WARNING--this story is about an alternate-universe Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. As in, the COLUMBINE KIDS. If this offends or bothers you, read no further.

Beginnings

If you could re-do your entire life, would you? I would. I'd do it without a second thought.

There were so many mistakes I'd made at every chance I was given, and so many years of my fuckups piled up in the back of my mind. It tormented me, every night when I closed my eyes since I can't remember when, every false step I'd made, all the things I didn't do or didn't do right. I thought killing would erase my mistakes...it sure seemed like it, judging from the bliss of firing a gun and the satisfaction of imagining those mindless human zombies dead. For a while, it did. All the worries and heartaches fell away like dirt washing from my skin, like Eric and I thought they would. Until the doubt and fear set in, nothing could touch or shake me. Until I saw what I'd done.

Then, I fell.

I don't know why I didn't die when the bullet pierced my skull, but through some cruel trick of fate, I was still alive as they took me away. Trapped in my own torpid body, I couldn't scream. I couldn't cry, or reach for Eric like I so desperately wanted to, if only to see if he was truly gone. There was nothing but a colorless sea around me, over my glassy eyes, and the itching pain of nerves refusing to fail. Fear overtook me in an instant. What would happen, if I was cut open, or my innards were pulled out by the coroner? I would be in torturous pain and no one would know. And what if I was buried before this convoluted, lonely consciousness faded? Would I have to exist, just feeling myself fade slowly in an empty realm of nothing?

I wished, yearned, even prayed to someone, anyone, for death. This halfway was like a stake forcing itself upward through the pulsing intestines of my life-spark, giving me endless pain without letting me go; why, god damn it, would I not die? What was keeping me from peace?

Dully, I felt cold steel against my back, and heard the hum of hospital lights. It was then that the beast overtook me completely.

I still don't understand what it was that snapped. Neither does Eric. All I can guess is that it's not entirely human. There's something in us which other people don't have...I knew from the start, but I never expected it to be like this.

I bit the coroner's head off before we ran.

For weeks, we'd been sleeping in roach motels under fake names, trying not to lose control again, and doing what we could to get by. Sunrise after empty, cold sunset I watched the dying world go by around me, rotting like the shipwreck it was. I'd barely spoken to Eric since the fateful run. I didn't have the energy--or the courage.

To speak to Eric Harris was to be judged. He had a harsh eye for everything and everyone, including me. It made sense in a way, after all we'd seen in our lives, but he took it to new lengths. That glance of his cut through the world and all in it like a laser of simmering disdain. Though I shared much of it, the feeling of being tested every time he looked my direction was harrowing to the core. I couldn't look into his floodlight gaze. It laid all my faults and all my sins too bare.

So I stared forward instead, from behind the wheel of the white van we'd stolen, and contemplated the country road and what color to paint the car. I was thinking bluish-green. It was unassuming enough.

Eric shuffled in the passenger seat. I heard him swear as he reached into the backseat.

"Fuck. Where's the fucking map," he grumbled to no one in particular. My words dried in my throat.

"I was going to look for a Cinnabon. What I wouldn't give for some cinna-minis," he sighed. "You hungry?"

"Yeah," I choked, my stomach doing leaps for some reason. "I guess." Gawd, I chastised myself, he's your friend, Dylan. He's not a threat. I hoped...normally, friends didn't commit mass murder together or go on the run. To tell the truth, I was afraid he'd get not-so-friendly if I showed too much objection. I'd always been.

"You guess," he said in that dangerous, critical-sounding way. Then, he barked a short laugh. "Damn, Dylan...I've never known you to be so ambivalent about eating. You haven't eaten anything all day."

I hadn't? It was weird, but other, weirder things were on my mind. Food was a triviality compared to my reeling head. The long, awkward silence went unnoticed, until Eric cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"It's useless, regretting the past."

His words jabbed into the center of my sore spot.

"What we did is done. Over and fucking done. There's no going back. Don't wish for something you can't get."

"...You're right, Eric. I'm being an idiot. I just thought...fucking hell, I've never done anything right. Even this, all of this. It's another big, gigantic fuckup when I look back on it. I couldn't get dying right, either. All I've done is let more people down. Eric," I said, numb as the highway lights, "this is the end of everything I could've been. There are no more chances."

My eyes stung with rising pain, with loss, anger and emptiness.

"Whatever," Eric shrugged. "To me, it's a better beginning."

"The beginning of what?"

"Who knows? That's part of the fun--Oh shit! Turn right! There it is!"

I twisted the steering wheel and we veered into the truck stop, our road-weary faces lit by the glow of gas pumps and fast food signs. The car idled in our parking spot until I turned the key, leaving a satisfied sort of quiet. Eric hopped out of the van and slammed the door shut.

"What do you want," he called across the parking lot.

"Food," I yelled back.

If I could re-do my entire life, I'd start with a cinnamon bun.