When someone you love is taken from you, it feels like the pain should tear a hole in the universe, except it doesn't. The universe doesn't care. Alternatively, a heartbroken girl finds someone who empathizes with her grief, and forges a lasting bond. This is not a good thing. (Unwritten-verse. Character death.)
Warnings and Disclaimers: Character death, brief descriptions of gore, mild swearing. Also, this is a sequel of 'Unwritten'. It is not necessary to read Unwritten to know what is going on, but it might help. I do not own any Yu-Gi-Oh franchise, and I do not own the NASA article on black holes that is quoted in this story. Also, fair warning, I generally prefer the Japanese card names to the English, and will use them whenever possible.
Black Holes
"Mama, what happens when a star dies?"
Aki remembered asking that question, years ago, when she'd watched a meteor shower with her mother while on vacation. She'd somehow gotten it into her head that the stars were all falling out of heaven, and that the night would be dark forever. (Which was patently silly, because the City's lights always blotted out all but the brightest stars. Only on that one weekend in the mountain would Aki ever see real stars, and the night would always seem empty without them) Her mother had laughed, and been quick to assure her that the 'stars' she was seeing fall out of the sky were just bits of rock and ice and other debris. Still, she'd been curious, what happened when a star really died?
Stupid question. Foolish question. She should have kept her mouth closed, kept her heart tightly shut, her eyes down and her thoughts to herself, like every other spoiled brat in the city. If she'd been smart, if she'd never looked outside herself she could have coasted through a physically privileged life, and never noticed the emptiness that her parent's neglect left behind. Without that pain, she might never have developed her powers, and without the powers she wouldn't have been bullied, abused, and shut out by the people that were supposed to be protecting her. If she'd never looked for other people to care, she never would have had anything to lose in the first place. She certainly wouldn't be sitting outside an orphanage in the darkening dusk looking up into Jack Atlus's horrified violet eyes. And continuing to look into them, even as he struggled to master his emotions, to find something to say, because neither of them want to wrap their heads around the bloodied lump of once-white trenchcoat that's been slung over his shoulders or the all-too-familiar pair of brown boots sticking out from the bottom.
"Go get the Mother Superior," she murmurs at the pair of children she'd been chatting with a moment earlier, waiting eagerly for Jack and Yusei to come back. The boy opens his mouth to ask a question, but the green-haired little girl's bright brown eyes bug out and she none-too-subtly stomps on his foot before she wordlessly drags the pair of them inside. The second their footsteps fade they're already out of her head. "Show me," she tells Jack.
The request finally snaps him out of his own stupor. "Absolutely not," he snarls, clutching Yusei's body closer as he backs up a hesitant, panicked step. And it's definitely Yusei's body – it isn't moving and the shape is wrong and there's all that blood – but she has to see. Facts and logic are struggling to fire against a numb tide of horror, because this simply cannot be happening.
"Show me. Please," she whispers, and the plea almost burns on her lips. Begging is weakness and weakness is death, and Jack isn't her friend. He's Yusei's friend, and he tolerates her presence because Yusei wants her around, and why Yusei wanted her around she could never quite figure out, but he did and for almost a year things had been… not wonderful, but better. Brighter. There'd actually been something to look forward to in the morning.
"Mama, what happens when a star dies?"
"Aki." Not Izayoi, but Aki and since when does Jack use her first name? "He… you don't want to see him like this."
"I don't care." She doesn't really want to look – Blood of the Crimson Dragon, she'd give her very soul to make this all just a horrible nightmare – but she has to. It won't be real until she does.
"Well I care. I won't let you do this to yourself."
He actually, shockingly, seems to mean that, so she lets the matter drop. For now. "Then at least tell me what happened."
His eyes flicker shut and he takes a shuddering breath to brace himself. "We were scavenging for parts. The second D-Wheel is almost finished, Yusei was pushing to have it finished by the end of the week. That way, we would have had a month to practice before the qualifiers for the Fortune Cup. Things were just fine until we were leaving. We were having the same damn argument about who was going to ride the first D-Wheel when these… these jackass Tops came whipping around the corner. They were in the middle of a Riding Duel, and they just… the whole wall came down and Yusei pushed me out of the way." Tears are trickling down from Jack's closed eyelids. "He shouldn't have."
It should have been me instead.
Part of Aki wants to agree with that unspoken sentiment, selfish and horrible as the thought is. Part of her is still stunned. And yet in the bottom of her heart a spark has been struck, and thrown on dry wood to burn, because she's slowly starting to realize that for the first time in her life she is actually, truly furious, and that every slight and wound and so-called heartache that she has suffered before this moment has been more like a matchstick or the flicker of a lighter before the bonfire that is this realization.
…jackass Tops…Riding Duel…
Dozens of cards flicker through her mind, thorns and hate and dancing flames. She can almost hear her dragon screaming, and an echo of that painful roar wants to break free from her lips. She grabs her right wrist with her left hand because if she reaches for her deck, everything will be on fire.
…the whole wall came down…
There are at least three dozen children in the building behind her that do not deserve to be on fire. Yusei… Yusei had worked with her for hours upon hours to help her control her powers. Even Jack had helped, if only to prove to himself that her unwanted ability to turn Solid Vision flame from force and heat into actual fire didn't scare him at all. She wasn't going to dishonor the trust that they'd both placed in her by losing control now. Because that trust… that trust was all that was left. Because Yusei was dead.
…pushed me out of the way…
What happens when a star dies? Her mother had dodged the question, so of course Aki had looked it up the second she had access to a computer. What happens when a star dies is that the center collapses in on itself, creating an explosion called a supernova. And when that final fire burns out, it leaves a black hole where the star once was, a sucking, gaping maw that swallows everything that gets pulled into its gravitational field, even light. Yusei's ace, Stardust Dragon – Hopebringer flashes through her mind, and Aki feels an epiphany tickling the edges of her tattered train of thought.
And then the adults sweep in, and suddenly things are too busy for thinking.
Usually, the orphanage is shortstaffed. Suddenly it seems like there are an abundance of adults – some of them Aki recognizes as neighbors and people that come occasionally to volunteer – everywhere at once, herding the children away, prying Yusei out of Jack's hands, doling out hot soup and weak tea and generally trying to distract everyone from the horror of what happened. Jack vanishes and reappears and his bloodied, filthy clothes are gone, replaced by a pair of patched, fuzzy lilac pajamas that are just a little too small and a pair of bunny rabbit slippers that he would normally have thrown out a window before even considering putting them on his feet. He's wrapped in blankets and a bowl of ramen is sitting in front of him (why is it always ramen with him?) and a bunch of concerned faces hover in the background. It is a testament to how the day has rattled him that he does nothing to protest what he would normally see as babying, just sips his ramen and stares into space. Quick as a flash Aki has her own soup and herbal tea (she can taste chamomile and lavender and wishes she could taste rose hips and honey instead, but she already feels guilty about taking anything from people that have so little so she shuts up and drinks her tea.) She and Jack aren't precisely sitting together and aren't precisely sitting apart, and the adults are murmuring about shock and trauma and horrible tragedy. It's what they aren't saying that's interesting. No one is saying Security. No one is saying murder. No one is even hinting that her parents should be called to pick her up, even though everyone must know she has some, but that at least is acceptable. She'd actually come today because she'd had a fight with her mother about 'slumming' with 'those ruffian boys, Aki…' and as laughable as it was to think that that had been a problem to bring her to tears hours ago she knows that her temper is currently being held back by a shroud of numb horror and a thread of self-control and that one good shake will blow the lid clean off. But why are people talking about counselors when they should be talking about officers?
It confuses her enough that she dares to grab the sleeve of Sister Martha, one of the nicer nuns that helps keep the orphanage afloat. She knows she's on thin ice here, that everyone can tell that she's a Top and that with all these people around the main reason she's being tolerated is because of her youth and her connection to Yusei. When she asks the nun why no one has bothered to call Security yet, the woman simply smiles sadly at her. "They were Tops, Aki-chan," is all that she will say. She gently strokes Aki's hair and wordlessly refills her tea as Aki struggles with the idea, because as bad as Aki's life had been, even with the poverty and discrimination that she's seen since befriending Yusei… up is up and down is down and murder is still murder, isn't it? Sure, if one of the students that was bullying her happened to oh, say, accidentally push her off of a skywalk, nothing would happen, but she was a witch. (Even though Yusei said otherwise) Yusei wasn't a witch, or a monster, Yusei was Yusei. Yusei should live(die) by the same set of rules as everyone else, but judging by the look on Martha's face those rules were even more unfair than she'd realized.
The tears that she hadn't been able to muster finally start to fall, silently. Martha squeezes her hand gently.
What happens when a star dies? If you're not one of the poor bastards stuck within the range of effect, apparently nothing at all. Nothing.
She waits for hours, for the staff to find a spare cot to tuck her into, for all the gently tut-tutting useless adults to file away before she creeps out of the room that they stuck her in. Because now she has to see Yusei. She needs to see what a horrible accident that isn't an accident looks like because it's just going to eat at her until she looks. She doesn't want to be another person turning away and closing their eyes and driving off into the damn sunset without a care in the world. Jack might feel like he owed it to Yusei to protect her from the truth, but she needs to know. She won't be like those Tops that just wrecked everything and drove away, she won't.
It takes her nearly an hour to find the body, and she'd begun to fear that someone had already taken it – him – to the crematorium. But no, of course not, in the City even getting one's dead disposed of costs enough that the orphanage will need to scramble to scrape together enough money. It's in the basement, and even though the body's been dead for hours dark fluids are still seeping through the sheet, and even though it's been less than a day the corpse – Yusei – is starting to smell. She almost loses her nerve and flees, but…
"They were Tops, Aki-chan."
…but someone has to care about the truth. She forces herself to cross the distance, to pluck the sheet with trembling hands, to lift back the sheet.
She didn't know what she'd been expecting, especially after Jack had told her about the wall coming down. There'd been some fleeting, stupid image of maybe leaving a goodbye kiss on his cheek, a kiss that she'd been too shy to give him in life. Well, that wasn't going to happen now, was it? There wasn't much of a face to kiss. Or a head. Or a torso.
She manages to jerk the sheet back up before she stumbles backwards, stomach heaving. How…how could someone just do that, and drive away? And not care? And maybe not even notice? How could… could that possibly not be murder? How? Why?
Aki's hand finally went to her thigh, to where her deck box was strapped beneath her skirt, and flips the case open. Her fingers brush her deck and pull out the top card. She knows, without looking, it's Black Garden.
The world goes out.
Aki woke up on a bed of dirt and briars. Thorns dug into her back and she honestly didn't give a damn if she bled or not as she stared up at patches of gray sky peeking through wicked thorned branches adorned with black roses. The air smelled like wet earth, like her mother's garden after a rainstorm. It was soothing, if odd. Dreams didn't usually have scents, not in her experience anyway, and she had to be dreaming, didn't she? The Black Garden wasn't real, therefore this place wasn't real, and as she sat up she felt like that was a terrible pity. Sure the garden was gloomy, but it was quiet. Monsters lurked in on the edges of the gloom, Nightrose Knight and Witch of the Black Rose, but they didn't approach her, only bowed their heads respectfully as she turned her gaze upon them. Phoenician Seeds and Rose Tentacles grew peacefully in a few of the less gloomy patches but she knew instinctively that they would remain docile unless she provoked them. This wouldn't be a terrible place to stay. No parents. No teachers. No classmates or other children to torment her.
No Yusei, but then again, there wouldn't be a Yusei even if she did bother to wake up, now would there?
Finally – finally – a scream burst from her lips. And she screamed, and screamed, and the roses started spewing fire, but who gave a damn? The only thing around to burn was herself and the garden, and the garden didn't feel pain. She screamed until her lungs burned and her throat was raw and her hands were bleeding from clawing at the thorny vines growing along the ground.
She screamed until she realized that she wasn't the only one screaming.
She looked around, trying to figure out what had broken the silence and scattered the other monsters No, not scattered, Night Rose Knight was standing in front of her now, sword drawn, and Witch of the Black Rose was circling around, both of them looking distinctly uneasy. Then, tracking their movements, she looked up.
While she'd been crying, something had crashed into the canopy of the Garden and was now thrashing, trapped and tangled in the briars. It had a human-ish frame… well, it had a human-ish torso, even if half of it was a man's chest and half of it a woman's. (Did it even have a gender? The voice that was screaming obscenities in what sounded like at least six different languages as it thrashed against the vines was sometimes feminine and sometimes masculine and sometimes a child's.) Black spikes protruded from its shoulders, and tattered black wings burst from its back, but that was the end of the symmetry. One foot ended in reddish brown scales and three clawed toes, like a dragon's… or a demon's. The other foot could have been clad in a black boot, if it weren't for the massive bone spike growing from where the toes should be, and curved in entirely the wrong direction. One hand ended in clawed fingers and tanned skin. One hand ended in talons and more scales. Half of its hair was white. Half of its hair was purple. One eye was blue-green, the other a shade of brown that was almost orange and the third eye in the center of its forehead had a blood-red pupil and yellow sclera.
What was it?
What was it?
What was it?
Well whatever it was, it was hurt and the vines were only injuring it more, so the logical thing to do was to let it down, even if its appearance was nine kinds of disturbing and it was giving her monsters the creeps. It was either going be an enemy, in which case she would have something that actually deserved to be set on fire, or it wasn't.
Besides, this was a dream. It wasn't like she could be actually hurt in a dream. But how to get it down? She couldn't burn the vines, not without burning the maybe-a-demon too. Probably. Almost certainly. Anyway, she didn't think she was up to something that required control that fine, so how to get it down? It wasn't like she could just make the vines move by thinking about it hard enough…
Except as she became more and more agitated, the vines did exactly that, dumping the probably-a-demon unceremoniously to the garden floor. Oh. Maybe it did work exactly like that. Dream logic.
The demon gathered its wits and dragged itself to its feet, and Night Rose Knight backed up again. "You should run, milady," he murmured to her.
Aki blinked. "Why would I do that?" This was only a dream, after all, and her entire deck seemed to be scattered around the area. She didn't think one monster could be too much of a threat… but then again, she hadn't seen Black Rose Dragon - Thornheart yet. Where was it?
"I've heard tale tell of this creature. It's no beast to lightly cross at the best of times, and these are far from the best of times," he said softly, readying its sword.
"Oh, and what tales are those, pray tell?" The demon asked, its voice sultry, mocking. "Do they tell of monsters that eat fair maidens? Would you like to prove your mettle against such a beast, little knight? Nothing would make me happier than to oblige you, I'm positively spoiling for a fight."
"No," Night Rose Knight replied calmly. "But I have heard tale tell of two different creatures. One is a loyal dragon that protects the chosen of the Darkness. The other is a demon that lures the lonely to their doom. And whichever one you choose to be today, I most sincerely hope that you make your choice elsewhere. We have no quarrel with your king here."
"Really?" the demon laughed. "The greenery seems to have a different opinion. But then again, neither one of you gets the final say, do they?" the demon asked, looking over Night Rose Knight's shoulder straight at Aki.
"Leave her out of this!" Night Rose Knight snarled.
"Oh don't be so overprotective… she's almost twice your size, after all!" the demon mocked, walking right up to Night Rose and ruffling his pale hair almost playfully. "Of course, you could attack me… not that it would do any good. Go on." The demon took Night Rose's sword and put the tip of the sword right up against its bare stomach. "I dare you."
Night Rose said nothing, but his face twisted in impotent fury. Finally, after a brief internal struggle, he jerked his sword out of the demon's grasp and sheathed it with a silent snarl.
"I'm sorry you were trapped in the vines," Aki said before Night Rose could open his mouth again, because she was starting to get the feeling that he'd been right the first time, they did not want to fight this thing. The demon's gaze was…unsettling. It was like it could see right through her. "You're free to go whenever you want."
She was expecting anger, or perhaps more taunts and mockery. "…I'm sorry," it told her instead, its eyes suddenly compassionate.
"For what? You're the one that was trapped in the vines." And how had that happened, anyway? Had it flown too low? Had it crashed? Some of its injuries were far too deep to have been inflicted by vines and thorns alone.
"For your loss," it said instead, bringing her train of thought to a crashing halt. "You loved him, didn't you?"
"W-what… how… are you reading my mind?"
"No, but I can read auras. I can see what is in the darkest part of your heart… it's okay to hate them, you know. No one has the right to rip out what's most precious to you and then destroy it like it's nothing."
Night Rose Knight was talking, but she couldn't hear him, his words were like the patter of raindrops hitting the roof. "…I never told him. I never told him. H-he was so quiet, you know? Sometimes it was so hard to figure out what he was thinking… I was scared. What if he left, just like everyone else? And now… I'll never get a chance to tell him. Or duel with him again, or watch him ride the D-Wheel or tinker with the electronics or listen to him bicker with Jack. They took all that away from us, from me… and they're probably sitting at home right now laughing about it! What gives them the right?"
Aki's thoughts suddenly jumped back to the article she'd pulled up on dying stars as a child. There'd been a pithy little paragraph at the end that had sounded like it had been written by someone that was positively sick of stupid questions. It had about how a black hole was quite unlikely to destroy the earth. "Black holes do not go around in space eating stars, moons and planets," the article had said. "Even if a black hole the same mass as the sun were to take the place of the sun, Earth still would not fall in. The black hole would have the same gravity as the sun. Earth and the other planets would orbit the black hole as they orbit the sun now."
It had been comforting reading that as a small child, to know that even if a star went out, it wasn't going to eat her. Now, the image in her mind was of the Earth and the other planets, spinning endlessly around an empty sucking void that had taken the place of what had once been a star. In a cold and empty City, lit by artificial stars, would anyone even notice? Would the Executive Council simply put a holographic sun in the sky and tell everyone that everything was fine? Even if they knew the truth, would anyone care? Would they even be able to tell the difference?
"The only thing that gives them the right is that they have the power to do as they please," the demon snarled, taking her hand in its claws…talons… whatever. "But what if we took that power away, hmm? Where would that leave them then?"
Cold. Empty. Alone, spinning endlessly in a dark void without a glimmer of starlight to guide them. Exactly where she was standing right now. It was a delicious thought, but… "How am I supposed to do that? I don't even know who they are! Even if I use my powers, I can't just burn the whole city down looking for them!"
"Ah, that's where I can help you, child," the demon's eyes loomed large as it leaned in, wings shading her from what little light there was in the overcast, shadowy garden. "They might lie and deceive, but they can't hide their guilt from me."
She wanted to believe that, more than anything in the world. Her broken heart soared at the possibility of justice. Yusei could be avenged! He would…
…if he were here, he would probably tell her to be cautious. "Nothing's free."
"Indeed, but what I want in return are small things. A sharing of resources… shelter, for starters. I have no home to return to, and neither do my allies. This would be a good place for us, I think. No Light to scald us would be one hell of an improvement. The ability to interact with your world… nothing I want to do can be done from here, and without an anchor I find myself stuck. That is unacceptable," it hissed, eyes narrowing as the hand holding Aki's tightened enough that its grip was almost painful. They will not be allowed to get away with the crimes they have committed!"
Aki's breath stilled for a moment at the sheer rage in the demon's expression. "You lost someone too?"
"Lost. Lost. I suppose you could call it that…" the demon trailed off. "Lost. Hah! What a quaint little word, for loose change and trinkets and missing pets! Lost! I didn't lose anything, he was STOLEN FROM ME!" It roared. "Liars, thieves, breakers of bonds and stealers of souls! I will, never, ever, ever forgive them!"
"Them?" Aki whispered.
The demon looked down at her, and whatever it saw in Aki's face made it take a shuddering breath, finally mastering its rage. "Yes. Them. We will deal with them in time."
"Why not right now?" Aki asked. The demon chuckled bitterly and lifted one tattered, bloodied wing.
"Do I look ready to go to war to you, child? No, right now I must regain my strength, no matter how much I hate it… Let me tell you this much, at least. There are people out there more horrible, more callous than any demon could be. Someday soon… it may take a year, or five, or ten, but the day will come… they will come for you, and everyone around you. Not because they hate you, or envy you, or fear you… they will come because they believe that having power gives them the right to do as they please. Join with me, and when they come you will be ready to face them."
"What… who are you talking about?" The worst rumors that Aki had heard from Yusei and Jack about Security danced in her head for a moment, but she didn't feel like that was right. This felt… bigger, somehow, than just one City, even one as massive as the one that she'd grown up in. But… no, she was being stupid, wasn't she? This was just a dream, after all. Wasn't it?
"…one enemy at a time, child. So? We could help each other, you and I. All you have to do is let me in."
"I'm not a child, I'm fourteen. My name's Aki. Izayoi Aki." Somewhere in the background, Nightrose Knight gasped and she starts to hear a murmur, like the wind whispering through leaves. The plants were agitated, but not one of them was making a move to stop her. Was this a mistake, trusting the demon? Who cares, this is all just a dream anyway, she told herself. I might as well make it a good one, right?
"And I am Yubel," it replied, smiling for the first time since Aki had met it, as it took her other hand in its own. "I take it we have an agreement?"
"We do. So what next? I mean… I don't…"
"It's alright chi-Aki. All you need to do is close your eyes…" Suddenly her power, her curse, which she'd struggled to control for years, surged up in her breast like an unchecked wave of black fire. "…and don't resist."
She sits bolt upright, gasping in pain. Although that might have less to do with phantom pain and possible demonic contracts and more to do with the fact that her forehead collided straight into Jack's on her way up, sending her back to the floor of the basement, stunned.
"Good god, Izayoi!" Jack snarls, rubbing his forehead. So, it's Izayoi again? That's… well, it shouldn't be comforting, but somehow it is. One thing that's normal in a maelstrom of horrible changes. "Haven't you done enough already?"
"…I hardly did that on purpose," she murmurs, rubbing her throbbing skull as she drags herself back upright. "I…"
Words fail her as she gapes in horror at what's become of the room. Yusei- the corpse hasn't been touched, but nearly every shelf is upended and the floor and walls have been scorched. Sealed containers – some of which, she guiltily realizes, had contained food – are shattered and burned. There are deep gouges in the wall that were clearly left by thorny vines. "…damn."
"You looked, didn't you," Jack sighs. It's not a question.
"You were right. You were right and I was wrong," Aki murmurs, feeling her face blanch. Careless. Stupid. She could have brought down the whole building, what had she been thinking? Another stupid question, she'd just reacted, reaching for her deck like she always did when her life became too much to handle, and Black Garden had answered her need for someplace… to… hide…
In her hand was the field magic card, Black Garden. In her hand was also a Fiend-type monster, one that did not belong in her deck in her deck of plants and dragons. A level ten monster by the name of Yubel. "…I really screwed up this time," she whispers.
"Is that what you think, Aki?" a voice murmurs in her mind. Shockingly, it actually sounded slightly hurt. Now that she was focusing, she could almost feel Yubel's power, wrapped around her own like some sort of creeping vine.
Yubel… is real. Yusei is really dead. The Black Garden is also somehow real, and the monsters in her deck are possibly real, and she's sitting in a pile of ash and broken concrete that has no logical explanation. She will be no doubt surrounded by a bunch of confused, angry people within a matter of minutes, and judging by the way her luck is running, someone has probably already gotten in contact with her parents.
Aki clutches the cards to her chest and starts to laugh.
So, I'm torn between laughing hysterically at the giant, flaming wooden monkey wrench I just threw at the Arc Area Project in general and Leo Akaba and Jean Michel Roger in particular, and screaming in horror because this never should have happened, except it just did. Aki and Yubel, in cahoots? I tried not to do it. 'It'll wreck the power balance of the setting and probably tear a hole in the space-time continuum!' I told the plot bunnies. 'Bigger than the one that's already there! Find something else for Yubel to do!' And I tried to find somewhere else for Yubel to go. I really did. But it couldn't do nothing in the face of what happened to Judai, and once you ask the question of, 'hey, where's the worst place that Yubel could possibly end up?' and your plot bunnies start to laugh… you just have to roll with it. That, and I started constructing Yubel's deck. Once that happened, I knew I was sunk, so here we are!
…I am going to the special hell when I die.
Now on to things from the actual chapter! Since Jack still has Red Demon's Dragon, it seemed to me that some of the other Signers should have kept their dragons, and if his gets a buffed newer version, why not everybody? And yes, while I am not an owner of the cards, I am vaguely aware that the card game has alter versions off Black Rose Dragon and Stardust Dragon, but I came up with the names before I knew that fact... and Black Rose's alter is completely different from the original effect. Not interested, and not in line with Aki's personality at this point in time. Both Stardust Dragon - Hopebringer and Black Rose Dragon - Thornheart will make appearances at a later date and time.
(And yes, those two kids in the beginning that Aki spoke with? They were Yugo and Rin. Speculate away!)
So, read! Review! Or send flames to speed me on my merry way to the abyss! Just know, that there is more to come! It may not be this story, specifically, but there is definitely more to come. Mostly because I am almost finished watching GX, and I feel like I need to review 5D's before I write more of this. But have patience! The fun's just getting started!
...yep, absolutely going to the special hell when I die.