TWENTY-SEVEN

The academy was absorbed in a deafening silence. It was all so quiet and still, like a freeze-frame forever immortalized in a single second to be watched over and over. Not even the creaking and rattling of the building could be heard, expanding and contracting with the change in temperature. It was like the thick layer of snow had turned everything off.

A pressure on his shoulder brought Todd to a state of half-sleep, but he tried to ignore it. Then Charlie's voice calling his name seeped into the folds of his slumber. He strove to shrug his hand off and get back to sleep, but Charlie persisted. Todd finally turned to look at him, fully awake by then. A tear was flowing along his friend's cheek.

"What is it?" he asked, sitting upright. He looked over and spotted Pitts, Meeks and Knox by the door. They were all wearing the same things: pajamas, robes, a grief-stricken expression.

He brought his attention back to Charlie, an icy drop of fear leaking in his senses, and questioned him with his dismayed eyes. He saw Nuwanda swallow and move his lips, then nonsensical words met his ear.

"Neil's dead."

When Todd expressed the wish to go outside, nobody had the guts to say no. It was awfully cold, and they had just thrown their coats over their nightwear, but they still followed him in the courtyard. Cameron was still sleeping, unaware of the truth.

The news was meticulously detailed: Mr. Perry had woken up that night to a smashing sound, hence he had looked through the house until he had reached his study. There, the window was broken, the cloth once harboring his handgun was unfolded and empty on his desk along with some bullets, and a trail of blood grimly led from the chair to the sill, continuing outside. A note had been left next to the other objects.

If this is the life ahead, then I don't want it. Carpe diem.

The man, the neighbors, the police had followed the red trace and scoured the whole area, but Neil's body was nowhere to be found. Rumor had it that an accomplice must have helped him take his own life, hiding his corpse afterward.

Todd had pulled himself ahead of the others, leaving them frightened of his potential reaction. He stopped, taking in all of the white stillness with some sort of contentment on his face.

"It's so beautiful" he murmured. The Poets sadly smiled, still cautious in their approach. And they were right: Todd suddenly began to gag, then fell down on his knees, puking in the snow.

Charlie was the first to run at his side, soon followed by the rest of the group, and they all huddled around him. Knox hugged him from behind, eyes tight shut.

"Todd!"

"It's okay, Todd."

"Calm down."

"It's all right, Todd."

They tried to ease their friend's sorrow but, at that point, Todd was sobbing without restrain. Just like the previous evening, Charlie grabbed a handful of snow and wiped Todd's mouth with it, remotely thinking he couldn't really say he was happy with such a task, considering the reasons behind it. The boy among them started jabbering words in between his tears.

"He wouldn't... He wouldn't have done it."

"You can't explain it, Todd" was Meeks' voice of reason.

"It was his father!" Todd yelled.

"No!" Pitts shouted in horror.

"He wouldn't have left us" Todd rattled on, breathing shakily. "It's because he... He wouldn't have. His dad was... His... His father did it. His father killed him. He made him do it."

He managed to wriggle out of his friends' grasp and tried to put as much room as he could from anything. He stumbled, slipped and fell in the snow along his way towards the lake.

"Todd!" they tried to call him back.

"Leave him be" Charlie suggested.

Under the helpless and broken stares of the Poets, Todd let a heart-wrenching scream fill the air.

Charlie had left the duty of updating Cameron to the others, since October was still to be informed. He put on some clothes without really paying attention to his gestures and headed towards the main door – screw Nolan and his detention: if he tried to stop him at such a moment, he would probably punch him.

Though he was able to use a bike by then, he chose to walk to her place: he needed time to collect his thoughts, put the pieces back together, be alone with his own sorrow. Stupid silence, stupid snow. But that silence and that snow were actually soothing, like huge and lifeless parents cuddling him.

He and Knox had been inseparable since childhood; then, that first day as 11-year-old rascals in Hellton, they had met Neil. Charlie had immediately bonded with the kid with fire in his eyes. That was the first thing he remembered he had thought back then: Neil had fire in his eyes. Whether it was out of passion or anger, joy or mischievousness, it was fire nonetheless. His two best friends had started to get along well with each other, and he couldn't ask for anything better. Thus, two stages of his life had merged, embodied in the two boys always at his side, so different from each other yet so capable of perfectly wedging in all his unevenness. They had grown up together, supporting and understanding each other, asking for advice, putting up with each other's quirks. They had become men together. They had met at that point when memories stop being linked to family and start to become individual: that was why he could safely say they had spent their whole life together – literally, since they were attending a boarding school.

Flashes of his memories with Neil kept on mocking him every now and then. Endless summers laughing with no worries along with Knox. The first prank, the first detention, the first hangover. The first time Neil had brought along his peer from the Chemistry club, and so Meeks had joined them, dragging Pitts into their group shortly thereafter. Their first squabble over Cameron's inclusion. That time when Neil's roommate had found his collection of newspaper clippings with photographs of Gary Cooper and set it on fire out of spite: it had been Charlie who had ravaged Nolan's office on that occasion, managing to pin the blame on Chet to get him thrown out of the academy. Neil had never known. And he couldn't tell him anymore. All was shattered. All was lost. There was no going back. The fire had died out. Could he be mad at one of his best friends over that crazy decision? Never. In fact, he wasn't even really shocked. After all, Neil didn't want that life. He was free, whatever afterworld he had gone to. As Charlie had always wished for him, for himself, for them all.

When October caught up with him outside her guesthouse and spotted his face, she gave a sad smile and stroked his cheek with a full hand.

"Darlie..." she began, but his feeble voice cut her off.

"Would you mind going to the cave? I feel at home, there."

"Sure" she accepted.

They walked again in silence, hand in hand, until the shelter of the cavern, where Charlie told her what had happened. She never interrupted him. He blurted out all the details he knew, then his thoughts, then his sorrow. She tried to chip in before he could break down, but he didn't let her. He needed to vent and get emptied of all the filth in his guts, his hatred towards the world at the moment funneled into Mr. Perry's figure. It was only after he had cried his eyes out in her arms that he noticed October's self-restrained air. Not serene, not lighthearted, but composed nonetheless. She was so much more upset the previous day. She wasn't crying. She wasn't even showing the tiniest sign of shock.

"You're quite strong for such news" Charlie remarked frowning.

October lowered her stare to her hands, folded in her lap.

"I have to tell you something" she murmured.

Charlie swallowed, his eyes dried out and puffy by then. More bad news, for sure. Man, he was so tired...

And then a sick thought struck his mind. It couldn't be her the accessory in Neil's suicide, right? Right?

"You're freaking me out" he stated in a raspy voice.

"There's a little chance you're going to hate me, but I hope you're open-minded enough not to" she added.

To hate me...

It was her.

Open-minded...

It was her.

"What do you mean? What the hell is going on?"

She finally raised her eyes to meet his gaze. Her expression was unreadable. Charlie unintentionally moved an inch backward, the horror pervading each fiber of his being, the blood rumbling so hard in his ears that he felt like he was surrounded by a deafening roar.

It couldn't be her...

"October?"

She took a deep breath before speaking.

"Neil is not dead."

A/N: How to be forgiven? With a new chapter straight after! Yeah, I found some free time under my bed while sweeping and, since I already had a draft, I managed to polish it up (?) rather quickly for you to enjoy.

I completely made up a couple of things, I'm sure you noticed. The difference in Neil's "death" has of course plot reasons, while Chet's banishment is just my way to fill in some behind-the-scenes.

Feel free to let me know your feelings, thoughts and theories, I love them!

Till next time!