Keep the Faith

The forgotten

They forget. They forget, so quickly. A lone man sat on the stairs of the empty arena. After the show, everything was empty. His head, his heart, his voice. Screaming out meaningless - when had they become meaningless? - words to a crowd that would scream them louder, screaming his name, just screaming. He was plagued by them, it was all he heard at night, the screams, the cries, the shrieks.

It had meant something to him once, a long time ago. He could almost remember back to that time. Before the hoards of fans that arrived with The Black Parade, and the hoards of fans that had abandoned them. The ones that had once proudly announced 'My Chemical Romance saved my life' were the ones that now pronounced them sell-outs.

Countless times, he had stood before a crowd that adored him like an idol, an angel. A hero. He wasn't. Despite the thousands of times he had repeated that very line, 'I'm just a man, I'm not a hero," no one saw. No one saw that heroes didn't always want to be. No one saw that the perfect man that stood there, above everyone else, was just that. A man. Not a hero.

But then he stood, in his uniform, thousands upon thousands of fans watching him from below. But if he fell, would anyone care? Would anyone notice? Or would they just move on, march on, finding a more worthy hero to worship?

No, it didn't really mean anything. Nothing was important. For example, he could take the knife that was nestled in his pocket, and touch it to his wrist and-

"You can't do it."

"Who the hell are you?" The sooner the person standing before him called him a sell-out and a poser and left, the sooner he could-

"A fan."

"What, did we save your life too?" he said, trying to sound mocking but only managing to sound jaded and tired.

"My Chemical Romance didn't save my life. They made it."

"Tell me, what do you think when you look at me?" he asked suddenly. "What do you see?"

"I see a man who inspires and helps thousands of people. I see a man who is looked up to as a hero. I see a man who is tired from the weight of the expectations constantly being piled onto him. And an ordinary man that has done the extraordinary. Become a hero."

Gerard Way looks tiredly at the fan in the black My Chemical Romance t-shirt. No famous last words worth requoting come into his mind, so all that comes out of his mouth is a simple, "Thank you."
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attempt #2 at KTF.