A/N: I don't even know what I'm doing, but let's play 'spot the author's emotional projections' lel

No real warnings for this, but it DOES talk about death a lot and if I have done my job right there will be feels. Lots and lots of bad, bad feels.

Also, about his mother: the reason I have her behave that way is because parents who behave like that tend to produce narcissistic children (at least, that's what I learned somewhere).

"This silly bag that I've been wearing, made of guts and cords and bones"

- The Nighty Nite "This Silly Bag"

Billy stared down at the form in disbelief. For a while he only felt confused; he wasn't dead, yet his body was lying prone on the floor. He looked down at himself, the self that wasn't sprawled out in its own vomit. He could see right through his legs. He raised his hands; they too were partially transparent.

His mind raced with a hundred different thoughts all clamouring for attention at once. He couldn't understand what was happening or why he was looking down at his own body. How can I be up here and down there all at once? He thought frantically, Why am I see-through? Am I ghost or something?

Oh. Oh god.

Billy felt as though a ton of ice water had been dumped on him as the revelation hit. He was definitely dead, but he was still here. He looked back at his former body. It was one of the few times that he had cringed at his own image. His face was horribly pale and slick with perspiration. Blue veins were visible through the skin on his neck and hands. His hair was limp with sweat and he stunk of alcohol. Billy grimaced realizing this was the way some people would see him for the last time. This might be how they remembered him, sickly and pathetic.

A small bubble of ectoplasm welled up in his eye and rolled down his cheek. It continued down his neck and reabsorbed back into his body. More tears followed it and soon he was openly weeping.

"It's not fair!" He wailed, "It was a mistake! Hundreds of people are downstairs right now making the same mistake! So why me?! So why am I the one who dies?!"

Billy's outbursts continued and he spent the rest of the night in the loft weeping by his body. He was unnerved by the corpse, but at the same time he couldn't leave. This was probably the last time he'd be able to see his real face and not just pictures or semitransparent apparitions. It was strange to look at himself with such detachment. Was this really all he was? He looked at the body now and somehow could only see it as a pale bag of flesh and bones wrapped in expensive fabric. That was it. That was all he ever was, but he would give anything to go back to it.

Billy raised his head at the sound of birds singing outside and realized it was bright outside. It was very bright and it probably had been for quite a while. There was a slight clamour and he looked to see the elevator go back downstairs. A few minutes later it returned and short, stout woman in a plain, blue housekeeping dress stepped out pulling a cart behind her. One of the maids! Billy thought excitedly. He floated over to her eagerly waving his arms.

"Hey! Hey, call an ambulance!" He said, but she didn't respond, "Yo, didn't you hear me? I'm K.I.A. over here, get your phone out!"

Again she didn't reply and proceeded to walk right through him. She… She can't see me… or hear me… Billy thought.

"Oh, Mr. Cobra," The maid said as she began cleaning, "Did you fall asleep on your floor again?"

Billy followed her as she went about her routine, dusting, spraying, and wiping everything in the room.

"I'm dead you know," Billy said cattily. He knew it wasn't her fault that she couldn't see him, but he still felt angry at her "There's a dead body like ten feet away from you."

Eventually the woman made her way to the other side of the room. She stopped in front of Billy with her hands on her hips, "I'm sorry, Mr. Cobra, but you'll have to get up if you want me to clean your… mess out of the carpet." She leaned down and shook him gently. He was very cold and her smile fell when she noticed the dark, purple discolorations on part of his face and bare stomach. She shook him more vigorously, "Mr. Cobra? Sir? Mr. Cobra?! Oh god… Oh my god…"

She jumped to her feet covering her mouth and stumbling backwards. She fumbled in her pockets and pulled out a cell phone and punched in the numbers with trembling hands. Billy watched with disdain as she spoke frantically to the operator.

He realized suddenly that she was the first to discover his body. After he left the party, no one else came to look for him. It had been his party and no one cared when he disappeared? His friends had seen how much he'd drank and they probably saw him slink through the crowd holding his head. No one worried what might have happened to him? None of them cared, so his corpse was discovered by "the help". He gritted his teeth in anger as the realizations hit him. Eventually his rage faded into despair. None of them cared.

He sat heavily on the floor and phased through it. He looked down in shock and slowly floated back up out of the carpet. He hovered near the ground, as though he were sitting and watched as the maid paced back and forth anxiously before heading downstairs again, still on the phone with the emergency operator. He didn't even know this woman's name. Ectoplasm began to drip from his eyes again as he wondered what would have happened if there'd been no maid service. Maybe it would have been days before anyone found him.

He suddenly felt very used. His friends probably saw him as just another pretty face to leech fame from. They would probably use his death as a popularity stunt and tell the media how much he'd meant to them. He wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face against his legs.

It wasn't long before paramedics poured into the room. Suddenly the atmosphere became very chaotic. Billy tried to see what they were doing, but everything was moving so fast. Before he knew it his body was on a stretcher, zipped up in a dark plastic bag. He followed the paramedics outside and watched himself be wheeled into an ambulance.

There were already a few vehicles outside, paparazzi waiting eagerly with their cameras. He wondered how they had found out so quickly. The maid followed outside afterwards and made a scornful noise, "Vultures." She said. Normally Billy loved to be surrounded by paparazzi, but this time he had to agree with her.

The ambulance drove off and Billy followed it to the hospital. The paramedics wheeled the stretcher to the morgue and Billy cringed. He knew this was the only place he could have expected, but it still came as a shock to him. This was really it. He was dead.

After some paperwork and formalities, his body was left alone with the other cadavers. Billy hung around with morbid curiosity. He wanted to know what was going to happen to his body. He looked around and tried looking at one of the other unfortunates in the room. It seemed to be a burn victim and he decided not to look under any of the other sheets.

After some time he heard some talking outside and the door to the morgue opened. Two men came in; one was wearing scrubs and the other a white coat. Behind them a thin woman with long black hair and too much mascara followed. Billy's face lit up and he swooped over to her.

"Mom!" He stopped in front of her, hovering low enough so that he had to look up at her. He smiled his most placating smile. She didn't respond and walked through him. Oh right, he realized. Tears rolled down his face as his mother cautiously approached the stretcher his body was lying on.

The man in the scrubs unzipped the bag, revealing Billy's pale face. She stared at it for a moment with an unreadable expression. "Yeah…" She said quietly. She stared at the cadaver some more before sighing and wrapping her arms around herself.

"It's okay, mom," Billy said, tears streaming down his face. He choked in a few breaths, "It'll be okay. I'll be okay."

"I can't even cry," She said as she dropped her arms to her sides morosely. Billy's sobs slowed and he frowned as his mother turned towards the man in the white coat. "I've always been so emotional and now I can't even find a single tear…"

"It's alright," The man assured her, "It's not uncommon for people lose the ability to cry when they get overwhelmed with emotions."

"He never had any self-control," She continued, "He was such a hassle to raise, especially after my husband left me…"

"Stop it," Billy said even though he knew she couldn't hear him. His voice got louder and louder as he talked, "You always do this! You turn everything into something about yourself! I'm dead and all you can do is turn it into another one of your personal tragedies! STOP IT!"

As he yelled the last word, the light bulb above him burst and small shards of glass fell to the floor. Everyone in the room jumped, but Billy didn't stay to see their reactions. He went back to his mansion and curled up on his bed, crying again.

He hauled up inside his room for weeks. He left once to attend his own funeral, but otherwise spent all his time eating peanut butter in bed. By the end of the third week he was actually beginning to feel alright. He still had his peanut butter and, maybe even more importantly, his home. No one's gonna take that away from me, he thought before he jumped at the sudden sound of voices downstairs. He sat up on his bed and listened intently. There were a few different voices, some of them even sounded like… kids? Billy wondered, What are they doing in my house? He headed downstairs with irate curiosity.