Jack and I went back to the hospital Seth found us in. It seemed as good a place as any to start, and it felt like the kind of place where weird shit would be happening.  We landed in the empty lobby again. 

 

“Poke around this floor for a minute,” Seth’s voice sounded in my ear.  He made some sort of earpieces so he could communicate with Jack and I.  “I wanna see if there’s anything significant here.”

 

“It’s weird that it’s always empty, right?” Jack said. 

 

“This could be some kind of liminal space,” I said, and Jack gave me a look. “Liminal is like.. transitional. Like directly under a doorway, or a highway rest area. It’s a place between places.”

 

“Oooh.”

 

“How d’you not know that?  Didn’t you have, like, private tutors and shit?”

 

“Maaan, what makes you think I paid attention?”

 

I heard Seth chuckle in my ear. 

 

“No you’re right,” I said, “that was a foolish assumption.  You definitely have the air of a professional slacker. My apologies.”

 

“You are forgiven,” Jack said.

 

“Try the front door,” Seth said, “it was static outside before. See what it is now.”

 

I did what he asked. “Yep,” I said, “still static.”

 

“Cool, how do you guys feel about going out there and seeing where you land?”

 

“Uuuuh,” Jack looked at me from across the lobby. “I’d rather not?”

 

“Yea man, the static storm is fuckin’ rough,” I agreed. 

 

“Would you even be able to talk to us in the static?” Jack asked. 

 

“Ok that’s a fair point,” Seth said, “we should do some tests.”

 

“You mean one of us has to go out there and see if the fuckin’ earpiece still works,” I said. 

 

“Yes. You two should maintain physical contact, and *one* of you should go through the door.  The other should remain *inside the building.*”

 

Jack and I held hands and I stepped outside. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore how overwhelming the sound was. I stood for a moment, entranced by the pattern that stretched endlessly before me. 

 

Jack pulled on my hand, and I blinked. My eyes were dry. How long was I staring?  I looked back, disoriented, and Jack tugged me inside. 

 

“Dude are you ok?” He asked. 

 

“I’m f— how long was I standing there.”

 

“For a *minute* man,” Seth said with a laborious tone that implied it had been more than a minute. “Looks like no sound gets through the static.  You seem sorta’ out of it, Andrew, are you ok?”

 

“I’m...” I tried to think but it felt like there was static inside my brain. “I feel.. I feel like I was looking at something but I can’t... I can’t remember what?  It feels... weird.”

 

“Did you feel weird like this the last time you were in the static?” Seth asked. 

 

“I...” I tilted my head and tried to remember. Jack was still holding my hand and he pulled me toward some chairs. I sat down and rubbed my head. “I mean.. I was in it for a lot.. longer?  Or...Was I..?  Wait..” I pulled the hat off my head and pressed my fingertips into my scalp.  “Thinking about it... hurts?”

 

“Sounds like there’s some sort of temporal disruption in the static.” Seth said. “Don’t focus on it.”

 

“But maybe that’s how I saw something.. maybe. I can’t...” I furrowed my brow. “I can’t see it but I can feel it. I saw.. s-ss—“. I stopped suddenly and pressed my hand over my mouth. 

 

“Stop thinking about it, Andrew,” Seth said. 

 

I breathed through the nausea.  The pain in my head slowly faded. When I opened my eyes Jack wasn’t next to me anymore. 

 

“Seth, where’s Jack?”

 

“You didn’t hear me tell him to go upstairs?” 

 

“..no.” I said. 

 

“Just come upstairs, Andrew.” I heard Jack through my earpiece. 

 

I felt uneasy. 

 

I stood up and went to the elevator. The air in the lobby felt oppressive somehow. The back of my neck prickled as the elevator door opened. I got in and went to the second floor. 

 

Like before the second floor was active. The lights were on and it seemed like it was midday. Jack was at the end of the hall and he was walking towards me. 

 

I stepped off the elevator and stared at Jack. I fought the urge to back myself against the doors when he got close. 

 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. “Are you alright?”

 

“I’m.. I’m fine,” I said. 

 

This was stupid. This was definitely Jack. He was only out of my sight for a minute but— but I had a gap of time missing.  How could I know that I was still where I thought I was?  How could I know the voice in my ear was Seth?  How could I know this was Jack?

 

Maybe I was somewhere else, and it just looked like the place I expected to be because I was expecting it?

 

Had I been hearing Jack in my earpiece before?  I didn’t remember that being a function of the earpiece. They were connecting us to Seth, not Jack and I to each other. 

 

Right?

 

“Shit. No,” I said. “Never mind. I lied. I’m not fine. We need to come back.”

 

“Um, ok,” Seth said. 

 

A door appeared in the wall next to me and I opened it.  I stepped into Seth’s computer room. Jack followed me. 

 

“What’s going on?” Seth asked me. 

 

“I dunno,” I said as I crossed the room, “probably nothing.”

 

I went to his kitchen and took a bottle of water from the fridge. I could hear Seth and Jack whispering in the other room. Or maybe I could’t. I felt suspicious of everything. I was probably hallucinating. 

 

After a minute Seth and Jack joined me. 

 

“Seth,” I said, “do the earpieces allow Jack and I to talk to each other when we aren’t in the same room?”

 

“Oh. No, but that’s a great idea.”

 

I frowned at Jack. “I heard him through the ear piece telling me to join him upstairs.”

 

“I didn’t though,” Jack said. “I thought you came upstairs because Seth said that’s where I was.”

 

“Did you have eyes on him he whole time?” I asked. 

 

“Andrew, it’s *me*,” Jack said. 

 

“I’m sure it is.”

 

“It is, Andrew. Do you wanna see the feed?” Seth offered. 

 

“Yea,” I answered, “I do.”

 

Seth took us back to the living room and turned on a couple screens. The footage ran backwards for a few moments, and Seth stopped it right before I stepped into the static to check if the earpiece worked in the storm. 

 

I watched myself look into the static and stop moving for a solid fifteen minutes. My feed was taken over by the sound of static, and Seth turned it down a little. Jack’s feed still had sound.

 

“Ok, Andrew can you hear me?”

 

“Andrew?” Jack called into the static. 

 

“I don’t think he can hear anything out there.” Seth said. 

 

“Andrew!!” Jack shouted, and I didn’t move.  He started to step through the door. 

 

“Stop!  Jack!  You’re the anchor!  You can’t go out there!” Seth shouted. 

 

“But I can’t,” Jack tugged on my arm and I didn’t move, “get his attention!”

 

The rest of the fifteen minutes was spent trying to get me back inside.  There was a lot of yelling from Jack’s end. He was scared.  Panicking. His age changed several times. There wasn’t anything in particular that worked. Jack just kept pulling my hand until I noticed. 

 

I came back inside, confused and distressed. I remembered this part.  Everything was the same until I sat down and tried to remember what was in the static. My hand went over my mouth, and Seth told me to stop thinking about it, and then I sat perfectly still. 

 

My feed went silent.

 

Seth asked Jack to poke around upstairs.  He went to the elevator, and I realized that not even the ding it made when it arrived came through my feed.  And I didn’t remember hearing it either. 

 

I squinted at my screen and angled my head to hear better. I realized it wasn’t silent. There was a low hum of static. 

 

“Yea,” Seth said to me, “I thought it was a glitch or something. There’s no sound until you snap out of it.”

 

I watched Jack’s screen. Nobody seemed to see him. That blond guy who spoke to us the first time wasn’t around. Jack opened every unlocked door as he passed by to see if they all led to the hospital. 

 

He seemed uneasy walking around by himself.  He was cautious of everything. 

 

It was ten minutes before I said, “Seth, where’s Jack?”

 

The sound on my feed was back, and everything was exactly as I remembered it— except Jack never told me to come upstairs. I watched myself hear his voice and freeze again for a second. I remembered the eerie feeling in the air. 

 

Everything after that was the same as I remembered it. 

 

Seth turned the screens off.  “Ok.  How are you feeling?”

 

“Like a.. fucking crazy person,” I said. 

 

“What’s weird is that your hallucination didn’t come through your feed,” Seth said. “When I play back footage from your life, I can see and hear everything that you see. It’s a part of your experience and it all gets rolled into your stored data.  So... either this works differently when you’re not in your world for some reason, or that wasn’t a hallucination.”

 

“What else would it fucking be?” I asked. 

 

“I’m not sure.” Seth answered.  “But maybe you should go get some rest. I’ll.. try to figure out what happened here.”

 

Jack tugged my sleeve and stood up. I followed him to the guest bedroom Seth created for us. 

 

Seth was getting pretty good at manifesting things. 

 

The room was about the size of a hotel room. There were two beds and a countertop along one wall.  We already decided who got which bed, and I laid down on mine. I faced the wall for a moment, but the back of my neck prickled like *something* was wrong. I rolled over and watched the door. 

 

Jack was sitting on his bed, looking at me.  I met his eyes and he immediately looked down at the floor. 

 

“Jack,” I said, and he looked at me again. “How old are you right now?”

 

“Um...” Jack looked at his hands and touched his hair. “I-I dunno.  My hair seems shorter.. a little.  I might be..” he trailed off. 

 

He looked younger than usual by a few years at least. I sat up and said, “come here.”

 

Jack came to my bed and I touched his hair. I ran my fingers over his cloths and the palms of his hands. I looked into his eyes and tried to convince myself that this was Jack. 

 

Because it was, and this was stupid. 

 

“It really is me,” he said quietly. 

 

“I know that,” I said, “but that’s also what someone would say if they wanted me to believe they were you.” I frowned and worried my lip. 

 

“I can see how that’d be an issue,” Jack said. 

 

“Can I.. can I kiss you?”

 

Jack grinned. “You don’t really have to ask me that.”

 

“Yes I d—“

 

Jack pressed his lips against mine and breathed in slowly.  I sank my fingers into his hair. Jack pressed forward and climbed into my lap. His mood was better than it had been last time, and I wasn’t immediately consumed by his sorrow. It felt like the opposite. It felt like he was looking into my soul. 

 

I sucked in a breath and turned my head. 

 

My heart was pounding. 

 

“Shh, it’s ok,” Jack said. He touched my face and pressed the palm of his hand over my heart. “It’s ok.” His eyes were closed. “I know what you need.”

 

Jack held my face with both hands and pressed his forehead against mine. I felt him breathe. I felt his pulse through his hands. His essence flowed through me. I wasn’t sure if I was breathing. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open. I wasn’t sure if Jack was kissing me again or if it just felt that way. 

 

I felt..

 

Everything that he was.  I felt his fear, and his longing, and the gaping pit of emptiness inside him. 

 

I opened my eyes when he sobbed.  He shook, and let go of my head. He looked up at the ceiling and I felt him trying to shove it all back down. 

 

“Jack..” I said. 

 

“I’m ok.”

 

“No you’re not.”

 

“Did you see what you needed to see?”  His voice shook and he took a sharp gasp of breath. 

 

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s ok,” he whispered. 

 

“Do you want..?” I blinked and tried to think. I felt like there was static in my brain and I couldn’t... find my words. Too many and too few options came to me at once. My eyelids fluttered and my vision unfocused. “Do you..?”

 

“Yes,” Jack said, and kissed me. 

 

He leaned into me and we sank down onto the mattress. Jack straddled my hips.  His long hair cascaded around my face like a curtain. I could feel him Seeing me again, and I didn’t pull away this time. 

 

This is what I intended. 

 

He touched me like he could feel it with his own body. Like I was an extension of Jack.  He didn’t do anything ineffective for very long, and I never had to say anything. 

 

Jack wrapped himself in my essence.  He felt my paranoia, my confusion, my uncertainty.  It all washed through me as Jack lost himself in my experience.  

 

My heart raced. There was something watching us from under Jack’s bed.  I could barely see it on the edge of my vision, but I could feel it’s grotesque little eyes boring into me. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to look at it.  

 

I tried to focus on Jack’s lips as they skirted over the soft flesh under my ear. 

 

“It’s ok,” he murmured to me. “Don’t think about it. Think about... Lindsey.”

 

Jack sank his teeth gently into my earlobe and I gasped quietly.  My eyes drifted up to the ceiling. I felt... tingly. 

 

*I felt* like I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I was heavy. Too distracted to move, or reciprocate. 

 

I knew this feeling. 

 

I felt stoned. 

 

I tried not to think about the *thing*. It seemed, sometimes, like it was getting closer. 

​

“Shh,” Jack pressed the corner of his mouth to my cheek, and blocked my vision on that side. “It isn’t real. It’s ok.  Think about Lindsey. Show me something.”  I felt him grin against my cheek. “Something true, or.. something you *wanted* to be true.”

 

I smiled, and took the bait. 

 

I couldn’t help but think about her. I thought about so many instances all at once.  They overlapped and blurred together and formed into a scene that played haltingly across the ceiling. 

 

“Breathe,” Jack said, and I inhaled. 

 

I watched memories and fantasies on the ceiling while Jack... *worshiped* me? That’s what it felt like. He was enthralled.  I could feel him in my mind. There was relief pouring out of him. He was desperately grateful to not be alone in his own mind. 

 

*I wonder if he was doing this to Reggie when they merged.*

 

Jack paused. 

 

*Oh shit. I’m sorry.*

 

“It’s ok. I’m thinking.” Jack said. “Yes.” He moved his head to look at me. “I was ‘worshiping’ her when we merged.”  He looked at me and waited for my brain to process. “You aren’t good at being worshiped,” he smirked a little. “You leave your body when you think, and you never stop thinking.”

 

I laughed. 

 

“No seriously,” Jack said, “would you think about your dick for five minutes?  How do you get distracted *away* from fantasies about fucking Lindsey?”

 

*Maybe... because I really like her and I kind of feel like she’s just fucking with me?*

 

Jack sighed. 

 

*So I’m not talking, that’s weird, right?*

 

“I overstimulated you,” Jack said with a smile. 

 

*I feel really high*

 

“Then thinking about your dick should be really fun right now. Can you focus please?”

 

I laughed.

 

Jack resumed, and I tried to focus on him. 

 

I felt him in my mind, nudging me away from stray thoughts and rabbit holes.  I kept my eyes fixed on the white ceiling. It danced with faint ribbons of colored light. They swirled, and breathed, and *undulated*. 

 

Jack was...

 

Skilled. 

 

He managed to keep my attention for what felt like a long time. 

 

Then the swirling lights blurred and became static. The static twisted into a pattern. I felt like I was falling into it. It filled my field of vision. 

 

I heard it inside my head. The static. It started faintly, but it soon grew to a deafening roar. 

 

A million eyes opened in the static at once. 

 

“Stop!” I lurched into motion and sat up.  My heart was pounding. “I can’t—“ I dug my fingers into my scalp and breathed heavily. “Aaaaaah-nng. Fffffffuh.”  I was trying to make words but the static in my  brain was too loud. 

 

Jack backed away from me and refrained from touching me for a minute.  

 

“Don’t try to explain,” he said, “I know what happened.”

 

I rubbed my hands through my hair.  It seemed to relieve the vibrating hum of the static. I dug my fingernails in a little. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. He touched my shoulder. “I shouldn’t have dug so deep.”

 

“I knew you were going to,” I said as I scraped my fingernails across my scalp.  The sharp pain cut through the static enough for me to think.

 

 Jack hesitated for a second, then reached into my lap and made sure all my fleshy bits were covered by some part of my clothing. 

 

I was starting to understand some things about Jack. He was fueled by his connection with other people. It’s why being trapped alone in Marcy’s room hurt him so much.  He needed that intense emotional connection as much as he needed to breathe. 

 

We would have to find other sources for Jack. I was a dangerous well to draw from. 

 

“Did I seriously fuck you up?” Jack asked.

 

“No. I’ll be fine.”  I dug in even harder with my nails. 

 

Jack stood up and moved directly in front of me. He touched my hands. “You’re hurting yourself.”

 

“Can’t think,” I said. “Static.”

 

Jack pulled me to him and pressed my head into his middle. “I’m sorry for messing up your head,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry you didn’t get to finish.”

 

“Ha,” I breathed. “That’s ok.  I don’t always.”

 

“Seriously?”  Jack pulled back and looked at my face. 

 

I laughed. He looked so fucking distressed about it. I dropped my hands into my lap. The static rumbled a little louder, but my fingers were sore, and so was my scalp. 

 

“It’s not funny!”  Jack continued, and I laughed a little harder. “No!  Seriously!  Did you come the last time we did it??”

 

I shook my head, still chuckling at his overblown reaction. He looked at me with his mouth open and his eyes wide. “I..” I tried to make words, but I couldn’t line them up in my head.  

 

I dug my fingers back into my scalp and Jack grabbed my hands. “Stop hurting yourself,” he muttered. He sank his fingertips into my hair and messaged my head. 

 

“Thanks,” I said. “Anyway.. That wasn’t really part of my goal last time.”

 

“How is finishing *not* part of your goal!?”

 

“Well *you* finishing was part of my goal.” I said. 

 

“But—“

 

“It would have taken forever, Jack. It’s.. it’s a medication thing, or a mentally ill thing. I’m not sure which.  I just don’t always get there, and I’m fine with that.”  Jack didn’t say anything, so I added, “besides, girls like it when you can go for like an hour.”

 

Jack laughed. “Maybe you just need something a little extra,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows. 

 

“Like *what*?”

 

“Oh, honey. Think about last time.”

 

“Ok.”

 

“Now reverse our positions.”

 

“Oh. *Oooh*.”

 

Jack grinned. “There you go.”

 

“I hadn’t actually considered that.”

 

“You wanna try it?”  Jack’s grin twisted into a smirk. 

 

“Not right fuckin’ now I don’t.” I said. “My brain feels all.. weird.”

 

“Ok.  Do you wanna just.. lay down?”

 

“Yea.”

 

We stretched out on my bed. Jack laid with me, his arm and leg both draped across my body. 

 

I closed my eyes, and I could see static against my eyelids.