Prologue
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
So, this is going to be ... different. I got the hugest urge one day to utterly destroy Dethklok, and then leave them to pick up the pieces of their lives. I can't be too sure, but I think it might end up being as hard to read as it is to write.
This begins roughly five years after Dethklok ceases to be. Every character has gone through their own trials and tribulations, and must tread their own paths back to stability.
"Tell me about Berlin."
This was met by nothing. The speaker had been taught in university, though, to give his patients time to gather their thoughts. The room became silent again in the wake of this request, filled only by the ticking of a clock and the occasional ruffle of clothing as the tall man spread tensely across the other piece of furniture, a couch, readjusted himself.
After fully registering the therapist's statement, the patient's eyebrows furrowed and his deep blue eyes found the other man that occupied the room. "That's not what this session was supposed to be about."
The therapist's head tilted curiously to the side as he considered his patient's words. "What are we here to talk about then, Skwisgaar? You have not been to see me since before your mother fell ill. Is that what has brought you here for the first time in three years?"
Skwisgaar sunk further down into the couch and watched the clock's pendulum with an unwarranted intensity. Yes, that was what brought him here. Rosengren should know that. He and the rest of the world were well aware that Skwisgaar Skwigelf, former lead guitarist of the legendary metal band Dethklok, was mourning the sudden death of his mother, as of two days ago.
"I don't feel - anything about it," he drawled in slow Swedish. "It hurt when the doctors told me that she died, even though she was supposed to be cancer-free, but I haven't felt anything else since then." He looked over at Rosengren. "What's wrong with me?"
"You are in a state of shock," his therapist immediately replied. "The grief sometimes hits us later on. You'll feel it soon. Do you worry that you have grown apathetic about her?" He then added after a moment of thought, "Again?"
Skwisgaar pondered it. He wouldn't say that he was ever indifferent about his mother. There was always a blistering hatred specially set aside for her. No matter how detached he ever acted, her dark flame burned the brightest within his fiery mind. He stated as such. "I cared too much about her."
Rosengren slowly nodded, and offered one of his rare smiles. "Yes, you did. That much was apparent when you and your mother first began coming to see me. If you didn't care, you would have never succeeded in reestablishing a relationship with her, let alone tried."
That much was true. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just having a hard time accepting that she's - gone. I'll go, then-"
"We still have fifty minutes on the clock," Rosengren curtly told him after glancing briefly at his watch. "And may I remind you that my sessions are non-refundable? I know you have other things on your mind - things that you wouldn't talk about before, when you first came to me."
Skwisgaar looked down at Rosengren, and paused in moving towards the exit. Now that he was up, his legs urged him to move, but he couldn't. He had paid for an hour's session, and he would be damned if he walked out of there without his money's worth. Especially when money was so tight, what with his mother's outstanding hospital bills. Hell, he'd already sold everything that he owned beside his home in order to keep her alive. He would happily give that up, though, if it meant he could get his old guitar back. Dear Odin, how he missed his Explorer.
He sat back down, and waited for Rosengren to go on with his questioning. The older man smiled again, which gave birth to a flourish of lines upon his cheeks. He had fourteen of them. Skwisgaar had counted them during one particularly painful session with his mother all those years ago, in which he was prompted to revisit his childhood.
Rosengren crossed his legs, and then repeated the first words he'd spoken when Skwisgaar laid down across from him. "Tell me about Berlin."
Fire. That was the first word that came to Skwisgaar's mind when asked about that day. It had the makings of a nightmare, really. He remembered standing there on the stage, unable to move while everything around him burned and crumbled. He couldn't recall how he felt. The somewhat dreamlike quality that the moment possessed blinded him towards emotion.
There were screams emanating from the audience. No one knew what was going on. As far as Skwisgaar could comprehend, nothing had gone wrong on the technical side of things. They were under attack, but he wasn't aware of that at the time.
He couldn't deny that some sort of ominous, foreboding feeling surrounded the show. The whole band had felt it before they were even due to go onstage. Pickles was the one to suggest they call everything off, but even though he, Toki, and Murderface agreed with the percussionist, Nathan thought it to be completely out of the question. They argued, but Nathan had his way in the end. He always had his way. If their frontman hadn't been so stubborn, then maybe he wouldn't have-
It was Toki that shoved Skwisgaar towards the edge of the stage. They had to move, he kept saying. The stage was collapsing, and if they didn't leave it, they were going to die. The rhythm guitarist's high, petrified voice brought him back to his senses, and it wasn't long until he was running alongside Toki, clutching his guitar so tightly his knuckles were turning white. The flames followed them down the hallway, and they only just escaped when they reached a doorway and established a barricade at their flank.
They would have never gotten out alive if the manager didn't find them there, in the green room. Without a word, he led them toward the pre-established rendezvous point which, in their panic, Toki and Skwisgaar had forgotten about.
If that day taught him anything, it was that their manager was nothing close to resembling a robot. Skwisgaar could not recall ever witnessing Ofdensen so full of fear before. Seeing him like that at the time made Skwisgaar wonder if something was perhaps wrong. As soon as they reached where they were supposed to be, he realized what the problem was.
"He hasn't shown up yet?" Pickles and Murderface shook their heads, frightened. "No, 'e hasn't! Where th' heck could he Ofdensen stared at Pickles, pale, and then glanced around at the other three present members of Dethklok. He forced his voice to remain steady as he spoke. "There are Klokateers on their way here to usher you to safety. Don't move until they come. I'm going to go find Nathan. We'll meet up with you later."
Skwisgaar barely remembered what came next. It was all a blur. Ofdensen disappeared back into the building, and then he was being whisked away by masked, anonymous men. Toki was crying, and Pickles was demanding that the Klokateers unhand him. He wanted to stay - they all did. They didn't want to leave when one of their numbers remained behind-
"Skwisgaar?"
With a jolt of his stomach, Skwisgaar realized that he had been talking as he thought. His words were probably as scattered as his mind was when it came to this particular subject, but he didn't really care if he'd just tossed the world's best word salad.
As soon as that unwelcome flashback began to beat against his mind's eye, he'd fallen eerily silent, though. "Hm?"
"What happened to Nathan and Charles?"
That was a heavy question. Too heavy. Skwisgaar's eyes grew wider, and he took to staring once again at the swinging pendulum. It still worked, but at some point in the past five minutes, the clock had stopped. Weird.
"I don't know," Skwisgaar finally replied, his voice empty, small and defeated. "That was the last time that I ever saw them."