Imagine sitting alone for hours upon hours on an empty island where you ignored your isolation by throwing yourself into math and sciences, knowing that someday you would have people again but today was not that day, but you were just so gosh darned lonely.
Imagine going to sleep but instead of sleeping you are waking up into a world of golden sunshine where another boy sleeps not far from yourself; not only that but you can fly, you can swivel in the air, and you are free for the first time. You are free and you are happy.
Imagine meeting friends who weren't real but they were real - you couldn't touch them but you could talk to them and laugh with them and they were yours, you were theirs, and nothing could come between that.
Imagine playing a game that would end the world and kill so very many people, but would bring you so that you would have your own. If you could change it, would you? Sacrifice what was yours so the world could keep itself? You don't know if you could honestly answer that and, luckily, you wouldn't have to.
Imagine watching them all die. One after another, like chess pawns tumbling off of the board and shattering into a million tiny pieces. They are yours and they are hurting, and right now there is nothing you can do to stop it because you know that it will keep them around longer in the end, but it still hurts you to watch.
Imagine knowing that he is not dead and you are not dead and you have a whole three years to get to know him - his ins and outs and likes and dislikes, and sure you already knew them but now you get to know them up front and personal and that means more to you than you ever thought it could .
Imagine memorizing every line of his face and the warmth of his hands and the way his tongue flicked up when he pronounced his l's just a little more than your own did, and how he spent so much of his time talking just like you yet you could both just shut up and sit there for hours, playing dumb games or just being quiet. Just being you.
Imagine when you finally beat the game and you think all is won, but John's injury was more just than anyone had thought and all of the sudden he is dying in front of your very eyes. Before you know it you have a dead boy in your arms as reality slowly starts to shift around you, attempting to restore things to the way they were when you all began.
Imagine that he's back, but he's not yours. His blue eyes aren't focused nor as serious, without the age beyond reason behind them. His jokes are still his in a way, but everything is different, everything hurts, and no matter how much you try to right it, even the others have agreed that he isn't the same and that you should all leave it that way. It hurts to know that he will never be yours.
Imagine the last time you log off of pesterchum, knowing that you will never log back in because there's no more point to a childish and outdated chat-client that no one even uses anymore much less cares to use. It's not like they from the other side would be able to keep in contact anymore because the universe just didn't work like that.
Imagine acknowledging your time in the world as finished and thinking only of him as you put one foot in front of the other until there were no more steps and only the breeze was there to acknowledge you. For a moment, as the concrete rushed towards your face, you could swear that he was still with you.
Imagine laughing, happy for the first time in months as you hover over the ground, glad for some closeness. You couldn't give up, and you never would. But it didn't mean that you couldn't pretend or that you couldn't feel him every time you fell in line with the wind.
Imagine you leaving one last, bright blue rubber band around your ring finger as a final reminder to yourself that throughout the rest of your days he would always be with you, and that maybe somehow, someday his hands would find their way home to yours.