Adonai:

"Help me... help me... I don't want to die, Adonai help me ... help AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA."

"It's your fault she's gone, it's your fault, she will never see the light of day again. You chose this road, and you failed to protect what's dear to you. Never forget the cries, never forget the blood you held her in. You did this to her..."

"Why did you let me die? Why did you not choose another route? Why did it have to be this way?" The image of a lifeless, butchered Kathlyn made its appearance in front of me.

"...It should've been you!" An echo of voices said.

*Ring*

The morning alarm.

The voices in my head started to appear the day after Kathlyn died, it's been three days since and I keep getting haunted by them.

Every night I go to sleep, sometimes even when I'm already up. It's not the weird entity living inside me that does this... it is my own guilt. The choice I made back then… the consequence of me not being able to protect what is dear to me in the present. And I'm speechless on what I should do from now on.

I am a zombie, the happiest day of my life became the nightmare fuel that keeps me up at night. The person that I saw as the scope of my happiness became the thing I got to fear most.

My inability to act in a crucial moment defines my guilt and my regrets, my choices are just fuel to amplify the continuous storm inside me that pushes me closer to the edge of my existence.

Today is her funeral.

I've grieved, I don't want to admit it to others but I cry, I can't help it. What I considered most precious to me died in front of my very eyes in a terrible, gruesome way and I can't blame myself less than I blame the people who did it.

No... not people, monsters who should be eradicated from the face of the earth, from the face of the universe. Scumbags who should serve as nothing more than food for the beasts living outside the habitable regions.

A death punishment is just mercy for what they did ... they should suffer, they should crawl and I should hear their screams of agony and pain as I look at the flame of their life going extinct.

...

But I can't do any of that, a trial is set in place after the funeral and all I fear right now is just rage. A bottomless pit of rage that sometimes takes the place of what remained from my half broken heart.

The regrets, the pain, the anguish, the suffering, the guilt, the self-harm instincts all come at me, all live inside me right now. At night is the worst, being alone with my thoughts and what before used to be a moment I got to spend with her now became a moment of contemplation over the question "should I just end it all?."

It is a desperate situation, something that leaves me broken in more than one way, and I don't see an ending, a ray of light in this clouded mind of mine that could save me right now.

All I know is that I want the voices to stop... I want the pain to end ... but I have a responsibility to her who sacrificed herself for me to keep living, a sacrifice that could've been avoided if … I made better choices in my life.

...

Today I find myself standing in this church, next to a coffin holding my lover ... It is a rainy day...

"Kathlyn has been my ..."

I couldn't finish the sentence, I broke down crying in front of everyone here. I couldn't finish a speech, I couldn't lay down my final words to her as I can't bring myself to stand here.

As the voices said It should've been me...

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Time passed and Maverick and Stella gave their speeches, both crying. Her parents came home now and they held their part in this.

And now we move on to the next event ... putting her into the ground.

I can't bring myself to see, I can't look at the decorated coffin going down. The same place where Anwir rests, the same cemetery.

One that now seems to be grieving along with myself, one where the souls of the deceased seem to accompany my thoughts. I will never hear her talk, laugh again, I'll never see her smile again.

I'm standing here, next to a tree, on a bench, looking at the crowd of people weeping for my dead lover, my best friend, a cheerful innocent girl who went away too early. The tears keep going down my face and I can't stop them.

"It is a terrible day for rain, isn't it?"

A voice suddenly started talking to me out of nowhere, but I ignored it.

"I'll be real with you, crying over something that you should've not but was not able to, it's pathetic to say the least. I bet you're wondering 'but oh if only I chose better, if only I could've avoid the situation' and let me tell you, Adonai, you could've not."

The voice keeps talking ... and they know my name and my grief... who?

"Finally looking up, your face is a wrecked mess, here take this handkerchief and wipe your sorry tears from your face."

The person talking to me is a gentleman who's wearing a costume. A tall dark haired, black suit, man wearing a hat to try and cover bits of the white hair under it, but it's still pretty visible.

He talked to me while looking down but when he finally met my eyes after I raised my gaze it struck me. The red eyes with the intensity of hell itself.

"You are..." I started talking but he interrupted me.

"Ragnarok, pleasure to be meeting you again, quite a pleasure, leader of the Black Parade and one of the three leaders of The End."

He was telling the truth, he's the same man I bumped into, the one Kathlyn could not see and the same one who stood at the platform with the other great four.

Why is he here? What's his agenda? Honestly I don't care ... just let me grieve in peace. I thought as I moved my eyes from him back to the crowd, a crowd that now is going to their own places.

…

She's put into the ground now... gone forever.

"It is quite a sad view, I have to agree."

He said while sitting next to me. I continued to be uninterested in his words.

"Believe me young man, I don't know everything but I know a lot, I've been around for years, this is a situation that would have not been avoided. You died or she died, neither of you, even if you trained, were strong enough to take them out."

...

"If you're not interested in a conversation then I'll continue my monologue. I heard she was a strong woman, maybe the best the earth had to offer. It's a shame really."

Taking out another handkerchief to wipe his non existing tears, as to making fun of me he continued. "But it's not the end of the world, people die everyday, and that's even more true now that you know about the rest of the races. So don't despair, justice or something similar will reach them."

Trying to take my mind off the situation as it is clearly not doing me any good I started talking, entertaining the deity(?)

"What are you anyway, another god? What does even 'something similar' mean? There's no justice in this world." I said while holding a scornful gaze.

He smiled, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"We are THAT something similar, I'm not a god and I'm not justice. The trial that is set will not have the outcome you deserve. I can at least tell you that much. You see Golgotha and his son are scumbags, and I wish someday we could take care of them."

...

"We?" I asked

"The Black Parade obviously, we're an entertainment group, a circus if you will... But we're also professional trained murderers. We're above the cosmic law because I'm one of the End leaders."

Cosmic law? The End? I don't even know what this means. Black Parade? A circus? What anything of this has to do with the current situation.

I pondered, and then he started talking almost like he was reading my thoughts.

"I can see it in you, you're not aware of it yourself but you're special. You could've not stopped this incident from happening but you can stop others... or create them."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Grinning even more than before he continued.

"Justice won't come your way so you must make it yourself... I came here to personally deliver an invitation to you..." His eyes grew as he approached my face more, his right hand ready for a handshake at any moment. Being right into my face he proposed "Join The Black Parade."

Bewildered by the sudden proposition I had to ask "But I'm useless. So why?"

He pulled his face and hand back before he continued.

"Because you have potential, because you're special, because I want you to. If you were one of us you could be free, we could aid you to become powerful ... or we could aid you to get revenge."

*Gulp*

"I know where your state of mind is right now and I'll not take advantage of that, I'm a lot of things but I'm fair when it comes to making deals. My offer still stands" He said while getting up seemingly ready to leave. "When you're ready to leave your home behind, your planet behind, your whole past self behind come and find me. I'll make sure to make you a great ace ... or a great joker." He said while giving me a side eyed devilish smile, seemingly laughing internally to himself.

And then he disappeared.

He came and went out of nowhere, leaving me with a question to answer for myself. Should I take a step towards revenge? Should I take a step to overcome myself who was and is powerless to protect that which I hold most dear ... or should I keep going into the circle of contemplation forever.

Right here under this tree, in this cemetery where the dead were witnesses to this conversation I got offered ... a way out.