Page 4 of Fragile Facade
Which is another reason I’m amplified tonight. A peek into the afterlife I’ve been taunting? Yeah, that intrigues me, and I know just the place to experience it.
* * *
“Hello, Dad.”I smile at his grave, nestled between my brothers, uncles, and cousins.
It’s quiet here, with the rituals taking place on the opposite side of the cemetery. But I have no interest in them tonight.
Stepping over my dad and brother, I look at the plot reserved for me and Remi. A headstone already sits in place, blank except for the Sauder last name. I smile at it, feeling at home here in my eventual eternal resting place. There’s a certain comfort in knowing where my body will end up, but the uncertainty of not knowing the state of my dead body is what titillates me.
How will I die? Will I be mutilated and unrecognizable, or will I be whole and at peace? I’m already a ghost in my living life, and a part of me knows I won’t go to the grave silently. I’ll fight my way there, holding onto the allure of death until the very last second when I’m finally forced to give in and accept that Death is a more victorious opponent than me. Until then, our game will continue to be a race—her trying to lure me there and me luring her to try harder. A worthy set of opponents.
Squatting at the end of my burial site, I lightly brush my hand over the dewy grass, wondering when it’ll be disrupted by digging a six-foot hole. It’s a nice plot near the edge of the forest, close to where Krypt assaulted Remi’s throat over a dead girl’s body, the treeline encroaching on the place reserved for me. I don’t mind. I live and breathe for Moros, so if its tree roots want to keep me company in my coffin, I’ll allow it.
I wonder what the sky will look like from my supine position. Might as well look. Standing, I turn my back to it, spreading my arms wide. With calmness in my mind and the lightning all around me, I fall backwards with my eyes closed just to be dramatic.
But the grass and dirt don’t meet me with a hard impact. I fall through them, my heart jumping into my throat, and my morbid mind suspended in contrast, unsure if I’m happy to fall into my grave or pissed at it for tricking me.
The sod fooled me, the grass so alive I didn’t realize it'd already been disturbed. When I sink through it, letting it blanket my back, I panic internally but do nothing externally to prevent myself from falling into the hole already dug. I don’t grasp at the roots protruding from the sides, and I don’t turn my body to catch my fall. With a thump, I land on the grass I dragged in here, my ears ringing and my body jolted. Six feet of dirt surrounds me on all sides, the roots sneaking in to tickle me in a few places, caressing me and welcoming me home.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I’m in here, underground, so I might as well get a real feel for what it’ll be like. My heartbeat disrupts my attempt at deadness, thudding in my chest hard enough to prove I’m still alive.
Why do I feel so dead inside?
“Knew you’d look good down there. Comfy, sweetheart?”
I sigh and close my eyes. I do feel comfortable, actually. I’m not sure if it’s because death appears comforting or because my life is already so brutal and melancholy that any distortion in the monotony of my thoughts puts me at ease. I’m complicated that way. I love myself—I hate my mind. It’s an internal war I’ve been waging for years, doing everything possible to mask my puzzle pieces in confidence and only show the outside world my prideful ego. Moros needs a ghost, and Iamthat ghost, but I need somewhere else to run, a different escape, because my mind is no longer a safe place.
“Can you see them?” Riot asks from above. “ItisSamhain.”
I open my eyes and look left, wondering how many inches of soil block me from my brothers’ dead bodies. I look right, wondering the same about my dad’s casket of bones. Their souls aren’t here, and to be honest, I wouldn’t want to talk to them if I could. What would I say?
Sorry I fucked up and failed to notice your impending suicide because I was too selfish to think about anyone but myself?
No. I’m Soren Sauder, I don’t apologize, and I don’t fuck up and fail. Not outwardly. I bury my insecurities as deep as my family's bodies are buried, hidden from the intrusion of prying eyes, but never deep enough to hide from myself. And then I gaslight someone else into taking the blame and believing it.
“We both know you have no interest in talking to the dead,” Riot says, making me turn my head straight, looking up at him peering down at me. Lightning flashes beyond him, and like he’s God himself, he blocks the rain from hitting my cold but not yet dead body. His black clothing and dark, wavy hair drip rainwater down on me like he’s the only thing powerful enough to affect me in my gravesite. “You want to flirt.”
“Flirt with who?”
“Death.”
My flirting with death isn’t subtle or gentle. There are no coy looks or bashful blinking, no suggestive hints or licked lips. No, when I flirt with Death, I fucking scream at her. I throw dares at her, goading and riling her to step up her game. I want her flirting back just as brutally, making the trip to Hell seem so fascinating that there isn’t a chance I’ll be able to resist it. Honestly, she does a good job. Because it’s not death I crave. It’s the precipice, that ledge, the tipping point ofthislife andnolife. It’s the mingling of a beating heart and a body that functions to the realization that it’s faltering, failing, shutting down. And when I get to that point, where all will be lost within a second or two, I want to take that second or two to actually experience it. I want to live in that second or two. Not alive. Not dead. Somewhere in the middle. I almost got it when Riot drowned me in the pond.Almost.
“Thought you were chasing me straight to her?” I ask him, goosebumps lining my skin when the thunder booms. “Seems to me like you’re just following along. I got here all on my own.”
His feet thud on either side of my body, jolting me, but he pins me down with a hand to my chest, straddling my hips. I don’t fight him. Because the look he currently has in his eyes is exactly what I need from him. He’s not like Director who wants to rationalize with me. He’s not like Remi who worries for me. He’s not like Krypt, who protects me subtly. He’s Riot, ready and willing to indulge in my game and laugh with me when I make it to that one-or-two-second precipice. He’s here, in my grave, ready to push me even deeper. For how dark and twisted the Vile Boys are, Riot is the only one who has ever found my morbid game tantalizing.
When he presses on my chest, settling his weight on my hips, I sink into my grave. His eyes are bright grey, so much brighter than the night, flashing silver at me every time the lightning strikes. But his smile? Fuck, it’s one of his sickly charming ones. Not the same as the charm he throws at strangers to establish a bond of fake trust, but one that’s so pleasant it can only hint at something sinister. It’s so beautiful it’s deceiving.
“You sure you wanna be down here when I die, Riot?” I shift my hips, making him settle his weight right on my cock. “Trust me not to drag you under?”
His smile deepens. “Don’t trust you worth a shit,” he says. His hands slide up my chest and over my shoulders, caressing. “You’re making a mistake right now, Ghost.”
I don’t make mistakes. “Am I?”
Pulling something from above my head, he laughs at my nonchalance. When long roots of a distant tree wrap around my neck like a noose, I latch onto his wrists, pretending to stop him. Oh, I’m not making a mistake. He is.
“Think a little choking is a mistake? Asphyxiation is my kink, man.”
