It took Matt Callaghan a few moments to work out whether the knocking he was hearing was real or imagined. He’d been in the middle of a dream where Giselle had turned out to be a bunch of hamsters taped together, except he was trying to explain to her that that was Celeste’s power – except he wasn’t sure anymore, since Celeste was the name of the pogo stick Jonas had gotten for selling so many marbles to Fiji. And now there was this tapping. None of this made any sense.

“Uggghhhh,” he moaned, but either the person on the other side of the door didn’t hear him or somehow his inarticulate grunt didn’t get his message across. The knocking persisted. Matt strained open his eyes.

“Wait,” he mumbled. Who the hell was battering down his door so early? What was even the time? He looked blearily around for his phone and found it laying on the floor. Matt reached down. Eight fifteen. Come on, he moaned, don’t be ridiculous.

Matt groaned and pushed himself up off the bed into a sitting position, the movement triggering a chain reaction of discomfort, from sloshy nausea in his stomach to a searing headache across his forehead. He put his face in his hands, trying to block the painful brightness of morning out of his eyes, torn between the distinct feeling that he was about to hurl and that his brain had become detached and just slammed into the front of his skull.

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-

“I’m coming!” he barked at the door. Matt climbed unsteadily to his feet, the room spinning, his body swaying slightly on the spot as his hungover brain readjusted to the concept of gravity. Sluggishly, he took mental stock of his situation – he was in his room, alone and still fully dressed, with sore legs and teeth in desperate need of brushing. And with some absolute sadist hammering away at his door. He started begrudgingly across the room, spouting a low torrent of swear words.

“What?” he shouted, wrenching open the handle, “What the fu-”

But his words stopped short when he saw the look on Jane’s face. In an instant, the haze around Matt’s mind parted, and cold dread pooled in his stomach. His heart sunk.

“What?” he whispered, suddenly afraid.

*****

There was barely a body to move. Just pieces, broken beyond repair.

Jane hadn’t wanted to let Matt see, but he’d insisted, adamant. Maybe a part of him didn’t believe, couldn’t believe until he saw it with his own eyes. But by the time they got down there, it was all in a black bag anyway.

Matt let out a low moan, the sound of a dying animal – his breathing coming in short, sharp bursts. For a moment, Jane thought he was going to do something stupid, going to run at the police, the Ashes, the medics behind the yellow tape. But instead he just stumbled. His legs gave way and Jane caught him before he hit the ground.

And then he began to cry. Openly, sickeningly cry, sobbing in the cold, while all she could do was stand there, holding onto him, and stare numbly at the blood upon the snow.

*****

“It’s not your fault,” Jane murmured. Matt didn’t look up. Didn’t say anything. Just stared at the table through red and empty eyes. A pile of bacon, waffles and hash browns sat in front of him, going cold. Her doing. She’d thought his favourite breakfast might cheer him up, at least a little. But the plate remained untouched.

“It’s not your fault,” she repeated.

“You keep saying that.” Matt’s words hissed through clenched teeth. Jane saw his eyes once more begin to water and his head began to rock. He wouldn’t look at her. “But I still... I…”

It was still early. There hadn’t been any official announcement about Ed’s death but the news of his suicide had spread regardless. The stories were all the same. Edward Rakowski had gone to the New Year’s Eve party. He’d spent a while talking to Giselle Pixus, nobody knew exactly about what – it didn’t really matter though. Ed had asked her out – Giselle had said no. Gently, Jane had heard, but the rejection had still been too much for Ed to take. He’d left the party, sat alone in the computer lab, then climbed to the top of Morningstar about four o’clock and thrown himself off. Everyone agreed it was a sad, senseless waste.

And it still wasn’t Matt’s fault.

“You couldn’t have known,” Jane promised.

“I could’ve guessed,” Matt replied, “I should’ve- I didn’t…” The words faltered in his throat. His face crumpled and fat tears leaked out his eyes, his back beginning to heave with silent sobs. Jane just sat there, a painful tightness in her chest, not knowing what she was supposed to do.

“Eat something,” she suggested. But Matt couldn’t seem to hear.

The usual noise and energy of the Grand Hall had been subdued by the news of Ed’s passing. A sense of shock and quiet lay over all present, leaving the open expanse feeling cavernous and everyone inside it seeming small. Conversations were quiet, contained to little clusters of people, many wearing black. Even those that would normally have been staring at Jane with open contempt only managed it half-heartedly today. Ed hadn’t necessarily been popular, but he’d been a Senior and well known. And the loss of anyone there was a loss of one of their own.

For Jane, it was just such a stupid shame – the pointlessness, the waste. She’d liked Ed, kind of. Well, she hadn’t disliked him, which was much the same thing. And she’d respected him. He’d always struck her as meaning well – never been cruel or treated her like a monster or an idiot, which was sometimes worse. And he’d never seemed suicidal – although maybe that was the thing with depression, the ones who didn’t let on were the ones in real danger. All over a girl. That was the saddest part. A whole life lost over something as petty and pointless as a crush.

The one, tiny bright side, in all the horribleness, was that whatever stupid rift had existed between her and Matt was gone. In truth, Jane had never really ended up saying sorry, but it didn’t matter anymore. It was small, and it was selfish – but even if the cause made her sad, a part of Jane couldn’t help feeling glad at this one, bittersweet piece of good.

There was the sound of tapping on a microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” Winters’ voice echoed humbly out through the speaker system, and Jane glanced up to see the man standing behind the lectern, his face downcast and tired. “As many of you may be aware, we have suffered a terrible tragedy this morning…”

Beside her, Jane felt Matt climb to his feet. He stepped over the bench, not looking at Winters, and started moving towards the exit. Jane whispered after him, unsure where he was going or if she should follow. But whether he couldn’t hear her over Winters’ echoing words or didn’t want to, Matt didn’t turn around. He simply kept walking, head down and shoulders slumped, out the main doors and into the lonely hallways beyond.

*****

Matt sniffed, the sound falling frail and dull, swallowed up into nothing. His room was still, quiet, cut off from the outside, from the people and their world. Everything the way it had always been – books and pens still scattered across his desk, bedsheets tangled and unmade. Particles of dust hung suspended in beams of sunlight let in through the closed windows, clothes lay haphazard on the floor. None of it mattered. He stood, a cold, empty statue, unable to think or care or feel anything but this horrible, oppressive silence around him, ready and waiting to swallow him whole.

He couldn’t stay and listen to Winters’ speech – he just couldn’t. He couldn’t sit there and listen to the man drone on about what Ed had been like, what he’d represented about the Legion, what he’d meant to “them”. It would all be nothing, sweet, meaningless nothings, praise and platitudes for a person none of them had ever properly known. Ed was – had been – modest, shy and distractible. He’d been way too susceptible to peer pressure and way too good at video games. He’d liked peanut butter on his pancakes and hated dancing. He’d been socially awkward and scared of talking to girls. He’d been Matt’s friend.

And now he was gone.

Matt clenched his teeth and gripped his face tight as a fresh wave of misery engulfed him. Why hadn’t he noticed? Why hadn’t he known? He’d seen Ed heading back, seen him leaving – why hadn’t he gone after him? Why hadn’t he followed, found him, made sure he was alright?! He could have talked to him, could have stopped him, could have stopped… could have…

Matt’s vision blurred, and alone in the silent room his shoulders once more started to shake, his breaths sucking in through wretched sobs. Stupid, stupid, stupid idiot, stupid, stupid drunk – you were supposed to be there for him. You were supposed to be his friend. He kept replaying it in his head, seeing it over and over, the moment when he should have done something, when he saw Ed walking away, when he should have realised something was wrong… And yet again and again, unchangeably, the truth was that he didn’t follow – didn’t call out, didn’t even message…

Somewhere, underneath the waves of rolling, smothering despair, a tiny, niggling thought, a faint, hazy memory, snagged in the corner of Matt’s mind. Hang on, there… there had been a message. Some kind of… he’d been… wordlessly, his sobs stalling into hiccups, Matt’s hands moved from his side, down his leg, his pocket, unconsciously mimicking a blurry recollection of something… something he’d forgotten, lost in his drunken stupor, something he’d dismissed as a dream…

No, it hadn’t been a dream. It’d been real, Ed had messaged him, texted him something… something about… without even thinking, Matt’s hands were clamouring for his phone, his messages-

And there it was. The last entry in a conversation chain dating back months.

Dawn

03:55

Matt stared at the screen. He blinked. Then he blinked again. He drew back, then leaned in, squinting, re-reading, wondering if he was going insane. Slowly, beneath the blanket of heavy misery, some part of him awoke. The gears in his mind began to turn. His sobbing dried to sniffing, then to silence. The tears stopped running from his eyes and his mouth turned in a small frown. He glanced up and around, then back down at the text, his brow furrowed.

Something wasn’t right.

Quietly, almost discretely, despite being completely alone, Matt clicked on the Home button and slid the phone back into his pocket. He stood for a moment, stock still, his brow furrowed, staring without seeing, pulling his pieces back together. He needed to think, he needed to be able to think, unhindered for a moment by grief. His eyes narrowed and almost unconsciously he felt his breathing slow and steady, his years of mental discipline corralling and compartmentalising. The blurring fog of sadness thinned and a sharpening sense of disquiet began permeating through Matt’s mind – a nagging unease, a floating suspicion, forming at the hard edges of his brain.

Something wasn’t right.