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Andeon was not dying for a woman he loved. He was not throwing his life away over some stupid teenage romance that was likely to end in a drunken affair or childish argument. He was not about to be torn apart so that he could achieve some ideal, heroic death. There was no notion that this was a 'good' death, a significant death. In the larger picture, he was just another face. Just another name. Just another stupid teenage kid with a sad story and a propensity for running away from it.

And only now, only when he could stand there and face Linarite with the full knowledge and feeling that he deserved this, that he had earned this by squandering his life with running, did he feel like he had achieved the ultimate goal of really, truly living. If only for a moment. He had spent his entire life escaping with booze, with denial, with skirt-chasing and name calling. Only now, when it was him or the both of them, did Andeon turn to face everything he'd ever run away from.

Fear.

Anger.

Admitting to yourself for just one moment, just one <********> second, that the world was not a story or a song. There was not always a happy ending, and no amount of running was ever going to change. Life was simply.. that. It was living, through the good and the bad, and accepting it. However sudden the understanding, however brief the realization, Andeon felt as though finally... he was ready to face a punishment years in the making.

But Mackenzie had other plans.

Brave, bold, wonderful Mackenzie, who was not so ready to go down. Her boldly spoken words brought a swell of pride. If he was to die tonight, he could not imagine a better person to be standing by his side. However, he was not willing to see Mackenzie die just to fulfill that imagining. So he watched in horror as she fired at the blue-haired woman. He reached for her, as though he might be able to tear the gun away. If he could give her no choice but to run, maybe she would still get out alive. But his hands fell short.

The room was spinning, and suddenly Andeon was being lifted nearly off of his feet. The tips of his bare toes dragged the floor as the youma's hand wrapped around his neck and lifted with strength that it certainly had not possessed while alive. The pressure was immense, and Andeon could feel his heart beating in his head as the thing squeezed tightly. He was ready to die, but not like this. Oh God, not like this. His hands clawed at the monster who held him tightly, his legs kicking uselessly against its body. It didn't budge, nor did it's grip loosen.

Andeon turned his gaze on Mackenzie, and with a hoarse voice, he gasped one final plea.

“Run.”

And suddenly, everything was going to be okay.

He watched as the bullet tore through the blue-haired woman's head, and suddenly it was as though the world had slowed down. A wave of relief consumed Andeon as he saw her head tilt back as the bullet shattered the side of her skull. Her golden eyes went wide with shock, her hair floating up around her face as her body sank in a slow, graceful twist. He watched her dying expression as he head briefly rebounded off of the hard floor, her lips slightly parted as though her dying words hung, unspoken, upon them. The blood splattered against the opposite wall and pooled slowly over the dirty linoleum.

And they were alright.

They were alive.

With their mistress dead, the monsters would be mindless. They would release him, and he would run after Mackenzie. The woman who had saved him twice that night. They would run like hell back to the safe haven of the Tallahasse base camp, and he would hug her tightly as they laughed together with relief, glad to simply be alive and together. Breathing. Laughing. Still with a chance to get out of this hellish misery that had consumed their lives. They would relate the tale of their heroism to the rest of the team, and Andeon would rub it in Sue's face that they had been perfectly fine without him.

Because Mackenzie had saved him.

And they would get out. In time the monsters would die off, one by one. Their classmates would find peace as they crumbled to ash and left the world behind them. Whatever strange force bound them to this place would be lifted, and they would move on. They would hug and kiss and say their goodbyes until they all found a new school. They would return home to families and loved ones. He would look Mackenzie in the eye and kiss her forehead before he watched her climb into the car, driving off to her very own Happily Ever After.

His mother, who had so long blamed him for Jakob's death, would finally understand. She would welcome him home with open arms and hug him tightly. She would tell him how she knew he had suffered. How he had blamed himself more than she ever could. After years of separation, she would let him cry against her shoulder. He would bury his face in her hair and remember the way it had always smelled of the same shampoo. She would hold him tightly as he sobbed, apologizing over and over. And she would forgive him. She would forgive him, and he would finally feel that hole in his heart heal over.

This was the ending Andeon Boskovic created for himself as that last bullet tore through the right lens of those rose-colored glasses, exposing the world for what it truly was.

And in the real world, where his head rocked back with the force of the shot, only one similarity would remain between his fantasy ending and the sick, sad reality of it all.

Mackenzie O'Connell had saved him.

Scuttlescuttlescuttle.

The tiny youma came crawling out of the darkness, summoned by the familiar clink, clink, clink of Andeon's glasses bouncing away across the linoleum, having fallen from his face when the youma's dropped his body. Snuzzles scuttled across the floor, making a cacophony of horrible scratching noises in the process. He dragged his two broken legs from when the awful awful first boy had stomped on him behind him; they were bandaged with popsicle sticks now, wrapped tightly with tape that his Andeon had found. He dragged himself along, clicking scoldingly at his Andeon as he scooped the pink lenses up on his back and lifted them from the grimy floor.

One lens was cracked in a spiderweb-like pattern, the other shattered completely. The rose-colored world was now only the mundane shades of gray and red that lay beyond the frames, now bent into a shape that would no longer fit onto the boys face. Or wouldn't if he had one still attached to his body to fit, anyways.

His Andeon was always so careless.

Clickclickclick, Snuzzles chattered as he skittered across the floor to where Andeon lay, his head having vanished. Snuzzles clicked, curious to where his Andeon's head had run off to. Well, surely it would be back soon enough. Of course, someone like his Andeon could do all sorts of things. Someone like his Andeon could have their head come and go as they pleased. They could take a bullet, like his Andeon had done. They could take a thousand bullets and simply bounce back to their feet. Someone like his Andeon could protect small youma like Snuzzles from people who wished to stomp on him. He could carry him around so that he felt safe and big and strong.

His Andeon could do anything.

Snuzzles skittered mindlessly over Andeon's bare foot, chattering with a series of condescending clicks and screes as he made his way through the expanding pool of blood. He stopped just short of Andeon's hand, legs prodding at the fingers so that Andeon might retrieve his broken glasses and return them to where they belonged once his head had returned. He hopped a few times, excited to be helping his Andeon, and prodded the boy's palm again, chittering all the while.

His Andeon did not move.

Snuzzles prodded, and again, Andeon did not move. He did not reach out to take his glasses, patting Snuzzles on his hard little shell and letting him know what a good little monster he was. He did not clean them on the hem of his shirt or smile down at the little youma who had retrieved them. He simply lay there, headless and bleeding.

With growing agitation, Snuzzles scuttled up the hand and over Andeon's blood-soaked jacked. He hopped from the protruding bone of the boy's shoulder and onto the pale neck. Clicking his annoyance, Snuzzles prodded the edge of the raw, jagged line where his neck ended quite abruptly. He hopped once again, drumming his two front legs against Andeon's throat in an attempt to rouse his body. Having no head himself, he did not understand the need for one. Surely his Andeon was just asleep. His Andeon slept so much; he did not need so much sleep.

But still, his Andeon did not move.

Agitation turned to worry, and Snuzzles peered down the dark, open hole of Andeon's throat. The smell of alcohol and bile greeted him. Aha! Of course, his Andeon had just been drinking. Snuzzles clicked again, as though laughing, and gave a relieved little jump. He skittered in a few wide circles over Andeon's bloody chest and clicked as loudly as he could. His Andeon needed to wake up! Snuzzles had eaten all of the tissue in his box and needed more. He had knocked over the table in the base camp while running into the leg, and there were things all over the floor that needed to be picked up. He clicked loudly, furiously, tapping his legs against the pale chest. He needed a new washcloth, he'd lost his and it was awfully cold at night.

His Andeon did not wake.

With a loud, angry little scree, the little youma jumped from Andeon's chest, scuttling a few feet away. He turned, and sped towards his friend as fast as he could, colliding with his side. Again he scuttled off, throwing himself at Andeon's body in a desperate attempt to wake him. Again. Again. Again. His angry screes turned to low-pitched sounds of mourning, pleading little clicks for the boy to wake up. Over and over, the littlest youma threw himself at Andeon's side. He relentlessly flung himself at Andeon's body, the broken glasses falling off of his back in the process. They bounced off to one side. Again, Snuzzles retrieved them from the floor, and carried them on his back as he threw himself against his Andeon, screeching pathetically with each failed attempt.

Only when his little legs were exhausted, when he could no longer lift himself to carry on the barrage, did the little youma let out one long, mournful sound as he finally understood. As well as any youma could understand.

His Andeon could not wake. He did not know why, he did not understand it. But his Andeon could not wake.

With the last bit of his strength, the little youma dragged himself up the boy's body, screeing pathetically as he made his way across the pale limbs. Snuzzles curled up on the boy's still chest, wriggling his cracked little body underneath one of the limp arms that crossed it. With a few quiet, mournful clicks, the little youma folded his legs beneath himself.

He would wait here.

He would wait here until his Andeon woke up. And when he did, he would see that Snuzzles had waited. He would pick him up and take him to his warm, safe shoebox. His Andeon would cover his Snuzzles up with a washcloth and tuck him beneath his bed. He would say 'Goodnight Snuzzles', and smile down at his little monstrosity.

He would wake, and he would see that his Snuzzles had waited for him.

Even if it took forever.

How long had it been since Fallon had last seen Andeon? Or since she had butchered her classmate Esen and then dined on the bodies of her and Lucas? Time did not have any meaning to the young girl, not anymore. What was reality? Was it Barren Pines? Was it this new version of her school? And what of her parents? Were they even real? Did she even have a dying French grandmother?

Fallon moved through the school like a ghost, belly swollen with the life drained from two other students, lips and chin covered in blood -- some her own. It congealed over her narrow chin, sickly curdles clinging to each spot of bare flesh. Her uniform was no better, stained like the used drop cloth of a room painted red.

Even after slaughtering and devouring Esen and Lucas, Fallon had not snapped out of her psychotic meltdown. She had not, like she always did, put back the pieces of her mind until everything was back to normal. The foundation of her mind had been pressed too hard this time, rocked too strongly by impulses she felt powerless to control, a tiny boat tossed back and forth in the waves created by some unseen figure. God? Fallon wasn't certain. She was caught in a chronic psychosis, helpless to force her mind back to the person she was before she allowed violence to command her body.

When the hunger had died down, Fallon made a decision. She needed to find someone who could remind her of her humanity, who would snap her out of this. It was a tiny sliver of sanity in an otherwise jumbled mass of emotions and passions and fears. Andeon. He had shown her what she was. Would he accept her now? Would she still be his Fells, drenched in blood and reeking of death? The school seemed so much smaller now, the world a quiet street leading out of an empty field.

She smelled him. It probably should have surprised Fallon to smell him so strongly, to feel the satiated hunger in her gut bubble ever-so-slightly. It was not until she was standing beside his body that she realized why: the blood. His blood, everywhere. Fallon did not react, her face a placid lake. Stillness. She appeared like a monster from the worst kind of movie, but still, she could not summon a reaction. Fallon stared at the destroyed body of Andeon, and for a moment, she feared that she had done this. Perhaps she had blacked out? Came and ripped his head clean from his body in a crazed daze? No... it wasn't true. But it could have been, couldn't it? The thought made a beam of self-hatred ricochet up her spine like a lightning bolt.

Fallon spotted Snuzzles curled up on Andeon's chest, but she made no move to touch the tiny youma. After a few moments of quiet staring, Fallon turned in the opposite direction, and slowly left the room, headed for the woods. She did not want to see him like that -- dead, beheaded, destroyed -- for any moment longer. Having just eaten twice, she did not feel compelled to fall to her knees and lap his spilled blood from the cracks in the floor, but the thought had crossed her mine. A few more minutes standing there... who knew if her resolve would hold? Fallon refused to betray Andeon in that way, even if it meant walking away from his corpse without a word. Her steps were practiced, almost like a ballerina, the tiny clicks giving the hallway a heartbeat, a pulse. Zombie Pines -- a living, breathing beast. Andeon was supposed to remind Fallon of her humanity, of the importance of controlling the violence that swam against the current of an otherwise happy girl, but now, he was dead.

There was no one else to save her.