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Hands grip the wheel tightly, shaking slightly with the tight grip. All his fault. He left him behind. He left him behind— No, that wasn’t what he should be thinking right now, eyes on the road, Jonah. Eyes on the fucking road. That was difficult to do, the tears in his eyes blurring his sight.
Jonah tried to blink away his tears, ignoring that voice in the back of his head. ‘You left him there. You left him behind.’ Over and over in the back of his mind.
The man brings a hand to the mirror, adjusting it. There was nothing there. Where was the repeating coming from? He’d left Adam behind. He was so sure that nobody else was here. He was 100% positive that he was alone. The teary brown eyes flicker to the playing radio. A station he didn’t recognise was playing; one under ‘333’.
Jonah wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed, he didn’t pay attention to the alternate warnings, he thought they were stupid and could only be physical entities. It didn’t make sense how something would make you want to kill yourself from being in a TV or a radio or anything.
His eyes flicker to the camera he had. Again, ‘333’ was displayed on it.
He didn’t understand what it meant.
The voice kept going and going, Jonah near close to stopping the car and screaming at the top of his lungs. ‘You left him behind. You left him behind. Friends don’t do that.’ Were they even friends?
Adam was never the most expressive person of it anyways. Jonah, who was more lively and outgoing, surely annoyed him from time to time. Even with his mood swings and his inability to take jokes. He didn’t understand why Adam stuck around. He didn’t understand why Adam needed him there; but he never appreciated it. It was the same story with Sarah. He didn’t understand why he was there, he didn’t understand why he was involved.
His dad would be disappointed.
The voice continues, and by now it’s overwhelming Jonah’s senses. His grip loosens before he swerves. He swerves off the road, screaming at the top of his lungs to be left alone, for it to shut up and that it wasn’t his fault.
His body jerks forward and he hits his head against the dashboard. Jonah’s seatbelt gashes along his neck, a usual safety thing. He swears a sensation of throwing up over comes him. He felt like he cracked his ribs against the steering wheel. His hands fall, but the voice continues.
“You left him behind. Open your eyes.” It was like a whisper. He could feel something breathing at his neck. He could feel it’s pressure consuming him. The constant thoughts running through his head; he wasn’t good enough. He didn’t deserve to live, the thoughts he was having were too much for him. They were taunting. Information he never wanted, he now had at his disposal. He wanted it to stop.
‘Open your eyes’ was repeated over and over again.
Jonah lifts his head, blood trickling from both his now broken nose and a gash on his forehead. He felt woozy, light headed and so on. The alternate whispering into his ear didn’t help. His head was swimming in thoughts. He’d never felt this way before.
Was this what made Adam so obsessed with finding her? Did one of these.. creatures do this? Did they ruin someone he considered his friend?
A sob tears itself from his throat and he headbutts the dashboard in front of him. “Leave me alone, leave me alone.. Shut up, please.” He sobbed, raking his nails against his arms. He needed to stop it. He needed to stop this feeling of pain and confusion.
Jonah hears the car door open and his breath hitches in the back of his throat. This wasn’t good. He weakly lifted his head up, a disfigured being stood at the passenger’s side. This was it: he was going to die.
…
It wasn’t quick. His death was slow. Painful. Like the alternate that had came into the car wanted him to die slowly. To think over everything. He never got to mumble any last words, only sobbing and crying like a baby. The last thing Jonah remembers before blacking out was his head battering against the dashboard. Over, and over. He didn’t fight back. He let it happen.
Jonah died on bad terms with his only friend. Someone like family to him. He would’ve been destroyed to find out his reaction; which there wasn’t any type reaction at all. He was right about the basement. It changed Adam. Jonah kept to his word too. He wasn’t going to be around for it, and that’s for the better.
Adam never wanted Jonah around. He considered him a coward, and he made it known every single time they fought, which was more times than someone could count on their fingers.
Jonah was nothing now. Nothing more than a memory. Nothing more than some alternate’s roadkill or some freak car accident victim. Nobody would know how he spent his last breath of life suffering a painful and cruel death.
He never should’ve left.