Enter Night 《Cliff Burton》

7

            I slowly turned the knob to open the bathroom door. The door opened outwards, but it didn't completely open as I had hit something behind it. I managed to squeeze through, to see what was on the other side.

The door had hit Michael - and he was out cold right by the door.

            For a moment, I panicked. What if he was dead? I quickly bent over and spun him around so that his back was on the floor, and checked his pulse.

I breathed a sigh of relief. He was still among the living. He was breathing too, I noticed.

         I spotted the beer bottle fallen next to him - which must have been the sound of glass breaking I heard, except that the bottle wasn't broken. Some of the beer had spilled out onto my bedroom tiles, however. I sighed. I'd have to clean that up.

As soon as Michael woke up.

               I gently shook him. "Hey dude, open your eyes." He didn't. I tried rousing him a couple times more, before standing back up to go to the kitchen for some ice cold water.

                "Don't wake him up yet."

I slightly frowned as I heard the order. "Is he okay?"

              "He's perfectly fine," Cliff said, showing himself. He was sitting down on the edge of my bed. "But you won't be, if your mother finds out. Even if she comes close to finding out."

I stared back at him, my eyes wide.

               Cliff reached over and picked up my bass guitar from its stand by my bed. He looked up at me. "I wanna play," He simply said, playing a note.

At that moment, Michael stirred. I shot a quick glance at him before looking back at Cliff. Of course, he was nowhere to be seen anymore. My bass was neatly back on its stand again.

          "Where am I?" I heard Michael murmur, and glanced his way once more. He squinted unsurely at me. "Ronnie? What happened?"

           "You passed out," I said simply. He frowned, sitting up. "Man... that was weird. What happened while I was passed out?"

"Umm... I was trying to wake you up the whole time."

             His eyebrows shot up as if he remembered something. "I heard you say sorry to someone in the bathroom."

             I froze.

"Hey let's get you some water," I said, ignoring his statement, "You look a bit disoriented."  He squinted at me. I held out a hand to help him up. He stared sceptically at me for a minute before taking my hand.

            I led him to the kitchen, still holding his hand. He kept staring at me.

When I placed the water bottle on the table in front of him, he finally said, "Tell me what's wrong. You've been acting funny since the day began."

           "I like this water," I said, still ignoring his comments, "See, it doesn't have a taste. Mom bought rainwater the other day."

"Ron-"

"It was so fucking expensive, man! Regular water bottles cost something like 10 Krona right? Well, guess how much these cost!"

"I don't care, just address the real-"

"50 Krona! Can you believe it? That's the cost of a L'Oreal shampoo bottle! That reminds me, ever since I started using L'Oreal, my hair has been-"

"Ronnie-"

"... So damn soft, and look how cool my curls look! Look how shiny it is, as well! And it's bringing out all the red in my hair too-"

"Ronnie!"

"-Just like Dave Mustaine isn't it? I wonder what kind of shampoo he used in the 90s, his hair looked so amazing-"

"If you don't shut u-"

"-But actually, Marty Friedman's hair is just hair goals. It looked so awesome, I wonder how he maintained those curls. Goddamn, I love Marty's hair, it still looks so good - can you believe he's 56 now? I can't! He still looks young and plus, time flies so-"

"Ronnie!" Michael banged his fist on the table, rattling the glasses on it. I shut my mouth, looking down at my calloused hands.

             "You don't rant much," He said. "What the hell is with you?"

I looked up at him, unable to say anything anymore.

            "If you don't wanna tell, then don't tell." He got up from the table, the water I gave him still full. "I thought we were best friends."

"Michael!" I called out frantically, my voice suddenly back. This is not going to fuck over our friendship. "You need to understand!"

"What is there to understand?" His words were angry, but his eyes were filled with sadness.

         "I can't tell you, or anyone, anything. My life depends on it," I paused. "Your own life, too."

          I actually doubted our lives were in danger, but then again, I had no clue what Cliff would do if I let anyone find out, so it wasn't particularly a lie.

Whether Cliff would kill me or not, Michael seemed to believe me. His eyes widened.

"So let's not talk about it at all, okay?" I said, softening my voice. "I don't want to lose you over this."

           He gave me a weak smile, nodding. "So... where's that Bud?" He asked, "And your bass?"

I smiled and got up, gesturing at him to follow me. For now, the problem had passed.

******

             Michael picked up Ronnie's acoustic guitar and placed it on his lap. He started playing Nothing Else Matters, and Ronnie followed, playing the bassline and singing.

             Even though he nodded and swayed along with the music, his mind was elsewhere. He wasn't particularly satisfied when Ronnie said she couldn't tell anyone about whatever on planet earth was going on with her. He frowned. He wasn't the kind of person to give up so easily.

So what if he could possibly die, as Ronnie had said? It just made his urge to find out the truth stronger. He would risk it. All he knew was, communication is key, and finding out what Ronnie's latest problem was the fix. Or at least, what could aid him to find the fix.

              It was never healthy to keep anything bottled up inside. Was it? He wondered. If anything major happened with or to Ronnie, as her best friend since childhood, he felt like he had to know what was up with her, even if she didn't want to tell him.

Fuck that, he thought. She probably wanted to tell him, but someone was holding her back from doing so. Michael could see the fear in her eyes when she told him why she couldn't - keyword: couldn't - tell a soul.

          Lots of questions swarmed in his head; who was holding her back? What did all this have to do with Cliff Burton?

He would find out. He was determined to find out, even at the expense of his own life.

Nothing else mattered.

A/N: Hope you're enjoying it so far!
This is just a quick warning ahead of time: my updates might be a little slow from now, since the end-of-semester exam starts in a week from now, and there'll be extra classes everyday 'til test ends.
But I will still update this, maybe once every five or six days. I'm determined to finish this book and start acting on another new one I have in mind.