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The Eternal Phoenix	By : kimbk Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Rammstein Views: 1138 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not know any members of Rammstein. This is purely a work of fiction: it does not intend to reflect any aspect of the members' lives and I do not make any profit from this work.

Chapter List
- 1-The Eternal Phoenix
- 1
Author's Note: When I don't write stuff like 'Silence', I'm actually kind of a sick fuck and enjoy writing shit like this. In-universe Haifisch. Du Hast/Haifisch!Doom's POV, completely non-realistic. Read all the warnings.
Warnings: Very disturbing content. Spoilers for Haifisch and Du Hast, Dark!Schneider, Till/Schneider (onesided), graphic violence, multiple instances of character death, sexual themes (but no sex), tastelessness, black humour, metafiction, emotional instability, obnoxious literary references, casual indifference to horror, possible abusive relationship triggers, and emoticons.
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L'enfer, c'est les autres - No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre
-----
How long have we been playing this game, now?
Long enough, that's for sure. But I'll attempt to organize things a little. It's the very least I can do.
I think it was around 2005 when we figured out that there was something different about Till. Was climbing some mountains up in the Alps, just for a relaxing weekend with friends, you know? Six of us packed some camping gear and went up. It wasn't as if we've never been up in the mountains either, so it shouldn't have been an entirely difficult event. We certainly got more than we'd ever bargained for, though, when the bastard lost his footing and went over the edge.
I still blame myself for that. I wish I'd held on tighter to him, I actually had his hand in my grasp. But it was too much to ask of my vastly inferior muscles and I let him fall. He was dead upon impact.
It was dark when we'd recovered his body. Far too dark to request rescue or try going down by ourselves. So we stayed there in our camp, cradling him, grieving over the utterly pointless and unexpected death of a dear friend. I remember weeping over him, begging forgiveness, telling his cold dead body how sorry I was for not being able to hold on. The others were trying to console me and falling helplessly into sobs themselves; Richard in particular was incoherent with grief. Didn't even acknowledge me and my failure. He didn't even sob, just lay there curled up with Till, clutching at his hand and he just wouldn't let go. Eventually exhaustion took us and we fell asleep.
When we awoke in the morning with bleary eyes, searching for our whistles to try to get a rescue signal going, Till was gone.
Very bizarre for sure. Our tent had not been broken into, but his body had simply disappeared. All his stuff was left behind too. Why would anybody steal a dead body from us in the middle of a mountain? We couldn't figure it out at all, and had successfully performed the Alpine rescue signal and were watching the helicopters circle when the fucker showed up beaming from ear to ear and asking whether we wanted to come back the week after. Of course we couldn't say that Till was dead when he was so obviously in front of us and alive; when the rescue came, they were just under the impression that we'd freaked out due to lack of supplies and simply got us down without much comment. Till simply asked us all to pack well the next time around, smiling, and I think we just spent the whole time staring at him incredulously.
That was the first time that he died. We were just beginning to think that we'd had a collective hallucination, caused by height and temperature, when it happened again. This time he was swimming around in Paul's outside pool when he struck his head on the steps during a badly executed dive. Blood looks absolutely disgusting in water, I tell you. Or I'd tell you that if I knew for sure. The only witness to this was Paul and Richard, who were in the pool at the time, and had dragged him out before calling emergency services. When they arrived, Till was gone yet again, the water only the faintest shade of pink from his blood; he came sauntering by hours later and didn't answer any questions that Paul and Richard asked (or demanded) of him. That's when we knew for sure that we had a very unusual man in our hands.
Since then he's been living it up, being a real risk-taker, and doing anything dangerous that he can think of. Wanting to do all the stunts himself, no matter how dangerous, and delving ever deeper into the most dangerous kinds of pyrotechnics. It's been years now and he must have died over two hundred times, always recovering within hours or a day or so. I'd be a liar if I said that we didn't sometimes push him off a building now and then just to see if he'd hold up - come on, don't look at me like that, all of us have done it and regretted it even when Till came back. It's routine to us now, him dying. We don't even keep count anymore.
But he comes back. Always comes back. I don't know how he does it, but he always comes back as good as new. And he has the guts to smile and act like nothing's happened whenever he comes back. Pretends that we're the crazy ones. All this time and he's never - I repeat, never - once acknowledged that he ever died. Well, think about it - five against one, the majority watches a man plummet over a cliff. Man comes back and pretends nothing ever happened. Even if the man's alive and breathing, would you rather believe the testimonies of five witnesses or that one man?
Actually, it could all be a conspiracy. After all, if five people claim that a man is dead without concrete proof, then the man is simply missing in action until he turns up, dead or alive. And so far Till's done nothing but turn up alive, often so quickly afterwards that there isn't even enough time to gather other witnesses. I'm confusing myself. Let's move on.
So where do I come into all of this? Well, I must admit, we'd have never found him out if I had managed to hold on, that time in the mountains. It is I who let him fall, and because of me he discovered his capacity for death - or if he knew it before, he showed it to us for the first time then - marking a point of no return and setting off his continuous deaths. You have no idea how guilty I feel about this. I care for him. He's a close friend of mine. Let's face it, dying gets old quite quickly. And so does just randomly dunking him into a pool until bubbles stop escaping his mouth. It's not a fun thing by any means, and as far as I can see, nobody except me wants to help Till. They just want to stand by and count how long it is before he dies the next time. Bullshit, I say. I can see it in Till's eyes, the way they get more and more blank and tired with every death, that he's just tired of having to go on even though he keeps smiling. Could you blame him? I'd be tired too. I'd pay to have someone kill me and dispose of me properly if I had what Till had. And he's a good man, a handsome and charming man, the one person in my life who I don't want to see suffering such a horrible fate. I like him way, way too much for that. I want - just once - to sit him down, tell him that I'm so very sorry still for letting him fall, and that I'd do anything to help him out. Of course he'd then laugh and tell me that he has no idea what I'm on about, which would then go to piss me off.
He doesn't see me. That makes me sad sometimes but it just makes me angry most of the time.
Till and I aren't on the same level when it comes to words. I'm fairly no-nonsense and direct. So one day I invited him to my house and hit him over the head with a hammer until he wasn't breathing anymore and left him be, just to see how long he'd take to come back. Used a stopwatch and everything. Six hours, it took, before he emerged from the room I'd left him in, complaining of hunger and didn't I have any fucking food lying around? That's how the 'game' I was talking about started. I want to help him break the cycle and finally rest in peace because that's clearly what he wants - so every time the opportunity is ripe, I take him where no one can find us and kill him in various different ways in the hopes that one day I'll find the magical formula that will let him stay dead. I've been able to steadily increase dates between each death and his resurrection - two, three days - but that's about it. I keep notes and photos of every death in a purple folder. It'd do you good to hold that thought, that I document all of this. You got that? Okay. Let's move on.
At first he didn't even seem to care. Then he got confused. And then sometimes violent. But mostly trying to stay away from me. I don't understand why this is. Talk about an ungrateful bastard or what? I only doubled my efforts in response. A man's got to do what he's got to do. I promised myself. I'll atone for what I did and help him escape.
His many deaths have linked us together. I like to think that I'm very close to him now, now that I've sent him to hell and back so many times. Better than sex, I say. You don't get more intimate than showing off what's inside you to someone else. Literally. Guts and all.
I do feel a little bad sometimes when I think of the others, though. We've been together for so long and without Till I know we can't keep going as Rammstein, bless them. But then again, that's what friends are for. We've seen Till die so many times and all we've done is to just greet him and go along with him pretending nothing special happened - I know that we do this so that we can keep the peace, and that really just says something about the strength of our friendship. We'll be okay. We always have been. Our six hearts burning as one. Soon it will be five, but I'm trying to help Till here, so it should be fine. We're all friends who don't keep secrets from each other - but I can make a teeny exception for this one, probably. Even if I kill him, they just pass it off as a simple mistake that Till's made on his own. And considering I'm not exactly hiding from Till whenever I kill him, he knows my secret, so it's not even really a secret. I consider myself perfectly justified.
His legacy will live on beyond death. If only he could make the second part stick.
-----
"This would be a lot easier on you if you just maintained what you're doing right now," I tell Till as he hangs by his neck from a rafter in this abandoned little farmhouse. A chair lies collapsed sideways beneath him; kicking that out of the way was a bitch, I tell you. He's heavy. "it'd solve so many things."
"..." he replies. Because he's dead. For now. I turn my back on him and close up all the windows before I leave, also shutting the door behind me. The lock's broken so shutting it is all I can do, which is a bit of a shame, but whatever goes. I head upstairs to the kitchen, with my little portable gas stove, and heat up some soup for myself, along with slicing up hunks of bread to go with it. Tomorrow I'll leave this place, but I have to stay overnight to make sure the job's been done correctly. It's not much of a meal, but I've had worse. No big deal.
After I'm done with the soup and bread, I clean up and visit the room that Till's dead body is hanging from again. I don't know why I keep going back and doing this shit to myself, but oh well. Much to my pleasure, he's still there, eyelids pale blue and slightly swaying in mid-air from the draft in the room. It's kind of charming, my own handiwork, at the risk of sounding hubristic. He's just kind of hanging there. Very calm as he should be, very still as he should be, and very dead as he should well be.
"I hope you stay like that this time, Till," I tell him. "you must be bored shitless of dying by now. I'm doing you a favor," pause. "you know, I quite like it when you're just quiet and dead and not being an enigma that nobody can understand. I do like you a lot, you know. That's why I have to do this. Because I like you very much, because you're a close friend of mine. Because..."
Dare I say it?
Oh what the hell. We're alone.
"Because I love you, Till. As a good friend, as a charming singer, and as someone I want to help and cure."
I'm smiling now. Feeling quite good about myself and him. Perhaps this has atoned me a little? Either way, I feel so good about this that I give his body an impromptu hug and a little kiss on the cheek, standing up on tiptoes. Then I head back upstairs and kip in my little sleeping bag for a few hours, dreaming about Till and I in happier times, imagining that he's a normal human being like I and much preferring it that way. It won't quite work out like that in real life, but at least I can dream.
I wake a few hours later, the late morning sun shining in my eyes and the bluebirds chirping outside. It's a lovely day for sure and as I get up and stretch, I think I'll quite enjoy it.
That is, until I hear somebody in the kitchen. My breath catches in my throat.
No. It can't be. But it is.
"Guten Tag," he greets me cheerfully as I rush inside, looking up from the gas stove. My gas stove. "I made some soup. Figured you were going to be hungry when you woke up," he says as he holds his wooden spoon up.
Yeah that's right. His wooden spoon. His implement. His utensil. His guaranteer of a good time. His dildo. His member. His fucking cock that he fucks with. I don't know, how much more blatant do you want me to be? I'm not even right anyway because his cock isn't even a cock, it's a wooden spoon. You know what bothers me about wooden spoons? The fact that some people don't use them to cook. They use them for spanking children or significant others. Not only is this abusive (unless the significant other likes it or whatever, though it should never be acceptable with children), that's just not what a wooden spoon is for. If you wanted to get off on spanking what's wrong with your hand or a paddle. I mean, ew, that's just unhygienic as hell. These things are lethal. Fuck wooden spoons. But that's not what's important. What the hell are you doing derailing me into talking about wooden spoons when I've got a man with a recovery stone for a kidney in front of me? I mean, holy shit.
"What are you doing in this kitchen?" I manage to ask when I'm less slack-jawed. "I killed you. I know I did."
"Oh, Schneider," he smiles. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Fuck this. Fuck this right in the face.
Till takes a bowl and pours the soup into it, putting it on the table and gesturing for me to sit down, and I do as asked. Might as well play along. He places down the bowl in front of me along with a spoon and a large piece of bread that isn't sliced. "There you go," he smiles. "I'd like to talk about the hug now."
The world freezes around me for a second or two, and then starts ticking in time again.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say as I start eating the soup. Tastes exactly like the one I ate yesterday. "and I think you should just be quiet."
"Back then," Till insists, washing the wooden spoon in preparation for heating up another can of soup. He turns and looks at me, his expression serious and inquisitive. "as I was dying. Schneider. You held me. You told me that you liked me a lot and then you held me and kissed my cheek. Then you left..."
Pause. He meets my eyes, and even though there's no hate in his eyes, there's a lot of innocent confusion that doesn't at all fit his usual demeanor. I don't know what to say.
"... I'm not sure what I should feel about it, Schneider. How did you feel?"
How did I feel?
Uh, pretty good, I guess? Until you came sauntering into this kitchen and cooked me soup, for sure. Not that this isn't a nice soup, but I don't even know how you managed to come back. I don't know how you come back every single time. So I guess... I was feeling good about all this before, but I'm feeling confused as shit now?
Hang on. Backtrack a little. My fists clench on the tabletop as I remember, and the realization hits me like a ton of bricks.
He definitely said 'as I was dying'.
"Till."
"Ja?"
"You admitted that you died," I say, rising from the chair. He looks at me curiously. "you've... never done that before."
He doesn't say a damn thing. Just smiles.
"You know more than you're letting on. Much, much more. What's going on?"
Till shakes his head a little and turns back to his soup, stirring at it a few times and sprinkling some pepper on it. "It's not as if I minded your affection, Schneider. I was quite flattered actually. I'm just not sure what to feel, is all."
Well, that was helpful. Not. I stare at him, loathing his completely unconcerned face, wishing I could stick the wooden spoon into his beautiful, beautiful eyes.
How did I feel, again?
-----
I'm pushing Till against the wall, holding him helpless and submissive in my arms. He's surprisingly not struggling very much, which I'm grateful for.
He looks at me. "This is a dream, isn't it?"
"Life is but a dream," I tell him; I'm shaking but I don't know why. "not always a pleasant one, either."
"But it's not my dream. It's yours."
"So it is. But one's mind makes it real."
"Spoken like a poet. Only you aren't one and you borrowed that from someone."
"I never said I claimed it."
"Heh," Till smiles and leans into my shoulder, closing his eyes contentedly for a while. I tighten my grip around his body. "... will I wake up?" he asks softly, plaintively, so quietly that it physically hurts to listen. Caress his face. Draw him into a deep passionate kiss. By passionate, I mean that I'm violating his mouth with my tongue. Hey, this is just imagination. I can do what I want.
"Of course you will," I tell him after the kiss is over. Then I beat the shit out of him and tug the noose over his head as his body sags into mine-
-----
"Schneider?"
I'm not listening. I have an idea.
His body.
A body.
He has a body. He's always left behind a body whenever he died. That's the key. Destroy the body completely afterwards and he won't come back, because there is no vessel left for him. That's the answer I was seeking all along. I look up and gaze wildly ahead, seeing Till's concerned eyes and him mouthing my name, and this is what kickstarts my body into reacting. Pick up the soup bowl, hurl it at his head. Till flinches and ducks, and the bowl misses him and instead breaks against the wall. But then I don't fancy Till facing his last death with remains of soup all over him, anyway. The man needs more dignity than that. Seizing my chance, I rush forwards and push him on the chest, making him gasp and stumble back. This isn't quite enough to push him over but I've got that sorted. I at least have the courtesy to take off the hot and now slightly charred pan off the stove and turn the fucker off before I swing the gas cartridge in Till's direction; it hits him on the head and only then does he go down, clutching at his bleeding head and crying out in pain.
This is release.
The gas cartridge is reassuringly heavy in my hands. Heavy enough for me to kneel down and keep pounding on him, until the side of his head is entirely covered in blood and he needs to blink it out of his eyes. His leg swings up, catching me on the stomach, digging into the skin - but I inhale sharply and endure. Throw away the cartridge. Grab at the chair, stand up, pick up the whole thing and smash it against the wall. With the chair leg in hand I drive the broken, splintered end into Till's thigh and he screams out loud. Even his screams are orgasmic.
He tries to speak but I slap him around the face before he even gets a word out. Till's head snaps back onto the floor and he lies there, holding the side of his face, whimpering helplessly and staring up at me as if to ask why. I stand over him, sobbing from the adrenaline, trembling heavily yet not about to stop because I just need to get this done. "What the hell are you," I cry out, stomping on his side with one foot, hyperventilating all the way. "why won't you just die. Oh God, oh my God, fucking hell. Oh. Ohh. Oh my fucking God."
I must look like a really dumb fuck, standing over Till with this chair leg in my hand, my shoulders heaving with sobs, gasping for breath and tears running down my face. Let him think that I'm a dumb fuck, if that's the case.
Poor Till.

Poor, tormented Till.

Poor, tormented and beautiful Till.

Unable to die. Unable to rest. I'll help you.
You won't let me help, though, so I hate you for it too. Quite a lot. I love to hate you.

But that's okay.
What's the best way to dispose of a body quickly? Not dismemberment that's for sure. I'm a man of taste and woefully little time. I'm not about to drive him out and drown him in the sea or anything like that either. There's just no guarantee at all. And then I have the second brainwave.
Fire. Burn him. Kill him with fire. It'll destroy his body quicker. How come I've never thought of this, what with having some pyrotechnician training myself to deal with fire onstage? No matter. I have a lighter, a box of matches lying around, some gas cans for the stove - and a spare tank of gasoline for the car.
I know what to do now.
I'm quite in love with you, Till. I don't particularly like myself for it. I hate to love you. So I have to kill you over and over and over again. So that you feel just how much I adore you through the release you get from death. And so that one day I know you'll expire for real and I won't need to struggle with feelings towards you anymore.
I said it to you only once but you still picked up on it. But as Milan Kundera once said, einmal ist keinmal.
What happened once might as well never have happened. Let's make that a zweimal so that it most definitely did happen.
"I love you," I'm dragging Till now. Dragging by his shirt collar, right across the room, right out of the door, spreading his blood everywhere and giving the floor a severely needed paint job. Down the stairs. Hearing him splutter incoherently as his feet tumble and crash helplessly downwards. His bulk is so heavy that I nearly fall over while doing this, but it has to be done, and besides - hey look, banisters to hold onto. "I love you. I love you, you son of a bitch. You fucker. I love you."
He only mumbles a bit more before holding helplessly onto one of the railings for support. I tug him free without much effort and head back into the room where I hung him before; picking up the chair and setting it upright, Pushing him down it, I tug the empty noose hanging from the ceiling down to bind him on the chair. "What the fuck are you doing," he cries as I tie him up, shoving his wrists forcefully backwards. No reply needed to that one. I figure he wants some company so I gently take hold of his wooden spoon and stick it beneath his belt. Interpret that sentence however you want, given all the metaphors I rambled on about ages ago. The knots are tight and he's not escaping any time soon. I back away from the room, listening to him panting, stuttering out my name mixed with curses. The tank of gasoline. Outside. I fetch it - my car can manage until I get back home, hopefully - and drag it back inside.
He screams when the gasoline drenches him. It must sting in his wounds; he's gagging at the stench of it, spitting out what little that's gone into his mouth, looking as if he's about to throw up. There's nothing to come up because he didn't get to eat a damn thing, of course. Yeah. Uh. Sorry about that, Till? Go feast in hell?
"Sorry about that, Till. Go feast in hell. They have good eats. Very good eats."
I wouldn't know, though. I've never been to hell before. He looks at me like I'm an idiot, but at least he's not screaming or almost puking anymore. That's good. Throw away the tank in the corner - and then I just stand there for a while, not sure how to proceed next. I've got the matches and a full lighter if none of the matches work, which shouldn't be the case. He's covered in gasoline and ready to be set alight. So what am I hesitating for?
I shouldn't be. I close my eyes tightly, and fumble for the matches in my pocket.
This will all be over soon, Till.
"Doom?" he whispers, his eyes swollen shut and face streaked with blood but nevertheless still beautiful. I pause, the box of matches in my hand; I'm secretly quite ecstatic, he never calls me that, ever. Perhaps - just perhaps - he feels the same about me?
"Yes?" I keep my voice low and soothing. Bend down close, stroke his hair. "Yes, Till? What is it?"
His eyes flicker open, his dazed green eyes meeting mine. It's surprising how intense his stare is despite his condition.
"I hate you."
I sigh. Oh well. It was nice when it lasted. I carefully raise his head between my hands and kiss his forehead gently, feeling rather remorseful about what I'm about to do. But hey. A man's got to do what he's got to do. "Shame," I tell him, licking the blood off his face. Want to give him one final intimate touch to remember me by. "the feeling isn't mutual."
Then I pull away. Put the head of the match against the strip, tug it roughly downwards, and I throw the flaming object behind my back as I leave along with my lit lighter. A souvenir for him to keep. The sudden burst of heat and his agonized scream alerts me to a job well done and I grin. Let's go all the way with the love thing, why not? As I leave the building and look back, watching it burn and crash, I don't think he hears me shouting:
Will you marry me?
-----
There wasn't anything left of Till's body for sure.
I watched. Went through God knows how many cigarettes, and I wasn't chain-smoking them either.

Wood must have been very dry, it burnt quickly. Then the rain came and extinguished the fire; the farmhouse was left charred.

In the wreckage I found Till's watch, frozen to the time that it was set alight; that was all that remained. I also lost the gas stove.

Ah well. Maybe I also shed a tear or two, but maybe that's also just a lie.

I don't know. I'm an unreliable narrator. What the hell are you even doing trusting me?
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Rest in peace, Till.
-----
For three days afterwards I checked to see if anyone had heard from Till; that's the longest he's ever went before coming back to life. Nothing. They were getting worried about him. Fine with me. After a week, assured that Till was finally gone for good, I retreated to my flat and that's where I've been for the past two weeks. Hiding from life. Doing mundane things. Trying to forget him and failing.
I keep up with my drumming but I keep on envisioning Till's strong back in front of me, him singing, performing his heart out to an audience. I've gotten used to drumming with my eyes closed because of that. Although I haven't actually practiced in the past two days because during the past fortnight I've ended up breaking more drumsticks than I ever have in a lifetime. Reading. Writing. Constance showed me how costume design works, so I've been thinking about that and have started sewing a few things too. I'm actually fairly good at it, given the circumstances. I'll never wear them, but just thinking about being onstage with these garments on helps me heal as long as I don't then start thinking about Till stalking about in front of me again.
I don't know why I feel so empty. I should be feeling accomplished. Till's soul has flown off to the great unknown and I've achieved my goal, killing him. So why do I feel so hollow? He didn't want to share his life with me so I took it from him. He didn't want to share his body with me so I took that from him too. I've taken all I could and repaid him with release. A perfectly fair deal. Shouldn't that be enough?
I sigh. The phone buzzes behind me but I ignore it. I haven't answered any messages in a fortnight. Disappeared off the radar altogether along with Till. Much as I hate to admit it, I miss him and I sorely wish that he was beside me. But I shouldn't feel that way. He's at peace where he is and one day I'll no longer remember the look in his eyes, the way his lips quirked in that rare but charming smile I loved so much, and the taste of his blood, hot and salty and rushing with iron and life. Humans are forgetful by nature and someday my sorrow will be history.
Everyone suffers. First stage of suffering is withdrawal. But it's okay. I tell myself that I'm fine.
It'll all be over soon.
I wanted to smash his watch into pieces but I didn't in the end. I still want to smash it though. It's doing nothing but sitting around only being accurate twice a day, forever stuck on the time when I burnt him to death. There are limits as to which things in life should be memorials and which things shouldn't be, and this watch doesn't stay within those limits at all. And yet I keep on looking at it sitting uselessly on my shelf anyway, thinking about the way he always had it on, how the straps hugged his wrist ever so tightly and perfectly. I envy it. Its leather straps (now charred but nevertheless holding together) once clasped his wrist, pressed against his bare skin, soaking in his scent. It smells of burnt leather now, obviously, but I envy it anyway. It kept to his purpose. It told him the time, seconds and minutes and hours counting down to his next death, and in return it always got to hold him as he faced whatever end was waiting for him.
Now it has no master and no purpose. Just like how I have no purpose and no Till. I hope he's forgiven me.
It's a lazy afternoon, perhaps about four in the afternoon with the sunlight drifting into the flat. I'm sewing an appliqué patch onto a shirt when there is a knock on my door. Immediately I drop the needle and stare in the direction of the door - I haven't had any visitors for weeks, what's going on? Perhaps only an advertisement thing? The knock doesn't come again for a long time so I exhale in relief, only to end up gasping as it starts again. And this time it's not stopping.
Stand up. Oh my God. The space beneath the door is shadowed. Two legs standing behind it. Only a piece of wood keeping me from this stranger and myself.
There is someone outside my door.

And they're looking for me.
It can't be ignored. I slowly back away out of the living room, keeping as quiet as possible so that my footsteps won't be heard, and into my bedroom where I crouch down on the floor with my pillow. I start off merely sitting, but as the knocking grows louder I end up collapsed forwards, lying on my stomach and my face buried in the pillow and desperately fisting it in an attempt to muffle the sounds.
"Go away," I whisper into the fabric, tasting the hot cotton of the pillow, but the knocking won't stop. It's not even that it's growing louder, it's just that it keeps on going in the same monotonous rhythm. I pretend they're drumbeats to try to take my mind off it. 6/8 beat, tempo 140. "verzieh dich. Verzieh dich!" 6/8 beat, tempo 160. "oh God oh my God please just go away..."
Tempo 180.
-----
6/8 is the darnedest beat of all. 6/8 is the most terrifying beat because that's the time signature of your heart.

Why couldn't it have been 4/4?
-----
Thump. Thump.

Silence.
Thump. Thump.

Silence.
-----
The knocking reaches a tempo of 200 soon. Not even I can keep up a 200 for this long.

They're knocking in rhythm with my heartbeat.
-----
"No, no, no," I groan into the pillow, trembling, terrified out of my wits for the first time in years. "I'm going crazy, I'm going fucking crazy, please just... please just stop..."
Then I realize that whoever's outside must know this and my head becomes clearer. They know my weaknesses. This means I'm likely to know about them just as much as they know me. I stand up, my limbs still shaking but somewhat revitalized with this new bit of knowledge just as the knocking stops outside.
Patience, Christoph. Patience. Eventually they'll leave. Wait two minutes more and I'll go have a look.
Turns out I don't need to move in the end. There comes a little rustling sound outside, then the letter slot lifts up - depositing two pieces of paper onto the floor. Only then does the person on the outside move, footsteps shuffling away into the distance, and I stand completely still until everything has faded away into silence before I even dare to move towards the door.
The items are fairly small. A note and a photograph, lying facedown. I pick both up with my hands - calm down, Christoph, you're trembling, what are you so afraid of? - and then turn them over. A photograph of Till's broken body, lying in what seems like a ravine or beneath a cliff. In fact, this is the very same cliff where we discovered the truth about Till back in 2005. But he's definitely wearing a sweater that he bought only two months ago in this picture. His green eyes staring blankly, plaintively up at me, the side of his head caved in and covered with blood. Besides him there is a male figure whose face is obscured because of the birds-eye view, but his left hand is clasping Till's and he has a tell-tale cancer stick in the other. The print at the bottom is dated to yesterday. And the note, written in red ink and in a handwriting that I recognize instantly:
Guten Tag :3 I have something of yours, Doomie. Mwah <3

Lieber, Risch
Something twists inside my heart. I crumple up both in my hand and slam my fist against the wall. Nobody beats and kills Till except for me.
Motherfucker.
-----
I'm found out. So this is how it goes.
A showdown between me and Richard at Till's funeral.
After that postcard, I reacted to the bait and called him up, screaming to know the meaning of all of this. Bastard just laughed in my face and told me to wait until the funeral in a week before hanging up. A funeral. So Till's going to be kept in a coffin this time. Embalmers are going to be present, dissecting and preserving - fine by me, I guess. At least it'll help to see if Till can escape their watch this time and resurrect as he's always done. Hey, he rose again from the ashes and went wandering off with Richard. Why not? Clearly Richard's implying that he's the one who managed to kill of Till for real and that's what's pissing me off. Not that he's finally dead and resting in peace, the fact that Richard did it the first time he tried killing him.
I'm dressed in my sharpest suit. Let's do this. Christoph. The skies are dark and it's possibly going to rain so I take my tall black umbrella - and on a whim, I also snatch Till's watch from off the shelf and shove it into my pocket.
As i drive I think about Till and how many times I've killed him. I've brought my folder with me just so I can wave it at Richard's face if it turns out the funeral's off because, well, Till's gone walking the earth again. Counted the deaths once more - I've killed him thirty-nine times, not counting the time I burnt him to death because there was nothing left to really commemorate or show. Otherwise they all show his expired body in various different situations and positions with their respective dates inscribed on it. So that's that. I'm going to go over to the funeral, and if Till's dead, we bury him and wish him a good feast in hell before I punch Richard in the face. If he's not dead, the funeral's off, so we'll make guesses as to where he's going to turn up next before I punch Richard in the face. I'm not sure which option I prefer, seeing as they'll have the same overall result.
Fucking Richard. Till was mine.
I'm addicted to killing you. Even now I fantasize about it. Because if you died you'd be happy, you'd be free. I'm addicted to making you happy. But I also need you to come back because I love killing you. I hate you. I love you. I want you to suffer. I want you to be happy. I want you gone. I want you with me. I want you.
And I can never have you, no matter how many times I crush you beneath me or caress you and hold your body close.
-----
The funeral's on. Guess he's stayed dead. I'm going to kill Richard after this, I swear to God. See how he likes it. I've had more practice.
Only there's something not quite right about him, either. Oh, sure, Richard strutted into the funeral home, throwing me a smug little smile before faking an expression of grief and going over to the priest to talk to him - how sorry he was to hear the news, much condolences and all that bullshit. But it was when he asked the cause of death, keeping his voice calm and nonchalant and making sure that I was in hearing distance, where things apparently started to not go that well for him.
"Is this not an open-casket funeral? I wanted to pay my last respects to him."
"You may do that on the coffin itself. Cause of death unknown," the coroner tells him. Richard's eyes flicker in my direction and suddenly he looks puzzled.
"No cause known at all?" he presses ahead. "no news as to whether it was - I don't know, maybe a fall or anything?"
"No falls, no accidents, no homicide. No cause known whatsoever and I cannot discuss autopsy results with you," the coroner snaps and walks away. Hang on. Till didn't die of a fall? I thought Richard organized at least a few aspects of this thing? He looks utterly confused and bewildered.
When I glance around, I see that Flake has also heard. He has just as a disturbed look in his eyes, even though it doesn't show much beneath his glasses.
I am opposite Richard when we carry out the coffin amidst pouring rain and lower it down onto the ground. It's very heavy. The two women that claim to have slept with Till and 'are having his babies' are sobbing incoherently by the side. Geez, he sure did get busy, didn't he? But never mind that. I stare into Richard's eyes as we lower the coffin and let it settle into the earth; he looks up, flinches a little at my stare, and quickly lowers his gaze back down as he tosses the ropes into the ground. Whatever's going on, it's certainly not going the way he expected. Just to rub salt into the wounds, I keep my eyes fixed on his face as I take out Till's charred watch during the priest's sermon and toss it onto the coffin.
It works as expected. Richard's eyes widen and he starts biting his lip nervously as he stares down at the object. I feel accomplished for precisely two minutes before I realize that Olli, Paul and Flake are also staring at me with horror and fascination.
What's going on?
Evidently everyone is also dying to know, too. During the funeral dinner I keep looking at him, but I notice that something's off about the others too. Flake doesn't touch his spaghetti and Paul and Olli stare at each other and then at Richard. Halfway during dinner Richard finally gets up for a smoke break outside - and almost as if he was waiting for it all along, Paul gets up and follows too. This will be interesting. I follow suit to the curious gazes of the funeral party. I catch up to them, taking Flake and Olli in tow, just in time to hear Paul saying: "Risch. I demand to know what is happening. Right now. What's this about people not telling us Till's cause of death?"
"Do I look like I know what's going on?" Richard hisses at him through the cigarette. "his body was found in the Alps, a call came through to me saying that they'd identified Till - and that the funeral would be a week or so later - that's all I know. Why would I have involved myself any further than that?"
"Bullshit," Olli out of everybody else snarls, and Paul nods, staying close to him. "he didn't die in the Alps, he died via asphyxiation! What the hell are you even talking about? All you said on the phone was 'they found Till's body, the funeral's in about a week' - and now you're telling me that I was wrong about all of this?"
A sudden, horrified silence falls over all of us.
"... Asphyxiation?" Flake says slowly, taking off his glasses, showing us his utterly terrified and confused expression. "but I thought... I... I was there when he..."
-----
Oh my God.

We've been striving for the same goal all along.
-----
I don't know what's real anymore.

I don't even know if this is real.
It's Richard who moves first, and it's not Flake he strikes. No, he catches Paul right in the nose with a right hook. "What have you done to Till, you son of a bitch?" he shouts as Paul goes down with a cry of pain; his nose is bleeding profusely. Richard used to wrestle and get in quite a fair number of fights when he was younger, and he's still got it in him.
"I could say the same for you," I tell him, quietly and dangerously, before Paul can get a word in. He glares at me for interfering, but it's nothing compared to the look Richard is giving me; terrified, furious, utterly insane. I don't get any hits in though, because before either of us can fully comprehend it, the little guy's gotten up and given Richard a proper uppercut on the chin, making his cigarette sail through the air and him to splutter in rage. He then runs forward and actually tackles the bastard to the ground, really letting him have at it with his fists. Wow. Didn't think Paul had it in him, I honestly didn't. Richard is so taken aback that he's just kind of rolling on the dirt, shouting and trying to get up and failing. I'd applaud Paul if I didn't want to kill him too for what he did - Olli steps forward to hold him back and I push in front of him, not wanting him to interfere. There's an awesome catfight going on here.
Whatever I expected from that, it was not Olli suddenly freaking out and punching me.
"Olli, what the fuck?" I shout as I try to shield myself from the blows. I'm stronger than him, but he's got the advantage of height and speed over everyone. "what the hell are you doing?"
"Oh, you know what I'm doing all right," he shouts back, grabbing me by the collar, his long thin fingers grasping me around my neck. "and you know what you did. Seeing as Paul's taking care of Richard - well, come on then! So what did you do? Drown him?"
I shake myself free of his grasp. "You," I whisper. "you. Paul. Both in it together. Choked him to death."
"Yes, genius," he snarls back, spitting out the words with venom. "we'd totally take the credit for it too if not for the fact that none of us know what's happened from then onwards!"
I don't know why I start laughing at this, but I do. Flake - who's hovering nervously around the sidelines - catches my eye. "I noticed you not eating at the table, Lorenz," I giggle even as Olli marches forwards menacingly. Oh look, Richard's managed to reverse positions with Paul and is now kicking the shit out of him. "is that something to do with Till too? Watched as you fed him a year's worth of food supply?"
"However did you guess?" he mumbles. Gag. Heads down, losing it. A well-aimed kick in my direction sends me stumbling, but I manage to twist my way around him using Flake as a human shield. Sorry about that, Flake. You fucking gimp. Flake is almost as fast as Olli and almost as tall, though, so he manages a little better than I do. Can't focus on them at the moment. Richard. I've gotten my confessions from them. I need to go murder Richard. Right fucking now. As if on cue, Paul goes flying backwards, crashing into Flake and his face now covered completely with blood. Richard turns to me and pulls a face like D:<. That's exactly what it looks like. D colon inequality bracket.
"Fuck you, Risch. I'm not taking it anymore," I shout as I punch the expression off his face. I think I hear something breaking. "not your bullshit. Not your fucking emoticons. Not you."
"Ahh, you fuck!" he screams as he jumps forward, clawing at my face; Jesus Christ, why are his nails always so long? I'm bleeding from those cuts on my face but I don't care anymore, all I want to do is to beat him within an inch of his life and maybe beyond that; already bloodied from his fight with Paul, he winces as I twist his wrists painfully and tries to headbutt me. Hah. No fucking chance. I'm the one with the most killing experience. Shove my knee into his stomach, watch him collapse onto the ground and retch as he writhes in agony. Kick him where it hurts most. I know that's playing dirty but I really can't care less at the moment. Blood sprays onto my face as I kneel down beside him and acquaint his face with my knuckles; his blood, Paul's blood, mingling into a thick salty taste in my mouth. Nothing like Till's blood, but nevertheless satisfying.
Flake is rushing around behind us, trying to break the fight up. "Stop it, stop it already!" he cries, even though I can see the bastard's eager to get his own hit in. Maybe I should let him unload on Richard? But then he says the one thing we all knew and didn't dare say until now and my heart stops.
"Don't you see that we've achieved the exact same thing we all wanted?"
Richard's arm, raised to try to shove me off his body, trembles and falls back down onto the ground. Paul (who's been wiping off the blood with his handkerchief) also stops and stares ahead in a thousand-yard stare, while Olli and I look at each other blankly.
What have we become?
Five friends, wanting to save our one mutual friend.
Five friends murdering that friend over and over to set him free.
Six hearts, burning as one.
We're friends who don't keep secrets from each other.

Except we have been. All of us.
"You motherfuckers," I shout, lashing out one final time. I end up pushing Flake in the chest, he cries out and falls backwards - oh shit, he's going to fall on top of Till, maybe I shouldn't have done that - and collapses right into the coffin, his slim weight being nevertheless too much for the wood to take, breaking the lid open and giving us a good view of absolutely fucking nothing.
I do a double take. The coffin's empty. There's nobody in it. Only a silken white lining.
Apparently this is just as much a surprise to everyone else as it is to me. Flake gapes at the sight, frantically brushing away bits of wood and checking that there is nothing else to see. Richard, Paul and Olli look just as shocked.
"He's gone," Olli gasps. "mein Gott, he's gone!"
"But..." Richard stammers, staring into the hole. "but... then why did they hold this funeral if there was no body?"
I don't answer, but I look ahead. Most of the funeral party has left during our fight without us noticing; I even see the priest getting into a truck with one of the knocked up blonde girls in tow.
They were all on it.

All of them.
I've had enough. I turn my back on the others and walk to my car to receive the final blow: my car door is unlocked and the folder has been stolen from the front seat. If I want to keep on living like this, I better move flats and think about what to do next. I should be pissed off but I don't even know what to feel anymore. I've had enough of this shit.
I drive off.
-----
The stinger to this story doesn't arrive until after I've found a new flat elsewhere and have moved most of my stuff out, actually. It's been only five days, but when you're wealthy you can do anything. No problem at all. I've just packed up the last of my belongings, cancelled the milk and newspaper and have taken care of a few little things when the letter slot lifts up. For a moment I tense, remembering Richard, but there's none of that pretentious psychological warfare this time. Just a little postcard. I frown at it, wondering if I should ignore it or pick it up - there is too much of my old life here that I want to leave behind and this postcard is just another uncomfortable reminder of it.
But curiosity gets the better of me and I pick it up. The first thing I notice is the bright blue sky and parasol. A man with an upper lip mustache stands there with a fishing rod and a huge goddamn tiger shark. This would be just simple, typical fishing-tourist fare if this man wasn't Herr Dietrich Fucking Lindemann himself. Living it up wherever he is.
I'm surprisingly quiet as I observe the postcard. I don't even have the energy to scream or exclaim a heartfelt 'what the fuck' anymore. I knew he was alive and walking the earth somewhere. Just didn't expect here. And so blatantly. There's something purple behind him and when I realize what it is, I bite my lip so hard that I start bleeding.
That's my folder.

That's my fucking folder. With all the thirty-nine deaths of Till documented in them.

And he's got it with him.
I turn the postcard over. A Hawaiian postmark with the final stinger of a message, in Till's elegant handwriting: Viele Grüße vom Arsch der Welt!
At this I just crumple up the postcard into a ball, stuff it into my pocket, throw what's left of my stuff together in a box and toss them into my car. I don't think I even lock my door. Then I'm driving, driving far out in the rough direction of my new flat but then taking a different turn towards the Autobahn, screaming my head off with laughter.
I get it now. His genius plan. He wanted this all along.
He wanted to escape. But he didn't want to escape his cycle of life and death. He wanted to escape us.
I had to go first. I killed him the most and I knew too much. I had to go first because I knew how to make him stay dead the longest. He let me think that I'd killed him for good, let me withdraw unto myself, and carried out the next steps of his plan.
Somewhere along the line, he went through three different deaths in succession after I'd withdrawn into seclusion. He let Flake kill him and abandon him in a warehouse by force-feeding; at least he wouldn't have been hungry afterwards, he always used to complain about a caving hunger after he came back from the dead. When he'd recovered from that, he let Paul and Olli asphyxiate him to death and again, abandon him. It doesn't necessarily have to be that order he went through his second and third deaths. All it matters is that I was first and Richard was last.
Richard was last because he was Till's best friend, closer to him than I ever would have been. He was also the first to catch on to what I was doing; can't say I was too careful, though, so I'm not surprised. Of course the diva bastard couldn't have that, could he? Just a mere drummer on the side doing the honors and helping Till Lindemann to freedom. No, Richard had to be the one. That's why Till chose him last, to give him the impression that Richard had killed him for real, so that he'd be left content and would suspect nothing. All those three deaths would have taken place within a matter of two days, maybe three, so that the funeral would conveniently take place 'in a week' and leave everybody completely oblivious as to what happened. I've got to hand it to Till, really. Dying might get boring but I imagine it must have been agonizing going through three within hours of each other, perhaps starving and sick with anticipation.
So what gave the game away? Richard did, of course, the fucker. Couldn't keep something like that to himself. He had to gloat about it to me, had to mention the lack of an open-casket funeral and ask the cause of death within earshot of everybody. And Till being Till he must have known something would go wrong and the ruse would be up with Richard in the equation; he knew and trusted Richard enough to know not to trust him. So he went and staged his own funeral instead, mostly to reassure Richard, before he made off to Hawaii for good. The coroner, the priest... everybody was on it. Perhaps even the two chicks with big breasts were in on it too. That's why they just told us to carry an empty coffin. He had enough money for this for sure. Richard, Paul, Flake and Olli can't ever say anything now to give away the game because they know how each of them killed Till. A mutual suicide bomb. They have no conclusive proof for me - not even Richard can provide one because nearly a month passed since my last murder and we were definitely alone then. I can't say anything now either because Till must have hired someone to steal my folder. He might have been there himself, and none of us would have ever noticed. It is now blackmail material - it will keep me at bay, far away from him, and ensure that I don't blab anything to the police or anything like that.
Nobody will believe me, I no longer have any proof. The others will also defend me against their will because if I come out, they all do. Till has brought us ever closer together and yet ever so far apart in one single stroke.
So why did he tell me? Why did he only send me this postcard? The answer comes almost immediately. He was giving me a taste of what I'd missed out on. That's why he admitted that he had died, for the first and only time, to me. That's why he cooked me soup and told me that he hadn't minded my affections. He was impressed with what I knew and he wanted to offer me the chance to join him. A chance that I foolishly threw away by setting him on fire. He was trying to get me to come with him and I blew it completely and utterly, and have been pining for it all this time.
Well, fuck.
Even as I drive away into the night I can't stop laughing. Then I pull over by the road and cry myself to sleep, sitting in the driver's seat, bested and alone.
I never sent Till to hell in the first place. I couldn't because we were already there, but in different ways.
Sartre was wrong.

Hell isn't quite 'other people'.

Hell is everyone you've ever fucked over.

Hell is what Till is.
I should have known.
-----
I almost feel like going over to Hawaii. Sun myself. Wear a loose Hawaiian shirt with sunglasses and a hat. Join Till in his blissful reverie and go fishing with him. Tell him how much I adore him and then jump us off a cliff together so that we both die this time. I almost feel like that's the answer, that the cycle will be resolved now that he's happy and in peace - that Till will be saved from his immortality and appreciate me for what I did. That whatever death he dies next time will doubtless be his final one. That he'd look me in the eyes and call me 'Doom' again, this time with a smile.
But somehow, I don't think that he would.
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The Eternal Phoenix