--: Author's POV: --
The hospital room had been a crash site, but the journey to the morgue was a slow-motion descent into hell.
The air in the sterile hallway felt like it had been replaced with lead. Every breath the members of Section E took was heavy, metallic, and agonizing. They moved like ghosts—fifteen shadows following the rolling stretcher that carried the mahogany weight of their world.
Aries and Angelo were no longer just brothers, friends or mentors; they were protectors of a truth the others couldn't bear. They moved with a grim, mechanical pace, while Jay-Jay, Keigan, and Keiran behaved like prisoners being led to an execution they refused to acknowledge.
"Stop. Stop the wheels," Jay-Jay whispered.
No one stopped. The rubber wheels of the stretcher continued their rhythmic, mocking *squeak-squeak-squeak* against the linoleum.
"I said STOP!" Jay-Jay's voice erupted, a jagged, raw sound that made a passing doctor flinch. She grabbed the metal railing of the stretcher, her knuckles turning a ghostly white. Her fever was a silent roar now, a hidden fire under her skin, but she stood tall, anchored by a desperate, terrifying conviction. "He's not dead! Why are you all acting like he's dead? Kuya Angelo! Tell them to stop the wheels! He's going to get motion sickness—you know how he gets!"
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
Why won't they listen?
The heat in my body was screaming at me, but the connection in my head was louder. It was Keifer's voice. It wasn't a memory; it was a tether. I could feel a faint, electric hum in the air around the casket. It wasn't the silence of a corpse; it was the stillness of a lion waiting.
"Jay-Jay, please," Aries choked out, his hand wrapping around my waist, not to catch me, but to keep me moving. His face was a mess of salt and grief. "We have to let the staff do their job. We have to... we have to get him ready for the flight."
"READY FOR WHAT?" I shrieked, clawing at his arms to get back to the stretcher. "He doesn't need a flight in a box! He just needs to wake up! I felt it, Aries! I swear to God, his hand felt different! It wasn't 'gone' cold, it was just... sleeping cold!"
I forced my legs to stay under me, fighting the dizziness with a sheer, jagged will. I wouldn't fall. I couldn't fall. If I fell, I wouldn't be able to see him. If I fell, I couldn't protect him from the dark.
"He's not dead," I whispered, over and over, a litany against the dark. "He's not dead. He's not dead. I can feel it."
--: Author's POV: --
Behind them, Keigan was a silhouette of pure, concentrated agony. He wasn't fighting like Jay-Jay. He was walking with a rigid, military precision, his eyes fixed on the back of the funeral director's head.
Keigan wasn't crying. He was vibrating. A low, sub-harmonic tremor was shaking his entire frame, his jaw set so tightly that his teeth felt like they might crack. When Kavin tried to reach for him, Keigan moved his arm away with a cold, mechanical flick.
"Don't," Keigan hissed. The word wasn't a request; it was a warning.
Then there was Keiran. The youngest Watson was being led by Angelo, his small feet dragging. He wasn't screaming anymore. He was making a low, keening sound—a thin, high-pitched whistle of grief. Every few seconds, he would lift his head, look at the mahogany box, and whisper, "Kuya?" as if waiting for the wood to answer.
Section E was a wreck. David and Ci-N were walking huddled together, their faces hidden. Felix and Drew were holding onto each other's shoulders, their sobs echoing in the narrow corridor. Thyme was at the back, his fists clenched so hard his palms were bleeding, his eyes burning with a rage that had nowhere to go.
They reached the Preparation Room. The "Last Station."
--: Author's POV: --
The room was vast and freezing, smelling of chemicals and stagnant lilies. The funeral staff moved to lift the "Lion" from the stretcher into the display casket.
"Don't you dare touch him," Jay-Jay's voice was low now, dangerous.
She stepped forward, her body shivering despite the fever that was turning her blood to steam. As the men in white gloves reached for Keifer, Jay-Jay threw her body over his chest. She didn't care about the clinical environment or the horrified gasps of the nurses.
"Keifer, wake up!" she screamed into his chest, her hands fumbling with his tie, tearing at the lapels of his suit. "Stop playing! The Pack is here! Everyone is crying because of you! Tell them they're wrong! Tell them you can hear me!"
She pressed her ear to his chest, her eyes wide, searching the ceiling for a miracle.
"I hear it," she whispered, a delirious smile breaking across her face. "I hear it! It's faint, but it's there! Angelo, come here! Listen! He's still in there!"
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
Angelo approached the bed, his face a mask of absolute devastation. He didn't listen. He didn't put his ear to Keifer's chest. Instead, he wrapped his massive arms around my waist and began to pull me away.
"No! Angelo, listen to me! You're his boss! How can you be so deaf?" I fought him, my nails leaving red marks on his forearms. I refused to let my knees buckle. "He's calling for us! He hates the dark! You know he hates the dark! If you let them close that lid, he'll never forgive you! HE'LL NEVER FORGIVE ANY OF US!"
"JAY-JAY, STOP IT!" Angelo finally roared, his own tears exploding from his eyes. He shook me, his voice a broken, jagged mess. "HE'S GONE! My brother is dead, Jay! He's dead and he's not coming back!"
The silence that followed his roar was heavier than any scream.
I looked at him, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. The fever was a roaring fire in my brain, but I stood my ground. I didn't fall. I stared him down, my eyes burning.
"You're wrong," I whispered. "You're all wrong."
--: Author's POV: --
The funeral directors took advantage of the silence. They moved in, their hands practiced and cold. They lifted Keifer—the Lion of Section E—and lowered him into the velvet-lined mahogany.
The sound of his body settling into the silk was the softest, most terrifying sound in the world.
Keiran let out a scream that cracked the air in the room. He scrambled to the side of the casket, his small hands hitting the wood. "NO! Take me too! I want to go with him! Kuya, don't leave me here with them!"
Keigan finally broke. He didn't cry, but he let out a guttural, animalistic sound of pain and slammed his fist into the marble wall of the room. The sound of bone hitting stone echoed like a gunshot. He didn't fall; he just leaned against the wall, his hand shattered and bleeding, his eyes finally closing as he breathed through the agony.
"The lid," the director whispered, his voice a ghost.
"No," Jay-Jay breathed, her vision flickering, but she stayed upright, her hand reaching out to the edge of the wood. "Not the lid. Please... not the dark."
She watched as the heavy mahogany slab was lifted. It looked like a mountain. It looked like the end of the world.
As the lid descended, Jay-Jay lunged forward one last time, her fingers brushing the cold, perfect skin of Keifer's cheek.
"I'll find you," she whispered into the closing gap. "In the fog... I'll find you."
THUD
The lid met the base.
CLICK
The latch engaged. The seal was airtight. The "Lion" was officially gone.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
The sound of the latch was the final nail.
I didn't fall. I stood there, staring at the closed box, my hand still resting on the polished wood. The fever was screaming at me to collapse, to let the darkness take me, but I refused. I would stand for him. I would stay awake for him.
I looked at the fifteen members of Section E, all of them broken, all of them crying. I looked at the closed door where the hearse was waiting.
"He's in the dark," I whispered, my voice echoing in the silent room. "But I'm still here. And I'm not going to stop looking."
--: Author's POV: --
The Pack stood in the floral-scented room, watching as the casket was wheeled away. They had lost their King. And as they looked at the girl who was standing tall through a killing fever, staring at the empty space where the casket had been, they realized that the "Real World" hadn't just buried Keifer Watson.
It had turned the survivors into ghosts.
Outside, the London rain turned into a torrential downpour. The Lion was gone. And the fog was everywhere.
___
The hearse was gone.
The taillights had disappeared into the thick, grey soup of the London morning, leaving the sixteen members of the Pack standing under the hospital's concrete awning. They looked like a huddle of survivors from a natural disaster—wet, trembling, and utterly directionless.
The "Real World" had taken its prize, and now it expected them to simply... go back. Back to the hotel, back to the flights, back to a life where Keifer Watson was a name spoken in the past tense.
Angelo turned to the group, his eyes sunken and devoid of their usual spark. He looked at Keiran, who was still clutching the sleeve of Angelo's coat, and at Keigan, who stood several feet away, staring at his bloodied knuckles with a terrifying, detached curiosity.
Then, his gaze landed on Jay-Jay.
She was standing perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the empty spot where the hearse had been idling. She wasn't swaying, but there was something wrong with the way she was breathing—short, shallow gasps that made her shoulders jump.
"Jay-Jay," Angelo said, his voice a gravelly whisper. "We're going now. The cars are here. We have to go back to our home."
Jay-Jay didn't move. "I'm not going home. He's not in the these cars. He's in that car."
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
Home?
The word sounded like a joke. How can you go home when the walls have been torn down? How can you go home when the person who is home is being driven away in a box?
"Jay, listen to Kuya Angelo," Aries said, stepping closer. He reached out to take my hand, to lead me toward the waiting black van.
The moment his fingers brushed my skin, he flinched.
He didn't just touch me; he recoiled, his eyes widening in instant, sharp alarm. He grabbed my wrist properly this time, his thumb pressing against the pulse point that was drumming a frantic, irregular beat.
"Jay-Jay, you're burning," Aries gasped, his voice cracking. He looked at his own hand as if it had been scorched. "Angelo! She's on fire!"
--: Author's POV: --
The announcement acted like a bucket of cold water on the group's frozen grief. Angelo was at Jay-Jay's side in a second, his large palm pressing against her forehead. He hissed through his teeth.
"Damn it, Jay-Jay," Angelo breathed, his eyes scanning her waxy face. "You have a fever. A bad one. We have to get you inside, or to a doctor—"
"I don't need a doctor, I need Keifer!!" Jay-Jay snapped, her voice high and brittle. She tried to pull away, but her limbs felt like they were made of cooling lava—heavy, hot, and difficult to move. "I need you to tell that driver to turn around! I told you, he's in the dark! I'm fine! It's just... it's just the London weather! Turn the car around!"
"It's not the weather, Jay!" Yuri sobbed, stepping forward and touching Jay-Jay's arm, only to pull back at the sheer intensity of the heat radiating from her. "You've been standing in the fog for hours! You haven't eaten! You're sick! Please, we can't stay here forever. We can't stay in this parking lot waiting for something that... that isn't coming back."
The words "isn't coming back" hit the air like a physical blow.
Keiran let out a fresh, jagged sob, hiding his face in Angelo's side. Even Keigan finally looked up, his bloodshot eyes focusing on Jay-Jay's trembling form.
--: Jay-Jay's POV: --
I looked at all of them.
I saw the pity in Yuri's eyes. I saw the exhaustion in Thyme's face. I saw the way Angelo was looking at me—not as a leader, but as a man who was watching his last shred of hope collapse.
"We can't stay here," Angelo repeated, his voice firming up even though it was shaking. He put his arm around my shoulders, and even through his thick coat, I could feel him flinch at my body temperature. "We have to take care of the living now. Keifer would kill me if I let you burn up in a hospital driveway. We're going home, Jay-Jay. We're taking him home, and we're taking you home."
"He's not dead," I whispered, the fire in my brain making the world tilt. I grabbed Angelo's lapels, my fingers digging in. "Angelo, promise me. Promise me you won't let them bury him. Promise me you'll keep the light on."
Angelo didn't answer. He couldn't. He just tucked me under his arm and began to guide me toward the van, his strength the only thing keeping me from becoming a pile of ash on the pavement.
--: Author's POV: --
It took the combined effort of the F4 and the boys of Section E to move the Three.
Keiran was carried, limp and exhausted, by MJ. Keigan walked on his own, but he moved like a soldier under orders, his face a blank, terrifying mask as Kavin stayed at his side, making sure he didn't wander off.
And Jay-Jay... Jay-Jay was the heart of the fire.
As they climbed into the cars, the interior felt suffocatingly small. The silence was absolute, broken only by the sound of the rain hitting the roof.
Jay-Jay leaned her head against the cold glass of the window, staring out at the London streets. She didn't close her eyes. She refused to. Because she knew that the moment she closed her eyes, the "Real World" would win.
"I'm still here, Keifer," she thought, her fever-bright eyes watching the city blur past. "I'm still here. I'm keeping the light on."
The cars pulled away, leaving the hospital behind. The Lion was in front of them, the Pack was behind him, and the long, agonizing journey back to their house—to a world without its King—had officially begun.
Outside, the London fog finally began to lift, revealing a world that looked exactly the same as it had yesterday.
And that was the biggest tragedy of all.
.
.
_______
A/N:-
Guys, I need to keep it 100% real with you all today. I am beyond pissed off at Viva One. 😡 Guys, I need to keep it 100% real with you all today. I am beyond pissed off at Viva One. 😡
Let's be honest: Viva One got where they are today because of *AMNSE* and *AshDres*. We were the ones who supported them, gave them the views, and built this community. And now they're holding a meetup without the very people who gave them their success? It feels like they got famous and then completely forgot the reason behind it. Let's be honest: Viva One got where they are today because of *AMNSE* and *AshDres*. We were the ones who supported them, gave them the views, and built this community. And now they're holding a meetup without the very people who gave them their success? It feels like they got famous and then completely forgot the reason behind it.
I'm happy for RabGel, but you cannot have a celebration of this magnitude and just leave AshDres out of the picture. It's disrespectful to the story and, honestly, to all of us fans who have been here since day one. 💔I'm happy for RabGel, but you cannot have a celebration of this magnitude and just leave AshDres out of the picture. It's disrespectful to the story and, honestly, to all of us fans who have been here since day one. 💔
I'm personally not supporting this meetup. They need to realize that they can't just move on from the foundation we built. If they don't value the Jayfer/AshDres legacy, then they don't value us. #UnfollowVivaOne and let them know they messed up. We're here for the real ones, and right now, they aren't doing right by our couple. 🦁🔥✊
_____