Finely smiled as he felt the rush of the world spinning past him, knowing that they were only going 30 mph but he felt as if they were going at the speed of light, both inside and out. The excitement, the thrill of having the revving motorbike underneath him, moving beneath him, was a feeling he shared with his brother and also a memory. Before the war he had took him out on the motorbike every day give or take and they’d go all over town, through the narrow side alleys and backstreets, avoiding the main highway as much as possible. He remembered the blast of sea air in his lungs as they bulleted across the pier, a never ending journey which sucked the life out of every minute that time allowed them. But they ended soon enough when the war came, but there was always something violent going on in his problematic planet. When Sydney had left there were no more night time excursions and since the curfew was put in place he was unable to even leave his house, but there was also the barrier of Finley’s age. Not that it alone would have stopped him.
Sydney had just come back an hour ago after a month long ‘mission’. Finely didn’t know what they did in the army, just that pretty much every man in his family- no his town- had joined up, as he would too when he was old enough. He didn’t like the idea of fighting but there wasn’t much he could do otherwise. There was always someone fighting with another and he seemed to be constantly caught in the crossfire. Sydney suddenly pulled onto the highway, not only taking Finley by surprise but also knocking him slightly off balance. His brother never went onto the highway. He’s always complained about how crowded and restraining it was due to the sky high walls that encircled the whole road, causing everything to seem much more congested that it was. Not tonight though. The place was practically deserted. Only a small number of cars travelled that night. Then again it was New Year’s Eve. Finley clung on tighter as his brother sped up and the world disappeared into a blurred sense of reality.
Cassie stood on the edge of the bridge. She didn’t look down, she didn’t need to. The camera was perfectly balanced in place. It would capture the whole thing. It was her evidence, proof that it was her and her alone that would cause this. That was all she wanted, a simple request was it not? But nothing else seemed to be simple did it. Everything had its own complications, including her. She was okay with dying, as long as she could take as many other people out in the process.
She had her hat on, Elliott’s badge still attached. She touched it sentimentally. It would look dramatic on the video. She swayed slightly from the north coming wind. The night was bitter, the New Year would be even more so. She’d thought over this for weeks. She wanted a dramatic, romantic, tragic, even creative death. If anything it would leave her mark in that world, at least for a few weeks. The papers would go crazy over it for a few days, then it would die down and eventually she’d be forgotten altogether. She was nobody after all, which was part of the reason she was doing this. The skyskape was breath -taking beautiful, too beautiful so she turned her back to it. She closed her eyes. She sighed. Clenched her fists, and then unclenched them again. Cassie stood on tiptoe, edged her way to the abyss. She counted silently, one…two…three. Then she spread her wings and flew backwards.
Sydney saw it before his brother did. Someone was on the bridge, just standing there on the railings. A sudden gust of wind caused them to stagger. They could fall. A boy in his class jumped out a two storey window a year ago and had barely made it out without breaking every bone in his body. The bridge was at least three times higher. The fall would be fatal .He tried to call out but the noise of wind in his ears muted all sound he attempted to make. He was getting closer and could make out the figure now. It was small, the figure of a girl. She spread her arms and leaped. She was directly underneath. Straight in front of Sydney’s bike. He screamed.
Finley could make feel his brother shake. He put it down to the bitter cold, he was shivering too but more from excitement than from anything else. But then he started screaming, loud and sharp, piecing the night veil, slightly muting the roar from the bike which soon turned into a screech of response. He screamed too, not hearing it but knowing it was happening. That moment, the second of pure, unknowing blankness lasted a lifetime in Finley’s head. Then, with sickening terror he saw the body, the head turned at an almost comic angle; half the skull crushed and splattered on the concrete like a mosaic.
He let go, just for a split second in the madness but that was all it took. Finely fell, soared, collapsed, descended, whatever you prefer, an just for a minute he felt as if he could float, as if air had the power to hold him up. But the feeling left him as he was slammed harshly back into reality when his face hit against solid concrete He saw a strand of the girls ginger hair, dirty and wet from all the blood. He saw his arm reach out to touch it, and saw that it too was covered in blood, and found he couldn’t feel the hair in his hand. That was the last thing Finley remembered as he closed his eyes for the last time.
Sydney realised with sickening slowness that Finley’s hands were no longer wrapped safely round him. He looked back and saw but couldn’t make him out in the rain which had turned from light to a torrent. He kept going, mainly because he was unable to stop. The speed, faster and faster, till he could clear his mind Sydney would never slow. He remembered a time when his dad had drove him to school when he was late and he’d gone in a blind race like this. He remembered sitting in the back and clinging onto the seat in front of him, half begging him to stop but at the same time wanting to go faster. This was what it was like. He couldn’t remember if Finley had been there at the time. He’d left Finley behind. Was that selfish? No he’s make it out okay. He was stronger than everyone thought. At least he hoped so. He prayed that was true. Then Sydney remembered, even in this time of panic, that he didn’t pray. There was no hope.
Tears streamed his face but still Sydney drove on. He didn’t think he’d ever stop. He’d killed her, whoever the hell she was. Did Finley know that? He hoped he’d never find out. He knew she’d die anyway- form that height it was impossible not to- and that clouded his judgment and his vision. Beyond the tears all he could see was the blurred silhouette of her face, copper brown eyes staring back at him. Even in their glaze over state the seemed to be accusing him. He screamed again out of anguish and the bike swerved, fell. He fell too but he didn’t care. The pain was a cruel reminder. He was still alive. On his knees he let it all out, whether it was tangible or not. He let out the pain, the self-loathing, the unfairness of the whole situation. He’d just gotten back and now…this. Why did life do this? Why did it have to mock and prey at his every waking moment? He got back on the bike, not caring to pick up his once precious helmet. Then he revved up the gears to full and drove head first into the steep, high walls of the highway, blasting himself into oblivion.



Cassie woke in the last place she expected. Instead of waking in heaven or hell or waking up as a rabbit or something, she was under the bridge in the highway. Did this mean she had survived? It was an impossible thought to dwell on but once conceived it fought her thoughts for space. A boy with a mop of straw hair lay next to her and for a moment- just a moment- she thought it was Elliot that they had found each other as he said they would, that they had found their little utopia. But Cassie realised soon it wasn’t him and that any hope that she had ever harboured in her was flattened just as her body was…god knows how long ago.
The boy’s fingers were curled; blissfully unaware he was still asleep. No not asleep, still dead. She hadn’t forgotten. But what position did that put her in; she was awake, alive or dreaming, asleep or dead? But the boy didn’t have any scars, no blood loss, nothing. She blamed that on internal bleeding. But what if it was something else? Too many questions and her heart ached for more sleep. It was cosy, not too hot or cold. How easy it would be to just close her eyes and sleep. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it, an unfamiliar place was daunting enough but one that mirrored the highway was unsettling.
The world had been tinted grey, as if a dull shadow had been cast over the sun, creating a world of utter darkness. There was no blood beside her; she wondered absently where it went. She stood up, which was surprisingly easy. She checked the side of her head, the last known place she knew had been bleeding. The area where her head had been shattered into oblivion was…nothing. Not a speck of dust was out of place. Cassie put her hand down by her side again. It was shaking.

Sydney smelt the sea air before he had the chance to lift his eyelids. A blurred reality met his eyes. He was crying. Midnight, the piers Christmas lights offering twinkling pinpoints of light. He didn’t get up, didn’t want to. He was dead, or alive. He wasn’t sure which. He wasn’t sure if he cared. Or he didn’t want to think of the infinite options now, not while his eyes felt like they weighed a ton, each. It would be easier to close his eyes now than to bother waking to a harsh reality. He could feel the tears stream freely over his cheeks; taste the misery as it landed on his lips. He smiled an empty smile, a lying smile. Lying to himself. Then slowly he faded away into a blanket of dreams, hiding him from his grief and guilt. After that nothing else mattered.


While Finley slept in his dead sleep he dreamt. He was on the edge of the pier. Sydney was there, beckoning him in to the cool icy water. He wanted to go. He wanted to be with his brother, more than anything. He didn’t mind getting wet. He didn’t mind drowning. As long as he was with Sydney nothing else mattered. But before he had the chance faceless demons grabbed his coat, dragged him backwards further away from Sydney. They screamed, mouth less agonising screams, piercing Finley’s individual brain cells in half. The ground melted, slowly progressing towards the earth’s core, taking Finley with it. And all the while he could hear his brother voice, screaming for him. That alone was worse than the pain. Wait…what pain. Finely felt nothing more than raw emotions mixing with the awful truth. And with that fact echoing in his head he awoke under the bridge. He didn’t see the girl staring at him with a mixture of misperception and (was that terror?) masked over her bleak face. He focused on no particular material object but in his mind Finley was absorbed in one thought. He knew where his brother was, alive but in danger, serious danger undoubtedly. Finley started running.

Cassie watched as the straw-haired boy ran till she could see him no longer, not because he’d disappeared romantically into the distance but because he had…vanished, literally. He was there and then he was gone. Nothing, no bang or flash, no evidence left behind that he had ever been there just an instant before. Cassie started to wonder if he had ever existed at all or if it was just her solitude turning thoughts into physical things which didn’t really exist. This was a worrying thought, especially when she might not exist herself.
She looked in the other direction. Oblivion or the unknown, which did she fear most? She could always jump off the bridge again. There was always a third option, Elliot’s advice still rang in her ears, still true but hopeless in this situation. If she was stupid enough to believe that she could dare to encircle the idea of meeting Elliot again she would need a different mind-set, one that wasn’t going to zap her away to annihilation. She had to survive in this world. Strange how a change of pace could alter her focus. Looking back in the direction the straw-haired boy had gone she offered him a silent salute. She did, honestly hope he was in a better place. Then, without looking back, Cassie went the opposite way.

Sydney was floating. The water, icy cool, pierced his back, offering its whispering tendrils of lies. He drifted, away from the water, away from everything. He could hear nothing. Never in his life had he experienced such complete and utter silence. A wall of muteness engulfed him, swallowed him whole like an inaudible demon. He couldn’t even hear his own breath materialise in front of him. It was peaceful, he was peaceful. “Sydney”, called a faceless voice, an intrusion. “Wake up, please”, it beckoned. He pleaded silently for it to shut up, he wanted peace. Tears, he could feel them although they weren’t his own, splashed freely over his face, mixing with his old dry ones, reawakening them, reawakening old feelings. Too many, he was surrounded, drowning in an ocean of unjustly spilt tears. His tears, the voices tears, the tears of a thousand generations, each droplet telling a story of pain, joy, love, and eternities of emotion spilt into the cosmos. He cursed the voice and all it had done. Raining a waterfall of tears on him, showing him the true beauty and hate of emotion, which was its purpose. It wanted to make him live and love again. He didn’t know if he wanted to.

Finley continued to shout to Sydney, knowing in the back of his mind it was hopeless. He was somewhere in his mind that Finley couldn’t reach. Even if he could would it make a difference? Even if he did wake up they would still be stuck in this world, this warped version of reality. Finley didn’t trust this world; it was too shaky, unpredictable. A cosmos of stars settled above them. He’d always thought that when he finally died he would become a star, his own little universe and that way he could shine for all eternity. His thoughts, his imagination could become another life form, another earth, another universe. He knew it was only a pleasant idea to dwell on, nothing more, but it made him smile. He picked out the brightest and decided that it was Sydney and that until he woke up, that star would never die.
He stayed by Sydney’s side all through that first night, which could’ve lasted seconds or days. Time was a distant memory here. He cried a little, yes, but it only proved he was still human, and if he dreamed hard enough, he could maybe still be alive. Sydney cried too at some points, though on some subconscious level. It was a sign in Finley’s mind but by then he was desperate. Not insane, just desperate. You wouldn’t believe the loyalty witnessed on that night. All through it he spoke but if you asked me what it was about I would have to answer at indecision. Honestly I don’t know, but whatever it was it may have been private so I won’t delve into it any more. It was long after sunrise when Finley finally fell asleep, his fingers still secured around his brothers, immovable.