5

You never expect just how long the recovery process is going to take until you sit through each and every day of it expecting it not to last another minute. The year in-between the fatal tub accident and now has been...tougher than I imagined. I didn’t really know what I was going to do if the doctors pronounced Danny dead on the table. Surprisingly, they didn’t. I somehow kickstarted his heart back into motion, but he doesn’t seem to be anywhere inside here.

Both of his legs were tough fixes—if I’d known I was going to be in here long term I certainly wouldn’t have fucked them up so bad, but as all things do with time they started to heal. The shock of the situation was enough of a cracked whip to get his mom off of the bottle enough to support me through the physical therapy

It took six months for both legs to heal and even then I couldn’t walk without a slight limp. I didn’t learn much about Danny in this time period—nothing important at least. I learned Macaroni and Cheese was his favorite lunch food, but fuck all if that matters. I didn’t need to learn much so far, thankfully. The doctors I’ve seen all seemed to agree that I should go through counseling. Apparently Danny’s mom passed me off as a psychotic breakdown due to untreated psychosis—an excuse bold enough to not get me placed in the foster care system. The counseling was a time sink—although it did mean I didn’t have to go to school until I was cleared.

Now, I pretty much came to accept my circumstances pretty early on in the whole process—about a week in Danny’s body after his death was all I needed to convince myself things weren’t going to be changing. Sure, I’d been in bodies for longer—much longer—but never cold ones. So when I have the chance to relive a life stolen from me by everyone else, you bet your ass I’m going to do what I can to enjoy that time. School is not time I enjoy, so I did my very best to prolong my sessions with my counselor. Eventually the ruse was up, and he cleared me for a return to school the following year; a fact I was more than vocal about. Unfortunately for me, very little ten year olds like school, so such vocal complaints are a norm.

In the time since the tub accident I’ve actually grown fond of Danny’s mother. (Not in that way, sickos.) She’s got a dependence problem, but it’s not so bad when she’s putting that attention into me—it takes focus away from the drinking. She reminds me of my own mom in a way—so I can’t say that a part of the attraction comes from missing her. A part of me wishes I could tell her my real name and just go on fully pretending this was the life I’d lost, but I knew that wasn’t going to be possible. So, I hiked up Danny’s identity and kept it wrapped around me like a jacket.

Come September 4th, 2022 I was setup to return to Queensbury Intermediate School. It was a strange building compared to most other schools I’d known about in my time. It was a separate building entirely for the fourth and fifth grade before middle school. The school I had gone to in Utah went straight through from elementary to middle. Danny missed out on his fourth grade year by my breaking of his legs—my legs. I had to get used to calling them mine, Danny isn’t here anymore. Thankfully that works in my favor. I don’t have any clue of how he acted in school or who his friends were. Starting from scratch from the fourth grade was fine by me. Life goes on, so they say.

6

I woke up that morning from a dream more vivid than I recall having the past few months. I saw myself as I was but a young boy of five watching television in the room very next door to where I lived now. Except, instead of Flintstones reruns on it was Voltron, and instead of the Chernobyl accident interrupting my cartoons it was a bombing of the white house. I woke up easily enough. It should have been a dream to put a chill up my spine, but it got me thinking more than anything.

I don’t put much stock into dreams meaning anything per se, but what they can do is give ideas that ya’ might not be consciously thinking about and that’s exactly what happened that morning of the fourth. That dream reminded me of some stories I read about parallel universes—worlds that are different but similar—a lot of the core parts that make up a world are exactly the same with just a few alterations here and there. The sky’s blue for an hour longer or a different mascot on a bowl of cereal at a certain time. Or the white house getting bombed instead of a nuclear reactor exploding.

It certainly gave me an interesting idea—what if I wasn’t visiting other whens, but other wheres? Not just geographically, but spatially? What if I wasn’t traveling through time exactly, but these alternate worlds? That could explain the very first experience where the Russian man wasn’t at the site of the explosion before I interfered...and then he was. It is a possibility that I’m somehow entering people’s minds in alternate realities, but I couldn’t hazard a guess as to why this was happening anymore than I could guess why I was being sent at all.

If this was the case, then it would mean that these alternate realities were existing on different time frames—or at the very least don’t have a common starting point. When I entered Danny I was far from my own time...but that might not be so true. It’s possible I’m exactly synced up with my old time.

Or I could be thinking too much into this, which is entirely possible. It wouldn’t change too much about my circumstances either way. I let the thought fade to the back of my mind as I unraveled the blanket from the bed. Danny’s body was smaller than the average ten year old—thin frame with skin taut to the bone. Sure, my stunt with his feet wasn’t helping much, but he was scrawny before I came into his life. I don’t know which made me feel more off balance, the weight shift or the broken legs.

Either way, it took a lot of getting used to. I stood up straight and walked across the room—a small space with posters of horses lining the wall. Danny must have sure liked them—there wasn’t anything else that told me anything about the kid. All it means is I have an easy mold to fill, and that is a-okay with me.

I’ll admit I was a little more than nervous stepping out into the living room that morning. I had a paranoid sort of feeling that everything was going to go wrong. How could it not with everything considered? Either Danny’s mom would recognize me not as her son or I’d be yoinked back to my own body just like that after all that time. Eh, sorry pally. Big man upstairs was going to bring you back earlier but he fell asleep on the sofa, what a lug!

Thankfully, it was just that, paranoia. I walked out to a bowl of cereal—Cap’n Crunch—I personally didn’t like it, but Danny seemed to love it. I’m glad he felt me breaking his legs, the twit. I offered up my biggest smile as I swallowed the first spoonful.

~…~

The bus stopped with a slow agonizing sound that nobody else was worried about. It whined and cried until it let out its final gasping wheeze. It stopped right across the street from the apartment complex—a spot I was more than familiar standing by myself. Danny’s mother seemed to understand this subconsciously as she closed the door behind me when I stepped outside.

Now, I know some of you might be gasping and sayin’ something like “oh my god what mother would do that to a kid?” and to that I say, “New York kids are something different.”

I don’t know what it is about the state, but kids from the big apple seem to have this natural toughness to them. A sort of leg up in the street smarts—specially kids from the city. I dunno, maybe it’s something in the water. Whatever it may be, it’s true.

While street smarts may not have saved Danny from his bloodbath (literally), he certainly would have been able to make it onto the bus across the street by himself. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt he’s been to the arcade a few blocks over by himself. Mrs. Aldoun may have been an irresponsible drinker, but in normal circumstances, Danny would have been perfectly fine in the tub all alone from age....hmm I’d say five up.

The bus brings back a bad smell—not foul in odor...but in memory. I remember the first time I stepped onto one of these cans the kid I ended up sitting next to crapped his pants as soon as he was out of his mom’s grasp. I guess the New York rule doesn’t apply to everybody.

Thankfully the smell of crap was absent even if the eyes of every kindergartner I could see was just on the edge of creating that smell. I chose a seat in the middle of the bus. It was empty so I slid in and took in a deep breath. The windows had started to fog up from the chilly weather outside. I took my finger and drew a circle with little legs coming off each edge. It almost looked like a little ant. A wave of nostalgia hit hard as I remembered all at once the kinds of doodles I made on these same kinds of windows. Crazy how little changes in almost forty years.

The ride was a short one. I lived only a few blocks from Queensbury School. If drawing on the chilled windows was a wave of nostalgia, seeing the school grounds approach was a tsunami. The two story building was an anomaly for the district, as the three other buildings—used for elementary, middle, and high schoolers grades respectively—were all wider than they were tall—only using different floors for the basement level. The Intermediate building was the only one two stack up a second floor. By comparison it looked like a castle compared to the other buildings.

The bus slowed to a halt—still crying its final noises as it had done so. Once it stopped the driver of the bus—an overtired looking woman of about fifty with the kindest eyes I’d think I have ever seen. “We’re here.” She said, more than a bit redundantly. “I’m going to have you guys leave off here by grade. Reminder this is for the fourth and fifth graders, if you’re below that you’re staying on here so I can swing you around to the elementary school.”

I looked to my side to see a kindergartener kid blowing a breath of relief as his time had not come yet. The bus driver steps out of her seat and down the steep steps to the ground below, motioning for the rest of us to follow. I glance at nails faker than a Californian sun tan. It makes me think back to when I traveled to Jeanine Laury. She was a forty-something mother of two kids-at-home spending their overnight trip at school in Vegas. I was...god must have been twenty-three at the time and more than comfy at my mom’s place in Utah.

Jeanine stayed far longer than she should have—she was one of those people with extraordinarily strong wills. Extremely stubborn, too. I remember every time I tried to get her to leave she’d tap her nails across the table one at a time—the clicking sound they made will forever be etched into my memory. She’d click and clack and go, “Y’know, maybe one more, sugar. Just set me in for one more round,” and would continue until she joined thirty-seven other occupants of the casino she was in on the obituary page that next week. A gunman with a hedonistic and sexist agenda came storming through and shooting up as many women as he could darn well aim his gun at.

All in a second I’m back looking at those same nails leading us off of the bus and I wonder if it’s a sign that we were all being lead to the slaughter like cattle. We were cordoned off by assigned classroom numbers alongside other cattle gathered by different buses and bus drivers. When the sorting was all through I found out I was going to be in room 234 with Mr. Anthony Krest. Fun fact, some thirty years ago I had class with a Mr. Zachary Krest—perhaps the father of this new teacher. Or perhaps his alternate universe identity.

The thought crept back in like a snake, never fully letting go of the suggestion, I tucked the implication away in the rear end of my mind. We were led inside the building—through a copious amount of security checkpoints and metal detectors. Schools in America aren’t like they used to be. Some wacko could get his hands on any number of weapons and slide right in and make those kids look like the shredded women from the casino. I should know, Jeremy Higgins saw that personally when I came to him when I was twenty five.

Mr. Krest’s room however looked just how I remembered it. All classrooms in this building looked very similar to one another, so even though I’ve never been in this room specifically, it definitely led to an air of familiarity. “Hiya, you guys!” A mid twenty-something Anthony Krest called out to us as we were all standing without purpose in his room. “My name’s Mr. Krest, kind of like the face cream!” Face cream? Where I’m from he would have made a toothpaste joke I’d think. I’m going to chalk a tentative point to AU. The joke gets laughter from the other kids around me. I try not to stick out so I offer a chuckle as well. Mr. Krest smiles a toothy grin and cocks his head to the side—his profile is sharper than I initially expected. He definitely didn’t have any relation to Zachary Krest unless the mother’s features were as wolf-like.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” He begins, “Let’s start off class introducing each other and one thing about yourself that you like. We call this an icebreaker.” Oh God. I despise ice breakers in every scenario they’ve ever cropped up in my life. I can’t believe I’m subjected to a fate where I have to repeat this suffering. “I’ll start.” Mr, Krest walks over to his desk and grabs a plush baseball, fondling it in his hands. “Like I said, I’m Mr. Krest, and I like baseball. My dad used to bring me to ballgames all the time. Now…” he looks over the classroom. “You,” pointing to a girl on the far end of the group—the loner if I could call anything.

“Uh...my name is…” she trailed off and grabbed for her dark hair. Biting her lips she took in a deep breath. “My name…is Ellie. Ellie Parker. I like animals. My mother is a vet and we have two dogs.”

Mr. Krest smiles, “Well hello Ellie. I like animals too. Are dogs your favorite animal?”

She shakes her head slowly, “N-No, I like zebras.”

“All right, well enough. Next,” he nods his head.

A boy with thin glasses but a hefty upper body nodded. “I’m Benjamin Hartford but please call me Ben. My Dad’s a football player, although I’m more into baseball.”

“My man,” Mr. Krest smiled. “What team’s your father on?”

“I’d rather not say,” he fashions a weak grin.

“Ah, a Giants guy then. Don’t worry your secret’s safe with me,” he flashes a sly grin, setting the baseball down beside him. “Alright, who’s next?”

A blonde girl beside Ben perked up her eyes. She had long blonde hair and looked to be as thin as Danny had. “Stacey Callabahn, sir.”

“Hello Stacey, what’s one thing about you?”

“Oh if I had to say just one thing…” Stacey began, as if asking permission to drone endlessly about herself. “I wanna be a doctor, but I don’t think I want to be a people doctor.”

“So like Ellie’s mother? Like a vet?”

Stacey frowned, “I don’t think a vet could do what I want to.”

Mr. Krest shared a look of confusion with the rest of the class. “What you want to do? And what would that be?”

Stacey’s frown deepened. She crossed her arms close to her chest and pouted her lips out, “Nothing, never mind.”

A curly haired boy practically jumped in front of Stacey with his hands on his hips and beaming a boastful smile. “I’m Mark Terry! Unlike Ben I’ll say it loud for everyone in the class. The Giants S-U-C-K. I know this because I’m a fan of the Patriots, and they’re gonna take the Superbowl no problem!”

“Well hello Mark,” Mr. Krest said. “Mighty big fan of the sport, do you watch it every Sunday with your Dad?”

“Sure do! My Mom watches with us too. She’d be mad if she was here right now and you said that!”

“Ah...haha, yes, your mother too. It sounds like excellent family bonding time.”

“Ooh it is! We go all out on the food and we—”

“Mark you’re taking up everybody’s turn,” Ellie said, not louder than a whisper.

Mark looked at her accusingly and then back to Mr. Krest, thinking for a moment, he took in a deep breath, “andweeatitallinthelivingroomandbythetimethefoodisallgonethegameisdoneandwearelaughingathowfastweateitall.” He finished in one mad dash to the end of his thoughts and was breathing heavily as Mr. Krest’s eyes landed on mine.

7

“How about you, sport?”

I take in a deep breath, “Hello, my name’s Danny Aldoun. I like horses.” As soon as it left my lips I felt like locking my mouth shut. Why’d I say that? Sure, Danny would have said something like that...but you aren’t Danny. Now how are you going to follow up on this?

“Ah, animal lover like Ellie, huh?”

“Y-Yeah. I uh, like the way their mane looks. I also like...I like comic books,” I said, trying to save it. Was I into them at his age? I don’t remember. I think so.

Mr. Krest nodded, probably chalking me up as a special case already. “Okay, what kind of comics? Do you have a favorite?”

“Mine’s Superman!” Mark Terry yelled.

“Superman’s lame,” Ben added. “Try someone like Moon Knight.”

“Mine’s Flash,” I add, shrugging my shoulders.

“Ah, I had a feeling it would be. Mine’s The Flash, too,” Mr. Krest added. “Flashpoint is my all time favorite comic, even though I don’t read them as much as I used to I always return back to Flashpoint.”

He must be talking about some newer issue stuff. Like him I haven’t been keeping on the stories as of late. I only said it because he ran fast and that’s cool.

“What’s Flashpoint?” Ellie asked.

Mr. Krest’s eyes swung over to her and smiled. “You all know The Flash, right? I don’t want to spend too long or confuse anyone. We’ve got a busy day today as it stands.”

We all nodded. “Excellent. Flashpoint is the story of what happens when The Flash runs so fast that he ends up traveling back in time to the moment his mother was killed by his arch-nemesis—Reverse Flash. He manages to stop his enemy and changes the future. Unfortunately, when he returned to his own time he realized he had changed more than just the event he directly interfered with. That one tiny change had snowballed into a mountain of different things—such as various members of the Justice League being in the center of a global war among themselves. Now, does anyone know what the common term is for this kind of situation?”

The others around me all put their hands to their chins in an effort to think up the answer quicker, but it came to me real easily. “It’s the butterfly effect, obviously. People write about it all the time thinking they’re original.” Mr. Krest seemed surprised. It definitely didn’t sound an answer a ten year old would come up with. “Uh...at least my Mom says so. She told me about this one book that she read about two kids who met at a carnival or fair or something like that, and that meeting point in time was just like that moment you talked about with The Flash.”

“Ah, the crux of the butterfly effect, yes, very well done, Danny. A Crux in this case is a focal point that everything else centers around. In The Flash’s case the crux of his timeline is his mother’s death, so Barry must go back in time a second time and stop himself from changing the past to correct the present. And for this...other story, it’s something similar I presume?” He asked.

“Yeah, like I said. Butterfly Effect stories all turn out the same in the end. Boy gives girl a present and because of that the earth blows up fifty years later.”

“Oh, well it sounds...interesting.”

“Eh, I’ve read better.”

“Well, thank you very much for sharing Danny. Before we get too caught up in our story let’s move on, shall we?” I’m caught in my thoughts...where did that come from? I hadn’t read any book like that. I haven’t read any books in the last...what, twenty years? I don’t even remember the last one I did read. Curious and curiouser.

“Hey, I’m Evan. My Mom said not to tell people my full name until I knew them well, so I’m Evan. I like roller skating.”

“Hello Evan,” Mr. Krest began. “I see your mother taught you well. It’s okay, you’ll get to know everyone here in due time. How about you?” He pointed to the next girl beside him.

“Hello, my name is Sable Grace. I like to read. I hope we can talk about the books on the summer reading list at some point today, if possible.”

“Hello Sable, and might I congratulate you for being the brave soul on reminding me on the summer reading. We’ll take a look at that once we’re done here and I’ve assigned you your seats.” Sable nods and readjusts her wide frames with a grin.

Summer reading...aw damn it. Now I’m really in for some hot shit.

“Hello,” a girl beside Sable calls up. She’s got dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail. “About assigned seats, would it be possible for Stacey and me to get a seat next to each other? We’re best friends.”

“Well, hello, that sounds like something we can do. And what’s your name?” Mr. Krest asked.

“Anna Jordan. My Mom also told me not to tell people my full name unless I know them, but Stacey’s here and I know her.”

“So you’ve said. Okay Anna, I can put you next to Stacey. What’s one thing about yourself you’d like to share?”

“I’m Stacey’s friend.”

I could see the light behind Mr. Krest’s face die just a little inside. He swings it back into motion and turns to the final child beside Anna. He’s a larger kid with freckles dotting his face. He had been rolling his eyes throughout the rest of their introductions I was thinking they’d roll out of his head.

“I’m Jimmy Dent. My dad’s in the hardware business, nothing too exciting to see.”

“Well I’d disagree my friend! Hardware’s a very important job. It’s quite the foundation for most everything else.”

“Funny joke.” Jimmy said, humorless. Even though he was sarcastic it sure got laughs out of the other kids. Mr. Krest joined in too, unaware he was the joke being laughed at.

“All right, well now that we’re all acquainted I’m going to go over the assigned seats...starting with Stacey and Anna up here by the smartboard.

~...~

I was seated in a four square with Ellie, Ben, and Mark. We were closest to the door. Now that the introductions had settled Mr. Krest took spotlight at the front of the room. “Now, I want everybody here to know that this is going to be a fun year. We’re going to do work, but we’re going to have fun doing it. I know that sounds like the furthest thing from the truth, but I’ll try to show you in these next few months.” He smiled. “First order of business will be letting everyone know what our week is going to go like.” He pulled out a marker from the tray of the smartboard—a digital blackboard it seemed. He wrote out MONDAY on the top left side and underlined it. “So today we did our introductions…” he writes, and then crosses it out, “...so next up we’ll lightly touch on the summer reading. If you didn’t get to it that’s fine, we’ll all discuss the plot as a group and we can move on from there. The finer points we’ll get into later.”

I felt a relief in my chest.

“Once we’re done with that we’ve got some math on the table, an unfortunate part of life, but I brought some markers and dry-erase boards so we can have a little enjoyment with it. Then we’ve got a break scheduled for about fifteen minutes where you can talk among yourselves. Then we’re going to do some cursory history to go over what we’re going to be learning this year—this will be the driest part of the day, but I’ll try to lighten it up with my charming personality.” This got a few giggles around the room. “And then we’ve got science, not too bad for a first day, huh? Then after this we’ll discuss where art and music fall into place—and for those of you who have signed up for band or choir we’ll talk about that too.”

All in all it seemed like an easygoing day. I nodded as everyone else seemed to. I mean, I’m sure I could teach the subject as well as he could, but to be honest a lot of what we see I’m sure I’ve long forgotten in the mental waste dump that is useless information that the brain chooses to let go of.

Mr. Krest finishes writing on the board the topics for the day and I see he’s also left room for the other days of the week. “We’re gonna cross off our list as we do each task. If you’re really inclined to not enjoy yourself you can think of it as a written clock ticking down until you’re out of here, but until then we’re going to start up here.” He sets the marker down in the tray and walks over to his desk and grabs a book off of the top. “This, this is...”

8

“...The Eye of Amnael.” Mr. Krest held the thin book up for everyone to see. Mr. Krest looked over all of us, “Now, this story was written by Ryan Geever when was only a young adult. Does anyone have a guess as to why Ryan Geever chose to name the book this way? Feel free to use details from the book if you want to.”

There...was something weird going on. I rubbed my ears to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but they seemed to be fine. Every time he said the author’s name it was just...blank. And nobody else thinks it’s weird. It’s like the words themselves have been stolen. And just what is this...Eye...of Amnael? Just what kind of cultish name is that for a book? Ellie’s hand shot up, but not before Sable’s. It was like watching a bottle rocket, one second it was down and then the next it was up. “Ah, yes, Sable?”

“I think it’s literal. I would say the narrator is the mysterious Amnael and he’s following the protagonist through the different lives.” Different lives? That’s a bit strange.

“Okay, that is definitely one possible interpretation. Ellie, you had your hand up next. Did you think of anything different in regards to the title of the book?”

She blushed a little at being picked and let her hand fall beside her quietly. “Well...I just thought that maybe it was...I dunno, maybe like… maybe William felt guilty about what he did?”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

This froze me to my chair. A story about a character named William living through different lives?! What were the chances I ended up in a classroom learning about a book like that? I’d say astronomically low, but I think it’d even be lower than that. I raise my hand, “Uh, Mr. Krest I’ve been out of class for a while and don’t seem to have that book you all read over the summer, could I see one?”

Mr. Krest looks taken aback, “Well, I mean, sure, you can take mine. Just next time wait until Ellie’s done with her answer, okay?”

I nodded slowly, mouthing an “I’m sorry” in her direction. I don’t know if she saw it. I don’t know if she personally felt hurt by my outburst, but at that minute it didn’t matter. I needed to see just what the fresh hell was in this book.

Mr. Krest walked over and set the book he was holding onto my desk. I look at the cover and see the title just as plain as day—bold white text on a black background:

At the bottom the author’s name is blank. Mr. Krest’s voice was drowned out as I opened the front cover. There were thirty-one pages in all and it absolutely floored me as I skimmed through them. It was thirty-one pages that exactly matched my recent recollection on my life thus far. The beginning started with my time in New York with my mom...it even listed my name in full. The only thing that was strange was that it didn’t list Danny’s name in the final pages...it only called him the Boy. I wonder—

“Danny?” The voice cut through the hazy thoughts and I looked up. Everyone was looking at me. Mr. Krest smiled small. “There’ll be plenty of time for you to catch up, for now we’re up here, okay?”

“Oh...yeah, sorry.” I said, folding the book closed.

He nodded and continued. “Yes, so I was just saying how that was also a valid viewpoint from Ellie. It’s actually closest to the actual truth, it’s not too long a story, but it tells of a boy who—”

“Who saves people so much that he misses out on his own life. He gets tired of it all and is willing to try anything to change his situation, so he ends up taking the life of the four hundred and twenty third person...a child.”

Mr. Krest’s eyes opened wide, staring straight at me. “Y-Yeah. You got that from the few minutes you were skimming through that?”

I shook my head, “No, I heard about the story somewhere before. I didn’t know it was the one we were reading.”

“I...I see. Yes, that is just about right. The story ends on the cliffhanger of the boy in the bathtub. Nobody really is supposed to know what Ryan Geever intended to happen afterward—we can only use our own logic to make our own ending.”

Ha. “Nobody knows” he says. As if it isn’t the story of my life. I know. Somehow this author knows where I’ve been and why I’ve done the things I’ve done. And now we’re discussing the morality of my life in a fourth grade classroom. I must be dreaming. But I wasn't dreaming. The time for dreams was over. It was time for questions and answers. There was a big problem that blocked his path. There was simply nobody around that could possibly answer the questions he had.

“This kind of ending is ambiguous, it leaves the idea of the story in the reader’s mind like a gift,” Mr. Krest continued. “However, sometimes ambiguous endings do get clarification by the author after the completion of the book. Some distastefully will spat out the answer in an interview or press conference, while others may just take to social media to proclaim all that is in their heads. The situation we have here is much different than that, however. Ryan Geever isn’t a very public person, and as far as we know this is the only novel he’s written. However, the interesting thing is the only presence he’s made in the public eye was a post on a public forum stating that there was going to be a followup to the Eye that took place in an underwater amusement park—most likely modeled after the Cressfall Resort.”

Cressfall what now? I...I’ve never known anything like that...so this creepy writer now says that he’s got a follow up to my life? How is that even possible?

“So it seems then that we may be getting the answers we’re looking for after all, but that’s outside of the scope of today’s talk. I just wanted to throw it out there as a nod to those who may have liked the more abstract way this story came together. I don’t know if I’ll be picking it up myself, but I’ll definitely check out the wiki online after to see what he had in plan for William’s character.” Mark raised his hand in the air. “Ah, yes Mark?”

“I don’t get it. Is William a good guy or not?”

“Well it’s obvious not, he killed a kid,” Ben argued. “How could anyone that do that be good?” I cringed as he said it.

“Well, I mean he saved a bunch of people too,” Mark argued back.

“What if one of the people he saved went on to cure cancer?” Sable asked. “It surely would be worth it for one person to die for the sake of millions. That’s simple math.”

“But what if another one of those people ended up becoming the next Hitler? That’d cancel that out, right?”

“Okay, okay,” Mr. Krest interrupted. “I think before this gets too crowded we’re going to end off with this. I don’t think we can properly tell what kind of person William is based on these short snippets of his life, but from the parts we have seen, it isn’t easy to assign a black or white morality to him. It’s easy enough to call him good or bad, and you’d have evidence for both. I’d say it’s a good lesson to all that morality comes in all different kinds of shades and colors, and that situations might need a bit more time to properly classify.” He clapped his hands together. “And on that note, we’re going to transition into something a bit more concrete and factual—math.”

The class groaned, but I sat silent. My brain was moving at a breakneck pace trying to keep from bursting out in class. I couldn’t pay attention to anything he said for the rest of the day. My body seemed to move on autopilot until I regained myself as the bus dropped me off. I walked inside of the apartment with a hollow piece moving in my chest and closed the door to my room without a greeting to Danny’s mother. She didn’t seem to notice, she was fast asleep on the couch.

I sat on Danny’s bed and held his hands out in front of me. They had been my hands for almost a full year now. There were certainly times I had to remind myself that things weren’t changing here now and that this was now my body and this was now my life...but it never really hit me the severity of my actions. I had ripped a boy’s soul from his body—torn him from his life completely just so I could have it. I’ve been hiding behind an excuse to justify my actions.

I stare at the hands of a ten year old boy. An intense wave crashes into my and my eyes sting with tears. A boy. A boy. I took the life of a boy. He was just a damn kid. There was a terrible secret I kept deep below since that day I came into this body, but I think the secret had been growing ever since I entered Toni Matterson’s body. When she was lying on the ground after the train crash I felt that lust inside her. The desire for blood anywhere it could come from. That depravity that came from her forced isolation and slavery. I understood why she felt the way she did and did my best to keep her from killing herself with that lust. I...I don’t think I came away from that untouched. I don’t think I came away from any of them untouched.

My heart was tainted by that blood-lust.

When I was breaking Danny’s legs I felt a warmth in my body and a joy I hadn’t felt in a very, very long time, if at all. It shot pure adrenaline into my brain and comforted me in a warmth safer than any blanket. Obviously I knew murder was wrong, that’s why I tried as hard as I could to save the lives of the people I encountered. But saving them didn’t make me feel anything that mattered. Sure, I felt like a hero and like I was some big shot who had this power that nobody else did. I felt like I was doing the right thing, or at the very least what God would have wanted me to do. But what did that get me? I lost my life—literally. What I said in that classroom today was the truth...It just got to be too much caring for everyone else. Way too much. That’s why I moved out of mom’s place and into the apartment. She was diagnosed with cancer then and...I just didn’t have any care left for her. I wanted to, I really did. It just emotionally exhausted me each time I went out.

I tried killing myself twice, but twice I eventually persuaded myself that by doing so I’d be condemning all those other people to die. My will was swayed by that reason and that reason alone, I stayed alive for those other people. They just kept coming and coming, more and more each year. I got so tired. So tired. Why didn’t anyone care about me? And when they did, why did God take them away? When I came to Danny I made a decision. I was going to care for me. I was going to kill each and every single person I came across and be done with it. I’d return back to my body with little to no interruption. But then I got stuck here, and now I don’t know what to do. Even when I completely give up God finds a way to fuck with things. And now I cannot forget Danny. I can never forget Danny.

9

I had the worst sleep of my life. I dreamt about wringing Mr. Krest’s neck and watching his eyes explode as I broke his esophagus. I felt every second of it and woke up exhausted. School passed by in such a blur I couldn’t keep focused. They talked more about the book on my life. Nothing of substance came of the discussion except another argument on morality. I had a feeling that this would be a recurring topic throughout the year. The only part I participated in was in trying to probe more details about the author. Danny didn’t have a computer at home so the internet wasn’t an easily available resource to me as it was for the other kids in class.

“Well, it’s a bit tricky. He has no known publicists—people who make statements for him. Address records lead to wild goose chases, and his family is either in hiding or passed away. He’s not the only writer to hide his identity, see J.D. Salinger for example, but he’s one of the most known in recent times. People all over the world have tried to place different strange books under his pen and pin it as a pseudonym, but as of the current time no current confirmed aliases match his style.”

A recluse who’s only written one confirmed book and it just so happens to be about me...excellent. Meaning exactly zero leads I can follow as the only clues I have I know about. I sigh and nod my head. And then I remember a note he made yesterday. He made a forum post. There was one confirmed online presence by this guy...it’s a long shot, but it’s the only one I have. I must find out how he knows so much about me.

Once break time came around I got up from my seat and walked over to the computer stations set up in the back of the classroom. There were four altogether lined up side by side. Mark usually dashed to the computers first thing as well. He was in a mad race to good off on computer games. Beside him sat James uncomfortably. He disliked sitting next to Mark, but also disliked being in any of the other two seats as the chairs each had their own wobble to them. I sat in the chair on the end furthest from them and logged onto the computer’s guest account as quickly as I could. These breaks were incredibly short as it was. I didn’t need loading to be all of it.

“What’s got you in such a rush?” James asked.

“Trying to find that forum post that Mr. Krest talked about yesterday,” I said. “Either of you know which forum it was on?”

“Why are you so obsessed with that writer? Swear we could’ve been done with that lesson ten minutes earlier if you didn’t keep bringing him up,” Mark scoffed.

James sighed. “It isn’t like that at all,” James sighed. “He would have just filled it with some other pointless nonsense. Besides, those games aren’t even that fun anyway so why are you in such a rush?” We both could see Mark was practically rapping on the keyboard trying to get the computer to respond.

“Gah shut it. I just need to see if my score’s still there.”

“Doubt it will be, Evan goes on there at recess and he’s pretty good at it from what I hear.” He turns to me, “I think he posted it on the writing subreddit. Mr. Krest doesn’t know online lingo so much so he calls everything with people talking a forum.”

What’s a subreddit? Looks like Mr. Krest and I are in the same boat. Ah well, I can just google it at least. It takes a moment to get a hang of Reddit. I’m not a computer savvy person in the slightest, but I can work my way around a browser. I find the writing subreddit and instantly am floored by the dozens upon dozens of pages linked by aspiring writers looking for advice or criticism. None of the posts seem to have anything to do with what I’m looking for, but then I find the search bar at the top of the page. Whew. I type in the name of the book. All kinds of different posts come up, more discussion threads of people guessing its origins or talking about the subject matter. But at the very bottom is a post with a lock beside it. “You cannot reply to this post, it has been locked.” greeted me as I opened it up. I read with an intensity that has never been matched.

“Hello, my name is Ryan Geever. You can choose to believe me or not. The name isn’t a household one so I hope you will think I am not impersonating to claim fame. I’ve come here as I’ve used this page often for advice in my own writing. The result of my labor is the book some of you have read, “THE EYE OF AMNAEL” is now released and I wanted to talk a little about it. I don’t get this opportunity often, but I wish to share that fans of THE EYE will be happy to know that I’m currently writing a sequel called ARK OF GLASS. I cannot give much away concerning the plot I’m afraid, you’ll have to wait for it to come out for that, but I do have some fun goodies to share with you. First of all is the logo which can be found right here: https://tinyurl.com/ARKOFGLASS (I’m using tinyurl here so this post can stay somewhat clean.)

Also, I can say that the setting of the novel is going to primarily take place in an underwater amusement park and is going to expand greatly on the reasons why William can do what he can. I know a lot of people have commented on this. Don’t worry, I’ve been watching all of your discussions. I won’t leave you hanging. You won’t have to worry about the length, either. This is going to be a full blown novel. With that my time here is up. I’ve got a lot of rest to do and friends to see before I continue. Research requires dedication, fellow Redditors. I hope you enjoy what I have to show. With many thanks, I have one final message and the recipient will know exactly who they are…You are not the only.”

He...he is talking about me...he must be. But what does he mean? You are not the only...the only one like this? There are others? God, talk about adding layers onto his already pounding questions. If there were others like me, doing what I was doing...did it really matter that I was? What if I was saving other people just so one of those others could do what he did to kill them? What if my actions were worthless in the end? These questions continued to swirl in my head for the rest of the day. I didn’t sleep that night. I was too afraid of what my dreams would be.

10

On Wednesday morning Mr. Krest dropped the bomb that we were going to be having our very first field trip September 21st. A part of me knew what he was going to say before he even said it. “We’re going to be traveling to the Cressfall Resort so we can examine the area and use that for our project on The Eye of Amnael—a prediction paper on the fate of old William Wallace.” It was poetic, really, just how things were playing out. You couldn’t write it to be more perfect…except that you could.

The surge of electricity that filled the room was bombastic. I wished I could have shared in it. The others around me were excited about such an early field trip this close after summer break. I was excited, at least in part because I had a feeling deep down that this Cressfall Resort has the answers to the questions I’ve been looking for, but a part of me felt...anxious. I felt like something was about to turn horribly, horribly wrong, but all I could do was smile and wait. Wait until the answers come. Only a little over two weeks before everything would be clear.

My mind got out of the gutter it was stuck in once gym came around. We were learning basic exercises to try at home and I felt a whole lot better. Keeping my body in motion kept the thoughts away. I sat next to Ellie. Out of all the people in the class I liked sitting next to her the most. Not in the romantic kind of way, I’m still thirty-nine in the mind, but she didn’t ask me why I didn’t talk much. She didn’t talk much to the others either, so we had a silent sort of agreement and it was nice.

Of the ones I liked to talk to Anna wasn’t so bad when she was alone. She was nice enough, but a bit grating when she was with Stacey. Stacey was annoying even when she was by herself. I think she’s the dominant personality of her friend group so Anna becomes annoying to match. I like Ben too. He’s a soft-spoken kid that does sports. Smart, nice looking. I would have loved to have been friends with him back in my old body. I would be now, but something about all this yells in my ear to not make any close relationships with anyone. Evan wasn’t so bad either. He kept mostly to himself. I guess his friends were in another class so he wasn’t much a fan of making new ones here.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be an equal number of bad eggs as well as good eggs in Mr. Krest’s class. The kids I couldn’t stand to be in contact with...the ones who I would have prayed to not be paired up with if I knew God listened to me. Sable was probably the least offending of them. She was a know-it-all and made sure that everyone knew that she was the smartest around. If I really wanted I could have her head spinning by the things I’ve learned through the years. That would ruin my disguise far faster than anything else, so I hold back and just let her live out her role. It’d probably backfire during high school anyway.

Mark was a pain, there wasn’t any going around it. Everything he did was in service of a laugh or for himself. He back-talked Mr. Krest, asked irrelevant questions laced with innuendo. The worst kind of class clown is an annoying class clown. It didn’t help he played sports and could toss Danny’s body like a javelin. He’d definitely grow up to be the meathead jock that pushed kids like me around.

And then there was James. He was...just unpleasant. He probably faced copious amounts of ridicule for his body size (and for that I pitied him), but he took the shame that he felt and fortified a grand wall that guaranteed that nobody would like what they saw should they choose to peek behind it. He was crass and a lot like Sable. If he knew he was right about something he was sure to flaunt it, but not because it made him feel smart, because it was an attack against everyone else.

“I saw you looking up that writer,” the voice next to me said, not above a whisper. I turned to Ellie sitting by my side. Her face was expressionless, looking at mine.

“Uh, yeah. I just thought it was strange that nobody knew anything about him.”

“I thought it was strange too.”

I struggled to continue the thread. “I....yeah.”

“Did you see the phrase repeated on the bottom of his post?” This raised my eyebrows. “You saw the post too?”

“I looked at the post after you did. I was at...my home.”

“Oh, so you saw the weird phrase he had there? Yeah, that is strange.”

“It repeated.”

“What?” I stop stretching my calf and turn closer to her. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t see…? How...strange.” She returned to her stretches, and I to mine. It repeated? No, I’m quite sure that it only said it once. I’ll have to make sure I’m not being messed with. Very odd for her of all people to bring it up. Although I guess she’s seen me be so carelessly frantic about it I guess if I was in her shoes I’d do the same thing.

Once gym was over we all filed back into the hallway toward Mr. Krest’s room. We talked about the Native Americans during our social studies period. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. Sable raised her hand for every question with Ellie raising hers for a few of them. Mark blurted out his side comments to each point he thought would be good for a joke. He thought a lot of it was a joke. Mr. Krest excused himself to refill his coffee mug as break rolled around. As the door closed behind him I made a quick effort over to the computer and snagged the seat I had taken yesterday.

“Um, excuuuuuuse me you’re in my chair.” Mark hissed at me in a disgruntled voice.

“You sat over there yesterday,” I told him with my eyes not leaving the computer screen. I logged into the guest account and headed to the browser icon.

“Yeah but this is my seat today….why aren’t you looking at me?”

“Because I’m very busy. Buzz off.”

Mark’s face contorted like a lemon were sprayed into his eyes. “I am not a bee!” He yanked me off of the seat and I slid so far back I slammed against the heaters by the windows.

“Ow you sonnova—” I caught myself just in time, I grit my teeth and stood up.

“You’re looking up that writer again? What, do you have a crush on him or something?”

“Fuck off, Mark,” I say, reminding myself Mr. Krest isn’t around. I take the seat he sat in yesterday.

“Oh, big boy using the big words now, huh?” He cackled,

“Oh come off it Mark,” Sable said. “I’m curious about him too. Doesn’t mean he’s homosexual.”

“You can just say gay. Nobody’s going to think you’re stupid for using the easier word,” Mark called back. He looked over at me, “Aw, come on now. You’re gonna infect the computer with your homosexual.”

“That isn’t how computers, nor homosexuals work in the slightest. Don’t worry, everyone thinks you’re stupid.” I said, opening Reddit once more. I scroll and search up the book and find his post.

“Well listen here tough guy why don’t you—” Mark started to get out of his chair and walk toward me until he saw my screen. He stopped mid-sentence and his hands fell by his sides.

“YOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOUARENOTTHEONLYYOU”

“What is...this?” I sit back and refresh the page, seeing if my eyes are just messing with me.

“Wow, that’s...creepy,” Mark said.

“Who changed it?” I asked. “Yesterday it had that big paragraph of stuff talking about the sequel.”

“I don’t know,” Mark said, yanking me up by the collar of my shirt. “But it doesn’t change the pounding you’re getting.”

“I—” my voice cut out as his hand clasped tight on my dick. He yanked hard down and grinned tight. “Not so full of your words when you’re led by the leash, huh?”

“Hey Mark, cut it out.” Ben sat forward. “That’s not cool.”

“Not cool,” Jimmy laughed. “You’d call a murder scene not cool.”

Ben shook his head in irritation, “You know what I mean!”

Mark squeezed tighter, “Nah, hahaha. You may be older chump, but you don’t sass me. My father was army, my brother is navy, and I’ve been doing special kind of training you could only dream of.”

“Mark, come on, cut it out.” Ben called, standing now.

“Yes Mark, I think it’d be best if you ceased,” Mr. Krest crossed his arms. “It’s like I’ve got Samuel in my class all over again.”

Mark’s face twisted, but lessened, and so did his grip. He dropped me back on the ground and sighed. “To the principal’s?” He asked.

Mr. Krest nodded, and he shuffled off, but not before shooting me a devil’s glare. Mr. Krest walked over to me, “Do you need to see the nurse, or do you want me to call your parents?”

I shook my head, “No, no I’ll be fine. Just need a second for my stomach to stop feeling so tight.”

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t here to see the start of it, what happened?”

“Mark was being Mark,” Ben started. “He was being a bit mean about the computer seats and Danny was just standing up for himself.”

“Ah, I see, thank you Ben. Well, I’ll do better to not leave you guys unattended. Although I don’t think Mark will be rejoining us for quite a while,” he said.

“Why’s that?”

He shook his head for a second, but stopped. “His older brother was the same way. I could see him getting suspended from this, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Suspended huh? Well it’d do my jolly old soul some good to balance the class more in favor of folks I like seeing. I nodded and took my seat back beside Ellie.

“Did it hurt?” She whispered.

“Yeah, a bit.”

“But you didn’t cry,”

“No, boy’s don’t cry over stupid stuff like that.”

“I would have.”

Sure enough as that day passed Mark was suspended for a month. Normally it would have been just a two week suspension, but since he made it a case of sexual assault on top of just battery it doubled his sentence. Even I could tell he wasn’t going to be a happy camper about that when he got back in. Hopefully things would have sorted themselves out here before then...whatever that meant.

Ben sat next to me on the bus ride home. I learned that he didn’t live too far away from me—only a couple of blocks down the road. “I’m sorry Mark was a jerk. Normally he channels his focus into being funny and he’s pretty harmless, but sometimes if he’s just the right amount of mad he ends up turning mean.”

“Mr. Krest said his brother was like that too, was that true?” I asked.

Ben dropped his shoulders, “Yeah. I used to hang out with him all the time the past few years. He’d come to my house and I’d go to his. He was pretty much the spitting image of his older brother. Their dad’s real sergeant like—like they’re in the army all the time at home. Super strict. Kinda glad I’m not seeing him as much even though I do miss the days when Mark was a bit nicer.”

I sat back in my seat and nodded. Yeah, I knew a bunch of kids like Mark growing up. It wasn’t so much an excuse why kids acted out, but the tendency was that who parented them had a huge part to play in how they’d treat other people. It brought a vivid memory of...of the first boy I killed.

I shook the thought out of my head and stood up as it was my turn to get off the bus. “Hey, um, thanks for standing up for me,” I said. It sounded like the thing to say in the situation, but Ben didn’t seem to hear me. He was lost in his own thoughts. I didn’t try again and walked away, off of the bus. The day of truth was coming closer each moment that came.

11

Wednesday passed easier than I would have thought. Mark didn’t show up to class. Nobody wanted to bring it up either so we collectively moved on from the whole situation.

We talked more about the book, but it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know from my own experience. The rest of the day until our break went in one ear and out the other. I was so focused on checking back on that page that everything else just seemed to slip away. When I finally got around to checking it out there didn’t seem to be any changes. A bit disappointed, I asked Ben about it, but he didn’t seem to know heads or tails about it, and nobody else seemed interested enough to offer anything that could help, either. Unfortunately I did to ask Jimmy next. He was the one who let me in on the subreddit after all, so it seemed that he would know most about it. He was confused when I told him what it showed.

“That kind of thing can’t happen. The thread was locked—nobody could add or change anything on it. You must be lying.” He shut down the conversation real fast.

My only other lead was Ellie. I didn’t ask her before because she’s been a bit weird about the whole situation. She tenses up. It makes me suspicious, but I have nothing more than that to go off of. But what was I suspicious of, really? Was it possible that I was just over exaggerating things because I’m worried about this writer? Was it possible she was just curious and that’s it? I...I didn’t think so. I feel like there’s something more to this...more to her in relation to the writer. I think she knows something. You are not the only…could she be like me? How would I figure that out? I need to keep an eye out. I can’t let myself get drowned in the questions or out myself as some nut job in front of everybody. I’m so close, I can feel it.

12

I remember watching a show when I was a little younger. The protagonist was a little like myself now, actually...in situation at least. He was transported to a different dimension and had to figure out how to co-exist there with the almost-the-same-but-not humans. That was at least until the final episode that revealed that his existence in the parallel universe was at the start a stain on the universe itself.

His existing there caused time and space to distort all around him. Natural disasters became more frequent; days slipped by past his notice. It all came up to a cliffhanger as his friends he’d made in the new world wondered if they should kill him to save their world. The plot point never got resolved, and I never forgave them for such an awful ending. I couldn’t help however attribute the story to my own life now. What would happen if I really were in a parallel world? What if everything begins to tear at the seams because of my being here...or even worse. I’m caught up in it because of these supposed others that are like me. I shook my head, there were too many things to worry about, too many possibilities. I just had to wait.

Thursday creeped by. I didn’t pay attention to anything in class. My mind continually kept filling like a basin with anticipation and dread. The next week passed in much of the same way. It just...kept...crawling…

The night before the big school trip I was absolutely restless. I hadn’t slept well since I started school, but this night I wasn’t going to be able to get any. There was too much riding on this trip. Something had to give. I’ve gotten nowhere. I feel like an infant who has tried to make the empire state building with just three legos by his side. I’m missing some seriously crucial pieces and have exhausted use of the ones at my disposal. I’ve kept an eye on everyone—after suspecting Ellie I wasn’t going to let anyone get the slip on me, but as far as I know everyone seems...themselves. I’ve talked with Ben a lot and he says that Ellie’s normally quiet. I think I’m just making myself see things. All of this stress is getting to me, I know it is. I have to keep hoping that things will turn out okay.

The morning came slowly. The sun creased the horizon and painted the sky a bright crimson. I sat up feeling like a zombie. My body moved to the dining room on pure will alone. Danny’s mom greeted me with a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. She was doing a lot better this past week. She didn’t call into her work any—from what I could gather she was a secretary. Dangerously close to what my actual mother worked as. She was normally out before I got up, but today she was here, and that was when I found out she’d been laid off. Almost...had been doing better. She was trying to find new work, but I swallowed the food and drink without a second word.

I greeted Ben as I get on the bus. He had gotten his hair cut the previous night and I can say he definitely looks a lot better with it. I am sure that whoever he dates throughout high school if any would prefer his hair short. I genuinely hope he finds that special someone.

“You excited?” He asked as I sat down in the seat across from him.

“More than I could ever express.”

“So you really think something will go down here?”

I...slipped. A little. I needed someone to talk to or else I was going to go crazy. It was right at the tail end of last week...so I guess I lied before about it passing like normal. I didn’t tell him everything, god no. I just told him that I had a vested interest in the writer because of the Reddit post. I lied a little bit about the post saying my name in one of the edits. If I didn’t add that bit of information he wouldn’t have cared to talk about it past the first minute, and I couldn’t so much tell him why the initial post was so important to me. That’d risk everything. So, as far as he knows this writer name-dropped me specifically in a mysterious update to the post that happened before the whole YOUARENOTTHEONLY nonsense. Normally I wouldn’t be able to get away with this sort of lie—posts can be backtracked—but we’re dealing with a nine year old here. I felt safe in the lie.

“Yeah, I do. You said his post was the same until last week, right?” I asked.

“Yeah according to Mr. Krest.”

“Maybe...we’ll see him doing research at the Cressfall? I mean it’s obviously where the setting is based off of.”

Ben shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. I guess it’d be neat to see things that people would read about later on.”

“Yeah, I guess that’d be cool,” I said.

The darkness kept the cold air close to our bodies as we filed out into the building to Mr. Krest’s room. The bodies all shuffled in anxious to start the first field trip of the year. I took my seat as attendance started up. When Mr. Krest counted us all present we stood back up and formed a line out of the door.