Sketch one: Life is what you make it

The blade glittered in Lyra's hand. She never thought it would come to this. She had always imagined, clutching onto any possible hope, that everything would be made better. She emitted a hollow laugh. Those days were over.

She lay the flat of the knife along her wrist. There were several delicate, pale lines along it already. Did she really have to do this? Another tear trickled down her cheek. Yes, she did.

Silently she raised the knife to her heart, and took a deep breath. Suddenly a hand placed itself over hers and softly pulled it down, away from her chest, and pried the knife from her rigid fingers. "You do this too much," a voice murmured.

Lyra slowly raised her head a fraction; eyes red and swollen with crying. Standing there was a boy, no older than her, with chalk white skin and hair of such a light blond that it looked like sunlight. She had no idea who he was, or how he came to be there. The flat had been empty. But she was too completely crushed to care. Her hand darted out desperately to snatch the knife back, but the strange boy held it just out of her reach.

"What were you trying to do?" His voice sounded like it had been born from the silence, and was so part of it that Lyra couldn't tell if he had spoken at all. It seemed as natural and imperceptible as a wisp of smoke, or a heartbeat. "If you were watching, you'd know," she replied bitterly. Her voice, in contrast, was a harsh, quivering rasp. "I was trying to kill myself. Give it back."

"Is it so hard? Is everything so hard?"

The question was unexpected. Lyra stood up sharply, shaking with surpressed frustration, rage, and despair. "Yes! You don't know how..." she paused, searching for the right words, but none came, so she put her hands to her forehead and sat down again, uttering a deep, shuddering sigh. How could she describe the cage she was trapped in, the web of suffering and resentment which was her life? "I can't do anything," she muttered finally. "Everyone hates me. I hate myself. I don't have any freedom. Every day I feel tired, opressed, and just want everything to go away." She began to cringe as her stomach began to feel like it was twisting.

As if he could sense what she was feeling, the boy set the knife down and sat opposite her.

"Life is a gift. You have to embrace the taste of each new experience,"

"Life is a curse, and every experience is bad,"

"Life brings loving friends,"

"...And takes them away just as fast,"

"When you're alive, you can feel peace, hope, excitement, satisfaction, love and pride like colors of a rainbow,"

"...As well as pain, anger, loss, frustation and stress,"

"When you're alive," the boy said loudly- and his voice was full of meaning, "you can do ANYTHING."

Lyra looked up at him, full of awe at his statement. She gazed at his deep grey eyes, stabbed with strands of white, like burning shreds of pain. He gazed right back, his serious, unreadable expression never changing. "It's your life, Lyra. It belongs to you. You have control over it, nobody else."

Lyra couldn't say anything. His words reverberated around the room, proclaiming their truth. Suddenly she felt a strange clarity spreading through her mind, her body, all of her senses.

"You're working towards YOUR future, your ideal future... and searching to find your true self. Whether people like it or not doesn't matter. Life is difficult, but it's beautiful."

Lyra sighed again, but this time a smile was slowly spreading across her tearstained face.

Of course she could make her life better! The power ahd been with her all along.

She COULD do anything.

Her happiness showed on her face, and the boy saw it and smiled at her warmly.

"How did you..." she began, but he interrupted by placing both his hands over hers. She stared at the slender fingers and delicate translucence of his skin, and gasped at the deathly cold of his touch... and understood.

"I learnt that after it was too late, Lyra. Life is what you make it. Remember that."

A/N: I've decided to upload the rest of these little... prose pieces as one series. More will come when I feel like it.