57 (Ch 57)Unredeemable

Daniel was stuck, unsure of what to do facing an opponent like this. He wanted to attack, to squash the defiant bug beneath him. But something felt wrong.

"Damn you" Daniel muttered, signalling to his gang.

"Dan, why are we letting this shit go?"

"Because I said so" Dan replied to his gang, letting Emma go.

She looked surprised, even a little stunned that just a change in position and posture had caused Daniel to give up. Noah put back on his uncaring expression, staring at the backs of Daniel and his crew.

"Are you okay?" Emma asked, inspecting his bruises.

"I'm fine" Noah replied swiftly pulling away.

Strangely for some reason, Noah couldn't fathom, he preferred if Emma didn't touch him. It made Noah feel uncomfortable and hot, a strange thing that had never happened to him.

'Weird' He thought.

"Hey, what were you saying earlier… before Daniel showed up?" Noah asked, ignoring his slight lisp caused by the busted lip Daniel had given him.

"Oh, that" Emma said sheepishly.

She took a second standing in front of Noah and staring into his eyes as if pulling courage from their apathy. Perching up on her tippy toes Emma pecked Noah on the lips, giving him what could barely count as a kiss.

"Well… um, bye!" Emma waved, running off like she was terrified of how Noah would react.

He stood there, like a stone statue. Noah felt hot like he'd never had before and needed sheer force of will to not chase after Emma, finding himself strangely missing her already. Having never experienced anything like this before Noah didn't know what to think but it felt good.

'Like a shining sun after a life of night,' Noah thought.

The next few months for Noah were easily the happiest and best time of his life. Emma after that day had become his official girlfriend, a status that brought envy and jealously from some but why would Noah care, he had Emma and saw no reason to give a fuck about anyone else.

Their dates always seemed to somehow go well and Noah came out of them feeling happier and better than before. Over time though he did notice a few things, like the make-up smell that increased day by day. Emma didn't wear anything but the essential so it confused him was the smell was so pungent on her.

He did his best to ignore it, finding bliss in their growing relationship. By the end of their first year, Noah had grown more as a person in one year than he had in the entirety of his life.

Then, on the twenty-third of March, two days before Noah was scheduled to meet Emma's parents, she sent him a text.

Noah looked down at his newly bought but relatively old second-hand phone, something he acquired at Emma's insistence. Its top message portion read only the nickname she had given him, lost boy.

Yet the second he opened the text, Noah's newly forming heart shattered.

"Dear Lost boy, hey it's me, Emma. If you're reading this then well… I'm dead. Please before you say or do anything keep reading. I've scheduled for it to automatically sent 3 Hours after. Noah, please live a good life. This last year has been the most fun I've ever had despite you acting gloomy and being a little socially inept. So please, just promise me you won't go back to what you were when I found you. Stay happy, make friends, hell find another person to love but please just don't become that uncaring thing you were before. Don't carry that void inside you anymore, let it pass, you don't owe it or anyone anything."

"Believe in people, have faith in their value. Cry, laugh and smile as you want and like you deserve. Live for yourself, have Belief in yourself. I have faith in you Noah, even if no one else does right now."

Noah's eyes twitched a little the further he scrolled down the message, feeling like someone had an iron grip on his soul. The second he finished reading it he sprinted down his apartment building. Despite his logic telling him it was already far too late, he'd never run harder or faster in his life.

Noah already memorised the path to Emma's house so getting there wasn't a challenge and yet even running as fast as he was it felt like a snail's pace.

'FASTER DAMMIT' He screamed at himself, rounding a corner so fast the passerby wondered who the heck it was.

Noah saw the house, knowing full well no one other than Emma would be home. She'd told him earlier in the week that both of her parents would be on vacation till tomorrow and Emma was an only child.

Jumping over the fence proved to be no challenge for Noah, nor was slamming in the door. Sprinting up the stairs ungracefully breaking into her home posed no problems for Noah but when he reached the door with a sparkling "Emma" label, Noah froze.

It was silent, like not a soul but himself existed in this world. Without delay he busted opened the door, finding a room he'd been in more than once exactly the same as normal.

Emma wasn't there.

He was about to leave for another room when he saw noticed the light of the ensuite on. When entering every hope, dream and ambition Noah had shattered. A void inside him returning as he stared dead-eyed at the bathtub where Emma lied, her wrists drained of blood and cuts present along the entirety of her forearm.

'Why?' Was the only thing he could comprehend, as pain inside his chest got worse and worse by the second.

His eyes were misty, on the verge of leaking and yet Noah felt nothing, looking at the corpse of a woman he'd hope could save him.

Without his light, Noah could no longer feel all those wonderful things, replaced by the hungry void that was his broken soul. He could not grieve because he felt no sorrow, just a chilling emptiness.

Noah could hear nothing but the dripping of her blood even when it had long since drained, he could see nothing but the sad truth of his failure to save the only person he had ever cared about. He was unredeemable, a monster who didn't deserve anything but pain and misery for what he had done.

"Noah!!" A voice, called waking Noah from his trance

"Huh?" Noah mumbled, turning around to see Emma's father Steven looking at him with bloodshot eyes.

"Noah, what the hell are you doing here?" He asked, Noah noticing there was more than just him around.

Police and a woman that looked scarily similar to Emma, all with downtrodden but unsurprised expressions on their faces. In response to the question Noah just raised his phone showing the text.

"Oh… I'm sorry son" Steven said, tears leaking from his eyes.

Noah just stared at him confused, why were Emma's parents here, why didn't they look surprised. He found out minutes later that neither the police nor Emma's parents were surprised because this wasn't the first time she'd done something like this. It also turned out that Noah had been standing still in that same spot for a whole two days, even though it felt like barely a second to him.

In middle school, she'd been diagnosed with chronic depression and had gone through fits of self-harm before meeting Daniel, who had temporary given Emma hope and saved her from the lonely husk he'd been.

But by the end of middle school that hope had been lost, Daniel showing his true side before leaving Emma for ruin, having had his fun with her. Emma had been suffering ever since, having no outlet for her pain and confiding in no one but her parents.

The makeup Noah noticed was strewed across both her forearms to hide the cuts Emma made on a regular basis. Even when she met Noah Emma was already too far gone, getting worse and worse by the day to the point where one misstep and she'd fall.

That fall came from Daniel, who had leaked photos of her self harm to social media. Perhaps if she wasn't good looking it would've been met with sympathy but for the envious and jealous it was the perfect chance to jump on.

Emma couldn't handle the hate and choose death as an alternative, such a trivial thing in Noah's eyes being the cause of her end.

By the end of the explanation, Emma's grief-stricken parents gave all Noah could see was red. Considering who Daniels father was and that Emma's death wasn't directly his fault the boy would get off scot-free so neither Steven nor Emma's mother could be bothered getting angry. However, Something inside that void that was Noah's broken soul had clicked.

Noah didn't go home, instead of stalking Daniel finding out rather easily from his Snapchat story that the "Bad boy" was hanging out in an alleyway with his gang of deadbeats. It was later into the night by the time he arrived at the particular Alley.

"Hey look, it's that kid who was messing around with miss suicide" a bigger and taller one of Daniels lackey laughed, walking closer to intimidate the boy who said nothing but continued his stride.

"What's wrong Noah? Cat got your tongu-"His sentence was interrupted by a cold hand gripping his chin and lower neck before slamming into the brick wall beside him.

"Ah-" even the scream was silenced as the same action repeated over and over, without mercy or Hesitation in the barely lit alley. The hand that came out of the dark figure didn't stop even when the larger boy was unconscious slamming his head harder and harder until the skull finally caved in.

All those including Daniel watched this with some fear but mostly amusement. He surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, monsters in Daniels own words who cared not for others feelings or grief and only for their selfish amusement. The larger boys cold corpse dropped dead into the pale light as Noah kept moving towards them.

"I guess the little edge boy's got some spunk in him huh Daniel?" Peter, Daniels best friend giggled.

"Yeah, never guessed he'd kill someone over that shitty girl. You mind dealing with him peter" Daniel asked, unperturbed by the little shit whose hope he'd destroyed.

"Sure thing" Peter replied, bringing four of the eight remaining lackeys with him.

Most were taller and bigger than Noah and all of them carried knives, glaring at him in threatening amusement. Yet when they looked into Noah's eyes which should have been filled with fear, they saw nothing. An unnerving threading void of nothing.

"What a freak" Peter sneered, launching his pocket knife towards Noah in excitement.

Unlike what he expected the boy did not move instead catching the hand coming towards him and using his hips to transfer the momentum and slam Peter onto his back, winding and disarming the boy.

"I'm sorry" A soft yet emotionless voice echoed across the alley.

"But none of these things deserve faith Emma" Noah spoke lamenting his loss a little before calmly slitting Peters throat in one swift action, leaving none of the lackeys time to respond.