72 Hours: A Ticking Time Bomb

{-CHAPTER FIFTEEN, EPILOGUE-}

"Wait? What?!?! How?" Damiano trembled.

"When you were unconscious, these guys had showed up to take you with them... Thomas tried saving you... But got killed in the process..."

Damiano's heart sank.

"What are we gonna do without him? Maneskin just won't be the same without him! We can't just get another guitarist! Thomas was part of our family! Why did he have to..."

Before Damiano could finish what he was saying, Michael tapped him on the back. Damiano turned his head to see Michael holding up the bracelet.

"We couldn't save Mahmood.... But you can use this to heal Thomas." Michael said with tears in his eyes.

Damiano looked at the bracelet, then back at his phone..

"Guys..... Don't worry.... We can bring him back.." Damiano said.

"What the hell are you talking about? He's gone! He's not coming back!" Ethan raised his voice.

"Look, I watched five people come back from the dead, and I have the source that they used to come back! Just trust me." Damiano said with confidence.

"Wait...... You're serious?" Victoria asked with tears in her eyes.

"Yes. I promise! Thomas will be fine." Damiano assured Victoria.

"Did you hear that, Ethan? Maneskin is back!!!" Victoria cheered. Ethan was still skeptical about what Damiano was saying.

"Well, I gotta go. We're gonna fly out to our homes now, I'll meet you guys back at LA, and Thomas will be back. Don't worry." Damiano said and hung up.

Things seemed like they would be looking up from here. Otto sure wasn't going to come back, and Thomas was going to come back.

But still, there was a dark silence in the air... Like something was missing... There was something missing, and that was the person who probably helped them the most.... The person who gave himself to save everyone else...

Everyone had arrived at the airport.

"Well... I guess this is it?" Victor asked.

"Hopefully. I mean, Otto is gone, he can't hurt us anymore." John shrugged.

"Aw man!" Sergey sighed. "I don't wanna go back to Russia! I hate driving there."

"Oh? So you admit that you liked the adventure?" Victor teased. Sergey grew red in embarrassment.

"Oh, shut up." He sighed.

That's when the woman on the intercom spoke up.

"Flights to Serbia, Israel, Denmark, Germany, and Russia may now board their flights."

"Well that's us." Netta said to Nevena and Sergey. Victor was going with Nevena to Serbia so that they could stay together.

Another five minutes had passed and the next flights were boarded. Kate, Katerine, Damiano, and Duncan had left, leaving Michael and John left in the waiting room to converse.

"So, I guess.... That's it?" John asked.

"I guess..." Michael shrugged.

"It all seemed to happen so fast. One minute, we're doing our own things, the next, we're sent to a mansion in the middle of nowhere to save Duncan Laurence's life. Now we're here and we won..." John said.

Michael just shrugged.

"Hey man, you okay?" John asked.

"Well.... I mean, not really..... I feel bad about leaving Mahmood behind.... I know he knew he wasn't going to make it out but why? Why him?"

"I don't know.... I guess that's a question that'll never get answered." John said.

That's when the intercom came on again...

"Flights to England, Sweden, Italy, and France may now board their flights."

John turned to get to his flight, when Michael stopped him.

"Hey wait.." He called out.

John turned his head.

"Thanks for saving me back there..." Michael sighed.

"It was nothing. Anything for a friend." John said as he headed off his way. Michael headed off his own way.

......

"It's all over the news here in The Netherlands." One man said to his friend, the two were out logging just outside Rotterdam.

"What? You mean that man who tried to kill like twelve Eurovision contestants and successfully got one?" The second logger, who was a girl, spoke up.

"Yeah. Poor Mahmood... I feel bad for Blanco... Heard he was his boyfriend." The man said.

"Yeah. Let's just stop talking about it and get back to work." The woman said.

They've been logging for about another hour when the man saw something.... Looked to be like some kind of old, left behind scraps of wood.

"We should take some of this instead of chopping down all the trees." The woman said.

"But this isn't the wood we need. It's too thick and not the color that we need...." The man said. Little did he know, his fellow logger wasn't paying any attention. She seemed to have found something very interesting. And interesting it was....

"It looks like.... The ruins of an old building." She said. The man looked up to see the ruins.

"Let's go explore it!" The woman insisted.

"No! No no no! We have a job to do! We shouldn't be exploring when we're supposed to be doing a job!" The man cried.

"Oh come on! This could be the ruins of the building that blew up a few days ago! The one you were so talkative about. The Eurovision guy that died here?" The girl asked.

"I don't know..... I just don't know..." The man was still skeptical.

"Wait... Do you hear that?" The woman asked. "It sounds like..... Someone here! Trapped!" The woman cried.

The man heard it too.

"We have to find them and get them to safety!" The man called out. Both ran through the ruins of the building to search for the survivor..... And what they found changed everything.....

Mahmood.