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Dying wasn’t something he usually considered, not something that most people considered, preferring instead the eternal optimism of another tomorrow to the inevitable end. The end was inevitable, nevertheless, and one day he knew that morning wouldn’t come. He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
Deus had a cruel way of shortening life expectancy.
---
Arguably, tone was nearly impossible to decipher over digital means, the words flicking across the screen of his phone subject entirely to his own inflections. It hadn’t been the first time he’d seen the glorious (a term here used entirely lightly) saga of William ‘Rep’ Reid, but it had been the first time after a long month of bullying – both by monsters and by humans. The first time after his own moral stands had been called into question, and it was the first time he refused to simply stand by and watch.
It was no excuse, but he snapped, caving into the satisfying bite of sarcasm. Shiloh didn’t know much about Rep aside from the name and picture attached to his twitter handle, and what he gleaned from his feed and quite frankly, after days of reading slurs against types of people such as himself and countless others, he had no real desire to. Some actions were inexcusable, no matter how troubled the person was. Some behavior was just downright intolerable.
So he fought back. He’d spent a lifetime staying silent, bending beneath the wills that threatened to break him. After finding out that Deus only spelled more of the same, that it expected blind submission instead of promising freedom and hope, he was tired of bending, of playing nice, of being the bigger person. But there was no heroism in foolishness, no valiance in the level he sank to, and picking a fight with a grizzly was never a wise move.
He did it anyway. After all, Haruko was a bear trap.
And when he should have run, should have cowered like the rat that the Sun hunter expected, he stood, ready and waiting. He wasn’t afraid of standing up to Rep. His weapon gave him confidence, not to win, but at least to survive and usually that was enough, to just survive in the face of opposition, to be a thorn in the enemy’s side just by existing. He figured he’d get beat up a little, or maybe a lot, but nothing serious, nothing that he and Haruko couldn’t handle.
He’d expected a spar and in its place, he’d found an unstoppable nightmare. It swallowed him whole, the shadows sharp as knives as they bit into his skin and peeled away his flesh, as they bared and flayed his organs. And when the shadows dissipated all that remained was Rep and him and the blood spatter they’d left behind, his blood, red and shining and staining the grass he laid lifeless on. Unfortunate, seeing as he’d planned on having a tomorrow.
---
“Five more minutes, Mom,” Shiloh whined, reaching for the blankets with a shiver. It was freezing.
But there were no blankets, no anything and he opened his eyes. What a mistake. Shiloh had imagined a lot of things about his tomorrow, but waking up cold and alone and staring straight into the blank hollow eyes of the man who’d attacked him wasn't one of them. He yelled, retreating back in horror and, much to his surprise, right out of the pod he was occupying, the back of it obscuring the Rep from view.
It made absolutely no sense, he tried to pinch himself, tried to wake up from this nightmare but there was nothing, absolutely nothing, only cold. That was all he could distinguish, that he was cold and the fact that no matter how terrified he was, his heart wasn’t pounding in his chest, that his heart was in fact not moving at all.
He couldn’t feel anything.
---
He had planned on having a lot of tomorrows. All things considered, he was grateful for the life he had, and the decision he’d made to come to the island. Its freedom was limited in terms of geography but it seemed that individualism was at an all time high, people free to be whomever they wanted under the gold trimmed coats they all wore.
Shiloh had been able to be himself for the first time in his entire life, mostly. There were rules, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that infringed on who he was. He’d made friends among his fellow trainees, in particular a loud mouthed blonde, friends whose thoughts on his hair color ended at personal taste instead of a personal affront, friends whom he could laugh with, kick back with after the nightmares of duty subsided. They were friends who he cared for, and was incredibly glad to fight alongside.
He’d met Haruko, and though her constant presence had been strange at first, he slowly acclimatized to the Inugami resting sweetly in the corners of his mind. She was pleasant company, funny and adventurous and most of all she looked out for him. He could trust her with anything, and she happily obliged him, keeping all his secrets. She kept her judgments to the battlefield, both weapon, coach and cheerleader all rolled into one. More importantly, she was his partner, and as an extension of that, his friend, his comrade.
But of all the tomorrows he dreamed of, and of all the people he dreamed of them with, there was Ian.
Ian.
Just his name alone was a source of happiness, something Shiloh’d uttered countless times to himself, the letters bringing a smile to his lips as he thought of the man who’d so boldly kissed him that first time, his first time, and his second, and his third. He adored Ian, Ian was an inextinguishable bright spot on the island, and in his life, and he let Shiloh be exactly who he was, asking nothing in return but to share in his company.
He had wanted to spend a lot of tomorrows with him. With all of them.
---
Slowly, and after what seemed like a very long time, he calmed himself enough to venture back towards his pod, which was not very calm at all but he had to know, had to see. He ignored the one opposite and turned, with baited breath or lack thereof, to look at what he, with an increasingly sinking feeling, knew he was likely to find.
Himself.
His body lay still in the pod, unmoving.
Dead.
