--: Author's POV: --
The hallway outside Room didn't sound like a hospital anymore. It sounded like a crash site.
When the elevator doors opened, the sheer force of Section E's arrival felt like a physical blow. Aries was the first one out, his face pale and distorted, followed closely by Angelo, whose eyes were bloodshot from a flight spent in silent agony. Behind them trailed the others—Yuri, Ci-N, the F4, and others. They had run through the lobby, ignored the security, and pushed past the nurses, fueled by a desperate, dying hope that the news was a mistake.
But the moment they crossed the threshold of the room, that hope was incinerated.
The atmosphere inside was suffocating. It wasn't just the coldness of the air or the dim, yellow light—it was the Wall.
In the center of the room, huddled around the bed where Keifer Watson lay like a marble statue under a white sheet, were three figures. Jay-Jay, Keigan, and Keiran. They weren't crying out. They weren't moving. They were sitting in a tight, impenetrable circle of silence that seemed to vibrate with a frequency the others couldn't reach.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I heard the door bang open. I heard the gasps. I heard Yuri let out a muffled scream and the sound of someone—maybe Thyme—slamming their fist against the wall in a fit of rage.
I didn't turn my head. I didn't even blink.
My hand was still locked with Keifer's. I was focused on the way the light caught the edge of his jaw. I was focused on the silence of his chest. To me, the other people who had just burst into the room were ghosts. They weren't real. Only the coldness of Keifer's skin was real.
Aries stumbled forward, his knees hitting the floor right next to my chair. "Jay? Jay-Jay, look at me," he choked out, his voice thick with tears. He reached out to touch my shoulder, but I didn't flinch. I didn't acknowledge his hand.
I was a million miles away, back in that glass office, watching the rain hit the window while Keifer cried. I was trapped in a loop of my own regret, and there was no room in my head for Aries' grief.
--: Author's POV: --
The devastation in the room was absolute, but it was split into two worlds.
On one side was the Pack. Aries was sobbing openly now, his forehead resting against the metal railing of the bed. Yuri and Ci-N were collapsed against each other by the window, their bodies racking with tremors. Felix, Calix, and the other boys were scattered around the room, some staring at the ceiling, others hidden in their hands, their quiet whimpers filling the corners.
Angelo stood at the foot of the bed. He looked like he wanted to roar, to break something, to demand that his brother wake up—but every time he looked at the three people sitting by the bed, the words died in his throat.
Because on the other side was the silence.
Keigan sat on the floor, his back against the bedframe, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall. His eyes were wide and glazed, empty of the fire that usually defined him. When Kavin knelt down and placed a hand on his arm, Keigan didn't even look at him. He was a statue of ice.
Keiran was curled into a ball at Keifer's side, his face buried in the mattress. He wasn't making a sound. He wasn't asking for help. He was holding onto his brother's arm as if he were trying to anchor himself to a sinking ship. When Angelo reached out to pull him into a hug, Keiran didn't move. He didn't lean in. He remained stiff, locked in his own private hell.
"Jay-Jay," Angelo whispered, his voice cracking. "Talk to us. Please. Tell us what happened."
Jay-Jay didn't respond. She didn't even move her eyes. She just sat there, her thumb slowly, rhythmically stroking the back of Keifer's cold hand.
It was the most terrifying thing the pack had ever seen. They were used to Jay-Jay's temper, Keigan's energy, and Keiran's warmth. Seeing them like this—hollowed out, silent, and completely disconnected from the people who loved them—was almost harder to witness than Keifer himself.
"They're gone," MJ whispered from the back, his voice trembling."They aren't even here with us anymore. They're with him."
The rest of the fifteen members of Section E stood in a semi-circle, watching the three survivors of the London fog. They wanted to comfort them, they wanted to share the burden, but the Wall was too high.
In that room, surrounded by his friends and his family, the Lion lay in state. And around him, the three people who had been his world sat in a silence so deep it felt like they had already followed him into the dark.
Outside, the London dawn was pale and sickly. The pack had arrived, but there was no reunion. There was only a room full of people crying for a man who was gone, and three people who had already stopped living.
--: Author's POV: --
The morning didn't bring hope; it brought the cold, clinical reality of the law and the end.
The hospital staff had been patient, but the time for a "private room" had expired. The funeral directors had arrived, their footsteps hushed, their faces masks of practiced sympathy. They pushed a long, mahogany casket into the room, the wood gleaming cruelly under the fluorescent lights.
The atmosphere, already heavy with grief, suddenly turned volatile. It was no longer a room of mourning; it was a room on the verge of a riot.
As the men in black suits approached the bed to move the "Lion," the Wall of Silence didn't just break—it exploded.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I felt the shift in the air before I heard the wheels. The moment those men moved toward Keifer, something in my brain snapped. The numbness that had protected me for hours evaporated, replaced by a raw, primal panic.
"No," I whispered, my voice cracked and dry.
I stood up, my legs suddenly infused with a desperate strength. I threw my body over Keifer's chest, clutching his shoulders, trying to shield him with my own frame.
"Get away from him! Don't touch him!" I screamed. The sound didn't feel like it came from my throat; it felt like it came from the bottom of my soul.
I looked at the doorway, seeing the dark silhouette of the coffin. It looked like a monster waiting to swallow him whole.
"Aries! Angelo! Yuri! Thyme!" I shrieked, my eyes searching the crowded room for them. "Stop them! Why are you just standing there? Tell them to stop! He's just resting! He hasn't slept in days because of the Board... he's just tired. Tell them to go away!"
I turned back to Keifer, shaking him gently, my tears splashing onto his cold, marble skin. "Keifer, wake up. Wake up, they're trying to take you. Tell them to leave! Tell them you're okay!"
--: Author's POV: --
The scene was pure, unadulterated carnage.
Keiran was a blur of motion, his small hands hitting the funeral directors, his voice a high-pitched, agonizing wail. "No! Let him go! Kuya! Kuya, get up! Don't let them take you!" He was eventually scooped up by Angelo, but the boy fought like a trapped bird, kicking and screaming, his face purple from the strain of his lungs.
Keigan had moved from the floor to the head of the bed. He didn't scream like the others, but his grip on the bedframe was so intense that the metal actually began to creak. When Kavin and MJ tried to pull him back, he let out a guttural, animalistic roar, his eyes wild and bloodshot.
"Touch him and you die!" Keigan hissed at the staff, his grief transforming into a lethal, Watson-bred fury. "He stays with us! He's not going in that box!"
The members of Section E were paralyzed. Yuri and Ci-N were huddled in the corner, sobbing into their hands, unable to watch the three people they loved most lose their minds. Drew and David had to turn away, the sight of Jay-Jay's desperation too much for them to bear.
"Jay-Jay, look at me," Aries choked out, stepping forward and grabbing her by the waist. His own face was drenched in tears, his voice breaking with every word. "Jay, please... we have to. We have to let him go."
"No! He's breathing, Aries! I felt it!" she lied, her voice spiraling into hysteria. "He's just cold because the AC is too high! Thyme, do something! You always fight for us—fight for him now! Tell them he's not dead!"
Thyme stepped forward, his fists clenched, his jaw working as he tried to find his voice. He looked at Keifer, then at the girl who was falling apart in front of him. For the first time in his life, the leader of the F4 had no power. He could buy companies, he could ruin lives, but he couldn't stop the inevitable.
"I can't, Jay," Thyme whispered, his voice thick with tears. "I can't stop this."
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I felt hands on me. Many hands.
Aries was pulling at my waist. Angelo had dropped a sobbing Keiran to help restrain me. I fought them with everything I had. I bit, I scratched, I kicked. I was a wild animal protecting its mate.
"Kuya Angelo, he's your like your son! You taught him everything!" I screamed as he locked his arms around me, lifting me off the bed. "How can you let them do this? He's going to wake up in there and be scared! He hates the dark, Kuya Angelo! You know he hates the dark! He hates the place without his brothers! He hates the place without Section E and F4! And.. and he hates a place without me!"
I watched, helpless, as the men in black finally moved in. They were quick. Professional. They lifted Keifer—my Keifer—with a synchronized motion.
The sheet fluttered for a second, and I saw his hand fall limp, swinging in the air as they lowered him into the mahogany depths.
"KEIFER!"
The scream that tore out of me didn't sound human. I lunged forward, nearly taking Angelo down with me, my fingers grazing the edge of the wood before the lid was pulled shut.
*Click.*
The sound of the latch was the final nail in my heart.
The room went silent, except for the ragged, broken breathing of the three of us. Keiran had gone limp in Percy's arms, his eyes rolled back in his head. Keigan was slumped against the wall, his hands over his face, his body shaking with silent, violent tremors.
And I... I just stood there. The hands holding me—Aries and Angelo—were the only things keeping me from falling into the abyss.
I looked at the closed lid. The "In Progress" light was gone. The doctor's office was gone. The rain was gone.
"You promised," I whispered, the words barely a breath. "You promised the fog wouldn't take us."
The funeral directors began to wheel the casket out of the room. As it passed the fifteen members of Section E, they parted like a sea of black, their heads bowed, their sobs the only soundtrack to the Lion's final exit.
The room was empty now. The bed was stripped. The man was gone. And as the door hissed shut for the last time, I realized that the "Real World" hadn't just caught up to us.
It had buried us alive.