Is This The End Of Us? Or Just The Means To Start Again?

3 years later

The crowd cheered again, it’s a sound I never get tired of, the pure roar of the crowd as they sing our songs back to us. I wave one last goodbye to the kids and walk off stage, Jack jumping on my back as I go with his legs wrapping around my waist.
“That was awesome!!” He cheers as I drop him on one of the couches back stage.
“The crowd were amazing!” I say, Jack grabs me from where he’s lying on the couch and pulls me on top of him.
“You’re a hot mess Alexander” he laughs, placing his hands on my cheeks and pressing our lips together.
“But you love me anyway” I say, our noses touching. Jack’s smiling, his big goofy smile that I see so often now, the one that made be fell more in love with him. The Jack I knew is gone, there are no more zombies roaming the streets, the world is coming back together and All Time Low are bang in the middle of it. It didn’t take long for the band to come together, after watching the zombies become people in front of our eyes as we played kind of set it for us, after that we couldn’t do anything else. Now I pass Wal-Mart and there’s an album with my name on it, it’s incredibly strange feeling knowing from where we’ve come from. Sometimes I still dream about it, where I’m running for my life and I wake up in a cold sweat but I see Jack beside me snoring and I know the end of the world was worth it because now I have him.

We shower; dress and head back to the bus, getting ready to drive off to another part of the country and play to a whole new crowd of people. Boarding the bus to our surprise we find it silent, normally there’s the sound of music, of people talking but now the only thing I can hear is the sound of Jack beside me.
“Where is everyone?” he asks.
“I don’t know...” I swear I’d heard our tour manager Matt say everyone was on the bus the now the silence is proving otherwise.
“Ah this of you to join” Stepping out from the back of the bus came a middle-aged man dressed in a dark suit.
“Where is everyone?” I blurt out.
“Don’t worry about your friends, they’re fine. Just needed a few minutes alone with you” says the man, his face slipping into a small smile.
“Who are you?” Jack asks, his hand grabbing hold of mine.
“My name’s Gavin Broke, I work for the government” he says, taking a seat behind one of the tables at the side of the bus. He waves his hand, signalling for us to sit down, Jack dugs my hand as we sit down opposite the strange man.
“What the hell does the government want with us?” I ask.
“A few minutes of your time, you are the only two people to be on the site of east cost explosion” he says.
“What explosion? Nothing ever happened” I say.
“That’s what I’m here to talk about. Our security was breached and someone broke it, disarming the bomb. We want to know if you had anything to do with it?”
“Us?” Jack voice always goes oddly high when he’s surprised and I find myself trying to hide a laugh.
“You were the only people who didn’t leave, why not?” Mr Broke asks.
“I wouldn’t leave without Jack”
“Why couldn’t Jack go?”
“I was a zombie” Jack says, Jack has no pain in saying he was a zombie unlike others. It doesn’t get haunted by the memories of the dead, he says it’s only because he had me.
“Oh” this obviously wasn’t quite the reaction the man Mr Broke was expecting, he looks a little lost for words.
“Jack was a zombie and I refused to leave him, he turned at about five minutes before the explosion was due to go off. Five minutes we spent kissing and staring at the stars”
“Ah, definitely not you who disarmed our bomb then” the man says, scratching his head.
“If it was just disarmed, why didn’t you just rearm it?” I ask.
“It was a little more than disarmed Mr Gaskarth”
“Someone fuckin’ destroyed it?” Jack asks, I try to stifle my laugh at Jack’s outburst.
“Yes Mr Barakat, to you use your term ‘someone fucking destroyed it’” Mr Broke repeats.
“Wow...” This person who destroyed this bomb has saved me and Jack’s life and so many others, as a band we’ve played to 100,00s of people, saving the world one song at a time.
“Have you any idea who this person might have been? Someone you know who wanted to help maybe?” he asks.
“No” Jack answers straight away it’s only then I realise he doesn’t know...
“Yes...” Both sets of eyes turn to stare to me.
“Alex?” Jack questions his voice unsure like I’ve been hiding something from him for all these years.
“Hayley... Jack she followed me when I came to you, she tried to get me to come with her but I wouldn’t leave you. She must have gone to stop you, she knew I’d never leave....” A shiver runs through my body as I think of it, Hayley Williams the first the night we met she tried to kill me but in the end she saved us all.
“You think it was Hayley?” Jack asks, I nod well who else would it be?
“You think this girl Hayley did this?” Mr Broke asks.
“Yeah... She was a friend of ours, when I went to try and save Jack she tried to stop me told me it was pointless. I didn’t listen, she came after me and tried to convince me to come with her but I didn’t. She must have got after it, tried to stop it and well I guess succeed”
“You said was, as in past tense. You think she’s...” the man didn’t finish his sentence but did he really need to?
“Yeah, I mean it’s been 3 years. If she is alive, where is she? She saved the world, she’d wanna claim some credit for that!” I half smile, Jack wraps his arm around my shoulder and I learn more into his side.
“Well thank you for your time gentleman, I’m glad we’ve got to the bottom of this and I really a sorry for the loss of your friend” Mr Gavin Broke gives us a polite smile and steps off the bus, not seconds later the crowd of band and crew enter the bus, slightly disgruntled about being kept off the bus for the last few minutes.
“What was going on out there?” Jack asks, acting like we’ve not been talking with a government agent for the last 20 minutes.
“Some stupid guy wouldn’t let us out, something about there being too many people outside. The show ended an hour ago, there wouldn’t be that many kids outside” Matt complains.
“You guys okay?” Rian questions, I’m basically sitting in Jack’s lap with my head on his shoulder, the idea of Hayley actually dying to save of us is hitting me.
“Yeah, I’m kinda tired I’m gonna go lay down” I push myself off Jack and go crawl into our bunk. It only takes a minute before Jack crawling in next to me.
“You alright ‘Lex?”
“It’s just, Hayley she died for us Jack... How am I spouse to take that?” Jack wraps his arm tightly around me, so I’m cuddling his chest.
“Hayley was a truly great person, even if she did try to kill you. She was also a fantastic musician, she’d love the idea of us saving the world one song at a time” he says, placing kisses in my forehead.

We stand in front of another crowd, 1000s of people screaming our name.
“Shh guys, quiet I need to say a few things” I say, as my words eco through the wall the crowd falls silent and I’m standing facing a group of people all hanging on what I’m about to say.
“This song goes out to a girl I knew, she was an amazing person and none of us would be here without her. Hayley this is for you”
“ Strange maze, what is this place?
I hear voices over my shoulder
Nothing's making sense at all
Wonder, why do we race?
When everyday we're runnin' in circles
Such a funny way to fall
Tried to open up my eyes
I'm hopin' for a chance to make it alright
When I wake up, the dream isn't done
I wanna see your face and know I made it home
If nothing is true, what more can I do?
I am still painting flowers for you
Show my cards, gave you my heart
Wish we could start all over
Nothing's makin' sense at all
Tried to open up my eyes
I'm hopin' for a chance to make it alright
When I wake up, the dream isn't done
I wanna see your face and know I made it home
If nothing is true, what more can I do?
I am still painting flowers for you
Show my cards, gave you my heart
Wish we could start all over
Nothing's makin' sense at all
Tried to open up my eyes
I'm hopin' for a chance to make it alright
When I wake up, the dream isn't done
I wanna see your face and know I made it home
If nothing is true, what more can I do?
I am still painting flowers for you
I am still painting flowers for you
I heard everything you said
I don't wanna lose my head
When I wake up, the dream isn't done
I wanna see your face and know I made it home
If nothing is true, what more can I do?
I am still painting flowers for you
I am still painting flowers for you
I am still painting flowers for you”
The crowd cheers again, a deafening sound and I let a tear run down my cheek. Jack comes over, holding me in his arms, he knows how much playing that song gets to me.
“I love you” I whisper.
“I love you too Alex, we saviour at the end of the world”

Notes

Thank you all for reading, I hope you've all enjoyed it! Now I've done angels, demons and zombies, who's ready for some ghosts? ;)