When The Sunlight Dies - Human Wreckage Sequel -

Chapter 21

Dawn’s P.O.V

God it’s so fucking dark… And it wasn’t cold exactly, it was kind of warm. I cracked my eyes open, “Dawn?” A dark figure above me asked.

I groaned, blinking a few times. I felt something sprinkling onto my face. Was it snow? It feels like it… but it wasn’t cold.

I sat up halfway, using my elbows for support. I looked past the shadow, taking in the familiar surroundings. I was lying in the middle of a cracked and abandoned road.

Farther down the road sat a pushed over float. It was black, white, and red with a white skeleton face on the front. On either side of the road were torn down buildings, their remains either sitting in a pile or drifting through the wind.

My eyes traveled up to the sky. It was dark, filled with smoke as if there had been a major fire. Taking a look around at all the burnt pieces of cloth and wood, there most likely was.

“Dawn?” I looked back up at the shadow. I gasped.

“Gerard?”

“Not entirely,” the boy replied, holding a hand out to me. I took it, allowing him to help me to my feet. I studied his face. Instead of his long red hair, he wore the old short pale blond hair back when I had first met him. He was dressed in his marching band uniform. Gerard.

“What do you mean ‘kind of’?” I questioned, studying his face which was painted like a skeleton. The Black Parade.

I looked around again, this time turning in a full circle before resting my eyes back on him.

“Um… I’m more of like a memory. Burned into time and space… I guess I’m kind  of like his shadow.”

“A shadow?” I asked confused.

“It’s hard to explain. I’m not him… but I’m somehow connected to him. I’m his phantom left here to lead The Black Parade,” he said, gesturing around him.

So basically… Gerard, the once phantom… has a phantom. This Gerard was the phantom of a phantom, “The Black Parade is dead…” I said, even more confused.

“No… it’s burned, wounded. Not dead, it can never be dead. Haven’t you learned anything from the song? We’ll carry on. Gerard… your Gerard, wrote that song, titling it ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ as a message to the members who run now as Killjoys. When the Director burned everything, Gerard stayed to help as many people escape as he could.”

My hero.

“He had slipped through the portal, but not before being injected by the liquid that they gave Mikey to get his heart beating again. Once he stepped through, he became alive again. I’m the dead him. But I’m not the only one.”

As if on cue, Michael, Frank, and Ray stepped out from the shadows. I even recognized the blond male that they called Bob.

No, I realized, The Black Parade can never die.