful and self-centered that it leaves no room for silly things like regret and thinking about the consequences of his actions. The booze, the drugs, the girls, the whole of the District’s shady side sprawled out before him with all of its debaucheries and guilty pleasures ripe for the picking (and oh, does he ever pick them, everything he can get his greedy little hands on)… It’s on these days, days that taste like whiskey and feel like the most wonderful high and smell like Whatsherface from last night’s perfume that Luke is able to justify everything he’s ever done, every wrong he’s ever committed, every person he’s ever hurt. Because he’s having too much damn fun to let any of that bullshit from his past hold him back. Never again.

Ever since he was fifteen he’s sworn to take what he can and give nothing back, every warped moral and personal philosophy built on that mantra until anyone skulking around one of Five’s dark alleys will tell you in a split second that you’ll never meet a person more selfish, more ruthless, or more malicious than Luke Marling. Of course, you’ll also never meet a person that sells better dope, so that’s why they all put up with him. So maybe the King of the Slums’ loyal subjects aren’t really so loyal after all, but he’ll tell anyone who cares to ask that he’d rather be feared than loved. He’s living proof that the people who love you have far more ability to hurt you than the people that are afraid of you. Just ask his family what the son and brother they loved did to them.

There are days when Luke wakes up and hates his life with a loathing that completely consumes him.

Because when he lets himself think about it, none of those things are what he really wants. The alcohol can’t make him forget the life and family he left to wither in the wake of his desertion, at least not permanently. The drugs and the money he makes from them can’t fill that gnawing emptiness that he’s trained himself to ignore (most of the time), and the girls, even though they’re pretty and malleable and accepting of his every whim, they don’t love him. And he doesn’t love them. He doesn’t love anyone, except for himself, that is – that’s a lie, lie, filthy lie, he still loves his sisters more than life itself, but you can’t afford attachments in this business because the people you love have a nasty habit of disappearing.

That’s the realization that hits him as his little sister shudders and weeps in his arms, trusting him to keep her safe through the tumult of her internal battles even though the fact that she’s even being seen with him could put her in danger. Dealing’s a competitive field of work, and when you’re operating on the wrong side of the law there are no rules outlining what you can do to stake your claim on clients or territory. Couple months back Sam Fiala decided to sell on turf that was run by one of the district’s more intimidating gangs. They found his thirteen-year-old sister dead in an alley a few days later, and the things they had done to that poor little girl… Luke hadn’t wanted to hear, he’d walked away from the conversation with a grimace and a sympathetic pat on the shoulder for Sam, who still looks like a hollowed-out shell whenever anyone sees him out and about. The idea of Ink or Imi meeting that kind of fate is so terrifying, so unfathomable – it triggers this deep, instinctual kind of fear that Luke hasn’t felt in years, gut-wrenching and so heavy that it steals his breath. He’s lived up to his reputation of fearing no one, breaking all the underworld’s unwritten laws, selling on the wrong territory, to the wrong people, pissing off a few kingpins that he really shouldn’t have… There are plenty of people who want him dead, but he’s more than aware that every last one of them would rather take something he loves away from him and watch him suffer. The only reason that hasn’t happened yet is that everyone thinks that there isn’t a thing in the world that Luke loves besides himself, but if someone were to find out about the twins it could mean tragedy. They’re not safe, not with him in their lives, and for the first time in his life Luke finds himself wishing that he could just fall off the face of the earth so that his family could live a peaceful life free of danger.

When Imi runs out of the room in a tearful flurry, Luke’s headache ratchets up a few more levels, all of this family drama that he isn’t equipped to deal with throbbing painfully against the inside of his skull as he breathes out a heavy sigh and gets unsteadily to his feet, hauling Ink up with him. “Come on, let’s go get her. There are things I need to tell the both of you.”

Her trail is an easy one to follow; she leaves whispering bystanders in her wake as she goes crashing through the streets, and since this is Luke’s territory no one hesitates to point them in the right direction when he asks if they’ve seen a hysterical teenage girl go flying by recently. It gets harder, though, when the two siblings move deeper into the heart of the slums. This is gang land, where the really bad stuff goes down, and Luke’s been told more than once to not show his face here unless he wants to find a bullet in it. Of course, they’d have probably been kinder to him if he hadn’t called the resident drug lord a two-bit cheap son of a – Yeah, but that’s beside the point. Progress through this part of town is slow; he keeps Ink practically attached to him at the hip while dark eyes dart around in search of potential problems. And it’s not too long before they find one.

“Oi, Marling! Though we told you to keep your punk ass off our turf!” The exclamation comes from a hulking six-foot-something monster of a guy who looks like he could snap just about anything in two with his bare hands, glaring angrily as he turns over his shoulder to yell for what Luke can only guess to be backup from his buddies. He sure as hell isn’t staying around to find out. No sir, he grabs Ink by the hand in a viselike grip, dragging her down the nearest alley as all hell breaks loose in the street.

”Run!”

And they do, winding through alleys and backstreets and scraggly half-dead back yards behind sagging tenement buildings until the air wheezing in and out of their lungs feels like the stabbing of a white-hot knife and they finally collapse against the dirty brick wall of the alleyway between two apartments that reeks of old garbage and other highly unpleasant things. Luke tries to speak, but the words won’t come, his body too preoccupied with getting the oxygen cycled back into his tainted bloodstream. OH, he’s completely sober now, fear will do that to you, but a body that’s been through as much chemical abuse as his certainly won’t bounce back as quickly as it used to.

“This… is what… I was trying to… tell you,” he gasps, the flat of his palm pressed against his sternum in an attempt to quell one of what feels like hundreds of painful stitches from running faster than he ever has in his life. “There’s a reason you never saw me. There’s a reason I never came home. I’ve made some shitty choices, Ink. Some really shitty choices, and if anyone knew that I had sisters or a family you’d all end up dead. I can’t come home, ever. And you can’t see me again after today. It’d be best if you both just pretend I’m dead.”

There are days when Luke Marling wakes up and wishes he hadn’t, and this is one of them.