Tonight's Memory, Tomorrow's Sunrise

Dear Diary,

It has been a year. One eyear that had seemed to stretch on forever. This day, a year ago, is burned vividly in my mind as if it was yesterday. It is a memory I can do better to give up. Yet, a memory etched foerever in my mind like words on stone. -

Here, I stopped writting, dropping my pen to keep the tears that treatened to overflow at bay. I looked out of the bedside window. The stars that I had grown to know so well over the past year shone brightly tonight. Their light was the only comfort I had on these nights I barely slept. Now, I gazed at them, looking with unseeing eyes. They were all I had tonight - the stars and the memories of the many times I had wished upon them.

Yet, with all those wishes, I had asked for only one thing. To see her again.

But I will not see her again.

I do not see her now. There is only the deafening silence of the night and the emptiness. For me, it will always be this way.

Loneliness pressed in on me from all sides. In the pale light of the moon, I felt myself succumb once again to the flow of memories that flooded back in torrents. Im my mind's eye, again, I saw the malevolent glint of the silver knife and the blood that splattered everywhere. Her blood.

I let a single tear roll down the side of my cheek and splash like a crystal on my palm. I looked down upon it. A single tear that seemed to represent everything that I had gone through in the past year. My mind slipped, and for a moment, I thought I could see the night that it happened reflected in its depths.

It had been one of those magical nights. We were strolling by the beach, hand in hand, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that was about to unfold hours later. The waves lapped at the shore. The sand was silky under our feet. All was well.

I hold her hand tightly as we walked the length of the beach. Thee cool night air, the smell of her shampoo in her hair and the feel of her smooth fingers interlocked in mine, they all leapt out at me in the perfect peacefulness of the night. I held her close to me as we walked and was content. Words were unnecessary between us. The silence said all there was to say. And for hours, we sat on the velvety sand, her head on my shoulder and eyes closed, listening to nothing but the constant crashing of wave after wave againts the shore.

What happened later that night was hazy in my mind, as if my subconsciousness was trying to shield me againts a terrible memory. I had offered to walk her home. I remembered the revving of a motorbike close by and a man wearing a tinted helmet leaping off the bike to thrust a long flick knife into her chest. Then, an arm snatching her handbag forcefully and finally making off on the bike again.

The whole series of events took no more than twenty seconds. Now Rachael lay limp in my arm, blood spilling and spreading in a circle, from a gaping wound directly over her heart. A cold numbness took me. It did not take a genius to see that she would not live to see tomorrow's sunrise. My eyes were pleading as I shook her. "Stay with me," I beseeched silently. My body racked with desperation. But it was not to be.

I fell to my knees. The unyielding pavement was cold againts my body. The pearly moonlight reflected off Rachael's face, making her face seem to glow palely. Her head was rested on my heaving chest and her breathing was shallow. I watched with helplessness as her life ebbed slowly but surely from her. That moment, I hated mysef.

She tried to reassure me with her eyes. Eyes that spoke of a fear she tried to hide. "Be brave," she breathed. "I'll miss you too". Her voice was whisper now, and it seemed every syllable costed her great pain.

Yet, she smiled weakly, not letting it on. She knew her pain scared me. In that moment, it seemed I had never truly appreciated how very beautiful she was.

Now, there was nothing I could do except affer her the only comfort I could. I held her closely and pressed my lips againts her forehead. An hour passed but I did not move, did not feel the dark liquid that seeped through her blouse and poded on the ground.

I senced Rachael died. I saw the life that sparked out behind her eyes and felt the woman I loved with my life, shudder and go limp. And I hugged her all the tighter because of it.

No one heard the anguished scream that pierced the night. No one saw the cold tears fall freely from my cheek onto hers. I cried my heart out that night. But no one heard.

- What can I do, diary? The warmth of her body againts mine and her beautiful face remains as nothing but memories. Memories that do nothing but break my heart.

Now I stood up and leaned againts the window frame. "I love you, Rachael," I tried to whisper, "I really do". But the words seemed to choked me.

I lay down on my bed and cried myself to sleep.

by Jason Yee Jia Xuan, while he just turned 15...