Joe pinched the bridge of his nose.

He looked down at John. Joe had a look in his eyes that John had never seen before. It was a mix of love and hate. Something beyond kindness. He looked mad. But he didn't seem mad.

"But...… Why. You know what I've been through…. You know what it's like. Why?"

John's voice shook. Tears appeared in his eyes.

"Listen. John. Please, for the love of god. Just. Listen." Joe said

John grew silent.

"I know how it feels. To live without hope. To be afraid of the stars in the sky and turn your head away from all the beauty in the world. I. Know. But even through all that pain. All that agony. Has there ever been a moment? Just a single shimmering moment where you were happy?" Joe asked

John looked up at Joe. There was a stuck expression on his face.

"I'll answer that for you. Yes. There's been a time when you enjoyed happiness. That's guaranteed. And if you have. That means you're human."

An idea flew into John's mind. Something twisted. Something horrible.

"But isn't the ability to choose an end what sets humans apart from the rest? The power to choose to live is what makes humans different. So, if I'm human. Shouldn't you just let———"

Everything flashed red.

John's face had been transformed into a shining comet of pain.

Over and over, John's skull was struck by Joe. His face repeatedly flashed with agony.

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

"DON'T EVEN MENTION A SICK IDEA LIKE THAT!"

John tasted it in his mouth. Acidic. Metallic.

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Blood.

His teeth had been knocked from his mouth and stabbed into his cheek. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything John had been through. But somehow, that wasn't the worst of it.

The look on Joe's face as he huffed and Puffed above John was nothing short of agonizing.

When they were in the fight club back in college, John had punched Joe so hard that his ribcage was shattered. It stabbed into his lungs and damn near killed him. And even then, Joe hadn't gotten mad at John. He didn't even express a hint of anger at him.

The fact that he was mad now hurt John so severely that he started bleeding salt from his eyes.

Joe stood up and walked a few steps away from John. He looked down at John's mutilated body. His arms and legs had been shattered in fragments, and his Jaw had been bent out of place. He didn't even look like the same person anymore.

"A human is strength! A human is a being that stands atop an endless pit of failure and doesn't fall! A human is being that bends but never breaks. A human is infinite!"

A imprecetible red aura covered Joe.

"A HUMAN IS UNBREAKABLE!" Joe bellowed

Cracks slithered through the floors and walls of the building.

"Well then, I must not be a hu——"

Red flashed around Joe

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! If you were broken. If you were hurt. You would have ended yourself a moment after your sin! And there would have never been a momment where you could smile!" Joe's body had grown so red with rage that he didn't look human anymore. He looked like something different.

The tears slowly dripped down John's cheeks.

A silence encompassed the room. John couldn't say a word in response to Joe's rebuke.

Joe bent over and put his arms around Jihn.

Joe was someone who was quite uncomfortable with touch. John had never seen him hug anyone outside of girlfriends.

The tears stained Joe's back. They fell into the open wounds that covered his body.

"Listen, John. I only have one thing to ask of you. Please... Be strong. Stand up even if it's hard. You were my first friend. You were the first person I knew who had also gotten into college while homeless. You showed me what it actually looked like to stand. If it weren't for you....."

For a few minutes there, they lay in silence.

To stand up even when the weight of the world was on your shoulders. Was that what humanity was?

John turned his eyes and looked behind himself.

He'd been a murderer. He'd been a bad friend. People would mock him when he first started learning the language.

He had always been called strange.

But despite this. Despite all this pain.

He had helped someone. Someone he had known for only a few months. Someone that he had thought was stronger than him.

Beneath the black ocean of sadness, of hopeless and unhappy days. Beneath that ocean, a spark was lit.

Something new was in John's soul. Something he had never had before...

Hope.

"Okay."

Joe looked up at John.

"I'll stand. I'll be strong."

Joe smiled.

"Thank you….."

End of Book one