He was a shadow, a thin line of his former self, cracked and torn and disfigured and broken, like a shattered mirror.. He was unregonizable from his former self. His face was tight and stretched, like someone had taken his skin, streched it as tightly as it would go, and placed it on his skull, accenting his protruding cheekbones and his deep eye sockets. No one passing knew him from the far off time when he was healthy and not a fragment of his former reality, and no one on these streets really cared enough to look at him, but even if they did, they would not figure out that he was dying. His black hair was in knots, dry and dead but somehow still massive, a corpse on his head, falling out at masses at a time like a horrid tree permanently shedding leaves, ready too topple over and become one with the earth. His clothes were faded and dirty, his jeans too large for his rapidly shrinking waistline, held up only by a achient leather belt so patchy and faded that it looked as if it was peeled bark from a tree. His torn shirt fit him like he was draping a blanket over himself.
He leaned against the cold brick wall, barely able to support his weight, watching through drugged out and unresponsive eyes the people of Trenton walk. He wasn’t really watching, he was too far gone for that- he just stared, his eyes sometimes darting back and forth, from person to person, his mouth agape. He was just another drugged out, methed out kid, he was one of many that went unseen by the public and the police and the world, invisible to everyone and everything but the sweet, alluring call of Meth. Of course, Meth cared about him.
As long as he wasn’t their kid, as long as their own children never grew up to be like him, they could pass by him without a single conscious though except the occasional 'Look at that punk', or, even sometimes, 'That poor kid' but mostly it was merely a apathetic crowd that passed by him.
The kid’s arms started bleeding, soaking through the arms of his shirt and leaving a trail of warmth down his fingers and onto the hideously dirty ground below. It was one of the countless times in his life he had spilt his own blood, but the difference was that this time he was too far gone to realize it was happening. Something clicked in his brain long enough for his eyes to dart from the mass of moving people to the blood, and the blood transfixed him as it pooled- it was quite a bit of liquid, rose tinted fire by now. A old shoot up location had opened up and his body was now committing a suicide in red. He soon could see his own reflection in the blood, and he was carefully lulled by the liquid fire into the haunting memories of a better time.

6 Years Earlier
“Sheaf, Elizabeth.”
The receptionist stood at the door leading out of the waiting room, complete with plain gray carpet, chairs and sofas, and aged reading material. Elizabeth grabbed her purse and wiped her red eyes, tossing the tissue in the trashcan as she followed the receptionist out of the room and down the hall. She led Elizabeth into office, grey carpet and dark wallpaper, 2 chairs in front of a large desk. One of them contained his son, Corey. She sat down next to him. He was staring at the ground. She ruffled his hair and looked at the large, rather porky man with a bushy mustache and no visible neck, sitting in front of her.

“Hello Mrs. Sheff. It is rather unfortunate that we have to meet under such…gloomy circumstances.”
Elizabeth nodded, eyes tearing up, unable to comprehend what her twelve year old boy Corey had done, unable to grasp what had happened so fast. With no warning at all
The principal sighed deeply before saying,
“Lets get down to it, Miss Sheaf. Corey is… well, a quite troubled, although very bright, boy.”
Corey stared blankly at the wall.
“Corey has the potential to become a great mind, Mrs. Sheaf. He also has a equal potential to be very dangerous to himself. You are aware that possession of drugs on this school campus is grounds for automatic expulsion?”
She nodded.
“Sometimes our school makes exceptions, but not only was Corey caught with the controlled substance but he bought it on school grounds, and tried to resell the said substance to a 8th grader. This is not his first offence either, Mrs. Sheaf. He had 4 detentions last year, fought another student, and he broke a window last month. I am afraid that I have no choice but to recommend him somewhere with a more controlled environment. Because he is of such a young age, he will not be arrested, but rather the authorities will come in a week to pick him up at admit him to the Hampston Reformary School.”

“You have no right to do that without my consent!” Mrs. Sheff said, looking up.

“We can take this into the court if you would like. You have my word Hampston is not a youth prison, it is a groundbreaking clinic and is the leading rehabilitation center for teens in New Jersey, along with the highest graduation rate. Your son would be admitted free of charge. Mrs. Sheff, as much as it pains me, we are bound by law too give up on this boy. Please, by the love of god, do not do the same. He needs you to save him.”
Mrs. Sheaf did give up on Corey though, after Corey attacked her during one of the weekly visits. Corey was Hampstons “Trouble student” for nearly 2 years before he escaped and fled to Trenton, meeting a 15 year old named Zoey, a meth addict who lived on the streets downtown. They hit it off, and he was addicted within a month. One day he awoke to find Zoey dead, overdosing the night before on some cocaine she had bought and wanted to try. After that, Corey started using like he never had- speedballs and meth and everything else he could get his hands on, and what he couldn’t buy he would steal. And now he was dying in his own blood, lost to the world, and remembered by no one.