"When He broke open the third seal, I heard the third living creature cry out,

'Come!' And I looked, and behold a black horse,

And he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying,

'A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius;

and do not damage the oil and the wine.'"

-Revelation 6:5

-Ω-

It was at this time that Percy began to coach Frank on how to be a harbinger of the apocalypse. Of course, the two of them didn't call it that, since they tried to steer clear of the subject that pertained to them slaughtering millions of innocent people, so the teachings came in the form of little lessons that they could do when they had time to kill. It wasn't like they were in any rush; all they wanted to do was get south enough for there to be no winter, and then they would probably start making their way west, where they would, inevitably, meet up with Famine and Death, though if Percy knew what they looked like or what their names were, he wouldn't tell.

"Okay, so first thing's first," Percy stated as he unloaded the last of their supplies from Blackjack's back. He refused help as he lugged the bags over to the curb, dropping them next to the corpse of a woman who lay face down on the pavement. A chill went down Frank's spine when he realize that it didn't really bother him to see that anymore. "Saddles are for pussies, and if you even consider trying to look for one, then fuck you."

"Way to put it bluntly," Frank chuckled, running his hand over Blackjack's patchy coat and feeling a little nervous. He hadn't been on a horse in his life, not even a pony at a birthday party, and even though he knew that Blackjack was the most docile thing he'd ever met he still feared that the horse would buck him off. "So how do I get on?"

"I don't know, you tell me," Percy retorted and crossed his arms over his chest, quirking a brow as he leaned against a skimpy tree that looked like it was clinging to life. When Frank began to lead Blackjack over to use the curb as a step, Percy snapped, "Frank, you're being a loser. Get on the fucking horse. We're not going to wait for you to get a little stepstool."

Percy meant "we" as in "the Horsemen", but of course he didn't mention that, because that made things awkward between them for a couple of hours.

"Shut up," Frank hissed, wondering if he should just plant his hands on Blackjack's back and haul himself over. Then again, the horse was so frail, and he was used to carrying Percy everywhere; Percy wasn't nearly as heavy as Frank was, and the survivor feared he would break the poor guy's back if he tried to get on without assistance. "I've never been on a horse before."

"Then you're going to have a bit of a problem, aren't you?" Percy pointed out, and he seemed to be enjoying Frank's puzzlement much more than Frank would've liked. "I mean, horses are in the job description."

"Yes, but whoever arranged this whole thing was too dumb to think of putting an 'experience required' note on his nonexistent job application," Frank barked, grinding his teeth together as his fists clenched. A nearby squirrel suddenly let out a screech and attacked its partner, its eyes glowing red, and Frank took deep breaths to soothe himself before the entire rodent population in a three mile radius was wiped out.

Percy didn't poke fun at him for calming himself down, and when Frank wasn't smoking at the ears anymore, he asked, "Can Blackjack even hold my weight?" He was amused and slightly fearful that it wasn't Percy who replied this time, but rather Blackjack, who tossed his head a whinnied as if offended.

Of course I can hold your weight, asshole! he seemed to say.

Blackjack's approval seemed to egg Frank on, and with a grunt he launched himself up and on, draping himself over the horse's back. The gelding shifted a bit to adjust to the extra weight, but otherwise seemed unharmed. Frank shifted around until he was straddling the horse's sides, too busy trying to maneuver to really pay attention much, and when he sat up he realized that he was facing the wrong end. He looked up to see Percy slide to the ground, holding his chest as he was racked with fits of laughter.

"I think I peed a little!" Percy guffawed, laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. "Oh my god I wish I had a phone!" Frank was, indeed, thankful that Percy didn't have a phone, and he grumbled a few unflattering things under his breath as he moved around a little more to sit the right way.

Percy was too busy laughing his ass off to really care, and Frank had to wait a full five minutes before Percy was coherent enough to continue with the lesson. He tried to seem cross and about to get mad, but he couldn't help but let out a snort at the way that Percy was laughing so hard, which didn't really happen very often anymore.

"Okay, okay," the green-eyed boy chuckled a bit, the sound strangled as he tried to force it back. He took a deep breath and let it out, giggling a bit before saying, "Now, what you want to do is take two fistfuls of his mane, yep like that, and hold on tight with your calves. No, not your knees, your calves." Frank felt like an idiot, but Percy wasn't laughing anymore, so that was good. "Now, squeeze his sides with your heels and he'll go."

Frank tried that and, shockingly, Blackjack began to go.

"Now, you need more steering with Blackjack because he's fucking blind, so whenever you approach an obstacle, squeeze your leg on the side that the obstacle is on and he'll move away."

They spend the rest of the day like that, with Percy being a hard ass and making sure that Frank was doing everything right. Eventually, Frank was able to trot without falling off, which was murder on his ass, and after that he was able to canter. It was a lot to do in just a day, but Frank found that he caught on quickly, and on top of that, Percy let him advance to the next gait when he really shouldn't've.

For a while, Frank felt human.

-Ω-

"Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!"

Cheering ensued as Leo drained the huge pitcher, and the Latino boy grinned lopsidedly as the amassed crowd of teenagers dispersed to go find other things that suited their interests. Not three seconds ago, that thing had been Leo Valdez, and the curly-haired boy hiccupped a bit and wondered why the world was tilting so badly.

The neon lights partially blinding him, he hopped off the table he'd been standing on, nearly falling on his face in the process, and stumbled through the crowd of college students who were celebrating the conclusion of that year's midterms. There was beer pong set up in the kitchen, and people were getting high out on the balcony, the stench of weed drifting through the glass double doors and into Dakota's living room. For a moment, Leo's alcohol-addled brain felt sorry for the guy, because he'd have to air out the place for a while before he could get rid of the smell, but considering his parents wouldn't be back until the end of that week, it shouldn't be much of a problem.

He drifted from conversation to conversation, too drunk to really talk much, and sometime during then someone had written the barely eligible words "BAD BOY SUPREME" on Leo's bicep. He didn't care as long as it wasn't a dick, and let out a chuckle as Dakota, the host and perhaps the richest kid in the school, tried to snort Cheeto dust. The guy ended up face-planting, going cross-eyed as the drinks caught up to him, and Leo was glad that he was just drunk enough to be discombobulated but not as drunk as Dakota.

His (parents') penthouse was brimming with just about every Junior and Senior in the school, and they were all having a ball as they looked out onto the sprawling streets of Houston from the top floor of a gigantic skyscraper. It was a pretty sight, but only when sober. The view, combined with the tilting and spinning that came with booze, made Leo want to heave, but he had a tough stomach and managed to choke down the bile that was rising up in his throat.

"Leo!"

Leo turned to find one of his best friends, Piper, sashaying over with a red solo cup in her hand. Her face had a healthy flush to it, with just the right amount of rosiness to her cheeks, but she wasn't anywhere near drunk as she squeezed through the crowd and over to Leo, looking cross.

"Leo, you're supposed to be my ride home," she managed to yell over the heavy bass of the music. Even though her dad was an actor and she was pretty loaded, she was more for going to parties than throwing them. Besides, she flew in from California to go to school. "And Jason hasn't been answering my texts."

"What, you think the guy is going to fly out to Houston just to give you a ride home?" Leo demanded, his words coming out more slurred then he'd like them to be. He scratched his head, wondering why his hair was sticky. "Besides, Santa Rosa, his city, was one of those with the freak accidents! All the plants died around it, remember?"

"That's why I'm worried!" Piper cried, ducking out of the way as one of the Seniors attempted to crowd surf on a nonexistent crowd. "He hasn't so much as called me ever since then. He hasn't even shown up to classes!" This was news to Leo, and it made him think that he should start actually hanging out with Piper; he had no classes with her, and instead of being with Piper, he spent more time out with his Robotics Club friends, who were like brothers and sisters to him.

Leo was still sober enough to process the information and be at least slightly concerned about it. In his heart, though, he knew that Jason was probably just avoiding Piper after that fiasco on the roof of the school; towards the end of the school year, the two of them were caught on the roof watching a meteor shower, and both of them had been suspended. Jason had been a bit distant after that, being the goody two-shoes that he was, and Leo suspected that this was his way of telling Piper that it was high time to break up.

"Do you think he's okay?" Leo asked instead of voicing his suspicions, waving away a messy-haired girl trying to offer him another drink. "Do you think something happened to him?"

"I don't know." Piper's expression was pinched, and her cup had caved in under her vicious grip. "But since you're so drunk, you're coming with me to Reyna as proof that she should drive us home. Jesus, Leo, what were you thinking?"

"That's the thing, I wasn't thinking."

After much begging on Piper's part and much being drunk on Leo's part, Reyna finally agreed to drive them home.

"This party was trash anyway. I couldn't get to the Cheetos because the dust was trying to be snorted," Reyna scoffed as the elevator descended, which Drunk Leo didn't like at all. He nearly barfed, but Reyna looked just about ready to take off her sandal and beat him with it, so he knew that chucking his guts wouldn't exactly put him in the best place. The three of them made their way through the lobby, the girls supporting Leo every step of the way as his boozed up brain reacted very poorly to the mosaic of a topless woman that served as the floor, and eventually emerged out into the crisp winter air. Even though it was Texas and it wasn't cold per say, it was still chilly enough that goosebumps rose up on Leo's skin.

They spent about ten minutes searching for Reyna's clunker amidst a sea of other students' clunkers, and when they finally crawled into the bright yellow monstrosity, it was half past four in the morning. If Leo looked up, he could see the multicolored lights in the penthouse blazing and the plumes of smoke coming from the balcony, and he fumbled with his seatbelt as Reyna jiggled the keys, cursing under her breath as the engine kept stalling.

Eventually, they were off. The streets were crowded, even at this hour, but Leo didn't really mind much as he picked at the plastic bag in his lap, which Reyna had given to him with a warning, "If you throw up on my seats, you're dead, Valdez, dead." The interior of the car plunged in and out of darkness as they cruised by street lamps, and the buildings passed at various speeds, sometimes whipping by and sometimes slowly crawling along.

Leo, Piper, and Reyna didn't actually live in Houston, but rather in the surrounding suburbs. The buildings grew shorter and shorter until commercial bled into residential, with petite houses set up in neat little rows on either side of the street. No one was up at this hour, so most of the windows were dark, and everything seemed eerily abandoned as the car chugged along.

Leo was so enamored with the street lights that he almost peed his pants when Reyna shouted, "Look!"

He blinked blearily, unbuckling his seat belt and sliding along the seats to the other side of the car to see where Reyna was pointing, and Piper strained to look from her spot in the passenger's seat. Leo's mind felt like it was filled with cotton, and it took a moment to realize that there were two horses eating on someone's lawn, or at least, what was left of someone's lawn. The grass was withered and sickly, and the surrounding lawns seemed to be suffering, too.

As if they knew that they were being watched, the horses stopped their grazing and looked up, their eyes reflecting the light of the headlights eerily. One of them was as black as night, its coat blending into the shadows that lurked in between the patches of light cast by the street lamps, and the other one was a pale grey, almost white.

"What the hell are horses doing on the outskirts of Houston?" Piper demanded, unbuckling her seatbelt and throwing the door open despite Reyna's protests. "C'mon, let's check it out."

"Piper, sweetheart, you're Cherokee and proud, and I'm Latina and proud. Please, let's not act like the white girls in the horror movies," Reyna recommended icily, white-knuckling the steering wheel and grinding her teeth together as Piper walked around the front of the car and cautiously picked her way over to the horses, whose ears were pricked and alert. "Besides, Leo's still drunk off his ass. We have to get him home."

"It'll only take a little bit," Piper insisted, stopping on the curb not three feet from the horses. "Now get over here, I'm too scared to go alone."

"That might be a sign for you to get back in this damn car."

Piper ignored her, still standing poised in front of the horses, and Reyna let out a string of unflattering curses in Spanish as she viciously unbuckled her seatbelt and kicked open the door on the driver's side. Before closing it, she turned to Leo with irritation sparking in her eyes.

"Take a step out of this car and I'll slap you so hard that Google won't be able to find you, got it?"

Leo nodded quickly, and Reyna's eyes narrowed as she slammed the door shut and took off towards the horses. Since Reyna had said nothing about rolling the window down, Leo did just that in order to hear what they were saying better.

"They don't seem to be owned by anyone," Piper muttered as the horses finally seemed to lose interest in them, returning to nibbling on the dead grass. "They don't have any saddles or bridles or anything."

"They must've escaped," Reyna replied, rubbing her chin. "From the equestrian team's stables, maybe?"

"The University of Houston doesn't have a fucking equestrian team," Piper snapped, and the crossness in her voice made the horses look up again. "It's almost like they're waiting for someone."

"You think they belong to these people?" Reyna asked, jerking her chin towards the house whose lawn the horses were currently devouring.

"Considering the fact that there's a ramp and a sign in the window that says 'Jesus Loves All' I'm thinking that there are old people here, and as far as I know, old people who live the suburbs of Houston, of all places, don't have horses," Piper scoffed, taking a few more steps forward. "Are they wild?"

She reached out and touched the black horse's coat, and the horse only sniffed her hand before tossing his head and returning to grazing. Piper frowned as she ran her fingers over the length of the black horse's body, and Leo was able to notice that there were defined ridges jutting against the horse's hide.

"This one's starving," Piper murmured, gently patting the horse's shoulder.

"Really?" Reyna asked, crossing her arms and sounding skeptical. "His friend here seems totally fine."

"I'm serious, put your hand here. You can't see it in the dark, but he's skin and bones."

Leo stopped listening to the conversation at that point, rolling up the window and looking down at his leg, which was jiggling restlessly. Reyna and Piper should just get back in the car so they could drive home, and even though Leo couldn't deny that he was interested in these weird mystery horses, he was exhausted. His bed sure sounded like a better alternative to the car, and Leo felt like he recognized this neighborhood- the house that he, Reyna, and Piper shared was not far from here.

Leo was so busy fantasizing about his bed that he nearly missed the face pressed against the window. The Latino, still slightly drunk, let out a yelp of astonishment as two obsidian black eyes peered at him through the window that was opposite the one facing Piper and Reyna. His heart flew in his chest as he vaguely made out the silhouette of someone behind the figure, and he was pretty sure he was going to have a heart attack at any moment.

Leo just sat there hyperventilating for a few moments before his brain put the pieces together, noting the sandy blond hair and the fact that his eyes were completely consumed by black, iris and all. His brow furrowed.

"Jason?"

-Ω-

The next day the headline of the news read:

THREE LOCAL COLLEGE STUDENTS FOUND DEAD WITH TWO SENIOR CITIZENS- LINK TO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS IN NEW YORK, VEGAS, AND SANTA ROSA?

-Ω-

(A/N) I am so sorry about the long update! I was busy on vacation and I was working on a manuscript for my novel, which I just completed and have been diligently editing. Hope you like this chapter! The chapter title is from the song "Cancer" by Twenty-One Pilots