#mps**

The simple fact of it all was that they could never again be free from each other. It was true that at one point such a thing was possible; a year ago they could have gone separate ways and lived blissfully mediocre lives with the barest memories of their time here. But the transgressions of that night and all the nights afterwards had awoken something terrible and ugly in them all, something that was altogether lethal to whoever they were before and whoever they could have become. They had been swallowed whole by their actions, damned to be a singular entity always. This fact hung palpable and poisonous in the air between them… They shrank from each other in the daylight and fell into each other in the night, as though cowed by the thought of a heavy divine eye on them; as though it would matter. He used to have such big dreams… Now when he thought of the future he only thought of them spiraling downward like this eternally, sewn together by their faults, locked in a never-ending cycle of love and hatred and all the horrible and wonderful things in between.

Their road is winding, full of potholes, roadblocks, detours, and many a murderous hitchhiker, but it is above all short. Everyone around him has accepted the imminent and often fiery end, the never-ending chasm where the road stops, as a simple fact of their lives - the same way one accepts that coffee is bitter and sugar is sweet. But Will - Will WANTS. He wants MORE. He wants to live past the age of thirty-five and not worry about the things that lurk in the night. He wants to keep all his limbs and his humanity and his family and his soul. But the trouble is, he has this business in his blood, and blood isn’t so easily escaped.