Wiki! and Editing!

First... editing.
To make this suitable for public consumption, I'm editing the crap out of this thing. It's now original and about Gloria Nesser and Christian Armstrong. I'm just getting through chapter 10.5.

AND A WIKI. http://21cb.wikia.com/wiki/21st_Century_Breakdown_Wiki

FAQ.

Though not really.

Q- Is it really possible to get hooked on Novacaine?
A- In this world? No. In my world? Very much so.

Q- What the fuck, Opal?
A- I stole it from Trent Reznor.

Q- What's up with Tre's dream in Chapter 12? Foreshadowing?
A- Wordcount, silly. at least I foreshadow better than Smeyer!

Q- So where do you the the Epilogu titles?
A- Homecoming is a Green Day song off American Idiot. It has five parts (The Death of St. Jimmy, East 21st Street, Nobody Likes You, Rock 'n' Roll Girlfriend, and We're Coming Home).
--The Deaths of Christian and Gloria was modified from The Death of St. Jimmy and similar to a comprehensive title for the Epilogue - Christian and Gloria's Eulogy.
--The City... is pretty obvious
--Catastrophic Hymns From Yesterday fits the scene, doesn't it? It's a lyric from the song Misery by Green Day off Warning ("the catastrophic hymns from yesterday of misery...")
--Deadbeat Holiday is a Green Day song off Warning
--21st Century Breakdown (reprise) is a closer... a reprise of a song, in a musical, is performing it again, although differently, right? It's mirroring the first 21st Century Breakdown. Except, less despair and more hope.

Q- Dates?
A- There is a calendar for this -- two, one that's with chapters and another from Billie Joe's POV. It starts May 1st and ends July 31st. I did that with the dates on purpose.

Q- What inspired you to write this?
A- When I saw the image on the cover. I was like "Oh, I know what my NaNo this year's gonna be."

Q- Favorite 21st Century Breakdown song? Favorite chapter of the novel?
A- My current favorite song is either Before the Lobotomy, Christians Inferno, or Horseshoes & Handgrenades. My favorite chapter is... hm... American Eulogy, actually. I also really like how Homecoming came out. I also adore my rambling about hair coloring in Restless Heart Syndrome. 21 Guns also came out pretty good. I actually really don't like how most of the first act was, actually. But I love the sexytime in Peacemaker.

Q- What is/was Minority and Welcome to Paradise?
A- The original epilogues. There was actually a whole epilogue act (Act Four - Broken Dreams and Minorities) at one point. Originally, they were just gonna quit the Class of Thirteen (thus Mass Hysteria). Then they'd leave. Minority was gonna be Billie reflecting on his life. Welcome to Paradise was some months later, reflecting on life in the City once more (see: 21st Century Breakdown (reprise))...

Q- How do you pronounce reprise?
A- If we nouning it, (as in *song title (reprise)*) then ree-pree-ze. If it's a verb (to reprise a song) then re-prize.

The Original Ending. And Stuff.

Here's the original last few chapters of 21st Century Breakdown. Isn't it amazing how much it changed?

Chapter Sixteen: 21 Guns
(Billie Joe’s POV)
Tré, who has also moped -- of course, he moped by writing some of Billie Joe‘s poetry/lyrics on his walls -- (and who has been inspired by Billie Joe “replacing him so quickly”) , invites Billie Joe over. Tré mentions how he felt about the failed riot, and Billie Joe counters that he felt the same exact way, then explaining what happened with Davey at the café. They end up working everything out, after a long talk and Billie sharing the poem/lyrics he wrote in Chapter 13. This is also where Billie Joe explains his past as the Jesus of Suburbia/St. Jimmy and with Davey/Whatsername. At the end of the chapter, Tré and Billie Joe both decide to quit the revolution, as they make plans to move to the City soon.

Chapter Seventeen-a: American Eulogy -- Mass Hysteria
(Billie Joe’s POV)
This song is about the hysteria following Tré and Billie Joe quitting. Billie Joe is pretty pissed off that everyone is reacting so strongly, like it’s the end of the world or something. He quietly stays at Tré’s house and they wait for the tension to die down. Alone, he thinks over his revolution as compared to Davey’s, Gloria to Whatsername. He decides that, upon moving out to the City, he and Tré should join what was Davey’s group, not as leaders, but as members.

Chapter Seventeen-b: American Eulogy -- The Modern World
(Tré’s POV)
Tré’s opinions on the (literally) modern world. He’s kinda being all ranty to Billie Joe now that he has someone to rant to again. Tré talks about how the world is decaying and how everything seems to be collapsing, that this is the era of descent and that systems are failing and the world is just generally screwed up. Tré ends by saying that he doesn’t want to live in the modern world.

Chapter Eighteen: See the Light
(Tré’s POV)
Technically the last chapter. This is Tré’s promise to Billie Joe that he is going to become clean and that they are going to stay together, forever. Tré looks over his life and his relationship with Billie Joe, noting what went wrong and what might still go wrong. He talks to Billie Joe for a while, and they compare their lives and their relationship -- or, the relationship of Christian and Gloria -- with that of Billie Joe and Davey -- or St. Jimmy and Whatsername. At the end of the chapter, they start packing to move out and the two make hotel reservations.

Chapter Nineteen: Minority
(posting it @ htttp://www.twitter.com/StJimmysEulogy)
(Billie Joe’s POV)
As he and Tré leave for the City, Billie Joe reflects on how the Jesus of Suburbia became St. Jimmy, and how St. Jimmy became Gloria. He thinks back to a time when he was addicted to…well…anything he could get his hands on and how he was so desperate that Davey left him. At the end, he says a final goodbye to the suburban town he once called home and creates a tune for the words he made up all those years ago:
“I pledge allegiance to the Underworld. One nation under Dog, here of which I stand alone. A face in the crowd, unsung against the mold. Without a doubt, singled out, the only way I know. I wanna be the minority. I don’t need your authority. Down with the moral majority. ‘Cause I wanna be the Minority…”

Chapter Twenty: Welcome to Paradise
(also @ twitter.com/StJimmysEulogy)
(Billie Joe's POV)
A month or so later -- Tré and Billie Joe's life in the City.

Umm... what?
And, as you can find on the Minority/Welcome to Paradise Twitter, I'd already written a bit of Chapter Eighteen.

(Tre's POV)
After minutes of breathless kissing and touching wherever our lustful hands could reach, Billie Joe muttered something incoherent. I asked him what he'd said.

"I said -- I wrote those lyrics for me," he restated.

"Which lyrics?" I questioned.

"See the Light. The ones on your walls."

"Oh. What about them?"

"I wrote them for me. But they can be for you, too."

I just smiled and nodded, before walking over to a wall and running my fingers over the carefully Sharpied words. A moment of silence passed before, finally, I said something. "Come here, Billie."

Slowly and silently, he walked over to me. I pulled him against me and kissed him once more, feverishly pulling his shirt off -- or trying to, anyway -- at the same time. "Make love to me again. In here. Now," I whispered in his ear. "It's gonna be our last time in the room with your words on its walls."

Billie Joe looked up at me in surprise as I threw his shirt to the ground and began taking off mine.

"We're gonna move far, far away, soon." I brought him close to me once more. "Because, Gloria, I love you."

Aftermath.

So I won NaNoWriMo with this piece of shit novel that people love. It clocks in at 50,458 words and (counting Homecoming as one chapter and putting 10.5 with another) just about 2655 words a chapter. Sounds about right.

Soon, I will be posting fun stuff from the novel, outtakes AND the goddamn Alternate Ending. I can't wait!

Oh, yeah, then it's back to Year Zero & Pretty Hate Romance for me.

~Suki

The End.

V. 21st Century Breakdown (reprise)

And here I sit now, in my small room in the apartment complex that used to be the headquarters of the Underbelly. Tré is sleeping on the old bed -- he looks so damn cute when he sleeps! I’m just sitting at this old desk, writing down everything that’s happened since I went back to suburbia from the City. Tré added in his few cents -- parts that I didn’t want to write, parts that I though he’d be better at writing. Like our first date.

We’ve just gotten back from a riot. Mike took over the Class of Thirteen, and Davey (and his boyfriend, Jade) helps from time to time. No one knows that Tré and I are alive, but no one needs to. I know that if we ever run into Mike or Dave, that we’ll tell them (but we know they’ll keep it secret). They’d be relieved.

But we don’t expect them to run into us anytime soon.

So for now, we’re just living in the City together. It feels so permanent to be here with Tré. I think it’ll last -- it better last, otherwise I really will fuck shit up. I’m more in love with Tré than I’ve ever been with anyone, and he feels the same way.

I’m satisfied now, to be back in the City where I feel like I belong. It’s paradise here…

I’m getting tied now. I think I should go sleep. There’s nothing else for me to write, really, so I’m closing this notebook and I know that there will be a rhythm. Who knows if I’ll live to be 100, or die at 37. It doesn’t matter. For I am satisfied.

Billie Joe Armstrong.
July 31st, 2013.

The End.

1022 Words.

IV. Deadbeat Holiday
Tré and I scaled the hill once more, hand in hand, breaking through the midday chill and through the trickle of people. Not many people hung out around those parts of the City -- it was the place where the Underbelly had resided, of course. And it was the place that the Class of Thirteen currently was. We weaved through the line of people dressed in black, and a sinking feeling fell through my gut.

Black. Funeral colors. We’d died, hadn’t we? So does that mean that they were coming back from our funeral?

“Can you believe it?” I heard someone mutter.

“Yeah. I heard that Dave and Mike and them gave ‘em a twenty one gun salute. Is that fucking insane, or what?” another said.

“They deserved it.”

“Hell yes, they deserved it -- but it’s still fucking insane that we had to have a fucking funeral for them. I mean -- I’m damn surprised they’re dead.”

The two who had been talking moved up the line and kept ascending the hill with the rest of them and with us. I made sure that my hood was definitely hiding my face, and made sure that Tré’s hat and sunglasses made him look unrecognizable.

“Can you believe it, Tré? They gave us a twenty one gun salute… you know, like soldiers in the military get. They really…” I whispered, my words drifting off at the end.

“They really think we’re dead -- but then again, that makes sense, doesn’t it?” he asked me back in an equal whisper to mine.

“Yeah. They really truly think we died. That’s… that’s a serious mind fuck.”

I shook my head and increased my pace, half dragging Tré behind me as we continued up the hill, following the group, the parade of black. Wait -- isn’t that an album name or something?

We waited outside the building as everyone filed in, waited around the corner as they closed the door. We gave it a good ten or twenty minutes, waiting until everything sounded like it was settled down in there. We then stealthily walked in and bit our lips so as not to gag and throw up at the smell and alert everyone. Near silently, we went up the stairs and to what had once been mine and Davey’s room, into the room where a few girls lived now.

“Why are you here again?” the first girl (the one with the dark hair and eyes) asked as we walked in. “I told you -- the Class of Thirteen’s over. Christian and Gloria are fucking dead -- they just had the funeral, morons!”

“Shut up,” I said. “How’re you sure that someone else won’t take it up? We just wanna sign the fuck up over here. You know, just in case it all comes back between now and then. We wanna be part of the riots.”

The first girl narrowed her eyes and another -- who I hadn’t seen yesterday -- shook her head. This girl had short, lighter brown hair, and brown eyes that were considerably lighter than her friend’s were. “Come on, Gazzy,” she said, “just take their names and contacts. Can’t do us any harm, right?”

The first -- nicknamed Gazzy, apparently -- rolled her eyes. “Fuck it. Fine. Names, contacts?”

“I’m Wilhelm Fink, remember?” I asked her. She nodded.

“And you?”

“’m Tré the Second.”

“You stole Christian’s real name.”

“We were friends. He told me to take his name if he died,” Tré improvised.

Skeptically, Gazzy nodded. “And where d’you two live?”

“Live?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “We’ve just been hangin’ ‘round, you know? At the old hotel, but we can’t stay there forever. Been lookin’ for a place t’ stay -- you wouldn’t happen to know of one, would you?” I made sure that my patterns of speech were different enough to make it seem like I was a totally different person -- to make it seem like I definitely was not Billie Joe Armstrong, or Saint Jimmy, or Gloria -- to make it seem like I was just Wilhelm Fink and someone who wasn’t me.

“Well, there are some apartments down in these parts that are free -- you two wouldn’t mind sharing, would ya?” asked the second girl, the one with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“Not at all -- would there be any rent t’ pay, by chance?” I asked.

“No rent, you just need to go claim it,” explained Gazzy. “So -- what, it’s room three nine a, right Queso?”

“It is. Just checked it out before we left for the funeral,” confirmed the second girl, who was apparently called Queso (Spanish for cheese, of course, like quesadilla). The third girl also nodded.

“It’s free,” she said.

“Yeah, you should trust Shika more than you should trust me,” said Queso, sticking out her tongue. The other girl -- apparently called Shika for some reason -- just slapped her. “But yah, it’s open.”

“Ohhh kay then. You guys got it. Wilhelm Fink and Tré Cool II, for room thirty nine a and a spot at riots. Go grab your shit and move it.”

“Woah. Sweet. Thanks, ya guys. See ya around, huh?” I said, turning and round and staying on the top step.

“Mmhmm. See ya two around.”

And as Tré and I walked back to the hotel to check out and get our stuff, a cool wave of relief swelled through me. We were set now, in the City of the Damned, and it was all going to be good for a long, long time.

“I’m so excited. Now we won’t be held responsible for fucking shit up. Whoever takes the reins of the Class will,” I said, grinning at Tré and leaning into him.

“Yep.”

I sighed happily. “I love you, Tré.” I leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned around and his lips met mine. It wasn’t much of a kiss -- but it was short and sweet and beautiful.

“I love you, too, Billie Joe. More than you’ll ever know. I love you so fucking much.”

1446 Words.

III. Catastrophic Hymns From Yesterday
When I opened my eyes, Tré was gone. In a dizzy haze, I stood up and wandered out of the room, looking for Tré. Next thing I knew, I was in the lobby (our hotel room was on the third floor, eighth door to the right, thank you very much). My eyes felt dry and everything around me felt so damn numb. And slightly pastel. I put it off to my just having woken up and walked out into the street.

Out there, I saw things that, quite frankly, surprised me. An Underbelly riot. Whatsername -- well, Davey as Whatsername, really -- stood at the front of it. They charged toward me.

“Hey! Saint Jimmy!” Davey -- or Whatsername -- yelled. “Come on! Let’s go!”

“What the fuck?” I asked, cocking my head.

“Didn’t you get the message about the riot? I knew your friends took you out for partying last night and parked you at this damn hotel, but I swear I told you! Maybe it’s the hangover?” Davey shook his head. “Anyway, come on! We’ve got fucking buildings to burn!”

“Um. Okay.”

I walked down the steps, still disoriented. Was I really still here in the City? Everything felt so surreal… had everything I could remember happening in the last three years really have been a drunken dream? It all felt so damn real. Is it really possible to have lived three years all in my head? Well, I had to admit that Davey breaking up with me was kind of fucking crazy… but, then again, so was most of what he did.

Whatsername -- well, I guess since he was Whatsername at the moment, I should call him that since he certainly wasn’t Davey right then -- grabbed my hand and jerked me to the front of the crowd amidst screaming and the all too familiar smell of smoke.

“Everyone -- welcome Saint Jimmy to this crowd of pain! Are you ready to fuck shit up?” shouted Whatsername, throwing his hands in the air as he said so. The reply was tremendous, a roar of hell- and fuck yeahs, general purposeless screaming, and other such incidences of insanity. The crowd -- the Underbelly, to be more precise -- shouted a rhyme that almost made me sick to my stomach.

“Saint Jimmy’s coming down across the alleyway! Up on the boulevard like a zip gun on parade! Lights on his silhouette! He’s insubordinate! Coming atcha on the count of one, two -- one two three four!”

And I answered them in a scream, no matter how wrong it felt then: “My name is Jimmy and you better not wear it out! Suicide commando that your mama talked about! King of the forty thieves and here to represent! The needle in the vein of the establishment. I’m the Patron Saint of the Denial! With an angel face and a taste for suicidal!”

The crowd went seriously wild then, screaming and holding up everything from hand grenades to unlit torches and lighters to -- yes, in fact -- shovels. I grinned at them and threw my hands in the air and both Whatsername and I lead them through the City, down to the Town Hall and the seat of the government here.

My own words echoed in my mind: “Jimmy… suicide commando… needle in the vein… Patron Saint of the Denial… taste for suicidal…”

Of course, the second sweet refrain of that started out: “Cigarettes and ramen and a little bag of dope. I am the son of a bitch and Edgar Allen Poe.”

But all the mention of suicidal in the old chant, the old wartime song reminded me of something from the so called dream. I had tried to commit suicide during that, hadn’t I? Didn’t I then throw the gun into the bay and decide that that was the Death of St. Jimmy, and that I was just Billie Joe afterwards?

I guessed then that the whole past three years that I thought I’d experienced was just a dream -- I didn’t just guess it at that point, really, but that’s when it pretty much solidified in my mind that the past three years had all been one, huge, drunk and or high dream. It made a shitton of sense, really. I mean -- why would Davey (Whatsername?) ever break up with me? I don’t think I could piss him off that badly, right?

The first sign of madness is talking to yourself.

In my dream, hadn’t I said that to the one called Tré? I guess he was my boyfriend in the other world of my subconscious mind, the other world unlocked when I drift easily off into sleep after drinking my weight in alcohol.

So that’s why everything was so damn fuzzy… damn hangover.

Then I guessed -- I speculated, I assumed, I knew -- that I’d recently dosed up on Novacaine. I mean, otherwise I’d be driven mad from withdrawal, right? Novacaine has pretty damn bad effects that will in fact drive you mad after a long enough time. That is, until it’s all passed and that’s when you sleep off the last two weeks of pain.

I sighed once more and ran my fingers through my shoulder length greasy black hair. I definitely needed a shower -- I made a note to myself to remember to tall that to Davey when we got back to the headquarters.

The headquarters… Tré and I had went there in my long, fucked up dream, hadn’t we? The Underbelly had long since dissolved in that other world… so had the group I guess I had created, the Class of Thirteen. Well -- it didn’t dissolve too long before the end of the dream, did it? Just after they all thought that Tré and I were dead. That’s when it ended.

“We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen! Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of 1969!”

Wasn’t that our -- the Class of Thirteen’s war cry? I mean, it had to all have been a dream, it wasn’t even 2013 yet! It was 2009 or 2010, I was sure of it. It couldn’t have been any other goddamn way. It all had to have been a dream -- again, one long, very fucked up dream. I wondered what I’d been doing the night before and found that I couldn’t remember. Damn… whatever it was had to have been some pretty nasty shit.

My thoughts had carried us all the way to our destination of the Town Hall in the middle of the City, amidst sky scrapers and tall hills.

Whatsername grinned at me and gave me a hand grenade. “On three, fire,” he whispered.

All was silent as we looked upon the building in the early hours of the dawn. All was silent until Whatsername suddenly shouted: “Fucking bastards, give us our City back! Give us our fucking freedom back! This is the land of the free, isn’t it? One -- two -- three!”

Everyone screamed, a dedicated Underbelly war cry, as they pulled the pins and lit the torches and threw all their firepower at the old, creaky government building. The fires all exploded on impact, a blazing inferno of freedom and dissidence. The sound of the fire, the heat of it -- it all suddenly felt so distant as I turned to look at Whatsername. He didn’t stand there. Instead, in his place, there was the current Davey, smiling, his long black fringe framing his face. A few tears sparkled in his eyes. I ran my fingers through my hair again, looking strangely around as a few blonde strands fell in my face.

Oh-kaay, that was some nasty shit I did last night.

“Oh my God, Billie Joe -- we all thought you were -- didn’t you -- you’re alive!” he said.

The fire wasn’t there anymore. Neither was the Underbelly. We were back in the café where Tré and I had first met, where Davey and I had patched things over -- right?

Davey wrapped his slender arms around me, sobbing quietly. “We thought you and Tré died in the fucking fire! You’re alive, you’re alive, god damn it, you’re fucking alive! I’ve never been happier to see you and holy shit you’re alive!”

His words blurred around me, as did the scenery.

I awoke with a start in the old hotel room, in Tré’s arms. He was sleeping peacefully now. And I knew exactly what we had to do.

Rejoin the Class of Thirteen. Not as its leader, but as its fighters.

1144 Words.

Part II. The City
Back in the hotel room, we sat together on the bed in silence, drinking some of the actually pretty decent tap water and holding hands. The sun was just starting to rise, now, and the view over the City was amazing. Just watching the silhouettes of the buildings and tall sky scrapers was enchanting. Whatsername and I had done it millions of times, just laying together on the top of the apartment complex and holding hands. Sometimes, the morning air cooled the sweat laying on our exposed chests after a bout of heated sex. Some of it involved handcuffs and chains. Some of it didn’t -- just the two of us becoming one. Anyway, that isn’t really relevant. So Tré and I were sitting on our hotel bed, looking out at the sunrise. There was an overall melancholy feel in the air.

I looked up at Tré, and he looked back at me. In silence, we both mulled over our thoughts. If we were supposed to be dead, then what should we do? Were we supposed to go ahead and say “hey world, we’re fucking alive!” or just disappear and avoid controversy? At the moment, disappearing seemed really nice. So did joining the rebel group -- well, the remnants of the Class of Thirteen -- in the City. I bit my lip as I sat there staring blankly ahead at our lives together in the City.

I honestly did not know what to do then. It was a huge dilemma -- and possibly the largest one I’d ever faced before. I was scared. I honestly did not know what to do (fucking Redundancy Department of Redundancy called, they want their redundancy back). With a sigh, I looked down at the dirty carpet. The hotel -- motel? -- was definitely worth what we’d paid, but that meant it was still pretty damn shitty.

“So… what should we do?” Tré asked finally, knowingly echoing both of our thoughts. He knew exactly what was going on in my head -- since it was exactly what was going on in his. Again, I sighed and he did too.

“Honestly -- I really, truly, seriously don’t know,” I answered silently, looking back up at Tré and meeting his light blue gaze. Tré cocked his head and looked away from my eyes. The room suddenly felt so claustrophobic that I wanted to scream and run away forever. Tré looked back up at me then, his eyes misty.

“They all think we’re dead. Our parents. What-- Davey. Mike. All of them think we’re dead… we’re literally dead to the world. People think we’ve kicked the bucket. I mean… fuck… we may not be dead, but Christian and Gloria most certainly are. The Class of Thirteen may or may not be dead. Who knows? Do you think Mike or Whatser-- fuck, Davey, would take it over and continue it?” It was a long run on question, but it made me grin. Tré was just so adorable when he rambled, and he never really noticed it.

“If they do -- if they do, not when they do, I don’t think they will -- do you think we should rejoin the Class of Thirteen? I mean -- we can take on aliases. I already have one. And you could just be, like, Norman Iwo,” I stated, snickering at the strange name I’d made up on the spot.

“What the hell of a king of name is fucking Norman Iwo?” Tré asked, incredulous.

“I don’t even know anymore.”

Tré sighed, rolling his eyes, before going back on subject. “So -- what should we do? I’m not sure I want to protest anymore, but it’s not like we can do anything else. I mean, we’re dead for crying out loud. Well -- you know what I mean, right?”

“Yeah. We’re dead. People -- we’re listed as dead. Under our names -- deceased, right? We really can’t do anything else now, can we?” I sighed after saying or asking Tré that, and felt my eyes getting misty again. “It’s crazy what some people think, but at least this is a reasonable conclusion. The building was fucking burned down. There were guns shooting at us. We were nearly assassinated.”

“Are we so important that if we were murdered -- it would be an assassination? Really?”

“I’m not sure… it was staged like an assassination, I guess. I don’t think they’ll arrest the people though, not for supposedly killing us, they would for burning the building to the ground, though.”

“I would really have to agree with you there, Billie Joe -- or should I now say, Wilhelm Fink?” Tré stuck out his tongue.

“You like abusing my nicknames, Sir Norman Iwo,” I said to him in reply, glaring playfully as I said so. He knew I was joking. And I knew he was joking.

“Dude! That is not my fucking nickname!” Tré said, glaring back at me just as playfully. I just shook my head at him and went back to watching the slow and steady sunrise. My foot was falling asleep now, and my eyelids were heavy with tiredness. I was ready to sleep -- but I didn’t want to until we had figured out what the hell had happened and what the hell we should do next.

“Well then, Tré, I’m stuck here. Do you know what we should do? I sure as hell don’t… right now -- well, right now, I want to sleep,” I muttered. Did I mention that I tend to ramble when I’m tired? Well -- I do. I sure as hell ramble when I’m tired. Tiredness is not a good thing for me -- sure, I come up with some damn good poetry then, but talk to me an I just go on and on and on and on. I just can’t stop. “I want to sleep but I won’t be able to until we figure out what the hell to do. Well -- what the hell should we do, Tré? Please enlighten me.” I wasn’t sarcastic there, by the way.

“I honestly don’t know, and Billie Joe Armstrong, you are rambling now. It’s damn adorable, but sort of annoying -- and therefore you definitely need sleep. Get your ass under the covers, Armstrong.”

“No way in hell. Fuck you, Tré,” I mumbled, already drifting off.

“Gladly. But we can do it tomorrow, okay Billie? For now -- just get some sleep, okay? We’ll be able to figure this out better if we’re both more awake.”

“Then order some goddamn coffee and room service shit. I’m not going to sleep until we figure this the fuck out, okay?”

“No, Billie Joe, you are going to bed. Right fucking now, okay?”

“No, I am fucking not going to fucking bed, okay Tré?”

And with that, I fell asleep.

1300 Words.

Part I. The Deaths of Christian & Gloria

The City was unnaturally quiet at this hour -- either that or the life there at three ante meridian had changed significantly since I’d left three years before. I guessed that the latter was correct, since the Underbelly had stopped wreaking havoc at all times of the night and morning and day and -- well, you know, all the goddamn time. I was thoroughly unused to the silence as I snuck out of the hotel building, Tré close on my heels. We turned the corner and walked up the street to the headquarters of the Underbelly -- well, what had once been the headquarters of the Underbelly, anyway. The sun was still lurking on the other side of the world, setting slowly on the other hemisphere and watching as other people fell asleep. The sun was sure that the world was silent over here, the sun was sure that most everyone was asleep (except for the people on the East Coast, who were then just waking up).

Well, Tré and I sure as hell were not asleep.

We climbed up a small hill, sticking to the shadows in true Underbelly fashion. My hood had been flipped over my eyes at the time, and Tré stopped at a shady kiosk to get a pair of sunglasses and a hat, hiding his identity. No one would recognize us as we went incognito through the City streets to the run down apartment complex that, as far I could see, was still standing. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized that I had been holding as I saw its outline against the dark, hazy, cloudy sky.

“It’s still there,” I muttered in utter disbelief. It was impossible -- well, it was totally possible, but it wasn’t likely in my mind that the building would still be standing after all that had taken place there. For all I knew, by then it could have become an insane asylum or a county jail or something of the like. Or it could have been quarantined, too -- no one knew what had been growing in the fridges or on the walls. Or what the hell people had been cooking up in some parts of the house. As far as I knew, there was most likely a meth lab or two on the second or third floor of the apartment. It had been an almost-scary place on some days, but totally harmless on others. It was living on the spot, living without permission, living without warning. It wasn’t safe, but it sure as hell was a lot of fucking fun.

Tré looked up at the building and looked back at me. Behind the dark shades, his eyes were unreadable. “It looks like a regular place, to me, you know -- like my old apartment. Right? That can’t have been the headquarters of the fucking Underbelly,” he scoffed. I couldn’t tell if he was just as surprised as I was, in awe of seeing the headquarters of what might once have once been the headquarters of the Underbelly of all things it could have been the headquarters for, or just didn’t think that it could possibly be the headquarters. It did seem pretty far out, actually.

I looked back at Tré as we ascended the hill. “You really don’t think so? I wouldn’t be mistaken ‘bout this shit -- I may have been seriously drugged out when I used to go here, but there’s no chance that this damn building could be anything else.”

“How do you know that? It just looks like a regular apartment to me --”

I cut him off quickly with a sharp retort: “This isn’t suburbia, you know. Not everything down here in the City looks the same, wouldn’t you agree, Tré?”

“You’re crazy,” said Tré, but he quickly dropped the subject as we just kept walking. Our footsteps were the only things that made noise now, the only sound being our shoes hitting the pavement with a dull thud. It was monotonous and boring, but somehow rhythmic. I almost liked it -- well, that might just have been the recent trauma and resulting sleep deprivation.

I tolled my sore shoulder, which was fairly useless now that it was totally bandaged as all hell and in an awkwardly bandaged position.

It took very little time from then to get to the old headquarters. It looked exactly the same as I remembered it, it looked just like the same old run down apartment full of delinquents, miscreants, and mischief makers as it always had been.

We silently walked to the doors and I opened it, greeted by the oh so familiar smell, the wall of the scent of rotting eggs, sour milk, mold, and general uncleanliness. It was the same dark hallway that it had always been. It was the same claustrophobic staircase that I ascended then as it had always been. It was just so familiar that I could barely stand it then.

“I’m sure this is the building,” I whispered to Tré as I ascended the steps, pulling my hood further over my eyes. There was a quiet, muted light at the top of the stairs that I was immediately drawn to. It all felt so familiar, and I knew why.

That’s when voices drifted down to us. “Did you hear what happened…?” “Yeah, I can’t believe it…” “It’s amazing, I can’t believe it would ever happen in a million years…” “Those arsonists will probably be let out free, this government’s such a bitch…” I ignored them, and as Tré and I got closer to the top of the stairs, they evidently heards us and all went silent. Making sure that no one would be able to see my face, I walked in first, creating a dim shadow on the flimsy plaster walls. I knew where we were -- the top of the building. Where Whatsername and I had once lived.

“Who’re you?” someone finally asked. A small tomboyish girl who looked to be around 15. Her dirty brown hair was tied back, a few strands brushing over her tanned skin, and her brown eyes glimmered with life. It was amazing how fragile she seemed.

“Me?” I asked, my voice quiet and bland. “I’m Wilhelm Fink --” A name made up on the spot. “-- you can just call me Fink, though, and I’ve heard that this is where you go in the City to hook up with the Class of Thirteen?”

Tré remained silent behind me as the girl responded in a quick, harsh whisper: “Didn’t you two morons hear? Christian and Gloria -- dead, the both of ‘em. They were shot and killed in the fire. Didn’t know that, now, didja? It only happened, like, six hours ago and word’s only been going ‘round for about an hour now.”

“Holy shit,” was all I could say.

They thought we were dead. They all thought -- and swore they knew -- that were really, honest to God dead.

“I know, right?” asked another girl from the corner of the room. She had long blonde hair thart was tied back with a rag, and streaks of dirt covered her pale face. “It’s kinda crazy -- I mean, makes more sense than Whatsername just packin’ up her bags ‘n leaving, but crazy all the same.”

I just nodded, my throat seeming to close.

“So, Fink, ya really don’t need to be here,” said the first girl. I nodded my head, signifying ‘no, I really don’t,’ and turned around to leave. “See ya ‘round the City, huh?” I nodded once more and walked down the stairs in total and utter disbelief and Tré followed me in complete silence as we were plunged back into the darkness.

Epilogue: Homecoming

I. The Deaths of Christian & Gloria
II. The City
III. Catastrophic Hymns From Yesterday
IV. Deadbeat Holiday
V. 21st Century Breakdown (reprise)

~1000 words/part.

My hearts is beating from me
I am stranding all alone
Please call me only
If you are coming home
Waste another year flies by
Waste a night or two
You taught me how to live...

Chapter Eighteen: See the Light

(2712 words)

Even from my spot in the center of that room, in the center of Tré’s room, I could hear the unmistakable snap! of a quickly growing fire outside of the room. Pulling away from my boyfriend, I hastily ran to the window and looked outside, my eyes widening in shock and horror. There was a fucking fire outside my window. And it was quickly approaching us.

I breathed in and out deeply as I leaned back against the wall, trying to collect my nerves and trying to not hyperventilate as I realized just exactly what the hell was happening now. A fire. A goddamn fire. It was going to burn the whole apartment complex down, maybe. It wasn’t just going to kill me and Tré, but hundreds of innocent people.

“Billie Joe? Are you -- are you okay?” he asked me quietly walking over to where I stood. I just looked up at him, tears really on the brink of spilling over now, a panic attack on the verge in the corner of my mind.

“Tré…” I mumbled, wrapping my arms rightly around his stomach as he wrapped his arms protectively around me. “I don’t want to die.”

“What d’you mean? We aren’t -- not dead yet, are we?” Tré asked me.

“We will be,” I whispered. “There’s a fire out there.”

Tré stepped back, looking at me in surprise. We stood there, frozen, for just a moment, before Tré started saying just barely audible words: “A fire burns today of blasphemy and genocide… the sirens of decay will infiltrate the faith fanatics.”

“What the… Tré, where the hell did that come from?”

“I made it up a while ago…” Catching my confused glance, Tré added, “Right before you texted me about the meeting.”

The meeting. Dammit, that seemed so long ago, even though it was only a couple weeks past at that point.

“Wow,” I breathed, just trying to look at him, just trying to look anywhere but the window. The inherent fear of panic was rising in the pit of my stomach, a fire just as fierce as the one outside my window raging inside my mind, sending my senses alight with crazy and maniac panic. My heart beat like a miserably tuned, off beat drum, leading dogs into war and reprimanding the little shreds of innocence in my soul.

I looked back at Tré, guessing that my fear and panic were evident in my eyes. I guessed then that we had two options: to go down right there and then, to go down in supposed glory (Gloria?) -- or to run away, leaving everyone to think we’re dead, and just hide out forever.

Guess which option my high on fear and adrenaline brain chose?

“Tré, c’mon… come on -- let’s go. I have an idea… t-take my hand, okay?” As I said this, I held out my hand to him. It shook in midair, shaking with fear and insanity and hysteria. It shook like a flag in the midst of a summer windstorm. “Tré… come -- come on, we have to go.” My voice was choked with tears as I watched him just standing there, frozen to the spot with his reciprocal of my own panic. “Tré?”

He still refused to move. I reached my hand out to him again, trying to get a hold of his hand. However, Tré was frozen to the spot, his eyes wide, shaking ever so slightly like a leaf in the harsh winds of a frozen over winter. The only motion that I could see at all were the tears that streaked down his face so slowly.

“We can do this Tré! C’mon… we have to… have to get out of here!”

“But --” Finally, he spoke. “But what if we’re supposed to die here?”

“To hell with faith, we are getting the fuck right out of here, got it?”

Tré seemed indecisive for a minute. “Come on, do you want to die here, alone, in some fucking fire or with me in glory?” I asked him.

“Decide in gloriam…” Tré whispered. To die in glory. Latin. Of course.

“Then come on!” I shouted, grabbing his hand and wrapping my fingers around his palm. Unyielding, he let me pull him out the door and down the hall, showing no remorse for anything in my way. People were yelling outside in the long hall that connected all the rooms, and I pushed and shoved my way through the thick crowd. The elevators were packed tightly, and so were the stairs.

However, the windows that lead out to the front of the building -- the hall fire escape -- was unopened and unused. Without thinking twice about it, I half dragged Tré to the window and tried opening it.

It was either locked or jammed.

Using all the force I had, I rammed into the window pane with my shoulder, glass shattering on impact and flying mostly outward. Some of the bits that had shattered were embedded in my shoulder, but I tried ignoring the pain and the bleeding as I swung a leg carefully onto the top of the fire escape ladder. Quickly, I stepped down, looking up and at Tré’s worried face through the window.

“Come on!” I mutt have screamed, for he did exactly as I had and carefully started to climb down the ladder.

I grimaced as I kept going down, warm blood trickling down my back and the wound itself stinging like all hell. To distract myself, I bit my lip hard and looked out behind the building, and sort of off to the side. The fire was just barely visible, but it was there all right. That’s when I saw people walking around it and holding up bottles of… something. Liquor? No -- even worse. Fucking lighter fluid.

They were serious about burning down the apartment.

“Tré! Faster, faster dammit!” I screamed, my voice getting scratchy from overuse and breaking with my oh so evident panic. “They’ve got fucking lighter fluid, oh god, they’re gonna burn it down, shit shit shit.”

“Quiet, stop thinking about it, just move. Get the fuck off this ladder and then… I dunno, get the hell away from here, right? Sooner we stop panicking and starting going then the sooner we’ll be away from the fire, right?” Tré said, kind of rambling by the end of the statement.

“Yeah. I guess.” My throat was so dry. “I think we’re gonna get off this thing and run like hell to… like, a hotel or something. Wait -- do you have any money?”

“No,” said Tré, and my hearts sank all the way into my intestines or something squicky like that. “But… I can hack my way into my parent’s debit card shit and get some money there. You know how they always act like I’m not there. I know a lot of shit I shouldn’t.” I could practically see his grin, which pulled on my heart painfully, so I kept hurrying down the ladder -- just so I could see Tré again and make absolutely, one hundred percent sure that he was perfectly fine.

The metal was cold beneath my hands and slick with the sweat that was freely flowing from my nervous palms and fingers. I started to bite my lip again, each step feeling more precarious than the last. I didn’t dare to look down, knowing what sight would befall my eyes. I knew that if I even thought about looking down, that I would be overtaken by curiosity and I would actually fall.

My heart raced beneath my so fragile seeming bones and flesh, ricocheting freely in a bloody ballet. It was a gory image -- but it was better than imagning me going splat at the bottom of the fire escape ladder. Or the image of me burning in this damn fire. Either way, it was the best image I could bring up.

The sount of my heart drumming in my ears reminded me of a certain short story that I happened to like a lot -- The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe. It was actually really interesting -- about a man who is insane (yet periodically denies it to the reader) and kills his father or master or whatever, trying just to get away from the gaze of a hawk like eye. He smothers the older man with a bed, before chopping the man up and putting the body beneath the floorboards. The police come and the character is ever so sweet and perfect, but is slowly being eaten from hearing what he assumes is the sound of the old man’s still beating heart. In a frenzy of panic and insanity, he reveals it all to the police officers.

That was totally random, but that was also better than imagining myself going splat or burning alive.

The trickle of blood was still uncomfortable though, and even though it had mostly stopped, my wound still stung.

Holy shit, I recall wondering mentally. If we’ve been climbing down long enough for the blood to have stopped… damn, this is one fucking long ladder. Huh.

“Tré…” I muttered, panting slightly. I guess we had been climbing longer than I had thought we had been climbing (fuck, was that confusing or what). “You… have you noticed that this ladder’s pretty damn long? I mean -- I think we’re almost at the bottom… but fuck, this ladder is long.”

“Yeah. I would really have to agree with you there. I mean -- fuck -- I can’t hear people screaming up there now. I hope they’re all right… woah, what the fuck dude, no way… they’re bitches,” Tré half muttered in reply to me (and himself, apparently).

“Talking to yourself… the first sing of madness,” I teased.

“Oh, Armstrong, don’t tell me you don’t do it too.”

“You fucking bet I do.”

“So we’re going mad together?”

“There’s no one I’d rather go mad with more than you -- oh shit, and I seem to have lost my ability to speak coherently.”

“Or the author just lost the ability to write coherently.”

“True.”

We both laughed a bit as we continued downward. Everything felt so surreal and distant now, my hands numb, my back numb, and I felt permanently blinded.

That was when I felt something soft and yet solid beneath my foot, instead of hard, flimsy metal ladder. “Tré! I made it!” I screamed in joy, watching his form slowly work its way down to join me. Finally, he was next to me again and he wrapped his arms around me, kissing my forehead. “Let’s go,” I whispered, grabbing his hand and starting to walk down the road to the town, away from the fire.

“Oh. Shit. Wait… Tré?” I said as I stopped, coming to a dreadful realization that lurked like cancer in the pit of my stomach. “Tré? How the hell are we supposed to get there? I’ve walked over the highway -- well, the highway… the long one, you know, when I was walking back here from the City -- and it takes ages -- days at least. So what the hell should we do?”

“Let’s see… we don’t have the materials to hijack a car,” Tré held up one finger. “No buses go down to the City from here, or from here to that other town.” Another finger. “No car.” Another one. “No bikes.” Yet another finger. “Nothing -- but I agree, we should go to the City and disappear.”

“Um, Tré? What the hell? How the fuck are we even gonna get to the damn City?”

“We could always hitch a ride.”

I slapped him. “You moron! We couldn’t do that!”

“Well, then I’m out of ideas.”

“So ‘m I.” I let out a long sigh. “We should just try getting some cast first or something, then see what we could do. At best… we could always hijack a bus or something.”

“Naw,” replied Tré, “it’s fucking impossible to drive a bus.”

“You’ve -- holy shit -- you’ve driven a bus?”

“Yep.”

“You get cooler and cooler and crazier and crazier every time we talk, did ya know that?” I asked him, playfully hitting his shoulder before interlacing my fingers in his.

“Mmhmm.”

“Narcissist.”

“I know I am -- but what are you?”

I didn’t have a reply to that. We just kept on walking, in silence, to the bank while trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Once at the bank, Tré hacked into his parents’ balance on the ATM thingy with barely any effort. Sometimes, being ignored pays off. He shoved around three hundred bucks in his pocket before heading back out with me in melancholy silence.

We made it to the highway then, and say down on the sidewalk, sitting with our legs crossed and our elbows leaning on our knees. We sat there in silence until we suddenly saw headlights and a car coming in from the old town, headed where we wanted to go. Inexplicably, it stopped right in front of us, and the heavily tinted front window rolled down to reveal a twenty five-ish girl with Italian features and short brown hair.

“Hey, need a ride anywhere?” she asked, grinning with straight white teeth. They seemed fake.

“Um… yeah.”

What was that rule about never taking rides from strangers, again?

“Hop in. Where ya headed -- the City, per chance?” she asked. As we stood up, she looked at us and our dirty appearances. “I’m Gina by the way.”

“Billie Joe,” I answered mechanically.

“Tré,” said my boyfriend.

“Well, then, come on in!”

“Why should we trust you? I mean -- you literally just drove over here and asked if we needed a ride. Seriously.” Damn me and my suspicious curiosity.

“Well, I think we’re in a similar situation. I’m headin’ over t’ New York eventually ‘cause I killed my -- er -- boyfriend, Vinnie. First I need to go down t’ Las Vegas, though, t’ pick my… friend, Virginia,” Gina said, a sparkle of mischief and glamour in her eye.

“Really?” It was Tré speaking suspiciously now. “And how d’ we know if you’re not just going to kill us or something if you get the chance?”

“Now -- why’d I do that? You look like ya don’t have much to either of your names, huh?”

Oh, if only she knew what would happen if she killed Gloria.

“Well, um, oh God…” I muttered. It was a serious dilemma -- first of all, our fire escape, well, escape would all go to ruins if this Gina chick really did kill us. But, on the other hand, we desperately needed a ride to the City. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and it was not fun at all.

“Oh, fuck, why not,” I eventually said, nodding at Gina and grabbing Tré’s hand once more. “We are desperate… even if we’re not helpless.”

“Come on in, then.”

The back door opened and Tré and I walked in, sitting down but not buckling in. We never did, really. What’s the use if we might need to get away fast -- right?

Yep, we’re so fucking paranoid that it makes no sense -- but oh fucking well.

The drive was mostly silent and didn’t take that long to me. She played a bit of music, not too loud, but the music was good. Some old pirate station, playing some old punk stuff. Finally, Gina dropped us off outside a run down hotel -- apparently, it was cheap but actually pretty damn nice. We thanked her and watched her drive away -- away from her murder and toward her friend, all in the name of misery.

Tiredly and in a daze, we checked in and retreated to our room. Tré insisted on looking at my shoulder and reluctantly, I let him. He deemed it bad, made me take a shower, and went out to get some gauze and other similar things. Tré was back before long and he quickly -- although messily -- bandaged my arm. Once he was satisfied with the way my shoulder was healing now, we turned off the lights and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Chapter Seventeen: American Eulogy

(2539 words)
(3rd POV)

It was a sad day in the small suburban town as the news of the death of two lovers spread. It wasn’t the pair themselves who were mourned -- no, it was definitely the way that they had gone out that had touched something in everyone’s hearts. Only a few people went to the funeral, but there was a certain shade of grey over everything and a raining cloud above the heads of everyone.

The first person to show up to the funeral of the two dead lovers was a twenty one year old man going by the name of Mike Dirnt. He was of an average height, and had a bit more muscle than most. His naturally brown hair was spiked in a fan similar to a peacock‘s tail, and it was tipped with blonde. A rusty old shovel was leaning on his arm, only dirtying his informal black clothing by just a bit.

The second person to show up was a seventeen year old now called Davey Havok, but who had once been called Whatsername. He was rather short for his age and sex, and he had fair skin that brought out his eyeliner outlined, dark brown eyes and dyed black hair. This attending member dressed rather femininely, wearing a flowing black shirt and just as flowing black pants over shimmery black boots. A thin arm was wrapped around the waist of the third person.

The third person to show up was the boyfriend of the aforementioned Davey Havok. This one was called Jade Puget, and although he hadn’t known the deceased, his lover had. Jade was quite tall, actually, and had warmly tanned skin, freckles dotting his face. He wore a crisp almost tuxedo. His grayish hazel eyes were also outlined by eyeliner, and were a lovely contrast to his light brown hair with his shaky blonde fringe.

A few more people also showed up after these first three. A girl by the name of Maria and her friend Haushinka. Another girl around their age hung out in the general vicinity -- she was called Taylore Mishell. A twenty something guy going by the name of Lance Shields, and another late teenaged girl who was called Kera. There was another guy standing near Kera -- his nickname was Crash, and no one knew what his real name was. There was a slightly younger girl there, too, and she was called Losty -- she was actually chatting somberly with Lance and another participant named Brighty, and yet another girl who was around the same age called Lilly. Lilly’s identical twin sister, Soundy, was also talking with Lance and Losty, seeming a bit distracted.

After these few people had entered the small, dark room that smelled of incense and sweat, a whole rush of people around their age followed. They were tightly pack now, like sardines, and the mass of black wearing teenagers looked around nervously, trying to find some shoulder, or elbow, room. They stood in a silent and not so neat line, a semi circle around a neat little coffin inscribed with Frank Edwin Wright III and William J. Armstrong -- however, colorful graffiti near the names read Christian and Gloria -- well, the nickname St. Jimmy was also there, written right below Gloria. The coffin had been insured by a certain Mrs. Wright, even though she had outwardly hated her son and his boyfriend, and even though the whole funeral was really held by the strange assortment of teens from the next town over -- not a person over the age of twenty five seemed to be there.

Before anyone questioned the entire ceremony, that certain Davey Havok pulled away from the crowd, walking over to a familiar makeshift podium that had once occupied blank space on a certain old stage. He adjusted the microphone a bit, the long skin tight sleeves of his shirt moving fluidly over his lean, pale arms. Davey cleared his throat once or twice or three times to get the attention of the mismatched group of his peers.

“Well, hello -- you should all know me, right? My name’s Davey. And, um, as our very own Billie Joe -- or Gloria -- would have said,” he spoke into the old staticy microphone, breath coming out all too clearly over the speakers. “’Dearly beloved, are you listening?’”

There was a ripple of excitement through the crowd, and Mike visibly held back tears. Davey scanned across the room, meeting everyone’s glassy eyes and biting his lip quietly. He wasn’t entirely sure what to say next.

“I’m, uh, glad ya are.” He paused, recollecting his thoughts. “I was… appointed to speak up here, ‘cause me and Billie Joe, well, me and Gloria used to be pretty close. I’m not sure exactly what to say, to be completely honest with ya. I mean -- he was a wonderful person. He’d had his shortcomings, but don’t we all? I’m sure Tré -- well, all of us know him better as Christian, really -- was an awesome dude too. And, ya-- y’know, in the end, they went out… together… I mean, it was bittersweet, huh?”

Everyone nodded, a murmur of approval at Davey’s speech going through the crowd. Encouraged by the positive appeal, Davey looked back up at them, his eyes glimmering with tears. “They were really, truly in love, I bet. They had a fight -- you probably know some about it -- but then… in the end, they were… together, weren’t they?” A few tears fell down his face. “Me and Billie Joe -- we weren’t meant to be together, ya know -- well obviously. That’s why I left him over letter and didn’t see him for two or three years, something crazy like that.”

A shock of realization rippled through the crowd, and someone shakily asked the question: “W-well, then, like Whatsername and St. Jimmy? I heard that she left him over something she called a letter bomb or something.”

Davey smiled, replying with no haste. “Yeah, you’re right, ’cause I am -- I was, anyway -- Whatsername. And yea, I’m really a guy, but can’t ya just imagine me with long, really long hair? And a lot more makeup than just this? Honestly, people…”

“So that means that Gloria -- Billie Joe, whatever -- was the Saint Jimmy?”

“He was.”

Everyone gasped and Davey stepped back, at an honest loss for words. Helplessly, he glanced over at Mike, who met his gaze and just nodded. The older of the two took the place at the podium as Davey slipped back into the crowd, next to his boyfriend Jade. Raising his hands to silence them, Mike commenced the speech. “Billie Joe -- he was really, a really honestly great guy an’ he was just trying to get by in this hell of a town, ya know? He was just trying to make sense of all the chaos in his short life… and ya know what, I don’t believe in God or anything, but I think that he and Tré should rest in fucking peace.”

The crowd cheered at this remark, making Mike grin and have to raise his arms once more to silence them. “They fuckin’ deserve it, ya know? They were two of the coolest people ever -- no pun meant on Tré’s name -- and they really fucking deserve something for all the trouble they went through for us and all their pain. I didn’t know anything ‘bout Tré’s life, but Billie Joe’s was hard -- tough as hell -- that’s why he ran away, y’know.”

Everyone nodded at him somberly. Mike went on, his voice rising in intensity. “And you know -- the riot -- the riot back there that caused all this shit to go down -- he was doing what he knew! I mean -- Whatsername -- Davey’d once said that if you’re point’s not being made, then light things on fire! It was the only fucking way he knew how to make this shit work and you know what? -- I’ll tell ya what -- it ended up killing him and his fucking boyfriend, okay?!”

Even Mike started to cry now, at least a bit. “You -- you know what? Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool were two of the bravest people I’ve ever fucking had the pleasure to know! They stood up for shit and they wouldn’t take no for a fucking answer! They -- they didn’t care what the fuck you thought about them! The only people that could hurt them were each other -- you know, the damn breakup and all -- then they got fucking killed, by such fucking cowards who burned everything down afterward! They were the real Class of Thirteen -- they were… they weren’t martyrs, they were fucking fighters. And they were brave -- so -- fucking -- brave! They were the bravest people I knew, and they didn’t run away! They would’ve come back if they were needed.”

There was a morbid, tearful cheer now.

“And -- well -- who the fuck are we?” Mike asked them.

“We are the Class of -- the Class of Thirteen!” they screamed once more to the heavens, a last tribute to their fallen leaders. “Born in the era of humility! We are the desperate in the decline! Raised by the bastards of nine -- teen -- sixty -- nine!”

And this time, no one gave them a disturbing peace ticket. No one told them to shut up. No one called them heathens, or anything else. They were just the Class of Thirteen then, damned as they all may have been, each of them pouring their heart and soul into these words that they screamed now. It was a last rallying cry, a last call to the leader called Gloria to save them all. It was their last hope. They were the last hope. And they were so pathetic…

Trying unsuccessfully to hide his freely flowing tears, Mike stepped down and blended back into the line as everyone present started shuffling to say their last words to the two deceased men -- to their ashes, anyway, as everything had been burnt after the shooting, and they couldn’t determine the remains of the pair who had died fighting, the pair who had died so very deeply in love.

Taylore Mishell passed by first, smiling bitterly. “Billie Joe -- well, Gloria, thanks for helping me figure my shit out. Thanks for helping me with my coming out stuff -- you were amazing at that. Thank you so much… rest in peace.” She passed by, followed by a girl called Ichigo.

“Thanks for being there, Tré. I really needed you -- well, you’d remember when… rest in peace, dude.”

A guy this time -- called Elske -- passed by and just nodded tearfully at the worn looking coffin, pale face obscured by ever lingering black hair -- rendering his expression unreadable.

And so this went on until the last person in the line stood near the coffin. He seemed to be around twenty four, and was wearing a grey tweed business suit, his general brown hair swept up under his very technical looking hat. He smiled and passed his fingers over the name of Frank Edwin Wright III.

Mike walked over to him, regarding his strange appearance. “What the hell’re you doin’ here, Mister Business Guy? Get the fuck out.”

The man looked up with a soft expression on his plain, very general face. “Oh, excuse my appearance.” His English was just right, his speech patterns boring and too regular to matter. “I was a… close friend of Mister Tré Cool’s, you see.”

“Oh? And your name is…?”

“Mr. Ian Woon,” the man stated, his brown eyes blank and emotionless. “And you are Mike Dirnt, yes?”

“So, Ian --”

“Please, call me… Mr. Ian Woon,” said the man mysteriously.

“So, Mr. Ian Woon, what was your relationship to Christian? -- well, Tré. Either way -- how’d you know each other?”

“Ah, that is -- rather classified business, sir. We were family friends, per say.”

And with that, Mr. Ian Woon winked at Mike, tipped his boring and plain grey hat, and walked away, carrying a neat looking, slim black suitcase at his side.

“There are some really weird people here, huh?” said Davey, walking toward Mike.

“Mmhmm,” Mike agreed.

“You ready to take the coffin out and bury it? I’ve got a small headstone -- Jade’s friend Adam made it -- and it’ll do for them… I think Billie Joe would have wanted something small, anyway. He never wanted to be famous.”

“I agree. C’mon Whatsername, let’s do this shit.”

Davey grabbed one end of the coffin and Mike grabbed the other, walking backwards out of the adapted room and following a well worn path deep into the very back of the graveyard. They carefully lowered it into a waiting, inviting hole, before covering it back up with all the dirt that had been dug up. Davey pointed to the small, white headstone. Its inscription read:

“Billie Joe Armstrong and Tré Cool.
Lost, but never forgotten.
Beloved Friends, Lovers, and Vigilante Extraordinaires.
(February 17th, 1994 - July 7th, 2013) (December 9th, 1993 - July 7th, 2013)
We are the Class of, the Class of Thirteen. Born in the era of humility. We are the desperate in the decline. Raised by the bastards of 1969.”

Mike smiled. “It’s perfect.”

“Yeah.”

“You ready to do the salute?”

“Mmhmm…”

“C’mon out, everyone!” Mike shouted.

And so nineteen of Mike and Davey’s closest and most trusted friends rushed out, each holding a cold, silver gun. They were somber, their eyes blank, as they circled the grave. In a circle, the twenty one assorted men and women, teens and twenty somethings, raised their guns to the sky.

“On three,” whispered Davey. “One… two… three.”

Twenty one gunshots rang out at the same time.

It was the twenty one gun salute, given to fallen military soldiers and now to those who especially deserved it. It was a tradition that had extended a long time, and it wasn’t like anyone there would remember -- all of them being high school or college dropouts, some of them never have been taught by the books. In the military, a lot of things had to do with twenty one. Now, it all had to do with the number of guns that had shot Billie Joeand Tré, the number of people who stood around their graves, and especially the nuber of the century. The twenty first century. And it was in fact, the midst of the twenty first breakdown when their fruitless war had broken out.

And the only people who had really paid were the two lovers who died in each others arms that fateful night of July the seventh, two thousand and thirteen. The two who had lasted through thick and thin, through years in the space of two months. The two who had broken up, and then had gotten back together. The two unlikely ones. The two who had, in a roundabout way, caused their own death, but the two who had meaninglessly died anyway for it.

Tré and Billie Joe.

Christian and Gloria.

Chapter Sixteen: 21 Guns

(4431 words)

I walked into his room for the first time in exactly fourteen days (oh, don’t worry, I definitely counted -- I mean, every day I’d spent after the breakup, I’d put a giant black X over the date, just to torture myself -- misery does love company, you know), at the somewhat late but also regular for us hour of eleven thirty seven, post meridian. It was just like I’d remembered it, but so different, too. For one, the shockingly white carpet was actually clean for once -- clean as in I could see all of it. Along with that, the surfaces were a lot clearer. There were a few boxes in one corner of the smallish room, giving me the impression that he was moving out. The second thing I noticed was on the walls, and it was something that really drew your eye.

Large, messily Sharpied words. Poetry, really, or lyrics if you thought hard enough about it. They rhymed, and really, they had a distinct rhythm to them too. They didn’t seem all that professional, more like the rhythmic ramblings of some random teenager than the writings of an actual author. That fact in and of itself was true -- as they were some random teenager’s writings. They were mine.

The first one I noticed was from something I’d written -- really, something I’d written about my past experiences with drugs and how I stopped so I could keep going on -- called See the Light. What he’d put up there -- and I could definitely see why -- were the simple words: “I’ve been wasted -- pills and alcohol. And I’ve been chasing down the pool halls. Then I drank the water from a hurricane. And I set a fire just to see the flame. Well, I just wanna see the light. And I don’t wanna lose my sight. Well, I just wanna see the light. And I need to know what’s worth the fight.”

Don’t we all? I asked myself, reading the last line. Don’t we? Just look at what happened with you, Billie Joe -- what happened with Gloria -- with the Class of Thirteen. Maybe that would never have happened if you only knew what was worth the fight. Or maybe, you know, how to fight for something. Or what about the difference between something worth fighting for and something worth dying for?

I guess that might as well have been the question to ask me. Do you know what’s worth fighting for? Do you know what’s worth dying for? Would changing the government -- which, honestly, I don’t think I would ever have a chance at accomplishing -- be a cause worth dying for? It was certainly something that I thought was worth fighting for -- but how far did that go? I wasn’t sure how far it went -- I wasn’t sure if I would die for it, just like millions had before. I -- the same me who wasn’t just Gloria, or St. Jimmy, or Whatsername’s boyfriend, but also definitely intimate with the cause at question -- was doubting the one thing that had been my everything for, what, four years or so.

Tré, noticing that I had seemingly flown off to Wonderland in my thoughts once more, coughed. Concernedly, he said, “Billie…? Um, Billie Joe? You here?” His voice was soft and timid, and a bit scratchy as if he hadn’t used it in a while. He sounded just like I could remember him sounding, even though that seemed to be a far off memory. Despite the fact that he’d broken up with me exactly two weeks before then, he apparently missed me, seemingly almost as much as I’d missed him. I half hoped that he had felt the same pain, that same dull ache in your chest, that I had felt for those two weeks. Part of me knew he had -- well, the subconscious “oh I forgot to tell you this?” part of me, anyway.

“Yeah, I am… I’m just a little spacey today, well right now, ya know?” I answered, showing signs of life once more. “I mean -- it’s not every day that your ex-boyfriends text messages you and asks to talk things out.” Wait -- for me, that was a flat out lie. It had happened with both of my ex-boyfriends in a period of two weeks. “Well, um, unless you’re me, then Whatsername -- well, Davey -- calls ya and you end up pissing off your other ex-boyfriend.” Oh fuck. I was babbling again and I knew it. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

“That was Whatsername?!” Tré asked me, eyes wide in surprise.

“That was Whatsername,” I affirmed, simultaneously echoing him. “Well -- his real name is Davey, and ya know, he’s not really Whatsername anymore -- if ya think about it and… ‘nd all.” I sounded like a nervous freak. I sounded like I did when we first talked after the graduation, when I was torn between melting and screwing him. Actually, right then, I was in the same position as I’d been at the graduation: babbling, melting, horny, and lonely. And to add onto that, I missed Tré so much since I’d last seen him, that it almost hurt. Hell, it did actually hurt. It hurt like a mother--

“That’s kind of crazy. To add on to how crazy you and your life are already,” Tré said with a snicker. I glared at him good naturedly and shook some of my hair out behind my head, leaning against the wall near an old window. Noticing this, Tré stood up. “Here, I have a seat --”

“Don’t worry, Tré, I’m fine,” I said, smiling at him. This was already going well. Tré just shrugged and sat down in the aforementioned chair near the old, dented, stained antique mirror that was practically embedded in his wall. I shifted slightly, tucking some loose hair behind my ear, before I started speaking once more. “So… why did you call me here, again? I mean --” I paused, shuffling slightly with my nervousness. “-- you seemed pretty damn mad at me after the riot. And when I was, um, officially ending my relationship with Whatser-- Davey.”

“My head’s been a lot clearer,” Tré admitted.

“What do you mean by that?” I ventured, half expecting the answer.

“Well, soon after we, um, broke up, I ran out of Opal. I didn’t want anyone to see me out there -- out on the streets -- not looking how I was looking, anyway… not knowing hoe instrumental I’d been to the riot. So, I just laid down here and waited out the withdrawal,” Tré answered a bit slowly. He paused for a tactful moment, taking a quick breath in. “Um, it actually wasn’t all that bad -- I’ve not been using too long, and I take -- I took it in a less severe way than most -- Opal’s not meant to be smoked, ya know.” He laughed. “After that… I cleaned up my room a bit. I had nothing better to do, really. Whenever I remembered you -- our relationship -- I’d write the words -- your words -- on my walls. I, um, hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? Why the hell would I, Tré?” I asked in shock and awe. “I mean -- really -- it’s a great honor. I feel… special, heh. But wow. That’s pretty amazing… I mean, I’m glad you were able to get over the whole Opal thing, ya know?”

“I’m still suffering from a bit of withdrawal symptom stuff,” he admitted.

“Oh, well. It’s better than nothing, right? It’s better than still being addicted.”

“Yeah, I’d have to agree with you there.” He sighed. “And sorry for reacting like that -- back at the café ‘n all. I was still pretty low from the Opal and shit. Just going out for ice cream and bam! Ya see your ex-boyfriend who you’ve been moping over kissing another random guy literally a week after the breakup. It kinda hurt, y’know?”

“Aw, Tré…” I said. “I really didn’t mean for it to be like that -- I mean, I didn’t mean for you to see it or anything. It wasn’t romantic. It was a goodbye kiss. It was closure, really. I wanted to make sure that we both know that it’s over… that what once was will never be again.”

“That makes sense, I guess. I mean -- I really didn’t know he is -- was? -- Whatsername. If I knew, I’d probably have blown up. Or something drastic and involving long words like spontaneous and combustion like that.”

“You know what, Tré,” I told him. “You are so cute when you’re clean. You’re all, like ADHD. And adorable.”

“No one’s ever said that,” Tré muttered darkly.

“I’m no one?!” I asked, faux hurt. “I’m hurt… I mean I just said it, too, ya know.”

“Oh, you’re definitely not no one,” he added quickly, smiling at me -- he was totally in on it, I knew it. “I just forgot about you for a minute there, that’s all.”

“How could you forget about me?! I’m fuckin’ Billie Joe Armstrong, bitch and I’m right in fucking front of you!”

Tré laughed, doubling over and grinning from ear to ear when he looked up. “Ah, and this is why I fell in love with you in the first place, Billie Joe Armstrong. Your fiery spirit and sappy poetic shit like that.”

“Awh. I love guys who complement me using flowery purple prose.” (so does the author -- it adds words, right? just like me breaking the fourth wall, like I am right here!) “I think it’s cute. You’re the cutest, though. The hottest, too. And the best in bed.” I winked at him. Tré grinned back at me, running his fingers through his hair. Damn, is he cute when he’s nervous.

“So, um, really -- it’s okay?” he asked quietly. “You’re not like, mad at me or anything? ‘Cause, I mean, I regretted it right after you left. I had a nightmare about it. I wrote your poetry on the walls -- your lyrics and shit like that. I mean, I thought it was a mistake. But I also thought that that could have been the… um… withdrawal talking, I guess.” He laughed nervously, continuing to be so damn cute.

“Not, well -- not really. I was being a serious bitching pain in the ass yesterday about us, but then again -- well, my internet bills haven’t been paid, I guess. The Class of Thirteen doesn’t trust me. I thought -- I was pretty damn convinces, actually -- that you fucking hated me. I dunno, I had serious male PMS or something,” I said, explaining the past two weeks to him in a matter of only a few run on sentences.

“I missed you,” I added in a whisper, “I missed you a lot, did you know that? You were my everything. I fell for you hard and fast and it stuck with me like a damn tattoo. I wasn’t sick of it, but… it felt like the tattoo was sick of me or something.”

Tré looked up at me, his eyes clear (however, I could see the beginnings of tears). “I missed you, too. I missed you a lot as I laid in bed, in pain and throwing up. I wanted you to hold me. I wanted to you kiss me full on the mouth and say that it would all be okay.”

“I wanted to, that whole time,” I assured him. “I wanted to hold you again, and feel your sticky, sweaty skin against mine, and I wanted you to say that you love me again. I felt like… like… I can’t even describe how it felt without you.”

Tré, smiling tearfully now, stood up. I pushed off the wall and started walking toward him, as he walked toward me. We wrapped our arms around each other, like every other time, like it was any other day before the riot and the resulting breakup. And I kissed him, and he kissed back, and it was beautiful. When we broke apart, both of us were crying just a little, of joy.

That’s when the phone rang. Tré picked it up, still holding my hand, and nodded worriedly. “Okay, um, here he is,” he said, passing the phone to me.

I can’t replicate exactly what was said in that short phone conversation to Gloria from an unnamed caller, but what was stated was, in fact, horrific. Threats. The end of the Class of Thirteen. Very damaging things about me and my mental health.

I hung up in a dreadful, thick like soup silence.

“Tré? We’re not… we’re not safe anymore. Tré… Tré, the Class of Thirteen is over. IT’s done with… it’s all my fault.”

I didn’t care that much, though, for some reason. I just didn’t.

“Well, you know what I’d have to say about that?” Tré asked in more of a statement than a question. “I think that as long as there are people who believe in this whole Class of Thirteen shit, if they believe in the Underbelly, if they believe in what they’re fighting for -- then I think that there will always be something like this. There’ll always be a Class of Thirteen somewhere. There’ll always be some sort of an Underbelly. A Whatsername, a Gloria. It’s like… it’s just a line of succession. You came after Whatsername. Now someone will come after you -- someone will be hailed as the new Gloria. It’ll never die as long as people keep fighting for this. As long as some are crazy and keep dying for it.”

“But…” I trailed off, thinking about my earlier questions. “But… how do you know what’s worth fighting for, and what’s worth dying for?”

“I dunno… it’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? I mean -- some people think it’s worth not just fighting for, but ya know, dying for this damn war. And we don’t, do we? They must feel the same way ‘bout the sacrifices in the Class of Thirteen, and ‘specially the Underbelly, right? They might think that this country, and how it is now is something t’ be protected, right? Some people do… some people really think that Bush ‘s the Second Coming… some people think he’s the Anti Christ. I mean, it boils down to opinion, huh?”

I shrugged and looked away. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Don’t worry too much about it. You can die for what you want to die for. But you can also fight for what you think isn’t worth dying for, but it is worth fighting for.” Tré paused before continuing, his voice much softer now, “Do you… d’you remember the ruins in the middle of the town after the riot? All the dead, old guns, grenades ‘n all? Did it take your breath away?”

I couldn’t reply. A few tears worked their way up to the edge of my vision.

“That’s when you figured out that the Class of Thirteen -- it’s not something worth dying for, is it? For some people -- yeah, it is. They’re the people who’ll eventually lead this kind of shit. You know, I’m betting that this was part of why Whatsername -- Davey -- quit, huh? He didn’t think that he would want to die for this -- right?” Tré asked. “At the riot -- in its aftermath, that’s when you realized that the pain… when the realization hit you that you did that all, it was your fault, the pain started to outweigh the pride, huh?”

“It… it did,” I admitted.

“You ran away… I think that part was my fault though… I mean -- I’d lied to you, huh? I told you that I’d stick with you through it all, didn’t I? Before the riot… I did. I said I wouldn’t leave you. Did that break your heart? It broke mine when I realized what I’d done. After the dream I had…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “You said that if you lost everything in the fire, you’d be sending all your love to me, right? That… that all your love… was -- it was for me, right? You said that in that one text. I didn’t quite get it, but I think I do now. That was when you first started to think about the riot, huh? And part of you… part of you know that something would go wrong.”

“M-maybe I did.” It wasn’t a lie.

“You were in ruins afterward, huh? Your mind. Your heart. You… you were worse off than me, huh? You had the guilt of the riot. You had the guilt of making me so mad at you that I broke up with you… oh, Billie… that must have been so much… so much… too much to handle,” Tré whispered, pulling me back into a warm embrace.

I looked up at him, grasping his hand tightly as we broke apart. “Then you… well, I know what happened there. You were mad -- so, so mad at me, huh? You lost all your control and kicked me out. I know it wasn’t you -- I think I knew it then, too. But… dammit, it hurt either way. We were both over thinking it, weren’t we? Your faith in me… it shattered. My faith in me, in everything I’d ever believed in then -- it all shattered too. I felt like… us… you, and me, and the Class of Thirteen… that none of it was meant to last. But… was it, now? Since were… back here, again?”

“I -- I dunno, Billie Joe… fuck, that rhymed. But I think we’re supposed to last… I mean… we would still be pissed off at each other for all this, right? We would’ve felt miserable… but satisfied, huh? I dunno. I’ve never really… this has never really happened to me… I bet… has it happened to you?”

“Not really. It was different with Davey -- with Whatsername. That needed to happen… we -- it just didn’t make sense for us to be together, I think. I mean… it may have been a lesson for us… that… I dunno. For me to not do drugs, certainly. It was, like, some sort of lesson, and um… I dunno what would‘ve become of me if I‘d never met him… you know, one of those really important events that just have to happen, you know?”

“When did you get all religious?”

“When did you get all philosophocl -- fuck, I can’t say it.”

Tré stuck out a tongue at my inability to fucking say philosophical.

“So much for your philo-fucking-sophocality, Mister Laughing at my Mispronunciationing. Fuck, that came our wrong.”

“Hm… it did.”

We just grinned at each other, kissing once more before the phone rang, again, sending shivers up my spine. We didn’t pick it up this time. It went right to the answering machine, the dark and daring message resounding through the room. It was twelve ante meridian exactly. Such a cliché and yet so perfect time to call us and make a death threat, am I right?

“Christian and Gloria… you aren’t safe anymore. They’re coming… we’re coming.” The voice was dark and dangerous with a slightly metallic hint to it, as if it was going through a soup can and some string. Well, that mixed with Darth Vader. So, basically, it sounded like Darth Vader talking through a soup can and string. “It’s the end of the road.”

They hung up.

My breath caught in my throat before I could scream, and the room started spinning.

“Oh my god, Tré.” I finally got my voice back precious seconds later, though it was a bare whisper. “Tré -- we’re -- we’re gonna die. Tré, Tré, Tré… I love you, Tré, I fucking love you.”

He sounded just as scared as I did when he replied with, “I love you too, Billie Joe. Fuck. I love you so much.”

That’s when we heard the sirens. And the lights flashed through the windows, cutting through the night and the glass like a bullet through tissue paper.

“Shit. We’re.. gonna -- gonna die, Tré.”

He nodded.

“And as Whatsername would say… then… it’s not over till you’re underground, it’s not over before it’s too late.” I paused, gulping. “It’s over, Tré, it’s too -- it’s too late.”

“Yeah. Billie Joe…” he trailed off. “Billie Joe… if there’s anyone who I’d want to die with, then… fuck, it’s you. I love you.”

A gunshot cracked the fragile silence, leaving it like broken glass as one bullet broke through the wall. It soared past us. I froze, pressing my self to Tré and crying softly into his shoulder. More bullets followed, from all over, shooting through his bed and through the walls. I heard yelling from outside the house. I heard yelling from inside the house.

“Tré…”

“I love you,” he whispered softly.

“I love you, too.”

More bullets rained in on us, shattering the glass and the mirror. Feathers dropped down from the ceiling, flying away from the bed on impact. And, somehow, we weren’t shot. I guess the guys had really shitty aim.

“I want one last thing before we die,” I whispered.

“What’s that?” he asked me.

“This.”

I stood up on my tip toes and wrapped my arms around his neck, my forehead pressing against his. Catching on, Tré wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed me flush against him. He pressed his mouth on mine and kissed me. I kissed back. The pounding of blood in my ears and our heavy breathing drowned out the sound of gunshots and the sound of bullets penetrating through the walls. One of them hit the light fixtures on the ceiling, shattering the bulb and plunging us into darkness. The red and blue lights reflected all around us on the broken mirror, refracting on the walls eerily.

Still, I deepened the kiss, adrenaline soaring through my veins at unprecedented speeds. My heart beat faster and faster and faster, pounding against his in perfect unison. Some of my hair fell in both of our eyes. We didn’t care as the seconds turned to minutes, and minutes into what felt like hours. Shattered glass and bullets lay at our feet like demented offerings to sacrilegious gods, although it was too late for all of us.

As we broke apart panting, I whispered between our close breaths: “We’re not safe anymore. I love you, Tré, and I’m so fucking glad that my last words are saying that to you.”

“I love you, too, Billie Joe. I’ll love you forever.”

I pulled him into yet another kiss, relishing our very last moments together. I didn’t care that we only had precious minutes left to live. I only cared that Tré and I were together then, in our very last moments, that we were kissing and that we were so very deeply in love them. I was satisfied that he didn’t hate me. The rest of the world could hate me for all I cared, but since Tré had forgiven me, I was just fine. Now that we were together again, nothing else mattered.

As the bullets kept on falling in there, and as we broke apart again, I looked up at him, everything blurry from my tears.

“Tré… will you still love me in the morning?”

“Forever and always baby, forever and always.”

As long as he loved me, I was going to be okay. Silently, I let go of his hand and walked to the window once more, looking out from the shattered glass. The night below was dark and showed me none of its secrets, just the heartbeat rhythm of the flashing lights and sirens. I looked back at Tré, walking back to him and wrapping my arms around him.

“If I lose everything in the fire, I’m sending all my love to you,” I whispered.

He smiled at me, trying unsuccessfully to conceal his tears.

“We’re goin’ down with a fight, Billie Joe,” he whispered in my ear, warm breath soothing over my skin. “We’re going down the same way everyone else before us did. We’re going down like the heroes and heroines before us. Our minds are clear. Our eyes are teary and we love each other.” He coughed before continuing. “I’m glad we’re together, Billie Joe, because I don’t know what I would do if we weren’t together as we died. I’d… I’d be alone if it weren’t for you. You’d be alone, too… you know that, huh? I love you, Billie Joe.”

“It is pretty fucking obvious.” Was all I could whisper in reply, kissing him once more, kissing him chastely this time. “I think… I think I saw twenty one of them. The guns, I mean. Twenty one exactly. Isn’t it weird? You know… the whole twenty one gun salute given to fallen soldiers in the military -- I mean, well, you know -- we’re like fallen soldiers too, in the military of the Class of Thirteen, dying at the front called the 21st Century Breakdown, right?”

Tré just nodded and I sighed, grasping his hand once more and interlacing our fingers smoothly. “One, twenty one guns,” I whispered to him. “Lay down your arms, give up the fight.”

Tré wrapped an arm protectively around my waist, pressing us even closer. I looked up at him once more, meeting his eyes full of fear and bravery. A few tears had already fallen down his cheeks, and I could tell that I’d been crying, too. I mean -- who wouldn’t? We were about to die, dammit, and even though we were both satisfied… honestly, who really wants to die at the age of 18? Or the age of 19? Neither of us would live to see the age of fucking 20.

One more gunshot cracked out, silencing us. “One, twenty one guns,” I whispered. “Throw up your arms into the sky. You and I.” Another one rang out -- as far as I could tell, the last one. And then -- all was silent. I was shaking, and Tré was shaking as every second that ticked by felt like an hour -- our precious last few seconds.

And before anything else could happen, before that last fragile silence could be broken by, well, anything, I whisper asked to Tré: “If I lose everything in the fire… did I ever make it through?”

Chapter Fifteen: The Static Age

(2247 words)

Why didn’t he listen? Why didn’t Tré ever listen to me? Why couldn’t he just listen to a fucking word that I fucking said every once in a fucking while?!

Those three question plagued my mind as I walked back to my old house on the outskirts of the suburban hell that was temporarily my home. I wanted to know, dammit, why he was so insistent on his opinion. Why he never listened to mine. Why he seemed to think less of me… well, not that really, but more like he didn’t trust me.

I couldn’t get why -- well, I sort of could, but it was an accident.

The whole damn riot was an accident, and Tré should’ve known that. Dumbass.

It was bad enough that the only thing television and radio could be good for was static. But, seriously, our relationship was built on static airwaves of communication too. It was getting insane, this static age of really shitty communication. (fucking hell, am I redundant or what?!)

Sighing, I sat down at my desk and opened up my 10 year old laptop. The screen fizzed slightly as I turned it on, before a greenish sign came up:

"Batteries required. Please plug in your laptop or charge the batteries."

Goddamn it, I thought, grumbling as I pulled out my laptop cord and plugged it into the old hole in the wall. Little blue electric sparks cascaded in there between the metal and the outlet. I smiled as my computer booted up, smiled as the first signs of lights flicked onto it. It was perfect. I loved being on my computer, because I could just get lost in pointless internet memes and weirdness in general. It was a lot of fun to read the really, really fucking strange news articles that came up once in a while... you know, like the weird cow ones. It was also fun to browse around on Amazon for the really strange products, like the weird Jesus Milk or whatever. You know, the stuff that was supposedly Really Good and cost a whole fuckin fortune for one gallon -- more or less a hundred buck a pop.

Totally not worth it for the milk, but totally worth it for the lulz.

Wait -- you don't know what LULZ are?! You must be crazy. Like, seriously crazy... and out of touch... and you must live in a hole. I mean, I have a fucking summer home in Narnia (I'm still mostly in the closet, bitches!) but even I know about teh lulz.

Lulz is the vocalized pronunciation of LOL -- as I explained in chapter nine, "laugh out loud." And so we got teh lulz from the lovely forum of 4-chan. Which is the asshole of the whole fucking internet, but still pretty damn funny to look at -- well, unless you're looking at /b/. /b/ is scary. Really scary.

Okay, well I can't hate on 4chan too much -- I mean, we get most of our memes from there. You know, so i herd u liek mudkipz, and O RLY (and YA RLY) and LOL cats (I Can Haz Cheezburger?) and stuff. Oh, yeah, and "all your base are belong to us." And Rickrolling. And I'm pretty sure that they introduced The Game (hahahahahahahahahahah you just lost it!!! -- well, I did too... fail) and epic fail, I think. And, you know, half of the rest of the internet funnies. Like Rickrolling.

You know, if you don't know what Rickrolling is, you need to like kill yourself. Or get online more. Either or, or one might as well lead to the other... people have died of starvation while playing World of Warcraft (seriously, your damn raids are not that fucking important). But really, Rickrolling is only the biggest funny lulz ever.

Basically, someone sends you an email with a YouTube link -- saying that it's the best video ever, right? You click on it and you get...

...


"Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley. The whole damn music video. It drives me batshit whenever I get one of these damn emails. Well, it's funny -- since I always make them lose the Game right afterward. It is kind of funny to watch them say "GODDAMMIT I should never Rickroll this dude ever ever again. I HATE LOSING THE GAME." And well, they better not try again... oh, yeah, don't you fucking dare steal my tactics -- I mean, they're not even mine. I got them from the author's mom... I'm not kidding. I got it from the author's mom... and so what, I'm kinda crazy... but this is supposed to get Suki to her word count today, right? Right. Back on schedule...

So, basically, the whole ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US thing came from a shittily translated Japanese video game. It was translated to fast that the fucking words got all screwed up. Resulting in a hilarious conversation including the famous (infamous?) line -- ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

By the way, all your soul are belong to us.

... back on schedule now, right?


And so, reflecting on the memes of the then current internet society -- everything from harmless things like "so i herd u liek mudkipz" all the way to painful, nightmare inducing screamer videos -- I watched as my computer turned on and glowed like a fucking orange sunset in my dark and crowded room. Oh, yes. I logged onto it -- username Gloria, password amereul-2013 -- and waited for it to load. Barely thinking, just going through the motions considering how distracted I was, I clicked the little Mozilla Firefox button and opened up my internet browser (well, everyone knows that Internet Explorer -- and Microsoft in general -- is awful) to Google.

Whoops, well, AT LEAST I FUCKING TRIED.

I came up with a "Page Not Found" blank tab thing. And looked in the corner of my computer to see the issue. Oh, great. My internet must have been shut down. Goddamn internet bills... goddamn no money... goddamn friendlessness. I barely let my friends cover my internet costs, but seriously here -- they wouldn't now since the riot. They flat out wouldn't. It stung -- and still stings a bit to this day -- how they just brushed me off like that and said "pshhh, screw you for being a fuckin' liar, Gloria. you're one smart dumbass. not." It wasn't funny. It hurt and made me sink further into my depression. I was so seriously broke and running out of minutes on my phone. Great... I'd need to get a job soon, I realized. Oh, yeah, not like anyone would hire me between the display at my graduation and the riot, and being Gloria. And I was definitely not going to the next town over just to get a goddamn job -- I mean, I was desperate, but not that goddamn fucking desperate. I wasn't crazy. Besides, they'd just turn me down, too.

Oh, sweet, sweet rejection and loneliness and heartbreak.

Sighing to myself, I stood up and walked into the so called living room, where Mom normally hung out, somewhat drunk and mostly catatonic. It was crazy how dysfunctional my family was, even though we never talked. As far as I knew, as far as I was told, my dad had died -- or killed himself, maybe -- right after he's left, when I was ten.

It was seven years ago at the time, but that coming September (September of 2013, smart people) it would be eight years.

I could almost taste the twenty year anniversary of his death, when I would be 38. Assuming, you know, I'd live to be 38... again, much more likely that I'd die at 37 than live to see 100. The drugs, the fucking up my body in general, not to mention me possible killing myself before then, or actually on then. It was crazy, but with Tré it was an escape -- I almost believed that we'd grow fairly old together, throwing hand grenades and exploding sporks at retirement homes.

Just thinking of Tré and our former, our beautiful, romance made me choke up, so I forced myself to sit down and so I laid back on the small, tattered loveseat. Oh the fuckin' irony. I was moping on the loveseat of all damn seats. Loveseats... Tré never sat there with me -- hell, he'd only been to my place once, right before the riot -- but still. Just thinking about the word loveseat -- well, love, really -- made me want to die. Or cry. Something tingly and sad that rhymed with those to words. I also wanted to throw Tré off a cliff then, but I couldn't. For one, there were no cliffs in that city. For second, he was somewhere -- somewhere I didn't know where the hell my ex-boyfriend was. And third, he was much stronger than me, and much heavier (oh, trust me, I knew by then exactly how mush pressure his weight put on me). I'd be more likely to fall off the cliff than to throw him off it.

But still. It was fun to mentally maim him for all he'd done to me.

So, trying to distract myself with news that would infuriate me in a totally different and hopefully more healthy way, I turned on the television. You see, there wasn't very much normal programming -- mostly news. Well, propaganda. Evil, evil propaganda infiltrating the faith fanatics and turning them against honest people -- you know, like me. Compared to them, I was a fucking saint.

So what, I used to be called the Patron Saint of the Denial (with an angel face and a taste for suicidal). The so called Saint Jimmy was never a real saint anyway.

I meditated on this as I watched the TV flicker on, watching as the images came into focus.

A low pitched, whining beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep sounded from the TV and I plugged my ears immediately. The noise still penetrated, reverberating in my skull, as the automated woman's voice announced that this was just a signal test. In case a riot like, you know, the one that made me lose like everything, ever happened again. To be completely honest, I'd rather have killed myself than to relive that humiliation. I hated what happened... I hated what I'd, what Gloria'd, become in the eyes of the public. In the eyes of my friends. In the eyes of my ex-boyfriend.

Of course, Mom didn't care. I was glad, because otherwise, I don't know what could have happened to me following the riot. I'd probably be forced to feel the pain of the hundreds. You know -- also known as she'd kill me. Or she'd make me kill myself. I shuddered just thinking of that. I wanted to live my life for as long as I could, because I knew that I had much shorter a time than everyone else who existed... you know, the normal people who never did Novacaine, who didn't dabble in every drug imaginable, who never threw a hand grenade or had tried to change something as drastically as I had. It was all kinds of insane, my life, and it was crazy just thinking "hey world, I lived through it all."

The TV's image was a rainbow of flickering, epileptic seizure inducing static. Rainbow static. Beautiful static in this fucking static age, where consumerism was emphasized. Where you were judged on how you looked, how much money you had -- which went hand in hand, as you could buy fancy schmancy three thousand dollar dresses with all your fucking money.

Remind me again on why I was so pissed off all the time about the state of people -- oh yeah! -- because they were materialistic bitches and judged so harshly based on how you acted, appeared, loved, looked, where you were born. They did it in the name of their gods, sometimes -- but I never got it, because weren't they taught that only the fucking Lord could judge, and that those who judged would go to Hell? Oh, wait, same God that said if you believe in him, you'd get a one way ticket to Heaven, even if you were a fucking, I dunno, serial murderer child rapist who was convicted and pleaded guilty to countless crimes that were also again common morality (and, supposedly, the Bible).

Oh, yeah, that's why I was so damn pissed off at the world. The static and the damn people.

I sighed and walked back to my room, laying down on my bed and flipping open my cell phone that was switched off. I turned it on, pressing the red hang up button till I saw images on the screen.

Low battery, read the little graphic in the corner. Yep, just like my laptop.

I sighed once more and flipped it closed, closing my eyes and. --

Being shocked back awake by an all too familiar ringtone. Tré. Dammit, why the hell would he be texting me at two ante meridian? I guessed that he'd mistyped the number, or something. It couldn't be him.

So I opened it... and it was definitely for me.
Oh shit, I thought. Oh shit. No way in fucking hell...

I groaned, and flipping of my phone, I fell asleep once more, severely pissed off and feeling like an overly hormonal girl.