Chapter 1

Chris, Lance, JC, and Joey all walked down the hall to the signing, not even a little bit concerned with Justin’s being late again. He would show up sooner or later to steal the spotlight after all. As the four young men walked out into the brightly lit music store a wave of screams flowed to their ears, causing them to once again remember why they loved their jobs so much and stuck with them. Before the men of *NSYNC could sit down though, Justin ran past them almost knocking his friends down to the ground, and the screaming increased to a roar as the interviewers pushed past his tired group mates to talk to the almighty Justin. With a sneer they all sat down forgetting their previous glee, and took out trusty pens to sign away their souls ala jewel cases.

“Justin! How does it feel to be the most popular celebrity of pop culture today?” An eager interviewer shouted out questions at the young man. He simply grinned that grin that pissed the other guys off so much, but made all of the girls in the room scream even louder.

“Most popular my ass…” JC muttered to himself under his breath. Nobody could hear him, which greatly relieved JC when he realized that what he had said hadn’t been in the privacy of his own mind.

“Justin! Is it true that you are with Ms. Britney Spears?” Like they hadn’t heard that tired question a million times before…

“We are just friends. Really good friends, since we have known each other for so long, but just friends.”

“That’s not what it sounded like last week from the other room…” Joey took his turn at letting out a little Justin steam, without letting the press and fans know about his so-called friend’s late night hobbies. Chris stood and spoke up, before he exploded from the stress of sitting right next to Justin himself.

“I’m sorry everybody, but that’s all of the time that we have for today.”

“Thank God…” Lance mumbled to himself as he stood to leave the crowded table.

“Oh come on, Chris can’t we answer just a few more questions?” Justin fake pleaded knowing very well that they couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, J, but we really can’t stay.” With that the entire audience let out a sigh, and all of the teeny-bopper girls gave Chris evil looks as they watched Justin back out of the room. The rest of the guys followed suit and backed out of the room nearly knocking Justin down as they entered the back room. Justin sat down and looked at his friends around him, thinking about how good he had it. He had money, fame, family, a wonderful woman, loving friends, and most of all his health. He looked around at his friends letting his eyes fall on each guy to explore the inner depths of their eyes. He hadn’t done that in so long, and it surprised him when he saw a glint of something in one of the sets across the room from him. He shook it out of his mind, though, and went on to the next pair without hesitation.

That night Justin turned off the lights in his hotel room, and closed his eyes to fall asleep, but then was interrupted by a noise. He opened his eyes for the last time to watch a dark figure walk across the room and stop in front of him.

“Have trouble sleeping, bud?” Justin tried to get his friend to speak, as he remembered the glint he had seen in his eyes earlier that day.

“Oh, I’m fine.” Justin was about to reply when a latex covered hand gripped his jaw open, and shoved a cold metal microphone into his mouth. He gagged and sputtered as he felt the bulky microphone being jammed down his throat, and the long cord being wrapped tightly around his neck. He then saw a glint of light reflected off of his own platinum necklace, as it was ripped from his neck and brought to his cheek.

“How are the girls gonna like you now, when your face is all cut up, huh?!” Justin tried to cry out in pain as the sharp edge of his beloved pendant cut deep along his jaw line, and drew out x’s over his forehead. He ached to breath and scream, but the microphone lodged in his throat prevented either from happening. He finally felt the bile billowing around the microphone as the cold metal of his pendant jabbed around the corner of his eye, and he could feel his friend’s intention to literally pull his eyeballs from their sockets. And then, right before his right eye was yanked viciously from his head, Justin heard his last words.

“I’m sorry, bud. I really am, but it was gonna happen sooner or later, and we all knew that it was gonna be me.” With that Justin lost consciousness, and his heart did not beat while his eyes were pried from their sockets, and left to lie on his face. A little bit of light escaped from the hall as his murder’s hand turned the doorknob to leave the site of Justin’s demise. Before anyone walked by the young man dropped the famous JRT pendant into a plastic bag that he shoved the bloody gloves into and jammed into his pocket. And, that was the end of the one that the world liked to call Justin Timberlake.

The next morning Joey woke up to the sounds of screaming from down the hall, and ran out of his room to see what had happened. He gasped when he saw a crowd of police officers and paramedics surrounding Justin’s door, and he made his way down the hall to see what had happened to his friend. Nobody seemed to be letting the worried young man through, so he began screaming out questions into the room.

“What’s wrong?! What happened to him?!” Joey waited for an answer and was relieved when a paramedic pushed through the crowd to speak with him. He was pulled further down the hall and away from the crowd, until the doctor felt that they were far enough to engage in whispering.

“You’re Joey, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to tell you this, but your friend, Justin…he’s…well…dead.” Joey began panicking, and asked again thinking that he had misheard the man.

“Excuse me, but did you say dead?” The paramedic gave Joey a dreaded nod of his head, and watched as the young man in front of crumbled before his eyes. He then lifted the man from under the arms and attempted to bring him to his three friends who had done about the same thing not too much earlier that morning.

“I’m so sorry. I’m taking you to your friends, okay?” He looked at Joey’s face for an answer and continued walking, as he saw no comprehension of the statement. He sat the man down next to other three men who were all grieving in their own ways. JC had his head cradled in his hands as his body shook from the tears being expelled into his hands, and Chris had his arms pulled around the crying man, crying himself into his friend’s wet shirt. Lance sat beside the mourning pair with his forlorn eyes staring out the window, oblivious to anything happening around him. Joey sat down beside Lance simply pushing him further over without being noticed at all.

“Can we see him?” Joey asked with tears in his eyes and voice. The paramedic hesitated and then shook his head sadly.

“You don’t want to. It’s pretty gruesome in there. Whoever did that was a real psycho.”

“Please?”

“You really don’t want to.” Joey waited for the paramedic to turn his back, and then he ran down the hall to Justin’s room and he pushed his way through the crowd to his friend’s bed. At that moment he wished to God that he had listened to the kind paramedic, because he never imagined that it would be like this. Justin’s eyes lied detached beside his face, and his entire pillow was crimson, underneath his blood-lathered face. Then he noticed the end of a microphone extending from his friend’s mouth and he uncontrollably vomited on the floor beside him before passing out beside the bed.

Chapter 2