A FRACTURE IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS ✓

JOSH

We did it fellas.
{trigger warning: death, blood, guts, panic attack, mention of murder, dissociation}

The Ferris wheel stopped once they made it to the very top, the basket teetering back and forth slowly.

Josh stares straight ahead the entire time, afraid of looking back at Tyler. He didn't know how he would react. Should he arrest him? Should he have just left him on the Ferris wheel alone?

It didn't matter now, because there he was, riding a damn Ferris wheel with one of the most dangerous and intelligent serial killers he'd ever known.

Tyler was still hunched over his seat, one hand pressed against his stomach and the other gripping the metal bar pressed to his legs. His breathing was quick and shallow, just like when he would have panic attacks.

As much as Josh didn't want to care, he did. "Are you hurt?" He finally asked, as if he didn't already know he was who the cop shot.

"Why do you care?"

Josh snorted. "Believe me, babe, I'm trying not to."

Tyler looked up at him for the first time since the wheel began to move, his eyes empty and cold. He smiled creepily, and slowly removed his hand.

Immediately, blood began to spill from the gaping wound on his side. It looked as if he'd been shredded by an animal. Bits of meat hung from strings of his flesh, a dark pulsing red cavern where his stomach was meant to be. Josh could see his intestines on the verge of spilling out.

"Oh, god," he moaned, bile rising in the back of his throat. Josh clamped his mouth shut with one hand for fear of throwing up and forced his eyes back on the horizon. "What the hell- how?"

Tyler chuckled, shuddering in pain as he pressed both hand over the wound. "The cop sure did put up a fight. Evisceration- the act of stabbing so deeply and widely that your own guts come out."

"You know that's what I did to Brendon? I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed until I couldn't even move anymore. Until his insides were out. And I liked it too." His voice dropped. "Maybe that's where it all went wrong."

Josh looked back, only looking at his face. "Ty-"

He interrupted Josh, which was good because he didn't know how to respond to that. "I know what I am, Josh. I tried to tell myself for so long that it wasn't wrong, just so I could believe I was something I wasn't. This wasn't murder, it was justice."

Tyler leaned his head back, a trickle of blood making its way from his lips down his neck. "But now I know what I am. I'm a killer, just like Brendon. Just like all the other bastards you put away."

"We," Josh corrected, finally understanding why Tyler asked him to be there. He was dying. "We both put them away. We all did."

The Ferris wheel gave a metallic groan and began its descend to the ground far, far below them. Josh could see cop cars zipping through the amusement park at full speed.

Tyler must've seen seen them too, because he let himself uncurl and fall back into the seat, smiling at the sunrise almost serenely. "I killed an FBI agent and left his kids orphans. I know how these things end, Josh. I've seen my fair share of tragedies. This will end either with me in handcuffs or me dead, and I already have one foot in the grave."

"I can get you help," Josh said, insistent. He shouldn't care. He should just let Tyler die, but he couldn't, because it was still Tyler.

As the sirens filled the silence, Tyler held a bloody hand out towards Josh. He had a blissful look on his face, and Josh realized that he'd already made peace with his own death.