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One moment William was lying in bed, trying to remind his body how to sleep, and the next he was upright in the woods. He was in a perfectly circular clearing, surrounded on all sides by strange trees that twisted and arched far above his head. The bark glowed a faint, soothing blue, and the leaves shone silver, perfectly still in the windless forest.
William’s stomach dropped. He knew this forest. He’d seen it only once, the day he-
“Hello, William.” William spun around so fast his head spun. The sight before him made him blink once, twice, three times. It didn’t change or get any less perplexing. There, floating before him, was himself.
It wasn’t right, this fake William. Its skin lacked the scars he’d gathered from fighting crime and pulsed the same, barely-there blue as the trees around them. Its feet hovered just a few inches above the ground. Its face was horrifically blank, like a puppet waiting for use. Like a monster.
It opened its mouth, and the voice that came out was not just William’s, but a hundred others, all overlapping, all speaking as one. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Oh,” William muttered. “Okay. some freaky friday level weird things going on here. Great, that’s great. No big deal, I just need to… wake up. Wake up!” He squeezed his eyes shut, but when he opened them, he was still there. The Not-Him had only gotten closer. It tilted its head just a few degrees too far to the left.
“You’re frightened. Don’t worry. I’m not here to hurt you. Just to bring you a message.”
“And why do you have to look like a badly made William Wisp mannequin for that?”
The trees rustled all around them. It sounded chaotic, like a hundred wind chimes being brushed against at once. Somehow, William knew it was laughter. Somehow, it was beautiful.
“You are a funny one, William. And curious. Too driven for your own good, maybe. It makes you good. It makes you one of ours. And you’re in pain, aren’t you? So much pain. We’ll make it all better. We know what is wrong.” The phantom placed its hand against William’s chest, a frigid pressure over the steady, powerful thump of his new heart. “This isn’t natural. This isn’t going to last.”
“It is,” William insisted. “It’s working! I need to eat again, breathe again, to-”
“William Wisp,” the figure said evenly. “You are going to die again. Permanently.”
William stilled. “What?”
“This heart will fail you. Your body will fail you. You are teetering on the edge, William Wisp. It is nearly time you topple.”
“No. No, It’s… I… how long?”
“How long?” It echoed.
“How long until I… until I have to go.”
The phantom drew its hand back. “Not long now. Not long at all.”
“You have to help me,” William whispered. He was shaking. When had he started shaking? “I can’t go yet. I need to save Ashe, and help Dakota train, and get Vyncent settled in and - and spend more time with my parents and-”
“Enough. You knew you were running on borrowed time. And you wasted it.” The Not-Him smiled. The smile didn’t reach its eyes. It barely even had eyes. They were empty and cold, glass marbles in a taxidermied facsimile of a human. It smiled. It smiled. “You always knew it would end this way. Maybe not consciously, but you knew.”
“No. I thought - I was going to figure it out. I was going to fix it. I did fix it.” The heart stuttered a beat in his chest, as if to remind him of the uncertainty of it all. “It isn’t over. It can’t be over.”
Not-Him sighed. The trees behind it whispered and swayed, their silver-tipped leaves fluttering in one motion like a giant breath. “Oh, William. You’re a very smart boy. You always knew it would end this way. All this wasted time, all this false hope you’ve been handing out? That was all your own doing. No one made you. This is how it was always meant to end. And you knew that. You knew.”
“I need more time,” William whispered.
Not-Him smiled. “You have a little more of that. Use it wisely. That’s why I’m here, after all. So you can move on without any unfinished business.” It spread its hands out in a “ta-da” sort of gesture. William wasn’t sure if it was sarcastic or not. “Isn’t that nice of us?”
“Who’s us?” The Not-Him started to fade away, as did the forest behind it, and William’s heart raced faster. He yelled, “Who’s us?”
Then it was gone. It was all gone, and William was alone, floating in the darkness. His breath quickened and he spun around, searching for something, anything, but he was alone. His memories swam with thoughts of the dark spots in the spiritworld, of hands reaching for him, dragging him down, away, forgotten and lost-
A pale blue light flickered up above him, and William felt himself start to drift towards it.
“The forest misses you. We all miss you,” swept through his head. It wasn’t a voice exactly, more of a- presence? A knowledge that curled soothingly around his mind, wrapping his limbs in stuffy-headed cotton and calming his pulse with gentle pressure. “It’s time you come home, Wispling.
“We’ll see you soon.”
—-
William woke in a cold sweat, which was weird, because he hadn’t been able to sweat in a long time. Yet there he was. Sweating. Shivering. Pulse thundering.
Pulse. That’s right. William was alive.
He lifted his hand above his face mechanically, studying his black-tipped fingers. He could feel the blood running through the tiny, insignificant veins beneath his skin. Vyncent’s blood. It rushed between his lungs and body and heart and back again, keeping his body running, keeping it alive.
William was alive. For now.
It was only a dream. He assured himself of this by running his fingertips over every nearby surface. He cataloged every sensation. The soft blanket with a few loose strings. The bumpy, slightly cold wall. The scratch of the stitches on his chest. His own smooth skin. His teeth, his shirt, his heartbeat his heartbeat his heartbeat. Back to the blanket. Repeat.
He could feel it all. He couldn’t do that before.
He had a heartbeat. He could feel the world around him. His body ached with lingering pains, muffled under months of ignorance. His breath hitched and shook when his brain forgot its necessity. His mouth was dry and his stomach was empty and William was alive. William was alive. It was all a dream, and William was alive, and he wasn’t going anywhere. His friends wouldn’t let him.
He turned over and shut his eyes. This would all be okay in the morning.