[TRIGGER WARNING!: mentions of suicide, cutting, alcohol, and cursing. I DON'T KNOW WHY I FELT THE URGE TO WELCOME MYSELF BACK WITH THIS BUT I'M CRYING HELP]
Elliot opened his eyes to a blinding white light. What happened…? He could barely remember. All he knew is that he felt weightless and that he couldn't see anything but white. And then the white slowly faded into black, he felt hot. He smelled fire and rotting flesh...Before the stench and the temperature could get any worse, he felt a white hot pain shoot up his arm and a hand drag him away from the dark.
When he finally opened his eyes, he remembered everything. He was back in his room...but he still felt weightless and a little sick. Slowly he started hearing someone calling his name...it was soft and scratchy at first, like listening to an out of tune radio station. Slowly the voice came full force though he still couldn't place who it was.
Elliot whipped around, his heart stopping cold at the sight of a tall pale woman with wings of pure light protruding from her back. She slowly removed her white hood for Elliot to stare at her piercing yellow eyes. Those eyes accused him of something...and then finally everything came rushing back to him and he felt like doubling over and throwing up from all the memory.
Elliot Matthew Knight is dead. Elliot had finally done it...He'd finally let all the pain and the depression catch up to him and he killed himself. He remembered every detail so perfectly. He remembered the cold, stinging pain of the knife sliding so evilly down his arm. He remembered his thick, hot black blood rolling down his pale skin and pooling on the floor at his feet. He remembered passing out and feeling cold. So...so cold. He was still cold.
He didn't mean to...He didn't. But maybe it was for the best. All the weight...all the pain and mental anguish was gone now. Now maybe Jinx wouldn't have to worry all the time...Raven wouldn't have to deal with how annoying he was...Joey could finally find someone who was worth it. Someone pure and pretty and real. Elliot thought when he'd finally died he'd feel immense sorrow...or joy...or something. But all he felt was empty.
"Elliot Knight...I am Erasibeth. I am-" Started the pale and beautiful woman before Elliot, her lean figure bending down to Elliot's height to speak with him. Her voice faded in and out like a radio station once again...like she wasn't all the way here yet.
"An angel. I know. The hell do you want with me?" Elliot interrupted quickly. Elliot was always good at that, being under immense emotional pressure yet still managing to pop off at authority like the delinquent he was. It helped distract him from his current state. He tried his hardest not to smirk when the ghostly figure in front of him visibly cringed and balled up it's fist at hearing the word 'hell'.
"I am here to help you, foolish boy. Though I know already you do not want it. There are some people of this life...of Earth...that the Maker gives a second chance. You, for some reason are one them. Elliot Knight, you killed yourself by blade of knife. But the Maker has seen your fate. And without you, the world and much of it's people will perish from the Great War ahead of you. The era of superheroes and villians may be a fulfilling one, but it will soon bring great death and destruction to Earth. You play an unbelievably heavy role in the War that will bring hope and life back to Earth once it is over. If you kill yourself now, you are also killing millions of innocent lives with you." Eracebeth explained in her deep, foreboding voice.
Elliot shook his head in denial. Him, a savior among people? A hero? Never, he refused to believe this tall tale that the angel had set before him. Eracebeth shook her head in disappointment before waving her arm across Elliot's bedroom, transforming it into a black void filled with clocks and chimes that hurt Elliot's ears.
"If you won't accept my offer of life for yourself and the Earth's strangers, then maybe you'll accept it once you see what your choice of death does to those you keep close." Eracebeth said as she called for the scene to change.
The clocks surrounding Elliot all started to spin in a blur, but all stopped at the same time. According to a digital one to Elliot's side, it was a mere few hours after Elliot's death. As Elliot turned around, he saw his room once again. Though he was more than a little unsettled at the pale, stiff body that was him lying on the floor. All was dead silence, until he heard a small knock on his door.
The knocks slowly grew more frequent and obviously worried over the fact that Elliot wasn't answering. Elliot couldn't imagine who would be so worried...no one really cared about him except…
"Please God no…." Elliot whispered to himself as his heart dropped and the realization hit him like a truck.
Joseph seemed to have found the key to the door as he slipped into the cluttered room, happy as always. His beautiful, bright smile and his soft features quickly shattered as he spotted Elliot laying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Joseph walked towards Elliot's body anxiously, scolding him for trying to mess with his boyfriend like that.
Elliot wanted to close his eyes but he couldn't. He couldn't move at all. All he could do was stand and watch as the love of his life broke into hysterics, crying floods of agony and screaming like his very heart and soul were being ripped from his body. Joseph screamed and shrieked and howled at Elliot's unmoving body as Joseph shook his shoulders desperately, begging him to wake up. Not to leave him here alone. Joseph finally stopped shaking him and sobbed violently into Elliot's chest, holding him closely and tightly. He paid no mind to the fact that Elliot's blood was staining his clothes or that he was crying so hard he couldn't breathe. His voice broken from all the yelling, he just kept whispering hatefully at Elliot's corpse. 'How dare you', 'You can't leave me, please, you promised me...you can't leave me…', 'You're all I have you motherfucking idiot...you're the only one….I….'.
Elliot finally snapped from his daze and closed his eyes, pricking back tears at watching Joseph fall apart.
"STOP! S...stop…! Don't make me watch this….Don't…" Elliot said to Eracebeth brokenly.
Eracebeth simply closed her eyes and commanded once again for the clocks around them to change the scenery. This time it seemed that they had stopped three months after the date of Elliot's suicide.
This time they had stopped at what Elliot could tell was Jinx's room. But now, everything was ripped apart and broken. Her sketchbook lay in tatters at her feet, Elliot finally spotted what was left of Jinx.
After her metaphorical big brother passed away at his hand, Jinx fell into depression worse than Elliot's. Jinx's pale eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling, and Elliot could see the scars running up and down her arms. She smelled of alcohol and she looked like a mess. Her pretty pink hair was mussed and dirty, fraying in different directions, and she didn't look like she'd eaten in days. Jinx was asleep, clutching a broken photograph of Elliot and Jinx together as children when they'd first met. Tears stained her pale, sunken cheeks and she looked almost as dead as Elliot felt.
Elliot shook his head but didn't utter a sound. Jinx. Jaya Salem. His Jinx...was broken. And it was his fault. Jinx was the strongest person he'd ever met in his life, so much anguish and sorrow had happened in her life and yet she was strong and independent. Or so she was.
Eracebeth changed the scene one last time, dropping them both off in Joseph's room this time. Elliot shook his head in confusion as he saw the blonde boy peacefully asleep on his bed. Eracebeth simply pointed towards the bed and motioned for Elliot to remove the covers.
Elliot felt like ripping himself apart molecule by molecule.
His Joey. His Josebelle. His beautiful, amazing, kind, perfect drop of sunshine lay dead on his own bed, clutching a handgun as if it were a teddy bear. The most unnerving thing about the disturbing scene is that while Elliot was in pain dying, Joseph looked happy. Almost joyful. He had that same beautiful, soft smile Elliot had always seen when he walked through the door to his apartment plastered on his pale, dead face. There was blood running down the wound in his head and dripping onto his bed sheets, but he looked still as happy as ever. In his other hand, Joseph held a picture of Elliot to him like it was his lifeline.
Elliot reached up into his hair and pulled out strands of the thick ebony vines while shaking his head and mentally falling apart. Before he could do or say anything Eracebeth changed the scene again to Joseph's gravestone, right next to Elliot's.
"Please no! No! I'll...I'll stay alive! I'll do anything! Please just! Don't do this to me! Don't do this to them! PLEASE!" Elliot sobbed angrily as he fell to his knees and clutched onto the fabric of Eracebeth's dress.
Eracebeth simply smiled knowingly and bent down to Elliot's tear stained face, lifting it up by his chin to face him fully.
"You are destined for greatness. For love and compassion. For life." Eracebeth said in her ghostly way, her voice seeming to ricochet off their surrounding and morphing them. Suddenly a piercing noise invading Elliot's sense of hearing, causing him to squint his eyes shut and cover his ears. After a few moments, it was over.
Elliot opened his eyes to see his ceiling. He felt around and he felt that he was in his bed. He placed a hand on his heart and it was pumping blood. He was alive. Elliot wanted to jump up and yell for joy, but found a light weight on his chest stopped him.
Elliot looked down at his living, breathing, loving boyfriend, asleep on his chest like the angel he was.
Joseph was alive. Elliot was alive. He wouldn't ever want it any other way again.
[SO SO SO SORRY I'VE BEEN GONE. But I'm back now and finally have internet again so requests as always are wanted! I don't know why I felt the need to write this, but I have mushy gushy Valentine's Day stuff to make up for it tomorrow!]