We Were Forgotten {ON HOLD}

Burn it Down

~Troy~

I watched as the guys drunkenly danced in the street, waving their stolen bottles of whiskey in the air. We took our free pass to leave school and broke into an abandoned bar. Walking around town, drinking and filling out our bucket list, this was clearly the best day ever.

I threw my head back and gulped down some more of the liquid, letting it warm my body and make my head swim “Do a handstand!” I shouted at Terrance.

“Are you kidding I’ll break my neck!” he shouted back.

I shrugged. “We’re all going to die anyway.” He laughed and set his bottle down. I watched as he tried and failed on his handstand, falling on his back and screaming out in pain. I burst out laughing and pointed my almost empty bottle at him. “I can’t believe you did that!” He painfully stuck up the middle finger and rolled over.

I felt an arm around me and I looked over. Henry was smiling and had the smell of vomit on his shirt. “Look at this,” he slurred. “There’s-hic-nothing wrong with this city. Every-hic-thing’s fine! Look at it!”

I looked at the broken windows, people running for cover, and the lights zipping around. I just sighed and looked at him. “Henry you’re drunk,” I said like I was completely sober. I wasn’t, but I was just drinking enough to keep a steady buzz going.

“I know that!” he shouted in my ear. “It’s the end of the world! I don’t care!”

“You know what we should do?” Beau asked, helping Terrance up. “We should sing!”

Henry stumbled off of me and gasped like it was the greatest idea in thee world. “Yes! Oh my God! We sh-hic-ould sing American Pie!” he raised his bottle in the air and started twirling. “I started singing, bye-bye Miss American Pie! Come on bastards! Sing with me.”

I drank the rest of the liquor and threw the bottle in the gutter. Why not sing and dance down the street? It was just around one o’clock, and the world was ending. We were going to die, and I didn’t care in the slightest. “Drove the Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry!” we shouted, stomping around the empty streets. People closed windows, blinds, curtains, anything to block out the delinquents on a death wish.

“Them good ol’ boys were drinking WHISKEY!” They cheered and clanked their bottles together as the shouted the word whiskey over and over. “This’ll be the fucking day I die!”

We cheered and whiskey sloshed all around us. Glass crushed into smaller pieces under our feet as we continued to stomp around the streets of the city. Horrible smells like people exploiting their bowels, the metallic smell of blood…and beer.

The guys and I weren’t the only ones enjoying ourselves. Thousands of people were doing it. Partying, going crazy, like literally. I saw a huge group of people on top of a building, dancing and waving signs in the air. And when the lights came they just got wilder and started reaching their hands up to it like they were at a concert and the artist was right there. I only had one word for it. “Wow”.

But of course I would rather stay down here with the pungent smells of the now dying city of Chicago than go up there and get killed with those mental hippies.

The guys kept singing and dancing while I looked around. It was a madhouse. Cars had been broken into, houses had been broken into, people who hadn’t found a safe place to bunker down for the night, were hiding in alleys and around corners of buildings, or just running for their lives.

From the looks of it, we were really out of place. But my motto that I just started living by fit the situation: It’s the end of our lives, do whatever the hell you want. Terrance threw his empty bottle at a building we passed, knocking me off of my thought train.

I looked around and saw a burning flowerbed. I got a sudden urge to smoke, and I pulled out a cigarette from my pocket. “Hold on guys,” I said, hitting Henry on his chest. “I wanna smoke.”

Beau jumped with excitement and looked at me with wide eyes. “You gotta joint?”

“No you idiot,” I snapped. I held up my cigarette before walking over to the flowerbed. The heat from the tiny fire warmed my fingers as I  bent down and put my cigarette to the lapping flames.

“That’ll kill you,” said Terrance. I shrugged and inhaled the thick smoke. I let it flow around in my lungs before exhaling, letting the smoke rise into the air.

Henry clapped his hands together with an idea. “We should set something on fire.”

I stared him, not understanding his-if any-reasoning to this idea. It’s the end of our lives, do whatever the hell you want. “Let’s do it.”