Chapter Text
You share Larry’s room with him. He and Lisa scramble to make up a bed for you—an air mattress fitted with as many spare blankets and pillows as they could spare. Sal helps set up too; he arranges your bag and unpacks some of your tech, stacking video game systems and laying out your CD collection in a careful line. They do everything they can to make you feel at home, but by the time night finally falls, you can’t sleep. Sal went back to his own apartment shortly before dinner, Lisa’s been in bed since just after and Larry passed out halfway into watching E.T, snoring away.
There’s too much rattling in your brain to let you sleep. How does any teenager come to terms with the idea of alternate realities, much less the power to see the versions of themselves? You aren’t even sure if that’s what you’d call this ability. You sit up, sheets pooling at your waist, and stare into the darkness of the room. You’re not going to bed any time soon and decide to get a bit of fresh air. Taking care not to wake Larry, you slip out of the basement door as quiet as can be, making the short walk to rest against the outer wall of the apartments.
It’s still bitterly cold, the harsh temperature of early spring making your cheeks ache. You stare into the vast field before you, eyes moving up the single, gnarled tree and to Larry’s treehouse. He hasn’t invited you up yet and you’re not going to press him about it. You know better than most that, sometimes, it’s nice to have somewhere that’s just for you.
Your back slides against the wall and you slump down onto the ground, drawing your legs up to your chest. You’re so unsure of yourself. Of everything. You twist your hand around to stare at your torn knuckles once more, tracing each broken groove of skin with a frown. The visions of ‘you’ had long abated, but the knowledge that you could reach for them is still there in the back of your mind, lurking and festering.
You can feel the ripple in the air around you as something shifts once again. When you lower your hand, you aren’t surprised at all to see Nora kneeling in front of you, her head resting against her knees. “Hi.” She greets, guiltily trailing her fingers along her pant leg. She has the decency to appear somber, at least. “You doing okay?”
“I’m alive.” Is what you decide to say in response. “Which is more than I can say for most of the others.”
Nora looks away and sinks her teeth into the fat of her lower lip. “It’s never easy, seeing the what-ifs.” She says after a sullen silence. “I wasn’t expecting you to be able to do all of this so early.”
Your ub at your eyes. You’ve already got a throbbing headache and you’re barely three sentences in with the woman. “I need you to explain some things.” You look to Nora, unable to keep the harshness from your tone. “And I need you to be the least cryptic you’ve ever been.”
She grins. “That won’t be easy.”
At least she talks to you, waiting patiently for you to finish throwing demands and questions at her before she speaks. ‘You’ exist across multiple realities–as do all of your friends, family, everyone who’s ever existed or will exist ever. ‘You’ always have this strange capability, like Nora and, well, you’re not sure who because Nora cuts herself off before saying their name. Most versions of ‘you’ die when they move to Nockfell. The ones that don’t die live utterly boring, mundane lives in other places around the world. The few that survive Nockfell turn into something worse, but you haven’t met any of the survivors.
Not yet.
What makes you different is a result of a spectrum of chance and fate. You’re a special little anomaly who can dip between realities, as you’d done once before, but you’ve accomplished this earlier than your doppelgangers. As Nora had once said, you’re new; something that hasn’t been seen before.
“You’re extraordinary,” Nora pats your knee. “If you survive here, who knows what you’ll be capable of.”
“Does something bad happen?” You ask next. The way Nora freezes tells you more than you needed to know. “Right. Okay. When?”
She blinks at you and you’re forced to elaborate, clutching at the fabric of your pajama pants. “When does the bad thing happen?”
“I can’t tell you that.” She’s growing exasperated, nails drumming along her thigh. “You ask me that every time, but the answer never changes.”
You mull over it for a moment. You’d read enough childhood adventure books to know that sometimes the best way was to rephrase the question to get a proper answer. “... Then can you tell me what happens?”
Nora pauses. You grin at her, showing all of your teeth. “Have I ever asked that before?”
“No.”
“Can you answer me?”
She rubs at her chin and her eyes veer off to an empty point next to the apartment. The drumming on her knee intensifies. “Look. There is so much going on here.” She says, rocking back on her haunches. “More than I can explain in a lifetime. But there’s something evil in Nockfell, and especially here in these apartments. More than just that red-eyed shadow.” She takes your hands in hers and stares at you.
Her eyes are dark, but instead of being void-like, you think you can see glimmers of fractured light deep in the shadows. “You shouldn’t stay here for too long, or you won’t be able to leave.”
Your mouth runs dry. Your mind instantly turns to your friends that live within the apartments’ walls. Chug, Todd, Lary, Sal—them, their families, are they in danger too? Why are you the only one Nora’s bothering to warn?
Vividly reminded of Mrs. Rosenberg’s ominous words about saving people, you feel a familiar cold dread sink low in your stomach. It feels like—the literal weight of responsibilities on your shoulders.
Nora pats your arm and the action draws you out from your own thoughts. “I know it’s a lot.” She speaks soft and earnestly. “And it’s practically impossible to explain. I wasn’t expecting you to start off so young this time around.”
“The other versions of me.” You clench your hands and feel your knuckles shift painfully. “Were their abilities just like mine?”
Nora glances at your hands and pries your fingers from cutting into your palm. “Some did. But they didn’t have it at the same scale and by the time they found out, it was too late.”
Nora vanishes after a few more awkward minutes, as she is wont to do. You don’t go back inside just yet. It feels like you need time to just think about what you know about this situation. Which, unfortunately, isn’t much. Anxiety gnaws at the back of your mind once again–when you hear footsteps approaching, you whip around and go to yell at Nora that enough is enough for one night…
… And find Sally Face staring back at you, his hands raised up as if to ward off the punch you were about to throw at him. “Hey.” He’s wearing his own pajamas, a black frayed sweater and baggy PJ pants decorated with a familiar hockey mask.
“Jesus, Sal. Don’t sneak up on me like that.” You lower your fist, not quite sure when you had raised it to begin with. “What are you doing up? It’s late as hell.”
“Same reason as you, probably.” Sal settles next to you, your hips almost touching as he stretches his legs out on the grass and grabs your hand, intertwining your fingers in short order. Part of you is a little uncomfortable with how easily he invades your personal bubble, but you squeeze his hand until your anxious thoughts quiet down. “Too much on my mind. I thought you might be out here, so I came to visit.”
“Ten points for you then.” You grumble, crossing your free arm under your knees. “Doesn’t help that Larry snores like a gravel train, either.”
Sal’s eyes squint behind the shadows of his mask and you know he’s smiling. “It’s white noise for me now, personally.”
You smile back, even if it’s just the barest uptick of your lips. “So, what, you wandered out to check on me? What if I wasn’t up?””
“Huh.” He taps his index finger against his mask’s lips. “I guess I would’ve… Mm, yeah, would’ve had to break in.” His voice is soft but playful’. His eyes squint up at you once more when you bark out a laugh, giving your hand an accompanying squeeze.
“Oh, right, you were definitely going to break into Larry’s room to see me.” Sarcasm drips off of your every word and you jam your shoulder against his, jostling the teenager. “Get real, Sally Face.”
Sal laughs, bringing his free hand to rest over his heart dramatically. “I’m hurt! You don’t think I’d commit breaking and entering into my best friend’s room for you?”
This is nice. The teasing, the laughter, the meaningless banter and non-paranormal talk. You decide you want to stop thinking about the awful things in the world for just a minute. You want to be a teenager–just a regular kid for the night. You turn and lock your arms around Sal’s neck, dragging him into an impromptu headlock with little but a startled grunt from him.
“Nope.” You struggle to hold him, the boy wriggling valiantly in your grasp, kicking his legs and tossing his head with little raspy giggles. “I think you’d sneak into Larry’s room just for the sake of being weird. Don’t use me as an excuse.”
Sal plants his heels into the ground and pushes his full weight backwards, sending you both rolling. His legs bicycle in the air, attempting to right himself, but you simply toss yourself with him in your grip. The concrete is unpleasant on your back but you’re soon enough tumbling onto soft lawn, the blades of grass tickling your ears and jaw.
When you finally come to a stop, you easily pin Sal down, your thighs clamped around his waist to keep yourself steady and keep him from moving. You keep your hands to yourself, planted on your hips as you hover victoriously over him, your own laughter dying out as Sal’s eyes stare at you from the grass, wide and oh-so-bright. “Got you.” Is all you say as you plant your hands on his thin shoulders.
This thing between you two is still so new and fresh, you’re not quite sure where your boundaries lie, nor Sal’s.
He takes the initiative for you. His hands skirt innocently up your hips and to your sides, fingers clutching at the fabric of your shirt. “Yeah.” He agrees. “You got me.”
There’s a lot to those words. You’re not an idiot. You can read the meaning behind them, understand the heavier cadence to Sal’s words. You drop your head and you can hear his breath catch. It’s cute. You lean in and carefully press a chaste kiss to the cold porcelain mouth of his mask. It’s kind of like kissing a counter; hard, immovable, lifeless.
There’s a beat and, with an aggrieved noise only a teenager could manage, Sal pushes against your weight just enough to lift his back up off the ground. You’re not trying to keep him pinned, and admittedly you’re curious as to why he’s squirming like a worm on a hook, so you lean your weight back to give him breathing room.
His hands reluctantly part from your waist to slip behind his head, fumbling with the heavy straps of his prosthetic. You’re about to ask him what he’s doing and if he needs help when you hear the soft, telltale click of a latch being opened. The lower strap of the mask falls free, the ends dangling below his ears for you to see, and that’s enough for Sal.
He grabs the bottom of his mask and raises it, letting it prop up on the back of his skull as his eyes meet yours. You don’t flinch and don’t look away, simply tracing the lines of his face you’ve yet to memorize. He must make a decision about something, because one hand reaches out to fist in the front of your shirt, pulling you down for a proper kiss. You want to laugh because it’s just so damn cute, how frustrated he got, but you don’t want to upset him or send the wrong message.
Instead, you thread your fingers into Sal’s pretty blue hair and close your eyes to the world. Just for a few hours, you can be a normal teenager, kissing your boyfriend, and all is right in the world.