A/N: Technically, this is the end. You have now entered the Twilight Zone. I hope you enjoy your stay and please close the door on your way out. Epilogue coming soon.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Suite Life of Zack and Cody or The Catcher in the Rye.

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"Zack Martin? Yeah, man, that kid's crazy, man, like seriously, dude."

"Frickin' psycho, if you ask me. Makes his brother look like Brad Pitt."

"Dude's a complete idiot, man, you have no idea. He's failing STUDY HALL!"

"Wasted weed, you know?"

"FARTIN' MARTIN!"

"Wacko Zacko!"

"LOSER!"

"LOSER!"

"LOSER!"

Zack covered his ears and crumpled into a ball, the chants echoing in his ears as he clutched the moneyless jar to his chest, sobbing as the weight of his destroyed world came crashing, crashing, crashing down.

Holden hadn't been a loser. He'd done what had needed to be done. Zack had finished the book—ended his friendship with the character. Holden had felt like this, too, at one point. Felt like everything he hated, everything he despised and loathed was coming closer, closer, closer so that it was nearly smothering him.

And then the novel had stopped and Holden had told him don't tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

Zack hadn't told a soul about anything.

Hadn't told Cody he was like this.

Hadn't told his mother he was like this.

Hadn't even told Holden he was like this.

Because Holden just knew, man, like…Like Zack was Holden and somehow their two completely different worlds were the same and like a parallel wholeness and wellness and forgiveness always seemed a little…out of…reach…

Suddenly, anger exploded in the pit of Zack's stomach and he wanted to BREAK SOMETHING and CRUSH SOMETHING and KILL, KILL, KILL BECAUSE NONE OF THIS WAS FAIR! It wasn't fair and he shouldn't have to take it!

He was a sixteen-year-old high school guy who had once had good friends, a good family, good relationships. And then he goes and HEAVEN FORBID does the right thing and is shunned from society?

He raised the bowl above his head and slammed it down onto the ground so that it shattered, shattered, shattered into a million pieces. He clenched his eyes shut and gripped at his hair, hunkering down so that he more resembled the nothing that he was. The nothing that he'd always been.

With shaking hands he looked up, tears streaming down from his glittering eyes. He stared at the pieces of glass on the floor and as he did so a slight glimmer caught his eye…squinting, he looked closer.

The shard of broken glass seemed to be reflecting something, and as Zack leaned in towards it he saw something that made his stomach flip.

Faces…At least a dozen…Staring, watching, looking at him!

He cried out and whipped his neck around to look behind him, heart clenching when he saw nothing but the walls.

He looked back down at the glass. The faces were still there. Faces of boys and girls, all around his age. Some were crying, some were glaring, and some just stared. Eyes empty, void of all that had once made them something. Reduced to nothing but a memory. Zack began to whimper as he looked at the faces; he recognized no one.

And yet they were all too familiar…All too much like him.

The faces stared at him up from the shattered glass and, shaking with fear and confusion, Zack turned instinctively towards the wall where he'd been carrying out that conversation with Holden…

I, lone wolf, am no longer king.

Hello, long wolf. Are you not king?

Once I was king. Now I'm alone.

The first king is alone upon his throne.

This is my throne, now. Are you king?

Every man is a king, every voice is his throne.

Too many kings mean too many rules.

Too many rules means too many kings.

The king should not make rules. The rules should make the king.

Zack slowly craned his neck to look at the wall, closer than he ever had before. On the faded old paint he could just make out old words, old ink that formed letters and sentences…Driven away by time, perhaps, but still there…Still there…

Conversations, written in every sort of hand imaginable, speckled the walls. Zack looked at them all in wonder, tracing them with his fingers, following every misshaped letter with wide eyes.

In every conversation something was the same.

In every written speech one thing never changed.

Holden's replies.

Hello Lone Wolf…Alone upon his throne…Every voice…Too many rules…

Zack froze, something akin to terror racing through his veins and clouding all rational thought from his dazed mind. His gaze wandered back to what he had written, nearly a month ago, now, and took a quavering breath that sounded as loud as a gunshot in the tense, silent air.

I, lone wolf, am no longer king.

And now something was written beneath his last remark that had not been there before. Holden had replied.

In response to Zack's statement in regards to rules and kings, Holden had written in his own mysterious way:

Hello, lone wolf, are you not king?

Zack slowly pushed himself into a standing position, slung his backpack over his shoulders, wiped the tears from his eyes, and kicked away the shards that still reflected the faces of those who had wept, sat, hid, stood, screamed, lived, died in that back bathroom before him.

He felt numb. Like nothing was real. Like nothing had ever been real.

The basketball's started pattering on the gymnasium floor. Zack splashed cool water on himself, ignoring the faces that watched him through the mirror. He took out The Catcher in the Rye from his backpack, set it underneath the words that black Sharpie had written through his hands, and walked towards the door.

He opened it. Closed it behind him. Didn't look back.

He hid in here a lot.

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The End

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Eplilogue coming soon

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