killjoys are found in gangs because if you spend too much time in the desert alone you start hearing whispers of killjoys ghosted and gone. there are voices difficult to make out what theyβre saying, they long for human companionship, there are shaking sobs and cries of loss and longing. there are voices screaming out, trying to force the world to hear their anger, to feel their spite, of injustice that will never be avenged. the pain these sands hold is deafening. shadows have faces and not all are friendly. misery and anger hang in the air, under every feeling there is always sadness. killjoys that try to live isolated end up walking beyond zone seven, even if they lived way back in zone three. no one that enters No Manβs Land comes back.
there are few however, that have found a way to live with the ghosts of generations. Dr. Death Defying broadcasts his music and the slightest bit of relief carries in the radio waves across the dunes. he has met the Phoenix Witch and earned his name, he will listen but not chase the calls of the past, while he lives alone he will always play music, and even if he lived elsewhere he would still play it, warding off the occasional whispers in the wind. Tommy Chow Mein hears the echoes. he writes down the names of every person he meets in the desert. if he hears theyβve been ghosted, he rewrites their name out with the briefest of prayers and burns it as an offering to the Phoenix Witch, then places their original slip in his container of names of the past. no one, despite how they lived in life, goes without a prayer. occasionally he pours out the names and rereads them over and over, he boasts that he never forgets who has tried to shoplift his store or curse him out, he will not forget these gone killjoys, even if no one else remembers.
the desert hangs on a balance, for it is haunted by the dead, but also the living
