3.Unfair

The third time I opened my eyes, I was standing in the middle of an endless hallway, the immense clock still overlooking me. The clock was stopped, hands all on the 0. On top of it, they appeared, looking down on the poor human I was.

"Here. All you need to do. Is run."

"What? That doesn't mean anything!"

"What else can run, mean? Sometimes words just mean what they are."

As I tried to retort, my attention suddenly shifted away, at the glimpse of his bouncy brown hair.

"Wait for me! I... I Always wanted to see you.... I..."

When I saw him, from afar, with the same sorrowful eyes he had before entering the station, tears were flooding all over my cheeks. I couldn't tell rather it was out of happiness or sadness. Nonetheless, I felt like running to him, hugging him tight around my arms, telling him how much I missed him, how much I was sorry. I wanted to tell him all I kept in me for three years and even before he died. I thought it would help me, I really did. After all he was just there, only 20 meters away from me.

He was only twenty meters away from me and in a minute he wasn't. He ran, after saying something I couldn't even hear. I was taken aback, he was fast, although he was never, although he never could have been.

"Wait! Wait! Hey you! Make him wait! You told me you would grant me! This in not what you said!"

"Nothing is so easily Given. I told you. All you need to do, is take the fruit and run. You already took the fruit, now run."

I looked at him with incomprehension and hanger. He was mocking me, sharp grin fixed on his face, nearly showing is white and pointed teeth. I wished to go up and push him from the clock, so he wouldn't be higher than me anymore, and maybe, I could finally look down on him as well.

"You better run, or you won't be able to get him before he dies."

"What???! "

My face was deformed completely, I couldn't believe my ears. I was betrayed again. Yet, despite my hateful expression, the snake-like child didn't bite an eye.

"Look, the clock is working again. Your friend, die around 5, when the clock get to that point, your friend will die again. "

"You Lied to me! How can you! How is it even possible?! You said you would grant me!!"

My voice rose, shrill and poisonous, full of anger and hatred. I spited ill words and showed murderous attempt to a being I didn't know the power, all so implicated on the thought that it could either be the reality, or a simple fruit of my broken imagination. It could have been something more, a manifestation of something greater than human. However, once again, the curious being didn't bat an eye, more than that he looked like they were looking even more down on me.

"Human really do think whatever they want, don't they? You only listen to what you want, although I told you. No matter what happens after you take the fruit is up to you. But if you want I can put an end to all this."

"NO! Wait It just doesn't make sens... I!... I... I will run! I will run, He can't run for long anyway."

My legs started to run with all the energy I had, the heavy sound of the clock ringing on my ears accompanied the taping music of my shoes on the floor.

I ran, as far as I could, I kept on running in the endless hallway, taking any turn he was taking, getting into any room he was entering. I ran for hours, and my muscles were soaring, cramps blooming as I was yelling his name to the point my voice broke. I was in complete incomprehension once again. It was supposedly impossible for him to run so fast and for so long.

"Wait for me ! Why aren't you waiting! Why are you running away from me?! Why are you letting me behind?!!!"

My foot got tangled up with each other, making me miserably meet the floor all in tears.

"Why is it always like this... Why are you always living me behind... Why did you have to..."

My voice was shaky and broken, throat too full of phlegm to make it loud and clear. I could have drowned in it as it was mixed with my blood. Raising my head, I saw him, standing there in the middle of the rails. He was staring at me, eyes full of melancholy, iris looking emerald under the artificial lights.

"Why are you looking at me like that? Don't be sad... Life was hard you know...without you... But... We can only go back... I...all you need is coming back to me. The... The snake, he told me, that everything that happens here depends on me... So I... I surely can take you back... E... Even if it's a dream.... I can take you back!"

I was getting a bit desperate. My mind was a mess, trying to figure out if it was real or not, to figure on what foot it had to dance. My mind was trying to protect my weak self, yet I was hopeful.

" We can be together once again! Right? "

I crawled on the floor wet of my blood, tears and phlegm. I looked pitiful, disgusting maybe for and external eyes. Yet, he smiled at me, warmly making his cheeks turn slightly pink.

It felt bad, showing him this side of me, I had to change my attitude, laugh a bit, so he would see I wasn't all that pathetic. My laugh still felt fake, all too shaky and full of tears to ever sound close to a real one.

"Hahaha, see you are smiling, you look better when you smile....OK I'm coming to you, but you...you need to move from there it's dangerous. Alright?"

He didn't move an inch, although I might have looked completely hopeless, although I was repeating the same demand over and over again as I was standing up. He didn't move an inch. He was just smiling at me.

"Move! Please! Don't just look at me like that! Don't smile at me with those sad eyes again!! Stop it, please move!!!!"

A grinding sound rose, with it my blood and my heart frozen. My body started to shake, ready to curl up in my self. He wasn't so far anymore, he was once again in front of me.

Just like that time, he was so close to me, but I was still in the incapacity to do anything. I was powerless, at that time, and during three long years.

I was struck with the reality that even in such a long time I didn't change for the better at all, still a failure, an unchanged mistake.

Even with that, He smiled at me, waving at me like he was just going to any walk, like he would see me again in a few hours, like all this was nothing. He was too good for me, Too good for someone who left him die twice. No, thousands or billions times, as many times as I dreamt of him succumbing.

I stayed still, all along, as I saw his body getting crashed by the noisy train. All along, I kept watching his body fly, his blood flood, his bones getting dislocated and breaking under the pressure of the impact. I stayed still, tears flooding in a torrent I wished would blur my vision.

"No!" I cried out; "Nooo!!!!Nooo!Nooo! Please... No!...aahh... Please no!"

I was curled up in my self, as if this position would protect me from the scenery of horror, as if it would protect me from my trauma, as if everything would be fine again. Like a baby in their mother womb, protected from any arm of the scary outside world. It was overwhelming, I could even hear my nerves break while I saw his blood tainting the white ground, painting it dreadfully, giving the station morbid touch.

It was unfair, so unfair that the train was to pass as if nothing. It was cruel as the train kept on moving on even after crushing a young man who did nothing wrong. The train should have stopped with its outrage -I though, It should have stopped like everything else. But it didn't, the world was just cruel for having continued running, living a dead young man behind.

"So you failed."

"It's unfair...so unfair..."

"What's unfair? Life is like that, isn't it? What did you expect? For everything to stop ? For-"

"YES! I wish... I wish for everything to stop! Why does everyone have to live their life as if nothing happened? Why do they have the chance to live while he didn't?! Isn't it unfair?! He was nothing! So insignificant earth kept on cycling as it's always done. He was nothing to this world...but to me... He was much more... so precious I felt like my world crumbled... Even so, the world didn't...."

The snake didn't say a world, still looking down on my crawling self.

"Have you given up yet?"

"Huh?"

"I asked if you have given up yet."

The clock wasn't making any noise anymore. Drown in the complete silence I looked at him. It was quite, a weird type of peace, a morbid type of heaven.

"I... I haven't given up."