CHAPTER TWO
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i. ghost boys !

— IT WAS WARM THAT SUMMERTIME MORNING, when Johnathan King was found. Stumbling across the road, beaten and bloodied. Warm enough, in fact, that the thin grey t-shirt he was wearing was relatively acceptable.

Yet he still shivered violently in the sunlight, squinting like a man finally seeing the day after a lifetime in darkness.

Right down the middle of the road, tripping over his own feet, hugging himself and muttering crazed whispers over his shoulder, trying to keep an eye out for something. Someone. Anything.

Until he finally fell, too weak to keep himself standing. He curled up into a ball on the bright yellow line in the centre of the pavement, groaning as he went.

This was how Sheriff Keller found him after the 911 call was placed. A ball of sadness and hurt.

Sadness and hurt.

Those are the words that could be used to describe Kevin Keller, who was with his father when he got the call for someone that looked peculiarly like Johnathan King.

Kevin couldn't possibly stay in the car like the Sheriff had told him to as they parked.

He darted out of the vehicle and ran to Johnathan's side, ignoring his father's pleas for him to get back in the car.

"Hey! Hey, Johnny, oh my god- you're alive." The boy rushed out as he dropped to his knees, trying to turn Johnny onto his back.

Johnathan coughed raggedly and squeezed his eyes shut, until he finally looked up.

"...Kevin?" His voice was broken and rasping, dry as a desert, but it sounded like him. It sounded like Jonathan.

His hair was longer, sure, and his face was tired and broken. His left eye puffed up making him nearly unrecognizable.

But Kevin always knew. He'd spent hours looking at that face, observing every inch and engraving it into his memory.

"Yeah! Yeah, it's me." Kevin wanted to cry as he looked over his old friend. Red smears and dirt covered every inch of him, he looked so... dead, for lack of better words.

Jonathan tried to lift his head up, "I'm-..." He coughed again, horrible and sick.

Kevin smiled sadly down at him, trying to encourage him to finish, letting him cushion his head on one of Kevin's hands.

"I'm... bleeding."

Kevin could barely hear the blaring sirens of paramedic vehicles arriving at the scene as he looked down at Jonathan's chest, where a deep scarlet colour was blooming across his already stained shirt.

"It's okay- Johnny, you're gonna be okay." Kevin muttered empty promises as one of his own hands fled to the other boy's chest, hovering over the dark red colour as if trying to will it away.

"Vincent- did Vincent... make- it out?" Jonathan asked, swallowing thickly and licking his lips, trying to ease at the cracked texture under his tongue.

Kevin didn't have the heart to answer. So instead, he smiled sadly and lowered his hand down gently on Jonathan's chest, putting slight pressure on the wound.

Johnathan threw his head back in a low whine as his eyes shone over, glistening with unshed tears.

"Oh god... oh god..." He cried.

A hand pressed against Kevin's, asking him to remove himself so they could take Johnathan away again.

"Move back, son." Sheriff Keller stood over Kevin and beckoned him away.

The tiniest pieces of rock were still stuck into the boy's face as they lifted him off the pavement and onto a stretcher to be taken to the hospital.

They lifted his shirt to stuff tissue and gauze around the long, wide mark in the boy's chest, flowing, pouring out the life that rushed through his veins.

Kevin could see the scars and stitches that littered Jonathan's chest like constellations in the sky. Some looked vicious and angry, while others were thin with precision.

The boy's voice was still heard, crying out for his dead brother, even after they shut the doors.

Kevin is left looking after the boy as he was driven away, the sad darkness that had wrapped around his mind became a little brighter now that Jonathan King, staying very much alive, was a possibility.

For the Kellers, there were three things they knew with unwavering certainty:

One- Vincent King, the good boy of Riverdale, with a killer smile and kind heart, was buried six feet underground with one of the best headstones money could buy.

Two- Jonathan King, who everyone was sure would follow his brother into his very own casket, was alive. How, no one was sure.

Three- Kevin was left with a grim, cold reminder, of the state his old friend was in.

His hand chilled to the air and wind as he lifted his arm waist high, looking down on the red stain that dripped across his fingertips

How could it have ended up like this.

It felt like just the other day, Kevin was watching his best friend laugh and grin without a single care in the world.

Now he was broken. That boy was ripped apart and glued together again, time after time, day after wretched day.

Part of Kevin had nearly accepted, that Jonathan would remain a ghost in their dark town.

And watching the way the boy screamed and cried at the news of his deceased brother, Kevin thought maybe being a ghost was better than this life.

"They'll have to test the blood..," Kevin tuned back in to the situation with newfound sadness, listening to his father talk over the phone. "No! You idiot, not the one from the damn hole in his chest- figure out where the other stuff came from!"

Kevin was about to tune back out and allow his mind some peace to just exist for even a moment.

But then Sheriff Keller lowered his voice, and Kevin couldn't help but strain to hear.

"And maybe try testing the blood for Jason Blossom. Let me know if you find anything useful."

And now, another problem arose. Because Jason Blossom happened to be the (famously) murdered teen found on the bank of Sweetwater River.

Only a week before Jonathan's reappearance.

And if the Sheriff thought he had something to do with it, god help them all.

author's note

this is for that one person who was asking about ghost town, despite all the wdwg hype right now

I hope it's to your standards😂♥️

Let me know what you think 🧐