This is something I really am liking. I have a new obsession with the manga and television show called Mars, which is really good, despite the fact that the show is in Mandarin Chinese. But I was sitting there watching it yesterday crying because it was so sad.

So this is very similar to one of the storylines in the manga/show: The suicide of a twin brother. I was sobbing over the part where the remaining twin's finacee found the dead twin's suicide note three years after his death. And the fact that the remaining twin had given up almost everything he loved just to save her--really sweet. This is me getting in tough wih my girly side.

So now, here's what this was written for: A contest on GaiaOnline. The prompt: "They never realized, as they buried him, that he wasn't as dead as he appeared." No word limit; it just had to be over 500 words.

So, enjoy. This is currently under a working title: "Never Run Again". the song, incidentally, is by the band The Working Title. Hehe.

The lyrics at the beginning of each part are all from songs off the album About-Face by The Working Title.

Warning: This story contains suicide, self-inflicted bodily harm, and possibly sexual content.

Please R&R.

Prologue

Everybody wants to see God—
So clear, with their own two eyes;
I feel alone.
-"The Crash"

To understand why he did it—to know what was going through his mind as he fell—that became my purpose. To be able to look at his grave and see beyond the cold grey marble, beyond the grass and dirt and flowers, down deep into his soul, his heart—that became my goal. It was something I needed; closure, of sorts. A reason not to cry when I think about him.

Staring up at the rooftop, toward the clouds and the wide railing on which he stood—those were the final moments of my life, even if I wasn't physically dead. Forever captured in my gaze, emblazoned on my mind for an eternity, blocking out memories I had shared with him, the scene would haunt my dreams until I joined my brother in the ground.

I clearly remember the day, just like the cliché that it was yesterday. My mind refuses to let me rid my conscious of it, so I try to ignore it. I try to ignore the bright sun that day, surrounded by puffy white clouds that promised no rain. Inadvertently, I remember how normal the day had started out: Elijah was hitting on all the girls he saw while I followed beside him, exactly like him in every way except personality. That may be the reason I never noticed the slight changes that I remember now—the way he hugged me before we went into our homeroom; the way he gave his girlfriend one last, long kiss; the way he paid attention to his surroundings, a wide smile on his face as he gazed around himself. I never noticed, and I never knew the difference until one of his friends came to find me after lunch.

Elijah stood on the railing atop the main school building, five stories up. A crowd had assembled below, their faces turned upward as I fought my way through them to look. Crying out his name, I ran up the stairs, and when I got to the roof, he was still there. It wasn't a matter of balance that made him fall; the railing was flat on top, half a foot wide. It wasn't the wind, either, even so high up. It was his own problem—his secret internal battle—that sent him over the edge, no matter what I said to him. My mind shut it out, and it took me a few hours to remember it, but he was crying, the tears streaming down his face and falling five stories to the ground. The last thing he said to me was, "We'll be together again."

Then he spread his arms and let himself fall forward.

I remember the sickening smack as his body hit the concrete, and the screams from down below. I rushed back down the stairs in a daze, the deluded idea that he had survived clouding all other thought. There was no way my brother—my twin—had just committed suicide.

My memory doesn't show me any blood, but I'm sure there was a lot of it. I vaguely remember a wet, sticky substance on my hands and clothes as I held the body, waiting for help to arrive—I can only assume it was blood. That, or it was the life I used to live falling through my grasp.