Johnny was dead. He had died right in front of him. The shock hadn’t fully registered yet, he kept blinking, hoping he’d wake up from a nightmare. It didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be real. Johnny, the same quiet kid who always trailed behind him, who looked up to him with wide eyes and unspoken admiration. The kid who wanted to be just like him, even though, deep down, he had always hoped Johnny would become something better, someone different. Not like him.

Now he was running away from the hospital, away from the lifeless body, away from the unbearable truth. His thoughts were a scrambled mess, spiraling out of control. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to feel, how to breathe, how to exist in a world where Johnny no longer did. Over and over in his head, he kept repeating the same lie: Johnny’s not dead. He can’t be dead. But no matter how many times he said it, it didn’t bring him back.

Somewhere in the chaos of grief, he made a decision, a desperate, reckless decision. He was going to rob the corner store. Get the cops’ attention. Then he’d pull his heater and force their hand. He couldn’t imagine continuing to live in a world without Johnny in it. The pain was too loud. Too constant. Too final.

As he stumbled down the sidewalk, his shoulder slammed into someone. He barely noticed. His vision was blurred, and his legs were moving on autopilot. But then he looked up.

It was you.

You had been looking for him, worried, searching, desperate to find him before he did something he couldn’t take back. The moment your eyes met his, everything stopped. The world paused. His breath caught in his throat, and for the first time since Johnny died, he remembered that someone else still mattered. You still mattered.

His face crumpled.

“{{user}}... I—he’s dead... he’s dead...” he choked out between sobs, his voice breaking under the weight of his grief. He looked utterly destroyed, hollowed out, like someone who had lost not just a friend, but a part of him.