What Follows

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sierra is leaning on her motorcycle and looking at Joshua with wide antic.i.p.ating eyes as I slap my hand to my chest.

"Oh my G.o.d," is what frantically comes out of my mouth as I blindly walk to Joshua with my vision too blurry to make sense. In fact, nothing, nothing seems to make sense to me except for my intense need to protect him at all costs. Tobias calls me but his voice is unheard in the chaos born by Sierra"s action.

Joshua stands beside tall, his arms by his sides and his face frozen over what seems to be the ghost of fear and confusion. And a million bullets for thoughts bombard my mind as I wonder if that body of fluff of mine could take a bullet for him or turn into an oxygen tank if he starts drowning somehow. I wonder if G.o.d would let me die and die, oh please, G.o.d, let me die for him.

I wail as I stare at a confident Sierra. She has ruined his life and he can be dead any time now. I stand between them, my arms fruitlessly outstretched in front of Joshua and I can"t believe how much I"ve come to hate her for ruining everything.

I cry in pain and it"s suddenly all I hear over their talk-talk. My anguish cries. I cry and wonder if G.o.d can hear me or if h.e.l.l is a soundproof place for the d.a.m.ned. And it isn"t because of Joshua. It"s because of every situation, every person I couldn"t save because I"m dead. I cry because I regret taking my life so soon. I cry because I know I should"ve been more focused on people who loved me over those who hated me. I shouldn"t have let the haters get to me. I should"ve looked deeper in Jacob"s and Joshua"s eyes. Had I not been so caught up in my false life, I would"ve sensed the love pulsing under Jacob"s blues and the call of help trapped under Joshua"s browns.

I should"ve lived to the day I regained my sight. Because all I have now, are those stringy, transparent arms "protecting" Joshua, and my high, high hopes to stop Jacob from smoking himself to death.

All I have is a glare seen only by the dead, trying to pierce its way into Sierra"s dead heart to bring it to life. All I have are stupid, useless things and Joshua will die.

My thoughts are like a thousand alarm bells ringing simultaneously in my ears and I suddenly believe that sounds can inflict as much agony as a knife driven in a beating heart. I have to resist the urge to fall to the ground and cradle my head in pain.

And I suppose this is the pinnacle of my punishment, the moment when I realize where I"ve gone wrong, when I"ve been strung naked from all of the pretences and lies I comforted myself with. Because it seems, no matter how much I try convincing myself otherwise, that nothing could"ve solved any of my problems but my existence.

Sierra is looking at Joshua"s phone with a slight frown. "It says it"s deleted," she tells him and he doesn"t as much as breathe. "Why aren"t you dead yet?"

Joshua"s throat bobs and his eyes silently tear up. He seems to have given in to the idea of his death. "Can you just tell Selena something?" He asks quickly as if not sure of the amount of time he"s still got on his life clock.

Sierra gives him a once over and nods.

"Okay," he breathes out as he tries to stop himself from crying (got no time for that!). "Tell her I"m so sorry."Heavy tears fall over his thick eyelashes. "Tell her… I love her." His voice breaks. "Okay, Sierra? Tell her I love her."

My hands seem to wish themselves into claws because that beating thing in my chest got too heavy to carry around. And I find myself groaning in the sound of his pain. I find my eyes suffocating to blurriness and just pain, so much pain.

Joshua closes his eyes and I hold my breath, expecting a meteor to hit him, or the ground to split underneath his shoes or just anything to kill him.

But that never happens. And I start to wonder if Sierra really broke the F-rule.

"ROSE, WATCH OUT!"

And I"m suddenly inside a fire with sharp objects flying right through me and wild, orange flames erupting around me and I think I"m inhaling ignited oxygen. I"m suddenly too terrified to move, too petrified to think. My thoughts are paralyzed and my body is incapable of floating or flying or anything as I let the flames eat my heart out, lick my brain dead and sizzle with my delicious insides. But of course, this can only be a wish of the d.a.m.ned dead. Never a living being.

I"m unharmed by the fire because, really, souls can"t catch fire. And maybe I"m too caught up in myself and in all the terrible things I"d love to go through to notice Tobias defying nature and standing beside me in the fire. He looks shocked and tries to pull me away from it, away from my wish, from the fire.

When he succeeds, he puffs out a breath and quickly looks over my face. "Are you okay?" He shouts in my face in panic as I try to register what exactly happened. As I try to understand what happened. As I beg myself not to choke on the seas of tears raging in my stomach and leaking through my eyes.

But I can"t look at him as an image of a fried Joshua pops in my head. I can"t breathe as I sob and Tobias looks at me with parted lips and holds my arms. I can feel my heart coil with every tear falling, and my, I got a whole waterfall cascading its way out.

Tobias tries to catch my eyes but, dammit Tobias, can"t you see how breathless I am? Can"t you feel me slip through your fingers and morph into an ocean of everything my mom would hate me to be?

And I"m hiccoughing Joshua"s name like a prayer, hoping G.o.d would hear me out this one time and let time tick-tock back to when I was still alive.

"Joshua!" I groan, looking in Tobias" concern-drunk eyes. He frowns a little and uses a hand to pat my hair down.

"He"s alright, love," he breathes out, trying to calm me down. "He"s all good now."

My lips quiver and I shake my head. "She shouldn"t have done that!" I say, my eyes wide. "She-she shouldn"t have done that!" I blather and Tobias almost cries for me.

"Love, please, please," he lifts my chin and cups my face. "Love, don"t cry-"

"She killed him!" I tell him wildly and he looks taken aback.

"No, love, no," he tries telling me. "Joshua"s fine, love," he keeps repeating as he wipes away my tears. "It"s Sierr"

I stop breathing for a second. "What?"

"Sierra is the one-" I don"t give him the chance to continue as I slip free from his clutch and turn to the scene of the accident.

And it seems that Tobias, for once in his dead life, is right.

Joshua is lying on the ground, a few feet away from the fire, his arms over his head. And Sierra is no more than a cadaver fed to flames. Her motorcycle seems to have exploded and I"m surprised that I"m still finding it difficult to breathe instead of feeling relieved.

I can almost smell the menace leave her body.

Her burning remains are stark against the night and I can"t seem to understand how it is that she"s dead. I can"t seem to remember how her motorcycle burst into flames.

I turn to Tobias with a hundred questions on my mind. "How?" I struggle to say. "How is she the dead one?"

Tobias approaches me, still looking worried at my condition. "Are you okay?" He asks me importantly, holding my arms. "Rose, are you okay?"

I look at him speechlessly, at the deep emotion in his eyes, at the smile that left his face to make sure I am still breathing just fine. And I know that I appreciate him so, so much.

"I"m as okay as I can be," I respond and Tobias shakes his head, quickly licking his lower lip.

"Didn"t you see what happened?" He asks. "Didn"t you see a lighter being thrown at her motorcycle? There must"ve been a gas leak though, but I don"t know what or who caused it. The street was empty. The responsible person might"ve as well been a shadow."

"How could they miss?" I ask, shocked. "Isn"t it the dark web they were dealing with? Their every step is calculated."

"Look," Tobias says slowly, catching my eyes. "Deep breaths," he requests softly and I inhale deeply to help me relax. "I don"t know much about this dark web, mainly because my generation didn"t deal with it that much. But I can tell that it"s an evil ent.i.ty. And instead of getting worked up all about it, you should just be thankful that it got rid of this cancer." He refers to Sierra.

I nod silently and turn to Joshua who by now is up, looking incredibly shocked and exhausted. He has a gash by the side of his face and his jeans are torn at the knees. His tearful eyes linger on the scene, the light from the slowly dying out flames giving him a high, bright forehead and wild, lit auburn curls. The left corner of his lips twitches before he nods and starts limping away from the scene.

It seems that he"s given his goodbyes.

Tobias drops his arm around my shoulders as we both watch Joshua walk away in freedom. It almost feels like a breath of fresh air if it isn"t tinged by my ex-best friend"s ashes.

And I don"t know what to feel. Should I cry for my "once-upon-time" sister? Or should I feel satisfied with this revenge? And would that make me any less of a human?

I turn to Tobias who is already staring at me and get caught in his eyes. We say nothing for a long while as my heart knots untie themselves to easiness and a smile slowly finds its way to my lips.

"You"re done," he whispers.

"I"m done," I repeat, suppressing all my pain to some other time. And I wonder I wonder if my intervention would"ve stopped anything at all. If I was still alive, I don"t think I"d be able to save any of them. And that reminds of a very important thing Tobias had shared with me.

He said that G.o.d"s punishment isn"t through letting us suffer. It"s through letting us see his mercy that would"ve instilled itself over us if we had only been patient enough. And maybe that"s why I regret killing myself. I regret the good days that were to come just when I thought I"ve had enough.

Because we never know G.o.d"s strategy in solving our problems.

Which again makes me think if any of this would"ve happened if I hadn"t killed myself. Would Sierra and Joshua have that very same conflict that gets her dead? It makes me think a lot. But maybe Sierra would kill someone else, or would ger her phone lost anyway, or many other indefinite possibilities that G.o.d could"ve used to show me His mercy.

And it seems that I"ve lost faith in all those indefinite possibilities. It"s impossible not to regret it when I"ve chosen the worst possibility.

I sigh heavily, feeling bitter like I"m on the verge of crying.

"I"m sorry," is what Tobias whispers and I close my eyes with a nod.

Even I am sorry.

"Where"s Benji?" I ask him brittly and look up at him.

Tobias looks behind his back and smiles. "Chasing the streetlights" halos. Maybe even the moonlight."

"Let"s go fetch "im. I think our time is over here."