Wistfully staring out at the beauty surrounding me, I sighed, longing filling my mind. How I wished I could be here forever, suspended in time. With the water tumbling down the stream, the sun’s first rays casting hope into my heart as they glimmer off the water. Rainbows bouncing off the spot they touch with their soft fingers, the grass, so soft and luscious, blanketing the rolling, tumbling hills basking beneath the bright, untouchable sky. Some things are just too beautiful to ever part with, however much you wish you could just stop, but I have no control over this. I have no control over what I have done in the past, or what will happen in the future. I am not controlling my story; I am not even sure if I am the hero or the villain, maybe I’m both. Maybe I’m that character you never know which side they’re on. I have no control anymore, and I must savour these precious, blissful moments like the last rays of a midsummer’s day, or the untouched blanket of snow we so rarely get. Maybe that’s why I loved it so much: because I knew it would be gone soon, and it would be my fault.
As I stared through the misty haze of sunlight, I pulled myself up from the pool of serenity and calmness I had so willingly submerged myself into- I couldn’t risk getting lost in something as simple as a fleeting moment of beauty. Life and time doesn’t stop for it, why should I: life is too precious to wish it away with the wind, with the waves and sunlight. I learned that when Robin died. I learnt it the hard way and now I must pay for not being as selfless as she was, for not running to save her…
An absent tear rolled down my cheek, as alone as I now was. One single tear: the emptiness that consumed me in grief was permitting me from feeling simply sad. I could only feel the raw, fractured nothingness burning up my heart. Absentmindedly, my hand reached for my neck, for the necklace Robin had given me all those years ago. “Keep this safe, and whenever you see it, think of me. I love you, Hazel, never forget it…” she had whispered to me, so softy, but whenever I thought of her now, I saw not that simple kindness, but the hard look of determination as she raced into the fire, the amber of her eyes reflecting the flames she emerged from, and then the emptiness. Sometimes I wondered if she valued her life at all, but really, I knew she just cared about other’s more. But it was the flames, and only the flames, that I saw in the front of my mind. The flames I had once thought so beautiful, and yet so destructive, had lost that beauty- how can a murderer be beautiful?
I had seen a new Robin that day, not the kind, golden sister that poured a river of hope into me whenever she spoke, but the brave, selfless one with hair the colour of flames and not a hint of regret in her eyes, who never even looked back once.
And they thought I killed her. They thought it was me. Everyone thinks I killed my own sister.
I stared out at the sky, then looked away.
Nature is ugly, nature killed my sister, and I’m being blamed. Nature is ugly, not beautiful, and I don’t care if it’s all gone- maybe I want it to be.

2 years later…

Sometimes, I just look up at the sky and wonder. How can one thing be so many colours, so many different things? On the nights that I just can’t sleep sleep, I just look up, and gaze at the sky as it shimmers with the multitude of colours that come with midnight, the greys and blues painted across the sky carelessly, yet every stroke seem to always be in exactly the right place. The moon looms over me, in a kindly way, not blocking the vast, untouchable colours of the sky, but framing them with it’s soft, silvery light. The stars, they come out too- glittering like tiny rainbows, so, so far away. And in the mornings, I wake to the world bathed in golden sunlight, the sun peeking over the rolling, tumbling hills so, so far away. Sometimes, I look up the bright blue skies for comfort, pink candyfloss clouds and the sunsets. Oh, what I would do to see the sunsets once more! No matter what happened, how many people pretended not to notice me, not to whisper about the murderer they all thought I was, the sunsets always would notice. I could look at the sunset and know that the world was full of beauty, concealed by the hatred, but the sky was always there. Some days it was my only friend.
Now though, all I can see was grey, grey as far as you could look. I could now describe it, but it’s all exactly the same – uniform grey buildings, right angles and walls. No hills, no beauty; even the sky is only grey. All the beauty has been sucked out of the world, and my memories… they are all I have left of nature. It’s a bittersweet victory, but a victory anyway. I don’t have to look and only see Robin’s murderer. I see my creation, however ugly it is.

THIS IS SO GOOD LEOPARD <333 you totally deserved that honourable mention!!! D