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Willie pushed the garage doors open, stumbling into the room. One hand held on to the door while the other was clutching his head from the jolts.
“A-Alex!” he called out, their voice strained.
Alex, Luke, Reggie, and Julie’s head snapped to the entrance from the sudden voice.
“Willie!!”
Alex pushed himself up in a panic, running over to Willie and bracing him.
“What happened? What-what’s going on?”
The others got up and stood behind Alex, watching their conversation.
“It’s Caleb. He’s using–” they were cut off by another jolt, making him collapse to the ground and their hands rush up to his head.
Alex quickly knelt down, making sure Willie never left his arms.
“No. No no no. He can’t…you can’t….no. There’s gotta be some way that you can escape this. What about your unfinished business? We can complete that. There’s still time, right? There’s still-”
“Alex, no. My unfinished business- agh- it was to apologize to my sister.”
“Then let’s go find your sister! We can play something and make you visible to, somehow. We can do that, right?” He looked to Julie behind him, who gave him a shrug. “We’ll find a way to do that,” he finished, bringing his attention back to Willie.
“Alex, my sister is dead.”
Alex went silent.
“I’m so sorry. I should have never brought you to Caleb. I should have known this was gonna happen. This is all my fault.”
“Willie, no, this isn’t….this isn’t on you. It’s on Caleb. He needs to die. Again. Somehow. Just…please, Willie. I can’t do this without you.”
Willie looked down at their hands, which were starting to become transparent.
“Alex?”
“You can’t go–”
“Alex.”
“There’s gotta be some other way–
“Alex!”
He stopped and looked Willie in the eyes.
“Please,” he whispered.
“Alex, I’m sorry.”
Alex swallowed, realizing that there was no changing this. He gave a small laugh.
“How lucky am I to have someone that makes it so hard to say goodbye?”
Willie laughed in return. “I don’t know. When you figure out, please tell me.”
A small moment passed, more of Willie’s body fading with each second.
“We’ll see each other again. I know it,” Willie assured him.
Alex nodded, tears in his eyes.
“Don’t forget about me?”
“I won’t. Just promise me that you won’t stop marching to the beat of your drum.”
“I promise.”
“I’ll see you later, hot dog.”
With that, Willie disappeared completely.
Reggie tried to walk up to Alex in order to comfort him, but Luke grabbed his arm and stopped him.
Alex remained where he was, letting the tears fall.
Maybe he wasn’t so lucky after all.