Midway through our tests, Lizzie rejoined the room and waited until the doctors left to prepare for some of the tests I was going to take. Her eyes were glistening with tears, so I sat her down and hugged her. “Is everything ok with Frank?”

            Lizzie shook her head. “Beck, Frank was fired.”

            “What!? What the hell, why?”

            She scoffed. “You kidding? So many people were traumatized seeing you flop backward onto the cage. The whole museum was panicked, and someone had to be blamed. Frank was fired not only for operating the machine when you got shocked, but for suggesting a volunteer in the first place.”

            I paused to realize just how big the situation must’ve gotten. Of course, my accident wouldn’t have just been something small that barely made local news. This was huge, a massively attended location had a widely viewed accident in front of children. And my crazy survival would be ever more insane. “That’s so unfair!” I complained. “I signed a waiver, so I’m the one who should be responsible, not Frank!”

            “Tell that to the angry mob who demanded answers immediately,” she said with an eyeroll. They thought the whole thing was set up to get the Museum into the national news. Frank’s not a very quick thinker, so he fumbled and mumbled until his boss showed up and fired him in front of everyone. The police showed up too, I thought he got arrested at first, but thankfully he’s just in for questioning. Leave it to waivers to keep him out of trouble.”

            “A set up to get into the news? That’s fucking stupid…”

            “So many people think the whole thing was fake. I mean, ignoring the fact that you reached through the cage, there should have been no way for the bolts to reach your heart when you fell back. It’s a whole conspiracy theory already.”

            “How do you even know?” I asked, horrified.

            “It’s all over Twitter. Ok, maybe not all over Twitter, but I’ve kinda been searching…”

            “You didn’t post the video, did you?”

            “No, and there’s no video online yet. Right now, there’s just eyewitness accounts and whatever bullshit is coming from the news headlines. I worry about the security cameras though, they caught everything too.”

            “Poor Frank…” I said, but really my mind was elsewhere. “Did… Did I really get struck in the heart?”

            Lizzie avoided my glance but held out her phone. “I still have the video. It’s… not fun to watch, but it might be a good idea for you to see it at least once.”

            I shuddered, thinking about how it felt when I was up in the cage, and then imagining seeing it. Reliving it. The whole thing was not comforting but… “I think I need to,” I answered slowly. “Just to get it out of the way. Hopefully I’ll never have to see it again after this…”

            Lizzie nodded and scrolled around on her phone until she found the video. Shaking, she handed the phone to me before turning away, not wanting to watch.

            Already the scene was strange, with me in a big red suit that did not match my normal look. Frank introduced me, and I waved right at the camera, giving an innocent and excited smile, completely unaware of my impending punishment. I watched as my past self wandered into the cage, breathing deeply to calm himself. The cage rose in the air, and he stared right at the camera with a half-smile. I didn’t realize just how much I had looked at Lizzie for comfort during the whole thing.

            Eventually the first bolt struck, and I saw myself flinch barely, but stare right at the generator. My back was to the camera, so I had no idea of what my face looked like. Lizzie had zoomed in, so the scene was very clear. Bolt after bolt hit the cage, but my body just looked stiff, still. I widened my eyes as I watched, I knew somehow that I had been tranced. Then I started moving. The movement was incredibly robotic, slow and tight. My right arm raised toward the edge of the cage mechanically, and I watched in horror as I saw myself reach through the crack in the cage.

            ZAP!

            There was the first bolt and instantly everyone gasped as my body practically crumbled beneath itself. It was a horrible mix of my legs collapsing onto themselves and my torso somehow getting thrown backwards. The effect was my shins fell under my thighs at a bent angle, and my back fell onto the cage leaving my chest area perfectly exposed. I gasped at the scene, that fall alone making my heart drop like a weight. Many people had gasped, and Lizzie had let out her own deafening “BECK! OH MY GOD!”

            ZAP!

            The next bolt hit so unexpectedly that I nearly dropped the phone. Because not only had the strike caught me off guard the pathing was… well, impossible! From the tower, a bolt had managed to curve its way toward the gate, weave in between the bars of the cage and dip downward to hit my chest, right where my heart would be. People screamed as my body flailed on the cage floor, unable to move. At this point the auditorium was a mess of people screaming or watching in silent horror.

            ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

            Two. Three. Four. Five. I counted as the electrical strikes hit again and again, somehow weaving through the cage bars and right into my heart. Before I thought the bolts were beautiful. Now they lost all that had made them mesmerizing. Now they were dark, torturous. Each hit flailed my body around like a flopping fish out of water, yet the next bolt found my chest all over again. The quality of the video was shaky, but you could still tell the bolt was hitting me in roughly… no, exactly the same spot each time. Like the generator was out on a mission to punish me specifically.

            ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

            Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. At the ninth bolt, I could hear an audible sound of something shutting down, much like the slow powering off of a vacuum. There was no visual indicator, just that the bolts seemingly stopped there, and all was suddenly quiet. Wait, nine bolts? I thought people said there were-

            ZAP!

            The tenth bolt struck, and everyone jumped in the auditorium in surprise, just as did I watching. Another bolt had managed to find my heart out of nowhere, well after the machine had shut down. My body had one final spasm before settling gently in the center of the cage. What!? I thought, eyebrows raised. That was the tenth!? Didn’t Frank turn it off by that point!? I put the phone down in disbelief. “How… that last bolt-”

            “I don’t know,” Lizzie said, anticipating my question. “I have no idea how that last bolt got you. I’d guess residual electricity or something, but I don’t think that’s a thing. Besides, that’s not even the part of the video that concerns me the most. The cage was supposed to be completely safe! How the hell did you get struck in the first place!?”

            I rubbed my head in stress. The replay of my body jerking wildly while unconscious was now burned into my memory, and it would surely haunt me for the rest of my life. My stupid idiotic mistake, soon to be all over the internet. I groaned to myself. I doubted life would ever go back to normal.

            “Your parents are on their way, by the way,” Lizzie said. “They’re getting an overnight flight over, so they’ll probably be here by morning.”

            I cringed, remembering my mom’s aggressively protective nature. I just knew I was about to get a mouthful and a thousand-year lecture on why what I did was reckless and idiotic. “I’m not looking forward to that confrontation… What about Eliza and James?”

            “They’re staying with the Andersons, whoever they are.”

            “My neighbors,” I said with a nod. “Nice people, but we aren’t particularly close. Oh God Lizzie, I’m gonna be in so much trouble… I’m such a fucking idiot, I should’ve never gone into that stupid cage…” Lizzie wrapped her arms around my slumped form and laid her head on the back of my neck. She didn’t say anything, instead letting me let my tears and emotions go a bit. I readjusted so I hugged her back in tears. I was never ashamed to cry in my life. I always felt it was not only stronger to admit weakness than it was to avoid it, but it was also just a good way to let out all frustrations and pent-up feelings. And Lizzie was the perfect shoulder to cry on. We did it to each other so often that we knew we could tell each other anything. I leaned my head slightly to kiss her neck affectionately and went back to the hug.

            I wasn’t sure what broke the dam. Maybe it was the reaction to seeing my body’s horrific movements in the cage. Maybe because I should’ve died and had only survived due to some miracle. Maybe because Frank was in serious trouble because of my actions. Maybe because my mom was about to give me the scolding of a lifetime. Maybe because so many people saw my accident that I knew it was about to become the story of the day. Maybe because instead of enjoying Boston like we had planned, we were stuck in a hospital. Our first vacation together, and I ruined it day one. Maybe all of that combined.

            And for the next several hours, we just sat in each other’s embrace, crying out hearts out.