My chest is throbbing with deep purple bruises that should very well be gunshot wounds. Every breath that passes through these blackened lungs feels as if I'm swallowing fire. Maybe I have a couple of cracked ribs, it's no big deal really.

But they didn't get me, Mello.

Nothing else exists right now. No buildings, no streets, no sky, no people. You will be the only thing I'll ever allow myself to see in this endless white void. I'm running as fast as my body will allow, wrecklessly searching. Searching for you as the smoke fades and the ashes settle. Searching for you like I'd done my entire life. You're so close. I can feel it like a hand wrapped around my throat, like a vice slowly crushing my insides and extracting my very last breath.

There you are, Mello.

I immediately try to stop, but my injuries have dulled my reflexes and the momentum I've built up sends me crashing to my hands and kness before you. And in the space of a second, in that very moment I gaze into those pale eyes and know there's nothing left in them, I truly begin the beautiful process of dying. Some say that process begins the moment you're conceived, that life just bleeds out of you from the start. They're wrong. So wrong. My life began the moment my name graced your lips, my beloved friend, and it will end with your name on mine.

But something is not right. I glance up and see her in the distance, completely motionless and staring. This is all her fault. She was the one who wrote you away from me, my Mihael Keehl. She doesn't belong here. I'll make her go away.

I'll do it for you, Mello.

I'm not certain how I ended up on top of her, it's all such blur. But right now I'm pressing all of my weight onto my hands as they close tighter and tighter around her neck. She fights and flails and struggles beneath me, but a few quick skull bashes into the ground make her easier to manage. I can feel something crumple and break against my grip, and her body finally stills. That last little gasped breath before her trachea is destroyed, I lean in close and steal it right out of her mouth. Her eyes gaze into mine with the same vacant expression as yours now. I hope she can still see me somehow, I want her to see this almost joyous grin twisted across my lips before she goes off to burn. Slowly, I roll off of the "goddess", like so many other men have done before me I'm sure, and crawl back to my rightful place by your side.

I collapse beside you, laying the way I would as if we were safe in our bed. You're laying on your back, arms and legs splayed out, head turned in my direction. I rest my head on your shoulder, remembering how this should feel. Warm and alive, your arms should be wrapping around me by now. I try to convince myself that if I stare long enough, I'll be able to see the slow rise and fall of your chest as I lay here with you. That always put me to sleep before. It's been such a long day and I just want this to be over. We can both just go to sleep and wake up tomorrow. Together, the way it should be.

Just you and me now, Mello.

You still have the gun, tucked neatly into the waist of your pants. I reach over and take it from you, my finger gently stroking the trigger as I ease the cold, black metal upward. Is this what it makes you feel? Is this almost serene sensation building in the back of my head what you experience as you hold this thing? The power to erase someone's very existence, right in the palm of my hand. It feels a bit strange, scraping against my teeth and the roof of my mouth. I can hear your voice in my head now, begging me not to leave you alone, pleading with me to go with you. My finger tenses. And then I feel the most glorious spark as it flashes and crackles behind my eyes.

Don't be afraid, Mello.

My memories splatter against the ground in a myriad of red, grey, and white as the gun drops between us. Your favorite color is black, our first kiss, you bought me the entire Street Fighter collection for my birthday two years ago, I hate it when you chew with your mouth open, the last time you told me you loved me... Memories I won't need anymore. I'll give them all to this vast white void as it swallows me whole.

Perhaps people are wrong about dying instantly after blowing your brains out though. Because I can still see you in these divine moments, I'm still staring deeply into your eyes. But it's different now. You're different. I open my mouth to speak, but there's only silence. Silence until those almost angelic lips of yours form words that bring tears of joy to my eyes.

I knew you'd follow me, Matt.

Author's Notes... Just a very abstract, very dark idea I had. And now I'm depressed.