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Your name is Leafy, and by God have you fucked up.
The Moon is bright and pierces through the familiar inky black of the sky. Freckles of white are there too, but is that even relevant? Are they relevant? Why the fuck should you care about what some nerdy asshole has to say about Space? We can see the fucking stars, asshole!
You curse under your breath as you stare down at the concrete floor below you. The bench you’re sitting on creaks as if it’s going to collapse any second. You wish this train station was indoors, the cold is slowly dragging your heart out of your chest with spindly, weaving fingers.
Like what you did with Pin, they chant. You won’t ever be able to let that go.
You grit your teeth. It might be raining. You need to run into the train tracks, but your body won’t move. Someone else is pulling the strings here.
You look up. Nothing but the sky.
You opt to flip off the Moon.
The speakers chime from a distance. A train is approaching. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. Did you say that?
Sure enough, a train whooshes past you. Not many people are on it, which you are thankful for. You wonder what the time is absentmindedly as you stand up to walk to the train before you stop.
It’s on the other side. Mind the gap between the train and the platform, bitch.
You let out an anguished cry and make gesticulated arm gestures. Today is going so wrong, you hadn’t meant to choke her like that! It’s not your fucking fault!
Something drops behind you. Your lime hair whips around, and you are suddenly aware of how pathetic your ‘cutesy’ pigtail looks right now, fluttering weakly in the wind.
Right. Back to the mysterious falling item.
It’s a book. Black cover and some text on the front you can’t read. It’s so far away though, you can’t reach. It’ll take ages to burn, you muse to yourself. Then you come up with an idea.
“Come closer!” you plead, not quite sure what for. “Just- fucking come here!”
The book does not reciprocate your intentions. It stays put, mocking you by doing naught. You bite back a loud scream. Nothing ever goes your way, and guess what? It’s their fault! You’re an innocent person, it was her who ran her huge fucking mouth about that fucking asshat-
The book is gone. You’re only half paying attention, still raving on about how you should have taken revenge sooner. You wish you were remorseful. You’re glad you aren’t.
Something shifts in you, and your mind stills. You’re aware, very very aware, that you’re at a train station. When did you sit back down? Tears threaten to come. How pathetic are you?
“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.”
Huh? What the fuck?
You snap your head to look to the right of you—just moments before, you’d been staring into oblivion—and notice a lady next to you. Chubby. Curly hair with indigo hairclips. She looks pretty, but there’s no way in fuck you’re tempted to mack on some random stranger after just-
“It’s Plato. I think he’s kind of a dick, though,” the stranger continues to talk, reading in a book that looks awfully familiar. It has a black cover and some text on the front you can’t read, even now. You feel outrage claw inside your stomach and you suddenly have a dizzying spell of nausea threatening to enter the real world.
Before you know it, you speak. “Is that your book? I saw it fall and I kind of wanted to rip it to shreds.” Smooth going, Leafy. You’re really going to get the girl this time.
The woman pays no mind to the obvious threat. “It’s mine. I like to write when the wind tells me.”
Oh. So this is one of those kind of people. What was it? Wic… um. Whatever. It shouldn’t as much as it does. Pin always wanted to be one of them. Maybe she can do that in Hell, or whatever.
“You seem to have a lot on your mind. Tell me,” her posture suddenly straightens from the slightly slouched sitting pose she was in only seconds ago and she stares at you with a pointed look, whipping out a pen that once sat snugly in her ear. You want to do as she says, but your mouth says otherwise.
“What the fuck do you need to know? This isn’t a therapy session.” You snarl back, your sharp canines glinting in the moonlight. You remember when she used to call you her darling vampire. You wish you didn’t.
The stranger responds without missing a beat. “I never said it was. Again, start talking.” Her gaze cuts through you and leaves an open hole where your soul should be. To anyone else, you’re clouded in darkness. She’s the only light that can reveal how splintered you truly are.
You stare at her with an intense gaze, and she does the same. A mental war wages on, and you find yourself wondering if the playing field is even.
You are a blazing fire, tormenting forests and consuming anything and anyone that dares try to tame you. She is an icy storm, turbulent and dangerous, filled with water and wind that could kill anyone careless enough. You both are dangers to the world, revered and feared, but you don’t know what her deal is. She’s enigmatic, more so than you.
You hate to admit it, but you’re kind of scared of this strange lady.
“You never told me your name,” you look away, temporarily forming an uneasy truce. You still talk in an annoyed tone to her because you have a ‘bitch quota’ you have to fulfil each week, although you’re sure you’ve done more than surpassed it now.
She hums, glancing at the sky. “Pie. We aren’t on a last name basis, though.” She states it as if it’s a fact, which it probably is. You’ve just now noticed how awfully commanding she is. Even your malignant defiance is basically nothing compared to her.
You pause to drink in her details hungrily before you respond with a hum. Tearing your eyes off of her leaves you with a sense of unfulfillment, and you decide eagerly that you definitely aren’t going to explore that in detail. “I’m Leafy,” you finally say, despite the fact you feel undeserving of your own name.
“Well, Leafy,” she begins, making sure to enunciate each word slowly and painfully, “it seems that there’s a chance you’re running from something. If I was a lesser woman, I’d even go so far as to assume you’re afraid. Am I right?”
You’re beginning to loathe this lady with something akin to envy, but even further. “Didn’t agree to this. You can’t ask me shit.” You snipe back at her, folding your arms as you pout like a child. She sighs—a bit too audibly for your liking—and places her hand on your thigh and pats it, demanding your attention. You whip your head back at her, probably too eagerly.
“You’re to blame,” she starts, and your face twists and contorts into something ugly. You let out sharp cry of blind rage, grabbing her throat with hands shaking with adrenaline. She looks mildly scared. You want to taste more of that fear, drink it and rip into her flesh until all you can see in her smug little eyes is anguish dulled by the sweet, sweet release of death.
“Say that again, I fucking dare you,” you seethe, and she lets out a quiet croak of acknowledgement. You still don’t feel like mercy, though. What’s one body to another?
You drop her, kick her, claw at her with your bare hands, before you push her awfully flimsy body off of the edge of the platform. Mind the gap. Mind the fucking gap. You peer down at her, and she’s not moving. You feel so… self-righteous.
You did a good thing. You’re a hero.
You’re a motherfucking do-no-harm hero!
“But so is she, Leafy.” An all too familiar voice beckons you… behind you.
You whip your head around, just as a train arrives at the station (shit, it’s not going the full way) and you hear the sickening pop of crushed bone and flesh. The passengers may have noticed it too, but only a handful of them look up curiously.
And yet, standing—no, sitting before you is Pie herself. She’s reading the book now, seemingly uninterested in her own dead body. Tears threaten to come, and they do, staining the concrete with pitiful drops. You’re so mad you could kill yourself. You should kill yourself, when this is all over.
“She was the one who first got irrationally mad. She was the one who tried to kick you out of the home you owned, and she was the one who had threatened to call the police. Still, do you think all of that can excuse murder?” There it is. That piercing gaze with a myriad of colors. The question overwhelms you to the point you keel over the edge, pouring out your insides. You stare at your vomit and wipe your mouth clumsily before you stand up once more.
“I-It’s not… murder,” you whisper with a hoarse throat as your brain tries to come up with an excuse. “It’s… manslaughter. Yeah. Accident and all that. We all make mistakes! This isn’t… isn’t any different.” You laugh nervously. Pie simply raises an eyebrow.
“Leafy.” She’s staring at you with a kinder gaze now, and you let out a mental exhale. “I’m going to ask you something.” You nod, giving her a nonverbal ‘go ahead’. You see her falter, as if she didn’t expect you to agree so easily, before she speaks again.
“Are you going to run again?”
Now it’s your turn to falter. You stand there, droning out a long ‘uhh’ noise dumbly as she waits for you to formulate a coherent response. When you do not, however, she sighs and closes the book, settling her gaze elsewhere. Her eyes look pink, somehow.
“Let me make this easier; are you going to board the train?”
You glance back to the digital board listing the train times. One minute. One minute to set how your life will go. You’re not sure if you can decide if you’re going to commit suicide within one minute. “I…” you begin, which piques Pie’s attention (her eyes look blue now). “I’m not sure if I can…”
She stands up briskly and takes your hand. Hers are gripping yours too tightly, but you aren’t sure if you care enough to do something about it. “You can. Your fate is undecided and I’m trusting you to do the right thing. Three options that you can choose from, Leafy.”
Trust. Like how Pin trusted you to marry her someday.
You exhale nervously before the train stops at the station. Mind the gap between the train and the platform. You don’t want to.
Your breath hitches, and you look at Pie beside you. Her eyes draw in the color from the world, bright and white and shimmering, too bright, too colorful. You feel yourself bleeeding, weeping, snarling with your fangs slick with excess saliva as you sink them in her neck. Your neck. When did she begin, and when did you end?
Pie blinks. It empties.