"It is you...", Jay huffed behind the safety of yet another bulletproof one-way mirror, crumpling an old picture in his hand. Burning his skin like coal and smoldering ashes, the putrid stench of a long-burning grudge filled his chest anew.
Shuffling, first quietly, then louder and louder.
The lights flickered, a shadow, no, multiple shadows cast across the room.

"What is happening?", Evie whispered. Then the room went dark.
Jay narrowed his eyes, squinting into the pitch black of the room, as his partner-in-crime moved away from the window.

A tap. Quietly, a nail against the glass. Beckoning for him to step closer, just a little closer.
More urgently than he had ever imagined a stranger to call for him, let alone Sasha. Sasha!
It couldn't be, Jay had watched him fade away, get carted off, he had picked up an urn, scattered ashes at the city border. The lookout point in the never-fading sunset, where they had promised they'd meet again, when everything was solved and this virus was no longer gnawing at mankind! If anyone could have solved this, it would have been—
He inched closer, closer towards the vague outlines of who he had to become, over the years, a looming shadow of his former self, steppint into the reflection on the glass. Scars and outlines of a life that never quite belonged to him, but to the highest bidder. An eye lost to closure, a hand sacrificed to save another, a torn earlobe to say goodbye.
He took a deep breath and reminded himself The monster can not see you.

"Dark brown hair, right?", he could vaguely make out behind the glass, distant, yet just a whisper, meant for nobody but him. Jay.

With a burning bright flash, the lights behind the barrier of glass flickered ot life, burning a new face into Jays retinas.
The photo crumbled and dropped from his fist. Dark hair, grey eyes, a soft smile beyond the glass, only a blink in a moment away from his past, a future never meant to be. There he was. Sasha.

"Careful", Evie snarled, as Jay inched closer, little by little, hypnotized by a mere flash of a memory, a future never meant to be, a life not lived to its fullest. The sole reason he was here today, the sole reason he prayed on New Hybernias' downfall every day.

——

"Excuse me, I am looking for room 402?", the words echoed through the back of his mind once again.
A calm, quiet voice, down at his heavy leather shoes, wrapped in a parka way too big for him, nearly swallowing him whole.

Bony hands, touching. Scattered papers, crooked glasses, absentminded small-talk.
The catalyst to a story never to unfurl, a meeting never to repeat.
An explosion, a separation, a confession unspoken, and apologies silenced forever.

They had been so happy once, driving in Jays beat-up and rusted Old World car, skidding on the edge of the city, where the horizon met the crater. He wanted to go out like that one day, Sasha had laughed, oxygen tank hissing in his backpack, as they watched the sunless sky. He had said many things to Jay that day, any Jay remembered nearly all of them.

—-

"y... Jay, JAY!", Evies voice echoed beyond the glass. 

"How did I...?!", he mumbled, as the world around him began to solidify once again, emerging from the blur.

"Jay...", the stranger with a familiar face repeated. A smile slightly to wide, eyes just a little bit too bright, "I think I might just call you RED."

⋘ ↻ 04/12 ⋙