𝐋𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐒. ᵒᵘᵗᵉʳ ᵇᵃⁿᵏˢ ¹

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 50.

𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄.

𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑 I've walked, life was never seen as such a sacred thing to me. It was simply a thing— a weird, unpredictable, cruel, and vile thing that everyone was apart of. People live. The limits and boundaries never exceeded more than the basic knowings, that one day, we would all die, and the world would just simply transform into some repetitive cycle, to start all over again, just without the same people walking on it. Hopeless people, subconsciously waiting for an epiphany to change it all— to change this thing we call "life".

Succumbed to the ongoing and monotonous realities of the world, life and death, to me, were never thought of more than just regularities, a depiction of fate. No one knows how they are going to die, or truly, the meaning of dying. So, really, life is simply just a tedious journey, filled with mountains of confusion, oceans of depth, and winds of destruction. The knowingness of it all, the recognition of how the world works, lacks grace and integrity, divided into spectrums really no one can understand, not even some of the smartest people in history.

As a teenager in the middle of it all, I was never taught on how to deal with the tragedies and calamities life brings to certain people— certain people, who can think they have an undivided knowledge of the world. I was never taught how to feel when a person, right in front of my eyes, falls to the ground in a pool of their own blood, immersing into the exact delineation of unexpected. Or when a boy, who stumbles around a corner with a weapon between his fingers, the same weapon he used to create the monstrosity playing before everyone.

And that's when everything clicked in my mind, when I saw Sheriff Peterkin drop to her knees.

Life is not just a thing. It's not just a cycle, a repetition that goes on for centuries, or a dull process, a boring iteration. We meet people, and those people change us, mold us, and shape us into a version, good or bad, of ourselves. And then those people leave us, and the space they used to rest in is left vacant and irreplaceable. Sometimes it's not even our closest beings that cause that empty space, it's the mere realization that someone's journey was abruptly left unfinished, and they didn't get to ever find the true meaning of life— even though there is no true message to it, really, at all.

But to think you've found purpose, and to feel a sense of inner completion, is something so unnoticed and forgotten. To make it to the top of your epiphany, to immerse yourself into a new reality that you, and only you, have found your grounds on earth— is often perceived as incapable. The water-tight vessel that contains all of our emotions, thoughts, and feelings can finally break free, because the sure knowing that life is not just a thing, is consuming, and ever-lasting.

So when Peterkin fell to the paved ground, I felt like my being had shattered into a million different pieces, all over that airport runway. The shards scattered all over the pavement, in front of everything, and I wanted to scream, scream out for them to be careful and not cut themselves, but my voice wouldn't make a noise. The words were caught inside of my throat, scratching to be released.

"Rafe, no," John B's voice came out nothing higher than a simple whisper, disbelief filling through the spaces of his words.

Sarah fell against me, sobbing hard, her eyes shooting fleeting glances between the injured victim, and her very own brother. It was as if her legs were giving out, unable to stand for any longer.

There's not a time in one's life where they get the chance to prepare for the worst, to prepare for the colossally unexpected. There's never a moment where you picture yourself seeing a dead person for the first time, or a dying person, and not just as imagination or a morbid dream, really picture it— nearly as an experience. Submerged into the "cycle" all my life, I never thought that I'd see the day where a life is lost, right in front me. The thought of witnessing such a vastly impactful occurrence was always far gone, not even in my realm of possibilities.