There's a Corpse in This Bed

Casey Calvert was the happiest he had ever been. He was healthy, doing what he loved for a living, and had amazing friends, family, and band mates. In regards to the band, well, we'll just say that Hawthorne Heights was quickly becoming the next big thing, headlining tours and meeting loyal fans.

Casey couldn't help but smile as he bid goodnight to his bandmates, stopping in the bathroom briefly on his way to the bunks to grab his prescriptions and swallow the pills. He was, in a way, truly blessed. He smiled as he slid into his bunk, as if the small turn at the corner of his lips were frozen in place. He couldn't stop smiling-even when he smashed his head into the ceiling of the tour bus- his expression remained the same.

He didn't know that Death was there, a shadow lurking on the floor, watching his face and waiting for the smile to fade. That was when Death would strike.

But smile wouldn't fade, couldn't fade. If anything it grew, stretching across his face as his band mates turned in, waving to him or muttering a goodnight.

"Goodnight," Casey muttered back, pulling the curtain forward and isolating himself from everyone else, creating a sort of fortress around his bunk, "Goodnight."

The only problem no present was that Casey wasn't tired. He was wide awake, eyes bright and alert, thinking and smiling and remembering everything he had went through with the people around him. Certain memories stood out more than others, and he couldn't help but giggle, short little noises that bubbled up like hiccups, quickly evolving into full out laughter.

"Casey, shut up!" JT hissed, banging on the board above him, sending vibrations through Casey's back, "Just go to sleep, man."

"Sorry," Casey giggled, covering his mouth with his hand in an attempt to stifle the noise, "Sorry, JT, goodnight."

Still silently giggling, Casey took JT's grunt for a goodnight, and closed his eyes. The giggles slowly died down, the smile faded, and his breath evened out. He was almost asleep.

His sentence stopped short as his fingertips feathered across the curtain, barely skimming against the darker spot. This gentle touch was enough though, and the shadow slowly disappeared, sliding up his fingers and into his body, branching out and grasping onto whatever it could.

Shocked and confused, Casey stared at his fingers for a moment, arching an eyebrow as he brought it closer to his face. For a moment he was calm, entranced, curious to know what had just crept into his body. Then he could feel something, like an ice cold hand ripping into his heart and squeezing, stopping everything. Panic set in when he felt his pulse halt for a minute, before returning at a rapid pace. His heart was racing, his eyes were dilating, and his lungs were expanding as he tried to take deeps breaths, terrified that he was having another asthma attack.

He realized then that he had made a mistake.

His eyes started to water when what was happening to him started to sink in: he was dying. Imagine, just minutes before he had been smiling and laughing, and now he was dying and age twenty six, and no one could help him. He griped as his chest, clawing at the shirt he wore as he felt a sudden darkness overtake him, blinding him before bringing him into a bright light, dropping him back into reality. He willed himself not to cry, for the tears to just dry up, because nobody wants to die with tears staining their cheeks.

"H-Help me," he whispered, thrashing around in bed and wondering how nobody could hear him kicking the walls and blankets around, "Somebody, help m-me, please!"

Casey's panic grew when his body started to go numb, his feet and calves unfeeling even as he kicked into the wall and ceiling in an attempt to draw attention to himself, to alert his band mates to the fact that he was dying at an agonizingly slow pace while they slept. The numbness slowly spread through his body, reaching his waist, his chest, brushing the tips of his fingers and the top of his head.

"Help me!" He could have sworn he had screamed it, and was surprised when it came out as a raspy cough, a foreign noise in the quiet of the noise, "P-please, help me!"

He looked down, trying desperately to kick out or turn on his side or create some kind of movement, and he broke down sobbing when he realized he wasn't moving at all: he wasn't numb, he was paralyzed. Trying desperately to reach out, to hold onto anything that might comfort him while he waited for this torture to stop and for his body to just shut down, his tears and raspy barks of angst grew faster and louder when he couldn't lift his arm, couldn't bend his fingers.

"Please, for the love of God, somebody help me!" he tried to shout, his sobs turning into full out cries when it came out as a hollow cough, his lung's working to push air out and to create some kind of noise, "Oh God, I don't want to die, not like this, not now, please God, please!"

For a fleeting second he wished he could stop crying, stop making the dreadful noises coming from his nose and mouth, and that he could calm down before he died, instead of dying in such a pathetic and humiliating position. But he realized that maybe, just maybe, if he continued these awful noises and desperate cries for help, somebody might wake up and call an ambulance.

"JT, please, wake up," he wailed, crying out again as a shock of pain coursed through him, as if he had been stabbed by an icicle, "JT, please, you lazy son of a biscuit, wake up! I need help, JT, please help!"

He could feel his body shutting down after the last pathetic words left his mouth, his heart practically icing over as it stopped pumping blood, his lungs emptying as his blood ceased to flow, and his breath leaving him in one long "whoosh." His body lay still then, his limbs stuck into the awkward positions they had been in when his body stopped moving. His honey coloured orbs dulled to a soft grey, leaving small flecks of the golden hue as a hint to what color they used to be. His lids and lips turned a light purplish color, stiffing up and growing cold.

Casey Calvert was dead.

-/-

JT worried when he noticed that Casey still wasn't up by ten in the morning. Casey was always the first one up, bouncing around the tour bus in an attempt to wake his band mates up in the mornings. But today, he was completely silent, not even the usual snoring coming from his bunk.

Afraid that something had happened, JT quietly excused himself from the small pull out table they were eating at, and walked back toward the bunks. Stopping on front of Casey's faded red curtain, he slowly curled his fingers around the edge before ripping it back, staring in horror at what he saw.

There was Casey, his best friend Casey, laying completely still, stiffer than a board, paler than a ghost. His legs were stuck out in an awkward kicking position, his fingers clawed on top of his chest, his mouth a light purple "o," and his eyes faded to a honey-flicked grey. There was no rise and fall of his chest, no "God morning, JT" when Jt had opened the curtain, and there was no playful gleam as he stared ahead.

JT's fears grew bigger when he slowly reached out, brushing his hand against the icke skin of his friend's hand and cheek, resting his palm on Casey's chest with the smallest bit of hope that he would feel a soft thud. But nothing came.

Then JT screamed, pulling his hand away and falling to the floor, tear's running down his cheeks and dropping onto his jeans, curling into the fetal position as he cried He didn't stop when his band mates came running, gathering around him and frantically asking him questions, shaking his shoulders. If anything, his wails of anguish grew louder and more frequent as he rocked back and forth, desperately trying to calm himself down.

"What's wrong, what's wrong?" he could hear Micah ask, and he shuddered as he put his arm around him, just like Casey used to, "C'mon, JT, what happened? You need to tell us what happened!"

He shook his head and sniffled, burying his face into his knees, muttering. He wailed again when somebody pulled his chin up and smacked his face, and he desperately clung onto their arm's as he stuttered his reply.

"My G-God, it's Casey," he whimpered, pulling on the sleeves of Eron's sweatshirt and blinking in an attempt to see him through the tears, "Oh, God, it's Casey! Why, why, why?! Why do this now, of all times? Oh, Casey!

"What about Casey?" Matt asked, his voice holding a sense of urgency as he leaned closer, "What happened to Casey?"

"Casey's dead!" JT screeched, looking around wildly before breaking into shoulder wracking sobs again. Through his tears, he could see the rest of the band hit the floor in shock, turning to each other in horror. To his great relief, he wasn't the only one crying. He wasn't the only one to have lost a friend.

Through it all, JT could only ask questions, and try to answer them himself. Why hadn't anyone heard him? Was it because they were all asleep? How did Casey die? Dis he have an asthma attack? A pulmonary embolism? There was so much to ask, so many question's unanswered.

In the end, JT managed to rasp out the last few lines in Casey's favorite song, despite his anguish and heartbreak:

"But does anyone notice...there's a corpse in this bed."