Friend Of The Dead

The Beginning Of The End

There's a pit in the world, a tiny, minuscule hole, and from it, vermin emerges. You can't really see it, you never do. It's in the places you least expect, and the parasites emerge from it in the least expected times.

They come out when you're happy; when you've forgotten about their existence.

And they devour everything.

Every bit of sanity, of happiness, of joy, every moment in your life where you've felt safe and happy and warm and content, they take it all, leaving nothing but a blank slate of wretchedness and despair. And the more they take, the hungrier they get, the more they want.

And you give it all to them. Bones on a platter.

Because they're not merciful or sympathetic. They are what they are. Vindictive and malignant.

And you are theirs to feast on.

Because you have nothing left to fight for.

***

"He's been gone for days now, I don't understand. He never leaves for this long without telling me why."

"I'm sure he's fine, don't worry yourself."

"You don't understand, Athena, he . . . the night we spent in the tree-house was amazing and so were the next few days after that but . . . suddenly he became strange and distant, like he had something else on his mind."

"Which I'm sure he did, don't overthink it."

"Why shouldn't I? I haven't seen him in five days, he's gone without a word, he's been hiding something from me."

"Calm down, don't overreact. Jeremy and I will be on the lookout for him. I'm sure he just has some things to work on."

"I sure hope so."

***

How do you deprive yourself of the sadness? How do you shut it down? How do you block out something that is always slithering inside of you like a serpent? How do you stop yourself from feeling that humongous amount of pain?

They say moving on starts with closure. What the fuck is closure? How do I obtain it? Where can I get some?

How is it so easy for others?

***

"Something's wrong with him."

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it, in my gut. Something tells me that I'm losing him."

***

I could no longer look at the drawings. They were everywhere. Everywhere around my room, taped to the walls, his colourless eyes haunting me more than he ever did. I'd surrounded myself with living memories of him, and nothing would help me get over him.

***

"I think you should come down to the hospital. Come down here now!"

"Odette, what's going on?"

"It's . . . It's Dorian. He's . . . oh blimey, I can't even say it straight, just---try to get down here, please, I-I feel like you should be here."

***

Maybe I shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place. Where was the goodness in it? He was someone who was worlds away from me. From the minute we started talking I realized the distance between us despite how close we were. It was too surreal to even think about. What was I thinking? How could I think there would be a happy ending to this clearly tragic story?