THREE LYRA JERICHO WAS DEAD
( this chapter may contain some triggering
content for those who struggle
with suicide/suicidal thoughts )

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     There was never singing on Lyra's birthday. It was never a celebration in her household, not until they could be sure. It was six in the morning on her sixteenth birthday and she was alone in the dark, the only sound being her blaring alarm and her heavy breathing. She didn't want to check, but she knew she was going to have to.

A knock sounded at the door and the girl jumped, slamming her hand down as she reached for her phone to finally shut off her alarm. This happened every morning on her birthday. A knock at the door from a desperate father who knew neither of them had slept a wink. It was weird to be terrified of your own birthday. Most people were scared of getting older, but Lyra didn't mind that part. Getting older was all she could hope for, but every year she had to find out if she still had that choice.

Her father entered the room without waiting for her to respond. His face was almost pale despite his dark complexion as neither of them spoke. Lyra had always been close with her father, they didn't have much of a choice since it was only them and her grandmother. The only woman in their family that was still alive that hadn't been affected by the curse, but Lyra wondered if even that was considered lucky. Lyra couldn't imagine raising a daughter only for her to succumb to the curse and take her own life.

"Moment of truth?" the man finally spoke, the silence had been too tense for both of them to handle.

Lyra looked at her forearm covered by the sweatshirt she had gone to bed in. It was hot as hell, but she always slept in a long-sleeve so she could avoid seeing any marking by accident. Maybe it was stupid, but it always made her feel better. Especially since the sweatshirt in question had been her mothers -- one she bought when she was in college and passed down to her when Lyra was maybe five or six. It was still a little big on her considering her mother had always been tall, but if Lyra concentrated hard enough it still smelled like her so she kept wearing it.

With a shaky hand, she gripped the sleeve of her right arm in her hand. She knew she would have to pull it up eventually, that this wasn't something she could find a way to ignore, but for just a blissful moment she wanted her arm to stay covered. However, judging by the look in her father's arms, she knew it couldn't stay that way forever. With a deep, shaky breath, she lifted her sleeve.

A scar in the shape of a star shined white where it had not the day before. It rose from the skin with a brutal freshness, Lyra was surprised it wasn't still bleeding from the universal forces that had just supremely fucked her. She wanted to scream, to cry, to weep, but she couldn't move. She opened her throat to say something, but nothing came out. Her father, on the other hand, threw his face into his hands as he left the room without another word. Alone in the dark, Lyra finally let herself cry. Her life was over. Lyra Jericho was dead.

She wasn't sure how long she stayed in that position with tears falling down her eyes. Screams clawed at her throat, vocal cords bleeding with the yearning to be used, but she couldn't. She was aware of her phone going off with texts and calls from her friends wondering where she was, but she couldn't bring herself to move. Looking out the window, she wondered if night had fallen for it the sun hadn't even risen yet. For the first time that day, she brought herself to move. With her mother's sweatshirt still on, she let the sleeves fall past her hands as she shoved dirty old Converse onto her feet and left her room.

Her father was nowhere to be found, so she grabbed the notepad they kept by the door and scribbled a note. He deserved a note, at least. He deserved a note more than he deserved what would happen if she let the curse do its job. She ended the note with an apology, it was the least she could do. Exiting the apartment, she didn't grab her key like she always did. It wasn't like she would need it.

The door to the roof of their apartment building was meant to be locked, but the door had been busted since before Lyra could remember. It was also supposed to lock automatically every time it closed, but it couldn't even close all the way. It was slightly comforting to know that if she couldn't go through with this, she had a way back down. Lyra had a sickening feeling she was going to do what she had to, though.

Lyra had never been suicidal in her life. She didn't have a lot, but she always made the most of what she did have. Mental illness never ran in their family, never plagued them the way it did others. In fact, besides the blood curse, she was fairly lucky when it came to genetics. No history of alcoholism, mental illness, nothing of the sort. Such a perfect bloodline. Now Lyra was going to be the one to end it. It wasn't like she was going to survive long enough to bear children or have a family anyway. The longest anyone had ever truly survived the curse was from one birthday to the next. One year was all she had. If she was lucky. Not to mention she had to survive that year while fighting off the urge to kill her family and everyone else she loved. It wasn't worth it. She couldn't put the people who cared about her at risk like that.

So, she climbed up on the ledge with a shaky breath. Lyra would pretend she was shivering because of the cold wind whipping around her, but really she was chilled from the inside out with the thought of what would happen next. She wondered what it would feel like. If it would be painful. Would she die from shock before she hit the ground? Lyra wondered what would happen if she didn't die right away. If people tried to save her. She hoped she would go quickly.

She couldn't spend all night up here before someone caught on. Before her father found the note and tried to stop her. He hadn't been able to stop her mother before she swallowed the barrel of a rifle and she knew the guilt riddled him every day of his life. She just hoped he would move on past this one day. Maybe he could start anew. Find a woman with no curse and have a healthy baby girl who didn't have to worry about if every birthday was going to be her last. The more she thought, the less she wanted to do this.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she let one foot lift and hang over the edge. With a deep breath, she stepped off.

As soon as she was free-falling, she was scared again. The wind whipped in her ears, but even over that, she could hear her own blood pumping frantically in her ears as her heart beat a mile a minute. Then, everything stopped. Had she hit the ground and died? No, this was different. Something -- someone caught her. An arm had wrapped around her and next thing she knew she was tumbling back onto a rooftop with someone else. Opening her eyes, she saw someone adorned in a suit of red and blue.

"Why the fuck would you save me?" she yelled before she asked any other questions. "I needed to do that!"

"You didn't need to do anything!" a voice -- a boy's voice. Very clearly not a man's, it was gentle and... scared. The masked vigilante was a teenager, it was clear by the breaks in his voice.

"You don't understand!" she screamed back, using the sleeves of her sweatshirt to wipe her streaming tears. "It's not like I wanted to die."

"Then why the hell are you jumping off of a building?"

"Why do you even care? Go stop a bank robbery or something that actually matters," Lyra sobbed as she wanted nothing more than try again and just get it over with. This had already gone on longer than she wanted it to. After a moment of heavy breathing at the sounds of the city, the masked vigilante reached for the back of his neck and pulled off his mask.

Lyra Jericho and Peter Parker now stood on a rooftop. It sounded like the introduction to a bad joke.

"Peter," Lyra's voice was tense and strained, "What the absolute fuck are you doing?"

"I just stopped you from jumping off of a building," the boy explained, his chest moving up and down steadily as they regained their breath. "I know we're not like... super good friends or anything, but I couldn't let you do that."

Lyra shook her head frantically, gnawing at the inside of her cheek before speaking, "No, you don't get it. I'm just going to die anyway and this way, no one gets hurt."

"What are you talking about?" the boy asked with a confusion riddled-voice as he reached and grabbed onto her wrist to get her to look at him. With his hand still on her wrist, she used her other hand to lift the sleeve and reveal the scar that seemed even brighter under the moonlight. "What is that?"

"I'm cursed, Peter! I'm going to either kill everyone I love or die, so I chose the latter."

"Why can't you just break the curse?"

"Break the curse, he says, assuming generations for the last two hundred years haven't tried the same fucking thing," she spoke passive-aggressively, ripping her wrist out of his grip and pulling her sleeve back down. "The only way to break this shit is to end the bloodline here."

He shook his head, "No, no, there has to be a way without you having to die. I-I don't want you to die."

"Yeah, join the club, I don't want me to either!" she exclaimed, scoffing. "You don't get it, Peter. You never will. I have been royally fucked ever since I was born. This curse took my mom and now, it's going to take me, too. No one else has to die, just me."

"I won't accept that," Peter kept going, his eyes meeting hers in the darkness.

"You don't even know me. Why do you care if I die?"

"I don't have to know everything about you to know that I want you alive," Peter spoke with such a conviction she would have thought they had known each other for years. This Peter was nothing like the boy she sat next to in class. That boy was meek, quiet, and forgiving. This boy was someone completely different. "We're going to find a way to break this if it kills me."

She knew that hope was useless. All hope ever did was open the door for pain, but here she was looking into Peter's eyes and feeling hopeful for the first time all day. Lyra was already walking on thin ice and at any moment it would break and she would drown, but right now she was in control of how many people would drown with her. If she walked away right now, it would be just her. If she stayed? Who knew.

"Okay. Let's find a way to break it."

it's been a month since I updated this but only like three people read it so to you three, sorry!