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DAY 3
As much as Josh hated the goo, he really wished he was still floating in that weird sour vat. The weightlessness and the sensation of numbness all over his body was much preferable to this.
Two days already he'd been through this.
He’d tried to get off the Hell-evator, was downed immediately, then got in the goo and argued with the voice in his head for a while.
After the medi-vat, though, after-- that was when the real hell of it all reemerged as he had to work to rehabilitate the injured body part in time for tomorrow's episode of the Diecathlon.
The violent contractions from the drop-down taser net tore muscles and ligaments in both his arms and legs.
Walking in circles like a mule after the Avatar arrow to his shoulder on day one had been bad enough. The body suit’s exoskeleton had forcefully manipulated his freshly healed shoulder, excruciatingly re-training him how to use his arm for most of the day.
And that fucking glass dome cage. At first, he hadn’t understood why it was called a rehab ‘zoo’, but he more than understood it now.
The couple of spectators the first day had turned into a good handful, and that handful had grown into a small crowd of fascinated onlookers by day three. Watching, cheering, laughing as he struggled to move.
With the amount of damage the taser net caused today, it was all Josh could do to lay on his back and let the exoskeleton jerk his limbs around.
Prolonged electrocution wasn’t punishment enough, no, he had to lie there and let the nanobots work on repairing the tissues. Had to put in the work into rehabilitating the limbs.
All while being watched.
Why couldn’t the magic healing goo work the way it did in movies? It was 3491, how was proper magical healing not a thing yet? He should’ve just been able to get hurt, get in the goo, and be better.
Fuck Susan Saint Jackalope and his 2.5 billion little robot knives, and fuck the Network. Fuck the entertainment division of the government as a whole.
He hadn’t even done anything wrong besides save this shit timeline… and violate the Santa Clarita time code for eleven repeated seconds. Plus, there was the whole terrorism thing, and killing untold trillions in Grazier’s Triangle, and accidentally helping Hitler on four separate occasions, and disproving evolution, as well as various other time crimes-- but everything he’d done was for a good cause.
Everything he did was to save humanity. Or, to save whatever was closest to humans at this point.
Josh hissed, cussing a blue streak when the repetitive patterns of the exoskeleton suddenly changed. Apparently, whoever was controlling the thing decided Josh was ready for a little more intensity.
Couldn’t they at least give him painkillers? Slather a little bit of the goo on him so that the physical therapy from hell didn’t hurt so much?
Josh turned his eyes toward the glass.
In addition to the spectators, two Network security guards stood at the edge of the cage in their sparkly suits and watched him passively. The addition seemed pointless-- as if they thought he was going to escape somehow-- he couldn’t even sit up yet.
Susan had flashed that stupid little chart of his at him half an hour ago. Infant. That was where he placed Josh.
He was starting to feel like one. Or like a turtle flipped on his back, trying desperately to right himself again before some bird swooped down and took off with him.
There were no breaks in the DRZ. There was no rest and no relief. Just him, billions of nanobots, the physical therapy exoskeleton, and the crowd. He couldn’t even count on Wolf or Tiger to come save him. Fucking memory wiping Network bastards.
It hurt. Hurt more than the taser net itself did-- he could barely even remember the electrocution. It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t right.
Why did every future suck so much? The Network would have Josh believe it was because he fucked it up, but even the timelines that he hadn’t had anything to do with time travel sucked to be in.
Even in a world where he never played Biotic Wars, everything was horrible. Plus he’d already accidentally killed himself in that timeline, so what did it even matter?
At this point, Josh was done hoping for a future that wasn’t fucking awful. All he wanted was to be able to sit up without his muscles screaming in pain. He wanted to lay still for a moment and not have the exoskeleton forcing him to move. He just wanted the crowd and Network security to go away so he could be miserable in peace.
He wanted to go home.
1985 didn’t sound so bad. Maybe he could just spend the rest of his life hanging out with the younger version of his parents and uncle Barry. Not calling them ‘mom' or ‘dad’ would take some getting used to, but as long as he didn’t Back to the Future himself that would be a nice, easy time to live in.
Or, Tiger had said some good things about the 1940s. Maybe he could join Ty-Anne, living with the small Kronish family. It’d be a simple life. Quiet.
Wolf’s time in the 1990s sounded terrible and Josh’s experiences with him in the NAG in 2162 were agony. But maybe if he jumped past the five years of being a smasher, he could skip right to the good parts of the NAG. Work in the community with Wolf, join a cluster, enjoy sowing every week.
None of those places or times were home, but if he couldn’t go back to his own, then surely he could make a home in one of them.
He just wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
Hours passed. And in that time, he got no relief. Occasionally, Network security would come into the cage and allow him some water, but the repetitive motions of the exoskeleton never ceased.
He was forced to his feet sooner than he felt ready. Two bars were set up in the enclosure for him to hold onto as he hobbled on burning legs. His arms ached. There was no fucking way the muscle tears were healed enough yet for him to be moving like this.
But they needed him better by tomorrow. If that meant expediting his recovery past the point his body should reasonably be expected to endure, then that was what they were going to do.
This show was meant to kill him. Punish him for the crime of saving humanity.
In the first two days, when the damage had been pretty localized, he was done in the DRZ by sundown, back in the greenroom with Wolf and Tiger where they stayed until morning.
But now, the sun was going down, and he was still just barely trudging along.
Josh stumbled over his foot, catching himself on the bars. The spectators cheered as he righted himself-- some of them laughed. Cell phones weren’t really a thing in 3491 apparently, but Josh guessed whatever those weird devices some people had were probably the equivalent. Pointed at him, likely recording.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” he shouted at them. His arms trembled, legs wobbly as he shuffled forward another half-step. “Fucking go home!”
Well into the night Josh was forced to move.
People came and went, ogling at his progress. There were some repeat faces that had been there the first two days, or that had been there earlier that morning and were visiting again just to check up on him. To marvel at the fact that he was still going.
Josh couldn’t see the stars from his cage; even though it was glass, there was too much light pollution to see anything in the night sky but the moon, and even that looked dull and washed out.
The only thing for him to do was hurt. Hurt and people-watch the crowd right back.
The casual way in which they stared at him was unnerving. They chatted with each other, sometimes clapping when he took a step that didn’t look as miserably effortful as it had a few hours ago. Some people were sitting. They’d brought bag chairs to sit and observe. Shared snacks back and forth with each other
It really was a fucking zoo.
If the cage hadn’t been a complete dome, Josh could just imagine maybe some of those people trying to toss food into his enclosure. Imagined Network security tapping a sign telling the public not to feed the contestants.
One girl had brought a sign. It was clearly homemade, big colorful bubble letters stood out against an equally as colorful piece of posterboard paper.
‘You can do it Josh!’
Part of him wanted to tell her to fuck off. He just wanted to sleep. He was walking several steps at a time, but he was absolutely exhausted. The encouraging sign felt like just as much of a mockery as the whole rest of his PT regime had.
But… she shook the sign at his cage, waving enthusiastically when she realized his eyes were on her. Her huge grin was genuine.
“Yeah,” Josh breathed to himself. “I can do this. I can do it.”
He nodded at the girl who immediately turned to her friend, smacking her on the arm excitedly and pointing at Josh, babbling something with that same huge grin. She took out her weird not-a-phone device to get pictures.
Just an animal in a zoo. And a girl, who got excited when a little bird cocked its head at her.
---
DAY 4
“Please, I just want to sleep!” Josh begged up at the ceiling of his cage. “Susan!”
It was dark out already, and he hadn’t even managed to stand up yet.
Who knew a cloud of some cocktail of neurotoxins to the face could do so much damage to the human body? The goo had taken care of the brain fuckery, but his body was lagging behind on the recovery.
“I just want to sleep.”
Maybe if they’d let him get some rest last night after the taser net, he wouldn’t have been so fucking stupid in the Death Arena this morning.
Seriously, who squeezed a stress ball thrown to them in a place literally called the Death Arena?
The whole place was designed to hurt, maim, and kill. They had torture machines designed by Dr. Josef Mengele, bioengineered mythical beasts, gigantic Arachno-bots, and Pete.
The Diecathlon was in its centennial season; they’d been doing this long enough they knew how to break people down in the worst ways possible.
And yet, Josh caught the stress ball and immediately squeezed it right by his face.
“Susan,” he shouted again, “get your big fuckass hologram face in here!”
There was no reply. Susan was probably at home, asleep or spending time with his robot wife and kid. Relaxing. Not in pain. Not being watched by a crowd of people that had grown since yesterday.
‘You can do it’ girl was there, shaking her sign at him and shouting. She gestured at him every time he looked over, motioning for him to get up.
“If I could stand, I would! You get sprayed in the face with neurotoxins then we’ll see how easily you fucking get up!”
Josh was pretty sure the people outside of his cage couldn’t hear anything he was saying. They never responded to him-- or, if they did, Josh couldn’t hear them. But he doubted it; they never really seemed to react to his words.
They just showed up to watch him struggle and cuss and cry.
“I need to sleep, Susan, please.”
He was calling out to no one. Even if Susan was watching, he had absolutely no motivation to show mercy on Josh.
Josh craned his neck to look toward Network security the best he could, exoskeleton making it hard to do much other than the motions it dictated.
“Please,” he called to them, “I know you can hear me. I’m so tired. Please, help me, I’m begging you.”
Their eyes met his. Proof they could hear him through their little earpieces, but neither made a move to do anything. They simply stood still as statues outside of the cage, watching in.
“Fuck you guys,” Josh spat. One of the security guards raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? You hear me you little fuckers? Fuck you and your stupid fucking tufts of red hair and you fucking sparkly suits and shit! I just want to sleep, fuck you!” When nothing changed, Josh let his head drop back down into the sand. “Fuck you guys,” he muttered at the night sky, exhausted, defeated, still moving with the motions of the exoskeleton. “Fuck you.”
One of the security guards reached for his earpiece and said something. Josh couldn’t hear a word of it, but suddenly the exoskeleton changed its patterns.
“Stop,” he moaned. The exoskeleton pushed him up on his elbows. Every muscle lit up with starbursts of pain that raced through his body. “Please stop.” But the thing wasn’t done.
Josh kept moving, easing up to a sitting position that made tears spring to his eyes. Through the glass, the crowd roared. Incomprehensible cheers and clapping and shouting overlapped with his own noises of pain.
You can do it Josh! You can do it Josh!
“Please don’t make me. I can’t get up-- please.”
His heart pounded in his chest, breaths puffing out in hurt, uneven bursts. He imagined this was what the taser net probably felt like when he was on the ground convulsing. Sharp, stabbing pain that radiated from everywhere and refused to relent as his body moved unwillingly.
He needed to be fully rehabilitated by morning for the Diecathlon.
Death by entertainment sounded so stupid when he got the sentence, but this was hell. Whatever torture Stu had planned for him in MARS was nothing compared to this.
The NAG and the smash pit were nothing. The Pointed Circle killing him fifty-nine times was nothing. The fear while sliding down into the possum incinerator was nothing. Drowning in the specimen well in the James Cameron Compound was nothing.
Josh was nothing.
There was only pain and sleeplessness and the fucking rehab zoo.
---
DAY 7
Josh spent the entire elevator ride trying to re-explain the situation to Tiger and Wolf. This was the only place that was safe from the prying eyes of the Network. The only place they could plan their escape.
They didn’t listen to him. They never listened to him. And why would they? To them, it was still day one.
When the elevator door rose up, Tiger and Wolf ran out into the Death Arena, ready to fight. And when Josh went to follow after them, he made it about two steps off the elevator. Something gave way about half an inch underfoot like a pressure plate.
A metallic clank-snap hit his ears.
Josh was on the ground before he even registered the pain in his leg. His throat raw before his shrieking his hit ears.
He sucked in a huge breath. Gasped desperately as he clutched at his thigh, much higher than the thing clamped around his shin.
A bear trap-- no, not a bear trap, but something that looked a hell of a lot like one.
Metal jaws were clamped around his leg, that much he knew. Josh scrubbed at blurry, wet eyes. He blinked a few times but the blurriness remained.
In place of metal teeth, there were-- Josh squinted-- what in the fuck even was that? Fingers dug into the meat of his thigh and he rubbed at his eyes again, cheeks wet and salty.
“Uhhugh-- fuck.” Every slight movement dug the trap further into his leg.
Not a bear trap. Josh hiccupped and tried again to get his eyes to focus. In the place of teeth, there were metal protrusions that looked almost like scorpion tails. It was hard to tell exactly, not just because of the blood oozing out and the way his vision refused to cooperate, but because when the trap clamped shut, the ends of the protrusions sunk into his leg like little needles.
A puddle of red was growing steadily under his leg. The sound of cheering from the stadium became a little more distant.
Josh pressed a hand flat against the floor, leaning heavily to keep himself sitting upright. His other hand kept up the death grip at his thigh. A moan spilled out of his mouth, the sound vibrating over numb lips.
It wasn’t just his lips, though, his injured leg was actually starting to feel surprisingly numb-- a stark contrast from the white hot pain from mere moments ago. Josh swallowed hard and cleared his throat.
Breathing was weird. It sort of reminded him of eating the all-nut in the NAG’s smash pit and in the Mons.
Wetness leaked steadily from his eyes, but Josh scrunched up his face in confusion. The stadium was cheering in slow motion and spit dribbled from his lips.
Josh reached a hand up to prod at his numb face, eyes drooping shut and sliding back open sluggishly.
“Whh’the fuck…?” His tongue was thick. Clumsy.
Josh’s eyes traveled back to the wound. Amidst the blood, dark streaking lines traveled up his leg-- up through his veins-- from the little metal scorpion wounds. The bear trap needles. The fucking whatever it was.
He cleared his throat again, breathing labored as his chest grew tight, heavy. He blinked rapidly.
The Death Arena was a smear of bright orange from the fires, lazer lights, and rotating metal machinery. He’d completely lost sight of Tiger and Wolf. He wouldn’t have been able to recognize them even if he could see them.
The stadium noises and sounds of the untold horrors scattered through the Death Arena were all blurred together, overlapped with his own ragged breaths.
Something was wrong-- something was really wrong.
Josh blinked up at the ceiling of the arena. He didn’t remember falling onto his back. He could barely twitch a numb finger, tingling sensations racing up his arm when he tried to move.
His eyes slid closed as he strained for a full breath.
Eyelids fluttered open at a surge of noise from the crowd. Above him, two angels with red tufts in their hair were looking down at him talking into their earpieces. Two Network security guards.
“H’p,” he croaked.
He wasn’t ready to die yet. Not here-- not like this.
---
There had been enough bio-enhanced scorpion venom in his system that Josh slept through pretty much the entire time he was immersed in the medi-vat goo. Or maybe getting barely any sleep in the past week was catching up to him.
By the time he was awake and aware enough to move to the rehab zoo, the blissful numbness of the goo had already worn off.
Josh clutched the metal bars, taking a step forward with his good leg and adjusting his grip. His other leg trailed behind, limping forward in a sad imitation of a step. The exoskeleton corrected the movement, forcing Josh to bend at the knee and ankle as he dragged the limb along.
He grit his teeth, taking another step and struggling against the pain.
His crowd of spectators was especially excited today. Maybe it was because he had use of his arms today, so he could wave back at them for once.
‘You can do it’ girl was missing today. Oddly, a vague feeling of missing her settled in his chest. There were plenty of other people there, cheering and waving at him, and more signs were popping up.
‘Free Octopus Pete’ was one of the first ones after ‘You can do it Josh!’ had appeared.
Josh guessed she was pretty passionate about Pete’s involvement in the Death Arena. Poor guy wasn’t there by choice either, so it made sense. Josh kind of wished someone would protest at the rehab zoo for his freedom, but whatever.
There were also team signs for each of the three of them, Tiger, Wolf, and Josh.
Josh didn’t realize they were competing against each other; he’d just assumed it was the three of them versus the arena.
Were there points or something he wasn’t aware of or was this more of a team Edward versus team Jacob thing? Did Twilight even exist in this timeline? If it did, would 3491 remember it?
One sign read: ‘Josh I want your DNA for my hypersac!’
He had no fucking clue what that meant, and he didn’t want to know, but it sounded sexual. Did that chick want to have his babies?
That was flattering. Weird, considering her only exposure to him was seeing him get horrifically injured in the Death Arena then struggle to rehabilitate his body in the DRZ, but flattering.
Josh was pulled from his thoughts when the door to his enclosure hissed, popping and swinging open.
He let himself hope for a few seconds that Network security was bringing him water. Instead, Tiger entered the dome. Her uniform was stained with blood and black ooze, and she was holding another one of her trophies under her arm.
“Tiger?” The surprise in his voice was poorly-veiled. “What are you doing here?”
“Susan said we could come over here with security if we wanted.”
That was different; neither she nor Wolf had visited on any of the other days. “Has that been-- have you been allowed to do that this whole time?”
“What do you mean? We’ve only been here a day. Anyways, you were completely out of it after the game. Figured I’d come over and see if you were still alive.”
“Oh,” Josh blinked, surprised. “Yeah, still alive. That’s really nice of you to check, actually. Thanks, I… that means a lot, Tiger.”
“Yeah,” Tiger nodded, lips pressed tight as she eyed him up and down, “already starting to regret it. This is sad. I’m sad for you.”
“Wow. Okay.”
“I, uh,” she shifted the thing under her arm for him to see, showing off a hunk of spiked metal hanging from a chain. “I took the scorpion jaw trap that got you today and used it as a flail. I thought seeing it all bent and fucked up might, you know, cheer you up a little.”
“Is that my blood on it?”
Tiger inspected the makeshift flail. “A little. Most of it is from that ET looking motherfucker whose brains I bashed in.”
“I don’t know how to respond to that, but I guess it’s the thought that counts. So, thanks..? I think?”
“Yeah, don’t mention it.”
“Okay.” He didn’t plan on bringing it up again. By tomorrow, she wouldn’t even remember it anyway. “Where’s Wolf?”
“Victor’s lounge. I’d invite you back there once you finish with…” she gestured at his pained limp, “whatever you’re doing. But it’s--”
“Victors only. I know.”
“How do you know that? You were unconscious when Susan told us about it.”
Maybe because he’d been denied entry from the lounge for the whole week on the basis that he was a fucking loser.
“It’s called the victor’s lounge. It seems intuitive,” he said.
“You don’t strike me as someone with a lot of common sense.”
“All right-- did you come here to cheer me up or make fun of me?”
Tiger shrugged. “A little of both,” she said, grinning. “I’ll tell Wolf you’re still alive. Maybe once you’re out of here we’ll sneak you some of the foodcubes from the victor’s lounge. They have more of that badass dessert salad from Damnation Island.”
Foodcubes sounded so incredible right now. Almost as good as a solid night’s sleep or a fucking bullet to the brain did. Were there regular guns in the Death Arena? Probably not. That kind of swift death seemed too merciful.
Josh couldn’t keep the exhaustion out of his voice. “Sounds great.”
“You’re really bumming me out so,” Tiger pointed her thumb behind her at the door, "I'm gonna go back now. I’ll just leave this here.” She dropped the scorpion jaw trap flail in the sand.
“Yeah. Thanks for stopping by.”
“Okay.” There was a beat of awkward silence before Tiger took a breath, clapping her hands together once. “Whelp...” And with that, she exited the enclosure.
The same enclosure Josh would stay in until he taught himself how to walk again.
---
DAY 16
Josh was on the ground again.
You can do it Josh! You can do it Josh!
She was back. The metallic marker that had been used to write the bubble letters glinted in the light. Not the moonlight, it was too washed out to provide any substantial light, but the bright flood lights that the Network kept on him.
No matter what time of day it was, there were always people watching him. Didn’t they have anything better to do than stand around and watch the exoskeleton manipulate limbs that refused to function?
It had been sea urchin spines today. Massive, three-foot spines carrying significantly more of their venom than a regular-sized sea urchin would.
Josh took one spike to the belly and another jabbed right through the meat of his thigh before he was out for the count. He’d barely made it a couple of steps off the Hell-evator. Maybe that shouldn’t surprise him anymore, but he felt like he should be getting better at this.
More than two weeks and it had been the same thing over and over and over.
You can do it Josh!
He was trying. He really was trying. Josh couldn’t be faulted for the fact that the Death Arena was designed to take him out so quickly. It wasn’t his fault that Tiger and Wolf happened to come from a timeline where this was just one big game.
It was going to be another long night, he was sure of it. He hadn’t managed to stand yet, there was no way he was getting any sleep tonight. Which meant he’d be exhausted tomorrow, which meant he’d fuck up in the Death Arena, and have to start all over again trying to convince Tiger and Wolf that they needed to escape.
The exoskeleton cranked up the speed, metal bits whirring, and the burning in his muscles ramped up with it.
You can do it Josh!
A pained groan buzzed over clenched teeth. “Stop-- please turn it down.”
Network security ignored him. Even though Josh knew they could hear him, they ignored him. The crowd was as enamored as always, cheering and clapping at the illusion of progress.
Did they know he was being forced to move against his will? Did they know how much it hurt?
Did they care?
Probably not.
There were other domes in the DRZ. Probably there were other contestants here in the same boat as Josh, being forced through the most painful parts of recovery in the public eye. Sweating, trembling, training himself to move and walk again all with an unsympathetic audience.
He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to be left alone. To be allowed to lick his wounds in private and not have to look at the ‘Josh will you sign a temporary cohabitation unification agreement with me?’ sign while he recovered.
If he could just get Tiger and Wolf to fucking listen to him-- find whatever that magic phrase was that would get them to believe this whole memory wiping bullshit-- then everything would be okay.
That was starting to feel impossible.
They didn’t listen to him when he’d been against killing Kronish, they’d ignored him when the Pointed Circle was after him, and they weren’t fucking listening now.
One day in this hell zoo and they’d change their minds real quick, Josh was sure. But that was the thing, they were never going to end up in the rehab zoo because they never missed a beat out in the Death Arena.
It was really starting to seem like this whole thing was just to punish him, not the three of them.
Which was absurd, because they’d all repeated those eleven seconds over and over and over. They all had a hand in destroying Grazier’s Triangle. They were all responsible for the various time crimes and acts of terrorism they were being charged with.
But Tiger and Wolf got to play a game every day, while Josh went through daily hell.
You can do it Josh!
“Please stop-- I want to go to sleep.”
Maybe that voice in his head was right. It would be a lot easier to escape if he didn’t waste so much time on the Hell-evator trying to convince Tiger and Wolf of the situation--
No. No, he wasn’t going to abandon them.
Tiger and Wolf were his friends, and if the situation was reversed…well. It didn’t really matter what would happen if the roles were reversed, actually.
Josh was going to take the higher road here. He wasn’t going to abandon them just because it would be easier and cause him a lot less pain and possibly even save his life… fuck, it would be so much easier.
But he wouldn’t be able to live with himself, right?
You can do it Josh!
Right..?
Yes, right.
Tiger and Wolf, as much as they acted like assholes, both refused to spray him in the face with flesh-eating poison. He’d been so convinced that all three of them were going to be spritzing him with the Death Rain, it came as a genuine shock that Tiger and Wolf had been equally as willing to sacrifice themselves.
They’d saved his life on multiple occasions, even if they griped about it, and they always came around. Eventually. In their own, weird, fucked-up way.
Tomorrow there would be another chance to plead his case to the pair. Tomorrow, he could try again in the Death Arena. Who knew, maybe he’d even make it a little bit further off the elevator.
Tomorrow was another day.
You can do it Josh!
---
DAY 20
Josh couldn’t do it.
“You guys have to believe me. We’ve been doing this for twenty days-- it’s been three weeks. Your memories keep getting erased. We’re never going to escape this place if you don’t listen to me.”
“Three weeks is twenty-one days,” Wolf said.
“You’re forgetting Blaapday,” Tiger said, “Lamar has his own day of the week now.”
Wolf nodded. “Well, good for him. In that case, if what you’re saying is true, which it’s not, it’s barely been two and a half weeks. Exaggerate much, Josh?”
“That’s fucking stupid.”
“Don’t leave an iPhone in the 1960s next time, then.”
“Whatever. I don’t give a shit how many days of the week there are in 3491--” The elevator was slowing; his time was up for today. “You’re both impossible. I hope you dicks have fun out there today.”
“Oh, I think we will.”
Wolf clapped Josh on the shoulder as the stadium chanted: “first blood, first blood, first blood!” as if to confirm, yep, that was Josh. First blood, every time, even outside of the Diecathlon entirely.
The old elevator clunked to a stop, jolting as the door lifted up the same way it did every day.
Tiger and Wolf were immediately out into the arena. Josh stepped forward to follow, but something wet splattered across his face.
He staggered to a stop and brushed the tips of his fingers against his cheek. Pulling back, the skin came away smeared with blue.
He had half a second to wonder what it was before foamy spit forced its way up out of his mouth. Eyes roved absently as his shoulders twitched and jerked, setting off a chain reaction in the rest of his body.
Froth spilled from his lips, dripping off of his chin, and his legs stumbled clumsily a half-step to the side, as if to keep himself from falling.
But the muscles locked up and tensed and released in random bursts, eventually sending him to the ground. He continued to twitch and convulse, accompanied by the cheering of the stadium, trying not to choke on his own saliva.
---
DAY 24
Josh was making good progress today.
He'd already moved up to the long metal bars, walking along them in tiny, shuffling steps. It hurt like hell and his bad leg was still dragging, but it was still light out.
He never would've thought a throwing knife to the thigh could be merciful before, but considering it was just one little nick in the artery that nearly killed him today rather than some complete full-body injury, he'd take it.
'You can do it' girl was gone again today, but there were more than enough people to take her place.
The audience of people at the rehab zoo was a proper crowd today. And while normally Josh felt the eyes on him keenly and wanted nothing more than to be able to cuss each and every one of them out, they were actually being pretty encouraging today.
Lots of bright, colorful signs cheered him on.
They were on his team, rooting for him, and-- hey, one guy even made himself a t-shirt to support Josh. That was fucking weird, but he appreciated the sentiment. Kind of.
In their three-week run-- yes, three weeks, including Blaapdays-- on the Diecathlon, people were finally settling into their fan favorites. And these were his. It was weird to think that he had fans, especially since all he ever did was eat shit day after day.
People liked an underdog hero, even in 3491. Or maybe it was a pity thing, but who cared, really?
There was a lot less mockery lately. When he stumbled over his feet and struggled to get his bad leg under him, people gasped and waited eagerly for him to get back up. When he righted himself, leaning heavily on the bars and panting, they cheered.
Josh couldn't fight the little grin. They really wanted to see him succeed.
Well, most of them.
'How are you still alive?'
It was a big black and white sign asking him the same thing he'd been wondering the past couple of days now, too.
How was he even still alive at this point? The goo, of course, had a major hand to play in the physically keeping him alive department. But repeating the same day with the small variations over and over and over? Being mauled, shocked, stabbed, and burned day after day? Rehabilitating broken bones, non-functioning limbs, sometimes his whole body? Tiger and Wolf repeatedly showing just the ugliest side of themselves refusing to listen to him?
It was sometimes hard to remember why he kept going. How was he still alive?
The voice in his head promised him home.
He was doing this all to get home.
What was the last thing he’d said to his parents? Not including the incident in 1985 that he refused to ever think of again, when was the last time he even saw them?
Joosh’s timeline, probably, where he’d sent them to a nursing home to get them out of the way. But that didn’t really count-- when was the last time he saw his parents? In his timeline?
It was… outside of the police station after he’d gotten Mom arrested for the shootout in the meth lab. An apology for telling Mom to fuck off during the Christmas party, which was instantly forgiven, and a promise to text if he’d be home late was the last conversation he’d had with them both.
That felt like a lifetime ago. It had literally been a lifetime ago. Or two or three, by now.
How are you still alive?
The whole universe was against him, and rightfully so, considering how badly he’d fucked it all up.
But the voice promised he could go home eventually. The mere thought of home made him miss it so badly his chest ached.
Josh took another step forward, hindered by the pain lancing through his thigh, aided by the exoskeleton. Light flashed in his eyes, reflected off of another sign as gold lettering caught the sun.
Keep trying Josh!