I'm staring right at Leto's face as I come back, her eye socket still bleeding. She must have gotten out from under my grip while I was out, because she's sitting right beside me in the old laboratory.

She stands up, I'm surprised at the fact that she can stand after gouging out her eye. She makes a motion with her hand for me to follow her and begins running off.

All of this running off, it can't ever be a leisurely pace off or a nice walk off. I've ran more in this past day than in a long time. I stand to my feet, my back is killing me and the pain in my hands returns. A part of me wishes I didn't come back from the vision, everything just hurts.

She went through a door on the far side of the room, just past the partition where Jack was working. I glimpse at the floor and see a bunch of papers fallen on the floor. A bunch of them are diagrams or packets full of things that pass way over my head, but one looks different, familiar. I notice it's one of Jack's written logs.

YEAR ZERO

04/23/2007

I've made a terrible mistake. I tried to discover fire, tried to give our species the next big push. The cost of such was too high. My daughter was caught in the middle of the aftermath. This is too much to handle, the only source of good news is that I'm alive, but if it meant bringing Megan back I would trade places with her. I can't face my own wife after this. I have to find a way to fix things. I've messed things up, but I can't stop. I have to fix this. Maybe I can find a way to bring her back. Then we can be a happy family again.

The others, they live, we decided as a group to give the kids a custom dose of a type of beta blocker that will help them forget this madness. Jay elected that we remember, so that we do not repeat this tragedy.

I do not intend to repeat it, I intend to surpass it. And I will not let any of them interfere with this plan, they've been antagonistic towards me since the very beginning. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

And you, Mr. President, I know you check these update logs weekly, so by the time you see this I'll have already begun testing. Send whatever order you please to try and stop this project. We're going into phase two.

Signed,

Jack Adata

I have a bad feeling in the pit of my chest of where this leads. Especially about his kid dying. Megan, was it? I remember her as the small child with the blonde hair from that one vision. Now that I think about it, I know of another girl with blonde hair she actually reminds me of...No way, that's impossible. Jack's kid died, No way that this blonde chick Leto who is around my age and looks just like this little girl is the same...person...none of this makes sense. I stuff the note in my pocket and go through the doors, I need more answers. I need to know why. Why. Why.

I find myself struggling with the door. It's a heavy metal door that refuses to open easily. It feels like there's someone else on the other side holding it closed as I try to push it open, but I can see through the crack of the door to know this not be the case. A streak of terror runs through me when I hear the familiar sound of gunshots ring through my body. I almost instinctively duck down as to avoid any oncoming bullets, but I realize my reaction would have surely been too slow, plus the fact it didn't even sound like it came from this room. That doesn't stop my feeling of dread that is usually associated with the firing of a weapon.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I run inside and I find Grace shaking, she holds the BB gun in her hands, and at her feet I see Leto/Megan on the ground, unmoving. "Ah! Gavin! I went all the way back and the incinerator room was clear and-" Grace begins.

"You...what did you do?"

"What? I was coming to find you and I found the BB gun Leto had shot me with on the floor and I decided to end this."

"She was my only chance for answers!" I scream, louder than I intend to.

"Answers? Gavin, I want to get out of here!"

"There is no out for me, remember?! All I have left are questions now that won't get answered because you shot the person willing to tell me them."

"Excuse me, but did you forget that she is the reason that you're here?" Grace asked.

"What the fuck do I care now?" I yelled. “All I had left was the chance to figure out what the fuck we’re here for. I don’t care about getting out anymore. What awaits for me?”

“Okay, fine, maybe so. If you think about it only from your perspective. But I have more to live out there.”

“Fuck you,” I said. “That is exactly why I wanted to ditch you back there. Only thinking about yourself. I do it because cretins like you pretend you’re any different. Level with me one second. Think about exactly what you just said. You have all these wonderful lives you’re going to have out there, and so I should just fuck off, right? Well that’s great. Thanks for confirming what garbage you are.”

“Gavin,” Grace started, but I wasn’t having any of it. I was mad, and I wasn’t sure exactly if it was all at her. I’m sure it wasn’t, but she was here, and so was I.

“No, go fuck yourself. Find your own way out. See if I stay here another goddamn second.”

"Okay, fine, then. I’m wholly not sorry,” Grace said back. “At first I was slightly sympathetic but now? No. You’re just a miserable child who is literally older than me, but still acts like he’s a brat.” And when her anger couldn’t hold, she stood still and broke before me. Eyes, face, the whole works.

It takes a certain kind of person to be rough around the edges. It’s not something you just are. It takes a lot of careful, subconscious work to build up the walls that shove people out. It’s not anything I’m proud of, but then again, there isn’t much room for me to be proud of much in this life. The little I managed got swept away in the…

You’re not here for a pity story. Heh, guess I’ve been a little too self indulgent here. That’s entirely my fault. One of these times I might slip up and reveal something truly heartrending. Isn’t that what makes broken folk endearing? Or, is that what most drives them away? I guess I’m not too great a judge at that.

I stood here at a precipice. A real money moment—Spielberg would have framed it perfectly. The rowdy good for nothing jerk sweeps in and shows his crusty old heart ain’t that foreign to feelings and emotions and...all of everything that ruins such believable characters. God, gag me. Good people out there exist, but if any of them still remain, I can’t imagine them coming anywhere near this shitstain.

I walked out.

I don’t remember if she started to cry harder or if she called something out to me. My mind was flooded with all the answers I had lost with Leto’s body bleeding out in the room behind me. My last hope was that somewhere...at the end of this was something that could put my mind at ease.

I have given up on becoming a good person. I don’t have time for that—I have something within me that is...growing. A growing despondency that I fear will take me ever faster than my condition will. I feel...dangerous. Like a ticking time bomb waiting to blow.

And where are all the goddamn answers?