The sun sets tomorrow

      The night passed as quickly as it had come. The minutes seemed to go by faster, and the seconds ceased to exist. Ray sat on the doorstep of his house, remembering over and over what had happened a few hours ago. His head was practically empty, there were no thoughts in it. He sat and stared at the stone steps that he and Lyra had climbed a while ago, on which Lulu had drawn pictures with colorful chalk, but now they were nothing but dust and dirt. Ray knew he couldn't sit like this for long, he had to do something. And common sense told him to start at least with the apartment, and fix the door. Usually that's when he was hanging around town or spending the pennies he'd just won. But he didn't do things like that. The boy slowly rose to his feet, staggered into the room, and began to look for a crate with a few tools. As he began to lift the heavy piece of wood, trying to get it to the distressed hinges as quickly as possible, the people who lived in the neighborhood resented the repair at such a late hour. Had they woken up a little earlier, they would have witnessed a less than friendly welcome. Maybe what happened could have been avoided, but the neighbors were only bothered by the extraneous noise, and the muffled screams unfortunately did not reach their sensitive ears. In a hurry to get away from the unhappy cries, Ray entered the house. His eyes were blurred, and his head began to ache unpleasantly, it was obvious that the brunet was sleepy, but no matter how bad he felt, he realized that the work was not over. The boy slowly shifted his gaze to the body of the boy, who lay motionless, staring at the ceiling. Nausea came involuntarily to his throat, an unpleasant viscous feeling appeared in his mouth, and his legs gave out, the pain supplemented by dizziness. Ray barely made it to the couch, nearly knocking over the already shaky rack, he sat down on the hard piece, which creaked at every opportunity. The boy had never witnessed death before; he'd only seen it in movies, and that was fake. But right now, a boy lay in the distance from him with an ugly and deep cut across his neck. The skin was reddened, and in some places blood was still oozing out of the breathless body in small drops. The boy's whole face was pale, and somewhere on the skin there were bluish-purple spots. The liquid around him was already slightly dried and blackened. Ray couldn't bring himself to get up and finish what he'd started. His hands were shaking, and his body wouldn't listen. But he managed to pull himself together and slowly walked over to the bed, pulling the sheet off of it. Ray tried not to look at Lulu, he quickly and sloppily wrapped the almost weightless boy in a white cloth, which immediately from contact with the blood, became the same color. It was his first, and the boy hoped his last, experience in burying a body. He was only lucky that they didn't live in the center of the city. The town was small, it literally took half an hour to walk to the dark, deserted forest. Even the estates and mansions were very close by. Right now Ray was trying to walk extremely carefully to his destination, his only desire was to finally get it all over with. The guy was walking down a dimly lit street, all dirty, his shirt covered in earth, dust, and dried blood. He looked extremely unflattering, and all he could dream of right now was sleep. Once inside the house, Ray hurriedly closed the door and plopped down on the couch. Fatigue quickly overcame him, in a thin layer, more and more it wrapped the guy's mind, after a couple minutes he fell asleep. But the happiness was short-lived, a few hours later the sun came up, illuminating the whole space. Outside under the windows, someone made a loud noise. Ray jumped up, momentarily interrupting his sleep. “Shit,” the guy wiped his eyes, and the sleepy veil immediately subsided.       The place was a mess. Scattered things, a dark puddle that gave off a slightly unpleasant and metallic odor, a chair with a broken leg - it didn't make any sense. The brunet rose from the couch with a distinct reluctance to do anything, but he had to. Leaving the house like this would be a terrible idea. Ray tossed his dirty shirt into the bathroom, dousing it with some sort of powder in the process. After changing into more homemade clothes, the guy started to clean up, the first thing he did was to scrub away the scarlet liquid that had already left a dark red mark on the wooden floor. After spending at least an hour with it, he managed to get rid of the stain. There was only one thing left to do. He put all the things on the shelves, fixed the chair and washed his clothes. He was not at all stressed by the fact that now he was scrubbing away the blood of his friend, whom he had buried in the woods that night, putting away his sister's things in the closet, who had been kidnapped by his not-so-best friend. He didn't realize the gravity of the situation, or he just didn't want to. Finishing all his chores, Ray slowly sank down onto the couch. No matter how long he put off this moment, it would still come someday. There had to be some way to save Lyra. The only thing that came to his mind was to pay off the entire debt. But where would he get that kind of money? Yeah, that was definitely not an option. He wasn't a hero who would burst into someone else's mansion screaming “Give me back my sister, you bastard!”. Something like that was something the guy would never do in his life. Plenty of armed guards would have stopped him at the gate, let alone the building itself. He was at a standstill, the option of going and reporting everything to the police had fallen by the wayside as soon as thoughts of it began to form in his head. The brunet couldn't tell them the truth, and it was almost unrealistic to find someone here who could actually help. Ray had no influential friends, he had no friends at all for that matter. The people who worried about him, loved him, and were always willing to help him were dead. Except for his dear sister, but if he procrastinated, he might lose her too. The thoughts in his head changed one by one, and each one flew into the imaginary trash like a ruined piece of paper. This would have gone on forever if it hadn't been for the phone ringing. The buzzing echoed unpleasantly in Ray's head. He approached the device with obvious reluctance, but he didn't want to answer it. Most of the time he got calls from banks, casinos, or just people he owed money to. But this time saying a monotonous “Hello” without hearing a cheerful or boring greeting, the guy fell into a daze. Goosebumps ran all over his body, he felt hot and cold. The voice that had been ringing unpleasantly in his ears, he wasn't ready to hear now. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ray,” a hoarse sound, slightly distorted by the hiss of machinery, stunned the brunet. “Why did you call here..?” the guy recognized the person on the other side of the wire from the first few seconds. And the etiquette his interlocutor was now observing was unnecessary. “I just thought you'd like to talk to me. You know, you're probably worried about your sister. Wanting to save her, coming up with useless plans, but since you're reacting like this, you're not interested in finding out, about the real state of affairs,” the man, without waiting for a response from the guy continued talking. “In that case, I guess I'll go about my business,” the man often pretended to be an innocent man, always ready to support anyone. But people who knew what he was capable of didn't believe his calm and friendly tone, and if he offered to help, they tried to run as far away as possible. “He knows me too well,” the thought flashed quickly through Ray's mind, which he wasn't particularly happy about. In his few years with William, he had realized who the man really was, while the latter already knew everything about the guy. “Wait! What about Lyra, is she okay?” Ray didn't want to end the dialog so quickly, still the brunet was worried about his sister. “Of course she's fine. It's not like I'm a pervert to do anything to this pretty little girl. But if you don't hurry up, I'm still going to have to do some very naughty things to her. Actually, I'm not calling you to chit-chat like housewives at lunchtime” you could start to sense the coldness and assertiveness in the man's voice. “I'm giving you exactly one month. If in that time you don't pay me back every last pound you owe me, I'll kill her first and then you. I hope I've made myself perfectly clear.” The caller hung up. An unpleasant squeak filled the boy's ears. He did not expect anything else from this man, but what to do, he still did not know. Only a miracle could save him now. And the lad would most likely go insane in perpetual guessing, plans and ideas. If now he hadn't been pulled out of all this chaos by an ordinary knock on the door. “Well, who's there again...” The guy had no desire to see anyone right now. He was angry, and it wasn't clear if it was at himself or someone else. He carefully opened the guest, holding up a piece of wood so it wouldn't fall to the floor, after a shoddy repair. A girl stood on the threshold. Ray was greatly surprised to recognize his old friend Mai. “Didn't expect to see you. Why did you come?” at the surprise, the brunet was slightly confused. It had been a very long time since he had seen the girl, and he didn't even think he would ever see her again. “I wasn't expecting this either, I thought you weren't home. I came to see Lyra. Could you go get her?” Mai was slightly unfriendly towards Ray, she knew full well what he did to her friend, so she wasn't going to be nice to him. “See, here's the thing, Lyra's not home,” Ray averted his eyes guiltily, making up some story as he went along. He didn't feel like telling some girl everything that had happened. “Do you happen to know where she went? She and I were supposed to see each other today, I don't think she forgot about our meeting,” Mai frowned, suspecting something was wrong here. The guy inhaled nervously, realizing she wasn't going to leave that easily. After all, she's Lyra's best friend, who knows a lot more than the goofy brother. I'd have to tell her everything. “We need to talk, come on in,” Rei stepped away from the door, walking deeper into the apartment. The girl didn't understand what he was going to talk to him about, since she had nothing to say, but she walked quickly into the room nonetheless. At first glance everything was just as it was, things stood in their places, the house was perfectly clean. It seemed like nothing to worry about, but something still made Mai wary. She looked around for a few more seconds and finally realized what was missing. While Ray was thinking about how to start the conversation, the girl turned to him and looked at him with a concerned look. The guy was slightly taken aback by such strange behavior of his acquaintance, because a second ago everything was normal. “Ray, where's Lulu? I noticed he wasn't here. Lyra told me that he only went out on the porch, but she never took him into town and never let him go out alone either,” the boy became visibly nervous when the girl noticed the boy's absence. “Mai, I think you should sit down,” Ray sat the girl down next to him on the couch, he tried not to look into those green eyes that burned through him with an uncomprehending stare. “I've been thinking about how to start this conversation for a long time, please hear me out,” the girl was wary, there were already a lot of guesses in her head, but she only continued to stare at the guy in silence. “I spent all day yesterday with Lyra, but towards evening, when we were already home, some unwanted guests showed up. They were subordinates of a man I owe a lot to,” the brunet paused and looked at Mai, she became even more serious and gloomy. The girl waited for him to decide to continue. He was not comfortable being in this environment with an old friend who now didn't particularly want to be in any kind of relationship with Ray. “They put conditions on me, I had to give them the money back the second I got it, as you know I don't have any. Anyway, they took it away and Lulu tried to save Lyra and paid with his life,” the girl instantly jumped to her feet. She expected to hear anything but that. Her breath caught and her hands began to treacherously shake. Enraged, Mai started yelling at the boy. “How could you let them do that! My best friend was kidnapped and my friend was killed! You were supposed to save them, why didn't you?” she was angry at Ray, thinking it was all his fault. And she was completely right. Pain, fear, anger - all at once mixed in her heart, from which the girl simply could not contain emotions. “And what could I do at that point? I have nothing, no money, no connections!” Ray stood up abruptly, he was now a head taller than the girl, but that didn't stop her from continuing to yell at him. “You should have done something! Did you ever even think about anyone but yourself? Your sister was surviving as best she could, doing everything she could to make sure that she and Lulu lived any better than they do now. She worried about you all the time, while you didn't even lift a finger!” Mai tried to calm down at least a little, but it wasn't working well, feelings overwhelming her mind. Meanwhile, the guy was slowly boiling over, listening to the not-so-good things about himself. “You could have gotten a job, taken money from the bank, borrowed from your rich friends. But no, all you thought about was making a good life for yourself! And I'm sure even now, when your sister is in danger, you won't do anything about it because you're an insensitive piece of shit!” a resounding thump sounded in the quiet room. The mark of a small, thin hand slowly reddened on Ray's cheek. It was the last straw. The boy grabbed the girl by the collar of her dress and clenched his fists to the point where even his knuckles turned white. The blue eyes read anger and even seemed to darken. Ray didn't allow anyone to even stutter about such things, and every time the conversation came up, he'd immediately cut off anyone who spoke a word. He realized that more often than not people were telling the truth, but he never wanted to hear it. “Shut up, you little shit! You don't know what I've been through!” Mai tried to break free from the tight grip. “Let me go!” the girl slapped Ray's arms with all her might. He threw her small body to the floor, causing her to bump painfully, dirtying her clothes in the dust. Overcoming the pain throughout her body, she quickly stood up. “I don't care what you've been through. Lyra has experienced far more pain than any of us. And you should have taken care of her instead of acting like the latest scumbag.” Mai shook the hem off the dirt and raised her slightly sad, already calm gaze to the brunet. “Ray, who saved me from bullies once upon a time long ago, died, leaving behind only darkness.” The boy didn't interrupt the girl, this time he was silent. Even when she started to leave, he didn't say anything after her. She hurriedly left the place where there was nothing else. All that was left was pain and suffering. And it was all Ray's fault. He slowly sank to the floor, covering his face with his hands. There was no one to ask for help now, Mai was the only person who could help him in any way, but he had managed to lose her too.