genesis.

an introduction

It was on nights like these that I felt such a surreal comfort in the emptiness of the world around me, the blackness of the night like a father hushing the harshness away, the lush green of the forest whispering beautiful motherly secrets in each ear. The Cliff had always been our spot of refuge, although it lost a good portion of it's appeal in the daylight.

In the glow of the sun it was nothing but a blunt mountain cutoff that dropped thirty feet into green water.

Not on nights like these.

"Anyone afraid?" 

This was Arthur, who sat to the left of me; a slightly tall, built young man with gleaming black hair like an oil slick down to the bottom of his neck. From the pink skin of his face shone gray eyes that were regularly framed by wire glasses, only inches above a mouth that had never felt it's own silence. However, in preparation for the jump, his glasses sat quaintly on a rock, a fact to which he should have owed a bit of humility: he couldn't see. The world forced itself upon his eyes like a great blur of many colors.

We gathered in a row along the edge, exchanging glances at one another occasionally. The light seemed to suit everyone. Suddenly and regrettably, I began to wonder if the light suited me as well. "Just you, Artsy," I grumble, smiling coyly without making direct eye contact. Half of his mouth swooped up into a devilish smirk, his eyebrows furrowing. "I'm not afraid," Arthur says, pausing for a moment before readjusting his criss-crossed legs. "I think I'm completely out of adrenaline, after the whole situation this morning."

Nadja, who was to the right of me, hid her open mouth with the back of her hand while she laughed. "I. Cannot. Even. Describe. How funny it was, Jude," she was wheezing out, giggling between each word. "I almost died. Tell her, Art." 

Arthur smiled, shaking his head. "You tell her." His gaze darted to me, checking my reaction. "I could tell her," Thai said from the right of Nadja, but was ignored.

The brown haired, pixie looking girl rolled her eyes. "You tell it better! Fine, fine, whatever. Okay, so basically, this morning Arthur  and I sneaked over to the Cliff to take a nice swim, right? Well, guess who beat him to it."

"Who?" I say, crinkling my nose. I wondered why the two of them would go swimming together. Arthur's face was covered by his palms. 

"Fleur! Your Fleur. Sweet, little, innocent Fleur. Starch naked, literally just chilling in the water," she said, eyes squinted in such an intense hilarity that her lovely, delicate features seemed to almost inflate. "And so there's Arthur, literally King of All Females, and he doesn't say a word. He goes to run away but his towel drops--"

Arthur had laid his body down onto the ground beside me, his arms crossed over his head. "Don't say it. Nadja, don't. I'm going to die."

She ignored him, placing her hands on my shoulders, looking directly into my eyes. Hers were filled with tears, her mouth spread out into such a smile that her pink cheeks looked like they were about to pop. "She's totally panicked, right? Her face is so red I can't tell where her skin stops and her hair starts. Her eyes are literally full circles. She goes, she goes: 'Nice butt!'"

And suddenly the four of us are laughing uncontrollably. Arthur grabs my wrists, faking an angry face. "Shut up, don't you laugh! It's not funny, I was so embarrassed!"

"Poor Fleur!" I managed to choke out between hysterical cackling. "You're probably the first boy she's ever seen! I bet she's really beating herself up right now, she probably feels so ridiculous for saying that!"

Thai, who was younger than us by a year, hiding behind thick brown hair and never using his gray eyes for anything other than staring at the ground, piped up with a hearty, "I can't believe you saw her-- you know."

Silence.

Nadja shook her head quickly. "Okay. Next time I hear you say anything even minutely as repulsive as that sentence, I'm telling Mom who's the ring-leader of that little 'gather as many twelve-year olds as you can and pee on the Wall' clan."

Thai was silent, though if you had listened close enough you may have heard him mutter that he was not, in fact, twelve. Or something irrelevant like that.