May 17th
"I'm tired of walking," Emily said to me. "Can you carry me?"
"You can't get tired," I said to her. "Stop complaining."
"If you can't get tired, the why won't you carry me?"
"You're still heavy."
"Wimp."
Emily kept pouting like that as we walked through the vast forest that was filled with trees that smelled like maple and cinnamon. A vast road suddenly appeared when we emerged from the trees.
"Where did this road come from?" Emily asks.
"I think that means that we're about to meet someone." I said.
And, just as I thought, a person was standing a short distance away from us. It was a girl with long brown hair and blue eyes. Her skin was tanned and she looked to be as tall as I was. She wore a plain black long sleeve and sweatpants. Her eyes had huge bags under them. She was probably in her 20's.
"What's your name?" I asked the girl.
Her voice was painful and sad.
"Hannah." She choked.
She looked like she had been crying for a while.
I noticed that there were many pharmacies and buildings with long, dark alleys behind her. I could see a groups of shady looking people standing in that alley. They had creepy smiles on their faces. Blood was oozing out of their eyes as if they were crying it, and their mouths were salivating with drool.
"No...," Hannah whispered as she started to shake. "I'll pay it. I swear. With money..."
Drug dealers. Addiction. It wasn't so hard to figure out with what I was seeing.
"Come walk with us," I said to her, pointing at the woods. "It's calmer over there."
Hannah followed us into the woods, breathing in the sweet scent of maple and cinnamon with her nose.
"Smells good." Hannah said.
"Why is your place a woods?" Emily asked me.
I didn't answer them.
"What's such a young girl like yourself doing here?" Hannah asked Emily.
Emily didn't respond.
"I guess you both have things that you can't admit," Hannah said. "That's ok. I don't really mind sharing my story though."
Hannah talked about how here life had always been consumed by drugs. Her parents were addicts. Here older siblings were addicts. And eventually, she became one too. She went out and found drug dealers online and met them in shady alleys to buy the contents. She started to sink into debt with them though after losing out on a gamble after promising them 10 grand. Hannah had to work twice as hard to pay rent as well as her debt with the dealers. She said that those dealers eventually started to grow impatient and wanted her to pay with her body instead. Her older siblings and even her own parents asked her to as well when they were short on cash.
"I'd always tell them no," Hannah said. "No way in hell am I doing something like that. Losing my dignity would be the last thing to lose. I'd rather die then lose that."
"I wish I could've stood up for myself," Emily said as she started to cry. "Must be nice being strong."
"I'm not strong at all," Hannah said, shaking her head. "Being in a place like this is proof that none of us are strong."
"Well I guess that makes us all weak." I said, hugging Emily as she cried."
We continued walking through the vast forest as the evening sun started to sink down. The smell of maple and cinnamon only grew stronger with the cool wing blowing through the warm golden glow of light that surrounded us.
"Such a peaceful world in a place like this," Hannah said. "I always thought that despair was what waited for you on the other side."
"Someone taught me that everyone deserves a second chance," I said to her. "That if we believe that there is one for us, then we should take it."
I was, of course, thinking about Cole.
"I wish I could have a second chance." Hannah said.
"You'll eventually find your second chance," I said. "It just takes time. Maybe this place is for people to think about what they did. If we want to take back what we did, then we should take that second chance and live our lives."
"Well, I guess that it's time that I should be wishing for."
Suddenly, her feet started to dissipate into black ashes and fade away into the wind.
"No, you're not out of time," I said to her. "In fact, you still have months left to think. Years actually!"
I don't think that I've ever sounded this desperate in my life. I didn't want her to go. Some people do deserve a second chance at life.
And Hannah is one of them.
"NO HANNAH," Emily cried. "PLEASE DON'T LEAVE! IF YOU LEAVE NOW, THEN WE'LL GET SAD AND I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!!!"
Hannah wore a fake smile as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Thanks for making me feel guilty," Hannah said. "I'll be sure to take this feeling with me as punishment for not being strong enough."
And in a silent flash, Hannah's body completely vaporized into black ashes and blew away into the wind.
She was gone.
Emily fell to her knees next to me as she cried her eyes out, but I didn't cry at all. I just stood there with a dead expression. My cursed embarrassment to cry in front of other people kept me from morning over Hannah.
Damn my low self-esteem. Am I really not going to even shed a few tears for a friend? Is my past really going to keep me from crying with this little girl. Emily has no problem crying in front of me, so why can't I do the same?
I started to feel guilty.