The sun set as the horizon decayed. Another cycle successfully completed. Some life woke to dance again, while others fell into a dying silence.

The crows told me all about it. I guess they could see it best. I could only squint. I saw a wistful mix of cloud cover brush my skybox in shadowed grays and tangy yellows. I appreciated the view by adding my own shade of pollution every minute or so. My contribution, however, was uninspiring. Compared to the dusky art the sun and skies made together, mine was insignificant.

I suppose a lifetime of puffs might kill a bush or two.

But smoking mostly killed people. Blackened lungs reaped one in five Americans. A grim affair. Of course, it would never kill me. I’m the one in a million. From lung cancer to old age, there’s a long list of ills that can’t kill me. My table of mortality had long been reserved. It was only a matter of time until the guest of honor descended for my last supper.

Besides, I like to think I already died — or my ego at least — on a bad trip to the beyond.

Sometimes that’s what it takes to kick a habit. Or start a new one.

I had my legs out the window, making full use of a side mirror so cracked an officer would write me two tickets. One for the safety hazard and another for th—I coughed. A cylinder of tobacco launched into the beyond, its trail of orange a fading ember amongst the gathering darkness of fall. By NOLA standards, this was as autumnal as it got. Many leaves died to make this holiday great. But it was the man made decoration that stood out most.

Tonight, the planetary picture was littered with poorly cut pumpkins and cheap skeletal props older than the ghosts themselves. The canvas continued with the living. I was parked in a nightmare on Elm Street. Kids were in silly costumes and ‘adults’ were in stupid costumes. One was playfully recreating ancient pagan rituals, and the other actually losing themselves to spirits.

image [https://i.ibb.co/61BytJt/tc12.jpg]

I made eye contact with one group gone renegade. An undead Obama awkwardly stuffed a spirited hand into his jacket sleeve.

Yeah, I saw that pal.

I couldn’t fault him for his choice. From Amber to Purple Haze, Abita was a local favorite.

But who drinks around all these parents? Especially at that age?

People of all years and health conditions continued their creep around the block. Some little ones strode around like they were made for the role, while others lingered, uncertain and off script. They weren’t performing; they were stuck believing.

I always enjoyed this ‘holiday’ — the playing pretend, the evil-in-name-only, the dumb ways smart people got scared. There’s a comedy to it all. We get spooked, but we know it’s all a performance. In the end, at least. What made it curiously confusing were those that didn’t. Some people struggled to separate the truth from fiction.

It’s fake, so why do they get so sucked in? I knew a few grown ass adults that were sold at the point of the scare.

Sure, you pay for the experience at those haunted haystacks, but it’s no different from a movie.

The monsters can’t hurt you.

More importantly, they aren’t real.

I laughed over a senior year memory. Theo wasn’t pretending when he pissed his pants over a minimum-wagie in a mask. Him and Will. They react like it’s real. So much so I had to stop taking them.

But why? Why them and not me?

Why did some fall for the trick?

Sometimes I thought I knew the answer. And other times…

I wanted to wonder longer, but business called.

My phone lit up. It had something to say. More precisely, a person through an app. My app.

Super Duper Delivery was the new kid on the courier block. Unlike the rest of the wheeled gig economy, my venture catered to the planners. The people who plan on making a profit.

According to the warning notification, a coworker and I were headed for the same neighborhood. A massive inefficiency highlighted by our proprietary analytics.

When I paid 3 other high school seniors to build a parasitic delivery app, I did it to avoid situations like this. The programming was perfect. My braintrust were grade-A (for Adderall) GitHub nolifers. They happily accepted the 27k my Dad set aside for my bright future. Originally intended for my college fund, instead it would fund cutting-edge software that scalped data from other delivery apps. I couldn’t just work DorkDash, I needed to work for myself too.

Normies didn’t understand. The courier business is cutthroat. If it got any more intense, we’d be killing each other over it.

I set aside visions of my role in a B-tier Halloween slasher to review the red box on the built-in mapping software. The low score that hovered over the painted block indicated the potential loss of profit. Profit that otherwise would’ve gone to my next get-rich-quick scheme.

I gulped, allowing a cold fear to grip my chest. The true horror wasn’t the bloody mess in Jason’s bathroom, but the serial murder of my margins. Only a monster could tolerate the latter, so I considered a few scenarios. I could turn down the latest delivery request, at a penalty. Compared to their competitors, DorkDash thought they were cool like that. They weren’t.

Fortunately, I always created alternatives to the irritating choices the world gave me. I had a deal in mind. Will and I? We’d play a game. A winner-take-all situation. Those were fun.

I turned the engine over, putting my phone back into its rightful place amongst the crowded dash of screens. On the faces of its sisters, other notifications screamed at me. I had three traffic apps up on pawnshop-purchased phones. Suffice to say, the best possible route presented itself. Sure, it was a crooked three-legged trip, but that’s where the profit came into being.

With the engine hot, I sped out of the twilight neighborhood, swerving around the walking dead to make sure they stayed walking. The first casualty would be the grocery store. It wasn’t the closest by distance, but my app had other ideas. I followed my system almost unquestioningly. Not like a zombie, mind you, but with an insatiable belief in our shared desire to maximize value. My software found low traffic areas and their intersect with upper-class neighborhoods of untapped demand. The app collects data the big guys let go to waste, that’s the elevator pitch. Me and my frien—co-founder—are too intelligent to run from an opportunity like that. Now, to be fair… I don’t want to oversell it. SDD it’s not a whole-ass competitor to the big names in delivery. We’re more of a compliment to the existing options.

We sell access to our live data to other gig drivers at a slow, highest-bidder tempo. Don’t even ask me about that money. It’d give the IRS a heart attack. This log may one day end up in the hands of those snoops. I don’t want them to have a pleasant time dissecting my company. I want them to suffer.

As I pulled into a 24/7 Weewees’s, snaking around a few occupied gas pumps to find the last parking spot, I opted to secure my car with a pothole instead of my parking brake. Welcome to New Orleans. At least we’re not underwater anymore.

With my functional Ford Explorer at rest, a new panel slid down into view on my primary phone. It revealed a list. SDD didn’t just feed on data, it showed me additional orders as I pulled into the first hit on my itinerary.

A diet coke, a family-sized bag of Doritos, hand sanitizer, gourmet Sucré chocolate — uh, Bourbon Street Bark… flavored? — I hope I can find that… Christ, there’s more?

What lard-ass would I be visiting tonight?

A little advice, big fella. Less is more.

Except when it comes to money.

I dodged a pileup of fake pumpkins and overpriced ‘economy’ bags of candies to race my way around the convenience store aisles. I bagged the goods, paid in cash, always cash, and returned to my crooked Ford. My wheels thumped twice on the way out. Three minutes. Good.

I kept the countdown in mind. It was one of my many odd talents.

The next leg was the actual pickup. The original order. A pizza combo from Little Sickles, its red and orange retro-Soviet branding historically guaranteed to make average people hungry.

You might be wondering why I stopped at the glorified gas station if the actual order was currently defrosting elsewhere. The answer is simple. We used the delivery app privacy infringements, namely the customer cellphone reveal, to offer our own value-added options. We’ve sold all kinds of things, not that the names would make much sense to you, since we usually use codewords.

This stop had been the drug deal, so to speak. The secret-side order. I know I just tried to spice things up, but today the junk food was legitimately junk food. Though, considering what the boxed junk industry put into its frankenfood, maybe pharmaceuticals should be in the followup order.

Through my wall of apps, I evaded the out-of-season Day of the Dead parade slogging along canal street to hit Little SickIe’s with 16 minutes to spare. A tattooed cashier with a suspiciously elaborate mustache handed me a hot square of cardboard and I handed him my DorkDash card to settle the balance. Moments later, I put the glyphosate-dripping pizza in an oven bag next to my mini-fridge.

Yes, I have a mini-fridge in my delivery car. It’s where all the drinks and special side orders cool off.

And that’s not all. I spent the paltry remains of that 27k on an offshore crypto payment system with near-zero fees to sell whatever we stocked in that fridge. It gets strange looks, but that’s only because they can’t see the bottom line. Like many things I do, it comes as a shock to the uninitiated, but there’s nothing a little wordplay can’t solve.

I got pulled over once. I told the cop, ‘I’m a 5-star Goober driver and that’s how I stay ahead of the game.’ The only honest part was the last clause, a favorite trick of mine to stay out of karmic debt. And real debt.

Parked and on the clock, I double checked the seatbelts on my refrigerator-sized passengers to scratch an itch. Maybe two is too much sometimes. I checked my spare fridge in the child's seat. Honestly, I forgot what frozen secrets it held. I could’ve still had plasma bags from last month sloshing around. You wouldn’t believe what sickeningly rich Americans would pay for the privilege of a doorside-delivered elixir.

With an ominous aspiration, the fridge released its seal. An icy chill wafted out. Refreshingly spooky. And still shelved to the brim… with legal goods. No medicinal contraband. I sighed with relief. Only a 12-pack of my trusty Blue Ball Ice Cream. At 3.5 ounces a portion, they were the ultimate upsell for single women on frightfully lonely Friday nights.

On days like these, my car is more of a mobile grocery store.

I can’t complain too much. By averages, this arrangement earns my drivers an extra 6~ bucks in profit per delivery. Like I said before, people use it to order cheaper drinks, condiments, ice, or whatever they want in bulk, and we drop it off with their ‘masked’ delivery. You get it? We’re the secret menu, the special side dish to the main entrée. The service within the service.

Worked great during COVID.

I’m not bragging about my brilliant business or anything. Everyone knows that entrepreneurs who skip college are wizards in the world of money. I mean, step one, I sidestepped 100k in debt. You can’t tell me that isn’t practical magic.

Remember the Princess and the Frog? A bunch of slimy frogs fighting a debt salesman controlled by evil voodoo spirits? Naturally, the story reminds me of real life. That’s why I’m not ashamed to say it’s my favorite movie. The point is, everyone knows the real magic in this world is money. So what kind of sorcery is debt?

I think it’s the world’s greatest debuff. And I already have the world’s second greatest debuff. So I can’t afford to stack maledictions.

I gotta make money, and fast.

I know what you’re thinking. I did go into debt with my Dad to fund the startup. But that’s all paid back. Plus interest for certain anxieties I gave him through my cosigner, legally known as ‘Mom.’ When I told her I wasn’t going to college so I could deliver fast food instead, it wasn’t a healthy conversation. Eventually I explained I would work for a big delivery company, and I would use my proprietary analytics, and their data, to fill in the gaps and make us all better employees. As I told my Mom, it’s called capitalism. It’s all very cool and very legal.

Until a delivery I made last week.

Listen, I went on and on about Super Duper Delivery in the original memory, but to spare you the specifics, I’m gonna skip ahead.

It was another ten minutes to the target neighborhood in the Audubon district. I went into my usual routine. I spun the radio for a revolution, seeking anything to satiate my desire for entertainment.

“—the pelicans—”

“—calls for a fresh wave of lockdowns—”

“—a severe thunderstorm watch for—”

I sighed. I had half a mind to load up my audiobooks. I was on book 28 of another never-ending self-insert power fantasy. As a full-time driver, I was in the car so much the titles of my novels blended with the deliveries themselves. ‘Sous Chef’s Succubus Solstice’ became ‘Sloppy Joes & Sweet Tea.’

And in case you were wondering…

It’s about a guy who cooks diabolical meals to capture the demonic entities running the restaurant world. Food-borne exorcisms. That’s entertainment in 2021. We’ve come a long way from fantastic fiction like War of the Worlds. A long way.

I rolled through a quiet red light, trying to write a fantastic moment into my own story. Unfortunately, I forgot to check my rear as I did. I spotted a blacked out Charger hugging my bumper as my heart skipped to a dangerously familiar beat. Was it an undercover cop?

I looked for a face. I saw the cool sheen of LEO-fashion sunglasses just as the car pulled away. A gloomy gangster or a government gang stalker, I would never know.

I slowed my mind to a standstill and acknowledged the dumb risk I took. It made me rethink the bet I would make with Will. It needed a recalibration. I can’t afford to get pulled over with all this bagged contraband in the back. Not because this night carried foul goods, but because the stress was eating my adrenals away. Since the fall equinox, I’d been in a seasonal decline of a spiritual and physiological nature. I broke too many rules too often. And my highs were too high and lows were too low. I struggled to manage the volatility.

Even with my fancy breathing techniques from the East and all the cutting-edge pharmaceutical pills from the West I could ask for, my still hands jittered as my heart stayed tachycardic.

I was gradually losing control day in and out. Control I once had in abundance. Even the little things, the roadside distractions, were enough to get to me now.

With a few extra minutes on my countdown to the final destination, I took my car and my mental pace down a notch. I returned to my mobile entertainment options. I mindlessly scrolled through my 40ish audiobooks as my eyes left the road. My choices were LITRPGs, progression fantasies, system apocalypses, and some combination of all three. They all came with world systems like computers came with operating systems. About the same learning curve too.

I poked one of my four flashing phones until the window collapsed, admitting defeat. I didn’t have the stomach to learn a whole new system — I have enough systems on my plate as it is. And the page counts were numbers too large to fit in my brain anyway. Which is saying something.

Talk shows it is.

“—let good ol’KY17 soothe the traumas of today—”

“FedNow or mBridge? — On tonight’s Tomorrow Talk, we dive into the controversial discussion on the future of your wallet. Some experts fear a…” And then some ill-timed commercials about overstocked Halloween stores running overnight flash sales cut in. Enterprises like that made me wonder how capitalism survived a world this stupid.

The radio program returned. I blankly summarized the next few minutes until I bickered back. “...a programmed currency for a programmed population? It will never reach the necessary retail adoption level to support an ec—”

Basically, two idiots were debating the future of our boring dystopia. Personally, I preferred CBDCs without the second C. I leaned back and considered my vape pen and its acronym juice. “God, it does look like a USB.” I stared into the charging end. “What is being downloaded into my body…?” I sucked it all in anyway, the electronic dissolution of vapor the only thing to make it out alive.

I turned the radio off. That’s enough programming for today. I had my own parasitic program to attend too as it dinged for human attention.

I had reached my destination with an extra helping of discordant fanfare. Beyond my array of digital instruments, I could see a sinewy canopy produce an umbral web of shadows on my front windshield. The all-natural tunnel of gloomy green foliage was a portal of sorts. Stylish street lamps took over what the sun once did, but the transition from busy business streets to this secretive section of residential life was common to a city many thought charming by day and creepy by night.

That said, it was a cozy neighborhood, upper class for this city. There was no shortage of tasteful Halloween decorations. Not Tim Burton tier, but enough to have fun and still feel Christian by the end of the day.

Little quiet though. Which is rare in a wealthy district like this.

Most people only saw the Crescent City during Mardi Gras or through Disneyland’s New Orleans Square. Both had long been poor representations of the city’s status, especially after the hurricane.

For instance, this community could’ve been mistaken for any in the Midwest, minus the French gardens and American potholes. Yet, for some reason, it tickled the fleshy sides of a forgotten memory.

Distracted and short on time, I opened the door to grab my order out of the back. No sooner was the door ajar when two kids in minecrafted rectangles pushed into my car like hungry wolves.

“Trick or treat!” they yelled.

Stunned, I watched as they reached for my nearest fridge. Was I being treat mugged?

By middle-schoolers?

Before I went parental, a third creeper popped out from behind my car. The blocky monster was enough of a jump scare to set my fuse off. Anything that set my heart asunder had to be dealt with, quick.

I punched the pixelated green cactus straight in the — the cognitive compartment. It fell backwards without exploding. But an explosion of sound came for me anyway.

An unseen parent a few houses down had shrieked. Of course she missed the crime to see me clock him.

Before I could deal with the piglin parents howling at the wind, I needed to finish this delivery. There would be too much traffic with this situation and my real-time navigation was flashing red.

I hustled around the car, pulling the two problems out with relative ease. They complied, their guilty body-language enough of a tell. I had heard about kids committing crimes in broad daylight in recent months, but I had never expected to have my car raided like it was a San Francisco CVS. I swatted the key items on the order away and watched them retreat to their parents stomping around the crooked end of a NOLA cul-de-sac. It would be a race against time. I hustled to finish the delivery.

I grabbed the remaining goods and haphazardly headed for the customer’s door, tiptoeing around fake glowing pumpkins and squished candy along the way. I skipped the cobbled walkway and jumped a raised garden bed to save time. Not known for my athletics, I surprisingly managed the landing and congratulated myself to the point of distraction. And it cost me not one breath later.

Mere feet from the raised entrance of a ritzy home, I lost control of my footing.

Decorative cobwebbing got me good.

I fell with a muffled grunt, protecting the nuclear football as best I could. The pizza stayed level, but the bag of calories did not. Crap went everywhere, now thoroughly unsalvageable. That would come out of my bottom line. It might come out of the customer’s waistline too. I tried to see the silver lining. Instead, I looked at the porch light, which detected me without judgment.

Through the portal of a smoked glass door, an ominous shadow came to greet me. He had a hollowed-out pumpkin container and all the expectations of a father who had too much fun with this stuff.

Unfortunately…

He peeked around, looking for the trick or treater, before descending the porch and yelping at the shallow grave I made for myself.

Amongst the undead food and devilish decor, I staggered up with the unintended flair of a Romero zombie.

He dropped his pumpkin of sweets in an explosive reaction. Little wrapped surprises hit me like shrapnel from a pop rocks grenade.

“Your Duper Eats ord—uh, DorkDash order. It survived.”

“You scared the hell out of me. You okay?”

I ignored his dumb question to pass my stupefied customer the 16 inch pie from Little Sickles. My near death experience aside, the good news was there’d be no starvation at this household tonight.

“But the…” I looked at the caloric casualty on the lawn. “I’m sorry about the rest,” I said as I untangled artificial spider webbing from my ankles. “I’ll have it refunded. The liter of co—”

“Oh, that’s fine, my daughter ordered that.” His voice went low. “She stress eats when she shouldn’t.”

image [https://i.ibb.co/t3Thyd7/tc13.jpg]

Before I could wonder if my accident impeded her diabetes diagnosis, a dangerously attractive girl had rushed through the doorway. Black hair, blue eyes. B—big… it wasn’t the waist that was big. But it was the subtle glint of gold that stole my attention. I did a double-take. Flashy golden earrings?

Oh.

Memories flooded back.

It’s her.

Broadly speaking, the delivery industry followed two theories. Bigger orders went to the affluent historical neighborhoods downtown, while stress orders — small, last minute, and late into the night — went for the troubled suburbs. And then there were these orders.

With customers that wanted to pay in an older currency.

“Great costume, by the way.” The dad appraised my workfit amusingly. “Do I have to tip you extra for that?”

It was my normal SDD outfit, which for whatever reason had taken on the flavor of midnight camo with black chinos. Frankly, it was somewhere between spec-ops and school sh—you get the idea.

SDD branding is a work in progress.

“No,” I said after legitimately weighing the offer of tax-free money. “I always go as the special forces pizza guy for Halloween, makes people think I’m more professional.”

The golden girl ran out onto the porch. “Dad. I told you I would get—”

Our eyes met. I could feel her attraction, her secret desire to share something dangerously intimate with me.

I knew. She knew. And I knew she knew.

I got up and took the dad’s outstretched bill and jolted towards the car. Away from imminent jeopardy.

You might be wondering what’s going on. Get used to it. Nothing’s ever simple in my life. And no narrator is perfect, just like no person is perfect. Suffice to say, I suspected she was trying to serve me something awful. Not an awful good time, but the kind of service that comes with stacks of legalized hell.

I did a little SOCMINT on her number after she showed too much interest in my internals after my first delivery to this address. Spokeo, social media snooping, that kinda thing. Long story short, I feared she worked undercover for my greatest foe.

The IRS.

I did my own research. It shouldn’t be surprising, I’m entrepreneurial like that. I added everything up, particularly her work history and connections on LinkedIn, and could only sell myself one conclusion. A college-aged, deep-cover tax collector tasked with the destruction of my precious delivery company...

Just because it sounds crazy, doesn’t mean it isn’t possible, or even unlikely. Call me a corny conspiracy theorist, fine — but so long as thinking is free, I’ll keep doing it.

SDD wasn’t getting caught with its pants down today. In fact, so long as I was at the helm, we would never get caught. I turned around to give my honeypot a shit-eating grin with a wink on top.

She pouted in return.

The golden Gestapo of the IRSS will never take me alive.

Thankful for muscle memory, I cleared the worst of the graveyard of decorations. Now feet from the car, I returned my focus to the K/O’d creeper and his criminal syndicate.

They were gone.

Maybe I am lucky after—

Unfortunately, I overhead the parents from earlier. Still mostly hidden by the extensive botanical gardens common to the NOLA gentility, they were loudly announcing their complaints and how such concerns would be brought to the city police. I heard ‘arrested,’ I heard ‘courts,’ and I heard ‘police chief.’ Frankly, I heard enough. Their vilification of my good nature was compelling enough to spook me for the second time tonight. But then again, the noisiest threats often screech from the tiniest violins.

Stricken with curiosity, I covered my face with everyone’s favorite flu mask and twisted around my car to witness the source of the dreadful disquiet. I spotted a creeper on the ground writhing about in a well-written act for an audience of zombies and their handlers.

He got up just fine earlier...

It wasn’t like I one-punched him.

A parent spotted me and launched a hurricane of sonic violence in my direction. My eyes practically watered as the upper class harpy broke the dam of peace on this block. The whole-ass neighborhood heard it. I didn’t wait to see Miss IRS and her potential reaction. I was too young to go to debtors’ prison.

With my license-plated escape vehicle locked and loaded — a 7-11 on wheels — I smacked the steering wheel to attention.

“Not tonight bitch,” I told my rearview mirror as the concerned Karen came for my car.

I hit the gas and rolled my DRIVE playlist into gear. I let the good times roll as I peeled out. A smidgeon of smoke was probably enough to cover my license plate from her nosy camera phone.

On my dash, my applications showed me the way, a guiding light out of this mess. In fact, I only had to make a right and two lefts to dodge whatever hexes the fishwife was throwing my way. She was quick, but I drove uncomfortably quicker. Especially without real contraband in the back to get me thinking about traffic stops.

My next route lit up like a quest tracker. Right.

Wonder what mobs I’ll have to deal with this time.

I had one more delivery queued up for the night. With the sun down and the streets quieting, I pulled into a cupboard-sized bookstore to help a local family-owned small business. Or whatever, I was here for a delivery. A weird one. The customer wanted a book, asap. And he wanted it delivered all the way past Read Boulevard East and the Venetian Isles. I’d been to those isolated developments once before. A costly waste of gas, even with the DorkDash automated surcharges.

My system alerted me to this issue earlier. Both myself and Will were on-route. In fact, this was his delivery originally. The SDD app allows these trade-offs or grouped deliveries to be created virtually through a programmed account exploit. In other words, when you collectivize data like we do, cooperative behavior becomes profitable. We can reduce inefficiencies by allowing two deliveries to be sent from one vehicle, for instance.

Originally, I intended to bargain with Will over whose vehicle makes the trip. And therefore gets the cash. A delightful deal. We would chicken race. Dangerous, I know. But often the best way to settle who wanted it the most.

Okay, to be honest, we never even got close to a genuine chicken race. The few times we’ve done it were for bragging rights. We all grew up hearing stories of street races and other shenanigans common on the east side. I didn’t want to do the real thing, I just wanted to play pretend. The real thing made my heart uncomfortable. And we can’t have that.

And after punching an underaged mugger right in his square mug, I didn’t feel like going stupid tonight. My notifications chimed in with supporting news. Apparently Will was done anyway. A convenient resolution. But the next text unrolled the catch. His hand-me-down BMW broke down and he needed a lift. The roads are terrible in this city, and cars with crappy builds take a toll higher than any toll road ever would.

I headed east on the I-10, past the strip clubs, the scrap yards, and over the harbor canal until I merged onto the 90. Half the DRIVE soundtrack later, and a few added loops of Riz Ortolani’s ‘Oh my love,’ I spotted the dimly lit parking lot that became my rendezvous point. It was a monstrous paved slab of decay, probably a former car dealership with a seedy paper trail that starts with title loans and ends in theft. In sum, the corner was dead to foot and wheel traffic.

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

The remnants of signage told the rest of the story. This was a rough area. Haunted not by costumed Halloweenies, but by the specter of poverty. Above, flickering street lights were fighting for their life. They flashed with irradiance, glaring orange, yellow and white in a painful spray of illumination. The city forgot to pay its bill, typical.

I was coming in pretty hot, scanning the sidewalks for Will or his broken Beamer. His pin drop was here, somewhere. Unfortunately, the damn lanterns were giving me a headache already. Were they always this bright?

They worked my irises like a massage therapist forcing a client into the splits. I blinked a few times, caught off guard by the rising orbital pressure. Sudden nausea followed fast as my chest went cold. I went from calm and collected to an all-too-familiar panic. I slammed the brakes as best I could. It had never happened like this before. Lights? How fucking ridicul—

My head drooped as my memory went in and out from here.

I barely pulled the car into the curb. Or so I thought.

Turns out I hit it, and then some.

The thump lifted my ass out of the seat and sent my blood into another frenzy. It raced through my body like an antagonized hive. Pricks and needles came where oxygenated warmth and strength should’ve been. I quickly pulled the emergency brake and closed my eyes. I began to breathe. Not like normal people might, but with intent. I took in air like I was building a fire inside. And then released like I wanted to paint my outer world anew. A brighter color, maybe.

I imagined myself as a pulsing white light. A glassy flame equal parts transparent and eternal.

As usual, it worked. My heart stepped back from the cliff, my blood ended its battle inside my body, and my life returned to me unharmed. I’d live to see tomorrow.

Now I could return to reality.

I felt a presence close in. I opened my eyes.

“You alright?” the ghost murmured.

I grumbled in a lonely reply and rolled a window down.

“How’s your heart?” Will asked from the window, his voice gentle and barely above a whisper.

“Still beating,” I said, completing our verbal handshake.

My partner in crime was the only one outside of my family aware of my true condition. Excluding my doctors, of course.

Other than that — no friend, no teacher, no employee knows my truth. Not even you.

“Maybe I should drive,” he replied. I was thankful he found me so fast, but annoyed I hadn’t found him faster. Still, the lights? I caught myself trying to peek before jerking my head down to protect myself. No sense playing with electric fire.

If only I wasn’t born in a broken body… I wouldn’t have to wear sunglasses at night.

I’ll add it to the list.

“So you… challenged the curb to our game of chicken instead?” He asked as he left my passenger window.

I rolled down my own and appreciated how creepy this empty intersection was. “Yeah, basically,” I replied through a chill breeze. “Your Beemer breakdown spares you from another embarrassing defeat.”

“My breakdown?” He asked, his articulation a rollercoaster of confusion and amusement.

“Yes, yes.” I acknowledged his tacit complaint. “I know — I’m known for taking dumb risks for even dumber rewards. In my defense, I want to live forever, but I can’t do that like the rest of you.”

“If only your math made sense,” he said, still crouched by the curb.

“Just hurry. I don’t want to deal with any more zombified trick-or-treaters.”

Will was taking a minute to assess my wheels, axle, and bumper. He had already suffered an axle injury today, so I imagined he was the subject matter expert now.

My lifelong lifeline played a character as much as he played a person. He missed most of high school, but still graduated with top grades. We were both honor students, though I considered it more of an honor to be around him.

He gave me a thumbs up as I got out to switch.

Now in the passenger seat, I closed my eyes, seeking a topic of reprieve before I remembered my manners.

“Thanks for not freaking out,” I said while rubbing my eyes.

He nodded as he put his seatbelt on. “If I stay calm, it helps you stay calm. And—”

“So long as I stay calm, the world can only do so much damage.” I tapped my chest.

Will pointed to his car in the parking lot. It was the one getting towed. “You saved me, I saved you. Good trade.”

“There’s no nobility in carpooling,” I said, annoyed I didn’t see the tow truck to begin with. “Maybe someday NOLA will flood again and we can finally travel safely, like by canoe.”

I looked for signs of damage on the undercarriage as the tow truck pulled his certifiably pre-owned BMW up a handful of degrees. I couldn’t see much disfigurement from here.

“I’m guessing yours was less of a curbside heart attack and more conventional?”

“Pothole, obviously.“

I smiled at him. “A plothole in Mr Perfect’s life?”

He gave me a rare look of dejection. “It’s nothing but holes.”

“So you broke down around here?” I tried to eagle eye the road conditions. In the lunatic lighting, I saw patchy asphalt worthy of a Frankenstein reboot.

To be blunt, it was like this everywhere. Like sandpaper on tires, or turbulence on a jet. It added up, and eventually the bolts came out and you broke down. “Little Vietnam wasn’t always this bad. We’ll have to adjust the conditions’ score on the app.”

“A nasty equation,” he said, a numbersome fear in his eyes. “I’ll hit up our geeks on discord later tonight.”

“Why not do it yourself, like you used to?” I asked.

“Because freedom isn’t free.”

He sent my car into reverse and we dropped uncomfortably off the curb.

“We can talk about the biz tomorrow,” he said, settling the topic. Even by Duper Delivery standards, he seemed a bit rushed. I figured we could wait to see the tow truck finish up, but money calls. Money calls and you pick up.

I moved my ass around as we steered into a pointlessly flashing intersection and got going. The destination was still 30 minutes away. A long ride. Long enough to get a few things off my chest. Who knows, maybe it would help my heart as much as my head.

Will and I had similar stories. We both moved around a lot as kids, had mostly absent breadwinners and breadlosers, and got good grades without effort. In fact, we even looked about the same. The only difference was in blood. And not in the way you think.

Shitty roads aside, this ride would be as good as any. Because, even with tonight’s circumstances, I needed to breach a sensitive topic.

I cracked my knuckles to set the mood.

“Still thinking about pulling the trigger?”

He nodded, but I waited for more.

“You know how it is. Dad served. Grandpa served. There’s a lot of inertia.” He spoke like he was bound to a social gravity that reached through time. Like he believed convention mattered.

To be fair, we did a lot of dress-up and drills in JROTC.

So much it shows up in both my dreams and my nightmares.

I ruminated over the truth of the matter. How and why we got here.

“I guess everyone serves in the end. I just serve food and fast.” I folded my hands together. “And I need to know if my cofounder and principal partner is onboard for next year... or if I should plug in his replacement now.”

He took his eyes off the dark road in a fleeting sign of weakness.

“I don’t want you to quit before I can fire you,” I revealed. “Just an ego thing, they come with a lot of inertia.”

He pushed the gas like the speed of the car might speed up the conversation. We were beating 15 miles over until he let go and my gut resettled.

“I’m not abandoning the dream and I’m not abandoning you.” He cut cleanly to the heart of the matter. He then swiped the authentic moment away by awkwardly flicking a few screens on my wall of apps. “But… what I mean is — be honest Jack, Duper doesn’t need me.”

“But I need it?” I refolded my hands, not as composed as I’d like to be. “I’d rather not be alone with all this technology. We could be one patch away from Skynet.” I stared out the window. We just passed the NASA facility and were making our way into the true outskirts of East New Orleans. We traded historic homes and red lights for weeping willows and will-o-wisps.

Well, the will-o-wisps were usually the torches of cajun rednecks out on the marsh doing god knows wh—

“Technology is your safest bet.” Will interrupted my wandering thoughts. “It gives you needed control. You can program reliable, repeatable outcomes. You’re fortunate to live in an era like this.”

“Perhaps. But I think the human body is still the best tech out there. I’d take two top men over the two top machines any day.“

This is extra corny coming from me.

He took a hand off the wheel to halt the topic. “Don’t go full woo right now. I don’t want to hear it. Just be candid for once, you’re gonna miss me.”

“I don’t want to be the solo entrepreneur,” I admitted with questionable candor. “I don’t want to work 80 hours a week so I don’t have to work 40 — and not have a trusted cofounder to be my stress relief outlet.”

“Kinda gay when you put it like that. I thought we signed a charter of incorporation, not a marriage license.”

In a lighter situation, I would’ve laughed, but tonight, my only emote was antsy hands. This guy was like a brother growing up. I was a single child in a family of three I wished was only one. He was the family.

Is the family.

I ground my teeth. If he joined the military, we would be duly departed. I’d be left to my own devices. My business stayed stressful, not only at the start, but as it grew.

The only relief is your partner in profit. Your brother in battle.

“Of course, all startups are solitary enterprises,” I said, settling on a better truth. “But I don’t want to be a lone wolf on this. You know how predatory I can get without an arbitrator to keep me playing fair.”

“Yes, yes, I appreciate how sociopathic you can be. You say it like it’s a bad thing in the startup world. Worst-case scenario, you make more money when I’m gone.”

I grabbed his personal phone off the deck and began snooping.

“Hey—”

“I need someone to keep me grounded,” I said distractedly. “That’s the point.”

I found his dad’s number and debated what text I should send.

“Stop.” The car bucked as I stole his attention.

“I’ll tell him about your late night trips,” I said. “He should hear about it before you take a military drug test anywa—”

Will jerked the wheel as he grabbed the phone out of my hands. Or tried too. Instead it flipped and flopped off the armrest and fell to my feet.

He reached for it but I kicked it away. It lived in the unreachable underworld of my car seat now.

“Sorry pal, but you’re not fit to serve.” I gave him my most patronizing gleam. “Unless it’s fast food and a healthy profit.”

He said nothing as he returned his attention to the barren road. The twisting arms of warped tupelo trees were creeping over the faded white lines ahead. I half expected a warning sign about croc crossings to pop up. That’s one road bump you don’t come back down from.

We rode a while longer without conversation. The car leaned through deep bends as they came and went. Was this route normally uncomfortable, or is he pushing it? With my face pressed against the window, I couldn’t view the speedometer beyond the dash. I guess I didn’t need to look. I understood he was getting away from me in his own solemn way.

I refocused and considered another strategy. Perhaps I sell my algo on the web, cash out, and get Miss IRS off my tail before she comes for my meat. I had other ideas for making quick money. I always had ideas. Not to save the pelicans or end world hunger. But get rich quick ideas. I get there are no guarantees in life, and yet... If I don’t get rich quick, it won’t matter either way.

I had to live life fast. Anything less would be fatal.

“Okay. Then I’ll sign up too. Might get a smile out of my broken old man for once. And I can keep you out of trouble as we conquer the biggest monopoly on Earth.” That’s the monopoly on organized violence, in case you were wondering.

“You can’t serve — your doctors made that clear, and for good reason.”

“Documents can be forged,” I said. “Imagine I slip the front desk at Titan Health a few smackaroos… she has access to my electronic reco—”

“It’s amazing you haven’t figured this out yet.” I could hear Will squeeze and twist the leather of the wheel. “You ever wonder why you’re only drawn to the things that could kill you faster?”

“I have wondered this bef—”

“I always considered you the smarter one. But your applied intelligence needs a tune-up.”

“Not many six figure seniors in high school,” I reminded him. “I like to pretend it wasn’t all luck.”

“It won’t be luck when the flash of heavy equipment or a drill sergeant’s drastic demands set off your TC.”

Few could pronounce it and even fewer understood it, but everyone called my Tetragametic Chimerism ‘TC’ for short.

“Obviously I wouldn’t be a frontlines kinda guy. I’d be in the back somewhere, sending you all off to die.”

Will didn’t show any amusement. My satirical stand-up became more sit-down at this point.

“The attacks have fallen off this year,” I said, again with my hands tightly folded. “Thanks to my diet changes, I suspect I’ve been able to improve my blood stre—”

“There’s no improving it Jack. Not without replacing half the bones in your body.”

“Titan’s developing experimental surgeries to improve my blood type parity. The future is filled with unlimited possibilities.”

“No.” Will pushed the car harder, evidently ready to get the delivery over with. “You need to listen. Your body is at war with itself. You don’t need to fight another war overseas with me.”

“Please, Rambo.” I held up a hand to block his bullshit. “We’ll be at a desk, tucked away in some of the safest office spaces on Earth.”

“Nowhere is safe when even street lights can trigger an attack.”

How did he know it was the lights?

“It’s not about me or my weaknesses,” I said faintly. “It’s about us as a team. It might be a strange detour, but at least I’ll be able to keep you company.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” he replied, much louder. “And you can’t run your side gigs from a barracks. Every minute of your life is planned on base. You would hate it.”

Frustrated with his lack of optimism, I dug out what was once lost to the abyss. I carried his biggest secret, and I had long protected it against his parents and teachers.

I held up his recovered personal phone and grinned. Making a cute threat in my classically quiet way, I swiped around, knowing the irrefutable evidence sat in a certain app’s location history.

Even in the face of my unsubtle subtext, he didn’t back down.

“We all know you slip out at night too,” he said coolly.

We?

My face froze as my heart heated up.

That’s one of my core secrets. Only the dead were cleared to know that truth.

…and I have a very different definition of sli—

I snapped back to life as an explosion of lights blinded me. Five, in fact. The somber car ride broke loud as all five phones blew up, including the four on the dash. An amber alert, a call, or a severe weather warning, I honestly don’t remember. My memory recorded insufficiently. Whatever the mysterious pop-up meant to Will, I will never know.

Unfortunately, I did discover it meant enough for him to take his hands off the wheel to hide the notifications as fast as his fingers allowed.

Or at least I assumed he did, because my eyes veered to the road out of greater instinct.

Headlights had picked up a strip of odd color against the even canvas of paved grays. With a loud thump, we took full damage from the anomalous road bump.

“Wh—”

My jaw snapped shut as my body experienced an aborted liftoff. I already sensed the growing welt on the top of my head, one I knew was the price paid for a seatbelt too accustomed to fattened mini-fridges.

Will fared better as he brought the vehicle to a sliding stop.

“Did we pop the tires?” I blurted out in confusion. “Was that shit spiked, like with nails?”

I checked the rearview mirror, spotting a thin line of sharp material splashed in red light. It looked professionally done, akin to the spike strip the police might use. It would thoroughly shred the tires if we hit it again. But who set it up? I squinted but discerned little more.

Until a familiar distraction returned.

The wall of cellphones blew up again. And this time I glimpsed the reason why.

‘...exclusive egress?’

It’s all I read before Will grabbed every phone off the dash like a character out of an 80s ninja film.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. My amusement was gone, my concern arrived to fill the void.

He didn’t respond, but something else did. A set of headlights had flicked on, about 300 feet in front of us.

Bright, blue, and taller than your generic sedan, the latest problem popped onto my radar. With a brief shot of panic, my eyes tunneled as my senses begged for more information.

“It’s stopped,” Will said, confirming my hopes but confusing my brain further. In light of current events, I wasn’t sure if my wounded head was working quite right. What I gaped at made no sense.

“Why is it in our lane?” I asked.

Again, he stayed silent. I rubbed my scalp to push the pain out until I got frustrated with the lack of progress.

“Show me the message,” I said as I reached over to grab one from his glowing pile. “If you know what’s going on…”

He forced me away. “It’s coming.”

The truck? Was this psychopath trying to run us down?

I calmed myself as reason returned.

“Reverse, he might not see us. Drunk may–”

“Stay seated,” Will commanded. With a screech, the mysterious vehicle announced its attack. The speed, the steadiness… my hopes fell with every passing millisecond. The surreal serendipity of a game of chicken straight out of a Nascar driver’s night terror had snuck its way into my reality. This was not the moneyed gambit I originally had in mind. This roared of life or death. The 6000 pound weapon-on-wheels had made us the target. And we were the roadkill-to-be.

We had time to act, but less than you might think. From what I caught of the misty silhouette, it wasn’t an old pickup truck but a modern model hi-beamed to hell.

In seconds it would blind us. But just before an artificial enlightenment consumed our entire field of view, Will took action. He slammed on the gas and swerved into the other lane, the tail of our car struggling to follow along. He regained control as we hit 35.

Unfortunately we weren’t the only ones with steering wheels. The truck made a last second adjustment, careening towards us in a messy drift. Will took the only option left to us. He nudged my car off the road, putting us in the shallow slog of a marsh that consumed everything out here. I turned my head in the split-second dodge, getting an eye-full of hi-beams and the shocking absence of something every moving car came with.

There’s no driver.

I didn’t get the best picture at first, but even in the memory review, I glimpsed enough.

Both seats — empty?

Again, a surreal chill enveloped me. It’s Halloween… but a haunted car? That drives on its own?

I wasn’t superstitious, but I was a littlestitious.

Other matters took over my attention. The legs of bald cypress trees, the arms of willows, and other vegetative swamp creatures clawed the periphery of my Ford in our off-road moment. Fortunately, we had enough inertia to press through the gunk and still get back on to the road. He pulled into the right lane and returned to high speed. We were of the same mind; we needed to get the hell away from that horror on wheels.

“Did you see the inside?” I exclaimed rhetorically. “That truck moved on its own.”

“Self-driving,” he said tensely. “I noticed the experimental LIDAR package on the roof.”

“Of course…” I nodded at first and then shook my head. “No. No way — who’d program a truck to do that? It’d sink the manufacturer overnight. The story would be national news.” My mind wandered to the DRIVE soundtrack still looping in my car. “I’ve heard local stations pay nicely. I bet one of our phones could corroborate this.”

Will pushed his pile of phones off his seat and further away from me.

“I don’t want to pull a Nightcrawler, but I am gonna need one of those,” I said, my patience running really thin. “And I’m gonna need an explanation.”

Will ignored me. He had his eyes on the road. And then I did too.

We gawked at five bright lights heading straight towards us. Another idiot had his brights on, making the gloomy bend at a perilous angle, while a skinnier second was obscured by the blinding aura of way too many lumens. I didn’t have time to understand the fifth light, the unpaired one. Another motorcycle or even a fast walking hitchhiker I guessed, but it didn’t matter.

Because they came from the wrong lane. Again.

“BRAKES. TURN OFF-ROAD.” I gave the clearest instruction imaginable, but Will took none of it. He whipped his hands around the wheel, preparing to jerk the car out of the cajun Louisiana and into a spiceless afterlife.

Both lanes were congested with incoming cars. So the only path through is…

“DON’T! STOP,” I yelled. I was certain serving between lanes would be worse than swerving into the swamp.

And I was right. But not as right as I feared. We narrowly slithered in between both columns of certain death, dodging the high beams and the mystery beam alike. Insane luck or Will’s God-given talents, I couldn’t say for sure.

“God damn…” I celebrated angrily. Prematurely.

Because the lights came back. We had more incoming traffic.

Stricken with disbelief, I gripped my knees. This second set — third set — snuck behind the last. Apparently, the road was mind-breakingly busy. And we were still in motion at a brisk but wobbling high speed.

Will didn’t have control, not after the reckless squeeze he took us through. I couldn’t grab the wheel, it wouldn’t matter at this point. And worse, I couldn’t reach the brake pedal, which would’ve mattered. Before I issued a repeat order, this closing motorist… this drunken idiot… this act of God came upon us.

To brace for impact, I closed my eyes. My hearing recorded the story. I heard the rip of metal against the shell of our car. Next came the disequilibrium, another function of the human ear. The chassis pushed against my center, lifting me and the seat upwards and to the left. We propelled through the air. ‘He wore a seatbelt, which is why he survived taking a car to flight,’ is what the police would say about this situation. But it would be a lie.

For one of us, at least.

I squeezed my eyes tighter. I knew what was happening. My head went through birthing pains, but the rest of my body only felt the rush of cold air.

I had gone through the window like a dinosaur out of an egg. I probably screamed like one too.

Devilish or divine interference had sent my matter-bound destiny into a state of disarray. And soon, dismemberment. As soon as my body landed, I would die. In pieces.

And all flung about.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You never got struck by lightning twice in a row.

Anyone who did surely never lived to tell the tale.

But I wasn’t dead yet. Not completely.

Time slowed as I twirled. I entered that state of being.

I could see.

Through a blurry mosaic, I took in all the innocent things ready to break me in two. The surroundings were new, but the situation was not. The strange dream between life and death was just another out-of-body experience for me.

I had experienced my mortality many times before. But sensing the gateway, and passing through it, are not always the same. There was a thin portal of life below. A gap in the woody lattice of certain death. In my precious remaining moments, I stretched to fit as best I could. Like a key into a door few ever opened.

The nearer to death I was, the clearer the world became for me. In my dreamlike state, I witnessed the legs of a bald cypress reach out, as if to cartoonishly catch me. The dream faded as doubt crept in. And as soon as you doubt or judge, the out-of-body experience ends.

You return to the dark. Or death. And it would probably be the latter in this case.

With my supernatural sight gone, I prepared for impact.

I knew my heart would hit me as hard as the watery runway. A one-two punch. But I had been there before, many times before. If I died tonight, it would just be another night. But if I stayed dead, well… that would be the novel experience.

I landed feet first into the target, a pencil dive worthy of an Olympic medal. The marsh caught me quickly, slowing me down like a spoon through a milkshake. A net of knotted roots and wiry greens did the rest.

I was halfway in and fully at rest when I opened my eyes again. My eyelids, that is. My lower half registered cold, but functional and unbroken. The upper half, however. Hot. Really hot. But not from a wound. The flames of my Ford Explorer went taller than the marshy canopy itself.

I spent so much time worrying about me, I didn’t consider the other half I left behind.

I tried crawling out of the swampy safety net I found myself in, desperate to know the fate of my closest friend. I couldn’t see into the car from here. The swamp held me back as my heart raced ahead. It skipped a beat, and then a chord. Major palpitations came through. A level 1 warning sign. If I didn’t back down from the terror of the moment, I would reach the point of no return.

But I didn’t have time to worry about myself. Those were precious seconds wasted, which should be spent saving Will.

I slogged out of the mess and clomped to the asphalt. Burnt rubber and scorching air hit me in sensory waves of disease. Flames slowly consumed the engine before catching more. Soon it’d be eating itself alive from the inside out.

Right as I faced the driver’s seat, I steeled myself for a painful battle.

Removing my muddy shirt, I wrapped it around my hands to open the car door and save what was left of my friend. His hair burned. He was non-responsive. His skin moved as easily as his clothes did under my grip.

My brain went no further. The trauma began to tunnel me in. My eyes were fading spotlights, my field of view disappeared from my memory, my awareness.

So I breathed in and took back command.

I pulled him out, patted away what I could, and took his spot behind the steering wheel, rummaging for his medical kit. Titan Health left my family a few experimental first aids. I had two in my car. One for me and one for my best friend. He was the only non-family member who had the authorization. And only because we spent so much time together.

But my hands lost their sense of touch and the smoke stole my vision away. I coughed as I rummaged in the blinding, boiling heat. Only my face held a sense of touch, but I reached instinctively nevertheless.

No.

It’s not here.

I fit my hands back into the melting glove box.

Why would it not be here? Where the hel—what… the…

I lost focus as my temperature rose.

The bonfire was cooking my mind. My awareness faded further. The toxic fumes, the belching heat, and the trauma of too little time to process all that I lost.

My heart attacked me again. My left arm seized up and my blood ripped through my veins. I wouldn’t be able to hold off the panic. It’s too much…

He died surrounded by fire.

I was gonna die from the fire within.

The question was when. I wanted more. Nineteen years wasn’t enough. Maybe not in this car, maybe not in the fire. But if my heart didn’t slow down soon… I karate chopped the steering wheel, the only part of the combusted car in one piece. I rolled out of the scorching seat and onto the legs of my friend. They didn’t provide the resistance two muscular legs should’ve. It’s like I sunk into a pair of cheese sticks. From here, my eyes lined up with the fate of the other driver. Definitely not self-driving, not this time. The incoming, innocent idiot fared worse, or better, depending on your point of view. It was an instant death by decapitation.

The graphic scene got worse from there.

I didn’t expect the color. Dark reds, pinks, and blobs of orange. And the quantity. The air tasted awful; it smelled worse. Reeked. It was like a terror attack, but without the screen to protect me this time.

My mind spiraled as I tried to keep my stomach from making things any worse. My business was in pieces, my best friend was long gone, and his crime would never be forgiven. Not in the way it mattered.

He swerved into an avoidable accident. The car we hit had its emergency lights on. Its skid marks never left the shoulder. It all happened so fast…

And yet the proof was in the putrid pudding. We fired the shotgun in this murder scene.

The mess — our mess — was scattered across the dark road.

We lost everything.

Damn. My lungs clenched up, my brain followed. Everything went too fast. Tunnel vision choked my sight, dimmed my hearing, and rusted the gears in my head. It squeezed the life out of my senses. If I survived tonight, I knew I wouldn’t remember half of this shit. But I would remember the anger. The demon at my neck would let that much through. Rage burned with debtful clarity. A full-bodied possession. This is why I’m so particular. We should’ve avoided this. This is why people need to listen when I speak.

If only he... I had a piece of him on my elbow. It came with me as I got up. I tasted stomach acid as I held in the rest. I panted through it, but I was abnormal. For me, this bloody scene was digestible. I overcame it. What I worried about now was the next reaction.

His family’s reaction.

I envisioned them again in my mind’s eye. They came to me when our skin first connected. His younger sister… his mom…

Would it be worse if they knew this was his fault?

Tonight’s disaster might be a freak accident… But it didn’t change the fact at least one innocent person had painted the asphalt in terrible colors. Obviously, the victim’s family would be out for blood.

I cursed over and over until I fell to defeat.

I’d testify, maybe set the record straight.

Arguably, we weren’t at total fault.

…your honor.

I bit my lip, drawing blood. The truth was a mess. But people were drawn to clean answers. Who’s good, who’s bad. They feared the limbo state. The uncertainty of not having these clearly defined roles of victim, villain, and hero.

If something terrible happens, there has to be a villain.

A black box to store all the trauma.

And worse, even if we pawned the responsibility away to those street racers or the self-driving skynet, Will’s memory would carry the wound. In all likelihood, it would fester and spread the pain to his family, my family. A heavy burden they didn’t deserve to bear.

If anyone can handle death, it’d be me.

I could handle all of it.

I had less to lose in the tradeoff. Unlike his, my household wasn’t whole and for good reason. I could be the black sheep that smeared all this horror onto the asphalt.

I could turn myself in.

The last set of cars, which we narrowly dodged, had stopped several hundred feet away. Apparently, they caught wind. The police will be here soon.

Yet…

My friend was dead, but his indomitable confidence stayed near, as if it had never left my side.

If Will was here… still here.

What would he do?

I looked back again. The last wave of near misses had not moved from their position. Far from street racing Subarus, these black SUVs swallowed all ambient light as they clogged the tail end of the road. Slow-moving figures blotted in and out of their headlights.

Despite the blazing bonfire from my car, these distant onlookers had no interest in rescuing me from this emergency.

I’d never been in a situation like this before, but I knew something was off.

No tragic tale cursed this road, thousands of people took it every day. Yet somehow we made the wrong turn at the wrong time.

Everything about tonight is wrong.

But that was a mystery for tomorrow.

Tonight — right now… I have a life-changing choice to make.

I looked at the cooked corpse. I should be mourning at this moment, but context ruined everything. He couldn’t drive straight, and now I couldn’t think straight. Another wave of agonizing disorder rang through my body. The physical shaking came next. I barely held on to my salvaged phone as I haphazardly scrolled through apps, looking for some kind of way out. I didn’t process any of the words or images.

Fortunately, I had survived panic attacks before, though never easily. The thoughts sneak through a hole in your shields. A trivial puncture. And through the puncture, fears flood in. They can eventually rip you a new one. It’s overwhelming, especially for me. You lose control of your brain and your physiology responds accordingly. It completely shuts you down. And then you autonomically reach for the emergency switch. If I don’t pull that switch before it reaches my heart…

I knew I had moments to make a decision. Stay or run. A normal person would stay, become the truth in the debris of confusion. But the truth was painful. It would be too painful for his loved ones. It had to be concealed, delayed… and it needed someone to cover it up. Someone born for a moment like this.

There was no societal savior in this equation. But if my terminal illness had me exit the stage either way, then I’d aim for the more profitable — principled outcome.

If it’s a higher purpose… and one weighted against my wasted life?

That’d be a good tradeoff.

I pulled my hair. I wasn’t ready.

I’m getting too emotional… as if I want to make it easier for my body to take me. As if my mind was trying to outsmart me, a traitor amongst my biological organization.

My heart beat to a dangerous crescendo. It wasn’t built for nights like these.

The facts are… the truth is...

Right.

If I stayed, the arrest might not just send me to jail.

It would be a life sentence cut short.

A hospital visit too late.

A waste.

So I had to escape, to go on the run. My first hit-and-run.

It would kill — save — two birds with one stone. I could undo what was done.

Somehow, somewhere...

Someone would understand.

I mean, I understood. I’m afraid. Fuck this.

Who isn’t afraid of dying a useless death?

The primal fires danced before me, trying their hardest to send me into a state of empty trance. As if I’d daydream in a moment like this. As if… my friend was gone, gone like embers in the wind.

This tragedy I would never forget.

So why does it feel like I’ve been here before?

The yellowed inferno grew against the dark forest chassis of my former Explorer. The colors blended as I hallucinated a flame turned blue. A mirage, surely born of the intense heat and the haze of my thoughts, whispered secrets to me, its voice like the distant echo of a forgotten melody. These weren’t the snapping calls of sirens, but the skinder of malevolent spirits trapped within the shimmering dance of light and shadow.

I took a breath in and refound myself, yet the fantasy remained. Furthermore, their ethereal murmurs took on meaning. The confusion spoke of clarity.

‘It’s not real.’

This spectacle showed me things that weren’t there.

And again, the faces said, ‘it’s not real.’

I know, I reminded myself. Little is.

The car, the person, the game, and the terror of losing it all. It’s all made up in the end, make-believe, and I got lost in the frightening performance.

My heart agreed as my blood relaxed.

Reason came to me at last, and I selected the offering that benefited me best. The one I knew I’d make all along. My fear receded, the practiced effort of a thousand hours spent mastering my hypervigilant mind after that shocking diagnosis so long ago.

It’s just a playground. It’s just playing pretend…

A dangerous dream.

The scientific composition of reality didn’t matter. The objective truth was overrated in the equation. All that mattered was what I could trick my mind into. If I defanged this disaster, if I pulled the mask away — made it fake… if I made it full of future potential instead. If I believed. I could live.

The future never ran out of doorways. Out there was another adventure. Even if I only lived one more day. Even then… I pulled my mind back. Even then, another doorway.

Grimly delighted, I took a big breath in.

I was a fool, but I was alive.

The Jeep we struck was still running. The engine sounded hot. Not as hot as my car. But it would serve me. I stole another glance at the other party behind the wheel. I would’ve felt remorse for him if it served me at the moment.

I’m not running from responsibility.

I’m no coward.

But I’ll play one if it benefits me.

“Tonight will be a ride home to remember.” I held the deformed hand of my burned brother in a final farewell. I was the one meant to go home early, but he chickened out first.

“We’ll be cowards together.”

My dying Ford Explorer popped painfully as I prepared to take one last memory with me. I looked at Will with all the unconditional love I could muster as I imprinted his charred face to memory.

“Least I’m not the ugly one anymore,” I said through burning tears.

Amongst the dying past and the smoldering present, I made a promise to myself and to the Will that endured. I told him I wouldn’t let death defeat me. Not his, not anyone’s.

Whatever it takes. Whatever follows. I promised we would always reach for another door. Another dawn.

Even if this night never ends.

We’ll find daylight.