Chapter 4: The Funeral

 

 

Chapter Four

The Funeral

 

 

    

     Ritch's father stood there, smiling at his son. Ritch was feeling so many emotions and asking himself so many questions. He wanted to speak, but couldn't find the right words.

     "Hey, Ritchy," his dad spoke. "It's been a long time. Thought you'd never see me again, eh?" He chuckled, the chuckle Ritch had wished to hear everyday since his father's death.

     Ritch remembered the day he found out his dad had passed away. He was playing in a baseball game, looking at his mother to see if his dad was there sitting by her. She had the "don't worry about it" face of a loving mother. Ritch's dad had never missed one of his games before, however, even when Ritch never played at all. And they would always go out and eat after the game, something Ritch would never think he would miss.

     When the game was over, Ritch's mother received the phone call. His father had died in a car accident on his way to the game.

     But now he stood here, as if he were a gift from God. He was wearing his "business suit", as Ritch called it, which included a black jacket over a green polo shirt and khaki pants. The shirt was tucked in, as it always was when his dad came home from work, and he wore the belt that was slightly too big.

     "H-how are you here?" Ritch asked, too much in awe to get out of bed. His eyes were wide and he barely blinked as he stared into the eyes of his father.

     "You know the answer to that, Ritchy. You didn't take your meds, remember? I'm only a hallucination, a symptom for people with MPD. But don't worry about that. I'm here for you now, Ritchy," his dad said as he sat down at the foot of the bed.

     Ritch stared for a few more moments, until he finally said in a crackling voice, as if he were holding back tears and his throat was closing tightly,"I've missed you so much, Dad."

     "I know, son. I know. If I could hug you I would." He chuckled again. He reached out and stroked Ritch's cheek, but Ritch could feel nothing. "I also know that you have a new girlfriend. And your MPD is growing worse. I know what the doctor told you today. I know about Meko Smith, and how you feel guilty for his death. I know so many things about you, Ritchy."

     "You've been watching me?"

     "I'm sure the real me is, Ritchy. Somewhere up in Heaven, I'm watching you. But this me, this fake, hallucinated me, no. I have not watched you. I am created by your mind; therefore, I know everything in your mind. I know the things you have pushed from your memory. I know things that only your sub-conscious knows. Which means, I know things that you don't even know you know." He grinned and chuckled again.

     "I think I understand," Ritch said, a little dissapointed. "So everything you say is really me speaking for you? My dad is really not speaking through you at all."

     "Not necessarily, Ritchy. You are making me say things that you know I would have said if I were alive. So technically, your dad is speaking through you and into me. It's nice to know you have forgotten about me. Look! You even made me wear my uniform for work."

     Ritch smiled and replied, "Yeah. I guess it's because I saw you wear it so many times."

     The door to his room opened and Ritch's mother came in, her hair spiking out in several directions as if she had just woken up. "Ritch, why is your lamp on? Who were you talking to? Are you on your cell phone?" she said. Ritch could tell she was trying to sound angry, but she was too sleepy that she failed at it.

     Ritch looked at his dad, who turned and looked at Ritch and smiled, and Ritch said, "No, ma'am. Thought I heard something."

     She yawned and said, "Go to sleep, Ritch." He turned off his lamp and told her good night as she shut the door.

     "Still there?" Ritch asked, unable to see through the darkness of his room.

     He heard his dad reply, sounding as if he still sat at the foot of the bed: "I've been by your side everyday of your life, Ritchy."

 

 

. . .

 

 

     It was morning and Ritch got of his bed. He could smell the breakfast his mother was cooking from his room. He had not slept any that night, but instead he talked to his dad. They laughed, silently for Ritch, so he wouldn't wake his mother again, and talked for hours. They talked about old times, but Ritch never felt sad. He had his dad right before him, whether he was real or fake, so why be sad? It made Ritch realize that he should never have been sad about his father's death, for his dad never left him. He was always there, only Ritch could physically see him now.

     His dad followed him into the kitchen, where his mother had made nearly a dozen waffles.

     "Good morning," she said to him, dumping more waffles on to the pile.

     "Good morning," Ritch said.

     "Good morning," Ritch's dad said. He walked over to Ritch's mother and kissed her on the cheek, as he did every morning, but she didn't notice, of course.

     "I made waffles," she said.

     "I see that," Ritch and his dad said together.

     "Take two pills before you eat them, though. Like the doctor said." She slid a plate across the counter to Ritch, two waffles on it, and told him she had to take a bath because they were going to church.

     Ritch opened the cabinet which held all the medicene bottles from Advil to anti-depressant pills. He grabbed a bottle and dumped two of the pills into his palm. Before he took them, he stopped and looked up at his dad.

     "If I take these," he said, "then you'll be gone."

     "Yes," his dad said. Ritch could tell his dad wanted him to take the pills for Ritch's health, but since it was Ritch's mind that was hallucinating his dad, there was also a sense that his dad didn't want him to take the pills. He knew if his dad were alive, he would want him to take the pills.

     Ritch thought about this for a few seconds before he replied: "No. I'm not going to lose you again." He dropped the pills into the garbage can and put the bottle back in the cabinet.

 

. . .

 

 

     Ritch had asked to drive them to church, but his mother, as always, didn't let him. She was always worried that one of his aches or some other side-effect of his illness would interfere with his driving. And so he sat in the passenger's seat, watching the rain drops race across the window. His dad sat in the back seat, still grinning.

     "Ask her something about me," Ritch's dad said. Ritch turned his head and looked at him strangely.

     "See something?" Ritch's mother asked. Ritch turned back around and said, "No." He kept silently for a few more moments until he said: "Do you miss dad?"

     He thought to himself, "What kind of question was that? Of course she misses him!" She didn't answer for a few seconds, but she finally said, "I miss him everyday and every night. I miss the way he smiled," (Ritch's dad smiled at this and said, "Like this?") ,"and....I just miss him so much."

     She was silent for a little while, but then she asked in a tone that lightened up the depressing moment, "What made you think of that?"

     "I don't know. Just thinking. I miss him, too."

     "James was a good man," she told him, still talking about Ritch's dad. "He worked very hard at work and helped me very much around the house." Then she mumbled with a smile: "More than you ever have."

     Ritch smiled and said, "Yeah, well, I'm a teenager. I'm not supposed to help." She, too, smiled at this. She then kept silent for awhile, thinking about her husband. Ritch could tell she was thinking about him by the way her smile slowly faded away.

     From the back seat Ritch could hear his dad say, "Hmmm, ask her....ask her..." Ritch's mother pulled into the parking lot of their church. "Woah, the church hasn't changed a bit," said Ritch's father.

 

. . .

 

 

     Zach sat at his sewing machine, as he often did when he was lonely. And he was for sure lonely. Meko was his only friend, the only person he loved. And Meko was also the only person who loved him. But now Meko was gone.

     Zach's mother, who was always off working as a clerk at the local gas station or out at a bar, loved him enough to give him money to go and buy himself food at the grocery store. And this was the only one of his family members that he knew of.

     He had always planned that Meko would be part of his family one day. But that dream was shattered. The mirror of dreams, which he could look into and see all his dreams be worked out in the future, that he had worked his whole life crafting was shattered by a bullet from ruthless bullies. Bullies. The everyday murderers that no one punishes.

     He sat there, rain tapping against his window, in his room with the only light coming from a lamp on his desk. His mother was gone. Where at? He didn't know or cared. He enjoyed the peace of his room and the tapping of the rain on his roof and window. The click click click click sound of his sewing machine kept him relaxed.

     He shedded no tears as he sewed. He had run out of them.

 

 

. . .

 

 

     Inside the small, brick church, Ritch sat between his mother and his father. Since the church was rather small, being located in a small town, not so many people showed up. But why did that matter? It was a church. It didn't matter how many people were there, but why they were there.

     Occasionally, during the preacher's sermon, whose name was Edward Rennell, known to them as, of course, Brother Rennell, Ritch would look at his father, amazed that he was with him again. When his father noticed Ritch looking over at him, he would lean down and whisper into Ritch's ear, (even though no one would have been able to have heard him even if he had yelled it out), "Are you paying attention to the sermon?" Ritch would faintly nod and look back at the preacher.

     But Ritch couldn't help but wander off in his mind. His dead father was sitting right next to him, listening and nodding to every word the preacher said, so it was very easy to trail off in his mind. But one line from the Bible that Brother Rennell spoke, standing at his little wooden podium and wearing a long, black robe, caught Ritch's attention, snapping him out of his trance. Brother Rennell had said: "Every man is created equal."

     This brought to Ritch's mind Zach and Meko, and also himself. None of them had asked for their flaws. Zach and Meko did not want to be gay. Who does? Who wants to be different from everyone else? Who wants to be stared at everywhere they go? No one asks for these things. They only get it. They got it, along with many others across the world, but many more did not, however. They were not created equal. They were born sinners.

     And by thinking of this, Ritch wandered off again. He then began thinking of why God would allow such things to happen to people. He tried answering the question himself. He could only come up with two explinations. One was that God was testing how strong of a Christian they were by throwing bad things in their lives one after another. The other one, however, was that this question, as well as many other questions, were not meant to be answered.

     And from these thoughts, he began thinking of how many unanswered questions there were about God, but yet so many people believe in him. To believe in something that had so many unanswered questions amazed him. And suddenly he realized how much he was making himself sound like he didn't believe in God. "But I do believe in you, God. I do. I do," he thought to himself, looking upwards as if he were to see God up there. "But you gave us a brain for a reason, God. What would it be of use for if we did not use it to wonder about these questions? It is only human nature to ask these things, God. It does not mean we do not believe in you."

     And before Ritch knew it, Brother Rennell was letting everyone know about the funeral that would be held at their church later that day (Meko's funeral of course) and the sermon was over.

 

. . .

 

 

     The time between church and the funeral went by quickly, as weekends often do. During that time, Ritch was given several chores to do around their small house. They lived fairly far from the town, "out in the woods" as some would say. So there were extra chores for Ritch that the people in the city did not have to deal with. However, Ritch and his mother enjoyed the peaceful surrounding of their house.

     It continued to rain all the way home from church and through the hours they spent at their house until they left for the funeral. In fact, the rain increasingly got worse as the hours moved on.

     When Ritch wasn't doing chores, and he hadn't been given too many, he went to his room and chatted with his dad. He made sure he talked low enough to where his mother could not hear him. He had planned out, though, that if she did happen to hear him, he would have his cell phone up to his ear and tell her he was talking to his girlfriend, Megan. He never had to do this, however.

     Ritch blamed his dad for how fast the time flew by. He hadn't had so much fun talking to someone in a very long time. And not only that, but this was his dead father that he was talking to. But when it came time to go to the funeral, and Ritch didn't want to go, but he knew it was the right thing to do, and there was also no point in arguing with his mother, Ritch put on a white under-shirt and a black blaser over it. He then put on the pants that went along with the blaser and stepped into his black "church shoes", as he called them. His mother made him tuck in his shirt, however, and wear a belt to go along with it. She had managed to dig out one of his dad's old ties, but he pleaded to her to not make him wear it.

     "What? You don't like my tie?" his dad had said. "Me either. Your mom bought me it, though."

     And with that, Ritch and his mother, who wore a plain black dress with black high-heels, along with Ritch's dad, got in the car once again.

 

     The rain continued.

 

 

. . .

 

 

     Megan was there, waiting on Ritch to arrive. A few of Megan's friends were also there, by her side as always. Brother Rennel was, of course, there. He greeted everyone who entered and introduced himself to the ones he did not know.

     When Ritch had first entered, he was surprised at how many people from his school had showed up. Girls and boys of all ages, here for Meko's funeral. Many of the people there were only there to pay their respects and did not know Meko well. Ritch spotted nearly all his teachers there, too.

Ritch thought that if Meko could have seen how many people showed up at his funeral, he would not have killed himself. He would have realized, instead, just how loved he was. But, of course, no one really knows how much they're loved until they're dead.

     Ritch could not find Zach anywhere, however. He figured he was by Meko's body, but Ritch did not go check right then. Instead, he walked over to Megan, his dad following right behind him.

     Before he and Megan could even start a conversation, he glanced over at who was coming through the door. Selina Tess and her boyfriend, Terry Vac. Ritch wasn't the only one who noticed this. Megan and her friends, as well as other classmates, watched Selina hold Terry's hand as they walked through the door, as if she was having to drag him into the church. And she looked tired and frustrated, as if she had been through hell to try and get Terry to come to the funeral.

     Terry wore a camoflauge t-shirt and torn, muddy blue jeans. His baseball hat was tilted up a little too high, and it looked like his shoes had brought in some mud behind him. Selina, on the other hand, wore what most of the other girl there were wearing. A black dress, high-heels, and loads of make-up and jewelry.

     Selina half-heartedly smiled at Megan and Ritch as she drug Terry behind her, who seemed to be mumbling out complaints about having to come.

     "Hey, guys," she said, as if she were slightly out of breath. They all said "Hey" back.

     "Damn," Ritch thought. "I can't even get one peacefully minute with my girl."

     The girls began talking, and Terry found a few other guys to go and talk with. Ritch felt a bit weird standing with the girls, so he told them he was going in to see Meko.

　

. . .

 

     Zach, as Ritch had expected, was standing by the casket that contained Meko's body. Many others were in the room, but very few seemed at all sad. Instead, the majority of them talked and a few even laughed together. Surprisingly, they had an open-casket, but the cut on his neck had been covered up professionally. With Meko in the casket were several roses and pictures, and even a few letters from friends he never knew he had.

     "Well?" said Ritch's dad. "Go say something comforting to Zach."

     Ritch looked around to make sure no one was looking before he replied, "I don't know what to say."

     "Just say you're sorry for his loss. He will not think twice about what you say, he's probably heard it a thousand times today."

     Ritch stared at Zach for a moment and said, "Fine." He walked over to him. Ritch tried blocking out Meko's face as he walked over to Zach. He had not wanted to see the face of a dead boy. Zach noticed him coming over to him and looked up at him.

     "Hey," said Ritch.

     Zach took a moment before replying with: "Hey," in a voice close to a whisper.

     "I'm sorry for your loss," Ritch said, a bit uneasily.

     "No you're not. You would just feel guilt if you didn't say anything to me."

     Ritch was a little stunned by the reply, and his dad suggested him saying, "No. I really am sorry." But Ritch ignored the suggestion and instead said, "You don't have to believe me. But I am sorry."

     "Or you could say that," said Ritch's father. Ritch turned away from Zach, now seeming to have a bit of anger in his movements and in his voice. When he turned away from him, he caught a glimpse of Meko's face. He instantly noticed how pale his skin was. His eyes were a dark blue color, which could make you feel a chill running down your back if you stared at them long enough. But what Ritch noticed as the most dramatic change in Meko's appearance was how he finally looked at rest.

     Ritch's mother was trying to make her way to the casket, but was being stopped by several different people along the way. She was, after all, a well respected lady in their town. Ritch began to make his way out of the room.

     "That's all you have to say to him?" Ritch's dad said.

     "What else is there to say?" Ritch whispered.

     "What is there not to say?"

     "I don't care anyways. He was being an a-" Ritch stopped. His dad would have been furious with him if he had said the word that was about to slip out of his mouth. Even if his dad was being halluciated. And anyways, cursing at a funeral wasn't something Ritch intended to do. But Ritch seemed to not be in his body at the moment. Someone else, someone meaner than Ritch's normal self, had taken over his body. He had changed personalities again.

     "He was being a what?" his dad asked, knowing what word had almost slipped from Ritch's mouth. Ritch ignored this, and headed over to Megan. She had ways of making him turn back to his normal self.

     "Hey," Megan said to him. "Did you see Meko?"

     "Duh. That's what I went in there for." Megan seemed a little stunned by the answer. Ritch realized what he had said and told her: "I'm sorry. I'm..I'm not myself."

     "Oh, okay," she said. "Well, I'm about to go in there. Did you see Zach?"

     "Yeah. He's being a b***h though." Ritch knew what he had said, but he had not cared. A man nearby, seemingly in his late sixties or early seventies, seemed to have heard Ritch, but he said nothing and just walked away.

     "Ritch," Megan said. Selina was there, too, with a curious expression.

     "What? I'm just warning you."

     "He just lost his boyfriend." Ritch laughed at this.

     "Are you okay?" Selina asked.

     "Yeah, why? Do I look sick? I knew this tan wasn't good enough," Ritch said with a grin.

     "Ritch," said Megan, "Stop it. You're embarrassing me and yourself. I know it's not really you saying this stuff, but-"

     "Oh, it is. It is really me," Ritch said. Ritch glanced over at his dad, who was standing there, arms crossed. He wondered why his dad did not protest at what Ritch was saying.

     "I'm not going to stop you, Ritch. I'm going to see how severe your illness has become," his dad said. "I want to see just how sick my boy is. I want to meet all your selves." Ritch found this strange, yet a bit humorous. He smiled again.

     "Come on," Megan said to Selina. "It's best for us to just leave him alone when he's this way."

     Ritch watched them walk away. He turned back to his dad, who still stood in the exact same position.

     "You do seem very sick," his dad said. "Sicker than I expected. Maybe you should take your medicene. I wish I could get on to you and punish you for what you have said. But what's the point? I don't get on to kids who aren't my own. And you are not my child. I don't know who you are."

     Ritch's grin slowly faded. His dad was right. Ritch didn't even know who he was at the moment. He regretted what he had said now. But he couldn't take the words back, even though he didn't mean any of them.

 

 

          . . .

 

     They stood there, a roof of black umbrellas over their heads, as they buried Meko. The rain poured down on them throughout the entire event. Ritch had not expected time to fly by so quickly. Just over an hour ago Meko was inside the funeral home, and now he was being put 'six feet under.'

     Brother Rennell spoke words from the Bible and words from his heart. Ritch had spotted Zach, and thought of apologizing to him, but he knew now wasn't the time. Beside Zach stood his mother, who seemed completely unemotional.

     Suddenly, just as the pastor was speaking from deep within his heart, the words almost coming out as a song, a loud scream came from behind Ritch. Everyone turned around and Brother Rennell stopped speaking.

     "I object, you're honor!" said a man fighting his way through the crowd. Behind the man came Terry Vac, and Ritch instantly saw the resemblance in their faces. The man was Terry's father.

     What Terry's father had said would had been funny in any other situation, but right now no one laughed. Terry and his father stood before everyone and Terry's father began speaking in a loud, furious voice:

     "This boy, as you all should very well know, but apparently do not know, is gay! Why is he being buried here in this church's graveyard? Why is he being buried with all these other Christians? No gay man should be buried with us Christians! Do you not see that? Do you not see how furious God must be with all of you? This boy will spoil the soil!"

     Ritch's head grew hot, and he could almost feel his face become red. But he did nothing to stop the man, just like he did nothing to help Meko. Ritch saw Zach at the other end of the crowd stare at the man. He showed no sign of anger, however, which worried Ritch.

     "How is he staying so calm?" Ritch thought to himself.

     Terry's father rambled on and on, with Terry nodding to every thing his dad said. It didn't take long, however, for a group of men to escort, being a bit violent with them, Terry and his father away from the crowd.

     Everyone remained silent for a few moments, until Brother Rennell started where he had left off, as if nothing had interrupted him. The burial continued on, but the mood of the crowd had changed from sorrow to anger. Ritch could see it in nearly everyone's faces, his mother included, except for Brother Rennell and Zach.

 

     The rain continued.

 

    

                 . . .

 

     Everyone had left except for Zach, his mother, and Brother Rennell, who was waving farewell to the last people who were leaving. Zach was at Meko's grave, kneeling in front of the tomb stone, his knees in the wet grass. The rain poured down on his head, mixing in with his tears so where you could not tell whether it was rain or tears streaming down his face. His mother waited in the car, smoking a cigarette.

     Zach then began to weep furiously at Meko's grave. He rested his head on the tomb stone, mumbling to Meko's lost soul.

     ".....I promise, Meko. I promise you that," he had said.

 

. . .

 

     Zach sat in the passenger seat of the car as his mother drove them home. He was silent, and so was she. They were use to not talking to one another, and neither one wanted to talk to the other.

     His mother made a turn on to the Terrence Bridge, which crossed over a large stream. Except, since it had been raining so much for so long, the stream had doubled in size, and the water was rushing downhill.

     When she got to the end of the bridge, the rain splashing against the wind-shield, the wind-shield wipers on high, and stopped to look both ways at the road, Zach opened the door to the car and got out.

     "What the hell?" his mother said. She, too, stepped out of the car. Zach had already made it several feet away from the car when she yelled out at him, "Zach! What the hell are you doing? Get in the car!"

     He walked to the side of the bridge and looked at the stream below. He stared at the stream as if measuring how far it was from the bridge.

     "Zach," his mother said, more calmly with still with a bit of impatience.

     He began leaning over the side of the bridge.

     "Zach! Zach!"

     He fell over the side.

     "Zach! D****t!" She ran to the side of the bridge and looked below at the rushing water. She called out his name over and over, but she got no reply and could not find him.

 

. . .

 

 

     Ritch had not taken his meds that night. He planned on never taking them again. He knew this thought was irrational, but he didn't care. His dad was there by him, as lied in bed, and nothing else mattered.

     "I'm sorry, Dad. About the things I said."

     "I'm not the one to apologize to."

     "I couldn't apologize to Zach while Meko was being buried. It wasn't the right time."

     "True. But you must do it soon, and I will forgive you, too." Ritch's father smiled. "You've always been a good boy, Ritch. The boy at the funeral home, that wasn't you. Don't worry, my son. I forgive you." He leaned down and kissed Ritch on the forehead. Ritch closed his eyes, trying to feel his dad's lips on his head. He felt nothing.

     When he opened his eyes, his dad was gone. He glanced around his room in search for him.

     "Dad?" Ritch whispered. No reply.

     Ritch's mother came into his room and said, "Okay, lights out. Good night."

     "Good night," Ritch said. She closed the door behind her as Ritch reluctantly turned off his lamp. He lied beneath the cold covers in his bed, hoping his dad would say something.

     He heard a noise.

     "Dad? Is that you?" he said. The noise grew louder, and he soon realized that this noise was completely different from the nosie he had heard when he first hallucinated his dad. It sounded like the noise a man makes when he is being strangled. Guurrgh....guurrghlllp...guurh...

     Ritch turned on his lamp, and standing by his bed was Meko. His eyes were rolled back in his head, showing nothing but whiteness, and blood poured from his neck and mouth.

     Ritch tried to scream, but he couldn't. It wouldn't come out. Meko stood there, making the gurgling sound as blood poured from his mouth and splashed against the floor.

     "This....this is your fault," Meko said, the waterfall of blood pouring from his mouth made the words come out in a harsh, shaking voice.

     Finally, Ritch was able to scream. And so he did. He threw the covers off of him and leaped off the other end of his bed, falling to the floor. But when he looked back up, Meko was standing right before him again. Ritch backed up against the wall, still on the floor. He screamed for his mother as Meko pulled a knife from his pocket and began slicing his own throat apart. The blood splattered against the ceiling, the walls, the pictures, his bed, and everywhere else in his room.

     Ritch's mother came rushing into his room, almost knocking the door off its hinges. The door slammed against the wall as she ran over to Ritch.

     "What is it? What's wrong?" she screamed to him, kneeling down beside him.

     "Get him..get him away!" Ritch yelled, still staring at Meko.

     "What? Who? Ritch!"

     "My medicene! G-get it! Give it to me! Please!"

     "No! You can't take anymore!" his mother told him.

     "I-I never did!" Ritch began crying. "Please, mom! Please go get it."

     He thought she had left to get his meds when she ran out of the room, but instead she went to call Dr. Montgomery. Ritch stopped crying and screaming when his surroundings became a blur and began fading away. His eyes closed, and he could feel his cheek smack against the cold, icy floor.

    

 

 

 

    

 

Reviews

[~Lizzy♬]

I really loved this chapter. It brought out the suspenseful side of your writings, and your creativeness too. I really thought it wasn't over as I read the last sentence, but it was. LOL! I loved how the words flowed together to make the masterpiece of a chapter. I'm glad you're work is improving and getting amazing! :) Great cliffhanger too.

~Lizzard~

[Coyote Poetry]

The chapter was amazing. The conversation with the father and the funeral. You are weaving a fantastic story. No weakness in this chapter. A outstanding chapter.
Coyote

[0_o Abbie]

WOW! That was wonderful! Really great. You're wonderful at crafting a plot. That unfortunately is one of my pit falls, I always want everything to work out, but you can't write a plot that way. Really good! I love it!

[halflives]

This. Was. Amazing.
I agree with Lizzard as well. Though I feel bad for Zach.
I don't think even words can sum up as to how good of a writer you are.

[Dreamer<3]

I agree with everything Liz said. This is amazing!

[Liz]

You have an amazing talent Blake. I love reading this book. I'm always wanting more and more when I finish a chapter.
This chapter was so powerful, your words were perfect and in all the right places.
The end left me hanging and craving more to read.
Awesome Job!!(:

[Short.Nerd]

Very good chapter!

[Miss Sally Sunshine]

Intense. Poor Ritch, he's going insane. This is really good, intense, and powerful. It was a good chapter, no complaints, or critizism from me :) Great chapter!!!! :)