Welcome to the Black Parade (TYftV Sequel)

Chapter 9: A Mess of Memories

Everything is a brilliant white, a conundrum almost identical to the one in which I'd endured previously, although this time it was almost blinding.

All of a sudden, I feel like I've been punched in stomach. My vision flashes with a streak of black before I feel myself fall, plummeting into the oblivion I'd unintentionally destined myself to.

But I don't hit the ground, for it simply failed to exist at all. Rather, I continue falling, with no place to hold.

I rotate, suspended in air, yet in each direction I turn I'm greeted by various images of the life I'd lived. Right from when I was a baby to my end. I'm able to see all the mistakes I've made growing up, the bad decisions I've made throughout my entire life, which accounts for the vast majority of them.

I can see my parents, together, and Mikey being born. The good memories that summon a smile within me, despite my inability to feel. Before me I see Mikey and I playing together as children, laughing. Family dinners, spending time together as a unit.

And then Mikey getting sick, dying. The divorce of my parents. Memories that had taken control over me, sending me into the state of depression that encompassed me through the remainder of my time on Earth.

Visions of my life gradually fall to pieces, splintering in all directions, penetrating my skin. I can't close my eyes, I can't try and hide away from it all. They're forcing me to witness everything I'd lived through a second time over.

The next thing I see is high school. All the bullying, failing almost every exams set before me. The very exams which turned out to be completely useless, just as I expected. I never had a job, did I? That's rather sad, I suppose. I wasted the majority of my life in school, learning things I'd never use and would soon be forgotten.

How completely and utterly pointless.

I see my nicotine addiction, and tendency to drink. The drug taking habit that consumed me as a whole, and it was all thanks to a certain man named Bert McCracken.

Rape.

He raped me, of course. We were both completely wasted under the influence of both drugs and alcohol, but I still remember how he felt inside me. The way he didn't prep me first and slammed straight into me without mercy as I cried beneath the sheets, shaking and begging him to stop, yet he never did. He simply continued to fuck me into the mattress, laughing maniacally at my misfortune. Well, that was only the first time.

I felt used and dirty, but that's exactly what I was, so why did it matter?

It didn't, of course. I was nothing, both in my own mind and to anyone else.

Bert left me soon after. That's all he wanted from me, my virginity, a good fuck, and that's what he got until someone better came along.

My grandmother's death followed suit, and the sense of loneliness residing within me increased dramatically. After Mikey died, she was the only person that ever seemed to truly care.

But before I can even process that much, all the death and sadness I've been surrounded by since I was young, I can see is Frank, our forest, coffee shops and late night make out sessions.

And suddenly, I didn't feel quite so isolated from the world after that particular point in time. We saved each other from all the bullshit in our lives. I cut less, he cut less.

It goes without saying that he saved my life.

But then he got cancer.

Well, discovered that he had it, although it was probably destroying his body long before we met considering how far along he was.

And it was all tears and blood and hospital trips.

Notes, more tears and the song I'd never hear again, because right after he played that beautiful melody to me, the one that meant so much, he fucking died, he fucking left me, and nothing would be the same again.

We'd no longer be able to see each other, or laugh together, or have the life we dreamed of because fate had to come and fuck everything up for us.

We had somewhere to live, that's fair enough, but we'd never been granted the freedom to buy our own house together. Fuck, Frank legally still lived with his bastard of a father. Similarly, we'd never get married or adopt just as we'd spoken of. We're no longer applicable to do anything, and that's a little unfair in itself.

But that's life, I would suppose, as shitty as it seems. What could life possibly be without everything going wrong?

And then no matter what he told me, I didn't care, and it was selfish and he was selfless but I needed him and nothing was left on earth for me anymore.

I went against the promise I'd made to him as he poured out his heart in song. I let them take the light behind my eyes, after all.

I visited the forest I'd come to love as we shared it together, travelling to the edge, and I jumped over without a second thought. I believed I felt his presence there, which I apparently could, yet not even that could change my mind about what I did.

Frank told me I could run away with him anytime I want, and I wanted to. Running away with him is exactly what I did, but that just wasn't enough anymore.

Because when I died, I forgot everything, and Zero took everything away from me. Lindsey came along and unintentionally ruined my relationship, and then Frank came along.

He was taken from me again just as my memories came back, and here I am.

Some people say that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.

And what can I say? This is the last thing I was expecting.