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The guys have been having a stressful two weeks with final preparations, since the start of their tour was quickly approaching. There was still much to be done and not enough time to do it in, so they were in and out of meetings, answering phone calls and emails throughout the day and putting out metaphorical fires and just generally felt constantly on edge.
Which is why it wasn’t surprising that their arguing, cursing and yelling rose as their stress levels did. And while they were obviously used to it, they were siblings after all, it was different now, these arguments and insults were more personal, targeted. They were all in charge of specific aspects of the whole process, and each time something went wrong, they were too quick to assign blame and point fingers. It got to the point where they were constantly a bit irritated and the slightest thing could set them off.
So that’s how they ended up arguing once more, after they received a call informing them that they do not have a sufficient number of security guards lined up for their NY venue, where the slightly larger area and number of attendees for safety reasons legally require a few additional guards posted.
“I can’t believe how fucking incompetent you are Matt, I can’t work with you if you don’t take anything seriously!”, Nick yelled, pacing around their living room, glaring at Matt.
“How is this my fault? I sent the details over months ago, I can’t help it if they can’t read!”, Matt defended himself.
“Oh my god you stupid fuck, do you ever take responsibility for anything? You had the easiest job and can’t even do that right, is there anything you can handle? Will you be able to call them tomorrow or will you get ‘too nervous’ again because of your stupid anxiety?”, Chris mocked, “Useless fucker”.
“That’s not fair Chris, I did everything that was assigned to me, it’s not like I wanted this to happen and there’s still time to fix it”, Matt suddenly lost his will to fight, starting to feel genuinely bad about himself. His heart was beating like crazy, it was getting harder to concentrate and he wanted to just escape to his room to be alone.
“Oh yeah sure, like I’d let you fuck this up even further, I’ll do it so it’ll actually be done right”, Nick rolled his eyes, “You can just do what you do best – stand there quietly like the useless waste of space that you are”.
Matt shook his head, eyes stinging, knowing whatever he’d say would just prompt them to insult him further. “I’ve had enough of this”, he sighed and turned to walk away.
“Oh boo-hoo, poor Matt, got his little feelings hurt”, Chris scoffed, “I guess we’ll do everything ourselves again, like always. Sturniolo triplets, yeah right, more like Sturniolo twins”, he yelled after Matt, looking at Nick as he said that last part.
Nick rolled his eyes, still annoyed. “You said it. It legit wouldn’t make a difference if he was here or not”, he complained, not caring that Matt could still hear them.
Neither of them really meant that and knew they were going too far even as they were saying it, but they just couldn’t bring themselves to stop. All the stress, deadlines and the overbearing weight of expectations were getting too much to handle and they took it out on Matt, because he was the easiest target.
They fought often anyway, it was normal between siblings. Though this time it wasn’t as simple, since Matt was under the same amount of stress himself, and the targeted insults didn’t help any. He was already more anxious than normal, feeling on edge and vulnerable, so he took all these nasty comments to heart, stealing his confidence and motivation to participate away from him. Maybe I really shouldn’t be a part of this anymore, he thought bitterly.
On the other side, Nick and Chris both knew they crossed the line with those last comments, but didn’t stop to think just how they were affecting Matt. Maybe they’d think about it later, once they’ve come down a bit more, maybe they’d even apologise. Though it was more likely that they’d just remain tense around each other for a while and then just continued on like nothing happen. That was normal for them anyway.
Matt
Matt spent the rest of the evening hiding in his room, not willing to risk seeing either of his brothers yet. He tried distracting himself by scrolling on his phone, playing video games and even journaling but nothing was working, he couldn’t focus on anything long enough. He eventually gave up, turned off the lights and went to sit on his windowsill, quietly observing the world outside.
He did that from time to time, it felt melancholic and bittersweet in a way he couldn’t explain. It was a private moment he could steal for himself, no matter where he was, like a little ritual to recharge. Either in Boston, LA, while touring or on vacation… whenever he needed it, he’d find an empty room and just sit by the window and try to clear his head. It helped calm him, though he knew the others would just make fun of him if they knew, accusing him of trying to act ‘cool’ or ‘mysterious’.
Matt sighed again at that thought, he’s honestly had enough of Nick and Chris twisting everything he did or making him feel bad about his habits/characteristics. It made him feel stupid and lonely as fuck. Just let me do my thing, it really isn’t that deep, he thought tiredly. Just then, he noticed a shooting star flying over the night sky, instinctively trying to come up with something to wish for.
I wish Nick and Chris would learn to appreciate me, he thought bitterly. Yeah right, it might take actual magic for that to happen, Matt his eyes at his own thought, watching the star disappear. He sat there for a little while longer, before calling it a night and going to bed. He hoped tomorrow would be better.
Nick and Chris
Since Chris has slept over in Nick’s room that night, neither were surprised to wake up together. What did surprise them though was the room in which they woke up in.
Nick woke up first and his brain only needed a few short seconds to figure out something was wrong, as soon as he opened his eyes that morning and registered that that was not his room. Where the fuck-, he thought, as his mind went into overdrive, frantically looking around and trying to make sense of what was going on.
He quickly spotted Chris, who was still asleep in another bed on the opposite side of the small room they were in. Seeing him and knowing that at least he wasn’t alone in whatever situation they ended up in made him feel slightly better. Since he could see Chris was safe, his next immediate thought was to make sure the same could be said for Matt.
The room they were in seemed normal enough anyway, it had two desks and a large closet and it was decorated weirdly familiar, it really looked like it could be their room.
“Chris, wake up you little shit, what’s going on? If this is some sort of prank it’s seriously not funny”, Nick said still alarmed, going to the other bed and shaking Chris awake.
“Mmmm, five more minutes”, Chris groaned, turning to his other side without opening his eyes.
“Chris, something’s wrong, wake up right now”, the panic in Nick’s voice was enough to scare Chris into shifting back to look at him. “Wha-?”, Chris started asking, but quickly noticed what got Nick all panicky so early in the morning.
Chris shot up in bed and started looking around the room wildly, “Nick what the fuck? Did you carry me somewhere during the night? That’s too much kid, even for me…”, he said, naturally assuming this had to be a prank.
“Stop joking around fucker it’s not funny”, Nicks voice started rising in a mix of anger and fear, “if neither of us did this…”.
“No way this was Matt bro, he’d never pull off something like this, especially after last night”, Chris shot down that option immediately.
“We need to find out what’s going on, do you have your phone?”, Nick asked, already going to pull at the blinds on the windows to look outside.
As he was doing that, Chris took his phone from the small bedside table, instantly frowning when he turned it on. “Dude, someone changed my wallpaper”, he looked at Nick sceptically. “Stop looking at me Chris, I’m weirded out enough as it is”, he responded annoyed.
As soon as the blinds were up, they went to inspect the outside, which only raised more questions. “What in the-“, Nick started, staring wide-eyed. “Holy shit dude, where the fuck are we?”, Chris couldn’t believe what they were seeing, neither of them could. Just looking out of the window, they could see they were in some kind of an apartment complex, definitely not anywhere they were familiar with.
Nick ran the short distance to the door at the end of the room, unlocked it and looked outside, “It’s just a hallway, we’re in some apartment complex or student dorms or some shit”. He locked the door again and came back to stand next to Chris by the window.
“Check your phone now, I’ll call Matt”, instructed Nick, Chris following his lead. They needed some answers, where they were and where was Matt amongst the most crucial ones.
Not even a minute into checking their phones and they were both panicking even more. “Chris, is your phone normal, something must be wrong with mine”, Nick was trying not to scream now. “No Nick, what the fuck is going on, where’s the triplet group chat? I can’t find Matt’s contact in my phone bro”, Chris said, completely done with whatever fuckery was going on.
“Me neither, it’s not in here, check our social media”, he yelled, not liking where this was going.
But this only left them panicking more, they checked everything – their Instagram, snapchat, youtube, tiktok, … everything was different, nothing was as it should’ve been.
“Nick, what’s going on?”, Chris’s voice was starting to shake, not being able to process what he was seeing.
Nick was left properly speechless for maybe the first time in his life. He couldn’t hear anything over the blood rushing to his ears and his own heartbeat.
They made eye contact and just stared at each other, mouths open but not saying anything. All of their accounts… there was no ‘Sturniolo triplets’ anywhere, there were no pictures of the three of them. Instead, their accounts were called ‘Sturniolo twins”, all of them with between 2-3 million subscribers/followers less than what they should have, their feeds were filled with photos and videos of just the two of them. No matter how far they scrolled, online or on the photos on their phones, there was not a single picture of Matt anywhere. They saw photos they knew, that they remembered taking together, but the space where Matt was supposed to be was just empty.
They both felt sick, Nick’s stomach was in knots and he had to make a conscious effort not to throw up, while Chris felt his chest burning in panic.
“Matt… where the fuck is Matt, what’s going on?”, Chris was on the verge of a panic attack. “Calm down Chris, we’ll find him, he didn’t just disappear”, Nick tried reassuring him, but was not doing well himself.
They spent the next while trying to figure out what was going on, but they found no trace of Matt anywhere, not in their contacts, not when googling him. When they googled themselves, they saw that they were apparently twins, casually doing social media while attending university. It made them nauseous and dizzy.
They used google maps to see where they were and needed to sit down once they realised they were in fucking Illinois, in the students dorms in a university campus.
That discovery made them need to sit down for a while. Now they knew whatever was going on was serious.
“So…”, Chris started, voice cracking.
“We both remember going to sleep last night at home in LA”, Nick said.
“After a fight with our fucking triplet brother”, Chris continued.
“And now we woke up in the student dorms in another state”.
“With no trace of our old lives or Matt ever existing”.
.
.
.
“We’re so fucked”, Nick felt sick to his stomach.
“Yup”, Chris responded, looking down at his feet, starting to dissociate. This had to be a dream or something, since it obviously couldn’t be real. Things like this didn’t just happen. Matt couldn’t just be gone.
Nick noticed Chris start scrolling on his phone again and then raise it to his ear while calling someone. “What are you doing?”, he hissed at him, not trusting Chris’s judgement right now.
“Calling mom you idiot, Matt is her son, she wouldn’t forget him… this is just some big prank or something, she’ll –“, “Hello, Chris? What are you doing up so early, is everything-“, she answered, but was cut off before she could even finish the question.
“Mom! No, everything’s not fine, we can’t find Matt for some reason, his contact isn’t in our phones and he isn’t in any pictures, is he with you? Is this his idea of getting revenge or something? Cuz’ if it is I’ll-“, “Chris sweetie calm down, I’m not sure what’s going on, is Nick with you?”
“Yeah mom I’m here”, Nick said quickly, he was against involving their parents at first but since she’s already on the phone…, “before you worry, we’re fine, just confused”, he said while glaring at Chris, silently telling him to remain calm during the call.
“About what honey? Is a friend of yours missing?”, she asked slightly concerned.
“Not a friend mom, it’s Matt, Matt is missing, we can’t find anything if his, it’s like he vanished overnight”, Chris jumped in.
“Oh I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m not sure who Matt is, have you mentioned him before? Someone from your Unive-“, she continued speaking but Chris didn’t hear the rest.
In a second, all the blood rushed to his head and his ears were ringing. His vision blurred and he stumbled a few steps back, until his back hit the wall and he slowly slid to the ground.
This isn’t real, it’s not, this couldn’t be happening, Matt… fuuuck, where is he, what happened to him, how do we get him back, various thoughts were spinning in his head, but he couldn’t focus on anything, he couldn’t even breathe.
Then suddenly Nick was crouching on the floor in front of him, saying something but Chris couldn’t hear him, it was like his head was under water. He could see Nicks concerned expression, eyes wide with panic. He could see his mouth moving and tried focusing on what he was saying. “Breathe Chris, come on, big breaths, in for four, out for four, you can do this, …”. And slowly but surely Chris did, it took them a while but he eventually managed to somewhat calm down from what must have been a light panic attack.
After it was over and Chris came back to himself, he unexpectedly burst into tears. “Oh Chris, sweetheart…”, Nick said gently and took him in his arms, hugging him close, knowing Chris needed someone to hold him. Chris just held on to Nick as he shook with sobs, as if afraid he’d suddenly disappear too.
“Wh-, what are we going to do Nick? Matt’s gone…”, Chris barely choked out, his whole body shaking. Nick tried blinking back tears but couldn’t hold them back any longer.
“I don’t know”, he said quietly. He had no idea what to do, didn’t know what could be done. They didn’t know how it happened, but for some reason their brother was gone, all proof of him ever existing disappearing with him, as if he was never even born.
“I don’t know but… we’ll get him back… somehow… we’ll figure it out, he’s our brother, even if we’re the only ones who remember him. We’ll get him back, that’s our first and only priority”, Nick continued after collecting himself a bit.
Chris pulled back to look at him and both their expressions slowly turned from panicked and desperate to determined. They didn’t know how this happened or how they’d fix it, but knew that they would – they’d be together again at the end, they wouldn’t give up before that.
Matt
Despite no one being ‘around’ to witness it, Matt had had his own share of life-changing realisations and panic attacks in the last hour. When he woke up that morning, the first thing he felt was that his whole body hurt and that he was cold. He tried shifting to a more comfortable position and pull the covers around himself, but instantly understood that he was definitely not laying on his bed.
Matt assumed he must have rolled out of bed and slept on the floor at some point during the night, which would be unexpected yes, but much less insane than what actually happened. He was hit with a wave of panic as soon as he opened his eyes and registered that he wasn’t in his room. The sudden panic completely woke him up and he shot up from the floor, already inspecting his surroundings.
It didn’t take him long to spot Nick and Chris sleeping each in their own bed on the other side of the room. Seeing them made Matt let out a sigh of relief, but he quickly began overthinking again, Am I missing some memory? The last thing I remember is going to sleep at home, what the fuck happened? How am I here, where is here and why the fuck was I left sleeping on the floor? Nothing made sense.
He felt hesitant about waking his brothers since he was still not over how they acted towards him last night, plus he knew they’d be angry and yell more after being woken up this early, especially to him being all confused.
Though he knew something was likely seriously wrong, either with their situation, fucking waking up in an unknown random place what the hell, or with him, for literally losing hours/days/weeks (??) of memory and not knowing what was going on.
So Matt pushed down his doubts and went to shake Nick awake. Only to discover that he quite literally couldn’t – his hand went straight through Nick’s shoulder. And that’s how Matt found out he was an actual ghost and had his first panic attack of the day.
He tried touching other things, he yelled, screamed and cried for either of his brothers to wake up and help him, unable to comprehend or accept what was going on.
After the scariest and longest panic attack he’s ever had, Matt was completely worn out, physically as well as mentally. Unfortunately, he didn’t have long to rest, since Nick started waking up at this point.
By now, Matt understood that his brothers couldn’t see him, it was likely no one could, but he still couldn’t help himself from speaking up and even screaming at them at times. He felt forcibly silenced as he was forced to watch his two most important people go through a slightly different but equally shocking discovery as him only minutes before.
He watched them go from confused to panicked and horrified as they discovered no one else remembered him and apparently didn’t ever exist in this world. He started crying when Chris had his panic attack and he couldn’t help him.
Matt would be ashamed to admit it, but despite the sickening situation they were in, he couldn’t help but feel kind of touched, happy and reassured when he saw how much they worried over him and how determined they were to get him back.
Their strong resolve and promise to each other to get him back made Matt smile despite everything. Nick and Chris weren’t giving up on him, they were more stubborn, determined and driven than anyone he knew, so Matt decided he needed to be strong as well, he would help out and do his part to get them back to normal however he could, even if not breaking was the only thing he could do for the moment.
All
Matt stood by Nick and Chris as they made their own plan, agreeing to first write down exactly what happened yesterday so they wouldn’t forget any details that could potentially help them figure out the how. They also needed to find out more about this ‘alternate universe’ they ended up in and how their lives work here, maybe that would answer the why.
That’s a good idea, yeah. Could anything we did have led to this?, Matt thought as he listened to Nick and Chris go through everything that happened yesterday. He cringed and became tense when they got to the argument.
“Fuck…”, Nick sighed after they recapped the last part.
“Don’t even start bro”, Chris groaned, rubbing his eyes. They were both cringing at their past-selves.
“We really took it too far, we have to apologise, like seriously”, Nick felt properly guilty, they both did. Now that some time has passed and they weren’t angry anymore… plus Matt literally being gone really put things into perspective.
“I know kid I know! Fuuck, you think I don’t know that? I can’t believe we said that shit to him, I’ve just been so stressed with everything and I guess I just snapped then”, Chris felt sick again as he remembered how unnecessarily nasty they got towards Matt.
“Yeah, same with me, but we really crossed the line there Chris”, Nick said sadly, “we literally went for his biggest insecurities, we said all that crap we knew would hurt him. Matt has also been stressed lately, he was probably taking it even harder than us…”
“I’m scared Nick”, Chris admitted quietly while trying to hold back a new wave of tears, “I’m scared he didn’t know we were just spouting bullshit, his mental health has been worse recently, oh god, what if he took us seriously, what if the last thing we ever said to him was that we didn’t need him”, he started panicking again, now fully crying. Chris couldn’t believe he actually said those awful things, knowing how Matt got. Now he might never get the chance to apologise and make things right…
Nick scooted closer and brought Chris into his arms, hugging him close, knowing he needed the comfort.
“Shhh sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s going to be okay. We made a mistake, a really stupid one yeah, but we’ll fix it. We already agreed we’d do anything to get him back, to get our lives back. And when we do, the first thing we’ll do is hug the fuck out of him and apologise a million times over”, Nick did his best to reassure him, “Now pull yourself together, we need to be strong right now and figure this out as fast as we can. For Matt”.
Chris pulled back, sniffling, and locked eyes with Nick, “For Matt”, he confirmed, serious and determined once more. They could worry about their mistakes later, right now they had something more important in front of them.
Matt was crouching next to them on the ground, not bothering trying to be quiet as he cried. Logically he always knew they weren’t serious, but sometimes that wasn’t enough. Like Chris said, Matt has been stressed for a while now, so his anxiety and self-worth issues were acting up again. Hearing his brothers, the two people closest to him say shit like that to him, with the intention of hurting him … it didn’t help, to say the least.
But it felt good to hear they didn’t mean it and how sorry they were. Matt really needed this shit to be over with, he wanted to hug them both so bad …
Matt started listening to their conversation again.
“Nothing interesting really happened on my part after that, I just worked on the next video for a few hours before watching a few episodes of B99 and going to sleep… what about you?”, Nick hoped Chris’s side of events would reveal any clues.
“Honestly dude… I was kind of worked up from the argument so I went on a walk to cool down a bit. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary though, some people walking their dogs and there were a few couples stargazing in the park, which makes sense since I saw someone post on their insta-story that there was a meteor shower last night and- …”, Chris kept talking but Matt didn’t listen to the rest as he zoned out.
It suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks – The shooting star, my wish, the stupid wish I made, Matt brought a hand to his head, eyes wide in disbelief.
He couldn’t believe that was the cause behind all this, but what else could it have been?
“Well fuck … so either we had nothing directly to do with it …”, Nick trailed off.
“… or whatever caused this happened on Matt’s part …”, Chris finished.
They looked at each other and silently thought about what to do next, as it seemed this line of thinking wouldn’t produce any answers.
On his side, Matt was panicking again, hating himself for causing this nightmare for all three of them. If my wish made this, can I un-wish it? Can I just wait for another shooting star to reverse it? He decided to try that if nothing changed until night time. Though he sincerely hoped Nick and Chris figured something out before then…
.
.
.
A month has passed and things were going horribly. That first night after waking up to their new life, Matt discovered that wishing upon a shooting star once more wouldn’t reverse the first wish. He didn’t lose hope yet though, he had faith his brothers would figure something out, or they’d somehow work together, each doing their part to solve this.
Unfortunately, that didn’t end up happening, so now, one month later, Matt was nearing his limit. He’s been following Nick and Chris this whole time, so while he technically wasn’t ever alone, no one knew he was there, he hadn’t spoken out loud in a month and he felt so unbearably lonely. He felt ignored, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
And more than anything, he was scared. He was afraid beyond belief that Nick and Chris would grow tired of trying to get him back, that they would get used to their new life and start enjoying being ‘twins’. And Matt wouldn’t be able to do anything but watch them talk about him less and less…
On their side, Nick and Chris were also going crazy. In contrast to Matt’s worry and overthinking, the two weren’t even close to giving up, not now, not ever.
They had to learn about their life there, sure, but that was to ‘fit in’ and not draw any unnecessary attention to themselves. They still needed to live somehow.
It took a lot of googling, watching ‘their’ videos and suffering through awkward conversations with strangers (who were apparently their friends) to get the full picture; since in this universe Matt was never born, Nick and Chris were twins.
Apparently they both moved out after high school to attend university together, with Nick choosing media design and Chris digital networking and communication as their majors. After the first few days, they both agreed to start attending their lectures; because they were interesting for one, they didn’t want their parents or ‘friends’ to worry and deal with them, and lastly … because they honestly didn’t know what else to do with so much time.
They figured out they shared a room in the student dorms and posted videos on YouTube and TikTok on the side.
Their channels were doing well enough, though their numbers were nowhere near their actual ones. It wasn’t enough to make a living out of it anyway, and it seemed their subscriber count has remained mostly steady for a while now, not declining but also not growing.
Nick and Chris (and Matt, unbeknownst to them) watched their posts and videos and couldn’t believe how off it felt. And it wasn’t just guilt or their loyalty to Matt or whatever, they could easily tell something was missing. They were still both very energetic, funny and obviously worked well together, sure, but it always felt like something was missing, it wasn’t quite what it could be.
They read the comments and while it seemed people found them funny, they often critiqued how they never stayed on topic for even a minute, they got too intense at times and since on one stopped them or balanced them out, a lot of their videos were literally just the two of them yelling at each other.
All three of them cringed and Matt’s absence hurt even more as they watched.
Nick and Chris decided a few days ago that they needed a mental health break and allow themselves to just miss their brother. They planned to secretly visit what used to be their house in LA, the place where they last saw Matt.
So now here they were, this day marked exactly one month since their lives were flipped on their heads. Nick and Chris arrived in LA early that evening, threw their things in the Airbnb they booked and made their way towards their house by foot. They could’ve called an Uber but… it didn’t feel right. They wanted Matt to drive them.
Across the street from their house was a small park, nothing fancy, just some open space, trees and a few benches. The two chose to sit on a bench that directly faced the direction of their house, so they could sit and talk while watching their home. In hindsight that was kind of creepy, but they honestly couldn’t care at this point.
They have both been uncharacteristically quiet for the whole day, mostly communicating through one-word answers and shakes or nods of their heads.
Now that they were here, sitting on a park bench in the dark, the only sound coming from a random car driving by every so often and a quiet chirping of crickets in the background.
Chris was the first to break their silence. “I always assumed that going to university would be really boring and uneventful, that it wouldn’t be the life I wanted. And right now, it is like that yeah. Even with our mission in mind, life has become boring. Obviously I already knew I’d never be able to actually enjoy life without Matt in it, but I realised that even now, I don’t miss doing YT full-time, I don’t miss going to events or tours, I don’t miss meeting other influencers or celebrities… I miss us three, how we are so different but just work. I know people always said they liked our ‘sibling dynamic’ or whatever, but I never really stopped to think about it. But now, after being alone with you for a whole month, I really get it. And I noticed that if Matt was here, I really think that even this version of life, us three going to university together and living normal lives… it wouldn’t be boring.”
Nick listened without interrupting him once. “I know what you mean. I always knew our channel wouldn’t be as successful if it wasn’t all three of us, ‘triplets’ obviously already stands out more than ‘twins’, but it’s not just that. We didn’t give Matt enough credit honestly, not just the obvious him being our brother and automatically loving him, but the way we grew to complement each other. We are so used to him calming us down, going to him for advice or support, him redirecting our anger or distracting us when we fight, making us laugh with his humour, … we relied on him more than we realised and we took it all for granted. Hell, we didn’t even realise how much he did for us, how much even just him being there for us helped guide us and keep us on track. I just wish he was here so I could tell him that there was never anything wrong with him or how he did things, that I you both more than anything in the world and that this month without him has been the longest in my life.”
Matt just sat at the end of the bench, both legs up, his head resting on his knees and listened. He was heart-broken, hating feeling so helpless. He wanted nothing more than to reassure them both, but he couldn’t. One would think he’d get used to it by now, but watching as his brothers hurt while unable to do anything never got any easier.
Chris let out a loud sigh, wiping his eyes with his hands, staring sadly at the ground, looking utterly defeated. “We’d never be the same without him. I would give anything to go back, for the three of us to be together again. I’d never take either of you for granted again. I just miss him so much … I can’t believe I didn’t appreciate what we had until he was gone”, Chris was getting more and more emotional.
Matt suddenly looked up when he heard him say that, staring at him wide-eyed, heart beating wildly in his chest. He remembered exactly what his original wish was.
“Agreed. I can’t believe it took Matt literally being wiped from existence for us to get our shit together and start appreciating him for him”, Nick added, also feeling his eyes starting to burn.
They were so caught up in their feelings that none of them noticed a shooting star pass by on the night sky above them.
Nick and Chris did notice, however, when there was suddenly another person sitting on the bench next to them. They didn’t see anyone come and sit down, but they felt a presence next to them and instinctively shot up from their seats and took a few steps back.
They were about to start freaking out and say something, when they were left speechless, their brains not comprehending who was in front of them.
Matt of course saw them suddenly jump and take a few steps away, he didn’t know what got them to react like that and was left very surprised and confused. But that lasted for only a few short seconds, when he noticed them both looking utterly shocked, eyes wide, mouth hanging open and most importantly, staring directly at him.
Matt’s heart was beating like crazy, deep inside him he knew what this meant but didn’t dare to hope. He couldn’t handle it if he was wrong.
Nick and Chris were both stunned into silence, their minds needed a few moments to catch up on what was happening. Their hearts were beating so loud they couldn’t hear anything over them, but their thoughts were completely silent. They blinked a few times since, but still, the scene didn’t change. There on the bench in front of them was Matt, staring back at them in shock.
“Guys?”, Matt asked in disbelief, voice hoarse and shaking.
And that was all it took to break them out of their trance. Nick and Chris have never moved faster in their entire lives, and they have also never hugged anyone or cried as hard as they did in the next moment.
The nightmare was finally over. Matt was back. They were three again.