Chapter 108: No

"You'll go with me, won't you?"

The sequence begins the same way every time. Acheron has seen it enough to know Claire wants him to go to prom with her; she knows he's too shy to ask HER, so she's asking HIM. But she also knows he's too shy to want to go at all. He hates crowds. But she, Claire Rome, is hoping Acheron Archer cares enough about her to put his hatred of crowds aside for a while...

He's seen it through every set of eyes in the room. Claire, watching him. Pepper, in the background, watching everyone. The lone YARRcade employee, watching no one, but sharp of hearing enough to catch every word. Acheron himself, or what passes for himself in this dream, watching the pinball machine.

It's all become familiar. This must be the beginning, because this always comes first.

Over time, he falls in love with her. It's not just a prom, it's going steady. At first he's sure it's just part of the dream, part of the sequence, but after enough nights Acheron has no idea if he fell in love with her in the dream or outside of the dream.

Claire's voice. It echoes through every image, every twist and turn. It's in the walls, the wind, the wreckage, even in parts of the dream where she isn't there. She jokes that she can entrap him with her voice, weave spells with her words.

"Je t'aime..." Her grandmother taught her this song.

For a second, Acheron's brain stops on that detail. It stabs him. 

Like...
a...
hot...
needle.

Claire, the ground, the walls, the house, Acheron... there's no more of it, it's gone, there's just this painful burning, and he thinks that's the end of this dream. There's always fire near the end.

Wait. Not yet. This part; Acheron doesn't see this part often.

At this moment, Acheron dreams he sees things from his mother's perspective.

Who's the man on the couch? Why can't Acheron get into his own head and see the jerk's face?

"He doesn't usually glare at people," Ceth apologizes to the stranger.

Claire captures fireflies at night.

He doesn't know if he's there or not, but she asks him if he thinks one lifetime is enough.

He can see her silhouette before she's incinerated.

Cemre is in tears. And he's embarrassed of such an open display of fear and anger and sadness. 

"Dude," Cemre chokes, "this is the second one in as many weeks..."

Claire was Cemre's second or third cousin or something. Acheron didn't think they were ever that close. Acheron should be the one crying. So why does he feel so empty and cold? Maybe he's dead. Incinerated. The second one in as many weeks.

"Wait," Acheron speaks up. The dream begins to warp around him; he's the only one that notices. "Cemre, what are you talking about?"

"First Claire, now Amy," Cemre says, incredulous. "We don't know who killed them."

Now Amy?

Now AMY?

Well, at least Acheron knows now, he is not dead.

"Claire's death was an accident," Candace says gently, trying to console her boyfriend.

"Was it?" Cemre glares sharply. "In light of what just happened, do you really think-"

Everything breaks.

He wakes up. 1:27 AM. Since he can't sleep, he's going to drag himself over to his desk, flip open his notebook, and write down every detail of this nightmare. He'll compare it to the other nights. What happened first? What happened next? What was missing? Why the discrepancies?

And what the hell? Amy? Were they standing over Amy's grave all along?

"You're all tense,"Cemre mocks. "You need this more than us."

Acheron sits listlessly in front of the bubble machine, across from Candace. He rubs his eyes.

"Leave him alone," Candace says, exhaling her mint-flavored bubbles. "At least he snuck us in here."

"Tryin' to help, Candy. Acheron, haven't you ever heard how nobody trusts someone who won't drink while everyone else is drinking? You're being that right now. We're having fun. You're sitting there."

"He's not judging us," Candace says. "Are you, 'Ron?"

Acheron mumbles something. He doesn't know what he mumbles. Maybe a no, of course not, I brought you here after all? He has no interest in watching them make fools of themselves. Really. What did Candy just call him...?

She tilts her head, smiling goofily. "You okay, 'Ron?"

He tries to make his expression communicate a disapproval of the shortening of his name.

He just can't feel what his face is doing. The muscles don't cooperate.

 "You'll go with me, won't you?"

"Well, we've got something to say."

 "What've you got there?"

 "Aren't you ever afraid that our time just won't be enough? Don't you ever think you should have had more? Acheron?"

"I've got now, Claire." 

He loves her so much. 

What a terrible thing, to fall in love.

No. It's not that one-sided. THEY are so in love.

She kisses his chin and works her way up to his mouth. 

It feels so real.

And yet he knows, by now, it's not.

That knowledge doesn't get him anywhere. He can't always tell his nightmare-self what to do, what to ask. It keeps on with the charade, as if every time is the first time, as if it doesn't know...

"What?" Acheron hopes his voice wasn't a squeak, because that's the way he heard it. "What's wrong with them?"


Claire studies the flowers intently.


Then smiles. "Ah. Nothing. I was just thinking, I could use these."


Use?


She bites her lip. "Objects with an emotional attachment... they're... quite valuable to me, actually. I love these, Acheron. Thank you."

He sought help in strange places.


"You look bedraggled," a half-elf said to him.

This place. The family owns this place, this side of the calm river.

His mother. She checks on it, periodically, but she can't shake the idea that it's haunted.

She thought she was alone.

"Why are you doing here?" Ceth demands.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm out on a f***ing jog."

It's that guy! 

He tries to run past her. He wants to be alone to lick his wounds. Acheron can feel it. Taste it. Hot blood from a cheek ruptured, split open on the inside by the man's own teeth. The shame is a great weight crushing his heart. His legs feel like lead but they're still moving, willing him past Ceth...

"You're hurt!" Ceth grabs the man, stops him. She strokes his cheek.

Whoever's thoughts these are... this person... is in a bad place. He doesn't think he can tell Ceth what's going on. Her concern drives him mad in the first place. It shouldn't exist. How can she act like they're old friends?

But they must have worked it out. They embrace. Acheron can feel the warmth of it.

And the warmth that destroys his girlfriend...

...the girlfriend who's just a friend when he wakes up.

"They gave us the whole day off school for this," Candace says. Everyone in their graduation group is here. Jeffry Rao, Nelson Noon, Jamel Darwin, Cemre Barbarossa, Candace Archer, Amy Libros, Acheron Archer. Seven of them altogether. "We can't just stand around here all day," she continues. She's right. No one wants to be here. "Let's at least pirate ourselves some booze and hang out behind the bleachers or something."

Amy Libros. 

There's something he was supposed to remember about her.

The blinking lights and obnoxious sounds let Acheron know he's in the YARRcade.

"I'm sorry about your girlfriend," Amy says.

She's killed somehow. Amy. Amy is killed by a woman Acheron doesn't recognize.

The assailant kills without touching. Amy's chest erupts with a wound. Bright red blood spatters out. The teenager falls to the ground and writhes in shock. The woman in sandals watches, motionless.

"How good of a shot are you?"

"Claire," Acheron mumbles. His eyelids flutter. Open. Not wanting to open.

How does he change the dream?

Should he be trying to change the dream?

"It's not like it's going to come true," he reasons with himself, with the darkness, with his ant farm as witness to his sanity. "It's just a dream. I just want it to stop."

"You'll go with me, won't you?"

"Don't you ever think one lifetime isn't enough to do everything you want to?"

"What is this? Grandpapa? What kind of f***ing nonsense is this?!"

They've got something to say...

"I was childish, Floyd. I'm sorry. I spent a lot of time looking for you in other people."

A lot of time looking for someone willing to fawn over her.

Looking for something she knew well enough she shouldn't want.

But still, looking for it...

"Je t'aime..."

She cast a spell on him. She used only her voice.

 He's too late. He's always too late.

 "I'm sorry about your girlfriend."

She is. She's not hiding anything. She doesn't know there's a connection.

Maybe there isn't one. Maybe Cemre was wrong.

For Claire, I was the one. Acheron can hear his inner monologue. It's freaking him out. For Amy, I'm a replacement Nelson.

Amy and Nelson broke up. Will it stick? Who knows.

She's fond of Acheron. She likes his hair.

 

"We've been dating for a while now," Amy told him. "You should come see my house and meet my family and stuff."

It's been months. It's been seconds. It's been...

"I don't want you around that girl!" Ceth shouts, desperate. "Her family are... criminals!"

Death by magic. Not as classy as it sounds.

"This is the second one in as many weeks..."

Two girls. Two bodies, both found alone in burned surroundings. An inferno blazed in the caves where Claire was found, and Amy's family's house was a scorched mess. They burned from the outside in. But both also burned from the inside out, as if a small bomb exploded from within. The police said Claire must have been up to something in that cave and brought it on herself. But now with Amy... suddenly it was suspicious.

"Mom taught me how to use the tranquilizer," Candace reassures him.

He thinks that's really weird, to be honest.

"What the hell," he sighs. Each night, there's more detail, and there's less detail. Every night there's something tacked on, every night he knows something else. Sometimes things he wouldn't know. Couldn't know. But that's applying real-world logic to a world that's really just his own brain, messing around. Of course he could know anything in the dream. It's his dream. Isn't it?

He doesn't open his eyes this time. He knows he's awake.

He never dreams about being in bed, after all.

He wishes he did. Two girlfriends, and his subconscious can't figure out what to do with either of them.

It just kills them off.

"That's so disturbing," Acheron whines. Quite aware that he's talking to himself. He pulls his pillow over his face. He hopes the details will fade. But they won't.

Acheron is tired. He goes to school in a daze, and he wouldn't even do that, if his mother and grandfather wouldn't kick his butt for skipping. Acheron's friends have fun on the trampoline behind him, and Acheron keeps up the pretense of being awake by playing his guitar. The music is effortless. His hands hurt. It keeps him grounded.

 "I can see up your skirt!" Cemre shouts.

"LIAR!" Candace laughs.

"You'll go with me, won't you?"

Acheron tells his grandfather about the scribbled notes in the margins of this book. 

"I'd imagine that belonged to Loki," Chervil says. "He knew a lot of things he shouldn't have known. Couldn't have known."

"How?"

"That's a very long story."

"Tell me." 

"Telepathy." Kirette's smile is colder than any ice. "Oh, it's no mystery. I can feel you doing it. But you can't make sense of it while you're preoccupied with... mmm... living your life. So you ignore it. Unconsciously. Have you ever tried meditation, to focus this ability?"


"I've tried sleeping."

 It's a stupid family party or something.



 


 She catches fireflies for a spell.


"Do you think any of that's real?" Acheron asks.


Claire blinks, startled. Their surroundings distort, turn black. This is a new path. Recalculating itself. "Any of what?"


"Spells..."


"Who said anything about-" She stops. Catches herself. She smiles politely. "What do you know?"


"I know about the cave."

"How did you know?"

...


She's going to die here.

He can't tell her that. He tries, but he can't..

She thought she was alone.

Disgust. Amy is disgusted by this thing in her house.







He's always too late.

He can't save her.

Candace hugs him tight.

Do none of these people know he was there?

That he COULD have saved her? 

He wants to protect Amy, more than anything.

He knows something's going to happen to her and if he doesn't figure it out, he can't change the ending.

He plays his guitar for her. She loves that.

 Ceth does NOT want her son dating Amy Libros.

There's something he needs to ask her.

He can't remember in time, what it is.

Another woman in the cave?

Amy threw this away. Now the witch is waving it in her face.


But it's different.


It looks like Amy now, Acheron thinks, insanely.


It's got one eye.


Amy has two... but with those bangs... sometimes he imagines she only has the one.

Amy died. Nelson, her ex-boyfriend, sobs uncontrollably.

Cemre and Candace snog in the background, as if to remind themselves that they're still alive in this horror movie. 


And that's when Acheron sees her...

Claire.

Before he can run to her, Nelson starts yelling.


Acheron can't make out what he's saying.


When he turns around again, Claire is gone.

That guy!

Acheron glares at him. 

That guy should totally unhand his mother.

"We'll find out if you're crazy," Candace promises.

"Claire! You're allowing this creature to interfere?!"

For some reason... Acheron thinks the witch means him.

He opens his eyes. He reached the end of the sequence, and for the first time, Claire was alive.

Ceth signs some autographs for fans.

"I'm going to graduate tomorrow," Zane Fleet says, grinning, "and I'm gonna get a job in the music industry."

"Excellent choice," Ceth says. She draws a little heart next to her name and gives the picture back to him. It's her head on a badly photoshopped big-breasted body in a bikini, but Zane paid a good 100 simoleons for this autpgraph so Ceth sees no problem with it.

"You'll go with me, won't you?"

Acheron begins to sweat. His pores are the size of dinner plates, it feels like, and the salty fluid floods out and she's not noticing. Because that's in his imagination. But the fact that she's here, and he's awake, is reality.

Her voice turns shy, after his extended silence. "We've been friends since we were kids... I just thought... we kind of understood each other..."

When the nightmares began, what seemed like forever ago, a crazy thought crossed his mind: avoid YARRcade, avoid the sequence altogether. But he told himself it was crazy. And suddenly it's not crazy. It's happening just like the dream. Pepper's even here, just like in the dream.

"Acheron...?"

"No," he says softly. "I don't want to go."

Claire is crushed, but he doesn't turn around, so he doesn't know. "Okay," she says.

They resume their pinball game. Claire beats Acheron's score, soundly, and suspects something's wrong with him today. He looks pale.

"Have you ever been in a dream where you're someone else?" Acheron asks.

Cemre has had enough bubbles to answer with a smirk. "Yeah, man. Once when I was a kid... I dreamed I was Johnny Bravo. But I had Spider-Man's powers or somethin'. I climbed up a building to get away from Candace. A skyscraper, man. I climbed right up. I was me, but I was Johnny Bravo, and I was watching me at the same time. Like on TV, you know."

"Is that the dream where I was trying to kill you?" Candace giggles.

"Yeah," Cemre says. "Candy, like, took the elevator. Then she killed me."

"On top of a skyscraper," Candace reminds Acheron, as if this detail were significant. Everything is very important, after enough bubbles.

"Did you know your curtains have leaves on them?" Cemre asks suddenly.

"Stay with me for a sec," Acheron murmurs. "If you could see into the future, how would it be done?"

I seriously just said that. Dammit! I told myself I didn't think that. I DON'T think that.

Cemre stares at him blankly. "What kind of question is that?"

"You'd have to know everyone's motivations, right? You'd have to know what everyone intends to do, and factor that in with what everyone else intends to do. Because they'd conflict, but there could be some kind of calculation, you know, to reconcile all the differences." Acheron stops, catching his breath. "But to know what everyone's going to do... you'd have to be some kind of telepath."

"Dude. What?" Cemre frowns suspiciously at a bubble he created.

Candace bursts into laughter.

Ceth is totally bummed when Acheron doesn't go to prom. She was hoping for some cute prom pictures.

The next day, Acheron will learn Cemre and Candace were the dynamic duo of the dance floor, despite only knowing how to perform the Chicken Dance, and Nelson Noon and Amy Libros behaved as though their lips had been surgically sewn together.

Claire danced with no-one and spilled punch on her dress.




________________________________________________________________
Etc.: SAVE YOUR GIRLFRIEND, DON'T GO TO PROM.

I forgot to mention last chapter, Acheron only got to level 2 in scouts. For Perfect Children, he should have reached level 3. I'm excusing myself from this failure because remember, he's got that glitch where I have to manually send him to school with MasterController. One day it just messed up and he didn't get to go to scouts, so he didn't make level 3. This was a glitch and I refuse to count the challenge as failed over a glitch.

His teen trait is vegetarian. He's enrolled in the music club; luckily it doesn't seem to have levels for me to screw up.

It's a challenge in and of itself to get all these shots without resorting to extra pose mods.