SUMMER OF THE FALL

BY KEVIN VACHNA

I

They say there’s a quiet before the storm, but that’s a lie. They say a lot of things you shouldn’t believe. You can’t take everything you’re told as truth.

Anyone can tell you a story. Anyone can twist the facts.

It was dark as I lay flat on my back in the center of my room. Slivers of stale light sliced through the broken blinds, casting shadows like prison bars across the walls. The air was thick and damp, creeping through the open window. Outside, the pitter-patter of rain blended with muffled sirens, distant but ever-present. The wind pushed sprinkles of rain through the window, onto my face. It was happening, but I didn’t care. The darkness was a familiar weight, like those nights when the phone rang with the news of Jake wrecking his car, or when Ashley jumped…

I shook the thoughts away and hit the light switch. The overhead fluorescents flickered to life—one buzzing steadily, the other sputtering helplessly. I never bothered to change that bulb. I didn’t see the point; the light only revealed a room I didn’t want to see. The carpet squished beneath my bare feet, still soggy from a burst pipe last winter. The air was stagnant, like the room itself was stuck in time. I was there, but I wasn’t really there. My mind spiraled into thoughts of my life, my choices—what little triumphs and failures I had. Memories of the past played like bad dreams, but I wasn’t asleep. There was no running from them.

No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that those dark memories weren’t real, they clung to me. Every night, for years now, the same relentless cycle played out, gnawing at my patience, my sanity, the core of who I once was.

People will spend their lives convincing you that one thing is really something else. If you hear the same story enough times, they’ll twist it into your truth. It’s called brainwashing. Repetition becomes reality, and before you know it, you believe you’re the Queen of Spain. But you’re not the Queen, are you?

Suddenly, my eyes snapped open. My pupils dilated, adjusting to the darkness around me. I sighed—the same sigh I’d exhaled every night for years. This wasn’t a dream, but it wasn’t reality either. Everything in my life had gone numb, blending into the nightmares that haunted me. I couldn’t be sure what was real and what wasn’t. Feeling anything had become a foreign concept.

My eyes scanned the room. A sudden chill ran up my spine, bringing with it a distant sense of terror. I stood and surveyed the half-empty space. It looked as though no one had lived here in years. The remnants of my life sat on shelves, but none of it felt like mine anymore. It was meaningless, trivial.

To my right, a battered dresser stood at waist height, as old as the house itself. Coins and scraps of torn paper clung to its surface, the change practically glued down by time. The handles on two drawers were missing, and I used an old screwdriver to pry them open whenever I needed something. My hand hovered over the mess on top, but I didn’t touch anything. I knew what I was looking for wasn’t there.

I sighed again.

I walked over to a shelf filled with trophies—once symbols of success, now just hollow brass figurines staring back at me. I picked one up, my Senior Division Little League trophy. The nameplate read: CHRIS DAVIS—MOST VALUABLE PLAYER.

A bitter smile twisted my lips. I let the trophy slip from my hand, hitting the floor with a dull thud. The brass figure snapped off. My left arm throbbed with a familiar ache, and I reached up, tracing the scar that stretched from my shoulder to my forearm. Purple, red, and angry—it was proof that my memories were real. Not the hallucinations of a sleep-deprived mind.

I looked back at the trophies, thinking, Not anymore. Never again.

They say before a storm hits, there’s silence. But what do they know? The people who say this have never lived through the storm. They’re miles away, safe behind their desks, crunching numbers, studying graphs, and pie charts.

I closed my eyes, fighting the dark memories trying to pull me under. I shook my head and forced myself back into reality. Across the room stood an old desk, the wood chipped and worn. In the center, buried under meaningless papers, was a photo album—one my mother had once cared for. The last entries were from years ago. She must have stopped caring, too.

I flipped it open to the last family photo. My father, my mother, my sisters Susan and Jess, and me. All dressed up, all smiling. Fake smiles. The only person who looked real was Dad. He was always smiling.

What a joke.

The quiet before the storm isn’t really quiet. It’s full of little things, the buildup and the breakdown. People don’t notice it, but it’s more important than the storm itself. It shapes everything. But most people are too focused on where they’ve been or where they’re going to pay attention to the now.

Tears of rage threatened to spill, but I blinked them back. I could cry now, but back then? Not a single tear. It hadn’t seemed real. One thought kept circling in my mind.

Where is he when you need him?

I sighed again, looking at the photo album filled with only good memories. That’s why none of it seemed real. I glanced out the open window, hoping to see a sign, something to tell me it would be okay. But there was only darkness and the distant wail of sirens.

So please, pay attention. I’ve said this before, but you weren’t listening.

Most people don’t hear. They forget to listen.

And there’s a difference.

This is the last time I’ll tell you.

II

Tracy was everything I hated and everything I loved. She was like a drug—when she wasn’t around, all I could do was think about her. I craved her, needed her. Without her, I went through withdrawal. She kept me sane, but at the same time, drove me mad. You know that saying, “If you love something, set it free”? I’ve learned to think of it as, “If you set something free, you’ll live to regret it.” And trust me, that’s a theme in my life.

She was my complete opposite. Maybe that’s what attracted me to her. Or maybe it was something else—honestly, I don’t even know anymore. Tracy came into my life as a surprise. All I wanted was to help her. She needed me. But slowly, without even knowing it, she destroyed me. If I was Superman, then Tracy was my Kryptonite.

It all started in late June of my junior year. I was a star athlete—starting pitcher for varsity—and I had good grades. Popular, dependable. Everyone came to me when they needed something, and I always helped. But something was missing, like a hole in my life that I couldn’t quite fill. I was the guy breaking up fights, lending money, and standing up for people I didn’t even know. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself I was put on this earth to save everyone. Maybe I had a Messiah complex. Maybe I was on a path to self-destruction, but I didn’t see it at the time.

Looking back, I remember how it all began...

It was the first day of my summer job, right after school let out. I was working in the kitchen at some upstate “new-rich yuppie” camp. A terrible job, but it paid. The camp was way out in the country, the kind of place where there are more cows than people.

The car ride up was long and awkward. My dad drove, not saying a word. He hadn’t spoken to me in almost a year. He was a Marine General—tough, always in control. Emotion, to him, was weakness. After he got diagnosed with leukemia, he shut down, and when it went into remission, he opened up to everyone except me. Our relationship was never the same.

Maybe it was partly my fault. I always thought I was smarter than him. He barely finished high school, and I treated him like he didn’t know anything. By the time I realized it, the damage was done. I stopped listening long before he stopped talking.

Two hours of silence later, the car slowed down. I thought we’d arrived, but we hadn’t. On the side of the road, a rusted old pickup truck had hit a cow. My dad got out to help the driver—a tired-looking man in faded overalls. They exchanged words I couldn’t hear. Then my dad pulled out his silver Beretta and, without hesitation, shot the cow.

The poor thing let out a demonic wail as pieces of its skull flew into the air. And then it was dead. Just like that. Its life, gone. Blood pooled beneath its head as they dragged it off the road. I couldn’t believe my dad had just shot it. He didn’t seem to care. It might have lived. Who was he to decide if it lived or died?

When he got back in the car, he muttered something to the driver about how you “can’t save everything.” That stuck with me.

After more silence, we finally reached Camp Blue Ridge. I grabbed my bags without saying goodbye and walked off toward the crowd of strangers. My dad called out, “Just don’t do anything stupid.” Pointless advice, but typical. I should’ve listened.

The day dragged on, dark clouds choking the sunlight as if to warn me about what was coming. Before I joined the others, I took a moment to steady myself. They were waiting in the mess hall—two skinny guys, a pair of girls, and a few others, all misfits. No one looked up when I walked in, except for one girl. She had icy blue eyes and a smile that didn’t reach them.

I tried to avoid eye contact, but the silence was unbearable. “Hey, I’m Chris,” I said, breaking the tension. The room exploded into voices—introductions, chaos. I learned their names: Bob, Rudy, Mike, Katie, Brian, and Erica. But the girl with the icy eyes? She didn’t say a word, just stared off into space.

Then came the head of the kitchen, an old woman named Mary, who barked orders and pointed us to our assigned areas. It wasn’t long before I found myself alone in the hall with the silent girl.

I tried to sit down, but the bench collapsed under me. I hit the floor hard, and she burst into laughter. Not a giggle, but full-on, mean-spirited laughter. “You okay there, slick?”

Humiliated, I got up, muttered, “I’m fine,” and wished I could disappear.

She sat beside me, offered her hand with that same half-smile, and said, “Hey, I’m Tracy.”

Those three words? They set it all in motion. That’s when everything changed. And even now, I can’t shake the feeling that it was all her fault.

III

Perhaps I was being punished. Maybe I still am. I could be wrong, but the thought that this job was worse than anything even the worst criminals deserved crossed my mind more times than I’d like to admit. The work was unbearable, eye-numbingly so. The campers seemed to hold contests to see who could vomit more after lunch, and if a health inspector wandered in between the second and third periods, they’d think the kids were exploding, leaving their remains splattered and dripping across the walls.

-Prison food isn’t this bad-

Carrying trays of food was nearly impossible with twenty kids running between my legs. The tap water had a sickly brown tint that even the dimmed lights couldn’t hide. The stove was rusted, and the air reeked of gas. Time, being of the essence, forced us to slap together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every morning on mold-speckled bread—no gloves, no care. Just a silent acknowledgment that this wasn’t going to end well.

On the first day alone, an open container of Windex spilled into the oil in the deep fryer. It’s no wonder the kids couldn’t keep the food down. Each day, they unknowingly ingested small doses of poison.

20,000 people die from food poisoning every year.

On the upside, in the event of a biological apocalypse, they’d probably be the last survivors, immune to it all. A terrifying thought.

That first night after work, my co-workers and I were still reeling from the shock of what we’d signed up for. I sat at an empty table, absentmindedly picking dirt from under my nails. Mike and Katie were sneaking a cigarette near an open window, taking deep, reverent drags like it was holy communion. Brian had his face down in a tub of instant pudding, and Bob was berating him for not sharing. Tracy and Ally were frantically trying to use a cell phone, but the lead paint on the walls and the towering, ancient trees outside made sure their signal didn’t get through.

“This is fucking ridiculous!” Tracy ranted, pacing more erratically with each failed attempt.

I laughed. “What did you expect?” I asked, a smirk tugging at my lips.

“Civilization!” she snapped, hurling her phone at the open window. “I expected civilization.”

“Welcome to Bumble-Fuck,” Mike muttered, his smile barely visible behind the glow of his cigarette. “The seventh circle of Hell.”

I had worked alongside Tracy all day. I could tell you we bonded from the start, but the truth is, she barely said two words to me. Still, there was something about her that grabbed my attention, some strange vibe I couldn’t shake.

Tracy Matthews was a complicated person. She was impulsive, the kind of girl who acted on a whim without considering the consequences. Her mother had died when she was six, leaving her to grow up without a female role model. Her father barely paid attention to her, leaving her starved for it from anyone who would offer it. Tracy was the biggest flirt I’d ever seen—every word, every gesture dripped with it, a tactic she used to manipulate men and get whatever she wanted. But her biggest flaw was her inability to control what happened after the flirting.

The next day, I was assigned to a different dining room because Rudy had caught a cold, and the nurse ordered him to stay out of the kitchen. Rumor had it he’d spent the night before drinking cough syrup and skinny dipping in the lake, but who knows. Bob was in the dining room with Tracy that day, and as I passed through, I heard Bob’s voice rising. By the time I stepped into the room, he was screaming, towering over Tracy, who was slowly backing into a corner. His arm was planted against the wall near her head, trapping her.

“No, Bob… leave me alone…” she muttered weakly, her eyes wide with fear, like a deer caught in headlights.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Bob screamed, his voice trembling, his eyes wild. He was shaking with rage, veins bulging.

Now, Bob was a kid with problems. Later, I’d find out his stepfather had abused him, mocking him, forcing him into a dress and telling him he’d never amount to anything. It’s no wonder he was emotionally unstable, his temper just the tip of the iceberg.

In the United States, a woman is battered every 15 seconds.

I couldn’t stand by any longer. I stepped in, pushing Bob away from Tracy. “Hey, knock it off!” I snapped. “Chill out, man.” But Bob wasn’t going to chill out. His eyes flashed, and he lunged at me with an animalistic growl. Instinct kicked in—I sidestepped his punch and threw my own. It connected with the center of his face, hard enough to shatter his nose. He hit the wall and slid to the floor, blood spilling over his hands as he sobbed.

I turned to Tracy, my expression softening. “Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she rushed into my arms, sobbing uncontrollably.

-Yeah, you’re welcome-

Suddenly, the room was filled with the rest of the staff. Mary, our supervisor, stood there, her eyes narrowing. “Chris, what the hell happened?”

Panic washed over me. I was sure I was going to lose my job. But Tracy stepped forward, her voice trembling. “Bob attacked me. I was so scared. Chris… he protected me. Bob threatened to kill me…” Her tears were fake now, but Mary bought it. Bob was escorted off the grounds, and Mary called me a hero, giving us the rest of the day off to “calm down.”

Later, we sat by the lake. The water shimmered under the sunlight, kids laughing in canoes nearby. But all I could think about was how easily Tracy had lied. Bob never threatened to kill her. She’d made it up. But without her story, I would’ve been fired too.

Sensing my unease, Tracy turned to me with a guilty look. “What?”

“You lied,” I said quietly.

Her expression shifted, a smirk playing at her lips. “It wasn’t a lie—it was survival of the fittest. Bob was weak, and an asshole. He’s gone, big deal. You saved me. You’re a hero.”

The word “hero” rang hollow, but her thank you was sincere. And that was enough to calm the storm of doubt, at least for a while.

IV 

The sun grudgingly rose the next morning, and I dragged myself to work. Tracy and I didn’t exchange many words—she was already gone by the time I woke up. Rumors from yesterday still swirled, and I knew I’d have to deal with them eventually. As soon as I entered the kitchen, Mary was already yelling, her voice too loud and too early for my barely functioning brain to process.

“What the hell are you doing?” she barked.

“Huh? What do you mean?” I mumbled, still groggy and confused. Authority figures like Mary always made me nervous.

“Look at my floor! You tracked mud all over my spotless floor!”

Sure enough, there was a trail of mud behind me. “Oh, I’m sorry,” was all I could manage.

“You’re damn right you’re sorry. Now go clean it up.”

I hate mopping.

Later, between the lunch periods, I found Brian sitting in a corner, munching on six powdered donuts and flipping through the newspaper.

“Hey,” I said, “What’re you doing?”

Brian glanced up, powdered sugar puffing out as he spoke. “Some girl got killed last night. Strangled and dumped in a parking lot.”

Brian was the kind of kid who found this sort of thing fascinating. I glanced at the paper. In bold letters, the headline read: STRANGLER!

“Gee… that sucks,” I muttered. It felt like I should care, but I just didn’t.

Brian chuckled darkly, his face smeared with powder. “Yeah…” He sniffed and added, “Hey, wanna hear a joke?”

I shrugged, knowing I couldn’t stop him. “What’s worse than eating half an apple and finding maggots in it?” He paused. “The Holocaust.”

I blinked, disgusted. “That’s morbid, man.” Shaking my head, I left him to his donuts.

The rest of the day crawled by, monotonous and uneventful. The following days blended together in a numbing routine.

Then the letter came.

About a week into the job, things had returned to a dull semblance of normalcy. The rumors about my fight with Bob had faded. I’d learned to juggle trays of food without tripping, and Mary’s complaints about the mud had become part of the daily noise. Life wasn’t exactly good, but it was calm. Predictable.

Until I got the letter from home.

It was from my mom and sisters—not my dad, of course. He hadn’t bothered to speak to me in months, let alone write. The first part of the letter was from my sisters, full of trivial confessions like, “We forgot to feed your fish, and now he’s dead.” I wasn’t surprised; Freddy Fishy-Fish was doomed the moment I left home. Our backyard was already a pet cemetery.

But then I reached my mom’s part of the letter, and a chill ran down my spine. She was never one for drama, which made her words even harder to swallow.

“Chris, we’re all so proud of you and miss you very much. You’re really growing up and maturing. It’s great to see you holding down this job, and soon you’ll be off to college, doing great things. Maybe you’ll even change the world. Don’t feel too bad about Freddy; you know your sisters meant well…”

For a moment, I relaxed. This isn’t as bad as you thought, I reassured myself.

But then, I turned the page.

“Son, I don’t know how to tell you this, and I hate that I have to do it in a letter, but it can’t wait until you come home... It’s your father, Chris. They’ve detected an increase in his white blood cells. The doctor is calling it a relapse...”

My heart plummeted. I dropped the letter and stumbled to a nearby bench, unable to read further. The words on the page blurred, becoming incomprehensible. For all the tension between my father and me, I never wanted him to go through leukemia treatment again. But for a fleeting moment, I saw the irony—the act of killing that cow on the road, and now this relapse.

Karma’s a bitch.

I shook the thought from my head, anger and sadness welling up inside me. I wanted to scream, to rage, to flip tables and kick chairs. But I just sat there, staring at the floor, struggling to breathe as the panic crept in.

Too much for you?

Suddenly, I stood, crumpling the letter into my pocket and returning to work as if nothing had changed. That’s how I dealt with things—if I didn’t acknowledge them, they didn’t exist. If I wasn’t there to see my dad suffering, then it wasn’t real. Not to me, and not to the rest of the world.

Ignore something long enough, and it goes away. If you don’t know you’ve been cut, you’re not really bleeding.

Later, as I walked to the icebox near the nurse’s station, I noticed a crumpled newspaper page on the ground. Usually, I wouldn’t bother with litter, but that letter had put things into perspective. I picked it up, glancing at the headline: SERIAL STRANGLER SLAYS SIXTH! The body count had jumped from one to six in a week, but I didn’t give it much thought. We were miles away from the city, after all. I tossed the paper—and my letter—into the trash and went on with my day.

After my shift, I found Rudy hunched over a table in the staff bunk, headphones on, tinkering with something made of soda cans and straws. His music blared, and I caught the lyrics: “Hero, Hero, this word you’ll never know!”

“What’re you listening to?” I asked, stepping closer.

Rudy grinned. “And the Hero Will Drown. It’s by Story of the Year.”

“Lovely title,” I replied, my tone dry.

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

“Not much,” I said, looking around. “Have you seen Tracy?”

Rudy’s face fell slightly. “I think she’s with Ally. Something about tonight.”

I nodded absently, disappointed. As I turned to leave, a familiar odor hit me. I chuckled. “Grass really is greener on the other side, huh?”

Rudy grinned. “Hell yeah! Want me to make you one?”

I waved him off with a laugh. “Maybe later.”

As I wandered the camp, I bumped into Ally, who, true to form, ran straight into me. She knocked me down and landed on top of me, her legs still moving as if she hadn’t realized she’d fallen. She was always in a rush but never got anywhere. I helped her up, grinning. “Where’s the fire, Al?”

She blinked at me, then remembered. “Oh! Tracy wants to see you. I’ll go get the others.”

Ally zipped off in a blur, leaving me to find Tracy. When I entered the dining room, she lit up. “Chris! Guess what!”

“You’re pregnant?” I teased, only half interested.

“Ha! You wish. No, we’re sneaking out tonight, after lights out. We’re taking a bus to Playland!”

“Oh…” I wasn’t impressed. “That’s it?”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“But if Mary catches us, we’re screwed. Plus, it’s all the way down in Rye.”

She smiled mischievously. “She won’t catch us. And besides, she can’t fire all of us.”

Reluctantly, I gave in. “Fine. Sounds fun.”

She beamed. “Great! Let’s go tell everyone.”

We headed to the staff bunk, but as soon as we walked in, my eyes began to burn. The room was filled with smoke. “Rudy!” I yelled. “Open a damn window, man. You’ll get us all killed.”

But Rudy wasn’t there. Tracy’s blood-curdling scream filled the air. I rushed toward the sound, finding her frozen in the doorway, staring at Rudy.

He lay on the floor, blood pouring from his head. A torn belt hung from the rafter, a red mark around his neck. His homemade bong lay in pieces nearby.

“Jesus Christ, Rudy!” I shouted, kneeling beside him. “Help! He’s hurt!” Tracy ran to find help while I cradled Rudy’s limp body, pleading with him. “Don’t die, man. Stay with me… don’t die.”

His eyes, wide with fear and confusion, stared up at me. But it was taking too long. I left him and ran for help.

By the time the ambulance arrived, Rudy had slipped into a coma. The paramedics didn’t think he’d make it through the night.

We didn’t go to Playland. No one even mentioned it.

That night, reality hit hard. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop reliving what had happened. What if I’d stayed with Rudy instead of leaving? What if I’d been a better friend? My selfishness—my obsession with Tracy—had blinded me to the warning signs. I had failed him.

Some hero I turned out to be.

V

Rudy was dead. Bob was fired. My dad had relapsed, and according to the newspaper that morning: SEVENTH STRUCK BY STRANGLER. Still, none of it felt real. Like it never happened. If you couldn’t see it, touch it, feel it—wasn’t it easier to believe it didn’t exist?

Mary called an emergency meeting the day after Rudy’s suicide. She stood at the front of the room, voice trembling, fighting back tears and the weight of a nervous breakdown. Sweat glistened on her forehead, her words stuttering as if they had to claw their way out of her throat. Her eyes, tired and haunted, seemed to glaze over like thin webs had woven themselves across her vision. It might’ve been the dim lighting, but she looked ancient, like she had aged overnight. Her wrinkles deepened, her hair had gone the color of dust, and she wore the bitterness of someone who had lived too long in a world she could no longer control.

She cleared her throat. "Everyone, please." The room fell silent, and every eye turned to her, though we already knew what she was going to say. "Last night… as you all know… there was an incident with Rudolph Campbell." Her voice cracked. "Our hearts and thoughts are with Rudy and his family in this time of deep sadness. These are the years when you change and grow into the adults you'll be for the rest of your life. During this time, you're faced with new challenges… new pressures…”

I leaned over to Tracy and whispered, "If she starts giving us the sex talk, I swear I’m leaving." But Tracy shushed me, eyes fixed on Mary.

Mary’s voice wavered, “At times, it might feel like it’s too much for you… too much to handle.” She paused, blinking rapidly, as if trying to hold herself together. “If ever you feel that way… if it gets too hard… please talk to me. I’m always here to listen. I know… I was your age once, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.” She tried to laugh, but it fell flat, more sad than funny. “You don’t have to do it alone… please, don’t try to.”

She looked straight at me, her words heavy with something beyond the moment. The silence that followed was suffocating.

It wasn’t real. None of it. That’s what I kept telling myself.

If you ignore something long enough, it goes away. If you don’t know you have cancer, you’re not really dying.

The rain came down hard for the rest of the day, as if the sky was mourning alongside us. We didn’t bother working; the kitchen stayed closed. My coworkers and I retreated upstairs, the heavy silence of our first meeting hanging over us, only now there was the weight of death in the air.

Rudy was dead. It felt like a concept too heavy to grasp. Tracy sat on a table, twisting a tiny gold cross that hung around her neck, uncharacteristically quiet. Her nails were painted black in some sort of silent mourning, though the polish had started to chip.

“I just can’t believe this is happening,” she finally said, her voice almost liquid, barely above a whisper.

“People die, Tracy. Yeah, it’s this crazy new thing they’ve been trying,” came Mike’s voice from the back of the room. He stood against the wall, a cigarette dangling between his fingers, the red tip glowing faintly. “But look on the bright side. With Bob and Rudy out of the picture, you’re probably looking at making some good tips by the end of the summer.”

We all stared at him, stunned. Mike had always been a smartass, but this was another level.

“Nice cross,” he added, his lips curling into a sneer. “What, did Mother Teresa have a yard sale? I suppose we can all be thankful to God for what happened to Rudy.”

Tracy’s blue eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “You can’t blame God for this.”

“Oh? Why not? If something good had happened, people would be lining up to thank God, right?” Mike exhaled a long drag of smoke. “So why isn’t God to blame when it goes to shit?”

Tracy’s face fell, her faith suddenly exposed and fragile. She tried to hold on. “God doesn’t cause bad things.”

The rain outside pounded harder against the window, the sound filling the room like a storm threatening to break. Mike grinned, leaning in closer to Tracy, his voice low and menacing. “You want to know why God doesn’t cause bad things? Because there is no God.”

Brian finally chimed in, shaking his head. “That’s fucked up, man.”

Mike’s eyes darkened, his words cutting through the air like knives. “Rudy’s dead. If there’s a God, where the hell was He when Rudy needed Him? Huh?” Silence followed. Mike took another drag, letting the smoke curl around his face. “God doesn’t exist, Tracy. Believing in Him is like believing in fucking Santa Claus. The real gods are money, power, and how many women you can collect along the way. The Bible? Ghost stories to keep people in line. You know what’s typical? Every crazy killer out there is a religious nut-job. Believing in God is just... childish.”

Tracy stared at him, her face blank, her voice barely audible. “You’re wrong…” She sounded like a child refusing to believe that the world wasn’t fair.

Mike shrugged, flicking his cigarette at her. “Life is shit, Trace. Life. Is. Shit.”

With that, he walked out, leaving the room in stunned silence.  

VI

It was Katie who came to me later that night. Her faded blonde hair had grown out, dark roots spreading like blood pooling from a fresh wound.

The barriers between the staff must’ve been breaking down, or maybe Mike had passed out, either from exhaustion or from something stronger. Katie only ever spoke like herself when he wasn’t around. With Mike gone, she became someone else entirely.

I wasn’t sure if she needed to talk or just wanted my help stealing peroxide from the supply room again. Could’ve been either.

I was in the dining room, mopping the same patch of floor for what felt like the hundredth time. When something gnawed at me, I needed to keep moving. So, I mopped. My sneakers were soaked from the splash of water that sloshed out of the bucket. Katie stood there in the doorway, watching, waiting—silent. Her pale eyes caught mine just as the mop plunged back into the bucket, water spilling over its edge.

Her gaze held mine for a long, still moment. Finally, through the tightness of her lips, she said, “I’m sorry about Mike. He can be a real asshole sometimes.”

Sometimes?

“It happens,” I muttered, pushing the mop across the wooden floor. The wet strands glided like the tide receding on some distant, forgotten shore.

She took a breath, brows knitting together as if she were piecing something fragile inside her head. “You’ve got to understand where we come from. Mike grew up in this town, Station’s Cross. Real quiet, real rural.” The name tugged at something in my memory—a place almost lost to time. Katie went on, painting a picture of the kind of town where life crawled forward, barely touching the modern world. “The only school was Catholic, elementary through high school. Twelve years of Catholic schooling is enough to drive anyone mad.”

You’d go to Biology and learn about Darwin and sex, then the bell would ring, and you’d head straight to Theology where they’d tell you everything you just learned was a lie.

One step forward, one step back. No one ever moved.

Katie shook her head, lips twisting in a bitter smile. “You ever been beaten with a ruler by a nun? I have. They didn’t care about anything except making you bleed—old women who were pissed they never got laid, taking it out on kids like me and Mike.”

She stared into the distance for a moment, a ghost of her past slipping over her. “We had to rebel. The boys would sneak cigarettes behind the gym. Us girls would roll our skirts up, try to make them as short as we could before we got caught.” She smiled, a faint flicker of defiance. “I must’ve said a million Hail Marys just for my wardrobe. That’s how I met Mike. Detention. We both spent a lot of time there.”

Katie’s voice dropped, and I could see the tears lurking in her eyes. “Chris, they force-fed us their bullshit for years. Doctrine, dogma, hypocrisy after hypocrisy. And it built up inside us—this anger, this need to fight back.”

Her breath hitched as the tears finally broke through. “We were excommunicated, for having sex. They called us fornicators, sinners, and said we were going straight to Hell. My parents kicked me out. I was sixteen. No one would even look at me after that.”

I opened my mouth to say something, maybe offer a useless apology, but she wasn’t finished.

Mascara ran down her face in dark streaks. “Mike had an idea. Our rebellion. We were going to burn it all down. So, one night, before we ran away… we did. We set the school on fire.”

I stopped mopping, the water dripping from the cloth head in heavy drops, soaking the floor beneath me. I stared at her, stunned. That’s why the town’s name sounded familiar. I remembered reading about it. The fire. A PTA meeting had been happening inside when the school burned.

“Forty-nine people died, Chris,” Katie whispered, her voice trembling. “I swear, I didn’t know anyone was in there. Mike told me it was empty. I swear…”

I didn’t know what to say. I was numb to her tears. She wasn’t just telling a story—she was unraveling. I asked, my voice low, “Why are you telling me this, Katie?”

She looked at me, eyes wide, red from crying. The tears stopped, replaced by something else—something wild, frantic. “Because I think Mike knew. I think he knew those people were in there.”

VII

 It wasn’t real. None of it. That’s what I kept telling myself.

If you ignore something long enough, it fades away. If you don’t know you have cancer, then you’re never really dying.

Half the camp enrollment dropped out after Rudy’s death. With fewer kids to look after, they didn’t need as many staff, so they let Erica go. I didn’t miss her. Erica had barely spoken to me all summer, and sometimes I forgot she even worked here. She was just a pair of creepy eyes that stared out from the shadows.

Slowly, things returned to “normal,” whatever that meant. Within a week, we’d all but forgotten about Rudy. Humans are heartless creatures; we survive by forgetting our hardships, by burying the things that hurt us until they’re just vague memories. It sounds cruel, but it’s true. Life moved on, even if it felt like each day in this place lasted an eternity. We hid Rudy’s stash before the authorities came. A few of the staff were still sneaking off to use it under the guise of “religious reasons,” of course. Ally ran around like a hurricane, desperate for something to do now that there wasn’t enough work to keep her busy. Worst of all, they stuck her with a desk job, answering parents’ phone calls. She spoke so fast, half the time the parents couldn’t tell if their kids were swimming in the lake or baking cakes.

I was doing everything I could to distance myself from Tracy. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her—I did—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d let Rudy die because I was too focused on her. And that scared the hell out of me. I felt powerless around her, like I had no control over my own decisions. I didn’t know what to do.

Tracy was slipping away. She wasn’t the same girl anymore, not after everything that had happened with Bob, Rudy, and Mike. She was like a candle, flickering weakly in a suffocating jar. The truck had already hit her, and now she was just the roadkill no one bothered to pick up.

But I couldn’t ignore her. I cared too much.

It was late in the afternoon, the sunlight choking out as I found her sitting on Rudy’s old bed, curled up in a ball. Her knees were pulled tight to her chest, and her dirty blonde hair was tied back, exposing a face that always seemed half-hidden from the world. Her lips were dry, chapped, and she bit down lightly on the bottom one.

I did that.

I stood there, just watching her, like a bystander at a car crash. She reminded me of someone sedated, a psych-patient locked in a quiet struggle. I didn’t move, not for a long time. It’s strange how easily we become voyeurs when we’re too afraid to act.

Finally, her voice cut through the silence. She was staring out the window at the fading light. “Tell Mary I’m sorry I missed work.”

Her eyes were hollow, cold, like they were trying to disappear into the shadows. She turned her head toward me, that vacant blue stare locking onto mine.

“Don’t worry about it,” I mumbled, shifting uncomfortably. I sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping some distance between us. “What’s going on, Trace?”

Like you don’t know.

She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, but only a breath escaped. I placed my hand on her knee, hesitating. “It’s not your fault.”

Her eyes flashed with anger, narrowing at me. “My fault?” she snapped, but the edge in her voice faded as quickly as it came. She squeezed my hand, softer now. “I’m sorry. It’s just… none of this makes sense.”

Just when you think you’ve pieced the puzzle together, someone sets the whole thing on fire. The room grew darker as the sun slipped lower, and we sat there, both of us lost in our own thoughts on Rudy’s bed.

“Chris,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, “would you catch me if I was falling?”

That’s what it all boiled down to. Tracy was terrified that, like Rudy, she’d fall and no one would be there to catch her. A life full of abandonment had taught her that lesson.

“Before you even slip,” I said quietly. “I’d have your hand before you even slipped.”

But it was like she didn’t hear me. She started kissing me—my forehead, my nose, my eyelids, cheeks, and neck. But never my mouth. She wouldn’t go there. Somewhere between those soft kisses, I realized she was crying. I gently held her face in my hands, stopping her.

“You don’t have to do this.”

She pulled back a little, wiping her tears with the back of her hand, then stared at me with those cold, hollow eyes. Her gaze flicked toward the dresser, the same one Rudy had cracked his skull on.

“Catch me,” she said again, turning back to me with that same empty look.

Then she kissed me again. This time she was already pulling off her shirt before I could even think to stop her. I was watching myself from outside my body, paralyzed, heart pounding in my ears. She was on me before I could find the words.

“You don’t have to…” I repeated, but the words fell into the void.

Her blue eyes pierced me like headlights catching a deer in the road, freezing me in place. She smiled then, just for a second—a real smile, like she’d found something she’d been looking for all along.

“Life is shit, Chris,” she whispered, her voice a razor against the night. “Life is shit.”

The sun was gone now. Night had claimed the world, and there was nothing left to follow.

VIII

Things happen, and people change you. Sometimes, they do it without you even realizing. They break you down, melt away who you used to be, and rebuild you into something unrecognizable—something so ugly you can’t even bear to look at your reflection.

When you can’t remember the work you’ve done, you know it’s been a bad day.

My muscles ached, and my arms felt like lead. All I wanted was sleep, but there was a nagging feeling that kept me awake—a fear that if I closed my eyes, I might not open them again. Sometime between lunch and dinner, the monotony had started to bore into my skull, the weight of apathy pressing hard between my eyes.

Maybe I was the one with cancer, not my father. Sitting on that bench in the north lunchroom, I could feel my blood growing tired, my heart struggling just to keep things moving. It was the feeling of Kryptonite—of weakness. And then I realized why.

Tracy was near.

Sure enough, she stood in the doorway, a hollow expression on her face. Her lips were stretched tight across her teeth, and without warning, she let out a sharp scream of frustration, slamming her fist into the wall. Plaster cracked under her knuckles. We both fell silent, the sound of the impact hanging between us.

She was wearing those dark navy-blue mesh shorts again, so short they barely passed for clothing. The elastic waistband was rolled down low on her hips, and the fabric clung to her like a second skin, ending just shy of covering her completely. A bright blue, child-sized camp t-shirt was stretched across her chest, the words “Camp Blue Ridge” printed boldly across it. Her stomach, pale and exposed, caught my eye for a long moment. Her hair was loose, hanging straight and blonde, like something out of a dream—or maybe a nightmare.

I bit down on my fingernail, unable to look away. Tracy sat on one of the tables, her feet propped up on the same bench where I was sitting. Her middle knuckle was wedged between her teeth, and there was something about her—a restlessness I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Chris.” Her voice was soft, flat, like it had been drained of everything. Her eyes, sunken and tired, met mine. “When was the last time you were happy?”

My mind stalled, gears grinding painfully in the silence. I opened my mouth, trying to answer. “I am—”

“Really.” She cut me off, her voice colder now. “Truly happy.”

The moment froze. I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t. I forced out an awkward laugh, trying to shake the tension. “What’s the matter, Trace?”

She let out a long sigh. “Second period, lunch. That asshole head counselor from the Archers was flirting with me again. I’m used to it, you know, faking a smile, batting my eyes, pretending like it doesn’t bother me. But this guy’s got a wife, kids, the whole thing, and then he grabs my ass.”

“Shit,” I muttered, but looking at the way she was dressed, I wasn’t exactly surprised.

Her face was blank, her voice flat as she continued. “I had enough. So I took a swing at him. Right there, in front of everyone. And it felt fucking good.” She paused, staring off into the distance. “Then Mary pulls me into her office, gives me this lecture about how fighting’s ‘strongly frowned upon.’ No shit. They’re threatening to fire me, and that creep gets off with nothing but a warning. So, I break down. I tell her I don’t have anywhere to go, that this job is all I’ve got, and she buys it. Now I’m on probation, and she tells me to dress more appropriately.” Tracy laughed, a bitter sound that scraped against the quiet. “Thing is, I wasn’t lying. I really don’t have anywhere to go. I could drop dead, and my father wouldn’t even notice. He never wanted me, and when my mom died, he was stuck with me. I haven’t lived with him since last winter, and I’m sure he’s better off.” She paused, her voice lowering to a whisper. “Rudy’s parents… when they came by, after the accident, they looked upset. My father… I can’t even remember the last time he cared. I don’t remember the last time I was happy. Truly happy.”

Back when Tracy still lived with her father, she’d sleep clutching the remote for the family car. If anyone stumbled into her room in a drunken blur, she could press the button, and the alarm would scare them off. She slept with her back pressed against the wall, on the far edge of the bed, shrinking into the cold plaster. That was the only way she felt safe. But it wasn’t really sleep—not with her eyes always open, staring into the dark.

Her father was as good as dead to her. And mine wasn’t far behind.

Small world.

IX

Ally stood in the upstairs bathroom, door wide open, leaning over the stained sink, squinting into the mirror as she plucked at her eyebrows. The night was heavy with heat, no air conditioning to break it, and she was dressed for bed—tiny shorts barely hanging onto her hips and a thin, white tank top. The outline of her black bra showed clearly through the fabric, dark and bold against her pale skin. She wasn’t overdressed, not for a night like this.

I hadn’t been watching her for long—or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. But truthfully, I couldn’t be sure. Ally was small and fit, her body glistening slightly from the shower she must’ve just taken, damp hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, exposing her sharp features. She methodically plucked at a few stray hairs, focused, but not completely oblivious.

The funny thing was, I think she knew I was watching. More than that—I’m pretty sure she liked it. There’s something about women. They just know when they’re being watched. Men, on the other hand, we’re clueless, oblivious. But Ally wasn’t. She felt it, that subtle attention, and she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she thrived on it.

For the first time, I realized Ally wasn’t just the hyper, bouncing-off-the-walls girl she seemed to be. She had a quiet, seductive confidence, and the way she moved told me she knew exactly what she was doing.

I couldn’t say how long I’d been standing there, caught in her orbit. Time felt irrelevant, like I’d been at this camp forever, the days blurring together in a haze of sweat and exhaustion.

“Where’s Tracy?” she asked, still looking into the mirror, her voice casual, like we were in the middle of a conversation.

“Asleep,” I replied, trying to sound unaffected. Then, without thinking, I added, “I’m worried about her.”

Ally paused, set the tweezers down, and turned to face me. Her eyes met mine, sharp and unblinking, and suddenly, I felt exposed—embarrassed that I’d been caught watching her. But I held her gaze.

“She’s just going through the motions,” Ally said, her voice serious, though a slight smile played at her lips. “I think she’s on the rag this week.”

I laughed, surprised by her bluntness. So did she, taking a step closer.

“So how’s the office?” I asked, scrambling for something to say, to fill the air between us.

“You don’t have to make conversation,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. “You don’t always have to be polite.”

Tell that to Rudy, I thought, but didn’t say it.

“Tracy will be fine,” Ally continued, stepping even closer. “I’ve known her since kindergarten. She gets like this sometimes. It’s probably about her mom. She’s had it rough.”

And now she was right in front of me, so close that I could smell the faint sweetness of her shampoo, feel the warmth of her body in the thick, humid air.

“She’s tough, though. A survivor,” Ally said, then hesitated, as if weighing her next words. Finally, she added, “But who am I kidding? Tracy’s a fucking leech. She’s a parasite.”

Her words hit like a punch. I hadn’t expected that. Neither had she, by the look on her face. But once it was out, there was no taking it back.

“I mean, I love her,” Ally continued, “but the girl just uses people. She uses them like condoms. Gets what she needs, then tosses them aside and moves on to the next. She’s a tick, hopping from person to person, sucking them dry.”

Girls are mean, I thought, stunned by the coldness in her voice.

Whatever expression I had on my face, it made Ally laugh. A real, full-bodied laugh that felt almost cruel in its honesty. “Yeah,” she said, “it’s not Tracy you need to be worried about.”

She was so close now, our noses barely inches apart, her breath warm and slightly minty. “It’s you.”

And then, without warning, she kissed me. Hard. There was nothing soft or tender about it. Her teeth grazed my bottom lip as she pulled away, biting just enough to leave a sting.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But I think I liked it.

And when we pulled apart, we both tasted blood.

X 

The heat was unbearable, the kind that clings to your skin and makes every movement feel like wading through syrup. Even indoors, it was stifling, the air thick with a sticky humidity that seemed to press down on everything. I could feel it in my clothes, in my hair, even in my lungs. The ninety-degree norm had turned every task into an ordeal, every breath into labor. I leaned on the table, my forearm leaving damp imprints on the surface, smudged outlines of the slow drag of the day.

I should have been working. The room needed cleaning, the tables needed wiping, and the impending wave of screaming kids was just minutes away. But I wasn’t moving. My mind had checked out, floating somewhere far away from Camp Blue Ridge.

Something was off. Not just Rudy’s death, or Tracy’s deep, endless sadness, or even Ally’s weird quirks. No, there was something else gnawing at me, a vague sense of wrongness that lingered in the corners of my thoughts.

It wasn’t the brawl with Bob, or the fact that Mike and Katie were arsonists on the run. Not even my father’s leukemia.

Hell, just look at my life—a mess of contradictions and chaos. I was sanity’s insane puppet, a puppet with no strings to hold it up.

A bead of sweat traced a slow path down my chest, pooling under my shirt. The floors needed sweeping, the water pitchers were bone dry, and the mop bucket, already filled with watered-down Clorox, had been sitting untouched for over an hour, its soapy suds long gone. The solution looked clean and pure, like water.

And I hated this job. Every second of it was a drag, a meaningless chore. Why was I even here? There was no purpose in it, no value. I wasn’t learning anything I could use later in life. It was just busy work, cheap labor to fill the hours. We were probably being paid less than minimum wage, but I wouldn’t know for sure until the last day, when I’d finally get a paycheck. Not that it mattered. None of us had any real reason to be here, no debts or financial burdens to escape from. So why were we?

We were all running from something.

Tracy was running from her father, but more than that, from every man who ever let her down. She was running from double standards, from innuendo, from expectations she never agreed to.

Ally was running from rules and structure, from the invisible handcuffs of social contracts. She fled from anything that tried to confine her, desperate to outrun the shadows of normalcy.

Mike and Katie—they were literally running from the law. But deeper than that, they were running from a God they didn’t believe in, from the rigid grip of blind faith and Catholic guilt.

Bob was running from his past, from the violent legacy of his family. He was sprinting from the anger he didn’t know how to control, from the rage that simmered just beneath the surface.

Brian? He was probably running from fat camp.

Rudy… Rudy was running from everything. From life, from reality, from whatever demons were chasing him down.

And me? The hero, the savior, the kid next door—what the hell was I running from?

I swept the floor mechanically, picking up the trash without thinking. I found a chicken nugget that looked like Richard Nixon and shook my head. This was my life: always cleaning up someone else’s mess.

The water pitchers were still empty, waiting to be filled. Alone in the room, the obnoxiously yellow mop bucket caught my eye. A thought crossed my mind, slow and deliberate, like poison dripping into a glass.

“Chris, hurry up!” Mary’s voice shrieked from another room, sharp as a blade.

I glanced at the bucket, then back at the pitchers. Without thinking, I dunked the pitchers into the Clorox-filled water, drawing the liquid like a well. I couldn’t serve this straight, I reasoned. That would be too obvious. So I filled them mostly with water, diluting the bleach to the point where it was almost undetectable. Almost.

Breathing through my nose, I marveled at how the bleach’s scent had disappeared.

“What am I doing?” I muttered to myself. A sick feeling curled in my stomach, but I ignored it. Mary’s voice pierced the air again—“One minute!”—and it was too late to stop. The pitchers went out, the ice masking any trace of tampering.

And then the chaos began. Kids poured into the room, a screaming, spoiled, snobby horde of privilege and noise. Food flew, and the cacophony of their voices melded into a single, throbbing pulse.

I couldn’t help but smile. The pitchers looked harmless enough, and that small, smug part of me felt a twisted satisfaction. I found an open window at the back of the room, letting the breeze cool my fevered skin. For a brief moment, I could breathe again.

But deep down, I knew something was wrong. I wasn’t myself. I was slipping, losing grip on the thread of who I was. Sleep didn’t come anymore. I lay awake at night, counting the hours until the sun would rise and another day of this hell would begin.

I was dying inside, piece by piece, day by day. Everything felt meaningless.

Except for Tracy.

She was the only thing that made sense. Maybe she was the reason I was here, the only reason I hadn’t run. She was broken, slipping away just like me.

-Tracy’s perfect, broken, and mine to fix.-

I craved her. I needed her. Leaving the dining room, abandoning the kids to their bleach-infused drinks, I went looking for her. In her dining room, Tracy sat slumped in a corner, her finger twirling a lock of her golden hair. I whistled, a sharp sound cutting through the chaos, and she looked up, meeting my eyes.

“One of these little shits pelted me with a nugget,” she said, annoyed.

“It happens,” I shrugged, grabbing her hand and pulling her away.

We made our way to the walk-in freezer, the cold air hitting me like a balm. I wanted her. Desperately. With my hands on her waist, I pulled her in, kissing her hard. Her fingers fumbled at my belt, but she gave up quickly, frustration seeping into her every move.

“You know we could asphyxiate in here,” she whispered, her breath warm against my ear.

“Would that be so bad?” I murmured back, my lips brushing her neck.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she started, but before she could finish, the freezer door creaked open, and Brian stood there, grinning like an idiot.

“What?” I snapped, annoyed at the interruption.

“Pudding,” Brian said, still smiling. “I wanted some pudding.”

He grabbed a few packs, but as he turned to leave, he paused. “Oh, and your dining room’s on fire.”

Shit.

XI

In my defense, it was only a small fire.

One of the kids, probably twelve, had somehow gotten hold of matches. The trash can in the dining hall was burning, but luckily for me, only Brian had noticed. I grabbed a pitcher off the nearest table, hoping to douse the flames. The bleach in the water caused the fire to flare up violently before finally snuffing out beneath the stream.

Panting, I turned to see Brian, casually leaning against the doorway, licking the chocolate off the back of his pudding lid.

"Why didn’t you do something before you got me?" I asked, still catching my breath.

He shrugged. “You win some, you lose some.”

The fire was out, but my head was pounding like bad porno music—fast and aggressive. I rubbed my temples, tempted to deck Brian for being such a smug little prick, but he was too round, too jovial. Hitting him would feel like punching a stuffed toy.

Later that night, the kitchen staff gathered in one of the upstairs rooms. Mike had smuggled in a bottle of vodka, and the evening reeked of trouble. I sat at the table, silent, my mind swirling in the aftermath of the day. Tracy, Ally, even Katie—all of them glanced at me with that same lingering look. After everything, I needed to get absolutely wrecked. I wanted to forget everything by morning.

Mike, ever the bartender, was mixing drinks in the corner. He had an unlit Parliament Light between his lips, more out of habit than desire.

“What are you making?” I asked, my voice rough, my head still throbbing.

Without looking at me, he muttered, “Sex on the Beach.”

“Classy.” I winced, still rubbing my temples. The headache was fading, but not fast enough.

Mike smirked, pulling a bottle from the clutter of liquor surrounding him. “The trick,” he said, pointing to a sleek, clear bottle, “is Satan’s Piss—160 proof vodka. You won’t even taste the alcohol.” He poured a generous splash into a red cup. “This stuff’s so strong, they put warning labels all over it. Two cups of this, and you’ll be out cold.”

“Less talk, more pour,” I growled. I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. Tracy’s hand squeezed my thigh playfully, and I realized everyone was already a cup ahead of me.

Mike raised an eyebrow, taking a drag from his cigarette. “Your funeral, man.” He added peach schnapps and orange juice with the finesse of a seasoned drunk. “Cranberry juice is just for color,” he said, finishing the concoction.

I took a sip, surprised by how much I liked it. “Not bad,” I muttered, though I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Ally, seated on my other side, giggled as she trailed her fingers down my back. Tracy, oblivious or too drunk to care, was curled into my side. A fleeting thought of a threesome crossed my mind, but I kept quiet.

By the second cup, I felt better than I had all day. Katie was rambling about the camp. “Half the kids got sick tonight. Must’ve been bad chicken. Mary’s gonna get reamed for it.”

I laughed—loud and obnoxious. “It happens,” I said, glancing around. “Where’s Brian?”

“Overeaters Anonymous,” Tracy slurred, blushing as the room erupted in laughter.

Ally, fidgeting restlessly, piped up, “Smoking causes cancer, you know.”

Mike, too drunk to care, chuckled. “Not fast enough.”

By the third cup, I couldn’t remember any of the day’s problems. Ally was passed out in my lap, her arms wrapped around my waist like some possessive creature. Tracy didn’t seem to mind—or maybe she was just too drunk to notice.

Katie, clearly drunk, snorted, “I don’t know why, but I just don’t like Asians.”

The moon was high, and the cool night air washed over us. This was our rebellion, our escape. Someone brought up college, and before I could stop myself, I confessed, “I just don’t see myself having a future.” It was the most honest thing I’d ever said, and the room fell silent for a moment before everyone burst into laughter, agreeing with me.

“We’re raised to fear the future,” Mike said, lighting another cigarette. “Our pasts haunt us, our present’s a mess. What’s left but fear?”

I blinked, surprised at the sudden depth of his words.

“Boy scout,” Mike said, slurring, “you and me, we’re different but the same. Two sides of the same coin.”

A part of me wanted to rip his eyes out for being so drunk and smug. “That’s not how the saying goes,” I muttered, before lazily adding, “At least I didn’t burn down my high school.”

The words hung in the air, and Mike’s face darkened. There was a tense silence before he exploded, knocking the table over. “You fucking little thunder-cunt!”

Everything slowed down, cups and liquor suspended in midair. I stood too, but my legs were weak beneath me, the alcohol coursing through my veins like a poison. I’d never been this drunk before.

Mike’s fists clenched, his knuckles white. “What you drank,” he growled, “has more alcohol than a bottle of rubbing alcohol.”

But then, just as quickly as it started, the fight drained out of him. He stumbled back, laughing, and slumped next to me. “We’re the same, man,” he mumbled, patting me on the back.

I didn’t feel it.

“The risk is the thrill,” Mike continued, holding up the bottle like a prize. “Once we’re twenty-one, this won’t be fun anymore. The thrill’s in the risk.” He handed me a cigarette. “Life’s shit.”

I took it, nodding. “Mary could walk in. Hell, the sky could open up and God Himself could strike us down.”

Mike’s laugh was bitter. “God’s a fairy tale. The feds scare me more.”

I lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply as the room spun. Around us, our friends lay passed out, victims of their own escape. We were all running from something, all of us too tangled in our pasts to see any future.

Katie snored softly, and Mike glanced at her with a strange tenderness. “She told you I burned the school down, didn’t she?”

I shrugged, too tired to care.

“It was her idea,” he muttered. “She’s pregnant, a month and a half late.”

“Shit…”

“I think she knew those people were in the building.” Mike’s voice cracked. “Everyone always thinks I’m the villain.”

I looked around the room, at the faces of my friends, broken and lost. Every day, the world got a little darker. Every day, people did terrible things, and no one cared. Everyone was morally gray.

It’s in tragedy that people find their humanity, but only for a moment. Only when there’s something to mourn.

Later, after I’d carried Tracy to her bed, I stood there for a moment, marveling at how fragile she looked. I leaned down and kissed her forehead softly.

“We’re all doomed,” I whispered.

XII

They said I didn’t have a chance. The world was too far gone, they said—too broken to be saved. People love to say things like that.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard it: You can't save everyone. You win some, you lose some. But maybe that was the point. Just because you can’t save them all doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. I would succeed where others failed. I had to.

It was just another day, like all the others that blurred together. The tiny hairs on my arm stood on edge, the air thick with something wrong. Then, I heard it—the unmistakable shatter of glass from upstairs. That sharp, crisp crack.

Tracy.

I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

Upstairs, her door was locked. Behind it, Oasis’s Wonderwall blasted through the chorus. I knocked, my heart picking up its pace. "Tracy? Hey, are you in there?" No answer. My pulse quickened as panic started to eat at the edges of my mind. Then, through the music, I heard it—quiet sobs.

I thought back to our last conversation earlier that day. She hadn’t said much, gloomier than usual, eyes bloodshot from silent, secret tears. Something had been off. She hadn’t spoken to anyone all morning, even when I tried to get her to talk. When she finally turned to me, right before she went upstairs, her voice was distant, her words fractured.

"This story’s old, but it’ll never, ever end," she said, her lip trembling with a fake smile. "It’ll just keep going on and on, until we all forget and fade away."

I shouldn’t have let her go. Not alone. Not after everything that had already happened. I couldn’t risk making the same mistake again.

"Tracy!" I shouted, banging on the door, the edge of panic creeping into my voice. No response. The door rattled as I rammed my shoulder into it, but it held firm.

My mind raced. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe she had just fallen asleep with the music on. Maybe she wasn’t even in there. But then I remembered Rudy, remembered that the doors only locked from the inside.

I took a step back, staring at the door, willing it to open, and then I charged. My foot connected with the center of the wood, and the door gave way, splintering as I crashed into the room.

The glass I had heard earlier—it was the window, shattered. Tracy was sitting on her bed, hunched in the corner, clutching a large shard of broken glass in her fist. Her arm looked like a battlefield, covered in shallow cuts—stagger marks, the kind you make when you're crying for help, not trying to die.

She looked up at me, her eyes vacant but her lips curled into a small, eerie smile. The sheets were stained with her blood.

“I just wanted to remember what happened here before I forget,” she said, her voice soft. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself, not like he did. I just wanted to feel... something.”

Her eyes rolled back, and I rushed to her, scooping her into my arms. She was light, fragile. I pressed my shirt to her arm, trying to stop the bleeding as I raced to the Nurse’s office.

I couldn’t fail again. Not this time.

"Take my strength. Feed off my life. Just hold on," I whispered, more to myself than to her.

The nurse didn’t need me to explain. We all saw this coming.

Later, after she was stabilized, the nurse told me Tracy had cut herself 49 times. None of the cuts were deep, but the sheer number was terrifying. I sat in the office, my fist pressed against my mouth, trembling.

She had lost blood, but she’d be fine. Physically, at least.

Mary was pacing the room, her face tight with anxiety. "Why haven’t we sent her to the hospital?" I asked, my voice shaky but firm.

Mary stopped and glared at me. "Chris," she started, but paused as the nurse hurried by. Once we were alone, she continued, "Do you realize what another incident like this would mean? We’re barely keeping things together after Rudy. This camp is on life support. If this gets out..."

"I don’t care about the camp," I snapped. "This is about Tracy."

Mary's eyes narrowed. "Do you know what will happen to her if we involve the authorities? She’ll be locked up, put on suicide watch. They’ll medicate her, stick her in a padded cell. Do you really want that for her?"

I faltered. She had me. That smart, manipulative bitch had me trapped.

"Well, do you?" she pressed, an ugly smile creeping onto her face like a jack-o'-lantern's grin.

I sighed, defeated. "She... she slipped. Her arm went through the window," I muttered. "It was all an accident."

Mary patted my back, and I shuddered at her touch. "Very good, Chris. There’s hope for you yet." Her smile widened. "No one has to know. It’ll be like it never even happened."

As she walked away, I swear I heard her laughing. Quiet, victorious laughter.

I hated myself. I hated every part of this.

I found Tracy in the back room, lying on a cot. She looked like a corpse, pale and still, the bandages on her arms stark against her skin. The nurse glanced at me and winked. "She owes you a lot, you know."

"You have no idea," I muttered, my voice drenched in sarcasm. "How is she?"

"She had quite the little fall," the nurse said with the same smile Mary had worn earlier. "But she’ll be back on her feet in no time."

I swallowed hard. The truth hit me like a punch to the gut. In this, I was completely and utterly alone.

And somewhere, someone was still laughing.

XIII

If you stand still long enough, you can watch everything fade—everything you believe in, everyone you ever loved. Photos weather until they blur into nothing. And the people in them? You lose all sense of who they were and what they meant to you. Friends drift. Tombstones grow over with weeds.

Even Tracy’s scars will disappear someday.

We’re taught to hold on, to cling to memories, faces, names. But somehow, we always manage to remember to forget.

Everything I’ve seen, all I’ve learned, it’s meaningless. I will forget. I already have. Ignorance is bliss, they say. That’s what we’re all chasing—bliss through forgetting. And we already have.

So, Tracy fell. Slipped. Tripped. Hell, the story might as well say I pushed her. That I held the glass to her wrist. But I didn’t. It just feels like I did.

Two days later, she was back at work like nothing had happened. She ignored the way I watched her, my gaze burning holes into her.

Ally, Mike, Katie, Brian—they all played concerned when Tracy stepped into the kitchen.

After Tracy told her little story—how she’d “slipped” and broken the window—I caught Ally muttering under her breath, “Dumb bitch,” with that fake smile plastered on her face.

With friends like that...

No one could see the bandages beneath Tracy’s sleeves. No one could imagine. “Just a few little scratches,” I heard her say, brushing off their worry. Katie, somehow the only one who looked genuinely concerned, nodded along.

But I had seen the cuts. I was there. The shirt in my hamper was still stained with her blood. Forty-nine tally marks carved into her arm, like she was keeping score.

Tracy was walking a tightrope a thousand feet above the pavement, with fire licking at both ends.

I wouldn’t lose her. I swore it. I couldn’t let her fall—it wasn’t an option. But Mary’s glance from across the room reminded me I was trapped, just like Tracy. A puppet on strings, a prisoner to forces I couldn’t see.

At lunch, Mike sidled up to me, a sly grin on his face. “So... what really happened?”

It’s the death of a dream, and I was striking out left and right. You can’t win when everyone’s aiming for your head.

I didn’t know how it started. I didn’t know when it would end.

After the dinner shift, I needed to get away. The beach was calling me, though I didn’t know why. Outside, I found Ally perched on the hood of the camp jeep, cigarette dangling from her lips like she was posing for a magazine cover. I hadn’t even known we had a camp jeep until I saw her sitting on it.

"Since when do you smoke?" I asked, feeling nosy, trying to break the ice.

Her eyes didn’t leave the woods, but she blew smoke in my face. “I don’t.”

I grabbed the pack from the hood, playing with it, trying to keep things light. But then Ally, deadpan, said, "So, Tracy cut herself again, huh?"

The smile dropped from my face. I fished a cigarette out, more for something to do than anything. “This has happened before?”

She lit it for me, mimicking my earlier question. "Since when do you smoke?"

I took a drag, staring at the sky. “I don’t.”

Ally made room for me on the hood, and I sat down next to her. “When she was thirteen,” Ally said, staring up at the stars. “And fat.”

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the night air cool against my skin. “Should we be worried?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.

Ally leaned back, sprawling across the hood like a lazy cat. “It’s not our problem.”

I couldn’t take it anymore. “What kind of friend are you?” I snapped.

She stared up at the stars, not flinching. “The best kind.”

I was ready to lash out again, but then I saw the tears silently streaming down her face.

The bug zapper on the porch crackled, and the air smelled faintly of electricity. I wondered if it would rain. Ally made no move to hide her tears, just stared at me, unashamed.

“You always want what you can’t have,” she whispered, the tension between us thick enough to choke on.

I didn’t flinch. “It happens.”

She forced a laugh, but her eyes told a different story. “Oh, Chris, you kill me.”

There’s an unwritten law: you always want the one your friend is interested in. It’s safe because they’re off-limits.

“I’m trying very hard to be a good person,” I said suddenly, unsure why I even admitted it.

Ally’s eyes narrowed. “And you want her? The wrist-slitter?”

“Nobody’s perfect,” I said through a cloud of smoke.

She shifted, positioning herself on top of me, the jeep’s shocks creaking under our combined weight. The world felt smaller, closer. She flicked her cigarette into the bushes and smiled. “What’s your tragic flaw, Chris?” she whispered, her face close enough to feel her breath on my skin. “What are you hiding?”

I was a fraud.

I pushed her off me, disgusted with myself. Disgusted with her. The cigarette in my hand burned into my palm as I crushed it, the sting of pain grounding me. She laughed as I spat on the ground, trying to rid myself of the taste of guilt and smoke.

“You’re a monster,” I muttered, my voice trembling with anger.

“So are you,” she shot back, unbothered, as she kissed the burn on my hand. “It’d be a shame if Tracy found out about us, wouldn’t it?”

What had I gotten myself into? I’d made all the wrong choices at all the right times.

The enemy of my enemy was myself.

Everyone was blackmailing me. Everyone was walking all over me. What had I ever done to deserve this?

I needed to be somewhere else. There were people who needed me, people who wanted me. I couldn’t keep letting this happen. Something had to give.

I needed to check on Tracy.

XIV

Times like these, getting hit by a train didn't seem like the worst idea.

After Tracy and I hooked up, everything felt quiet, almost eerie. She seemed distant, sad even, but I guess that was expected for someone who’d tried to end it all just days ago. As she buttoned her jeans, I couldn’t help but notice the stained bandages on her arm, a rust-colored reminder of everything she’d been through.

Too many things were happening, all at once. It felt like I had a mountain of problems to deal with, and this was just the first climb. I was forgetting—Rudy, my father, everything that waited for me when the sun went down. It was like I’d lost track of time, of everything that mattered. Hell must’ve frozen over.

Tracy stared off into space before breaking the silence. “Ally. What do you think of Ally?” She bit her lip, her eyes distant.

Time froze. Was this a trap? Did she know about Ally and me? Could Ally have said something? Did anyone else know? And how was this going to complicate things?

I realized I’d been quiet too long. I forced out, “Eh… whatever,” then quickly added, “Why?”

She wiped her nose, still not meeting my eyes. “She just seems distant sometimes. I’m kind of worried something’s wrong.”

I half-laughed, trying to keep things light. “How’d you guys even become friends?”

Her hair fell in messy strands over her face as she spoke, almost smiling for a second, maybe. “We were always friends, but not close. Then in middle school, someone put Nair in my shampoo after gym. My hair fell out in patches. No one would even talk to me.” She giggled, though the memory clearly stung. “I looked like a cancer patient. I was a freak.”

I pulled my shirt back on, trying to picture her like that. “Ally was the only one who stuck with me through it all,” Tracy continued, running her fingers along the bandage on her arm, a shiver running through her. “We’ve been inseparable ever since.”

I pretended not to notice her touching the bandage. Instead, I moved closer, gently brushing her hair from her face, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. She smiled, just for a second, before pulling her hand away.

“Kids can be cruel,” I said, trying to comfort her. Then I gathered my courage. “Tracy, I think we need to talk about this.” I gestured toward her wound.

She laughed, closing her eyes. “Funny thing is, it was Ally who put the Nair in my shampoo in the first place.”

I sat down beside her. “Tracy…”

“She never admitted it, but I knew.” She trembled in my arms. “Chris, what’s wrong with me? I’m so scared.”

I held her tighter, trying to steady her, to steady myself. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I’m here.”

Her eyes met mine, filled with fear. “Don’t leave.”

“Never,” I whispered, meaning every word.

She wiped away her tears and kissed me, softly at first. “I think we just need to get drunk,” she said with a weak smile, the words as much a plea as a joke. It wasn’t the best idea, but maybe it wasn’t the worst either. Things felt too heavy, too serious. Maybe we needed a break from it all.

None of us had a future—or at least none I could see. Everything was spinning out of control, but the crash was happening in slow motion. Maybe we had time. Maybe we could delay the wreck.

The night stretched on, but I felt like I wasn’t really there. This summer was turning out to be such a waste of time. People can change you—these people could change you. But I told myself I wouldn’t let them.

Mike and Brian stumbled into the room, laughing about something, while Katie was puking in the bathroom. I didn’t know where Ally was, and honestly, I didn’t care.

“Protect and serve,” I muttered to myself, lost in thought.

Mike’s voice cut through. “We all make stupid mistakes,” he said to Brian, laughing before adding, “Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.”

“Huh? What’s that mean?” Brian asked, confused.

Mike grinned. “It’s Latin. Means, ‘I can’t hear you. I’ve got a banana in my ear.’”

They both burst into laughter. It’s the simple things, I guess.

“That’s profound, man,” I said, my sarcasm thick. Apparently, before torching his school, Mike had picked up a bit of Latin from those Jesuit priests.

“Sometimes it just slips out,” he shrugged with a smile.

And we all kept slipping, every one of us. 

XV

Like every other night in Hell, it rained. The kind of rain that drowns the world, erasing the horizon just three feet in front of you. Hurricanes would’ve been gentler. The rain came down like a plague, swallowing the earth in an endless, droning hum, each drop hitting the ground like it was trying to drill through the surface. It had been a long day, and all I wanted was to lie in bed and sleep for an eternity, like Rip Van Winkle, and never wake up. Everything felt numb. I was going through the motions, just trying to survive.

But sleep? Sleep was a luxury I couldn’t afford.

No rest for the wicked.

Mary was gone that night, off meeting her lawyers, trying to keep the camp’s administration from being dragged under by Rudy’s death. His parents were suing for negligence, and Mary was on edge, fighting to keep this sinking ship afloat. No one else knew, especially not Tracy. Mary had said it herself—if anyone found out what happened to Tracy, she’d be “royally fucked.”

Her absences gave Mike another excuse to dive deeper into his never-ending stash of alcohol.

I woke from a nap I didn’t remember taking, drawn downstairs by a noise. The dining room was dimly lit, scattered with clothes like the aftermath of some forgotten party. On the table, a half-empty bottle of Satan’s Piss Vodka stood like a beacon in the murk, mocking me with its memory. I took a swig, feeling the burn crawl down my throat, a reminder of the numbness that I couldn’t shake.

Heading back upstairs, I noticed Mike’s door half-closed, muffled sounds leaking out from behind it—indistinct, repetitive. Tracy’s door, though, was wide open. She and Ally were inside, Ally perched on the windowsill, cigarette in hand, watching me with a mixture of boredom and suspicion. Tracy was on the bed, painting her toenails a pinkish hue, barely acknowledging my presence.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, my eyes drawn to the storm raging outside.

Tracy didn’t look up. “Mary took Brian somewhere. Mike and Katie are in his room. Fucking.”

I felt an urge to reach out, to brush that lock of hair falling into her face. But instead, I shoved my hands into my pockets, burying the impulse. Without thinking, I muttered, “Can you still have sex if you’re pregnant?”

Ally, unfazed, blew a cloud of smoke. “Why not? Damage is already done by that point.” She gave Tracy a sideways glance. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I deflected. Thunder cracked, making the lights flicker.

Tracy smeared the polish across her skin, cursing under her breath. “Fucking rain. I can’t see a thing.” She gave up, screwing the cap back onto the bottle, her eyes finally meeting mine. “Let’s get drunk.”

There was no choice in it. We both knew that. Tracy darted past me, heading downstairs. I turned back to Ally, who hadn’t moved from her spot on the bed.

“You coming?” I asked.

Ally stretched out, legs provocatively spread on Tracy’s bed. “Nah. You two don’t need me. I’ll see if Mike’s up for round two when he’s done with Katie.” She blew me a kiss, her eyes daring me to react.

I smiled thinly. “You kids be safe. Make sure Mike uses protection. God knows where you’ve been.”

I left her there, locking the door behind me, feeling the weight of her gaze.

Downstairs, the front door slammed in the wind. Rain pooled inside, spreading toward the tables. Tracy and I sat, cold air swirling around us. She sipped from a cup while I drained mine, warmth flooding my chest, chasing away the cold. Tracy leaned into me, her lips grazing my neck, whispering, “I think I love you.”

Everything stopped. The rain. My heart. Time itself seemed to freeze. I pulled back, confused, staring into her eyes.

“What?”

“I love you,” she repeated, eyes soft, vulnerable.

She wanted to be loved. She wanted to feel safe. Protected. You always fall in love with the person who saves your life.

“I love you,” she said again, more insistently.

I stood there, dumbfounded.

“You’re drunk,” I said finally.

Her face crumpled. “No…”

She couldn’t be in love with me. She barely knew me. This wasn’t love—it was desperation, confusion. She didn’t know who I really was.

“That’s really touching,” a voice cut through the silence, cold as the storm outside. “Too bad it’s a lie.”

I turned, recognizing the soaked figure standing in the doorway.

“Bob…” I stammered, getting to my feet.

Bob’s hand swung back and forth, glinting in the dim light. A knife.

Tracy, frozen beside me, whispered the obvious. “He’s got a knife.”

Bob’s voice was low, his grip on the blade tightening. “Sit down, Chris.”

My mouth tasted like dread. “Okay, Bob. Let’s just calm down.”

“Sit down!” His voice cracked, unhinged.

I sat, hands up, heart hammering in my chest. “Everything’s cool, man. Just relax.”

Bob’s face twitched. His eyes were wild, veins bulging in his neck. “I talked to him, Chris. He told me everything.”

“Bob…” I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You’ve got them all fooled. But I see you.” He kicked the bench, knocking it aside. His breath reeked of alcohol. “You have to die. It’s the only way.”

My brain scrambled for a plan. “You don’t want to do this, Bob. You’re not a killer.”

“You don’t get it,” Bob whispered. “I have to.”

Just then, Mike’s voice rang out from the stairwell. “Anyone seen my pants?”

Bob’s eyes locked onto Mike’s, confusion flashing across his face.

“Bob?” Mike asked, taking in the scene. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Now.

“RUN!” I shouted, flipping the table into Bob. The knife clattered to the floor as I shoved the table into him, pinning him against the wall. Bob struggled, his strength catching me off guard, and I slipped on the wet floor. In the chaos, Bob scrambled for the door, fleeing into the storm.

Tracy screamed as I chased after him, her voice drowned by the pounding rain. I didn’t know why I was chasing him—I just knew I had to.

The rain beat down in sheets as I bolted into the night, barely making out Bob’s figure disappearing into the woods. Mud sucked at my legs, slowing me down, but I kept going, branches tearing at my face. I could hear his labored breathing just ahead.

I leapt over a fallen tree, misjudging the height, and crashed face-first into the muck. Bob’s boot connected with my face, snapping my head back. Stars exploded in my vision.

“We’re not so different, Chris,” Bob taunted, standing over me.

I stumbled to my feet, throwing a wild punch. He dodged, laughing, his voice echoing through the trees. “Welcome to Limbo.”

His fist connected with my ribs, knocking the wind from my lungs. “You little fuck. I’ve been waiting for this.”

I swung again, catching him in the jaw. “You’re obsessed, Bob.”

He fell to the ground, spitting blood. “We’re the same.”

I swung the branch I’d grabbed, smashing it into his face. He laughed, even as blood streamed down his cheeks. “This is how it begins.”

I hit him again, his nose cracking under the blow. “No, Bob. This is how it ends.”

He was still laughing as he collapsed into the mud, sinking slowly into the earth.

XVI 

Boredom had crept in again, and with it, Tracy and Ally resurrected the idea of sneaking off to the amusement park. My gut twisted with unease, but I went along anyway. Maybe if something went wrong, I could be the hero, redeem myself for Rudy, for Bob, for Ally, even for Tracy. After the lights went out, we snuck out—Tracy, Ally, Brian, Mike, Katie, and me—catching a bus to Rye. A voice in my head whispered, "History repeats itself, you know. Why won’t you warn them?"

But no one in our group was ever known for making smart decisions. They were runaways, wanted criminals, and soon-to-be mothers. Mike and Katie lit up some of Rudy’s stash, laughing like there wasn’t a thing wrong in the world. Tracy sat beside me, bandages still wrapped around her arm, and when they offered her a hit, she reached for it without hesitation. I snapped at her, not because I had a moral objection, but because Rudy had died with that very weed in his hand. And Tracy wasn’t much further from death herself. God knows what it could have been laced with.

For a moment, Tracy just stared at me, as if searching for some clever retort. All she managed was a cold, “Fuck you.” Simple. Direct. Then, more venomous: “Who do you think you are? Like you haven’t been sneaking hits of this all week. You trying to save me, Chris? Like you saved Rudy?”

The words hit me like a slap across the face. Tracy got up and moved over to sit with Mike and Katie, our very own Bonnie and Clyde. I just sat there, stunned. "Like you saved Rudy?" The phrase echoed in my mind, stinging worse than salt in an open wound. Tracy had shown her true colors—a cold-hearted bitch. The guilt over Rudy’s death, already a constant burden, was now magnified by her words, as if she were rubbing broken glass into the wound. Whatever we had between us, it was over. Something shriveled and died inside of me that night.

But it wasn’t her fault. It never was.

Maybe that was the problem.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault anymore. We’ve built a world where nothing is anyone’s responsibility. You mess up? Blame someone else. Blame the system. Blame society. Everyone's a victim of something.

I remember reading about Thomas Gallagher during my freshman year. He walked into his high school one Tuesday morning in late May. The warmth of summer was on the horizon, no need for a coat—but Tommy wore one, long and dark, like a curtain hiding something awful. The swish of those doors opening sent a ripple of unease through the hall. Three minutes until the first-period bell, and Tommy pulled out a gun. What followed was a silence that only death can create, punctuated by the clattering of spent shells on the floor. Fifteen people dead, and Tommy still got off. It wasn’t his fault, they said. He was bullied. He was tortured. Poor Tommy. The media painted him as the real victim. The gun sellers were sued, the victims’ families never saw their children graduate. But Tommy? He got revenge. Or something like it.

Chuck Grantly coached me in Little League. Everyone envied his seemingly perfect family life. Then, one night, he drowned his sorrows at O’Dell’s Bar, taking shot after shot of Southern Comfort. Five minutes after leaving, his car wrapped around a mini-van, killing a mother of four who was only out that late to pick up formula for her newborn. But it wasn’t Chuck’s fault. His lawyer made that clear. His wife had left him for her yoga instructor—a gorgeous blonde named Becky. Chuck was grieving, you see. That’s why he had seven shots of whiskey and the tequila. Grief poured it all down his throat, not Chuck. He got to go back to his life, back to baseball and booze, while the woman’s husband buried her. It wasn’t his fault. Not really.

Jared Mackey, a kid in my English class, played bass in the jazz band. He got paranoid that his girlfriend was cheating, so he paid a friend to follow her. A month later, the friend reported back: no cheating, no flirting. But Jared wasn’t convinced. He asked the friend to keep following her. It’s called stalking in most states. But when the friend refused, confessing that he had fallen for her himself, the whole mess spiraled into some twisted love triangle. Jared wasn’t the jealous, controlling boyfriend, they said. His heart had been broken too many times before. And it wasn’t his friend’s fault, either. He was only doing what Jared asked. It wasn’t even the girl’s fault, even though she had a dealer named Tank she’d been trading sexual favors with for heroin, all because of an uncle who’d touched her years ago. Long story short? Everyone ended up dead, like some kind of Shakespearean tragedy. And, of course, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

Drugs made me do it.
Society made me do it.
The media made me do it.
My past made me do it.

But all this shifting of blame has to end somewhere, doesn’t it? Someone has to be responsible. What’s the point of free will if no one’s ever in control?

Across the bus, Tracy threw her head back and laughed, an empty sound that echoed in my chest. I could still taste her on my lips, the bitterness of it lingering. I counted the reasons to hate her, and they were piling up fast.

And hate her I did.

XVII

When we finally got to Playland, all I wanted was to crawl back to Blue Ridge and sleep, but the next bus wasn’t coming for another hour. The park was like a neon dream twisted into a nightmare—lights glittering, music blaring, and yet, it felt hollow. The air was thick with summer warmth, and I stood there watching a little boy lose his red balloon, its string slipping through his fingers as he clutched at his mother’s hand. I almost laughed, the urge to tell him, "Life is shit," flickering in my throat.

I stuck with Brian, hoping to shake off the suffocating weight of what had happened on the bus. We hadn’t spent much time together all summer, and now I remembered why. Brian was... strange. He stole cotton candy from the stands and kicked occupied bathroom stalls just to see if someone would come out with soiled pants. In crowds, he’d shout vulgar nonsense just for the reaction. He was the classic fat kid who realized that if he leaned into being the class clown, people would laugh with him instead of at him. But even the best jokes wear thin, and Brian had a way of pushing things too far.

Surprisingly, he didn’t mention Tracy. That alone was a shock. Brian usually thrived on other people’s misery, using it to mask his own.

My head throbbed, the kind of pain that made you wish for oblivion. Somewhere nearby, the Dragon Coaster roared, carts rattling overhead, and for a moment, I looked up, hoping to catch sight of that boy’s balloon. It was gone. I smiled to myself. Somehow, that made me feel better.

Brian was trying to lighten the mood, as if his crude jokes could fix anything. I kept glancing at the giant clock in the middle of the park, surrounded by roller coasters twisting like snakes, while teenagers made out in dark corners.

“Why did the little boy cry himself to sleep?” Brian asked, his voice grating on my nerves.

“Brian,” I warned, “don’t.”

“Because he had AIDS,” he answered, grinning.

“You fat motherfucker,” I muttered, shaking my head.

Just as I was starting to let my mind drift away from Tracy, there she was—walking by with some guy, her body practically draped over him. He looked nearly thirty, and his smile was slick, the kind that made my skin crawl. I knew, in that instant, that nothing about him was good. Something inside me, like a creeping spider, told me I had to save her from him—and maybe from herself.

“Come on, Trace,” I pleaded, desperation coating my words. “The last bus is leaving soon. Let’s go.”

She laughed, the sound sharp, cutting. “José is going to take care of me. He’ll give me a ride back later.” She flashed a smile at him, showing a little too much teeth. “He doesn’t get all up in my business about what I can and can’t smoke. We’re heading to the beach. It could’ve been us, Chris, if you weren’t so goddamn insane!”

Anger flared, but I kept my voice steady. “I said that because I care about you, Tracy. Look at yourself. This isn’t you. Come back with me, please.”

Her eyes narrowed, ice-cold. “And what makes you think you know who I am?”

“Tracy, if you could just be honest about everything—”

She cut me off with a sneer. “So you’ve always been honest with me, huh?”

It was a strange question. I wasn’t the one lying.

“Of course I have,” I started, but she interrupted again, tearing into me.

“Then tell me where you go in the middle of the night, Chris.”

I blinked, confused. She was talking nonsense, wild and erratic. “What are you even saying, Tracy? I don’t go anywhere. You don’t know what’s happening. Just come with me.”

She shook her head, her voice a cold whisper. “I hate liars.”

Before I could respond, José stepped forward, his presence like a dark cloud. “Hey, man. Let her be. You ain’t her daddy.” His voice was slow, like he was chewing on something stuck in his teeth. He was all shaved head, dirty white undershirt beneath a hoodie, his arms thick with muscle. “She don’t want to go with you.”

If you love something, set it free.

José’s fist came out of nowhere, slamming into my temple. The world spun.

They say the best way to take a punch is to move into it, to absorb the blow. Boxers talk about it all the time—let the force spread across your body instead of letting it slam into you. But when a punch is coming at your face, instinct takes over. You back away, and that’s when the damage is done. Your brain slams into the inside of your skull like a car crash.

But in a fight, you don’t think. It’s all reflex. You either do the right thing or the wrong thing. Or you freeze. Like I did.

His punch landed hard, spinning me around, and before I could react, he hit me again, knocking the wind out of me. I was caught in a slow-motion nightmare, watching myself take blow after blow, unable to fight back. His fist came up under my chin, lifting me off my feet before I crashed to the ground.

This must be how Bob felt.

José wasn’t done. He kicked me again and again, each blow driving me deeper into the dirt. I coughed up blood, the taste thick and metallic. Finally, he spit at me, turning back to Tracy. “Let’s go, babe.”

If you love something, set it free.

They started to walk away, but I couldn’t just lie there. I pushed myself to my feet, every muscle screaming in pain. “Tracy… wait…”

She turned back, the faintest glimmer of something in her eyes, but it wasn’t hope. I could barely see out of one eye, my vision swimming.

“Chris,” she said, her voice soft but cruel, “let me go. This doesn’t concern you.”

I couldn’t speak.

“You’re always trying to save everyone,” she went on. “You couldn’t save Rudy, and you sure as hell can’t save me.”

She turned and walked away with José. Her final words echoed in the empty space between us: “Goodbye, Chris.”

The blood dripped down my face as I watched her disappear into the night.

If you set something free, you’ll live to regret it.

I told myself it was over.

But really, it was just the beginning of a very long night—one that would haunt me forever.

XVIII

 If more people had the crap beaten out of them, they might understand that violence isn’t the answer. I’d just gotten my ass handed to me on a silver platter, and it felt exactly like that—brutal, humiliating. As I limped towards the bus stop, my hands trembled, and every breath felt like it was slicing through my chest. The taste of blood, thick and metallic, clung to my mouth, and my head throbbed like someone was beating a drum inside my skull.

I collapsed onto the bench, panting like some wounded animal. The summer night’s air offered no comfort, but I took it in deep, desperate breaths, trying to calm the storm raging inside me. My hands were smeared with blood—my own, I assumed. My shirt, my shorts, even my sneakers were stained red from the fight, from trying to save someone who didn’t want to be saved. Self-sacrifice, right?

But why? Why had I thrown myself into that mess, trying to protect Tracy? Why did I feel this unshakable responsibility to save the people around me? It wasn’t like anyone had ever asked for my help. It wasn’t like they ever thanked me, either. There was some unspoken contract in my head, a duty I’d appointed myself to save them, to carry their burdens. But what had I ever gotten for it? Pain. Suffering. Agony.

Sitting on that bench, I made a decision. I was done. Done being the hero, done with the bullshit of trying to fix the world. No one was worth it anymore. No one even wanted me to save them. They didn’t need me.

You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

As that thought settled in, it felt like the whole world shifted around me. The facade of happiness peeled away, revealing something uglier underneath. The amusement park, once a place of light and laughter, loomed over me like some grotesque shadow. Its sparkling lights, the bright music, all of it felt fake—just a thin veneer covering up something rotten.

I stared at the park’s cheap ten-foot fence, the way the peeling blue paint barely masked the decay inside. The world around me felt old, tired, like it had been slowly crumbling for years, and I’d only just noticed. The whitewashed bricks, the cracked pavement—it was all falling apart, just like me.

If you ignore something long enough, it doesn’t go away. Sooner or later, you have to open your eyes and face it. This world is sick. It has a cancer, and it’s spreading.

Life, when you boil it down, is just a game. Trivial. Does anything we do really matter in the end? Does anyone? Sure, you might affect a few lives here and there, but eventually, they’ll forget you. Time erases everything. Look at Rudy—no one even talks about him anymore. His death became just another forgotten moment, buried under the passage of time.

You spend your whole life waiting for death, and when it comes, you realize you never truly lived.

I took a few steps closer to the park, staring at the twisted shapes in the dark, trying to wrap my mind around it all. This world wasn’t a happy place, it was a cesspool—a scummy, rotting pit where the worst parts of humanity festered. How many people were being cheated, beaten, or robbed just within these gates? How many were lying to their spouses, stealing from their kids, destroying their own lives?

Twenty-five percent of people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

Everyone was guilty of something. That’s what I realized. Everyone was a liar, a cheat, a sinner. No one was innocent. No one.

“Fools…” I muttered under my breath, disgusted.

The park groaned under the weight of its own ugliness. The darkness seemed to feed off the pain, growing bigger, stretching out over the neighborhood like an oppressive shadow. I could feel it pulling at me, gnawing at my insides, filling me with anger, with bitterness. It whispered to me, urging me to give in, to join the chaos, to snuff out the pointless lives of everyone around me.

Maybe this is the real me.

Maybe this is the me I keep locked away, the part of me I hide from the world.

Maybe this is the me who doesn’t give a fuck.

Maybe this is the me who hates helping people.

Maybe this is the me who enjoys watching others suffer.

Maybe this is the me who let Rudy die.

Maybe this is me.

I gasped, pulling myself out of the dark thoughts swirling in my head. I couldn’t bear to look at the park anymore—it was reflecting something back at me that I didn’t want to see. Near the fence, I saw a group of hoodlums dealing drugs, spreading their poison through the world like the cancer I knew was already everywhere.

I don’t know how long I sat on that bench, but by the time I realized it, the last bus had already left. I was stuck. I stood up, but the world swayed around me, and I stumbled forward, forcing myself to keep moving. I wandered back into the park, hoping to find Brian, or Mike, or even Katie—anyone who might’ve missed the bus, anyone who could keep me from being alone.

But no one was there. Or maybe they were, and I just couldn’t see them through the haze clouding my mind. Nothing made sense anymore. Everything was loud noise and blurred images.

As I stumbled through the crowd, someone bumped into me—hard, like they’d meant to. I spun around, locking eyes with a kid in glasses, bloodshot behind thick lenses. He was wearing headphones, music blaring from them.

And the hero will drown.

“Rudy?” I called out, spinning back towards him, but he was gone. My heart raced, and I started running, frantically searching the faces around me. “Rudy!” I screamed, over and over again, but he never appeared.

Of course, it wasn’t him. Rudy was dead. I knew that. But I kept running, kept calling out his name, chasing after the ghost of someone I could never catch.

Suddenly, two security guards grabbed me, dragging me out of the park like I was some drunk who’d caused trouble. It was late. I knew I couldn’t go back to work after tonight. I’d burned that bridge.

I found a payphone and stood there, staring at it. Who was I going to call? Out of all the people I’d helped, all the people I thought I mattered to, I couldn’t think of a single number to dial.

I pulled a quarter from my pocket, my hand trembling. There was only one number I could remember, one person I didn’t want to call. But the coin was already in my hand.

Repent, prodigal son.

I dropped the quarter into the slot and punched in the numbers. The phone rang for what felt like an eternity before a sleepy, gruff voice finally answered. I hesitated for a long moment, then forced the words out, my voice ragged and broken.

“Hi, Dad... can you come pick me up?”

XIX

His name was Joseph Davis, my cousin, and five extra years of life had granted him a wisdom and patience I could never grasp. Joey was the older brother I never had, a guiding light in a house full of women, where I struggled to find a male role model. I idolized him, wanted to be just like him. There was something about him, a glow that couldn’t be explained—he was kind, selfless, and always there when you needed him. He never let anyone down.

When Joey was in high school, we were inseparable. I tagged along on his adventures, though I was probably more of a burden than a friend. I was the baby chasing after the big kids, and yet Joey never made me feel like a nuisance. To him, I was part of the team. Five years older, five years wiser, he seemed almost saint-like in my eyes.

Then he left for college, and everything went quiet. We lost touch, and the next thing I knew, a year later, he was dead. I stood at his funeral, numb with disbelief, convinced that Joey wasn’t really gone. As snow fell that winter morning, I swore to myself that heroes like Joey didn’t die.

Heroes never die.

If you don’t know your dreams are dead, then you never truly feel empty.

The police said they found him with a pistol in his hand, a bullet through his heart. They called it suicide, but I couldn’t accept that. Whether or not he pulled the trigger, it felt like murder. Standing over his grave, shaking with tears and snot, I vowed that I’d never let anyone I cared about fall like that again. I’d protect them all.

But maybe I wasn’t a protector. Maybe I was the plague.

When my father picked me up that night, he didn’t say a word. I got in the car, bracing for the yelling, the usual outburst. But the silence was heavier than anything I could’ve expected—cold, like the emptiness of space. His face was stern, unforgiving.

Finally, after what felt like hours, he turned to me. But instead of anger, there was something unexpected. “That looks bad,” he said, his voice softer than I’d heard in years. “I’m taking you to the hospital. You might have a concussion.” He examined my head, concern breaking through the hard lines of his face. “I’ve got a friend in the ER. He’ll look at you.”

“Oh... okay.” My voice was small, dumb.

There was another long pause before he spoke again, sighing like he was carrying the weight of the world. “It was a girl, wasn’t it?”

I blinked, wondering how he could possibly know, but my head hurt too much to think about it. So, I told him everything—about Tracy, Bob, Rudy, the drugs, Playland, the fight, everything. As I recounted the summer’s events, it felt like a burden was being lifted from me. The words tumbled out, some eloquent, others jumbled, but I got the story out. I felt lighter.

My father sat there, fingers pressed to his temple, deep in thought. His hand ran over the stubble on his chin as he finally spoke, his voice humming through the night.

“This girl,” he began, “she’s no good for you. I don’t think you can see that, but I know the type. Girls like her—they have a way of making you blind to everything else. It’s like putting blinders on a racehorse. You can only see what’s right in front of you. You’re in a tunnel when you’re with her. Tunnel vision.”

He paused, letting his words sink in. “You have to come out of that tunnel, son. You have to take control of your life. I know it’s hard, but you need to let her go before she destroys you. Before you lose yourself.”

His words hit like a sledgehammer. My father never talked like this. He wasn’t supposed to be... this.

“You can’t save everyone, Chris,” he continued. “No matter how hard you try, someone’s always going to get hurt. That’s just life. You can’t bear the weight of the world on your shoulders—it’ll crush you. It’ll kill you.”

I stared out the window, my vision blurring with tears I wasn’t ready to admit were there.

He sighed again, softer now. “It’s those hard times, the failures, that define who we are. Not the successes. You have to be strong.”

I couldn’t respond. My throat tightened, words stuck somewhere between my brain and my mouth.

This wasn’t my father. My father used to beat me with belts, with wooden spoons, even a mop once. Not because he was a bad man—he thought he was teaching me lessons. Discipline. Back then, fear was power, and I feared him more than anything. But by the time he was too old, too sick to hit me anymore, I’d already stopped fearing God.

The leukemia had stolen his strength, but it hadn’t taken away his thirst for alcohol. He drowned himself in vodka, chasing a false sense of enlightenment. He’d get drunk and go on about sin and saviors, about rising and falling. He was never the same person twice. Too many faces. But tonight, he seemed... different.

Tomorrow, it would be different again.

We pulled into the hospital parking lot, and my father’s mask shifted back to something familiar. “Hey, stop bleeding on my seats,” he said, half-concerned, half-annoyed. “Let’s go.”

Next thing I knew, I was in a small, sterile room, the harsh white light hurting my eyes. My head pounded like a jackhammer, and my body felt heavy. My father stood in the corner, arms crossed, watching me with a mix of worry and frustration.

“What?” he asked, glancing at my shoes. “Were you at the beach tonight?”

“No,” I muttered, confused.

“Then what’s with all the sand?”

I looked down. Sure enough, my sneakers were caked with sand. Where had it come from? I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

Before I could answer, a doctor came in. He was short, balding, with thick glasses that magnified his tired eyes. He looked at me but spoke to my father.

“Dave, looks like your son got into a fight. Typical kids these days, right? Bet it was over a girl. It’s always a girl.”

His voice faded in and out as he droned on about an MRI I didn’t remember getting. Something about swelling and memory loss, but I couldn’t focus. His words became garbled, like the adults in Charlie Brown cartoons.

Eventually, he lost interest in me and started talking to my father about some bizarre jar he’d found. When he pulled it out, I didn’t know what I was looking at—a small, shriveled thing, like a dried-up orange peel. Then I saw the label: Samael. Brooklyn, April 9, 1919.

“It’s a fetus,” the doctor said, grinning under his mustache like it was some great discovery.

My stomach twisted. The thing inside the jar was grotesque, a twisted reminder of death. I felt bile rise in my throat as I whispered, “My god…”

“What’s the matter, no strong stomach?” the doctor teased, but I was already fading, the room spinning around me.

By the time I woke up, I was back home, lying on the cold floor of my childhood room. The exhaustion finally caught up with me, pulling me under into a deep, dreamless sleep.

And as I lay there, I couldn’t help but think—I wasn’t so different from that thing in the jar. Curled up on the floor, cold and empty, I felt like I was just as lifeless, just as trapped.  

XX

That night, I dreamt—one of those dreams that feels like it stretches beyond sleep, a world where you can’t tell if you’re truly dreaming or trapped inside something deeper. There are times in life when you know you’re in a dream, but you won’t admit it. Other times, the dream is so thick, so real, you can’t wake yourself up even if you try.

Scientists say dreams reveal the inner workings of your mind. Every dream, they claim, has meaning, a purpose. Nothing is random. Some say dreams might even be closer to reality than the waking world—life distilled, without the noise. They offer clarity, fleeting moments where everything makes sense, before dissolving into fragments of absurd images and garbled sounds.

If you remember a dream perfectly, some say it’s a message, a warning. A premonition of something dark looming just beyond your reach. But here’s the catch: how do you know when a dream ends? How do you know you’ve truly woken up? What if waking is just another dream, and you’re still tangled in someone else’s vision, not your own? And when one person wakes, does the dream end—or does it simply continue without them?

Is it my dream? Or yours?

That night, I had such a dream. You be the judge—whether it was a premonition of a terrible fall or the concussion playing tricks on me.

In the dream, I stood in a vast desert under a burning midday sun. The heat beat down on me, relentless, the horizon stretching out forever in all directions. Sand. Just sand and endless thirst. My throat burned with the kind of dryness that felt like it could never be quenched.

Suddenly, a figure on horseback appeared—a man cloaked in shadow, riding a jet-black horse. He dismounted in front of me. I couldn’t see his face; his hood concealed it completely.

“Would you like some water, young man?” His voice was smooth, almost kind, but it chilled me. “You look thirsty.”

I reached for the water, but he pulled it back, smiling under his hood. “All you have to do is let me take you away from here. Let me save you from this madness. Look around—you’re lost in a forsaken desert. Can anywhere else be worse? Come with me, and you’ll never be thirsty again.”

I hesitated, something dark creeping up my spine. “N-no, that’s okay,” I stammered. “My mom always said not to take things from strangers.” I swallowed hard. “And to beware of Trojans bearing gifts.”

He didn’t flinch. “Not one about not looking a gift horse in the mouth? No? Alright, suit yourself. I was only trying to help.” He shrugged, his voice as steady as ever. “I’ll just follow along behind you. You’ll change your mind soon enough.”

And so, he followed. Step for step, his shadow dogging my heels. I wandered the endless sand, stumbling, until I collapsed, my face in the dirt. The cloaked figure crouched beside me, his voice coaxing. “You’re tired, boy. Let me help you. I can make it all better.”

I lashed out. “No! I don’t want your help. Leave me alone!” My shout echoed, but he just chuckled and disappeared into the wind.

I pushed myself back up, kept walking, the pain in my body growing sharper. The laughter returned, echoing from the sky, mocking me. Hours passed—maybe days. I realized I was walking in circles, returning to the same place over and over.

Finally, I screamed, collapsing into the hot sand. “I give up! You hear me? I give up!”

The laughter swelled, and suddenly the desert vanished. I found myself sitting in a dark office, red velvet curtains drawn across the window, casting everything in a sinister, rose-colored glow. The air was thick, oppressive. The walls whispered of suffering, betrayal, and unfulfilled promises. The floor groaned under the weight of despair.

Before me, a massive desk loomed, carved with skulls, and in the enormous armchair behind it sat the cloaked man, his laugh filling the room.

“Well, well, well. Are you ready to accept my help?”

The seal on the desk caught my eye—the Roman god Janus, the one with two faces. I remembered thinking how useless my knowledge of mythology seemed, except now, it felt ominously relevant.

“No thanks,” I said, forcing a smirk. “I’m out of the desert.”

The man laughed again, the sound echoing off the twisted walls. “Yes, out of one desert and into another. Shall I read from the Book of Chris?” He pulled out a black ledger from his desk, the title glaring in gold: CHRIS DAVIS.

“Let’s see... recently punched a coworker, lusted after Tracy, let poor Rudy die, ignored your father’s illness, snuck out of your job, which you’ll lose by morning, and dragged your sickly father out in the middle of the night. And oh, let’s not forget Tracy running off with José after he beat the hell out of you.”

His voice dripped with mockery, every word tightening the noose around me.

“You can face the consequences,” he said, “or you can let me make it all disappear. No José, no heartache, no dying father. What do you say?”

I was tired. Too tired. “What do you want in return?”

His hand extended, shadowy and cold. “Do we have a deal?”

-It’s just a dream-

I shook his hand. Cold as death. “Deal.”

“Welcome to the rest of your life.” His words echoed as the room dissolved around me, and suddenly, I was flying. Wind rushed past my face, and for a moment, I felt free. The world was bright, my worries vanished.

Then I woke, drenched in sweat, back on the floor of my room.

Shaking it off, I stumbled to my feet and looked outside. The sun was shining, the day calm and placid. Everything felt... peaceful. Safe. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and froze. The person staring back at me wasn’t me—at least, not the me I remembered. My face was pale, gaunt, my hair long and greasy. But it was my eyes that haunted me most—something cold and dead stared back.

Shaking it off, I left the room, the strange feeling fading. In the kitchen, my family was already seated, my mother making her famous pancakes, my father and sisters chatting. Normal. Safe.

I reached for the newspaper, still wrapped in its yellow plastic bag. As I opened it, my dad said something, but I wasn’t listening. My eyes froze on the front page, and the coffee mug slipped from my hand, shattering on the floor.

The headline read: Local Girl, Tracy Matthews, Found Strangled.

And I felt the world collapse around me.

XXI

It felt like a bad dream. Or maybe it was a dream. Everything blurred together—a rush of color and sound swirling in disarray.

What’s happened?

I couldn't quite grasp the reality of it all. Where was I? Why was I home? Shouldn’t I have been at work? How did I end up here?

I racked my brain, but the previous day was a haze, like someone had erased pieces of my memory. Panic gripped me, coiling around every nerve, squeezing the breath from my chest. The last clear memory I had was agreeing to go somewhere—PlayLand, maybe? That sounded right, but after that, it all went static, white noise filling the gaps. And then there was that dream, vivid but jumbled. Everything in between felt like fragments, shattered images in my mind.

And Tracy? Oh, God. What had happened to Tracy?

I reached up and felt the throbbing bump on the side of my head. How did I get that? Had I tried to save her? Did I get knocked out in the process? Did I fail to save her?

I would have saved her. I should have saved her. But how did this happen?

The room spun, and laughter—cold and malignant—echoed in my ears. I yelled at my parents, telling them I couldn’t remember, my voice frantic. The walls felt like they were closing in, the air thinning by the second. I could taste the blood trickling down from my nose, pooling on my upper lip. My dad tried to calm me down, handing me a handkerchief, filling in the blanks I couldn’t grasp. He told me I’d been in a fight, that I was taken to the hospital, and the doctor said memory loss was normal after a concussion. That’s all he knew. But it didn’t explain the rest—it didn’t explain the void in my mind.

And how did I feel? Nothing. Just… nothing. No pain, no anger, no sadness. Even Tracy—someone I cared about—left me numb.

I was taught to shut down, to shut out when things got bad. To be strong, tough, brave. Bravery wasn’t something I was born with—it was something I had to have. Something survival forced me to wear like armor.

Courageous by necessity.

Joey had saved me once. His death had forced me to be brave. But fear had been my constant companion growing up. I used to be terrified of everything—elevators, heights, even the floor after I fell from a table as a toddler. I don’t even remember why I was standing on a table, but the memory of the fall haunted me. Fear was irrational like that, latching onto things that made no sense.

Once, when I was five, I got stuck in a parking garage elevator. It was dark and the elevator had stopped. I remember the smell of fear filling the air. In the dark, my mind twisted reality—no longer was my father standing beside me, but a monster, a slumping green troll with slime dripping from its fangs. The elevator hung there, like a worm on a hook, and I imagined it falling. Falling and falling, until everything was over.

I was afraid of falling.

Little girls don’t scream this loud.

As I grew older, I developed fears that weren’t much more rational. Sharks, for example. I couldn’t even walk through the shark tunnel at SeaWorld. The movie Jaws had scrambled my brain so badly, I thought the glass tunnel would shatter, releasing the sharks to feast. Sharks didn’t evolve for millions of years—somehow, that freaked me out more. What if they did evolve? What if they could breathe air and grow wings?

You’re more likely to be killed by a bee sting. Yeah, well, tell that to the irrational part of my mind.

But Joey had saved me from fear. His death had stripped away my childish terrors, and in their place, he left a need to be brave. I had to be brave for Joey, for his memory. His death was a burden, a heavy stone that forced me to bury my fears deep down. I didn’t have the luxury of fear anymore. I had to carry on for him. And to do that, I had to be strong. I had to be Joey.

The enemy of my enemy is myself.

Rudy was dead. Now Tracy was too. My father had cancer, and I wasn’t Joey. I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t enough.

Failure never felt this suffocating, like a noose tightening around my neck. Time was running out, and I had nothing left to give.

XXII

The fear I thought I’d buried long ago came back with a vengeance. A few days later, I went to Tracy’s wake. I couldn’t bring myself to step into the viewing room. No matter how much I wanted the brutal confirmation that all of this was real, seeing her lying there would’ve made it impossible to keep denying it. If I saw her in that coffin—dead—it would mean she was truly gone. My hands trembled, and a sharp pain gnawed at me, like a knife twisting deeper into my back. But I couldn’t cry. My breath came in short, shallow bursts as panic surged through me. I staggered down the hallway, collapsing into an empty chair. Curling my knees up to my chest, I sat there in a fetal position, my head throbbing with flashes of images—faces, hands, and blurred movements—but none of it made any sense.

I hadn’t felt like this since Christmas years ago, back when Joey was still alive. My family always gathered under one roof for the holidays, a tradition that ended in drunken arguments, fistfights, or worse.

My family—a patchwork quilt of dysfunction—was something out of a twisted sitcom. My dad, one of eight, had siblings who could’ve each starred in their own soap opera. Uncle Hank, the bounty hunter, never went anywhere without his sawed-off shotgun. Uncle Kyle, a Wall Street big shot, did time every now and then for embezzlement. He joked that his clients’ money begged him to take it. And then there was Uncle Jeremy, the ex-bishop, who left the church amid scandalous rumors about affairs with parishioners—parishioners who, oddly enough, had kids that bore an uncanny resemblance to him. And let’s not forget Uncle Benny, the infamous hacker responsible for releasing the Sasser virus in 2004.

This was the family I came from—chaos wrapped in secrets. And Joey? He was the hero, always there to save the day. Even during that last Christmas before he left for college, he played the role perfectly.

Uncle Steve, Joey’s dad, had driven through the night only to bury his car in a snowbank off the road. Joey, ever the white knight, rushed outside to save him, dragging him out of the snow and back to the house. He ended up with frostbite on his arm for his trouble, a scar he wore proudly afterward.

But heroes die too. That’s what no one told me. There were whispers, faint murmurs that Joey had been strung out on Special K when he shot himself. I refused to believe it. I didn’t even know what Special K was. Heroes don’t die—not Joey. Not like that.

Everyone wears a mask.

What had Joey been hiding? I thought I knew him, but you never really know anyone. We all have secrets. Things we bury so deep they only come out in the dark when no one’s looking.

My head continued to pound, flashes of memories and images flickering through my mind. I pictured Tracy, imagined her lying there in a cheap, plastic coffin made to look like polished wood. Life wasn’t fair. They’d powder her face to cover the bruises, cake on makeup to hide the cold grip of death. Her jaw would be rigid, her mouth swollen—strangling victims bite their tongues, don’t they? Behind her glued-together lips, her teeth would be stained with blood. At least, that’s how I imagined her.

The funeral home would’ve dressed her in something modest, nothing like the skimpy, torn clothes she’d died in. They probably found some hand-me-down outfit from a little old lady they cremated the week before. That’s the thing about these places—they strip the dead. If only the top half of the coffin is open, you can bet the body isn’t wearing shoes or pants. Funeral home vultures keep what they find.

Finders keepers.

I couldn’t bear to see her like that. Despite everything she put me through, she didn’t deserve to die.

But maybe, in some twisted way, this was what she always wanted. An escape. A way out. When life gets tough, sometimes it’s easier to just… stop. I wondered if her father had even bothered to show up.

In my mind, I could still see her smile, hear her laugh. But your mind can be your worst enemy. It can turn against you, replaying memories like knives in your gut. The enemy of my enemy is always myself.

Tracy was dead, and I knew it. The pain in my head intensified, my nose bleeding again. The pressure built until I thought my skull might burst, splattering the walls like a watermelon dropped from a roof. Then, as quickly as it came, the pain vanished.

I buried my face in my knees, trying to calm my breath. That’s when my father walked in with two men in dark suits.

"Chris," he began, his voice tight, "these are Agents Johnson and McCormick from the FBI. They want to ask you a few questions."

I glanced up, wiping the blood from my nose with my sleeve. "Is this really the place for that?"

Minutes later, I was outside, waiting for the agents and my father to bring the car around. They thought I had answers, thought I could help them catch a killer.

What if they’re wrong?

The sun had just set, the air cool and damp. I loosened my tie—the blue stripes felt like they were strangling me, coiling tighter around my neck with every breath. Light rain sprinkled down, and I ran my hand through my hair, feeling the mess of it. I needed a haircut, but that was the last thing I could think about.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed I wasn’t alone. A man leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette like it was keeping him alive. He was huge—hulking, really—his suit too tight for his broad frame. His tie hung loose, the top buttons of his shirt undone. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and when our eyes met, something passed between us, some shared understanding of pain.

“Nice night for a funeral,” he rasped, his voice rough from too many cigarettes, or maybe too much life.

I studied him, noting the red flush across his face, the broken blood vessels in his eyes. “Are you a friend of the family?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“There is no family,” he muttered, staring at the ground. His breath reeked of gin.

I shivered, understanding too well. Death isn’t just about the one who dies—it’s a virus, spreading to everyone left behind. Tracy was finally free, but the rest of us? We were stuck here, dealing with the wreckage.

A car pulled up, and my father opened the door. "Let’s go, Chris."

Before I left, the man’s eyes snapped back to mine, wide with recognition, as if he knew something I didn’t. I watched him as we pulled away, feeling the weight of his stare long after we were gone.

He’d swallow a bullet before the night was over. I just knew it.

“Serial killers tend to be white, heterosexual males,” McCormick said once we’d found a quiet place to talk. “We think we’re looking for someone in their twenties or thirties. Do you remember much?”

“No,” I mumbled. “Not much.” But what I did know was how the term going postal originated—from a bunch of postal workers who, after being fired, returned to their workplace with a gun, killing as many co-workers as they could before turning the weapon on themselves.

McCormick leaned forward. “It’s our understanding, Mr. Davis, that you were the last person to see Tracy Matthews alive. Is that correct?”

I scratched my head, my thoughts tangled. “Yeah… I guess. But I don’t remember.”

“Chris,” McCormick’s voice was gentle but insistent, “we need you to try. Your mind may hold the key to catching this guy.”

I closed my eyes, searching the mess in my brain. I saw flashes of the night—arguments with Tracy, trying to protect her—but nothing clear.

Then, out of nowhere, I remembered. The beach. That Spanish guy—José.

“The beach,” I whispered. “That’s where they found her body.”

McCormick’s head shot up. “What? What is it, Chris?”

José.

Son of a bitch.

“I… I don’t remember,” I lied, slamming my fist down in fake frustration. “I’m sorry. I’m just… tired.”

They didn’t believe me, but they let me go. As soon as night fell, I stole my mom’s car and drove off into the darkness.

He had to pay.

I wasn’t going to let him keep hurting people. I was going to stop him—no matter the cost.

It was time to be the hero everyone expected me to be. Time to finish this once and for all.

XXIII

The night clung to the cold like a shroud. This was years ago, during my freshman year of high school—a night that would change everything. The streets were desolate, an eerie silence swallowing the city whole, save for the occasional wail of a distant siren. Winter gnawed at the bones of those unlucky enough to be caught outside, its fingers prying at every gap in their clothing. Near the corner of Somewhere and Nowhere, a trashcan fire flickered feebly, the last vestige of warmth against the December chill.

New York City—if you can make it here, they say, you can make it anywhere. But those who don’t make it? They disappear, swallowed whole by the city's indifference. They slip between the cracks, forgotten, as if they never existed.

On that corner, a mismatched caravan of cars cut through the night, headlights dimmed by the relentless darkness. The vehicles rolled to a stop, passengers stepping out into the cold: middle-aged men, housewives, a priest, a balding man with too much weight on his shoulders, a woman whose glasses were too big for her face, and me—a fourteen-year-old kid. Ordinary people, really. Nothing special.

And yet, there was something in the air that night. A faint hope. People emerged from the shadows, drawn to the small group like moths to a flame. These forgotten souls, huddled in the cold, were offered blankets, hot coffee, and warm smiles. Not the flashy gifts you’d expect under a Christmas tree, but small acts of kindness that meant everything. I saw a man whisper, “Have mercy,” while a woman wiped tears from her eyes. Despite the biting wind, despite the unforgiving night, there were smiles. And for a brief moment, there was warmth.

That was the night I learned what it meant to care. What it meant to see people—the ones society had cast aside. I was the boy from suburbia, my life revolving around nothing more than homework, video games, and friends. But that night changed me. It stripped away my naïveté and showed me the harsh reality of life on the streets. I learned humility, I learned compassion, and I learned how lucky I was. These people weren’t just faces in the dark—they were real, their pain tangible. And I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Joey would have been proud.

But that night wasn’t just about learning. It was a night of fear, too. I followed one of the homeless men as he slinked away, hoping to help, carrying a steaming cup of coffee and a blanket. I wanted to show I cared. But I was just a naïve kid. When I found him, he was hunched in a corner, being attacked—someone wanted his shoes. Fear swept over me like a wave. I turned to run but tripped, drawing the attacker’s attention. He turned toward me, his whiskey-stained breath hanging in the air, a knife in hand, eyes fixed on my shoes now.

In that moment, I panicked. Barely thinking, I flung the coffee at his face. The scalding liquid sent him reeling, and he limped away into the night. The homeless man was badly injured, but he smiled, bleeding, as he thanked me. Moments later, an ambulance arrived, and by morning, the attacker was found dead, stabbed and buried beneath trash not far from where it all happened.

That was my first Mid-Night Run. My first taste of the cruelty of the streets.

Joey would have been proud.

I thought about that night as I made my way through the crowd, down to the beach, all these years later. The sand was filthy, littered with syringes and shattered dreams. But I didn’t care. All I could think about was finding José—the one I believed was responsible for everything. The yin to my yang, the war to my peace, the darkness to my light. I knew I had to stop him.

And then I saw him.

It had to be him. A black hoodie cloaked his face, but I recognized him by the young, red-haired girl struggling for breath as a thin wire tightened around her neck. I couldn’t let this happen again. I had lost Rudy, I had lost Tracy, and I wasn’t going to lose anyone else. My feet moved before my mind could catch up, adrenaline fueling me as I charged across the sand.

I hit him hard—a right hook to the temple, sending him reeling. The girl fell into the surf, gasping for air. I didn’t stop. My fists flew on instinct: jab, hook, uppercut. José scrambled, disoriented. I barely registered his confusion as I elbowed him across the face, then again on the rebound. He fell back, splashing into the shallow water. I climbed on top of him, punching until my knuckles screamed in protest.

But then… something changed. José wasn’t there anymore. The redhead was. She lay beneath me, bruised and battered. Had I been hitting her?

I stumbled back, horror flooding my veins. “Are you okay?” I asked, my voice shaky. But when she saw my face, she screamed—a sound so raw, so full of terror, it chilled me to my core.

I was here to save her.

From behind me, a familiar laughter echoed. That same laughter from my nightmares. The same laughter I heard the day Tracy died. I turned, heart pounding, to see the Strangler standing there, his crimson eyes glowing in the dark.

Peek-a-boo.

In an instant, he struck—a sucker punch to the face, sending me sprawling in the sand. Blood trickled from my nose as I coughed, my hands and knees sinking into the cool grit. His boot met my brow, and everything blurred.

“José?” I growled, tasting blood. “Give it up!”

He laughed, that eerie, mocking sound. “José? There is no José,” he spat. “You still don’t remember, do you, Chris?”

As the Strangler pulled back his hood, his face shifted, morphing into Rudy, then Tracy, then a dozen other faces I knew. And finally… he became me.

The enemy of my enemy is myself.

My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at my own reflection, the burning red eyes of my doppelgänger flickering with menace. “Do you get it now, Chris?” he said, stepping closer. “We made a deal. You’re the one who wanted this. You’re the one who wanted the power. You’re not the hero. You’re the villain.”

“No,” I muttered, shaking my head. “No.”

“You sold your soul, Chris. You wanted to hurt people. You enjoyed it. Admit it—you liked it when you hurt Bob, didn’t you? You liked the power.” He smiled, a grotesque grin. “And now, it’s time to pay up.”

He drew a gun—my father’s gun. The one I had stolen earlier. Time slowed as he raised it, aimed it at me, and fired.

The first bullet hit my arm, shattering bone. The pain was instant, searing. But as I fell to the sand, I heard another shot.

I opened my eyes to see my father, standing a few feet away, gun in hand. The Strangler was gone, his body vanishing like a shadow in the night. But my father—my father was hurt. The bullet meant for me had hit him instead.

This is my fault.

I scrambled to his side, cradling him in my arms. His blood soaked into the sand, mingling with mine. His eyes fluttered open, filled with pain.

“Chris…” His voice was weak, barely audible. “Why?”

Tears blurred my vision. “Shhh, Dad, it’s okay. You saved me. You got him. You stopped the Strangler.”

He shook his head, his breathing labored. “You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.” His hand reached for my face, trembling. “I couldn’t save you, Chris…”

And with those final words, he was gone. The watch I had given him two Christmases ago beeped faintly. Midnight. The first day of autumn.

But as my father’s life slipped away, I realized this wasn’t the beginning of my fall.

It was the end.

XXIV

That summer is long gone now. I sit here, staring at a photo album full of lies, but there’s nothing left to tell. Or maybe, that’s the real lie. Because this—this isn’t even my room. The walls tremble and melt, dissolving into nothingness as a bright light floods over me. This is the space I retreat to in my mind when I need to feel safe, to escape. My real room? I haven’t been there since the night my father died. So where am I, really?

The room I’m in now is eight feet by ten, painted stark white, no windows to the outside world. It’s empty except for a bed and a chair, the air thick with the stench of disinfectant and vomit.

Have you seen the storm? Were you even listening?

The lock clicks. The door creaks open. A hulking orderly steps in, hoisting me into the chair. I don’t fight him. Behind him, a thin woman slips in—early thirties, tiny glasses perched on her nose. Her name tag reads Doctor Marge Doris.

The orderly shoves a handful of pills into my mouth, clamping my jaw shut until I swallow them down. Relief washes over me in waves, slow and inevitable.

“Now, Chris,” the doctor begins, settling onto the bed, “are you ready to talk today?” I stare blankly at her. “Do you remember why you’re here?” She waits, but I give her nothing. She sighs and continues, “Okay, Chris, you were arrested five years ago. Do you remember? They said you were a serial killer.” Her words hang heavy in the sterile air. “You went to trial, but your lawyers pleaded insanity. They said you weren’t in the right state of mind during… well, everything. So, you ended up here—Bridgewater Mental Institute. And since then, you haven’t said a single word.”

She flips through a file, her voice softening. “Your sister Jess ran away, became a stripper in Vegas. Susan? She got busted for drugs, doing six years in Minnesota. Your mother overdosed last May, and as for your father… well, you know what happened to him.” She pauses, her eyes searching mine. “Chris, I need to know what you know. I see it—the pain in your eyes, that hurt little boy trapped inside. There’s a story here. Let me help you tell it.”

If you don’t know you’re losing your mind, are you really crazy?

I sit in silence, her words slowly sinking in. If you hear something enough times, you start to believe it. A tear slides down my cheek. Now, I can cry. Now, I can feel something.

“Okay, Chris,” she sighs, standing. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

The door slams shut behind her, the lock clicking back into place. And this is what I’ve become—an empty shell of a man, a shadow of who I used to be. Maybe I really did sell my soul all those years ago. Maybe something darker, some secret part of me, took over. I can’t be sure anymore. My memories twist and turn, mocking me. I don’t know what’s real and what’s just the drugs working their magic.

But there’s one thing I am sure of: five years ago, I went up against something evil, something pure and dark—whether it came from inside me or outside, I don’t know. But it left a scar, this jagged line running from my shoulder to my forearm, ugly and purple. It’s my proof. Proof that my memories are real, that I’m not just some borderline insomniac hallucinating it all. This scar reminds me of the truth—of how selfish people can be, of how selfish I can be.

I believe there’s a hero inside everyone. But if there’s a hero in all of us, is there also a villain? My father used to say, “You don’t judge a man by his successes. You judge him by how he handles his failures.”

And that’s the test, isn’t it? The one we all face, sooner or later. It comes in different forms, at different times, but it’s always there. The choice between good and evil, between right and wrong, salvation or damnation. We all have to walk through the fire. Some of us just get burned.

I failed. And now I’m paying the price.

The doctor’s right—I do have a story. Maybe we all do. But what good is telling it now? Even God forgives, they say. But I don’t think He’s listening anymore.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

Maybe one person was never meant to save the world. I thought I could help people, deliver them from evil, but all I did was destroy lives. Is that my fault? Or was I just a pawn in some cosmic game of checkers, good vs. evil? Maybe it’s not over yet. Maybe it’s chess, and there’s still one last move left for me.

But I can’t do anything from inside this madhouse. I need to get out. I need to find the truth.

But then what? What happens after the fall? Maybe the truth is something I’ll regret finding.

Can one person be two people? Can you be Janus, split between two faces, two lives? Could I really have been the Strangler? If that’s true, then I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m sorry—sorry to Tracy, to Rudy, to everyone I ever hurt instead of helping. Maybe I didn’t know what I was doing then. Maybe I still don’t know now.

Is one person truly capable of that much evil? Judas killed himself out of remorse. Do you think God forgave him? Does remorse even matter when the damage is done? I wonder if, in the end, I’m both Jesus and Judas—betrayer and betrayed, good and evil, hero and villain.

The enemy of my enemy is myself.

I have a story to tell. It’s the story of my battle with the world—and with myself. Is it real? That’s for you to decide. I have my proof. I have my scar. They say God works in mysterious ways—so why wouldn’t the Devil?

Did I make a deal with the devil, trading my soul for something I didn’t even understand? Or am I just the Strangler after all, the greatest liar of them all?

You decide.

—FIN.