"Edgar, we wanted to ask you if you wanted a different roommate."
"Muh...what?"
"A different roommate, Edgar."
He blinked. A room, a table, a light and a person, staring at him.
"Uh...why?"
"Well...there was a time, some time ago when you...kind of attacked Harry. He says it was a misunderstanding and I know you agreed, but I just wanted to check with you, to make sure that you want to stay with him."
"Harry..."
"It's all right if you want to change your roommate. It wouldn't be too difficult, and we know you're going through some difficult times. It may be safer for you both, considering..."
"Does he want to change?"
"No...no, he doesn't want to. I want to know how you feel though, Edgar."
Edgar stared down at his hands. Fingertips mutilated, his knuckles webbed-white with scars, and he could see the beginnings of the dark lines, short and long, shallow and deep across his arm.
"I like Harry. Can he stay?"
"You want to stay roommates with him?"
"Yes." Edgar reached up a hand to touch his forehead. A bandage. "Harry's..."
"Were you married once?"
"Huh?" Harry blinked, shook his head. Edgar watched from his bed in the corner, his blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Eyes wide and dry, and they told him he hadn't slept in days.
James sat on the edge of his bed, stared at Harry.
"Were you married? You had a daughter."
"Oh..." Harry laughed slightly, put a hand to his head. "I'm sorry...I've been feeling tired lately...yeah, I was married once. She died though."
"How?"
"She got sick..."
"Harry?" Edgar didn't know he had spoken until the two turned to him.
"Yeah?"
"Was I here the whole time?"
"God..." James made a disgusted noise and turned away. Harry watched James for a few seconds, then turned back to Edgar with a faint smile.
"Yeah, Edgar. The whole time."
"Are you sure? Is there anywhere else I could have been? Have I been sleeping?"
"No, you haven't slept for days..." Harry rubbed at his eyes. "You should get some though, it's going to start playing with your head."
"Did...did I hurt you once?"
Harry was quiet for a few seconds.
"Determination," he said. "You've got to be determined, Edgar. You can't let a little thing stop you. You can't give up."
Edgar shivered, hard. Harry got up, went over to sit beside him, and Edgar ended up leaning against him, still shaking.
"Edgar, look out-!"
Headlights through the fractured light, raindrops and screaming horns and Edgar gasped, turned the wheel on instinct and the car lurched to the left with the squeal of tires. The headlights darted away and the car shook, bounced, jerked around violently until he found the sense to push down on the brakes, and he nearly choked when his seat belt caught around his throat.
"Jesus, Edgar!" Johnny turned to stare at him from the passenger's seat. "Are you okay? Why didn't you stop?"
Edgar tried to focus, his glasses off just that little bit, and rain poured down outside. The windshield wipers went on and off, and he could see the images of trees somewhere ahead. His heart beat fast and hollow and he felt cold all over, prickly and exposed. The adrenaline rush fading, and he was breathing hard.
"What...?" He sounded as dazed as he felt.
"You just-, I thought you saw him, I thought maybe you were doing something but, but, fuck." Johnny pressed a hand to his chest. "Fuck, Edgar."
"Where am I...?"
"What?"
Edgar reached up to his face, to find the hole if not the eyepatch. He found both.
"Is this real...? Am I dreaming?"
"What? Edgar, are you okay? Shit, is your head bleeding? Shit!"
"Consequences..." He stared down at the blinking light on the dashboard, reminding him that the oil needed to be checked and the car was almost out of gas. "If there's one reality, only one world has consequences..."
"Edgar...?"
Don't do anything stupid.
Nothing that you wouldn't do.
"But which one?"
He slammed his head against the steering wheel, and the car horn sounded long and loud.
The pediatric group was heading out to the pool as the adult group headed back in. Only a few, maybe numbering seven at the most. Lingering in the back, his bear still clutched tightly, was Todd.
A bit more under control now, able to recognize that if he repeated his performance earlier, he wouldn't get to talk to him at all.
"Todd, what are you doing here?"
"Mr. Edgar...they said I was crazy." Todd looked around. "I'm not though."
Question is...are you, my boy?
"They can't keep you here very long if you're not." And for once, Edgar was glad he was wearing an eyepatch. As it was he was sure his appearance was rather offsetting, and Todd looked ill-at-ease around him.
"I don't know...they said they wanted to do mind-melty tests on me." Todd gestured in a vague way.
"Well..."
"Why are you here, Mr. Edgar? You're not crazy, are you?"
He woke up in his room again with his blanket wrapped around his legs, and Harry asking him to stop from across the room.
Staring over a cliffside, and his stomach lurched hard at the sensation and vertigo. He would have wheeled his arms to catch his balance, but he found himself sitting and that would have been a little awkward.
This was one of the worst things he had ever experienced, to be jumped from one place and time to another with no warning. There wasn't even any blank time between, just sudden abrupt changes. Every logical part of Edgar screamed every time it happened, demanded answers that he couldn't give. This incongruence, the inability to match world with world and time with time, made him feel sick and lost. Completely helpless, and constantly wrong. What world would he focus on? Which world was real? How much of this was real? He had no way to tell. Each reality he apparently jumped into seemed just as plausible as the other, just as real. Each shift was abrupt, sudden but when it stopped, the world seemed completely normal, completely as expected. All details and minor things completely taken care of. Every place he went, every time he existed, all seemed real, all seemed just as real as the others, and it just didn't make sense. The inherent danger in these unwarned and unplanned losses of time kept him constantly on edge, but he had no way to prevent them. He didn't know what caused them to occur. The near-miss with Johnny on the freeway was example enough that there was danger in these multiple shifts, and the fact he felt there was nothing he could do made him feel worse. At any time, anywhere, he could be pulled without warning from what he knew was real and thrown into some other scenario, and just when he got used to it, he could be uprooted once again.
The stress was horrific.
Edgar wanted to say that this was worse than death. The funny thing was, he had actually died once, or at least, he was fairly sure he did. He had the appropriate knowledge to make a well-informed comparison.
It was hot and muggy outside, and there was a cliff. Looked around a bit more, found he was sitting on a car hood and Johnny was beside him.
"No, I mean..." Johnny sat up, his expression intense and focused. "If you think about all the things that happened to you in your life, or, what didn't happen to you, whatever you like, what did it all produce?" Johnny gestured at Edgar widely. "Think about it! If we are the products of our environment, which I would like to think has some element of truth, then surely your environment of...nothing would have prepared you for me. For something, as it were."
Edgar knew the pressure was on him to respond, and had he the right knowledge, he would have. But he was a foreigner in his own body, in a world that acted as if it knew him. He was a visitor in a world that knew him as a life-resident.
Worst thing was, he wasn't sure that he really was a visitor. It was entirely too possible that he had been here, the whole time, just wrapped up in dreams, and this was real. Anything could be real now, and such an important part of Edgar's life had been being able to differentiate between real and unreal.
"I...I'm sorry..." Edgar stared out over the city, Johnny's words already lost in the general nausea and confusion he felt. "I'm...how long have we been here?"
Johnny narrowed his eyes, annoyed for sure this time. "What? Were you paying attention?"
"Why..." Only one world had consequences. Maybe it was this one. He buried a hand in his hair. "Why here...? Why these places? Why these worlds...? Why am I here...what am I supposed to do?"
"What?" Johnny increasingly annoyed. "What are you talking about? You weren't...I thought we were talking about something..."
"If I die here..."
I want a nap, but I don't know what would happen.
Back in the restraints and God this hurt, this hurt so much. In hurt in a way that he never forgot and came back in reminders at night when he tried to sleep. The myriad random aches and pains that coincided too close, brought back memories he didn't want.
Back in the restraints and Johnny walked out from one of the other rooms, his hand over his left eye. He moved it and Edgar saw that there was a small piece of glass embedded in his skin just beneath his eye. He picked it out with unnatural, disturbing nonchalance, threw it on the floor, and looked at Edgar.
"Now, where were we?"
It was cold. The sky was a solid gray and the wind was biting, and Edgar stood in fairly warm clothes staring. For a few seconds he couldn't quite make out what he was looking at, but eventually it settled into unquestionable reality, a shift and a change and then everything felt as if this was the only world he knew and his mind screamed and screamed.
A snowflake landed in his eye and he squinted instinctively, stared at Johnny who was putting the final touches on a snowman that looked vaguely familiar. A hat with glasses and a frowning expression...
Kind of looks like you, Scriabin said faintly. Edgar held his arms close to his body against the wind and watched Johnny's scarf flutter.
"What are we doing?"
"Building a snowman," Johnny said as if this was the most obvious thing in the world, which, as Edgar thought back on his question, seemed the right kind of tone.
Still solid. The sky still gray, the ground white. Johnny stared at his snowman with grave intensity.
"It needs something though..."
Then Johnny's knife was in his hand in movements too fast to see, that had always been too fast to see and he plunged it into the snowman's chest.
"So..."
Edgar blinked, found himself sitting on his couch. Jake sat beside him, a magazine open in his lap that he was obviously not reading.
I'm...trying to focus. Scriabin hissed through his teeth. I keep...I keep thinking of things, then everything changes and it all breaks apart again...I can't keep anything going, not for long, but I thought I had something...
"Huh?"
Jake looked at him steadily, all traces of humor gone. "So you're telling me you've got two people in you? In your brain, I mean?"
Edgar blanched, and he felt Scriabin recoil in much the same way.
"I..."
"I just want to make sure." Jake held up his hands, closed his eyes. His tongue piercing clicked against his teeth. "I'm not going to leave you or anything, I just want to know more about it. I don't want to do anything wrong."
"You're..." Edgar kept blinking, and Scriabin's emotions easily overpowered his own. "You're not leaving?"
Jake stared at him for a few seconds, then shook his head with a faint smile. "No, man, I wouldn't do that. We've got something, I think." He put a hand on his shoulder. "I think we've got something real, Edgar. I don't want to lose that, and you don't want to either, right? I mean, if it's a problem or something, we can work through it. I'm willing to do it. I liked being with you since I first met you, and I still do. I don't want to lose that. I just want to know what's really going on. You know, the whole picture. I want to know what to...expect, I guess. But I won't leave, no. You don't have to be afraid of that."
"I..."
Jake...
"I...I don't know...I've never...I never thought that...I mean, it means I'm...I could...I could hurt you, couldn't I? I mean, aren't you afraid? I don't want to hurt you."
Jake tilted his head. "If that other part of you really wanted to hurt me, wouldn't they have done it already?" Jake smiled again, this time more broadly. "Besides, I think he likes me too, doesn't he? I'm almost positive we've talked once or twice, though I didn't know exactly who he was at the time."
Scriabin's response was high and soft, a faint but definite "mmhmm," much like a child. In direct response to Jake, even though there was no way he could hear.
"I'm just..." Edgar looked down. "I'm not...I don't expect...I don't expect people to do that...for us. Deal with...deal with both of us. I've never told anyone...they'd think we're crazy. I never thought...even if I did tell someone, I always thought that'd be it. That'd be the excuse they needed to leave...I've had people leave me for less. Something like this...I didn't think anyone would want to make that kind of commitment..."
Jake moved his hand from Edgar's shoulder to his thigh. He was still smiling in a kind way. "Would you believe me if I said I've dealt with worse?"
"Worse?"
"Long stories. Lots of long stories. But frankly Edgar...you're nice, you're smart, you're sincere, and you care. A lot. It's hard enough to find one of those things in people nowadays, but all of them? And we've been together for what...?"
Edgar didn't know, and that thought made him shake.
"Months now," Jake supplied, and Edgar felt that tension release just a little. "And in all that time, that other person...he's never hurt me, or tried to hurt me, or done anything to hurt our relationship. Or to hurt you, as far as I've seen. As far as I can tell, he doesn't want to hurt me or you. I'm not afraid of him. I just want to know more about him. It's something real I have to deal with, so I want to know."
"Scriabin..." Edgar breathed his name softly. "Scriabin's...he's always liked you. He's the one who...told me to keep talking to you. He's the reason...you're here."
"I guess it's him that I should thank then, huh?" Jake still smiled, and Scriabin's emotions were completely overpowering. Running the gamut from joy to regret to fear, there was the sense of relief over it all, of intense relief.
So it was all fake...all a dream...
So many realities, all just as real as the other. Their desire for one reality over another mattered little, if at all. This was the reality that Scriabin, no doubt, longed for the most, and in the end, it would make no difference.
Somewhere, Edgar knew that this would vanish, like the others. There was no world he could form a solid attachment to, no world that would last long enough for him to trust. His trust in everything he saw and experienced with all senses was being worn down, battered away by the constant shifting lies around him.
Scriabin pushed him out of the way, took control abruptly and without any warning. The transition was quick and disorienting, and by the time Edgar was able to sort out his own perceptions from Scriabin's -- to find himself, as it was defined so nebulously in the mental world -- Scriabin was kissing Jake with a ferocity that Edgar knew he would never have.
Take the moment while you have it.
Edgar couldn't fault him for it. His thoughts completely distracted, he merely sat and let Scriabin's emotions and sensations come through to him, muffled and blunted.
It may not last, but he could enjoy it while he had it.
If only. If this was real...then how much of Edgar's memories were lies? How much of what happened was a lie? When did the lies begin and when did it all end? For this to be real, so much had to be different...but how could he say what was real and what wasn't now? Everything about this seemed completely plausible, solid and touchable as Scriabin was demonstrating, and the only reason that there was doubt to be cast on its reality was that Edgar remembered things differently.
And as Scriabin said, memories weren't so reliable anymore.
Did it really happen as he remembered it? Did that really happen, or had those memories just been implanted, altered, changed? How much of his mind was really permanent, how many of his memories were real? How much of reality was defined by what he knew happened before, and what he knew now?
How much of this was just manipulation, just two puppets dancing at the end of some sadistic strings? Were the monsters so intelligent, so driven to torture him this way? Did they feed off of his confusion, of his emotions? Was the system involved at all?
Or in the end...was he really just going insane, and the whole lock system itself, all of it was just the desperate ramblings of a madman trying to shift responsibility that one last time?
For all his questions there were no answers. Just the reality he was in now that felt as real as the one he had just left and, he was sure, as the one he would soon fall into. Altered memories, actual reality, who could say.
If only though. If only. Edgar dug through Scriabin's emotions and found that, despite his best efforts, his thoughts ran along the same lines. If only this was real. Trust broken too many times to believe that it was, that this could really be their final reality.
Fantasy, desire. Scriabin shuddered, moaned when he felt hands beneath his shirt, and Edgar closed his eyes.
Had it always been this way? Months, Jake said...
"Scriabin..." Words breathed when his mouth was free for those few seconds. "My name is Scriabin..."
"Well, Scriabin, I-"
It was like slamming into a wall, hard and bone-breaking, and Scriabin fell over.
"Edgar, are you okay?" Claws underneath his arms to pick him back up. "You dropped your ice cream."
A few seconds to realize.
Fuck... Agonized and hurting. F-fuck...
Knowing didn't take away the pain. The fact that it shifted to a world with Johnny spoke of perhaps some crueler power at work. Edgar couldn't tell. He reached out, tried to soothe and keep his thoughts in check.
It's okay...
No it isn't. Wounded. No it isn't, Edgar...shit. God...everything and...god, I can't do this, I can't go through this anymore...
We're going to get through this. We're going to survive. We're going to
Edgar stumbled, crashed into a nearby shelf. He tried to steady himself, his eyes unfocused and he reached out to keep the shelf's contents from spilling on the floor. Cold and smooth under his hands.
"Where am I now...?"
God, I don't care.
Edgar blinked, looked around. Endless rows upon rows of shelves, unmarked and almost unremarkable.
Across each shelf, in neatly lined rows, were snow globes.
Edgar looked at the shelf he had nearly collided with, and saw one underneath his hand. He picked it up, straightened it. The white flakes flew around in the water, blocked its contents, and when it settled
I don't care anymore. Scriabin hurt and angry, frustrated and blaming Edgar, as he usually did. I don't even care anymore I just want it to stop. I'm tired, I'm so tired of this. I can't deal with this, this constant...it's not...I refuse. I refuse.
I'm not giving up... Edgar opened his eyes. His face felt itchy and dirty, his neck and ankle heavy. He tried to move his arms and found them pinned to his sides.
A straitjacket...where am I now?
I don't care. Just like a sulking child. I don't even care.
It was dark, and he shook his head and found his hair long and caught on his beard. The smell of blood everywhere, and the feeling of being deep underground.
Where...?
The sound of a door opening, light pooling around his feet.
There's only one place this could be...
"...Nny?"
"I'm here." So he was right. Johnny's voice wavered, shook for a few seconds. "I brought some food."
Snapped into roles, preplayed and such but this wasn't his dreams. Staying to roles prescribed didn't promise consistency, that he had found. Did what was required of him and nothing made a difference.
Nothing he did made a difference.
"Where am I...? How long have I been here...?"
The light moved away from him, movements shaky and fast.
"You've..."
He tried to move, scratch his face but the jacket would not let him go.
"Why am I here...? Where am I...what is this?"
I feel sick...oh god, I feel sick. Edgar, Edgar, I'm-
Calm down...it's not real.
It wasn't real.
Not this time.
Blink of an eye, and he was younger and smaller, awkward and tall and a teenager. No beard, no goatee even. He barely had time to find his balance before whoever had his hand tugged him forward again.
"Besides, at night, when the school is cold and dark, is the best time to try out keys."
He was wearing long sleeves, and Edgar focused on who was talking to him and recognized his voice, younger and just that much more stable.
"Nny?"
Johnny stared at him with some curiosity.
"Uh...yeah."
"Where..." There was no answer to that question now, he knew it. "How old am I?"
Johnny gave him a weird look.
And Scriabin was singing again in his mind, but he didn't have time to identify what song it was.
Shifted his bag on his shoulder.
God, it feels like I'm carrying bricks in here-
I think I could love you.
Gradually opened his eyes on his couch, as if he was waking up. He blinked, looked around. No one else. Alone this time.
Except for the action figure sprawled across his chest in an entirely too human position.
"Scriabin...?"
Sure enough, the toy moved, lifted a head sleepily.
"Uh...mm, what?"
Scriabin?
Static.
Scriabin, answer me! Answer me, oh God you can't leave me now!
Static.
"What's...what's going on?" The toy pushed itself up, sat up completely, and Edgar heard in its voice the terror he felt. "Oh my god, you're...I can't...how did I get here? What am I doing here? Why am I in here? This isn't right, this isn't how it should be-"
Edgar watched the toy pull itself up, hands in its hair in a gesture all too human. He found his words coming fast and thin. "I can't reach you, you're not...you're not in my mind anymore. This better not be some kind of sick game-"
"I can't...I can't, I can't, I don't know how, I don't know how to get back, I'm trying and I can't-" The toy hid its face with plastic hands. "I can't oh god, oh god, how could it be so easy, how could it be so easy-"
"No, no. I refuse." Edgar thought of Harry, and he reached out and picked Scriabin up with both hands. "I refuse. This isn't real, no more real than the others. It's trying to trick us, it's trying to fool us. You're still a part of me."
Sitting on his bed, fighting with Johnny to get back the Scriabin toy, which wriggled and squirmed in his grip, and Johnny warded him off.
"He's just, he's a part of me, he is. He's still a part of me, he won't hurt me. He's trying to help me-"
Words preplanned.
"Edgar-"
An actual medical hospital this time, and he felt the IV in his arm and he felt weaker than he ever had in his life. It took effort just to open his eyes, and he found Johnny beside his bed, knees drawn up to his chest.
"Hi." Awkward, hesitant. "How...how do you feel?"
"Where am I...?"
I'm...oh my god. Oh my god...
What?
Edgar you're...you're dying.
What?
You're dying, I can feel it...I feel it, right...it's dark and deep, and it's spreading, and you're...you're dying, you're going to die...oh fuck I can...I can feel it, right there...
Johnny just stared at him. Edgar looked, saw a box of books in one corner, a bouquet of flowers on the bed-stand, and his own heart beating on a nearby monitor.
I'm..dying...
This can't be real...this can't be real, please let this be a dream...let this be something different...
I'm...dying...
Dark anger, a bright light on the horizon not too far away, and arms wrapped tightly around his chest, pulling him back.
"Give it up, Edgar! You always give up, why can't you give up now! Your own fucking God damn you, you are NOT dying on me!"
Confused and not struggling, and it took Scriabin a few seconds to realize where he was, what was going on.
"I'm...I don't want to..."
"God, what...where...what's going on..." Scriabin kept tight hold of Edgar, who did not move as the light on the horizon faded away. "What was that...? Where's my...holy shit, what is my coat doing?"
"God..." Edgar took a deep breath. "We...we have to..."
"Jumping realities...jumping realities, this can't be real. We're the only things that are real anymore, Edgar. We can't trust anything else. We can't trust anyone except each other."
"Am I dead?"
The pillow pressed hard across his face, painful and unpleasant and a sharp pain in his nose.
As anyone would, as everyone would, he struggled.
Johnny asleep on his lap, and the sun through the window-
Johnny pushing him hard into a wall, then kissing him with just as much force-
Scriabin on his bed, gently pulling him close and Edgar gave no resistance-
Darkness, a red light cast over everything, and he was curled up on his side on a thin and uncomfortable bed, and he could hear Johnny talking somewhere across the room. The air smelt foul, his skin felt dirty and itchy, and he felt like someone was watching him.
"Look, I know why I'M here. I killed off a bunch of people, never believed in God, and was a waste lock. But YOU, you have seemingly no reason to be here. If you don't mind the rather abrupt introspection, why the HELL are you here?"
Hell-
Edgar choked, would have vomited but he wasn't there to be doing it.
"I'm your god now, Edgar." Scriabin holding his wrists down, his voice smooth and controlled and already relishing the victory that he knew that Edgar would give him. Panicked, frightened, sick, Edgar tried to move away, tried to break the hold on him but Scriabin did nothing but smirk at him, wait for his momentary, useless resistance to stop.
"Don't..." Edgar pulled at his arms as hard as he could, ended up aggravating a muscle in his shoulder that did not appreciate being twisted that particular way, and he clenched his teeth. "Ngh!" Scriabin's body shifted above him, and he knew what this was, and what would happen, and how it would end and what it meant and God, he wasn't sure if he wanted this, after everything that had happened he still wasn't sure if he even wanted this, if he was being forced into it and Scriabin wasn't forcing him this time, not like before and that way it was different, but his mind kept telling him it wasn't, and Scriabin just watched him, smiling, knowing.
"Don't say that."
He kept ending up here, he kept ending up beneath someone, beneath people depending on who crossed his mind and what did it all mean, it still had to mean something, all of this had to mean something and what world was this, or was there just a world where this was all there was, this was all there was to the two of them, just people taking pleasure in the joining of bodies without the messy emotional strings...
He knew that wasn't true, and he felt another surge of shame and nausea when he realized that to some extent that was what he wanted, between Scriabin or between Johnny it didn't even matter, he just didn't want to think any more God he wanted this to stop
Just everything stop
He was sitting in a chair, and he was bored out of his mind. That was the first thing that registered. The second was that Johnny was next to him and talking.
"Oh...I dunno. I just do." He gestured towards him. "You must know what I mean. I mean...you know...maybe I wanna go see a movie. And I can't. 'Cause I'm dead."
We're dead?
Are we dead? Again? Can we even die?
Can we die...can we die, hmm...
Johnny slouched as he lay his head across his arms on the chair back, looked somewhere off to the right. "Or...or maybe I wanna go out to a dance club, or go and get some coffee, or go and get my Sharpie out of that guy's nose...you know." He jumped out his chair faster with speed that Edgar would never get used to and began to pace around, gesturing wildly with his arms, his face contorting with rage. "You know? But I can't do anything like that 'cause I'm DEAD!"
How much of our current damage can be reversed? Fixed? You got your nose fixed, didn't you...
What are you getting at?
I don't know just yet, I'm just thinking...
"I just...I just miss being alive."
Yeah, so do I.
Trapped on the floor, pinned with Johnny's knee pressing hard in his stomach which did not help his nausea in the least, a hand wrapped around his throat and a knife near his face.
Wow, this shouldn't be familiar. That's sad.
Johnny snarling, fierce and angry and his forehead was bleeding slightly.
"Don't I get to be happy? Shouldn't I be able to do something I want, something that involves only me without you doing something to try to stop me? Always with your fucking righteousness. I hurt Edgar and it springs from everything I've done, from everything that's happened to me throughout my whole life. If I could just make it all go away I wouldn't see the world through a shit-filter. I could be happy. And you won't fucking let me be happy! You won't kill me. I can't kill me. You won't even let me make myself go away and replace myself with someone better. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to fucking kill you."
How many times has this happened now? Really happened?
I...I can't remember.
He woke up on someone's couch.
He stared, completely confused, past the point of moving. Any motion now seemed liable to prompt him to start vomiting, and he couldn't trust a reality to move him every time he was about to do something unpleasant.
Only one of these is real but we're heading into new ones now, new worlds and none of these are familiar, what if we missed the real one, what if we're...which one have we been to the most? Which world have we been in the most?
Edgar stared at the fluorescent light-bulbs above him.
That would...that would be the mental hospital.
A pause.
Well, shit.
Someone walked into the room. He turned over.
"Edgar, right?" Devi said.
Another world and cold lips pressed against his own. Skin against skin, chilled from the outside. He opened his eyes and saw it was Johnny.
Oh, big surprise, Scriabin said with more resentment than Edgar really felt was necessary.
What did you expect?
I don't know. Scriabin made a huffy sound. God, I wish we could control this, what's happening. At least you're not panicking anymore.
Pushed far enough, you stop reacting.
Yeah, tell that to your dick, by the way.
Scriabin!
Ooh, I'm so scared. Deliberately trying to bait him. Oh, I better stop. Fuck. Fuck you.
Why are you acting like this? Christ, I haven't even done anything to you.
Fuck you.
Fine, Edgar thought with a deliberately childish kind of annoyance. Fine, be that way.
With that, he decided to participate a bit more fully in what was going on, and he caught from the corner of his eye that it was snowing outside.
Johnny pulled away, nervous, and then collapsed like a rag doll on top of him.
Scriabin paused, in thought maybe, then said with a nasty tone, Merry Christmas, Edgar.
That would explain the snow.
He had a package in his lap that was wet and soaking through his jeans.
"Open it. I think you'll like it."
He wasn't sure if he wanted to.
Johnny in his lap, in a strange position, staring into the distance.
"You...make me want to die..."
Well, that's different at least.
"I'm..."
The first thing that he was aware of was that he was breathing hard, fast and his chest burned. It burned like he had gone swimming too long, burned with exertion and more so extended and prolonged exertion over a period of time he could not guess. It hurt to breathe, it hurt so much that he almost didn't want to breathe at all. Deep gulping breaths but it didn't satisfy, didn't stop the aching need for more.
He was running. How long he had been running he didn't know, but he knew at least it was far longer than he would have liked, or even perhaps should have run. Vague awareness came once he could stop focusing on the aching of his body, the motion of his lungs.
His hand pulled in front of him, his arm tight and there, Scriabin. He could hear him breathing just as hard, wheezing and gasping as he pulled Edgar along. That's why he was running...Scriabin kept him moving. If he let go, Edgar would have fallen to his knees in seconds, but Scriabin kept him moving, Scriabin was responsible for this...
Why were they running?
He looked past Scriabin for those few seconds and saw looming brick walls on either side of him, narrower than they should be. No ceiling, and then a turn up ahead.
A maze...?
Scriabin barked something at him angrily but Edgar didn't understand, and they turned a corner as a kind of rumbling came through the stones, vibrated through his body until it broke like thunder, the massive roar of some kind of creature, some kind of monster, and if Scriabin hadn't been pulling him, he would have let go. He would have fallen to breathe, taken the time to breathe even though it would cost him the ability. Trading a few seconds for eternity, and
and Scriabin had never approved of that.
Stared at a birthday cake, and the wax ran over the icing.
He was curled up on his side again, this time naked and underneath only a thin blanket, in the basement of what he only could guess was Johnny's house.
So why am I naked? Where am I now?
Oh boy, that question will sure get answered.
You're real helpful all of a sudden.
This is getting worse, getting worse. It hurts more each time... He curled up tighter. It's not hurting less its hurting more...
You know, there are some things you don't get used to.
Heard footsteps, the door opening. It had to be Johnny, it had to be.
The blanket torn from his grip, and it was very cold.
He had his hand on the doorknob, and he fell over for real this time. It took him a few seconds for his thoughts and vision to clear enough, for him to see what was going on. Dark, Johnny's house again. His balance took a while in coming.
Not a good sign...this is taking its toll...
He pulled himself back up, hesitantly, and he opened the door.
Johnny's body was slumped on the floor, a gun held in one hand. Blood thickly spattered across the wall, bits of flesh, and the back of Johnny's head entirely gone.
That was enough, and he vomited for longer than he thought was possible.
You always knew he would.
Shut up...
You always knew...
"Edgar, we wanted to ask you if you wanted a different roommate."
"Muh...what?"
"A different roommate, Edgar."
He blinked. A room, a table, a light and a person, staring at him.
"Uh...why?"
Nnngh...
"Well...there was a time, some time ago when you-"
"I-I remember now...no, I want Harry. I want to keep Harry."
She stared at him for a few seconds, emotions flickering fast.
"Edgar...Harry's dead."
Are we repeating things? God, god...
Maybe we always have been.
God damn, just shut up.
It was late at night, too late at night, and he stood in a convenience store. Tilted his head again, nearly fell over. He felt empty and drained and dull, the confusion pounding into him again and again and again. He looked down at what he was holding. Crackers and toilet paper.
Someone in front of him was yelling.
"Control me..."
He stared in the mirror, and his hair was long and he had an earring.
"I love you."
Johnny turned to stare at him.
"What did you say?"
Oh shit, you didn't. Tell me you didn't. Tell me you didn't just do that.
I-I-I don't know what happened, I was, I wasn't here, I don't know why I would-
God- A pause, then a growl, a snarl and an incoherent yell, hoarse and furious and broken. GOD DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU EDGAR, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT-!
And despite how clear his words were, Edgar knew they ran deeper than they appeared, and he watched as Johnny tore the couch cushions apart under clenching hands.
I felt sick, but I didn't mean like this.
He couldn't breathe through his nose, and his head ached. He let his head fall against his desk, and he felt something small and plastic touch his forehead.
"H-hi." The toy was talking again, its voice slurred. "T-this is a fiiiiine kettle of fish."
"What the hell, Scri." Edgar's voice was thick and clumsy. Scriabin punched him as hard as an animate action figure could.
"Shut up! Shut your...your ugly face. Ugh, God..." He wavered, fell down. "I think I'm, I'm just, juuust a little bit...maybe, just a little bit...think I'm drunk."
Edgar groaned.
He didn't even like cereal that much.
He had his hand in a blender. He pulled it back with a short gasp, stumbled backwards hit a chair in his kitchen and fell over completely.
Something smelled good though.
"I'd like to invite you all to the wedding-"
Oh god make it stop, make it stop, make it stop
I wasn't there for a few seconds Edgar I wasn't there
Too late at night, and he could hear a preacher going on and on about something, but they called out. They called out and he responded.
"Amen..."
Someone pushed him off the couch.
It was entirely too hot for this. He sat by the edge of the pool, and Harry had his hand on his knee.
"We'll be okay, all right? I promise you."
"What?" Edgar shook his head, remembered what was happening, what was going on. "What?"
"Edgar, we'll be okay in the end. Things can always be fixed. I know they can be."
"I'm...back here again...? Am I going backwards...?"
"There's a point when you can't do that anymore." Harry stared at him. "Maybe you have to reach it, maybe you don't. You've got to turn around though, sometime."
A confessional.
"Forgive me, Father..." Automatic before he stopped himself. "Wh...how long..." If he had just started, he couldn't have been here long.
"Why am I here?"
"I think you know."
You'd have to buy me dinner first.
...for what?
...I...I'm not sure.
The knife plunged right into his chest, scraped against his ribs with a horrible sound and sensation through his body, and pain that resonated throughout his entire being, blocked out every thought and question.
He screamed, because what else would someone do in that situation? The knife left a hole that swiftly -- and with a sensation that would have made him sick if he had the time to think about it -- filled with blood, poured out over his hands that were already there to try and protect himself, then the knife stabbed into him again, higher and it punctured a lung, and he struggled to breath but that was beyond his abilities now and the blood kept flowing and he felt it leaving him and the pain was incredible, unbelievable, indescribable.
Scriabin joined in chorus and agony, and the third blow landed and death was taking entirely too long.
The car was too hot, and there were fireflies outside. Johnny would have said something if Edgar hadn't immediately curled up into himself, hands wrapped to protect his chest. Hyperventilating, maybe in surprise at being able to breathe again.
"Edgar? Are you okay?"
Everything intact, no wounds, no blood, just Johnny staring at him.
Different reality? Is this really different, in the end? Even panicked, frightened, he still managed to lash out, in one way or another.
He walked into the kitchen, blurry and tired. He rubbed at his eyes and saw Scriabin standing in front of the stove, wearing one of his old white shirts that had paint-like stains on it, which was weird because he didn't paint and had never painted, and he must have walked under some construction or something because that made no sense.
Scriabin turned to look at him, his hair a mess of tangled knots of red yarn and matted uncombed hair, thick and shiny with oil from a shower avoided for far too long, his face smeared with whatever it was he was cooking. He was cooking.
"Hey."
"Hey." Edgar stared, tired and confused, and Scriabin turned back to stirring whatever the red mess in the pot on the stove was.
"What is that?"
"Dinner." Scriabin smiled to himself, considered, then with a larger grin, clarified.
"Edgar con carne."
A huge room, open and wide with marble floors and a gigantic golden construction in its center, slowly oscillating. Something like the planets, something astrologically related he was sure. Globes spinning on huge axes, rising and dipping, reflecting from the floor, and through the glass above the sky was clear. An observatory, it had to be.
Scriabin stood in front of the grand machine, his arms held out wide. From his back spread two large black-webbed wings, thin fingers and leathery skin marked with dozens of thin red lines across a dark surface.
"Jesus came to you last night, Edgar," Scriabin said in an odd voice. He tilted his head back at to the machine, laughed in a way strange and frightening. "He came in you, too."
"Squee's dead."
"What?"
God it was way too humid right here.
Were these flowers?
Standing in line, and he felt like someone was watching him. The vague smell of tacos, and someone's eyes boring into his back.
Someone's fist slammed bodily into his midsection and he fell to the ground, completely winded.
On a couch with a washcloth to his forehead, blood marking light fabric, and Johnny staring at him, alternately thankful and alternately annoyed.
Johnny opened his mouth to say something, and his words mixed together in ways disgusting and incomprehensible, grating and loud and the static was building, rising, piercing
The knife wrenched through the skin of his stomach, tore him open and he felt his entrails fall out of him, thick and heavy and he felt empty in a way he knew would be unforgettable. He tried to gather them up in his hands, put them back in place but when he bent over the knife landed somewhere between his shoulderblades.
The pain was enough to drive someone crazy before they died, and hysteria was certainly understandable.
"Am I dying?"
"No, crying. There's a difference."
"Oh God, what if that's real, what if that's what's really happening to me-"
"Shit, is it really worse in that case?"
Mary looked at her notes, and Edgar fell out of his chair onto the floor.
"Edgar, please. Are you all right? Do you want to go back to your room?"
"I'm sorry." Please don't let this shift again, anything but going back to "I didn't mean to."
"C'mon, Edgar." Harry lifted him back onto his feet, sat him down again. "There we go, you're okay."
"Thank you, Harry. Now, we're talking about how subjective things can be at times. It's important for you to know, in case you're ever having difficulties with reality. The reality that we see, all of us, is interpreted by all of us differently. That's what subjective means. What we all see isn't the same thing. What we see may not be how things really are. You understand? A good method of changing your life is changing how you decide to see things."
"What if we're shifting realities?"
Mary turned to look at him, surprised he had spoken up.
"You have to ask yourself, 'Am I really shifting realities? Is this what's really happening? Or is this just what I think is happening?' It's very important to try and keep that in mind."
"Maybe...this all isn't happening at all..." Edgar stared down. "Maybe I am just..."
Harry looked at him, took Edgar's hand in his own in a fatherly gesture.
"You'll survive, I know you will. You've come this far."
"How far do I have to go?" Edgar's voice broke.
"Until you're where you want to be."
"Thank you, Harry, that's a good philosophy."
Sitting on a piano bench, and his little brother beside him pressed the keys deliberately to knock him off time.
"That's my new philosophy," Scriabin said with great pride, and he placed his fingers on a good deal of keys and pressed down hard. Edgar had to stop practicing for the fifth time.
"That's your new philosophy?"
"That's my new philosophy."
He turned back to the piano keys, and they turned back on him.
I'm dying I'm dying I'm dying
Oh god, you ARE.
"When it comes down to it, I won't let you go."
"...You can't let me go."
"Goddamn it, Scriabin, can you not take one thing at face value? Just say 'okay' or 'I believe you' or 'I'm glad you'll do that' or 'I won't let you go either' or something. Just stop...stop being you for once."
"But it's so much fun, Edgar. You should try it."
"...Don't say that."
"Edgar!"
Snapped to awareness, to a feeling thick and afraid. Something wrapped around his legs, his chest, his neck and oh God. He knew this. That horrible cloying smell of decaying flesh and bone, and those tentacles digging into his skin, sharp barbs and spines. Almost incapacitated, but he heard that voice.
"Edgar, help!"
Scriabin.
Not too far away from him, trapped in his childform as well. His sweater still long over his hands, although from his back came miniature versions of those bone and yarn wings. Fleshy ropes tight around his chest, beneath the thick fabric of his large sweater and around the denim of his jeans, and he fought desperately against a force stronger than both of them.
"Scriabin!"
"Please-"
The thing laughed in a sickening way, and Edgar gritted his teeth, pulled his hands against his bonds as hard as possible, shut his eyes tightly.
"I won't let you-"
Its voice was softer now. "It's more fun when you're awake anyway."
"I won't let you-" Stronger and with more force, and he pulled and heard Scriabin screaming, high-pitched and terrified.
"Don't touch me-"
"I won't let you, not to him-!"
Tightened hard and painfully around his legs, cut off the circulation and he felt something sharp sliding down his back, around the edges of his shirt, and his jaw ached as he kept his teeth tight together. Kept pulling with all the force that his child-body could muster to get at least his hands free. Scriabin reached out to him, his hands desperate and grabbing across space. Tiny, useless wings beating helpless.
Trust me, trust me.
Not sure who he was asking.
"I won't let you-" Deep in his throat, harsh and angry, and he reached out far enough to catch the edge of Scriabin's sleeve.
"Edgar, please-"
Trust me-
The thing laughed at them again. Edgar struggled, tried to move his body, stretched and contorted and felt sharp things dig deep into muscles at the motion but he fought. He fought and struggled and bled for it, but he fought, and he reached out and he grabbed Scriabin's wrists through his sweater, held on tight. Scriabin twisted his hands, wrapped around enough to match the grip.
His shoulders being pulled out of their sockets, pressure unbelievable and while he opened his mouth to voice his pain, he did not let go.
He was determined not to let go.
Sitting at the kitchen table in his past again, staring at a bowl of cereal and he could hear his grandmother walking around. Edgar's entire body ached, insistent and hideous, and he didn't want to move in fear of provoking it any further.
There was one thing constant through the last shifts, and that was him. Well...him and Scriabin so far. They tied everything together, although he wasn't sure what that meant. How it would help, if there was a solution to be found somewhere in the pieces.
He stayed, and from the pain, effects lasted from one reality to the other now.
So suicide then...I can't do that.
"There's a church picnic tomorrow, so I want you to be cleaned up and ready to go, you hear?"
"Yes, Granma." Default response to any question as a child.
But if pain lasts across, why am I not all...disemboweled? Maybe...maybe it's just the monsters, the monsters that do lasting damage...does that mean that was a dream? If Scriabin was there it was a dream...God, how much of this is real?
He decided to risk it enough, the pain and he turned his head. Scriabin sat beside him with his head hidden in his arms, propped up a bit higher with the help of a few thick books. He shivered uncontrollably, and here his tiny wings were gone. His sweater had two small matching rips in the back, over his shoulders.
"That nice Tate woman is going to be there, and she'll probably have her daughter with her. Such a pretty girl, and smart too. She's got a good head on her shoulders. Don't you think so, Edgar?"
"Yes, Granma." Edgar lifted a hand, reached out, rested it on Scriabin's back. Skin brushed against skin through the holes, and Scriabin flinched in response, but didn't move away.
"I want you to try and talk to her tomorrow. She's a nice girl. Got a strong family, good sense of independence. She'll go far in this world, mark my words. She'd be good for you, I know it. Try and talk to her tomorrow. I won't have you just sitting and watching like you always do. It's never too early to plan for the future. I won't be here forever, you know."
"Yes, Granma."
Scriabin made an unhappy, pained noise, managed to force his body to move. He slid from his own stool onto Edgar's lap, his apparent sanctuary when in pain or frightened, and he curled up against him tightly. He made a miserable, soft sound, and Edgar held him through the aching. Scriabin shuddering fitfully, and Edgar looked down at the glimpses of his hands when they weren't covered by his sleeves. Wrists looked dark, but nothing definite.
Looked at himself, saw darkening lines and internal bleeding. No wonder it hurt.
"Someday you'll be married, Edgar..." His grandmother paused, looked at the ceiling. "That's when I know I can stop worrying about you. That's when your life really begins. When you're married, and you start a family of your own...I'll know you'll be taken care of then."
"Yes, Granma."
"Why couldn't I save you...?" Scriabin whispered. Edgar chanced a glance up at his grandmother, then looked back down.
"Maybe that was just from my memories..."
"That wasn't your memory..."
"I mean, it wasn't a real attack...just...a made up one."
"I hurt all over." Scriabin shivered. "It hurts too much."
"I hurt, too. But we survived. It couldn't get us, in the end. I hung onto you. We'll be okay." Edgar looked up at his grandmother again. "When it comes down to it...we'll survive."
His throat cut, and blood filled his lungs and he felt like he was drowning.
You can die in your dreams.
Some place loud and noisy and sharp, jagged edges all around and cutting through and he could barely find himself. Spread out thin, meshing and matching with the discord through the entire place, falling apart. Memories fading fast, sense of self fading, all emotions falling to one side, all in pieces. Piece after piece and it was so gradual, so gentle that he wasn't sure how to fight or why to fight or when to want to where to, what to do. He had no hands to reach out, to pick up the pieces again.
Where was he, who was he. Who what when where why, and all of those questions had no answer and maybe there wasn't a question. How sometimes spotlighted but joined its brothers as unanswerable. How answering a question nonexistant, going away and falling apart, thoughts of fighting gone with the concept of fighting and the whys and heretofores, and there it was gone again. He had it for a moment but he lost it, it was too sharp and too loud here somewhere.
Spreading out infinite, encompassing everything and his understanding of what was happening fading. Things were changing. The world was changing and he changed with it, moved and shifted. Malleable like water, like something that had no bones, and he had no bones now. He didn't have a body that he could recognize. He had a vague sense of himself, piece-meal memories that were getting lost in the jagged edges. Vicious destruction or carelessness was difficult to say, difficult to say and see and define, define. There was nothing to see, no identifiable color, nothing that could be placed in any concrete terms. He wasn't sure if he was anywhere at all. What this place was defied all his normal methods of description, as it relied on something other than his eyes and his emotions were fading, failing.
Something was very important and now he couldn't remember what it was.
Reached out, touched, nudged. Rubbed whatever it was that defined itself as him against some kind of rough edge, a memory or a razor that worked its way deep and out again, left a hole for the chaos to go through. Loss of mass, displaced and floating free in the aether. Touched and moved, hurt but there had to be pain to be hurt, some understanding of a body.
Something crashed into him, spread him far and wide as water dropped on pavement, spattered across thousands of potential realities. It crashed into him, scattered itself through his being, did something that he wasn't sure of.
Fell into words, into letters and numbers, into a world falling behind.
Edgar it said. Whatever it was. Associations drawn thin and hard and he felt whatever it was that was touching him reaching out to touch this new force that was mingling with his own, tangled in his own strange concept of self-involved space, of something that could be attached to a name. The thing that crashed into him held on, swirled within, orbited and revolved and worked into and through the hole that had been dug through him, pushed through him. Worn away the edges, it came and filled the gaps, dug in hard into something insubstantial that was how desperate it was.
Something tried to drag this new part of him away and he fought, he didn't want that. It came and filled the gaps, it felt natural and strong and in this world it felt as though it made sense. He didn't want it to leave and he wasn't sure how he was fighting it, just that he was somehow. A shattering shriek if he had eardrums, the world vibrating around him to pieces, falling apart and angry at him, blaming him.
Edgar it said again.
Stretched out fiber thin, thousands among thousands of different places, different people, different things, and the part that spun in whatever it was he considered himself now, as short a time that would last. How long his self would last, but he reached out, curled, incorporated, touched through thousands of soap bubbles, thin flashing scenes, splices from a movie reel that went too fast to be seen but they weren't being viewed, not necessarily. Falling together, falling apart, the shrieking furious and deafening and the world vengefully collapsing in on itself.
Scriabin he said.
With the word came understanding, and he wasn't sure if reality was defined before he said it or afterwards. That force that had crashed into him pulled itself apart just that much to affirm what he had said, kept close and around him, buzzing and angry and speaking in one way or another.
Shapes, all fading and formless. One thing remained constant, one feeling. Every person condensed, words into soundbytes that lasted less than a second, memories and flashes too fast and colliding with one another, sparklers and explosions of a life that he once knew. Destroyed systematically, falling apart by their collision, by perhaps their own bid for supremacy in this ruined landscape, the concepts that stretched high and collapsed and faded the next, passions and emotions that maybe formed the rafters of whatever this world could have been. Still without sight but basic knowledge, a strange kind of inherent knowingness, familiarity with his surroundings and the pieces that whirled around him, screaming and shrieking.
Scriabin he said again. The world around him recoiled at however the word was voiced, however it found its way into existence. Perhaps a thought, perhaps a tongue at work somewhere, but everything was far too nebulous right now to say for sure. The pieces around him pulled together more, kept their shrieking buzzing cacophony for nonexistant ears.
Edgar he said back, and with the change in pronoun the pieces snapped together into something solid but still attached to him in one way or another, a cord running through and a heartbeat finally was the first thing he could hear, something definite. A sense regained and with it the others had to follow because that was what was expected, that was what reality should have been, and he was trying now, pulling hard. Someone told him long ago not to give up, not to give up.
He'd be okay, he'd be okay in the end.
He promised someone that he'd be okay.
"Edgar!"
He could hear, and the world around him screamed and shook enough to make him regret it. Forms coalescing in the nothingness, finding pieces in the shattered remains of ill-fated memories. Nothing existed anymore, nothing he could remember. All he knew were those two names and that he had something he had to do, something that was very important and he wouldn't give up. He promised someone that he wouldn't give up, and that was the one thing he had that had lasted.
"Scriabin!"
Eyes and he could see and it was silent.
Blank whiteness all around, the edges of it torn to shreds as if by some invading creature. In front of him sat a man who looked entirely too familiar, wearing a large sweater and larger jeans. He sat and shivered and fell apart at the edges sometimes.
"Edgar, I'm still..." He tested his mouth out. "I'm still here."
Pieces and parts. He reached down, picked up a flickering shard of a memory long ago, watched it melt into his hand and felt it come back to him. A scrap of something, but what he wasn't sure. Out of context, maybe useless. The man in front of him stared, watched.
"I..."
"You're Edgar, you're Edgar, I remember that." Scriabin looked around. "I don't know where we are...I don't know what happened. I don't know who we are..."
"I'm Edgar...and you're Scriabin, then..."
"Yeah..."
"Where are we?"
"I don't know...I don't know how we got here. Were we always here?"
"We couldn't have always been here..."
"I can't remember anything else. I can't remember anything except...your name. I can't...it's all gone. Everything's gone...if I had everything, it's gone...I must have had something. I feel like I had something once, but I'm not sure...I can't remember. A hole...something empty."
Edgar held out his hand.
"I know that you're important to me. I know that I'm important to you. I guess that's as good a place to start as any, right?"
Scriabin took his hand, let Edgar pull him to his feet. They stood next to each other, two men in a vast dead world of destroyed thoughts and ripped borders and a broken life. Open and with no protection now. They'd have to find shelter eventually.
"What happened to us? What happened here?"
Scriabin kept his hold on Edgar's hand, and Edgar let him do so.
"I don't know. I don't know where we are."
"Who are we?"
"I don't know. I don't remember anything...I don't know why we're here, or what we're trying to do."
"You can't remember anything either..."
"But we're important...important to each other, I know. It must be. You...you look familiar."
"Yeah, so do you..."
"Maybe we're related?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I just..." Scriabin looked down at his shoes, battered and with no shoelaces. "I just, I can't...something's wrong. Maybe something's wrong, this doesn't feel...I don't feel...something's gone."
"I feel the same way," Edgar said, and Scriabin smiled at the validation. "I want to know what happened...why we're here, who we are. But I don't think...maybe not for a while, even. How did we get here?"
"I don't know..."
"How old are we?"
Edgar paused, and the scraps of the horizon fluttered somehow.
"We?"
"I don't know how old I am...do you know how old you are? Maybe we're the same age. We're the same height, more or less. I think we weigh the same, too. You look so familiar."
"Maybe...I don't know." Something fought against definition, the definite, and he wasn't sure what it was. "Something must have happened though, this place is ruined. Something bad must have happened here."
"Maybe we're the only survivors." Scriabin looked out over the vast, empty, white plain. "I guess we're alone."
"No...whoever did this...I'm sure they're alive, somewhere. We're going to have to be careful."
"Are we staying together?" Scriabin said with a smirk, and something about that jolted a knife through Edgar's chest, his stomach, and he doubled over. Scriabin's hand was on his back immediately, close and concerned and his voice was tight and fast. "Jesus, are you okay, um...Edgar?"
"I'm...I'm fine..." Edgar did not feel fine, but he didn't want to worry Scriabin. It was probably nothing. The fact that Scriabin felt so concerned meant they must have known each other somehow, someway, before whatever it was that happened. In the life that Edgar was sure he must have had, although he had no clue as to what it could have been. "I'm sorry, it's just...it's nothing."
Scriabin looked thoughtful for a few seconds. "I think we should stay together. We must have known each other, before. In whatever lives we lived, we must have known each other somehow. I'm worried about you, that can't be for nothing."
Edgar looked at Scriabin, smiled weakly. "Ha...that's what I was thinking."
"Really?" Scriabin raised an eyebrow. "Weird. You sure you're all right?"
"Yeah...I'll be okay, Scri. Can I call you Scri?"
"Sure."
"It's..." Edgar ran a hand over his chest, testing. The stabbing pain was gone, but it was so sudden and sharp. He stood up slowly, hesitantly. "Do you think it's a coincidence, that we survived and no one else did? Do you think it's a coincidence that we knew each other before, and we're alive now?"
"Probably not, but I can't say for sure. Maybe we're just lucky."
Edgar looked at the edge of the tattered world, defenses completely broken. Looked at Scriabin and himself, found them solid in a world destroyed. That meant something. "No...no, I think that...I think we're going to survive."
Scriabin tilted his head. "How so?"
"I think...I can't remember anything, I can't remember a single thing but I have this feeling that...this isn't the first time. I have the feeling that...we've done this before. That we've survived like this before. I think...I think that's what we do. Together. Maybe that's why we're both here, we help each other survive."
"Like army buddies, I guess." Scriabin put his hands in the pouch of his sweater. "Maybe you're right. It sounds good enough. I mean...we'll never know if it was true, but it sounds good."
"You don't think we'll ever remember again?"
Scriabin was silent for a few seconds.
"I think I'm a pessimist."
"Maybe..." Edgar turned, looked behind him. The same ravaged white landscape, borders torn like fabric or paper, destroyed deliberately and with an intent to do...something. Whatever it was that had happened. "Either way...I think we'll survive. I think we survive."
"How do you know?"
"I...I don't know." He looked at his companion. "I just...I just know. I just know that we're going to be okay."
Scriabin looked at him doubtfully. Something squeaked from behind the broken borders, something hissed and moved. Scriabin moved closer to Edgar's side, took his hand and Edgar squeezed his hand in response.
"We'll survive," Scriabin said without much conviction.
Edgar stared into the unknown, and he didn't let go.
"We'll survive." Make it so. "I know we will. I think we've made it through the worst of it, don't you? We're still here. I think we've made it. I think we'll make it. From now on..."
Scriabin turned to look at him curiously, and Edgar wondered why he wore reflective glasses. He'd ask him later, maybe.
"Things will definitely get better."
The End
(Author's Note: This totally went off in a different direction than I intended. It's become some kind of weird fic nexus. Almost every fic anyone's ever written involving Edgar and Nny found its way in here. What a weird weird fic.
Heh. Looks like the two of them survived the collapse at the end, although Edgar physically is probably in a coma and has no idea that he's dreaming, with a good chance he won't wake up again at all. Also now that Edgar's mind is completely gone, it makes it a vast playground for the monsters, who'll probably descend on Edgar and Scri in seconds. Wow, now that I think about it, this is a horribly depressing ending. WOO GO SELF.
I did like tieing it to the diaryfic in the last bit though. Mwaha.
Random lyrics in the first part are from a song called "Change Myself" by Todd Rundgren. Snippets from any other fic or something that made it in here in some other way or form are the property of their respective owners. As a list, thanks to Xel, Yamamuri Sadako, Kitty-N, Dachan, Moonie1, Dai, Dee, Starwolf, TwistedToaster, AutumnXellos, Exit, OkageHime, Lady Yate-xel, Mango, Iktia, Lana, Mith-maulin, Rueyeet, Starie, Moonlitwaters, Crow, Karuri, Chelle, Levi, Kurumi, Sally-skellington, and ShadowCavalier. You guys are awesome.)