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In a blink, she was there. A flash of pink hair and friendly eyes amongst the glaring sea of purple lights and jeering faces. Her hair was shorter now, hacked away roughly by a careless hand, but it was still Mizi. She was alive, and she was reaching for him with tears in her eyes.
Till’s clouded vision cleared, and he jolted back into his body with a jarring clarity. He had given up. He hadn’t even noticed slipping away, but when Luka had gently caressed his face with corpse cold hands Till had decided one last time that he would lose. The memories left behind in his body, the coolness of Ivan’s lips, the countless and relentless abuse it had suffered, were all too painful to dwell in anymore. He had decided to allow his music to fail him one final time. His voice trembled like it was on a tightline high above the ground, and he could no longer lift his eyes to challenge Luka.
But here she was, like an angel beaming through a cloud of hellfire and smoke. As though his heart were a broken machine spending its last drop of fuel, Till felt his heart stir in a final burst of euphoria. He wanted to win.
Despite the gravity of his situation, a childish blush bloomed on his face, and he felt the warm pressure of tears build up behind his eyes. Maybe he could live, maybe he could survive this round so that he could finally express how he felt. Maybe his confession didn’t have to lie hollow in his heart or forced out by the panic of death, like Ivan’s had been.
But Till hadn’t been watching the scores. He hadn’t seen the green bar representing him waver and taper out. He hadn’t seen Luka’s purple bar skyrocket as his voice glided smoothly over the notes designed to fit his vocal style. He raced to the end of the stage, reaching out his hand to meet Mizi’s. Tears glimmered in her eyes, causing them to sparkle in the harsh purple light, illuminated by the screen that read:
"LUKA WIN."
A mild heat brushed past Till’s neck, and suddenly his vision splintered into a million pieces. Before he knew it, his head smashed against the cold floor of the Alien Stage. He only had a brief moment to be in this suspended bliss of confusion before a searing pain paralysed him. Against his will, his lungs spasmed, causing burning hot blood to pool into his airway. Reflexively, he coughed, but only a small bubble of blood burst from his lips. He couldn’t even get enough air to cough.
I lost, he realized. I’m going to die.
Till’s heart began to painfully slam against his ribcage in a desperate attempt to save him, forcing blood to spill over into his mouth and throat. Though he knew now it was futile, his diaphragm trembled to pull in any air, fighting against the river of blood tearing its way through his insides. Till squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, fighting the sobs that threatened to tear his body in two.
It was miserable, how quickly it had ended.
Amidst the agony, though, he became aware of something warm touching his face. Opening blurry, tear clouded eyes, he gazed back into Mizi’s beautiful face, blurred like she was a mirage of a far away oasis. Her tears spilled from her lashes and fell like tender rain onto his face. Her gentle hands cradled his head, using her thighs as a pillow for him to rest. A halo of beaming lights streaked around her head, and Till dazedly lifted his hand to touch her face. He couldn’t tell whether he succeeded or not.
“H-hey, Till”, she sobbed, her voice echoing as though she was underwater. “It’s okay, you’re okay. I’ve got you. Just hold on.”
A fierce stab of pain assaulted Till’s senses, and his body spasmed in her grip. The sob that had been trapped in the blood in his throat finally released itself, spilling iron blood over his mouth. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, but his lips trembled as he tried to form words. Maybe it was a panicked cry for help, maybe it was an apology, maybe it was a confession.
“Shh, don’t speak,” Mizi whispered. “You’re okay, you’re okay.”
Cradled in her arms as the life drained from him, Till almost believed her.
______
He couldn’t see anymore, and his body had become hopelessly heavy. Words warbled in and out of his ears, meaningless.
“Hyuna, leave him! We have to go, Till’s dying!”
“Luka, please, come with us-”
“One last chance-”
“He can’t breathe!”
He tried to draw in one last, desperate breath, but all he could taste was blood.
______
Something was caught in his throat. His eyes were too heavy to open, his barely part lashes allowing only raw colours to filter through. His body, where he could feel it, tingled with static bits of metal. A ragged pain speared through his neck, relentless.
Till struggled against the thing in his airway, feeling his lungs fight to push out a threadbare cough. Panic rose in his chest, swelling to unbearable heights.
Help! He thought desperately. Someone please help me!
As though answering his calls, a voice cut through his muddled confusion.
“Thank god, he’s awake. Till?” A stab of relief shot through his chest at the sound of Mizi’s voice. As long as she was there, he was okay. He was safe. “Till, can you hear me?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but all he heard was a feeble hiss.
It was at that moment the weight over his eyes lifted and he could finally see. Though the shapes were still forming around him, he saw the bubblegum pink of Mizi’s hair and the rim of her glasses glinting. Something was over his face, pressing around his mouth and nose. The pressure in his chest, he realized, was due to a hard tube forced down his throat that made quiet fizzing noises.
Weakly, he lifted his hand to reach her again. This time, he was met by the warmth of her palm firmly squeezing his. His heart fluttered, but this time it wasn’t due to his medical condition.
“You’re alive,” he heard her say, feeling the pressure on his hand tighten. “We got out Till. We’re finally free.”
The words didn’t make sense to him until he saw what she held in her other hand. The cold metal collar that had suffocated and tortured Till for years hung from her fingers, aimlessly blinking green. In disbelief, he lifted his other hand to his neck, gliding his fingers along the smooth bandages there.
He was free. All his pain, all his suffering, it finally meant something.
A grin split across his face, and if he could have, he would have started laughing until he couldn’t breathe. Mizi did it for him though, tossing her head back and allowing tears to squeeze out of the corners of her eyes as she laughed in pure elation. Still holding his hand, she leaned forward into him, close enough that he could see splattered blood dotting her cheeks like freckles. Was it his?
“I’ll be right back,” she assured him. “Hyuna was hurt pretty bad too and she needs help.”
Till dazedly watched as she released his hand and disappeared from his view.
It occurred to him that he didn’t even know where he was. Squinting against harsh white light, Till carefully tried to turn his head to the side. A raw slash of pain caused his breath to hitch for a brief moment, and he closed his eyes and waited for it to pass. Opening his eyes again, he found himself surrounded by white walls and lights, frighteningly similar to the hospital of the Anakt Gardens. Anxiety began to claw its way into his chest, bringing with it flashes of agonized memories that forced themselves to the forefront of his mind. There was a darkness in front of him, like a whole universe gazing into his eyes before it fell dead before him. Ivan’s sad, awfully peaceful smile that was painted with blood glared in front of his vision. Till watched as the man with beautiful dark hair and sorrowful black eyes died at his feet.
No, that wasn’t right.
The universe that spilled before his eyes watched him from outside a large clear window. There was no day outside, and there was no night. Till’s eyes widened in shock when he realized that he was floating in the middle of space. It was a place that held primarily dark memories for him, memories of fire and screaming and an exploding planet. At the time, space had been the scariest thing his innocent child’s eyes had seen. However, after his soul had been tempered by abuse and confinement, space had become a place of dreams and freedom.
They really had escaped that nightmarish planet after all. A sudden tiredness overcame him, and Till let his eyes drift close again. Just before he lost consciousness, he could have sworn he saw someone lying across the room from him with dark hair.
The next time he opened his eyes, the immense pressure in his throat was gone. Breathing felt hoarse, like a barbed needle brushed against his trachea every time air whistled by. It was easier to wake up this time, and Till pulled himself back to awareness again. The pain in his neck, though worse in its burning intensity, seemed less suffocating. It was something that he could bear.
A voice on his other side hummed.
“Hey Till, you’re alive for good, right?”
A bark of a cough forced itself from Till’s lungs, and he flung his head to the other side with no regards to the blinding white pain it caused.
He met the unmistakable gaze of Ivan and his universe eyes.
The breath Till had tried to regain was lodged in his throat. He blinked rapidly a few times in a row, simultaneously praying for what he was seeing to be true but also for his mind to stop torturing him with false hopes. Sure enough, on the other side of the couch that Till was resting on, Ivan was awkwardly sprawled, limbs half dangling from the sides. His blood stained suit that Till had seen him in last was gone, replaced by a top of bandages wrapping his torso. His naturally pale complexion seemed tinted gray, and the muscles in his face were tense.
But it was Ivan. He was alive.
Till tried to speak, feeling a pyramid of words piling up on his tongue. If he could have, he would have started talking and never stopped. The pain in his throat tightened around his vocal chords, allowing only a pained squeak to emerge.
You shouldn’t talk,” Ivan said, trying to prop himself up onto his elbow. Till noticed that his breathing was harsh and ragged, causing a spark of concern to light in his chest. He remembered the blood that had spurted from Ivan’s chest and mouth when he’d been shot, remembered the heat of it coating his face and hands and eventually cooling. He must be hurting, worse than Till maybe, and here he was putting on a brave face again. How was he alive?
Till’s hands started to shake, and he felt the pain in his neck intensify as the burn of tears rose to his face. The pressure rose swiftly, fighting like a river against a cracked dam.
“H-hey, what’s going on?” Ivan asked, watching in surprise as an uncontrollable flurry of tears spilled from Till’s eyes.
Crying hurt, but it wasn’t like he could stop it. Till wheezed in a few heaving breaths, allowing the burning heat in his throat to compliment the force behind his eyes pushing warm tears forth. Embarrassed, he raised his trembling hands over his face, allowing only muffled sobs to pass through.
To be fully honest, he wasn’t even sure why he was crying himself. He hadn’t cried when Ivan had died, had only felt a gaping hole larger than the sky above him expand in his gut. He hadn’t cried when Ivan had raced across the stage and held his head in his hands and forced a kiss. He hadn’t cried when Mizi had beaten Luka to near unconsciousness as she was pulled off the stage to her supposed death. Now, he was crying for all the small pains and the larger ones he’d hidden under a mask of survival, in front of the man he hadn’t even had time to grieve.
Ivan seemed to have confused the mess of emotions roiling in front of him. A twinge of pain masked his expression, hiding beneath it something akin to regret.
“Till, I’m so sorry,” he blurted. His voice shook, too. His composure, which throughout Till’s entire life had served as a charming mask that he could hide his vulnerable emotions behind, seemed to be cracking. “I knew you didn’t want that, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I knew it would hurt you and I still did. I just thought…” He trailed off, swallowing back tears of his own.
Till could only gape at him. Till had certainly cried in front of Ivan before, often angrily in response to some irritating tease gone too far or a meaningless fight between the two of them. He had a blurry memory of Ivan cradling his head while Till cried into his shoulder, unable to see or move due to a drug forced into his system by the aliens. This though, Ivan seeming to be just as upset as Till was, was a rare sight.
“I thought I was going to die and you would never know. It needed to mean something,” Ivan finished once he had composed himself.
Till shook his head, a well of frustration heating his chest. How could he communicate that he didn’t care? He had thought that his childhood friend had died; he was beyond caring about a wrongly taken kiss at the moment. They could sort it out once he had his voice back. He could only awkwardly stare at Ivan from a few feet away, his thoughts whirling.
Ivan let out a loud sigh, falling back on the pillows behind him. His dark brows were tightly knit together over closed eyes, drawing an expression of pain. “Sorry,” he apologized again. “I know you can’t talk, I’m being an asshole. If Mizi ever comes back, maybe she’ll have paper and you can write or something.”
Till couldn’t take the tension anymore. With a small grunt, he managed to sit up and laboriously drag himself to the other side of the couch. Barely thinking about what he was doing or how it would have looked, Till had flung his arms around Ivan and buried his face in his shoulder. He had to shut Ivan up before he sunk into a pit of self hate somehow. Ivan let out a gasp of pain and surprise at the contact, stiffening under his touch initially before eventually relaxing. His trembling hand slowly lifted to return the embrace.
“T-that hurts,” he gasped, but his fingers didn’t loosen their hold on Till’s back.
Till only squeezed tighter, allowing a second onslaught of tears of spill from his eyes.
His heart was too wrapped up in knots to understand what it really wanted. Even if he chose to follow the butterflies in his stomach to the pink haired girl with golden eyes, there would always be a small reminder tugging at his mind that he loved her because he could not have survived without something to unabashedly admire. Maybe someday he would mend all the broken pieces inside of him and find a way to allow love to feel sacred.
All Till knew was that sprawled in Ivan’s arms, it finally felt good to be held