Once Together, Then Never Forever

• Peter Mikikis, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2021

Every day is the same grey. As the walls grow around me, my mind grows blank, as the clock ticks away on the day. Every day is the same boring day, a grey world with no life or happiness. As I lie down and stare at the ever-expanding blank canvas called a roof, I go back to a time I was happier, and the day that happiness left. Going back in my mind, there were fun days that I used to live through but no matter what my mind always goes back to that day. That day, when I awoke, I already knew what was going to happen, I didn’t want it to happen, I wanted to stay in these fun days but all good thing must come to an end. I walk out of my house but only my body leaves. My mind is trapped in my head unable to escape from my own thoughts. I make my way down the road as I always had throughout the years. I cut through a couple of bushes to make my way to the side of a street, but as I make it there a wave rushes through me, an electrical current through my body. As I walk down the street this feeling slowly starts getting worse. I start tripping over my own feet, my mind slowly starts to go blank. The grey expanse starts to capture my heart and mind as I slowly drift away, slowly losing myself to expanse of grey, this infinite world of nothingness. It nearly takes over me but just as I’m about to be taken in by it a mysterious voice plays in my ear. It’s the sound of a girl, a voice I will never forget. when break out of my trance, I see her face, no matter how long it’s been I will always remember her face. When I awoke from my trance like state my hand was being held hostage by another as I’m walked down this street. As we pull up to the driveway I greeted with a sea of people, all of them with all sorts of different items, but all of them had one thing in common, they were gifts. Gifts for the owner of this house and their daughter, they’re moving away. The girl I had been with since I can remember, who I had spent all my happiest and saddest moments with was now leaving. Leaving her family, leaving her friends…and leaving me. As I work my way through the crowd up to her, I start to remember all the fun times, all the happiness we shared, but it all came to a screeching halt. As a gift I just give her a card, a story and I leave. I escape to a hill of the edge of town which overlooks the exit, and as their car leaves for the last time so does all the colour from my world. The grey expanse takes over.