Mateo opened his eyes to a wooden ceiling.

Everything around was static silent, with not even crickets to drown the backdrop. He got up, pushing himself off the floorboards to sit, trying to make sense out of his dizzy head. It was pitch black, though he could make out a faint light over the distance tracing the silhouette of a girl.

"You up?" The girl said, turning the light–a phone's screen–to him. It was Jan.

"I can't sleep forever, you know." Mateo covered his eyes. "What time is it?"

"Just past six in the evening."

Mateo brushed over himself. His body still held the cuts and bruises from his fights with the Walkers and the numerous grazes from Ana on his arms. Even after hours of sleep, his body hardly felt renewed. In fact, the aching got worse.

"Sorry, we don't have anything for that." Jan pointed to the cuts all over him.

"No, it's fine."

"How many did you even fight to get that many? Hell, your face looks like a beaten potato."

"A few." Mateo turned to stand. "Where's Hans?"

"He's… preparing the firewood."

"Right."

Mateo stared at the gaping hole bored into the living room wall. A breeze whistled past, blowing a hollow tune through it. Peeking through the aperture, it was a short drop a couple meters down onto the beach, and following the mess of footsteps on the sand, that was where he had fought against Ana.

Mateo then started towards the veranda facing the ocean. The rocking chair was there, though grandma Isabel was nowhere to be found. All there was, was dried blood marring the seat and backrest and the snow starting to pile up on the floorboards.

"I'll be right back." Mateo turned, heading inside before starting towards grandma Isabel's room. With a twist of the knob, he pushed the door open, taking a step inside. There was a double bed in one corner and a cabinet on the other. Above the cabinet were pictures of their family–Mateo, Ana, and grandma Isabel–along with their parents.

Their smiles reached the ends of their faces, as wide as they could be.

Mateo rummaged through the cabinet. Along with boxes of old photo albums, there was another box different from the rest. Inside was a hundred cassette tapes of nineties rock and pop bands.

"What's that?" Jan said, peeking behind his shoulder. "Sex tapes?"

Mateo pushed her face away. "Your breath stinks."

He then pulled out one of the sets, a slight grin drawn over his face. "Look at this Jan. Lola had every track to Nirvana's Nevermid album and Pearl Jam's Vitalogy, along with the most popular tracks of the two bands. Her Siamese Dream album is missing some noteworthy ones, but she's making up for it with the sheer volume of her collection."

"You lost me at Nirvana."

"You don't know the rock band?"

"Oh, you mean the band that did that 'Something Something Teen Spirit' song?"

"Do you even listen to music?"

"Of course." Jan took out her phone, brought up the speaker to Mateo's ears, then played some of her Japanese music. "This one's from that titan anime everyone's been talking about lately."

They shared the tiny speaker, listening close to music that they didn't even understand the lyrics of. The next songs she played were all over the place. One was from Drake, while the next one was from Blackpink, and the third was… Scatman.

This girl's taste was all over the place, though Mateo didn't dislike her listening to classic Scatman.

"Oh yeah, Mateo, I think you're going to like this too–"

Mateo could tell how hard Jan was trying to cheer him up. It felt good having someone looking out for him. But he didn't need that. What he needed was someone that could guide him, someone to help him move forward when he's stuck, eaten up by the uneasy feeling in his chest.

He shouldn't avoid these feelings.

"Hey Jan."

"Yeah?" Jan met his gaze, her eyes not daring to let go.

Mateo's breath trembled. "What… should I do?"

The bitter silence took over. Inside the empty room, there were only the two of them, meeting each other's gaze like they were playing some kind of game. Mateo was the first to lose, darting his eyes away to stare blankly at the tapes in his hands.

He knew why he acted that way.

He felt guilt.

There was comfort in hiding from the feelings that hurt him. A comfort in trying to forget what happened–the things he couldn't do for Ana nor for grandma Isabel.

But there was no use trying to run away.

He killed his sister. He knew that better than anyone. He'd used his newfound magic to make that explosion, and even if he wasn't the one who blew her head off, Mateo knew he was still the one to blame.

If only he had gotten there sooner. If only he hadn't passed out for the three days. If only… he didn't leave her side in the first place. Then none of this could've happened.

Everything was messed up because he wasn't there.

"You don't have to do anything." Jan said.

Mateo blinked, raising his eyes again to meet Jan's as if confirming what she just said.

"You're not a hero, you know." She continued, giving him a pursed smile. "Nor are you this 'chosen one.' Sorry, but you're not even someone special. You're just some random ass idiot living life just like the seven billion others here on Earth. Why the hell are you beating yourself up for something you can't control?"

"But if I had–"

"If you had." She hammered down the point with a finger jabbed to his chest. "The sad part here is: you hadn't. You couldn't. You didn't even know beforehand that things would turn out the way it did now. Like I said, you're just a person."

"What if I am?" Mateo's vision started to narrow. He knew she was right, but the lingering guilt was too much to handle and he ended up dumping all the pent up feelings all over her. He was acting like a child. He knew that.

"It doesn't take someone special to save someone they love. Your average salary man, farmer, hell, even a kid could do that. Everyone is capable of that, so why–"

"Why couldn't I do it?"

A warm embrace covered him, squeezing him tight as if afraid to let him go. "Mateo, listen. I've known you for a while now. You're a headstrong guy, but too much so that you end up blaming yourself if you couldn't cheat fate nor fight destiny, which–by the way–is just straight-up impossible."

"I-"

"Stop interrupting me stupid."

Jan then cupped his face. "What I'm saying here is that: no one can change what happened in the past, obviously. But everyone can change the future. You'll have to carry that guilt till the rest of your life, yeah, but that's fine, isn't it?"

Mateo stared blankly at Jan. "How old are you again?"

"We're the same age."

"Damn."

"Well that's just armchair advice. I'm not really a qualified psychologist or anything, so take the words of this pretty girl with a big pinch of salt."

Mateo tittered. "Nah, thanks."

"Yo bud." Hans walked into the room. "The pyre's ready."

Mateo took a deep breath. "Sorry for leaving the job to you Hans."

"It's no biggie. But are you sure any firewood will do? What I got were mostly damp, I'm not sure if the thing will even light up."

"I got that covered."

* * *

Mateo doused his arms in fire.

He picked up a piece of firewood, letting the flaming tongues burn the sticks in his hands before putting them back into the unlit pyre.

The sticks charred the others, with the embers spreading to the rest, eventually lighting up the pyre to a majestic burn. It was a large fire, standing up to five feet high above the sand underfoot with the tongues flicking against the snow falling from the sky.

Inside the fire were three bodies. Grandma Isabel's, Ana's, and… uncle Pedro's.

Hans had found him dead of blood loss.

Mateo could hardly look. Seeing their bodies burning inside the fire, it really sank in that they weren't here anymore.

He still had a lot of things he wanted to do with them. He wanted to talk more about nineties music with grandma Isabel, go on a lot more boat trips with uncle Pedro, and fight again with Ana, make up, then fight all over again in a never ending spiral.

All the things that made his life what it was, the people he shared ups and downs with, the things they bonded over, and all the years they've spent together, all of that was vanishing right in front of him.

Mateo could hear himself crying inside, but no tears fell from outside. It was infuriating. The three of them were the closest people he'd had, but he couldn't even cry for them.

Why?

A hand squeezed firm his shoulder. It was Hans, right there beside him. "It's okay man."

Mateo bit his lip. He felt the emotions surge inside him, the tears finally flowing down his face like he wanted them to.

That's right. He didn't have to put up a front here.

The fire crackled against the cold, sending smoke aloft high up into the air as if guiding the three to the afterlife.

If there was an afterlife, please let it be heaven.