I haven't written prose in awhile...

He rocked back and forth on his bed, knees to his head.

"I didn't want it to end like this."

"No one ever does."

He looked up for a second, and through the deep shadows concealing his eye sockets she could barely sense the glimmer of tears. He sniffed, and wiped his hands over his cheeks roughly. He looked away.

"Yeah, what do you know about anything?"

She looked down at her feet. The soles were black with soot.

"I know a little," she said quietly.

He stopped rocking.

The soot was thick on her shoes. She scraped her feet together, right over left, trying to clear some of it away. To make them clean again. She just found more layers of soot. When she looked up, he was staring at her, eyes barely visable in the deep shadows of his eye sockets, poking out just above his knees which he still clung to, tight against his chest. His face was dark, part from the shadows, and part from the smoke and debris. She tilted her head and looked curiously at him for a moment, and then sighed and looked back down at her shoes.

"I didn't want to die alone," he whispered.

"Don't ever say anything like that again!" she snapped at him, eyes suddenly full of fire. "Don't ever say anything so horrible. You're not alone. You've never been alone."

I feel alone, his eyes said to her.

"I feel alone."

She was quiet for a minute, looking back at her shoes.

"I know," she said, finally.

He buried his face in his knees again, gripping his legs hard against his small wiry chest as he gasped breath in through clenched teeth.

"Why do bad things happen to good people?" he asked finally, forcing the words out through aching lungs.

She sighed and put a hand up to her forehead, as if the slight pressure could help her think.

"It's the bittersweet. No one really wants a perfect life. It's too boring. If there's no risk, there's no adventure. If there's nothing to lose, there's nothing to gain."

"That's bullshit."

"Maybe..." and she was still for a moment. Then finally, "but it's the only way you can be free. Freedom and fairness don't seem to coexist very well in this world."

But he wasn't listening. His eyes were closed now.