Haunted Beauty

Death To The Future

There is naught left to look forward to. All meaningful events have passed and left behind a trail of blood so I may never forget.

I cannot forget. I am not allowed to forget.

My life before this.

Before my life stopped being a certainty. Before it became a memory.

A memory I hold, that has been tossed aside by everyone else.

The only proof that I ever existed is my headstone.

🕯️𓆩♡𓆪🕯️

And the dead do not belong here. The dead should not be here. Why is this dead man still here?

"Move on Icyhot."  I spoke bitterly, like my words alone have enough power to cast his soul into the Afterlife. Instead, the bastard just laughs like my words had any comedic value to them whatsoever.

"You think it's that easy?" He said, his voice strained. He almost seemed disgruntled at my statement but the smile on his face says otherwise.

"Yeah I get it. If it was that easy you would've left already spare the autobiography." I rolled my eyes. I wonder if he finds things frustrating too. I wonder if there are things that are more frustrating than the impossibility and irreversibility of death.

"Well it is that easy." He shrugged. "I just don't particularly want to go."

"We've had this conversation before. Your ass is just a pussy." How can you be scared of death when you're already dead? How can you be scared of the one certainty we have in this lifetime? We all go somewhere after we die yet he chose the closest thing to Hell.

"I guess I am, but that doesn't bother me all too much if I'm being honest." Halfie never really did give rats-ass what people thought of him. He did what he wanted and that was that. Everyone else be damned.

"Mm. I wouldn't be able to stand being a pussy" I commented, he already knew that. I already knew that. Silence between the living and the dead is just more disconcerting than it usually is. So I fill it. I get rid of it.

Maybe it's guilt. Maybe it's pity. Maybe it's sheer insanity.

He's spent over a year in silence. Overwhelming, overbearing, absolute silence. Beyond the constant hammering of his thoughts. The world is strangely quiet when no one is speaking. You find you get used to the fabricated noises and long for the meaningful ones.

A voice.

You long to hear the vibrations of someone's vocal cords as they address you, your presence, your existence.

Acknowledging you matter enough to be involved in the never-ending flux of knowledge and information shared from being to being. Or, living being to living being.

The dead do not participate. They are not allowed to. The living cannot see them, so we cannot be faulted. But the dead harbor hatred. Resentment. Why were they thrusted out of the cycle so expeditiously? So inequitably?

And now they are forced to gaze longingly, desperately, fervently into the lives of those who were so graciously allowed to remain.

"You've never been a coward, that's true." Todoroki agreed with a short nod. "We're very different in that regard. I've never considered myself to be valiant."

"Tsk, you were brave. Braver than most of our imbecilic classmates." I snarled at the thought of all those extras I have yet to cross paths with since we graduated. And I'm pleased we haven't seen each other. I'm content with seeing Half'n'half, his ghostly companionship is worth more than all their humanities combined.

"I appreciate the false praises." Todoroki chuckled before floating up. "I'll leave you to your fate." I blinked and he was gone. Ghosts really are spooky aren't they.

I reposed my head on the pillow pressed against my headboard. My body stiff, straightened out. Is this what it feels like to be in a coffin? To have your mortal corpse confined to that wooden space until it decays. Then your bones will be cradled by the morbid crib. Isn't it ironic how our skeletons outlive us? The frames, structures, foundations, for our animation carry on despite being forever paralyzed.

I'm hungry. I think. I wonder if Todoroki gets hungry sometimes. Not for food, or drinks, but for that vigor, that liveliness, that stamina. Does he hunger for life? If he does, he also knows that it'll never be satiated. He will go on forever with that growing pit in his abdomen until it consumes his entire person. Until he is insubstantial.

I'm eating, I'm giving nutrients to my body. Filling my blood with sugar, fats, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates. My blood will carry it along to my organs, and they'll thank me by keeping me cognizant. A fair trade if evolution is to be trusted.

And now—after I showered—I found myself in bed. As most people do every night. 
I'm just laying there, waiting for fatigue to overtake my consciousness. It may be a while until that occurs but I've found my patience has grown exponentially since I was in high school.

I don't care if I sleep, I don't care if my eyes never fall shut. Because no matter what I'll wake up tomorrow. At least, that's what we tell ourselves. Did Icyhot close his eyes that day with the same heavy-hearted belief? That despite everything, he would see the light of the sun again?

Or had he given up entirely? Did he know closing his eyes would be his last conscious act before destiny took the wheel?

In that way, we choose when we die. We choose when our eyes close for the last time. Sure, maybe our bodies will force that motion upon us in due course. But surely we know in that moment that it's up to us to relinquish our bodily autonomy to the cold hands of Death.

Dying must be cold. It must feel very cold. If your limbs are numb. Immobile. Static.

Icyhot ate, bathed, slept. And yet his body gave up on him. Maybe it wasn't that fair of a trade. Maybe his body decided we couldn't trust evolution after all.