Chapter the Forty-Fourth: From This Point Forth, Pandemonium

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Leavitt shot upwards, gasping for breath. Although, it must be said, there was no longer the need for this.

He was situated within the church from which he had fled a suspicious number of times before. He looked towards the pews wildly. Nobody was here to mourn him. Nobody, that was, except for John, who gasped at the spectacle before his eyes. How dare this detestable brother of Leavitt's arrive at his funeral to mourn him after purloining the affection of his mother and wider society? And how dare his father, the sole person who had provided him with affection, have tossed him aside and told him that he was no longer his son? He did what needed to be done! His actions were noble!

Nevertheless, he felt his heartless heart twist as though it were a rag soaked in the filth of a river beside a factory.

"Leavitt," the priest spoke, strolling towards the basket and staring into Leavitt's soul in a manner much reminiscent of Montague, "I should probably explain what your life entails now. I hate to break it to you, but it isn't good." The priest's eyes glowed red. Surely not a good omen.

Leavitt backed away within the coffin, scarcely noticing that his leg had healed. "HAVEN'T YOU CAUSED ME QUITE ENOUGH MISERY?"

"Absolutely not. Actually, I think the opposite is true: you need a lot, lot more misery after what you've done."

"NO!" Leavitt screamed, leaping out of the coffin and attempting to make away between the pews. Unfortunately for him, the priest immediately tackled him to the ground. He placed his hand over his mouth.

John had not moved so much as an inch throughout this whole ordeal. Would it have been safer for him to have fled or to have stayed put? Only time could tell.

"The police will recognise you immediately when you go outside," the priest told Leavitt. "They might arrest you, and then you'll be sentenced to hanging. However, a spanner would be thrown in the works of that because of what I did, and what I did isn't a blessing, it's a curse."

Leavitt struggled wildly against the priest. He did not care what the priest wished to tell him. No, all he cared about now was escaping his suffering!

"No matter how hard you try, you can never die. In fact, you'll probably end up locked up in a prison somewhere for hundreds of years. You'll lose touch with reality after being in solitary confinement for so long. Even if you don't get arrested, you might form friendships, fall in love, and have kids, but you'll have to watch them all die because you won't be able to die yourself. You'll live a long and miserable life. If you try to kill yourself, it won't work at all, but you'll still have the sensation of physical pain. In fact, all you'll know from now on is pain." The priest removed his hand from Leavitt's mouth and the crazed surgeon screamed.

Confusion came over the priest as Pat decided that they had said all which must be said. "What the—what on Earth just happened?"

Leavitt took this opportunity to throw the priest aside and flee. He dashed between the pews as though he were still a mortal being whose life depended on this, and he flung the doors open. Into the streets he careered. As he ran, the crowds turned their eyes towards the suspect who had been felled by a heart attack mere days before. They ought to inform the police!

Unfortunately for Leavitt, it just so happened that there wasn't the need to inform the police after all, for they had spied him the moment he had turned a corner. They careered after him just as wildly as he careered himself, drawing forth their truncheons, and gripping them with the intent of beating this madman to the ground. Only afterwards did they realise that it was most peculiar that he had returned from the dead in the rudest of health. After all, I'm quite sure that you, the reader, are now quite familiar with how oafish the policemen of this town were.

Leavitt spied some barrels of vegetables before the greengrocer's store. Every inch of his body telling him that he must continue fleeing, he toppled them into the manured cobbles. The policemen toppled over. One of the policemen, his face now lathered in manure, had suffered a dreadful blow to the head in the process, and he ceased to move. Leavitt was unaware of this. Why should he be aware of it when his freedom was at stake?

Along the streets Leavitt continued to flee, garnering yet more attention. The policemen he passed, though they had witnessed the infants flying through the air, could not believe their eyes, or perhaps they simply did not wish to acknowledge any additional absurdity in their lives, and so they did not chase him due to being uncertain of what they saw. Regardless, Leavitt fled to the periphery of the town.

He dashed along the country roads. He dashed up hills, between forestry, and away from the town in which he had suffered such grief. As he did so, the sky began to darken with omens of rain, and his formal shoes and trousers became coated with sludge. The wind howled over the hills. As it did so, it sunk its dentitions into the damp of the sludge, and it chilled Leavitt's ankles dreadfully.

After a while, Leavitt tossed himself into the fields. He trampled the vegetables growing within their bounds as he fled through its expanse, making for a shortcut to a port town in which he could sneak his way onto a ship and flee the dreadful life he led on this godforsaken land. Over the fence he flung himself once more, and down the road he careered. Strangely, he had not physically exhausted in the slightest during this whole ordeal. He was, however, dreadfully emotionally exhausted.

He had lost his entire livelihood.

His father no longer called him his son.

This was entirely the fault of the gods above. They could have helped him, but they chose to bring immense suffering upon his life, and they hadn't the faintest of remorse for doing so. They needed to burn. Leavitt needed to change his tactics. He required a new plan, a far more elaborate plan, and he could not go about this plan alone. This had to wait, however. After all, one could not form an army against the gods when one was fleeing to another land with utmost haste.

The truth was that Leavitt had well and truly spoiled his life beyond repair. That, though he fought this bitter truth with every inch of his being, he knew, and it pained him to think about as the thought battled to be free from the deepest crevices of his mind.

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