Warning: mentions sensitive topics that may be triggering.

+++ very short chapter & it's the last one. I'll have a lil thank you note at the end, & some explanations :) thank you in advance.

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.

Of course, now it's just me.

Ashton's been gone for almost three weeks, and there is some sort of black void following me around like a dark storm cloud. It seeps into my skin like acid, making everything I see looks like it's drowning it black paint. There is something so indescribably different in desperately waiting for a letter in the mail, and having that sure certainty that he isn't coming back.

I've resorted to making a permanent home on the couch in my living room, staring blankly at the television with glazed eyes. Mali has been struggling to comfort me in the best way that she can, rubbing my back and coaxing me with her soft voice, but it can't brush away the agonizing emptiness in my chest.

Mali has applied for university now that she knows I'm safe from my parents. She'll be leaving soon, eager to start a new beginning for herself despite how much she doesn't want to leave me. I know she feels even worse now that Ashton is cold and still under the dirt, no longer warm and close by my side. It aches.

The only person who has even been able to compare to what I'm feeling at the moment is Luke. I never got to know him extremely well before Ashton's death, but now that we are in the same boat, we've been together nearly every moment of the day. Sometimes it's just drinking ourselves drunk in my small apartment bathroom and letting the tiny room echo our drowning voices, and sometimes it's eating a calming dinner with Luke's family. Either way, he's there, all flesh and blood with a living heart, and that's all I need right now.

Today, we are going out to lunch at a busy restaurant. We don't like small cafes. They're too quiet. Too much room to think.

I arrive at the restaurant at 1:40, five minutes earlier than we had planned on meeting, but it's not like I have anywhere else to go. The hostess leads me to a table and I sit down, leaving the menu and water right where the server had placed it.

I let the busy atmosphere sink into my skin, trying to focus my attention to other people's conversations instead of being trapped inside my own. Two woman are talking about politics, and a group of businessmen are talking about the latest basketball game. They are all dressed up, wearing stiff suits with the ties loosened. They're on their lunch break, I note.

My observations are interrupted by Luke pulling back the chair in front of me, sitting down ungracefully in the seat. I turn to look at him, his lips dry, eyes slightly red. I don't predict that I look any better. I wouldn't know. I took down all the mirrors in the house after Ashton's funeral. I didn't want to look at the ghost he left behind.

"Hey, how have you been?" Luke asks as he settles into the chair, propping his elbows against the table. I only saw him maybe two hours ago, but I appreciate the question anyway.

"Fine," I say carefully. "A little tired." It's the usual greeting I give him. Luke nods understandingly, like he always does.

The loud voices of the restaurant fill the air and we fall into silence, leaving me to let my head wander. A thought crosses my mind, and I blink at the blonde boy in front of me, who is quietly analyzing the ice cubes floating in his water.

"Luke?" I say.

"Hm?"

"Do you think heaven exists?" I ask softly. Luke's gentle expression doesn't waver. "Do you think that's where Ashton is?"

It takes less than a second for Luke to answer. "Yes," he says, voice confident and strong. "Most definitely."

"How can you be so sure, though?" I ask, my voice dropping into a slight plea. "How do you know?"

Luke smiles a little. "I don't know, exactly, but..." he lets out a sigh, shrugging his shoulders slowly. "I can just imagine Michael up there. Eating pizza and laughing at us from way up there."

I crack a smile. "Ashton would be right there with him," I say.

"They're probably commenting on how pathetic we are," Luke began to laugh, and I join him. It's comforting to think of them that way, perched on the edge of a fluffy white cloud and cracking jokes at our tear-stained cheeks. I can picture Ashton's smile in my head, his honey-sweet voice telling me how my tears are for waste. That there isn't anything to worry about.

"Do you think it was on purpose?" I ask. "The accident?"

Luke's smile fades. "Ashton wouldn't like us talking about that."

"Well, that's his own fault, isn't it?" I mumble quietly, breaking eye contact to stare at my glass of water. Luke crosses his arms.

"There are other theories than just suicide, you know. He could have had a seizure. A brain aneurysm. He could have blacked out from lack of hydration or something and passed out. You don't know that it was suicide," Luke tells me.

"I know," I say softly, still not looking at him. "Everything just seems to point that way, though."

Luke nods. "Yeah, I know. But he loved you."

I look at him, and Luke's blue eyes are confident. He raises his eyebrows, nodding. "Yeah. He really, really loved you."

Luke suddenly smiles, and not just the smile that he gives me when he tells me everything will be okay. The smile that comes when he is genuinely, truly happy. His gaze moves from me to somewhere off in the distance, and he lets out a laugh. "I remember when we were at the stations together in between battle. All he would do is talk about you. God, you were all he would think about. Calum this, Calum that. He'd stare at that tiny picture of you for ages and repeat every memory he had of you, even though he had already told us them a thousand times."

My heart warms, making my lips stretch into a smile. I lean against the table, listening to Luke talk, his voice pure and honest.

"He would write letters to you and they would be pages long. Michael and I use to joke that he was writing you a book." Luke tells me, his eyes alive with memories. "Those were the good times of war. Being together like that."

My throat has closed up a little, so I just nod in response. Luke stares at me quietly, taking in my red eyes and choked up throat. He tilts his head, leaning in closer so that I will be sure to hear him.

"Listen to me, Calum, okay?" Luke says, his voice just stern enough to catch my attention, but soft enough to tell me that it's not going to be anything bad. "I don't care what was going through Ashton's mind when that car crashed. Every single piece of him loved you. If it was intentional, then he didn't think it would hurt you. He thought it would have been the best for everyone else. He would never intentionally hurt you like that."

I know this, deep down, I do. I know he never meant to hurt me, but he did. Of course he did.

"But wait, Calum, I'm not done." Luke says, and I look back at up him. "It gets better. I know that is so fucking cliché, and every time someone told me that when Michael died, I wanted to punch them in the face. But it's true. Use me as your living proof. Losing both Michael and Ashton has been so incredibly hard, and a couple months ago, I didn't think I would have survived it. But I did. And so can you."

I close my eyes.

"And you're not going to be alone, either. I'll be here for you. We can both be two pathetic shits together for the rest of our lives, I don't care. But I'll be here." Luke laughs a little, and I smile gently.

"Yeah," is all I can manage to say, but it gets the point across.

"And Ashton will always be with you, too. He is still loving you, even way up there. His love for you hasn't stopped. It never will, I know that for sure."

I guess this is how it will be for a while, Luke and I building ourselves back up from the horror that had brought us down. We can live through that. I can do this. I can find the light in life again.

Talking with Luke every day has helped immensely, because while I have been raw and bleeding, he's been healing. His wounds have closed and his sores have been cured from simply moving on and turning the other cheek from trauma. He is the proof that it can get better, and I know I'll be like that one day too.

And even though I'm healing, it doesn't mean I'm moving on from Ashton. I don't think I ever will, I don't think I can. He has left a piece of him stitched into my bones, the sheer though of him coursing through my bloodstream.

Maybe he will be the story I tell when I'm old and living in some nursing home, reading out his letters to all the others as though it is some sort of love story fairytale. Maybe I'll tell them about how the war took over his mind and he lost the final battle, or maybe I'll tell them that he won it. I don't know. Only time can tell.

All I know for sure is that I love him, insanely and deeply, and that we all just have to pick up our bags and carry on into the burning white moon.

---

A/N and that friends is the final ending of war.

shit I might cry

I know you all hate me for more reasons than one, but first I just wanna say thank you for reading and this is honestly my favorite book I've written, and it's all thanks to you guys. seriously.

also, I had ashton die at the end to show the severity of PTSD. I feel like its way too ignored, and I wanted to bring attention to it in the best way that I could.

but anyway thank you so much for reading this. I have made so many friends through writing this and it's so wonderful to hear your opinions on the story and all that. I love you all so SO much wow I don't think you guys understand how thankful I am that you read this

If you wanna chat just message me :) I love you a lot and I'm back from my hiatus so I might go on a little following spree thing and follow every wattpad user in existence so that would be fun

THIS IS A LONG AUTHORS NOTE SO IM GONNA GO AND I LOVE YOU A LOT THANK YOU SO MUCHH  B YE