The One Who Waited
(Shishioiri)
I sat on the concrete barrier at the edge of the rooftop and looked north.
Far away, past the jungle and the buildings and everything that nature had swallowed in the months since I could remember, there was a wall.
Just visible at the horizon line if you looked long enough, pale grey and enormous, cutting across the world like someone had drawn a border and meant it.
I don't know why I kept looking at it. I just did, the same way I kept coming up here, the same way my feet kept finding this rooftop every morning without me deciding to go there.
My feet swayed over the edge.
"Hm," I said, looking down at the long drop to the courtyard below. "For some reason I'm not scared of this anymore." I tapped my chin about it. "I swear, days ago… or weeks ago maybe… haha… I was so scared I couldn't get near the edge. And now I'm just... sitting here." I looked at my feet, dangling. "Weird."
I looked back at the wall in the distance.
