"Goodbye Curly Head"

"Two-Headed Boy"

Wherever the wind blew, it brought with itself a hint of melancholy and longing as mother nature hung her winter cloak back up in her divine wardrobe. With spring enveloping the land in its gentle, breezy embrace, every tree, bush flower emerged from its slumber, flourishing and regaining lost leaves. For a certain group of four mercenaries, the season passed quickly, leaving their hands full of work and frail paper bills for a job well done, one after another. Andy felt right at home with the trio, or so he kept telling himself. Amongst W’s constant displays of various untreated mental illnesses at play, Hedley's unbroken stoicism and Ines’ endless aloofness, the boy kept to himself most of the time, burying his bashful thoughts and feelings deep within the fleshy confinements of his developing brain. He couldn't really call any of the mercs a “friend”, having already given up hope of ever finding one in this land of death and misery. Not that it mattered, of course, as the mask he put on every single day along with his clothes and guns kept his frail, weak self from seeping outside into the real world and opening up to anyone, anyway. The mask of this perfect “Mr Ricketts”, it was. Carved off the fallen guardian's face and soul, distorted by Andy's naiveness and ignorance of the man's flaws. In his childish eyes, Ricketts was nothing short of a true national hero, a man of courage, fighting for his values and acting so selfless, giving his life for the boys’. And he was also so very cool! So very cool, such a cool war hero, with his sharp aim and badass aura!

Such was his naive mind's projection of the man he aspired to be. Long dead was “Andrew Reiff” from a past desperately buried underneath years upon years of hatred and fear - murdered by the land of old, torn from the boy's mushy mind and locked away for eternity.

Somehow, someway, bits and pieces of that lost child would find themselves seeping back into his head during those late, warm nights, spent gazing at his tent's tarp and daydreaming of a future meant for someone else. At those times, when W’s insane buzzing had died down, when he found himself far away, hidden from Ines’ cold glares and Hoederer’s wary sight, he'd start imagining.

It always began with a few shy, uncertain wishes developing in the vast emptiness of his homesick mind. After a few looks at the photograph of himself and the two girls, the darkness of the night around him would begin to shift and change, transporting him into the deepest and most covert recesses of his imagination. Within this land born from longing and melancholy, he'd always find himself wandering the empty streets of the White City, grazing the familiar marbles with his weak touch, brushing his fingers across the grand fountains, the cigarette stench filled hallways, the school corridors and any other place he could still haphazardly remember. With an overwhelming feeling of guilt leading him through the city gates towards the familiar peach orchard, only to be met by rows upon rows of graves, each one of them bleak and depraved beyond comprehension. Bodies protruding from the ground, staring at him, judging his every step, whispering among themselves in sepulchral symphonies of the dead. Each one of their faces, reminiscent of someone he's seen before. Someone he's killed before. 

The sun was nowhere to be seen, hidden beyond a flock of gray clouds, unmoving and endless. His clothes, all torn and covered in blood incessantly seeping from his palms. At the very end of his path, accompanied by a cruel funeral dirge, stood the very personification of his guilt and regrets. With her overgrown hair freely rolling around the grass, her sharp gaze fixed on the approaching boy, the reaper in the form of a distorted image of no one else but his blue haired friend was there to judge him. Andy always felt as if she was the one person he brought the most pain upon with his selfishness and mindless choice. Someone he once held so dear, was now right in front of him, staring into the depths of his soul with a gaze so unlike her. With her halo dim and her wings shattered, he could feel an overwhelming cold pulsating off of her, washing over him and enveloping him whole. Even if he tried to speak, to ask and beg for forgiveness, he couldn't. He wanted to drop to his knees and apologize until his lungs became swollen, until his throat dried up, until his vocal cords gave out and broke like a guitar’s string pulled too sharply.