When Mitchell imagined the end of his so-called life, and he had many times, he always imagined the sea. None of his actual close calls involved the sea, which was always disappointing in those moments when he was sure it was all over. He wanted to crumble into the water, his lifeless particles riding the currents back home, to the rocks where he once played, oh, a century ago, where he had sat and looked out at the waves and wished for something more. If he could have, he would have gone back and slapped some sense into that boy who wished to see all of the places and things he had seen, who couldn't even fathom most of the wonders he'd seen, but who also couldn't begin to imagine the horror that made it possible.
Now it was real. He was standing where he'd always imagined, and he was going to die today. How had it all happened so fast? His eyes traced the surf.
You didn't know what you had, he said to the boy, silently. You thought you had nothing, but look at me… this is nothing.
He wasn't afraid to die anymore. He didn't deserve fear, really. He didn't even deserve his own broken heart, not when he didn't deserve better than emptiness after all he'd done. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die, and it was true. There it was, as his shoes filled with seawater, and it started that night when he'd saved George in that back alley. Funny, he'd really only done it to spite Seth.
And yet, it had led him here. Meeting George, having a friend, a real one, and agreeing to move into that house. Finding Annie, having two friends, two people he would do anything for. Falling in love. He'd spent so long looking for someone to love him, to save him, and in the end… he loved someone. And the look in her eyes when she knew, when she knew the truth, that he was a monster, and all the love in the world couldn't change that, it was the realest thing he'd felt since he gasped back to life all those years ago.
It would end now. He would stop it, destroy the monster and go down with it. There would be no more blood, no more death, no more excuses or expectations of false absolution. It would be done, there was no turning back. He would finally go home.
He didn't remember leaving the shore. He had always imagined the currents taking him home, but now the currents were his own two feet, and they took his nearly lifeless body back to where he belonged.
Home.