With less than 35 days left before the end of the world, there I was, bent over on stage waiting to get spanked with my ass cheeks clenched so hard in anticipation that I made getting into Fort Knox look like child's play. 

"Hold on tight, little man. Daddy's gonna show you a good time." 

Every time Gary, or whoever the hell his name is, talks, I can feel his hot breath drift across my neck, and his oily lips quiver and splatter little droplets of spit against my cheek.

My eyes slowly close as I try to visualize myself somewhere other than here, but every time I attempt to escape the harsh reality of getting my chocolate star annihilated by a giant guy who looks like a thumb with eyes, the crowd screams and the disco lights bouncing off the walls pull me back with savage clarity. The chair that I straddle backward seems to vibrate from the force of the music pumping from the speakers, and sweat collects under my pits in pools. 

 This was not how I had imagined my hunt for Ender going, and frankly, I was ready to throw in the towel. Nobody was worth that kind of goddamn effort, especially not a guy who worked at McDonald's and had particularly nice fucking hair and a decent personality that made me kind of giggly when I thought about him.

"Ka-rack!"

The first crack of a leather riding crop on my left asscheek jerks me out of my stupor, and I think I shriek in surprise, but it's swallowed up by the crowd of gays as they cheer at my resulting pain.

"Oh, yeah!" Gary spits thickly from behind me, his eyes hooded, when I turn around to stare at him in shock and horror. "That's a tight little ass you got there! Crowd's gonna hear those cheeks clap tonight! What's your name, my guy? You're cute as fuck."

"H-Hector Navarro," I sputter nervously, kind of concerned for my asshole's well-being now. "I'm not actually here to get my ass pounded. I came here looking for the guy I went on a date with last night after he ghosted when I woke up this morning and found him gone."

"Oh, shit," Garfield replies in a deep growl, and the leather glove on his hands smacks loudly when he pulls it on and wiggles his sausage fingers into the holes. "Been there before. One-night stands are always fun until you wake up the next morning and have to face reality. Sorry you had to deal with that, little man."

I nod a little and peer across at the crowd, hoping to see a familiar face among the glittery, smiling expressions as people jump around and dance to Christina Aguilera belting out Genie in a Bottle. "Just try to go easy on me, okay?" I finally tell Gary, "I'm not that great with handling pain, but I'm cool with a couple of smacks from that crop again. Heh, it actually feels kind of good, if I'm going to be honest."

Gary pauses as he moves to pull on his other glove, his meaty face twisting in confusion. "Uh--" He says, "Your little friend told you that this is an exhibitionist club when you got here, didn't he? We have live shows every night, with consent, of course. I'll go easy on you, though, I promise."

Oh.

My. Fucking. God. 

I immediately flip over in the chair and hold on for dear life, my eyes darting around in panic as I realize just what I'd gotten myself into. It felt like a bad dream that I was trapped in, and the only face I could focus on was that of Jace the soldier, who was watching me from below with his beefy arms crossed and a somewhat disgusted expression on his face. While beside him, Felix beamed cheerfully at me and waved a sparkly hand in my direction, his head cocking to one side. 

"You want extra lube, Hector?" Daryl asks me roughly, his big hand falling on my shoulder.

I slowly look up at him, dazed, and then hear a commotion coming from the far end of the stage that draws my attention to the far right, where two security guards appear in the wings, terrified. 

"Holy shit!"

"What the fuck is it!? We gotta get out of here, man! They don't pay us enough to deal with this shit!" One of them screams, his back turned to us, as this massive black shadow begins to form over him and his buddy, tendrils of darkness collecting seemingly out of nowhere to form a torso and long, clawed fingers that resembled dead tree branches. 

A chill runs down my spine, and I jolt out of my seat, almost toppling over the wooden chair in my haste to get away as fast as I can. The last time I had seen one of these things was in my apartment, when it tried to eat my face when it came through my window. Felix had called it something. A creature that could pass through the curtain of death.

Wraith.

"Die, motherfucker!"

The security guards simultaneously draw their weapons and open fire on the monster's rotting torso as it lets out a bone-chilling scream. At this point, the crowd was going wild, thinking it was part of the performance—that is, until it grabbed one of the guards with its bony fingers and hoisted his three-hundred-pound self into the air like he weighed nothing. 

Everyone looks on in horror as shit literally hits the fan, and this thing proceeds to squeeze the life out of the guard right in front of every single Bussy's fan who had come here hoping to see a desperately starving artist get his bunghole pounded into a pulp. 

With a piercing scream, the guard grabs onto the Wraith's clawed hand and thrashes wildly, kicking his legs back and forth, his eyes bulging, nearly popping out of their sockets, until they actually do pop out of their sockets with an explosion of blood and gore. And, while still screaming, his face begins to rot right in front of us, withering away to green and then black before it begins to peel off in layers. 

As soon as he becomes motionless from shock, the Wraith launches his body, knocking the other guard backward and into the crowd.

Screams erupt around the club, and queers start running for their lives. 

"Hold on, Hector!" Felix screams as he's almost sucked into the mob as they rush away from the stage, "I'm going to try to kill it! Try luring it out onto the stage so I can get a good shot at it!"

"Are you goddamn crazy!?" I shriek at him from where I stand, the wooden chair clutched in my hands as I use it as a makeshift shield. "Felix! I'm going to fucking kill you if we survive this!"

"Trust me!" Felix shouts back, and he raises a hand towards the stage. "I'm an expert!"

"Oh, right!" I shout back sarcastically, "You're asking me to trust the guy who literally kills people in his spare time like some kind of psycho-fucking pink Barbie! You are the bane of my existence, Felix! I hope a dirty-ass camel runs over your bubblegum little ass!"

"Aw! I love you, too!" Felix shouts back happily, "Now, hold still while I use you as bait!"

"Bait?" I reply, and then turn when a wave of hot, putrid breath rolls over me. 

I slowly turn around and come face-to-face with the Wraith, its rotting skull hovering menacingly in front of me as it reaches for my tender throat. There's a moment where I'm just frozen, not able to scream, not able to even twitch a finger. Because this thing was just about as close to death as someone could get, and I was looking right into its eyes.

"I have to die, every thirty-five days, to save the world."

"I hope death is like falling asleep in the next room while a party's going on in the other one."

I see Ender Calloway again, lying beside me, his baby-blue eyes fixed on the ceiling, seemingly dead to the world after I smothered him. A part of me anticipated joining him in the afterlife and hoped that maybe things would be different for us there, where labels didn't exist.

I slowly raise my hand towards the skull face hovering in front of me.

The wraith lets out a piercing shriek, and all at once, a blast of blinding pink energy shoots past my face that feels like it's a million degrees. I feel it singing the little hairs on my face and around my forehead, and then it's burning the skin off my hand, and I'm screaming and screaming.

"Hector!" Felix yells, "Hector! Get down!"

I fall to my knees and roll around on the wood floor, clutching my burning hand as the skin proceeds to melt off like brown pudding. And much to my horror, I see several bony white digits as I raise my fingers toward my face.

Oh, no.