It was an unusually hushed evening outside Stockwell station as the clouds enveloped the city. The typically busy fruit and flower stand, which was always open, lay empty and was being pummeled by the elements. This time the fierce rain was teeming down on the stand and the street was completely abandoned. I looked around desperate for somebody to share a word…or even a feeling with. Whoever thought a Londoner would say that! The sky looked as if a ragged grey blanket had been smothered across it as I surveyed the station around me.

I glanced at the departure boards for any form of covered transport home but they stared morosely back at me, all saying the same thing. No way home here. Dressed in only my shirt and shorts, I was frozen to the bone and shaking from the chilling weather – my knees felt non-existent at this point. They were so numb due to the brutal weather, it felt like I was slithering my way along an ice skating rink. This was clear to see, unlike the sky above with the pitch black clouds smearing it like paint. The dark tones above were making what few people were left out on the street run for cover and I knew I’d soon be on my own…

I was dreading the thought of the trek back home, about a 15 minute walk, when suddenly the idea crossed my mind to take a much quicker and more direct route. As I walked past the usually jam-packed local pub, The Rose And Crown, it was for some odd reason near to deserted, uninhabited; it was quite strange but I thought nothing of it. Maybe it was the numbing raw coldness – too intense to be outside for some people. Once I’d made my way past the pub, I found myself in a dilemma. There were three roads, one of which was a much quicker way than my usual route, maybe taking around 5 minutes to get home. It’s important to mention that I’d only been down this crooked path maybe once or twice before. It was a very narrow and winding road, with the tough rooted trees overcrowding it, like the tentacles of a city-living octopus. Even the dull grey paving stones were ruptured, making it almost impossible to walk along – they were notorious for being dangerously slippery when the rain was as bad as this.

Then there was another road, taking maybe 10 minutes, but I knew this road was by far the quickest one. However, this one was even more neglected than the first road, even the branches of the trees had cracked off from the violent wind. There was always tons of old rubbish which is never taken away. It looked like a dystopian world in contrast to the one we are living on now. Most, if not all, of the homes seemed isolated from the “real world” – they didn’t even look homed, in fact they seemed almost disowned. Then there was my usual route, which happened to also be the only one lit up by lampposts.

The other routes were close to pitch black, but by this point I just wanted to get home.

I had just made my way past the first couple of ruined, brownstone houses, which looked like they’d had old coffee spilt on them and never been restored. It was at this moment when I decided to look at the time on my phone. I glanced down to see in shock that the time read 11:11PM. I was astounded, to say the least, to see it was this late. I began to wonder if my phone was broken, because it simply did not feel like I had been walking for over 4 hours. I rang my mother – just as I went to call her, my phone cut out.

I was all alone, on this pitch black, unwelcoming street, with no source of light. I was absolutely frantic with fearfulness on this bitterly frigid night. I decided I was going to walk a bit faster at this point;  well, that was an understatement. I heard the slow drops of the rain, tapping from roof to roof, like pencils on a table.

Suddenly, I thought I saw a shadow, the shadow of an animal I think, around the back of one of the houses. As soon as I looked again through the rain it was gone. My pace quickened along with my heart. Did I just see that or was it in my head? The rain continued to pound down as I hurried down the alleyway towards home.

Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow of something, something big, eased out behind me…

I loved her so much, she was my end and my beginning. The way that I used to admire her was simply inexplicable, and I got the impression that she felt the same way about me, that’s how I perceived it anyway. Clearly I was mistaken. From then everything went wrong, and I was left situated on my bed, clueless as to what had just happened, reminicing, registering into my brain, a piece of my heart felt like it was snatched away from me, from what seemed like one of the best things that had ever happened to me, had bitterly turned to something so sinister.

Looking back at the great moments we had, the memories were magical, especially when I met her for the first time, she gave me goosebumps at first sight. I had a breathtaking dream about her a night after the heartbreak, thinking she was there with me, but it turned out she was never there, and it was just me.

She was never just an ordinary girl, with an ordinary background, she was special, breathtaking, extraordinary, to say the least and now I know I will never find someone like her again, unfortunately. To be honest I don’t even know what I did wrong, or even why we were split apart. She said she “didnt have feelings for me anymore” eventhough about a week ago she was saying how affectionate she was for me, but I just cant get my head around how someone can be so sour, and betray you like you never meant one single thing to them. Well, I should’ve seen it coming anyway, she was acting particularily strange in the last few weeks of ‘us’, as in her making excuses for not going places with me and generally not caring for what I had to say, I obviously didnt pick up the hints until she told me that she would be going to stay with family in another country. Now this really did aggrevate me because not only did it show that she clearly had no respect for me by not telling me she was leaving but also that she didnt even have the decency to give me a heads up in advance.

So now knowing that she was leaving, potentially for a few months, maybe even forever, I really didnt have a clue. I really went through a tough time and had so many strong and mixed emotions, anger really was the prime one, but also disbelief that she, ever so quickly had done this to me. And I wont lie, I did still miss her and i still think about her to this day so you can probably imagine i was heartbroken aswell. But I promised myself and I have stuck to this promise all this time that I would go and see the plane take her away, mostly because indefinately, this was the last time I was ever going to see her again. Although she didn’t realise I was coming to see her I thought she would never know, and even if she did I could simply tell her it was supposed to be a suprise.

Josh Ali

What I think I could improve:

Less commas

Less ‘ands’

Use more descriptive words in the later stages of my writing

Work on a descriptive ending