AN: Warnings for graphic violence and major character death.
Over the Wall pt. 2
I'd never actually seen someone beaten before let alone a murder. And I don't care what they say – no amount of exposure to television or cinematic violence can prepare you for the real ordeal. What I remember clearly now, some ten years on, are the little details: the snaps as his fingers were broken, the involuntary twitch of his legs, the sound his teeth made when force expelled them from his mouth and they hit the pavement, scattering like pearls from a broken string all around.
We'd climbed the garden wall, Danny and I, to watch his death. He took my hand and held it tightly, his cold bones burning my skin. I wanted to recoil but I felt for him - feared him - and knew I had to stay and bear witness to the event. He needed someone to see, to cry for him as they kicked the life from him.
Ivo's broken body lay a distance from the circle of action, his soft hair soaked in blood. I couldn't see his face from my vantage point but I imagined it well enough – his soft features torn apart. I cried hard for Ivo, wishing I could have spared him this.
Danny's body was still moving on the ground but whether intentionally – that resilience that had enabled him to survive so much – or from the impact of his attackers' blows I couldn't tell. One of the smaller brutes dragged him by his hair, jerking his head back grotesquely so that I could see his eyes and mouth – swollen shut from bruises. Another kicked him repeatedly in the groin so that his jeans were as bloody as his face. The jeers of the cowards who made up the audience – their cries of "Faggot!" and harsh triumphant laughter – whipped the killers into a frenzy. One of them lifted a lead pipe to smash his chest, shattering the ribs and stilling his troubled heart.
I watched the last wisp of life that was his spirit leave him and bowed my head to cry, grateful that it was over, that he hadn't lived any longer to endure more. I pulled my hand from his and wrapped my arms around him, trying to comfort him though I knew nothing could ever undo so much pain, such immeasurable suffering. He was quiet, leaning into me. It was almost as if the anger had left him now that he had me to mourn him. He kissed my throat with his cold dead lips and pulled back.
"Remember me," he said hoarsely, hopping down from the wall. It was the first time I had ever heard his ghost speak.
"I'll never forget!" I promised, still sobbing. How could anyone forget? I watched him fade back into the black.
And then I recognized the scene. I remembered where I had seen it before.
"Your film," I whispered after him, thinking of the death of the homosexual boy in the small town. "It was in your film!"
Then I knew that Danny had prophesized his own death.