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It was clear out for once, Berwyn mused as he lay, bleeding out, in the middle of the Plagueround.
The stars shimmered like rubies against the even darker red sky, the occasional bolt of lightning cutting across the visible constellations. If he tilted his head (it hurt it hurt it hurt - ) he could just make out Leo peeking out through a gap in the mist.
A shock of pain went through him and he bit back a howl. White hot liquid fire licked at his spine, spilled into his chest and left him breathless. Warm blood, quickly cooling in the cold, stuck to him where the mist didn't.
He was dying. Berwyn knew that. He could feel it in the way his heart stuttered and blood continued to pool underneath him despite Elliot's make-shift bandage, could see it in the way his eyes, always sharper than the others but never as sharp as Elliot's, struggled to focus on the flowers Rowan had embroidered onto his blazer's lapels.
Berwyn had always had the vague feeling that he would be the first of the boys to die. The stars had whispered it to him on quiet nights, bad nights, when the others were sleeping but he couldn't, the bear (the fear, bright and howling) too close to the surface for comfort.
(He'd hurt his father, once. He wouldn't do the same to his brothers if he could help it.)
On those nights he'd sit in the sill of his window, the door locked because you could never be too careful - and watch the stars twinkle, searching for the familiar constellations.
His grandma had always said that the stars knew everything. They have our fates written in their pictures, she'd said, you just need to look and listen hard enough.
The stars hadn't lied about his mother ("I'll be back, little bear, I promise - ")
The stars hadn't lied about him being cursed (So much hair, so much noise, so much light why won't it stop, make it stop - )
The stars hadn't lied about today being dangerous (claws and teeth and so many eyes - Edward hurt, Milo scared, Elliot overwhelmed - protect protect must protect - Pain pain, it hurt so much WHY?)
Berwyn tried to take a deep breath, his lungs hitching as he slowly drowned in his own blood, and took one last look at the stars.
Please let them be safe, he pleaded. Please let them have made it to Sarge. To safety.
Distantly, he could hear people yelling, their voices muffled by the mist.
He never got that mac and cheese recipe out of Dennis -
He never knitted those mittens for Peter -
He never got to teach Neil how to carve -
It was written in the stars that Berwyn would die and you cannot rewrite what had already been written.
"I'm sorry, my friends," Berwyn whispered and closed his eyes.
In the sky, Ursa Minor disappeared behind a blanket of mist.