The Death Game

Chapter 42

Do you know what they say about Death? Death is a shadow, it lingers in the darkness, it crawls under the bed of small children when night falls and it's always there. Waiting. It's always there, following each and everyone of us and the closer it gets, the sooner it will take you as its own. It's the one ghost people fear, it's the tormentor of the many corpses claimed by death. And it's the destroyer of worlds. You know when your time is near... you feel it in your bones, in every fibre of your body. But most of all, you can feel its cold icy breath tickling the hairs on the back of your neck.

You never truly know for sure the day, the minute... the second, your time is nearing its end. It could happen at any hour or any days, you could be dead the second you walk out your door. You are never truly safe for Death is everywhere. You don't even have to die to find yourself face to face with Death itself, all it takes is one small push and your whole world could go dark. There is nothing to do in that moment, there is no getting out, there is no stopping it.

And now you know.

Now you know what Juliet felt like.

She remained in the darkness that had been shoved inside her, as if she had fallen down this deep hole someone had ripped out of her chest. There never was much of a place for her heart she thought, she never used it often but it was always nice knowing it was still there. But now that it was gone, there was nothing she could do, in her chest was a large dark hole filled with the nothingness that had become her. Jim Moriarty took his life but with it, took her heart as well.

Tomorrow is the funeral.

It isn't Jim's funeral. God knows what Scotland Yard or whoever took him, has done with his body. The thought of his body opened up, his organs out on the slab, blood filling up the small cracks on the table underneath him. His eyes, still opened, this crazy look in his eyes, that small twinkle. Looking up at the ceiling as if he was still deep in his thoughts, the same smile on his face as he pulled on that trigger. The same warm and happy smile he used to give her.

It isn't Jim's funeral. It's Sherlock's. Do we even have a body to bury? Or was his body too crushed, bloody and mangled to recognize? No clue, didn't get to see the body, only Abygaëlle got to see the it. Aby saw it after the fall, you know, for the autopsy.

Juliet didn't see the body, nor did she want to see it. She had no interest in seeing the lifeless body of her friend. A shell of what he used to be. All the brilliance and wit that used to run through his veins, now all gone. All of it was gone. There was no more great detective Sherlock Holmes and no great mastermind Jim Moriarty. Tomorrow is the funeral and Juliet still needs to decide if she wants to attend or not. 

Tomorrow is the funeral.

-Tomorrow, funeral day-

 Black is known to be a sad colour. Witches wear black, but then again, so do some nuns. But they're right, in this case, it is a sad colour. We wear it to the funeral. They should have chosen another day for the funeral, the sun shone brilliantly and the day was offensively bright and cheerful under its glare. It was as if they conspired to show how the world would go on without him. Without both of them. This day should be as grey and foggy as our feelings, it should be cold and damp with silent air.

The birds still sang and the flowers still bloomed. Juliet walked through the churchyard like a shadow of herself, a dark silhouette making its way among the crowd. She wished she could be as large as the shadows around her, so that her insides might not feel so damaged. The pain from her stomach was gone now, it did still sting a little but now the pain had moved somewhere else. It had moved to the hole where her heart used to be. 

As she took a seat near the front, letting the long held back tears flowing. She was not ashamed. She loved him. Now that he was gone a light had been extinguished forever in her heart. She sat in her silent grief and awaited the start of the funeral service. Why do they make us do speeches at funerals? We have nothing to say to them. They are dead and nothing will change that. Once people are dead, you can't make them undead.