there's so much beauty in a storm » k.q + v.f

0| a gloomy night

most stories begin with some calm, disperse into some trouble and then they usually result in some happiness; some light on the situation at the very least, to make the reader feel like the trauma they watched the main character go through was worth it in the end.

this is not like most stories since it is up for your perception.

regardless of whether you believe this story ends in some light or some darkness, it always starts the same; on a gloomy night.

a night where the rain had not long passed, leaving a thick fog and moist atmosphere behind for those who so happened to be outside in that instant. more particularly, the night of november the twenty-third at exactly eleven fifteen pm. even more particularly, the night that one ebony haired boy wandered the path through the cemetery, hands stuffed in his pockets.

this, our protagonist, hadn't really made as much of a big deal out of death as his friends when he first heard of it back when he was seven. even at his first funeral he couldn't understand why people weren't as fascinated by the graveyard they buried his uncle in. in some ways this was a good thing, though, since he was able to find the bittersweet ignorance he craved by sitting in the graveyard at the later hours of the night.

his shoes slipped on the sodden grass a little as he got to his favourite place to stay, pale hands getting a good grip on the tree ahead as his unsteady feet took a step up onto the gravestone so he was able to climb up onto the mausoleum roof. once he passed the metal fencing around the surface and perched upon the summit, everything seemed to shift in perspective, the dull purple of the sky becoming a little clearer as the moon carved its way between the clouds.

as the wind claimed the boy's body in it's course, his hair being tussled slightly, he returned his attention back to his own mystery. what was death and why were people so scared of it?

you may believe that this is a peculiar question for a sixteen year old boy to be toiling over while most focused on alcohol and sex, but kellin had never been afraid of death like the other sixteen year olds. the sixteen year olds, however, were not afraid of alcohol as much as kellin was. so it all made sense to him.

mind fixated on the tombstone ahead and his weight coming to shift onto his butt as he sat cross-legged, kellin's ears honed in on what seemed to be a whisper to his right. slowly, he turned his head to the drooping tree in that direction, seeing nothing, just as he suspected.

no sooner had he mentally ridiculed himself, the voice got less faint, eventually becoming understandable. "can you hear me?" it asked, the calm tone and low volume sending a chill down kellin's spine for an unknown reason.

"yes." kellin responded, needing little time to fight with his own mind about whether it was real or not. "where are you?"

"i'm right behind you," the voice said, and sure enough, kellin could feel someone's cool breath on the back of his neck in the opposite direction to that of the wind.

"but i dont see you," kellin whispered, turning around with searching eyes, expecting to see a boy around his age at least. instead, he was met with a great disappointment and also an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"you're not supposed to."