Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Fandom:
Additional Tags:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2024-07-16
Words:
1,444
Chapters:
1/1
Hits:
19

To Whiskey

Summary:

A message from a listener

Notes:

Hey, so this is a little self insert (in name/age only tbh) short story that I wrote after finishing Breaker Whiskey. I'm part of the Atypipals so I finished it on Monday, July 15th and after talking with Lauren, was encouraged to write my own little thing about someone in one of the parallel worlds. I got a bit carried away in my notes app while I probably should've been working and well, here we are. I might also record this as I have a podcasting microphone now! If I do, I'll put the link to it in the closing notes. Not gonna post this till Friday so no one gets any spoilers. Thanks for reading!

Work Text:

Oh my god oh my god she can hear us, and,,, wow there's an US, I never thought,,, I mean I expected, I just,,,, uh,, ok, um, hi, hello, I'm David. Shoot should I come up with a codename? Oh well, I already said it, and like, there's no one I'm running from. Besides myself I guess. And whoever that Fox guy is. If *he* even knows about me.

Uh, so I guess I should start with a bit of info about me. I'm 25, I've been here for,,, wow ten years now. Currently broadcasting out of NASA where I've been situated for the past year. I,, well I'm not scared about revealing my location. The people who were here,, well they aren't here anymore. I don't even know how much longer I'll be here. Not that I'll ever be able to get back to my own timeline. I can't anymore. Heck, I don't even really want to.

I know what you're thinking, Why Don't You Want To? And How Do You Know You Can't? I never really had anyone in my life before. I was an outsider even in my own family. They never cared. No one really did. And I know exactly how I got here. I remember it clearly. I killed someone. Like you did Whiskey. I didn't intend to. It wasn't planned. I got immensely over-stimulated in a very, very bad situation, and I snapped. I won't go into details but I will say I felt something in my head snap, blacked out, came to over a bloody body holding a knife, felt my head *pulse* in a way it never did before, and then I was alone. Covered in blood, and alone.

At first I thought I had died. I wandered for WEEKS convinced I had fallen into a hell of my own making. My own personal purgatory. But then I met another person. And we met another. In this universe, we all found each other. Call it luck or fate or whatever, but we did. Not that it helped.

The first few weeks after that were,, good. We all were here for various reasons. Most bad. Some circumstantial. But we worked it out. We stockpiled food, moved into a mall, and for a bit, we *lived* we read books, watched movies, played games. If food got scarce we would move to another mall. But then. Then we started getting sick.

It started out as a bad case of food poisoning. A can that was in the early stages of bulging, I guess. Then one of us had a run in with a bat. A few people got rabies in the aftermath. I'd spent a decent amount of time reading medical books. I'm paranoid and had, well, I still have, more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. I wasn't too sick from the original can, I don't eat much, never have, so I want as bad as everyone else and was able to stay relatively clear-headed. It's the only reason I survived.

By the end, it was just me and one other person. A man, a few years my senior named Dylan. We somehow came out on the other side relatively unscathed. We didn't realize it then, but turns out that was a twisted peice of fate. Dylan and I struck out on a little trip then. The rest of the group was dead and we decided to see the world. Or the continent at least. We traveled around for two years. Two wonderful years. We saw the sights, we laughed, we cried, we loved. Heh, we were David And Dylan, The Dynamic Duo. And then one day he decided to take a detour back to his childhood home. And that's where it all fell apart.

See, we didn't fully realize it then, but everyone of us in that world was connected in more ways than we knew. The boy I had killed to get there,, was Dylans estranged younger brother, one of our group had been his girlfriend, another had been his pen pal, another had been his blood type, another was his mentor. They were all people that were affected by his death. Or were in his orbit to be affected in the future. At least that's what we figured. Everyone had gotten here because of their sins, for that we had no doubt. But to this specific place was because of a reason. It was because of the boy that I had killed, drawing us all together. Dylan was pissed. Rightfully so. But he also knew me. He knew how I'd struggled after. How his brother had treated me.

I thought we could work it out. We had had two good years of just us before that. But then,, well, the isolation got to him I guess. I think it was our deep dive into everyone we learned was connected to his brother. He had been pulling away from me and I didn't realize why until it was almost too late. He got it in his head that if he killed me, he would go back. I woke up one day to his hands on my throat, his tears hitting my face, pleading with me to understand. I can still his voice breaking. 'Im sorry Davy. Im so, so sorry. Please Forgive Me' he had said. And I did. Forgive him, I mean. I still do. He just wanted to get home, and I probably would have let him, except that same,, band, in my head that had snapped all those years prior,, it snapped again. And Dylan was dead. And I was alone.

I almost ended it all then. And then I heard you. I was wandering aimlessly past a radio store and it just,, lit up. The power turned on and I heard a voice come from one of the radios. Your voice. It was garbled and I only caught a few words, but, well. That was all I needed. I was already relatively close to Nasa. And what better place to pick up radio signals than the one company with satellites that picked up signals from *Space*.

I got here and started reading everything I could about radio waves and satellites, and well, a bunch of other topics, the library here is STOCKED and I've always been a big reader and quick to learn things. I spent the next couple of months learning and tuning until the broadcasts were crystal clear. Once, I even had an idea of where you were and I took a trip, but I didn't find any sign you had even been there. Which solidified my theory that you were in another, parallel place. I'd been reading a ton of scifi, the base is full of those kinds of books, so it wasn't too hard to peice together. I even tried a few transmissions, but nothing ever worked. Well, not until now I guess.

I know you are taking a step back. And I respect that. I'm so glad that you and Harry have found some semblance of peace for a bit. I've been rooting for you two. I don't know if you'll be able to hear this but I've set it up to repeat and broadcast on all frequencies for the foreseeable future. You might not be able to. Or you might get snippets. Maybe just a line or two. And to anyone else out there, since there are apparently an infinite amount. I'm here. I hear you. I understand.

I'm alone in my world. I've made peice with that. Maybe I'm not and someone will find me now. I won't move. I can't. I got an infection in my legs and well, I don't have legs anymore. Not working ones at least. And I'm running out of food. Maybe someone will find me before then. But if not, well, it's been a good run. I knew I was never long for this world. Or any world. Maybe there's a version of me out there that's happy. Maybe I find Dylan in one of those worlds and we live our lives happy. His brother just an annoying, hateful little blip in our lives.

Maybe I don't. I've resigned myself to my fate. To The Fates. To God, if he's out there. I'll be fine. Either way I'm content. But your messages brought me joy so I'm sending my own, now that I know there's a chance someone else might hear it and listen. I haven't lived the best life. But I've lived and I hope that that's enough.

This is David, signing off.