Where There's A Will

When they told him to stop, he couldn't help but laugh at them all. Stop chasing after what didn't count for the future that laid in his own hands. From that too, he couldn't hold it back anymore, so he laughed. At the fact that what would become of him was a result of what he carried with today. Balled up in his hands supposed to hold the future.

"Ptsa-ha... ha..." For some reason a laughter is blurt out just thinking about it.

Rain hangs down the livid skies marking the condemned sake for all. Animals of kinds great and small nested their lairs keeping their heads safe from harm's way. And as it drizzled, they carefully peeped out the cozy holes only to keep an eye on some boy whom dragged his feet across the mud.

'Humans, am I right?' They must've gossiped. And since it was cold outside, they knew it, he was aimless. Pretending not to notice the pair of eyes glowing from every corner of his sight, he looked up the conifers balancing the woodland.

'I want to pray. But dearest oh lord I've been long convicted of sin.' The tender showers hitting directly on his face.

'I want to sing. But oh dearest, my voice feels strained still, I can hardly set it free. Sold it to the imps, saw she's made it a precious collection. Took pride in what mattered not, here I am today questioning the very road I walk. Does it matter? I don't know. Because truth be told I barely knew a thing or two about myself.' Then he stopped to wonder.

"Yeah, a thing or two about myself..."

Something wasn't right. Apart from his mental state he could tell by the silence in the forest hinting something contrary to life existing there. Knowing this place by every noodle of his brain, it was not naturally quiet. With a cold feeling tingling down his spine, he couldn't shake the feeling off of somebody watching him.

All this time he had been heading towards a stream running through the forest. It flowed pristinely as back in those days of which he treasured most. The day men discovered fire, except that age, it was a day Johnny discovers friendship!

He walked down the levee then proceeded to lower himself closer to the edge. Dipping the quarter of his arms into the rivulet, returns a portion of water cupped up in his hands from which he gave himself a fill and splashed over the face.

"How could I," Now speaking out the train of thoughts, he watched a stern look reflected over the water surface. "how could I lose sight of what truly made me happy? Had it not been enough? In a big world where we pray ourselves the bigger figure, with years worth of friendship that was all the bliss but fragile to say the least... How far have I drifted away from Simon?" Upset with himself, he dealt a good fist at his forehead.

The next seconds came by with dull thuds like muffled sounds of drumbeats. He fell back onto his buttocks but continued to repeatedly knock the wet forehead with his knuckles until his tanned skin slightly changed to pink-ish. When that got him dizzy to a point of dealing the impact near his eyes, Johnny suddenly plunged a hand into the water. A school of minnows getting frightened away by his antics. He frantically felt around beneath the surface searching for what took him a couple of moments. And when he was sure, Johnny revealed to himself a sharp-edged pebble happening to be a fragment from a shattered piece.

Thoughts came in screaming but he blocked them away. Placed the pebble over his wrist and took a short breath, channelling forth his impulse to take over.

One cut was all it took for the realisation of how much thought went to it. And just how puny the scratch was. Not willing to skip the madness, Johnny held the pebble far from his chest and swung the thing back and forth on the count of three going backwards. But no matter how much he intended to stab right through, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Would they?"

Startled by a voice echoing without the slightest anticipation, Johnny jerked his head back noticing a boy stood a few steps behind him.

Snapping the teen out a trance of intended self-harm, it was then that Johnny first noticed that the environment had gone more quiet. A nearly dense fog had settled as well.

The boy stepped out his own silhouette and Johnny stepped back. Making the boy to not be a day over fourteen years older than their mysterious demeanor, Johnny tightened his grip around the tool. "Who are you?" Was his question coming out clearer than expected.

"I saw you try to inflict harm to yourself," The stranger continued. "but watching the attempt at it I wanted to know if would they love you the same if you'd change for the better? Shred your skin and let blood laps over the brim?"

"Nice words, dear poet." He gave an almost sulking look and pointed to the other. Assuming the gesture was meant to be intimidating, the boy smiled: "Siesta." is the name he exchanged for attention. Afterwards, Johnny said naught except 'never heard of such a name' in his head. He threw his pebble back into the water and turned to leave once more. Staring past his head into the distant was Siesta's gaze, by that time not at all falling unto Johnny.

"Another pain," He thought that the same pain was bound to torment his ways forward. Nevertheless, Johnny continued to drag himself away from the awkward encounter.

Of all the sores itching parts of his body, Johnny only winced at the words flooding his sentiment. Part of him wanted to tuck Siesta's question under the rug. But how correct he must've been with the question just made him furious. Kicking a rock unlucky to take the redirected frustration at it, Johnny shuffled his feet across the mud. Hands in the pocket; puts on a sour expression.

"You know you cannot live in constant denial, right?" Siesta shouted out with his voice at a managed pitch. And is ignored. "You are honestly tangling yourself up in those kind of situationships. You knew very well socialising was something close to your weakness. Admit it, you believe you can subvert that trait even though it turns out to be what you've foreseen."

"How do you know all this? Just who the heck are you exactly?"

Seeing the unease in Johnny's bemusement, Siesta let's a little smile creep out at his lips.

"I am a whisper in the echo. Break at dusk. I'm the manifestation of your deepest fears and anxieties."

"Ooo fancy pants rich McGee over here," 'What is that supposed to mean?'

"In your mind there's a voice, often the self-doubt you evince. And I am the embodiment of that... Right now I'm an illusion."

Half believing in the enigmatic stranger, Johnny picks up a stone and throws it Siesta's direction. Testing the solidity of the target, the stone merely passes through him.

'Damn it I'm going crazy?' He thought.

Siesta hesitated briefly then rose his head, landing his sight on a black occiput in the distant. In his eyes a fierce green glimmered as he prepared his lips: "You might've been in a better place had you not made your life about one fantasy. Right now the world is coming apart and you, want to end yourself... What will that change?"

Feeling rather drilled straight from the back by those words, the person they were meant for froze on the spot. Anger boiling over him as he followed the irritation by clenching a trembling fist.

"Awha-ha, oh no Scot," He nervously chuckled, swaying over at the tip of his tilt and toes. "see that isn't the thing... If I stay alive, what difference is that going to bring to the same world, huh?"

'Screaming at his face, although the illusion stood farther, I swallowed my voice, felt its unsteady and rough. Got my eyes giving the image in front of me as a blur. I raise both hands in front of me, open them up and see no future they've said I held. They just trembled, so be it. A vision suffused in colour - mosaics I'd say. For the first time in a whale of a while emotions overwhelmed me slowly but surely. A blush of pink was reduced to puffs of pale as the anger finally let my body flow again. Within my veins blood churned to a heat I could hardly endure. Screw it... I just wanna...'

"Your mind is my playground but I cannot quite relate to your struggles," Siesta's gaze returned to the distant. "nor can I tell you how to live your life. But if I must provide a legitimate view on what's eating you up inside: dishonesty with oneself."

Like he did with most obstacles in his way, screwing it over simply put aside the issue for later. However that only proved his titled mind, 'Siesta' correct. At that revelation, Johnny felt his tummy eat itself in. He felt disgusted with himself. When he eventually chose to leave the kid behind, he told himself he was just being paranoid. But no matter how much he tried to shake it off, his just didn't tap into the right head space.

The leaves rustled and a breeze sweeps past. Inaudible talking now gave him the goosebumps. "I'm just being paranoid." was almost a question to himself repeated so the body would relax. 'manifestation of your deepest fears and anxieties.' Siesta whispers unto him once more. Johnny spun around, eyes darting so much only to notice where he'd left behind the boy was clear. And then in a swift movement Siesta appeared ducked below his arm, pulling out an object from Johnny's pocket.

"This trinket," He softly says. "Where'd you get it?"

Trying to keep up with the enigmatic movement, Johnny swung out an elbow with his turn. "From my," He swung back a wide elbow. "mother. Hand it ba-" But as he staggered expecting to confront the thief, he was surprised to be greeted by the road ahead. Siesta had disappeared and stepped out from hiding behind a tree a little farther with the watch hanging by their pinch.

"Is it a tool? A pendant? A gift?"

"How do you keep doing that?"

"..."

"It's uh... a cut of all of the above, actually. It is a promise."

Siesta almost frowned. "What, else." Emphasis on the question.

"She gifted it to me when I was younger, made me promise never to let it past my reach. It belonged to my grandfather and it's uh, it's all I have and know about the generation before her."

"Did you know, that stealing is a sin?" Siesta said, his voice dropping to a low and menacing tone. A sudden wind whistles by like inaudible talking chanting in the distant. Yet so close. The leaves brush against each other as the surrounding space goes gloomy.

Reeled in, Johnny is drawn into a haze that suddenly veils a different atmosphere all around him. Ever expanding and vast. And in the middle of it all was a vortex of yellow dust and storm of energy. There, a fluid motion of figures was formed and broken away as the storm's energy shifted like souls attempting to escape the vortex.

"Do you recognise this woman?" Siesta, who was himself just a voice lingering around the teen, pushes him forward coarxing him to stare into the magic. A little figure comes to focus and shape and as the motions carried on to change, the figure seemed to be backing away from something else.

"That's my mother?"

"Look closer!"

"That is my mother."

As the figure continued to back away, another more wide and enormous came to view. Looking at the entire play, the ominous figure cast over the woman, whose accompanied screams sent her dispersing back into the magic.

Siesta's presence looming over Johnny, whistling, says: "She's been dead for almost a decade and a half now."

The teen's heart skipped a thousand beats, feeling very detached from reality itself. He felt disoriented by what he'd just witnessed. And relieving him from the trance, Siesta drops the haze with a simple spell, "Release."

In the town in ruin, in an alleyway of sun-soaked walls standing tall and nearly untouched by the recent catastrophe, Johnny's upper structure was at the support of wobbly legs.

"So many questions. So little answers. This story was never about you," The voice equally faded with the enchanted air as the teen slowly managed his countenance as well was the strength to step onwards. With each step, a different view of the world he thought he knew changed. And by the third, fourth, fifth and so on, he gained a new spirit. One with a clear path yet overgrown by thorns. With newfound hope that his friend is still alive, that his eyes deceived him from the start, Johnny stepped into light, seeing a will and a bunch of heads gathered at the townsquare.

"until now..."