All my friends are dying some faster than the others

Dark alley of broken memories

Tw: Character death, Alcoholism, Drugs

The flat was quiet, too quiet.

It was barely one AM and it was a Friday night, this usually meant that Albin desperately tried to sleep while his bandmates talked loudly in the other room about whatever stupid shit they could think of.

However tonight everything was just quiet, he figured that maybe October and Alex had a fight. October could really be a dick sometimes so Albin didn't blame Alex for constantly getting pissed off at him.

Albin decided to check out the flat, figure out the reason for the unfamiliar silence.

His steps echoed through the apartment as he made his way to the kitchen, the light was turned on and a hunched over figure was sitting by the kitchen table.

Albin couldn't tell if it was Alex or October since they both had messy black hair that always fell in front of their faces.

The figure looked up and Albin recognised Octobers face in the dim light of the lamp.

"Quiet night huh?" Albin said jokingly and sat down on a chair across the table from October.

A sniffle escaped the October which caused Albin to tilt his head at the older boy.

"Did something happen?" Albin spoke softly and reached his hand across the table to pat the other on the head.

"I don't know where he went" October mumbled.

"Who? Alex?" Albin gave his friend a questioning look.

October didn't reply, he simply nodded before letting his head fall back onto the table with a soft thud.

"Did he leave?" Albin thought for a second.

"I mean... why did he leave?" Albin clarified and walked over to sit next to the sulking boy.

"Don't know... had a fight..." October was being so vague that Albin almost wanted to punch him.

"Had he been drinking?" Albin asked cautiously, earning a soft chuckle from October.

"Take a wild fucking guess" October replied dryly.

Albin sighed, he was used to this, he was used to October being emotional and Alex binge drinking. He was however not used to Alex leaving the flat in the middle of the night, which was why he was concerned.

"Grab your coat, we're gonna go looking for him, it's negative three degrees outside he's gonna freeze" Albin said after about five minutes of silence.

October just obliged and walked over to the front door where they kept their coats. He noticed the older boy ponder for a second before grabbing two coats, his own green twenty one pilots coat and also Alex' plain black coat. Another wave of worry hit Albin when he realised that Alex had wandered out into the cold and snowy  London without even bringing a coat.

In their three years of living in London they had never experienced such a cold and snowy winter. In Sweden they got snowy winters, sure, but here the winters were usually mild.

October clutched the sleeve of Albin's jacket as they walked, it was a thing he did when he was nervous, Albin had learnt over the years.

They had been walking for a solid ten minutes when they came across a small gap between two buildings that made a gateway out towards the northern part of Hyde Park.

Albin had never really seen that alleyway before, which was odd since they went to Hyde Park a lot, it was sort of a safe space for the band.

October suddenly gasped in horror and ran into the alley and sank to the ground. Albin didn't quite register what the older boy had sat down next to until he followed him.

The cold lifeless body of his friend was laying on the ground.

October pulled Alex's body into his arms and held him against his body as he wept silently.

Albin couldn't move, he just watched in utter shock.

They both knew that Alex had a drug problem, it wasn't a secret. Even though he had promised to get clean countless times, he never did.

Everything becomes blurry in traumatic situations and thinking back, Albin really didn't remember a lot from that night.

When he thought of it, all he saw was an image of October cradling Alex's dead body, it was burnt into his brain.

What came after was literal hell.

Albin had experienced pain before, and he had experienced loss. But he had never had to deal with so many people asking him about what happened.

Their band name and pictures of Alex littered all of the local papers for a full week after his death. Even bigger news medias wrote articles about it, turns out that it's true, nobody really loves you until it's too late.

There were tribute posts to Alex all over social media, they continued to be posted frequently for about a month, and after that, it all went quiet.

"Is that a good title?" Albin was pulled out of his thoughts by Octobers voice ripping through the silence.

"Sorry, what?" Albin questioned and looked at his friend.

"Decay in Peace, is it a good song title?" October clarified. He had been working on a tribute song for Alex. Usually it only took the older boy a few minutes, at most hours, to write lyrics, but this time he had been locked in his room writing for practically two weeks straight.

"Uh yeah, sure, I mean you're the poet here..." Albin said

October sighed and put his pen down.

"I'm sorry" He mumbled and clutched the paper he had been writing on close to his chest.

"Sorry for what?" Albin questioned and tilted his head at October.

"Nothing." October replied quietly, his voice was raspy and Albin could tell that he was meaning to say something else, but instead all he continued with was.

"Fucking nothing at all"