"Look, if I murdered someone—"

"Who?"

"Anyone. Doesn't matter. So I'd just get on a boat and go into international waters. Then I could say, fuck you, no laws out here."

"That's not how it works."

"Space, then. Catch a ride on the rocket, hide on the far side of the moon."

"Yeah, okay."

"Okay, fine, what's your grand plan?"

"Go to a small town, become a pillar of the community, and when they find me decades later, everyone will say, 'But he's such a nice guy!'"

"Pfft, sure."

"Yeah, somewhere like—I dunno—Arcadia Bay. Be this real upstanding fisherman."

"Well, when shit goes south, row into the Pacific and find me, fishmonger."

0-0-0-0-0-0

You open your eyes.

No. No. That's absolutely fucking ridiculous. No.

0-0-0-0-0-0

You're walking to the cafe.

At least, you think you're walking to the cafe. And you think you're walking.

Arcadia Bay? That shanty town? It's been in the news, hasn't it? You haven't paid attention. Nothing beyond you seems real, right now.

Town got crushed by a tropic storm out of nowhere. Something like that. But more people care about a few beached whales than tens of dead. Typical. Save the whales, fuck the humans.

That's what made you remember. It was—shit, how many years ago? You and Damien and he went there for a summer, not having enough money to go somewhere exciting. So you drank coffee and looked at art and wandered around the wilderness and sort-of-not-really camped.

Why would Damien—

A screech of tires. A sound of flesh hitting hood. Screams from the crowd.

You look up, notice the man in a bloody sprawl of limbs on the street, sigh, and REGRESS—

You surge forward, hooking your fingers into the man's collar and yanking him back onto the sidewalk. He stumbles, drops his phone mid-text, falls on his ass.

"Hey, what—"

You don't care. You're already shouldering people aside, marching to the cafe, hands in pockets, eyes ahead.

This may be the last time you see Sarah, after all.

0-0-0-0-0-0

You're a block away.

You can see it from here.

You turn around and walk back the way you came.

0-0-0-0-0-0

When this all started—when Damien disappeared on you—you went to his house.

You were so angry at first you just kicked the door in—but then twenty minutes later a patrol car pulled up. Shit. You REGRESSED.

The second time, you actually used the spare key, twisting it so hard you thought you'd break it off in the lock. You two were like that—the kind of friends that would have keys to the other's house.

But as soon as you walked in and shut the door behind you, hate ignited.

You tore the place apart.

Cabinets, cupboards, closets, drawers. You overturned the furniture, cut open the chairs and couches, cut open his mattress, looked for hidden compartments. Looked behind bookshelves, the refrigerator. Looked under the sinks, in the cistern of the toilet. You hunted for crawlspaces, false walls, anything.

You moved on to his computer. Password? Didn't matter. You hammered in word after word, REGRESSING after every lockout. The keyboard rattled under your fingers. Five REGRESSIONS later, you cut through.

'Halogen.' Only seven letters? Weak, Damien. Should've thrown some numbers or punctuation in there.

You dug through his files, death-grip on the mouse making its plastic creak. Nothing. Even in the depths of his hard drive the most suspicious thing you found was a 'New Folder' filled with alt-lesbian porn. Your eyes flitted over the files, glazed.

With a roar, you flipped the table, sending it to crashing to the floor. You kicked the monitor across the room.

Sitting there in a darkening house that looked like it was ransacked by a foreign army, you decided that three items were missing.

One, Damien.

Two, Damien's car.

And three, Damien's gun.

0-0-0-0-0-0

You sit on your bed. You slowly rock back and forth.

You know where he is.

Beyond questioning. Beyond doubt.

You stand up. You pace around, kick dirty clothes out of your way. It warm in here? Air feels... heavy. You open one window. Then all of them. You turn and look around, but still, it's like you're peering through heatwaves.

You run your hands over the walls. Your fingers snag a light switch, and you flip the lights on and off a few times. You go into the bathroom and run cold water over your hands. You press your hands against the mirror, feeling the coolness, watching the lines of water slowly streak down.

You need to do something. You go to the kitchen. You'll do dishes, get your mind off of this. But there are no dishes because you're barely eating. You keep forgetting when you've eaten and when you haven't.

You cling to the sink, swaying. Steadying.

You know where he is.

You know where the both of them are. One, face-down in the field. The other, face-up in Arcadia Bay.

You pace. You pace and pace. You stop and stare down at the waterstain next to the coffee table.

You have no way of knowing. No true way.

But you know. Because you know Damien.