I watched as Tshepang sank away, the latest to fall. What she said about looking at everything through a lense? She was right.

It was almost as if everything was happening in slow motion. Watching what happened to my friends, no the group, was unbelievable already without having to watch it through this filter.

Shadows, figures, whatever they were, moved constantly around the room. One in particular caught my attention. A figure moved at the back of the church between the choir chairs and piano.

It began to move closer, the little light (which flickered wildly with all the activity) illuminating some of the details.

It was a boy. A thin boy in a tracksuit pants and plain shirt moved as if every small thing interested him. As if all the things happening in the church didn't bother him at all.

The strangest thing though was when he moved. He didn't seem to move at all, I realized, but blur between spots.
His curly hair and wisps of a beard was somewhere between a sight for sore eyes and a living nightmare. I guess a dying nightmare.

"Zake." I breathed. I don't know whether it was relief or terror.

"I don't understand why you're hear." His voice was distorted, choppy even. "Unless you wanted to see what would happen to them."

He threw his head in a general direction, roughly referring to any one of his so called friends.

Seeing as then he was in front of me, I turned to the others. They still seemed to be moving in slow-mo, each in their own fatal or terrified positions but now I noticed something around them. They were surrounded by a shadow, each torturing them, tormenting them.

"Why..." My voice drifted on. "Why are you doing this to them?"

He finally turned to me. He looked the same as he was alive I suppose but his eyes told another story. I had read somewhere that Egyptians believed that the soul was split into a number of parts. Five, I believe. Yet in that moment it seemed his soul was literally confined to his eyes.

Images split and pierced my mind. Zake sitting at home, feeling alone. Crying in a corner at school. Talking to someone, his disgust and anger to each of his friends. All these images flew in seconds by, so fast I barely had time to register them but the overwhelming negative emotions.

"They deserve it." He whispered.

"What about me?"  He raised an eyebrow. "I hurt you. I never recognized your love. Never gave you another chance when you changed."

"This isn't about my misguided love for you, Shay. This is about honesty." Static electricity flared around him. "At least I knew I was wasting my time with you. With them I gave my all. I wasted time building bonds that were fake and disregarded the moment I wasn't there."

A muffled scream rang out. I whipped to see Toni desperately looking around as if multiple people were talking to her. No, not multiple people. Multiple voices.

"Shay,"When I moved my head back, he was standing right in front of me, his face inches away from mine.", I won't kill them. That would be too easy for them. They need to be punished.

"But that's why I'm here. You remember how everything disappeared? Kinda unexplainable?" I didn't respond. Suddenly a spark ran through me.

"I'm listening Zake! Jeez." I immediately felt guilty. Here I was complaining about a little shock compared to all the other things he'd done to the others.

"Good. I dragged my family down with me. Something felt my anger, my sadness and used it. That's how we died. It took us all though. When I stop, it won't end. My family. They're angry, confused. They don't understand why or what happened. They'll act out at you guys."

"I thought this is the end?" I cried out.

"Maybe for me. I'll probably just go down since I've forfeited all chances of upstairs." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "But you don't understand Shay, you won't be protected from my family."

"Zake, end it. This doesn't have to continue. You've got what you wanted." I pleaded. For the first time I felt like Zake wasn't a monster.

Even before he passed, I always considered him a monster. No matter how much he was there for me, no matter how much he loved me, I couldn't seem to forget how he treated me when we first went out. He was just a boy. A boy who really probably tried but because I was young and because no girl should go through what he did to me, I started harming myself. And because of that I never felt like I could be with him.

Now I regretted that. He had definitely changed but I had still viewed as a monster, the same monster, up until that point.

"I can't do much but I'll leave a part of my soul to protect you. I cannot do much for the others but I'll still protect you." He smiled. A genuine kind smile that I didn't know I missed.

"Goodluck Shay."