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Your name is DIRK STRIDER. You are thirteen years old and one of possibly only two humans left alive on the planet Earth.
It is also your birthday, for whatever that amounts to, and after a morning spent training and messaging your friends and internally smiling at how they all insist on saying “happy birthday” despite your insistences that it’s not that important to you anyways, you finally have a moment to yourself.
You always have moments to yourself, it seems. It’s hard not to when you live completely by yourself, excepting an AI work-in-progress and two robots who occasionally offer outside stimulation. And, of course, the frequent messages from your friends. But that’s beside the point. The point actually is, you think you’ve found something.
Scratch that, it’s definitely something. What, you’re not sure because it’s enclosed in a bright red box with a small note on it you haven’t read yet, but you approach it cautiously.
“What’s this?” you ask one of your aforementioned robot companions.
Sawtooth says nothing (of course) and disappears as soon as you pick up the box to read the note on it. It’s written in the same shade of red as the box in a handwriting you don’t recognize. “to: dirk (13) from: your bro”
You almost drop the box but regain control of your fingers long enough to keep that from happening. That shit would be embarrassing, honestly. Still, your hands are shaking as you set the note aside and rip open the box as quickly as you can without damaging whatever is inside.
It turns out to be a VHS tape. You only recognize it because of ancient Earth media. By this point in history, the damn thing is so old you already know you’re gonna have a hell of a time trying to play it. It’s labelled in the same red handwriting as before: “sup lil man”.
You spend the next several hours frantically slapping together a device that can read the tape and adapt it to something one of your monitors can play. It’s made harder by the fact that your hands won’t stop shaking, no matter what you try to do to calm them the hell down. One of your friends, probably Jake, tries to message you again at some point, and for once in your life, you don’t jump at the chance to chat with him. You’re so focused on playing the tape that the sound barely even registers.
Thank whatever deities may or may not exist that you’re a fucking genius, otherwise this might’ve been impossible. As soon as your makeshift VHS player is done, you carefully slide your bro’s tape in and press play, hands shaking more than ever.
A stereotypical screen of static pops up, and for a few tense seconds, you’re worried it won’t go away. But it clears away all at once, and you’re suddenly staring at the man you’ve idolized for as long as you’ve been able to read. Somehow, though, this version of him is more intense than any picture or description of him you could scrounge from the depths of the long-dead Internet, in some obscure line of code that somehow managed to escape Her Royal Fishy Bitch’s notice.
Maybe it’s because your bro is uncomfortably close to the camera, the first few frames just of his pale skin and splotchy freckles; freckles that never showed up in grainy photos but were almost identical to your own. Maybe it was the fact that he was muttering to himself in a voice you’d heard before but not like this, so casual and a unscripted (“is this thing on?? oh shit yeah it is. neat.”), fussing with the camera or tripod or whatever. Maybe it was because when he leaned back, he was just a dude sitting on the floor in what was obviously his bedroom, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants and no socks.
DAVE STRIDER clears his throat. You can read the awkward tension in his body despite the neutral lines of his face. Why is (was?) he nervous? You didn’t know he could even *get* nervous.
“so uh if this is in the right hands i probably dont need to tell you who i am. if this ISNT in the right hands... well not like theres much i can do. by the time this makes it to you ill be dead. for like fifty years or whatever if rose’s math is right. and its always right so i dont need to worry about that.”
He trailed off and looked to the side. You couldn’t help but compare his features to your own, and when you did, you found that yeah, you two were definitely related. He had your pale blonde hair, freckles, the slight hook in your nose, thin lips, and cleft chin. Even the way he tried to keep from biting his lip was exactly like you. If you had any doubt in your mind that this legend of a man was your bro, you didn’t anymore.
Dave looks back at the camera and smiles the same wry smile you sometimes make. “well if theres one good thing about being dead by the time this gets to you its that i dont have to feel embarrassed about whatever it is im gonna end up saying. so im just gonna say it. happy birthday dirk.”
The breath is knocked out of you. The man continues after only a small pause that is not nearly enough for you to catch your breath, and when he starts talking again, he’s talking so fast you almost want to pause it or rewind it or somehow play it slower. Maybe you will, maybe you’ll wear this damn tape down to nothing before the week is up because your brother who you’ve always idolized but never met is finally talking to you and wishing you a happy birthday, of all things.
“youre thirteen now (hopefully) and i really wish i was there to say it in person but i cant and by now you hopefully know why. if you dont: the long story short is that aliens happened and i died trying to stop fish hitler from trying to take over the planet. WILL die trying to stop her from my perspective. time is weird huh?”
The man hesitates, then takes off the aviator shades covering his eyes. You feel compelled to do the same after a second, and the two of you make eye contact across fifty years of distance.
“i know us striders arent really well known for our shows of affection but i really dont care right now. dirk, lil man, im so damn proud of you you have no idea. now, i know what youre thinkin: how the hell can i be proud of someone ive never met? i have no fuckin idea. and yet, here we are. i just know without even havin to meet you that youre the coolest damn cat on the block. and whatever youre doin to show off that strider talent of yours - whether its music and directing like i do or-or somethin i cant think of right now - i know its fuckin great. YOURE fuckin great. and if life and time were kinder broads maybe id be able to tell you that in person.
“but im not gonna sugar coat it lil man. something tells me youre too smart for that shit anyways. rose and i have seen some shit coming down the line for both of us. i already know im not gonna live to meet you so im doing the best i can to prepare all the shit youll need. i know its not enough. im sorry. hopefully you understand. i really wish i was there to help you. But weve both got shit to do. i gotta kill some clowns and try to kill fish hitler and youve gotta go on to save the whole fuckin universe. guess us striders cant catch a break huh?”
His humorless chuckle quickly turns to a frown. “i dont know how much storage this thing has so ive gotta cut it here soon lil man. i wish i could talk more but i think ive already run my mouth enough. hopefully youll find this thing and figure out a way to play it. i woulda given you a usb or some shit but her royal fishiness probably woulda found and destroyed it. hopefully rose was right and thisll find its way to you when the time comes. knowing her and her freaky visions though youve probably found it at just the right time.”
Your brother gave a small, soft smile. He had a dimple in his right cheek that you didn’t have, another detail the interviews and photos had never shown you. You think you feel something damp trailing down your face, but you don’t care enough to brush it away. You think you see something trailing down Dave’s face too. He takes a long, shaky breath, and raises a hand to wave at the screen.
“happy birthday dirk,” he says again, and the VHS cuts to static.