Unpromised Home

an unfortunate flair for the dramatics

You glance around, sighing in relief as you reach the edge of the crowd. Glancing upwards, you stare at the dark, empty sky. It towers higher than any of the buildings that surround you, dissolving the tops of the towers into murky depths, highlighted only by the stars twinkling in the vastness.

You snap your head down, staring out in front of you. Speaking of stars... Where did Mr. Stars and Stripes get off to?

You step forward, glancing fown the street hidden to you. Well... Fuck. America was no where to be seen, and you have no clue where the hell you were supposed to be heading either. America was too busy with his brooding for you to remember to ask. The only meeting you know he still has to go to is the one with D.C., but you have no clue where to even begin to look for him...

Groaning, you begin to walk down the street. You really should have just stayed in bed today. At least then you wouldn't be wandering around a city at night all alone...

A slam echoes from down an alley. As your heart picks up in pace, so do your footsteps. You glance over your shoulder with each step, swivelling with anxiety with each sound. A shaky breath falls from your lips.

A lightpost flickers out, submerging the area in darkness. You continue to walk forward, the only guidance you get being the glow of another light post at the far end of the street. Your footsteps pick up again at the sound of another crash. Why was everything so much louder in the dark?

This was so ridiculous. Why can't anything just be easy? Just for once you'd like to be able to take the easiest path from point A to point B. No winding mess of a path. No getting lost. No having to go on a mad goose chase to look for someone. Just... Anything else at this point.

You shake your head, taking a moment to lean against the lamppost. You breath deeply, glancing out to the dark street. Your head was beginning to pound in your skull, and an exhaustion seeped into your bones, pressing down on you as though you had been dropped to the bottom of the ocean.

Nothing ever has been simple for you. You've always been pushing yourself to your absolute limit. Studying and studying and studying to the point of breakdowns, only for all that strife and struggle to not be enough in the end. You tried. You swear you tried. But it was never enough. There was always something more to achieve. Someone else better than you. You tried, kicking and screaming, but you failed with little more than a whimper.

You thought about giving up more than once. Dropping your mounds and mounds of work to the bottom of a metal dumpster, leaving the whithered state of your dreams behind. You never did. Your dreams were just too stubborn to release you from their chokehold.

Your breath hitches. You were crying again. You did that a lot it seems. You couldn't handle to struggles of life internally, so you expelled all your worries and concerns in the form of various hormones and other excretory fluids. Also known as tears.

Sighing, you push off the light post. Your body still feels heavy, pressured with each and every single one of your aspirations, and the realization that they are even farther out of reach than normal.

You don't think you're going home anytime soon. The times of sharing silly stories with Dani and complaining about long fast food lines together were nothing but a distant memory. The life you lived then seems so very far away, split from you by decades and decades. Even the farthest out reaches of space seem closer to your reach.

You begin walking away from the lightpost. A yawn slips from your lips, and you shove your hands into your pockets. You were really cold.

"[Name]"

"Huh?" You swivel around, meeting the gaze of America.

"What are you doing?"

"Does it matter?" The country sighs.