Listen to Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex
Las Mortis was a lie.
I was probably the only person to see it that way but as the head of the city it meant a lot. I was so damn sick of that hell hole, it had sucked the very last bits of emotion out of me. I was just a marionette in my own world; a little pathetic, if you think about it.
At the young age of eighteen I had run away from my friends and my home, to build up a luxury gambling city, but it had been quite a while since I had left and I rarely ever thought about my past life, it was like I was living someone else's life now.
The first few months after leaving had been really rough for me, I had often thought about going back but my pride had always won. It would have been really embarrassing to just come back after leaving so dramatically. I had often thought about writing them but what would the letter have said? Hey, I regret everything; I'm sorry for leaving? So, I had just lived on, slowly forgetting my past life and trying to find comfort in my new, dangerous world.
Don't get me wrong, I liked my profession, I was rich and got to manage an entire system of games and money which I myself had created. Still, something inside of me was dying every time I woke up and went to sleep without making anyone's day significantly better, without making any progress, without feeling alive.
I sometimes regretted my decision of living the life of a god, being invincible when your mental health screams at you to throw yourself from the highest building of your city wasn't necessarily the easiest thing to deal with.
On some sunny day, I took my daily visit to my horse, pretty much the only thing that would make me smile ever. Aquarius, my beautiful black horse whit it's calm, dark eyes was the only creature I would trust these days. I walked down towards the barn; I liked Las Mortis in the morning hours, it felt refreshing after a night filled with sweat, cigarette smoke and alcohol. It felt harmless and real, if that made any sense.
Like every other day, I slowly opened the barn door and made my way over to my horse.
"Good morning." I smiled, giving her a piece of apple and eating the other half. "Let's take you to the paddock, shall we?" She followed me without me having to tie a rope to her, she just trotted after me through the empty streets of Las Mortis because we knew each other well enough.
"There you go." I said, opening the gate for her. Just after I had closed it, one of my servants came running to me.
"Good morning, what's the hurry?" I asked.
"There's somebody at the main entrance for you, he said he is an old friend." The boy said, making me curious. I don't really have friends, who could it be?
"Did he tell you his name?"
"Of course, sorry I should've said that first. He said his name is Ray."
My blood froze in my veins. Could it really be...
"Thank you, I will take care of it. You're allowed to go." With furrowed eyebrows I walked towards the entrance, playing with the key bundle in my hands. Approaching it, I went slower with each step because the figure on the other side of the gate did look familiar.
"It really is you." I mumbled, loud enough for the other to hear me. I stared at the boy, no the man I hadn't talked to in almost five years. Millions of thoughts of apologies, explanations and what else overlapping themselves in my mind.
"Mo." Oh how I had missed being called this name.
"Ray." I answered.
"You wanna like, let me in?" The man outside asked.
I nodded and unlocked the gates with trembling hands, not looking away from him for one second, as if I feared he would disappear. When I managed to unlock the gates, I stood awkwardly in front of my old friend. Ray huffed and suddenly embraced me, hugging the past five years away, making both of us forget our mistakes. There we stood, hugging each other tightly, trying to express the unspoken.
"I never thought I would ever see you again." I stated, stepping away to look Ray up and down. He hadn't changed that much, he just looked more grown-up.
"So did I."
"Come on, let me show you around." So, I did. I showed him the hotels, the gambling halls, the barn, the restaurants; but also, small details like the purple glass around the city's lanterns, the flowers I had planted, the paintings that were hung on the walls.
Should I be apologising right now? Both of us thought.
I told him all about how I had extreme luck in one of my games and I had won the property of Las Mortis, about how I had built up a well-known empire. I left out the parts when I had sat there, crying myself to sleep because I had missed my friends so bad; how I had become an emotionless silhouette. But now wasn't the right time to explain.
At some point I stopped my story telling to talk about the elephant in the room. "Why...are you even here?"
"Well, I felt like the time had come to find you. I also wanted to surprise the others."
"What so you mean by surprise?"
"I was thinking that you could maybe come back or at least visit." Ray answered slowly. "Everything just started to remind me of you but I didn't want to talk about it to Allan and Evelyn since you're a very sensitive topic, especially for Allan. Please come back to Angel Valley, I miss you."
I miss you.
It silenced my head. The very sentence I had been afraid of but had also craved the most. Still, my pride was mocking my behaviour.
"Yeah...–no. This is a terrible idea. That would be the most embarrassing moment of my life. I don't even think they'd want to see me." I answered hastily, before the thoughts of my friends finally welcoming me back home could get too realistic.
"Oh, come on now. We are your friends!"
"You're not my friends, Ray. At least I wouldn't call myself your friend if I were you. Since I ran away from you, dreaming about my own gambling city. I really thought this would make me happy and now it's too late. Here I am, with my own addicting city and lots of money but it's draining me on a daily basis. I ran away to make my life better, I put the past five years of my life in this city and I'm still not happy! I mean how can someone's life possibly be that embarrassing?" I shouted. My old friend was quiet for a minute.
"You know, I'm not telling you that to convince you but I think they would forgive you, if you came back. God damn it, even if they don't do, I will because you were and still are my best friend, no matter what. We promised that each other, remember?"
I sighed deeply, trying my very best to swallow my pride. Realistically, I could never forgive myself if Ray would leave without me and everything would just go back to normal.
"Fine," I finally said. "I'm coming with you."
"Well...this actually went easier than I thought."
Later he wondered what led him to agree to Rays suggestion. He thought it was just because he managed to visualize his problems and this made him realize that a break from the location that caused most of them would probably help.
Or he realized that all the time in Las Mortis his only desire had been, to visit his friends.
