bloody double cup

by airbag17

Summary:

In the beginning of Apocalypse, Ruby, who is not religious at all, is haunted by visions from God revealing Scrim's tragic fate. Babylon gets in the way as Ruby tries to change it.

Chapter 1: i

Summary:

IMPORTANT

1. this fic is not defamation/slander of any of the real people written. This is fiction.

2. This fic isn't supposed to threaten any of the real people whom this is about. I love suicideboys, g59 and horror

3. Other people have different views on what the end of the world will be like. Not everybody who believes in the Apocalypse thinks it will be like this. Not everybody believes in the Apocalypse. This is just my view

The chipmunk flattens between the bitter asphalt and Ruby's tires. In the passenger seat lay a brown bag that somewhat tips as he turns. He's riding down the avenue. Coming home from the gas station. This is the city he knows every nook and cranny of; there's not a map or GPS he wishes for. New Orleans. It's a vibrant city. Some say it's bound to crumble like all the other ones. But he hates to believe that; he grew up here, and he thinks he can drive home with his eyes closed. 

Tonight, the sky glows a greyish-blue as a full moon brightens the southern land. When Ruby arrives home, pulls into the driveway, he heads inside without any outdoor lights and doesn't have to strain his eyes to see through the darkness. Once he's inside, he flicks the switch beside him, causing a flare-up of light. In the kitchen, he places the paper bag on the counter, and removes its contents: a bag of weed, two bottles of coke. It's late, he knows—last time he checked, the time was shortly after nine o'clock. That might've been an hour ago. Or not. Today is one of those days the hours feel twice their length. Therefore hopefully, with the pot in his hand, tonight will fly as a rocket. Not like anything exciting will come tomorrow. 

From his pocket, he pulls his phone out. Some fire still remains in him from what happened prior to driving home. He dials in the number of Scrim, although he's aware he may be asleep. Scrim isn't the one who stays awake the same time the stars are out. The phone rings and reverberates for a drawn-out moment. As he waits, he doesn't linger, transitioning from the kitchen to the living room. Scrim picks up when Ruby sits down. 

"Hello?" he says. 

Ruby places the weed on the table in front of him. The rolling paper is already there. "I finally got home," he tells him. "What's up?" 

"Nothing much. I'm goin' to bed soon." He does sound tired, with his voice softer, more leisurely. "Why'd you call?"

"Just wanted to tell you about some dogshit that happened at the gas station." As he speaks, he begins rolling the blunt. Like breathing, it doesn't take any thought—he has been doing this for many years now.

"What happened?" Scrim asks rather unsurprisingly. 

Ruby sprawls himself across the couch, the new blunt pinched between his fingers. His eyes search for a lighter that's not there, and he rolls his eyes at the loss. For now, instead of getting up and retrieving one, he sticks with talking to Scrim, beginning his story. "This fuckin' lady—I'm at the fridge, you know, grabbing a couple drinks; she walks up to me all pissed and shit. And before I can even ask her what's wrong, she's like," he mocks her by switching into a cattish voice, "'You really takin' both of those?' Oh, and she's probably in her fifty's or some shit." 

"Let me guess," Scrim thinks, sounding purely confident. As he speaks, Ruby stares at his unlit blunt, scowling. "The girl's scared she can't feed her family since you took an extra drink?" 

"Maybe," Ruby continues. "Anyway, of course I am, so for some reason she loses her fuckin' mind, calling me selfish and ignorant, all this other bullshit."

The grocery stores and markets are now the seventh circle of Hell. Ever since the inevitable rapid growth of population climbed to an overwhelming amount of people, everybody fights like animals for even a small scrap you would usually feed your household dog. Researchers and scientists agree that the population of humans have surpassed the carrying capacity, for now there's too many houses and too little space for farming. Sometimes Ruby overhears conversations of ideas for rationing, usually said by the lower-class commoners who have had their nourishments taken by high-class elites. But as a recluse who lives by himself (and an elite), he finds no need to stress about hoarding enough food to feed his kin, and only buys what he needs, even grabbing less, leaving some for the desperate. His gold chain that curves around his neck glistens under the light above. The entire world wonders when there will be nothing left, and when everybody will turn against eachother, transforming into malnourished zombies feasting on the meat of one another. In some way, there will be a zombie apocalypse, except there will be no rising from any graves. The caskets remain closed until the Last Judgment, which Ruby believed will never come. 

Scrim hums as a sign he is still listening.

"I don't know why it drove her so crazy," Ruby mutters, sitting up from the couch to retrieve the lighter. He knows where it is—in his bedroom. "She finally left me alone after I told her I'll give her one if she sucks my dick." When the lighter sits in his fist, he returns to the couch, again spreading himself horizontally across it. The tip of the blunt glows scarlet as the flame strikes. Ruby inhales its contents, exhales a hazy, grey fog. He snickers at the memory.

A returned snicker emits from the other line. "Yeah, you tell 'er off!" Scrim laughs. "Some people just don't realize it's legal to not share."

"Mhm," Ruby buzzes as his blunt remains between his lips. He keeps it in between his fingers as he speaks. "You can't really stop somebody from buying everything on the shelves, right?"

"No, you can't, haha. Anyways," as Scrim speaks, Ruby picks up the sound of movement, "I'm going to bed. I wanna produce a lotta shit tomorrow."

"Aight. Goodnight." 

"Goodnight."

Scrim hangs up first, eager for some rest. Ruby sets his phone aside, enjoying his high. The room fills with a skunky smell. His smoke disappears into matter. Desaturates the atmosphere. Relaxation tugs him under its surface, and he falls deeper with every puff, but doesn't drown; nothing about this harms him—it's more pleasant than anything. It sucks his annoyance from the gas station lady away and replaces it with carelessness. Perhaps she had a bad day, or that's just the way she is. It doesn't matter. Some people are more unstable than others. Less sane, less happy. Ruby himself knows exactly what that is like. He can't hate her if he had suffered, too (if she even is suffering). She's not the only one in the midst of a worldwide famine, either. It's everybody in this overpopulated world.

His mind drifts to countless different things, from the best to the worst, the worst to the best. When he grows bored of himself, he powers on the TV and finds something to watch. For minutes and minutes, he scrolls, doing nothing, until eventually, he chooses a cartoon he can laugh at. And gradually, with time and fervor, he abbreviates the blunt until hardly anything remains. Time flies, carries the disease of exhaustion. Ruby turns to his side, relaxing his body. The sound of the television washes away as sleep pulls him closer and gives him a goodnight kiss.

Blood strews across the pale grass like rain, creating a blend of red and green as if it's Christmas. A few feet away, there's nothing but the same metallic substance, with pink and many other colors scattered throughout its haunting pool. It's the same way a long river becomes an ocean. Tips of blades poke out from the surface; they're all a drowning dog gasping for air. A strange, unrepenting sense hangs in the bitter, lukewarm breeze. Everything is cold yet afraid. The crimson multiplies. It's as if the plants are shrouding with fear, hiding from the blood lake. Next to it lays a body, motionless, lifeless. Its clothes are dotted with red. It's not just some stranger or victim, frighteningly enough. It's a friend. A brother. Kin.

It's Scrim.

There's no word that explains the amount of nothingness his eyes manifest. They are more empty than ghosts. They are mixed with terror and resent. An axe sticks from his neck, the blade lodged into skin, bone, and flesh. It has sliced his neck halfway, and with one more blow, his head will be completely off. Decapitated. From the wound, blood continues to flow like a verse, never-ending, just draining him until he's dry and shriveled up, a starved fly with its legs crossed in mercy. His mouth hangs open, blood trickling from his lips, staining his dying skin, tangling with his beard. The blood continues to flow. It doesn't stop. It remains trickling. It doesn't stop. It will never stop.

Agony strikes Ruby directly in the heart as he wakes up with a jolt. He sits up, his body trembling, and meets the bright light he has forgotten to turn off. Pitiful relief reminds him it was merely a nightmare—an extremely vivid, violent nightmare. Tears still hide behind his eyes, and he fights the need to cry. He's not weak. It's just a dream. It's not real. He's strong, not a helpless child. Yet, the nightmare strokes him with fear. Clings to his brain. It's nothing to weep over. Nothing at all. 

Ruby huffs in frustration. His body still shakes. He notices the table beside him, and finds an unopened pack of Swisher Sweets. In desperation, he briskly opens the package, picking up the cigar with one hand and throwing the plastic with the other before grabbing his lighter. Truthfully, he was planning on replacing the cigar's entrails with weed, but he's already high, and just wants to relax as quickly as possible. He doesn't want to think about what he has seen any longer. The lake of blood. Scrim. His eyes sting again, but he begs himself not to cry as he lights the cigar, ingesting it with ease. 

Relax, he thinks, lying back down, gazing at the white ceiling tinted yellow as he smokes; as the chemicals explore their way into his bloodstream. It's just a nightmare. He's not dead. And as he grows fully conscious and awake, this feels easier to believe. He's not dead. He's alive. 

Scrim is alive.

Ruby stands up and heads to his bed, the cigar held between his lips floppily. He turns off the light and makes his way through the darkness as the image of Scrim's dead body eats his mind like vultures. He understands that it is not true, but naturally, it frightens him. Nightmares are supposed to scare anyway—it's their purpose. And yet, the only way he can calm down is through a drug. The thought has always disturbed him: what would happen if Scrim died unexpectedly, and he wasn't prepared? What would happen to their career? Would life become numb after he loses a half? Would he even bother?

By the time his cigar is all used up, his body no longer trembles, and he no longer has the chills. Ruby sinks into the blankets and can think clearer than ever. He has begun to suspect the violent dream sprouted from the anger he endured at the gas station, and that knowledge brings peace to him. Again, fatigue hits him and he attempts to get some rest. For now, he closes his eyes, drenched in relaxation, yet fathoms the inevitable struggle of tomorrow. 

Notes:

dont buy no weed from the gas station 😢😢

Chapter 2: ii

Summary:

mentions of cannibalism

Very soon, we won't be able to say 'tomorrow', the man (or AI—it's so hard to tell now) on Ruby's phone begins, The world is ending and we are the—

Ruby scrolls. He despises social media, yet boredom might be the death of him. The world isn't ending, he believes. A famine doesn't equal an end.

We're all going to kill each other if we don't die of starvation, somebody else claims. We will all eat each other and become cannibals.

Ruby quickly scrolls again. He passes through interesting posts, funny posts, mindless posts, and more posts paranoid about the end of the world.

We are marching to our deaths; leading each other down a cliff, one of them frets. 

Ruby rolls his eyes. People are dramatic. He scrolls again.

Armageddon—

The world is not ending, but the human population—

Fuck the population.

Just eat all the food you can. There's no point in saving it if we're all going to die.

An overwhelming urge to smash his phone onto the wooden floor gnaws at him, so he turns it off, placing it aside. Armageddon this, Armageddon that. Just because there's not enough food doesn't mean the world is ending. There might be a billion years until anything catastrophic like that happens. What's the point of worrying about something so absurd? How many times has everybody predicted the end only for nothing to happen the next day? 

Never any positivity gets posted on social media. It's mostly negativity and nothing else. Always bad news and never good news. None of it is hardly even human anymore, but replaced by artificial intelligence that doesn't need energy, doesn't starve. Nothing ever feels mortal any longer. It disappoints him, sometimes so much he really hopes the world tears apart from a nuclear war or an alien abduction, or whichever way people think the world will end. Ruby really doesn't care as long as everything is long gone. He'll hope for a better future once people lose their panic and idiocy. And once everybody becomes human again.

Yet, he deeply cares for the end. If the people are right, if the end really is coming, then it will be too soon. He isn't ready and he won't be ready. The time he will be is once his life is complete. Sure, he has the job he loves, and more than enough money, but that's not everything. He doesn't have everything yet.

He's still alone.

In case the end is near, Ruby heads to his studio. There might not be enough time for procrastination, so the time for productivity rules now. It doesn't frighten him too much, incidentally, but the possibility does. Sure, these months have their ribs visible through their skin, and the practice of cannibalism is becoming normalized, but that doesn't mean the world is ending. It's just the ending of human civilization, which Ruby could care more about.

What he struggles to understand is why it matters. If it's fate, if everybody is bound to die, then why try to live? Why save food when all of it is running out? When everybody is gone, what part of it will really matter? It will be like the human population never existed in the first place, and once most people are killed off, there will be room for food to be grown, and then life will begin again. This is nowhere near the end. The world will never end.

Although he is not running out of time, Ruby still pulls his guitar out, searching for the melody he has in mind. For now, he focuses on DUCKBOY since he and Scrim have yet to start anything new. They just had finished touring together recently, and now Scrim works on his solo project the same time Ruby does. 

Today, he tries to avoid the thought of Scrim. With time, he will forget about his transient nightmare, but the horrific sight still infests his brain. Of course it isn't real, and it's just a dream—it will never come true. Yet seeing his cousin drenched in his own blood terrifies him, especially when there's an axe stuck in his neck as his eyes are wide with fear and shock. He had dreamed of blood before, but not like this. Of all people, why Scrim, who grew up with him, shares his blood, and made a pact with him? 

It's nothing, however. Just a dream. He continues to pluck at his guitar, striking chords as the sound resonates within the four walls of this studio. And once he discovers the riff he likes, he replays it, fixes it, plays it again, over and over and over.

What Ruby makes sure he doesn't do is rush as if the world is ending, because it is not. He takes his own time, not caring if this releases a year after the time he wants to finish, or if it releases far earlier. Since he's signed to independent G*59 Records, he doesn't worry about deadlines or making a song sound a certain way just because somebody told him to do it that way. He'll never trade the label even if he was offered everything in the world. It is strictly Grey Five Nine until the grave. 

The words to this song are already written down, and he memorizes the riff, putting it on paper before placing his guitar back on its stand. It's a melancholic love song, and it will darken his mood if he thinks about it too long. Storm clouds usually roll over his head once he reminiscences on the past, when he wasn't alone. But that was years ago. Things were simpler in the past. Now, food is scarce, people turn against others, and rumors of a disease outbreak threaten the planet. Everybody lacks the nutrients to stay strong as the virus hijacks their body, and it kills them. This is extinction—Ruby grins at their stupidity—not the end of the world. The bugs always survive everything.

At least he has Scrim. He always wonders what will happen if Scrim dies and leaves him behind, and he's deathly afraid of it. The mere thought frightens him. What will happen if Scrim dies unexpectedly; for example, his car crashes and he never makes it out? First of all, he knows $uicideboy$ will and could never continue. Second, a gaping hole will form in his life, and nearly half of him will become empty.

It's the same the other way around, too. If Ruby dies, Scrim might spiral. $uicideboy$ will meet their demise, and won't be able to move on. Ruby frets that his death might ruin Scrim's life, and hopes it doesn't. Hopes he doesn't relapse, hopes he doesn't break his relationship with his wife, hopes he doesn't give up. 

He forces himself not to think about these things, but they always—

His phone rings. Scrim's name on the screen brings him a sense of him comfort and contentment. In the deteriorating state of the population, they are both alive. Scrim has no axe through his neck. 

"What's up?" Ruby asks, even though he knows Scrim is most likely going to say something related to their music career.

"Uh, Oddy, this is important." There's a dark tone to his voice. Like he's looking at a grave as he speaks. He doesn't wait for a response, either. "My brother's sick. You know that disease that's going around? Yeah. He's in the hospital."

It's not like the disease is only similar to a cold, either. It's a merciless virus closer to the Plague than anything else. Fever, vomiting, rash . . . it leads into delirium eventually. The sickness seems to never end. Some say death is the only cure. 

At first, Ruby can't speak. He doesn't want to believe it, yet Scrim sounds more serious than ever. Slim is sick, really sick. His mind urges him to get out and do something that will heal him, but there's nothing he can change about it. The only thing he thinks he can do is ask, "How bad is it?"

"Pretty fuckin' bad. I don't know, I don't —" Scrim sighs. "Just pray he gets better, or that it doesn't get worse. I don't know. I just wanted to let you know."

"Yeah, man," Ruby says.  "Thanks for telling me. I'll definitely give him a visit."

"I'm gonna visit him today," Scrim mentions. "You wanna come?"

"Of course, dude." Just to be clear, he doesn't want to come. Nobody in their right mind would want to watch somebody rot in his deathbed, but he does this out of honor, respect, and love. He'll give Slim one last look before the maggots and flies feast on his decomposing corpse, even if it cuts him to witness. "I mean, fuck, we should probably go now before he gets worse ... "

"Yeah, just give me like twenty minutes and I'll come get you."

Ruby lowers his phone to check the time. "You think they got him isolated?"

Scrim answers a little late. "No, or, I hope not. We'll see when we get there."

Chapter 3: iii

The visit to the hospital turned out to not be what Ruby and Scrim expected, but that doesn't mean it was better—seeing Slim on his deathbed (Ruby dares to say) definitely cut both of them much deeper than a knife ever could. When they first arrived, worried, they asked the employees where Slim was, and if they could visit him, and luckily, although they were brought to an isolation room, they saw him. 

He looked horrible. A stray dog staggering with mange. You could tell just by his words the delirium had already started kicking in. They stood at his bedside—Ruby still, not sure what to do or say, too stunned by the sight, and Scrim leaned into his little brother's sickly face, pleading him to stay strong no matter what happened to him, that he had gone through a ton so he could go through this. And when Ruby noticed the tears in his eyes, he placed a hand on his back, reminding Scrim he's not by himself; his cousin is at his side. He could feel his own tears threatening to form, being able to tell by the suffocating feeling in his throat as he watched Scrim speak to Slim for the last time, but he swallowed them down forcefully, trying to comfort Scrim without having to deal with himself. 

Their visit didn't last long. Ruby grew excruciatingly aware how devastating this was to Scrim—Slim is Scrim's younger brother; they share the same blood—and insisted him to leave after embracing him as a way to calm him down. Then, while driving back home, although he had been emotional minutes prior, Scrim said he wanted Ruby to work in the studio with him. Now Ruby sits beside Scrim at his desk, listening to the beat blasting through the speakers. 

"Yeah, this one," Ruby chooses, speaking loud enough so that Scrim can hear him over the music. "It's fuckin' crazy. How many more you got?"

"A few more. They're here somewhere." Scrim scrolls through the files on his monitor. "Hold up; let me find the good ones."

A moment of silence hangs in the air as Ruby watches Scrim search for what he wants. Then, after half a minute, he can hear a producer tag before the room becomes loud again. 

The instrumentals Scrim has been showing him might be one of the best he has heard. Ruby sits still and motionless, only listening, not asking, not looking around, until Scrim stops the music with a click of a button.

"Listen," he says. 

Ruby faces him.

"I know I'm saying this in the middle of a beat but," Scrim's tone is as grave as limestone, "we don't have much time. I don't wanna rush, but you've seen what the world looks like right now."

Suddenly Ruby can't look Scrim in the eyes; he gazes down at the floor, unsure of what to say. He's unsure of who to believe—himself, who doesn't think the world will end anytime soon, or society, who is prepared to face Armageddon, the battle to end all battles. Prepared to face worse natural disasters than Katrina. Scrim, Ruby knows, believes in it, and knows he believes in it a lot. He's Christian. Believes in a second coming. Ruby isn't an atheist, knowing there is a God, but he's sure there's still millions of years before the world comes to an end. What's everybody stressing about—starvation? Disease? They don't last forever. In a few years, the world will spin back into its usual state.

"I don't believe it," Ruby says. "If you're trying to say the world is ending, I don't believe it."

Scrim seems taken aback, like he's never seen anybody who has doubted the dwindling health of the Earth, because, really, he hasn't. Then, he states, "You don't have to, but I think it's best if you do."

Ruby shakes his head. "I know people are dying, but that's what happens when there's sicknesses and no food." He watches Scrim turn to face away, and Ruby becomes aware he has touched a sensitive topic. "Look, I'm sorry about your brother."

At first Scrim doesn't respond, but then all he says is, "You really don't believe it?"

"We've gone through shit like this before, dude."

"You know the horsemen of Apocalypse, right, Oddy?"

"Of course I do."

And all Scrim replies with is: "Remember them." 

They continue to listen to the music, moving from their deep, brief discussion. Ruby almost forgets how much he had liked the sound of this one. He can already hear his flow once he records, and even thinks he can freestyle if he wants to. 

"Do you fuck with this one?" he asks.

Scrim nods. "Went fuckin' crazy making this shit."

"You wanna put it on the album or something?"

"Hell yeah, but we'll see. Maybe we'll make something better."

"Hey, you said you're showing me the 'good ones'," Ruby mentions. "What about the others? Let me hear some of that."

A couple hours go by, and Scrim and Ruby spend their time listening to the beats hidden on Scrim's computer. Although Ruby doesn't believe this is the end, he attentively listens to what Scrim wants him to, assuring that their next project will come sooner than the extinction of human beings, because Scrim is anxious about it. He's anxious about his brother, yet he's hardworking, so Ruby doesn't want to stress him out by being difficult and doubtful, and possibly ignorant.

The day becomes late; the sun sets and paints the sky to look as if a giant fireball has stained the troposphere. Ruby's energy gets sucked out of him by some melatonin mosquito. When Scrim returns to the studio—he had left for a snack—he even mentions how it appears outside, suggesting that he drives Ruby home. 

"You wanna keep doing this tomorrow?" Scrim asks, almost insistingly, as he and Ruby head to the front door.

"Yeah! I mean, I got no plans tomorrow." Ruby hops beside Scrim in his car, who sits behind the steering wheel, beginning to drive. They sit in silence for a transient moment.

Once again, Scrim mentions the state of the world. Ruby understands he's not pushing what he believes onto him, and the reason he keeps bringing it up is because he's afraid and worries about his family. So Ruby lets it slide, until Scrim claims, "I think you're just in denial."

It's not denial; it's knowledge. While the rest of the world is paranoid, Ruby is fearless. Everybody dies, as sad as it sounds, but sometimes nature will take billions of people's lives just to keep its world together. Ants hide underground with their crumbs and wait until everything is over. The world isn't ending; only people might. And besides, there's a lot of people in the world who deserve to starve to death.

"I think everyone's being dramatic," Ruby tells Scrim at last. "Well, you aren't. I get you want Slim to recover." 

It's true. Scrim has never mentioned the world ending once until he heard the news of his brother.

"Trust me," Scrim says, almost pleadingly. "You'll regret not believing it once you see it."

+ + +

Ruby arrives home and looks at the news. Everything is about the Apocalypse, as usual.

They say some markets allow human body parts to be sold on shelves. They say when patients pass, the morgue technicians might steal a body for some food on their dinner plate. It's illegal, but nobody wants to starve. Food costs too much, especially when there is hardly any of it, and with starvation comes desperation until it becomes death. Until it becomes the lives of other people.

Perhaps Scrim is right—he might be in denial. The answer is in front of his eyes, on television screens, yet he disagrees. He thinks only most people will die. But there is a chance, although it's small, that Scrim is right. That God will destroy sin and the Earth. Famine, war, and pestilence only kill people, and not the world. What kills the world is fire, and Ruby hasn't even seen a spark. 

That is, except when he's lighting up a blunt.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine."

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, "Come and see."

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Chapter 4: iv

Ruby stays still, watching from afar.

Scrim stands before. They're outside in the midst of a different storm. He sticks with a look in his eyes of pure terror before he's struck, and when it hits him, blood shoots into the air, and he stumbles back, his gaze still locked onto . . .

Ruby can't remember how he had gotten there and here, but he's now enclosed in the walls of his house. And once his head comes down from the clouds, he realizes he has been here the entire time, moreover his surroundings feel nearby again. 

He has watched Scrim die—what? Three times now? Twice in his dreams—the second time, he only assumed there was some stress he didn't know he was dealing with and called it a recurring dream, and the first time it was meaningless. The third time—now—in a trance.

He hasn't smoked today. He watches Scrim die in his waking hours soberly. This is the third time, and this can't be a recurring dream. He had seen it in a trance. 

It couldn't be anything other than—

It hits him like a bullet to the head—scorching, explosive, horribly bloody.

Oh God, Scott . . . 

Ruby doesn't know what to do at first. He doesn't move, only sighing a distressed huff and searching his surroundings for something to calm him. 

He finds a bag of weed. There might be an alternative option to this, but he's unsure. This is all he seems to know, and who can blame him? He fills the paper and rolls it up. The lettuce will provide him instant relaxation once it enters his body. 

But this seems to be the first time he finds himself hesitant to light up a blunt. Some part of him wants to process all his racing thoughts instead of letting himself distract himself from them. 

Yet he doesn't want to. When the harrowing realization comes into mind, his body flushes, and adrenaline poisons him with its numbers, conquering him like a white horse. His body trembles, and he notices it when he holds the blunt between shaky fingers. 

What he sees is far more than a dream and a daydream. It's real. A warning. He has read this in Bible chapters. When John hears a voice and turns around to see. What he sees is not where he actually is, because he sees the future. The end of the world. 

Ruby believes it's some prophetic vision. That God is trying to warn him somebody will murder Scrim brutally, and shows him the same thing over and over again to really get it inside his head, so he doesn't forget about it. In order for him to realize there's nothing he can do about it and it's not in his control. 

He finds the lighter on the floor, and the next thing he knows he's already smoking.

The vision hurts every time. It's traumatizing enough to witness a stranger get slaughtered in media, but watching his own cousin die nearly every day hurts more than any bullet ever can. The image haunts him even hours after he recieves it. He wakes up in a sweat, feels it dwell in his mind as he starts his morning. Even worse, his surroundings are too vivid for him to tell reality apart from prophecy. It's like Scrim is really dying right then and there. 

He doesn't want Scrim to die. What hurts is that the vision doesn't tell him when he's going to die. It could be years.

 It could be now. 

Ruby exhales a cloud of smoke. His thoughts are all mantras of curses. Scrim's going to die. Any time, any day. Somebody's going to beat an axe into his neck—but why? Envy? Resentment? Hunger? Who wants to see that much blood?

He takes another hit. The vision . . . it was so vivid. He could sense everything—the temperature, the smooth feeling of the wooden handle. The blood in the sky. The sound of everything hitting the ground. Now matter how much he can try, Ruby believes he'll never be aware he's experiencing the vision until it's all over.

Why now? What makes this a great time for God to give him a vision? They say it's better late than never, but what if it's too late? What if Scrim's body is on the grass, stiff, vultures surrounding to harvest?
 
Ruby exhales the smoke. Repeats the cycle. He doesn't understand why, out of everybody, out of all the Christians and Catholics on Earth, why did God speak to him? He abandoned religion when he was just a kid. He never prays, never considers God when he makes choices. Is God giving others prophecies now or is it just him?

Yet, he knows, in the back of his mind, he believes.

Ruby slumped himself down against the bathroom wall, pills in one hand, their bottle in the other. The light above beamed down on him vigilantly, watching him, making sure he didn't fall asleep as he fed his bloodstream with his opioids. His breaths came as slow as the growth of a cactus, his movements uncoordinated and likewise. He didn't think he had the energy to stand himself up, and if he did, considering the discomfort in his gut, he might throw up. Suffocating, drowning sounds came from his throat, and he felt like he was submerged in the waters of Lake Ponchartrain, lungs overfilled with salty water, body sinking downwards. Gravity and nausea kept him down like an anchor, and he shivered at the depth.

Head spinning, Ruby dizzily peered down the pill bottle, his surroundings hazy, dreamlike, and fading away, and pulled out the last measly pill left. A conflict started in his head—part of him wanted another one, as numb and dazed as he was already, wanted to ensure that next time he woke up, it would be in Hell, meanwhile the other part of him begged him not to take another, screaming he had too much; he would die if one more pill entered his body, because, really, he did lose count of how many pills he had taken, but he knew it was more than enough by how excruciatingly exhausted he felt. Every milligram of the drugs he had taken acted as a ravenous leech sucking his energy away. Even breathing drained him; fortunately, the breaths he took weren't frequent at all, manifesting as dangerously slow as they were. Keeping his eyes open and staring at the pill began to act as a chore, and he urged himself to go to sleep—even if he'll never wake up.

 Ruby threw the pill back in and dropped everything in his hands. It would be more than one too many if he took it. He had too much, yet he wanted more.

It was too late now, anyway. Could he even lift his hand if he tried or was he too tired to?

He thought his soul, as a reptile, was molting from his feverish body with this numb, sort of floating sensation he underwent while the floor beneath him began to lose its matter. It was hard to tell—was this death or the death of everything around him? 

Pills scattered around him like maggots on a carcass. The only thing on his mind, like a flame in a deep darkness, were the pills. They seemed to be the only thing he could be aware of, since they did this to him, as he did this to himself, intentionally to kill or not. Ruby forgot which goal he was trying to achieve—trying to kill himself or a high he had never flown up to before. However, it didn't matter anymore—he had achieved both. 

The light above him gave up on trying to keep him in the present, melatonin and opioids dragging him elsewhere. He slipped into a deep, converging blackness in which he spiraled downward, sinking into an abyss of a drug-induced nothingness. There was no sense of time, no sense of direction here. Ruby only knew one thing here, and it was that he no longer existed anymore. 

He was patient as he waited for the flames to rise, and hours passed. Hours and hours of lingering in this nothing his conscious mind couldn't comprehend. It felt like the first circle of Hell—Limbo—and he was a virtuous soul who died only with original sin—but he wasn't. He sinned so much Lucifer himself would be frightened upon seeing him. 

But the flames never came. 

+ + +

Ruby blinked away the darkness as he stirred awake, mind foggy, head pounding. Immediately he noticed his surroundings—that he wasn't in Hell, but not in Heaven, either. He was, for some reason, on the bathroom floor. 

When he moved his arm effortfully, it felt as if he was ripping himself away from paralysis. The ache in his head worsened with the slightest lift. So, to avoid hurting himself more, he kept to slowly waking himself up, remaining still, thinking. 

Thinking, How the fuck did I get here? as he pushed the tiled floor, trying to pick himself up. Eventually, he sat up, ignoring the pain in his body, and looked around, searching for a reason to wake up here. 

Something slid across the floor as Ruby moved, making a scratching sound, and he picked it up when he found it. 

The pill bottle. 

Ruby grimaced. What time was it?

He looked inside it. A pill still rested inside of it, and another one was on the floor next to the spot Ruby lifted it from.

His headache screamed at him with need. 

He stood up, noticing a few more pills on the tiles to which he also collected, before heading to the kitchen to pull a soda from the fridge. 

Then popped a few pills without thinking. 

Ruby found his phone beside a bag of weed on the dining table, checking the time and his messages. It was nearly evening, he discovered, and he had been what he liked to call dead for nearly an entire day. 

3 missed calls from Scott.

Inwardly, he cursed, calling Scrim back, knowing he would be furious for not having any of his calls answered. 

For a moment the phone rang. 

But then, "Hello?" answered Scrim. 

"Yeah, you called me?" Ruby asked, his words in a sleepy mumble. 

"Riiight. I just wanted to ask when you want to announce the tour for this year. I'm thinking now, but where've ya been all day?"

Ruby felt a twinge of shame. "I'm sorry—I just woke up from an OD; I guess we could do it now ... I don't care." 

Silence nearly killing the air, Scrim's response was late. " ... Well, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine now," Ruby assured him quickly, although staring at the soda bottle in his hands. "Just a headache. It'll go away soon."

"But ... why?" Scrim murmured, though to Ruby, it felt like a growl knowing he was probably angry at him, and about to blow up, like when cats grumble before hissing and attacking. 

"Why, what?" Ruby repeated, mindless and close to threatened, acting like he didn't know what he was talking about. 

"Why did you OD? Don't tell me you're giving up even though we're this close to success! Oddy, you're leaving me in the dirt if you do it!" 

"Listen," Ruby urged, hoping he really would. "I don't remember if I did it on purpose or not. The only reason I knew I did it was because I woke up next to a bottle of pills. I remember nothing. Oh, and you've tried to do it, too, so you can't be mad at me."

Scrim let his guard down. His anger was quick to go away. "I know—I just get worried. You're my cousin; I don't want you to die. Just thank God you made it out alive," he said.

"Yeah, yeah. I know." Ruby started to consider God, at first angry at Him for making him an addict, but then thankful for the second chance at life. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful."

"Thank you. So we're releasing the tour dates now?" 

"If you want."

"Okay," Scrim said. "Talk to you later."

"See ya." Ruby still had God on his mind.

Scrim hung up, and Ruby was left with himself, and, well, God. He wanted to drop to his knees and fold his hands in prayer and cry to Him his thanks, because what would Scrim do without him? Especially with the upcoming tour? Scrim was right—they weren't successful yet, but close. But would that dream be ruined when they couldn't make anything together anymore? How could he leave Scrim, his cousin, like that?

Thank God I lived, Ruby thought, but not in a bitter way like how Scrim said it, but genuine and more grateful than anybody could ever be.

Chapter 5: v

"You're calling me for no reason?" Scrim asks. He sounds impatient and on the verge of hanging up. Guess he doesn't like when he's asked how's he doing. 

Ruby feels his face flush at his words, and concentrates on the road harder as he drives home. "Uh—no, I was just making sure you were safe, ya know, it's been dangerous lately ... "

"Yeah ... bitch, of course I'm safe!" He shouts, still impatient. "I ain't doing anything that will hurt me, am I?"

"No, but still," Ruby answers, although he remembers the axe lodged into his neck and has to look at something else to get the image away. "You're fine," he says this mostly to himself. "You're fine."

"Look, you don't need to worry about me. Just ... stop smoking so much weed."

"Yeah, maybe I've had too much." Truth is, he hasn't smoked today.

"'Ya think?"

Ruby sighs in response.

Then, Scrim says, "Wait—do you think the world is ending?"

Despite being the one to call him, he wants to hang up. He hates this topic. "Not the world," he mutters. "Just people."

"Oh. It just seemed like ya did. Never mind what I was gonna say. Anyways, again, just don't be paranoid about me. I'm fine."

Scrim doesn't understand, and Ruby isn't going to let him. He lied to him because who will want to know how they die, especially with a death so horrific? But perhaps he doesn't need to worry about it right now, for Scrim reassures him he's safe, therefore he has nobody around him who will kill him. Now isn't the time to tell him, which is safe to say. There's no reason to tell him now.

"Aight," Ruby says. "Anyway, I'll let ya go. I'm almost home. Stay safe out there."

He lets Scrim hang up, feeling not as paranoid now that he knows Scrim is safe. And what are the odds Scrim's murder will happen now, anyway? So far today, nothing much has happened, and only the usual people starving, governments fighting, society panicking. At the end of the day, after all of this, everybody passes out in bed after praying to God. It feels uneventful, and today is one of those days. And Scrim getting killed is an event and a half.

Sometimes, he tries to deny what he sees. He wants to believe the vision is just the nightmare he first had occasionally coming back to him, just very vividly. But he doesn't know why a small, short nightmare would come back to him that way, especially unexpectedly, and make him lose his awareness when he sees it. 

The vision is real, and he wishes it wasn't. He wishes he didn't even know it was real in the first place. He believes in God, but he doesn't feel religious enough to have God speaking to him. 

It doesn't matter anymore, however. What matters is that Scrim is going to die one day. 

Ruby pulls into his driveway. When he hops out of his car, he takes out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, pulls one out, lights it, and begins smoking. He's met with a faint chill he quickly adjusts to. The smoke dissolves into the cloudy atmosphere while he leans against the door of his car, and it mixes with the hail, collides with the fire. He looks forward, watching Scrim collapse as the axe in his neck knocks him down. Blood rains down from the air that's tense and fearful, floods the dying green grass. Scrim doesn't move and the fire continues to burn a few feet away as if it has seen nothing. The ice pelts his body, and beneath him a red pool forms, trickling through the blades of grass the way a path swerves around trees. 

Then everything fades away. Ruby finds himself back in his driveway, frozen in place, cigarette in his mouth. He takes another hit before angrily throwing the cigarette on the ground and mangling it as he stomps out its flame. As he heads back inside, he silently grumbles to God, thinking, You see me calling Scrim because I'm worried he's already dead. You don't need to remind me.

But perhaps God is trying to warn him even further. Besides, this isn't the first time he had the vision and only now he notices the terrible kind of storm Scrim was killed under. He hasn't even figured out who will kill him, and thinks of the possibilities.

It can be anyone.

He crosses out himself first, knowing that he'll die before killing Scrim. It can't be his wife, Sage. Can't be anybody in GREY*59. It can't be his family or friends. He knows that none of them will ever do such a thing.

There's still a lot of people it can be, and many reasons why. It can be somebody that hasn't even met him. Some starved individual murdering him for his money just to feed themself an affordable dinner. Somebody without food and craving human flesh. Somebody that doesn't care about the food—just the money. Anybody. 

Ruby sticks with the answer that it can be anybody. For now. There's not enough evidence for an exact answer yet, but he's afraid that won't change. 

It makes him feel powerless. Anybody. The answer screams within his brain. Anywhere, anytime. It isn't like he can change everybody's mind, announce to the world that they don't kill Scrim. He wants to be sure. He wants to know exactly who it will be. Anybody is too vague, like fog that engulfs a landscape. If he doesn't know, how can he stop it? And how can he stop fate? 

Ruby prays there isn't nothing he can do about it.

Giving up on trying to figure out the mystery, he grabs his phone, distracting himself from the paranoia and apprehension. He feels a twinge in his stomach whenever he remembers the vision. Whenever he recalls the lifelessness in his cousin's eyes. The pool of blood beneath him. Who will do such a thing? 

Anybody. 

He scrolls on social media. He's not a fan of it, but he'd rather look at other things rather than the image of a bleeding corpse in his head. When he thinks of Scrim, he thinks of death. And if he ever tells anybody about what he has been seeing, who is going to believe him? How does he even warn Scrim? Will they all think he's crazy?

There's breaking news on his phone. It's almost as staggering as God's vision. He turns pale with terror as he reads the words, and can feel the drumming of his heart inside his ribs. It doesn't help that it makes the situation of Scrim's murder even more harrowing than it already is. Already, he can see the destruction and the bleeding. They're saying World War III is officially here. And when Ruby tells Scrim about it, he knows he'll mention the End Times again. That the red horseman pulled out his great sword and was granted that people should kill one another. 

He wants to believe.

Chapter 6: vi

Ruby refuses to admit where he's at, and feels deep shame and guilt for being here, but his actions help him ground himself into reality, that he's really here, because he struggles to believe it. He doesn't want to believe he's here, but he's here, and he chose to go here when he headed out, although now he knew it wasn't a bright choice when he made it. He is afraid to imagine the consequences, and this is the one of the worst things he has ever done.

Here, only several moments ago, he sat, paying attention to himself only. That was until a girl noticed the hefty gold chain wrapped around his neck, and hesitantly headed over to him, only a little shy.

When she stands beside him, asking, "Excuse me," he lifts his eyes from the glass cup he has been staring down at in humiliation, looking up at her then looking back at his drink. 

"Whatchu want?" he mutters, not in a talkative mood at all. 

"I'm sorry to ask," she starts innocently, "but would you mind buying me something to eat?" 

Finally, Ruby looks at her. She has flowing black hair and wears a disheveled tank top. Her face is caked in makeup and eyeliner, her eyes in drunkenness. It is obvious she is trying to cope with her struggling, and Ruby can't help but feel bad for her, yet he still isn't going to give her anything for free. Sure, he has enough money to, but he doesn't know her, and doesn't want her to see him as a money machine.

That's what he told her. That he's not an ATM. However, he still insists that he wants to get to know her before handing her anything, and invites her to sit at his table.

Like maraschino cherries, the table is a sweet red, and its brilliant surface glistens beneath the hanging lamp above that produces an orange glow. The table is made of charred wood, its surface of tinted glass. The chairs are made of the same wooden material, and the cushioning for the chairs are a darker shade of red, matching the color of Ruby's drink. 

She says her name is Mary, and that's what Ruby recognized her as at first. She tells him she started drinking after she was divorced and was forced to live in an apartment. Her ex-husband had enough money and a job with good pay to keep her family well-fed. Apparently, they had a daughter. She described that after she moved away, she lost a lot of weight from the starvation and all she has now is a job that pays her minimum wage. She's desperate now. 

Ruby then exchanges his own circumstances that brought him here, to this bar. The war. Merciless, brutal. People dying by the minute. It has been going on for a few days now. If there was no famine he wouldn't care as much. He is afraid of the horsemen that are starting to manifest before him clearer than a thin sheet of ice. The sword of the red horseman's, he can see, has its shining blade pointed directly at his face. 

He gazes down at his glass again.

Then it worsens the paranoia the vision gave him. At night, he lies awake sleepless worrying about Scrim, and Scrim, Ruby has noticed, has started to catch onto his anxious behavior, getting concerned with how many times Ruby has called him the past couple of days. He even stopped blaming the weed. Unfortunately, Ruby couldn't find a way to ease himself and he's still stuck hoping Scrim is safe, no matter how many times he said he was. How many times Scrim told him, "Trust me; I'm fine." 

It felt like he tried everything to stop himself from thinking about the vision, and he thought to himself that perhaps this was something he could not ignore. And at that moment of realization, he felt so paralyzingly helpless it hurt. He could feel his heart shattering like a mirror. Tears falling from his face as he gripped the rosary he ripped from its case with its blood-colored beads. Staring at Jesus nailed to the cross, he blinked away his tears as he then tore the chains and beads apart. Scott's gonna die, he had been thinking, over and over and over again.

Ruby shakes his head before looking up at Mary again, trying to wrench himself away from his thoughts. "Ya want the rest of this?" he offers as he holds up the glass. He hopes this makes his relapse less agonizing.

"I'm good, thank you," she says politely, although a look of disgust is smeared all over her face. 

Ruby takes another guilty sip from the glass, knowing he has to finish it since he paid for it. "Not your thing?" he asks.

"Not really," she replies, glancing at nowhere in particular. "And besides, I'm drunk enough. Needa get home safely, y'know?"

Ruby nods. "Ya wanna come to my place before you do?" He finishes the last of his drink. "I'll make dinner for ya."

"Oh, you don't have to," she tells him, and Ruby's heart suffocates in disappointment. 

He doesn't want to be alone tonight. When he's alone, the only company he has is his thoughts that are paranoid and sleepless. All he wants is one night where he's not constantly wanting to check on Scrim. A time when he's distracted and it feels like he's taking a break from his paranoia. When it feels like he never knew the vision in the first place.

"I don't have to?" he echoes, tense. 

"You're just too generous in a time like this," she explains. "Why do you think I even deserve this?"

Ruby doesn't answer her question, instead asking his own. "Is it a good or bad thing that I'm too generous?"

"It's both," she answers. "I love that you're willin' to feed people you haven't met; you just need to make sure you save things for yourself."

"So ... ya comin' to my house or not?" He feels as anxious as when he waits for Scrim to pick up the phone. 

"Of course! Who would turn down an offer like that?"

Ruby feels himself relax with every muscle in his body. "Aight," he sighs. "We'll go in a little bit. I'm too drunk to drive right now."

"Yeah, we can wait." Mary pulls out her phone, checking the time. "I don't mind havin' a late dinner."

"Okay, good," Ruby says subconsciously, distracted by the memories of famine she gave him after mentioning dinner. Having enough money to afford food, he didn't worry that much about it. But then once the war started, he began to think twice about it. Part of him still thinks it's too soon for the End Times. 

He realizes Mary said something but he didn't hear.

"Uh, you think this is the end?" he asks. 

Mary sadly nods, and doesn't look at him as she speaks. "It is. And it's gonna get worse from here."

Ruby doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to argue with her. Tell her the famine won't last forever since there will be more food once a couple billion of people die off. Tell her, although only hoping himself, the war won't kill everybody. 

"There's supposed to be an earthquake," she warns. "But what about you? Do you think it's the end?"

Her words make Ruby's seat spontaneously uncomfortable, and Ruby finds himself nervously glancing at his empty glass, Mary, the door, the empty glass again, Mary again. "Ya know," he says, standing up. "I think I'll be fine drivin'." 

She gives him a confused stare. "But you said you're too drunk!" she protests, prepared to jump from her seat. 

"Yeah, whatever." Ruby heads for the door, itching to make it to his car. Mary follows him immediately. Ruby pushes the door open, nearly stumbling through. "Forget it; I can drive no problem!" The door nearly slams shut after they both walk out of the bar.

"Oddy, slow down!" Mary grabs the back of Ruby's shirt, and he stops to a grinding halt. "Was it something I said? What happened?"

"Follow me," he insists instead as he lifts his leg and pretends to try running off. "Ya still comin' to my house? I can drive—ya too drunk to?"

Mary shakes her head impatiently and tightens her grip. "No," she says bluntly. "I haven't drank in at least an hour. And it's you who's too drunk to drive!"

"I'm fine!" Ruby tells her, hoping she will start believing him. "I've lived here my whole life! Driving home won't be"—the thought of Scrim randomly enters his brain, and he becomes more eager to come home, realizing that he hasn't called Scrim in hours—"won't be ... just fuck it! Follow me!"

Mary lets go of Ruby, heading to her car as Ruby hurries for his own. He pulls out his phone after starting the car, dialing Scrim's number. 

"Whatchu want, Oddy?" Scrim asks, annoyance in his tone. "It's late as shit. I'm tryna sleep."

"Yeah, sorry, uhh, you okay?" he mumbles, aware of how much he's pissing Scrim off.

"The fuck do you think, bro?" Scrim snaps. "I just said I'm tryna sleep! Stop calling me so much, goddamn!"

With that, he hangs up, leaving Ruby focusing on the road, headlights glowing. He looks into the side mirror, noticing Mary remaining on his tail as he picks up speed and leads her home. He's not fazed by Scrim's temper, not at all, only content knowing he'll be okay.

+ + +

Ruby wakes up in the pitch darkness of midnight, blood trail images tunneling his brain like a bed of compost worms. He's trembling like a small dog in a dogfight, wants to scream, to find a way to free himself from the vision and the nightmares. He wishes he wasn't so helpless when it came to God and fate. The only thing he is able to do to make sure Scrim stays alive and unharmed is to check up on him, but it doesn't do much and bothers Scrim.

Head stinging, Ruby sits at the edge of his bed and picks up his phone that has been laying on his nightstand, debating if he should call him. He's probably sleeping he considers, and his paranoia scourges him raw. I don't give a fuck. Would Scrim really care that much? Fucking useless anyway.

He angrily places his phone back on the nightstand, and turns on the lamp beside it, eyes squinting immediately. There's also a styrofoam cup filled with crimson liquid, he discovers, on the nightstand, and he hungrily takes it. After starting off with a small sip then feeding himself by nearly chugging the entire thing, he looks into the surface that's broken by ice cubes, guilt piercing his heart like a spear.

I've relapsed. The thought paralyzes him. He thinks his heart has stopped. Why did I do that? How do I even tell Scott?

Even though his realization seems to clot the blood in his heart, he takes another sip. It's intoxicating. In his head, he repeats to himself that this is useless. He knows this won't do anything. No matter how much he drinks, nothing is going to change. He's aware of how much worse this will become. Aware that he will buy more tomorrow. It terrifies him to death. 

As he continues drinking, ashamed, he looks over his shoulder, searching for Babylon—who he used to recognize as Mary before they sinned together—but instead he finds a massive scarlet beast breathing down his neck. All seven of its heads face him, every eye staring deeply as he holds the cup to his lips. They watch him drink his sobriety away. Its ten horns are sharp enough to impale right through his stomach, and he's afraid to see its teeth. 

 Ruby doesn't move, however. Until it tries to mangle him, the monster doesn't matter right now. The only thing he seems to be able to think about is his relapse and the vision. It feels as if the styrofoam cup in his hand is all that exists. His surroundings are miles away. He can't seem to reach the beast beside him and its blasphemic names. But when the inebriating liquid touches his tongue, he becomes slightly more tethered to the bedroom. What he did is real. 

He knows he has to tell Scrim eventually. He wants to break the news before Scrim meets the fate he doesn't know he has yet. 

His feelings side with hatred. He hates the vision he's forced to watch, hates the famine and the war. Death. His paranoia, his relapse. The empty cup in his hand.

Ruby stares into the cup before standing up. He doesn't know when he should tell Scrim. It's risky to not call him now, but he's afraid to tell him. But what if it's too late?

Babylon might have a drink on her side of the bed. When he watches himself head to her side to steal it, he doesn't think he's able to exist. He passes through light years to have the bottle in his hand. When the bottle pours out its maroon heart into the cup, he is reminded of the river of Scrim's blood spilling through blades of grass and hail. 

Then there's a voice. He can't make out the words, but it's speaking to somebody. Shouting. 

Throughout the day, when Ruby first considered heading to the bar to ease the stress, how did he forget to place Scrim in the picture? The only time he thought of Scrim was when he was thinking about his death. All the memories they have ever shared together have to be marred because when he thinks of Scrim, all he can see is the axe in his neck. 

The cup overfills. Its insides trickle off the edges, yet the bottle keeps bleeding. 

Ruby, he thinks, then looks up at Babylon, who is sitting up in his bed. Her mouth moves, but her words are too far away to reach his head. He's on another planet. He only exists where he's tortured by the future, and he has seen too much. Far more than everybody else, who all are blind to him.

The taste is sweetly poisonous. Red droplets plummet down, down, down before strewing across the floor in an unrelenting splatter. 

Blood flies into the air when it strikes him. Then, it all hits the ground.

Ruby takes a sip again. It's strong, so strong. Grounding.

Suddenly, Babylon's voice starts to become tangible. Her mouth begins to move for a reason. She's shouting at somebody, he knows, shouting at him. He lands back to Earth, his body wrapped in flames. Then, he listens.

"Do you even have a brain in there?" Babylon is saying, frustrated. 

Ruby looks down at the cup in his hand. His fingers are painted crimson, the styrofoam of the cup have dripping trails of the same color. A small, dark pool is forming on the floor below it. 

Scrim is going to hate him. Ruby prays he is at least understanding. 

Instinctively, he backs away from the puddle, trying to make it look like he isn't the one drinking, and heads back to his own side of the bed. The drink sloshes around and lands on the floor as he walks, leaving a vague trail.

After he has forgotten to respond, Babylon speaks again, persistent to gain his awareness. "Oddy!"

He hears, but he's too ashamed to look back at her. "My bad," he murmurs before drinking from the cup. "Whatchu want?"

"You're spilling everything," she says, pointing to all the puddles. "Not sure if you noticed." 

"It's not much," he tells her, still staring down at his cup. 

"It's everywhere. You overfilled your drink and kept pouring it anyway."

Ruby shakes his head, then puts the cup back on his nightstand, gazing at it with clean hatred. "That wasn't me," he mutters as he lays himself on the sheets. 

He wishes he didn't relapse.

Babylon sinks herself into the blankets again. "You don't wanna clean it up before it stains the floor?"

Ruby glances at the trail he has left behind, and it still reminds him of what saw in the revelation. "Fuck it," he says. "I'll just do it in the morning."

Chapter 7: vii

Summary:

skip this is you have a weak stomach (descriptive vomiting)

don't wanna get puke on ur screen !!

Pain wakes Ruby up. It's first in his head, then in his stomach, then the rest of his body. It urges him to move—he can't lie still like this for any longer. When he rolls onto his back, his brain splits open as he moves, and he watches the ceiling slide through his vision that's spinning like blood racing to fall down the drain. The next thing he notices is that he's craving something to drink, and he'll take anything to get the dry, cracking desert out of his mouth. But when he glances at the styrofoam cup in guilt and disgust, he realizes that he'll only take certain things instead of anything. 

He lazily turns to his side again; the nausea ties his stomach into a knot, worsens. His dizzy vision doesn't help his cause, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut to alleviate the urge to throw up. For comfort, he reaches out for Babylon, but his shaky hand lands on the sheets, and when he opens his eyes again for a fleeting moment, he finds out she's not there. 

Sluggish, Ruby rubs his face as he slowly sits up, and remains there, wishing the sick feeling would leave if he just waited. Again, he looks at the drink on his nightstand, and sighs, which nearly pushes the bile out of him. The room around him keeps slipping, but he wants to find Babylon and his reverberating headache demands him to search for something that'll get rid of it, so he cautiously slides out of bed, woozy as he stands up, trudging out of the bedroom. 

He drags himself around the house, his body skidding across the walls to keep himself from losing balance as the house rolls. His arm wraps around his abdomen. It takes effort to breathe even a word, and he stops moving to collect himself before he speaks. "Babyl—uhh ... I mean—" He begins to correct himself, but takes a moment to puff and blow, to focus on his breathing in attempt to distract himself from the nausea, and realizes he has forgotten Babylon's true name. "Ya sick too?"

He wobbles to the bathroom. Every step he takes feels heavy and effortful. Turning on the light when he's at the doorway, his eyes sting. Squinting, he looks around the pale, blinding room, and finds nobody but a sudden craving.

It drives him to the mirror, and although his craving is strong, his legs still tremble as he walks. He grasps the sink below, his grip weak and sweaty, and, ignoring his disheveled appearance in the mirror, he softly opens the mirror to reveal several bottles of pills. On the top shelf, there's the old bottles he loathes and hasn't touched in years, but on the bottom shelf, there's a bottle of ibuprofen, to which he takes. 

A barrage of nausea racks him, the barbed wires wrapped around his stomach now taut. He doubles over, his face nearly in the basin, his hand clawing the sink trembling, struggling to retain his balance as he shifts. With his other arm, he hugs his abdomen again, the ibuprofen bottle in his hand lightly touching his side. The taste of saliva in his mouth begins to manifest, but he can't seem to vomit just yet. 

After many long, drawn-out seconds of waiting and waiting for the pain to ease meanwhile waiting to throw up, the pain finally does, although only slightly. He still stands himself upright again, piercing through exhaustion and the aches that  throb throughout his body. All he thinks he can concentrate on is the agony, even though all he wants to do is ignore it. 

The room keeps spinning. When he begins to untwist the cap on the bottle, another storm of nausea strangles his insides, and he spits out the excess saliva into the sink. In his head, he's been repeating to himself that this time, he'll throw up, but the only thing he does is heave. 

Then, he hears a voice behind him that calls his name. It's sinister, serpentine, having undertones of a hissing snake. Sickly, Ruby twists his body to find where the voice is coming from, his stomach aching savagely. He has to concentrate hard on the figure because the pain is almost blinding and, when he sees him, he can't believe his eyes. 

A beast with red skin stands behind him, his body resembling a man's, his legs resembling that of a goat's. On his head are two sharp, golden horns, and behind him is a slim, dragon-like tail. Ruby knows painfully this is the Devil in his bathroom, and can already smell his death and tragic fate to Hell. He starts to believe he's not just sick, but dying. 

The Devil takes a step forward and reaches over Ruby for one of the pill bottles on the top shelf. He grabs a random one, and when its in his hand, he presents it to Ruby. "This will work better," he says, hissing like a snake again. "Come on, there's stronger pills up there and you choose that"—he points to the ibuprofen bottle in Ruby's hand—"one?"

Before Ruby can respond, the floor beneath him shakes. Sharp pain explodes in his stomach as his vision falls into a hurricane of colors. The only thing he can hear is the sound of pill bottles rattling off the shelf and landing on the floor with a crash each. When he collects himself, heaving, gasping, he finds himself on the floor, lying on his stomach, soaking himself of top of crimson vomit. He pushes on the floor to lift himself, looking up pleadingly at Satan, but his arms give out, and he can only lift his head from the trembling floor and the dark puddle, but just to throw up again. 

One of the pill bottles rolls to him, stopping at his face flirtatiously. Ruby gazes at it, frightened as his vision continues to swirl, then looks up at the Devil again.

"Look how sick you are!" the Devil hollers, teasingly dropping the bottle in his hand. The loud crashing sound the bottles make when they hit the floor make Ruby able to hear the blood roaring in his ears. "You really thought a measly ibuprofen would do the trick? Well, I'll tell you what: it won't do shit!"

Earth still shaking, Ruby, only slightly reluctant at this point, snatches the pill bottle that's rattling at his face. He glances up at Satan again before removing the cap, taking out a pill. When he does so, only now he realizes how much he wants this. He swallows it dryly, hydrophobic, afraid that he'll throw up again if he consumes any liquid. 

Waiting for the pill to settle in, he gazes up at the Devil again with no intention to look back down. Before he tries to speak, he wipes his mouth. "If this is the end," he chokes out, breathing heavily, "then you ... you don't have much longer. When you're thrown into the lake, I will ... everybody will laugh. Everybody will be there to watch."

"No, you won't," the Devil sneers, kicking the pill bottle out of Ruby's hand, its contents spilling in a scattered line leading from where it was kicked to where it landed. Ruby scooped up the pills in his reach like a mother alligator protecting her eggs from harm before the Devil told him, "You'll be late."

+ + +

Ruby wakes up wanting more. 

At first he's confused, disoriented. He can't see anything around him. His surroundings are pitch-black. Has he slept all day?

Then, he remembers he fell asleep after swallowing a pill or two. He realizes he hasn't left the floor, and he shifts around, wanting to fall back asleep, trying to find comfort that isn't there.

Slowly, he sits up from the bathroom floor. Dark vomit sticks to his face. He notices that the earth is no longer shaking and all the pill bottles scattered throughout the room. Then, with sudden apprehension, he looks around for the Devil, and feels relieved when he finds out he's no longer here. The stench of vomit is ever so nauseating, but he ignores it as he picks up a pill resting beside him, uncaring of how dirty it may be. He keeps it in his fist when he stands up tiredly, remaining there, doing nothing but concentrating on his balance before throwing down a nearby towel onto the red puddle below him.

Exhaustion weighs him down. When he plods downstairs, he has to grip the railing, dizziness itching to trip him. In the kitchen, he finds the cabinet the glasses are in, and reaches for a glass. The aches in his body hammer while he fills the glass with water. They'll go away soon, he knows, because he's swallowing the pill he had taken. And as he takes sips, he drags himself to the window, checking if Babylon is here or not. She's not, it turns out; her car is gone. 

The sky is black. Has he really been out all day?

Ruby wanders around the house, turning all the lights on. It's a mess. Items previously on tables are now on the floor. Decoration that has been hung up on the wall fell off the wall. However, he doesn't mind the damage that much for now—he's too sick to care yet. But once he recovers, he'll clean everything up. 

His energy drains when he climbs upstairs, heading back to bed. In his bedroom, he steps on dried maroon puddles before sinking into the mattress, slightly frustrated with how much he'll have to clean up. He knows this won't be so bad if he didn't relapse and make things worse for himself. If he didn't decide to break his sobriety, then the puddles won't be here; the pills won't be scattered all over the bathroom, because he won't be sick. 

He grabs his phone from the nightstand after placing the glass of water. There's a missed call, and it's from Scrim. 

His stomach twists with paralyzing dread. He has been asleep for hours—what if it's too late? What if Scrim is already dead? 

The phone rings. He called Scrim back so fast he can't even remember doing so.

Scrim picks up. "Oddy?"

"Uh—I'm sorry I didn't pick up," he says, groggy. He hopes Scrim wasn't calling because of an emergency, like his house collapsed in the earthquake, or somebody with an axe came and tried to kill him. "I was ... I was sleepin'."

"Sleeping?" Scrim echoes, clearly surprised. "Durin' the earthquake?"

It hurts to hear Scrim. Ruby knows one day he'll have to tell him what he did, and knows he has to tell him soon. He fears what Scrim will say, is aware he'll probably be mad. He knows he'll need to use the cliché, promise you won't hate me?

"Listen, I feel like shit today," Ruby explains. "'Slept all day." 

"You noticed the earthquake, right? Like did you feel it?" 

Ruby recalls it. All the pills crashing to the floor as he lost his balance. He's not sure when the earth stopped shaking, but he knows it didn't when he fell asleep. 

"I felt it," he says. 

"You're not hurt or anything? Anything happen to your house?" Scrim asks. 

"I'm fine. My house is fine. Things just fell off the walls and tables and shit." Ruby looks around the room. The walls first, now bare, then the floor. Asides from the red puddles that are now dry, several objects are strewn everywhere. Only now he realizes the Styrofoam cup that had fallen off the nightstand. Its contents soak in between the wooden tiles of the floor. "I'll have to clean up, but it's all good. I don't need to worry about insurance. But what about you? Are you okay? Why'd you call me earlier?"

"I called during the earthquake. And yeah, I'm fine, but earlier I wasn't. I was scared to death. Nearly had a panic attack hearing everything fall off the shelves. My house is damaged only a little bit, but I have the money to fix it." Ruby can hear an exhausted, frustrated sigh from the other line. "But ya know, it's a mansion, so I'm not that surprised. More rooms to fuck up."

I need to tell him, Ruby thinks suddenly, unconsciously humming in acknowledgement to Scrim's words. Tell him about his mistakes, his relapse. He just wasted years of sobriety. Tons of songs reflecting on his past abuse that now mean nothing. The whole world knows how long it has been.

"After the earthquake, y'know, when I wasn't freaking out anymore, I ended up not caring that much," Scrim continues, interrupting Ruby's anxious thoughts. "The world's just getting shittier and shittier. This isn't the worst thing that will happen. I know there's way worse to come. God, I wish I was you, I wish I was able to sleep in an earthquake. I can't imagine doing that."

It hurts how much Scrim doesn't understand.

Ruby just rolls his eyes. "Don't start that end of the world shit again," he grumbles. "I already told you I think they're all dramatic and I don't even care."

Instead of taking offense, Scrim laughs. "Fuckin' look at it, dude! You can't even deny it anymore! There's an earthquake, the sun turns black ... look at the time! It's not even evening yet!"

Ruby checks the time on his phone, and Scrim is right. It isn't even evening yet, and the sky appears as if it's midnight. But still, firm with his beliefs and hysterical, he tells Scrim, to his disappointment, "You all are overreacting. There has been solar eclipses before. It's just a coincidence."

"Oddy," Scrim says, tone grim. He's no longer laughing and he sounds more serious than ever. "Grab your bible right now. And if you don't have one, look it up. Go to the book of Revelation at the end. It's the sixth seal. And listen, there's no food, there's death, there's sickness, war ... I know you know the four horsemen. Wait until the lunar eclipse. Then tell me it's a coincidence."

"If you're even alive by then," Ruby mutters. A pang of grief impales his heart. "Ya know, it'll be funny when this is all over and everybody feels stupid for overreactin'."

"Yeah well, it's pretty fuckin' funny right now when you're the only person who doesn't believe in what's in front of ya."

Uncomfortable, Ruby shifts around in his bed, beginning to grow anxious for the call to be over. "Y'all will feel stupid, I'm tellin' ya," he warns, trying to ease the tension. 

But Scrim just scoffs. "And you're one to talk."

With that, Ruby hangs up, irritatedly placing his phone back on the nightstand before pulling the covers over himself as if he's hiding himself from the darkness and—he'll admit it—the uneasiness of the eclipse. He's anxious for the next one. It's hard to be patient. He hopes he's right and Scrim is wrong. He hopes this isn't the end like everybody says it is. For now, he doesn't believe the end is here yet, but the doubt is crucification to his mind. The more time passes, the more the doubt eats him. Its teeth is sharp like a razor, and every bite feels like a death throe.

But over time, he begins to feel nothing.

Chapter 8: viii

The automatic door slides open as Ruby prepares himself for war. Already, he's greeted by lacking shelves and crowds of agitated people, who are all looking for the same thing. Without a doubt, Ruby knows there are more people in here than every individual package of food. When he got here, there wasn't any space to park for him — he had to park on the side of the road along with some others as unfortunate as him. 

This is insane, Ruby was thinking when he had to drive out of the parking lot. It's not even Sunday.

Nobody wants to imagine what the grocery store looks like on Sunday.

The shopping carts look like they haven't been touched in centuries. They serve no purpose anymore. Nobody can afford a full shopping cart anymore, but if they can, they'd be leaving the store with at least a black eye. The way people fight over their food so aggressively reminds Ruby of a hungry pack of wolves, fighting for the shredded flesh of a single small rabbit when prey is scarce.

Ruby knows he can afford a full cart. The heavy chain around his neck lets everybody else know too. He wants to hide it — it's like wearing a target on his neck. It's a lure for beggars. A sign telling everybody, "Pickpocket me!" 

Ruby blends himself in with the crowd. He takes the chain off his neck and stuffs it in one of his pockets, nervously looking around as he does so, hoping nobody is watching. He heads to the dairy section like its nothing, yet still attentive to his surroundings. In the distance, somebody yells profanity, presumably starting a scene, but Ruby pretends he didn't hear it. He's used to these kind of things here, anyway. The shouting, the fighting, the stealing. A boxing arena has less punching than this place. 

To his disappointment, the only gallon of milk Ruby can find is all the way in the back of the shelf. When he grabs it, he reads the expiration date, already knowing what it's going to say. He's not surprised when he finds out it expired a long time ago. Almond milk is what he's forced to resort to. 

Milk carton hugged, protected, like it's seeking refuge under God's wings, Ruby heads to the produce section. Usually, this is the easiest place to find food, with a fair amount of items in stock. Like a combat video game, this is almost the safe zone of the grocery store. Here has the least fighting, least chaos. The arm he's wrapping around the milk carton loses some tension. It's safer here. Safe as long as he doesn't take too much. 

He grabs a cheap amount, placing all the produce in a plastic bag. Sure, he can easily afford more, but he chooses to leave some for others. Some aren't as lucky as him. He likes to think every time he takes less than he needs, he saves somebody's life. 

Then, avoiding provocative eye contact meanwhile keeping his distance from others, Ruby makes his way to the snack aisle. When he gets there, he finds out where the scene started. Chip bags are spilled all over the floor, one of the shelves is crooked, there's a couple of drops of blood on the ceramic tiles. In the midst of it are three people, glaring at each other like rabid werewolves, hostility in their eyes. At first, Ruby wants to turn around and get away as soon as possible, but instead, he steps over to the scene, cautious like a soldier sneaking through a battlefield. The people look at him, both angry and confused, but one of them instantly speaks up. 

"The hell you think you're doing!" a man hollers. He's a bit short, shorter than the man and the woman he's against, yet he's jacked, and Ruby knows he's stronger than what his height makes him to be. 

"Aight, what's your problem?" Ruby says, his patience thin for an answer. 

"They're takin' all the bags!" he claims. "They can't even afford allat!"

Ruby doesn't acknowledge his indignation. Instead, he reaches for a chip bag on the floor, praying he'll get away with this without having to leave the store with a broken nose. Bitterly, he's thinking, He better be able to afford a single bag if he wants to pick a fight with this old couple.

"I said the fuck are you doing?" the short guy asks again, looking like he's about to swat the chip bag out of Ruby's hand like a horse swatting a fly away with its tail.

"Can you afford this?" Ruby holds the bag up.

"That's not the point." The man, out of nowhere, socks the lady. "They're taking everything! Not leaving some for others!"

"But can ya?"

"Well,"—his guard seems a little let down—"I mean, it's not really worth it, but yeah . . . "

 "Listen," Ruby tells the man, "If it's not worth it, I'll buy it for ya."

When the man looks at him with doubt, he digs into his pocket and holds up his chain. In awe, the man stares, and nods before thanking him. "I owe you my life," he says dramatically. 

"Oh, you help him but not us?" The old man retorts as the lady beside him speaks profanities.

"You greedy fucks don't deserve it." Ruby turns around, leaving the scene. He mutters under his breath, "Buyin' everything when they know they can't afford it. Dicks."

He stuffs the chain back in his pocket before anyone else notices it, although he knows, with this place as crowded as a beehive, at least one person already did. Now, all he can do is hope he doesn't get bothered by anyone. 

He pushes through the crowd. Everyone else is pushing, too. They're all hugging their groceries the same way, trying not to drop them, because they know once it's on the floor, somebody might take it. 

Ruby blends in perfectly. He reaches into his pocket to tuck the chain in more. Then, something red catches his eye. It's a piece of steak a woman is holding. It shines from the ceramic wrap that conceals it. It's the freshest piece of meat he's seen in months. Usually, they're out of stock. 

"You're lucky," Ruby says to her. Surprisingly, she doesn't look hurt or beaten; Ruby knows if he tried to grab a steak that perfect, he'll die before he can even get his hands on it. But he doesn't comment on it. 

"Not really," she says instead, puzzling him. "If you want some, they're over there." She points to the meat aisle. 

"Must've restocked," Ruby says before heading there, parting ways with the woman. 

It's beautiful to see. The shelves filled with new, pinkish-red meat that shimmers in the light above. He's surprised to see no chaos and stress here. Nobody rushing to take the fresh stock. Easily, he picks out which one looks the biggest, and doesn't get shoved or slapped while he takes his time. 

"There's more people buyin' these than I thought," the butcher says flatly. 

Ruby looks around, then at the abundant stock. "There's less people than I thought."

"Really? I didn't expect this many people wantin' to buy this shit!"

"In this time?" Ruby insists, before turning around. "You're crazy!"

He makes his way to the checkout—with effort. Walking through rushing crowds is like trying to walk through the ruthless winds of a hurricane. But despite the overwhelming amount of people, the checkout lines aren't torture. Most people leave the store empty-handed. And it's not like there are people with full carts holding up the line; they pay for one or two items then go, which was exactly what Ruby did. 

The sun radiates onto him as he heads all the way to his car. It has gotten much hotter than before he headed into the store. Noon must be setting in soon, if it's not already here, that is. 

He doesn't waste any time. He jumps into the driver seat, places the plastic bag in the seat beside him. Today, he's heading to Scrim's house again. He told him he wants to discuss the plans for next album, but lied. That's not why he wants to talk to Scrim at all. Not even close. 

I just hope he understands . . . 

+ + +

When Ruby arrives, Scrim is welcoming, as always. "So," he's saying, as Ruby steps inside, "Ya wanna see the fuckin' damage from the earthquake?" 

Ruby looks around, bag of groceries in his hand. The place is a mess. Furniture not where it should be, everything on the floor. "Damn, forgot about that."

It's like he's renovating the whole mansion. Truth is, the only part of Scrim's house the earthquake really screwed up was the bowling alley. 

"At least it wasn't much, but c'mon, the bowling alley?" Scrim says. "Out of all these rooms?"

"Just thank God it ain't the studio," Ruby tells him, then suddenly becomes apprehensive, "right?"

"Yeah, the studio's fine," Scrim assures him. He looks at the bag of groceries. "And you can just put those in the fridge for now. I don't mind."

Ruby nods and heads to the kitchen, emptying the bag on the counter. He places the milk and produce in the fridge, and the meat in the freezer. The chips, he leaves out, wanting to share them with Scrim. There's a bottle of pills at the bottom he had secretly brought, and he hides them in his pants.

"So, you wanted to talk about this year?" Scrim asks when Ruby leaves the kitchen. 

For a brief moment, Ruby wants to tell him the truth. Tell him everything, show him everything. The pills, the alcohol, the prophecy. But he doesn't want to disappoint Scrim when he seems so anticipant. Scrim wants to talk about this year, and Ruby understands why. Both of them aren't sure about the future. Do they have time for another album? Time for another tour? So Ruby tells him: "Yeah, I did."

Ruby follows Scrim to the living room, and they sit on the couch together. "It's hard to plan," Scrim sighs. "Tomorrow's not promised anymore. So I was thinking like ... we drop the album earlier? And start touring earlier?"

"We could," Ruby agrees. "I know everyone would love an early album. And an earlier show. But it'll be harder to plan the concert dates since it's gonna last a couple of months. So should we just start as early as possible? I don't wanna risk anything . . . "

It's better earlier than late. Because what if it's too late? Ruby isn't worried about the state of the world getting in the way like Scrim. Instead, he's hoping Scrim stays alive long enough for another tour, and hates how hoping is the only thing he can do. 

"I guess so," Scrim replies before hitting his vape. "I don't care. Honestly, it's up to you. As long as it's not too late into the year."

"I think we should start now," Ruby says, undertone anxious. "Like I said, I don't wanna risk anything."

"Aight. Should we head to the studio?"

"Yeah, just give me a second."

Ruby makes his way to the bathroom as Scrim gets up from the couch, too. Once he closes the door behind him, he digs into his pants, taking out the pill bottle. And, as guilty as a dog that knocks over a trash bin, he pops open the cap, the sound deafening as he tries to be quiet. He grabs a pill and stares at it for a moment, trying to hopelessly reconsider. But still, he gives in, wishing he could resist, and swallows it down with water from the faucet. 

He looks around for Scrim as he heads out, praying he's not anywhere near. A sigh escapes his lips when he can't find him anywhere in sight. He must already be in the studio, booting up the PC. But then, after a sudden foreboding, he checks the nearest window, scanning the yard for anybody that might want to kill Scrim. And, even after finding nobody around, he still gazes past the horizon, his paranoia paralyzing, poisonous, like the jaw of a komodo dragon. 

Ruby hurries to the studio, thankful to find Scrim there. Only now he realizes how foolish he is for leaving Scrim just to swallow a pill. The faucet was running while Scrim could've been crying for help. They could've dragged him into a blind spot, somewhere Ruby couldn't see, and sliced his neck in half. They could've swung the axe in a flick of the wrist the same way Ruby pulled the lid off in a flick of the wrist. 

I wasn't even in there for thirty seconds, Ruby thinks, trying to calm himself, stomp out the hissing fire. He knows when the pill kicks in, he'll feel okay. He's here. He's fine.

"I'll show ya what I got," Scrim says, opening a folder on the computer. He scrolls through a sea of audio files and several names ending with .mp3. "Then we see which ones we wanna put on the album."

An hour passes. After hearing everything Scrim presented to him, Ruby decides he wants to go home and go to sleep. He knows exactly why he's feeling tired, but lies to Scrim about it, blaming it on a lack of sleep instead of some pills. 

"You've been rough this week," Scrim remarks before explaining. "Constantly checkin' on me, and weren't you sick a few days ago?" 

"Yeah, I ate somethin' bad," Ruby lies again, staring at the floor. "A lotta food at the store is fuckin' rotten." 

"But stop constantly callin' me," Scrim says, and it feels like he's sending him to torture. "I tell ya I'm fine every time. I'm glad ya didn't annoy me after that, but seriously, stop."

Ruby remains silent for a second. "Imma start headin' home," he says, feeling as tired as a cat, pretending he didn't mind what Scrim just told him. He stands up from the chair and begins to head out the studio before stopping at the doorway. He looks back at Scrim. "Like I said, send me whatchu got so I'll work on my parts when I get home." 

"I got it." Scrim types on the PC before pulling up his emails. "I'm excited to hear how they'll come out. Oh, and don't forget your food in the fridge."

"Thanks for remindin' me." He plods to the kitchen and can hear Scrim walking behind him. At the corner of his eye, he can see Scrim only passing by and heading to the direction of the bathroom. Ruby opens the fridge and takes out the milk and the vegetables. Then, he grabs the meat from the freezer and only now he notices what it really is.

Behind him, he can hear Scrim walking up to him. "Oddy?"

"Dammit," Ruby mutters. He understands now why the butcher was surprised people were buying this. This shit, as the butcher described it. "I accidentally bought—"

"Oddy, is there anythin' ya needa tell me?"

"I accidentally bought human meat." 

"Yeah? Maybe you were too high," Scrim insists, rattling the pill bottle in his hand, and Ruby can feel his stomach drop at the sight of it. 

He reaches into his pocket, feeling nothing in there. Then, glances at his groceries, finding no bottle there. In defeat, he looks Scrim in the eyes, but struggles to.

"I think you slept well last night." Scrim slams the bottle on the counter, before shouting at him. "What the fuck is wrong with you!? Why the fuck would you lie to me about somethin' like that!?"

"I was gonna tell ya," Ruby chokes, his throat clogged by guilt. "I promise."

Scrim is pacing around, trying to form a coherent sentence. "God! Imagine I didn't find that bottle, what woulda—" But then he sighs—Ruby's words must have sunken in. He suddenly wraps his arms around Ruby and it seems all his anger is gone. "I understand; just don't lie to me, man. It's hard bein' sober. I understand if you were scared to tell me. I know I can't really be mad."

Ruby returns the embrace. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. 

"Just why?" 

It's nearly impossible to speak with a boa constrictor of shame wrapped around his neck. He doesn't want to reveal the vision to Scrim, not yet, at least. He's afraid Scrim will think he's crazy, or not believe him. And if he does believe him, he doesn't want to frighten him. But he also doesn't want to lie again. So that's why he only told him part of the truth and not all of it:

"It was the only way I could stop making sure you weren't dead."

Chapter 9: ix

Summary:

I LOVE RAMIREZ I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST HIM

TRUST ME

Over the phone, Ramirez listens intently as Ruby discusses to him the plans he has for this year. He explains the whole reasoning, that they're starting early to be safe, because Scrim wants to give everybody another show before the world ends, although Ruby wants to start earlier for a completely different reason, but he doesn't tell Ramirez what that reason is. 

"Just don't rush," Ramirez says, although he knows that's something they will never do. 

"We ain't rushin'," Ruby assures him. "It's just that we don't wanna risk anything, ya know?" 

"I know," Ramirez tells him confidently. "And I agree."

"Anyway," Ruby begins, starting another topic so he's not stuck remembering all the horror God showed him, "Ya wanna hear an idea me and Scott have?"

"Sure, what is it?"

Ruby stretches himself across the couch, watching the ceiling above. "We've been thinkin' of makin' another song with you. You down? We haven't done that in a while."

Thankfully, Ramirez sounds completely down. "Oh, I'd love to, man. Just send me the beat and I'll see what I can do with it."

"Aight. I'll tell Scott later. Or, no, after we call." As soon as possible. The longer he waits, the less time he has to check if he's alive. "So how you been doin'?" 

"I've been great; I got enough money to feed my family, we've got nothing to worry about besides the Apocalypse ... how 'bout you? How's it goin'?"

"Oh, it's goin'," Ruby sighs. He looks to his right, gazing at the pill bottle standing on the coffee table. "A little stress, but I'm surviving. There's nothin' I can't afford."

"That's good," Ramirez says. "You must have it easy at grocery stores. I know I do."

"Yeah," Ruby agrees. "But it's not just the money that makes things easy, ya know? Ya gotta blend yourself in and try not to look at other people. Last time I went, I hid my chain so I wouldn't get harassed."

"Right, right."

"Anyway, me and Scott wanna tour with ya. Before, ya know,"—he has to choke it out; it's hard to say, it isn't true—"the world ends. I don't believe that though, but that's just what Scott wants."

"I'd love to tour too, but you ... don't believe it?" Ramirez says, sounding bewildered. 

"Nah, I just think a lot of people are gonna die but not everyone. I think that's a little crazy. Like ya think the whole fuckin' world is gonna end?"

"I understand you're thinking, but don't you think the signs are—" Ramirez is interrupted by something Ruby can't hear over the phone. "Sorry, loud ass bang outside. Anyway, don't you think the signs are pretty clear?"

"I don't care about the signs," Ruby admits. On the other line, there's a distant humming sound. "They're all a coincidence."

Slowly, the humming increases in volume while Ramirez speaks. "All of them? That's a lotta signs, y'know. I just think you're deny—holy shit!" Ruby can hardly hear him over the humming sound that has turned into a deafening droning. "Everything's fuckin' smokey outside!" 

"What happened?" Ruby helplessly asks. "What's that sound?"

"It's planes," Ramirez answers him, although he sounds agitated, and he's struggling to talk through the droning. "Like two or three of them. The hell is happening?"

Ruby tries to listen harder, intrigued. 

"Oh God." There's another boom in the distance, and this time, Ruby can hear it. "I think they're bombing the city. Shit, what do I do?" 

Ruby winces. His body flushes. "For real? I don't know, take cover. Hide. Hide in the basement."

"What?" Ramirez says, shouting through the sound of the planes. "You're breaking up."

"Hide!" Ruby urges him again, tense, terrified. "Go to the basement!"

The smoke detectors go off. Ramirez hurries down the steps before another earsplitting boom can be heard. He curses in a shriek, before slowly, everything on the other line begins to quiet down. The planes fly into the distance, the droning stops. Bombs stop detonating.

"Ya in the basement yet?" Ruby asks, both of his hands tautly gripping the phone despite shakily, as if he's trying to pull Ramirez close, trying to bring him through the screen, into his home, where it's safe and peaceful. 

"I'm sorry," Ramirez huffs, trying to steady his breath. "I'm not getting good service." He takes a moment to force himself to take slow, deep breaths. Ruby can hear him inhale, then, after many everlasting seconds, exhale. Inhale again, exhale again. "Now that everything's blowing up. Cell tower's probably fallin'. I don't have much longer."

"But are ya fine now?" Ruby insists pleadingly. "Is everything okay now?"

"I don't know," Ramirez says, and the truth hurts. "I hope so."

Silence hangs in the polluted air for a moment. Through nothing, they can both hear the sound of the smoke detectors still crying out like crows. Ruby knows in the back of his mind, he's really doubting that Ramirez is going to make it, and he knows Ramirez is doubting it, too. 

What breaks the silence is a crashing sound. Then, glass shattering. Every little violent noise makes Ruby's heart leap out of his chest and faceplant back into his ribcage. So finally, Ruby gives in to the sight of the pill bottle at his side, and he takes it, anxiously popping off the lid and swallowing a pill dry.

"I hope so, too." Tears burn Ruby's eyes as he tries to resist telling Ramirez the harsh reality of the situation. That he's not going to make it. That they should quit hoping.

"I smell smoke," Ramirez says, and it drowns their false sense of hope even further. "I can't stay down here. I have to get out."

Ruby can hear Ramirez hurrying up the stairs. He's then cast into a coughing fit and Ruby prays it doesn't distract him from trying to escape. 

Something creaks. Cracks. Ramirez gasps for breath then begins to cough again. Then, another shatter.

Ruby doesn't want to stomp out Ramirez's faith, so instead of telling him it's hopeless and no matter what, he's already dead, he hints it. "Listen. Can I tell you a secret? Between you and me, only."

"Yeah," Ramirez rasps, trying to speak through coughs. "Yeah, what is it?"

"You're the only person who I've told," Ruby reminds him. This won't matter when he's dead. "But I've been getting visions. Like prophetic, fuckin' revelations. I see it in my dreams and when I'm awake."

"No shit?" 

Wood snapping. Each object smashing a reassurance that Ramirez isn't going to escape. Ruby swallows hard, and his voice cracks. He has to fight the urge to say goodbye. "Scott's gonna die. Someone's gonna kill him. I see it all the fuckin' time."

Ramirez has stopped coughing. "When? Will we get to finish touring before ... "

Ruby knows why he can't finish his sentence—the last words were he dies. "I don't know when. I've been so fuckin' scared. All I know is—"

It sounds as if everything started collapsing on the other line. The snapping and cracking grow more intense. Everything crashes down like Sodom and Gomorrah.

"I have to get out." Ramirez panics. He rattles and twists the doorknob. "The ceiling is falling down."

Clash!

After that, everything is quiet. Eerily silent. Ruby can hear his own frantic breathing and the small whimpers escaping his lips. Then, after building up the power to speak, "You ... you okay?" 

Ramirez lets out a choked cry for help. "Oddy," he murmurs, voice strained. "Something fell on me. I don't ... think I'm gonna make it." 

Despite knowing it's hopeless, Ruby tries. "You can," he sobs. "Please."

"I'm pinned," Ramirez tells him sadly. "I can't move."

"Please." 

"I can't make it," Ramirez says before groaning in pain. "I can't."

Although useless, Ruby wipes the tears from his face. "I ... I know," he admits at last. 

Then, salt on the wounds. "I'm bleeding everywhere ... my ribs hurt ... it hit my head ... I can't."

Ruby glances at the pill bottle again, considering taking more. He grabs it and takes another pill, placing it on the table before grabbing the vase in the middle and crushing the pill with its base. And, while he tries to control his sobs, from his pocket he pulls out a dollar he received as change from the grocery store, and rolls it up. For a moment, while realizing he's really doing this, he looks at the pill he turned into powder, then at the dollar, before giving in.

"Oddy," Ramirez says. He sounds like he's growing weaker every time he speaks. "Don't do it. I hear what ... what you're doin'."

Ruby sighs, breath shaking. "Too late," he mutters. 

The call goes silent again; Ruby is trying to pull himself together while Ramirez is clinging to his life, fighting for an extra breath. They have wordlessly agreed not to hang up on the other under any circumstance. Ruby doesn't think he's going to hang up even after Ramirez is long gone. Rigor mortis, pale skin, no pulse. He doesn't want to leave him alone in the fire, not when he's the reason he didn't die alone. 

"Listen," Ruby breathes. "It's not your fault I relapsed. I've already been like this for days."

Ramirez's hesitation is deafening. Ruby is praying he says something. That he's not dead, not yet. Then, "Don't ... don't worry about it. Once I'm dead," he utters, voice hoarse and laced with death, "don't worry about me."

"You won't die," Ruby protests, raising his voice. Suddenly, he has become hopeful, and out of nowhere he believes Ramirez isn't going to die. The odds now seem blissfully low. "Maybe somebody will come searching. Maybe you'll get lucky."

"I hope."

When the call becomes silent again, Ruby breaks it by laughing at himself. Perhaps he was overthinking it. Ramirez isn't going to die. He's going to live. Authorities will look inside every house and rescue anybody they find. 

"You'll be okay," Ruby assures him, euphoric, rhapsodic. He realizes he's no longer afraid and trembling. His breathing has slowed down dramatically. What was he thinking? Ramirez is going to survive.

"Oddy, I told you," Ramirez reminds him in agony, "I can't make it."

Ruby opens his eyes, noticing only now they were shut and how drowsy he feels. "Believe me." He turns to his side, closing his eyes again. 

"But there's"—Ramirez coughs and spits—"a lotta blood."

"It's fine."

Ruby can hear his surroundings drowning when Ramirez tries to tell him something and he can't make out the words. If he wasn't too tired, he would've forced Ramirez to repeat himself, but for now, he doesn't waste his breath trying to argue while his energy is sucked away before he's tugged beneath a drugged-up sea of unconsciousness.

 + + +

Ruby stirs very slowly. He wakes up confused, sluggish, and, for some reason, he's supposed to remember why but can't, sickly terrified. He sits up, lazy, unwilling, trying to remember how he got here, and begins to notice his surroundings have become dim, then assumes it must be getting dark outside. 

Then, once his senses fully manifest, the harrowing memories finally plant themself into Ruby's brain, and he knows why he's afraid. His heart thrashes. His stomach twists into a coil. His mind says Ramirez, the name ringing, echoing, and he frantically looks for his phone, since that's the only part of Ramirez he has now, he thinks, which he discovers is on the floor, the screen shining in the evening darkness. Immediately, he picks it up, and finds out he's still on the call with him, breathing a relieved sigh.

"Rami?" he asks, determined, voice rough from sleep.

Seconds pass.

Nothing.

Ruby feels a twinge in his stomach. It sickens him. The thought of what happened to Ramirez really happening is terrifying and excruciating, like getting your heart ripped straight from your chest. He dreads the fact he knows what he's doing is useless. 

He tries again. Desperately. "Ramirez?"

The room is so silent he can hear his own heartbeat, which he thinks has skipped a beat. There's no sound on the other line, and he attempts to listen harder as if he's able to do so.

When there's nothing again, he's frantic. He exhales quickly and looks around the room, wishing he can find a solution. "If you can hear me ... " He looks to his right, at the pills on the coffee table. 

They reach out to him like a hand above water. Urgent. Insistent. Temptation has never tasted this sweet. They coax him, dig into his brain, his thoughts. Just this time won't hurt, right? What would be so wrong about it if it made him feel better? Made all the pain go away?

Ruby leans forward, toward the bottle of pills, giving in. With a shaky hand, he takes the orange container, his grip tight, unwilling to let go, a tick starving for the taste of blood. When he tries to open the cap, he realizes he has forgotten about the phone in his hand, and immediately pulls it to his ear again, begging for Ramirez to answer him.

How did this happen again? He remembers calling him, offering him a tour, then—

Right. The planes. Bombs. Explosions. All the loud sounds. Glass-shattering compared to this silence. 

But he was going to be fine, right? 

The other end is still dead silent. Ruby pleads to him, hoping he wasn't wrong, that Ramirez is okay. He escaped. He was saved.

"Answer me, please. Say something."

I can't make it.

He remembers being happy. Joyful, knowing Ramirez was sure to survive. He laughed about it. Thought Ramirez was overthinking. The situation was so, so silly.

Yet—

The hoarse voice. I can't.

This silence. His own ragged breath, racing heart. 

He sucks in a harsh breath before saying it again. "Ramirez . . . "

Anger rages through Ruby's bloodstream as a violent, tugging current. The pill bottle hits the floor with a smash. Then, recoils. Its contents rattle. It rolls away. Ruby watches it, glares at it, his hand tense after spiking it, curled into a seething fist. 

He had delusions. His happiness was wrong. He had denied the signs sitting on a throne before him, ignored Ramirez, forgot all the sounds, the shatters, the crashes. He would've seen them if it weren't for the pills.

But high or not, either way, Ramirez is dead.

He hates himself for it. Hates himself for getting high. How ignorant was he, to tell Ramirez, who had been bleeding out, pinned to the burning floor, hit his head, broke his ribs, that he was okay? That he was going to survive? How could he infiltrate that kind of hope? Hope that was useless, delusional, unrealistic, high.

Ruby stares at the phone screen. Ramirez's name. The red button with the white receiver in the middle. Why should he stay here, stand vigil, lingering like a doberman guarding a burning house that's already long gone? What's the whole point if no matter how long he remains, there's always nothing he can do to bring Ramirez back. If he hangs up—as painful as it would be—it wouldn't make Ramirez any more or less dead, it would just be his own, pathetic way of saying goodbye. 

He stands up, craving. Wobbles. Legs weak. He keeps the phone in his hand, still reluctant to hang up. A desire to push these negative feelings away claws at him, digs into his brain, heart, screams at him for just something. Anything. 

He staggers to the kitchen, lifting a hand as he does so, watching how shaky he is. In the back of his head, he knows this is how everything turned into a detached, fanciful mess, but he hates this. He hates feeling like this. Afraid, paranoid, grief-stricken. He hates waking up wanting to scream, to cry. Calling Scrim just to ease his fear for a fleeting minute. Seeing blood all the time. Dealing with death every single day. Sometimes, he wonders how he would be coping with all of this if he was still sober, but it's scary to imagine. Unfathomable. 

He opens the fridge, reaching for the pack of beer he didn't have to fight in order to obtain. Alcohol, despite everything, is still cheap unlike everything else on the shelves. But really, what's so wrong about this if it makes him feel better? 

It doesn't change anything. All it merely is is just an escape from everything. He's not happy, not at all—just high. 

When he's on the couch again, ignoring the agonizing thoughts, Ruby takes the cap off of one of the beer bottles after placing the phone in his lap. And, although he was extremely hesitant at first, he presses the red button on the screen, knowing he'll feel better about it soon, and as soon as possible, he hopes. He's excited for the shaking to stop, for his fear to go away. But immediately, still paranoid, his brain still infested with final words and pools of oozing blood, he dials Scrim's number, praying he picks up. That he's not dead. He can't deal with another death today. Especially not Scrim's. 

Thankfully, "What's up, Oddy?"

Scrim sounds tired. Monotonous. For some reason, even unhappy. Ruby answers, ecstatic to hear his voice, that he isn't dead, yet concerned with his unusual mood, "Is something wrong?" It scares him. Did somebody get injured? Worse?  "Is everything okay?"

Scrim huffs sadly. "I'm just worryin' a lot. Have you heard? They ... bombed San Francisco."

Ruby hears it again. The low humming that intensified into a raw, constant scream like caterpillars metamorphosing then transforming into butterflies. The explosions—murderous, uncensored. Every little sound the phone picked up a different nightmare. But the worst sound out of all of it, out of all the crashes, the smashes, no doubt about it, has to be Ramirez's hopeless words. His raspy, pained voice as he spoke. How could Ruby ever think he was going to be okay?

He takes another sip from the bottle, although he knows he doesn't deserve this. He had been ignorant. Stupid. How could he reward himself with a drink after assuring Ramirez such a false sense of security? 

But it's poison to him. And if there's anything he deserves right now, for all of this, it's poison.

"I know Ramirez is probably okay," Scrim says. It's not true. "There's some people who survived, but I can't help but worry about him."

Ruby exhales, long, dragged-out. Then, laughs bitterly. Scrim doesn't know anything. Ruby envies his naivety, wishes he was as innocent, as clueless. Wishes he could hope, wishes the drugs weren't the only thing he's capable of doing. 

He drinks some more. The bottle is already halfway empty. This is all he knows, it seems. But what else can he do to feel better? Is this the only option? 

Scrim grumbles to him, "There's no reason you should be laughing. Is there somethin' I don't know?"

"It's just that—you are so fuckin' blind," Ruby sneers.  

"You've lost it," Scrim says under his breath. "Let me guess, you called because you wanted to see if I was still alive?"

"He's dead."

Ruby feels sick again from the thought of it, yet he forces himself to keep laughing. It hurts to say. Hurts because it's true. He had heard it with his own ears. 

"Seriously, what's wrong with you, Oddy? Is there a reason why you're bein' a dick?"

"Listen," Ruby snaps, his voice suddenly grave, low—his way of making sure Scrim doesn't think he's joking. "I don't know what world you think we're living in, but it's not fuckin' rainbows and unicorns. I mean I wish it was—we all do—but it's not. And I'm jealous of you because I wish I was that naive. I wish I was blind like everybody else."

Scrim doesn't speak for a moment. Seems like he's taking every single word in, trying to process it all. Then, he laughs, the same laugh when he says the same thing. "I'm the blind one? I'm the blind one when you can't even believe everything the world fuckin' shows ya?" Ruby drinks as he speaks.

"The world isn't ending," he mutters. 

"You're pathetic."

Ruby slams the bottle down onto the coffee table, frustrated. It creates a clanking sound, but it isn't loud, not at all, not when compared to the sounds he heard calling Ramirez. Scrim doesn't understand. There's no way he can, unless Ruby tells him about what he's seen and heard. Ramirez. The vision. Ruby doesn't care about the world—it isn't ending. It hurts. Scrim thinking he's talking about the end when he means something worse. 

He hangs up. Picks up another beer, pops off the cap. Now, when he's alone and left with merely his own thoughts, all he can think about now is what tragically happened to Ramirez. He wonders how he'll go on after this. If the record label would even believe him. If they would be mad at him, accuse him of not doing enough or not helping him at all. If they'd blame him. If they'd kick him out. Leave him for dead, like a trembling dog tied to a train track. 

One beer becomes two. Two beers become three. Three becomes four, then more. The hours did the same. One hour became two. Two became three. He had to turn a light on because it had gotten pitch-black in here. 

But all this time, through all the hours, and all the drinking, no matter how much he drank, he can't seem to get his mind off Ramirez. It's like the tragedy is still happening. He can still hear the explosions and the droning of the jets. He can't stop thinking about what he said to him. Deep remorse is a hook buried into his throat. Tugging. Bleeding. 

Ruby turns his head, gazing up at the door dizzily, the outline smearing like paint across a blank canvas. Blurry. Going outside, taking a walk, he considers, might help him take his mind off Ramirez, because he can see staying here drinking is as futile as fishing without any bait. 

He stands slowly. When he walks, he stumbles, doesn't walk in a straight line, but in more of an uncoordinated zig-zag instead. The doorknob holds him steadily, but he knows he has to let go when he opens the door. 

Everything outside is hidden by the night sky, and he heads to the road, where the landscape is illuminated by streetlights and headlights passing by. Somewhere in the grass, crickets sing their song, giving him some company, reminding him he's not alone. Up ahead, the street stretches, and he can see many houses facing each other from across the street until the intersection. 

He walks down the street with no specific destination. All he wants to focus on is the city, but the only thing in his head are the sounds of Ramirez's death. 

He already tried to tell Scrim. But he's still afraid what Scrim would think if he shook him and shouted into his face that Ramirez is dead, and there's no other reality saying otherwise. He wants to find a way to make Scrim believe it. Take him seriously. Scrim definitely thinks he's going crazy, and Ruby has never been sure of anything else in his life. 

But Ramirez is still dead. Ruby knows he isn't crazy for thinking so—he had heard it with his own ears, witnessed it on call, listened to Ramirez's hopeless words, and when Scrim told him they bombed San Francisco, it assured him. His death is real. He can't deny it, no matter how much he wants to or tries to. No matter how much Scrim thinks he's crazy.

Sure, he may be crazy for believing it's not the end of the world while everybody else thinks so, but he's sure he's right. He thinks the world is in hysterics. He thinks he's right. He thinks he knows.

He's sure, even after Scrim's urgent warnings, We don't have much time. We need to do this quick.

You're in denial.

Babylon's warning, It's gonna get worse from here.

Ramirez's warning minutes before everything fell apart, Don't you think the signs are pretty clear?

You're denying it.

The signs are in front of him. First, the famine, the disease, the wars. People dying all the time. Then, the earthquake, the sun blacking out. Would something like this ever happen in the beginning or the middle? 

Why does he deny the end of the world when he doesn't—he can't—deny that Ramirez died in front of him? Ramirez died explicitly, it'd make him crazy to think he's okay. To think he made it out alive. Of course, he'd been high while Ramirez was choking out his final sentences, and assured him only lies and ignorant hope, but Ramirez had been gasping for breath, suffocating, suffering wounds and broken bones, and Ruby couldn't see those signs. 

But when it comes to the end of the world, he can. He sees them as clear as he heard the crashing and smashing on the other end of the phone. He's assuring himself the same ignorant hope he had been assuring Ramirez. And he had moved on from trying to deny Ramirez's tragic demise—

He steps on something. It squishes. Then, crunches. When Ruby looks down to discover what he stepped in, he can't take his eyes off. It hypnotizes him. Paralyzes him. He's frozen in place. He doesn't think he can blink. His heart doesn't feel like it's beating.

The blood. The measly amount of flesh. Leftover skin and a broken bone under Ruby's bloody shoe. 

He steps back. A hand and a forearm on the sidewalk. The fingertips are cut off. The fingers are hollowed out. The palm has a hole dug into it, the meat inside teared and mostly gone. The arm is sliced, ripped open. Severed, like somebody cut it, dug starving fingers into the slit, and pried the arm open. Just like the hand, hardly any meat is left, and all that's left is a bone, its wrist now broken. 

Ruby can feel his heart leaping from his chest. Racing. His stomach wrenches. Bile rises in his throat. It's disgusting. Horrific. Has the world really come to this? 

He remembers what happened the last time he headed to the grocery store. The girl carrying a fresh piece of meat. The abundant stock of human flesh. Yet, people taking. 

The meat is still fresh. Ruby checks his surroundings, frozen but shaking, glancing around for any signs of anybody else. Did somebody leave this here and run off? Is anybody coming to get it? Finish it? 

He stares back down. His vision swims. The landscape is mangled. How can he deny this?

Nothing but paranoia chases him back home. When he hurries inside, he slams the door behind him, locks it. Why would he see something like that if the world wasn't ending? After all these events, after everything he's seen—on the internet and in person—how is he still denying it? How can be deny this when he can't deny what happened to Ramirez? 

How much time is there left now? How much time is there until Scrim meets his fate? Can they even make another tour? What if everything falls apart now?

Ruby grabs his phone. Dials in Scrim's number, knowing it's late, but hoping he can apologize. Admit he's wrong. Time slows as the phone rings, and a million thoughts nest into his brain like maggots eating a carcass. Is Scrim not picking up because he's angry? Or worse—dead?  

But then, like always, "The hell you want?"

Ruby recalls the sight of the butchered arm as he admits it. "I've been a piece of shit."

Scrim doesn't respond. The silence feels like he wants him to keep talking, say the things he wanted to hear forever. It's an eager, impatient silence, like he doesn't want to talk because he only wants Ruby to. 

"I was thinkin' about it, and you were right. I don't even know why I even tried to argue." Ruby sighs. "God, even Ramirez told me I was in denial."

Ruby waits for Scrim to start talking. Scrim waits for Ruby to stop talking. Then, after a moment of making sure there's enough space in the air to speak, Scrim shares his response. "Yeah, listen, it's fun to pretend everything's okay, but it's for ya best to accept it. I'm glad you believe it now, but honestly, I know you believed it this whole time. You were just denyin' it."

Ruby gazes down at the blood on the bottom of his shoe. "I know," he breathes, barely audible, but loud enough for Scrim to hear. 

"You acted like you believed it," Scrim continues. "You said it yourself earlier. You told me the world isn't unicorns and rainbows."

"I know," Ruby says, louder this time.

"So ... do ya think you're naive now?" Scrim asks, catching Ruby off guard.

"Look, I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I shouldn't have said anythin' like that." 

"Well, all I can say is I'm glad you're finally not denyin' it anymore. That's all I've been wantin' from ya lately. Especially with the tour comin' up. I wanted you to take me seriously when I said we don't have much time to do it."

"I just don't like knowin' the world is endin'," Ruby tells him. "I'd rather deny it, y'know, but now I can't. After everythin' I've seen today."

"I think everybody wants to deny it," Scrim says honestly. "Even I do. But you're right—we can't."

A long pause. The air is tense. Nobody knows what to say now. Every word seems to be already said. 

But Ruby breaks the uncomfortable silence between them. "Anyways, I needa go to bed. Today was a shitty day."

"Yeah, it was. And I should be goin' to bed too. Night. Love ya."

"Love ya," Ruby echoes before hanging up, eager for some rest. He doesn't want it to be today anymore, after everything he has seen and heard today. 

Ruby knows it. He thinks he knew it all along. The world is ending. None of this is a coincidence. He has been stubborn. Started arguments for no reason. Nobody can survive in these conditions, especially when there's worse to come. How could he deny it? How could he ignore everybody's pain? This is the end, and he wishes to deny it only if he was right.