The Hunting Party - A Thousand Suns Sequel

Chapter Nine- Mark the Graves

"They buried him?" Mike asked as him and Chester walked into a cemetery not too far from the building Billie had them in a few days ago. It was also where Chester happened to be buried. The clouds were starting to darken up and it was slightly drizzling, but it wasn't enough to stop the two for coming here.

"No, not exactly." Chester told him. An uneasy feeling was towering over him. Mike's sinful energy was going up again, and it put knots in Chester's stomach. They continued walking down the aisle between the many rows graves. Each tombstone looked the same. They had a person's full name, their date of birth and their date of death. That was it. Then there was the exception of the two in the back. One was Chester's. Mike recognized it immediately, but he didn't know who the other one belonged to. He guessed it was Billie's, since it looks like it got put there recently.

They stood in front of the new grave now, looking down on the slab of stone in sorrow. Mike read out, "Here lies Billie Joe Armstrong. February sixteenth, nineteen seventy two to September twenty eighth, ninety eighty two." It took a few minutes for the words to sink in, but when they did, Mike flipped. Wait what?! "That can't be right!" Mike said in dismay and confusion. "Today's August second, two thousand fourteen. He couldn't ha-" Mike cut himself off after he saw Chester's face. There was a look that let him know immediately that Chester wanted to explain, but he didn't know how to. "Chazy, can you please tell me what's going on?!"

Chester looked up at his husband and exhaled deeply. How was he gonna explain this without it being confusing? "You know he's a God sent Angel... But do you know how?"

Mike shook his head. He always just assumed that God created Billie in Heaven and made him an Angel there.

"That's not how it works." Chester told him, knowing what he was thinking. "See, Billie was a human once. He had a mom, dad and was the youngest of six children. In nineteen eighty two, his dad was gonna die of cancer. Billie somehow managed to get through to God and begged him to take him instead. God refused many times, saying that it wasn't the ten year old's time to die yet, but you know how Billie is. Very persist on things. So, he kept asking, and asking, and asking, then on the day his dad was supposed to die, God finally gave in and took Billie instead. He gave Billie about a week or two with his family, but he was highly sick for those weeks. Billie ended up dying from his sickness, and once Billie got to Heaven, God didn't make Billie an Angel that stayed in Heaven. He made him one of his reliable Angels, the ones that helped him with big decisions and go to save people who aren't supposed to die yet. He did it because Billie was willing to give up his life to keep someone else alive. Not a lot of people are like that, especially a kid."

"So he was only ten when he died?"

"Yeah, but that's not the important part."

"Still... that's so young."

"If he were a little bit older when it had happened, he probably would've just had the mindset that there was nothing he could do. God would've had someone else to help him with things. Everything in our lives would be totally different, along with a lot of other people."

Mike read the rest of what was on the tombstone. "Summer has come and past. The innocent can never last. Wake me up when September ends."

"If Billie's dad would've died instead, he would still be in the band he is now with Pritchard and Wright. They would act the same way they do now, but they wouldn't be Angels. That's the only difference there would've been. And that song on his grave would've been dedicated to his father."

"Okay," Mike started to say. "Well, Chester... What do we do now?"

"Well, I had a plan to get the Demons out of Heaven but then this little incident happened, so I don't really know. God's most definitely gonna be bringing Billie back, just gotta give it ti-"