Better Off Dead (Kellic) ✔️

30: Vic

**Vic's POV**

"What if I could make a deal with him? I mean, with death. I don't know, sacrifice some asshole who deserves to die, instead of me?" I randomly blurted out, laptop on my lap, trying somehow to still find a way out of the predicament I put myself in.

Kellin had been beside me for a while, I could still tell by the floating iPad next to me. We hadn't talked much; we were both trying to find answers.

'that sounds very unlike you, Vic.' I noticed the letters appearing on the iPad's screen, with an emoji sticking out its tongue and a knife emoji at the end.

I rolled my eyes. Dear god, he'd found the emojis. And he was mocking me with them.

"Maybe I need to fight him to win my freedom?"

The idea didn't sound all too ridiculous.

Right?

'this isn't Gladiator, babe' I blushed a little at him calling me that, even though in this case it kinda sounded sarcastic. 'don't you think that if you could fight him, I'd be dead?'

"Well you're kinda scrawny..." I teased, laughing as I got shoved over onto my side.

I sat back up still laughing and got the iPad shoved into my face soon after. 'says the short one.' the note application read.

"I may be short, but I'm fast." I stated confidently, but got no response after that. I sighed and pondered for a moment. I really had no idea what to do. "What if we could bring you back to life somehow?" I suggested, almost completely off topic.

I glanced over beside me, watching closely as Kellin began to type furiously. 'even though I'd love to tell you how much of a great idea that is... it isn't. and even if it were possible, you'd probably need my body.'

"Yeah, so?"

'......'

'bodies have an expiration date, Vic. my body is long gone. but like I said, it can't be done anyways.'

"What if you got someone else's body?" I then asked, completely ignoring the fact that he pointed out twice already that it couldn't be done.

And the answer I got then almost should've been expected. 'stop watching so much Supernatural, you're getting the wrong ideas.' Kellin eventually typed, putting a full row of laughing/crying emojis at the end.

I simply rolled my eyes and focused back on my laptop. By now I didn't even really know anymore what to look for. I had pretty much gone through everything I could possibly find. After several more hours I closed my laptop and gave up, just for a little while. I needed a break.

I went down to the basement, reminding myself how I still needed to get rid of the machine. Some part of me didn't want to, though. That part of me was tempted to use it again.

I really, really wanted to use it again.

What would be the harm now though, if I was probably going to die anyways?

I stuck my hand in my pocket, wrapping my fingers around the key that I still kept in my pocket every day, arguing with myself whether I should or not... until my phone buzzing in my other pocket was what pulled me from those thoughts.

Letting go of the key, I took my phone out of my pocket instead and looked at the caller ID. Jaime.

"Hey man, what's up?" I asked as I picked up the call and made my way out of the basement again.

"I think I got something, dude." Jaime immediately said. He sounded a bit off though.

"Okay, that's great, but why do you sound so unsure?"

"Because this is creepy shit we're dealing with, Vic. Let me explain." I nodded, forgetting that he couldn't see me, unlike Kellin. I made my way into the living room and sat down on the couch again, where he still was.

"Jaime says he's got something." I said, putting my phone down and turning it on speaker. I heard some random noises of things being thrown around in the background, and finally, Jaime spoke again.

"Well apparently I found the original uh... I guess you could call it a manual to that machine thing?" He began, and I could hear him digging through some papers. "Anyway, I had to get it translated because apparently it's written in some ancient-ass language that hardly anybody knows. I mean to me it looked like Chinese or some shit, but it's not."

I sighed, becoming a little impatient now. "Get on with it, Hime-time." I murmured.

"Right, right, sorry." He then quickly rambled. "It basically says that as soon as you use this thing, that death leaves its mark on you. Because you technically kill yourself, it gets ready to take your soul, but because that thing brings you back to life, the process gets interrupted, thus breaking death's rules and pissing it off. Death is basically like, bro you were dead and there's no room for cheats, so I'm taking your soul anyways."

"Okay." I dragged out slowly. "So how does this help exactly?"

"That wound on your shoulder, that's how we can fix this." Jaime then piped up, now sounding a bit more confident and excited about the case. "The mark that death leaves as soon as you use this machine apparently isn't something that you can see on the outside. It runs through your veins and that's how death finds you, wherever you go. You could lock yourself up in a cave or hide in a deep forest; he'd still find your ass. But anyway... you got injured so it rose to the surface, that's why that cut looks so fucked up. It says here that with a cleansing ritual of some sort it could release the mark and death will no longer be after you!"

'THAT'S GREAT NEWS!' Kellin typed onto the iPad before showing it to me. 'tell him you need to do the ritual asap.'

I found myself not being as excited as Jaime was and Kellin sounded though. "Alright, let's do this then." I said anyways.

"Yeah, I just need to grab a couple of things that we need to be able to do this, and then I'll be right over okay?"

'this better fucking work, Vic.' Kellin typed. I couldn't exactly match his enthusiasm though. Like I said, I just didn't really care whether I lived or died. I think that right now I might even have been a little bit disappointed.

I didn't even really bother to question what was wrong with me though.