The first sign that something was wrong was the MC Escher stairs appearing in the sky.
That alone would have been notable and weird, but the distorted figures that appeared endlessly clambering on those never ending stairs sent a chill down Chase’s spine. It was them, but wrong. It was Kayla with a shaved head, arms corded with wiry muscle and tipped with sharpened, claw-like nails. It was Tom with a distended pot belly and a perpetual snarl on his face and Ellie with huge bags under her eyes, looking emaciated and unkempt. This Miles resembled a squirrel, twitching and spinning his head wildly while lacking his characteristic sleeve tattoos. The other version of himself looked entirely too serious and hard, with short-cropped hair and muscles like he was fresh out of the military. It was the other version of Jess that sent a pang to his heart the most, though. She walked heavily and reluctantly, like all the joy had been sucked out of her life. Her hair hung long and stringy and her clothes looked rumpled. She looked like she had when he’d first seen her after finding out about the blank 34, but worse, like if he had found her weeks later.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Bright’s voice here was still heavily tinged with Dr. Redmond’s, but lower and more sinister. “They’re some of my favorite variations, I just had to show them to you and let them watch. Just think, only a few different choices and you could have been one of them!”
Chase stilled and his blood ran cold. This was somehow worse than being directly confronted with their worst fear right out of the gate. Bright probably knew that, and prepared this little show as a distraction. He wanted to not believe it, but he could see it for his own doppelganger at least. He’d been lost after his father passed, and if he’d been more bitter and angry about the unfairness of it all back then or had a worse grief counselor, going into the military to straighten himself out would have been on his radar. His doppelganger didn’t look happy about it, his eyes angrier and more haunted than any expression that belonged on Chase’s own face. He looked like he’d been chewed up and spit out by life, then rebuilt from the ground up into a weapon. Chase was hoping his worst fear wasn’t fighting his own military-trained doppelganger, he’d get dropped in a single punch. But deep down, he knew what it was. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
“But they’re not even the opening act, merely the audience!” Bright crooned. “Because you all have caused me quite the headache, I thought I’d do something special for you. You’ll thank me later, I’m sure. I’m going to let you all watch as I tear apart that traitorous little defective that you’ve taken to calling Echo. It’s only fair, right? You break something of mine-” Suddenly there was a sickly glowing green figure floating an arm’s length away from Echo’s purple self, an arm’s length that was rapidly closed as Bright violently shoved two remarkably insectile arms through Echo’s heart.
“-and I break something of yours.” Bright finished, ripping their arms apart as Echo’s form began to degrade, shimmering purple smoke spilling out of their suddenly bisected chest. Bright’s mad cackle filled the air as their radioactive green arms flashed out again and again, each strike carving away a chunk of Echo’s remaining body. Ellie screamed and Jess lashed out with the light ribbon.
Faster than Chase’s eyes could follow, Bright had plucked the ribbon out of the air with the twisted crab-like claws that had suddenly appeared on the ends of their centipede arms. In one fluid motion, they yanked on the ribbon to drag Jess off-balance, then body-checked her away while throwing the ribbon to the side like that much trash.
“It’s been too long since I got this kind of exercise!” Bright exulted, their now chittering voice manic. “More, more! Make it a good showing, didn’t you want to spit in my eye?” They leered at Chase, who grit his teeth. This wasn’t facing his greatest fear, but it was definitely throwing him off balance. From the rapturous expression on Bright’s still disturbingly human face, that was the intention. Get them riled up and emotional, make them lose sight of what they were fighting to get back to. Any second now…
An achingly familiar voice interrupted Chase’s train of thought. “I’m disappointed, Story Chaser.” He thought he’d been prepared. He knew what his greatest fear was, he’d lived with it every day since high school. It was something that he could never be sure about, something that he would never get a firm answer on. The only one who could provide that answer was long gone.
Chase turned to face his dad.
It was the same sandy brown hair just starting to go gray, cut just short enough to not be shaggy. The surgeries and chemo had taken it at the end, but in Chase’s memories he always had a full head of hair. It was the same lopsided smile, the scar on his left dimple having a different origin story every time he was asked about it. That smile at least had stayed until nearly the end, his optimism refusing to bend in the face of medical inevitability. It was the same warm brown eyes, endless pools of sympathy and understanding and humor that had coaxed so many childhood confessions out of Chase’s younger self. They looked so vibrant compared to the last time he had seen them. Chase knew it wasn’t really him, but he still could barely speak around the lump in his throat.
“Hey dad.” He choked out.
“Stevie Chase,” The spitting image of his dad said, calling up a nickname Chase hadn’t heard since he was eight. “I expected a little better from you, you know.”
“Yeah.” Chase’s voice was tight. “I kinda screwed the pooch on this one, didn’t I?”
His dad nodded. “It’s not too late to do the right thing. It’s never too late to do the right thing.”
Chase blinked. He’d recognize that phrasing anywhere. His dad had said those exact words to him when he’d had a childish fight with his mom and called her some nasty names. His dad was never one to force him to apologize, but he was a pro at guilting and guiding him to do it anyway and make him think it was his idea the whole time.
Chase shook his head. “Fuck you, Bright. Can’t even give me a satisfying fake conversation with my dad, you gotta directly plagiarize from past conversations? Pathetic. I expected a little better from you, you know?” He parroted back his fake dad’s words as a barb.
The figure that was almost but not quite his dad heaved a sigh. “Don’t be too hard on them, they were never much of one for subtlety or little things.” Chase narrowed his eyes, and his dad’s eyes winked one after the other. “They tend to miss the trees for the forest.” A slight purple glow shone from his smiling mouth, and Chase grinned.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Echo the escape artist strikes again.” He whispered. “You’re still hiding?”
His dad’s head nodded. “Sometimes you gotta know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.”
“I don’t think my dad’s love for Kenny Rogers is relevant here.”
Echo continued quoting the lyrics in his dad’s voice, unperturbed. “Know when to walk away, and know when to run!” The last word was shouted and Chase was off to the races, dashing past Echo and revealing a much-changed scene from before his brief conversation with his dad’s memory. Ellie was on the ground in the fetal position, rocking back and forth and mumbling to herself in another language, her face ashen. Kayla looked lost, her eyes distant as she wandered aimlessly around the clearing, never stopping but never moving faster than a walking pace. Miles had tear tracks running down his face, eyes bloodshot as he stared at the ground, clenching and unclenching his fists like he was about to explode but didn’t know what direction to aim it.
Jess and Tom were much more active, facing off against their doppelgangers while the rest of the twisted reflections looked on with expressions of malicious glee. Chase didn’t know what the story was there, but he knew he didn’t like seeing Jess’s right arm hanging limp by her side, blood dripping down to the floor. He nearly jumped in then and there, and would have missed the trick if he had. In an instant, Jess and her reflection had swapped places and injuries, leaving the one he dearly hoped was the original unharmed but breathing hard. Tom and his orc-like doppelganger had settled into an uneasy stalemate, with the original having longer reach but the latter clearly outweighing him.
“Why won’t you shatter?” Bright screamed, swooping in between the two Toms and knocking both back several feet. Their eyes fell on Chase. “You! What have you done this time?”
Chase crossed his arms. “Nothing. This is all them. We may look fragile from one of your nine million senses, but if there’s one thing humans know, it’s how to be stubborn as hell.”
Bright actually stopped dead at that, before a sickly smile spread across her face. “Well, time to stop playing around then. As amusing a distraction as this has been, indulging my base instincts, it’s time to see if you can face your fear.”
Chase snorted. “Your weak little play with my dad’s memory? I would say nice try, but it really wasn’t. D- for effort, see me after class.”
“Always so quick to joke.” Bright said. “I wonder if you ever considered it wouldn’t be you paying the price for that lip. Your dad was nothing more than a smokescreen, that hasn’t been your greatest fear for some time now.”
“Oh yeah? And I guess now you’re gonna tell me what it is?”
“I’ll do you one better.” Bright rose into the air. “That defective Echo may have told you I wouldn’t attack you directly while we’re inside my domain like this, but the things they don’t know could fill libraries. There are the old ways, from before their time. Crude, yes, much less refined than current tactics. But I find myself nostalgic for those simpler times after dealing with a certain persistent annoyance. So just remember, everything that happens now, it’s all your fault.”
Chase opened his mouth to say something defiant before he followed Bright’s gaze. They weren’t looking at him anymore. They had turned slightly throughout their little speech and were now facing just over his left shoulder. Chase flicked his eyes over slightly and his worst fears were confirmed. There, now grappling in close range with her doppelganger and totally vulnerable to being blindsided was Jess.
His fear. Letting her down. Losing her. Not keeping his promise that they would make it out of this okay. Having her faith in him be for nothing. Letting her be torn apart and her memory defiled by mental parasites.
He didn’t consciously remember moving, but he knew he had never jumped so quickly in his life. It still almost wasn’t enough. He crashed into the grappling pair mere moments before Bright’s insectile claws came slashing down, drawing a line of red on his left arm as they bit deep. To his dismay, he saw a nearly identical wound appear on Jess’s right arm as they crashed hard to the ground, her doppelganger disintegrating into greasy blue smoke. They lay on the ground panting and moaning until the sound of chitin striking chitin interrupted. It took Chase longer than he’d like to admit through the haze of pain to realize that Bright was clapping their hands.
“Touching! I’ll have to make a note. Emotional bonds of this species can easily be exploited to create tactically advantageous situations! Thank you for your contributions to military science! Now give me your body and let’s end this charade!”
Chase looked at Jess, still face down and breathing hard. He looked at Bright, so smug in their triumph, and he knew they would possess Jess and utterly erase her personality if he didn’t give himself up first. Hell, they might do that anyway, they had that kind of sadistic streak. He wracked his brain for something, anything that could stave off what now seemed inevitable. There was one thing, just one possibility that might work. Chase moved slowly, projected defeat and surrender as hard as he could. He first rolled Jess over with his one good arm, wincing at her renewed moan of pain as her own wound was jostled. He met her eyes as he clasped her hand in his one last time, giving her a sad smile.
“We had a good run, Jess. But it looks like the finish line’s just about here.”
Tears were welling up in her eyes as she responded. “I usually hate running. But I had a lot of fun on this sprint with you. Too bad we couldn’t make it a marathon.”
Chase laughed. “Never found another girl that would play along with my lame jokes so readily.”
“Never found a guy making my kind of lame jokes.”
“I think I love you, Jess McDaniels.”
“I know.”
“...did you just?”
“You want me to say it back?” Her voice dropped to a bare whisper. “Then survive.”
Never had Chase wanted to do anything more and had it be so unlikely. Still, he nodded and brought his head down one last time, placing a gentle kiss on her lips. She tasted like sweat and blood and a hint of honey chapstick, and it was the best thing Chase had ever tasted. He turned away before she had a chance to see the tears in his eyes, slowly hauling himself to his feet. He was honestly surprised Bright had let them have that moment, but they seemed like the type to savor the extra dose of suffering Jess would now inevitably go through. Chase trudged forward, keeping his body language meek and defeated. There would only be one chance at this.
“So you’re ready to assume your rightful place in the universe? Under my command? As nothing more than an extension of my will?” Bright crooned. Chase groaned internally. They’d already won and still wanted to gloat. Just a few more seconds. He forced himself to nod shakily.
“Say it. Say it and seal your fate.”
“I-”
A flash from the corner of his eye. A bloodcurdling scream and a defiant yell mixing together in unholy harmony. Colors straight out of a comic book moving back and forth like a sewing machine, stabbing into a radioactive green glow faster than he could follow. A whirling, writhing mass of limbs grappling with each other, green against multicolored. A sudden shaking of the entire platform bringing Chase to his knees as his mind finally caught up with what his eyes were seeing and he turned up his right palm to reveal the speck of bright purple hidden in it. Just a bit of Echo’s essence, enough for one last blow of defiance. Chase turned back to the pile of melding and shifting limbs as even the sky began to repaint itself in heroic, comic book hues. There was really only one thing Chase could say to the scene unfolding before him.
“That bastard Miles stole my sacrifice play!”