Death Wish

Chapter 19

He looks up with wide eyes before a gunshot rings through the clouded air. The creature stumbles in mid-attack to have its head blown off. Its stiff posture slowly slacks and it falls to its knees and crashes to the gloomy grass.

They all look to each other in shock of what just happened. Stunned silence stretches across before it's snipped short by a slump and groan behind them. Their heads all turn.

"NO!"

I've fallen to the grass on the other side of the hill, clutching my chest in pain as liter after liter comes out of my mouth, eyes, nose, and ears. I choke between heaves, gasping to breathe in something other than the aroma of my consequences. I hang my head weakly as I realize what I've truly done to myself.

"What the hell did you do?!" Ray sprints over to pull my head up to see.

I miserably sputter out another mouthful of blood. Ray grimaces and instantly lets go of me in horror; Frank kneels beside me to glare as well. "Gerard, you dumbass!"

"I needed -" I cough as my eyes tear up with red again and more comes out my ears and nose, "-I needed to k-kill it, I used a curse - -"

Mikey stands there in shock, watching Ray and Frank panic and try to stop the curse. He's still as he watches, too paralyzed at the sight of his dying brother to do anything.

He can't imagine his brother seeing this much blood three years ago. He can't imagine keeping it together nearly as well back then - - he surely isn't keeping it together at all right now. 

All he can manage is standing there and watching me be deprived of my own insides. 

"I - I dropped the book o-over there," I rasp, starting to breathe more fast and shallow, "Help Mikey first."

"You're delirious..." Frank grabs a hold of my arms to pull me up, "Come on, maybe if we get out of here alive we can get this to stop."

Ray scoops The Book of Curses from beside me to read through the page I had flipped to. His worry grows, "We don't have time to do that, we gotta find something right now."

I crumble from Frank's grip to hit the ground again. Another sticky retch of blood splatters from my mouth, and it doesn't stop. Too much is coming out of me now, I can't breathe enough through the blood loss.

Frank flinches, "What do we do?!"

Ray feverishly scans through the pages before frustratedly slamming the book. "Screw it, let's get him out of here!"

As the both of them frantically gather their belongings, I swell with more blood. I curl up tight and hold my eyes to try and block them, but they keep leaking. Long draws of crimson ceaselessly stream from every opening in me, staining the gray grass below us. My mistakes are vivid for everyone to see.

But now I can't see. I fall to my side and breathe faster, heavier breaths as the Pit swirls around me in a confusing, lethargic blur of the dead. My heart rate only thickens as my pulse does the opposite.

Mikey finally moves to help. As soon as he sees I'm down to my lowest he skids to sit beside me and try to do something at last.

He wraps me in his arms to pick me up and run. As the rest pick up the pace and try to catch up to Mikey, he remains far ahead. He tears through the tall grass with me in his arms, not daring let go. My head slumps over his shoulder weakly, only my mind holds the last of my strength. It barely registers that I'm being embraced like this on the run, all I can do is try to make out what's being said.

"Hold on tight, and don't look back." He murmurs to me. A pond of my own blood grows from where I had laid. It shrinks the farther we go, but it's quite a ways until it is out of sight completely.

My eyes start to slide over to look. He squeezes, "Please, I don't want that to be the last thing you see."

"I'm not going to make it?"

Mikey goes silent. I sluggishly look only at him now, forgetting about the blood. "But...but I was going to get you out." 

"You did. You got the book." He states. I stagnantly start to complain but he hushes me. "I mean it. You saved me."

There's a long lull in our exchange. I can't argue with him over this - I don't have the wit or energy to - so all I do is watch Ray and Frank behind us. 

It's as if they were both suffering from the same heart attack; their expressions are equally screwed tight and stressed, focused in on a single daunting challenge that burns in their chest. I can't believe they're this worried for me, really. I can't wrap my slowing mind around it as more of the Pit smears into nonsense.

"I'm gonna die." I finally say.

Mikey sighs, "Look, I shouldn't have said that back there, you're going to be fine." He says, adjusting his hold on me. "The exit is just ahead, Bob'll get us out and we'll fix you."

I know it's not true. Despite my delirium and confusion from the blood loss, one thing is vivid in my last morsels of logic and sense: I'm done for. All I can do about it is plan ahead.

"Please find me, wherever I end up." I swallow hard, tasting the metallic liquid rising up the back of my throat again. My eyes start to tear up, deluding the already present crimson. 

Mikey halts in the grass, looking up at the exit far above our heads. He turns his head back to mine and hastily shakes me, "Just hold on, we're so close."

Ray and Frank finally catch up. As Mikey throws wisps of his own hands towards the light to signal for help, the two othershurry to keep my eyes open.

"Just focus on something to keep you up." Ray says, smudging the blood from my face. "Keep talking, touch something, do anything."

Frank grasps onto my arm and says nothing. He can only watch as I increasingly get worse. Through my uneven, shallow breaths I shakily reach to grab onto his hand. I clasp as hard as I can with my quaking fingers, fighting to keep at least one sense sharp. In an effort to reassure me, he grabs tightly back.

Mikey looks from the exit, "He's not responding."

Frank scowls and looks ready to say something, but surprisingly Ray is the one to detonate first. He storms to stand directly under the hole and yell, "BOB FRIGGIN BRYAR, YOU PULL OUR ASSES OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW OR BEING DEAD WILL BE THE BEST YOU'VE EVER FELT!"

There's a small glimmer above. Ray crosses his arms and mumbles to himself, "That's what I thought."

Frank sighs with half relief and looks to me, shaking my hand in his grip. "Ray's got you covered."

I numbly nod and my eyes begin to droop. Frank immediately pats the side of my face, "Hey, hey, not now."

As the shimmer above grows brighter, I have a harder time holding onto Frank's hand. It starts slacking before he reinforces his own hold. "Please." He begs in a quiet voice.

I loose the last of my grip in his clutch. I refuse to close my eyes as I see the worst coming for me at last. The last band of blood and tears spill from my eyes and I go limp before I can wipe it away.

~ ~ ~

When people die, it's normal to see them prettied up in a coffin. They're peaceful, put together, and as most would prefer to remember them. Here is not such a comforting case; I'm human wreckage. My suit is filthy and torn, my face is drained of life and any colour but red, and most uncharacteristically my mouth is shut.

It's more than difficult to see a dear friend so defeated and useless. 

Mikey sets me on Ray's couch. "Have you found anything in the book yet?"

Frank flips through the pages as he paces back in forth in the living room. "I'm seeing only one option, and I don't like it."

"What?" Mikey asks.

He finally comes to a stop in front of everyone. He sighs, "If we bring him back with this curse, he can't die again. If he does, he'll be damned just like you."