To Join The Black Parade

TJTBP - Chapter 11.

Sorry I've been kinda late.

This is the last real chapter before epilogue.

Epilogue may not come out anytime soon.

SATs.

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Chapter 11.

Frank's POV.

"What is this about?" I groaned as Mikey pulled me from my bedroom. I stopped by the mirror and examined myself. My short black hair was a bird's nest, my eyes red around the rim. I looked terrible.

Maybe Gerard felt like this looking in the mirror.

I walked down the stairs to my crappy flat. Ray and Bob were sitting down on the couch, sipping something dark. I groaned. Just what I needed. More people seeing me.

"Look who's up," Mikey announced. Ray and Bob turned to me and smiled. What was this about..?

"Frankie's awake," Ray cheered.

"Welcome back, sleepyhead," Bob chimed in. I glared and stuck my tongue out at them before sitting down and jacking a coffee that was next to the recliner. Mikey's. He glared at me before taking it back.

A question was bugging me. "How did you get into my house?"

Mikey held up a little gold key. "Ger-- He had a key."

I grew quiet. Any thoughts about him hit me in the gut, knowing I had something to do with his death. I shook it from my thoughts. "What is this about? The singer's gone. You can't make an album without the singer. Unless it's like the old Trans-Siberian Orchestra."

"We weren't making a new album," Ray said.

"Well, then what is this album?!" I was growing anxious. This made no sense to me.

"it's a memorabilia for Gerard," Bob answered.

A memorabilia for him?

Genius.

"But how?" I asked. Like earlier, how were they going to make one if he was dead?

"Well, we just take the best songs from Bullets and Revenge and we put it on there. Then we add a little video message with each of us talking about him," Mikey explained. "Toro came up with it."

I turned to Ray, smiling. "The man with the plan. Way to go, Toro."

"It's what I do," he laughed.

"When do we get started?" I asked.

~*~

Gerard's POV

I missed the real version of my friends. Sure, these guys were great substitutes, but I didn't feel like waiting until all 4 of them turned old and died.

Ray smiled at me while dragging me to a deserted piece of path that was covered is dust. He smirked at my confused look. The float was in the back, and a drumset, two guitars, and a bass were waiting.

"What's up?" I asked. "First you make me memorize this song, then you tell me to put on this eyeliner that makes me look like I have two black eyes, and now this? What is going on?"

"We--" He pointed to the float. "Are burning that thing to the ground. It's a tradition. The leaders before us, before they go to hell, burn their float down. It always gets rebuilt, though. We were supposed to do it with our Gerard, but because of your cancer, he went down first. Which means you're doing it twice."

"But...I thought you said we're not going to hell."

"I lied. Sorry." He pulled me over to the microphone and yelled out, "Let's do this!" to absolutely nothing. Or so I thought. Frank, Mikey, and Bob came out of nowhere and got into position on their instruments. Bob, already in the back, poured gasoline all over the float and other destoryed things laying in heaps, and lit a match on them. They instantly burst into flames and bob grinned before sitting down.

A crowd was forming. I noticed Mother War, Fear, and Regret, along with the other people standing stone-faced, watching. About 30 people were here.

Then the music started. And I sang, getting instantly captivated in the lyrics.

I gripped the microphone.

"Now I know,

that I can't make you stay.

But where's your heart,

but where's your heart,

but, where's, your..."

I made the wierdest faces as Ray, Frank, and Mikey kicked dirt in each other's faces and went insane. it was fun, in a wierd way. I was burning up with the fire around and with so many layers to this uniform. It made my eyeliner smear heavily.

At the guitar solo I collapsed and rolled around in the dirt. I noticed the float was halfway into ruins, where the fire was heaviest.

I stood up to where I was on my knees and ripped the mic from the stand, until finally dropping it and still singing.

"I see you lying next to me,

with words I thought I'd never speak,

awake,

and unafraid...

asleep,

or dead."

I stayed on my knees throught the rest. I noticed to my side Frank had dipped his guitar into the fire and threw it on the ground, as well as himself.

Good ol' Frank.

I noticed everybody started leaving, one by one, gone. Until by the the end of the song, the only thing there was the instruments, the float, the fire, and us.

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