Deuce was the first to die. Sitting among the rubble of Classroom Zero, amidst the wreckage of her classmates, she knew she would be the first to fade. She didn't say anything as her eyes began to close of their own will – as if pushed by someone else – despite her efforts to keep them open.
She thought about all the things she would miss, not in the past but in the future. Life was about to carry on without them and Deuce's only regret was not being able to see how things would turn out. The possibilities of what she could have been dampened her spirit; the weight of all the lives she hadn't lived toppled down on top of her. She felt greedy for wanting more, for wanting to have lived peacefully with her friends beside her and to never have known the horrors of loss and war.
The others were laughing at something Jack had said, or maybe the way he joked even in the face of certain death, while she contemplated these things. They were not paying attention to her laboured breathing when it began to slow.
When she realised her eyes would not open again she smiled. In the end she was happy with the hand life had dealt her. Her friends were here beside her and as she let her body go limp Deuce was content to know the last thing she would hear were the giggles of her friends.
Cinque's light went out second, a few minutes after Deuce. The others had realised, when the flutist's hand went slack in Eight's, that the end for them was finally close. It made the others uneasy initially but the panic Cinque expected to feel didn't rise. Everyone said goodbye to Deuce, thinking of all the kindness she had ever shown them and for Cinque this brought peace in her noisy mind. No panic or fear. Instead she felt the closeness of Queen beside her, always strong and steadfast, and of Trey holding her hand, gently rubbing his thumb across hers, perhaps silently reassuring her as she gave one last sob that whatever was next for them – whatever was after this pain – she shouldn't fear it.
And that's just what Trey finally was when he allowed his end to come – silent. No theories about the possibilities of what happens after death or lectures about the science of pain, just a sigh as he hung his head for he knew whatever needed to be said had already been expressed by actions. He knew that sitting beside his united classmates, his friends, as they took their final breaths was enough for them to know that he loved them.
There was a little time then while the others held on. The breeze from outside was full of endings (but also beginnings) and it blew in through the wreckage of their old classroom as the remaining nine continued considering their future. They had decided they would not announce when a classmate had left them, instead carrying on with their fantasies as if their comrades were still there, which they were, in their memories at least. For they finally had the luxury of remembering the people they had lost. They could experience a tiny piece of the victory they had sacrificed themselves for before they lost everything again.
Eight was the fourth member of Class Zero to breathe his last. He didn't care that he was about to die. Not anymore at least. It wasn't his own life he was mourning for in his last moments. He couldn't stop looking at Deuce. She deserved to live. They all did. It didn't matter that he would die but now the world would never know her kindness, or hear Queen's wisdom, or learn from Trey's never ending knowledge. Never again would anyone laugh at Jack's terrible jokes, or smile at Cinque's innocence. Be inspired by Nine's ferocity and Ace's determination. He had never allowed himself to be openly emotional, trusting his calm and stoic exterior would be enough. But with his last breath Eight worried whether the others understood how much he admired each and every one of them.
Cater had always pictured herself growing old. Perhaps in the back of her mind she knew it wasn't possible, but these past few months (the best few months of her life) she hasn't let herself admit it. 'Ironic,' she thinks, 'for someone as shamelessly honest as myself.'
She turns to King propped up beside her as if to tell him it's her time to go, but he only nods when she opens her mouth. She never figured out how King always seemed to know exactly what to do. His eyes told her to be strong, and to trust that he would always be there for her.
She wanted to say thank you to everyone, though she wasn't sure what specifically for, but the sound caught in her throat. She wasn't ready to go. She hadn't quite finished saying goodbye. She was about to lose her life and she hated losing. But her breath didn't come back and her energy fled, and Cater succumbed to the dark.
King was sixth. Sat on the edge of the group, with Cater beside him gone, he turned to look out of the shattered window to his right at the sky. There weren't any birds but the clouds were gentle and wispy and surrounded by endless blue. King too thought he would see more days, but of course he had never told anyone. It wasn't that he didn't like to talk; he just knew he didn't need to. Actions speak louder than words of course and King was confident that his deeds had shown his classmates how much he felt he had to protect them. Not a strong presence in the centre of the group, always on the outside, fighting from the flank, but never –not once – faltering in his position as sentinel.
But when he turned back to Cater with his last ounce of strength, frowning at the thought that the world would never again be graced by her confident smile, he realised, in the end, he had failed to protect them.
Next to leave the new world they had created was Nine. The boy that didn't hurt, that didn't fall, or stop or cry or die. He didn't. He was Nine. The killing machine! He wasn't afraid. He was disappointed. He was so ready to carry on, so ready to grab life by the horns and wrestle it to the ground with his bare hands and show everyone that he was undefeated. That he was the best and so were the eleven people that had stood valiantly beside him. He had to conclude that the world wasn't ready for their greatness, and that was why they had to go. It wasn't stuck up or overconfident. It was the truth. Looking over at Sice with her head held high and eyes full of defiance, Nine knew that although their bodies were as fragile as everyone else's, the strength of their minds had no parallel.
Sice was eighth but she wished she had been first. She couldn't stand feeling her brothers and sisters, her warriors, disappearing beside her. She wanted, no, needed, to stand up and punch every one of them. To stand up and scream "Don't you dare die on me! You don't have permission to disappear yet!"
But her legs wouldn't move no matter how hard she tried and her arms were too heavy to lift. She had used up her last strength chuckling at the thought of how lost the world would be without her bunch of losers. She hated them for dying but loved them for what they had done. So many times they had proven to Orience that Class Zero was not to be messed with, but now they had changed things forever. They had left their mark on history – the children who would not back down. Class Zero were Orience's greatest rebels and Sice was more than proud to have lived amongst them, even if, in the end, none of them would be around to gloat about it.
Seven saw Sice's head drop from the corner of her eye. If the Gods had taken Sice there was no hope for them. She had accepted that none of them would make it out alive but seeing the feisty silver haired Sice defeated was definitive proof that Class Zero's end had arrived. She wasn't sad that their time was ending, she was sad she could not have been with each of them as they died. Now all Seven could do was helplessly hope that each of them died at peace and pray they all knew how much she cared about them. She hoped she had done everything in her power to make them happy while they lived, and ease their burdens. What if she had missed something? What if she had misread how one of her siblings was feeling and they had been hurting when she could have helped. If only she had known they had such a small amount of time. The gift of hindsight is what Seven would have preferred now to her impressive sense of empathy. So easily seeing the suffering in other people's souls is difficult. But sitting there listening to Jack's attempts at relaxing his last remaining friends, Seven knew she would have suffered through anything if it meant even one of her classmates had died happy.
The only reason Jack carried on pretending to be jolly was because it was the only thing he knew how to do. Not once did Jack disclose to anyone that his heart did not feel what he showed on the outside. He hated to see people sad, because Jack knew what it was like to be sad himself. Feeling the bodies of his companions grow cold around him shot frozen daggers through his heart. It didn't matter that Class Zero were fighters – warriors – heroes, ultimately they were just kids. Children without a childhood full of laughter and innocence. In his last moments, moments he couldn't bear to ruin with sound, he worried that his classmates had misunderstood his intentions; that they truly did see him as just an annoying clown and nothing more. He wondered if he should have been more sincere. His smile slowly faded as he reached towards Queen's hand. He needed to feel her life, know she was still there in his last minutes.
And as his hand grew limp in hers, Jack told himself he had always done the right thing, that if he could live his life again he would do it in the exact same way: with a smile on his face.
There was a long time filled with silence after Jack died. He had been nattering constantly since they had all fallen down and had diligently led the conversations about the future as one by one the voices contributing fell away. The emptiness that his presence left was suffocating and Queen and Ace found it difficult to be alone with their thoughts, and alone with each other after months of being surrounded by the energy that Class Zero radiated. Energy that had almost finally dissipated.
Queen, the eleventh member of Class Zero to fade from Orience, was afraid in her last moments. All Queen had ever never was facts and answers. It was illogical to be afraid of death. Why waste your last minutes in fear of the end? But it was the unknown beyond these next few minutes that terrified her.
She could not see Ace from where she was sat and she had no strength to turn around, but she could hear his laboured breathing and knew he would not allow himself to go until she had, and was reassured by it. The others had already faced the emptiness that came after death, they were already there waiting for her and she was ready to see them again.
Through her tears she could make out the place she used to sit in class. She could picture her friends around her. It didn't matter what happened next. She had been lucky enough to live beside the greatest people she had ever met, and it would be illogical not to spend her last seconds remembering the greatest class in Academeia.
And Ace was the last to die.
The cold had taken over him by now, numbing even his brain. But through the ice and the emptiness Class Zero had left around him he felt pride. Proud to call the statues that surrounded him his brothers and sisters. It was only the absence that hurt him and the feeling that they were truly gone. He whispered each of their names, one by one, knowing they would not answer but willing the world to remember them. Only the winds and the stones that had held their kingdom high heard those names and Ace realised that was enough. It didn't matter if no one remembered them, because they remembered each other. The eleven people around him were his world and they would always be his and they would always be with him.