It’s not as if anyone got hurt. Death doesn’t count as hurt to most, but rather as if a great weight were lifted off of your shoulders.

The change started a few months ago, when Luke had spent most of his dead mom’s money on a car. Luke had driven it for months, and when he ran out of money for gas, he got out of the car and just kept walking. He traveled for months, stopping occasionally to paint graffiti and break a few windows in some small town and steal some food, and then he was off to roam once more. So it went for four years, those dreadful years after his mother
died, during which his dad had been drunk all the time. It was best to just leave. One day, as he approached the first large city he had seen in about a month, with skyscrapers and rows of department stores lining the roads, a car pulled over to the side of the road he had been walking on, and the driver rolled his window down. “Oy! You there! howd’ya lika ride?” the man asked, his voice gruff. Unsure whether to trust this person, he just replied,
“Maybe i do, maybe i don’t.”
“Listen, kid!” The man barked, “you either get in or get away!”
“Ok, jeez mister, I’ll come.” Luke mumbled.

On the ride into the city, there were throngs of people crowding the street and sidewalks, so the car went very slowly. There were many people who Luke realized looked just like him, with ratty clothes and hair.
“are all of these people hobos?” he asked the man.
“Yah. just like you I ‘spose. By the way, m’ names C.” he held out his hand.

Luke snickered, but took his hand anyway. At the next intersection, he got out and walked away, not turning back to C’s shouts. He would often do this if someone offered him a ride, just to annoy them. He turned around the corner, and all of a sudden, a massive building loomed up in front of him. It was hundreds of feet tall, and made of glass.

Suddenly brought out of his smugness, he rushed towards it, pushing his way through the crowd of businessmen standing around the door. The elevator door was just closing, and he slipped through, pushing all the people back as they grumbled with annoyance. The lift sped up, rising higher, as the cityscape flashed by out the window. He kept riding it a far as it would go, and then when it went no further, he ran up the stairs. At the topmost floor, which seemed to be one big janitorial and maintenance closet, there was a hatch in the roof. He grabbed a ladder from one of the people milling around, and snapped open the latch. A blast of cold air hit him in the face as he scrambled up through the door. He locked the hatch... And turned around. Luke nearly cried when he saw the beauty of it all. From this platform, he could see beyond the city, and to the mountains, which gleamed a golden purple as the sun set. The workers banging on the door was muffled behind him as he stared around. this was the first time he had ever felt truly free]. A loud crash from the hatch startled him, and he jumped. The sun set when he hit the ground.