Chapter Text
-----August 14, 2012-----
-----Newark, NJ-----
You know what? Fuck it. Fuck it all. Fuck school, fuck my parents, fuck the bastards who beat up my brother. I cannot even bring myself to care anymore. I die tonight anyway. That is right, I have it all planned out. I am going to jump right off the effing roof and crash to the ground. Dead.
I wrote a couple songs today. My favorite is something I would like to call "Teenagers". I think the song is pretty good, but it needs a chorus. You hear that, whoever reads this? It. Needs. A. Chorus. Write one. Or have someone else do it, I don't care. Anyway, here it is:
They gonna clean up you looks
With all the lies in the books
To make a citizen out of you
Because they sleep with a gun
And keep an eye on you, son
So they can watch all the things you do
Because the drugs never work
They gonna give you a smirk
'Cos they got methods of keeping you clean
They gonna rip up your heads
Your aspirations to shreds
Another cog in the murder machine
The boys and girls in the cliques
The awful names that they stick
You're never gonna fit in much, kid
But if you're troubled and hurt
What you got under your shirt
'll make 'em pay for the things that they did
Pretty okay, if I do say so myself... I got the idea when some kids tried to get Mikey to be more "normal", then beat him up and called him a faggot. Bastards. Those teenagers scare the living shit out of him. They could care less about anyone.
Anyway, that's all. My note. The last you will ever hear from me. Ever. Bye.
-Gee
Gerard put the note on his desk for whomever noticed it first to see, and went up onto the roof. "Alright," he muttered, psyching himself out. "Let's do this."
Then he saw it fall. The huge, dark bullet-looking thing that would doom his entire family. A bomb.
His eyes widened as he realized, "Mikey..."
As fast as he could, he climbed back down. He ran down the hall to his brother's room.
"Mikey!!"
Mikey was already awake. "Yeah?"
"Mikey, get down!"
Suddenly, everything flashed white. When he awoke, the room was destroyed. Glass from the windows littered the floor. His legs were trapped under a dresser, giving him little freedom of movement. "Mikey? Mikey...?!"
Mikey gave no response, but lifted the heavy piece of furniture from atop his brother. "You okay?"
Gerard stood. "Yeah, fine. I thought I lost you for a second there."
"Why were you so worried about that, if you were going to commit suicide, anyway?" Mikey asked, innocent enough.
"You knew?" Gerard replied.
"You talk while you write. Nice song, by the way."
Gerard's ears turned pink, "thank you."
There was silence for a moment before Mikey of all people spoke up, "Gee, where are mom and dad?"
Gerard's eyes widened. He said, "I have no idea. Let's check." Though he knew it was pointless. If they were alive, they would have checked on him and his brother. But he wasn't about to tell his thirteen-year old kid brother that.
Slowly, cautiously, Gerard walked to his parents' room, Mikey following close behind.
As he opened the door, he immediately wanted to shut it again. It was too horrible. There was no way anything in there could be alive. Blood was splattered everywhere; the floors, the walls, the sheets, all covered in the remnants of the ceiling that used to be overhead. Knowing there was no way anyone was in there, he called, "Mom?"
No response.
Mikey, frightened, cried out again, "Mom? Dad?!"
The silence was painful. It seemed as if every moment of waiting for a reply was longer than the last. After a while, Gerard (who was near tears) turned to Mikey and whispered, "I think they're gone, Mikey..."
Mikey bit his lower lip, deep in thought. Rather than tears or denial, his first response was, "Where do we go now, Gee?"
Gerard shook his head, "I have no idea..."
For what was a sixteen-year old boy and his brother of thirteen to do when an apocalyptic missiles were raining down on the whole nation?
-----Detroit, MI-----
This was it. First day of twelfth grade. BJ was pumped as a seventeen year old boy could be as he walked through the doors of his school. It wasn't classes he was excited for, though. Sitting in a desk as his brain was slowly fried by a bunch of old teachers was not BJ's idea of a good time. Nor was he excited to see his friends. His only friend, Mike, had run away the day before. No, he wanted to see Adrienne. The most beautiful girl in the universe. She had it all: the looks, the wit, the botching school on purpose just to make a point. Just his kinda girl.
And here she was. The pale, petite brunette he had been thinking of all summer. First period English with him. Perfect.
"Hey, Billie," Adrienne greeted cheerfully.
"Hey," he replied similarly. "So, English..."
"Yup. Pretty cool, huh?" Aidie asked genuinely.
Personally, Billie Joe hated English, but he wasn't about to say that to her of all people. "Yeah, awesome as fuck."
That evening, they sat in the back of the school, talking about their day, and their lives. Adrienne shared a poem she wrote for her mother, who was a singer. She loved to hear her sing, but her mother was often too busy. "The poem's something like this," she explained.
"Sing us a song of the century
It's louder than bombs and eternity
The era of static and contraband
Leading us into the promised land
Tell us a story that's by candlelight
Waging the war, and losing the fight
To sing a song of the century
Panic and promise and prosperity
Tell me a story into that good night
Sing us a song
For me..."
"Nice," BJ smiled, placing an arm on her shoulder. "That'd be a good song..."
"You think so?" Adrienne replied hopefully.
"Yeah," he blushed. "If I ever were to make a band, I'd totally use that."
There was silence for a moment. BJ gently tilted her chin toward himself. Slowly, they both leaned in. That's when the first bomb hit. Even across town, both of them could feel the vibration; smell the smoke.
More were sure to come. In unison, they both took cover in the corner where brick walls met, and Adrienne had BJ help her pull a dumpster into the small space, making a small triangle. There they crouched for what seemed like forever, scared as hell and waiting for sounds of destruction to cease. Tears of fear and mourning streamed down both their faces as BJ pulled the dumpster into its original position.
"Holy shit," he said hopelessly. "They're all dead, aren't they?" His house was down the street. It had already burned down, smoke and ashes were all that was left. He sobbed (a rare occurrence) into his hands. The whole street was decimated, and somehow this schoolyard had made it. He wanted to scream. His world was destroyed. Shaking his fist at the sky, he angrily shouted, "Why don't ya take me with you, huh?! You need me for something? Because trust me, I'm not your chosen one! I eff up everything I do! Just kill me!"
Adrienne shook him out of it. "Billie!"
"Fuck you, universe!"
"Billie Joe!"
He turned.
"You're still alive, stop talking to God."
BJ managed a smirk, "fine. At least I still got you."
"Yeah, I guess you do," Adrienne replied, leaning in for a kiss.
After they broke, BJ asked, "So where do we go from here?"
-----Jingletown, MI-----
Mike was done with his old life. He was done being in a bankrupt city with countless washed up streets, broken homes, and mundane 7-11s and bars filled with useless drunks wasting their lives on sex, drugs, and televisions. What lunacy. What hypocrisy. What idiocy.
The idiots of America.
Mike rolled his eyes. They still had hope in America, even as America robbed them of their money, their freedom, their lives.
He didn't want a part of it.
"Don't wanna be an American idiot, one nation controlled by the media..."
He trailed off, noticing the broad missile in the distance.
Information age of hysteria, is going out to idiot America...
It shot down slowly, as if defying gravity. Or was that just the shock? As it sank down, a chill traveled down his spine. He shivered, and the bomb hit ground.
Welcome to a new kind of tension. All across the alien nation.
The dust swirled about, blurring his vision and causing him to cough. When it passed, he kept walking. This seemed to be more of a low-grade one, which made sense seeing as he was in a small hole-in-the-wall of a town. His mother's house was still intact in the distance, and that was all that mattered. Of all people, he owed his mother an explanation. A reason for leaving.
Even if she was a chain-smoking loser who had wasted her life on stupid habits and home-abandoning men like his father.
Of all people, he trusted her with the knowledge that he was a prophet.
"Call me Jesus, why don't ya?" Mike murmured under his breath.