VEXATIONS.

As we enter through the throng the waft of newly made waffles, bread and mixed with iron from the smiths messed with our brains – I knew my aunt felt the same due to the awestruck emotion weaving across her face but moving quickly to shut everything away, but I remained still, stuck in time like a broken clock against the movement of moons and suns.

This scene reminds us of the distillation of our lives from the rest of the town, the difference of the things we saw and felt from our places far away from each other. We were like travelers in a scorching desert to a mirage, a brimming bowl of water, a shelter – yet this wasn't any close to shelter, it was a strange place with us much stranger in it.

Everyone peer at us, pushing their heads down at our sight and cleaving a path to stray from us leaving a gaping hole of a desolate path ahead. Nothing but the wind occupies the raw fissure, nothing but the warmth stains the air and our clothes, nothing but the silence of the people that threaded the vexated curses from their whim cursed against the air we breathed, and the creator that created us.

We push through, against the hateful glances, the prayers of filth, the scorching gazes that burned my marrows down, shut the expansion of my lungs, and caved the frail cages of me that protected the heart. We are like fish against the tide and we are losing grip, losing our momentum.

Aunt's hand finds my wrist and shows me the way for she must have noticed my hood slipping lower down, concealing my eyes so that I cannot see my path.

We enter through a store, its build narrow and long behind yet the arch of the small foyer was big, edging to the ends of the building's side so that its roof looked much huge.

The inside is a huge contrast to the outside, a variety of things filled the other sides of walls so that it narrows to a narrower path only a single person could tread through, arms tangled to a knot so that they could not touch whatever object was in dire spurt, much worse break and purchase.

From our start, boxes of all sizes are stacked haphazardly against the wall, clothes hangers. Guns, rifles, pistols are strewn across the wall like a splash of black and psycho – more like a show of trophies –  and shriveled plants in pots, glow-in-the-dark items and others.

Upon closer inspection as we push through there is bitter muck that stained the lush dark carpet beneath our feet which I suspect is red originally. There is also a different kind of stench that hung overhead, a cloudless piece of scent that move to and fro according to the swift of the air; the smell of men, musk and smoke, a heavy smell that stung my nostrils.

Although the atmosphere is dim, something about the place is battered all the same with the people inside – it is a nice feeling to feel that we were ought the same. One sat in a chair beside a counter we just noticed due to the array of strange things that blocked our sight, he held a cigarette between his plump lips, black and purple marks blotted the edge of his mouth, circling the cigarette with a huge tint of murk, yet the butt of the cigarette that smoldered and bit fire encompassed his bruise so that they appeared darker and heavier upon his skin and tight against the muscles of his mouth.

The bells of the fogged glass door jangles behind us and he lifts his head towards us, a smile etches his lips but wanes at the pull at his bruise, so he simply settles with an awkward tight-lipped smile. He urges us to come closer, directing to a man behind the counter, who is busy shuffling through the much messy things I do not even want to look at.

The man has his left arm bunched in a white cloth that straps across his chest, his raven hair obscuring his lids as he looked down, scuffling through with only one hand. His thin upper lip grazed by the constant lick of his tongue and the bite of his teeth – clearly annoyed at the chance of disability. The simple shirt he wore creased at the fold of his body towards the counter due to his height, and the combat pants took offense as to weighing him down to worsen his pain.

The first man, blonde hair, which I've now realized, stands, putting a weight to one side of his body which I suspect he also has an injury in the other. According to the sweat furling and brewing into beads on his forehead I doubt there is none more concealed by his clothes.

He takes a step forward, lips remain shut as if they are stuck together, muscles revealed as his chest contracts in display. It only took a second for me to judge him as beautiful, I grew up with only seeing beautiful things, and he looks like he fell from the grace of gods, the wrath of nature as the scars that gleams against his veiny arms and his face gleams like silver against the dim light.

A silver drop, platinum.

Something in me flickers, something inside the locked place I had dwelled in, the serene and naked part where I stood with my stories, my forbidden stories.

A face of a girl, not older than nine stared at me, silver tears running about her cheeks, no, not silver. Platinum. Shining with pride from the invincible property of it, the strongest thing in the world. 

Tears bring about soft and shapable emotions and yet hers were hard sculpted steel.

My dreams, the bombs, the cacophony of grief carried by wails, the tears.

I shiver inside my clothes. My aunt must have not noticed for she was much more focused at her task on hand. She strides on, like a queen on a horse, the mane the small bag she carried with valuable things inside; too valuable to be seen and held by me. Anyone who dared plummets in her wrath, anyone and only me.

"I need to speak with the guardian," she speaks to the raven-haired man who lifts his head up, gazing straight in her eyes, a discrete and simple message passing along their connection. It is my time to notice the doe of his eyes, the tilt of his lips as his lower one weighed with size bigger than the other pushed down so that they were uneven, yet whole to beauty.

This too is beautiful. Though I do not need to note it within myself, we'd be gone an instance once my aunt finishes with her business. The memory of the hot air of the looks of the people outside swept at me, straightening the hunched hairs upon my skin into poles that contradict. Soon we'll be plunged in their scalding water again, and we'd boil 'til we trip and scavenge our way to the front of our door.

Blonde guy utters something to them, now they look like a trio of agents with the same precarious message. Blonde guy is clearly serious from the weigh of his lower plump lip, the set of his eyes, the distinct tilt of his head. 

With a sudden jerk he realizes my forgotten presence presence and turns to me, that same creeping smile burning his lips. There is something odd about his movement.

"Wraith," he whispers, eyes glinting with something unknown. I try to find the thieving thing that ran away for me to understand what his look means but it seems to have burrowed inside him, shutting me out as he splays his unoccupied chair for me. "Come, sit. Your aunt will just be fast."

Every single part of my body is concealed, only my eyes protruded to watch due to the mask that covered half of my face.

I send a look to the chair and to him and shake my head. If there is any emotion that floated at the surface he hid it well, no knife could scratch the surface, only he had reigns over his emotions, which one to put out and which one to hide.

He simply bops his head in agreement.

My aunt and the raven-haired man disappear behind a door slightly to the left.

"How did you know my aunt?" I ask. He takes the chair and sits, limping slightly. I've only noticed now he seems young, much closer to my age. Truthfully, all of them look young. 20's boys.

"She's a regular," he begins to scrape at a scab on his elbow, blood beginning to draw out, making my eyes shimmer. I've always liked broken flesh, blood, and vise. With his hunched body and eyes that are focused on his elbow more than anything, I realize that there would no longer be a conversation to spark.

I am baffled there isn't any fear in him, nothing close to a waver if he hid it well. Everyone I have come across with either lowered their lashes in disgust and fear, bopped their head at the sound of my existence, or took stride in cutting me open like some fruit with knife words.

Silence passes, the gentle flicks of something unknown simmers in the air.

"Why aren't you scared?" I ask, completely done and partly annoyed. And then he answers without looking at me, irises focused on his elbow, as if he had expected the question, as if it were rehearsed.

"Because I believe there is something more to you."

The scab falls off, landing the floor with the slightest thud – as if I could hear it. I'm imagining things once again.

"What do you mean?"

And now without any scab to prod at his focus comes to me, his eyes straightening without any waver, a sea without any waves; impossible yet passable.

"Death and Life clings on you. Misery may be endless..." he says, eyes narrowing, a message under the current of his words. "...Or Misery may have its end."

His plump lips are set, no fire beneath his words, the bruises crying an ocean on his face, asking to be relaxed. That's when I know something has slipped in the cracks of his held-back emotions.

He isn't relaxed at all; it is all a façade. The voices of the emotions he mustn't let out drowned out whatever scream is within him so that he is poised well, walled well.

I tilt my head to the side and examined but there is no pride, no fear, no anger, only exhaustion to keep him from something, from something to tell me. A part of his soul rolls with restraint.

At last he busts, "You have a far future ahead of you, something big that could end the world or continue it." His lashes lowers, emotions obscured behind them, spilling none, spilling gentle tears.

"And I will follow you until the end."

From behind him aunt reveals from the door. A grim look passes her as her eyes ruefully lands on me. Determination billows from her aura. A glinting unknown flickers behind her eyes; hope.

Turning back to him I piece all together. There isn't fear in him because it is only pure reverence for me that flowed and battled with fear.

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UNEDITED.

Y'all, I'm back! Probably going to continue this 'cause I love the structure of the idea and plot of this in my head. Need to share it to y'all readers.