August 14th 2019
Hugo Hollands, Age 19
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The air smelled like tar and oranges that had rotted in the heat. August in Ebonreach never felt alive—it only baked what was already dying. The sky hung low, stained the color of rusted copper, and every sound—cars, vendors, the thin whistle of wind—seemed to drag through syrup.
Riley waited by the motorcycle, sunlight pooling over him like molten brass. He stood easy, weight on one leg, shoulders broad enough to make the jacket seams strain. The denim had faded to the color of stormwater, stitched over at the elbows, collar frayed into soft white threads. Beneath it, his T-shirt—once black—was now a weary gray, clinging to the hard lines of his chest.
His skin had that burnished hue people only get from living more outdoors than in, roughened but alive. A pale scar traced under his left eye like a crescent of glass pressed into flesh, another smaller one at his jaw, silvery against the tan. He had been without new wounds for weeks, and the absence of bandages made his face almost unfamiliar, too whole, too calm.
His hair—dark blond streaked lighter by the sun—was cut short at the sides, longer on top, tousled back with his fingers so that one rebellious lock always fell forward again. The wind played with it while he squinted toward the street, cigarette held between his lips. The smoke feathered around his cheekbones, catching the light before dissolving into the August glare.
The stubble on his jaw caught flecks of gold where the sun struck it; his mouth was split in that half-grin caught between mockery and mercy. And his eyes—pale hazel with a ring of green near the iris—carried that distant shimmer of someone who'd seen every kind of fight and still didn't look away. They were steady, calm, but not gentle; more like the stillness of an animal before it strikes.
When he saw me, he flicked the cigarette to the ground, grinding it beneath his boot. "You ready?" His voice rasped low, half-smoked, half-laughing.
I nodded, though my chest felt tight.
"Come on then," he said, tilting his head toward the seat behind him. The motion exposed the hollow at his throat, the chain resting there, dull silver against his skin.
I climbed on, hands hovering before they found his waist. The denim of his jacket was coarse beneath my palms, still warm from the sun. I could feel the solidness of him through it—the muscle and quiet strength, the heat that reminded me he was very much alive.
He turned the key; the frame shuddered up my ribs. His shoulders shifted as he turned the throttle, veins moving like wires under his tanned skin. The city wind caught his hair, and for a second I thought I saw him grin—not at me, not at anything in particular, but at being alive in that precise moment.
When we sped off, the air hit hard and sharp, carrying the scent of exhaust and salt. My forehead brushed the back of his neck once as we turned a corner, and I felt the faint stick of sweat there, the heat of another life I could never keep.
We rode until the streets began to change—the gutters cleaned, the walls less stained, the air less heavy with rot. The nicer part of Ebonreach, where even the pavement looked washed. I watched our reflection pass in a shop window: him, tall and golden in the light, and me behind him, clinging to someone who looked like he could never die.
The engine fell quiet outside a café lined with glass and hanging ferns, its name painted in white cursive on the window. The stillness after the ride pressed on my ears; the world seemed to hold its breath, waiting for us to decide if we belonged there. Riley swung his leg off, the movement easy, practiced. When he took off his helmet, his hair stuck damp against his temples. He raked a hand through it, leaving faint streaks of dust behind.
"Come on," he said, voice low but sure. "You need a good coffee before you turn twenty and lose all your charm."
"Did I have any to begin with?"
He smiled without answering, and that was enough.
Inside, the place smelled of baked sugar and espresso. A fan turned lazily on the ceiling, stirring air that felt too clean to be real. The floor gleamed, the tiles a pale shade that caught our shadows and stretched them thin. Eyes picked us from the counter—people who could tell we didn't fit here. Riley didn't care. He ordered two coffees, paid in crumpled notes, and tapped the counter twice, as though sealing a pact.
We sat by the window, the sunlight sliding through the glass and breaking across his features. The scar under his eye caught the light like a thread of silver. His lashes were long, uneven, and his skin carried the roughness of someone who had healed too often. There was a small cut at the corner of his mouth, no longer bleeding but red enough to show it hadn't been long.
He leaned back, stretching his arm across the backrest. The sleeve of his jacket shifted just enough for me to glimpse a faint bruise trailing from his wrist to his forearm, already yellowing. I wondered how many fights ago it came from, how many he'd forgotten.
He handed me the coffee. The paper cup burned my palms, a sudden reminder that I was here, that this wasn't some dream conjured by guilt or longing.
"Happy birthday," he said. "Even if you hate the word."
"I don't hate it," I lied. "I just don't see the point."
"The point," he said, eyes flicking up to mine, "is that you're still here. That counts for something."
I watched the steam rise between us. The smell was bitter, rich. "You ever think surviving is just another form of losing slowly?"
He chuckled softly. "You talk like you've seen everything already."
"Maybe I have."
"Then see something better for once."
He turned his face toward the window. Outside, the street was washed in sunlight so bright it made the dust shimmer. People passed by—clean shirts, slow steps, faces without hurry. For a second, I imagined we looked like them, two friends wasting time on a summer afternoon.
Riley reached into his pocket and pulled something out—a small copper coin, edges worn smooth. He rolled it between his fingers, then slid it across the table toward me.
"Found this when I was laid up," he said. "Figured I'd give it to someone who might need it more."
I picked it up. The metal was warm from his skin. A faint engraving crossed the center—an old emblem rubbed down to nothing.
"Lucky charm?" I asked.
"Or just proof that things can survive being buried."
He grinned, soft but tired, the kind of expression that made me want to believe him. The light moved again, touching the ridge of his scar, the hollow beneath his cheekbone. For the first time, I noticed how sharp his features had become—like the world had carved him down to essentials.
We sat in silence after that. The sound of the fan, the murmur of strangers, the muted clink of cups—all of it blurred together. I traced the coin with my thumb and thought about what it meant to be given something that had already passed through someone else's pain.
When I looked up, he was watching me. His eyes, half-shadowed by the falling strand of hair, held that steady quiet he always carried before things went wrong.
"Don't lose it," he said. "You might need it someday."
I nodded, but in truth, I already knew I would. Everything I touched had a way of slipping through.
Outside, a bus hissed to a stop. The sound broke the stillness like a blade through cloth. Riley looked toward the noise, then back at me.
"Come on," he said. "Let's ride a little longer before the city remembers who we are. Let me show you the cinema!"
He stood, finished his coffee in one breath, and stretched. The hem of his shirt lifted just enough for me to see the line of his abdomen, the skin marked faintly with old cuts that had healed in different shades. They weren't pretty, but they were his—a history written in flesh.
When he opened the door, the sunlight rushed in, gold and weightless. I followed him out, the bell above the frame ringing once and fading into the afternoon.
The city waited, the streets trembling with heat, and I thought about what he said—that surviving counts. I wanted to believe him. I really did.
The climb up was quieter than I expected. Riley went first, his boots gripping the side ladder as if the metal itself recognized him. The ladder clung to the back of the building, its paint flaked away, bolts rusted but holding steady. He moved with a kind of grace that didn't belong to him—too measured for a man who lived half his life in chaos.
He reached the top and swung himself over, crouching low, scanning the rooftop like a man revisiting an old memory. "Watch your step," he said, his voice softened by the heat "Roof's still got loose gravel from when they redid the insulation."
I followed, palms against the warm steel, heartbeat steady but heavy. When I reached the edge, he was already standing at the top, one hand shading his eyes against the pale gold of the afternoon. The city spread beneath us in uneven layers: rooftops sagging under satellite dishes, the slow crawl of cars below, the hum of conversations rising through cracked vents.
The roof wasn't high, just enough to feel removed from the world without losing its noise. The marquee glowed bright red beneath us—EBON CINEMATIQUE—its lights flickering against the edges of the building, heat still radiating from the walls. Somewhere below, the muffled roll of dialogue drifted up through the vents, the rhythm of a film already halfway through.
"Come here," he said, waving me closer. "You see that small opening there?"
I stepped forward. Between the rusted pipes and the air vent was a gap—thin enough to hide, wide enough to peer through. The faint, bluish light flickered from within.
"That's Hall Twelve," he said. "If I remember right."
"That's… oddly specific."
He grinned, sitting down on the ledge, elbows on his knees. "I used to work here. Construction job. Long time ago. Seven years, maybe. Back then I made sure every place I worked on had something—some little entrance that belonged to me. I figured, I built part of it, I deserve to be here. Even if I can't afford to walk inside, buy a ticket, or sit down like the rest of them."
The thought settled in me, quiet and strange. The wind moved his hair, brushed it across his forehead, and the sunlight caught on the thin scar beneath his eye.
"You worked on this cinema?" I asked.
He nodded, leaning back, looking proud in that unspoken way of people who've built something only to be forgotten by it.
I looked down through the opening. The hall glowed dimly, the silhouettes of seats and the faint roll of a film flickering against the screen. It wasn't clear what the movie was, only shapes and movement, but from this height, it looked soft—like a secret meant to be kept between us and the light below.
Riley sat cross-legged, pulled a blunt from his pocket, and lit it with the small flick of a lighter that had seen too many nights. The paper caught, flared, and softened into ember. He drew in a breath and let it go slow, the smoke rising, then folding into the air around us.
I watched the shape of his jaw as he exhaled, the way the muscle there flexed and relaxed. His eyes half-closed, lashes low, mouth barely parted. It wasn't attraction I understood—it was something heavier, unnamed, the kind that sits behind your ribs and changes the rhythm of your breath.
"So what got you into drugs?" I asked, more softly than I meant to.
He laughed once, the sound low and dry. "Oh, I've been into them long before construction. That part came later, when I thought I could change. I had this picture in my head, you know? Move up to the cleaner end of Ebonreach. Work hard. Be a person."
He passed me the blunt. The paper was warm where his fingers had been. I hesitated before taking it, not because of the smoke, but because of him.
"I told my ringleader I needed time," he continued. "Moved out here, tried to start over. But nothing stuck. And then I went back. Funny thing, huh? One wrong step and it keeps dragging you back down, no matter how far you crawl."
I took a drag. The taste bit the back of my throat—bitter, dry. "I don't think it's that final," I said. "You could've stayed. Construction could've led somewhere."
"Hell no," he said, grinning like he knew better. "That job could've killed me faster than the streets. The pay was barely decent. I got hurt every other week—twisted my ankle once and still had to show up. Broke my finger another time. Bosses were worse than any dealer I've met. At least Cole," he laughed softly, shaking his head, "our leader, is honest about being a bastard."
He leaned back on his hands, elbows brushing the rough concrete, gaze turned to the sky. "You know, that's the strange part. Cole's dangerous as hell, but he's kinder than most of those men who wear hard hats and pretend they're respectable. At least he looks you in the eye when he screws you over."
The light began to shift, sliding from gold to a softer gray, painting the edges of his face in silver. I watched the side of his profile—the bridge of his nose, the line of his throat, the faint shimmer of sweat at his temple. He looked alive in a way I hadn't seen anyone look before.
"Still," I said, quietly. "It could've been something."
He turned to me then, eyes sharp but warm. "You really think people like me get to have something?"
I didn't know what to say. The wind picked up again, and a bit of ash drifted from the blunt and scattered between us.
He smiled faintly. "It's fine. I'm used to building things for others to enjoy."
I looked at him, and for a moment I forgot the city below us, the hum of traffic, the faint, blurred laughter of people walking the bright streets. It was just him—the line of his shoulders, the rasp of his voice, the strange peace that came from watching him breathe.
He handed me the blunt again. I took it, the heat lingering from his hand to mine.
"Guess we both keep building things," I said, staring down at the faint glow of the cinema below, "and then sitting outside them."
He laughed softly, almost kindly. "Yeah. Maybe that's what keeps us from falling apart."
And then he leaned back, looking at the horizon, smoke threaded past his face like it belonged there. I watched it drift until it disappeared into the light.
Birthday. A reminder of what never came back—cake, warmth, my mother humming. I sometimes wonder if those memories were stitched together from things I wanted to remember, not things that happened. I could almost see her hands cutting slices of air instead of cake.
Riley lay on his side, arm bent beneath his head, the blunt still burning lazily between his fingers. The smoke curled upward, thin and uncertain, vanishing into the violet of the evening. The cinema below them flickered through its final reel — a wash of light through the vent that brushed the underside of his jaw, casting the faintest shimmer on the scar below his eye.
He exhaled, turned his face toward me, and said, "You know, we've got this thing—this ritual, in the ring. Whenever it's someone's birthday, we bring them, you know…" he paused, grin tugging slow at one corner of his mouth, "a bunch of girls to have fun with. Is that… is that to your liking?"
I frowned. "A bunch of girls to—what, sleep with?"
He nodded, lazy. "Yeah. Pretty much the case."
I blinked, caught between amusement and unease. "No, no, I'm not— That's not to my liking."
He smirked, the corners of his mouth twitching, not mockery but some quieter kind of knowing. "Yeah," he murmured, "I thought so."
I tilted my head. "What do you mean?"
"You're weird," he said, still smiling.
That made me laugh, softly. "You keep talking in fragments," I said. "Just tell me what you mean."
He leaned in then, slow enough that I saw the shift of his shoulders before I felt it — the slight scrape of denim as his arm brushed the ground beside me. The scent of him drifted close: smoke, skin, the faint metallic tang of sweat warmed by sun. My breath caught. My pulse moved too quickly in my throat.
"You don't do most things people on the streets do," he said, voice quieter now, almost thoughtful. "You're still clinging to how life was before you ended up here. Little routines. Small habits. Like you're waiting for someone to say it's all a mistake and you can go home."
He was close enough that I could see the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, the way his pupils widened a little in the dim. His tone wasn't cruel, not even teasing. It was observant, like he was reading something I didn't know I'd written on myself.
I forced a small laugh. "You make it sound like a bad thing."
He shrugged, still holding my gaze. "Not bad. Just not real."
I looked away, toward the edge of the roof where the city lights had begun to shiver into being. It smelled faintly of distant frying oil, warm brick, and the last traces of his smoke. The wind tugged at my hair, cool against the heat of my skin.
"I like to think it's real," I said finally.
Riley's laugh was soft, almost tender, though I wasn't sure he meant it to be. "Yeah," he said. "That's what makes you weird."
He leaned back again, eyes on the sky. I tried to breathe, slow and even, but my lungs didn't listen. Something inside me moved —not quite ache, not quite longing— just the unsettling realization that I didn't want to climb down from that rooftop, not yet, not while the sound of his voice still lingered in the air.
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May 22nd, 2025
Hugo Hollands, Age 24
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The ground had teeth. It bit into my knees, each ridge of gravel cutting through the fabric, grinding into skin. I pressed my hand to the wall to steady myself, but the bricks slipped under my palm, slick with rain and grime. The city had been washed a hundred times and never came clean. It smelled of wet dust and something sour—like rust, like old breath trapped between the buildings.
My other hand covered my mouth. I could feel my pulse hammering through it. The sound still escaped, those awful, broken sobs that come when the body decides to speak for you. The kind that claw their way out, choking, animal. The air shuddered in and out of me like it couldn't find a place to stay.
My forehead touched the wall. The chill sank through me, through the bone. I wanted to dissolve into it, let the concrete swallow me, leave nothing behind but the echo.
I hate myself for all of it.
The thought wasn't a whisper. It was a scream turned inward, scraping against my ribs. For never being there when I should've been. For being there and doing nothing. For watching it all rot while I pretended it was out of my hands.
I dragged in a breath, tasted salt and dirt. The sob that followed tore something open.
I wish I could be brave enough to end it.
It wasn't a threat. It was a confession. Quiet. Honest. The kind that doesn't come from courage but from fatigue.
I pressed my knuckles against my teeth until I felt the sting. The rain had started again, soft at first. The drops slid down my face, mixed with the tears, carried them somewhere I couldn't follow.
There was no saving a man like me. No prayer would reach this far down. No light would ever choose to stay. I'd ruined everything that dared come close—people, chances, whatever scraps of goodness I'd ever been handed. I could almost laugh at the precision of it.
The worst of them all.
The words sat in me like a stone. Heavy. Certain.
The alley was narrow and deep. A single light above flickered and hummed, casting the wall into brief, uneven life before dimming again. My shadow kept disappearing, coming back thinner, more distorted each time. I stared at it until the shapes blurred.
The air was dense enough to choke on. I could hear water dripping from the gutter, counting the seconds I didn't want to have. The taste of copper lingered in my mouth. I didn't know if it was from the rain or from biting too hard.
Hanging between what's righteous and what's rotten.
That line kept circling, repeating like a curse. My chest heaved. My hands wouldn't stop trembling. The world had narrowed to a small, wet patch of stone and the sound of me falling apart.
Somewhere behind the noise of the city, I thought I heard someone laugh—faint, almost kind. I looked up, but there was no one. Just the light buzzing its last breath, the sky too far above to care.
I wanted it to stop—the heart, the noise, the memory of everything I couldn't undo. I wanted the night to close in, wrap itself around me, make me disappear.
But it didn't.
It just stood there, watching.
I turned, slow and unsteady, my body dragging through air that felt too dense to breathe. The alley behind me was narrow and slick, its walls sweating rain, the puddles catching what little light bled from above. The whole place seemed to pulse, faintly alive, as if the dark itself had a heartbeat.
And there it was.
The pendant.
It rested on the ground where I'd dropped it, half-sunk in the shallow film of water. The chain had coiled in on itself, a tangle of silver veins glimmering faintly beneath the drizzle. Its casing, all sharp spires and latticework filigree, looked less like jewelry and more like a weapon disguised as devotion. Beads of rain clung to its wires, trembling as if in worship.
Inside the glass, the blood hadn't spoiled.
It was still perfect—red as if it had just been taken, smooth as breath held too long. It didn't move, but it wasn't still either. It seemed to hum beneath the surface, alive in a way that mocked everything else around it. The water couldn't dilute it. The light couldn't claim it. It remained untouched, pulsing faintly in the dark, as though time itself had been forbidden to touch it.
I crouched without meaning to, the ground soaking through my jeans, and stared. The pendant's edges caught the dim light, throwing it back in slivers that quivered against the wet brick. It was beautiful—terribly so. Not like something made by hands, but born from a need too deep to name.
The rain whispered against it, ran down its glass body, but never sank through. Every drop slid clean off, leaving the blood unmarred. It almost seemed to breathe with me—inhale, exhale, a quiet rhythm that blurred the space between what was living and what wasn't.
My hand twitched. I didn't touch it. Couldn't. The thought alone sent something cold crawling through my chest.
It should have felt like guilt. It should have felt like dread.
But it didn't.
That blood was mine in a way I didn't understand—something I'd made, something I'd fed, something that waited for me.
The light above flickered once, the world dimming around us. The pendant held its glow a heartbeat longer, as if defying the dark, before the alley went still again.
It was waiting.
For what, I didn't know.
But it was waiting.
We used to play out in the rain
Your mother scolded us
She said that we were bad
I thought I'd better go on home (stepped it up and)
You watched till I was gone
Ooh, you looked so sad
I picked you up when you fell and cut your knee
I told you not to cry and held you close to me
As I was running through the storm
You broke so many rules in school
I took the blame for you
I guess I was the fool