Walking Shadow

The next morning the whole place seems to wake up as if invisible angels come and shake each of our shoulders, calling into our ears with lips black and poisonous "wake up, wake up." I stretch and feel a tension high in my shoulders near my neck, like someone had pinned my wrists above my head in my sleep and breathed down my neck. Like a vampire.

I shiver and draw my black blanket up over my shoulders, looking around as my marchers get up. They all looked fit and rested, but as I catch my reflection in the helmet of another Marcher I realize that I look, well, dead. And oh god, I'm so tired! It's like someone's replaced my bones with lead! I stagger up and Sarah, who'd risen like an angel, comes up behind me and steadies me, the zombie.

"Oh my god Mary, are you all right?"

It's the first time anyone other than the one who gave it to me has used my name, and I feel taken aback. "Y-yes Sarah, I'm fine. Just... just hold on a second." I try to walk on my own, sway, and steady myself. A crowd of worried marchers has drawn around me, their feet shuffling in loose blankets, and though I know they just want to assure my well-being I can't help comparing them in my head to vultures before the feed. I try to take a step forward, succeeded, and take another.

"See?" I tell everyone, "I'm FINE."

Then the room swims and I hear shrieks and swearing before I descend into black.

I wake up on one of the prop gurneys on the Performance Float. And we're moving. I sit up and look around; apparently we're between songs. I thought I would have for certain woken up during "Dead!" but I suppose I was out entirely. I look around some more, watching the bare ashen forest pass by on both sides, the chatter of the parade kids behind me, coming through dulled and softened like there's a layer of cotton batting filtering the air into my ears. I look around the float, and see Frankie walking, Ray sitting tuning his guitar, Bob sitting on the front of the float as it moves on, Mikey hanging over the side chatting to Fear, and Gerard is-

"Oh, Mary, you woke up! How're you feeling?"

Right beside me.

"I'm... fine, Gerard, why didn't you guys put me on Three, nearer to my formation?" I feel a little sad, and a bit angry. Little purple bat wings of guilt poke my lungs, my stomach, my sides. "I want to be able to see my Marchers! Did my Formation get any new kids yet?"

Gerard smiles at me, that ever-fucking-calm smile. God. It's so infuriating yet so beautiful! "You need to calm down. We still don't know why you fainted, Mary, now lay down. We're going out of order today, your marchers will be fine, and any new kids you get can sit up here with you, okay?"

I nod and slump back down. It's true, they don't know why I'd suddenly fainted. And the consolation that any kids I get will be safe with me is a fair trade. Gerard motions everyone back on the float for the next song. He's decided to go out of order so they'll play the songs in any arrangement they want to. It starts soft, Regret working the piano, and I know exactly what song they're playing.

"Turn away, if you could get me a drink of water 'cause my lips are chapped and faded; call my Aunt Marie. Help her gather all my things, and bury me in all my favorite colors...."

Gerard stalls. That means that we're about to gain another Marcher.

Marchers come suddenly and in different ways. Sometimes, they just walk out of the mist. Some appear, standing in front of the floats after wandering for awhile across the wreckage of Deadworld. Some have materialized on the edge of a float, and once or twice one appeared on the shoulders of another Marcher in the middle of House Of Wolves or Teenagers, one of the energetic songs.

The Parade stands quiet for some reason. We don't quite know why the air hangs so thick or why the fog rolling from the roots of the white forest suddenly comes around our feet. It's like being trapped in a strange, white snowglobe as the ashes begin to fall again and a breeze blows through the Paradiers. What in Deadworld is this magic?

Then she falls out of midair onto the deck of the float, clothed in a generic karate uniform of black, what all the marchers arrive in. She lands with a crack and a torrent of swearing, and I sit up quickly to see if she's all right. Mikey gets there before I do.

"Oh my god, Miss, are you all right?"

A pair of blue eyes blinks up in confusion and pain, clearing sandy blonde strands from her vision. "D-Do I look all right to you? Where the fuck am I?"

"The Black Parade," I say quietly, and she looks at me. "The Black... WHAT?" She looks around, and I move to show her the sea of black-clad marchers behind me, whispering and rolling like the shadows she'd fallen from.

"My... my ankle hurts... fucking REALLY badly hurts..."

Mikey, without a word, pushes back the hem of her uniform leg and looks at the swelling. Quietly, he murmers "It'll be fine, Miss Claude, just a sprain. I'll carry you back to Mother War and get you bandaged up." He flashes her a smile, and she doesn't question why he's called her that or how he knows her name. "You'll feel fine in a minute. You scared me, falling like that."

"It scared me too..." she says, allowing herself to be lifted up, handed to Bob, who then gives her back to Mikey once he's on hard ground.

I shake my head.

Shit only gets weirder around here.