21st Century Breakdown

Well... I don't even know where to start. I've got a little bit of time on my hands, standing in the shadows of a crumbling apartment building. Waiting for a fight to come from the riots pacing the streets. It won't be long, I can tell. The cops usually never let something like this go on for so long. I decided not to participate in today's death match. The riots in the street have become a almost daily occurrence, I'll admit, I've participated in a few of them. But now I see the bigger problem. Bigger than protesting the government.

I was right however, down the street I could see the cluster of red, white and blue flashing lights. Drifting towards the scene. I watched the riot, just to see who the dedicated ones were. At least twelve dropped their signs and ran off into the allies. The rest stood their ground and started screaming as the police got out of their cars. Trying to calm people down and quiet the fight. Then, it happened in a flash. One person in the crowd, a tall man with thick black hair, shoved a cop, started yelling in his face. Jumped on him and punched him several times in the face before the first shots were fired.

My eyes widened and the blood pooled. I blinked several times and turned and ran. I ran out of there, weaving between buildings and gasping for a breath. I shoved open a door and slammed it shut behind me, fumbling in the dark to turn and latch every lock.

It was a twisted fate that my mind and memory had led me here... I turn around slowly, sighing in discomfort as my eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, recognizing the small, abandoned living room. It was a place I could rest my eyes on any afternoon if I needed, because I knew he didn't mind. Christian didn't care if I randomly dropped in to sleep on his couch.

He was gone now, but the memories were not. They felt very vivid inside my skull right then, their colors almost giving me a headache.

With a heaving chest, I pressed my back against the wall, sinking to the floor, struggling to control my breathing. Just being here sparked something in me, the hurt, the abandonment, sending tears down my cheeks as I struggled to control my emotions.

Christian, the boy who less than three weeks ago, I loved more than anything, was gone. Gone from me, gone from here, gone from this town... Elsewhere, in some other city... Causing trouble, fighting for something he believed in.

I don't know why I'm still here... I have no reason to be. Trying to stop the fights, but I end up causing more, involving myself in a few, fights of poor choices. I don't know what it was about me that just kept forcing me on, into this dark fight I wasn't sure I understood anymore. Nevertheless, I could think of one person who always understood.

Christian... He always fought. He always won. With a rusty switchblade, he placed himself in countless rallies, fighting anyone against him, fighting for the freedom that was slowly being crushed from this faithless town.

He was like a solider in some ways, dressed in leather and chains instead of camo, cursing instead of honoring, but always fighting towards a goal. It saddened me to think he was once a very chill man, who really didn't give a shit one way or the other how politics worked.

But when your brother is killed, the one person closer to you than anything, revenge gets in your head, and infects everything. He lost his mind to it, and just disappeared into it...

It was clear to me, it had been for the last couple of weeks... He wasn't my Christian anymore, he was something else entirely. He would never look the same or feel the same, he was just the emotionless android of his former self. I had yet to accept it, though. I couldn't just make myself let go of him and permanently declare him a lost cause, regardless of what he had done to me.

Maybe that made me just as foolish as him against the world with his fights.