There were nights when Joshua wouldn't sleep. He couldn't, he wouldn't, and he can't ever sleep those nights. It was because of his death. Replaying in his mind every week that there was a week with the Game. He remembered his own death and the look of fear in his mother's eyes. Her voice, her tears rolling down her face, and the diminishing hope in the tone of her soft voice. He remembered his father, too. The way his soft ash blonde hair, much like Joshua's, fell down his face as he held his wife watching as their son slipped.
He heard their cries of pain and at each hour each day he saw more and more of his new world. He hated it. He hated to see his mother talking to doctors trying in hope that there would be a miracle cure to the disease in his whole body. The pain was crippling and he felt his whole self start to slip.
He'd miss his school a bit. The teachers were kind to him. Some of the students, they were good too. His dog, Sasha, he'd miss her. Her light brown coat that would sway while they ran when he was a child. He couldn't run. The disease was in his lungs and he needed a respirator to breathe.
It was fast though. In an hour after going into cardiac arrest four times due to his restless heart and yearning to live the little life he had. Then, the sheets were stained blood red from the blood that was running from his mouth as he choked on the air he was given. His lungs stopped and he coughed with his viral hemorrhagic fever killing him. Blood came from his throat and not before long he was hunched over with half of his body laying across the cot throwing up blood onto the clean floor.
The ground had a pool of dark, contagious, and deadly maroon blood beneath the boy. His hair was dyed red at parts and his lavender shirt stained. He was dying, and he knew it.
The doctors rushed in then as the rest of his death became fuzzy. Hanekoma was there though, he knew Joshua had this fever, and he wanted to be with him. Joshua remembered when the male told him about the rest of his death. It was still unclear to him. It always would be.
Sanae told him the rest. He said that the doctors rushed in, and tried to save him. They tried everything while Joshua's mother sat next to him rubbing his hand gently ignoring the fact that viral hemorrhagic fever was the deadliest and most contagious virus. It would kill in less than a day.
She sat there watching him as his vitals dropped at a steady rate. Sanae was watching from a chair, while Joshua's dad looked at his wife crying quietly to himself. His wife was in tears. Her makeup was smeared all over her pasty white face making her look like a racoon. She cried as the vitals hit zero. Stayed zero. It was a lost cause.
This is where Joshua would usually wake up. Hearing the beeping sound of the large machines hooked up to his veins stop scared him. He would then, go outside and sit down somewhere quiet. He would try to forget this...but he couldn't. He couldn't ever forget. Every Game he watched people as young as he was when he died get erased and perish. He didn't care about them on the outside, but really he'd try to forget and every time he saw a Player he'd groan.
That's what his Mother was afraid of. She wanted her son, but her son was the Composer. Her son wasn't going back. The pain for the two of them would be too much for either of them to handle...
He wouldn't do it. He'd stay in his apartment, or stay with Sanae. He just wanted an escape.
So he would leave He would go up to the top of 104 and sat there before flipping out his phone and text Neku.
Tonight was one of those nights. The Composer sighed with his hands shaking. It hurt him to see his mother in pain. It really did. He wouldn't show anyone how hurt he was. That'd ruin his reputation and maybe make him look weaker.
He walked out of his apartment, went down the street, and then went to the top of 104. He looked down at the people below in scramble street. He thought he saw his mother, but he shook it off before flipping open his orange phone and sighed. There was a picture from Sanae of his mother and father with a small child. A small child with greenish yellow hair was walking next to her. It was a girl. Her hair was like his. Her eyes were like his, and she had a light shirt on with a black skirt...
They had another child...
Joshua sighed, bit his tongue, and started to text Neku.
[Text] Neku? Hey can you come to 104?
He sat on the building waiting. He waited for a reply as he watched the girl dance and look happy. Her mother smiled at her...His mother. His mother smiled at another child. At another one of her children...His replacement.
He knew he couldn't and he wouldn't even want to say something. That was for another time. He was angry, and he wanted only what he had then. Not his mother. Not this new child. He wanted only Sanae and Neku and everyone else could screw themselves because he didn't care.
[Text:Joshua] Neku I need you. Please?
[Text:Neku] Josh?
[Text:Joshua] Neku?
[Text:Neku] What is it?
[Text:Joshua] Do...you have nightmares over your death?
He texted that quickly before snapping his phone shut. He was embarassed to ask. He hadn't told anyone...not even Hanekoma.
Minutes later the phone vibrated. He sighed and flipped it open.
[Text:Neku] Yeah I do...why?
[Text:Neku] Joshua...
[Text:Joshua] I'm sorry I asked...
[Text:Neku] I think we all have nightmares over our death.
[Text:Neku] I'm coming.