I tried to care.
I tried to be a good boss.
I tried to love him as an employee.
But it didn't work.
It ended in a disaster.
Jarod's birthday was last week.
I tried to have Jailbot build a machine I designed to make everything he did go faster.
It was more of a promotion than a birthday gift, I confess.
But it ended terribly.
I won't go into details now, I'll just tell you straight on.
He's dead.
My design killed him.
Which isn't much of a surprise.
Everything in this goddamn building kills people.
Everyday.
Almost as if it's nothing.
But never have I killed an employee.
It took me a while to get it into my head, but once I did nothing was the same.
Everywhere I looked, I would see him.
His big head and yellow toothy smile appeared everywhere I looked.
It was horrible.
He didn't leave me.
He didn't WANT to leave me.
I know he hates me.
After the incident, I began drinking for real.
No grape juice.
Only full on alcohol and booze.
Now I see why Jarod liked it so much.
I also see why he was trying to quit.
That shit made me see strange things.
Strange things I never wanted to see until I died.
Like my past self.
I remember his shady form stood right next to me as I finished off the last drop of booze from yet another bottle.
He just looked at me.
With those soulless eyes that I'll never forget.
They looked a lot like mine at the time.
He asked me what was wrong.
I told him to fuck off.
Of course he didn't listen, that son-of-a-bitch.
I never listened as a child.
He asked me if I would want to talk about it.
I said no.
But he just stared.
He dared me to say yes.
He wanted me to say yes.
He wanted to talk.
But I didn't want to recall anything.
I had forgotten so much already, I didn't want it all to come back.
He looked straight into my eyes, never breaking contact even for a second.
He dared me to accept his offer.
But I still said no.
I wasn't going to share the tragedy with my past self.
He said maybe I would want to talk to someone else.
I asked who.
Then, out of the booze-coated blue, my dashing future self appeared across from me.
Sitting in a very smug position.
His cape seemed to shimmer and his uniform was a lighter shade of grey.
Light shined off his glasses and almost illuminated his face perfectly with the orange glow from the lenses.
He looked almost too perfect.
He glared at me for a moment.
Then chuckled.
I still don't understand why he did that.
Maybe he was mocking me.
Mocking me for stooping so low.
Acting so pathetic.
I was a ruler of my own, smaller world and I had seemed to sink down to the sad place of my citizens.
Both dead and alive.
Everything seemed to mock me at that moment.
The walls seemed to laugh.
The chair seemed to smile in pity.
Everything hated me.
Everything laughed at my stupidity.
Especially him.
He got up real close to my face, our noses almost touched, and just stared at me for a moment.
He asked what exactly I was thinking.
He told me things I already knew about the incident.
Ways I screwed up.
The things I could have changed so that I wouldn't have failed.
So that I wouldn't have been such an ass for killing my closest friend.
So that I wouldn't be such a failure.
He moved back to where he was and watched the show.
He watched as I slowly broke down.
Tears swelled in my eyes, but there was no way in hell I would let them go.
He just stared.
Both of them just stared.
I turned around and leaned against the magnificent glass wall that displayed my creation.
My killing machine.
My biggest regret was laid before me, lock, stock, and creaky hell hole it had become.
Both of their colors shaded gradually to nothingness.
Every bright color seemed to fade.
The smiling faces faded to frowns.
Everything grew blurry as tears begged and pleaded to be released.
Just like my citizens.
Right then, it was as if I could hear everyone outside scream for help and mercy.
Everyone alive as well as dead.
Because they HATED me.
They never asked for this.
I didn't ask for this.
No one wanted this torture chamber built in the basement of their earth.
No one wants me to exist.
My past self ran up to me and took a strong hold of my neck, hugging tightly with both of his tiny arms.
I shut my eyes, too afraid to see him yet so comfortable in his grasp.
He said that it wasn't my fault.
He told me that what happened wasn't because of me.
He told me to put the blame on the machine.
He wailed to blame father.
Everything he said he repeated over again and again.
Tighter and tighter his grip grew.
It seemed too unusual, too inhuman for a child to be squeezing that hard.
My throat began to close.
My breath slowed dramatically.
My world spun slowly around me.
I forced my eyes to open to a squint.
My past self was bleeding badly in the distance.
Lying still against the glass wall.
Only my future self was before me.
Fingers locked behind my neck and palms forcing down onto my throat.
That goddamn grin on his face.
His uniform became the darkest shade and his cape matched almost perfectly.
The glow from his glasses was gone.
Blood lined the frame of his face.
Yet he smiled.
He was victorious.
My eyes closed.
I knew it was the end.
I knew I was going to die.
I heard someone yell at me.
It wasn't my future selves voice, though.
It was deep and muscular, yet familiar.
The type of voice that could only belong to one person.