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It's such a small word. "Why."
Inconsequential, in fact, in the grand scheme of things. The reasons why things happen sometimes don't matter as much as the fact that they happen at all, especially when dealing with the Magnus Institute.
Timothy Stoker, certainly, is not the type to wonder why.
Not when Danny died, not when Sasha rejected him, not even when his crazy boss stalked him. There were all explanations, and easy ones at that: Danny was unlucky and ran into a monster (unfortunate, but it's not like you can logic out monsters), Sasha just didn't like him that way (that was alright, he could respect that), Jon was just a lunatic (and honestly, he should have seen it sooner).
For the first time, as Tim stumbles through the door of his flat and into his room, collapsing onto his bed, he asks himself why.
The world is still spinning from running through those twisted, swirling tunnels. It had been days, he was told.
He closes his eyes, but he can't sleep. A deluge of horrible images fill his vision instead, and no matter where his eyes dart, he can't help but see them.
That old man - Jurgen Leitner - dead, the blood pooling underneath him on the floor, spreading over the grossness of the tunnels. Tunnels, Tim thinks, trying to suppress the bile rising in his throat, where he was attacked by Prentiss's worms.
He doesn't want to think about it anymore, but more images come into his head anyway.
Martin's look of terror. Those hideous, curling hands on... what was his name again?
Michael. Michael's hands.
And that thing. That thing that Martin said looked like Sasha, that thing that Jon let free. That thing that had Sasha's face and Sasha's voice, but who absolutely was not Sasha.
Sasha.
It wasn't even her face or voice, was it? Tim curls his hands into fists, blindly attacks his pillow.
He listens to the satisfying thumps until his arms grow tired and his pillow grows wet with tears that he does not recognize as his own.
Because he loved Sasha. She was his best friend, he loved her.
I'm unforgettable.
He remembers her saying this once, but he can't remember her real face or her real voice, and he thinks about the very last time he saw her, and how it was just before he was attacked by a bunch of parasites, and how she screamed for help, and how he was supposed to be her best friend and he didn't even know when someone else (something else) replaced her, and Timothy Stoker suddenly finds his chest clenching in on itself.
It's insidious, he thinks, that even in death, her loved ones couldn't find comfort in her memory. He would say it's almost poetic, ironic even, that someone as dynamic and truly unforgettable as Sasha could be so easily forgotten.
He would say that, except he can't.
His hand unfurls slowly, and his pillowcase is cool against his palm.
"Fuck," he whispers. "It's not fair." First Danny, then Sasha. His two best friends taken one after another, and - here's the kicker! - by the same force.
He asks himself why. Why Danny? Why Sasha? Why him of all people? Not that he wanted someone else to suffer, but god, why did it have to be everyone he loved?
Listening to the silence in his room, Tim can't help but replay Danny's and Sasha's deaths over and over in his mind, alternating as though flipping between two channels on the television rapidly trying to catch this commercial or that, a game he played with Danny when they were little, on the rare occasion they were watching television instead of playing outside.
Sasha's scream that was not Sasha's. Danny's face as the monster seemed to suck his skin off. He almost wishes the opposite was true, that he could remember Sasha and forget Danny.
At least then, Tim thinks, they would both be allowed the dignity they deserved.
But Tim can't change a thing, so he lies on his bed and thinks, really thinks, replaying every scene in his mind, trying desperately to remember his two best friends as they were before.
To no consequence, of course, as he finds that, no matter how hard he tries to remember, he can't.