A Sister's Resolve

The damp chill of the alley seeped into my bones, a familiar ache that no amount of weed could quite erase. I watched Akari and AJ, my older siblings, their faces etched with a weariness that went beyond mere exhaustion. They were lost, spiraling down a path I couldn’t follow, a path paved with the sharp edges of their choices. My own mind was a battlefield, a constant war between the crushing weight of despair and a stubborn flicker of hope, but tonight, their darkness threatened to swallow mine whole.

“You guys okay?” I asked, my voice a little too loud, a little too brittle. It was the same question I asked every night, the same question that always got the same vague answers.

Akari gave a tight nod, her eyes scanning the grimy brick wall as if searching for an escape route. AJ just grunted, his gaze fixed on the chipped paint of a discarded dumpster. They were so deep in it, the drug life, the constant hustle, the fear. It was a world I only skirted, a world I smoked weed to forget, to numb the edges, but never truly entered. Not like them. Not like *us* anymore.