Part 2

He's gone.

They just couldn't grasp it. It isn't real, it's not right. It just.. It can't be.

But it is, they know that of course, after all the scene has been playing in their minds for a seemingly endless amount of time. So many witnessed it, screamed at him to get down, to think for a minute. Even those that tormented his waking days didn't want this.

His eyes, so dull, so dead. He was dead for a long time, at least inside, a walking corpse among the mostly living.

A video, that's how everyone knew that no one had shoved him, had moved him to do it. He appeared on the roof and walked with purpose for the first time in so long, each step knowing exactly what it was doing; strength filling his very being. However, it was so disconnected, if you could make out his face- which some with higher tech cameras and closer to the building could- it was hollow, empty.

The life that had once filled the boy's beautiful blue eyes had dulled and darkened. Sunken in with exhausted bag underneath.

He climbed the safety railing.

Stop..

He looked forward with unseeing eyes,

Please, don't..

His arms raise on either side looking as if he was a bird about to take flight,

StOp..

He leans forward so slowly, never breaking his blind gaze to the sky,

STOP!

His crumpled body lays in a broken heap.

He was human, too young to have truly lived but old enough to know pain. So much pain.

I've watched this video more times than is likely healthy and no matter how much I try I can't stop the person on the screen from falling, I can't do anything.

The days to come are disjointed and feel more like a surreal dream than a memory. After the sirens came and went, the declaration he was actually gone, we who knew didn't give up hope so fast. He could still come back and half the student body expected him to, to haunt them for their wrong doing towards such a pure and innocent soul.

But the day never came.

We waited and we waited, days turned to weeks turned to months, we couldn't keep hoping; it hurt too much.

Sidney Poindexter came to visit Casper high two and a half months after…. It happened.

He told us, though we could barely listen, that a "power" of his - one that he hates with passion- is that he can sense when someone here is being hurt like he was. It's how he got out the first time. He felt the pain of our friend, our family. Sidney wouldn't tell us how it felt in the moment of it happening and the moments leading to it. I need to respect him but he is-was my family damn it. I need to know.

I've tried, I have tried so hard to bring him back, I pleaded with Clockwork, I've begged to Desiree; no one will do it, no one can.

His sworn enemies have made a memorial around his grave. Gifts of all sorts: Model rockets, telescopes, there's a moon rock, hell there's a broken toaster. So many flowers you could fill a greenhouse, Earth and ghost plants alike. I guess not even they can wish death upon him.

It won't bring him back, nothing can. His parents are broken, disheartened. They blame themselves, after all, why didn't they see it sooner? Why did nobody see it sooner? He always wore long sleeves are bracelets covering his arms. Underneath his skin told a story of self hatred and loathing, an attempt to fix a mangled mind. We always thought the scars were from ghost fights but the parallel lines running down his inner wrists told us otherwise.

His soft skin is bruised from being knocked into walls and shoved into lockers, he learned to cover the marks but the mental damage was not so easily disposed of.

He was so sweet, even when he knew it would mean trouble for him he would stand up for others in need, other children that needed a hero. In the end he had saved more than he could ever imagine.

Why couldn't he see that? Why couldn't he see we still needed him!

But that's just it, we were so damn selfish that we couldn't see what we had done to him. He needed someone, and where were we when he needed us so badly? Having fun without him. Those happy fun times without him there have turned sour, but we stay close; we're all we have now.

Our parents don't understand us, they may know loss but they can't understand this. It's eating away at me, drowning me. I don't think I have ever cried so much before in my life. The smallest thing will set me off. A wandering thought, a small reminder, the stars, the places, the everything.

You can't heal this wound, the slightest thing will tear the gash Death has left on our soul right back open.

It gets easier in time but you can never really recover, you just learn how to cope with the grief.

I close my eyes and he's there. He haunts me in my mind but it isn't his fault, its mine. I'll see him there and I will get so happy, he returned! He's okay.. Now it will all be okay.. It shifts. The eyes that used to reflect the morning sky are those dead eyes from that day. He is bruised, he's broken. I will wake with tears in my eyes and a scream in my throat, not quite making it past my lips, dying on my tongue.

I've seeked the comfort of the others before, but the soothing comfort of them is replaced by my heavy heart, by the grief and anguish. Those who have lost someone before knows what I'm talking about.

I just want him back.

Just come back.

Things will be different this time, just please, don't leave me.

There was so much we still had yet to do, that he had yet to do; and now he never will. He never got his license, never graduated high school, he never got to be among the stars he loved so much. All his hopes, all his dreams, they will never be.

The tribute we had at school was shocking. I saw people that never even knew him cry and grieve. I saw those who hurt him cry, I saw regret. I didn't have the energy to be angry with any of them, it was so much so fast. I was, of course, angry with them at a point, I was furious with them. How DARE they pretend to care! They stand their and lie, tarnish what little we have left of him. But even that fire has gone out, they may have just been kids like him and while it just no excuse for what they have done, they are just human.

Danny was just human.

Human.

So fragile, so confusing and strange and wonderful. I can't explain him in words, I could never get it right even if I had hundreds of lifetimes to try. I don't want to ruin him. He could make you laugh and smile even when the sky was gray and bleak and you had just received some of the worst possible news, then he would stay with you and make sure you got through it. He would make sure you were okay no matter the cost.

It was never himself first, any one else would come before him because he believed they needed it more; Or maybe he just didn't want to focus on himself because he would see how fragmented and splintered he truly was.

I'm not sure what time it is at this point, I'm sure I should try to sleep. I probably have to go to school. If you're still here, I'll thank you. I'm sure he would appreciate it.

I just want him to come home.

I can't do this without him.

I can't.

End