"Oh god, Frankie," This can't be real this can't be happening. Of all the things I was trying to protect him from, this was the worst. The knives still hang from my hands, soaked in the strangers blood.
"Gerard," he whispers. He knows. The secret I've kept hidden so well. The truth I don't ever let myself dwell on. As long as no one knew I could keep pretending it isn't me. I could keep deluding myself. Not anymore. "Fuck, Frank-" I begin nervously. I reach my bloody hand towards him and he flinches back with horror and disgust like he thinks I'll hurt him. Like I'd ever hurt him.
He's shaking and tears leak from his eyes. I've never seen him this scared before. And he's scared of me.
"I can explain-" He just stares at me with wide eyes full of betrayal and fear. I take a step towards him. He bolts. "Frankie!" I take off after him. Down the hall, out the front door down the steps. I catch up with him halfway up the street and grab his wrist. He pulls away with a yell. I hear the sound of sirens nearing. Panickedly I clutch his other arm and clamp a hand over his mouth. I can see the obnoxious glow of police lights and drag him to the backyard of the closest house. He struggles widly but is too short to do any real harm. I push him into a dark toolshed and lean against the door. He begins to shout "Hel-"
"Just shut up!" I plead trying to keep the tears from affecting my voice. There is silence for a moment. Its also pitch black. I can't see a damn thing. "Fuck," I groan and search the wall for a light switch.
Suddenly I feel the edge of something cold and metal against my neck accompanied by his wavering voice "I don't know what's wrong with you or why you're killing these people, but if you let me live-"
My fingers curl around the switch and I flick it on. He's standing a few feet from me somehow looking completely panicked and gorgeous at the same time. "Frank." I stare at him with disbelief "the whole point of this is to let you live." The terror in his eyes wanes for a moment, replaced by confusion. "What?" The shovel he was threatening me with drops and he takes a few steps forward.
"Please." Carefully as if to a wild animal, I reach out a hand, tentively brush away his tears and cup my palm against the side of his face "I need you to trust me," I whisper chokedly.
"I want to," he whimpers, "But I saw what you did."
Guilt wrenchs through my gut. I use my other hand to tuck a piece of hair behind his ear and hold his hand in my hands gently, "There's an explanation, I swear." I say intently.
Then he surprises me by reaching up on his tip toes, to kiss me on the mouth. It feels hot and deep and desperate and wonderful, fueled by adrenaline, causing more relief than any blade could bring. His fingers tangle with my hand and hold so tight it almost hurts. We don't close our eyes. When we break apart he murmurs breathlessly. "Then you better start explaining, "

---

"I guess it really all started a year ago. After my grandmother died I-well I-" I bite down on my fist, and let out a hollow laugh, "I got kinda depressed. T-the death obsession, didn't help, so anyway I uhm spiraled down, until I couldn't take it anymore I took, I researched the lethal dosage....and, swalled a little note than a handful of my antidepressants. I thought that was a nice neat ending, the drug that was meant to fix me would ultimately destroy me. "
"But it wasn't." Frank interjects from his spot on the other side of the cramped shed with his legs curled up against his chest I wish he would put that damn shovel down. He has calmed down considerably though.
"Y-yeah," I've never told anyone this and the words are struggling to form. "The last thing I remember is..." I swallow hard and spit it out, "Mikey, running in. He was crying. He was yelling my name. I know that, but I couldn't hear him."
"And then what? A white light?" he says with faint sarcasm. I know he doesn't believe in an afterlife, neither did I.
I blush and continue awkwardly, "No, there was silence and absolute darkness and agony that doubled every minute." There's a very uncomfortable pause between us filled only with the sounds of my tears hitting the cement.
"That, that doesn't sound like heaven," he stammers finally.
I chuckle bitterly "That's because it wasn't. " Clearing my throut I continue. "Anyway this went on for a while until I heard a voice, but it wasn't a voice, it was more a noise and a thought and a memory and a place and a feeling but something entirely different." The familiar burning sensation begins in my brain when I try to clearly remember that time. "It told me there is a way to cure death permanently."
"Oh fuck, Gerard please just think about this. You didn't come back from the dead. You know how hard it is to overdose on SSRI? You must have been in a coma. Still alive." He sounds exasperated and distraught. This must be so hard for him to believe but its true, I know it is.
But even though he's closer to the door and I gave him all my weapons, he doesn't leave.
"Machines can keep your heart beating and your lungs breathing but that doesn't mean your alive." I reply quietly.
He rubs the back of his neck and exhales loudly. "Ok, OK let's say you're right, if you weren't talking to death then who was it?"
"I don't really know but it wasn't from our reality." I'm at a loss as to how I can explain myself. "You know how Christianity shows the devil and hell and heaven? Well I think religion got it wrong. I think they're all the same thing."
"Then what's death?" He asks making that little frown he makes when he's confused. He's so cute I want to cry. Well, cry harder.
"Death is a parasite. It can be in many places at once and if a person gets too close to death they can be infected. Once they're a host death feeds off their energy, draining it from them. "
"What energy?" He's asking so many questions. Not because he wants to understand but I think it's more he wants me to make sense. He wants to be able to believe me.
I focus on answering him. "Life. Life is its own energy. Death will feed until the host has none left."
"And then they're dead."
"Yes but it's not that simple. Death has to happen in a physical way once its used up the person like jumping off a building or a bullet through the brain."
"But not everyone commits suicide." He points out skeptically. "Yeah because when it needs the energy immediately, death will manifest itself in other ways like disease, accidents, war, murder. This is faster but doesn't collect as much energy. Also it seems to only infect humans, death is different for animals, it's a simple consequence to action. We have this parasite that twists our reality to its own needs."
"This is insane," he mutters more disappointed than anything else, "You're insane."
"Please just let me finish. You said you'd trust me." I carry on before he can reply. "This thing I was communicating with, hell I guess it told me there's a way to get rid of this parasite. And it would give that cure to me."
"But why? This doesnt make any sense. An afterlife would need death to exsist. There would be no purpose if it was empty."
"I think it isn't hell or heaven exactly but that's just what it's being used as. I dont even think there is supposed to be an afterlife but ever since death came to this dimension it's had to be. I doubt there's even supposed to be death either. Well, not like this anyway. It should be natural, within our own reality by our choice, by our actions in our world, like it is for the plants and animals. With no manipulation from this thing that's become death to us. We were meant to have a different kind of ending. One that's equal for everyone."
"But this heaven or hell or whatever has been doing this for so long what's changed?"
"It's tired. It doesn't want to torture and please souls anymore. It doesn't want to be hell and heaven."
"Then what happens when we die once this thing stops being our afterlife?"
"Nothing. You just die." In spite of everything I find myself smiling and then laughing. "Isn't that beautiful? Absolutely equal. Absolutely nothing."
I notice he's staring at me with an open mouth. He looks broken. "Oh my god. You're just a fucking delusional psycho and I'm just enabling you. "
"No please just listen. Just hear me out and them you can leave. You can go to the police. You can do whatever you want but please just listen."
He groans, ruffles his hair and hangs his head. "OK, I must be just as crazy to be saying this but OK."
"Thank you." I stand up and move closer. When I sit back down we're against the same wrench covered wall. "Well, see hell isn't just tired, its weak. Too weak to return to where it came. Unlike death it can't feed off life, it can only consume souls that it claims. Since hell can't enter our reality the only way it can claim souls is by having a someone claim them in its name. That's the deal it made with me and many others, kill 100 people, disperse their souls and then you get the cure to death."
"You realize if no one dies, there'll be a huge overpopulation issue."
I shake my head "You get enough for only one person."
"So that's it." He gets up off the cold floor, "You're killing people to achieve your own deranged visions of immortality." "No Frank that's not it!" I insist awkwardly scrambling to my feet "I've seen the devastation death causes, when my grandmother died I felt that devastation firsthand-"
"So then you should know the effect killing these people has on everyone they knew!" He yells at me. I've let him down. "But I don't know these people,"I whisper, know its the truth and hating myself for it.
He just glares at me with horror and outrage. "Get away from me."
I ignore him and step closer"Frank lis-"
"I said get away from me!" He shouts swinging the rusty shovel at me.
I dodge the dangerous gardening tool and admit tearfully "Frank I wasn't going to use it for me!"
"Then who? Who could possibly be this god damn important?!"
I break down and start sobbing, "I can't tell you."
"Fucking tell me Gerard, I know you're better than this. Who is worth all this?" I just sink to the floor shaking my head. "Gerard. Fucking tell me. Or-Or you're never going to see me again." He waits then walks toward the door. I cant tell if he's bluffing, I cant risk it.
I rush out the words, "W-when you die, time bends and fuck, I saw your future, by fall next year they find cancer in your heart and die within the next two weeks."
"Wait..." I see the realization dawn and his eyes widen.
"I'm so sorry," Is all I say holding my arms and crying. "I'm so fucking sorry," over and over again because this is the one thing he was never supposed to know. "Wait...you did this...you killed all these people...for me."

Notes

I think this is my longest chapter. Uhm there's still a point after this. And a bit more explaining in the next chapter which I fucking promise will be up tomorrow. Love you, beautiful killjoys, thanks for sticking with me. Oh and the chapter titles kinda suck because I choose them last minute at like 4am when I write these.