“Eat this.”

Aubrey handed Basil a small apple, still dripping with water from being rinsed at the sink. He could only stare at it with a mixture of fear and apprehension, as if she were giving him a live grenade instead of a harmless fruit. With shaky hands, he grabbed it from her, but made no motion to take a bite, instead opting to continue tightly grasping it between his clammy hands.

“Red…” He muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing… Um, Aubrey? I-I’m not really hungry.”

She shook her head and shot him an unsympathetic look. “Nuh uh. I don’t care. You said it yourself, didn’t you? You don’t even remember the last time you’ve eaten. You must be crazy if you think I’m just gonna sit here and let you starve yourself to death.”

Aubrey was careful not to show it, but she was terrified. Basil had nearly collapsed twice on the walk back home from the hospital; she had offered to carry him back herself, but he had vehemently declined. It physically hurt to see him forcing himself to go on like that, a sickly pale skeleton with all of the looks of a nervous wreck. She found herself fostering a growing resentment for the doctor that had treated him. What kind of gullible idiot would believe Basil was eighteen? Even ignoring that, he should have known something was up, considering Basil’s terrible state. He should have done something. He should have been more responsible.

Gulping nervously, Basil finally moved the apple closer to his mouth. He took a small bite from it before immediately setting it down, face scrunching up as he chewed slowly. When he finally swallowed, he looked at her with what could only be described as abject misery. “A-Am I done now? I… think I’m going to be sick.”

“No, you’re not. And…” She glared at the apple in front of her, sitting on the tabletop innocently. “No, you’re not.”

Blinking rapidly, Basil took up the apple once more and took another bite. Once again, he chewed at it slowly, taking time to grind the fruit between his molars until he could bear it no longer. Then, he took another bite and repeated the process. Over and over again, he bit into the apple, chipping away at it at a sluggishly slow yet consistent rate. With each…

“Oh.”

Basil smiled and began to eat it with renewed vigor, chomping away at the apple at blazing speed, savoring the sweet taste. Within seconds, there was nothing left but the core. He turned to look at Aubrey, a smile still plastered onto his face. “Well, there we go. I guess all it took was some food to give me an appetite again, huh?”

She looked at him with a hint of suspicion in her eyes, but nodded anyway. “Well, see? That wasn’t so hard, was it? There’s gonna be a bunch of food at that party, so I better see you eating more.”

Basil laughed. “Ah, don’t worry so much! I’ll eat as much as I can, I pro-”

Promise.

With each bite he took, more and more nausea piled onto him, the bleeding head in his hands staring back up at him lifelessly through a half-lidded eye. Its right cheek had been gored, pale skin torn by his teeth. Basil licked his lips and found the taste of blood ever-present in his mouth. It burned.

“What? What’s the matter with you?” Aubrey asked. She peered at him through her bloodshot eyes, her form obscured by static and uncertainty. Something, now solid and unwavering, stood before him and enveloped her. It made her look almost human, with long, burning hair. “Eat. Eat it, god damn you. Quit acting like a child, you’re too old for that.”

“I-I’m trying.” Basil took another bite at the exposed flesh and grimaced as his stomach cried in protest. It was an incredible mixture of sour and salty, an overwhelmingly bold taste that coated his tongue and spread through his body like a blanket of fire. It was Sunny’s head. Of course it was. “P-Please. I’m trying… I’m trying.”

“You’re disgusting. Why did you kill Sunny? He was your best friend. Keep eating.” Aubrey’s hand shot forwards and struck him on the right side of his face. Basil cried out, dropping the head to the floor and brought his blood-covered hands up to the stinging wound. His ear was ringing horribly, an echoing high pitched scream that made everything worse. Pain, dull and uniform, cradled his weak body, scratching at his skin and opening blisters as it went. “You killed Sunny. You hung his sister. You loved him. You loved Sunny, and you killed him. Keep eating.”

Basil sobbed and closed his eyes, hundreds of thoughts crowding his exhausted mind as he shivered horribly amidst the cloudy sea of agony he found himself drowning in. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could only wish that everything would end. Just a minute of rest, a minute of nothingness so that he could pull himself together, so that he would stop hurting so badly.

Aubrey stood from the table and shoved him. Basil fell limply from the chair and onto the solid red floor, cringing at the new layer of pain. An object was forced into his hands; immediately, he recognized it as the half-eaten head.

“Eat. You killed him, so eat. You loved him. Why? Why did you kill him? You loved him.”

“I don’t know! ” Basil screamed. “Because I’m horrible? Because I’m a failure? Because I don’t deserve to live anymore? I don’t know! So stop! Please!”

“I’ll tell you why.” Aubrey said. She kicked him in the stomach and Basil coughed roughly as all of the air was forced out of his lungs. He managed to choke out a few sobs before vomiting onto the floor, an acidic stream of bile and blood ejecting itself from his mouth. He shuddered a few times, the sharp scent of stomach acid and copper mixing together to burn his nostrils. Subconsciously, he tightened his grip on Sunny’s head, causing more blood to ooze out of it. “It’s because you never loved him at all. It wasn’t love. It was obsession. You sick bastard.”

Aubrey grabbed him by his hair and pulled his head up from the floor. “Hey. Hey, look at me. Look at me.”

Basil looked at her. Something stood with her.

“I loved him. And Kel. And Hero. And Mari. Not you. You never loved him.”

She smashed his head back onto the floor. He tried to scream but no noise came. What were those bright spots? And darkness? Dancing shades of white and black, mixing with the red to create a disgusting amalgamation of angry colors. Groaning, he brought the head to his mouth and took another bite. He was eating. See? Look, he’s being good. He’s being good, he’s trying his best. Just ignore the static. Ignore the clumps of dark hair littering the floor, ignore how Sunny’s eye rolled in its socket, ignore how Basil was crying without tears.

“Useless. You’re useless. Why are you even here?” Aubrey kicked him again, this time at the back of his head. He felt like he might throw up again. “You’re so fucking pathetic. Look at yourself. Tell me, why do you keep yourself alive when all you do is hurt everyone around you? Look at this mess. You haven’t done anything good in your entire life, and you still think that you should keep living?”

“No.” Basil whispered. It stung, the thin puddle of blood and vomit that spread itself across the floor. It was sickeningly warm and just sticky enough for the bright red liquid to cling to his skin whenever he tried to move. “Nononononono.”

“Then what? Why are you still alive?”

“I-I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know …”

“Such a simple question and you can’t even answer it?” Aubrey retorted. “If you don’t know, then just die already. You should have just drowned at the lake instead of letting me save you.”

“I’m trying, please, I want to but-”

“Oh, so you’re lying now? You’re lying to me?” Aubrey kicked him again. He could barely feel it. “You’re not trying. You want to be saved, don’t you? You’re scared of meeting your victims again, scared of facing them. Coward.”

“N-No, I-”

“Stop lying!” She screamed.

“What do you want?” Basil cried hoarsely, throat raw and aching. “P-Please… No more. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It hurts. It hurts.”

“What do I want? Oh, come on. Isn’t it obvious?” Aubrey grinned horribly and picked Basil up from the floor, grabbing the collar of his shirt with one hand.

“I just want what’s best for you.”

Kel winked and opened the cooler, a smug look of satisfaction messily painted onto his face. Aubrey had half the mind to wipe it off herself, but curiosity won over her need for senseless violence. Moving as one, she and Basil moved to take a peek inside of the stark white container. She soon found herself staring at various bottles and cans tossed haphazardly on top of each other with what looked like a thin layer of ice at the bottom. Taking a bottle out, she noted that it was only slightly below room temperature. As she read the label, her nose wrinkled in disgust as the words on it affirmed her suspicions; alcohol.

“Kel… Why do you have this stuff? And how?”

He laughed and slammed the cooler down on the table, causing Basil to flinch as the bottles clanked noisily with each other. ”Oh, I have my ways. Now come on, Hero isn't here! We can go wild!”

They had arrived at the address Kel texted them to find an incredibly noisy house that was entirely too small for any sort of social gathering. As soon as they appeared, Kel found them and forced them to take a thirty minute tour, taking the time to introduce them to each and every other person present. Thankfully, most of the other partygoers didn’t have much to say, otherwise it would have taken hours.

“Kel, we’re all underage. This is illegal.”

He pouted at her. “Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Aubergine. Since when were you such a stickler for the rules, Ms. Troublemaker? Come on, it’s not like we’re chugging down hard vodka, or doing drugs. Relax a bit, huh? Besides, aren’t you curious about the hype? Like, what’s the big deal with this stuff, am I right?”

She frowned distastefully. Of course she was curious. But it was more of a horribly morbid curiosity than anything else. How else should she feel about it, when she had grown up watching her mother become slowly corrupted from the inside out? Her mother, who would become synonymous with alcohol? What was it about that stuff that corrupted people to their very core? The damned drink tore her family apart and left her to fend for herself.

Kel grabbed a beer can from the cooler and opened it. “Oh man, Hero would totally flip if he knew I was doing this! I kind of want to call him and tell him about all this, maybe even send him a few pictures. He’d get mad, don’t you think? Probably start shouting a whole bunch.” He took a sip out of the can and made a sour expression. “Eugh. Man, adults actually drink this stuff for fun? It’s like drinking the sweat from old gym socks. You guys should try it!”

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “Gee, after such a glowing review? I’ll pass.”

Basil, on the other hand, looked into the cooler for a few seconds before grabbing another can, one that was identical to the one Kel was holding. With one swift motion, he opened it and tossed his head back before proceeding to chug the entire thing. For a moment, the rowdy noise of the party seemed to die as Kel and Aubrey stared at Basil, loud gulps drowning out any background noise.

He finished and placed the empty can on the table. “Yeah, it’s pretty bitter.” He said nonchalantly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“What the hell.” Aubrey snatched the can and turned it upside down. Not a single drop was left. “Basil, seriously. What the hell.”

“Um… S-Should I not have done that? I’m sorry… I-I guess it was pretty rude of me to-”

“Oh my god Basil, that was awesome!” Kel shouted. “Dude, have you done this before? Dang, I never thought that Basil out of all people would be a drinker. How long have you been doing this for? Oooh, you wanna take a photo with the both of us drinking and send it to Hero? He would get even angrier if he knew that you were drinking too, oh man this is going to be great! Here, take another one. We have plenty!”

“I… Um… N-No, I haven’t before… Erm…” Basil could only stammer helplessly as Kel shoved a tall glass bottle in his hands and brought out his phone.

“Nuh uh, hold on. I’m borrowing him for a sec. Come here, Basil.” Aubrey grabbed his arm, pulling him away while ignoring Kel’s protests. Maneuvering around several jocks that she could vaguely recognize as belonging to Kel’s basketball squad, she finally found the exit to the house’s porch. She found a pair of rocking chairs left out, one of them filled with fast food wrappers. She brushed them off and forced Basil to sit down. She noticed with disbelief that the bottle in his hands was open and already half empty.

“Basil, what’s gotten into you? Trust me, you really don’t want to be drinking that stuff. It’s horrible.” Aubrey took the bottle from his hands with no resistance. “I don’t want you to get hungover or something.”

‘Rocking chairs… Do you think that there are elderly people who live here? I-I feel kind of bad for them…“ He said mildly. “I mean, w-what if they come home to just a giant mess? It won’t be easy to clean up all of this.”

“What?”

“O-Oh, sorry!” Basil stammered. He had begun rocking back and forth in the chair with manic energy. Not knowing why, Aubrey backed up from him. “I-It’s just… My mind wanders sometimes, you know? Haha, I must have picked that up from Sunny… Um… Kel said that he wanted us to try it, so, I-I… I just did. Was that the wrong thing to do? I messed up again, didn’t I? A-Are you mad? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He stopped rocking suddenly, retracting his legs from the ground to tuck his knees to his chest. Wrapping his arms around them, he suddenly looked about ten times smaller. “Sorry… I-I’m sorry.”

“H-Hey, I’m not mad at you or anything!” Aubrey said. “Calm down. Look, why don’t we just get out of here? It’s too crowded anyway. Here, I’ll just text Polly to pick us up.”

“You’re leaving?”

They both turned in unison to find Kel standing there in the open. He was still holding his beer can. With the porchlight illuminating him, he gave off a somewhat ominous vibe, something that Aubrey didn’t even think was possible with him. “You guys just got here not even an hour ago. Why are you leaving me already?”

“L-Leaving… you?” Basil muttered.

“It’s not like that. Basil is just… feeling sick. I need to get him home.” Aubrey said.

“What’s with you two lately? Since when did you become best buds?” Kel advanced, a bit of foam spilled over from the top of the can. It splashed down onto the floor, darkening the wooden boards under him. “You know, I ran into your gang the other day and they told me that you’ve been hanging out with him, like, twenty-four seven. Is there something going on that you’re not telling me?”

“What the fuck, Kel? Stop snooping around, nothing’s going on.”

“Oh really? Because it seems like you’re trying to exclude me, for some reason.” Kel’s face started to redden. “You didn’t even want to come here! Come on, I’m putting up an effort here to stay friends, like what they would have wanted! And you’re just pushing me away, just like Hero!”

“Don’t be an idiot!” Aubrey snapped. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Basil get up from the chair, though the brewing clouds of rage were beginning to fog her vision. It seemed like an unimportant detail, a silhouette that flickered on the wall. “I told you, Basil’s not feeling well. That’s it. We’re not trying to push you away or anything like that. And what’s the big deal about that anyway? You’ve got your other friends here, you’ll live.”

“He’s sick? Don’t give me that! He downed an entire drink in like five seconds and seemed fine! Besides, why do you both have to leave? You’re not his caretaker, you know.”

“It’s more complicated than that. We… Basil… I need to watch him.”

“Watch him? What’s that supposed to mean? Come on, stop keeping secrets from me. I’m a part of this too, you don’t have to act like I’m some stupid outsider. We’re supposed to be friends, and you’re just treating me like a stranger!”

“Well, maybe you are an outsider to all of this!” She shouted. What was Kel’s deal? He was trying to pry into Basil’s private life. If he knew, he would just make things worse. Kel always made things worse. How could she get it through that thick skull of his that it wasn’t any of his business? “Basil’s obviously uncomfortable about all of this! You know, the only reason why he went, and the only reason why he drank that stupid beer was because you told him to. He didn’t even want any part of this. You must not be a very good friend if you can’t understand that.”

“Hey! Speak for yourself, you’re just talking for him at this point! Basil has his own voice, you know.” Kel said. “Why are you being so protective of him anyway? Did he tell you something about what happened? About their fight? He did, didn’t he? And you’re trying to keep it from me.”

“What? Where’s the fuck is this coming from now?” Aubrey asked. “He didn’t tell me anything about that, and I never asked. It’s because I have tact Kel. He’s still trying to deal with everything that’s happened, I’m not gonna force him to drag that stuff up! See, this is your problem. You’re so dumb and oblivious that you just say and do whatever shit you want. You don’t even care about what we’ve gone through.”

“Don’t pretend like you’re the only one suffering! You think I’m having a good time trying to keep everyone happy?” Kel shouts, jutting a thumb to his chest aggressively. “You think I’m just being oblivious when I’m the only one putting in effort to keep our friendship alive? We’ve barely even said anything to each other for a week, so duh I’m gonna be worried about what you guys are up to. Did all of that stuff we said to each other when Sunny was gonna move mean nothing? It was supposed to get better. We were supposed to get better.”

“God, you’re just being so impatient! Like always, you’re just trying to rush into things. Kel, normal people need time when someone close to them dies. Especially when that someone jumps off a fucking building. Don’t you get that? Not everyone can just get right back to their schedule like nothing’s happened. We’re not all like you.”

“Stop doing that. Stop doing that!” Kel was shouting now, the can in his hand forgotten and crushed underneath an iron-clad grip. A slightly crazed look appeared on his face, one that Aubrey didn’t like at all. Bright, flickering lights danced in his eyes, dangerous and bound to explode. “Stop treating me like I’m a moron! You’re saying all of this stuff about me but you’re doing the same thing! I’m telling you straight up that I care about you two, and you’re just taking the high ground! What’s your deal? Do you just hate me or something? Maybe you just got tired of bullying Basil and need a new punching bag.”

“What did you just say?” Aubrey asked quietly. She felt an eye twitch as she took a single step towards him. That’s it. At this point, Kel was just asking for a fight and honestly, she felt happy to oblige. He couldn’t ever understand. No one could.

“Fine, come on. Beat me up. Whatever. You know I’m right.” Kel crossed his arms. “I knew you changed Aubrey, but dang. This is just messed up. Why do you and Basil have to be alone together? Why can’t you let me help?”

“Because Basil doesn’t want your help! And neither do I! This… This is too sensitive for you.”

“Ugh, you’re just talking for him again! I want to know what Basil thinks, not what you think.” He leaned over to take a peek behind Basil. “... Um, where is he anyway? Wasn’t he just like, right there?”

“What?” Aubrey spun around to find an empty rocking chair, and an even emptier porch with Basil nowhere to be found. She groaned and slapped her forehead. “Fuck. He’s gone. Great, look at what you’ve done!”

“Me? I didn’t do anything! You’re the one trying to babysit him, don’t blame it on me.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.” She ran her fingers through her hair and began pacing around. Where the hell did he go? Did something happen? Why did he leave? He wasn’t planning anything, was he? Damn it, she should have searched him. Maybe he brought a knife with him, or a rope. What if she was too late?

“You got distracted so easily, and now he’s dead. He killed himself and you’re responsible. Weren’t you trying to keep him safe? Kel’s right, you’re just acting crazy. You can’t do anything right.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” She screamed, pounding her fists against her head roughly. The sudden force of it was dizzying, and she stumbled on her feet. Falling backwards into the chair, she groaned and pressed her palms against her temples, trying to ease the painfully loud pounding that had begun to echo in her ears.

“W-Woah, Aubrey… Um, take it easy. L-Look, why don’t we just search for him together?” Kel suggested hesitantly. Remnants of their argument still lingered in his expression, but he seemed to have pushed them aside for now. That was Kel for you. “I’ll ask around inside.”

“Ugh. Okay. Whatever. I just need to find him…” Aubrey trailed off as she looked to her left. The house the party was being hosted in was right next to a large, expansive patch of woods. Bare trees, dark and lanky, were packed together tightly enough that she could barely see anything beyond the first few layers of trees. “There. I’m going to look in that forest. If you find him, call me. Bye.”

Ignoring Kel’s confused protests, as well as the sense of foreboding welling up inside of her, she stood from the chair and jumped off the porch, grunting as she landed a few feet onto the ground. Without looking back, she walked into the forest, ducking under the sharp branches and wading through the thick layer of dead leaves littering the ground.