Warning: mentions sensitive topics that may be triggering. (also very unedited oops)

CALUM

Sometimes I think the world is completely, absolutely brainwashed.

Soulless people wander the streets, grey blood oozing from their bleak skin with their lips sewn shut, eyes always watching but never noticing. Their feet drag across the dusty ground, unable to bend their knees without falling. Grey bodies, all grey bodies, without feeling. A bloodless muscle with empty vessels sitting like a stone in the center of their chest.

Ashton and I stand in the center of this void world as red bodies, dancing freely around the earth with vivid blood dribbling down our chins. We paint the world with color, struggling to make the bleak world a bit more bright, a little less grey. We can't paint the dead out of their minds, but we can at least make the world a little prettier with our bleeding love.

Their emotionless bodies are the reason I don't photograph people. They're too stoic, too harsh. All sharp edges and forgetful minds. It's why I take pictures of flowers and skies instead of people, capturing their smooth surfaces and changing colors as they move through the wind.

I've missed taking pictures of nature. I used to do it constantly while Ashton was gone. It had become a form of distraction, one that brought peace to my mind. Ever since Ashton asked me about my photography, I've made sure to go out and start taking pictures again.

He loves to see the pictures I take, taking them and hanging them all over his room and kissing the top of my head, making sure to compliment me on the photos. He also made sure to hang some of them up around my new apartment, pinning them onto the white walls and decorating them over the windows.

He's helped decorate the apartment over the past couple of days, him and Mali having a good time planning out the interior. I have no interest whatsoever in what it's supposed to look like, so I just stand back and watch how concentrated Ashton looks when he starts designing and scaling the rooms. Focused hazel eyes scanning the walls. Tan, muscled arms picking up furniture with ease.

Needless to say, it's been lovely to watch.

Today, I sit in the park with my camera, looking around for potential things to photograph. I haven't seen Ashton since last night, when he left the apartment to head home. He seems to be acting a little off lately, always seeming to be stuck inside his head, distracted. I haven't thought to much about it, because he seems to genuinely be happy. Always smiling down at me and wrapping his arms around my shoulders. I can't describe the amount of joy it is to have him back in Sydney, and I also can't describe the amount of relief Mali and I feel to be out of our parent's house.

The park today is quite beautiful, grass bright and green under my feet, sky clear and blue. It's a wonder not more people are out enjoying the day like I am. It's early, sure, but normally kids are out hanging around the playground by now. I don't dwell on it. I'm enjoying the time of peace anyway.

The camera is heavy in my hands, feeling somewhat foreign in my fingers from not holding it in so long. I lift it up to my eyes, peering through the lens and aiming at the sky, a beautiful mix of blue and pink from the rising sun behind the clouds. The camera won't be able to capture the beauty of it, but at least it can hold the memory.

As I am about to take the photo of the sky, my phone starts ringing from where it sits in my back pocket. I put down the camera, pulling out my phone and seeing it's Mali. Smiling lightly, I drag my finger across the screen, raising it to my ear.

"Hey, Mali," I greet cheerfully, repositioning myself from where I sit on the ground. "Are you off work yet?"

"Calum, oh my god, I'm--" Mali's voice suddenly breaks through the phone's speaker, her voice crackling and breaking on the other side. She sounds nearly in tears, her voice strained from speaking so loud. I immediately tense up, furrowing my eyebrows as I sling my camera over my shoulder.

"Mali?" I repeat, worry lacing my voice. "What happened? Are you alright?"

"Calum, it's-- I'm so sorry, this wasn't supposed to happen, I" Mali continues to stumble around her words, clearly sobbing now. I stand up, looking around slowly.

"What happened?"

"There's nothing we can-- I'm sorry--"

"Mali, tell me what happened!"

"It's Ashton," Mali finally says, defeat evident in her voice as she says his name. My chest starts to collapse, my knees buckling for a moment as my head grows light. Ashton. Ashton.

Mali hurriedly tells me where she is, her voice softer and less urgent as I walk towards the street, raising my hand to call for a taxi. My sister keeps spilling out apologies into my ear, her voice growing smaller as my thoughts grow louder, my heartbeat throbbing in my mind, pulsing with heated urgency.

I shut off my phone, stuffing it back in my pocket as I watch a cab pull to the curb in front of me. I open the door, sliding inside and quickly telling the driver the location. The taxi pulls away from the park as I lean back against the leather seats, trying to keep my breathing steady.

The possible situations that Ashton could be in fill my mind like gilded poison, seeping in between the sticky hemispheres of my brain straight down to the slick surface of my spine. My heart burns with remorse, struggling to efficiently pump hot blood through my blood without singing the dermis of my skin. My mind spirals with wonders of what could be wrong, throwing back to when I stumbled into the bathroom only to find his sobbing form crumpled against the wall. I can only pray he hasn't hurt himself somehow, wound himself up in some hospital hooked up to wires that monitor how many days he has left.

The car speeds down the road, the street slick from previous rain from yesterday. The water sprays up to coat the windows, a few drops of water streaming down the window like final teardrops from a dying eye. I watch it numbly, my legs shaking from how badly I want to know what is going on. If Ashton is okay, if he needs help. I know how tortured his mind was a few weeks ago, from the undeniable guilt of his friend's death and his time pent surviving the war. I hope he hasn't had some sort of meltdown in the street.

The taxi slows down as he pulls off to the side of the highway, and I look up to find bright police lights and ambulance sirens directly in front of the cab. My heart gets stuck in my throat, and I hurriedly shove a few dollar bills in the driver's general direction before hurrying out of the car, stumbling into the road as I close the door behind me. The taxi pulls away shortly after, and my eyes are still stuck on the sight in front of me. Trying to comprehend what I'm seeing.

What I see are three police cars, cops scattered around the area, talking to a few strangers I can't name. I see paramedics talking to each other in front of the back of a closed ambulance, the sirens still whirling around, but muted. My attention breaks when I notice Mali, her phone in hand, standing next to a tall policeman. Luke is right beside her, hands stuck in his hair, eyes swollen and red.

I quietly stumble towards them, dazed. I tap on my sister's shoulder, and her brown eyes turn to look at me. They're red rimmed, bloodshot. Exhausted. Defeated. They stare at me with all the happiness of a corpse.

"Mali, what-- what happened?" I ask, softly. I don't know that I want to hear the answer. My sister shuts her eyes, shaking her head a little.

"Ashton, he-- he crashed his car. Spun right off the interstate." Mali turns, pointing towards the wooden area beside the highway. Shoved underneath the underbrush and trees, is a huge, glistening scrap of metal that used to be in the shape of a car. It's torn up to shreds, windows shattered, glass littering the area. There are policeman swarming the sides of it, analyzing the car for broken parts or stalled engines that may have caused the accident.

"Which hospital is he at?" I ask, seeing Mali just shake her head again. "Which hospital? I have to go see him."

"He died, Calum!" Mali finally shouts, frustration filling her chest. "He's gone."

And the world stops.

Everything seems to fall silent, the bodies around me paralyzing to stillness, not a breath being inhaled. Confusion cakes my brain, and I blink. He can't be dead. He called me just this morning. Wished me a good morning. Told me to have a good day. Said he loved me. He can't be dead, everything was fine just an hour ago.

"How did it happen?" I ask the policeman, his warm brown eyes looking down at me with pity. "How did his car crash?"

The cop straightens his shoulders a bit and says, "We're under the impression that it wasn't an accident. A suicide attempt."

I furrow my eyebrows, jaw slacking slightly. "Of course it wasn't. What are you talking about?"

The cop gestures to a few witnesses standing around the site. "We interrogated a man who works at the gas station right across the street when it happened. He was watching. Said there were no other cars around to interfere with his path, and that he was driving straight and in complete control when he jerked the steering wheel."

"No, he wouldn't do that. Could he have had a muscle spasm or a seizure or something?" I ramble, trying to clear the thought of this being in Ashton's control. It couldn't have been.

"His body showed no signs of anything out of the ordinary. He was as healthy as can be, especially due to his service in the army." The policeman told me. I fall silent, remembering how pitifully sad Ashton had been a few weeks ago.

Maybe he's just been acting this entire time, kissing my lips and cuddling me at night with a broken heart under his ribcage. Maybe his lungs had been seething with the effort of holding in his screams, lips drying out from the amount of useless phrases leaving them. Maybe his mind had been filled with hellacious thoughts of ending it all, trying to fog them out with the clouds inside his eyes.

The realization begins to set in. He's gone. I'll never see him again. I'll never be able to hear his beautiful laugh again, see his sparkling eyes. I'll never feel the warmth that his kiss brings me, the pure comfort and feeling of home inside his strong arms. I'll never be able to run into his arms or press my nose into his shoulder when I'm sad, and I'll never be able to thank him for everything he has done for me. He's gone.

The tormenting vision of his sun-bleached skin turning frigid pale under the white sheet sends chills down my back, making my stomach convulse. I don't want to imagine his soft eyelids closing shut for the last time, his cheeks growing hollow from the effect of no blood coursing through his veins. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about him gone.

A suicide attempt. As it settles in, it doesn't surprise me. Ashton was hurting. Clearly, too. I saw it bare and cold in my hands when I saw him sobbing in the bathroom that morning, and I wish I had seen the lie leave his lips when he told me he was okay after the support group. I should have watched him more carefully. I should have taken more precautions. I shouldn't have let this happen. This is my fault. All my fault.

I don't realize that I've collapsed onto the ground until a hand covers my shoulders, pulling my up to my feet. I open my eyes, realizing they are swollen with tears, and turn to see Ashton's mother blinking at me with saddened eyes. Her mouth quivers slightly, and I know that she knows. That she has heard everything that's happened. She looks older than I remember, although I see her almost every other day. There are more lines in her face, her lips turned permanently into a frown. She has it worse than me. Ashton was all she had left. The last person she had to hold onto.

There is something so different about him dying here, at the edge of this frightening highway, than receiving the letter than marks his death during war. He survived war, yes, in all its bleeding glory. But not fully. He survived the war on the battlefield, but he lost the war in his mind.

Luke stands frozen as the policeman begins walking back towards his car to clear up the site. The strangers surrounding the area retreat back towards their vehicles, leaving us stranded on the side of the highway, the crushed car in the underbrush serving a painful reminder of what has happened.

It doesn't feel real. I'm numb, my heart remaining frighteningly calm in my chest despite the horror that has wrecked itself upon my life. This isn't happening. If I ignore it, it didn't actually happen.

Ignoring it is hard when Luke stands in front of you, so clearly fragile and broken on the side of the hectic highway. His blonde hair falls into his eyes, clear blue eyes looking dull under the intense sun. Every inch of him seems to drip with remorse-- I'm no better.

I can see it happening a few moments before it does, his tall frame stumbling forward, eyes closing unhappily. His arms stretch out towards me, tears beginning to spill over his eyelids as he falls into my arms, embracing me into a much needed hug as the world falls silent, nothing but the hum of the city moving on without us.

---
A/N don't bother trying to kill me bc this already did

I'm making this short and sweet because I can feel the hate for me radiating off my phone screen

how was your christmas/hanukkah/holiday/break?

mine went pretty well. got a pair of vans, so that's always good.

please vote and comment your thoughts, and I'll see you in the next chapter.

I love you to the moon.

bye x