Author's Note: I had been planning on saving the original version of this chapter, since it was written significantly later than the original version of the others, but I figured you all deserved better than for me to give up now. Thus, here is the final chapter before the epilogue.

Out of Place

Chapter Ten: The Dream

TEN MONTHS LATER…

Throngs of diverse people poured from the door of a plane, their ears still alight with the words of the excited flight attendant behind them, bidding them adieu and wishing them all the best in their journeys. Having taken a little over an hour to arrive from LaGuardia, the passengers still found themselves alive with anticipation as they poured into Orlando International Airport. Sunlight glistened through the entirely glass walls of the terminal as Kyle Schimpf found himself speed-walking to find the luggage claim.

"Whoa, hold it, bro," came the voice of Tyler Gordon. He latched his hand onto that of Briana Hutchinson and ran forward, trying to catch up to his close friend.

"We're burnin' daylight!" Kyle cheered, as though he had never experienced summer in his life. Never ones to back down from a challenge, Tyler and Briana tried to find a route to jog down without bumping into anyone else in the terminal.

"Are they always this excited?" Clear asked, adjusting the straps of her backpack on her shoulders and then stretching her arms back.

"If you'd believe it, I'm usually the one who would do something like that," Matt answered, popping out one of his earbuds. "Well, if I wanted to make an ass of myself, I guess." The image of the three awkwardly ducking around multitudes of others not far ahead was admittedly quite entertaining.

"So, never, then?" Kimberly followed. Matt's only answer was to tap his finger on the tip of his nose.

The group managed to reassemble shortly after reaching the luggage claim, considering they would have to wait several minutes before their suitcases actually made it from the plane all the way to the achingly slow conveyor belt. Alas, it gave the six plenty of time to ponder over the adventure life had taken them on to bring them to their current place.

After having much of her apartment damaged during the week following the subway crash, Briana spent a decent portion of her time working on renovations. She found herself thoroughly enjoying every moment of sawing and painting she'd subjected herself to, much to the surprise of her friends. Her main passion, though, remained for her job in veterinary medicine. As one of the most empathic vets in her office, she had gone on to help keep tens and tens of animals safe and healthy. It had pained her to see Kyle and Matt finally leave months later, but each small paw she got to hold made up for it; she'd finally been convinced to get two cats of her own.

Putting up a middle finger to Death, Clear had moved on from hiding in Stoneybrook and instead moved into the suburbs, becoming roommates with her closest friend, Kimberly. She visited the city on more days than not, still, partly out of her need to be in a place where things were happening and partly, she'd admit, to avoid any isolated incidents. Her half of the house, though, had turned into quite the production of found art, sculpture, and metalwork, her best efforts to demonstrate feelings she'd never been able to articulate. It wasn't difficult to meet fellow creative types in New York, so she was often turning eyes with her innovative work.

It didn't take Kyle another week for him to realize that biology wasn't his truest passion. As much as he loved the subject, nearly being killed taught him that there was honestly so little time that could be spent doing less than what he absolutely adored. Thus, he dropped from his program and enrolled at a culinary institute—a bit of a rustic place, but quite up his alley. Having to wait until the spring semester, he spent the following few months on multiple trips, including a few geocaching expeditions under Clear's guidance. The two were a productive pair, if not necessarily a relatable one.

As much as Tyler might have liked to move on to a new job, there was something about stability he found himself craving after a week of turmoil. His friends might have teased him for living in a routine, hardly something they'd expect from someone as in-the-moment him, but his promotion at his average desk job supported his main goal—bringing in money and helping him keep his place. He'd waited a solid few months to jump back in the dating pool, assuring Matt the kiss they'd shared had simply been brought on from the emotions of the night. After finding his new boyfriend, he was sure his choice was sound. Curbing his spontaneity had been an interesting process, but he'd never let it disappear entirely.

Kimberly had been doing her best to help Thomas emotionally, but she was hardly a therapist. Fortunately, she was able to convince him to find a professional who was making slow progress in giving him the ability to cope with his anxieties. Within a week of taking Thomas to the hospital that night, she'd visited her father and, much to his surprise, gotten him into a hug lasting over ten minutes. Desiring to improve her skills at directing her life after Stoneybrook, she'd taken up a semi-frequent hobby of CrossFit, which helped her understand her motivations. Determined to further the understanding of premonitions and espers, she had prepared herself to retry college, this time in psychology.

Matt had never planned on being the one to die for the rest of his friends to survive, but after being rushed to a hospital, he found himself awakening again, his ears first comprehending an excited cheer from Briana. The college had allowed him a semester break, so that a couple months of physical therapy helped him return nearly to life as normal. He did finally leave for the spring semester, though, just long enough for everyone to be convinced that Death was no longer coming for them. Grad school was sort of lonely in a program as lowly populated as planetary science, but he managed to fill most of his free time selling commissioned art to help bolster his recovery from various debts.

The most recent of which, of course, had been a trip for six to Orlando. Not one week had passed since the spring semester ended, but Kyle and Matt hauled ass to visit Briana and prepare for a trip with their favorite people. Try as they might to befriend others, ride-or-die friendships couldn't be formed in four months of class as in one week of lifesaving. Matt truly felt that the five people around him were the ones who understood him far better than anyone, even if he'd only shared company with Kimberly and Clear for a few months.

"Where are we going first?" Kyle asked, thoroughly satisfied with his own reflection. "There's always Disney World. Just sayin'."

"Right, because we're all rich people who can afford that," Briana chided.

"Um, who's the one who chose Orlando?" Kyle sassed in return.

"We get it; kiss already," Tyler deadpanned, drawing out his last syllable.

"You two both are single, right?" Kimberly teased.

"Hey, hey, hey," Briana stuttered.

"I'd like to point out that I'm the only one in a relationship…" Tyler's voice fell out of Matt's focus as his left eye began to twitch. The hell? he thought. A light fixture above the luggage belt flickered a few times before going dim, and immediately he found himself thinking of Jenny. Before he knew it, he was picturing the subway light snapping from the ceiling above him, and his breathing rapidly increased.

But the fixture never hit him. Instead, he felt himself being struck violently in the side, thrown before a car and onto the pavement—hard. The cracking in his ribcage thundered in his ears, and he found his eyes refusing to focus on the images of his friends surrounding him. His brain must have been playing tricks on him; in the throbbing of blood in his ears, he thought he could almost hear a low, eerie rendition of a certain song. He only needed a few supposed notes to feel the tune gripping onto his torso.

As the group around him included three espers, he was unsurprised to see Kimberly's eyes intently on him as he returned to reality. Tyler and Clear seemed to have missed his emotional cues, perhaps because he was unsure he was having them. It hadn't been his first flashback of the accidents in the last several months, but the timing was indeed unfortunate. "What was it?" she asked, discreetly.

He wanted to be able to tell her that it had indeed just been a flashback. She'd said she got them every so often as well, from multiple timelines, even if she wouldn't be able to talk about them right away. Something, however, kept him from forming the words. Alas, he could only name the thing that continued to drape around his mind, the notes of the song that he wished he could disassociate with dread. "Right Through You."

Kimberly didn't reply.

It took the group three days of sightseeing before they finally agreed to head to the beach. "Seriously," Briana had argued, "we are way too close to the ocean to not do this." The others agreed, only needing her motivation to push them to finally driving the extra time to find one not entirely crowded with people. Clear and Tyler wasted no time diving in and enjoying the ocean, their excitement crescendoing into a laughter-fueled splash-fest.

"I can't remember the last time I've seen her that animated." Kimberly adjusted her sunglasses then, a beautifully serene look spreading across her face as she closed her eyes and proceeded to sunbathe.

"Kim, you have the sunscreen?" Briana asked. Kimberly answered in the affirmative, tossing her the bottle before returning to a completely relaxed state. "Matt, you're covered, right?"

He answered first with a short laugh. "Honestly, it's like you're our mom. Yes, I am an adult." Briana stuck out her tongue and dropped a glob of sunscreen on his shoulder. "Hey, them's fightin' words."

"I didn't say a thing." Her face was difficult to read behind her nearly opaque sunglasses, but Matt found himself too inattentive to focus on anything specific. Briana began to speak again, but he missed her first few words. "…head in after them. Just have Kyle leave my keys with you." With a tiny wave, she started to jog for the water. She only stopped once, a few seconds out, to toss back the sunscreen bottle she'd forgotten to leave behind.

The soft plop of the bottle in the sand coordinated nicely with the gentle sounds of the beach thus far, primarily consisting of the lapping of the waves and a light wind. In fact, Matt hadn't even heard the latter until he sat up, debating if he was up for joining the others in the water. The wind speed gradually increased, going unnoticed until it decided to whip a gust right towards the ocean. Still possessing the sensitive reflexes he'd gained after the subway incident, he whipped his head around, but his eyes only fell on sand.

The beach was relatively sparse in population, especially compared to the crowds he'd grown used to seeing in New York City and Orlando locales. One thing that appeared to be more common to the Floridians was the use of personal beach umbrellas to shade from the sun, which was unheard of for heat-starved northerners. Instinctively, Matt counted the number of large, round shadows nearby, finding there to be twelve. As he turned back around, he thought for a second he'd only seen eleven umbrellas. I did not get enough damn sleep last night, he lamented.

He turned then to Kimberly, still lying beside him and giving off a pure pink aura. She had somehow managed to get her towel to lie completely smooth and flat on the sandy surface beneath them, but as he looked, the wind blew one of the corners, folding it inward. Matt coughed then, drawing Kimberly's eye. "Hey, are you alright?"

"…Y-yeah," he answered, unable to explain the bubbles of dread in his torso. He slowly eased himself back into a recumbent position, trying to relocate his sense of peace.

The moment he thought he was finding it, though, Briana's voice snapped him back up. "Matt, come on, get in the water," she cheered. "Tyler's dying to get into a splash-fight with you. His words, not mine. And then he winked. Is that a gay thing?"

Matt's tense eyes moved off her innocent smiling face, partially embarrassed by her choice of words and partially because he still had yet to see Kyle relaxing on the beach around him. "Where did Kyle go?" he asked, not sounding quite as clueless as might be expected of one asking such a question.

"He's just back at the car; he had to leave his phone or something." Briana shrugged slightly. "He's probably gonna want to come swim too." The radiant smile plastered across her cheeks was so certain, so sweet; Matt could hardly bear to look her in the eyes. Alas, he found himself drawn into them. And as soon as they made contact, a flash of white clouded them.

Even before his sight returned, he could feel that he was running, his feet not even going at half the speed his mind was. He fought hard to overcome the brilliant white light, and he saw Kyle before him, standing there in the night. He's gonna get hit by the car, Matt remembered.

He hadn't the energy to shout his friend's name before going into action, but it barely mattered. Matt's arms extended forward, shoving him out of the way with enough power to push him onto the opposite sidewalk. Not a second later, the car bucked him heavily, chucking him forward as though it were a flipper in a pinball machine. As he slowly flipped in the air, he found himself turned for an ever-so-short moment to face his other two friends. Briana still hadn't quite processed what had happened, and her eyes continued to widen as Matt's body left his control.

Tyler, however, had picked up faster. Already, his face was colored with horror as he noticed something nobody else had. Matt had only been hit by the side of the car, as the driver had sharply turned in a futile attempt to avoid collision. Now, the vehicle was heading directly for Briana, apparently not about to slow down even a bit. Tyler wrapped his arms around her, hiding her view of her bleeding friend and tumbling backwards out of harm's way.

Matt finally crashed into the ground, only then going black in vision.

"Matt, hey!" Briana called, her volume suggesting it wasn't the first time she'd said something.

"What did you see?" Kimberly asked, doing her damnedest to avoid allowing the fear in her eyes to spread.

Clear had managed to pick up on the sense of dread as well, and she stopped momentarily while Tyler continued to mess around. That's when she realized exactly who would have been next on the list.

"Tyler!" Matt shouted, still not quite back in the real world. Tyler could just make out the sound of his name between splashes, and he quickly turned to face the beach. He started to tip awkwardly over, so he stuck his left foot out to affirm his position. Instead of finding the squishy touch of sand, he was greeted with a searing pain that shot up through his ankle.

"Shit!" he yelled, his descent hastened by surprise and pain. As he flipped over underwater, he realized that he and Clear had managed to drift farther from the shore than they'd initially intended. Just as he found himself starting to upright, a powerful current snatched him, and he flung his hands to his feet. The current jerked him directly away from Clear and the shore, keeping him from even being able to stay afloat. As he finally shouted out for help, the ocean masked him, distorting his words into an incoherent wail.

The three on shore had been unable to grasp exactly what happened, but Clear knew she had no time to waste. With the mastery of a dolphin, she swam and grabbed hold of Tyler's torso. She arced back, angling and forcing her way out of the rip current. Running primarily on adrenaline, she managed to keep herself moving until she had delivered Tyler to the shoreline, only then finding herself thoroughly worn out.

She was met almost immediately by Briana, who was still standing when Tyler had been hurt. As Matt and Kimberly approached, Tyler curled up on his side, spewing up mouthfuls of water. He continued coughing for several minutes, the sharp motions accentuating the pounding of his head as his heartbeat raged on. Wordlessly, Clear and Briana sat him up, extending his leg for examination. The object of his near-fate remained entirely embedded within his foot, revealing itself as a fairly large nail. A good portion of it remained outside of his foot, though, so Clear retrieved a first aid kit from a nearby lifeguard and removed the offending item.

As Briana bandaged his foot, he grunted, "How the fuck does a nail end up in the ocean?"

"Death," Matt whispered, barely audible.

"It's back, isn't it?" Kimberly said, low and refusing to feel.

"What? How's that possible?" Briana cried. She shut her eyes for a few seconds, forcing against the emotions that began to stir. "We cheated it when Matt died."

"Where's Kyle?" Matt asked.

"He went to the car; didn't I tell you that?" Briana replied, her frustration surfacing.

"It should not take him this long to put his phone away," Matt answered, deadpan. As the field of trepidation spread across the rest of the group, they found their eyes shifting to look back on the site where, minutes before, they'd been relaxing. There stood Kyle, meandering and looking around to locate them. Briana and Clear relaxed slightly, but Tyler and Kimberly could still feel that Matt knew what was about to happen.

The wind whipped forth again, egging Kyle in their direction as he noticed them and additionally yanking an umbrella free from the ground.

Kyle's foot placed itself at an uncomfortable angle upon the sunscreen bottle which had been haphazardly thrown onto the ground. As he tumbled to the ground awkwardly, the umbrella began to spin about the axis of its pole, hoisted high into the air by the wind.

Kyle landed on his stomach then. He freed his arms from beneath him, painfully slow, and began to angle his head up to regain his bearing.

"No!" escaped from Matt's throat as the umbrella landed again, driving in between Kyle's shoulder blades.