He was still alive. He knew because all of his senses forced him into awareness. Blinking lights blinded his tired eyes, bass vibrated in his stomach, the smell of weed overwhelming him. His mouth was dry. He needed something to drink, quickly, and lots of it.

Alex wasn’t sure how he’d even made it here. How he’d managed to get up and wash himself and dress up and get all the way to Min’s house without passing Youngbin’s on the way. Perhaps it was Margo’s patience, if you could even call it that.

Her tough love. Her violent love, maybe. Her insistence that Alex should come along and let loose and forget about all the worries and put on some fishnets because fishnet tights always made you feel better now matter what you were going through. Alex didn’t feel all that well. Despite the fishnets.

She’d planned his entire outfit. It was a halloween party after all, or rather a post halloween party. Still, costumes were mandatory. Alex was forced, kindly asked by Margo, to be a demon.

It seemed a little ironic. Maybe there was intent. Maybe it just seemed obvious to anyone around Alex to associate him with a demon. Maybe he was reading too much into a headband with little red horns on it.

His red top hugged his body, clung to his torso, a familiar feeling that, tonight, felt much more like he was restricted, like the harness around his waist was tying him up and holding him in place and keeping him from breathing. But he was here to let loose. As if that was possible. As if his own skin wasn’t suffocating him.

“If you see Lani, let me know.” Margo leaned a little closer to him so he could even hear her through the music.

“I’m pretty sure Lani’s gonna want to keep her distance from me.”

“Come on, now.” She tried to sound encouraging but Alex was right and Margo knew that.

“Don’t let that stop you from having fun, though. You don’t need to babysit me.” Alex looked around, trying to spot Min, or anybody willing to hand him alcohol.

Min’s house was huge and open and fit half the city. Their family was rich rich, and apparently didn’t give a shit about their child throwing unrealistically large house parties every month or so. To be completely honest, Alex had never even seen Min’s parents despite being friends with them for years now. Did they even have parents? Was Min even real?

“I’m getting a drink,” Alex decided, walking into the crowd. He wasn’t sure if Margo was going to follow him, and maybe he kind of hoped that she wouldn’t. She wasn’t his mother, wasn’t his caretaker, wasn’t his therapist, and he didn’t need her to protect him from himself tonight. Didn’t want her to. She didn’t have to see whatever shit he pulled tonight.

Truth was, if Margo knew how truly fucked Alex was, she wouldn’t have brought him here. But today she was probably just hoping for Alex to get medium drunk and forget about him for a bit and maybe hook up with whoever, and then get over it.

Medium drunk wasn’t going to be enough. Alex fully intended to stop feeling tonight. Like he’d done a while ago at Min’s pre halloween party. But worse. This probably counted as a form of self harm. Maybe he wanted it to be. He most definitely wanted it to be.

Squeezing past people he should’ve recognised but didn’t, Alex made his way towards the kitchen. Already emptied bottles were scattered on the marble counters, along with various kinds of bowls and snacks and halved lemons. The lights here were fluorescent and cold and disgusting, unlike the blue and red and purple ones outside and in the rest of the house. These lights made it easy to see the shit you were drinking. And easy to feel bad about it.

“Alex!” Who was that? “Dude, how are you? I haven’t seen you since the pre party!”

“Any drink recommendations, Wayne?” Alex leaned against the counter next to Wayne, who’d already gotten high off of something, it seemed like.

“How about, uuuh… glass of water? Eh?” He laughed at himself. Alex pretended to do the same. “Shots, maybe, of this stuff?” Wayne held up a bottle of something, a large bottle without a label, filled with something brownish. Alex shrugged.

“Whatever, mate. Why not? What is it?” Not that Alex really needed to know, grabbing a shot glass he hoped to be clean from a stack on the corner.

“Someone’s self made something. Some kinda moonshiner. Fucks though. Don’t drink too much of it.”

“I would never.” Alex held up his glass to Wayne, who filled it to the edge, then he filled his own glass, one that certainly wasn’t a clean one.

“Cheers, brother!” Wayne smiles, as if he ever didn’t smile, and Alex nodded, poured the liquid down his mouth.

God. Selfmade for sure. The liquor burned like shit, tasted bitter like he’d just sipped disinfectant with a hint of dirt. Alex couldn’t keep a straight face. Fucks, definitely.

“It’s great! Tastes like quince or something!” Wayne poured himself another glass, and Alex offered him his empty one again.

“Quince, totally. Tastes like the devil's piss or something.” And yet, he had another one. That shit was going to kill him faster than a knife to the heart.

“Cheeeers!” Wayne repeated, downed the shot, and Alex did so with him. Surprisingly, it didn’t get better the second time around. “Third round?”

“God, no. Maybe. No, no. Get me something else.”

Wayne spun around to look at the bottles on the counter, pondered each of them. He was good at mixing cocktails and drinks that didn’t taste like hell but were potent enough for Alex’ intentions. Despite all, his dignity hadn’t fallen enough just yet to drink the vodka straight from the bottle, no matter how tempting or effective.

“Okay… What’s this?” Wayne grabbed a bottle, held it up to his face as closely as he could. “Sure, whatever. I’ll take it. And then-“ Another blind reach into the bottles. Maybe he wasn’t that good at mixing drinks after all. Maybe it’d always been pure coincidence that he just so happened to grab the right bottles that produced a decent drink. Or maybe they’d never been decent at all and Alex was just desperate to get drunk. Like he was now.

“Real good stuff.” Wayne pressed a plastic cup into Alex’ hand, with a smile that couldn’t be less trustable.

“Of course,” Alex mumbled, “gotta be real good. Thanks, dude.”

“Only the best for my b… bestie bisexual.” Wayne gave a thumbs up. “Ally!”

“Great. So happy about that.” Alex took a sip, and it didn’t taste like shit. Well, kind of, but that was just the taste of alcohol. The kind of shittiness you could excuse. “I’ll piss off for now.” And so Alex threw himself back into the crowd.

That drink didn’t last long. Neither did the beer that came after, or the shots in between, obviously. How are shots supposed to last, anyways?

Alex had then grabbed a glass that someone had told him to taste. It was pure vodka. Alex knew that before he'd even accepted the shot, he knew that trick. Still accepted it, obviously, and smiled at the guy that'd offered it, and said that it was just water.

And then he'd finished what was supposed to be a cocktail from someone else he'd never seen before. It was shit, indeed. Not that it was undrinkable, though. Nothing had become undrinkable by now.

Once he’d stumbled into the kitchen and a guy that wasn’t Wayne poured him another drink, Alex had decided for himself that he was now adequately drunk. Decently so. Not that it was enough. The fact that he could even worry about how drunk he was and how much more drunk he wanted to be was an indicator that it wasn’t enough.

So was the fact that he was actually aware of the reason he wanted to be drunk, and actively had a goal to work towards, which was being so drunk that he wouldn’t remember why he was getting drunk. And hopefully he’d forget the word drunk as well while he was at it.

“Shots?” the guy that had handed him a drink asked, and for a couple of seconds Alex wasn’t sure if that was Wayne after all. It wasn’t. Alex had no idea who that was, he’d never seen him before, but he was hot. Wayne wasn’t.

Alex flashed him a smile, and the stranger took that as a yes. As it was intended. One hand holding the newly filled plastic cup, the other one clinked glasses with the stranger, then guided the shot glass to Alex’ mouth. He honestly couldn’t tell the taste anymore, just that it burned.

“Alex Hill, yeah?” He felt the boy's eyes on him. Wrong. That felt wrong. Reminded him of Demian’s gaze. Nobody’s stare had ever felt good on his skin, except Youngbin’s, but that fool had always looked away once he’d caught himself.

"That's me."

"Cool. Cool. Heard stuff about you."

Alex raised his brows. Well, yeah. It shouldn't have come as a surprise. Everyone always heard stuff about Alex. That kind of was his whole deal.

"Heard what?"

"Y'know. Had a coming out recently, apparently."

"Coming out," Alex repeated, gritting his teeth, then twisting his mouth into a grin. "It's called existing but apparently some people see that as a political statement." He took a sip from the drink the stranger had served him. Tasted like- Who was he kidding, Alex didn't give a shit. He chugged half of it.

"You gay or not?"

"Bi." Alex wasn't sure why he felt the need to correct him. He did so regardless.

"Single?"

"Depends on why you're asking." His eyes narrowed as he scanned the stranger. Hot, yeah. He had a small waist, which he was into, kinda, usually, should be into at least. He was into Youngbin's waist. This guy didn't particularly excite him. But when did anything ever do that.

"Actually, does it matter if you're single?"

"The fuck's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, I vibe with you. And if we vibe, we vibe. Plus, you do seem like the type of person to-"

"Type of person to what, asshole? To cheat with some motherfucker at a party?"

The stranger raised his brows now, one corner of his mouth twitching up into something like a smirk that Alex wanted to punch out of his face.

"Oh, hit a sore spot there, huh?" He grabbed a bottle and refilled Alex' cup to the brim again. "Not a cheater, but I heard you're a player."

"If you're trying to get me to fuck you, you're on a really shit path right now."

"There's such a thing as a hate fuck so I guess I'm good."

He could've just beaten that fucker up right this second. Alex could've grabbed one of the bottles standing next to him on the kitchen counter and swung it at that piece of shit and be fucking done. He could've just torn him apart with his bare teeth, right now. It was exactly what he'd been expecting of Alex, wasn't it? That grinning shitface was waiting to start bleeding.

"Go suck your own dick."

Alex turned around and left that fluorescent mockery of heaven that was the nearly empty kitchen to return to reality, the loud, sweaty, seizure inducing reality, or maybe it was another part of the afterlife as well. Maybe hell. Maybe purgatory. Yes, probably that. The act of thinking about smashing a glass bottle on that guy's head had probably been enough to be sent anywhere that wasn't heaven.

Not that this was the only sinful thought he'd ever had. He had 19 years worth of reasons to be cooked in a crowd of faceless demons for the rest of eternity.

The contents of his cup spilled over his hand as Alex moved himself into the mass of heat and bodies and drunkenness in the middle of the living room. Music emitted out of speakers and walls, bass pounding in his chest like some kind of electronic heartbeat. Everything around him moved at the same pace, to the same rhythm, and Alex wasn’t sure why he’d thrown himself into the middle.

He didn’t like dancing. He wasn’t dancing, this wasn’t dancing. He couldn’t even make out any more of the music other than its horrifyingly penetrating bass. Yet here he was moving side to side and spilling his drink over himself when he tried to take a sip mid movement. But it wasn’t a dance.

Nobody here danced, in fact. This was a ritual. A summoning, perhaps. Though Alex couldn't be sure what was being summoned, he had joined in, his body had. His mind certainly had no say in this, but he assumed that this was how it worked with those rituals. They happen, and your drunken body is drawn to join them.

It was way too fucking warm here. The strangers around him were glowing and radiating and burning, and so was his own body every time his skin came in contact with someone else's. Not that good heat. It hurt and stung, it felt sticky and sweaty and gooey, as if he stuck to whatever person he just ever so lightly brushed. Not that he could leave the mass of people though. The ritual wasn't over yet.

Someone came close to him, first a light touch of their arm, then the rest of their body moving against Alex'. He couldn't see the person's face, wasn't sure if they had one to begin with, and yet he felt stared at by them. He fucking resented that.

He chugged the rest of his cup down, most of which had been spilled all over his top and hands and the floor and probably various other people in the past few minutes. Surprisingly, he still resented the presence of whatever demon had rubbed themselves against him. This shit didn't even work. He was supposed to get drunk and then stop thinking and stop feeling and stop hating and start fucking whoever had come close enough to him. What other kind of bullshit did he have to take to stop being self aware and start being a remorseless horny asshole?

A hand wrapped itself around Alex' waist and he instantly recoiled. Fuck that. He stumbled back as though someone had just threatened him with a knife, bumping into the mass that had swallowed him earlier, and he decided that he didn't need to know where this ritual was going, he didn't want to summon anything. He didn't want to be touched, not by faceless demons, not by anyone.

Out of the living room, out of that strange church of neon lights and sweaty rituals, Alex made his way through the hallways of Min's house that he'd explored many times, and every time he did, he was drunk. This house was a labyrinth that reformed every time he entered, leading him into a brand new trap each time he dared to explore it.

He had no more to drink. That was his priority. Find a drink. Or find weed. Or find pills he didn't know he'd be able to survive. Kitchen was off limits, not while that asshole of a tempter was still there waiting to have his head smashed into a wall.

Downstairs. Beneath the hellish labyrinth was a basement, accessible by lift as well as a flight of stairs outside. A calmer area. A break from purgatory and cult practices. If only Alex remembered where the fuck the lift was.

It wasn't here, certainly not. He was- Where?

He blinked slowly, his eyes getting used to the warm light, a welcome piece of reality reminding him that he hadn't crossed the circles of hell after all. He didn't remember walking in here. He didn't remember going anywhere, turning on the light, closing the door behind him. Alex inhaled. Steadied himself as he leaned against the closed door behind him.

This was Min's room. Everything around him fell quiet. The party ended in an instant, and Alex stared at an untouched, peaceful part of this hellish house.

Posters of basketball players stared at him, pictures of Min and Wayne and Demian and himself and so many people he'd seen in passing. Pictures of Min before they were Min. Trophies and makeup scattered on drawers and shelves. Pride flags on walls, albums stacked neatly next to a CD player, curtains pulled shut.

Alex felt the ground beneath his feet, now more than ever. He put his hand on his chest, feeling his heart, making sure it was still beating. It was. Rapidly so. His hand then glided further down his body, towards his stomach, his waist, where someone had touched him just now.

He felt the metal and leather of his harness underneath his fingers. It was tight and uncomfortable and now he was way too aware of its existence. A blurry image of Youngbin flashed before his eyes. Alex inhaled sharply as though he could feel his touch on him.

His mouth was still dry.

He turned off the lights, and quickly fled Min's room, just to be thrown back into the afterlife.

Alex had been right. More drinks downstairs. He'd stopped putting in the effort to find an empty and ideally unused cup and started confiscating entire bottles for himself. The empty one he had grasped onto tightly had been half empty anyways when he'd found it. He didn't know what it was. The label was unreadable in the low pink lights anyways. But it'd been fine. A little dry. Probably just wine. Hopefully.

Alex had sunk into one of the couches in the back rooms of Min's basement. Someone else was there. A girl? She was dancing. The music wasn't as loud down here. She wasn't dancing to the music audible to everyone else anyways. She looked happy. She'd taken something. Alex would've asked for the same shit, but he didn't think she'd hear him. He didn't think he'd have the energy to speak up, either.

The couch was lovely, swallowing Alex' limbs, his heavy body that'd turned more into led with every sip he'd taken from his bottle. He couldn't move. He didn't want to move. He never had to move again. He could've fallen asleep like this. For a while. For hours. Or years. The girl dancing wouldn’t have noticed if he fell asleep now without a chance to wake up. She would've kept dancing. The world would've kept turning.

How harsh. How mean. How... unromantic. That things would've continued to exist even if he ceased to do so.

Alex moved again, finally. His head hadn't stopped. His mind was still eating him up from the inside. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wasn't meant to continue to be a sad fuck. Why didn't it work? Why did nothing ever work? Why wasn't he a mindless shell of himself just yet? Why wasn't he forgetting every single letter that spelled out Youngbin's name?

His legs had moved without his permission, his arms reaching for yet another bottle of poison, slowly, and Alex could watch them act without being able to prohibit them from moving. They didn't belong to his body anymore.

No, his body didn't belong to his mind anymore. His body did exactly what it was supposed to do, act without reason, move without care, but his fucking mind was still there and still awake and still racing.

He was still thinking. Alex was so sure that he'd stop. That his brain would turn off and his body would go into autopilot. Wasn't it always like this? Wasn't it like this last time as well? Wasn't it the whole god damn reason he drank? Because he was supposed to stop using his brain?

Alcohol touched his tongue once again. What was it? How did it taste? How much was he drinking, how much closer did it bring him to death? His stomach turned in rebellion against those liquid demons. Alex was back on the sofa and the girl was gone and the room around him had begun to spin.

And why the fuck was he still miserable? Why was he still a god damn fucking loser, a pathetic little piece of shit, some lonely cunt dying in someone's basement when he was supposed to shut off every last brain cell? Why was he angry? Who was he angry at?

The bottle was only half filled, but had been full just a second ago. Where the fuck did anything go? Why was he still here? Why could he still feel the alcohol biting his throat every time he took a swing of the bottle?

This was a fucking scam. This was a lie, and Alex didn't know who'd told him that he'd feel alright- no, that he'd feel nothing once he had enough to drink. Because clearly he felt something. He felt regret and anger and sickness and pain somewhere in his body and he felt like god was about to come down to his level and let him know how he was the single most disappointing human being he'd ever created and that he'd lost all faith in humanity because of Alex, the worst fuck up ever.

But god wouldn't come down from the heavens himself, would he? Not for someone like Alex. He'd be sending someone else to do the dirty work. He'd send an angel. An angel with the most disgusted face Alex had ever seen.

The angel sat down next to Alex, and he felt the couch underneath his body once more.

"God, you're pathetic," the angel said, her halo, fastened to a headband with two flimsy wires, wiggled as she sunk further into the sofa.

"Fuck off. Stop speaking to me."

"Dude, you've had way too much to drink. You smell like-" The angel stopped in her tracks, shook her head. "Sorry. You're going through it, I'm guessing?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"I thought you were oh so good at handling breakups?" Her voice was both mocking and sad. Alex didn't know if angels could die but he would've been ready to test it here and now. Until he remembered that technically, he'd made up with the angel a week ago. And then he remembered that this “making up” had in turn led to yet another breaking up, and suddenly Alex couldn't remember if he was supposed to hate Leia or not.

"Sorry," she said, and it was impossible to know if she was serious. "It's looking rough, huh." The mockery had disappeared from her tone now, and left was just sadness.

"I'm fine," Alex blurted out. Leia rolled her eyes. He was pretty sure that he'd said this exact sentence to her before, and that never once she'd believed him. Because nobody ever really did.

"You look like shit. Listen, I heard that you and Youngbin- Well." And how was that her problem? Why did she need to talk about that? "I didn't expect you guys to... end it so soon. Especially because I had this whole rant and then you did end things-"

"Yeah. Great, you were right, I was wrong, 'm shit at relationships-"

"Alex, that's not what I said. I'm sorry things didn't last."

"Fuck you." His body had gone into autopilot again. Had started to just say whatever it felt like without consulting that sad excuse of a brain first. Had done what Alex had expected it to do, act without thinking, except that he was still fucking thinking, but unable to do anything about it.

"Yeah, because that's gonna help. Listen, I-" Leia sighed, pulled down the fur adorned trim of her short white dress. "Y'know, in any other situation I probably would've given in and used that chance of... well, you being single and both of us being drunk and made a move on you."

Leia rolled her eyes at her own sentences. Alex didn't quite hate the thought as much. Well, no, he did hate it. Because he hated Leia and hated kissing her and hated knowing that she was actually a good kisser, unlike kind of everyone else Alex had ever kissed (this didn't include Youngbin, who'd been the best kisser he'd ever met).

"But," Leia said with a little more confidence in her voice, now faced Alex and looked him directly into his eyes, "you're way too pathetic right now and I honestly don't think we should be anywhere close to each other, and especially I think we shouldn't be kissing because I don't think you have a working brain right now."

Did that matter, actually? If Alex' brain was working? Wasn't that the whole deal with drunk makeouts with your ex, that neither of you had a working brain and just did it for the sake of it?

Alex scanned Leia's face, blurry and as unclear as she had ever been, her features barely visible in the dim lighting. She was pretty. Had always been pretty. Had been especially pretty ever since she'd cut off her hair.

Now, if the two did do something, right now, on the couch in this empty basement room, wouldn't that be an indicator that Alex had in fact moved on from Youngbin? He took a long sip from his bottle. He didn't intend to get back together with her, but if they, just once, made out maybe, surely that'd make him feel better. That'd make him feel loved.

"What if I wanted you to kiss me, though?" Alex asked, and Leia's eyes brimmed with frustration, then sadness once again.

"You don't, Alex. You really don't want me to." She turned away from him again, crossed her arms as she leaned back. "Maybe you want to pretend like you want someone else but I really don't think-" She exhaled. "If you're looking for a distraction, I don't think I can be that. I actually don't think anyone can be that for you right now."

"I'm not-" He was looking for a distraction, actually. That was exactly what he was looking for. A reason to no longer think about Youngbin. Of course this didn't work. Leia wouldn't make it work.

To think that he could use Leia to get over Youngbin- Hadn't he used Youngbin to get over- Alex groaned, took one long sip from his bottle, then dropped it, letting it slide out of his hand onto the floor where it cracked and shattered, its contents spilling.

The noise made him flinch, and Leia gasped and quietly cursed. Again. Again. Another broken bottle. But he didn’t mean to break it this time, he didn’t mean to- Did it ever matter what he meant to do, though? It never had. Who had ever cared about the cause, the intentions of Alex’ actions, when they only ever could see the mess he’d make as a result of it?

"Alex, you shouldn’t be here anymore." Leia’s voice had become a lot firmer, more serious, less sorry. "You need to get your ass home right now."

She'd stood up, towering over him as Alex realised, once again, what he'd done. He'd never learn. He'd never learn. He'd never fucking learn until the day he'd cut himself open on the shards and bleed out.

"Where the fuck is Margo? I'm getting her, you've absolutely fucking ruined your-"

"And why do you care?" Not again. Not again. Please, please, please, she still cares, after all that time she still cares, don't do this to her. "The fuck are you even talking to me? Just fuck off, I don't fuckin'- need your help or any of that shit, just leave me alone and let me rot in fucking peace, just-"

Leia had left already.

The room was empty. Alex rolled off the sofa, and his eyes stung and hurt and his legs threatened to give in and gravity was pulling on his body to drag it down into the deepest pits of hell and yet he made it up the stairs.

Fuck Leia. Fuck Margo. Fuck Youngbin. Fuck Youngbin.

The cold air stung in Alex' face when he had finally managed to crawl out of the grave that was the basement, a shiver running down his body. He dug for his phone, his fingers shaking as he tried to unlock it.

Fuck Youngbin. Fuck any of this. Fuck life and feeling and fuck Youngbin for not feeling. Fuck Youngbin for breaking his heart. Fuck Youngbin for everything and all the good things he'd done and all the bad things Alex had decided to turn them into. Fuck him for-

» Sure I’ll be there asap «

A week old message taunted Alex as he opened the chat between him and Youngbin. The last one sent. The last one before everything had ended, painfully and bloody and definitely. His thumb moved over the screen, and pressed some button, and then his mouth opened, and words tumbled out, and Alex couldn’t hear himself anymore. Then he pressed another button, and another one, and lastly one that said “confirm”. And then it was over.

He didn’t know what it was, but something was over.

Alex breathed in. The November air bit through the thin fabric of his top, right into his skin, yet his face felt as though it was about to catch fire.

Someone called his name.

Alex stepped forward into the garden, the ground underneath his feet uneven, making him lose his balance. He could hear a buzz, and faint music, and voices, and splatter of Min’s pool, and someone calling for him.

The pool looked peaceful. Silent and serene, lit up in blue, the water’s surface untouched, completely smooth, while ripple after ripple was moving through Alex’ body. His stomach turned with every step he took towards the water. Someone called his name. Alex finally turned around.

He didn’t know who the person approaching him was, exactly. But they knew who he was. Of course. Who didn’t know him, after all?

The person said something, and Alex said something back. Words that effortlessly rolled off his tongue. Surely something he’d said plenty of times before. He didn’t know what exactly it was, but it didn’t seem to be particularly good.

The person in front of him was swaying side to side. Just as drunk as Alex. Maybe not as drunk.

“‘S it true that you got dumped?” The words now sounded clear as day, cutting through the buzzes and gurgles of Alex’ surroundings.

“The fuck’s your businesses?”

“Just wanted to know.”

“Why, you wanna fuck me?” Of course that person did. Everyone always wanted to fuck Alex. Everyone wanted him. When has anyone ever not wanted him?

“Y’think I’m gay?”

Alex shrugged. Didn’t matter. Everyone wanted Alex. Always.

The stranger said something else, and Alex shrugged again. Their words faded into background noise again. Then he answered, but his own words got lost between emotions and nausea and thoughts and the sudden realisation that the floor underneath Alex’ feet had begun to shake and spin.

The person asked something and Alex answered, and then they stepped closer to Alex, and said something else, and Alex answered again, words that not him but a bubbling feeling of anger was picking. Something bad was said, and Alex couldn’t remember which one, or who exactly had said them.

Regardless, his voice became louder, and so did the other person. And then there was another voice, and another one. And more people began talking, and the ground was still shaking, and heat brimmed in his eyes. Someone was shouting. At him? Why exactly were they shouting at him?

He said something else, like a growl, then a bark. Perhaps the bark had been too much.

The face of the stranger twisted in anger, his mouth opened wide, words escaped it that Alex couldn’t hear. Someone called his name. A yell that hit him as a fist was now dashing towards him.

A sharp pain flashed from his face through his entire body, accompanied by a feeling of nothingness, a complete emptiness replaced every bit of nausea in his body, every crack and scream and noise the world could possibly produce melted into a single high pitched inhuman cry.

And then he fell. And continued to fall. And then he hit the ground, but the ground gave in, swallowed him whole, ice cold, freezing, hungry for his body. It grabbed him and pulled him down and down and down and it pushed the air out of his lungs, it froze his blood, it clawed into his skin, it gouged his eyes out.

And then, Alex was gone. An ocean had swallowed him, and his body sank into the darkness like a rock, and at the bottom of it, judgement was waiting.

Chapter 31 - PARTY POISON AND NEON GODS

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