Gasoline fire. It burned so differently to any other fire, turning the air to a rancid smoke that smelt of decay and toxicity. The smell panicked Virgil, making his head spin and his thoughts speed up to a frenzy. Virgil felt like he was choking on his own lungs every time he smelt it. It reminded him of the day he died...

The house was on fire. Someone had left his mother's hair curlers on the carpet while they were still hot and now there was fire everywhere. Virgil, in a panicked moment of utter stupidity, fled to the garage. It had seemed safe enough at the time. That was before he knocked over the canister of gasoline and spilt it on his clothes and skin. Virgil backed away from the approaching fire that was barely outside of the door when he smelt gasoline burning. The trail of gasoline leading up to him was quickly lighting and trailing along the floor towards him. Virgil jumped away from the jaws of the flame just a moment too late. The fire devoured his clothes and was on his bare skin in mere moments. He screamed, the pain had taken over his senses and was all that he could process. The fire fighters had arrived in time to save him from the fire but he hadn't made it to the hospital before he was dead. The smoke in his lungs coupled with the third degree burns covering more than half of his body had killed him in a few minutes after being brought from the blaze. He had been dead for a decade.

***

Sea water. If anything scared Patton more, he had yet to find it. He died to the sea. A horrific storm hit his boat and he was pronounced dead on land three days before he actually died to the merciless depths. Patton avoided the sea at all costs. He never went down to the beaches and never left his home of a tree house he had built twelve years prior to his death. He watched the world go by without him on his okay days, played with dogs on the good ones and hid in his tree house on the worse ones. He had spent seventy years dead.

***

Knives, blades, anything sharp. If it could cut you, it scared Roman. He had been a victim of a sword fighting accident one hundred and sixty-five years before. It was a horrible way to go. The sword pierced to his rib, which shattered on the spot and punctured both his lung and cut his left brachiocephalic vein. He died quickly after and wandered the small woodland area near his hometown in order to avoid all of the mass amount of weapons the world had to offer.

***

"Come on! What have you got to loose, Logan?"
"An hour of my life, my life, my soul and a number of other things"
"Ugh, you're so boring!"
"And I am also probably the reason you managed to survive past the age of fifteen."
"Fine. I'll do it alone then"
"That is one of the three ground rules that you are going to break. Number one: do not play alone!"
"Please play with me then?"
"Fine, but only so you don't get yourself killed."
"Yes!" Damien shouted as he opened the box. The Ouija board inside was the same as the one on the cover. Logan picked up a piece of paper and a pen and placed his first two fingers of his right hand on the placard. Damien placed his index fingers on the placard and Logan spoke.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" The placard began to move. Yes.
"Hello, what is your name?" P-a-t-t-o-n
"Hello, Patton. Is there anyone else here with you?" Yes. V-i-r-g-i-l R-o-m-a-n
"Hello, Virgil and Roman." H-e-l-l-o
"So there are three spirits in the room with us?" Yes. J-u-s-t u-s.
"So, how did y'all die?"
"Damien! These are ghosts! You can't just ask that!" O-k-a-y. R-o-m-a-n s-w-o-r-d i-n a-c-c-i-d-e-n-t. P-a-t-t-o-n d-r-o-w-n-e-d i-n s-e-a. V-i-r-g-i-l b-u-r-n i-n f-i-r-e.
"Do you know how we're gonna die?"
"No! Don't ask that, dumbass!" Yes. C-a-n-t t-e-l-l o-r y-o-u d-i-e b-e-f-o-r-e y-o-u-r-e s-u-p-p-o-s-e-d t-o
"So we are supposed to die on a certain day?" Yes. L-o-g-a-n 1-2-0-3-1-8. D-a-m-i-e-n 1-2-0-3-1-8.
"So we die on the same day?" Yes.
"You are aware that that is tomorrow, correct?"
"We die tomorrow?!" Yes. S-o-r-r-y.
"I hate to ask, but is our death supposed to be painful?" No. L-i-k-e f-a-l-l-i-n-g a-s-l-e-e-p. The two said goodbye shortly after. Logan looked at Damien. The air was thick and completely still.

"So. What do you plan on doing for the last few hours of your life?"
"Sleeping? I want to be fully rested for my death day"
"I would like to read the remainder of a book."
"Okay, have fun. And don't start another project, you won't get to finish it"
"Enjoy yourself."
"I will" Damien drawled as he fell onto his bed. Logan lay down next to him. Before they could stop themselves, Damien was cuddled into Logan's chest and Logan had fallen asleep and cuddled Damien in return.

The next morning, Logan woke up first. A few minutes passed before he remembered what had happened last night. Logan sat bolt upright and woke Damien up in the process. Logan pinched himself before remembering he had to take his medicine. He reached for the bottle of pills on his desk and poured out two. He swallowed them dry and turned to Damien. Damien was blurry. Logan wasn't wearing his glasses. Logan picked up the spectacles and pushed them on his nose. He looked into the bottle. He had just swallowed a triple dose. Logan instantly stuck his fingers down his throat, trying to vomit up the pills before he could die. Damien watched in horror as Logan died before his eyes. He grabbed Logan's hand and fell to his knees, sobbing. His body shook with the force of his despondency. There was another triple dose left in the bottle. If it killed Logan, it would kill Damien too. Damien picked up the bottle shakily. Logan's expression remained blank. Damien decided to ignore Logan's advice and play with a Ouija board alone.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" Yes, P-a-t-t-o-n, R-o-m-a-n, V-i-r-g-i-l, L-o-g-a-n.
"I'm joining you. Is it truly painless Logan?" Yes. I s-u-p-p-o-s-e t-h-e-r-e i-s n-o s-t-o-p-p-i-n-g y-o-u
"O-okay. Goodbye." Goodbye.

Damien dropped the empty bottle. He laid down and waited. He stood up, he didn't feel any different and... oh. OH. His body was on the bed, lifeless and losing heat to the mattress beneath it. Damien looked around to see four people. Logan, in his favourite attire, and three others that he assumed were Patton, Virgil and Roman. Logan and Damien burst into tears. They hugged each other and the other three joined them.

"Wow Patton, this tree house is amazing, you built this?"
"Yup! I was 15 at the time"
"It's beautiful..." Logan trailed off. Damien jumped and grabbed a branch, pulling himself up to the shelter. Roman and Virgil joined and Patton and Logan climbed the ladder.

"Hello? Is anyone here with me?" Yes L-o-g-a-n P-a-t-t-o-n
R-o-m-a-n V-i-r-g-i-l D-a-m-i-e-n
"How did you die?"