Work Text:
The death rattle caught up with you. It's the last thing you hear before you wake up on your back, outdoors, nothing but sky in your whole field of vision like it was a flat plane wrapped around your head.
You stand. You're clearly deep in the steppe, and there's no indication of life in the distance, no lights. It's cold and the rain is coming down in thin streams like lancet needles. Your clothes are slick against your skin. Rock formations loom overhead but offer no buffer from the weather and no beacon- each rock looks the same as any other rock. They bleed together in a gray wash. Whichever direction will return you to the town, you don't know.
You need to know. It's the last day, the last chance- it's coming back to you now: You were investigating a suspicious house. It took you all day to get inside- you could hear coughing coming from behind some wall, in some room, but... you weren't sure which one, and the doors were all locked... and the lock picks were gone- everything's in short supply, you see- and they kept saying there was no point anyway, no point anyway... it was all over, wasn't it? Everyone already went home... but still, that rasping bird's call came closer and closer till the costumed thing hung over your back, like it was leaning its bony head upon your shoulder, and then you turned around....
Now, all around you are graves. Their mere presence seems to mock you, even though these graves were probably occupied before you ever arrived. You often feel as if other people are mocking you (even the dead- especially the dead). You feel defensive, and though you are perfectly alone you find yourself thinking,"Don't stare at me."
That's when it happens: you realize you were wrong- or maybe right. Someone is staring.
He's standing over a grave, too. Distant, covered in a layer of fog; it's definitely... you. You're rain-drenched and small, and you're looking at a grave.
When you make eye contact, neither of you are surprised. You sense that you should be, but it's normal to see yourself in the mirror.
Both of you come close. He looks tired, and you guess so do you. Your motions are similar but not identical, like there's a hesitation in between. Like you're playing a mocking game. He looks hungry, ragged, unhealthy. The same sick complexion as yours, the same build. The skin is transparent, like films in an anatomy textbook where each layer of the body can be peeled back, page by page. Here are the veins. His hair is stuck to his face. Do you look like that, too? You haven't checked in a while. You can hardly think of what to say.
"What do I say to myself?" You ask.
"This," you reply. So strange to hear the voice coming out of something other than your own head. "Well, let's get to the point. We've split off from each other... we've spread ourselves too thin. But it's going to be okay..."
It seems like some sort of joke. It might be useful to have an extra set of competent hands around the lab, you think. The suspicion that this is not really you makes it easier somehow. You notice a difference: that isn't what you would've said. But here you are saying it, so you suppose maybe it is. Though, it shouldn't be coming from another mouth, it should be from your own... but it is coming from another's, so perhaps it maybe it should.
You reply, "It's going to be okay?"
"Yes, it is." He says.
"How do you know that?"
Without speaking, he takes your hand in both of his and turns it over, looking at it with a detached eye like he's giving a demonstration. His hands are so thin and almost weightless, like hollow rotten wood (do they really feel like this?), and the bones are pronounced even through your gloves, which are sturdy, but beginning to show wear in the palms (you'll have to get that fixed).
"Don't worry about the specifics now. Don't you feel that time has stopped?"
You're seeing him with your own eyes, but you still feel as though this is the work of a mirror trick. "You aren't real. I think I might be dreaming, maybe there's a concussion. Do you know how to get back- to the town, I mean?"
""If you wait for an hour, you'll hear the bell." You don't have an hour to waste waiting around for the bell. "I think I have a concussion, too," he says with an exhausted sigh. It sounds like it's for show. "Am I in your dream or mine?"
He's frustrating. "Now I know this really isn't me. Stop asking me things like this." You take your hand back- he's been looking at it the whole time. In response, he seems a bit... disappointed? Offended? Do you look that way, too? It feels like you should be able to tell. It's your face, after all, but you've only seen it in reverse until now. You notice that it's stopped raining. The ground is wet and releases water when pressure is applied, it's over-saturated. Both of you have paused for a moment to observe this. You can't even remember when you last looked in a mirror. Did you look without registering that you had looked?
He shifts his weight from one side to the other, now. Some grass is stuck to his shoes. "Your hair is out of place," he says, trying to get your attention again. It's a petty remark.
"Move." He doesn't move. "I've had enough of this, I'm going back. I can only hope I won't get lost and run into you again, whatever you are." You confirmed for yourself earlier that the disease really was in the Stone Yard, in the infected house. There was a bitter feeling of self-congratulation at the realization, knowing you had been right the whole time, and you cursed yourself for that. Being right wasn't the same as winning- it was your failure, after all. People had been all too eager to remind you.
The double is still looking at you as you begin to move away. He follows you for a few paces before saying, in a terribly earnest tone, "It wasn't your failure. So much of this is outside of our control." It feels like a desperate confirmation of something false, like he is talking to himself more than anyone else, and wants to believe it.
Then, in a clinical motion (there's nothing warm about it, but it betrays vulnerability), he pulls you into a hug. This is not like you, but you feel completely disarmed- his head is on your shoulder. The effect is the same as a child holding himself in fear. After a moment, when you open your mouth to speak again, your voice shakes. "Why are you doing this? I'm wasting time.... If only there was one more day. If... if...."
He's still holding you, and over his shoulder, you see a fire light up in the distance. There must have been a fire pit there the whole time, only put out by the rain until now, which meant there was a probably a camp. Those camps aren't very far from the outskirts of the town, you remember. You think you even see the silhouette of the tower on the horizon, now that you're looking harder (had it always been right there?) You pull away from the Bachelor (without noticing, you had hugged him back).
"I need to go."
--
When you leave, he doesn't stop you. You don't turn around to make sure he's still there. You just begin to walk; toward the fire and toward the skyline, toward the end, toward those swarms of disease, toward death. Toward the final moment. Toward the whispers and the hidden glances, toward the scabs. Toward the locked doors. To a place that would heave a final sigh and drop dead, to the false resurrection. Away from yourself.
He is gone. You're gone, too. And there's nothing left behind but a circle.
--