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Fuck.
It’s so dark in here. Is it dark because I can’t see anything or is it…
“Iero.”
Frank was sitting in school, his mind completely absent and his eyes staring at the window by his side. The math teacher was talking about some shit he’d never understand, anyway.
The only thing he could focus on was a spider walking on the outer part of the glass. It was disgusting and it made Frank’s skin crawl like crazy, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of it, for some reason. It moved so weird, with his jittery little runs and then it was still, ready to jump anyt-
“Mr. Iero, wake up please.”
Frank finally snapped out of it and turned to the teacher. The whole class was laughing, so he laughed as well. But he was blushing, and he swore if he could just disappear, he’d do it right away.
***
“Hey, wake up!” Kobra handed Frank a glass of that awful drink. “Take a sip”. He sipped on it and made a disgusted face, which made Kobra laugh. “Dude, you were staring at the stage, like, in awe. That was cute.”
Frank frowned, blushing a little. He did his best to sound casual- which was hard, because he had to talk loud enough to be heard above the band- when he said “Yeah, well, I don’t get to hear live music like this very often.”
“Didn’t you say you play drums at school?”
Frank nodded. “And it sucks ass.”
Kobra laughed. Riot reached them back with more forbidden juice and they all tuned back to the music, jumping and swinging their heads like crazy.
***
“He’s…” Kobra raised his eyes to look at the sky, pensively. After a pause, he resumed, nodding. “Yeah, he’s not a bad person. He’s been having weird ideas lately, and yeah. He has some shit going on as well. And he’s off-putting, I’ll give you that.” He looked down at Ghoul and smiled, passing him the joint. “But no, he doesn’t hate you.”
Ghoul took the joint between his index and thumb, then took a drag, frowning at the sunset. He was starting to appreciate it, now that he had learned how to not burst into coughing all the time. “Come on, man,” he said, when he was done with it. “He hasn’t talked to me in, like, the whole week I’ve been here. I think he took it personally, when I said I wouldn’t do any secret shit.”
Kobra laughed. “Of course he took it personally, but it doesn’t count. He always does.”
Ghoul looked Kobra in the eyes, then, and he seemed serious. “What if he’s right?”
“About what?” frowned Kobra.
“About me being here. That I’ll only make your life harder, something like that.”
Kobra just let out a tiny laugh. “Dude, you’re not a burden, you’re a friend. I’ll say this shit, like, a billion times over the next few months.”
“What?” laughed Ghoul. “What are you, clairvoyant or something?”
“No man, I just know. Because I’m a memory.”
***
“Ghoul,” called Jet, from the brink of the storeroom door. “Wake up, I need your help.”
Ghoul cursed under his breath, but he got up immediately. Jet asking for help was a rare thing, and he feared it could be something serious.
He stretched and rubbed his eyes, then he wore a hoodie and reached him at the entrance of the gas station.
“What is it?” he asked, his eyes still narrowed by the light.
Jet nodded towards the couch behind him with his head. Poison was sitting there, with his arms crossed and his head hanging down. “He’s wasted,” Jet said, with a defeated voice. “Just booze, I think. But a lot of it.”
“Fuck,” sighed Ghoul. It wasn’t uncommon, for Poison to get wasted like that. But he’d usually hang out somewhere else until he sobered up, because he’d fight with Kobra otherwise. Kobra had gone completely sober; someone needs to be, he said. “What should we do?”
“Kobra’s with Riot, they’re gathering some things for me. I think they’ll be back in half an hour, tops.”
“Do you want me to- “
“Please,” frowned Jet, worriedly. “I don’t want Kobra to see him like this. He’ll go guilt tripping all over again.”
“Okay,” sighed Ghoul. “I’ll take him for a walk, see if he sobers up. I’ll be back when he’s good.”
Jet nodded; his face was thankful. Ghoul smiled back, but in his mind he could already picture what an awful interaction was waiting for him.
He moved to sit on the couch near Poison. He wasn’t sleeping. He had his eyes fixed low, with a frown.
Ghoul put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, and he was about to say something, when Poison lifted his head to speak first.
Now Ghoul could see how sad his face was.
“Hey,” Poison said. His voice was low and rough. “Lavender says hi.”
Ghoul’s heart ached in a bad, bad way. “Hi, Lavender,” he attempted a smile. Then he stood up, reaching a hand. “Come on,” he said, in an energetic tone. “I need a hand with those water tanks.”
Poison took his hand, but he failed to stand up, at first. Ghoul helped him with his other hand as well.
They moved to the kitchen and Ghoul made him eat some bread and drink some water. Then he flushed his face, and he seemed to feel better already. He was strangely collaborative.
Then they were outside, pausing on a wooden bench. “I’m glad Kobra’s not here,” Poison said, in a low tone. “He hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you,” frowned Ghoul. He kept his hands in his pockets but leaned forward to see Poison’s face. He still had his lips curled down in his sad expression. “He’s just worried.”
“I’d hate me if I were you, all of you,” Poison said, still looking ahead. “I’d wish for me to just fuck off for good.” He made a gesture with his hand that Ghoul didn’t really understand. “Like that.”
“Why would you sa- “
“You,” Poison turned around to look Ghoul in his eyes. “When you got here.” He put a hand on Ghoul’s wounded arm that still had some bandages on, which made him startle a little. “You knew nothing about me, and you took a bullet for me. You knew nothing about Jet and Kobra, and you refused to keep secrets from them.”
Ghoul was waiting for him to continue, but Poison just stared at him, with an indecipherable expression.
“So, what?” he asked, after a moment of that awkward silence.
“Nothing,” said Poison, and he had the hint of a smile on. “Just stating facts.”
“Man, I don’t get you, like, most of the time,” giggled Ghoul.
Poison stood up and started walking again, this time swaying his hips in a dorky way. “Because of my mysterious charm,” he said. Ghoul couldn’t see his face, but he sounded relaxed, finally.
***
“Hey, wake the fuck up.” Poison put his left hand on the wheel to stir it a little. “You’re gonna crash us into the cliff.”
“No I’m not,” frowned Ghoul, not looking away from the road. “Look at me, I’m a natural. I barely needed any lessons.”
“Yeah, and you’re slower than Kobra. It takes a lot.”
Ghoul giggled. “Sorry, I can’t die. I need to meet my mom again.”
Strangely, Poison stayed silent.
“Also,” Ghoul changed the subject, because he felt guilty about his last phrase for some reason. “Who else would make your life miserable if I were gone?”
“You can die,” laughed Poison. “I’ve learned how to cut my hair like you do by now. I’ve been quietly observing your moves.”
“Oh, you hate me that much?” Ghoul said, in a jokingly hurt voice. “I thought you’d tolerate me by now, turns out you were just stealing my tricks before getting rid of me.”
“I couldn’t get rid of you even if I wanted,” said Poison, in a matter-of-fact tone. “She’d bring you back, the world’s not done with you.”
Ghoul sighed. He wasn’t in the mood to bring up an argument about afterlife or whatever. But hearing Poison be so confident about those topics and speak about it like it was nothing made him uneasy. It made him fear that his own understanding of his purpose was lacking something. Like he was supposed to feel like it was all true. And he didn’t.
“You’re judging me in your head, aren’t you?” said Poison.
Ghoul sighed. “I just don’t like it when you bring Her up like that. Makes me feel weird.”
“Because you think it’s bullshit?”
“Because I envy you.” Ghoul turned around to look at Poison as he said that. He was smiling. “Why’re you smiling?” he frowned.
“You envy me. It means She’s growing on you.” He turned around and smiled even bigger. “You want her to be real.”
Ghoul took in that smile for a moment, for it had been an unusual sight, lately. Then he shook his head before looking back at the road. “Whatever. Can you ask her to make my plants grow faster?”
“Ask her yourself.”
As Poison said so, the car stopped. They arrived where they were headed, at the letterbox.
Poison left the car and jogged towards it. As soon as he was there, he kneeled and closed his eyes. He still had a smile on, as he did most of the times he prayed.
After a few minutes, Ghoul joined him. He kneeled by his side, closed his eyes and everything. But he couldn’t bring himself to speak to Her. He just stood there, frowning at his hands joined in a fist.
Until he heard Poison laugh.
He opened his eyes and turned around, frowning, and Poison was looking at him.
“Why’re you laughing at me?” he asked, in an annoyed tone. But truth was, he didn’t mind seeing him like that. Laughing. Alive. Just a couple weeks before, he’d be so pissed off he would spend most of his time alone, when not completely silent in bed all day.
“Your brain when you pray is just like my brain when I do math,” he tried to explain through his laugh, “You try but nobody answers.”
“How do you know about my brain?” Ghoul half-frowned half-laughed.
Poison answered, but Ghoul couldn’t make out what he said. He was distracted by a tiny spider, that had crawled from the sand on Poison’s knee and then up his tight.
He instinctively stepped back.
But Poison didn’t seem to notice. He was still speaking, saying something Ghoul couldn’t make out. He kept his focus on the spider, which was moving up, crawling on Poison’s chest, and then on his neck, until it was on his face.
Then everything went black again.
What the fuck Frank.
How long have you been sleeping?
How long have you been asleep? Or dead, or whatever it is that your body does to you. It’s the longest you’ve ever been, you can feel it. It creeps you out. You need to wake the fuck up right now. But…you can’t. It’s not like the other times. You’re stuck, it’s like you’re suffocating. It’s like these memories you’re seeing are trapping you. Like you can only exist through them.
No, that’s not true. You can hear yourself thinking now. You can hear the panic buzz in your head like an alarm, now. But you still don’t feel it burning in your chest, or in any part of your body. It’s claustrophobic, and it’s freaking you out.
Like you’re just a memory. Like you’re just your thoughts.
His consciousness swam, too weakly to fully wake him up, until he was asleep again, and a new, deep dream took hold of him.
“Do you mean this?”
Fuck. Why the fuck would you ask that. You clearly know he doesn’t.
Do you mean this. The last thing you remember. He moved his fucking lips, he said something. He answered.
Wait.
The memory goes on. How the fuck can it go on if you were dead?
You see Poison’s face above your own. He’s kissing you again, and he’s…crying?
You see his face shift to the bloodlust you’ve seen so many times on him. His eyes are watery, and he says something to you again, but he’s enraged. He turns around and you can barely follow his red hair with your sight. You shouldn’t know this. You shouldn’t have seen this.
Poison rushes to the crates and takes something out of it. Then he leaves the cave.
You’re alone for a while and you know you’re scared. Then he comes back, but he’s not walking. Someone’s grabbing him by the throat and lifting him. What the fuck is that? A drac? The fear turns to panic. You can’t feel it burning, you shouldn’t even know it. But you can hear it in your thoughts.
Poison is on the ground, now. He doesn’t move. The other person- you can see they’re dressed in all white, but you can’t make out their face- is approaching him. Slowly. And Poison doesn’t fucking move.
He’s on the ground, his eyes are open. You want to scream his name. You want to run to him. You want to save him. But you can’t, you shouldn’t even see this.
The person in white squats by him, they’re saying something. Poison is motionless. You know he’s still breathing, but he looks like he’s given up. Something you would have never expected from him. It makes your heart hurt so fucking much.
The person in white puts the barrel of a white gun on Poison’s forehead. You don’t wanna look. You shouldn’t be seeing this, fuck. You’re dead because Poison’s dead. Fuck.
Fuck.
You hear a fucking bang.
His eyes snapped open.
Too much fucking light in this place. He tries to cover his eyes with one arm, but he can’t move.
The ceiling is white and bright, and it’s the only thing he can see.
But now he's starting to feel. He feels everything. His chest burns, desperate. He's freezing cold. He wants to scream and he cannot and it drives him crazy.
This is not a memory. You’re awake.
But Poison is fucking dead and you could do nothing about it.