Work Text:
‘you got it? - did you blow tina?’
Johnnie shot a quick text into the cold night and held himself within the shadows. If he came too close to the bonfire and those people, dancing around it with their toothpick smiles and downcast eyes, he felt, dramatically, he might collapse. A cold sweat was tracing its wet fingers down his spine. He couldn’t help the incessant twitch in his vertebrae, his eyelid, his thigh, like he was the decrepit freak they all saw. His goal was to get this over with and quickly.
The song ‘ice, ice baby’ was playing somewhere in the forest like a distant pulse. He recognized a familiar group of people by Lovman’s shack, shaded away from the bonfire like himself.
They were three. Jasmin greeted him with her rodent-like teeth. A guy, socially known as Gump, was sprawled out on the ground, tasting the air with his nose, twitching his nostrils to the beat of the music, and the last girl, whom he was not acquainted with, only stared at his approach, lifelessly, shivering in a massive fur coat. Johnnie wasn’t particularly proud to be in cohorts with these people, but he didn’t have standards anymore.
“You here for Tina again, Johnnie boy?” Gump slurred from the snow.
“I’m not here to hang out.” He disregarded.
Gump tossed his head, disbelieving. “He thinks he’s better than us.”
“But literally-,” Jasmin snickered, ”isn’t he /worse/.” She reached out to pinch a lock of Johnnies shaggy hair, but he swiftly managed to swat it away with his back hand. The word ‘worse’ circulated in his head. How much worse was he, and why, and how much longer would his worseness last? Jasmin pouted and the girl next to her moaned absently, lulling her head onto Jasmin’s shoulder.
“I thought, like…weren’t you dead broke, man?”
“Yup.”
“Are you still, man?”
“Nope.”
“Then how? She’s so fucking dicy, man.”
“I know.”
“You know somethin’,” Jasmin pitched with her raspy voice of a decaying lung, “I heard Vermon’s gonna’ fuck us all over.”
“Whatever could you mean?” Johnnie asked, with mock-concern.
“Whyyy?” Gump asked, with real concern.
“Yeah,” her eyes widened theatrically, “because; p-a-r-a-n-o-i-a” she whispered, dragging out every syllable, creating a tension that could be cut and spoon-fed. Johnnie wasn’t sure if the hallucinations were starting to come on or not. Gump looked stumped.
“And you know something else I heard?”
“What?” Gump leaned in closer to catch a signal of stronger brain waves…or something.
“It was really, really interesting.”
“What?!”
Her eyes darted to Johnnie, and she nodded as if he had proven her right in her suspicions. Johnnie could only let himself be dragged further down towards the deep, helplessly watching the flimsy light at the surface cascade further away. “It’s alllll because of him.” An accusative claw was pointed directly at his chest. “Vermon said,” she cleared her throat, preparing for her best voice-imitation, “He said, ‘Get-Johnnie-to-stop-being-a-fucking-pussy-all-the-fucking-time. He-needs-to-take-responsibility. I’m-done-with-favours-for-that-little-emo-twink. I’m-done-with-favours-for-everyone!” She roared the last part like Chester Bennington had suddenly decided to possess her soul. Very authentic.
Johnnie snorted, begrudgingly, humored, “He never even said that, you motherfucker.”
“Oh-ho-ho, bold of /you/ to question /me/.”
“You’re horrible at lying- seriously, consider shutting up.”
“I’m just sayin’ it how I heard him say it!”
“Fuck you.”
“It’s true!”
“Literally, it’s not.”
“Man, I’m like so caring. I’m like, here, actually looking out for you.”
“Oohkay.” Johnnie said, and let his obvious distrust of her speak for itself.
Jasmin threw her hands up in resignation, “Ask Gump.” She said.
“Ask him what?”
Jasmin shouldered Gump’s side and seemed to urge him to say something with her eyes.
Gump squinted, “Uh, I guess, I did hear him mention that he was tired of dealing with you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“I mean, he said that he was tired, is what I mean.” Gump winced as if he expected Johnnie to attack him like a wild cat from the bushes, “He’s losing trust. He was on about that.”
“What?”
“Loyalty! - which also, by the way, fucks /me/ over because /I’m/ the one who promised him you were cool in the first place.”
“So, he’s what? Gonna’ stop seeing me?”
“He just might up the stakes a little bit, y’know?”
The bony-looking trees whispered in the wind above.
“Stakes.” And the air hung heavy. There seemed to be something vile laced with the second-hand smoke they shared. Jasmin was not a liable source. She was an advocate for chaos, and she dug her snout into unhealthy amounts of grime. And Gump was a confirmed idiot. So, Johnnie was not going to be worried about Vermon. A silence crept amongst them. This was where conversations came to die. They instead sat and studied the mass hysterically dancing and singing around the fire. It looked to Johnnie like a cultish ritual. Maybe even a happy one, but looks were always deceiving.
It finally began to snow.
“Can you hear that?” Johnnie asked.
“What?”
“The flute.”
“Where?”
“Don’t you hear it?”
“No?”
The girl in the fur coat, who had purely existed in their presence, mumbled something incoherent, her face drawn in concentration.
“What?”
“I think so…” she whispered louder, before she violently dropped her head, having Julia guide it back upright. “Why is she wet?” Johnnie asked. Julia kissed her teeth. “She’s on the moon right now.”
Johnnie grunted, ‘Sure’, bit his cuticles for a time before pulling out his phone again.
A text had come in 1 minute ago. It read: ‘we hit it up - she’s here now.’
The ground beneath him seemed to drop, his organs lodging in his throat.
“Gotta’ go…” he mumbled and stalked off towards darker shadows.
”Save some for me, baby!” Jasmin squeaked after him.
Johnnie didn’t hear.
There was a lovely song of a flute in his ear.
Jake was sitting by the bonfire, once the snow fell, the frozen ground burning shapes of grass into his ass. If he leaned forward the flames could lick between his fingers. If he leaned backwards the cold would whisk him away. He picked up a lost twig and drew lines in the snow to distract himself from the drink that was starting to push into his brain and overpower his command.
There were a time and place for everything and the time and place for partying was past. So, what the fuck was he doing here? It was obvious. He gazed up to throw a quick glance through the flames. He was helpless to the force that sucked in all the light in his world. The force of her, snowy white and dancing in the fire among his friends. All becoming partisans of the fair winter, yielding to her cold smile, pure laugh. Jake had truly tried his best to get her to stay with him despite knowing he didn’t deserve her. The fantasy had shattered when she had realized that too.
He cast his eyes back into the fire. He thought he could make out the shape of a three-headed dog in the blackened wood. Coming here was a mistake, he thought.
“Are you gonna’ talk to Doe~”
A drifting head appeared over his shoulder, looking at him with beady eyes. It was Gump.
Satan’s little disciple. He had the complexion of a relapsing alcoholic, and no thought really entered or left the prison of a skull. That much had been confirmed, time and again.
“Oh, hello there, you!” Jake said, sarcastically, “it truly is a blessed day.”
“It may well be, man.” Gump positioned himself next to him in the snow and smiled slyly.
“It’s killing you, isn’t it.”
“Seriously.” Jake groaned, rolling his eyes.
“You seriously fluked for losing her.”
“Some may say, I did what was best for us.”
“Oh, it was definitely /you/, not her.”
“Why do you care so much, huh?” Jake accused, getting on his feet. This conversation was pissing him off. More than anything had this past week.
“I guess I just came to say thanks. She’s so hot, man. All the guys are here for her.” Gump licked his lips, staring at her dancing, spinning figure. “She’s so, so-“
“Yeah, yeah!” A sudden pain shot to Jakes eyes. If he looked at her too long, it felt as if old wounds raptured across his skin, spilling out blood and puss and pain. He couldn’t deny, there was some truth to Gumps statement. In any relationship, the line between being the victim or the perpetrator was always very fine.
Maybe he had been the poisoned apple in Doe’s story, like she had been to him.
Gump jumped back on his feet and wobbled unsteadily. “It’s like a goddamn gangbang over there. I think someone brought flamethrowers, man.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Y’know, I made a little deal.”
“With the devil?”
“With Vermon.”
“Might as well be the devil.”
“I found a way to get good dope for a good price.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“It’s easy! I just have to be a little convincing of a buddy of mine.” He looked off into the distance for someone. Jake decided to ignore how devious that sounded. “I’m not involved in this whole,” Jake gestured around them, “shit show.”
Gump reached out a rough hand, grabbing Jake by the shoulder, “Come on. For the sake of good old times.” Jake shook his hand away in a motion, curling away towards the background, letting a great distance come between them in the process. Jake regarded Gump with a sullen expression.
“If you wanna’ seal your death, go ahead.” Gump seemed to pick up on the finality lacing his voice, and decidedly scurried towards the bonfire with a parting shrug. Jake watched momentarily as his silhouette refracted and vanished in the mash of body and flame. Then he turned his back with great effort, like he was forcing himself to move against a strong current and walked towards the ominous forest instead. He reminded himself of his promise. Repeated it again, and again like a mantra.
He would allow himself to observe, but never again partake.
Johnnie clung to the little light he saw in the dark, fists gripping paper bills in his pockets.
Branches swept across his body, branding him in judgment. Icicles hung frail, but sharp from naked trees. The howl of the wind was deafening, almost annihilating the sound of a soft melody.
A melody of a flute that played mellisonant in his ear and kept him going, reassuring him with every footstep. Vermon stood waiting by the abandoned hunting tower with a cigarette balancing vicariously between his blue lips. Tensions rippled through Johnnies body as he came closer to finally being released from his torment. The flute loudened in his head. It called his name.
“Johnnie boy.”
“Vermon,” Johnnie greeted through chattering teeth.
“Did you crawl out of a fucking sewer?”
“I didn’t realize there was a dress code.”
“Spare me the sass.” Vermon scuffed, “Here again to chase away demons?”
"Sure thing, my ADHD is a real killer.”
“Oh, I /know/.” Vermon rolled his eyes, bored with Johnnies excuses. “You want the usual?”
“How much do you have on you?”
“An 8-ball, crystals, pills…”
“2g crystal is fine.” Johnnie fumbled through his pockets and dug up a ball of bills, “70, right?”
There was a tug at Vermon’s lip. “No, no, it’s 100 now.”
“What?”
“Yeah, 100,” he sung.
“The fuck man? It’s always been 70.” And did Vermon really have to be so goddamn gleeful at his expense, /again/.
“It’s rough out here.” Vermon gestured around the icy landscape.
“I’ll give you 85.” Johnnie ticked, worry racing along his veins. Something about Jasmin’s words started replaying again. ‘I’m done doing favors.’
“Did I say it was negotiable?”
Johnnie clenched his jaw and shut his eyes, “Is it at least clean?” he forced.
You get what you get,” Vermon paused, “or you find someone else.”
“Fuck, man.”
“DUN-DUN-DUNNN,” Vermon sung, playing the keys on his invisible piano. That was his favourite thing to do. His second favourite thing was getting all up into Johnnie’s space, inhaling him like a dog lapping up dropped dinner scraps. Johnnie went rigid. “You’re so tense,” Vermon observed, running a cold finger along his collarbone. Johnnies skin screamed beneath his touch, as if his finger was a compound of bleach eroding his skin to reveal his very bones. Vermon’s eyes locked with Johnnies, as he breathed out a cloud of condensation-like smoke.
The cloud curled around Johnnie’s lips and he watched intensely, as Johnnie couldn’t help but breathe it down. “How is your mom doing,” Vermon asked then, “by the way.”
Johnnie took a staggering step back. Vermon always managed to stab at the very thing that killed him from the inside. Always managed to point out the next reason to blast his brain away.
Johnnie couldn’t stop himself from snapping. “Why the fuck are you bringing her into this?”
“Because…I care.” Vermon mused. “Does she know about your ADHD? Does she know about all your little girlfriends? Does she know you’re here? There are so many questions, Johnnie, that you fail to answer.”
You know,” Johnnie said, “You got what you wanted.”
“Did I?"
“I’ll give you t-the rest of the money.”
“But did I? Did I get what /I/ want?”
Johnnie pushed his remaining bills against Vermon’s chest, “Here.”
In that moment he wished for nothing else, but to attack him, to kill him. Oh, to be the one with his hands around his throat, squeezing, laughing hysterically, while watching his blue little face and eyes blast with fear. Oh, to imagine how the cold would preserve his corpse, forcing him to swim in his own death and slow decaying rot, until finally the beetles and worms and- “
“What are you smiling about? Huh?” Vermon sneered, “Shouldn’t you feel a little bit guilty. God knows what you stole this time. Did you sell your mother’s wedding ring? How proud she must be of you. Her loser addict son. Running around the streets like a desperate bum.” He smiled blissfully, “or a desperate hooker, perhaps?”
Johnnie curled away. What now, what now, what now.
“You know, I could also offer you a little discount.”
“…for what?”
“Just help me out a little,” Vermon shrugged innocently, ”Lovmans shack is empty right. I’ll take 20$ off.”
Swallowing down the nausea, Johnnie said nothing and turned his head away. Vermon may well have crawled out of the deepest pits of hell. Johnnie would never even consider….he was not that desperate yet. “You’re acting as if I’m cancerous. I’m the one getting screwed over here. Not to mention your sweet mom who you keep stealing from.”
“Fucking hell Vermon. Just take the 100.”
Vermon looked from the money to his face. Johnnie didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t take them. Vermon cocked his head as if he was considering it but knowing that he was burning through Johnnies body with every dragged out second. “Consider it for next time then.” Vermon chuckled, his yellow grin staining the bleak night. Johnnie shuddered as he walked away. He wished there would never be a next time, but there always would be. He embraced the darkness around him until Johnnie had forgotten to care for his presence. Now, his focus was on the distant song that was humming again. He would find his catharsis when hell froze over.
Luckily, winter was already here.
There had once been a time where the sight of Doe made Jake shiver with the most potent form of happiness. Looking at her, studying the bounce of her hair, the soft slope of her eyelashes, the way she bit her fingernails, the way her smile started small and hesitant than blossomed into toothy laughs. Every decision, every path he had taken in all his life from the minute he was born, seemed to have led him to her. “Jake.” She whispered to him softly, breath brushing against his earlobe. “Come on.” He watched her draw him in, watched himself cave against her will and snap beneath those black suns for eyes. He smiled as she intertwined their fingers and led him to the balcony. The sky was sinking to another world shedding its frenzied light across Doe’s face. She guided him backwards toward the edge, sat him down on an iron chair and studied him from above, the city dropping far below with no intention of disturbing them. After a while, Jake asked, “What is it?” and felt a hot flush spread across his cheeks with his stupid lack of awareness. Pearl only dipped her head and smiled. “Can I sit on your lap?” she asked with a voice tender as a spoonful of honeyed tea.
“Y-yeah.” he gulped, feeling his heart bounce behind his ribcage at the mere thought.
She nodded and turned to slowly place herself on his thighs, body leaning back against him. “You can hold me.” She said, “It’s ok. This is good.” He gently embraced her torso and sunk deeper into the sea of bliss. “Don’t let me go.” She hummed and rested her head against his shoulder, “Don’t let me go until I say.” He was with a girl white as snow, red as blood and black as the wood on her window frame. Jake closed his eyes to the world and promised, “I won’t ever.”
It was the easiest thing he had ever done.
Then came the hardest thing he ever did.
But the memory came back to him in scattered tapes. There was the last sun, there was her by his side, there was the sound of crushing metal on a loop.
His mother had been screaming, all day and night. “Why did you this! My Jake! Why did you do this!” Over and over again, her anguished screams followed him into the darkness and was there again, when he finally woke up. He lived like a zombie for a long time. He could mostly recall the cold sweats, damp bedsheets and his drawn curtains. His mother never let him leave her side. She helped him get dressed, walked with him outside and she sat by his bedside at night. But nothing changed the fact that Doe was gone. Instead, a different host had taken her place. A gaping hole inside him, gigantic, and all-engulfing. The destroyer of worlds.
The further away he found himself from the conflagration, the more he came to regret his decision of walking off into the forest. The trees were decrepit and conniving, and every bush looked like icy veins in the undergrowth. He was standing somewhere in the forest, with the party long erased in the thick fog and he seemed trapped in a liminal space of ‘woods-in-winter-night’. He left to escape the people, but there was really nothing more daunting than loneliness after hours. In a forest. Alone. Here, Jake may well be the last person left to die in the world. He closed his eyes, battling a cold shiver. If he continued into the nothingness ahead, there was no saying where he would end up. He wasn’t actually lost. He could turn around and easily make his way back by following his own footprints. So why did the thought of turning around feel like a predestined life-altering mistake? Even so, walking further into the thick white was probably as good an idea as jumping off a cliff blindfolded. So, why not?
Why the hell not?
As if to answer that question, a shadow appeared. It was vaguely moving in and out of frame like a phantom. Most likely his anxiety was playing tricks on him. Most likely it would be an animal if anything. Most likely it was not a person. The snow fragmented his vision into tiny pixels. The phantom swayed and seemed to evaporate far ahead. Jake stood completely still, completely silent, scanning for any movement. Nothing. A peculiar looking snow tuft caught his attention as he trudged by. There seemed to be something a bit too manufactured about it, and when he took a closer look, he discovered it was a footprint; the footprint of a boot, and many more that pointed like an arrow into the distance. Jake let out shuddering breath. It was likely the phantom was not an illusion or an animal after all. It was a person. And Jake was not alone. He followed the boot prints in a parallel line, creating his own path into the night, until he was met with the powerful sound of rushing water.
It was the sound of the river Weser that he used to camp by back when he was a boy scout. Jake felt a pang of nostalgia at the memory of his childhood that was so bashfully pure. His Ma cuddling him, reading him fairytales before bedtime, his Ma giving him Big Ben caramels for every correct answer on his homeschooling sheet. His Ma kissing his cheeks with relief when he got back from a friend’s house. She always used to say he was her little Achilles, and that she would do anything to shield him from danger. When his Ma allowed him, he used to chase little fish downstream during the summer, but now he was chasing ghosts into the winter. And what would she have to say about that? It wasn’t hard for Jake to know. In fact, her unopened texts and unanswered calls said it all. He knew he should feel guilty, but he couldn’t seem to find it in him anymore than he couldn’t seem to find a reason to care. When his Ma hugged him, he felt an unexplainable restlessness. When she told him to be careful, “be careful around that girl,” he became careless instead. It was difficult to put his finger on, but there was something unnatural within him that took over and overrode his initial instincts. Like a programming in his head, or like a hypnosis. As ridiculous as the thought was, he imagined his mother sitting before him when he was a child with a pendulum swinging from side to side, his gaze transfixed while she mumbled, “Avoid danger. Mother knows best,” or some stupid shit like that. But where was he in all that motherness?
For a time, he was Mama’s boy Jakey, then he rebelled, and became Doe’s boyfriend, and now he was soul-searching the glacial wilderness for a sliver of just Jake Webber.
Then again, he was literally following in someone else’s footsteps right now, but he would have plenty of time for finding himself after the fact. Jake could only hope that the owner of these prints was out here for similar reasons to himself, but that seemed an ignorant wish, considering how he himself had only just managed to escape the unholy forces cursing that party. It didn’t take a detective to assess that this person had not been so lucky. Jake could tell from the uneven spaces between each print and the smudged outlines, that person was probably drunk. Worse yet, maybe the stranger had seen Jakes shadow and fled towards the river, maybe he was the killer-phantom in their mind. Stranger-danger. He should’ve taken a page out this guy’s book and turned around when he first suspected he wasn’t alone. But Jake was getting closer. The roar of the river was louder and more malevolent than ever. As the fog cleared around him, it was revealed to be only a few meters away, cutting forcefully through the landscape, slicing the woods in half and crashing over the banks of huge shiny rocks. The winter had not bent the will of the water.
Jake searched for the footsteps, but they were obstructed by pebbles and long knives of grass.
He clung onto himself tightly, wrapping his arms around his torso to shield himself from the blizzard. He squinted his eyes to better make out shapes in the chaotic meltdown of order. A whisper to his left guided his gaze upon a black figure. Time seemed to stagnate and glitch. Snow fell from the sky like down falling from the heavens, blanketing the shadow like a white sheet cast upon a corpse in a morgue. Jake opened his mouth to call out. The shadow, the man, lifted his head to the sky as if in prayer. Jake pulled back the sheet and knew he would be faced with something grotesque, vile.
The man tipped over and disappeared into black water.
Johnnie walked by Jasmin and the girl again outside the shack. “Where’s Gump?” he asked looking around for his hunched profile.
“Don’t know.” Jasmin shrugged, “He ran off to talk to a friend of his or somethin’ like that.”
“Tell him I need to talk to him when you see him.”
Jasmin snorted, looking him up and down, “Did Vermon ask to fuck you or what?”
“I- what-“ gave it away, he almost said.
“Gump wouldn’t shut up. He was all worried Vermon would ask him to suck his dick next,” Jasmin laughed, “Poor thing is fucked, not even Vermon’s standards are that low. He seemed to have something in mind with Vermon though. That scheming rat.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
“Well, we can’t trust Vermon anymore.”
“Shit, I suspected,” Jasmin concurred, “Did he really, you know….?”
Johnnie let a sigh slip, “I’m not in the right state of mind to think of long-term solutions right now.”
“Getting high is your long-term solution.”
“Yes.”
Jasmin looked at him in the eyes, like for a moment she really saw him there. She didn’t ask, but Johnnie could feel the question in that look, ‘Is Vermon as far as you will go?’
A little later after he’d finally dodged Jasmin’s oncoming pleas for some dope, he opened the door to the shack and sat himself down on an old stool, torn to bits by old battle wounds from years of drunken teenagers’ harassment. He rummaged through his jacket pocket and pulled out a glass pipe and a crystal. To think these fragile things, had the power to cure the world of all its shit. He held the pipe to his lips with unsteady hands, trying to flick on his lighter, but it proved impossible. His hands were going numb. “Ah, shit,“ he hissed. Johnnie could cry with how much he didn’t need this particular hurdle in his life right now. Flick, flick, flick. The pain of the gear wheel cut through his skin. Pathetic little sparks fizzed out. There was a sudden flash of his mother’s face. She looked at him with eyes that felt a thousand sorrows, a thousand deaths, her brow was tight, her mouth a twisted grimace, half turned away, face half hidden in shadow. His heart sank like a wish drowned in a well. Flick, flick- His mother shot him a look that raddled him. “Johnnie. How many times now?” her voice clenched like a dying flame, eyes graying with her life at her feet, torn apart by her own son. Flick- Johnnies lip wobbled again. Flick, “Did you take it. Johnnie. Where is it?” Flick, flick, flick, flick, /frrrushh./
A beating flame wobbled unsteadily at the sight of Johnnies intense gaze, but…held on. He let out an embarrassing giggle and brought the lighter beneath the pipe. The magic trick began with the concoction of melting the little crystals into a boiling liquid that steamed and bubbled. He took his first hit. A fire spread down his windpipe and went wild across his lungs. The shack lit up with otherworldly light. Johnnie gasped. The door swung open, flinging him head-first into a free fall. There was the angel singing, no, playing the flute, louder and louder, octaves rising, like a choir inside his skull. Gone was his mom, buried beneath an avalanche. The snow outside that had been falling like toxic waste, became feathers floating in a trance. He couldn’t help but…laugh. At the mass flinging themselves at each other, slapping skin and hair, glutenous and sweltering in human embrace. If the meaning of his sober life was to be nothing, accomplish nothing, feel nothing, then the meaning of his waken life was to experience everything even if that would deem to be impossible. Johnnie flung himself into the spiel of nakedness, and heat, and sweat.
The music around him felt like a spiked drink, that chased him relentlessly around. A cat after a mouse. Round and round and then another round around the fire. Then another round, round around, round again, around- He saw the outsiders lurking in the shadows. He couldn’t fathom he had been one of them. They just stood there, glum, and grave, and grizzly. He saw a girl in fur spread out on the ground like a snow angel, and laughed. Someone else shouted to him. “-need your help- phone- /phone./” He waved them away; they didn’t matter anymore. He stumbled on with laughs bubbling in his throat. The flute was becoming increasingly more like a scratched record in his ear. It felt as if, as if- the lights were dimming at the edges like an old polaroid. His father suddenly stepped out from behind a tree doing jazz-hands. “Ta-daa!” Johnnie recoiled violently. He blinked. Then there was nothing there. No father. No one. Johnnie managed a quivering breath. Maybe if he did a line, the jumpscares would go away. He drew a straight line of crystal between his thumb and index-finger with his credit card, before sniffing it into his nose in one swift motion. The shards cut and sliced on their journey. Johnnie winced. The fire raged across his whole face and down his body like there was a blazing crematorium behind his ribcage, burning away a dozen dead soldiers.
Then. Then. Then the fear was gone again. He continued onwards with a sporadic spring in his step following the flute that showed itself to him in the form of glistening glitter, shivering like smoke on a bending path amongst the trees. There was a woman standing waiting for him at the end of the line, playing, begowning him to come to her. She promised oblivion and he would chase those fleeting glimpses of it to the ends of the world.
Something happened to him. The winter seemed to blow out into a white light that consumed everything. His breath froze and stuck like a hard crust in the air. The sky and the horizon and the ground molded together into one blank sheet as a star would first condense and then explode. It was like a crash of worlds was happening before Johnnies very eyes. The flute sounded like white water on a river. Suddenly there was a great roar all around him and a violent earthquake beneath his feet. It knocked him over, stumbling, crashing forwards. There were a great shattering and projectiles of ice and blood shot in all directions. He realized his lungs screamed and puffed like a dying engine and that his body was pulled in all directions. Where was he going? A darkness spread around him like someone had spilled black ink on a white sheet. His limbs locked up; his skin seemed to drag against knives. He screamed.
And opened his eyes.
Jake ground his teeth and plunged into the river. He howled as the water dug sharp teeth into his legs, but ran as fast as they could muster. The trees creaked like old bones under an insurmountable pressure. Needles of snow prickled his face and glued them shut; the wind seemed to whirl the snow in a frenzy towards him only. Jake sloshed towards the rock, water spraying everywhere like the explosion of an acid bomb. He dove in with his arms first, hands fumbling wildly along the river floor. Luckily, the river near the bank was not very deep, but the man was gone. Jake jumped up again and spun in circles. His legs were dissolving beneath him; his arms and hands were like solid rocks. Why did he fight so hard to save this stranger? He barely managed to save himself, struggling enough every day, dragging himself away from old habits, bad acquaintances, memories. Why was he the one wading through deadly cold water, risking everything. Again.
The wind howled mournfully, like a collection of a thousand prayers sung for loved ones passing. Jake was on the verge of succumbing to the winter himself, before he saw a dark lump caught on the branch of a fallen tree. He ran along the bank, didn’t hesitate, got ahold of the man’s arms and dragged him through the water. He fought with everything left in him; he fought like no one had ever done for him. He couldn’t resist his own nature, even if it came with the cost of losing his life. Like no one could fight gravity, he couldn’t seem stop beating the life back into strangers. What kind of cursed paradox was that. “Wake up.” Jake shook the man by the shoulders desperately. “Wake up, Wake /up/-“
His voice danced and wobbled along a thin line. He could not bear to see this man die before him.
He made another anguished attempt of resuscitating him, slapping his cheeks, but there was still nothing. The man’s head hung back limply; body desolate like a voodoo doll. Frost was beginning to form along his wet strands of hair and eyelashes. There was a black spider above his collarbone and a grinning face on his neck mocking Jakes pathetic attempts of resurrection. Jake could only stand before his own uselessness, thoughts crashing in and out of mind. He drew blood on his tongue from violent chattering teeth, cold sent electrified shocks through his body while the darkness drew ever closer around them. The man lay still with hair so black against the snow. Skin so grey and frail. He looked like a victim of consumption. A gothic ice sculpture in this winter wonderland.
Jake pushed sticky hair away with a trembling hand, leaning his head down to the man’s chest. He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed. The wind seemed to howl louder, when he tried to listen for a heartbeat, screaming threats down his ears, dragging out agonizing seconds. Dark clothes stung his cheek and ripped away like Velcro. “Jesus.” Jake stared at the man before him, looking very much dead. Maybe his very best hadn’t been enough after all. “Oh, Christ.”
The first thing Johnnie noticed was a stillness that dragged into infinity. There was nothing as far as his eyes could see. A lazy fog draped the grey sky and blurred the lines between himself; a towering black glitch, and the void. It seemed almost circular, like a fourth dimension that was only obstructed by a straight line of calm water that cut across the air in an attempt of a horizon.
Maybe this was Limbo. Or someplace eluded from his own insane mind. Johnnie took a careful breath and realized he could breathe, despite his lack of physical self. Because there was no body of Johnnie here. There was only his mind or soul or whatever it was. He may have transcended the laws of nature or the natural plains of existence. It was unfamiliar. He was unfamiliar to himself. He figured that he should be inclined to panic or at least elicit some form of reaction, but it was like there wasn’t room for emotions here, only still, calm, relaxed, steady, slow, patient.
Everything else was censored. He realised the comfort in that sensation, as he let his awareness drift while he waited, because that was the only thing he knew to be in this place.
His purpose was to wait.
He didn’t know how much time passed, but out of stagnant stale air appeared a ferry. Not in a dramatic fashion, just as if it had always been there and now decided to reveal itself to him.
It drifted towards him slowly; a long boat, slender and agile as an arrow. At the rear stood what could only be described as a man, the kind of man you saw in a dream with an air of familiarity you couldn’t quite place. He wore a long sheet that was clasped together by a brooch on his left shoulder, like a chiton, and had a beard, ragged and white as a nasty-looking icicle. His figure was abnormally tall and the only being around that seemed to be of flesh and bone, though it was mangled, bones protruding, skin discolored like a bruise. He held a sturdy pole that he used to guide his boat and there was a fierceness to his grip that indicated a likeliness to wield it as a weapon. Next to him floated other shadows. They wore no expressions and bore no sentiments, but they did grip tightly a coin of sorts, like an opal, visible between their translucent fingers. The old man slowed the ferry to a stop with the will of his mind and looked at Johnnie with surprisingly effervescent eyes, like there was a young soul trapped behind the eroding skin of an old man. Johnnie stared and then couldn’t help but laugh. It was wrung out of him in loud bubbly jerks that disturbed the perfect silence of their shared infinity.
“Who are you then?” Johnnie asked, beguilement eminent in his voice. ‘The wizard of oz? Gandalf? My secret Santa?’
The old man smirked for a moment at his convenience, and then it dropped as suddenly. He drew a long patient inhale through his nose with squinted eyes as to say; ‘do not be asinine,’ lifted his pole from the riverbed and swung it with ferocious speed to point inches from Johnnies form. Johnnie quickly swallowed his amusement. “Why are you here?” the man asked.
“I’m here to- I need to cross the river,” Johnnie said, and then, “I think.”
“If that is your desire, then where is your payment?”
Johnnie couldn’t help but cast a look down his shadowy-self and deadpan, “I don’t have anything.” Fucking obviously.
“It requires one opal to cross. If you do not pay, you are bound to wander the shores of Styx for a sentence of a hundred years. Or…you find your way back, which to say has never been a very successful feat.” The old sack lowered his staff, smugly gazing down at Johnnie. “It is up to you,” he finished. Johnnie couldn’t stand it, but he was tired of fighting against the endless cold and sharp teeth and grimy floors and people, shadows, memories. Through all his waking life. That’s why he was here. To put a final end to all of it.
“You should know by now.” The old man seemed to answer, “This world is filtered through your own selfish mind. If nothing is free there, then nothing will be free in life, and certainly not in death.”
“…What does that even mean?”
“You can think of it as a tragedy or a comedy.” The old man looked towards the void and continued, “God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing the testimony of wise men.” He bestowed his ancient eyes upon Johnnie again. “These are words uttered by a being of your own kind. But I do not think most humans believe that notion, do you?”
Johnnie paused and guessed said, “No.” The old man smiled knowingly. “Then I do wonder, why you believe that death will be more forgiving than life.”
The old man basked in the ready silence, drifting back towards the rear. “I will ask you again. Why are you here?”
Johnnie noticed for the first time the attention of the other shades. They looked at him, not with sympathy, not with contempt, but with disregard, as if he was only a passing, fleeting occurrence that bore them no interest. They had paid their due, they had decided, or maybe willed it to happen through their own suggestion. Now they were only waiting to be finally united with infinity or whatever it was that waited them across the fog. But Johnnie didn’t know why, as the old man asked so intently, he didn’t find that assurance within himself or this payment that was required and had implications he couldn’t wrap his head around. He didn’t know why. And he had asked that question a million times before. At the party, around his family, around strangers, when he was alone.
The flute came back again, like water slowly rising. The old man stared at the mirage of the woman who blurred like a heat haze in the distance of a hot road. His gaze darkened as if he had stumbled upon a daimon of malevolent forces. Johnnie saw one of the shades flicker out of the corner of his eye. The sound of the flute seemed to rattle it like a hologram disturbed by the wave of a hand.
He felt that tug towards the shade like he knew it from somewhere other than this place. The shade had rills or soft spikes along its outline, as if it was wearing a fur coat. Johnnie reeled backwards.
“I don’t think I should be here.” Johnnie said, finally.
“Certainly?” the man questioned, white beard disguising a double-edged smile.
Johnnie suddenly realized that the woman had only been a disguise. The thing, as it we're, had transformed and now stood morbid and exposed, with widespread arms that stretched beyond the confines of its bones, nearly circling the boat in an embrace, like a flytrap ready to snap shut around a sorry insect that had been lured by its sweet scent. Johnnie realized that he had brought himself here and the thing knew it, grinned with it. Its saliva dripped from a tongue, large and pointy, from a gaping mouth with rows of sharp canines, bloodied from sinking into its own flesh.
There had been so many signs, so, so many. He had seen this thing before and yet still had followed it. Johnnie opened his mouth to scream. His voice was drowned by a primordial snarl, like the scream of a monstrous newborn. Its arms grew nasty claws, its eyes bulged with manic instinct to kill, skin growing long stiff hairs from sweltering pores. Johnnie dove as fast as a shadow could leap, before the monster slammed its arms together. The grueling force of it sent shockwaves through the water. Huge waves thrashed the boat, that now looked as fragile and old as eternity. Johnnie managed to evade a second vicious swing of a claw. Only an inch to spare.
The thing growled and sputtered and laughed almost. Its tongue lapped a thick wet streak across its whole face. Then it grew. Its spine rose from its back like sharp mountains, its neck hunched downwards from a long neck. The hairs continued to grow into spikes along its arms and legs. It loomed over them, dripping spit and blood from its mouth like rain on their heads. Johnnie quivered behind the boat. He felt its eyes target his back. 20 bloodshot eyes, unblinking, as he had felt them before. He could run nowhere, hide nowhere. He sobbed, paralyzed. He’d hoped that he could at least find comfort in death, so why? The monster ground its teeth together, like shearing through metal. Then it loosened its jaw, mouth hanging agape, every eye squinted like red crescents enjoying the sight. Its neck shot forward, the future of hell awaited him like fire down its deep throat, teeth ready to bore through him, then-
There was a horrible sound like the crunching on rocks and black glass. Johnnie turned to face it.
The monster had caught a shade between its teeth and it made him watch in horror, as it chopped it right in half. The latter half of the shade crumbled to the floor. A pool of black dust like a grounding of bones, sizzled between the cracks of the wood and fell like sand onto Johnnies shoulder. The monster sung with glee, a sound that had the uncanny resemblance of the flute. It licked up the remains of the shade from the floor, black dust disintegrating on its tongue. Johnnie did nothing but watch until only clumps of brown fur were left. The old man looked at him, unfazed.
“That shade….” Johnnie began, voice trembling.
“I told you,” the old man said, “death is no consolation to life.”
With that the explosion of light came back. The monster disappeared. The ferry, and the shades and the old man was gone with the fog.
Jake screamed and fell right on his ass. The man, dead, had suddenly opened his eyes.
They stared at each other. The man had eyes deeply blue like antarctical caves, with pupils abnormally large. Jake recognized that doped up look from himself. “Shit.” Jake cried and promptly held the guy against his chest. “Oh fuck,” he rambled, “Oh fuck. You really fucking scared me there. I didn’t think you would- “ Jake pulled away and ran his eyes across the man’s gaunt face, expression distant, lips quivering like he was still dangling from a cliff between life and death. “We have to get you warmed up. You’re freezing!” Jake stood on shaky legs, ignoring the numbness spreading through his own veins like a virus. “Come on.” He said, holding out a blue hand. “Come on!”
Johnnie looked up at him, starring absently. The moon was glowing a crown of fluorescent light behind this stranger’s head, like he was some sort of miracle. His hair clasped to his cheeks in wet strands, his clothes hung heavy and black against his body, shoes soaked, laces untied; he looked like a little kid who had braved the pool without floaties and pulled himself out within the inches of his life. The look of an everyday hero, Johnnie supposed.
Johnnie reached out his own hand and let the stranger pull him up.
“Are you good?” the guy asked, still concerned for him, despite his own miserable state.
“Shit. If the water didn’t kill me…” Johnnie grumbled, wrapping his arms around himself to stop from violently shivering. The guy frowned at that, before turning to face the ambiguous woods.
“I fucking hate snow,” he sighed.
“I fucking hate winter.”
Jake turned to face the stranger again and couldn’t help a pained smile at the state of them.
Two guys completely drenched from head to toe, out in the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter. It was actually a very absurd situation. So absurd in fact, they could have been protagonists in a slasher movie, about surviving the nine rings of hell; first drowning, then freezing and what then? Eternal hellfire? “How does taking our clothes off sound?” he said.
The guy eyed him like he wasn’t sure if he was being serious, “Like a very inappropriate way of asking me out?”
Jake let out a surprised chuckle, “Damn. I guess I’ll have to do better at saving you next time.”
The guy smiled, “And thank you for that, but we still need saving.”
Like on queue, there was the flashing of blue and red lights between the trees. It was weird suddenly having a ray of colour painted against the whiteness of the forest. Johnnie would have brushed it off for a lucid dream, if not for the howling sirens in the distance; like a pack of wolves descending on them from the mountainside to…well, maybe not hunt them down.
“Our reliable police for the rescue.” His savior mumbled. “We just have to get through these woods…”
“Without freezing to death in the process.”
“Right.” Jake started walking, guiding both of them back through the woods, his earlier footsteps still vaguely visible. Johnnie watched him warily. Who was this crazy guy anyway? “Hey, uh, what’s your name? I should probably know the name of my…savior.”
Jake turned his cheek bashfully, running a hand across his face. Like an awkward teenager, Johnnie thought. Or maybe he thought it was kind of cute.
“Take a guess…” the guy said with an embarrassed glance.
“Uhm?”
The guy shrugged cheekily.
“…No.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t tell me it's Clark. /Bruce?/”
Jake almost forgot he was dying for a second, head flung back laughing. “No.” he shook his head, “No. I’m sorry. I made you think that on purpose. I’m a nerd, I thought it would be funny. It’s not.”
Then he settled on, “I was homeschooled,” as if that should clear up any of Johnnie’s confusion.
“I’m Jake. An ordinary man.” He explained, then held out his hand. Then let it fall.
“Oh.” Johnnie chuckled, “Then I guess I’m Johnnie. Also, a /somewhat/ ordinary man.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Johnnie.” Jake made a vague gesture towards the riverbank behind them, “Formally.”
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Johnnie replied, and he was surprised to find that he meant it.
Jake smiled and trudged on, steps fast and determined. It was hard for Johnnie to keep up. His legs were numbing, his feet felt like bricks. “Woah!” he yelped, as he stumbled over a hidden rock in the snow. Jake turned instantly and rushed to his side, grabbing his arm to steady him. “Are you alright?” he asked. Johnnie huffed, embarrassed. He was starting to feel like some sort of damsel. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, I’m just really cold. You walk fast…” Jake looked sheepish. “Sorry, I just really wanna get back so we don’t freeze to death out here…I dropped my phone in the water, I think.”
Johnnie felt a sudden rush of panic come over him. He frantically dug through his pants pockets, his jacket. Nothing. “Fuck…”
“What’s wrong?”
“I- I uhm, lost my shit back there…” Johnnie admitted, glancing wildly back towards the river. Would it be crazy of him to go back? Maybe he had dropped it by the rocks? Jake tightened his grip on his arm. “Hey. Whatever you had on you, it’s long gone or been washed away. We need to get back.” Johnnie swallowed. All that money, all that time, all that effort, all that pain…for it to be washed away down a stream. Jake found his gaze, “At least you won’t end your fun night in a police cell.” Johnnie clenched his eyes shut as not to cry, not to seem like a crazy person.
“Right…”
Jake had saved his life and risked his own in the process. There was no way, he could drag him into his problems more than he already had. “I’m sorry.”
Jake looked at him as if he understood. “I would never let you die just like that,” he said, calmly, grasping Johnnies wrist, and walking them through the snow, shaky limbs and all.
“Still, It’s all my fault.”
“Whatever it was…whatever happened to make you fall into that river, it doesn’t matter anymore. You’re here now and we’re gonna make it. We will make it.” Jake made it sound almost believable, almost true. Johnnie was grateful for that. Nonetheless, it had been a long time since anyone had cared about him, truly seen him, and not scowled at the sight.
“Hey, it’s really bad walking around in these wet clothes.” Johnnie mumbled, looking Jake up and down. He was obviously putting up a brave face, keeping his composure. But Johnnie could tell, he was freezing, almost to the point of losing control. Like himself, they we're both in serious risk of hypothermia. Johnnie really couldn’t bear the thought of losing a toe, or worse, his nose. Then, he would really be the freak that everyone saw him as. But if this Jake died because of him…
There’s no way he could ever forgive himself for that.
“Let’s find a little cave and snuggle up then.” Jake smirked, wriggling his eyebrows.
Johnnie turned to look at him, shocked, “What?” he laughed.
“Just kidding!” Jake smiled, “but yeah, I hope the police haven’t driven off once we get back.”
“Uhuh.” Johnnie shook his head. Jake was kind of…weird.
“How did you get here, though?” Johnnie asked.
“I walked?”
“No, I mean-“
“Oh, I drove to the party.”
Johnnie gave him another once-over; a plan was forming in his head.
“You can drive us back. Maybe it’s too much to ask but-”
“I think I’m too cold to drive.”
“But we can warm up, in the car…we can-“
“We should go to the hospital.”
Johnnie was pleading now, “Listen, the police, they’ll do tests…and they’ll call my mother.”
Jake winced at that, “yeah,” he said “but, I can’t feel my toes…you were unconscious, you nearly /died drowning./”
“I-I know that, but it would be bad if the police found out. Really, really-“
Jake turned to him, placing both hands on his shoulders. His brown eyes locked with his own, his brows drawn in seriousness. “Listen to me.” He started, “I understand what it’s like. I really do. When nothing is easy and everything is hard. I’ve spent so long wondering around like a ghost, not seeing the point in anything. And I still don’t see it yet, but there is something, something within myself that keeps fighting. And I know it’s within you too. You deserve to live, really live, ok.”
Johnnie didn’t know what to say. Jake didn’t know what he had been through, what a fucked-up life he had. When he was depressed, when he couldn’t keep it from reaching his eyes, people said to him ‘Just hold on, the future will be better.’ Just wait, just wait. But how could you hope for happiness that always abandoned you? He felt like he was standing in the middle of a frozen lake.
A lake as wide as the distance of the horizon. In all directions he saw only ice. Johnnie prayed to anything, anyone, that the lake would carry his weight into the infinite distance of winter, knowing it would only be a matter of time before he fell through the ice. And when it had finally happened, he had been frightened, not relieved. The fact that his life could become so meaningless in an instant, the fact that everything he had gone through, all the pain and despair, would truly be for nothing. In the end, he wasn’t anything or anyone. He had been so close to erasing himself, before even giving himself a chance to flourish. How sad that was. How sad. Looking at Jake now though, looking at the person who had given him a chance, he could see himself reflected in him. Like they were similar, like they were born from the same mold. Most of all, he was really glad he wasn’t alone right now.
“We’ll go back and we’ll talk to the police. We’ll face it together and you’ll be glad that you did this.” Jake searched his eyes, hoping he had reached him, “I promise,” he finalized.
“You can’t promise me that.”
“Yes, I can.”
And it was suddenly odd, and the wind had died around them, and the air was finally still. The trees looked almost beautiful in their glittery white coats. The path ahead was clear for the first time.
“I don’t think I’m really up for trusting right now” Johnnie whispered, “…I know a lot of bad people, fucked-up people, but I guess I realized that…when I came back, my fear of dying without purpose is stronger than my unwillingness to live.” He chuckled a little to himself, “Drowning wasn’t as fun as I thought.”
“So, we’ll go talk to them?”
“I will try.”
Jake gave him a bashfully boyish smile, drawing lines in his cheeks, exposing perfectly white teeth. “We fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
“Did you quote that from a movie or something?”
“Yeah, 'Batman Begins', a cult classic.”
After a while of walking with an excruciatingly slow pace, the trees were finally clearing, and the party revealed itself to them in the near distance. The snow lay around them like a soft, pillowy blanket. The moon had peaked from behind the clouds, and cast the stark whiteness around in a glittery veil. Just moments before, this place had been a barren, unforgiving place, hellbent on destroying them both. Yet now, it was almost serene, calm. The music was gone. The huge bonfire had died down. Most of the people had scattered or were arguing with the police. Jake felt like he was on the brink of collapse, most of his limbs were frozen stiff. Johnnie’s hand was a ball of ice in his. They were practically frozen together. He didn’t think he had ever been so cold in his life, but they had made it and they would live to survive another day. As they came closer, Johnnie noticed the ambulance and the medics rushing to carry an unconscious woman onto a stretcher. Jasmin was speaking frantically with one of them. He would speak to her later, something bad had obviously happened. For now, Johnnie let himself be dragged towards the police, who had multiple people in handcuffs. They simultaneously noticed Gump who was forcefully held down against the trunk of a police car looking miserable. Johnnie caught his eye, and an evil scowl darkened Gumps face as he saw him. He was mumbling something, trying his hardest to break free from the grip of the policeman. Jake looked at Johnnie, raising his eyebrows in question, “You know that idiot too?”
“Yup.” Johnnie replied. “I guess he was never meant to run very far.” Jake seemed to understand what he meant and grinned.
“He’s probably held for drug possession.”
“A real Christmas miracle that I dropped mine in the Weser.” Johnnie mumbled, doom crossing his face at the thought. Jake squeezed his hand and scanned their surroundings. He couldn’t find Doe anywhere in the crowd. Maybe she had managed to escape the police, but maybe it was better if she hadn’t. A policewoman stood by her car, the blue and red lights painting the snow around her.
“We need help!” Jake shouted, waving his free hand above his head. “Wait!” Johnnie tried to grab Jakes arm, but the policewoman near the ambulance turned towards them and nearly dropped her walkie-talkie in the snow at the sight of them.
“What happened to you?!” she demanded when she reached them, looking them over with serious concern. They could have been two wandering Yetis and no one would be the wiser.
“We’re w-wet.” Johnnie explained through chattering teeth.
“We fell in the river…” Jake elaborated.
“How the hell did you manage that?” The policewoman questioned.
Johnnie managed a dry laugh, “The river is really tempting this time of year.”
“You’re a lucky guy, friend. A really, really lucky guy.”
“Maybe. Or I just had a personal lifeguard watching over me.” Johnnie peeked at Jake, who shrugged his shoulders in a no-big-deal sort of way. “Not anymore,” Jake said, “I’m quitting because of the shitty work conditions.”
“That’s fair.” Johnnie huffed.
The policewoman crossed her arms, squinting at them. Johnnie gulped. This was a bad idea after all.
“Listen, you two go to the ambulance and get yourselves warmed up. One of our officers will come over and question you soon. We’ll need to see some ID and-“
“Questioning? For what exactly?” Johnnie asked, nervously.
“We received an anonymous call for drug distribution, a possible fire hazard in the area /and/ underage drinking. A young girl has also OD’ed. We need to round everyone up.”
Jake and Johnnie looked at each other. “What…?”
“You may have critical information on the girl. For now, go get yourselves to the ambulance. You could be in serious risk of hypothermia.”
Jakes heart was pounding in his chest. A young girl had OD’ed. A young girl. He looked around frantically for Doe, but she was still gone. They rushed to the ambulance and Jake almost couldn’t bear to look inside, to face the truth. Johnnie let out a staggering breath. “I-I’ve seen that girl before,” he croaked. Jakes stomach dropped. He opened his eyes slowly.
“She’s Jasmins friend.”
Jake didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t help feeling relieved, relived it wasn’t Doe lying there, pale as the snow on the ground, sickened by the poison inside of her. The medics pushed both of them aside, rushing around the girl in the fur coat, preparing to perform CPR. Doe was gone and had managed to disappear into the winter after all and whatever was out there now, was not for Jake to find anymore. He took a deep breath. “I hope she’ll be alright,” he whispered. Johnnie didn’t answer, because he knew. He knew and had /seen/ that she wouldn’t be.
And how sad that was, how sad.
“I don’t feel too good,” Johnnie grumbled suddenly. His knees buckled under him before Jake managed to catch him. Cold sweat was trickling down Johnnies forehead, his eyes were glazed over.
Jake shouted for the medics in fright, who rushed to their side and helped them both into the ambulance. “H-hey.” Jake stuttered, gripping Johnnies hand tightly. “You’ll be fine. It’s shock, ok. But you’ll be fine.”
“I’m just really tired.” Johnnie mumbled, lulling his head onto Jakes shoulder. He was feeling really nauseous, but at least he felt warmer now.
“I know. This is the hard part,” Jake said, “but don’t worry, I’ll come with you to the hospital.”
“Thank you.” Johnnie held Jakes gaze. There was an earnest look in his eyes, like crystal clear ice.
“Just keep swimming.” Jake joked and patted Johnnies shoulder.
“Nemo?”
“Yeah, he was a true philosopher.”
“Philosopher…” Johnnie said thoughtfully, ”We shall do well in believing the testimony of wise men.”
“What?”
Johnnie couldn’t help but laugh, “Hell, do I know,” he said and watched the land outside blur and melt into a void of ice and snow.