"I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself."
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis
-ooo-
DAY THREE
03:49:31 UTC
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Run-
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He ran.
He jogged across the beach.
Down the road.
Through abandoned buildings and empty fields.
Over bridges, around each island.
It never did much to clear his head, but it was better than nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
No-no-no-no-no-no-no-n-
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His head was a mess of strange, unwelcome images.
Pressing his foot down against the fragile length of a long, slender neck.
To smile as bones crackled and popped and broke beneath his tread, as onlookers screamed… cheered.
The sharp slap of a congratulatory hand against his shoulder.
What the shit?
Shit.
Shit.
Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-
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It had been an accident.
It had to have been an accident.
Only...
Only... could he really believe that?
He hadn't meant to push them so hard... hadn't realized he had or that they would...
He hadn't known.
Why hadn't he seen it coming?
That was his job, wasn't it?
To see the hits coming?
To help them reach their full potential.
He'd just... he'd just been trying to help.
He... he should have seen it coming.
There had to have been signs.
Had to have been... something he could have done.
Why hadn't he...
He...
He hadn't...
Hadn't...
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-h-
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Run-
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He knew it was a dream, had to be, because sometimes... sometimes he didn't have a head.
Or more like his body didn't.
Sometimes he woke up and he was on the beach and he couldn't feel anything below his neck and just when he started to panic, he'd see his body run on by and he'd remember that it was all just a dream.
And if it was just a dream, he'd wake up soon enough.
Wake up to... something.
Someone.
He wasn't sure who.
Who'd be waiting for him.
Who he was.
Where.
He wasn't sure of a lot of things.
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Sometimes... sometimes his head came off, just popped right off and sometimes he caught it, but more often it landed in the sand with a loud, wet plop.
Only how could see all that when it was his head lying there on the sand.
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Sometimes he was a robot, solid steel with a heart to match and everything felt distant and strange like moving through a damp, heavy fog.
And somewhere he could hear a clock tick-tick-ticking away to the end of the world.
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He rested his head against that cool stone, his heart still racing from running all the way there.
To the worn grey of the bench they used to sit on when the weather was nice and they were both doing well enough to walk themselves out there.
"Daisuke…" he murmured, lips brushing against the damp stone, salt on his lips. "I messed up."
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Someone was yelling, screaming that he needed to get up, to work harder, to move faster.
"Concentrate!"
"Keep moving!"
"You can do this!"
"C'mon!"
"Pick up the pace!"
No.
That…
His voice.
His.
He was screaming at someone, face warm with the beginnings of fury.
Why couldn't any of them do this?
It wasn't that damn hard.
His kids would have been able to do this course blindfolded.
Shit.
These punks were supposed to be talented, weren't they?
They were supposed to be better.
They had every advantage handed to them and the losers still didn't have half the heart his kids had... had.
Didn't want to put in the work.
Spoiled rotten by their natural talents.
Shit.
Each step they took was more unsteady, more uncertain than the last.
He already knew how it was going to end even before they'd finally stepped too far forward and vanished in an explosion of dirt and mud, bloody chunks raining down across the wet field, as the sound of the blast rang in his ears.
Gleeful laughter filled the silence as he cracked his neck, sighing heavily.
He didn't have to look to know it was her.
She'd been sitting on the bleachers most of the day in a cheerleading uniform munching her way through a bowl of popcorn as he ran the kids through their paces.
Her laughter echoed across the field as he motioned for them to send out the next one.
Pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-
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There was a body swinging out into the open air, busted open like an overstuffed piñata, trailing entrails like gory streamers as it swayed gently in the wi-
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He woke on the beach again and again and again.
Or least he thought he did.
He'd dreamed of stepping in front of her again.
Of her shocked wide open expression.
He was meant to take the hits so they didn't have to.
Wasn't that how it was suppos-
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Endless nightmares.
Endless dreams, fading and blending one into the next into the next into the next and he couldn't... he couldn't quite figure what was real.
Whether anything was.
Had he been at a school?
An island?
Who was he again?
Where?
What?
How?
His head was filled with bees.
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He ran.
Because that was the only time anything made sense.
If he was running his thoughts couldn't catch him.
If he kept moving the nightmares could-
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He couldn't even take a shit in peace.
There was always... something.
Something happening around him every time he slowed down, every time he stopped to catch his breath.
Some scream or cry or babbling tangle of voices just out of sight, just out of reach, people he could never find, never reach.
Even the landscape kept changing around him.
Bridges crumbled.
Beaches filled with holes.
When he made the mistake of going into the beach house to shower he'd found it scattered with discarded clothing, the floor of shower room wet.
When he'd poked his head in the cabins, he'd found Hinata's room reeking of sex, the door hanging loose and broken on its hinges.
He found the amusement park splashed liberally with blood.
Sometimes the beach was littered with random crap from the supermarket.
Once he saw one of those big beach umbrellas just floating out across the water.
The diner lights flickered like they were trying to send a message to passing ships.
Once he'd passed the hotel and the whole damn thing had been on fire, the air thick with smoke and the stench of burning plastic.
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Sometimes he saw them… even if he couldn't always remember who they were.
Couldn't remember their names
Couldn't remember why they were important.
It was just... faded images and only for the briefest moments, but it was unmistakably... them.
Them.
There was some light-haired boy sitting on a bent palm tree staring out at the horizon.
A big kid with shaggy hair sitting in the restaurant working his way through a mountain of food.
Once he even thought he'd seen a girl push someone off a cliff.
He tried to call out to them, to demand their attention over and over again, but he could never get through.
His words could never reach them.
He could never reach them.
He wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-wa-
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He ran.
He kept running and he never stopped unless he had to.
Didn't stop until exhaustion sent him to his knees.
Sometimes he was sure he felt her dogging his heels like she had sometimes on his morning runs around the island, but he couldn't look.
Didn't want to look.
Coward.
He ran faster, dug in and dashed across the sand until the ghost of her presence faded away as if it had never been there at a-
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Night had fallen when he'd collapsed on the sand, suddenly and inexplicably exhausted.
He woke with sand in his shorts to grey clouds overhead and the cool, gentle patter of rain on his face.
Huh.
Hu-hu-hu-hu-h-
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The sky above him was filled with green and black static.
There was someone sitting beside him.
Had they been there all along?
It didn't seem like it.
The hood cast their features in shadow, but he wasn't sure whether he would have recognized them even if it hadn't.
"Hey," he'd begun, hesitantly, voice rough with disuse. "What are you doing here?"
If they answered him, he wasn't there to hear it.
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