It's been about one and a half weeks since the book was sealed away. We were unsure of what to do with the box although naturally we agreed it needed to be hidden, to ensure the power would never be unleashed unto the world again. We decided only one of us should know the location of Nature’s Pandemonium and it should be the person who was the least likely to be corrupted by magic. We agreed it should be Brad as he was the group's voice of reason and over all the one we have the hardest time picturing going evil.
A couple days after he hid it, Brad gave us all a strange, laminated strip of paper with a weird series of letters, numbers and blank spaces to each of us. He explained the strips contained the location of the book. It was a backup plan in case he died and for some reason we needed the book. Alex showed him how to make secret codes using things called cyphers, and he made his own. I kept my part safe, in a bold secret place where only I would know where to look to find it. If anyone else tried to look, they would never be able to find anything in there the only clue that its in there is this book.
The day after Birchville High collapsed, Tyrone was declared missing, three days later his body was found under the wreckage of the building. According to the newspaper, he was found with several explosive devices and a plague doctor mask, which linked him to the convenience store robbery. There were no photos in the paper or online. And the way the article was described it made it seem like there was only ever one plague doctor, never three. and according to my mother and every photo I can find I have always been missing an arm. Apparently, it was cut off by a local Tirad, part of the reason we moved to Canada.
Tyrone's funeral was an especially somber one, it was a closed casket for obvious reasons. Very few people attended his funeral. The only people were me, Brad, Antonio, Guams and Tyrone's parents. They told me, everyone else was horrified by the monster he had become and didn't want to be associated with him.
Tyrone was held responsible for eighteen deaths; three from the convenience store, ten from the school and the other five were other murders not even Antonio and Guams knew about. They managed to connect those deaths back to him since all five victims had two things in common, their body was burnt to a crisp and they were missing their dominant hand which authorities later found in an old shoebox under his bed.
People blamed Tyrone even though it wasn't his fault. He wasn't the one that murdered all those people, it was me, I was the one who killed them. The police and the reporters may have blamed him, but it was my fault. If I never pushed Tyrone away all those months ago, he wouldn't have found the book, and I would be standing next to him rather than above him. I never told his parents, they were already holding on a thread, and I knew telling them I killed their son, that he died a completely needless death would've broken them completely.
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After the funeral Tyrone’s parents approached me, thanked me for coming, despite everything that happened between the two of us, despite everyone else believing Tyrone was a monster and not the good kind soul I knew he was. I wanted to tell them the truth so badly, but like the coward I am, I held my tongue and just cried, acknowledged it with a simple nod and left.
The funeral was the last time any of us talked to Guams. Who just like Antonio, he had his powers just without the madness. Or at least without growing madness, the changes to their minds were still there they just didn't get worse. Antonio is still extremely quick to violent outbursts and Guams often breaks out into fits of manic laughter. Nowadays he tries his best to stay silent especially after the funeral he didn't really talk to us or anyone anymore. He made it clear he wanted us to leave him alone. None of us could blame him.
School ended up getting canceled for the rest of the week. As they tried to figure out what to do with seven hundred students that no longer had a school to go to. In total, we had seven weekdays off since March break conveniently connected to the canceled days. March Break was pretty fun, we ended up still hanging out even after all this elemental nonsense. We spent the week helping Alex build her minivan. It was interesting and helped me get my mind off the nightmares. After we finished, we drove it to The Old Sliced Bread to get sandwiches to celebrate. On the last day of March Break, we were given our class schedule for our new school. Barkington High, it's one of the better high schools in the area. I was emailed by one of the teachers and the head of the art club. Apparently, a lot of the members were big fans of my work. They had seen my Instagram account and wanted to meet me. I was the closest thing to a celebrity the school ever had. I plan to check the Art Club on my first day there and it sounded interesting.
And now I sit here alone, in my room the night before I go pick up my father from the airport, trying to grapple with everything that has happened, trying to put words into a book that could never fully comprehend how I feel. I don't know what I'm supposed to do anymore, I killed Tyrone my best friend, and what could have been more if I wasn't such a coward. No matter how much I try to find comfort in the words of The Lady of Dreams I still know it was my fault, every single atrocity that has happened in the last week was all because I put myself before everyone else. The only reason I am continuing to put one foot in front of another is because I know that this is not over. The Guardian mentioned other forces out there, The Bleachers, The Restorers, and the Dynasty. When the Book was unleashed so was the other forces, and I would be a fool to think that they weren't coming. I cannot afford to die because if I do everyone else dose.