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"Why… why do you get so much freaking pleasure out of destroying people's hearts?" Jeremy wallowed, now knowing that a friend that he had known since Grade 1 was gone for good. Ice Bear, meanwhile, showed no expression. The way he always did. "You seem like you care for your brothers so much, but in reality you're just a heartless JERK!" Now that hit Ice Bear hard. Before he could explain however, Jeremy continued. "So many people admire you, and look up to you, and yet THIS is how you treat people? THIS IS HOW YOU ACT!?" Jeremy gave time to let the group process what they had just heard, before continuing. "Your brothers were so worried about you! They were upset at you when you got arrested, sure, but they were still willing to forgive you! They had that kindness in their hearts, that everybody deserves a 2nd chance! And yet, you throw that OUT THE WINDOW LIKE IT'S SOME ROTTEN PIECE OF TRASH THAT SOME RANDOM LUNATIC ON THE STREETS TOLD YOU! HOW COULD YOU!? YOU ARE NOT A REAL BROTHER TO THEM! YOU ARE NOT THE ICE BEAR THAT PEOPLE KNOW YOU AS!" The group was now trying desperately to get Jeremy to calm down, and were also trying to hold him back from attacking Ice Bear. That worked physically… but not verbally. Ice Bear hadn't realized the consequences of his actions only up until now. Normally, words didn't hurt him, but this was an exception. A HUGE one, at that. But, no, Jeremy STILL wasn't done. "GET LOST, YOU DUMMY! I-"
"OK, that's enough!" Michael yelled, trying to stop the fight, but to no avail.
"NO, IT ISN'T, MICHAEL! YOU DON'T REALIZE HOW MUCH OF A MONSTER THIS GUY- no, wait, that's too sympathetic - ROTTEN PIECE OF TRASH THIS GUY IS, DO YOU!? YOU JUST DON'T GET IT! I BET THAT THIS WORLD WOULD BE A LOT BETTER OFF IF THAT MENACE TO SOCIETY NEVER EVEN EXISTED!" With that, Jeremy stormed out of the room, and shortly after, the group heard the sound of the front doors slamming shut violently. When they turned to Ice Bear, he was surprisingly sobbing uncontrollably. The group couldn't help but feel bad for him. Even if most of what Jeremy said was true, even Ice Bear didn't deserve what he got. The group'd already lost Jacob, and they didn't want Ice Bear to lose anything - including his sanity. Slowly, they approached Ice Bear, trying not to startle him. When they were within arms reach of him, Dylan reached his arm out.
"Are you… are you ok?" Immediately, Ice Bear turned towards Dylan, still with tears in his eyes.
"no… no i'm not at all…" Ice Bear said, reaching for Dylan's hand. It took a second for the group to realize that Ice had actually spoken in First Person for, what seemed to be, the very first time! Regardless, it didn't matter now. Not right this second, at least.
"Listen… we just want to apologize on behalf of-"
"please don't say his name… i don't want to remember him…"
"Alrighty, then. Anyways, we know that you care about your bros. Don't listen to a word that Jeremy said - we're sure that you're a great guy!"
"but he had a point… i had no idea what i was thinking… i had no idea of my consequences. i'm so, so sorry… I'M SORRY!" Ice Bear then proceeded to go back to slamming on the table, and sobbing violently. At this point, the group had already ran out of ideas. What could they possibly do to help? They were thinking, when all of a sudden, Dylan thought up of a plan. He whispered it into JJ and Michael's ears, then went back to Ice Bear.
"We know you are. We forgive you, honestly!" Dylan said, trying to cheer Ice up. Ice Bear, once again, turned to him.
"honest?" Ice Bear asked, in a soft, monotone voice.
"Honest." Dylan replied, sitting down in a chair that was just lying around nearby. While the duo were talking for a while, JJ and Michael were on the phone, trying to get Grizz and Panda on the phone. Eventually, after about 10-15 minutes, they succeeded. As quietly as they could, they told the brothers everything, whilst still trying to make it seem like Ice Bear was the real hero here, which, in a way, he sort of was! After they were finished, dead air silence filled the other side. Fearing that they'd hung up, they continued talking.
"Guys? Are you there?" Michael asked, anxiously.
"Oh, we're DEFINITELY here, all right. In fact, we're coming over RIGHT NOW!" Grizz yelled into the phone, before hanging up, as if though he'd slammed the phone into the receiver.
|-/
Pain.
Pain was all that Jeremy felt.
One minute, he felt sorry about what he said, and wished that he could apologize. But he knew that everybody probably hated him at that point, so therefore he wouldn't be forgiven. That just fueled up his anger so much, so therefore, the next minute, he'd be fueling all of his anger up, and still hated Ice Bear to death. This endless cycle of depression versus anger was destroying Jeremy on the inside. But, on the outside, he just looked like a typical 12-year-old guy just casually walking outside at… wait, what time was it? Jeremy looked at his watch, and saw = 9:43 PM. He shrugged, knowing that unless he ran into the group, he could get back home alive. Or, at least, so he thought.
It was awfully troublesome to see in the dark, with the only light being the occasional headlights from all the cars. So, Jeremy occasionally slipped and fell, but he never got anything more than a bruise… until now.
As he was looking down at the ground, being careful to not fall, he seemed to forget about the fact that he was on a highway - so it caught him off guard when a car's extra loud horn beeped.
"Ugh, why are those so loud-" It hit Jeremy like a brick. The thought hit Jeremy hard because he realized that the car's headlights were so loud because they were directed straight at him. But, the car didn't hit Jeremy like a brick, however. At the last second, without looking up (which was a smart move, considering the fact that it would've wasted a second or two), he jumped over the rail - and within seconds, a dark silence hushed over the area.
"Oh my gosh! Are you alright?" A voice called up from the highway, which Jeremy assumed was the driver. Jeremy stood up, and dusted some dirt off of his pants.
"Yeah, I'm good!" Jeremy called out, trying to climb back up the 90° hill.
"You're not hurt or anything?" Jeremy shook his head. "Oh, good. I was really worried for a second!" Jeremy got confused. Somebody actually cares!? THAT'S AMAZING! Jeremy thought, before looking up - to find that nobody was there. I stand corrected. When Jeremy got back up on the highway, the car was slowly driving off. As it was driving off, Jeremy managed to spot a logo on the back of the car, which looked similar to "|-/". Just then, however, the driver peeked out behind the window, and called out.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Jeremy, amazed that there was actually a kind soul on the highway, responded rather quickly.
"Yeah, I'm good! Thank you!" Jeremy waved them a smile, before they drove off into the distance, this time making sure to stay well below the speed limit. Jeremy, however, didn't look back until the car was fully gone.
"I need to get the freak back home!"
|-/
The entire group knew that Grizz and Panda had showed up, when they heard the sound of the front doors being kicked down, and loud, heavy growls echoing off of the walls and into the kitchen.
"Hey guy- OH MY GOSH!" Michael yelled, spotting the bears. Whilst Panda was acting normally, with the exception of some obvious anxiety, Grizz… Grizz was something else. He had been soaked from head to toe, he had his claws sticking out, and he just overall looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
"Where's. Our. Little. Bro." Grizz grumbled, still looking like he was going to rip anybody that wasn't related to him to shreds. The group instantly pointed to Dylan and Ice Bear, but when Dylan and Grizz's eyes met, Dylan quickly shuffled to the opposite side of the room. Immediately afterwards, the duo speed-walked towards Ice Bear, who looked a lot cheerier compared to just half an hour or so earlier. Immediately upon being within arms length of him, Grizz seemed to calm down a bit - but he was still VERY upset.
"Bro?" Ice Bear instantly snapped his head to Grizz upon hearing his voice.
"Yes?" His usual monotone voice was back, which confused the group, since just a few minutes earlier, even when having people to talk to, his voice still seemed shaky and nervous.
"We heard what happened, and just wanted to-" Ice Bear hugged Grizz tightly in a… you know where this is going… bear hug, which was actually unexpected.
"Ice Bear's ok." The group immediately turned to one-another, each person having the same expression: That's probably a lie. Heck, even Grizz and Panda looked slightly skeptical! Regardless, they still stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt… or get themselves chopped up into a billion pieces, give or take.
"You sure? We were really worried about what that monster did to you…" Grizz's voice filled with anger upon even thinking about Jeremy.
"Words don't affect Ice Bear. The only thing that affects Ice Bear is Ice Bear himself." As dark as that sounded, Grizz actually smiled.
"Now THAT'S the lil' bro I know! C'mon, let's get you ho-" Just as things were FINALLY starting to go back to normal, the doorbell rang.
"I'll go get it!" Michael said. When the group asked why, he said: "I'm the one who lives here, y'know!" The group laughed for a bit, before Michael went to go answer the door.
"Welp, I guess that things are finally going back to normal… or, at least, whatever this town classifies as 'normal'." Dylan sighed, happily, a wave of relief rushed over him. Everything was perfect - or so, they thought.
A pair of footsteps slowly crawled towards the kitchen, and when the figure emerged, it seemed as though time had froze. In the doorway, there was Michael, cowering behind the figure. And the figure themself? Why, it was none other than Jeremy himself.
"H-hey-" Before anybody could react, Grizz snapped.
"I ' !" Grizz lunged at Jeremy, who could do nothing at all except scream at the top of his lungs. Everybody yelled at Grizz to stop, to stop hurting him, but he didn't. Scratches and screams rang out across the entire house, but passersby just ignored it, assuming that it was a giant house-party of some sort.
"I JUST CAME HERE… to… apologize…" Jeremy's voice quickly diminished, as he was losing lots of blood at a rapid pace. Grizz, however, in his fit of rage and anger completely ignored what Jeremy said (or just straight up didn't even hear him), and continued attacking him. The group wanted to do something about it, sure, but they didn't know how they were going to pull it off without breaking a leg - or two. Eventually, everybody stared wide-eyed as Jeremy fell limp… as he drew his last breath.
Grizz took a step back, 'admiring' his 'work of art'. Nobody said anything, however, because it was painfully obvious - and it was even more obvious that he'd realized what he'd done, when his expression turned from a satisfactory grin, to a shocked, scared and concerned one. The realization was flowing through his mind faster than train can roll down a steep hill on train tracks - that he had just murdered an 'innocent' human bei-
"Wait a second…" OH, C'MON! YOU JUST COULDN'T LET THE CHAPTER END THERE! JJ walked over towards the body, being careful not to actually touch it… with his own hands. "Gimme a second." JJ quickly ran out the door, and the group just sat in silence. When JJ didn't return quickly enough, the group turned towards Grizz.
"Good job, genius! You just KILLED him!"
"Bravo… just, bravo…"
"Grizz, you alright…?"
"You wanted forgiveness, right? Well, now you ain't getting it!"
The group was about to rip Grizz, who looked like he was about to cry due to his actions, to shreds, before JJ reappeared from the hallway, with some sort of scanning device in his hands.
"OK, what the heck is that?" Michael called out, but JJ ignored him. He scanned the 'dead body' for a few seconds, as the group just stared blankly in pure silence…
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*
The group covered their ears, as the scanner flashed a single sentence, covered in red:
DEAD BODY NOT DETECTED!
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