NOTES: This was written entirely in one day, two days after I was lucky enough to see Spring Awakening for the first time and watch Act One from the stage on incredibly short notice. This story basically wrote itself, as my in-progress American Idiot fic was doing. This AI fic was formerly known as the DFTWI (Depressing Fic That Wrote Itself), but is now the DFTIHTWNGDI (Depressing Fic That I Have To Write Now, God Damn It). So the DFTIHTWNGDI is my next project and I will hopefully write more for Spring Awakening in the future. Reviews make me write more! : )

RATING: T for self-inflicted violence, character death, and brief language

CHARACTERS: Moritz, Melchior, and Ilse

Anything Past Everything

"Melchior!"

The force of her fist echoed through the wood of the door, seeming to spread through the entire house. All the sudden noise frightened my mother, who called after me as I ran from the sitting room that I should teach this friend of mine some manners, whoever she may be. The pounding on the door continued, as did the nearly hysterical screaming of my name.

As I opened the door, I was met with a pale, terrified face, a pair of bare legs, and a wild mess of long, curly, red hair. I had barely a moment to perceive that she was there before her hand was clutching my wrist, dragging me out onto the stoop. I stepped out and shut the door behind me in case my mother should follow me to the door and see the girl, who was dressed in only a man's white shirt and was still screaming, too loudly for me to make any sense of it.

"What do you want–" I began before I realized who she was. "Ilse?"

"You have to come with me–" Both of her hands were now painfully gripping my arm, her eyes wide and desperate. The eyes were what made me begin to follow the lead of her hands, which pulled me down the front steps and out into the darkening street.

"Come where?"

"We have to hurry; now, Melchior–" There were no pauses in between anything she said; her breathing sounded choked and shallow. Her hands tugged me into a run, and I followed her, though I didn't yet know why.

"Ilse, where–"

"Hurry!"

Even as I ran, she kept a hand around my wrist, urging me always to run faster. She never said anything more than "hurry," no matter what I said or asked. I didn't know what was wrong, or where we were going, or how angry my parents would be when I got back after running off with no warning. After a while, I didn't know where we were; she was all I could clearly see in the dusk. Nothing made sense, but still I ran.

I didn't know it was possible to run so far and so fast in only around five minutes. I only slowed when she let go of my hand; I stopped to bend over and catch my breath as she ran a ways ahead and dropped to her knees, her face…I'll never forget it. It was the most terrified I'd ever seen a person look.

"Melchior, now!" Her voice broke, hoarse from shouting and running.

Still confused, I stepped forward, becoming afraid of what she could be kneeling by. I could see something there; as I came closer, what was a shadow became a solid shape, which then became a person…

Everything slowed and quieted…everything except my heart. I was no longer afraid of what she knelt by, but who. I could now see that she was crying, alternating sobs and words forcing themselves out between hoarse breaths.

"Melchior, please hurry; he's still breathing–"

I willed my legs to walk faster, feeling as though my heart, pounding in dread, would drown out her words as the face at her knees slowly came into focus.

Suddenly, I was kneeling too, panicking, losing my breath as quickly as I'd gained it back, whispering only one word, over and over: "Moritz…"

"I– I heard a shot and I just– I'd only just talked to him, so I was– I– I was still close and–"

Her voice barely registered in my ears past the word "shot."

My hands were shaking as they clutched his shoulder and cheek. Never in my life had I seen him this still. "Moritz…Moritz…oh, God, Moritz…" My thumb rested on the corner of his mouth; I could barely feel him breathing and when I took my hand away, a dark red smear was left on my thumb. "There's– there's blood in his– he'll choke–" I was starting to sound like her. I moved my hand to lift his head from the grass and my palm immediately felt a warm layer of blood matting his brown curls. "No…no, no, no, you didn't, Moritz, you didn't…"

"What do we do?"

I couldn't answer. I couldn't move. I couldn't look away from his face. It was entirely expressionless. It wasn't like him.

"Melchior, what do we do?" she sobbed again.

Without thinking or answering, I drew him into my arms, propping up his head in the crook of my elbow. I didn't know what else to do.

I wanted to shake him awake. I wanted to scream and swear and slap his face…anything that would make his eyes open. I believe I would have done it all had I not been frozen. All I could do was balance his small frame in one arm, grasp the side of his face with my other hand, and lean my face close to his, counting the seconds between each shallow breath that brushed by my thumb, whispering desperately whatever came to mind in some sort of fool's hope that he could hear.

"Moritz, keep breathing…please, Moritz, please…" I knew it was impossible. At least, I should have known. "Don't do this…don't do this, Moritz, don't do this…" He already had. He already had, and I was powerless. "Keep breathing…please…"

I just wanted him to fucking wake up. I wanted Ilse to stop crying and I wanted him to stop being so foolish and listen to me, to hang on every word of mine like he always did…

"Wake up, damn you, wake up!"

I heard a startled break in Ilse's crying as I screamed it into his face. The outburst surprised even myself. The words seemed to come from someone else. I froze, ashamed, for a few agonizing seconds before remembering to breathe again and burying my face in his chest.

"Moritz, I'm sorry…I'm sorry…" I whispered as I felt my tears soaking his lapel. I couldn't remember when I'd started crying, but now I couldn't stop. "I'm sorry…" It was in the middle of these desperately whispered apologies when I realized that no more breath was fluttering past my thumb.

I lifted my head and held my trembling hand on his lips. Nothing. "No…" I slipped my hand into his jacket and pressed it to his heart. Nothing. There was nothing. How could there be nothing?

I wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could for fear that his body would somehow disappear as well; I pressed my cheek into his hair and rocked him like a child, my voice now only capable of strangled sobs. I opened my eyes when I felt his arm fall from my grasp. Ilse took his limp hand from the grass and clasped it between her own hands, her eyes squeezed shut as she cried and kissed his fingers.

I closed my eyes again and held him tighter. There was nothing else I could do. I sat with them for what seemed like hours, and I cried…and I prayed. For the first time in years, I prayed, begging for the safety of his innocent being. I prayed because before…it had always seemed so easy. It always seems easy, when you're being objective about it, to slap a belief of nothing onto every situation you're presented with and call yourself wise…but when you see everything up close and your best friend is breathing his final comatose seconds in your arms and you can't be objective anymore…you start doubting yourself. Doubting everything. Doubting your once firm conviction that there is no Heaven, or Hell, or anything past everything. Because this couldn't have been it for him. It just couldn't.

I didn't think this at first. I thought it through much later, actually, standing at his funeral. For now, I prayed simply because there was nothing else to do. There was nothing else there in the now pitch-black night besides three bodies, two souls, and a few desperate words.