This is the last chapter. Thanks to all those who read this story all the way through and I hope you enjoy.


Everyone suddenly went silent and stopped. Then Reggie moved his hand to his chest and an expression of pure shock came over his face. He stumbled back towards the wall and fell to his knees. And then he fell forward, the expression of shock still on his face. Nobody saw the blood, the bullet must have stopped in Reggie's chest. Nobody knew who had fired. Ash felt a sudden tug, as if a rope was attached to him and someone was pulling it as hard as they could.

"Reggie!" Paul bellowed. His voice broke through the silence and seemed to wake everyone up. Cyrus scanned the men around him before grabbing the shirt of one and pulling him forward. His fist collided with the man's nose, breaking it.

"Die!" someone yelled. Another man's eyes widened at the sight of the gun.

"Don't fool! You'll hit one of us!" he screamed as Cyrus kicked him.

"Damn…" Ash muttered as the throbbing in his chest increased. "What the hell is happening to me?"
"There they are!"

"You've got to be kidding me…" Cyrus muttered as even more people charged towards him. He grabbed Reggie and sprinted for the gap where the door had been. He ran straight past it. Every bad guy followed him except for five.

"The boss will forgive us if we get rid of one or two of them," one of them said as they approached the kids. He and another lifted their guns and prepared to fire them into Paul and Dawn's faces.

To make a fairly short story even shorter, they failed to fire the guns.

For all of you wondering how the hell this happened please read on. Everyone else can skip this part (the part in bold is where you should next look).

It was at this point in time that the world before Ash turned and twisted, then lost its colour. Just as he shut his eyes the entire room was filled with light, blinding everyone. The two men with guns fell back, clutching the face around their eyes. The other three winced and shut their eyes. Which prevented them from seeing the foot that was fired into someone's face. And a fist into another's.

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"Well that was weird," Gary said, retracting his fist. "Who kicked the other guy?"

It was a minor miracle that he didn't see Paul's face turning completely white. How it evaded him no one quite knew, but he did manage to pick up on the fact that there was someone behind him. He slowly turned, then screamed.

"Holy cats!" he yelled, jumping into Paul's arms, then allowing himself to be dropped as both realized what they were doing.

"It's only Ash," Dawn said, who seemed completely calm. "What's so scary about it?"

'It's scary seeing someone who was half dead twenty seconds ago!" Gary protested as he climbed to his feet.

"But you've been in the same room as Cyrus for the last day or something," Ash said. He was standing, looking perfectly fine albeit a bit dazed, right where Gary had been.

"What the heck just happened?" Paul said, whose brain was still trying to catch up.

"I have no idea," Ash said. "There was that big flash of light and then I woke up in my body. No idea how it happened."

"It was the gunshot," Gary said certainly. Everyone looked at him in surprise.

"Ash couldn't remember anything right?" Gary exclaimed. "But when he heard that gunshot it acted as a trigger. He remembered everything and that somehow made his…soul let's say, go back to it's body."

"Sound passable…" Paul muttered.

"Quit…following…us!"

The voice nearly deafened everyone in the room, but it served as a good wake-up call to the fact that they were still in the bad guy's…lair.

"Split up!"

A different voice this time, following by the sound of a lot of feet. Then one of J's minions, a hat pulled firmly over his face, skidded to a stop and dashed into the room.

"EKKK!" Dawn yelled.

"Shhhh," the minion said as he pressed himself against the wall. "Get over here."

"What are you…" Ash started, being cut off by Paul grabbing him and pulling him to the side with Gary and Dawn. The sound of several people running past was heard.

"These guys are persistent," the minion muttered, removing the hat from his head.

"Reggie!" Gary yelled.

"Yes?" Reggie said.

"You were…just then…what?" was all anyone could get out.

"Oh, me getting shot?" Reggie guessed. "Staged it, Cyrus figured we could use the scene to get Ash's memories back. It worked well obviously," he finished, looking at Ash.

"You didn't have to scare us all like that!" Paul exclaimed. "Couldn't you just have fired a gun?"

"Sorry," Reggie said. "But can we please have this conversation elsewhere? Like, off this airship perhaps?"

It was at that point that the airship shock violently, and the sound of it's engines starting was heard.

"What's going on?" Ash said.

"We're taking off," Gary said, suddenly realizing it.

"What?" Reggie exclaimed. "We can't take off, how are we meant to get off?"

"Run!" Dawn yelled. "Find the exit!"

"Already on it," Ash yelled, racing out of the room. The others followed him.

Cyrus tried to ignore the fact that he was being chased by several men who all had the intent to knock him out, or possibly kill him. He had to find J, and fast. That was what he needed to concentrate on. But J really hadn't made the place visitor friendly. Everywhere looked the same, he felt like he had passed the same door fifty times. Or maybe he had, he had a feeling that they was a fifty on all of them…what was he doing? He wasn't helping himself by thinking like that. He knew that the next door would lead to J. He had to lose the idiots who were following him. He ran past the door, round a corner then jumped up. And grabbed on to the bars of an air-conditioning. He had ten seconds until the idiots caught up. He pulled the grate out, let it clatter loudly to the floor, then sprinted off and around another corner and through the second door he came across. He soon heard the annoyed yells or his pursuers, waited ten seconds then left the room and started down an alternative route to the room J was in. He was there half a minute later.

"I finally found you," he gasped as J turned to face him, a look of surprise on her face. "I finally get to kill you."

And he launched himself forward. J screamed as he crashed into her and sent her towards the door. The door that lead outside. Je screamed as they crashed through it and hurtled into the sky.

"What was that?" Reggie said at the sound of a scream.

'Let's check it out," Gary said. They were currently trying to find the exit whist avoiding everyone else. So process was very slow. But they ran to the source of the scream, a room with a door flung open. And the door outside was open. The group ran over and saw a lake directly beneath them.

"Jump," Reggie said.

"From this height? We'll kill ourselves!" Dawn protested. "It's at least one-hundred meters!"
"It's a lake, we'll live," Reggie said. "Probably."

And with that he knocked Ash, Paul, Gary and Dawn off the airship and jumped after them.

"AAAAGGGGHHHH!" Paul, Ash, Gary and Dawn screamed as they plummeted towards the ground. "HELP!"

Then they hit the lake. It was like hitting concrete. They sank at least twenty meters before recovering enough to even realise they were underwater. They started to swim, after letting their bodies hit the bottom of the lake and begin to drift upwards. They broke the surface and coughed up water madly.

"We're…alive," Dawn said as she glanced around and saw everyone appearing. Then they swam ashore.

"I'm…alive."

That was all Cyrus could think about. He had fallen one hundred meters and lived. J hadn't. She lay beside him, her body completely broken. Those were the fact. He tried to move, but discovered he couldn't.

"Your neck's broken."

That voice…he recognised that voice.

"Really?" he said in his mind. "That explains it. Me being unable to move."

"You want a big funeral? Flowers, massive gravestone, all of that?"

"No. I just want to be forgotten. Then I can just…live."

"Living when you are dead…is it possible?"
"I can hear those who are dead. They live in my mind. Now they will die and be reborn in a new mind."
"You haven't changed a bit. You still think it's simple. Life and death are different. Life can not be returned. It will not be your life, it will be someone else's. That is the truth of life and death."

He received no answer. Cyrus was dead.

"I found him!"

The old man turned to face the five running towards him, soaking wet.

"Hey, who are you?" Ash exclaimed. The old man didn't answer, merely turned to leave.

"Hey, old man!" Ash yelled.

"I'm Cyrus' grandfather," the old man said. "And I'm going to get a spade so I can dig his grave. He didn't want a big one."

"He's…dead?" Dawn said.

"Yes. He and J are both dead."

Paul sat down abruptly. "Why are you here?" he asked. "I thought Cyrus came from Sunnyshore, shouldn't you be there?"

"I heard him and tracked him here," the old man said.

"What's that meant to mean?" Gary yelled.

"How about I tell you about Cyrus?" the old man said. "It will all make sense then."

"Don't…" Ash started, but Reggie stopped him.

"Let him speak," he said. The old man smiled.

"Our family, has an odd power. We can sense the aura others release. And the emotions. Aura reacts to what it's owner feels. Cyrus could sense aura, and it didn't work. He was smart, so amazingly smart. But he didn't have the right sort of mind for his power. It couldn't imagine, couldn't change. Negativity releases a stronger aura than anything else. And people are full of negativity. Cyrus started to become consumed by the pain that he felt, so he locked himself away, denied himself company. He became interested in machines because they feel nothing, they are man-made objects that have had there aura stripped away. And then he heard the legends of the time and space gods. He became obsessed with them, believing them to be the ones who could get rid of his power. And he was right, they could. So he summoned them, and used their power to grant his wish. And they did. The one that was stored far away, but was by far his strongest. He wanted company. He wanted to be around people without being hurt by their emotions. So the gods did it. They gave him the voices of everyone in the world, even dead people. It was all their aura speaking, like Ash was until recently. And took away the power he was born with. Cyrus could feel himself going mad, losing himself to the voices. So he made up his mind to die. Until you came along. You were caught by J, and Cyrus figured he could get rid of J, a terrible criminal who many feared, and die at the same time. It was perfect. But J escaped. But then she went and captured him for her revenge. And Cyrus took his chance. The result is in front of you."

He stopped and sighed. "There was at least one good thing from this. Cyrus found my voice, and told it everything. I heard. So he died knowing there was one person who understood him."

Cyrus was buried five hours later, and J was buried in a hastily made grave after her death was made obvious to the police. There was a lot of newspaper articles about the event, but they all missed out on the loneliest man in the world.


Does it make sense? I don't really think so but this just feels right. Thanks for reading!