Short Stories

I'm a horsemen of the apocalypse

Let's start this with my name, my name is Charles. I want to tell you a story about a friend I lost. His name was Cody, we first met in the spring of 2011, when we were just starting 5th grade. I was the class clown and the most popular kid in the class and one day we had a new student no one knew about. He was a bit weird, to be honest, he would bring legos and play with them in the middle of class. Many kids in the class made fun of him. One day he wanted to show the class how to make pop-ups and had one he was working on to make into a book. Well, I decided to join him and through the years of high school, we stayed pretty close together. He would walk to my house and hang out or I would go to his house and play video games. Through high school we started to drift apart and I began to hang out with other friends yet he stayed by himself and didn't even seem to make many friends, at least he had me I guess. After he moved homes and schools we fell out of touch. I would rarely see him, and he always tried to hang out with me. Which I would make up a poor excuse for. I got a girlfriend and job and moved on with my life, he did the same and we stopped talking except for times he asked me to hang out. I wouldn't answer him or at least I would give an excuse each time. Well soon enough we were in our early 20s.our friendship was cut due to family drama. I liked his posts on Facebook or YouTube videos but we never talked. Unfortunately, he died at the age of 23, on July 9th, 2021. 
from Unknown causes, seeing how I have hated his family, I never found out the cause. I'm starting to have some ideas though with the introduction of his creations in my life now. I will introduce them fairly soon. Anyways, I was not welcomed at the funeral or burial. I attended the burial but stayed out of sight as I watched them bring his casket to the hole in the ground where he would remain for the remaining days of life. I would have never thought he would die so soon and I had my regrets. I know I should have been more involved in his life and hung out more but now it was too late. This would be when a girl presented herself to me. She was in a black dress with a black cloth over her face. She stood next to me quietly, I figured she was here for the funeral and wasn't invited as well. Little did I know she was there for me as well. I tried not to pay any attention to her and in an hour or two the family had left the grave and the gravediggers started to shovel dirt onto the casket. I walked to them and gave them 20$ each to wait a few moments so I could say my goodbyes. They didn't bat an eye as if this was a thing they saw many times before. They walked off and gave me my moment with my old friend. I got on my knees and peered down the deep hole till I saw the partly cover the outline of an oak casket. I didn't know if he could hear me wherever he was but at that moment I figured I needed to say a few things to him. 
"Hey man, I guess I missed your text one too many times." 
I could feel regret clawing its way up my throat with self-hatred as the great escape from my heart. Tears of sadness ran down my cheeks dripping onto the casket below. A barely Audible tap of water on wood could be heard. I tried to force my emotions down with a few swallows of spit as I was about to continue talking. 
"I wish... I wished I would have answered your message and reached out to you man. I would have never thought you would die so soon. Maybe deep down I would tell myself I had more time. Or work was more important, I could even say life got in the way. I would be lying, I just didn't feel like hanging out man, I should have told you, all the times you would get a new game or console you would message me and ask if I would like to play. But all I did was say a day later I couldn't. Maybe I had a decent reason but now you don't have time for me. Maybe we can hang out in death." 
This is when I noticed Sorath was standing next to me. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my black suit and glanced at her before turning away and starting to walk away. I stopped dead in my tracks when she spoke. 
"You know, He still wanted to hang out even till the end. He missed your friendship. You were his only true friend. Despite your attempts to blow him off with your many excuses he still wanted his friend there next to him. Thick and thin he wanted you there but yet you never came to him." 
She just had given my emotions the rope to freedom. They ripped their way out of me and spilled out onto the ground as my heart was now an empty void and falling endlessly. I turned to face the girl with so much hate that someone would dare to say such things in my most vulnerable moment. Tears now flowed down my cheeks as snot dripped from my nose. My chest hurt of an unfixable pain, all I wanted to do is tell her to fuck off or toss her into her own grave. 
"Who the hell are you? I don't know who you are but you shouldn't say things like that in this kind of situation!" 
My words were harsh and filled with hate as this person spoke the truth yet I didn't want to hear it. My mind and heart wanted to numb the pain as much as possible, to have a fix to the regret and mistakes that I made. Now they are being forced down my throat like a preacher trying to have me believe in his god and listen to every word they say. 
The girl was almost completely unfazed by what I said, instead she remained facing the black void that was my friend's grave. She removed the cloth off her face, tossing it to the ground at her feet. She slowly turned around to face me. Her face was so familiar yet was strange at the same time. As I took in her odd features my brain senselessly searched for the memory of who this person was. Her black pitiless eyes, her puffed-up black hair, and her purplish-gray skin didn't register in my mind and I took her as a human while my brain forced itself to find where I remember this person from.This is when my brain shut off and all searching came to a sudden halt. As she gave me all the details I needed to remember her.
"My creator, Cody. He made me some time ago. My job was to be an overseer for the main character in the sequel for his book. The book that never will be finished now, I now sit on his phone and in his email destiny to be forever forgotten. He was nice to many like me, but now he is gone I will only waste away as I am forgotten. I don't blame Cody for leaving me behind as he moved on to other things to keep him happy. I did see a few roleplays I was put in. I was always happy to help him in any way I could, after all without him I would never have been created. I believe he showed me once to you and your reply was 'cool man'." 
I rubbed my eyes as my brain tried to process that a fictional character my best friend made was now before me. I felt a horrible headache come on as my knee buckled and I nearly fell but caught myself on a gravestone nearby. This couldn't be true I thought to myself, I must be hallucinating from all the emotions running through my body. This person before me had to be a fruitless attempt to cling to my dead friend. She turned away from me and faced the grave once more before she continued her nonsense. 
"I'm not the only character he made, all of us will cease to exist. Those stories he wrote of us, is the only remaining memory that is keeping us alive. We are all very weak and sick. Those who came across his stories will only forget about us in the end and once that happens we will all disappear. If you truly care about him and want to keep his legacy alive then save his creations. Save his stories, save us, and only then you could start forgetting yourself." 
With that, the girl before me simply turned to ash and drifted away like humans did when Thanos snapped his finger. The two gravediggers returned and started doing their job burying my friend. I returned to my car and sat in it staring at the spot the girl was before she turned to ash. I started my car and had to see this for myself. I drove to a Benton elementary that was closed for the day and exited my car and began to walk through the woods leading up to the back yard where Cody lived. Unexpectedly many family members were in and around the home chatting with one another about the loss of Cody and things they remembered fondly of him. 
This is when I heard a monster-like whisper of a voice above me. I turned to see a girl with reddish-pink skin sitting in a tree above me in an oversized green hoodie and oversized Jeans. I looked at her face to see messy blonde hair poking out of the top of the hoodie as well as this girl having four red and black tinted eyes. She frowned as she looked towards the gathering and spoke in her demonic-like voice. 
"I assume you're the legendary Charles huh? I'm not impressed, you left him, and when all he wanted was a friend you were nowhere to be. Now what do you want to cling on to the friendship you never truly had? You're a joke, I was made to be his tough side that had too many emotional scars to count. Now you have finally shown up but you are too late to hang out with him." 
I was taken aback by this and was near shell shock. I didn't know what to say, this could have been the truth yet she had so much hate behind her words, unlike the first one I had met before her. She would jump down from the tree in front of me and stare me down with all four eyes as she growled deeply at me before she said.
"My creator was amazing, he brought life to many of us. I was changed in many ways and improved over time. I felt what it was like to be loved by such a caring person. It makes me sick thinking people like you are here to cry over your loss but none of you truly knew the suffering he went through daily. He had to create us to remain some part of himself, he wanted us to be seen in the light he cast upon us, yet he was forgotten. Left behind by everyone and his masterpieces will now be forgotten. Honestly, I will rather be forgotten than to be remembered by people like you."
Before I could tell her anything, the reasoning behind my action, the remorse I felt for my treatment of my dear friend. I felt awful and I knew I was a terrible friend and shouldn't have been given any chances. I couldn't stop. I needed to do this final thing for Cody and I wasn't going to let anything stop me. Seeing my chance I ran into Cody's home while everyone was busy and sneaked my way into his gaming room where I assumed his creations would be stored. I was not wrong in this assumption as to my surprise the room was just about filled with many characters. On the walls were posters of some of them. I felt welcomed as they all turned to me and stared with daggers. I tried not to pay any attention to them as I pushed through them making my way to his computer. This is when I saw one of them was sitting in his gaming chair. The rest of them suddenly disappeared as the one sitting down looked at me and smiled with an unnatural oversized mouth. Eyes of different colors covered her face. She spoke in a deep demonic voice with multiple layers as if multiple people spoke at once at the same time. 
"Look who decided to show up finally. You're a bit too late to play any video games with Cody. You are welcome to take something out of here and put it up to be forgotten and never used. No? You're here for something else, aren't you... you are, why are you truly here? You come to save Cody's work. Some plead to keep him alive. Well, you can keep us alive but Cody is forever gone. I can give you the email and passwords to all his stuff but do you truly think you can replace him? You think you can be better than our very own creator." 
Without a second to think I blurted out.
"Yes, I have already told myself that I would do this no matter the cost." 
She smiled at me and stood up slowly taking a step closer to me till I could smell her horrible stench of iron. She looked me up and down before walking past me and going for the door of the room. I turned to face her as she was about to leave the room when she spoke one last time. 
"Even if it kills you too?" 
with that, she was gone with the door closed behind her. I sat at the computer and saw the information was not login info, instead, it was a way I can bring Cody back. I have to try at least, but as the girl with many eyes said. It will cost me my life. This brings me to why I am making this, the cost to have my friend live on, not in memory but he will come back alive. I have to sacrifice myself, I'm not sure if I am ready to die but if it's the only way to make it up to Cody then I will do what it takes. So I made this Message to Jessica, my girlfriend , my mom and dad and my brothers. I love you all so much but I have to do this. I hope you understand, this is goodbye.

What a good friend, Charles. I knew you would come through for me in the end. Now I can live again. It was a bit tough crawling out of my grave. Luckily the soil hadn't settled yet when I crawled out. Furthermore, I now know what I have to do to stay alive. Let's see if my family would do the same for me like my dear friend Charles. May his soul rest in peace. I shall post this story in honor of Charles for if he didn't sacrifice his soul to my god then I would have been stuck in that place for so long. Anyways, I can't waste too much time. I have deadlines to meet or I have to go back to that place and I don't want that of course. Best keep my part of the deal with my new god.