• Couldn’t sleep at all, she kept stirring during the morning hours. Her eyes would open despite her wish for them to shut. Seeing nothing, she wondered to herself how she stayed awake.

    When dawn broke, her mind shattered when the pure whiteness engulfed her eyesight. She would rather have struggled in the dark of night, darkness breaths no color: it's absence of color would hold her safe from memories...

    But white is comprised of every color in the spectrum... Every color.

    And it's this very phenomenon, the pure white snow tainted with color that haunted the girl’s memories.

    Snow

    In life there are things you see… but are not there…

    Things that were once there… but no longer exist… But the imagination is strong, and what you once saw again exists in that same spot. You reach out towards it and touch it and sigh in relief.

    A smile returns to your face, a moment before you had been panicking if what you saw had been real surely you’d be forced to relive those memories. Those memories…

    It floods back to you now, everything that happened that one snowy December. It may have been the time era that helped you understand what being alive was, but at what cost was learning to live paid?

    More and more it pounds into your head, their faces, and their words all those places… and the blood. THE BLOOD! You remember there being so much, it was on the snow the pure white snow. Was it yours? No. Why was it there? Because of you. Because you hurt them and because you hurt him.

    No, remember don’t feel bad about it? You are a human acting on instinct, what you did was to protect yourself. Even if it means hurting others, you are human and must survive…

    And now you relive it, every single icy detail whispered by the winds of that December. Do you want to hear it? No you do not. You never want to remember those days and you never want to relive them… and yet you do when ever the slightest feeling of nostalgia arises.

    Welcome back… to the days that twisted and corrupted you. These memories will always force you to be different. Why are you different you ask from the others? What did this change? I’ll remind you after you have your flash back.

    Do you remember it? The first love, first person you felt butterflies for. Every night he spent with you, spinning beautiful dreams inside of your empty mind. This man was a human, he could love and he could speak of love and write of love and be in love. That excited you, a child whom knew not of any love. You remember letting the words slip from your mouth, although you did not know the meaning. You knew these words because of him, and you thought maybe the first time you said them you would be telling the truth. Remember these words?

    They were, “I love you.”

    You remember him saying nothing, and doing nothing. The rest of the night is spent in silence as you are brought home. He leaves you like he does every night; he leaves you with this family that rejects you. After he leaves you feel your heart sink, for tonight you are not left with the usual happiness. You are disappointed; no reply was given to your confession… none at all. Not even a look in your general direction.

    And now the next day plays in your head. You ask him what he feels about you. You keep your composure as your heart slowly tears.

    His answer was, “I just want to be friends.”

    You ask him why, what is keeping him from you. And he simply states because of your age. It’s true; he was much more a man and you much more a child. You didn’t care; there wasn’t a day you lived anymore where you felt like a child. And the age, was hardly five years distance. In your mind, five years meant nothing. But you accept this, you feel comforted by the fact there was no one else… and after you had grown some maybe he would see you as more then a child.

    Your hopes were soon crushed. There is a girl who is one of your few friends in a group of six including yourself. You talk to her and tell her all of your problems, and you know he talks to her too. Perhaps it was jealousy and suspicion that made you talk to her as if she was a friend. You recall a saying, “keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” Surely, this was your reasoning for trying to get close to her.

    You always thought, maybe just maybe… she liked him too. And so you ask her one night, “how do you feel about him?”

    “He is just a friend,” she says to you and smiles.

    You are comforted believing her words…

    So how is it that a few days later you find yourself sitting in a puddle… of tears mixed in with… what was that? It was beautiful in your twisted eyesight. Vermillion, crimson, it burned with hot red flames… it was sparked by the icy silver eyes of a devil. Blood. Your blood. What have you done to yourself? And what’s more, who allowed you to do such a thing?

    You did it because for the first time you felt something. You had experienced the emotions of a human and such bliss they were… but soon everything was wiped. You had fallen numb and not understood why. So you ripped into your body, to feel pain. It may not be the feeling you’d desired, but at least it’s a feeling. But why were you numb?

    Could it have been from your heart completely breaking into pieces for the first time? Oh, you don’t remember how your heart broke?

    Oh yes. Now you remember.

    It was another night. You spent with a friend, she had let it slip.

    “They’re going on a date… she asked me not to tell you before she could.”

    They were dating… you lost. Everything you had felt will never exist again. She and he… he and she… you couldn’t touch them, it wasn’t right.

    What you hadn’t noticed was the way someone else had felt towards you. Although he had been in your life, you cannot recall much time being spent with him you don’t remember how he could possibly liked you. All you knew is that he was his best friend, and it would be low just to date a person to cause jealousy.

    But this was the man who gave you the silver strip of mercy. The blade that would cut into not only your skin, but your heart and memories. This one blade tore apart your life.

    Days… weeks… who was counting the time? Surely, not you. You just wanted it all to end. Everything was pale grey, “blah.” Slosh like the melting snow caught in the streets of everyday life… these people whom walk the streets, you used to be one of them. They lived for them selves, they lived. Perhaps before you had felt like you had not lived, but now you realize it is this moment in your pain… these moments are the ones etched into your memories by a nonliving organism.

    And because you felt you were not truly alive, you wanted to die. Everything would be better in the grasp of darkness, were you could cry out, bleed out, get out and leave out everyone… it was better because you would no longer have to face this world half alive, half alive in the sense you were dead mentally but the heart with in your body still throbbed and sent blood rushing through your vines.

    And so you started to muse upon the heart within your body ceasing to move. The light pink luster of your warm skin fading to a paleness cold like that razor… it seemed enlightening. Soon, what you had mused became what you desired. You let them know too, everyone knew that your days were limited by a timer you had set.

    You step foot outside into that snow… you walk a familiar path… until you reach that place of comfort. You decide you want to die where you had lived. You look over the railing or a bridge, you peer at the ice covered by snow and freeze as your eyesight is stabbed with images you so hate. There is already blood there… there where you wish to lie dead and alone.

    And you know it is that man who feels for you. He put his blood there… he has spoiled it. You will not allow yourself to die with a trace of him near you. You will go alone! Angry you storm off you head back to that house.

    Your dead line is not for a few days, but you’re blinded by your discontent. You want to go now. You would simply grab a knife and die in your kitchen. You really didn’t care as long as it happened.

    But on your way home… you ran into them. Your anger has flooded your mind and everything else is darkness… that blackness you so enjoy. When you awake, you are in a hospital. You cant remember for the life of you how you had gotten there… later stories are told to you about what happened… later you learn how you had ended up in a hospital.

    Your body was not physically harmed, except for the healing cuts on your arm. They ask you to stay for a few days. You don’t care… if you didn’t they would have sued your family.

    After five days of listening to people rant about how to handle stress, you finally realize you either have to get better, or pretend to get better. So, the next time you talk to the doctors you tell them you feel happy and perfectly fine you mention you think the medicine they’ve placed you on is doing wonders…and as you expected, they eat it up and spit you out.

    You return home, and the cutting and suicide still engulfs your mind.

    And you are still alive today… do you remember who saved your live?

    Yes, the same girl who stole your first love from you. You could even say she was the one who broke your heart. It was her…

    She took you on a walk, you talked… and at the end of it all, she made you realize there was still love in this world… someone cared. You remember her words and actions so faintly, but enough to remember what they’d meant.

    She removed a necklace she’d worn everyday… telling you about the meaning of the colored marble clasped by the claw of a dragon. “It means friendship.” She wanted to be friends with you because she cared about you…

    Despite all the s**t you had put her through.

    You tormented her, making it obvious you blamed her for what had happened to you. Made her feel guilty about falling in love with that once wonderful man. You plagued her dreams every night… in fact you remember the dark rings around her eyes, they were blood shot too. She tried to hide them behind her glasses but you saw.

    And after that day you lived again, the necklace she had given you marked a promise… a promise to live…

    So, why are you different? You know what it is to love for others and not for your self. It’s why you live and love, to see others happy. You’ve become a person who doesn’t live for yourself… or so it seems.

    Of corse you have your reasons for being so sweet and kind and it’s also the same reason these memories haunt you… you hurt them all five of your closest friends.

    Today you no longer talk to them but once in a while. You walk all alone, but you hold your head high.

    You smile. Because you have found the darkness that blinds your eyes from all color. It comes in the form of a man, and you have trades your soul to him so you may forever be blinded.

    But…

    Fin…

    When I look out my window and see the snow that reflects those memories, all the faces I caused to twist in pain, I ask how am I allowed to live?

    I pray that one day the man I have traded my soul to, will collect his pay and bring me to a land were snow never falls.

    I may never forget what happened, but at least I won’t be reminded…

    Getting out of my bed I go to live another day, because it’s the least I can do. It will only be three or four months and the snow will melt… only about one hundred days of staring into my past mistakes.