Unnatural Selection | Joshler

Part VII

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Josh didn't see Tyler thirty minutes before the show.

He didn't see him fifteen minutes before the show.

He didn't see him five minutes before the show.

And he didn't see Tyler when the show started.

Josh walked onto the stage, alone, the crowd of no more than a thousand all cheering for him. His anxiety kicked his heart into its inconsistent beat. The cheering turned into murmuring as Josh sat behind his drums all alone on the stage, frozen, staring into all the eyes watching him. His chest began to heave without the comforting thought of Tyler being there. The backtracking of the haunting opening of their song played on, josh missing his queue as he looked around worriedly for his friend. Mark and a few crew members were at his side in a matter of seconds asking from the surface if he was okay. Josh was drowning and the beast inside him began to turn. He pushed through the crew and ran off the stage. Mark apologized to the audience, saying they would just be just a minute, before running off after Josh.

"Dude, are you okay?" Mark grabbed Josh's shirt, turning him around, seeing Josh's beating red eyes and bladed teeth, anxiety reading to the beast as anger, it tried to lash out and his spine screamed at Josh to stop the resistance and just let go.

"I- I need to find Tyler," he articulated, out of breath, but Mark didn't lessen his grip, instead leading Josh back to his dressing room. He pushed Josh onto the couch and Josh groaned in pain.

"Stop resisting," Mark demanded. "It will only make it worse." Mark pulled out a small golden encrusted box and held it open to Josh, little white pills with "O-" engraved onto each one. Josh sighed, shaking his head, his spine now feeling as if it was collapsing on itself.

"T-the blood tablets don't work anymore," Josh groaned. Mark pulled Josh up, right to his neck and craned his neck, his veins glowing for Josh, and Josh tried to push himself away from the other vampire but Mark held him in place.

"Don't resist it. Drink my blood, you will feel better," Mark spoke sternly and Josh shook his head still trying to get out of his hold. "Drink my blood and you can go find Tyler," Mark pressed. Josh stopped struggling and let his eyes close, breathing hard onto Marks neck. This is for Tyler, he told himself. Tyler always comes first.

Josh began to weakly open his mouth, his fangs dragging across Mark's neck, before piercing his skin. Mark hardly flinched, just let his eyes slide shut as Josh grabbed ahold to the back of his shirt, wrinkling it in his fist. Josh hated vampires, he hated the beast inside him. Josh cried, unclear if it was from the pain in his spine or the blade in his heart.

"Okay, okay, don't clean me out dry," Mark chuckled, patting Josh's back, letting the weaker vampire unlatch his Jaw from his neck. Josh licked up the blood that dripped down Mark's neck, sealing the wound to a scab. His teeth retracted and his eyes went back to their normal mocha hue. His bones had released their lock completely, but he felt worse than he had before. The one thing he had promised himself was that he would never drink the blood of his friends.

Josh stumbled out of the room before Mark could say anything else. He was disgusted with himself, he'd be paralyzed in horror if he was an outsider watching in. How could Tyler love him, knowing what he was? He was a barbaric devil in the eyes of all humans and other vampires, he'd walk in their shadows for as long as he was alive. He could barely control himself, he hung from strings attached to pure blood finger tips, a pawn in their games.

The night Josh had met Gregor and Tyler, he laid awake, prayed on his knees, his chubby hands palm to palm in a holy kiss, one that he had hoped his savoir, whoever they were, was watching, listening. He begged for a memory, for a glimpse of the vampire who ruined his life that night. All his brain brought to remember was long, sickeningly long hair, so dark it could make the night cower.

Josh prayed then, walking down the hall, knowing that he could accept Tyler's love if he knew the vampire with the long hair.

Josh approached Tyler's dressing room, it was eerily quiet, even the roar of the unhappy crowd now seemed distant.

"Tyler?" Josh called out as he stepped into dressing room. The floor whined and cracked under his feet, making his presence clearly known to anyone in the room. Josh saw Tyler's paled figure lying limp on the scratchy sofa and he stopped, wincing as if his last breath had been knocked out of him. The room felt too bright to reveal his discovery and Josh waited for the light to burst, to spread fire like an inferno in the piteous underworld we fear created by the one we love because that burning, petrifying blaze would be more suitable for the affair. The bright light mocked Josh as he screamed bloody murder, shaking the brittle boy, the sun shouldn't shine, even the impostor created by the bulbs was too warm and his skin was too cold for Josh to conceive. However, it was nothing compared to the gaze of the uncapped and empty fluorescent orange bottle that laid near Josh's worn shoes. And as if a sign of relief, one bulb flickered to black, no longer illuminating its corner of the room, letting the last three irradiate just as brightly as before.

Josh's shaking hand pressed to Tyler's chest, waiting, waiting, screaming for help until- he felt it. The boy's chest expanded, as calmly as a wave without the moon's pull against it, a single motion through the water, but as soon as his chest rose it fell and it didn't come back up. Breath didn't leave his chapped, blood dried and cracked, lips. By this point people had approached the room, mark was frantically calling emergency services, Jenna had tears staining her cheeks, people tried to pull Josh away from the boy, and Josh deafened himself with his own screams, feeling the wave take him under and drag him down.

"No!" He sobbed, repetitive, echoing himself, his tousled head laying against Tyler's chest and he squeezed his hand in his own, begging for his life to be transferred to the other. Why? Josh thought, his head pounding as hard as his sporadic heart.

His head lifted as another weak breath exhaled Tyler's lips. They were far apart, an unsettling calm as if waiting for thunder to rumble after seeing lighting strike the earth. The paramedics were quick to pull Josh away once he became distracted by trying to count the seconds between the boy's breaths. They made a wall around him, the stony limits keeping Tyler from Josh's sight. Lifting him onto the stretcher, Josh heard it... overdose....stomach pump...slowed breaths...coma... Blood loss.

Blood. He smelled in in the air, his horror had blocked it out before, the smell so thick so sweet that Josh began to shake. He smelled Pure blood everywhere, tracking it right down the boy now being wheeled out of the room. He raced after them, following the scent. Why hadn't he checked for marks? The Pure bloods scent was unknown to Josh, but a smell none the less that he'd remember for the rest of his life. Whoever took advantage of Tyler, Josh would rip their throat out with his own teeth, regardless of the power they possessed over him. What had Tyler done to deserve this?