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Shadar was there. In front of them. It was terrifying. He was there. Either they would kill him, Oliver, Esther, Swaine, and Drippy would win… or they would lose. Or they would all be dead. But they can’t think like that. They have to believe they will win, have to believe none of them will die. How could they fight if they knew one of them would be gone? They couldn’t. They couldn’t win like that. If they lost one of them, it wouldn’t be a win. It would be a draw, if they lost someone, even if they took Shadar down, it would be a draw. They all knew this.
Oliver knew this. That’s why he worked so hard to convince the others that no one would die. Drippy still looked skeptical. Swaine did too but Esther? She was confident that they would do this. Of course they could, they had done everything leading up to this. They could. They would win and they would celebrate after, Swaine and Esther and Oliver and Drippy would win and survive and nothing would change that. It was impossible to kill them, not after everything would they just up and die.
Shadar was boasting. He was talking himself up and laughing. He asked Oliver if he knew what was going to happen. Oliver said that he knew they would win. Because they would. Shadar laughed and Oliver held up three fingers behind his back. Two fingers. One. They attacked.
Shadar fell. He fell and looked them in the eyes. He said thank you. And then he died. He fell to the ground and stopped moving. A simple end. Too simple. But it was the end of Shadar. Of Oliver fighting for the world. Oliver wasn’t cheering. Swaine cheered and Esther cheered and Drippy cheered before… he swung back. He was scared. Swaine and Esther looked at what he saw, what scared him more than the Dark Djinn himself. Oliver was on the ground. Still. As still as the Evil they had just taken down. He was on the ground. Esther ran to him but Swaine was faster. Drippy didn’t move. Drippy was crying.
Oliver was dead.
Swaine couldn’t find a pulse. He tried. He tried so hard, he tried so fucking hard to find anything, anything at all to tell him Oliver was alive. There was nothing. So they cried. Esther and Swaine and Drippy cried because they couldn’t fucking do anything else. Their best friend was dead. Gone. Lifeless.
Oliver knew he was going to die. He trekked up to the castle knowing he was going to die, he walked down the long, dreadful corridor knowing he was going to die. He walked into the throne room knowing that him and his soulmate would both die. He knew he was a dead man walking. So he had to convince them that he wasn't. He had to let them go into this with hope because he couldn't risk having to go alone. Drippy knew he was lying. He didn’t say anything. He doesn’t know if he should have. He didn’t know not asking about it would get Oliver killed. It was impossible to know.
The now-trio… they walked back quietly. They didn’t talk. Their somber attitudes fit quite well with the quiet splashing of the Marshes. Nothing attacked them. They were indistinguishable from anything else in the horrible swamp. Swaine carried Oliver’s corpse. They were crying. All of them except Oliver. It was certainly strange, to have Oliver, of all people, be the only tearless one.
There were two funerals. And a fucking celebration. The three of them couldn’t attend the third. It was… small. The celebration. There was something to celebrate, with Shadar being gone but… but there was too much to cry about. It would have been bigger, it would have been grander, if Oliver had survived.
There was a public funeral. Many attended, except for the few who hadn't been helped by the boy in the casket. Only a few were crying. Only a few knew his name.
The private one was held first. There were very few people. The three who knew him best were crying. They tried to make a speech, but what was there to talk about? Their best friend was dead. They were crying too much to say anything other than its impossible, he couldn’t have died, why did he die?
He didn’t deserve to die.
Oliver never returned home. Phil didn’t know where he had gone.Denny didn’t know. Myrtle didn’t know. Leila said he disappeared. Phil wondered if he died, and Leila didn’t have the heart to tell him. But that was impossible, he had heard people talking, wondering where he went. What happened to the boy they loved, what happened to the boy they knew. At least this way he might be alive. Phil couldn’t bring himself to think anything else.
Leila doesn’t know what happened. Oliver was so sad, for a few days, but he bounced back. He wasn’t at home all the time, at least not when Leila went to check on him, but she saw him running and laughing and playing. Until she didn’t. It had been a year since she had seen him. She didn’t know if he was dead or not. It was impossible to know. She knew he probably was… but she can’t exactly be sure, can she?
The house on 23d street is haunted. It's big and white and no one has lived there for a decade. It hasn’t deteriorated at all. Things move. The lights turn on and off. A boy lives there, but only at a glance. They say that his mother died, and that drove him into madness before he vanished. At least the kids do. The adults don’t know enough about what happened to refute it. Everyone wonders if the boy is dead or not. Myrtle thinks he is. Phil can’t bring himself to stop hoping.