Stolen Voices ✓

March 1st

"Well common now," she states, rolling her eyes. 

Elias grins, nodding his head as he jogs to catch up to her. Surprising himself and her when he grabs onto her hand. His warm palm, cupping hers as both ignore the feeling of fire that courses through them. At this moment, all thoughts of that night vanish, all mental illnesses scorned.

With Mara, he was just Elias.

With Elias, she was just Mara.

They are enigmas to each other, puzzle pieces to a two-piece perplexity. He is a lingering match and she is a flickering flame. They reign power collectively. He is her calm and she is his storm, a paradox to the world they comprise.

Noiselessly Elias follows her, his warm hand in hers, ignoring the itching feeling of anxiousness to let go of her touch. All the same, she guides him, shutting out the voices in her head that scream into her subconscious.

She continues to guide through the building, all the way up to the rooftop garden. The breeze whips through Mara's hair, pushing it away from her face as she smiles towards Elias, showing off every feature of his. He looks at her, his eyes taking her in, memorizing very freckles dotting her nose before he glances to the sky. Extending his arm, he traces the outline of the bunches of clouds. She watches him do this calmly.

"She was afraid of height, but she was much more afraid of never flying," Mara whispers, "Atticus."

Elias peers at her, watching as with a curious expression she stares towards the world subordinate them. Even at this height, everything is meager. Specks of a bigger something that, when looked at from a certain distance, are really nothing. Like a cloak of invisibility, disappearing into a pure memory as they raised towards the atmosphere.

"Do you ever worry about that?" Mara stares at Elias, her voice not above a murmur. It's carried away with the sharpness of wind, her puff forming circles of heated fog from the slit in her lips. Her blue eyes contrast the white of the winter world, so bright they appear to be see-through.

Elias shakes his head only imperceptibly, his eyebrow raised in a question. He watches as Mara glances back towards the ground below, covered in a sheath of snow. The colorful flowers are hidden beneath the white canvas of wintry rain. He looks at her side profile, watching her take in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the crisp air.

"That we won't ever fly, you know, never really live up to anything. That we will be stuck here forever." She rocks her head, pushing her hair away from her face as she hugs herself, comforting herself.

"My biggest fear in life is that I will forever be stuck in this cycle," her hands move around in loops, animatedly as she speaks with so much enthusiasm. Like she is creating the words for Elias to see with his own eyes, drawing them out for him in the wind.

Time is everything we have and don't, Elias drafts out in his notebook, giving it to Mara. She glances over his words, breathing them in, reciting them quietly under her breath. Her fingers, brushing over them, chipping red nails, grazing the ink.

"You're right," she laughs, her chest vibrating, shaking her head as if to rid her of its demons, "because in the end, we all die."

It is the truth. There is an end to everything. The greatest spoiler in life is that everyone dies in the end. Nobody can outlive time, it is eternal and never ending. The clock, ticking over another bolded number, repeating its actions day after day. Time will be everything they have and everything they will lose.

Holding onto each other's hands for balance, they stare out into the world. 

Hearing as the chiming bell signifies the end of school, watching as crowds of teenagers, none of which looked the same, storm out the doors. Sensing as the wind whips against their face, leaving their cheeks and the tips of their ears tinted red. They watch as the flurry of life shrivels to nothingness before they followed suit.

Even into the night when Elias sneaks into his treehouse, escaping his mother's tears, he runs Mara's disturbances through his head. 

All the same, as she sneaks out of the house to escape her mother's vengeance, she traces the scars on her arms. Repeating Elias's words about life as a mantra, branding it onto her arms.

They listened as the world goes deafened with nighttime. Only a few cars to linger the streets, the flickering lamp post to guide her way. The smell of the night's fresh air, a blank navy state for morning awakeness.

Time is everything they don't have.

---

Authors Note:

So they held hands, which is progress, of course it will be slow progress.

Thoughts?

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- ❤ Nia

Edited 3/29/22