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Phil takes it back.
Or, he wishes he could.
“One more stamp,” he says and he tries not to look afraid but he is, he’s terrified and wants to take it back.
“Trivial,” Dan says, “too much folly is bad for a boy.” He doesn’t sound afraid. Maybe impatient, itching to continue. But Phil just wants to do one more stamp, hold on for one more moment.
“Protip,” he says. Dan doesn’t respond.
Phil holds on to the charade. If he continues believing this is just another crafting video he can just ignore the itching under his skin. Out of the frame the shadows seem to move, engulfing everything except the room. But soon.
“Now it’s time for yours, Dan, what color did you pick?” He asks, focusing on his friend, the craft. When Dan doesn’t respond Phil thinks he might start crying and he wants to beg, plead with Dan to keep it up with him, to make him feel safe again, make him feel like they’re both still together. “It’s red,” Phil continues, “it’s your favorite shade of red.”
He still doesn’t respond.
Phil is alone. He knows that if he were to try and take it back now Dan would go through with it without him and that is the only worse outcome.
So he talks. He talks as if this is not the end, as if they will finish this craft, turn off the video, then plan what they will do tomorrow. Then Phil will go into his room and under his bed through the trap door where he stores all the crafts he creates and he will sit and go through each one of them individually and remember every video and every moment attached.
Then he will go to Dan’s room and do the special knock and recantation to unlock the door and enter to see Dan finishing up his nightly meditation and chants. Phil will wait until Dan is done, the candles blown out and the rug placed neatly over the inscriptions on his floor. Then Phil will tell him.
He’ll tell him how he wants to delete the channel. All of the channels, actually, and move away in the middle of the night back to Manchester or further north or maybe as far as America. Maybe then they could be free of Him if they gave back everything He’d given them. Then maybe he and Dan could live together in simplicity and not have to worry about finding fresh meats for sacrifice or hiding their rituals from their friends and followers. Sure, they would have to give up everything but they could manage together. They would never be alone. Maybe they still had a chance to be happy.
But Phil can see that Dan is almost done with the symbol now and he knows that they are well beyond the point of return.
“That’s an interesting pattern,” Phil says because the charade is all he has left. These last moments of faux normality.
“I think you’ll be happy with this one.”
“You’ve come a long way, Daniel.”
“What I learned is that it’s important to be who you are inside. Or should I say, who He wants us to be.”
The itching underneath Phil’s skin is burning now. Dan has fully committed himself. How much of his friend is left, Phil doesn’t know. Dan was always more willing to give up his entire self during these things (“it’s the darkness of my soul,” he used to joke, “it makes it easier for me to embrace Him”) but it never used to scare Phil like it was now.
He keeps the smile plastered on his face because it’s fine, they’d planned this together, Dan was still there. Dan would always be there with him.
“This is a step I didn’t tell you about,” Phil says. He’s on autopilot now, looking back at the camera, barely hearing his own words.
The panic sets in when Dan reaches over to take his glasses off, saying “you won’t need these where you’re going”. Phil’s body kicks in to fight or flight and adrenaline is sent pumping through his veins. This only lasts for a fraction of a second, a last ditch effort to save himself. The itching is a searing hot pain and every part of his brain is screaming.
Then Dan touches him, pressing the print on his forehead, and everything is silent.
Phil’s world becomes cool, blurred at the edges. The blur begins just outside his eye line before slowly, slowly creeping in on his vision. Encompassing.
“That feels cold… but refreshingly… similar,” Phil hears himself say. But is it him? The words are coming out of his mouth but he can’t feel his lips moving, can’t remember even deciding to speak. It is as if as soon as he thinks anything at all it floats away, blurring until it is only a long lost memory of something that he must’ve thought many years ago.
The blur is disturbed by footsteps outside of Phil’s realm of comprehension. From the other side.
“I can hear him,” he hears himself say. Dan is still touching him, stamping his hands but everything is muted and he can’t focus long enough to feel Dan’s touch. “He’s getting closer, Daniel.”
His vision has distorted beyond recognition now, the blur shifting until there is nothing but blackness.
“I can’t see but that’s okay because I believe,” Phil hears the words and he wonders who else is with them, who is speaking. He doesn’t recognize the voice. But the thought fades as quickly as it comes, floating away with all the others.
Then there’s another voice. He recognizes it as Dan not from the sound but by the warmth in his stomach when he hears it. The other voice is back (“Protip? Pitorp?”) and he wants it to stop so he can focus on Dan, grab onto his words while everything else slips out from under him.
But the footsteps are back, louder, and Phil is forced to let go.
He lets himself float away until the world he has left is blurred beyond comprehension, like a dream not quite understood but familiar just the same.
“Creativity is nothing without friendship…” Dan’s voice has all but faded completely, like he’s on the other side of the world, the galaxy, the veil. Phil cannot hold on to any thought, any comprehension, except pure longing for Dan to come back to him, to have him here beside him. What could Phil ever want, ever need, in his forever? In this blurred space free of body, free of mind, free of everything he understood, Dan was the only thing he wanted.
“Don’t cry…”
It would be soon. And then, with desire diminished, they would blur together, floating away until they were nothing at all.