Don't Fear The Reaper

{xx. all of time and space}

"The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all."

-The Emperor, Mulan

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My heart immediately begins to race as I fully take in my surroundings. The park is decorated for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party, its after-hours special event where everything is spooky-fied. It's like something you'd see on a teenager's Pinterest board, the type of bucket list item only children-at-heart would understand. Some fragment of hope sticks to my heart as I realize here is the only place I can go back to what things used to be, before I was a mess in the first place. Warped Tour was my emo days, the lantern festival was my glory days, but this... this is my childhood.

I'd always planned on coming with Will.

This is the Autumn he loved: an Autumn where hazy heat gives way to crisp breezes and warm cider and trees like fire in the sunlight, where reapers are merely costumes and the dead are only the props of the night. The thought of him being here with me is like a dream come true, but then I remember my lone companion is the grim reaper, not my boyfriend.

Mor quirks an eyebrow when he sees me staring at him. "This place is awfully wholesome."

"I thought you said you liked having an escape from the dark hole you crawl out of every morning," I say, referencing the wonder in his eyes when we went to the Great Barrier Reef. "I know this isn't the beach, but it's something, right?"

"You speak as if we're here for me, and not you."

His reluctance makes me frown. Not only am I not here with my best friend, I'm here with a stick in the mud. If Will was here, he'd be beaming at me brightly, saying something kind and looking at me with hazel eyes full of light. It hurts to know I'll never get to come here with him.

I feel guilty. Everything else we've done so far was more individualized, but the South, the warmth, the music? That was always he and I together. It was what we talked about while roaming the Ashdown fair every August, the topic of our wishes when the Perseids flew across the night sky, the place in our lives we always wanted to be.

Magic Kingdom is suddenly too loud as my mind begins to draw into its memories of the past. A sense of anxiety rises up in my throat as I think of Will, first when he was young, then when we got to middle school... it's like I'm remembering chronologically, retelling the story of his life, but we all know how his life ended. Dread seeps into my skin as the crash enters the back of my mind -

A cold hand places itself on my shoulder. "Breathe, Lila," its owner says.

I do exactly that. I don't know how many mouthfuls of Florida air I have to take in before I can focus on my surroundings once again. Mor is standing beside me, his lips pursed as he waits for me to come back down to Earth. I close my eyes tightly, trying to erase the images that were about to be sprung on me from my mind, before rasping, "I think I was almost about to have a panic attack."

It's an obvious statement, but instead of saying something snarky, Mor just nods. "But you didn't."

If I had, I may have cried my heart out before I even got to move a step further into the park. I almost just had a damn flashback just by feeling guilty.

Hesitantly, I turn towards Mor. "My boyfriend, Will... we always wanted to go here together. Do you - do you think he'll be all right with me going without him?"