thanatophobia // joshler [✓]

the history

patrick took a better look at melanie and her wounds and he was able to help stabilize the bleeding with some cleaning and extensive stitching.

he helped mel over to my room and sat her down on the floor while i was gone. and once i walked in she was getting a little bed set up on the cold hard ground.

"what'cha doing there?" i asked, closing the door behind me.
"making myself a bed." she repeated in the same tone i used.

i knelt down next to her on the floor and looked at her,
"why are you sleeping on the floor?"
"well there's only one bed and this is your room so..." she shrugged.

i stood up and held out a hand towards her she looked up at me in confusion,
"i can't stand, remember?" she joked.

"oh yeah." i agreed, scooping her off the ground in a bridal style and gently placing her on my bed.

"but this is your bed josh." she tried convincing me.
"that's true, but i don't have two bullet holes in my leg." i told her casually.

she sighed but complied, remembering the wounds in her leg. i was about to sit on the floor next the bed but melanie consistently patted next to her on the bed for me to sit next to her. and so i complied.

i sat next to her as she carefully positioned herself to where she was comfortable. we just sat in silence, i guess just appreciating it. just a few hours ago we were being fired at with dozens of bullets.

so the silence was nice for a change.

"was that your first run?" mel asked out of the blue.
"huh--? oh yeah, it was..." i was snapped out of my thought but nodded.

"was it your first?" i wondered.
"no, i've been on runs before and they usually don't end up that bad." she explained.

i nodded, but there was still a question that was burning inside me ever since we came back. and i just couldn't help but ask,
"who is mcr and what do they have against us?"

mel went pale in the face and she tried to avoid eye contact with me. i could feel the awkward and tense vibe coming off her.

"they're really bad people josh." she used caution in her words.
"what did they do?" the question poured from my mouth like a broken faucet.

mels breath was shaky as he tried exhaling her fear from her system,
"they killed someone very important, and almost everyone who was in the clique at the time was to blame in some way."

"who did they kill?"

melanie went silent as she tried biting her lip to prevent her from crying. she quickly wiped away the few fallen tears as she looked up at me,

"someone who didn't deserve to die." she spoke with such guilt and regret.
"i'm s-sorry for asking." i was able to finally contain my curiosity.

"no it's not your fault... you should know what happened and why the clique is the way it is." she defended.

she took a deep breath before looking at me with more guilt than before,

"gerard and tyler didn't always hate each other. they actually started the clique together when everything went to shit. they were best friends for a while. they recruited brendon, pete, patrick, and i, and that was the clique. but there was someone else tyler recruited. her name was jenna... she was tylers light. she was everything to tyler.

and gerard knew that. after a few months something snapped in gerard and he ran ran off. we all knew how gerard got so we didn't go after him. one night gerard left a message written in blood saying he wanted to talk to tyler in some warehouse. we all went and turns out gerard had friends. they trapped us in the house and the one thing that never left my mind was what gerard said... 'nobody leaves until somebody dies'.

he wasn't the same gerard. he was high on pain meds and liquid cocaine. his buddies weren't any better either. everyone took cover except for jenna. she tried talking to gerard. and let me tell you... it was working... it really was. until tyler came out of hiding. the look on gerards face was cold. he aimed his gun towards tyler, and pulled the trigger. except it didn't kill tyler.

jenna jumped in front of the bullet, leaving a wound in her stomach. and as if that wasn't bad enough, tyler tried helping jenna but the last thing jenna said to him was 'it's okay... one of us had to go and i know it wasn't you...'

and gerard didn't hesitate to kill her. he did it to get back at tyler. tyler couldn't help her. nobody could. but we all blamed ourselves and we never knew what jenna was talking about when she said tyler wasn't gonna die. but now mcrs back. and gerard won't hesitate to kill tyler. he won't hesitate to kill anyone of us."

i was in a loss of words, completely in shock. gerard was no joke, as if i didn't know that before. but now it's more apparent.

before i could respond with anything that could possibly help with the situation, there was noise above us. since the hideout was underground, you could hear anything from the thin ground above.

i helped mel up and i walked towards the ladder with mel on my back and i opened the pot hole. and what we saw was a sight that nobody should have witnessed.

and we were just the lucky ones to witness it.