Preface.
The world looked on in silence. In every home, in every state, in every country… eyes watched helplessly as he was laid to rest. Everyone could not help but think that maybe justice itself had died along with him. Everyone stood side by side, with stares cast down to the holy earth being placed upon him. No one dared to look up, for fear the reality of it all, would come too soon. To postpone the chaos was all we could do for him now. The mother earth herself lay thick and immoveable, almost as if to reject the act being committed. He was dead, and the killer was winning.
People mouthed questions of treason around me, as I rode home on the train. "How can you stop a villain without a hero?", "does this mean the killer will never be caught?" I whipped my head sharply toward the window in a state of disgust. My over exaggerated movement made them shut up, but I knew I would regret it later when my neck started to ache. He was no hero; he was so much more than that.
I arrived home to my little apartment, threw the keys toward the counter and missed, and slumped down on the coach. I stared at the ceiling for a while, my eyebrows crushed together in a frustrated expression. Was he really gone? Even though I warned him, even though I knew who the killer was, he was gone. He had refused to let me tell him, even though I knew everything about everything he was still… gone.
Knowing everything didn't save him. He wanted his death to lead me somewhere, but didn't he know I couldn't walk? Didn't he know how much he meant to me? Did he honestly think I would be excited at his death, so that I could get another clue to a mystery I had already solved? He was always like that. This was so him.
I fell asleep at some point and dreamed of him. I dreamed of when we first met and how little he had changed since the fourth grade. I dreamed of him popping out and saying "Just kidding!" and telling me how he had staged his own death to catch the bad guy (it wouldn't be the first time).
My eyes fluttered open after what seemed like only a few minutes, only to be met by the blinding sun that filled the window behind me. I started up the coffee machine and reached to get a mug when I noticed his tea cups were gone. He wasn't kidding. He had removed all signs that he was ever there, all evidence of his existence as my closest friend in the whole world. He had planned it all out to be easier on me. I was shocked to think that Mr. Oblivious would actually have thought this through.
I sipped the coffee and downed the whole thing before realizing I had burned my tongue to ashes. My thoughts were so focused on….him. I did not think about the things normal people think about when someone dies. I did not think about what I should have said or what I should have done. I thought solely on why. Why did he let this happen? Did he honestly think they could do this investigation without him?
There was no hope! I know the killer's identity, I know his motives, and I know how he is killing people, and yet I was useless! To expose the killer would expose me! For whom I really was. I made the mistake of allowing the killer to know I was out there. And I was sure that he had figured out not what I was but, that I was a threat. I was a threat to everything he stood for, everything he had worked for up until this point. I am the antidote to this disease. And yet, I was useless!
Now I am left to clean up this mess, all thanks to him. But even he did not know what I was. Even I sometimes even I wonder what I am, and more importantly why I am. But there is something I do know. I will have my revenge. I will have my revenge ten times over.
I will end that man, and it will be the most ironic, poetic death the world has ever seen.