Love Conquers All _The Sequel_

Chapter One - How

Mary's POV:

My heart sits, lonely, in its prison in my ribcage, not necessarily broken, but very much worn. I can not form cohesive thoughts, and I know the grief has not yet fully stricken me. I can tell it is coming, stronger than I will ever be able to handle, but for now, I'm just lost.

I feel my eyebrows knit together, furrowing deep into my forehead, as I look down with watery eyes at Michael, limp in my arms.

He died with his eyes open.

I can read the pain in his pupils and can see the expression of worry he wears. At the moment, the world feels as if it's moving in slow motion, and I am numb. The hurt is evident, although I'm not sure I'm processing everything. With each breath I take, I feel less and less conscious of anything around me, and it's confusing.

Tex, who is kneeling to my right, looks up at me with just as many tears in his eyes as mine, but, I would assume, about half of the devastation in his heart. His hands are shaking around the handcuffs at my feet, and he's drained of all his color.

After much silence, I am free from my restraints at the work of Tex's fingers, and I shift, moving aside and setting Michael on the ground.

Still, nothing feels real. Tex joins me at Michael's side. I lean my head down and turn my ear against Michael's chest and, as I feared, hear nothing.

Swallowing, I sit up and look Tex in the eyes.

"What now?" I whisper, my voice raspy after all the screaming I had been doing. Tex is silent.

Everything I have ever worked for has lead up to this moment. The murders of One Direction, the flying, the tazing of Grandma, the insomnia, the sneaky library nights, and the brewing of my potion, it all came together just to utterly fail in the last moment. My mission went the exact opposite direction I wanted it to, and there is nothing for me to do now.

I can only think of one explanation for it all:

Michael isn't actually dead.

My mind tells me it's an idiotic hope, but my heart tells me to believe in it. I want it to be true, so badly... If his last death was a hoax, who's to say this one isn't as well?

My heart beats faster as I become optimistic.

Tex helps me drag Michael's corpse from the ship, and once outside, I am gasping for fresh air.

The starry sky is too beautiful for a night such as this, and the grass too green.

My hands hang at my sides, unmoving, as I know not how to use them any longer. I am still because there is nothing for me to do. I'm confused.

A small, instantaneous idea flickers in my mind, and I decide to carry it out with little thought.

I pull a lighter from Michael's pocket, and then walk over to ET's ship. I open a few compartments on its outer shell and take gasoline.

I twist off the cap and begin to soak what I can of the ship, the switch on the flame of the lighter and throw it at the ship. It catches fire, just like ET did, at my hand.

Tex, Michael, and I watch it burn. I am not content. I want Michael to come back. I want the world to suffer.

Then and there, I mentally vow to dedicate the rest of my time, as I had with the potion, to regaining Michael's life.

One other thought surfaces in my head, a nice thought. It is a picture of a world where everyone is me, almost like twins or something. In that world, Michael would love me and only me...

I almost smile at the thought but then remember that I am lying next to the carcass of whom I am daydreaming about.

I'm still not sure how I am going to go on... I don't understand any of this. I just wish I could go back in time.

"Let's take him back to the house and go to bed," Tex states quietly, looking down.

And so, we carry Michael to the mansion and lay him upon a neatly made bed, a temporary place for him until I can change the status of his heartbeat.

Tex and I move to another room and go to sleep. The bed feels weird and too big without Michael to my right and it's uncomfortable, and I am unable to sleep.

As soon as my eyelids finally begin to close, the sun is rising, and another treacherous, lonely day is beginning.