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It's 11:50 on the 14th of May 2013.
It's 11:50 and 15-year-old Missy Biron can't sleep.
It's 11:50 and Missy Biron refuses to sleep.
There's school work, and work-work, and a million other things to do tomorrow, some important, some not. Right now though it's just time with them, their thoughts, and the lingering presence of ghosts that always accompany this date.
In 8 hours, Leviathan hits. A monster from the depths, cruel and uncaring, its sea green hide is naught but whipcord muscle and the stink of copper. The stench soaks through every inch of its leathery skin, replenished second-by-second, life by life.
The nightmares end after 6 months, replaced by middle eastern women drowning in concrete instead. Halos of multicolored light followed their struggling forms sinking beneath slate grey waves.
The medicine doesn't work.
(It's not the right kind of pill)
Colin, funnily enough, was the first to appear. He still lived, though, in a fashion. Defiant to the end, that man. It was something Missy appreciated, wanted, in fact. That grit, that determination, through blood and snot and shit he'd fight. They'd seen it.
(Too small. Too 'cute'. Vista has to be a pretty princess at all times.)
Aegis was next, all sharp lines and hard muscle. His power was endurance, yes, but his real skill was heart. He knew the right thing to say, to step up, to protect, to treat others with dignity. They'd never forget the first time he'd taken a bullet, the thirty calibre round bursting his face open like an overripe watermelon. He'd done it without even thinking. 'Sacrifice what you can to save what you can't', he'd said, smiling with a face like a butcher's display.
(Try, try, try again. Tell the suits. Beg the suits. 'I can do more, I want to do more'. No, Vista is too young, too delicate. A word to be despised like the makeup and perfumes of their giggling peers)
Finally comes Dean
This one hurts the most. A gunshot compared to the previous splinters. It's a ceaseless mixture of things, toxic and swirling. Anger, resentment, adolescent attraction, it's all part and parcel of Dean. Wonderful, perfect, enviable, Dean.
The height, the looks, the mannerisms. A gentleman's gentleman. He had all the right to be an arrogant prick. A walking, talking, cliché of the careless nepo baby, they’d expected it in all honesty. Instead, Missy found a man so humble he'd yet to be replaced in a heart closed off from the world.
But was it love?
(They'd copied his hair after the Slaughterhouse. Their first hour of freedom was spent with a dull knife and dirty mirror, chopping at long golden locks until it resembled a mangled three hundred dollar haircut. It wasn't the same, yet the cut didn't reek of Vista. Not a little girl, not with hair like that. No, they looked like a-)
No.
It made sense, afterwards.
After the talks with their parents, after the tedious therapists, after the Doctors with their warnings and age limitations. After it all.
Missy didn't love Dean. They wanted to be Dean.
It's 12:01 on the 15th of May 2013.
A new ghost arrives.
Missy Biron is dead. The boy in her bed smiles, unsure, yet happy at a future of freedom.