24 Hours

Part 8

Why was Louis here? Why was he in the building I now called home? Why was he in hell?

"I take it you guys know each other?" Zayn asked, smiling awkwardly.

I opened my mouth, trying to respond, but no words came out. I was too shocked to say anything. So I just nodded my head. Louis hadn't said anything since he turned around to see my face. His eyes had widened as he recognized me, and he just kept staring in disbelief.

"Okay.." Zayn muttered. He awkwardly shifted from foot to foot. "Why don't we sit down or take a walk? You guys can catch up and I can get to know you..." Zayn trailed off, looking for a name to finish the sentence with.

Louis finally looked away from me, glancing to the floor. "Louis," he said, "my name's Louis."

"Right, Louis. How about that walk, lads?" Zayn was trying his best to make this awkward situation normal.

"Yeah, sure." I finally found my voice. I wanted to go on a walk with Louis to find out why he's here. I couldn't wrap my head around why he was. There were so many questions in my mind, and the obvious answers didn't seem to exist at the moment.

"Sounds great." Louis said.

Zayn nodded, "Alright. Let's just walk around outside for a bit." Zayn started to walk to the front doors, Louis and I following. Once we were outside, Zayn went to one side of Louis, so Louis was in the middle of Zayn and I.

"So, um..." Zayn rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. It was obvious that he didn't want to ask any questions, so I asked the first of many.

"Why are you here?" I asked. There was an obvious answer, but I was too shocked to even think about it. Zayn knew the answer, he glanced at me with a confused look on his face.

"Harry, we both know why he's here." Zayn slowly said. I knew why he was here, I just didn't want to admit it to myself. Louis put his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the ground.

"I thought you had twenty four hours to live." I said. It hadn't been twenty four hours since I told him he was going to die, he still had another twelve at least. So why was he dead?

"I guess you were wrong with the amount of time I had left?" Louis guessed.

"No, that's not it. I didn't choose the amount of time you had left, Lucifer did, and Lucifer is never wrong. So why are you here? This isn't making sense." I rambled on.

"Well I'm dead, aren't I? So the time was wrong." Louis said, his tone indicating to drop the subject. The next question I had planned to ask was how he died, but that was now obvious to me. So I decided on another question.

"Why'd you do it?"

Louis stopped in his tracks, making me and Zayn come to a stop also.

"Isn't that a tad personal, Harry?" Zayn muttered, looking at me.

"No, I deserve to know." I demanded. I did, I deserved to know. This was my boyfriend, we had loved each other. I deserved to know why he had died in that way.

"Want the whole story?" Louis asked. I was hesitant at first, but I nodded. Louis walked over to a bench that was nearby, taking a seat. Zayn and I followed, sitting down also. "This morning, after you had told me I was going to die," Louis started, but Zayn cut him off.

"Wait, so Harry was assigned to tell you your fate? That's how you know each other?" Zayn asked.

"Part of it, yeah," I muttered. I didn't feel comfortable telling Zayn about everything.

"So, after you left I thought about what had just happened. How you didn't remember me, didn't remember us." Zayn again cut Louis off. The lad must be really confused.