Chapter Text
The multiverse sure has a sense of humor…
Shawn shot awake, slicked in sweat. The voice was familiar and unfamiliar, the sort of deja vu of having the same dream twice but not quite remembering it in waking life. The quiet hum of traffic outside the hotel room made the room feel too still. He peeled his sheets away and grabbed his phone. Staring out into the snow, the city looked still, an eerie sight compared to the constant liveliness of home. He set his head against the glass, his heart racing. That voice, and the flash of a shape. Something about it terrified him. Even with the memory of it fading fast, the sense that something was horribly wrong lingered.
He wasn’t a stranger to inexplicable things. In the past it had always been small things: a sense for certain things before they happen, a bad trip that felt all too familiar, that one week in 2017 he was sure happened twice. But that was just a combination of less than stellar mental health and playing ‘genre’ roles for years, right? Ryan Reynolds probably went through the same kind of stuff. Still, something about the dream, or now just the feeling of the dream, felt important. And like something he’d read before.
Sam always insisted on paper scripts. It was charming, but it also meant his hotel room desk had five different variations on the same screenplay. He grabbed the one on top, skimming through it. The words hit like a truck. His character, Tim Breaker, telling Alan about the strange dreams he’d been having. The similarities were uncanny.
“No fucking way,” Shawn muttered to himself, reading it over. He’d just been up working too late, the subconsciousness processing information or however all that works. But just telling himself that felt like a lie. He paced around the room; he needed to hear it from someone else, that would convince him. He looked down at his phone in his hands. No one would be around this time of night, except maybe…
It was a long shot. They hadn’t really talked in years, but that same nagging feeling that wouldn’t let him take this all as a simple coincidence made his finger hover over her name. The phone rang once, twice. He was about to hang up, but then a groggy voice crackled out of the speaker.
“Hello?”
He winced at the noise, half expecting she wouldn’t pick up. He clears his throat. “Hey, it’s me. Can we talk real quick?”
There’s a muffled sound of someone beside her and the rustling of fabric. He waited quietly as he listened to her footsteps.
“Hey, yeah, sure. Isn’t it like midnight over there? What are you doing up, you know Sam likes to start early.”
“...That’s why I called, actually. This is gonna sound batshit insane, but,” he paused. It does sound batshit insane. And why are you telling her of all people? You two aren’t even that close. The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them. “I just had this dream that was exactly, and I mean EXACTLY like Sam’s screenplay. Has, uh, has that ever happened to you?”
A hard exhale hit her mic. “Sure, yeah. He’s good at what he does, all those ‘little mysteries’ really get in your head.” He can hear the lilt of someone trying to keep from laughing even through the crackle of the phone call.
“I’m serious, Court. There’s-” he stopped, his words caught on the sight in front of him. There was a ripple in the air, distortion like a mirage. The room went cold, even the warmth of the phone against his ear dissipating in the presence of… whatever this was.
“I’ll call you back…” Shawn trailed off, setting the phone down on the desk beside him. The shimmer in the air intensified, warping the space around it, pulling at the very structure of the room. Then the sound started, a mix of tv static and ripping paper. Fingers appeared, clinging to the mirage as if it were solid. Then an arm, then another. The figure was pulling itself out of this thing.
He looked around, terrified, for something to defend himself with. He grabbed an umbrella hanging from the desk chair and held it like a baseball bat. The sound grew louder, blocking out everything else. Shawn couldn’t even hear himself think as the man tore his way into his hotel room.
And then suddenly, it all stopped. Just the muted sound of cars moving through a snow-covered Finland and a normal looking hotel room. And the man who looked exactly like him, eyes wide, covered in blood.