"One...Two...Three." A cold wind whipped around Jonathan from where he stood on the dark, creaking bridge. Evan stood with his back to him, staring over the side of the railing.
"Dying a second time…" Evan whispered. "We've all died at least once." He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a shining red apple. He wiped it on his jacket before taking a bite from it.
"What do you mean?"
"Four...Five...Six."
"To think that we all have other versions." Evan turned, his red jacket fading into a soldier's uniform. A black sludge oozed from the apple, dripping to the snow. "This world needs you."
Jonathan's eyes opened slowly, taking in the early morning light. The tent around him rippled in the cold wind. They had gone back to the tipped over truck, back to Brock's frozen body. No flowers grew from his corpse. Jonathan didn't know how long they had walked, or what the last of his friends had said to him. Everywhere he looked was a ghost. Sometimes it was Evan but other times it was him or it would be Tyler, trekking along beside him in silence, dressed either in a suit, or sometimes a pilot's uniform, or the dirty clothes that Jonathan had last seen him in. Jonathan wanted him to say something, but he said nothing, only staring straight ahead with a confused expression on his face as if he didn't understand what had happened to him. Tyler was a ghost in every sense of the word; he was lost.
Jonathan sat up, the tent around him, reaching for Tyler's pack in the corner. Ryan hadn't been interested in their stuff, only them, only their consciousnesses. Jonathan couldn't help but wonder if he knew about the letters as he pulled them out of Tyler's pack, untying the red ribbon and unfolding the first one. As he read them, he reached into his pocket, his hand curling around the crumpled letter that was about him. He wished that he had been able to get the letters from the soldier before their escape, wondering if he put them side by side, would the writing be the same?
"How many times have you died?" Jonathan whispered, feeling tears welling up in his eyes again. He fought them, his grip tightening on the letters. "How many times have I watched you die?" He put the letters down before he crumpled them more, instead gripping the sleeping bag as the tears he so desperately wanted to fight began to spill. "How many more times do I have to see it?" His tear-filled eyes landed on the last letter Evan wrote to Tyler, the ink smudged but still readable. "You knew...You understood…" Jonathan reached for the letter, reading it for what felt like the first time, only now understanding what Evan had been trying to say all along. "This isn't the end. I think of this an open door. A door that leads to a free, peaceful, world where there is no wall that separates new from old. I'm just on the other side of the door and that is where I'll wait for you…" Jonathan read. "This world...This world. Another world."
"He will keep him alive. Evan will tell him what he must do. That boy will do what he says."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Love. Evan will live on."
"Which Evan?"
"Only the ones that Jonathan needs most."
"We could open a door, we could break it all! Who's to say if we bring back one, all won't come back too? What about the others? We cannot break the rules of this world."
"But they can."
Snow fell from the grey sky, but from the corner of his eye, Jonathan could have sworn that it was ash. He sat by the campfire, watching Craig struggle to make a stew from what he had been able to scavenge from the tipped over truck. Lui was just beyond Craig, walking through the wreckage, looking for anything else they could use to survive.
"It's colder than I thought it was." Craig said quietly, trying to make conversation though he knew that Jonathan wouldn't say anything. "Do you know how long we were in that place? I lost track of time...it could have only been one day and I wouldn't be surprised...But I wouldn't be surprised either if it was months." He sighed, setting the spoon down as he met Jonathan's sad gaze. "You made changes to Evan right? Was it just so Ohm didn't know what he was doing? You didn't know that he would...would self-destruct?"
"I didn't know." Jonathan whispered. "I didn't want anyone to die...I didn't want anyone to be hurt...I just wanted to save our home, to finally put Evan to rest."
"That's what we all wanted…" Craig looked down at the bubbling stew and the flames below the pot, the light reflecting the tears in his eyes. "I saw Tyler." Jonathan gave him a confused look but he knew exactly what he meant. "While we were walking...I saw him among the trees not that far from where we were. He walked with us but he looked like he didn't know why...Like there was nothing else for him to do but walk. Why did he have to keep walking with us? Does he blame us for what happened to him? I don't want to see his ghost, Jonathan. I'm scared." Jonathan hated it but he was glad that someone else other than him was scared of ghosts for once. "I know I shouldn't be...it's only Tyler. But there was one time...Where he didn't look like Tyler. He looked like the devil." Jonathan froze.
"What are you?"
"A god." Evan had said.
"The devil…" Jonathan repeated. "This world. Another world…"
"What?"
"Have you only seen these two Tylers?" Jonathan asked, leaning forward. Craig didn't answer, only stared into the flames. "Craig?"
"He wore a pilot's uniform once. That happened before he died, though...After you left us. I saw him but then behind him, it was like...his doppelgänger. He was the exact same except his clothes and the...blood." Craig picked up the spoon and stirred again, shaking his head. "It's nothing. Just the wilderness got to my head is all. Ryan got to my head."
"I see Evan." Jonathan suddenly said, catching Craig off guard. "Sometimes he's a soldier...or he's some kind of monster with glitching eyes or he's...Evan but there is something almost magical about him. Something that we could never know. He keeps telling me that this world needs me...Tyler probably wants to tell you the same." Jonathan managed a smile, the first one in days. "He never believed me when I told him…"
"I believe you." Craig said, reaching for Jonathan's hand. He held it tightly for a moment before letting go as Lui threw down a pack and sat down between them.
"We don't have much. Tyler still had some snacks in his bag and the coolers still have a week or two of food left that's edible. I don't know if it'll be enough to get us back home. I've seen a few birds around so maybe." Lui sighed. He looked tired.
"I'd rather not waste ammo. Ryan will come after us." Craig reminded him.
"Then take my food. Don't worry about me. I'm a machine, remember?" Jonathan tried to laugh. "I'll still feel hunger, but it won't kill me like it could kill you two. Eat." After some more persuading, they agreed but still insisted that he have a bowl of stew. They sat around their small campfire as the world started to darken around them. Not far away, just among the trees, was Brock's grave.
"We're going home then?" Jonathan asked Lui as they walked among the trees, looking for more firewood. Lui nodded. "You don't want to go back for Tyler's body?"
"He'd think that that would be the dumbest thing...Besides, we've done all we can here. We're more use at home, helping rebuild and defending the city when Ohm's machines attack." Lui explained, picking up a small fallen branch. "You don't want to go back, do you?"
"I don't want to, but I know that Ohm isn't going to stop. He isn't going to stop unless we make him." Jonathan said, snapping a small twig.
"We can make him stop from home. We don't have to be on the front lines anymore, Jonathan. I mean, after all, we've been through, we're too tired to stop him. Look at what happened to Tyler. To Brock. We're the last ones. If Craig hadn't joined us...We'd probably be dead too. We can go home. Sure, it'll be a longer battle but we can't fight him. Ohm has too much on his side going for him." Lui cried.
"But-"
"But what? I'm tired! Craig is tired! I know you are too." Lui threw down the branch, walking away from Jonathan back towards their camp. "Come on. It's getting too dark for this."
Jonathan slept restlessly. He tossed and turned in his sleeping bag, feeling either too hot or too cold, feeling watched or completely alone. As the sun began to rise, the sky turning a gentle blue, Jonathan reached into Tyler's bag, grabbing his last little bag of crackers and stepped out into the cold, the fresh snow crunching under his boots. Wrapping his scarf around his face tightly, he wandered through the woods, both knowing and not knowing where he was going. His past self-knew where he was going.
Once past the train wreckage, and down a slope, a river cut through the trees, it's gentle current now allowing for ice to stop it. Ducks floated on the sides of the river, their feathers glinting in the light. Jonathan shivered, his blue suit now bloody and torn. Finding a spare jacket in the truck, he pressed his face against the scarf to stay warm. His arm was numb now, dried blood sticking to the wound on his arm. He was covered in scars, the damage all repaired by Ryan. That was the only thing Jonathan wanted to thank him for. He sat down on the snow, opening the bag and crumbled one of the crackers into pieces before tossing them to the ducks. They sped towards the crackers, catching them before they could sink. Jonathan smiled. It was the only normal, peaceful thing he had seen in what felt like weeks.
A bright light suddenly caught Jonathan's eye. He turned away from the sparkling river and looked back into the woods, his eyes widening with amazement. Lights wound up the trees in a rainbow of colours. Pinks, reds and blues, golds, greens and oranges. Jonathan dropped the bag of crackers in shock as he got to his feet, walking slowly through the trees. It was then that he noticed the doors. Single doors standing in the middle of the woods, each one different than the other. One had an axe engraved in the wood, blood dripping from the blade. Another was a metal door, the face of an owl painted with smeared black paint. Everywhere he looked was a door. He stopped in front of one which was a simple black door with a golden doorknob shaped like an apple. He reached for the handle, wondering what would be on the other side.
"Jonathan. This world needs you." Evan's voice called out. Jonathan spun around to see Evan step out from behind a door that was covered in vines and dead leaves, centipedes crawling among the vines. "You belong here. Once you're done with this world, who knows where you will go next." Evan smiled slightly.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what he means." Tyler said, moving from behind a door that was covered in graffiti, but there were flowers growing from the snow around it. "Evan has been trying to tell you all along."
"This world...Another world." Brock said, peeking out from behind the floral door.
"You said you could live on, Evan...Before I dropped you. You said that you had died before. Did you know...that it was like this? That you could just walk through another door into another world?" Jonathan struggled to wrap his mind around what he was saying. "Why are you telling me now? After you've all died! It means nothing now! We can't stop Ryan! We can't do anything!"
"You can't give up...You have to go back." Brock cried. Jonathan couldn't face him, grief written across his face. He knew for Brock that he couldn't give up, but the last of them would die if they went back.
"I don't want to die...After everything...Everything we fought for! We saved Old Town! We destroyed machines and got revenge for Evan and now if we go back...it'll all be for nothing!" Jonathan yelled. "Why can't you see that?" Three soldiers stood in front of Jonathan, blood dripping to the snow.
"We know what it means to die, Jonathan." Tyler said softly. "We see that it is scary for you."
"It's okay, Jonathan." Evan took a step forward, the owl patch on his lapel glimmering in the rainbow of lights. "There isn't anything to scared of...We'll always come back. We'll never leave you. This world or another...we'll never leave you." Evan smiled and wrapped his arms tightly around Jonathan, pulling him into a warm hug. "This isn't the end. I think of this an open door. A door that leads to a free, peaceful, world where there is no wall that separates new from old. I'm just on the other side of the door and that is where I'll wait for you…"