Five church bells. My breath catches in my chest as I press my fingers into the sandy corners of the stony wall. Tiny grains stick in my skin. Footsteps reverberate through the hallway, but nobody dares make a sound. The lack of clang cups and cackling insults is dizzying. I usually relish silence, but now, I shiver.

The steady footsteps come to a stop outside of my cell, but I don’t dare look up. Their stares way on my skin, a mix of pity, a mix of disgust. A shadow reaches forward to unlock my door, swinging it open with a greasy squeak. It hits the wall. The clash echoes through the cell. A pause.

“The priest is here to read you your last rites.”

I swallow back a scream.

“My dear child,” The priest begins, bending down. “As this hour dawns upon us, I ask, do you have any final sins to confess?”

I try to speak, but the words escape me. The priest’s presence reminds me of my mother’s dying body, a man in clothes very much like his own stood nearby. My memories come back vividly. An outstretched arm anointing her feverish forehead and my father looking through the flickering candlelight on the nightstand. As the priest reaches out to lay a hand on my head, I flinch.

“You have done much wrong, but God can forgive all. There is no need to die in shame.”

Tears roll down my cheeks. But I’m not scared. Death is a release, I don’t have any fear. It was a release for my mother, it will be a release for me. Just as she found solace in the abyss, so can I. Solitude is my only heaven.

“Shall we pray the Apostle’s Creed?”

I said nothing.

“Do you renew your baptismal promise?” He prompted.

Silence. Frustrated with my noncompliance, he stood up.

“It is at times like these that I wonder if God believes we can all find salvation. I think some are just destined to the fiery pits of hell.”

He turned to the guards.

“I’ve done all I can do.”

My chains clank against the worn floor. Two guards held my elbows on either side, their shoulders rising above my head like the capstone mountains of a fjord. They protect me from the crowd around us. The people make no audible sound, only whispers, but their stares are enough to overwhelm me. They judge what they do not know. Some cry, but more look on vehemently. A distant voice rises above the silence.

“God be with you.”

I turn to look behind me, at the top of the tower, where a prisoner waves their arm. The crowd turns to look too, and after a pause, a few whisper the blessing in turn. But I don’t need their false luck. If there was a God, he would be walking besides me now. He would have held my hand as my mother’s soul slipped away, he would have been there when I searched the fields for rotting vegetables, when my father drank away his wife’s memory, when men swarmed me in the night. But there is no God, and nothing after this, save sweet oblivion. This is where I leave my soul, right here, walking towards the gallows in a saintly courtyard. It will not follow me up to the platform. My body carries on in front of the people, but this moment carries no real significance to me anymore. I’ve moved on from the present, from the crowd’s morbid curiosity, from the stony guards at my side. My life ends here, even if my death began long ago.

Song: Hallowed Be Thy Name - Iron Maiden

I sighed when your friend stopped by. She didn't even look at me when she opened the open with your old keys to come and collect your things. The box of records she held in her arms made me want to reach out and take them so that I could hold onto something of yours.

She left your key on the table, and I was alone.

I became addicted to this sadness, it filled the aching cavity in my chest, also known as love.

"We can still be friends." You told me right before you left. I don't want to even admit it now, but I'm kinda relieved it's over.

"You wouldn't catch me so hung up." I tried to smile after, but you must have known it was a lie.

But you didn't have to leave me like that, so suddenly that now I'm nothing more than a stranger to you.

I place a thumb to each eye ball and push. I know no better way to stop the pain. The release is not quick or sudden, but eventually the ache within dissipates. After writhing in agony for so long, my soul is weary and yearns to be unconscious. I oblige.

I had looked forward to the serenity of darkness. Alas, chaos reigns behind my eyelids. Shooting stars and flashing lights continue to attack me after the violent onslaught to my eyes. Though finally asleep, it seems I shall not be allowed to rest.

The kaleidoscope of colour begins to bind, taking the shape of orange jumpsuits. Then, there are the masks. Faces depicting the worst of human suffering scratch at the inside of my skull. They too beg for mercy. Roused awake by their screams, I once again push my fingers into my eyes.

Moving about a room of dark blue furniture and a fuzzy navy blue rug is besieged by morning sun.

Following along is a rocking chair, piles upon piles of textbooks, trophies, a varsity jersey, the mess of clothes of all dark colors, some charms here and there, a TV and console, with the controllers tangled in each other.

All leading within the bathroom of white cut alabaster tiling and furniture.

On the dresser is framed photos of a grinning boy in a dapper school uniform.

With a silver leaf at his breast.

Continuing on is a telescope on a veranda, the image of that boy rushing along in boxers and a toothbrush in his mouth.

Spitting in the bathroom before barreling for his pants hung on a bedpost.

He takes a pill, downing a glass of water and finally looks in the mirror. Smiling proudly of the put together prissy private school heir he sees. The only thing missing, the piece that sent a shot of melancholy beneath that roguishly dumb smile...

Was a purple armband.

A question quickly answered when Father peeked in.

Arm in a cast he held it up and with a gentle smile Vlad Masters put it on his left arm.

Breakfast, despite the stupor of fun conversation and light banter, was eaten quickly. He was about ready to get back to school since last Monday.

See his friends.

Viciously mock his basketball teammates, grind down for finals week.

How an emo in too big, dumpster found clothes would snort.

Plan the kicking class parties just shy of the old fogies' tolerance.

Following the... Incident, all their parents had put their foot down.

"Light some fires, no big whoop."

"Though you are something extraordinary in oral prowess."

It wasn't like they were struggling when it came to grades after all. So, happily would the schools let some of their best students reorient and put themselves back together.

The least one could do.

For letting students come to witness a death.

Bag slung over his good shoulder Danny lolled his tongue and in a sardonic salute raced out the door, into the limo seat.

He relaxed into Vlad doing work and taking in the usual sights of trees, one stop shops, turning into a rickety, quaint little village.

"Yellow," breathed a shy, pale violation of nature.

Writing samples handed off.

The solemn turn knocking on the door, to have them received by the teenager who had once been 'Dad.'

A bus stop into the city imminent one of the houses had another student with the shine of purple geode hangers on his bookbag and a matching tie.

Logan's mouth was in a vitriolic snarl, frustrated, hair messing acid spewing out like a radioactive bomb, hurled from his lips at his Mother.

Danny opened the window, Logan taking notice as he tried to soothe his nerves with a hand through his hair.

"Need a ride?" he said, the two facing each other with a vague sense of distrust in an otherwise cold, calculating stare.

Logan threw his bag in at the end.

Sighing, cowing under the weight of it all.

Neither ready nor able to deal with the pain of their own lives and much less the horrors of fire and love, and all the gooey, sticky tastes in a changeling's mouth.

And yet, being the most stable, it was their duty.

To be there. For their friends clueless and at wits end.

Sleepy and broken, lines dug grooves dragging down and grimly elongating his face.

Both talked, keeping eyes on their phones for texts of their friends.

Conversation dominated by sleep and eating habit; meticulously searching for those silent cries of help. The hints belaying self-loathing and torture of a wound malicious and yet unknowingly inflicted.

Logan got off twenty minutes from Daniel's own school. Right at the bus stop.

Danny later met up with Janus and Remus. Two boys with sly looks to them. He was no different, making a show out of a simple bow whilst Roman's twin curtsied.

He found looks always greeted the three.

"Cheerleaders are thirsty for you," Remus squealed, grossly sucking on the idea, earning a no-fuck elbow. "Save some for me will ya!"

"Don't listen."

He simply rolled his eyes.

"Got the Lit assignment? I can lend you my book."

"Dad had one... huge library."

The Prom was coming soon. Technically Danny was too young to go.

'Less some princess asked him.

"Bet!"

"No way, and come on I'm practically--"

"A baby?"

"Unhinged."

"Auuuughhhh. I meant the most awkward, white ass date one could imagine."

Somewhere between, looking into the sky from his seat as the teacher droned on the chapter a ringing overtook Danny.

And it was in that moment that his head found reprieve. From the din of classes that had become grey and listless.

An agitation baring down unto his skin and burrowing, burrowing, demanding release.

Danny turned baleful, regret seeping at the concept of red ink.

Splashed across his papers and disappointment so sharp and gutting in his parents' voices.

His friends refusing to catch his eye.

Arguments turning sour and poisonous as they burned. Bubbling and searing into his bones already weighed by delirious fever.

PSYCHOSIS.

When every night; in the cold where there was nowhere safe and no warmth of light nor promise of relief in the beacon of an electric bulb.

Battered and bruised. Skinned and stabbed, slashed and shot. Jeered and screamed. As the adults just kept hunting and stripping him down to so coldly criticize.

Because why was he here? Why was someone like him worthwhile?

Back then, before these friends, before bemused slaps on his back and plans made to go to the shops, back then was a very hard time.

One that didn't go away.

Where once on an empty bench, much like the one for the Eastward courtyard he'd pulled up his legs, hiding his face where crowds passed him by without a care.

He wasn't-- he couldn't have-- not him. Not as he was.

Too skinny.

Too pale.

High strung and a heartbeat from fight or flail wild until he either escaped or died.

Until a boy with a very pretty, very cocky face took pity on him and masterfully guided him out of his own dark wood.

Slowly, carefully he was led like some waddling baby bird on too weak legs through highschool.

In the same way did he sit now.

Not interested in playing any game or making any bets or stupid shipping drama.\\

It was way too loud.

...Roman, Patton, Logan. They and he had been friends for a good while at that point.

He, himself, now hardly able to put a feeling to the complete certainty of falling. How his stomach was still flying, how laughter bubbled so easily from his mouth.

The moments where he could almost break down crying and still smile; wide and stupidly sincere because... because it was so beautiful having friends and watching Roman stuff croquette sandwiches in his face.

So, he could perhaps, tell them.

Because they were asking questions.

"You change in the showers?"

"Bad cramp? Man you and that shoulder..."

Yeah, him and that shoulder. How the gun discharged and the flambe he had almost become as the night was storming.

"Crap I'm sorry. The staff mentioned--" Danny froze.

"You, don't like guns."

There were some weekends where, after the night of movies and gossip and ice cream, gorging on snacks and whispering into the dark, where all one could see were the pupils, where they'd take out a blanket, brew up some chocolate or whatever was hot, and take breakfast to go to some park nearby. Wherever gave that slow morning atmosphere of a retreat and relaxation picnic.

That was where he told the truth.

"My parents--"

"--for a ghost--"

"Phantom-- didn't like him... unfair--"

Danny shivered, hugging himself.

Just as Patton had the same idea, putting gentle hands, soothing a coming influx of unpleasant memories and sensory assault.

Roman traced fingers over that sore spot, careful and reverent.

"How can we help?"

A sentiment so unilaterally shared he may as well have integrated the tones of all three.

"Just let me be who I am," he said in a choked whisper, such a look on his face as if in on a joke.

The four ate to a blue sky.

Remus held a cutlet of chicken at his mouth from his lunchbox.

Staring gloomily to him he finally surrendered to the manic grin on his friend's face.

Danny came out of basketball practice sore and limbs stony from the strain.

Sunset blazed in yellow and pink, the sun a darkly burning fireball.

Vlad within the car, and waving him on.

"Feeling a bit more like yourself? Little Badger."

He nodded. "Much better, just... so, tired."

And he closed his eyes, a serene smile while he slept.

Do you ever wish you were someone else?

Do you ever wish you could do this all over again?

Do you wish you could have done this all by yourself?

Have you ever just wanted to let yourself surrender?

Have you gotten to the point that this can’t only be it?

Can you hold me high and give me the faith I need?

Because, have you ever disliked yourself?

Have you ever been scared to let yourself unfold?

Can you hold me tight, and never let go?

Please break the chains and set the demons free.

Their game of tug of war is getting old,

And life seems to be getting to cold

Do you know what its like when you turn away from the mirror,

Do you know how hard it is to face this unknown person face to face?

Do you know how confusing this life can actually be?

Do you know how hard it is to try and control the emotions?

Can you hold me high and give me the faith I need?

Because, have you ever disliked yourself?

Have you ever been scared to let yourself unfold?

Can you hold me tight and never let go?

Please break the chains and set the demons free.

Their game of tug of war is getting old,

And life seems to be getting to cold

On my knees, crying out stay with me now,

Your presence makes me feel better and I need to start to heal.

Please don’t leave me now,

Hold me high, and take the pain away.

Set the demons free, break the chains.

This life is no longer fulfilling.

Hold me high, take the pain away,

Set the demons free, and break my chains.