The headaches had always been there. As far back as you can remember, even before the nosebleeds. Static electricity, blue and hot, arcing under and over the wrinkles of your brain, rebounding off the walls of your skull. It wasn't the kind of thing you got used to, but it was something you could hide from Damien and Kurt.
But now, it's different. Now, you can feel... symmetry.
The headaches had a pattern.
Basal ganglia. Cerebellum. Cerebral cortex.
Pattern.
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The first time you got stuck, you didn't realize you were stuck.
Chronostasis.
Rather technical term for a simple idea.
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Ten thousand dollars.
Then twenty.
Then forty.
Then there were five zeroes.
And then the game had changed.
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"Come on, it'll be funny."
You don't want to, at first. And Damien puts up a blatantly false show of resistance, the same way he's done ever since the fifth grade when he wants to keep the facade of cool but is too damn stubbon to admit that yes, he does like stupid things sometimes.
So you tell yourselves you're doing this ironically.
Yes, purely as an antimaterialistic, anticapitalistic gesture. Absolutely.
When Damien pops the cork of champagne over the laughing crowd of contemptible, shallow strangers, as the froth falls like semen on their whore faces, and you crack a one-sided smile—no, you're mocking them.
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Kurt groans, massaging his temples. "I feel... like literal shit. I was digested by a creature made of ethanol."
Damien knocks back his fourth glass of water. His eyes look like the mouths of wild animals. "Want to do us all a favor and rewind a day?"
You're still working the taste of vomit and whiskey out from between your teeth. "Fuck you and fuck you. You deserve this."
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As the money came in, all of you warily appraised each other, maintaining a careful distance.
Waiting for one of your to change.
But Damien was still Damien, Kurt was still Kurt, and you were still you. The money hadn't changed jack shit.
So you all had a laugh about it and had a smoke.
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He starts the car.
"And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills..."
"Dixie Chicks? Really?"
Damien looks at you unapologetically, eyebrow raised. "Yeah, really," he says, deftly deflecting your hand away from the radio.
"... The landslide brought it down..."
Always the same. You wouldn't have him any other way.
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Murder suicide. Dad killed his wife and kid. Just nearby, whole community shocked.
You stand up. Kurt looks back at you imploringly, helplessly.
But you smile. "Be right back."
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It should have been you, right?
You should have been the one to shoot Kurt.
Because then Damien would have to kill you and then no one would be fucking with time and space and reality or whatever and then maybe things would be back to normal.
Yeah, Damien would be the last one standing. Yeah, he'd be all friendless and all alone. But fuck Damien. He's always—he was always—it's always been like this! Needs the last word, needs to be second guessing you, needs to be number one or he won't play. Ever since you were kids!
Whose fault? His fault! Fuck! They have so much money and nothing to spend it on so he goes and buys a gun—you were too but that's beside the point this is about him not you—
And now they're both dead and you're alone. Whose fault is that, huh?
Not yours. It can't be your fault.
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Tina Mollison? Her and Damien? You didn't really see it. She was too... what's the word? Nice. Whereas Damien... was Damien. But Damien would rather tell a gory truth than a lie.
Tina and Damien, behind the gym, huh. Mouths closed, no tongue, but from Damien's description he discovered a new Goddamn continent full only of estrogen.
"If you tell anyone—anyone!—I'll kill you."
"Then why tell me?"
And he just stood there, mouth slightly open, eyes widening.
And that was the day you realized that maybe, just maybe, Damien just might be mortal like everyone else.
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Because you'll die like everyone else, right?
Eventually. Of course.
But when it comes—and it will come—and you have that last moment of lucidity, of consciousness, what will happen? Will you lash out at time, catch the world in your hands, feel it grind against your palms as it tries to spin away?
How long will you stretch out your final moment? Another minute? Another hour? Will you keep REGRESSING over and over and over and over again when you get too close to the real thing?
How many times until—well, will your brain even let you? Let you brave into the space between present and future? Will panic and instinct rip time from your grasp and force you to keep going back?
You nod to yourself.
It'll have to be quick, then.
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REGRESSING is harder to do, yet harder to resist.
And that four-legged shape watches, always watches, from the corner of nowhere.
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You decide to go find some dry wood before the two of them froze to death.
Twenty steps later you've forgotten why you're wandering around in the forest.
But the cool breeze and the warmth of gin in your blood means you don't particularly care. So, hands in your pockets and chin tucked down contemplatively, you amble over the pine needles and wet soil, hopping from stone to stone. You lend your ears to birdsong, the rustle of undergrowth, let the indistinct shapes between the trunks be deer or raccoons or whatever else.
You follow the sun.
And suddenly you emerge from the trees and there's nothing but Pacific ocean and lighthouse.
And you realize you weren't following the sun, but following a sound.
Human sound.
You walk closer. The setting sun feels close, too close, but even in this light you can see a bench right at the edge of the cliff.
So you sit down. And you look out into the vast blueness and goldness and don't think anything, because the human brain can only create so many worthwhile thoughts, and you rightly decided that now is the time to be quiet.
But it's not quiet, because you hear someone crying.
You're not alone on this bench. You glance right.
Some girl is crying. Well, no, not really. Now she's putting on a front and trying to bottle it up now that a fuckin' tourist has wandered out of the woods.
... Well. You try to look back at the sunset, but it just hurts your eyes.
She's still sniffling. She must be, what, twelve? You can't tell. You can't tell is she's trembling from the crying or the cold, either.
And now, somehow, you feel miserable too.
And then:
... No, wait. And then:
"Are you okay?" you ask, and you're surprised by your own voice.
The girl nods, not looking at you.
"... Are you lost? Do you know where your parents are?"
A shake of the head, and then a nod.
"... Okay."
And you both sit there for a while longer. She sniffles.
"It's okay to cry," you say abruptly, blinking in surprise as you say it. "It's human. Humanizing." You gesture at nothing. "I should probably cry more, myself."
A hiccup. You hope it's a laugh.
"I don't—I don't know what's bothering you. I won't ask. But—it gets better. I—even if—even if things look terrible right now, it gets better. Because this moment, right now—it's just one moment. And... there are a lot more moments."
What a fucking lame thing to say. You almost want to throw yourself from the cliff and dash your head on those rocks. But, inexplicably, you don't.
Instead, you shuck off your favorite red jacket and drape it around the girl's shoulders, walking away before she can protest.
"In case it rains," you call over your shoulder.
When you get back to your improvised camp site, bundle of wood under your arm, Kurt asks what happened to your jacket.
You laugh. "What jacket?"
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But that never happened. There was no girl. No sunset. No lighthouse. You wandered lost in the forest, and got unlost. That was it. That's what happened. Everything else?
"It never happened," you say.
"It never happened," agrees the basal ganglia.
"It never happened," agrees the cerebellum.
"It never happened," agrees the cerebral cortex.
"Then why do you remember?" someone in the distance asks.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," you mutter.