>•~Falling Upwards~•<

Chapter Twenty-Three: Young History

I leave you first;
I break your heart,
All the while breaking mine,
At the same time —

"I am sorry,"
I could find myself,
Probably saying to you,
To try and ease it all.

I say I could never care,
For someone like you,
But that is just a lie,
And now I sit here in my own silence.

You could have,
Many different names,
Or many different faces,
However I will always know it's you.

——

(Not too long later)

~C~

So, we set off. So, we are lost. So, we are hidden. So, we follow unknown footsteps in a lost attempt.

April says she saw a house once. She said it looked old; abandoned maybe? However, she also told on how parts of it were kept up. As if maybe someone living there had attempted to keep their old home all together.

"Are you sure you still want to do this?" She asks me yet again.

For April, this should not hurt her. She is so bitter, and cold-hearted. At least, that is what she seems like. That is the mask that she wears. Maybe that is just what I have chosen to see her as, because that is what I first had believed she wanted to be taken in as a careless person.

I nod, "We have to." Now my voice is cold, and hard. It has lost its old warmth. I don't feel as though I have changed though. I feel exactly the same.

Maybe this is the same way for April. After... what had happened, it must have changed both of us. Even if we both will deny this. Now she is the weaker one, while I have grown stronger. The only problem is that I don't know how to be "strong."

April stays silent. I understand how she may be hurt. Hurting others after we were hurt can feel like it's the wrong thing to do. This probably is. What else is there to do? Sit here and die?

"Don't be upset," I find myself comforting her; an echo of how that other someone had done for me. I can never truly forget him. It hurts, oh it hurts. I take a deep breath. If I am to help April out, I cannot let her see that I am weak. "We do this to survive; like how a predator must hunt its prey. That doesn't mean it is cruel, or that we are cruel. It is just what we have to do."

April stares down at her ragged leather boots. She nods, "...Mhm. Anyways, you don't know what happened, right?"

"What? What happened?" I ask immediately.

She shrugs. April kicks a small pebble by her. "You know what I mean,"

I shake my head, "Uhm, sorry, I don't think I do?"

"How the world got to be how it is now," April finally tells me.

"Oh, yup, I have been wondering about that. I've been here for... Who knows how long, and I still don't know what happened." I mumble.

April brings me back to the topic. She starts a long rant, that I don't stop or cut in because a part of me really does like hearing her talk. "Well, there used to be life. Lots of life, although just in one small area. Our ancestors had learned that greed had cost them most of the planet. So they made a treaty, and planted four trees to symbolize each element. There were four tribes, Droplet Tribe, Leaf Tribe, Flame Tribe, and Breeze Tribe. Each with its own territory on the remaining slot where life could flourish.

We were happy. We had been happy for generations, after generations. We were all unique, and... and special, with our own abilities from where we came from," Her voice softens, and I smile. That sounds like a great world she had lived in.

"That sounds beautiful," I say to her. She nods; a smile washes over her face as well.

I look around where we are. This is all sand. We have left what life we had behind. All we have to protect ourselves are each other, and a knife from one of the people who had attacked us.

However, I can see it. I can see how the world used to be. Instead of walking on harsh, boiling sand, we could be on soft grass. There would be birds in the air, and flowers, and little animals hopping about. I remember seeing all of those sometime, and while other parts are foggy, that is vibrant.

"It was. It was so, so beautiful," She murmurs, as if in a dream again.

"Were there stars?" I blurt suddenly.

April nods. "Of course there were stars, because there was hope, and love everywhere. We all knew where we would go once we passed,"

Now I look down. Of course there were stars. I had always known this. So, why had August told me that they never existed? — Maybe he was just in denial. Yeah, I like that explanation. I don't want to think about others.

"So... What happened?" I am eager to hear the rest of this story. However, I am also too rash. I bite my tongue.

"People got greedy. More like, one person had grown greedy." She sighs, "A ruler of one of the territories, Queen Edge of Droplet Tribe, had wanted more than what the land, and her people, could give. She wanted all of the tribes.

So, she set off to kill them; one by one. She had fooled them — She had them played. The people she ruled over had been silenced, and anyone who spoke out about her true nature or what went on, was killed in her arena-battles.

She had believed she was unstoppable. She had risen from just your average farmer girl, to a ruler. When her own friends tried to stop her, she killed them too. Once she slayed her first ruler of another territory, Petal, of Leaf Tribe, that is when this chaos fell upon us all.

We had always known this. Every single person had been taught it as soon as they could read and write. When another tribe tries to conquer the other, our world falls out of balance. We slip off of the glimpse of life we had, and we are left here.

Now most of us are dead, the rest of us that remain have had our abilities stripped from us, and are now just wild tyrants. Even the stars have left us, because they knew we were hopeless, and that there is no hope with us." April finishes her speech. She opens her arms to take in the desolate place we are in.

I gulp, "I'm sorry,"

"Sorry for what? You weren't there, now were you?" April retorts, and bumps me with her elbow. Perhaps to lighten the mood after just ranting on about death and grief.

I give a half-grin, "No I was not!"

"This world may be Hell, but at least I am here with you," She says one, two, three... Thirteen words I had thought I would have never heard her ever say.

——

A/N: The "history" here is basically Book 2 of the "Forgotten Truths" series that I wrote with my best friend. The title of the boom is: "The Place where Dreams Fade", and I definitely recommend you to go and check it out!!

Have a lovely rest of your day/ night <33

-da AuThoRRrRrRrrRR