"My time is up, I close

my eyes to your remains

The pieces of my

memories are scattering"

 

Tick, tock.

The forest is deathly silent, but Jackson can hear the ticking of the clock, clipping in his ears, a machine gun. A bird chirps, and leaves lit with dying light rustle above. Jackson can't drag his eyes off the ground, though, because if he did then he would have to look at Mark, and if he looks at Mark, he's afraid he'll burst into tears and never begin to stop.

Tick, tock.

He presses his lips together, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees that the darkness has began to spread across the clearing, devouring the land, devouring his time. He starts to open his mouth, but can't go any further, and snaps it shut. He shifts on the sun-brightened stump. Dares himself to look up countless times, but can never quite do it.

Maybe if Jackson doesn't look at Mark at all, they'll get to stay here forever. Maybe if he doesn't acknowledge that Mark will leave in less than a day's time, it will never happen. Maybe if they sit here, on the thirty-and-hundreds nub of a tree for a thousand years, it'll be enough time for Jackson to sum up enough courage to stay the thing he has never been able to say. Even after more than eleven years of friendship, even when Mark is about to leave; Jackson is still a coward.  

An audible sigh can be heard, and finally, Jackson lifts his eyes up. Mark's there, sitting cross-legged on the stump, same as Jackson. His fingers trace the curve of the century's' history, but his dark eyes are fixed on Jackson. He feels a tightening in his stomach, and forces his eyes to meet Mark's heavy ones for just a second, before they skitter off to the side. But even while looking off the left, Jackson can still see how the dying light lightens Mark's messy red hair, how shadows sweep across his jaw, how darkness pools in the curve of his collarbones like water.

He sees it, this eternalness Mark carries on him. It's effortless, completely unnoticed by the owner, but it swims past Jackson's eyes all too often, and not enough. He doesn't know how Mark can be this beautiful and yet not know it at all.

Tick, tock.

"Why won't you look at me?" I can't. I won't.

Don't leave.

Don't leave me.

Stay.

Stay with me.

Help me.

"I'm sorry." It's a quiet answer, but Jackson finally raises his gaze and locks eyes with Mark, if only because the question had sounded so sad, and the answer didn’t help. He looks at the other, and suddenly he sees what he didn't before. He sees the sadness hanging off the boy before him like a heavy blanket, weighing down his shoulders, hunching his back. He sees the hollowness of his usually sparkling eyes, he sees the teeth chewing on his lip, sees his trembling hands, hands that always shake when he's nervous. It feels like Jackson has taken a punch to the gut, but now he can't move his eyes away.

Tick, tock.

Jackson his lips, swallows against his dry throat. Prepares to force out what had been in his heart for eight years. Hears the tick-tock of the haunted clock in his ears, and knows that there would be no better time than this. "I..." Even as he struggles, he sees how Mark's eyes flutter, and a little shine enters the depths.

But he must have just imagined it.

He can't do it.

Even with Mark going off the the training camp tomorrow morning, even with four years ahead of not seeing each other, starting tomorrow morning.

"I'll miss you," he finishes feebly, and Mark gives him a little heart-broken smile, but not before the little glow that Jackson's horrible heart must have imagined vanishes, and his eyes fall back into that dismal emptiness.

"I'll miss you too," he says quietly, and the clearing once again falls into silence.

But now Jackson can't look away from Mark, even as the boy closes his eyes and clasps his hands in front of him. How the slight wind tosses his hair, how the shadows dance across his cheek is the definition of art to Jackson. A cloud drifts across the sun. Jackson blinks. He looks again at Mark, and chokes back a gasp. Blood. Blood stains the front of Mark's shirt and drips down his cheekbones, down his chest, pools in a puddle around his feet. His eyes are shut, and blood hangs in droplets from his dark eyelashes. His chest rises, falls. It's faint. His fingers twitch. There's no cause of the blood, but the stain is growing, growing. Jackson stares in rapt horror at the sight of Mark, as his chest falls for the last time. The cloud moves on, the sun's light shines down again, and in a flash, the blood's gone.

Jackson swallows against his throat, and blinks away his rising tears, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. It was a trick of the light. It was just a trick of the light.

But he can't stop thinking about it, replaying it over and over in his mind as the sun falls, and the moon arises. He barely notices when Mark stands up, gives the clearing one last look, one look filled with sadness and loss and horrible loneliness. Gives Jackson one last look, one last look with a blind snapped over the orbs, so all that terribleness in his eyes just the moment before is hidden behind a shade.  Barely notices when Jackson himself finally stands up to walk the path back to the road in solitude, barely notices that the sun's long gone.

All he's seeing is the blood staining a pure white shirt, the last breath of the boy with the red hair and the heart that only Jackson can see, the sudden extinguishing of the light that seemed to come from within. All he's thinking about as he tramps back to life is one thing, over and over: Do not make him die.

 

∞

 

 

His steps are unsteady on the crumbled leaves, but Mark doesn’t care that he’s veering off the path. His mind is rolling, twisting through what could happen in the next four years. There had been tension between them and North Korea ever since he could remember, but something’s happening these days.

Something’s wrong.

 

Mark could die. Jackson could die, when he was sent for in a year. Both of them could die. Immediately, furiously, he grasps the trailing ends of these thoughts and buries them six feet under, along with the itching thought that he could have, should have, said something. No. He will not die. Jackson will not die. He couldn't. He had promised. They both had.

Cross my heart, and hope to die.

 

The next morning, before the larks begin to call, a man of twenty years slips into his car and after a couple tries, manages to get his key in the right place. He backs out of his driveway, fingers shaking slightly on the wheel. He turns around and drives off as quickly as he dares. He doesn't turn back, for there was one thing he can't do, and that would be to look back at the person that had become his world as if he was leaving for eternity.

 

Tick, t-

 

No.

 

∞

 

 

 

 

He never looks at Jackson like that. He never hides his eyes like that to Jackson. That's for other people. That's for the rest of the world, not for Jackson. Jackson is the one that Mark always confides to, Jackson is the one who Mark loosens his heart's armor for.

But Jackson can still see it, fixed in his brain; that guarded blankness in his best friend's eyes as he left Jackson at the stump. It haunts him as horror movies had his eight-year-old self.

What had he done? Jackson knows Mark isn't a social person. He knows that. But he thought he had broke that barrier. He thought that Mark knew he could trust him.

He thought that he was special in Mark's eyes.

Maybe he was wrong, and Mark had been just putting up with him to save his feelings. Maybe he had been imagining the whole thing, and Mark had just been praying for him to go somewhere, to leave so Mark could be at peace. Maybe Mark didn't need Jackson.

That thought is the worst of all, because there is one thing that Jackson knows for sure, and that is he would not want to live in a world without Mark Tuan in it.

 

∞

 

The sun blazes down, hot and unyielding on his tanned neck and shoulders. Sweat coats his back, sticks his dirty shirt to his chest. Every muscle burns; he still hasn't gotten used to the early hours, the vigorous days, the late nights. He can't wait to sleep, but the sun is at its peak: rest is a long ways away.

He hates it here. The endless lack of privacy, the training and the preparing and the whispers around camp that maybe something's wrong, maybe something's brewing. He hates the trainer, with his beady eyes and thin lips and endless shouting, because of course he has water and the luxury to just stand there and scream at them. He hates the dry, tasteless meals, the warm water, the scratchy beds in the hot wooden building which looks like it had been an old skeleton in the Korean War. He hates the bruises and blisters and cuts and the smell of sweat and dirt and blood and rust. He hates the endless noise, the lack of everything but the necessities: no books, no music, nothing.

He wants to go home.

He wants to sleep in his own bed and read and eat more than meat and dried fruit. He wants to sleep later on the weekends and go to classes and pull all-nighters to finish an essay. He wants to sit in his favorite corner and reread every book he owns. He wants to hear his music again. He wants to draw again. He wants to see his family again.

Most of all, Mark wants to see Jackson.

He wants to hear his weird laugh, roll his eyes at the other's strangeness. He wants to complain about being woken up at two in the morning by the other. He wants to have that one other person that knew who he really was.

He just wants to go home.

But home is a long ways away.

And so he'll train, he'll go to the army, he'll do whatever he's told. As long as he gets through this. As long as he can see Jackson again.

 

∞

 

Jackson wishes Mark could come home, so bad it hurts.

He wishes that he could go back to those years when Mark had been right in front of him, and gather up his courage, and say what he felt.

He wishes he wasn't so stupid with anything to do with Mark.

 

But in life, we almost never get what we wish. What we want.

 

And Jackson knows that, and he knows wishing to do the impossible will never come true.

But that doesn't stop him from wishing.

 

∞

 

In the classroom of Mrs. Kim in a certain school year, there were 25 students. All eight or nine years old, all in third grade. On this particular Friday, all were staring down at their books, mercifully silent. Mrs. Kim wanted to cry with relief; it had been a long day, and this was the first time since 8:22 that morning that the noise level has been below ear-scratching. But she didn't, and so she just paced along the chubby little kids, wished only to go home after this long week, and violently shushed every third grader who dared to open their mouth.

But, in the corner, a cute little boy with hazel eyes and a steady gaze was just as annoyed as Mrs. Kim. For next to him sat another little boy, chubby, with wide chocolate eyes and a rather happy expression. This boy was poking the cute boy's book insistently with a chubby finger.

The hazel-eyed boy let out a frustrated noise and shifted away from the boy so he was squeezed into the space where the wall meets a bookshelf. The chubby kid followed him, grinning, and poked his book again.

"Hey Mark. Guess what!"

"Shhhh!" Mrs. Kim came striding over, a giant to the eight-year-olds sitting on the carpet. "Jackson, move away from Mark."

The chubby boy, Jackson, pouted up at the teacher, but after a few seconds in which his magical pout did nothing on the exhausted teacher, he gave in and moved a couple inches away from the quiet boy.

The teacher walked away, and Jackson once again slid over to Mark.

"Hey, Mark."

The other boy ignored him, although his lips puffed out in annoyance.

"Hey, Mark."

Jackson was still ignored.

"Hey, Mark."

Nothing.

"Hey, Mark."

"Hey, Mark."

"Hey, Mark."

"Hey, Mark."

The other boy, whose patience was clearly being severely tested, finally looked up. "What?"

Jackson froze: clearly he had not expected to actually get a reaction from the other, much less get a response. Then his eyes brightened with a clearly ingenious idea, and he reached into his pocket, coming up with a toy car clutched in his little fist.

"Here, I brought you this," he beamed at the other boy, obviously expecting that after this incredible act of generosity the other would worship him for life.

However, he was sorely wrong.

Mark took one look at the car, squeaked, "I already have that one," and went back to his book.

Jackson, crestfallen, finally scooted away from Mark, and directed his eyes on the book in his little hands.

But every so often, he would peek over to the serious boy in the corner.

I wish you'd like me, he thought. I wish you'd be my friend.

 

∞

 

Jackson stretches his eyes open as wide as they’ll go, forcing himself to stay awake. Still, it feels like a small elephant is sitting on his upper eyelids, and the professor's soft, droning voice going on and on about the symbolism of Romeo's love for Juliet wasn't helping. And the fact that no one was sitting directly to his left, jabbing him in the side whenever Jackson's eyelids started to drift.

The thought drives an icicle into his heart. Mark isn't here. He's there. He might not come back. He might die. And when Jackson goes to the army in 9 months and 27 days, he might die too.

Jackson directs his eyes and ears to the professor, trying to concentrate fully on what Romeo means when he tells Juliet to come and kill the moon with all her brightness. It doesn't work, though, because when he files out of the classroom, he's finding himself blinking back tears, because there's no one by his side.

 

After class he crosses the commons alone, his footsteps quick, his only wish to get off of campus and get in a good run before dark. He pushes away the memory of Mark doing exactly what he was doing, every day: walking through the world like it was going to bite him, shoving his hands in his pockets and hiding his eyes.

He ignores the people clustering in groups, whispering about the news last night, about the president's speech of staying alert. He ignores the signs plastered on the walls advising students to be prepared to be called in, ignores voices that call his name as he rushes by, hoping he would join them.

As he waits at a crosswalk for the cars to go by, all the energy built up during the day's classes making him eager to spend it, he feels a fingernail tap him on the shoulder. Without turning around he knows who it is, and he bites off a sigh of annoyance.

"Yeah?" He asks, not bothering to keep the irritated snap out of his voice.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come to my party tonight." She drops her voice, steps closer. "We can have some privacy."

Jackson struggles to contain the urge to punch her in the face.

"No thanks, Narsha. I'm busy." Now Jackson turns to face her. Her lips are puckered in a pout, her eyes big, but that doesn't disguise how her eyes blacken, how her lips twist.

He can't remember why he dated her.

"Still moping over that loser?" Narsha had stepped even closer and now she's barely a foot away from him. Her tone turns bitter, sour as a lemon. "You're too good for him." Jackson ignores her. "He hated you, you know. He thought he was too good for you. Your friendship? Yeah, that existed only in your freaking mind, Jackson. All it was was him not having anyone else to drag down with him ."

"Shut. Up." Jackson forced out the words through gritted teeth, but Narsha goes on, seemingly unawares of Jackson's flaring temper.

"You took what you called his friendship, and forced him into comforting you every time your precious heart was broken. Which, by the way you get around, would be every two hours."

The snarl in her voice, the mirroring of his own thoughts, it all was getting to him deeper than he was trying to let on. But Jackson had never been good at hiding his emotions, and when Naraha smirks and opens for another go, the light turns a merciful red, and he escapes across the street.

He walks the rest of the way home with his head bowed, not looking up whoever someone he doesn't know the name of calls his name, not when someone crashes into him and rushes off without offering an apology, not even when a man shoves a flier into his hand as he passes.

When he finally slams shut his apartment door, some of the frustration of the day has already leaked out. But still he wrestles with Narsha's words, her voice echoing in his head, over and over.

You took what you called his friendship, and forced him into comforting you every time your precious heart was broken.

Did he? Had it been eleven years of a one-sided relationship?

He realizes the flier was still crumpled in his clenched fist, and he loosens his white knuckles so the ball of bright yellow lands on the counter. He smoothes it out.

 

If you have mandatory service to the army due in six months or less,

Please report to the buildings down below

By a week from now

Call the given number

For additional instructions

Volunteers are needed as well

 

War is coming, and we must be prepared.

 

Below is a list of locations and a phone number.

Jackson swallows against the panic rising up his throat, against the taste of bile that suddenly rises to his tongue. He clenches his teeth, trying to bite off the fear that was coming in waves, tossing him against the shore, drowning him, eating him alive.

Mark was about to be tossed to the army, to fight against the country that had been threatening war for decades. Mark was about to be told to kill, and Mark was one who had a heart too strong for war.

And if they were calling in for the six or less months, it would only be so long before they called in all who had less than a year.

 

∞

 

The days have fallen into a routine, after two months of living in the camp.

Wake up at 4:30 with the whistle. Dress, eat the food that's given to them. Then there's quick stretching, and ten miles around the camp. He's okay with this part: the trees hand out shade, and running isn't so bad. Then there's push-ups and curl-ups, planks and squats, all with the trainer striding around them, occasionally barking an order.

By the end of the workout, the sun's just bridging the horizon. They get a quick rest, and then it's the obstacle course.

This changes every day, from walls they have to use only their fingers and feet to climb up and  over to a giant mud pond that they have to run to, five miles away, swim through, and then run back. There's rope courses, instructors waiting to fight, targets to shoot, trees to climb.

These are the worst part: it lasts past noon, and there's no end until the trainer says. He's developed a strategy to get through this, and that's distancing himself from his own body, trusting himself to know that to do instinctively. So every day he draws his mind back out of his body, as he is so practiced at doing, and concentrates on nothing. It works, at least for the time. His pain is no longer his own, his exhausted body is no longer his.

He hates this; he hates how these people are forcing him to obey them. He has always prided himself on being independent, but here he was, just another soldier, just another one, running and training to die in the war that looks to be just beyond the horizon. But that's life, and in life and in training you must go on without complaint. So he eats what he is given, he fights who he is told, and he lives through a day as if it is a lifetime.

They get lunch after, and another break. Then there's the finer parts of the training. How to survive in the wild alone, how to find which way's north, how to read a map, how to sneak past enemy camps undetected. This part he actually enjoys. It's more mind work, more memorizing, and that's something he's good at. So he throws the meager scraps of what's left of his energy every day into the tasks, and almost always does well..

By the time they finish the day's work, the sun is down, and the moon had replaced its fiery light-bringer in the sky. They eat, and are let back into the bunks where thin cots await all of them. He never stops to talk; he doesn't know any of the rest, and doesn't see a reason to. He takes a cold shower, brushes his teeth, changes. Lies awake for hours, not able to sleep. But every night, his exhausted body will give in, every day, and he would be able to snatch a few hours of mercy.

At 4:30 the next morning an ear-scratching whistle blares through the bunks. He wakes up. He dresses. He eats. He obeys his superiors. He does it again.

So lifetimes drag by, with only one thought; to get through this, to get through the next year and ten months. To get through this hell, to get back home. To get back to him, him who he must not think about, because he must not lose focus.

So lifetimes drag by.

 

∞

 

The lunchroom was crowded, full of shouts and high voices chattering excitedly, while adults stood by the doors, determined to keep their charges in the right place for the full half hour. All the tables were full, the seats surrounding the round tables occupied, all except one. And at this table, all the seats were empty except one. In that one lone seat sat a little boy, no older than nine, with his eyes fixated on a book. A sandwich sat half-eaten next to him. From the way he read, completely absorbed into the book, it was as if the screaming mess just feet away didn't exist.

This little boy, sitting alone at a table wedged into a corner, was entirely unnoticed by the rest of the 4th graders -- it was like he just wasn't there to them, and all there was in that direction was a wall instead of a table and a living, breathing person. Everyone didn't try anymore to initiate any contact or conversation with the boy: he was a lost cause to them, and they didn't really care, one way or another. As he was fine with ignoring them, they were fine with ignoring him.

All except one.

This specific one was sitting at a table with his friends, which were the loudest of the lot, but he was ignoring them. This boy was sitting at the table in the direct middle, the seat of royalty, but even as the kings around him basked in the spotlight, he didn't care. He was watching the boy, the only one in the school that didn't like him, and he was staring with an expression of great frustration. His gaze was so intense, in fact, that it looked like he was trying to communicate telepathically to the boy to look up, but it seemed the lone boy was ignoring him telepathically as well as physically.  

He stuck out his lips in a pout, large brown eyes still unmoving from the boy, silent in his vigil. Finally, one of his friends noticed, and stick out a pudgy finger to jab the boy in the side.

"Stop staring, Jackson. The weirdo doesn't like anyone. Give up."

The boy narrowed his eyes at the other in what was supposed to be a threatening glare. "Shut up, Eli!"

Eli rolled his eyes at Jackson, and then he turned back to the table. "Whatever, Jackson."

Jackson stuck out his tongue at his friend's back, his dark eyebrows pulled over his eyes, and turned back to watching Mark. When the boy didn't look up in the next two minutes, Jackson finally lost his patience.

He stood up with a great amount of dramatic-ness and marched over to the non-existent table in the corner, where the non-existent boy read alone. The boy sat down next to Mark, and resumed staring at his face. Only now it was much better, because he could see the boy a lot better this way.

Mark's eyelids lowered to show how happy he was with his new table mate, but he kept his gaze on his book, and his mouth firmly shut. And so for the next 15 minutes, the two sat in silence, Mark staring at his book, and Jackson staring at Mark. When the bell rang, Mark picked up his lunch, picked up his book, and walked away. Jackson sat there for a second afterward, his lip caught in his teeth, and then swore silently to his little self that he wouldn't give up until he became Mark's friend.

 

The next day, Jackson detached himself from his friends at the beginning of lunch, and with his lunch box in hand, he crossed the lunchroom to Mark's table. He sat down. He took out a sandwich. He took a bite. He put his eyes on Mark. Mark ignored him.

 

The day after that, Jackson sat down at the table before Mark, took a bite of his apple, and watched Mark make his way through the crowds, invisible to all but him, and felt an even greater determination to do this right. That day, they sat together again, again in silence. Mark focused on his book, Jackson focused on Mark. Mark's attention flicked off his book from time to time, but he could never quite meet the other's big eyes.

 

The day after the day after that, Mark was walking, glued to the wall, to lunch, when he heard a voice rise high above the others in the stuffed-full hallway, a voice that knew it had every right to be louder than the rest.

"Dude, why do you even sit with him? He just sits there and reads!"

"Shut up, Eli! Why do you care?"

"You never sit with us! You're not a loser like him, okay? Don't you know how much it's killing your vibe to sit there?"

"Don't care!"

"You know what, whatever. Sit with the freak. Don't come whining to me when he ignores you for the rest of the year!" Eli snorted and pushed past Jackson, into the lunchroom. From Mark's angle, behind Jackson, he couldn't see his face, but he saw the boy set his chin, and knew the boy had put on his stubborn, not-going-to-give-in expression.

When Mark walked into the lunch room that day, he found Jackson in his seat next to Mark. Mark set down his book and his lunch. He sat down, and opened his book. Minutes later, Mark's skinny hand inched its way out from behind the book. It pushed something close to Jackson, and then hastily retreated. Jackson was left, staring with an amazed expression, at the cookie lying on the table before him. He picked it up, took a huge bite, and smiled through the crumbs.

"Thanks!"

And for one second, Mark's hesitant eyes looked up, met Jackson's, and he smiled a little smile. And then he looked down again, and didn't look up again.

 

The day after the day after the day after that, Mark walked into the lunch room, and put down his book and his lunch next to the already eating boy. He sat down. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Closed it again. Finally, he whispered, "hi."

Jackson looked up from his sandwich. "Hi!" He smiled big. Mark smiled, just a little.

 

∞

 

It's been three months without Mark, and Jackson doesn't know how he's going to survive the next few years. Every single thing he sees in the apartment that's Mark's sets him off: the charcoal drawing of the ocean in the hallway, a pile of books in the middle of the table, even the sight of earbuds coiled in a perfect circle on the other's dresser. He would have to stop, and remind himself to breathe, and remind himself that they would both be okay.

But sometimes, on bad days, when Jackson felt like he knew too many people who didn't know him and not enough who did, when Jackson felt himself plunging into the pit left behind by Mark that hadn't been empty since fourth grade, when Jackson would stare at the drawing of a wine bottle on the wall and would want nothing but to forget the hell that was slowly closing in, he would have to cry, and scream, and do anything but something stupid.

He would crouch on the floor, head tucked close, and through all his whirling thoughts, he would always remember how Mark could close off his emotions as easily as opening a gum wrapper. How he could distance himself, draw in on himself, and Jackson had always hated that part of Mark, how Mark so hated to be weak. But now, trapped and too free, and alone and too suffocated, and scared for what was ahead and lonely because of what had passed, he would give anything to be able to do that. Give anything except Mark, because Jackson's bowing his head without his rock, his best friend, the love of his life.

 

∞

 

When he woke up this morning, he didn't know today would be different. He didn't know today would be the beginning of the end.

They woke them at 4:30. Usual time, usual ear-scratching whistle.

He had peeled himself off the bed, as always, his muscles protesting, but barely: humans can adjust to almost anything, given the time, and three months and five days was more than enough for the college student.

He had sat up and made his bed automatically, as he always did. Straightened the wrinkles, tucked in the corners, fluffed and centered the pillow. The captain that came to inspect wouldn't be generous with anything less than perfect. But neatness had never been a problem for him, and it never was here. Old habits die hard.

The captain had walked into the building, and the place had been deathly silent. Here was when he had began to suspect something. The captain had not alone, as he would be usually: there had been a man with large shoulders and the pin of a colonel on his jacket, a woman with scraped-back hair and a sharp chin, the man who ran the camp, a tall, skinny man, and, most strange, a man with the pin of a general.

A general. General is the second highest rank one can reach in the army. So what was this man doing here?

He hadn't known, and suddenly he hadn't wanted to know, because it couldn't be good news.

The six had walked down the center aisle, the room deathly silent. He had released a slow, pent-up breath. Nothing was wrong. He didn't do anything; nothing would happen to him.

The click of the woman's heels echoed. They had walked past him, barely skimming him with their eyes, and against his will he had let out a barely audible sigh of relief.

It had seemed to take eternity for them to get to the end, but, finally, the general had turned and faced them. The others stood behind him. All of their faces had been tight. All of them wore a tightness in their bones, and hardness had long ago turned their smiles to stone.

"A time is coming," the general had began, "a time of great war. A war that will shape South Korea as we know it, and a war that will test us all, that will test all of us."

Dread had coated his throat, and he couldn't force his fear back down.

"And you, my men... you will be part of it.

"North Korea has declared war on us. They have picked a fight with us, and fight we will." He had paused, looked around, and for a second his eyes landed on him before they traveled on. "Fight you will.

"There is nothing more honorable than fighting for your country. There is no greater death than a death met in the battlefield. There is no greater life than a life surrounded by hardship and perseverance, and proving yourself and going beyond the limits of what you believe you can do."

No. I will not think of him. I will not die soon, I will not think of dying, because I will not break my promise.

"We leave for the border now. There is a camp to the far East, and the enemy is setting up a base close as well. You will go there, and you will fight. You will fight for your country, and for your pride, and for your land, and for the others around you. This is a great honor. There is no greater thing to do than serve, and serve you will. Fight you will. Win you will."

 

And then they had filed out, and gotten new uniforms, and a new gun, and taken the oath of the military. They had been herded into a train car like sheep.

The sun had just been rising then, orange and yellow and blue and unearthly red, and chowder-thick steam had coated the air like wet paint. The metal had dripped with ice, and the air had bared its shining-white teeth, the eye of the night glittering up above, taunting the two dozen men rattling to die. He had sat in the corner, fire-hot gun beside him, a train wall beside him. Death machines, both of them.

Nothing but loss lay behind him. Nothing but broken promises lay before him. The bitter taste of burned chocolate sat in his mouth, as unbreakable as a rock of diamond.

Under a sky like cardboard and a moon like broken glass he had sat, and he had cleared his mind, and the train rattles on.

 

∞

 

The weather: brown and dull, as boring as cardboard. Clouds had swallowed the earth whole, and the sun hovered, rejected, too far to be seen.

The date: Not exactly sure. A Thursday, sure, but what Thursday? The Thursday a cousin was born? The Thursday when a food fight broke out in the middle school cafeteria for the sixth time? There are a lot of Thursdays, after all.

Ah. The Thursday Jackson's parents met with his homeroom teacher, late in his 8th year of school.

The air: Not crackling, exactly. More like slightly frizzling, it was, the tension in the air. Drizzling down the white-washed wall, across the folded hands of Mrs. Wang, invisible as dew but just as clearly known.

The time: 5:03 pm. The person in discussion was at football practice.

The Reason: It was quite an unsettling issue, it was, for the teacher to call such a meeting. It was the issue of the usually trigger-happy, bright, a-bit-too-cheerful-in-the-morning 8th grader by the name of Jackson Wang. It was the issue of this boy's rapidly dissolving interest in school, in his reluctance to really do anything, in his fatigued eyes, every day. It was him sleeping in class. It was him barely eating. It was these signs, combined with a fact the observant teacher had noticed -- Jackson and his best friend, a boy by the name of Mark Tuan, had not spoken in three weeks.

 

Now, this was quite an unsettling issue. The fact that their son might be suffering from mild depression was worrying for the two parents, and somewhere, they felt like, now that it had come up, that Jackson hadn't been paying attention in much lately; he had only gone to practice that day because the Wangs had forced him -- missing another practice would result in him getting kicked off the team. Jackson was already awake every morning when Mr. Wang came in at six. Now, sitting on a cold wooden chair, in a white room under a blanketed sky, he wondered if the boy slept at all.

 

The teacher laid out what he knew. He knew this had started two weeks ago. He knew that something had happened between Jackson and Mark.

The parents laid out what they knew. They knew he wasn't showing interest in what he used to. They knew he and Mark had had a fight as well. They assumed that Jackson hadn't been sleeping at night.

 

They managed to put it all together.

Jackson was suffering from depression.

Mark and Jackson's fight was the reason why.

 

They discussed it a bit more.

The teacher went home.

The parents went home, and waited for Jackson.

 

The boy walked in.

He was sat down.

Comforting hands were laid on the shoulders.

 

The diagnosis was explained.

A boy sweaty from practice shifted on a couch.

Eyes dropped to the floor.

 

A cure was discussed.

A suggestion was made to try to sew up a friendship

A head was bowed, and that head walked out.

 

Later, a boy was put to bed.

He was told he wouldn't go to school tomorrow, that the doctor's was the priority.

A woman wiped a tear from the corner of her eye as she left the boy behind.

 

A call was made.

A voice, confused and tired, picked up.

The voice turned to worry.

 

There was another explanation.

There was a shocked pause.

There was a promise that would be kept.

 

∞

 

The empty flickering of a TV sits alone in a room, darkness draped across the carpet and the windows. Outside, the sun was disappearing, being swallowed into the other side.

Jackson walks back into the room and flops on the sofa, leftover Chinese food in hand. He directs his attention to the TV, watching dully as the detectives find a body. He tries to ignore how depressing his situation was, that he had nothing to do on a Friday night but sit alone and eat. He tries to push away the cloud of blackness hovering just inside his consciousness, ever-present. But with Mark gone, it seems to gain the guts to float a bit closer, closer, closer. Every day.

He tries to pretend like everything was normal.

 

But, of course, it wasn't.

If it was normal, he wouldn't be suffocating.

The blackness wouldn't be crowding in.

He wouldn't have to focus on breathing.

He wouldn't have to focus on his feet eating up the ground and his mouth moving up, down, up, down.

 

What would Mark do?

 

Mark would disappear. Mark would find a place where no one else would be able to find him. And then he'd read, or draw, or do something to distract him from himself. He'd be able to something. He wouldn't stop fighting it, fighting himself.

After all, Mark Tuan is never weak.

 

Jackson picks up the remote, annoyed with himself, and starts flipping through the channels. Outside, the abnormally humid air of the December night presses against the panes, the particles stuffy and squished together like sardines in a can. Jackson bites the inside of his cheek and skips by a baseball game, a station showing a woman reinventing a dump of a house, a show about animals learning how to count, a news station shows a hurried reported and large letters scrolling across the screen, a commercial advertising a vacuum, a- wait.

Wait.

 

Jackson pauses, a bad feeling settling like mold in his stomach. His fingers fumble on the buttons until he lands on the right channel. A man is sitting behind his newscaster desk, hair sticking slightly up. His mouth is moving, fast, and they're showing several pictures behind him, but Jackson doesn't care about that. What he cares about was below the man, below the flashing pictures, to words in large letters skimming past the screen. Jackson's eyesight feels fuzzy: he blinks, blinks again. Sees something about war, about North Korea.

He doesn't need anything more.

War.

War.

Mark.

War.

Mark will be in the war.

Jackson will be in the war.

They can't go to the war.

Panic sets off lights behind Jackson's eyes. He staggers to his feet, the air suddenly too thick to breathe.

He stumbles out of door, slamming in behind him. He looks behind him, for a single second. He sees the reflection of the screen in the window. Mocking him.

The black cloud descends, as if it was just waiting for an opportunity.

Just waiting for the breaking point.

Anger roars behind Jackson's ribs and burns his heart, so tears rise to his eyes.

He hates this.

He hates that he was left alone. He hates that he's alone. He hates that Mark had to go. He hates that Mark will kill. He hates that he will kill. He hates the black cloud, the stupid black cloud, engulfing his thoughts in his mind.

 

Stop.

 

Leave me alone.

And then Jackson raises his head, and he sees the black cloud start to reach with gnarled fingers to his heart. No, he wants to say.

 

No, not there.

He needs to get it away. He needs to make it go away.

 

Go away.

He needs to do something.

 

Go away.

Anything.

 

Vodka plasters the wall in blue,

and paint comes in pretty little glasses,

primed and washed to gleam like a wet eye of sun.

 

The walls are moving, but no one else seems to mind.

 

I am not exactly sure who is next to me. I know I am dancing with a girl. A girl with leafy hair and acid eyes. A girl with a body of ice and a smile of wolf.

 

Did you know that when you spin, the ceiling spins with you?

 

No, a monster. I'm dancing with a monster of an acid tongue and leaves on her cheek, woven through her skin like a needle and thread through canvas. Her teeth are ice. They circle her wrist.

 

Did you know that when a drip falls to the floor, it's shattering to ice?

 

No, my wrist. My wrist is a wolf's smile.

 

Did you know that even when you feel like your feet will fall off, they'll still stick on?

 

No, that's her ear.

 

Did you know that even when you try really really hard to forget, it is easiest to remember what you've forgotten?

 

No, that's me.

 

Mark left, but no one else seems to mind.

No one but my heart,

and my heart is still bright.

 

Still bright.

 

The lights are still bright, melting the air to dust.

No, they're not.

 

They're off.

The road is off.

Someone needs to turn it on.

Because

I can't see.

And

I need to see.

 

So

Why can't I see?

 

∞

 

"Ow!!"

A boy turns around in a flash to find another boy, similar in height, staring petrified at his own arm.

"What?" He started forward in the grass as the other boy first yelled, his big eyes widened dramatically. His lips started to quiver.

"OWW!" He yelled again, and started to sob dramatically. An entourage of tears began to stream down his face as he plopped down in the summer grass, wailing his head off.

"Jackson, what happened?" The other boy rushed toward his friend, scared that this usually overly-happy friend was sobbing.

"A-a..." Jackson gulped in huge breaths. "A bee stung me!" He pointed with a finger to a rising lump on his arm, flushing bright red under the afternoon sun.

Mark stared at the bump, unsure of what to do. He'd never gotten stung by a bee. He didn't know what would make the pain stop.

Well, what would make him forget?

Mark grinned as an idea popped into his head. He looked at his driveway while Jackson continued to blubber, and assessed that only his dad was home. He was probably working in his office. He wouldn't notice anything.

"Come on, I got an idea!" Mark grabbed Jackson's other arm and hauled his friend up.

"What?" Jackson sniffed, jutting out his lips.

Mark only grinned again, a glint in his nine-year-old eyes, and started sprinting towards his house.

"Hey, wait up!" Jackson yelled at him, and scrambled to his feet, running after the other boy. Mark stopped suddenly in front of the door, and looked back at his friend, excitement curling up his lips. Jackson's heart started to thud.

"Sh," Mark whispered, and put a finger to his lips. Jackson nodded his assent, and pressed a chubby finger against his lips as well. His tears were long forgotten. Then, Mark opened the screen door a crack, looked around for his dad, and then, the area secured, opened the door all the way and slipped in, the still clueless Jackson right behind.

They tip-toed their way through the living room and the hall, and Mark leading the way, they turned into the kitchen. Mark jumped, squeaked, and furiously backpedaled, pressing himself to the wall outside the kitchen. Jackson, now incredibly confused, followed suit.

Mark turned his head and mouthed something to the other, who seemed to get it.

The two waited, their breaths baited, plastered to the wall like they were on a spy mission, and the target was right there, a foot away.

Finally, giant feet were heard to start creaking toward the door the two were hiding near, and both simultaneously drew a breath. They didn't dare to move.

Mark's father walked out of the kitchen, turned down the hall, and followed it to his office without looking back.

However, if you were there and stationed just outside his office, you would have seen his laughing eyes. Oh, he knew they were there. He knew they were going to do something they technically weren't supposed to. But he was a kind father, and a good father, and he knew his son didn't want or have many friends, and he liked Jackson, and he wanted them to have a little fun.

The two let out their breaths in a huge bellow, and shared a smile. Mark peeled himself off the wall and advanced again, heading directly toward the freezer. Jackson, still completely unaware of Mark's plan, stood guard by the door. Wearing a devilish grin like a shirt you're fond of but just haven't had the chance to wear all too often, Mark popped out the freezer, and, after a little rustling around, broke free with two Popsicles.

Jackson's face broke into a huge smile at the sight, and Mark felt a warm glow in his chest. He knew that there was nothing that Jackson liked more, and he had thought that the extra forbidden part of it would help him forget as well.

The two scurried out to the front step with their well-won treat, and sat side by side, coloring their mouths blue and red.

Jackson leaned over to Mark. "Thanks."

Mark smiled, big, and his clown-red lips smiled with him.

And the two best friends sat on a sun-warmed step on a summer day, both with rapidly disappearing Popsicles in their sticky hands, both with smiles coated red and blue, and both with satisfaction of a job well done.

 

 

∞

 

The red had dripped down from the darkened sky, and it drips down his leg.

Red stains the off-white, the off-white stains the red.

 

He lets out a sigh, and presses the bandage harder down on the wound. A medic comes by, and observes him for just a second, the only thing he can spare in this mess.

"Lift it up." He obeys.

The medic leans down, and as he moves closer he can smell death, clinging to his clothes like perfume. A perfume of rotting flesh and gasping, gaping breaths.

He observes the patch of red, rubbed skin with the doctor. A bullet had skimmed his leg, just barely. He'd been lucky. The man next to him had been skimmed by a bullet in the middle of his neck. Or, if living in this hell another day would be called lucky. Maybe dying would be luckier. No more pain day after day. No stomach-churning silences. No screams, scream torn from the throat like a clump of pages from a book. No war.

The medic nods in approval. He leans back, and he can tell the medic's trying to be a calm presence for the patients, of which a huge wave, with him riding somewhere in the middle, had come roaring in after last night. But his hair is sticking up, his eyes are too wide and skittery, and his fingers shake slightly from lack of sleep.

He feels a dull pang of sympathy for the guy.

"You'll be fine. Keep it clean, and you'll be fine."

He nods.

The medic nods as well, and seemingly without noticing, he reaches back a hand and leans on the counter behind him, swaying slightly. Then, he shakes his head, straightens up, takes a breath, and disappears.

 

He walks back to his bunk, slightly favoring his hurt leg. Overhead, the dawn sky soars, a pale blue that looks as poppable as a balloon. As if someone could fire up a shot and burst the bubble of hell they're living in.

He passes bunks, cafeterias, weapon storage, even a low-set building with music pouring out of the open doors.

Others pass him by, in ones or twos or threes, limping and bloody, or jittery and nervous, or desperate and afraid, or everything at once. No one offers him a greeting, and he doesn't offer any to anyone. It wouldn't benefit him to be good friends with someone who will die.

A guy without a hand passes him. Just as he looks at the other, the man raises his head and delivers him a glare. He feels a shiver in his gut, and hurries on. That man looked like someone he knows. Someone he knows better than he knows himself.

 

He shakes off the thought as quick as it comes.

No.

He won't think.

He will shoot and he will kill, but he will not think of him.

 

He slips under the the curtain covering, and the outside suddenly seems freezing compared to the warmed interior.

 

Near the fire, three men sit on the ground and play cards. Two more are sorting through the supply of food their bunk had been given for the week a pace away. Four more are missing. Six more are dead.

One of the card players looks up as he slips in. He smiles, lighting up a face not for war, and moves over like it's a routine. It is.

He sits down, and they deal him out a hand.

"How'd it go?" One of them asks, and in response, he pushes up his pant leg to let them catch a glimpse of the bandage.

"Skimmed it." His voice sounds weird: he hasn't spoken since they departed for the raid more than 12 hours ago.

"That's good compared to what Bam got," the other snickers, and he lets himself relax a bit. This place is as much of a home than anything.

"What did you do?" He asks, not looking up from the cards in his hand.

The one who smiled earlier, Bam, speaks with a grin in his voice. "Nothing! I've got another assignment this afternoon."

He lets himself almost laugh at that comment.

 

The fire burns limbs to ash, and the sky ripens to the December frost, and Mark sits by the five left of 15 boys, and he plays with a club and a heart, and he ignores the memory of stars in the sky like diamonds last night, and he ignores the thought of spades in the dirt.

 

∞

 

    It's early, early when it comes. Jackson lies in the dark. HIs head pounds, but his drunkenness has been stripped almost all the way off, so shell-shocked, and yet so horribly sad was he, with the notification on his phone.

    The girl with the teeth from the night just hours ago seems an eternity from now. Now, sprawled in the freezing air, in the dark air, it's as far away as the moon.

The moon. It's the first crescent of the cycle, and the moon is sewn into the sky. The stars are spilled around it. The blackness of past midnight is painted around them.

LIght always breaks the dark. But, right now, light hurts his head.

The moon doesn't hurt his head.

The grass is almost frozen, and his skin is buzzing, setting off sparks. Maybe he should've brought a coat. But he doesn't care enough to get up.

Here, he's safe. There is no blood, and dust, and snow. There is nothing to hurt him here but himself and the black cloud, but, for now, the cloud is hovering just outside of reach. Jackson's fine with that. He doesn't want to reach. He doesn't want to reach up, and grab hold of the moon in his hand.

Because, where would Mark be? Mark would forget him without the moon.

Maybe, right now, Mark is lying in a truck's trunk, rattling along a dusty road, staring up at the moon. Maybe there's a gun beside him. Maybe he's dripping with dust and dried blood, and maybe he's laughing at what someone just said, and maybe he's keeping his soul safe in the slaughter. Maybe he misses Jackson.

Maybe.

Maybe they will get out of this alive. Maybe they will survive. Maybe they will see each other again, and live 'till they're old, and live 'till they don't need to laugh to have lines etched on their faces.

Maybe.

 

Jackson will have hope. He will hope. And even though Mark has taught that there is nothing more dangerous than hope, he will hope, for without hope, the black cloud will swell, and bloat, and will invade his mind. Eventually, it will invade his soul.

He will hope that Mark is still alive. He will hope that Mark has not buried his emotions so deep that they'll never be found again. He will hope that he is strong enough for war. He will hope that if he keeps himself busy enough, he'll not be suffocated. Jackson will hope that he will keep his promise. Jackson will hope that Mark will keep his promise. Jackson will hope that Mark loves him enough to let Jackson love him.

 

His heart pounds in rhythm with his heart. His eyes blink away his dizziness, and his brain sends away the memories of his breakdown that night. His breathing calms. His buzzing skin settles to a numb fizzing. The bite of the air doesn't leave a mark. Nothing leaves a mark, in this moment.

Under the waxing crescent, Jackson is silent, and he is calm, and he will survive.

 

∞

 

"MARK!" The boy flinched, and curled himself around his head in his sleeping bag, at the scream that landed directly in his ear. He reached up and vaguely flapped his hand, meaning, go away and let me sleep.

Jackson paid no heed to his best friend's reluctance. He reached down and physically pulled Mark right out of his sleeping bag.

"Whaaaat," Mark moaned. "It's like midnight, and you didn't let me sleep last night. I need sleep, and apparently you don't really understand that."

Jackson just grinned. "C'mon, I wanna show you something!"

Mark broke and pushed himself into a sitting position. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and directed them to where a shadow knelt over him, hunched, like a Dementor going in for the Kiss.

Then the boy shifted, and the moon lit up his soft eyes and his soft smile, and the boy reached out a hand bathed in sunlight. Without a word, Mark let the boy pull him up.

"What?"

Jackson grinned. "It's a secret."

"You know this is my house, right, so there aren't exactly surprises in the house that you would-" Mark was abruptly cut off by Jackson's hand on his mouth.

"Shh," the 11 year old whispered, and Mark reluctantly shut his mouth.

They crept out of Mark's room and continued through the house, socked feet not making a sound, until Jackson met the door. He opened it a crack, and when it didn't creak, he swung it open all the way and slipped out, gesturing for Mark to follow. Mark was a little confused at what the younger was doing, but he followed anyway, easing the door shut behind him.

Jackson skipped out to the backyard until he found a good clear patch of grass with an empty sky above. He sprawled himself out, and Mark lay down next to him, spaced so that positioned like they were, limbs stretched out in the grass, their fingers were just inches from each other.

Now looking up at the dark sky, the stars and the moon, Mark asked his question again. "So what am I looking at?"

"Look!" Jackson's arm lifted up, like a bombed soldier's salute, and pointed at the waxing crescent suspended in the dark.

Mark looked at the moon. "It's the moon."

Jackson's grin brightened. "It's a crescent moon!"

Mark blinked. "Yes, Jacks. There's a crescent moon every two weeks."

Jackson tilted his head back even more. "But… it's so pretty! It's like a claw or like a boat turned sideways!"

Mark blinked again. Jackson was never this… whimsical. But, now that he looked closer, it was very beautiful. The sky made it look very pale, and there was something so untouchable, so strong, about it.

From Mark's silence, it seemed he had gotten it, and Jackson smiled to himself. His old friends would have laughed at him, made fun of him. This is much better.

The two lay on the grass for some time, looking at the moon, before finally Mark sat himself up and reached down a hand to help Jackson. "We'd better go, my mom wakes up early." But there was a tinge of regret, and Jackson gave him a smile back.

They started toward the door. They got to the door. Mark tried to open it. The door didn't want to open. Mark froze. Then he let out a sigh, hanging his head. A ghost of a smile flashed across his lips, and he swallowed a laugh.

"Dude, it locks from the inside."

Jackson froze too. He looked at the door. "No way."

"Try it," Mark challenged, and Jackson tried to open the door. The door didn't want to open for him either.

Jackson looked at the door. He looked at Mark. He looked at the moon. He burst into laughter.

 

∞

 

    Their heels should hit the metal below with a sharp clip, but they're not wearing boots tonight. Just plain running shoes, soft-heeled, comfortable. Quiet. Necessary.

    There's three of them, here. There are three other teams in the building, and they're all doing the same thing: planting to shake this building to the ground.

Bam's here for the technical part. He knows how to rig the bombs, how to handle them, how to get them to work if they don't at first, and of course he would. He helped design them.

A guy he hasn't worked with before, by the name of Hoseok, is here because of his skill with maps and directions. They need him to point out where the bombs go, and how to get out.

And Mark's here for brute strength, and how well he works with Bam, and how good he is at missions like this, where they have to sneak in and sneak out, completely undetected. This wouldn't actually work if all the North Koreans found out and it blew up behind them. No advantage would be gained, because no one would be dead.

It had taken days for the higher-ups to figure out how to get in, and what to do with it. Eventually they decided that it wasn't worth it to try to save the possible information inside: best get in before the enemy realized they could, and get out before they knew they were there, and wipe off several hundred from their ranks.

Now, they soft-foot it across a hallway, Hoseok leading the way. All three are wearing dark, close-fitting clothes, to blend in with the shadows. He's in the back, carrying several knives, with a gun shoved in his holster, a last resort. Already they had been found by one of the enemy, down a back hallway. He had slit his throat. They had left his body shoved in a closet, and hoped that the evidence wouldn't be found before there was no one to find it.

Hoseok gestures to a small corner, and Bam obeys, taking out a bomb from the bag and setting it quickly. As he works, Hoseok looks up and catches his eye with his own. Hoseok grins, just a wisp, and above the ragged scar on his cheekbone his eyes glitter.

He's friendly, cheerful.

He's been in the army a long, long time.

He has nothing but a good fight to look forward to. Nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done.

 

Bam looks up, done. "Time?" His voice is barely more than a whisper.

He checks the watch on his wrist. "45." Just as quiet as Bam.

Bam looks at Hoseok, eyebrows raised. The older nods, and answers the unspoken question. "We should have 15 minutes to get away."

Bam nods, satisfied. He stands up.

Hoseok leads the way.

They cross the hallways in the dark, silent. As he follows the others, every sense on alert, he feels a bit of peace in the silence. In camp, it's never close to quiet. It's never like this.

Hoseok leads them up a flight of metal stairs, his steps quick, almost excited. Almost excited to blow this building to the sky.

His almost excitement is almost contagious.

They follow, and soon they're bridging the stairs, to see a metal walkway stretching across. Bam nudges Hoseok, who nods without turning around. A silent conversation.

You sure?

Yup.

They start across. It's long, longer than what it looked like from one side, and he looks down. There's some kind of lab below, dark and silent. He gnaws on the inside of the cheek, and wants to quicken his steps, but Bam's in front of him. Something's wrong. Exposed like this, something's wrong.

And then they hear it.

Boots on metal. Climbing boots on metal. Hoseok spits a whispered curse, and turns to Bam, but he's already moving. He tears open the bag, sets off each bomb. His fingers are steady.

With a gun in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, Mark's fingers are steady.

Bam finishes the bombs, and, one by one, he throws them as far as possible. Hoseok takes a couple and tosses them down below. They land with splinters and crashes, but the sound is muffled by the steps. Bam tosses the bag out at the last moment, just as the lights fall on them, and the exclamations are heard, and the bullets rain down.

The lights find Hoseok's teeth and set them to glittering, and bullets find his chest and set it to red.  

Bam hits the floor. Mark hits the floor. The floor hits Hoseok.

Bam pulls the body in front of them, a barrier.

Mark begins to shoot.

He hears a scream, a thud. Another thud. Two down, out of how many? Too many, maybe. But he won't go down without a fight.

A bullet whizzes by his ear, so close he can hear it sing. He winces, presses himself closer to the floor. He squints one eye, doesn't let his death grip go on the trigger. One more grunt, a thud, and then he can't seem to get anymore. He wishes they were stupider.

Bullets fly.

Bam lets out a hiss of pain, trickling through his tightened teeth. But he can't take the time to look away, to make sure Bam wasn't shot fatally. He has to trust the gun beside him to keep blazing.

 

And then, quiet except for them.

They had stopped shooting, so suddenly his stomach drops to the lab below. He and Bam couldn't have killed all of them at once like that. Something's wrong.

And then cold metal was pressed into the back of his head. And then a voice sounded.

"Move, and you're dead."

 

He doesn't move.

The gun shots fade to silence.

Next to him, Bam had stiffened as well. They're dead. Trapped from behind, surrounded by a jump and a gun. Dead.

 

Well, maybe not dead yet.

But pretty damn close.

 

They were hauled to their feet, hands pressed together into the smalls of their backs, and patted down. They found the extra knives and guns in his belt, and the knife in his boot. They searched Bam, and found more or less the same. They were turned in the direction that Hoseok had been leading them toward before he was dead. They were told to walk or be killed. There was still a gun lodged to his head, just to make sure the message was clear.

He knew they weren't going to get out alive if they refused to walk now. He knew that there might be a way to get away soon.

He also knew they had 30 minutes until the building exploded and killed everyone in the structure and an acre in any direction.

So there was that.

 

They were walked through the building, past offices and a lot more official-looking hallways than the ones that they had previously been slipping by in. He and Bam couldn't do more than walk, and to try to think, and come up with nothing.

They were escorted, with a couple blows and kicks, to an official looking door.

In front of this door, an escortee knocks politely. A voice tells him to come in. The guy slips in, and after a minute on conversation, he slips out, this time leaving the door open.

 "General says to let them in."

And so he and Bam were escorted into the office, pushed into metal chairs, and then deserted by their escorts.

The first thing he registers in this room are the walls. They're lined with weapons of all sorts, and badges, and medals of honor, and everything appropriate for a general to have hanging on his walls. The second thing he notices is the general itself.

He's sitting on a leather chair, which looks so much nicer than the chairs the two prisoners are currently sitting in.  He's leaning back. He's mostly clean-shaved, except for a mustache that sits vegetating on his upper lip. His eyes are hard and brown, like coffee forgotten for a week, and his nose thin and high, as if it was trying to escape his face by air. He has large shoulders, and his uniform sits comfortably on his tanned skin. A scar stretches from the corner of his lips to his temple. Mark is reminded of Hoseok's scar for a bare second.

The man leans forward, coffee eyes fixed on the two. The two moldy beads studying them gave nothing away.

Then he leans back far enough to rest his boots on his desk. He folds his hands on his stomach.

"Would one of you boys explain to me what you're doing in my office?"

"Well, we're not the ones who brought us here, so why don't you ask yourself?" Bam knows when he's beaten, and he's all the more sassy for it.

The general stands, walks around his desk, and with perfect calm cracks Bam across the face. It sounds like a whip. The sound of it vibrates in Mark's ears like a drum, and anger closes his hands in ice.

Bam looks at the general, standing above him. He snarls at him, his lip dripping down his chin. He spits blood in the man's face.

The general bears his teeth at Bam, and slowly, painfully slow, he raises a hand and wipes off the spit and blood. He reaches down, with two fingers, and lifts up Bam's chin.

"Do not talk back to me, boy."

He keeps going up, so Bam's chin is almost vertical, and his veins throb in his skin. Bam doesn't resist, but his knuckles are white on the chair. He knows that with the man's hand so close to his throat, now would not be the right time.

Even now, they're fighting. Bam's fighting.

He can't check his watch without the general noticing.

How much time do they have?

Can they fight?

The door's locked. There are most likely guards behind it. The man in front of them has a gun, and his has his hands. They have only their hands.

 

The general grabs Bam's chin and slams it back to its original position. Bam winces, but quickly regains his face.

The general returns to behind his desk.

 

"Would you like to tell me what you're doing here?" Now it's directed at him, and only him. He locks his mouth. Has a sudden flashback of when he was little, and he would zip it closed and throw away the key.

Zip it closed, and throw away the key.

He doesn't need that anymore.

 

The key's long gone, and no one can find it.

A boy with coffee eyes threw it away.

 

A weight falls down his ribs, to his heart.

 

He sets his jaw, and focuses. No. Not the time.

 

The general stands up in the silence. He walks around his desk. Mark prepares himself for the blow. But, no, it's Bam again. He punches Bam three times: once in the left eye, slightly higher than the middle; once barely right of his nose, so a horrible crack sounds; once in the mouth, directly on his lip and the teeth that the lips hide.

Bam hisses through his teeth. He bares his teeth in a smile, and two are missing. He breathes out through his nose, and blood bubbles to the surface.

Mark snaps.

He doesn't think; he doesn't register what's happened. But the edge of the desk is slammed into the small of his back, and he fights off a scream at the pain in his hand. He doesn't dare to look down. The general's towering, towering, a skyscraper. He's covered in blood; no, it's just an eye. A tear runs down the length of his left eye, and tears well up, a wall. He's holding his arm wrong, but Mark doesn't care, because there is cold running up his hand, running up his arm, a full sprint. He can't breathe, it's too cold. Ice wraps his heart with the Arctic.

What happened?

He snapped.

Mark never snaps.

 

Tick, tock.

 

He looks down. There is blood on his hand. There is blood on his hand like ice.

Something is missing. Something is wrong. He looks at his right hand. He counts.

One, two, three, four.

Five?

Where is five?

 

It's there. It's a leaf, fallen like it's autumn. But it's winter.

 

The general backs off, breathing hard. He's holding his eye. Mark would hold his hand, if he could.

"Sit."

He's tempted to try to kill him again.

But he sits.

 

He doesn't want to feel anymore.

He doesn't want Bam to be here.

He doesn't want to be here.

How long has it been that he has to struggle to put up the barriers?

Long.

 

They keep falling down, when he tries. He can't get a grip on the bricks, on the metals. It's his hand that's hindering him. He tries to block that off. He can't.

He must.

He blocks it off.

He breathes.

He builds.

 

He's okay.

 

Life's almost over, anyway.

 

He's sorry.

He's so sorry.

 

The general retreats behind his desk.

He takes his hand off his eye.

The general looks at him, one eye squinted down. His eye is the color of a mourning. He looks at him, and something, finally something, flashes behind his eye. He's decided something. He's set his mind to something.

 

Bam spits blood on the desktop. Mark can't hear the silence.

His barriers are too high.

That is not a bad thing.

 

The general stands. His boots click on the floor, and he leaves a trail of coffee stains behind him. He walks to a cabinet inserted in the wall. He opens it, and he takes out a case.

He brings the case to the desk.

He opens it, holding his arm wrong. He takes out two vials, one clear blue, one dark black. He takes out two needles. He takes out words, slowly, for he has all the time in the world.

"We worked for years, boys, longer than you two have been living combined, multiplied. We worked to try to find something that would make us invincible, and would make the world weak."

The words thud on the ground like rocks, and Mark can guess what he means.

"Finally, five months ago, we did it."

You managed to destroy me, Mark thinks.

His barriers are not working right.

 

He hold up the black, sludgy vial, and begins to insert it in the needle. "This is the product of all those years. This is the virus Sabola, and it causes one of the most excruciating deaths that can be imagined."

He begins to explain.

Sabola is highly contagious. It kills in hours. You begin to bleed from your ears, and nose, and eyes. It turns skin red, and then black. It squeezes shut the lungs. It suffocates the heart. You die from not being able to breathe. Of course, that's the best case scenario. Sometimes it gets in the blood, and the blood collects and bursts under the skin. Sometimes it soaks up all the water in your body, and grills you to flame. It's highly unpredictable, and the only sure thing is that you die. Painfully.

Only those with the immunity serum will survive.

He loads the second needle with the immunity serum, the light blue.

 

He walks around his desk. He holds the virus in his hand. One coffee eye is closed.

Bam sees him coming. He bolts up, kicks his chair back. The general holds a gun in his other hand. Bam snarls, and looks wildly around. He retreats to a corner. His hand closes on a sparkling dagger on the wall. The general shoots him in the leg.

The boy howls, and splits in the middle. The general, quick, leans over him and jabs the needle in the boy's neck. He presses the button, inserts the black, and Bam howls again, somehow knowing. He looks up. His eyes are wide, his teeth are bared. He's an animal. His eyes darken to sludge.

He flings himself at the general, but the man steps aside, and Bam crashes into the desk. Mark doesn't know what to do. The world blurs.

Bam will die.

Bam's white skin will turn to fire, and to coal, and his lungs will suffocate him.

The general points the gun at Bam's head.

The boy doesn't care. He barrels straight for him, fury and terror and the knowledge that he will die sticking to his skin, and his knife finds the general's face, and his eye. It carves a knot in the wood.

Anger and fear clogs the room's pores, and the sickness is spreading, flowering.

If Bam has his way, they will all die here.

They will all die anyway.

The general doesn't flinch. He doesn't care. He shoots Bam in the other leg.

The boy crashes to the floor.

Tries to scramble up, but the floor is slick and slippery and there are metal holes in his skin. There is darkness in his blood.

The general turns, and fires the gun at Mark. It hits his incoming shoulder, and he staggers back. Pain explodes his blood to shreds, and fire turns his icy hand to fire, and he has never been in so much pain.

He sees his finger lying on the floor. He sees Bam lying on the floor, blood on his face and in his nose and welling in his eyes.

He vomits.

Now there's more blood on the floor.

The general grabs Mark's hair and slams him into the wall. A blade sharpens itself against his spine, and he groans in pain.

"Now, I will give you a choice, boy." He's talking, and Mark has to fight through his blaze of fury and pain to understand him. There is a hole in his face. There is a split in his face. There is a scar, and it's Hoseok's. It's Bam's. It's his, lying just under the skin.

"Kill your friend, and live. You'll get the serum.

"Or let him die, and watch, and then die yourself."

 

There is only one thought that Mark can grasp, and that's the thought that this isn't really a choice at all, because if he cared even a little bit about Bam, he would kill him.

But he doesn't want to kill Bam.

He wants to kill this man.

He wants to kill this man with coffee eyes, for making him so weak.

But he can't lift his arm, or his hand, and he's dizzy and he's sick and he's weak, he's so weak.

He laughs out loud, and it sounds insane even to his ears. He imagines blood dripping out his mouth.

He's always weak.

He's always so weak.

 

Weak.

 

"Choose, boy." He's pressed into the wall. The blade behind him draws a line on his back in red.

He's shaking, his hands are steady. Mark holds out the clawed hand.

The man gives him the gun.

"If you shoot me, you will die," he's told.

 

The wall lets him go. Bam tries to stand up, but he can't.

Mark walks to him. The gun is in his hand. His heart is wrapped in chains.

He begins to cry, clearly. He can't see. He blinks it away. He stands over Bam.

 

Bam, the best of them at cards. The one with a baby face and chubby cheeks. The one with an infectionus smile, as catchable as a virus. The one with two brothers and a sister. The one with a girl back home. The one with a mind for wires and metal, and a mind as open as the sky. The one that survived this far with his heart. The one who can lead. The one who is strong, who is kind, and the one who is Mark's only friend in this world.

One eye black, his nose jarred and twisted, his ears bloody.

He blinks away tears of blood, and looks up at Mark. His eyes are so gentle. They're the color of chocolate. He is only a human. Only an animal, fighting to live. He lost this fight, but so did Mark. In war, no one wins.

Bam gives him such a smile, a smile missing two and coated in death. It's still beautiful. It still lights up the world.

Mark clicks the safety off. He breathes. It's too loud in the night.

Bam is trying to tell him something. He focuses on his mouth, his bloody mouth. One thing, over and over. He doesn't know what he's saying. His brain can't work right.

 

Bloody water and salty water falls to the tiles.

Mark's head hurts, so much. His hand hurts. The gun is burning into his hand. He has to let it go. He squeezes the trigger. A sound goes off, but it's so far away. Bam's head falls to his chest. He's so small. He's so strong.

 

Mark feels a pinch in his neck. He feels a clap on his shoulder.

"Good boy."

He falls to the ground.

In a bath of vomit and blood and tears, he feels the ground shake. He feels the world quake.

He doesn't care, because Bam's dead.

 

Something yells. Something blows the world around him apart.

But it doesn't blow him apart.

Why doesn't it blow him apart?

 

The world rocks.

Something falls. Something pierces his ears.

Something lets him fall to darkness.

 

∞

 

Time: One week.

 

He's okay.

He's surviving.

The camp's in Gwangju, and the snow is falling. The air is nipping at bare skin.

 

They wake up at 4:30. They run, they eat, they do exercises until noon. They eat. They do more exercises, and mind games. They eat dinner. They sleep.

He's okay.

The black cloud's satisfied with this, for now. There's enough action, and enough working out and training and thinking to not think about the cloud. When the cloud feels itself being thought about, it begins to grow.

It has an ego, as big as the sun.

 

There's about fifty, but more are being shipped in every day.

 

There's a guy by the name of Kato. Jackson likes him. He's quiet, but his smile is quick to come, and he's steady, even if his hands are never still. He always needs something to do, with his hands, with a pile of paper clips, or just a piece of paper. He doesn't pry, and Jackson likes that. He's told the boy some things, though. His favorite food. His best friend. His age, and his love for fencing.

They've become friends, and Jackson thinks he needs it.

They barely have spare time, but when they do, Jackson spends it with Kato.

 

He misses Mark. He wants to see Mark, to hear his voice and to see his eyes. To see his fingers, tangling over each other when he gets nervous, like Kato's do whenever he isn't doing anything else.

He wishes Mark was here, because then he would know that he was safe.

 

But he's okay.

 

∞

 

The snow fell heavily, and streetlights glowed fuzzily through the white. The world was coated with it, covered, and the blanket of snow muffled sounds, so they were almost non-existent but to the maker.

At the storefronts, strings glittered lazily in the night, and the smell of cinnamon and chocolate and peppermint drifted from nearby coffee shops. The scent of evergreen was in the air. It was Christmas Eve, and even the December wolf had a smile on its lips.

 

But there was one boy, of college age, who didn't. A beanie was tucked over his red hair, and his lips and nose were the same shade as his hair. He was dressed in a thin jacket and jeans, tan worker's boots on his feet. Anyone looking on would feel the compulsive urge to offer this boy a coat, but he didn't notice the cold.

He was worried.

Something had happened to his best friend; he had disappeared, and he knew this only happened when his heart was broken.

The boy sniffed, feeling a cold catching on, but plowed on ahead, checking every street and face for the one that mattered.

The other's heart was broken too easily. He threw himself into love too easily, the boy knew. He was too vulnerable, too open-hearted for his own good. Everyone will break his heart eventually, but he didn't seem to care, except for the few days after the heart-breaking.

The boy knew that. That was a part of his best friend that he loved, and hated. He got it. But what he didn't get was why anyone would break up with the other, for he was quite perfect. And he didn't get why the said boy would run out in broken-heartedness in the middle of winter, wearing nothing but a thin sweater.

He wished the other would stop and think, for just a second, and realize that perhaps the couch would be a better place to mourn.

So there he was, searching the town. The campus was already said and done.

The red-haired student checked his watch. 11:45 at night. He bit his lip and pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, curling his frozen fingers into each other.

Maybe he should feel like the other is a burden. But he didn't. He couldn't. They had been best friends for a long, long time now, and he couldn't just give up his childhood like that. He couldn't imagine just walking away. That just wasn't an option, and he was glad for it. He needed his best friend, as his best friend needed him to rescue him at midnight, in December, when it's snowing. They needed each other, and that was the way it was.

He was faced with a split in the road: left or right. Left led to the the town, where the college students who were staying there for break were probably at the bar, or the club, or wandering around. Right led to the park, the frozen pond.

He choose right. He knew that his best friend wouldn't want to be near people.

A few steps in, he saw him. Sitting on a bench powdered with snow, hair hiding his face from view.

The boy let out a breath of relief, and started across the park to the bench. His boots crunched in the new snow, and that was enough that the other looked up.

The light from a lamp fell across his face, and his frozen tears, and his red eyes.

His fingers matched his eyes, when the red-haired boy uncurled them for inspection. His nose glowed as brightly as Rudolf's.

"Oh, Jacks," the red-haired murmured, and sat down next to the other, their shoulders touching, his fingers working at the other's hand, trying to bring some circulation back.

Jackson looked at the other, brow furrowed. He sniffed, from a cold or his tears. "You need a coat, Mark. It's cold," he told the other, completely serious, who just stared at the other with a faintly alarmed expression.

"Jackson, seriously? I need a coat? Look at you! You're freezing to death!"

Jackson looked down. His hair was fluffed with white. "I'm okay."

Mark finally took it upon himself to stand up, and pull the other up with him. "No, you are not. You need blankets, and you need a coat, and you need something hot, and you are coming home with me right now. You are not arguing with me over this, I will not sit here while you freeze your fingers off!"

Jackson unfurled his hand for an inspection, but looked at his red, puckered hand like he didn't really see it. When he spoke, thickly. He began to cry again. "He broke up with me."

Mark looked at his best friend, and felt a dagger drive into his heart. He looked so sad. He opened his arms, on a snowy wooden bench, lit by a dim streetlamp. "Come here."

Jackson gratefully accepted the others embrace, moving forward until his chest was pressed into Mark's. Mark felt his heart speed up, and told himself that it was just the boy's warmth. He wrapped his arms around the other, and Jackson buried his head in his shoulder. They rocked, back and forth, snot and salt staining Mark's jacket, but he didn't really care.

"It's okay," he said, so soft, but he knew Jackson had heard. "It's okay."

He heard the other let out a hiccup and a sob at the same time. He felt snow on the back of his neck. He felt the other's body warmth, even after sitting in the night.

A bell rang out. They both stood still, Mark's arms still wrapped around Jackson, and counted. 12.

He felt Jackson smile, just a little, into his shoulder. Then, muffled. "Merry Christmas, Marks."

Mark laughed a little. "Merry Christmas, Jacks."

There was silence.

Then, "hey Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we go home?"

And then a little puff of breath, a half laugh. "Yeah."

 

∞

 

Time: Three weeks.

 

It's a bit harder now.

They have to wake up at 4:15 instead of 15 minutes later, and the run is a bit longer, and the exercises are a bit harder, a bit more demanding. Sometimes, by nightfall, he can't feel his legs, and he wobbles to his bed.

It's a bit harder to be okay.

 

Kato's struggling a bit more, too. Everyone is. Every 75 of them, put to the mercy of the man who runs the camp.

It's harder to find time to think. It's harder for Kato to find time to build something, and he's edgy. Everyone's edgy, even though the change isn't much.

But he guesses that if you've been on the same schedule for as long as they had, when it suddenly shifts, everyone feels out of place. They'll just have to shift to fit.

Mark's always been good at shifting to fit.

 

His gun feels weird in his hands. It's too heavy, too light. Mud feels weird when he's scrambling through it, and wood feels weird imbedded in his hands. Sometimes it feels weird to laugh, to talk. Sometimes it feels weird to smile.

 

He feels lonely, often. He feels so alone. He wishes he knew where Mark is, what he's doing. What he's thinking.

He refuses to think about the possibility that is always a possibility in war.

He tries to refuse to think about the black cloud. It's getting restless, and he doesn't know why. When he's tired, it is full of energy. When he's full of energy, it's tired.

He tries to save his energy, but he can't, when everything is so hard.

 

He wishes Mark were here, to tell him that he can make this, that the cloud's no match for him.

He wishes.

 

∞

 

Time: Five weeks.

 

He's exhausted.

It's so hard.

Life is so hard. Life is so demanding. When one falls to their knees and whispers through their bloody tears that they can't go any longer, life slaps them across the face and forces them to their feet and pushes them onward.

Jackson can feel the sting on his cheek.

 

Wake up is 4:00. When all 100 of them are finally let go, it's close to midnight. The only good thing about that is that the moon is always so beautiful at midnight. But he can't stay awake long enough to truly remember the nights when he and Mark stared up at the eye.

 

But the nights are so hard. They're so painful. The pain is in his arms and his legs, hooking weighs onto his crumbling bones. The pain is squeezing in his stomach, like he ate a bucketful of mold.

He's always soaked at night.

The cloud is raining, and Jackson's stuck under it. He told Kato about the darkness. Kato told him to tell him whenever it begins to drizzle.

He does, usually just after midnight, waking Kato from his bed because the cloud is too close and too dark and he can't breathe. Kato chases it away, in the darkness, as he tells about his town, and his inventions, and his wishes for the world. And then Jackson tells him about his dreams, and his studies, and about Mark.

And he staggers on, and life drifts behind him like a hovering thunder cloud.

 

∞

 

Mark looked at the lump under the blankets. He knew the tell-tale signs: the gathering of tissues, the scattered boxes of takeout on the floor. The huddled mess under the covers, if only he pulled them back. And this is what happens when I leave for two days, he thought wrily, but his heart wrenches all the same, and he began to clean up, automatically.

The blankets rustled, and slowly, Jackson fought his way to the surface. His face was flushed, his hair sweaty, plastered to his forehead. Wide eyes red. He opened his mouth, and could only find a croak. He his cracked lips, tried again. "Hi."

Mark looked up from the pile of boxes. A small smile broke his lips, but it wasn't quite real. He emptied his hands in the trash.

This shouldn't be horrible for Mark to see. By now, he should be used to it, coming home to a broken Jackson. But he hated it, and he worried for Jackson, and he cursed whoever did it to him this time.

He came over, ignored the horrible smell in the room. He cracked open the windows, and set the fan to low. He sat on the bed next to Jackson, and scraped back his damp hair from his forehead. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet. "Narsha?"

He was confirmed with a nod. "Narsha." The name was muttered with no hate, no nothing. Nothing but loss, loss of the girl that he had been dating for two weeks. The girl who, frankly, Mark hated, but he would never say that to Jackson. He tried to be the only one in the world to not hurt Jackson, and if that was to go against his heart, so be it.

So be it.

Mark swallowed against the tears. He focused his mind. He leaned his head back into Jackson. They were quiet.

"I wish you wouldn't be so careless with your heart, Jacks." It was as soft as sigh, but both of them heard it all the same, in the room with only the rushing of the wind. "I wish you would see who deserves it, and who doesn't. I wish you would protect your heart."

There was a long silence. Jackson wanted to cry, but because of Mark. He loved him so much, and it hurt so much.

He said only what he could say. "I'm sorry."

 

Mark took Jackson's hand, and he rubbed his thumb over his palm, and he wished that he thought he deserved the bent boy next to him.

 

∞

 

Time: Eight weeks.

 

He's sitting next to Kato, in the corner. The train rattles against the track.

The air's too thick to breathe. He can't breathe.

He wishes he could throw himself out of the train, so terrified was he, so afraid of what was too come. So suffocated was he.

The sun shines through a faint window above. He focuses his mind on that. The stream looks sharp, armed with knife and dagger. It's too pale. He swallows against his dry throat. He coughs the dust out of his mouth, but it doesn't work.

But he can't breathe.

Cold metal presses on his back. It's moving. It's crushing him to death. The gun at his hip. He'll sit on it, and blow his brains out. That, or he'll blow another's brains out, and he can't do that. He's going to hurt someone with this gun, and he can't breathe. This train car is carrying him to his death, and he can't breathe. People, trained for two months to use a gun like one would a water gun, and he can't breathe. He's surrounded by death machines, and he can't breathe.

And then Kato leans over to him, and Jackson's reminded: Kato isn't a death machine. He hates war. He hates it as much as Jackson. He forces his muscles to relax.

"Did I ever tell you about my brother?" Kato asks, and Jackson shakes his head no, because if he opens his mouth he'll be choked with dust.

"He's about a year older than me. His name's Kunpimook, but he likes everyone to call him Bam. He's amazing with computers. Give him a pile of wires and a straw, and he can make anything, anything you want. He left for the war about five months ago, three before me. He just had this thing, you know? He just made everyone want to know him, and to be friends with him. He loves rollercoasters, so every time we went anywhere with one he'd always drag me on it, 'cause I'm the only other one who was tall enough..."

 

∞

 

There's only the scratch of pencil on paper. That, and light breathing, and turning pages. The sound of homework, and above them, the moon shines down, painting the outside world white in the night.

It's a strangely snowless December, and the grass outside is iced but not frosted. It's a Sunday night, and the two best friends were currently in the middle of one of their rituals: doing all their homework late at night, together, on the last night of each weekend, at Mark's house. On Monday morning, the Tuans would drive them both to school.

 

This Sunday, it was warm, and cozy, and the lights were just bright enough and the hot chocolate just cool enough, that the two ninth graders almost didn't mind their piles of homework.

Jackson sat in the corner of the queen-sized bed leaning against the wall, his laptop open next to him, a notebook in his lap. Earphones were plugged into his ears, and he was watching a video, writing down notes. His eyes were narrowed in concentration, as if the task was as difficult as finding the meaning of life.

Mark sat in the middle of the bed, cross-legged. A thick textbook sat waiting, splayed out on his legs, but his eyes kept skittering, from the book to Jackson to the door. His fingers shook slightly, and he laced them together. He had been trying to study for the test the next day, trying to fully concentrate, but he just couldn't.

He had figured something out in the last couple months, and it was something that he had been thinking about a lot, and worrying over a lot. It was something that he was scared of confirming out loud.

He didn't want to keep anything from Jackson. They didn't have secrets. But he wasn't sure he was brave enough. He didn't know if he could do it.

He didn't know what to do.

He practiced saying the words, shaping his mouth.

 

Jackson, I'm gay.

 

They sat weird in his mouth. They felt weird on his tongue. They felt like something that wasn't right.

But Mark knew that there was nothing wrong with him.

But what if Jackson thought there was? What if his parents did? What if Jackson never talked to him again? What if he lost him? What if who he was insulated him forever?

Because he needed Jackson, he needed him as much as Jackson needed Mark. He did. Even if Jackson didn't know that he needed Mark. Even if Jackson didn't know just how much Mark needed him.

He didn't know what would happen if Mark lost Jackson.

He didn't know what would happen if he said those words, right then, right there.

 

Jackson, I'm gay.

 

He was afraid.

 

Mark can't remember the last time he was afraid around Jackson.

But he can't keep a secret from Jackson. Whatever else he could say about the boy next to him, he knew he could read Mark better than the rest of the school combined.

 

"Jacks?" His voice shivered slightly, but that didn't surprise him. What surprised him was the fact that it had come out at all.

Jackson hummed in response, and question, and looked up. He saw Mark there, his fingers tangling over each other, head slightly down, nervousness radiating from his every pore. From that angle, he saw the dark circles that he couldn't before.

Worry overcame homework easily, and he unplugged his ears.

He looked at Mark, but that only seemed to make the other nervous. In fact, now that he looked closer, the boy looked like he hadn't slept for a month. He looked like he was about to cry, or run out, or do both at once.

He shut his laptop and his notebook, abandoned everything, and crawled over the bed to his best friend's side. He leaned against the wall and directed his gaze at Mark. The other looked so nervous, it broke Jackson's heart.

Mark said nothing, and the silence stretched on in the brightened room, in the warm room. Mark looked up at Jackson, the other boy smiled softly and patted the spot next to him. Mark bent his head so his hair fell over his eyes, and moved to sit there. But he didn't put his back against the wall; he put his shoulder, and crossed his legs, and peeped up at Jackson like the other was about to bite him.

It was almost as if Mark wanted to gauge Jackson's reaction, although Jackson couldn't imagine why.

"You can tell me anything, you know." Mark did know that. But he didn't know if this qualified as anything.

There was another silence, and Jackson could tell Mark was gathering up his courage. He couldn't help it: his curiosity was spiked.

"What if I told you... that I, um, liked guys? Liked guys like I'm supposed to like girls?" Mark wanted to die. He wanted to run to the moon. He wanted to be anywhere but here, with his confession hanging in the air and his inability to look at Jackson.

There was a long pause, and the air felt like it was suffocating Mark. He couldn't breathe.

"Okay."

He started.

What?

It was one word, and it was the complete opposite of what he'd been expecting. He blinked. Thought back. Maybe he'd imagined it. Maybe they were still sitting in that choking silence. Maybe Jackson was planning the best way to get out.

He inched his eyes up. Jackson was looking at him. Jackson was looking at him with something soft in his eyes, and a hint of amusement, and a hint of something he couldn't place.

"What?" He croaked now, his face burning, his heart clenching.

Jackson blinked, and smiled a bit. "Okay."

Now he was sure it was real. He looked up for real, surprise, confusion furrowing his brows.

"Okay?"

Now Jackson, shrugged, just a bit. That little smile was still on his lips. "Yeah. It doesn't matter who you like, guy or girl. As long as I approve." The last words spoken with an arch of the eyebrow and a look, his tone much like a dad telling off his daughter.

Mark let out an explosion of breath he seemed to have held in.

Now he really let himself relax, shifting and collapsing against the wall next to Jackson, touching shoulders.

"Have you told anyone else?"

Mark looked down at his hands. "No. You're the first."

Jackson bumped Mark's shoulder with his own. "Well, don't I feel special."

Mark snorted. "Don't push it."

Jackson chuckled and tilted back his head, closing his eyes to the moon. They sat, Mark breathing again, trying to make sense of his luck, and the perfectness that was his best friend. He silently thanked the eight year old Jackson, for being stupid enough to go up to Mark, and making friends with him.

"Hey, Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for telling me."

 

Outside the door, a woman with greying hair was leaning against the wall, a small smile on her lips. She had come just to check up on the two, but had heard the conversation from outside and didn't dare interrupt.

She let out a tiny laugh that only she heard, and only she got.

"About time, Marks."

 

∞

 

He wakes not with a sickening jolt, but with a slowness that would be frightening.

He fights his way to the surface, even if he wishes that he couldn't fight any more. He drags his mind with all the strength he has into consciousness, even though he knows there's no use.

The only thing his sluggish mind takes account for is the pain. By now, pain has become breathing.

He knows he needs to take an inventory, see what has gone under the skin of the dangling body, but the edges of his mind feel puffy and stiff, and he can't mold them to form coherent thoughts.

But this is his ritual, when his sun rises, and he must do his rituals. His mind will clear. He has to depend on that.

Up to down.

From up to down. He can do that.

Up to down.

Down pulls the body to the earth. Up is opposite of down. The hands are up. He pushes his puffy mind in the direction of the hands. Up.

 

He can't tilt the head up so far, but he thinks he can move the fingers. He starts with the hand that is facing the air. He moves the fingers, gingery. One, two, three, four, five. Five lends a burst of pain up the arm, but takes it back soon enough, soon enough that his mind doesn't process the pain until it's gone.

Five close to air is good. Now the hand close to the vacuum. Somewhere is his mind he dreads this side. It always hurts the more, because it can't breathe, and it protests not being able to breathe, like all living things do. Perhaps it will die soon.

He counts.

One, two, three.

Three?

He's not sure if there was four on the hand before. How many are there supposed to be?

Four?

Five?

He can't remember. He decides it's not important.

Next are the wrists, but of course he can't move them. They're suffocated, dead. But he can feel the bracelets of fire, and the bracelets of ice, so he knows that they're not dead enough.

Next the arms. The aired one has two slices of fire almost to the deadness. The vacuum has nothing, but both tingle like sparkles.

Is tingling good?

He tries to think about that. He forces his puffy brain in a box, and commands it to think.

 

Tingling is not good.

No, he does not think tingling is good.

 

It's the first right thought he's had, and he would breathe a sigh of relief, or regret, if only he could breathe in the vacuum.  

He'll live another day. He can't think far enough to know it's that's good or bad.

 

He doesn't want to think about the head, so he moves on.

 

Next, the shoulders. The shoulders always have a brace of pain, but this morning it's worse. They're locked into place, and when he tries to move one, it screams and beats its fist against the skin.

Okay.

 

The chest, and the back. He knows this is the worst. He can see, with his chin hanging down, the splotty red burns, the bruises, the cuts like lacework. He'll have scars like a quilt, when he dies. If he lives long enough for them to heal.

He sees slashes traveling across the side, but he doesn't know about the back. He can't see, and unless he moves, he can't feel the pain. He doesn't want risk it, so he doesn't move.

He assumes there's something, though. He assumes there's pain covering the entirety of the skin. He just can't feel it anymore.

He knows the gnawing in the stomach is there, but he chooses to ignore it.

 

That's the only good thing about these lifetimes. Pain has faded until he realizes it's there.

The hips; mostly nothing. There's knife cuts like a belt running 'round, and a brand of an actual belt. But that's mostly gone, even if the scar is not. Even if the scar is blisteringly red, so angry it was to be slowly forgotten.

 

The legs; everything. One leg is infected, blistering hot under the sun, from something so long ago he can't remember, and riddled with everything they can imagine. The other he can't move, because they ran it over with something heavy once. It broke, and never quite healed. He can still feel it, though. He can still feel the pain, for god forbid they lose a way to torture him.

God forbid he die.

God forbid they lose something they wanted to turn into a weapon, something they've taken great pains to bend, not break.  

God forbid all their hard work trying to turn him traitor dies in a hole.

 

Now he has the strength to lift the head. He looks around. A single cell, small and dank and home. Dried blood is on the floors and the wall. A small window shows a dying sun. He tries moves his wrists, fails, and gives up. He doesn't know why they put him in the cuffs.

The other guy who shares his home never has them. He can walk around, even though he can't.

The other guy's out. It must be an on day for him. It must be an off day for him.

 

He doesn't know why he doesn't die. He feels like he should, but he doesn't have the energy to. Besides, dying would show them that he's weak. He's too proud to die.

His pride will be the death of him.

He almost laughs at his own joke.

 

Besides, he needs to fight. He won't betray him again. He won't break his promise.

 

It tastes like salt.

It smells like sweat and blood and dirt.

 

It tastes like salt.

 

∞

 

It was the drenching hotness of summer, and the noon sun was shining, making it even worse. The only true protection was inside, but since the two 10th graders had been kicked out of the house for being too loud, they were sprawled under a tree, literally panting, contemplating out loud what to do, but never actually getting up. They've learned to master the survival technique called sitting as still as possible.

"Ummm... we could go to the movies?"

"Nah." The entire world was a sigh. "There's no good movies out."

"True." Mark scraped the sweaty hair off his forehead and squinted into the sun.

There was a good pause.

 

"We could just sit here."

"You know what, that sounds like a good idea."

Mark laughed a bit and rolled onto his stomach. Jackson, who was already facing his back to the sun, grinned at him.

"This ."

"Yup."

There was another pause.

 

"Sooooo," Mark drawled out. "How's fencing?"

"It's good." And then Jackson did something very strange: he blushed.

The perceptive Mark picked it up immediately.

"What?"

Jackson looked down. "What?" He said, a bit defensively.

Mark grinned. "Is there a girl?"

Jackson glowed red. "Um. Kind of."

Mark was now laughing at his best friend's pain. "Kind of? What's her name?"

Jackson looked lost. "Er. Um. Jaebum," he said, the last part whispered.

Mark narrowed his eyes at the other, who was suddenly very interested in a blade of grass. "Jaebum?"

"Um. Yeah."

Mark looked at his best friend. "Jaebum's a guy's name."

"Um. Yeah."

Mark arched his eyebrows, and shoved away a strange happiness. "Something you want to tell me?"

"Um. I might be bi."

...

"Okay." Now Jackson looked up, and grinned, because Mark was exactly mimicking Jackson's response, and doing it perfectly.

"Dude, why were you so nervous? You do know I'm gay, right?" Now Mark was laughing, and the tension lining Jackson's bones just second before disappeared.

"I don't know," he said, and shrugged, and Mark just laughed at him.

 

∞

 

Time: By Kato's watch, almost an hour.

 

He's okay now.

They've been told that they're going to a camp in the far north-east, almost directly on the border. They've been told that they're needed badly, horribly.

 

He's okay now.

Kato has been telling him about his brother, Bam, for almost the whole time. It's clear that he loves his brother, probably more than anyone else in his family. There's times like this that Jackson wishes he had a sibling, to fight with and to argue with and to ambush with water balloon and to work together to, to be friends with.

 

But Mark had been more than enough for Jackson. He was everything that Jackson needed, all rolled into one. A best friend. A steady hand. A hopeless crush.

Jackson wonders, as he sits on this shaking train, if they might have had a shot. If Jackson had stopped "falling in love with everyone he meets", as Mark would say, and confessed to Mark. If Jackson had said something years ago, would they be years into dating? Or would Mark have rejected him? Or would Mark have said yes, and they dated, and feel so terribly apart and wrong that they could never look each other in the eyes again?

That's the gamble.

That's the role of the dice.

 

Jackson had never been brave enough to gamble on Mark and him. He had never been willing to take such a huge risk.

But here he was, about to plunge into a war where Mark had already been in for two months. He was scared. He was scared that when the time came to die, in nine days or in ninety years, he would regret not letting go of the dice. He would regret keeping it clenched in his fist, and only letting Mark see it in such quick flashes that Mark would never know it actually existed, curled in his guilty palm.

He's scared, but there's nothing else to do.

 

The train lurches. The train shivers, and the train stops completely. A stomach-turning crashes sounds.

All minimal sound in the car dies.

 

Jackson's frozen. His insides are churning. He s around, and finds Kato's hand, and holds onto it like a lifeline. The boy squeezes his hand reassuringly, but Jackson doesn't feel very reassured.

 

The train car leads stands up in the clot of sitting army men, and fights his way to the door. He listens, then releases the safety of his gun and steps out. The only sound was breathing.

Outside, feet crunched in the snow. Voices sounded.

Finally, an order was called for everyone to get out of the train.

Good.

Jackson can't breathe.

 

When they step out into the white wilderness, Jackson's hand is still gripping Kato's and he has no intention of letting it go. Blundering, confused men stream from each car. Except the front two cars. The men from the front two cars have been crushed, or suffocated, and killed.

They can see as much, but they don't know why. Jackson doesn't know why, and he doesn't know what they're going to do.

The general calls them all together. He stands on a tree stump, and the extra foot and his loud voice carry well enough.

"A fallen tree has crashed the front two cars. All of the men in both cars have been killed." His tone is matter-of-fact, as if stating the weather. It looks like this is merely a natural occurrence, not a happening caused by the enemy. But the train is utterly destroyed. It cannot be used again.

"But the camp we were traveling to greatly needs us. So we will walk. The walk is not too far away, about 150 miles. We should be able to arrive in two days, at the latest three.

"Is this understood?"

"Yes, General!" Everyone.

 

But looking at the whistling wind, and the thick trees, and the carpet of snow, Jackson didn't want to walk. He didn't want to go at all.

But he also didn't want to die, and if he didn't walk, he will die.

 

"Travel by your train cars. Leaders, I want a report every quarter-sun as to the conditions of your men. Understood?"

It was understood by the remainder of the train car leaders.

 

Kato squeezes Jackson's hand again. "We'll be okay, yeah?"

Jackson tries to smile. "Yeah," he says, but as they start to walk, he's not so sure.

 

∞

 

He wants so desperately to breathe, but he can't, because he's tightening his teeth so he can't scream.

He wants so desperately to breathe, but he can't, because he's swimming in a bucket.

He wants so desperately to cry, but his pride won't let him, and so he'll let the man talk without interruption, and he'll let the man hurt without interruption.

He wants so desperately to fight, but he's so, so tired.

He wants so, so desperately to die, but he has a promise to uphold.

 

∞

 

It's recess, and Jackson has to do something with a teacher, and Eli and his friends are bored. Life has been boring since Jackson had left them, but in the end he wasn't fun anyway. Ever since he made friends with the loser a year ago, he'd been drifting away. Until he disappeared on them all together.

This was a major blow to Eli, who took it rather personally. He was the one that everyone wanted to be friends with, even the girls. He was the one that no one walked away from. No one, except Jackson.

And Jackson's walking away, and Eli's humiliation, was all because of that loser. Mark.

 

And because Eli was bored, and since Mark was just sitting there, reading and alone, he decided to have some fun.

He walked over to the boy and sat next to him. His friends followed close behind, and circled around without a word. Mark instantly sensed something was wrong, and a finger of ice crept up his spine. He looked up from his book and immediately looked to the ground when he met Eli's stare.

"Whatcha reading?" Eli asked, feigning interest, but anyone within a hundred foot radius could tell it wasn't actually real. And Mark wasn't stupid. He tried to shrink away, but the brick walk behind him betrayed him by being solid.

"Nothing," he muttered, and Eli jabbed him in the side, grinning as Mark flinched.

"Speak up."

"Nothing," Mark said again, louder this time, and Eli snickered.

"Well, obviously not." He snatched the book from Mark's hands, ignored the whimper of protest from the other, and began to read obnoxiously. "'Fireheart stared at Sandstorm. The fur across her shoulders was bristling, and her eyes glittered with determination.'" He laughed out loud, and Mark could honestly say he had no idea what was funny.

And then the boy stood up, and he tossed the book casually, so it hit Mark's head with a muffled thump. The boy winced, and Eli snickered.

"See you around, loser!"

 

And then, from that day on, whenever Jackson was gone from Mark's side for more than a minute, Eli and his gang was there, tossing wonder insults, jabbing him in the stomach, pulling his hair. The first day was the best, by far, and it only got progressively worse as Eli realized just how easy Mark was to bully, because the boy was shy and quiet and he didn't have any defenses against him.

Children can be just as cruel as adults, and Eli was very cruel. And there is almost nothing crueler than a child bullying another, over and over. Because they haven't learned to ignore hate. They haven't learned not to care. And they will carry the bullying with them the rest of their life, in some form or another. They will not forget.

 

Mark did not forget.

He didn't forget that group of boys, and he did not forget Eli. He didn't forget the feet designed to trip him. He didn't forget the words, saying over and over, to not tell Jackson, or they will hurt Mark. Or they will kill Mark.

Mark, who had never had another friend but Jackson, and who had been learning to reach out, drew himself in. He knew the dangers of people who weren't Jackson now. He knew what if felt like it have to sleep on his back because of flowering bruises under his shirt. He knew that he couldn't do anything.

 

Mark was shrinking, it seemed. He didn't eat as much. He spent more time with his books than usual, and he flinched whenever he came in contact with anyone other than Jackson. He brushed away Jackson's questions, and shadows stretched down his eyes.

 

This continued throughout the year of 5th grade, until Eli decided he was tired of just torturing Mark. He wanted to add Jackson to the mix.

 

So one day Eli spun Mark around by his wrist, pinned his shoulders to the wall, and told Mark that he would do anything Eli told him to, if he wanted to save his face.

Mark wanted to cry. He tried to hide it, but with Eli so close to his face, there wasn't much he could do. Eli laughed and said that this time, if he did the job well, he'd get a reward. A cookie.

Mark wanted to go home. He didn't know what was happening, because they had never made him do something before, and he wanted to go home.

Then Eli spun Mark around and pointed in the direction of Jackson's locker. The hallway was deserted, for Eli and his gang had just caught Mark as he left a couple minutes before lunch for a doctor's appointment.

"That's his locker, right?" Eli didn't have to say who "he" was. Mark nodded, tentatively.

"Here." Eli stuffed a Sharpie in Mark's hand, and the boy felt a sense of dread seep in. He didn't want to do it. He didn't want to bring Jackson into this. He didn't want to hurt him. He would rather do whatever he was about to do to himself instead of Jackson.

"Write on his locker. Take out his bag and cut it up. Rip up his stuff. Throw out his lunch. Do everything. Got it?"

Mark swallowed against a rock. His fingers shook. He couldn't move: his feet were glued to the floor. Eli's coffee brown eyes were glittering.

Slowly, he took a step. He took another. His vision blurred, and he blinked to clear it. He had never done this. He hated being cruel, he hated people who did what he was about to do. But he had no choice.

No choice.

Mark sniffed in the empty hallway. He stood in front of the tan locker. He uncapped the Sharpie. He stopped. He didn't know what to write. He turned back to Eli.

The boy was leaning against the wall, and laughing silently. Mark hated him. He hated him so much. Eli mouthed something, and Mark turned back to the locker. He wanted to cry. He blinked back the tears. He drew the letters in a shaking hand.

He opened the locker. He reached up, and took the scissors from Jackson's open pencil case. His movements were stiff. His fingers shook as he mutilated the backpack.

He ripped up the notebooks. He wrote the same message, over and over. On his backpack. On the inside of the locker. He scattered the contents of Jackson's lunch, his sandwich and bag of apple slices and his crackers and his gummies, the same lunch he had every day sitting next to Mark, the only one who did. Mark let a tear fall as he emptied the pencil case on the tiles.

He could hear the stifled laughs of Eli behind him. Another tear fell.

He tore that locker apart. He destroyed everything. The only things that he simply refused to touch were the books.

And then he was staggering back, and he couldn't see, but soon enough he felt Eli's cold hand steering him around a corner, and felt a cookie being shoved in his hand.

He wanted to fall through the floor. He rubbed his eyes, and looked down at the floor. Eli laughed at him, and something glowed in his eyes.

"Eat it, Mark," he said, and in his tone, there was no room for discussion. Mark shoved the cookie in his mouth. It was burned, the bottom blackened and the chocolate ash, but he ate it all the same.

And then Eli's friends faded away as the bell rang, and Eli did as well, until it was just Mark standing in the unused hallway, mouth full of ashy crumbles and face streaked with tears, who saw Jackson come skipping out of his class, the first one, and suddenly stop short.

He was the only one who saw Jackson look at his locker, and look at the words scrawled everywhere, and look at his backpack, and look at his trampled food. He was the only one who saw Jackson's legs give out, and him slide to the floor. He was the only one who saw Jackson start to cry.

And to Mark's ears, that was the worst sound in the world.

Because he had caused it. He had done that. He had made his best friend, his only friend, cry.

He had made his best friend feel as horrible, as hated, as he does when Eli looks at him.

 

Mark did not hate anyone more than himself at that moment.

He cursed himself, for being so weak and so stupid, to let Eli control him, and hurt Jackson.

People start to stream out of the classes, and they saw Jackson on the floor. They saw the locker, with the words.

EVERYONE HATES YOU.

 

Mark pressed himself to the wall. He felt tears drip off his chin. He swallowed the last mouthful of burned dough.

He swore to himself that he'd be strong, and he'd never let anyone bully him again. He swore to himself that he would never hurt Jackson again.

 

∞

 

Time: Nine hours and thirteen minutes.

 

Jackson is wading through the snow, Kato by his side.

Their train car is in the back of the many. There was 400 of them on the train. There's less now.

 

It's cold, so cold. He worries for his fingers and ears and nose and toes. He fears that the skin of his face will freeze in place. He fears the cold will stop his heart. He fears his shivering will stop his heart.

Night will come soon, and then it will be the worst, because the moon doesn't want like the sun.

Jackson fears the night, and he wishes for the sun.

He wishes to be anywhere but here, with snow clinging to his pants and icy needles stabbing his fingertips.

 

Suddenly Kato gasps, and he tugs on their still-joined hands, and Jackson's numb with cold and confusion, but he runs too, for just a few yards before Kato slows them to a walk again.

"What was it?" He asks, forcing his icy lips to move, and tries to crane his neck to see what it was that scared Kato, but it's gone in the wind and the snow.

Kato wet his cracked lips and keeps walking, his head down. "A dead man."

 

Jackson feels his stomach clench.

He feels tears rise in his eyes for the man he had never known.

Already, they were starting die. Already.

He doesn't want to die.

He forced himself to walk.

 

∞

 

His blood is in his mouth. Even if he could speak, they never do.

The moon is rising in the window, and he's trying to sleep.

 

The two of them, broken.

He doesn't know the other's name. He doesn't know who he is.

 

He barely knows who he is anymore.

He remembers he loved someone.

He remembers he loves someone.

 

Who?

 

He can't remember.

 

He should try to sleep.

 

But sleep doesn't come, even though his head is empty.

Too empty, he knows, but there isn't much he can do.

He can't do anything.

 

He hates not being able to do something.

 

He dangles in a little cell, and he forces his mind to sleep.

 

He sleeps.

 

∞

 

Time: Thirteen hours and twenty-two minutes.

 

A wolf howls to the moon, and it sends a shiver of ice up his spine.

 

∞

 

Mark let out a sigh of relief as soon as the classroom door swung shut behind him- science was so utterly boring, and the teacher had a drawling, quiet voice that always made him want to curl up in the corner and sleep.

Thank god he had been chosen to go run a copying errand. Sure, a copying errand halfway across the school and in an obscure corner of the school, but he was still out of the class, and that was enough.

 

Mark passed by people as he went, but at that time of day, that period, there wasn't many free classes. He liked it better that way. He didn't like it when the hallways were filled to burst.

He rounded a corner and almost tripped over the legs of someone. He regained his footing quickly enough and was about to rush away when he recognized the face of the person that was attached to the legs.

"Jackson?"

Yes, it was Jackson, and it was a Jackson with hollow eyes, with tear-streaked cheeks. A Jackson that looked up, and pulled away when he met Mark's eyes.

"What are you doing?" Well that was a stupid question, and he cursed himself, but he stared down at his friend and wondered why in the world was he sitting on the dusty floor, crying.

"No- Mark, please go away."

Mark started. He had never heard those words come from Jackson.

"What?" Now his voice was small- he was hurt.

"I'm sorry. Just... please go away. I want to be alone."

Mark felt his stomach tighten, but it was all worry for the boy in front of him. But he'd do what he said.

He left.

 

And Jackson was left, sitting in the hallway where no one but them had walked through in days, and he stared at the retreating, stumping back of Mark, and he finally let out a breath.

He was sorry, he truly was.

But he couldn't help it.

How could he, when who he was crying over was standing over him?

He couldn't deal.

He couldn't breathe.

He was sorry.

 

So, so sorry.

 

∞

 

A shard of metal digs at his ear. First, experimentally. Then harder. It switches, aims higher up. A voice muses above him.

"Here? Or here?"

 

He doesn't care.

 

The knife catches the very tip of his earlobe. He tries to muffle the gasp of pain. But it doesn't work.

"Ah." The voice sounds amused. "Here."

 

And then he feels the knife go down, down, the opposite of up, and he feels the blood go into his ear, hot and freezing cold and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts so much. It feels like his ear will fall off. It feels like his ear is peeling off his skull.

He doesn't scream. He bites his cheek, and blood rushes it.

 

Blood rushes down his ear.

Shouldn't it go the other way?

 

He gasps as he falls. But the clasp didn't let go. He feels warmth trickle down his neck.

Shouldn't it go the other way?

 

Shouldn't it have been Bam?

Why him?

No, it shouldn't have been Bam. Bam does not deserve this.

 

Mark presses his lips together in a scream.

 

He was sorry, he truly was.

 

At least with his head drowning, he can scream all he needs.

He tries to breathe but only chokes water down.

 

He knows what's coming, with his head in water. His knees on the slimy prison floor, because they rarely let him him see the sun and the moon.

Oh, how he wishes he could see the moon.

 

And then he can't think, can't think. His head is searing in pain, grilling, firing up in flame and dying down to ash. The ash of a cookie. The ash of a forgotten flame.

His thoughts fly out of balance. He can't breathe. Breathe. Breathe. But he's drowning. Drowning men never breathe.

 

He screams. He drowns in oxygen and tears and spit and the leftover sizzle of light.

 

He couldn't breathe.

 

He hates to scream. But he can't help it.

He looks at the table in front of him.

There are four fingers there, and one off to the side. The smallest one, the one he can't remember the name for. He wants to scream, because why do they like his hands so much? Why do they want to steal what's rightfully his away from him? His mind. His fingers. His sanity, because he can see the lip even when he tries to breathe and tries to think of white.

 

His sanity.

He wants to cry.

 

He wants Jackson.

He wants Jackson to be here, to help him. He wants Jackson to carry him away. He wants to feel more than hate and pain and anger and defiance.

 

He wants his throat to dry.

Now it tastes like salty.

 

"Ready to help?"

 

He spits blood in the face. A tooth comes too.

 

He couldn't deal.

 

"Do you have a family?"

 

I sit and I hold my mind in my seven fingers tight

 

"It's a simple question, really, Mark. Do you have any siblings? Are you an only child?"

 

No I won't tell you no no I won't

 

"Mark, can you answer?"

 

I won't

 

"Go ahead, Private."

 

Pain in the shoulder heart wrenching horrible horrible horrible people horrible pain no I won't I won't

 

"Mark? Do you have any siblings?"

 

no no no I won't say no no

 

"Private."

 

no I won't scream no my wrist is not yours to break no no mine all mine all yours

 

"Mark?"

 

no no no no no no no no no no no

 

"Private."

 

no my face hurts so much so much carving hurts pumpkins hurts I can't anymore sorry sorry hurts so much

 

"Mark?"

 

"Only child." sorry so sorry I let you down sorry sorry I can't take it sorry they're getting me sorry

 

So, so sorry.

 

∞

 

Time: Thirty-two hours and fifty-seven minutes.

 

He stumbles, over the snow and the wood and the rock and the snow. Over his feet, for they are rocks too. They feel so heavy. Jackson wonders if it would be best to cut them off. They're frozen, anyway. He can't feel them, anyway.

He looks up at the sky. The sun is setting, setting orange and red and pink across the sky, like fiery strands of hair left behind in the blue.

 

Something rustled in the snow-heavy brush next to him. He looks over there, slowly. He can't move too fast.

There's nothing. He's at the edge of the pack, and at the back. Kato's on his other side. They're walking, same pace. Kato's lips are bright red, almost purple. They're cracked. The skin around his eyes is cracked. His ears are red and blurry.

 

Blurry?

 

Jackson tries to think back to when he slept last.

When he was in the camp. When he thought the camp was bad.

 

He didn't sleep because of the wolves. They made him edgy, and they made him think of the moon, and think of Mark.

But it's too cold here for the cloud.

But it'll adjust.

It'll come back.

 

Jackson has been trying to build a barrier between him and it, but it isn't working. Maybe if he could sleep that would help. He wishes he could sleep.

 

Jackson's spine crawls. Someone's watching him. He looks behind him, not too fast, so it doesn't make him dizzy.

Someone's watching him, but he can't see anything. He turns to walk again.

 

He trips over a root. He can't do anything but fall.

 

And when he pushes his hand under his body, and tries to push himself up, he's covered in blood, and he registers the sounds of guns. He lets himself fall again.

He closes his eyes, but that's a mistake. He forces them open again. He feels warm, and sticky. He's confused. Why are there guns?

Why are there guns?

 

The snow soaks into Jackson's chest, and he's surprised he has enough warmth left to melt the snow. He hears a scream, a cry of death. He hears guns. He hears his own blood, pumping in his ears. He feels his heartbeat against the frozen water, keeping the earth round.

 

He screams into the snow, and lets a mouthful in return.

 

It goes on for eternity. They are killing for too long. War is so useless. War is so, so stupid. Jackson is so, so stupid, if he thinks he'll ever get up from the earth alive.

 

Then there's voice, rough and frost-bitten, and a boot lands on his shoulder blades. He grunts, and squirms, and he hears an exclamation and he's rolled onto his back. He cracks his eyes, and there's a face. He shuts them again. He's too dizzy, and too warm and too cold.

"Here's a live one."

"Do you wanna save it?"

"Eh, whatever. Why not."

Jackson's hauled up. He's put on his feet. He's facing a soldier, with a shaved face and the uniform of the enemy.

"Let's go."

Jackson begins to walk. His mind is numb. And then he sees someone. Something.

Kato.

Sprawled on his back, twisted strangely, curving his broken body around a bloody patch on his side. Blood trickles out of his mouth. His eyes look up like glass. His fingers are still.

Jackson falls to his knees, and now he can't see anymore, the tears are too dark.

He's dragged up. He can hear someone screaming. He registers that it's him screaming. He registers the blood dripping down his throat. He registers the tears behind his eyes. He registers the face in his face.

He screams in that face. That face disappears.

 

"You're coming." He's dragged up again. He wants to look back, at Kato, at dead Kato, but he can't.

 

He's slapped across the face and forced to his feet and pushed onwards.

 

∞

 

Jackson burst through the door.

"Mark, we're going dancing!"

 

Dancing, dancing across the floor. A dance of death, and death it shall be. Death for his mind. Death for that body, dancing round and round on the bloody ballroom floor.

It's a haunted dance.

For dancing with them is the body of a man, tall in stature and tall in mind.

Dancing with them in the ghost of a boy, his head shot through.

Dancing with them is the body of a country, hanging on by its rusty fingertips.

Dancing with them is the body of a country fizzing with resentment.

Dancing with them as they twirl under the stars is a doll, dangling by broken twine.

Dancing with them as they spin, round and round, is the slaughtered spirit of the world.

 

"No, we're not," Mark deadpans, then changes his mind. "Scratch that. I'm not going dancing. You can go."

 

"Go."

Jackson's pushed onwards, and he stumbles. He trips, and he puts a hand out to the man next to him. The man lets him, but as soon as Jackson can stagger to his feet, he's pushed away with a hiss of disgust. He barely hears it; he's too involved with putting one foot in front of another.

Who would be disgusted with him?

Him, covered with dirt and plastered with blood. Him, shaking from the coldness of his heart. Him, red and white.

If they were so disgusted, just let him die.

Just let him die. Shoot him in the head. Push him to his knees and pull the trigger.

Just ends this. Just end it.

    End him.

    But what about Mark?

    Mark is dead, his brain tells him, and he tells his brain to shut up.

    He's too cold in his fingers. He's too cold in his nose, and his ears, and his lips. He's too hot in his heart.

 

Jackson plopped on the table in front of Mark. "But Maaaarrrrrrkkkkkk there's a really great place that someone told me about and it's not too far away and I really want to go and you can't go to a club alone Mark that's not how it works I need a bro come on it'll be fun I promise come come come come please please please plea-"

 

He's so alone so alone so alone

 

They took away the man that shared his home with him.

They took him away, and never gave him back.

He wishes they would give him back, because he needs him because he needs someone right now even though he is not weak no he is not he must be strong must be strong must be strong even though he's so alone he must be strong

 

Mark, whose firm refusal had been slowly disintegrating throughout, let out an exhausted sigh and stood up, and Jackson cut himself off immediately. "Yay! You're coming? Yay!"

"One time." Mark held up a finger to illustrate his point and Jackson nodded vigorously, secretly proud of himself. "And not past twelve."

 

It's past midnight, because the moon is not rising. It isn't setting, either.

They're told to sit down.

Jackson sits down.

His mind is too numb to comprehend how many of them there is left, or how many of the others are there, to kill them off in the snow and the cold and the woods.

But he sits down. They come around. They give him a crust of bread and a dried prune. Jackson's afraid to open his mouth to the cold. He does, anyway, because his stomach is telling him too, and he can't fight with himself. He's too tired.

Too tired.

 

He eats the food, and he drinks the blood that comes sliding down his throat with it.

He's watered and feed, and now he's told to sleep.

He doesn't want to sleep.

He wants to die.

He wants to find Kato and Mark and his grandparents.

But when one of the others points at him, in the dark of the night and the cold of the light, and points at him with a gun, he lies down in the snow.

He forces his eyes shut.

He's so, so tired.

Maybe sleep will be like dying, for a bit.

Jackson would like to die, for a bit.

He sleeps.

 

"But Maaarrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkkk," Jackson whined. Mark raised an eyebrow at him and he closed his mouth with a pout. "12:30?"

Mark considered his friend, and let out another sigh. "Fine."

"Yay!"

 

He screamed today.

 

He sits in the corner, finally released from his death chains, and feels a clotting horror. He screamed.

Screaming is always the beginning of the end.

 

It's the beginning of the end.

 

No.

 

He will not accept that.

 

He raises a hand to his face. Now he has six fingers. Two and four. He feels the gorge that they made with the knife, that caused him to scream. It's on his cheekbones. He brushes it just very slightly with his fingertips, so it doesn't feel the touch. It's most likely red. It's stopped crying, though, and it's accepting its own pain.

He's reminded of a man with a scar, and a happy smile, and lanky legs. He's reminded of a men with coffee eyes and a bully mind.

 

He's reminded of a moon-washed ruin, and a world where there was no blood or rust or men trying to break him to bits.

 

"We're lost."

"No we're not I swear to god it's around here somewhere."

"... Jackson, we're lost."

 

He doesn't know where they're going.

It's been days, months, years, centuries.

He's stuck in this maze, this frightening maze, and it stops time and makes it go too fast.

 

He's lost. He can feel mirrors being built in his mind. He can see men falling, and getting so lost within their brain that they never get up, and he stumbles on. He can hear conversations, but his mind is too puffy to figure. He can smell salt and blood and smoke and salt, but he doesn't know what it means.

 

He can't feel his toes. He can't see the last breaths of them as they fall. He can't hear a way to die. He can't smell his own flesh, rotting away.

 

This maze is full of mirrors, and in every single one Jackson sees Mark.

 

Jackson sighed and turn halfway to face Mark, who was sitting there with a smile that was half aggravated and half amused. "I'm trying to be positive, okay? Shut up."

 

At least Jackson is not here.

Because he could do nothing to help him if Jackson were here.

So it is best that he isn't.

Even if he is so lonely, and so alone, and so alone.

It is best.

 

It is good he isn't.

Because then he would be in pain, and he doesn't deserve pain.

Maybe no one deserves pain, but Jackson deserves pain least of all.

 

Mark turned back to face the road, raising his hands in defeat, a grin rising to his lips. "Carry on."

"Thank you."

 

Days turn into nights, and nights turn into days. His fingers turn into pain. His eyelashes turn to icicles. The man that he was walking beside for a day turned to stone.

His heart shakes his whole body.

But he will carry on.

He will not die, because maybe it will be better at the end of the road.

Maybe this is for something.

Did he do something wrong?

He did not stop to help that man who died.

But he could do nothing, and he can't do anything to help himself. He can't do much more than breathe, and to force his legs to move.

Sometimes he gets a whip, when he goes too slow. He speeds up, even though it hurts so so so much. He hasn't looked at his feet for a long, long, long time. He knows he doesn't want to.

His fingers are ice under his frozen skin. They're white, the color of death.

 

His fingers are the first to die. Then maybe his face, and his legs, and his body, until he has to drag himself along by his elbows in the falling snow, in the fallen snow, because they will not let him die, and they will not let him go.

Or maybe that's him. Maybe he won't let him go.

And then, as he stumbles through the world of war and blood and death and ice, he wonders why he won't let himself go.

 

"Okay, I think this is it... maybe."

 

He's come to the point where every day is his breaking point.

He's broken, cracked, so many times, it would be hard to see what he was. He assumes it's a miracle he hasn't shattered yet, although he doesn't know whether it's an actual miracle or a false one, a false hope.

 

And every day, he thinks that this is the maximum amount of pain he can take.

But there's always tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow, which seems to be more and more like today.

 

Mark turned and looked. He blinked, and looked again. "Jackson, that's an abandoned building."

"It doesn't hurt to check," Jackson defended himself, getting out of the car. Mark climbed out a bit more reluctantly.

"Jackson, it's an abandoned building."

"Yeah, but it's the only building here, so why not try it?"  

 

There's a building, and Jackson's pushed into it. He's manhandled into a corner. He hears something --which is strange in itself because hasn't his ears frozen off, hasn't he left them behind?-- about there being too much of them.

But how can that be, when there's so many of them that turned to stone in the snow and the cold?

 

That night he dreams of the day when he and Mark had the Popsicles and the clown lips and the sun on their backs and their lives ahead of them. Except that the bee stings him in the neck, not the arm. And it draws into the sun, for when they're slapped to their feet, he can feel the lingering pain of a stinger in his frostbitten skin.

 

Mark stared hard at his best friend, and rolled his eyes, but followed the other across the weeds. "I think this is illegal."

Jackson laughed. Still laughing, he tried the knob. It creaked, but sprung open. He pushed open the rotting piece of wood and waved away the dust, coughing.

 

War should be gone. Banned. Humans should be banned. Humans are such idiots. Do other species wipe each other off the face of the earth? Do others discriminate and judge and do drugs? Do others kill the earth and fog the air and dump their miles and miles of trash in the ocean?

So why were humans given free rein?

Why were humans allowed to do anything they want?

 

Because they had the power. And the one with the power has it all.

 

He does not have much power. But he's clinging to his last bit.

So typical of a human.

He's holding it with his shredded fingernails and two- hands. The power of defiance. The power of not giving power to another.

He decides one day, in a fit of temper and pain and coaxing and blood, that he will die with this power clenched in his fist.

 

He gestured into the house. "Ladies first."

Mark gave him a not-so-soft jab in the side and stepped in. Jackson winced, grinned, and stepped over the creaking floorboards after him. And then he stopped, and stared.

 

A man is staring at him, and Jackson is so numb but he can't stop staring back.

The cloud pulls at his brain and lets itself in, and he doesn't notice.

This man has tears of blood.

This man has skin the color of coal.

This man has eyes of glass and lips of ice.

This man has shriveled skin and a twisted sneer.

This man was alive when they were shoved up that morning, in that building with the moonlight and the dance of death and the stinging bee.

 

This man is dead.

 

This man has died a death that Jackson is glad he did not die.

A whip stings across his shoulders. It hurts, burns his cold skin to crisp.

He's reminded to walk.

He walks.

A man stumbles up next to him, a whip chasing him.

He looked back, and the whip stings his shoulders.

He looks forward.

Jackson looks at him.

Blood trickles out of his ear.

 

They were standing in the remains of a huge living room. Two of the walls had crumbled over time, so a large corner of the room was open to stardust. A pile of rubble hibernated below, and the ceiling above was half torn off, so the moon shined, white and watching, into the dusty, creaking floorboards. The remains walls were brick, the color of darkened rust in the moonlight, and unfaithful brick sections bore open the room into others, and into the stars. White drop cloths draped over the furniture were set to shining. The room, and the house, looked as if it hadn't been touched by human eyes in centuries.

 

The stones in this cell are solid. They're holding onto each other for dear life.

He wishes they would crumble down. Crumble down and disappear and show him someplace where he didn't have to feel pain and still be alive. Someplace that doesn't exist.

 

He bloodied his fingers, when he had so many, so long ago. When he had thought he had a chance. When he was going mad with the sight of Bam's eyes, his bullet holes, his bloody tears and crisping skin.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

It was.

 

It's night, and he can't sleep but he should shouldn't the night is for sleeping but for the moon.

The moon never gets to see anything. The sun gets all the fun.

 

He misses Bam, so much it hurts to move. He wishes Bam didn't have to be there, because Bam's family needs him. Mark doesn't have a family. He doesn't have a sister, and a brother, and a brother.

He misses Bam's smile, and his fast hands and pretty smile and warm eyes. He wishes he could transport himself back to that time when they sat below the fire and played cards around a stray spark.

 

He misses Jackson, so much it hurts to breathe. He hopes Jackson's alive, and that he's okay. He hopes Jackson can fight the thundercloud. He hopes Jackson can be okay without him.

He misses his eyes, and his laugh, and his willingness to do anything, and his sense of other people, and his love for other people, and his big heart.

He wishes this never happened.

 

Jackson bit his lip against a gasp, and looked at Mark. The boy was standing, silent, in the middle. His eyes were huge, and wondering, and beautiful. The moonlight turned his red hair copper, and silver, and gold. The moonlight made his pale skin glow ever so slightly like a pearl. Standing there, in the middle of a broken shell, in the middle of whispering ghosts, he had never looked so gorgeous, and so perfect, and so unreachable.

 

Jackson looks at the snow in front of him. He looks at the birch trees, white and black, and he looks at his hands, white and black.

He takes steps. He moves forward. He steps in snow splattered with blood.

 

He looks up.

It's Mark. Mark's walking beside him. He's perfect: his skin is clear, and it's its usual shade. His beautiful hands are still, and his smile when he looks at Jackson is easy. His hair glitters with snow, and he walks in the piles like they're not there.

His hair is red, and gold. His eyes are silver. His skin glows copper.

Mark disappears.

 

Jackson can't stop, but he stares at the empty space next to him, and he thinks that Mark has never been so far away.

 

Mark turned to Jackson, a smile on his face. Jackson could tell he was wishing for his paints, his pens. "This is amazing! And also not a club."

Jackson shrugged. "It exists, I swear."

Mark smiled at him. "Pity. I was so looking forward to it."

And, suddenly, Jackson got an idea. A mad idea, but an idea all the same. He couldn't resist.

 

He took a couple steps forward. With a flourish, he took a bow. He couldn't disguise his grin.

Mark looked at him like he was mad. Then he realized.

"Oh, god no. Seriously?" But he was laughing.

"May I have this dance?" Now Jackson was laughing, too. He held out his hand.

Mark still stared at him like he was losing his mind. Then he broke down, again. "Fine, why not." He took two steps, until they were directly in front of each other.

Jackson grinned. "I'll take it." He took Mark's hand. Mark stared at him with the same look for a while, but finally he put his other hand on Jackson's shoulder. A small, why-am-I-friends-with-this-idiot smile was creeping up his face. Jackson puts his other hand on Mark's waist.

 

In the light of the moon, they danced.

 

In the light of the moon, he knows his mind is gone. He knows the body kneeling on the floor, the eyes with tears dripping down, was soon to be gone.

He had told them so much.

I have broken so much.

 

I try to grasp the thoughts but they can't come together.

Sometimes the room swirls, in gold and copper.

Sometimes his head is in the stars, and sometimes he screams until his throat runs away.

Sometimes he sees ghosts, in this room with pencils in the window and brushes in the door. Sometimes he sees Bam, and Bam dumps him a queen of spades. Sometimes he sees Eli, and Eli buries him until a pile of cookies and laughs at him and tells him that everyone hates him. Sometimes he sees Jackson, and he's smiling, and Narsha's pulling out his hair by the roots. Sometimes he sees the general, and he's cleaning his walls, each and every weapon, a smile on his knifed face. Sometimes he sees his father, and he's walking away forever, but when Mark tries to follow him his father closes the door in his face. Sometimes he sees the dead face of Hoseok, smiling, with clown paint on its lips and tears on its cheeks and a gun in its mouth.

Sometimes I see myself, standing over a broken boy with hair of copper, with long nails and dirty fingers and a collar around the boy's neck and a leash in my hand.

 

And Jackson was silent, which was always rare, and the creaking of the floorboards was their music and the moon their lights, and Mark had never been so sad.

 

Jackson feels a noose tightening around his neck. He feels suffocated. He feels, as he stumbles along the road, that he should have been one of the ones to die.

But he hasn't died.

And he's confused, because he wants death as much as the rest of them, but death doesn't like him.

He's rather insulted, in fact.

 

But the crunch of the snow in his music, and the sun sets the floor to dazzling, and he'll dance his dance of death.

 

He was so close, so close, and he couldn't do anything. He would not hurt Jackson, and he knew that if he did what he wanted to do right now, he would never forgive himself. Because he would mess it up, somehow. He would hurt Jackson, and he will not hurt Jackson again.

He will not.

There was too much at risk. There was too much in the balancing act that was them, and Mark would not tip the scales and challenge the Lady.

 

He would rather he die, unhappy and alone, then Jackson be broken by him. He will sacrifice his love for the other, willingly, gladly.

But he wished it didn't hurt so much.

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

Until whose heart you win is mi'

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

Until knotted chains you tie

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

And what I'll do is try

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

But nothing do you buy

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

And what I'll do is try

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

Until bloody tears you cry

 

Dance with me

Dance with me

Dance until you die

 

Jackson had never been so confused in what he felt. Usually, he was a person that knew his heart. He was never afraid of admitting his feelings, but the boy dancing with him now, with moonlight painted on his cheekbones and in his hair and pooling in his collarbones, was someone new altogether.

This boy, Jackson was afraid of.

This boy, Jackson did not want to live without, and he was afraid of living without him, so much. So much. Too much, perhaps, but Jackson didn't mind. He didn't mind loving this boy in front of him. He didn't mind.

He thought it a privilege, because there was no one out there that was Mark. There was no one that Jackson loved more, no matter how many others he had loved.

 

Jackson is afraid of himself.

He's afraid of his fingers, because part of them are gone and the parts that are left hurt so so so much.

He's afraid of his legs, for they keep going and he doesn't know how.

He's afraid of the cloud that has invaded his brain and now lives there, now lives on and on.

He's afraid of his mind, because it's confusing and mirrored and he can't never see himself in mirrors.

He's afraid of his nose, for it smells salt even when he's not bleeding from there.

He's afraid of his back, because whenever he moves it burns like ice, it's as cold as ice.

He's afraid of his heart, for it's shaking his body and rattling his teeth.

And now he's afraid of his eyes, because he's never seen such a place, with a fence and a building that looks like a prison.

And now he's afraid of his feet, because they seem to think they're walking on land instead of frozen sea.

 

Jackson let go of Mark for a second, and twirled him around. Mark let him spin him, but came back with narrowed eyes. "Why am I the girl again?"

 

A girl.

Mark can't remember when he last saw a girl.

The army is ist.

He can't remember why he cares at this moment.

 

Jackson laughed, and he heard the saddest sound in the world. "Just go with it."

He spun Mark again.

 

He doesn't know what's happening, and he's so so so confused.

There are walls, and a floor, and a ceiling. He's dizzy. He can see too much. He can't walk in this ocean.

He can't walk.

He tries to not walk but someone heaves him up and slaps him across the face and he keeps going.

He's walking down a hallway.

He's given a seat. It's made of trees but it's as soft as feathers.

He feels like he'll melt.

 

They talk. His ears hurt too much to think. He looks at the ceiling.

They ask him some questions.

He thinks he answers, but he can't remember.

He can't remember.

 

He's pushed to his feet and pushed onwards.

 

And suddenly they were close, face to face, and Mark's eyes met Jackson's, and he couldn't look away.

He couldn't look away.

 

He can't tear his gaze from the door.

Something's happening.

Feet shook the cell to the ground and he's still standing.

I'm still standing.

Feet will shake him to the roots.

Fear will shake him to the roots.

He will not give in.

I will not give in.

 

He can't look away.

 

Someone comes through the door.

Someone with stiff legs and long hair and useless fingers, fingers still in death throes.

Someone with big, glassy eyes.

Someone with the weight of the world on his cold shoulders.

Someone with pain in his face and pain in strips on his back and cold in every pore.

 

Someone I know.

 

He can't tear his gaze away from the boy who has never been so clear to him, and so far away.

 

Mark couldn't tear his eyes away from the beautiful boy in front of him, no matter now he tried. He had to. But he didn't want to.

 

Jackson is pushed into a room and locked into the room.

 

There's a boy in the corner.

His hair is hacked short, and there are ridges on his scalp. His forehead is red and blistering. His eyebrows are half gone. His eyes are haunted, clouded with thunder. A cut, almost healed, runs through his mouth and twists his skin, but his cheekbones are clear. His mouth is red, too red. Through his open lips, there is almost no white. Along the line of his jaw, a cut has peeled open his skin. It hangs, red and glistening, in the moonlight, a gaping mouth. Bruises decorate his neck with purple and black and blue, strings of pearls. His skin is bumpy, red and angry and dark with rage.

And that's only above his neck. But that's as far as Jackson can go, because he can't bear to see the boy he loves in so much pain, so much hurt.

It's the worst sight in the world.

 

Jackson's hand came up, and his thumb landed on Mark's cheek. It wiped away a tear Mark didn't realize was there.

"Why are you crying?" It was low, and quiet, and Mark tried to stop his tears.

 

Mark is too stunned to move. He's too scared to move, because if this was his mind in front of him, then he was a cruel person indeed.

 

But he couldn't, so instead he stepped back, and Jackson's hands fell to his side.

 

Jackson couldn't move his legs. They were on fire, and his back moaned with pain, but still he gasped, and still he began to cry. He didn't try to wipe away the tears: he knew his hands didn't work right anymore.

But it was Mark. It was the love of his life.

But he wanted to see his eyes.

He wanted to make sure it was Mark, even though Mark shouldn't have gone through this.

 

He looked so vulnerable.

 

So strong, in the moonlight. He looked so beautiful. Mark couldn't meet his eyes, so he looked at his feet. He looked at the floor. It was splintered and broken, but it somehow still managed to carry their weight. It was clotted with dust and broken dreams and last words and a long, long time ago.

 

They were so broken.

Look at the two of them; they were so broken.

 

Mark doesn't want Jackson to see him. But Jackson had, and it makes it all the worse.

 

But Jackson was so beautiful. He was so beautiful. He couldn't look at him.

 

He swallowed back the tears.

 

Jackson finally spoke an eternity later, and Mark vaguely wondered why his voice was so horribly sad.

 

"Will you look at me?"

 

Mark tore his eyes off the floor. He raised them, up, and met Jackson's, brown and beautiful and big and worried.

 

He burst into tears.

 

Tick, tock.

 

Jackson cries for a long, long time.

On and on and on.

 

And Mark sits there, and he watches Jackson cry, standing there because his legs will not let themselves bend, and he can't get up because of his own scars, and he lets his tears trickle down, to see what they've done to the boy in front of him.

And, when Jackson can finally move in the heat of the cold, he stumbles over to Mark, and he falls to his knees, and he takes Mark's maimed hands in his dead ones and he kisses them with lips of ice and his tears cool Mark's burns.

 

And Mark bows his head and he's numb with sadness, but Jackson gets himself over next to Mark, and Mark can tell he hasn't sleep in years, and so he takes Jackson's head and puts it on his legs and Jackson falls asleep, to the light of the broken moon and the glitter of Mark's tears.

 

And Mark gradually begins to understand that this is a beautiful gift, for they both will die soon, and this way they can die together.

 

Hours pass, and they seem like days. Mark watches as the moon sets, and the sun arises. He watches as the sliced rectangles on the blood-stained floor grow, and then retreat. He watches the moonlight blossom in the cell. He hears the faint voices of the guards and the torturers, the faint voices of the tortured.

He closes his eyes, and he knows sleep won't come. He opens his eyes. He looks down at Jackson.

He looks at his blackened ears, his cracked lips, his chapped skin, his skinny arms, so different from before.

This boy, this boy is broken. This boy has been through hell, and now they intend to starve him with him until he gives in.

 

Jackson opens his eyes to the moonlight. He opens his eyes to darkness. He opens his eyes to a beautiful boy leaning over him.

And he opens his mouth, his frost-bitten mouth, and says something that he would never say, if he wasn't delusional and blazing with pain and sure they were about to die. "I love you."

Mark blinks away tears. "I love you too."

 

He lifts his half-dead hands to Mark's cheek. His skin is still beautiful.

 

The sun rises. People come. People come and drag him out. He's wild, biting, all the more sane. He sees Mark being dragged out by his hair. He sees the lines on his face, the pain on his face. He screams and spits blood and hits but he can't hurt anyone. Anyone can hurt him.

The sun shines through the autumn leaves, and two boys sit on the stump of a thousand-year-old tree. One serious; one not quite so serious.

Both are focusing on each other.

They're dragged out to the snow. Jackson can see the snow.

 

He's breaking, breaking, breaking. It's an endless field of white. Jackson's crying, limp. He's forced to his knees. They line up, kneeling to the men who have hurt them so so so so much. The men who have guns. The men with ashen faces and guns in the cold, cold breeze.

 

He wants to die.

He understands that.

He has found Mark, and now his body will let him die.

He tries to thank his body, but he's not sure it hears him.

Mark lifts his head to the sky.

He lifts his eyes to Jackson. Blood hangs in droplets from his dark eyelashes, and blood pools in a puddle at his feet.

A tiny, horrible smile comes to his lips. He raises a finger of three and crosses his heart.

Tick, tock.

The tick tock of the haunted clock.

"I'll come back," the not quite so serious boy announces. "Cross my heart, and hope to die." As he says it, he crosses his heart, but doesn't hope to die.

 

Jackson holds his dead hands behind his head. His eyes are so beautiful. Beautiful, the color of mournings.

He looks at Mark.

He smiles, a tiny, horrible smile. Lines cut into his face.

The guns blaze.

The smile turns to blood, then turns to grey, then red, then nothing.

"I'll come back," the serious boy repeats. His eyes are brown, and kind, and serious. "Cross my heart, and hope to die." As he says it, he crosses his heart, and he hopes to die.

 

The bullet tears through his heart, and Mark falls to the ground. Jackson blinks, and there's nothing there but snow. He blinks, and all there is is black, and he's falling,

falling,

 

falling.

 

---

 

Um, well.

Wow.

Finally finished!

 

It only took me... more than two months to finish. Only 28,900 words to write this little story.

 

Anyway, I'd just like to say how thankful I am for the people who have already subscribed, and the THREE UPVOTES WHAT

 

I had a lot of fun writing this oneshot, even though it gave me a lot of nervousness and worriedness and writing-for-the-entire-day-ness. Especially the ending.

 

Okay, I would also like to apologize for killing Mark and Jackson. And Kato, and Bam, and Jhope, and just generally everyone mentioned by name in this fic. But, I promise you, if it makes you feel better, that killing Jark off has been my intention from the start, and there is a reason why.

 

I would love love love to hear you guys interpretations and thoughts on this fic and specific parts and the actions of characters, and especially the ending. There are a couple ways of seeing the ending, one of which is really heartbreaking, even for me who wrote it (lol)

So I would really like to know what you guys thought, if you loved it or hated it, because I've been worrying about writing it all these months and now I'm going to start worrying about what you guys think becuase I'm just like that.

 

Thank you so much for spending the time to read this horrifically long oneshot. Truly, it means the world to me:)

 

Also, I do know that a lot of this is left out, but I wanted you readers to get basically only the information that Mark and Jackson got themselves. So of course I know why Jackson was captured and all, because this entire thing is from mah very own brain, but I wanted it to seem more realistic. And I like it better this way.

 

If you want, I have one other Got7 fic, Jark, which is called Kill Me, for which I will put the link here if you want to check that out. I also have a good amount of other fics and oneshots from some of my other fandoms so feel free to read!

 

The song that this fic is (a little bit ironically) named for (because honestly there isn't a huge amount of happiness here) is Laughter Lines by Bastille.

The song lyrics above are from Sunmi's Frozen in Time, when Jackson raps.

 

And also I like Eli and Narsha I do it's just they have good names for my evil characters

 

 

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*bows*

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