Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in this story. As for now, I wish I did own them because I'd be really rich. But I guess a person can only dream. lol.

Author's note: Yes, I tried to write a good story. It's PG13 because you know why (look at the title). Eh, flame it, praise it, do what you have to. I was just bored and tried to write something. 1534 words long, that's a lot for me. And yes, I'm morbid, I have a way too overactive imagination, lol.

    His head bled from the constant impact it had with the concrete floor. His fragile six year old body had been abused by his father, the other person besides his mother that should have loved him enough to comfort him. Not have an unexplainable abhorrence to him that he made his son suffer.
    Today was the same as every day torturous day, but today his life was almost lost unlike the other days where he was just roughed up and locked in his room. No, today he hadn't done anything wrong, just ran home from school to sing a song to his mother that he had learned that day. He didn't expect to see his father at home towering over his mother who was crouching on the floor, newly formed bruises on her arm.
    She had seen him enter through the door and pleaded with her eyes for him to run, but he didn't, he ran to his father and kicked him in the leg. The anger over took his judgment and as he ran into the basement he realized it was a mistake.
    Before he reached the bottom of the stairs he felt himself being flung down, only to have his arm gripped so hard he swore it would break and his face slapped so that his lip puffed and bled some. His small form withered under his father's and before he could get away again he was forced down and his head was being constantly bashed into the floor. He cried out for his mother until the pain became so intolerable that he passed out.
    The slamming door coming from over head woke him in a groggy state, his head throbbed and, try as he might to sit up, all he resulted in doing was rolling onto his side. He reached to the back of his head and could feel hair sticky from the blood. He felt the softness of his mother's arms slipping underneath his body and carrying him out to her car. The last thing he heard her say before he blacked out again was a promise that he'll never be hurt again.

    He stirred from the dream and could feel tears that he must have wept in the unconsciousness, wetting his face. He sat up from the inside of his sleeping bag, the cool summer night breeze sent shivers up and down his spine. He could hear the deep breathing of sleep coming from his traveling mates. The elder guy to his right and the red headed girl to his left.
    The girl, people would tell them they were in love and that they looked cute together. But what was love? All love was is a life full of someone living in horror and ended up with that person being hurt. That's all he knew of love, not the deep feelings as everyone always described it as. Love had always confused him though. If it wasn't love, then what did he feel for his mother? Respect, yes, admiration, defiantly, but his definition of love, no. He didn't hate her and he never physically harmed her like his father had. His feelings ran beyond the respect and admiration though, and he couldn't explain them.
    The thought frustrated him so much he felt tears threatening to spill. Many criticized him of having little or no emotions. How was he supposed to show emotion though when he didn't even know what they were and when he used to be punished for showing any? But at this moment his emotions were evident, the only ones seeing were the many stars twinkling dimly in the blackness.
    He swore there was a world beyond what everyone saw in the sky, and he made up his mind one day when he was younger. The blackness everyone saw as the sky was a cloth of some sort covering up the Earth. The stars twinkling were little holes in the cloth, and every time they twinkled it meant that something had momentarily blocked the light from going through that hole. The moon was a temporary glance into that world, only to be sewn back up again at the end.
    He hadn't noticed when he stood up and started to walk, his mind had been so occupied that his actions were pushed behind. He stopped at the edge of a cliff, it would be so easy. Many days he would think about it, but it was easy to ignore, until voices started to silently torment only him. They would tell him of the satisfaction it would give him and everyone else if he were to rid the world of his presence.
    He heard them out and even thought of the logic in it. It had to be true, or they wouldn't be telling him this. If anyone truly cared for him they would have heard his silent suffering and helped him through it, but they didn't. And he was being too dense to realize that he never sent out any signs of his pain. How were they to know if they never saw this side of him?
    His eyes filled with tears of the thought of his mother's despair as she cried by his grave side. She wouldn't be able to deal with it and he knew that. Even his father's death threats to her, telling her that if she left he would hunt her down and kill her, weren't enough to scare her. She had told him she wanted to keep him safe and didn't want his father to beat him to the point of near death again. That's why when questioned at the hospital she told them everything, having his father arrested and them living in an apartment until they were financially stable enough to move into a home of their own.
    He stared down at the blackness below the cliff. His mother would suffer, but the rest of the world would be free of that. This was his moment, and the voices were talking quickly in his head telling him that this was his moment. So what was holding him back from this one moment? Every day he would think of ways but was reduced to only thinking of them. His friends traveling along with him had kept him from proceeding with them, he couldn't kill himself in front of them.
    There was an eerie quiet and stillness about his surroundings that scared him. It was like everything around him was holding its breath anticipating his next move and willing him to second think what he was about to do. All he could do was stare into the black pit below, nothing going through his mind, yet everything hitting him all at once. The tears stinging his eyes and spilling passed his lids to make their trail down his cheeks until they reached the end and had to fall.
    He heard the snapping of a twig behind him and he knew exactly who had stepped upon it. She hadn't gone beyond that point from behind him, he knew of that, and he couldn't tear himself away from looking down into the darkness and crying. He could her his sighs as he cried and wondered if she could too. He tried to stop the crying, but he couldn't, everything was too much and now she stood just behind him by a few feet staring at him.
    "Ash?" her voice was just a whisper as if she was frightened or in a hope of not scaring him.
    That's when he couldn't face it, a single voice was now yelling above all those other ones to think of another way. He couldn't live with this constant need for death and it told him to turn away from what was dragging him to this torture. And he cried as he shamefully turned around to look at he eyes full of concern. He saw them fill with tears and he realized he must look like a wreck to have her react like that. He felt that way anyway.
    "Help me," his plea came out in a low and shivering voice, but he truly wanted it. He realized it as she walked over and wrapped her arms around him in an embrace and he weeped onto her shoulder. He could hear her crying too and he now realized that someone had cared enough about him to understand the pain he was going through.
    She was the only one at this moment that he could trust, and he was willing to tell her everything. All the lessons he had in school had told him that feeling this way wasn't normal, and he thought it wasn't true. But now he realized they weren't lying to him, he wasn't supposed to be this confused about his life. So at this moment as he held her in an embrace and they cried together, he knew he truly didn't want to die. The voices had lied to him and he didn't want to listen to them anymore. His recovery was starting at this moment and he knew it would be a hard one, but he craved for it entirely. He wanted to feel what happiness really was.