Fake Your Death

"Some people watch, some people pray.
But even lights can fade away."

You sat on the dying grass in front of the headstone, a bouquet of red roses in front of you.

"Six years," you sighed, looking at the ringmaster's head carved into the granite.

The headstone was a dull grey, speckled with graffiti. If you were to look closer, you'd see words like 'WE'LL CARRY ON' written crudely across the back of the stone, along with faded red scrawl. There were two very prominent printings on the gravestone. The first of which was a simple 'the end' you suspected was written by the person who had put the stone there in the first place. The last was the only actual engraving on the stone. The numerals "MMXII". You had no experience with Roman Numerals, but thankfully there happens to be a little tool called 'Google' that you used to find the numerals were simply "2012".

The infamous year of their last concert.

You looked at the statue accusingly as if this breakup was its fault.

"This is the year," you told it. "Six years after you broke up. And the year of the Killjoy uprising."

The statue, obviously said nothing.

"I'm not asking for much," you sighed. "I'd be happy with a shadow. Hell, I'd be happy with a whisper!"

You watched the statue, falling into an angry silence for a while.

"This is bullshit," you got to your feet, clenching the roses in your fist. "I knew this wouldn't work."

Throwing the roses down harshly in front of the gravestone, you turned to leave.

Stalking through the graveyard, you pulled at your grey hoodie's sleeves and thought back to the memories of them.

Bullets, Revenge, The Black Parade, The Killjoys, all the eras they had gone through and what had happened in each.

A rueful smile crept across your face as you remembered the first words you had heard them say.

"You're not in this alone."

My Chemical Romance.

The one band you had been enamoured with for all of your teenage years, no matter when you heard about the band, or if you ever saw them live. They had still held your hand through all the shit that seemed to be mandatory for a teen with a quirky outlook on the world to go through.

A caw and a ruffling of feathers pulled you out of your thoughts as a crow, startled at your footfalls flew out of a dying rose bush and past you.

"What is that its carrying?" You asked yourself, frowning.

Wadded up in its talons, there was a crunched-up piece of paper.

A wave of curiosity overtook you as you chased after the avian messenger, dodging dead plants and hurtling over gravestones.

As the crow got closer to the end of the graveyard, it circled back, heading towards you.

You stopped in your tracks, nearly toppling over a cross.

The crow flew directly past you, dropping the paper next to your feet.

You snatched the paper, then watched as the black bird cawed at you one last time before disappearing in between the pine and palm trees.

You glanced down at the crumpled paper in your hand.

Opening it and smoothing it out the best you could, you looked at the message on the paper.

A rough sketch of a fragile-looking castle was drawn on the page.

You smiled as you read the words above the drawing, knowing what you had to do.

It's time.