It was raining as they walked outside to see the coffin be lowered into the ground and left until later to be covered when the weather had improved. Aside from the undertakers, there were just two of them overseeing the final goodbyes: Lumaira, and the dead boy's mother.

"One of Even's friends, are you?"

Lumaira found himself frowning beneath his sodden hair that was beginning to break loose from the respectfully neat ponytail he'd tied it up into.

"Even didn't have friends," he muttered, then mentally added - Why do you think he's in a coffin? The resentment welled up inside him, stabbing him with guilt. Why was Even dead? Because of Lumaira and all his friends. They'd driven him to... to... closing his eyes, Lumaira unwillingly recalled the image of the broken body, blood everywhere. He'd thought that maybe going to Even's funeral would console him a little, make things okay by paying his respects to the body. But it didn't. How many people had turned up? A dozen at a push? Lumaira had hoped that joining in with the mourning would settle his aching conscience, but nobody was mourning. The truth hurt more than the death itself - nobody had ever cared about the boy called Even Carlisle. And now he was dead.

Even's mother dropped a wilting rose onto the top of the coffin, six feet below, and left Lumaira alone to battle his regret. Nothing helped the horrible thought that he was a murderer. He'd not been the worst, not by far, but he'd been one of them, one of the boys who had bullied and bullied and bullied Even and driven him to bloody, desperate suicide. Somehow Lumaira knew that seeing Even's dead body that first time, even knowing that if he hadn't thought to sneak upstairs and draw on his face with a marker then the boy would have lain there in his own blood for more than a week, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Life.

Oh God, Lumaira thought, not for the first time. Even was dead. Even the loner, the one nobody liked, the butt of all the jokes, the nerd with thick rimmed glasses and braces... (did they take braces off somebody when they died?) The kid who always knew all the answers even though he never spoke (why did they call him a loudmouth all the time, then, if he never spoke? Or did he never speak because they always called him a loudmouth?). The one who Lumaira had realised with a jolt was so awfully, terribly, painfully thin even though everyone teased him for being a "fatty", with a pale face and sunken eyes and an always down-turned mouth.

Lumaira knelt in the mud and watched the rain pitter patter on the cheap wood of the coffin until the night drew in and became cold. He thought about Even at the start of school, a chubby little kid with boggle eyes who always screamed at everybody for the slightest misdeed and who got kicked in every other week for some idiotic offence.

Then he thought about the Even who silently took the brunt of every cutting remark, who collapsed once in class and almost raised the concerns of the teachers, who two weeks later was found cold and dead with slit wrists and no last words by the very boys who pushed him over the edge.

Lumaira wanted to scream, take it all back, bring the stiff body back to life just to apologise, say that it was okay because somebody still loved Even - except that if anybody did, they certainly hadn't turned up to the funeral. The only one shedding tears was Even's mother, but what kind of parent could she be to not even notice the state of her own son?

It must have been approaching eleven o'clock when Lumaira thought he heard a noise somewhere far below him. He'd only been half-listening, too wrapped up in his own morbid thoughts of Even, but he was certain that he'd heard a distinct knock from the coffin. He listened out intently, suddenly wide awake in the darkness. Sure enough, a minute or so later, came three sharp wooden raps in quick succession from the same location. Slowly, ever so slowly, with every cheap horror movie he'd ever seen coming back to haunt him, Lumaira rocked forwards on his toes and peered into the grave. There was the coffin lying as still as predictably ever, the rose lying wet and limp on top.

Silence.

Another knock came, louder, and there was no mistaking as to its source. Lumaira flew backwards from the gaping hole onto his backside, fighting back a horrified shriek. He glanced nervously around, wondering if he was dreaming some sick nightmare, but there were no zombies rising from any of the other graves, just the steady knock, knock, knock and splinter of wood from inside the single remaining open grave.

Lumaira stayed tense, ready to run, until the sounds simply stopped completely. He waited a few minutes, then let himself lean over and peer down into the grave, heart beating a million to the dozen. At first he saw nothing, until his peripheral vision caught the movement of four pale, bony fingers forcing their way out of a crack between the coffin and the lid and gripping the wood for dear life.

Lumaira screamed and fell backwards into a dead faint.

Even, truth be told, hadn't expected to wake up. He didn't want to; he'd been looking forward to the numb coldness of death for a long time. So when he found himself lying in a dark box which was presumably a coffin, it was basic survival instinct that had him press his shoulder against the lid in an attempt to escape. It didn't feel heavy. So he hadn't been buried yet. It was badly enough made - like anybody would bother spending money on him - so after a minute or two he managed to push his hand out and grope around for a hold against which to lever up the lid. It was distant, but he was sure that he heard a shriek up on the surface with half awakeness, or maybe only half aliveness.

He forced the coffin open eventually, instantly feeling better with the rush of cold, fresh air. It didn't occur to him to be shocked that he'd either been inexplicably buried alive, or even more inexplicably had risen from the dead. He'd get out and onto the surface first and freak out later. It took him a while to crawl shakily out of the grave, and a lot of mud soon covered his starched white shirt and neat trousers. There was a boy that Even dimly recognised from a swimmingly distant life, lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. He was definitely alive - which was more than Even was certain he could say for himself. He was tempted to just leave the boy there, but it was obvious that he'd been watching over Even's grave. Curious by nature, Even wanted to know why. So he crouched down and shook him awake. He was a mess, screaming and stumbling and moaning apologies before Even even had a chance to open his mouth. Leaving the boy to his apparent insanity, he took the opportunity to glance around. Everything was saturated by water. There were no flowers bar the dying rose; all that lay by his grave was shovels and spades. And, of course, the curiously mad rose haired boy.

"Hey," He said, and the boy screamed again, scrabbling madly to get away from Even. He quickly caught the boy's thicker, darker wrist as he tried to summon up a name for the half familiar face.

"It's Lumaira, right?"

Lumaira would not calm down. Frozen though he was like a deer in headlights, he was screaming at the top of his lungs until each cry became a whimper - then he would inhale deeply, and scream again. Then Even realised that he was supposed to be dead.

"Oh," He said quietly and looked down at his bony, deathly pale body.

"You're dead," Lumaira hissed in a strangled voice. "I saw you. You were dead."

"Well," Even replied thoughtfully, the truth only really occurring to him now, "I guess I got better."

Lumaira lifted a shaking hand to press his fingers against Even's cold neck as he searched for a pulse. There it was, a steady if faint rhythmic drumbeat of life. His hand fell back to the ground, mind numbed by the realisation of an impossible situation he had never even considered he'd experience.

"I'm sorry," He mumbled eventually. "I'm so sorry. I should have said something. I should have-"

Recollections of heartbreak, isolation and death swam to the forefront of Even's mind.

"It wasn't your fault," He replied evenly, the emotionlessness of death still faintly blurring his pain, "It's not your fault I'm ugly and uptight and utterly dislikeable."

Lumaira sobbed again and rocked forwards to pull Even into a painfully desperate embrace.

"Don't say that," He cried. "Nobody deserves to think that about themselves,"

Even had thought that for as long as he could remember and shrugged a little, not knowing any different, and feeling awkward at the sudden proximity of another human being. He happened to glance down at his open grave, the coffin slowly pooling with rain water.

"I should go back."

"No," Lumaira managed through his fits of terrified, remorseful tears.

"It's not like there's any place for me up here."

"But you'd just be lying there," Lumaira moaned. "Forever."

"I won't be alive," Even patiently explained. "I'll kill myself again. It won't take much."

"You came back once," Lumaira insisted, his grip tightening further. "What if it happened again? Once they fill it in, you'll never get out. Nobody would hear you. Forever."

Even had to admit that Lumaira was right; as depressing as life seemed to be, being trapped in a coffin until he stayed dead was quite possibly worse. So he nodded a little in acknowledgement and pulled the panic stricken Lumaira away from him, standing carefully. Everything was fuzzy, even accounting for his terrible eyesight, and his limbs seemed to be surprised that all of a sudden they were being asked to work again. It wasn't long before he lost his balance and would have toppled right back into the grave if Lumaira hadn't been there to catch him.

"Have my coat."

"I'm fine."

"You must be freezing."

Even looked at the smart jacket that Lumaira had worn for his funeral, and then down at his own saturated, muddy attire.

"Okay. Fine."

Lumaira swung the coat over his shoulders and helped him out of the graveyard into the dark road down which few cars were passing. Slowly, they made their way around narrow alleyways and down twisting roads, opting for a longer, less busy route should anybody see Even's dead appearance or worse, recognise him. Eventually they reached Lumaira's house through the back garden. Even was barely able to stand, bony knees shaking uncontrollably as Lumaira took him inside.

"Right," Lumaira said, settling Even down on the sofa and pulling his rugged hair loose from its pony tail so it hung limply around his face. Here in the bright light of indoors, Even looked even more frail and lifeless than before, and as Lumaira realised with a jolt, just the same as he did when he was alive. "I'll... um... I'll run you a bath, and then you can sleep on the sofa tonight."
Even drew his arms around himself and said nothing. Lumaira shuffled uncomfortably under his piercing, slightly unfocused glare.

"Look, Even... I'm so sorry. Really, I am."

"It's not your fault," Even insisted again. "Just because I killed myself doesn't mean you're to blame."

Lumaira realised that he was tormenting the hem of his jacket and forced himself to relax a little, hard as it was with a dead boy perched awkwardly on the sofa in front of him.

"I found you, you know," He blurted out suddenly, feeling the need to confess. "We had your keys so we snuck into the house. And then I went upstairs and I found you."

Even glanced uncomfortably away.

"I was sort of hoping it'd be my parents," He admitted. "A week and a half later and I'd already be rotting."

"That's awful," Lumaira murmured, although in which respect he didn't say.

"They never cared," Even scoffed. "If they'd cared they might have bothered to ask if I was okay every once in a while, or made sure that I'd eat every day. But they didn't, because I wasn't pretty or sociable enough to mean anything to them."

Lumaira realised that he was crying again, and furiously bit at his lip.

"I'm so sorry," He said again, sitting next to Even and holding him close with the autonomy of his naturally tactile personality.

"Stop apologising for my own decisions," Even huffed, effectively stalling the conversation.

"What's it like?" Lumaira felt compelled to ask after a while of uneasy silence. "To be dead, I mean."

Even looked at him with an expression of faint disapproval.

"I don't know," He said bluntly. "I was dead."

"I mean, no white lights or tunnels or angels in dresses or anything?"

"No."

"What did it feel like?" Lumaira pressed.

"It felt like passing out from blood loss and not waking up again," Even answered unhelpfully.
"But you did wake up," Lumaira said. Then the conversation became awkward again and he felt compelled to stand up and take Even to the bathroom. He was desperately in need of cleaning up, and then tucking into bed with a hot water bottle for a very long time. And some plasters for the grazes on his delicate skin and reopening wounds. He sat the boy down on the stool and then ran the bath in silence and helped Even in.

"Are you okay?"

"I feel awful."

Lumaira considered this at length.

"I'm not surprised."

"No."

They lapsed into silence yet again. This, unfortunately, gave Lumaira a chance to think about what had happened. Even, the boy who had killed himself just over a month ago, wasn't dead. He looked it, leaning against the bath as stark as the white ceramic itself, but he was breathing softly still and every so often his bony hand would twitch a little as though it were worried that if it didn't move it would simply die again. For some reason, somebody up there had given him a second chance.

Pale, dangerously thin, wrists and arms welted with self inflicted cuts; Lumaira closed his eyes and tried to imagine the pain that Even must have gone through both physically and emotionally in the months before he died. He couldn't.

"Lumaira?"

Lumaira snapped back to the present to look at Even with panicked eyes. Something about Even's tone of voice wasn't right. Almost... scared.

"Yeah?"

"I... I think I'm going to die again."

Even lifted one grey hand out of the water where the slits on his wrist had reopened and were beginning to ooze blood. Lumaira's hands flew to his mouth and tears pressed again at the corners of his eyes.

"I'll get bandages," He said, and rushed to the medicine cabinet. "Just hang on, I'll sort something out. You'll be fine."

"It's okay," Even said with a weak smile that broke Lumaira's heart. "This is what I want, remember?"

"It's not what I want!" Lumaira screamed. "Do you think that I want to be responsible for your death, again?"

He forcibly grabbed Even's arm, cleaning it up with an antiseptic wipe that made the boy wince, then tightly bandaging the wound.

"You're got your whole life ahead of you," He insisted. "You can't just let a bunch of brainless idiots ruin that,"

Even had already passed out. But he was still alive, and Lumaira made that be enough as he lifted the boy out of the bath, dried him down and dressed him in his softest pair of pyjamas, and tucked him up in bed.