Clink, Click click. Sigh… “David!” I turn around and see a woman in her mid-twenties waving and walking towards me, “Hey I hadn’t heard from you in a couple of days? You… you’re smoking again?” She asked, I look at her blankly, and respond, “I don’t think so”.

She just stares at me puzzled, “Huh…What? What do you mean?!” she responds confused at the weird joke of a response, as I just sits back onto a bench nearby, “Sorry, just trying to gather myself, been a long week…” I mention as my eyes glaze over, starting to water.

“Woah! It seems like it, did something happen? Wanna talk about it?” the girl, Elizabeth, asked, I sigh deeply and slowly nod. “Kaleb-“ I begin explaining what happened but got cut off immediately, “Oh yeah! I haven’t visited him in like a week, which room is he in?” the hyperactive girl asked.

“H-… He died 2 days ago.” I say as my calm monotone like façade shatters and the floodgates open, Elizabeth pales as this is the first she had heard of this, and having been somewhere between acquaintances and friends, “w-wh..-what happened?!” she asked shaking, I respond attempting to forcefully stop sobbing, “a-a he had a operation, his cancer having been found in his lungs just before it progressed into stage 2 he booked a surgical operation as soon as he could, an..d that was… two days ago.”

“Oh fu-… want a hug?” She cut herself and tried to comfort me, knowing that any sorrow and despair she was feeling was far less than anything I was feeling, Kaleb being someone I’d know since high school, my best friend.

“Maybe… Maybe another time. Appreciate it though.” I say starting to regain my composure and give her a forced smile, to which she responds by giving me a hug anyway, somehow seeing through the façade immediately, “Call me if you ever want to talk about it or just want to chat, aight?” she says a couple inches from my face as I nod.

“Well I’ll leave ya to it, also, apologizes if you find this insensitive, but I recommend you quit the smoking for good, considering how it tends to affect people, like Kaleb…” Walking away as I chuckle before it turns back into sobbing once she leaves sight.

Tossing the cigarette on the pavement, grounding the cigarette under my shoe, I start to walk back to the University dorms.

1 hour later I get back to the dorms, Kaleb being my only roommate leaving the place essentially mine alone because of his stay at the hospital. Looking around the dorm, I head into the bathroom and look at my reflection, peering back at me is a messy black haired 190 centimetre adult, a bit underweight, finally my eyes fell on, well, my eyes. The most Unique thing about me is my eyes, for reasons unexplained my Iris is a mixture between a navy blue on the outer part of the iris and a lighter blue on the inner, while my pupils are dilated, this luckily only makes my vision slightly worse. Assessing my appearance I reach the conclusion that I, really look like shit, mostly because of the stubble from having not shaved in days, having not had a shower being generally disgusting and being in a mishmash of a sweatpants and the top half of my pyjamas. Well, no time like the present. Cleaning myself up and heading back to my bedroom.

I grab my phone I had left charging for the past few days.

7:30 pm

You have 15 ne-

Yeah no, I’ll deal with that tomorrow. As I go and distract myself for a couple of hours, trying to clear my head, trying to leave the thoughts of the past week to wash away under the wave that is my subconscious pulling me under…