Work Text:
Lying on the bed, Sarah twists and turns, unable to fall asleep, unable to ignore the swirling thoughts in her mind. She throws the covers on, she kicks them away, she gets up and looks at the clock by her bedside. It’s 2:37am.
She sighs and flops back onto the bed.
There is an emptiness deep within her heart and it hurts. If she distracts herself with a busy schedule, it hurts less, because she wouldn’t remember. But that emptiness can’t be filled, just like he couldn’t ever be replaced.
An alternate doesn’t count.
He will never be replaced, in her mind. She still looks up to him, a phantom with quiet laughers and warm hugs and a loving heart. The image is tinted by a childish admiration that never really went away, but she doesn’t care. It’s not like he can prove her wrong.
Sarah can hear the clock ticking softly, tick tock, tick tock. The more she listens to it, the more she wants to throw it against the wall. But time doesn’t stop for her, time pulls her further and further away until her memory blurs and she realises she can’t recall his face clearly anymore, she reaches into the emptiness and searches and comes up with nothing, and she falls, and she falls, and she pulls herself out. She’s still alive.
Staring at the blank ceiling, she quietly asks, “Are you watching me from up there?”
He better not. There are other more interesting things to watch over than her.
At the usual turn on her way home, Sarah spots a wall covered with colourful envelopes. Bright headings encourage people to write letters to their loved ones. A small, foldable table is set up at the side. There are a stack of paper and some stationary on top of it.
Supposedly, people can put their letters in those envelopes if they want to, and these letters will be “sent” to… wherever people go when they die. This kind of community project appears from time to time. People who grew up here all understand the same kind of emptiness, the same kind of grief.
Sarah picks up an empty sheet of paper. It has been a long time since she last wrote a letter.
She folds the paper into a small plane and throws it. It makes a few sharp turns before diving straight towards the ground. Sarah picks the paper plane back up and continues her walk towards her home.
Upon entering her room, Sarah places the paper plane on her desk and picks up a small camera. It doesn’t turn on, so she changes the camera’s battery, then it’s working again. She looks through the camera lens and for a moment, she can picture Mark looking through his own. What were you looking at? What were you trying to record?
By the time she figured it out, he’s not there to answer her anymore.
Instead of writing him a letter, Sarah comes up with a different plan. It’s a message to a brother forever stuck in the past, and a memento for Sarah to always remember him by.
The paper plane is in frame when the video starts.
“Hi Mark. I know you aren’t here, that’s fine.”
“Have you heard of video blogging? I’m going to- no that doesn’t sound right…”
“Why did I decide to do this again? Why haven’t I gotten over you yet? It’s been years already.”
There’s something she wants to convey to him, and it’s not that. Just talk casually and it’ll be fine, she can edit the video later. Why are openings so hard?
Screw it. It doesn’t need an opening.
“Did you know I used to believe that letters can be sent to heaven? I wrote a few to you before. I got really mad when you never wrote back,” Sarah laughs, “at least with Santa someone else would pretend to be him and write letters back. Now that I think about it, I should be glad I didn’t receive a reply from you.”
It was the only way her parents knew to calm Sarah down.
“It’s your fault,” she screamed, “you didn’t let me see him. You didn’t let me stay with him. Now I can’t see him anymore. Give him back!”
Look, Sarah. This is a special letter. If you write on this one, you can send this to Mark. You can talk to him through this.
Sarah took the sheet of blank paper with a mixture of confusion and doubt.
It’s from the people at church. You know them, right? We can give this to them when you’re done. They know how to send this to him.
Sarah didn’t look completely convinced, but she ran back to her room with the paper in hand.
Sarah picks up the camera and zooms out, letting her whole bedroom come into view. She sets the camera back on her desk.
“Speaking of that, I have never come across an alternate pretending to be you. I have thought about it. Why did the alternate choose you, but not me? When I’m awake at night, I’ll look at the door and think to myself, what if you knocked on my door? What would I do then? I don’t know. I can’t imagine what you had gone through.”
If the alternates had to pick one between them both, she would rather it’d be her, Sarah thought bitterly as she buried herself under the bed covers.
It’s so unfair. What did Mark do to deserve this? Mark was always the good sibling, the responsible older brother, while Sarah was the spirited troublemaker. She deserved it more. Everyone would be happier if they had Mark instead. Mark was one of the best people she had ever come across.
She felt tears welling up in her eyes again and furiously blinked them away. She sobbed quietly and willed herself to cry harder, let those emotions swallow her whole. Mark was gone and it shouldn’t have been him.
The worst of it was knowing that deep down, she was relieved it wasn’t her. For a short while, she was also scared the alternate would go for her next, and it was a terrible feeling she never wanted to relive again. If the alternate offered her the chance, would she have the courage to trade places with him?
No, she wouldn’t.
They really should have gone after her.
Sarah sighs to herself and stands up. “Alright, I’m not going to focus on that, I’m way past that phase. How about I show you around? Things haven’t changed much at all.”
Sarah points her camera towards a familiar house. She raises her voice at the sound of passing traffic.
“It’s still here,” she comments, “just thought I’d show you. I don’t know who lives there now, or if anyone is living in there at all.”
Sarah stops the recording and looks at the house thoughtfully.
The moment Sarah heard someone coming, she turned off the nightlights, shoved the book she was reading under her pillow, and threw the covers back up. She’s sleeping. She totally wasn’t staying up past bedtime.
“Sarah?” Mark asked quietly.
Nope. Not even her brother would know.
“Sarah,” Mark called for her again.
Sarah sat back up to look at Mark. She couldn’t see him well in the dark, so she turned the nightlights back on. Mark startled at the sudden light.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked.
“Yeah,” Sarah answered.
Mark didn’t say anything else, but he lingered in her room long enough for her to notice.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Sarah asked.
Mark nodded. “Something like that.”
Sarah reached under the pillow and grabbed her book. After a moment of consideration, she handed it over to Mark.
“That’s my favourite book,” Sarah said, “when I’m reading this I don’t feel as scared. I’m lending it to you.”
Mark stayed in her room to read the book, and Sarah didn’t mind. She watched his silhouette as she slowly drifted to sleep.
She should have noticed sooner. She should have insisted on Mark staying with them. If she had done more for him, maybe he would…
“I missed you a lot,” the admission, free and weightless, drifts away before Sarah becomes aware of it. She looks up at the sky and hopes her words can reach him.
Most of the building is in frame. Sarah lets the recording run for a while, capturing the flow of people coming in and out. This is one of the few places that still has a consistently high traffic.
The sight of this church still invokes a feeling of respectful awe in her.
“I never paid much attention in Masses. I’m sure I did try, but those lessons didn’t stick with me. Whatever things I needed to learn about religion, I learned it from you. You always looked so at peace when you’re here.”
Sarah smiles wryly at her impromptu confession, reserved only for the person who matters the most.
“I didn’t go back here for a long time. It’s not the same without you. Someday, I want to give it another shot, see if I can view the world the same way you did. I don’t know, I’ll probably just get angry again.”
Because how can God say he loves everyone when he keeps taking them away? How can he leave people in shambles and expects them to sing praises to him?
Sarah shakes her head to clear her mind of these thoughts. Maybe one day she will understand, maybe she’ll decide to turn away from it all. Either way, it’s not something she needs to be concerned about now.
A soft breeze blows past. With one hand, Sarah brushes a few stray strands of hair aside. The weather is nice today.
As Sarah is about to leave, she recognises one of the cars parked on the road. A large BPS logo is painted on its side. Adam and Jonah are nearby…?
Sarah presses record again and… wait, she never ended it this time. She zooms in on the car and continues to talk.
“See that? It’s our car. Did you know that I started a small paranormal investigation group? Adam and Jonah, the other two members, goes out on investigations, while I manage our Youtube channel. Some people said in the comments that our videos cheered them up and helps them feel safer. That’s all I’m setting out to do, really.”
“This is completely useless. It’s not going to help any of us,” Sarah proclaimed.
The broadcast continued to play in the classroom. A few students turned to look at her.
“Yeah, call the authorities? Try that yourself and see how well that works for you,” Sarah grumbled.
The teacher paused the video of the broadcast. “Sarah, this video was made to raise general awareness of alternates among the public. I know you have your own opinions about it, but keep in mind that at that time, information about alternates in general was very scarce. This was the best they’ve got.”
And it’s still the best they’ve got. Nobody was doing anything about them.
“How about we finish the video first, then we can talk more about it after class?” The teacher suggested.
Sarah nodded, and the video continued to play. Don’t retort don’t get snarky save it after class…
“I don’t know how much of an impact we can make, but at least we’re doing more than whatever the police are doing. I once thought that if the alternates attacked them too, they’d wake up and finally do something, but apparently not. All they did was to pay some lip service to the dead then sweep the whole case under the rug.”
Sarah came home to a few strangers in her house and the sound of her parents crying.
He’s been dead for days.
“Oh, right. This is still recording,” she murmured to herself as she stops the recording, “what happened to ‘way past that phase’, huh?”
This is supposed to be a fun little project. It’s supposed to let her reminisce about good times, remind herself of who Mark was, and see how far she has come on her own. Not making it hurt ten times more and stirring up bad feelings that had laid dormant for a long time.
Sarah walks towards the car and leans against it. From there, she watches clouds float across the sky.
They’re bound to come back eventually.
“Hey, Sarah. What’s up?” Jonah asks. He shoves the equipment he’s carrying towards Adam, who takes it without a word. Adam opens the car’s door to put everything inside.
“Nothing,” Sarah says.
Jonah raises his eyebrows in an exaggerated manner. “So you’re just here to brood next to our car, that’s cool. You might want to find some other car because we’re about to head back.”
Sarah smiles despite herself. “What are you two doing here?”
“Someone called us about an alternate that supposedly lurks somewhere near this area, so we decided to take a look. We haven’t found anything so far,” Jonah says.
“We’re coming back here at night,” Adam adds.
Jonah turns towards Adam. “Are you saying 9pm night or 3am night?”
“Both,” Adam answers.
Sarah silently thanks her past self for refusing to join Adam in his investigations.
Jonah simply shrugs. “Sure. My sleep schedule isn’t fucked up enough.”
Jonah walks past Sarah and gets in the car. Before they drive off, Sarah blurts out, “Can I join you?”
“We’re just going to look for a place to stay the night,” Adam says.
“Hell yeah you can join us. Now we have the full BPS team,” Jonah says at the same time.
Both of them exchange looks with each other.
“If Sarah is here, why not make a special video out of it? I’m sure our fans would love to see some behind-the-scenes of BPS in action,” Jonah shoots Sarah a grin.
“What’s there to film? Nothing is happening until we come back at night,” Adam asks.
A spark of excitement chases Sarah’s previous melancholy away. Her own project can wait. “You guys just do what you usually do, I can handle the rest.”
Jonah gestures for Sarah to get in and Adam doesn’t object, which is good enough for her.
Despite being the add-on to their typical duo, Sarah doesn’t find herself excluded from the team. Jonah keeps pulling her in conversations, and in no time everyone is chatting and laughing like they have always worked together.
Sarah focuses all her attention on collecting short clips of the three of them hanging out with each other. They won’t ever replace Mark, but that’s not a bad thing. They fill in Sarah’s life in their own way, and Sarah has to admit, she is having fun. She only wishes Mark had a chance to experience something similar too.
“…got a few comments asking about my TV from last episode. It is fully functional, in fact, you can rent this if you go to my store. And to the one comment asking if this is legal, I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll figure something out if a cop comes by.”
Sarah closes the website and goes back to editing her video. If this guy doesn’t get himself arrested in a day or two, he might be the last key Sarah needs to wrap her project up.
As she is nearing the end of editing, she realises she never filmed a proper ending.
Sarah looks for her camera then starts recording again. “Well, I’m back. I’m feeling much better now.”
She takes a moment to think about what else she wants to say.
“There are a lot of things I wish you can see in person, but that’s the gist of everything so far. I just want to let you know that… I’m doing fine. I’ll live on, then after some time, I’ll record another video like this to tell you more.”
Sarah smiles to herself. “I’ll see you again one day. Hopefully it’s not that soon. Goodbye, Mark.”
The crowd starts to thin as Sarah goes down this new path. Everything is layered with a gentle orange light, and the streetlights give the streets an extra splash of brightness. After a few turns, the path opens up to an empty parking lot.
A store named MandelaTECH stands at the end of it. The front is decently maintained, and judging from its size, maybe this place was booming with business at one point. Sarah takes her camera out of her bag, takes a picture of the store, then places it back inside.
She then enters the store. The interior looks mostly empty and admittedly, there aren’t a lot of things on sale in here, but Sarah still looks around with a small sense of wonder. This place has a unique ambiance that isn’t found anywhere else.
At her side, a man looks up from his computer and greets her. That’s Dave, the… manager of this place? Those sunglasses make him easy to recognise. She gives him a quick greeting in return and browses around.
Here’s the adapter she’s looking for, blank tapes are stacked over there, and the wires are…
Sarah notices everything this place sells are old models. The tech shops she frequents usually place brand new models at the forefront to attract attention. People likes to get their hands on shiny new stuff, and it also helps them forget. Some of these older technologies are tied to a past they would rather not bring up again.
To be honest, had she not come up with an idea like this, she wouldn’t have come here either. But right now, she’s thankful a place like this exists.
After finding everything she needs, Sarah hands them over to Dave for checking out. Dave clears some space on the counter by brushing scattered tapes and spare wires to the side. He seems to have turned this counter into his own working space.
Dave looks over the things Sarah intends to buy. “Huh. Looking to record some tapes yourself?” He comments.
“Just one. Can I use your TV for a while? Do you have a VCR in here?” Sarah asks.
“Ohhh,” Dave nods to himself, “I get what you want to do. I can help you set things up if you want.”
“That would be great, thanks,” Sarah replies.
“There you go. If you need any help, come out and find me anytime. Or you can find Evelin if I’m busy. She can also help you out,” Dave reminds.
“Got it,” Sarah nods.
Dave closes the door on his way out.
The video starts playing and the tape is recording and Sarah doesn’t dare to look away from the screen. Mark is sitting next to her, watching the television at her side.
Her hand twitches. If she looks at him, he’ll disappear. If she reaches out to him, she’ll touch nothing but air.
“I’ll live on,” Sarah repeats after herself in a firmer voice. She can imagine Mark next to her, smiling softly. He pets her head and he says to her, I’m proud of you-
“Goodbye, Mark.”
Sarah laughs, despite the tears welling up in her eyes. She leans forward, gets the tape back out, and holds it tightly against her heart. She misses him. She misses him so much. She’s so glad she went through with this.
She’s crying, but she is happy. It doesn’t hurt, instead, it is incredibly freeing.
After some time, she finally looks to her side. Mark isn’t there.
Sarah wipes the rest of her tears away. Mark isn’t there, but it’s okay. She made a promise to him, she’ll live her life to its fullest so she can tell him all about it one day. She intends to keep that promise.
She unplugs the cables and puts them inside her bag. She turns off her laptop and places it inside as well. She turns the television, reaches behind it to unplug it too, just in case. She covers it back up with a cloth. She looks at the tape in her hands. She wants to hold it for a little longer.
She opens the door and exits the tiny room.
Next to the door, a girl is sorting through used tapes in a plastic box. She turns to Sarah when she sees her come out. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes, everything works fine.” Sarah hopes the room is soundproof.
“That’s good. I just want to check if you are safe,” the girl says.
“I’m okay,” Sarah answers. This time, Sarah believes in her own words.
The girl nods in acknowledgement and returns to her own work.
Sarah waves Dave goodbye and leaves the store. Night has begun to set in, but there are still traces of dark orange in the sky. Sarah fishes inside her bag for her camera again and takes one last picture of the sky. She places the video tape alongside her camera inside her bag.
She stands there, takes in the view for a moment, then retraces her steps back home.