I can hardly believe the situation unfolding before my eyes.

There is blood staining the carpet, sinking into the fibers of memories made there. There is blood pooling in-between Slater's toes. There is blood darkening in color and yet remaining so very, very crimson in color.

Regret, denial.

There is something like that in his gaze. A broken sense of self, shattering at the seams. I cannot put him back together because he was never whole in the first place. Not that he would remember his first run or his second or his third. I do not speak, nor do I dare to interact. It is simply not my place.

He's staring for an awfully long time before he finally lifts his head and looks about as if searching for danger. Danger does not exist here. Ransom is dead. Ransom is dead. Ransom is dead.

I mind the strained and choked sound coming from his lips. He is retching up the remains of his last meal. A hand clamps over his mouth, and nothing comes up as he swallows it back down. He doubles over with nails digging into the skin of his lips. A wet cough, strangled screams. There he is on the verge of panic, staring down the cliff that leads to the only reality he has ever known.

Truth.

( And death. )

Which he has always denied. Which he has always cursed. Which he will continue to refuse.

The system does not answer as he tries to go back. He just needs to go back a few minutes. There is urgency here, though there is no one to pick up the phone, not even a dial tone.

I clench my own fists, observing him at a low point I had not seen in ages.

"No. No. No." Slater's tone is hurried, knife clattered to the floor, his hair is pulled within his grasp. "This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't fucking real. I need to go back, please."

Ransom does not wake up.

"Please, let me go back." He drops to his knees.

Ransom does not wake up.

"Hey, you can't do this to me. Tell me it was a mistake. Tell me I did nothing wrong."

Ransom does not wake up.

I watch helplessly as he goes through a song and dance I have only seen once before. The situation may be different, yet the outcome is the same. He is losing his mind and on the verge of giving up this run, just like he's given up on others, too. The end result is always the same, though. The world would end and he would keep trying to fix it.

Partially, I do wish to help him.

I wish to reach my hands out. I wish to undo the damage. I wish that fate will be kind this time.

"Ransom, wake up. Wake up. You're not dead."

He is.

I cannot look away ( sometimes I wish that I could. )

This is simply becoming another dead end. Nothing ever changes.

While I want to give the boy some comfort, I know that I must remain as I am. He cannot see me again. He will not see me again.

He cannot see the mouse that hovers above his head. Another quick-time event that will likely prevent his death again. Another quick-time event to prevent a tragedy. I know that he would rather die and start over endlessly than face the reality of his brother's death.

Nothing will come of it, yet I reach for the digitized mouse regardless and lightly tap my fingers against it.

Slater is not the kind of person to accept what cannot be changed. He is desperate, clinging to still warm corpse of his brother. He is furling his fists into the fabric of his sweater, listening to the beating of his heart as the older of the two wraps arms around his shoulders.

"Why are you crying?" Ransom responds, something is tired in his tone. Fatigue that settles in.

Both of us still. Slater and I.

"Ransom?" I mouth the words while Slater actually speaks.

He is not dead. Ransom is not dead.

The recoil that comes from the realization is enough to send Slater careening backwards. A phoenix has appeared, risen from the ashes of regret. This is an anomaly in the making.

"What? You're acting as if you've seen a ghost." Ransom is jovial even now. That's always the kind of brother he's been. A smile will always appear on his face.

Confusion makes a home on Slater's, "You were..." dead, right? That was the truth of the situation. Ransom had been dead, Slater saw all the blood. He still sees the blood. It's sticky and wet and Ransom has to see it too, he does. It's obvious why the teenager dares not tear away his gaze as his older brother begins to realize that he's sitting in a puddle of his own absence of life.

"Oh." Another strange occurrence happens.

Ransom looks at me.

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He looks at me and he smiles. "Well, that's just some good luck! I'm fine, Slater." he laughs, moving to stand up. "Whatever happened, should be over now? If it's not then you have help around you."

It feels as if he's speaking of me, but I had nothing to do with this.

Maybe it was the rejection of his death that brought him come back to life. Maybe it was the rejection of reality. Slater had never done well with grief and neither have I.

"...I guess..." Slater responds. He picks himself off the floor, using the countertop to guide him to a full standing. All the bile that he swallowed earlier comes out all over the counter. It dribbles down onto the floor, his stomach uncomfortably empty.

He doesn't move as Ransom rubs his back.

"You're bleeding on the back of your neck, are you alright?"

Of course Slater reaches up to find that here is more than just blood. There is the soft squish of his muscle tissue hidden just beneath a layer of skin. He can feel the disconnect, sticking his finger deeper into the flesh just to see how far he could.

Ransom grabs his wrist, pulling it away gingerly. "Don't mess with it like that."

"Sorry."

The exchange feels like strangers trading pleasantries.

Awkward.

It does not feel like someone had just died. It does not feel like Ransom had just died. It does not feel like Slater has killed anyone.

"I killed you, how are you even alive right now? That's-" He starts to question it, turning around to face his brother. "I just threw up and you're just-" He sucks in some air. This is not a doppelganger. This is not a doppelganger. This is not a person who moved and acted just like my brother. It is my brother. He consoles himself with repeated thoughts, over and over and over.

"I don't know how to answer that for you, Slater." Ransom snorts. It's obvious that he has no answers aside from making eyes at me. "Do you want me to clean that up?" He gestures to the vomit.

Slater shakes his head. "No. I'll do it."

When he turns away, he finds that he would much rather be all alone. His head is dizzy, vision swimming. Bracing the counter, he sucks air into his lungs. "Goodnight, Ransom."

"Goodnight, Slater."

Squeezing his own eyes shut, the young-boy focuses on calming the beating of his heart.

Blood is still on the floor staining the carpet and Ransom disappears down the long, unforgiving hallway. Slater was still stuck in this rift. I can see the realization begin to dawn on him as he settles on that fact. While he really did kill his brother, the forces that be seemed to have brought his brother back, too.

The system finally crackles up to life.

System Administrator Escape.

A message that blinks around him in a purple haze. He stares at it lazily. Escape? He just needed to escape? Why was this kind of mission happening now?

Slater could have questioned it more, he does not. I know that it is far too early for this kind of situation, yet Slater is ignoring it in favor of grabbing a towel to clean up his mess. I really don't understand him, but still I continue to watch him.

The towel drags across the counter. It smears the vomit all over. Slater takes the time to clean it. He pours dish soap on the counter, he splashes water from the sink. He washes it until there is only a drying counter behind. The system message follows behind him like a lost puppy. It is no such thing, just to some extent fun poking at him.

Finally. He accepts.

The system disappears into a crackle of light and the entire apartment goes dark.

"Please don't make me kill him again." He is talking to no one but the Gods. The Gods will never answer and I watch him close his eyes and fall into that same state he always exists in.

Slater.

Slater.

Slater.

He repeats his name under his breath like a mantra, as if it will make it all better.

The lights blink back on. Rather, the outside is visible and the rift is no longer in a state of limbo.

When his gaze is clear, he starts moving. This time he goes back down the hall where the remnants of Ransom's disappearance remains. There are more rooms than there are siblings.

Opening one by one reveals to him that they are empty. Some of them are laden with the stage of a bedroom while others are only empty.

----------------------------------------

It takes him three hours before he realizes that maybe the key to escaping was never going to be in the hallway. He has come to the conclusion that maybe he needs to commit to going into one of the rooms.

He chooses to go inside his own.

There is familiarity here.

His bed is the same as it always is. There are plushies everywhere. A console. There are pictures of him and ∎∎∎∎∎ on the wall. There are also pictures of him and the rest of his family. He regards them with mild interest. There no hints here. No puzzles. There is nothing lost here.

There is the same amount of games on the shelf. There is the same amount of books on the shelf. There is also the same amount of figurines.

He turns around to leave the room.

His twin leaves first.

∎∎∎∎∎ has always been here.

"Wait! What the hell, are you here with me!?" Slater calls out, immediately exiting the room.

I watch ∎∎∎∎∎ disappear out into the living room and then outside of the main door.

Itching resumes and Slater ignores it in favor of high-tailing it after the same boy who shared his face. His twin brother. "Wait up!"

Which should have been a red flag. ∎∎∎∎∎ never ignored Slater.

Ever.

Outside feels like waking up to a breath of fresh air. The stars are bright and illuminated in the sky, the moons are full. People are laughing on the sidewalk and Slater stands there on the outside stairwell just watching them pass by. They are ignorant to his presence.

This place is a mirror-image to the real-world and yet it feels so... real.

He does not see his twin.

Still, he scrambles down the stairs and does not fall into the established line of people paired two and then three carrying themselves down the street.

"Where did he go?" He sucks in a breath, turning around this way and that way.

He's not going to get an answer just talking under his breath.

So he is throwing himself to the sidewalk in hurried steps. He cannot see any paths down any alleyways that should be here. A mirror was not a perfect reflection. He takes it as a sign that there are places he had no access to in this rift. He hates it.

I can feel a sense of static that rumbles in my stomach. I do not think this is the right path for him to take. I do not think this is the answer. I do not think this will end well. The variables have not added up. I wish he would turn around. I realize faintly that I just don't want to see him fail again. I do not want this run to end.

"Slater, please."

The softest of whispers, I plead with him to stop.

And he does.

Slater stops in the middle of the street, he turns, and looks up.