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183 days have passed since Airy got himself killed, and Liam still hasn't fully figured out his weird computer. His old source lines have helped in understandings its mechanisms, and the interface doesn't seem so convoluted anymore—but even then, he's only managed in moving clouds and resizing objects.
What he's learned is that the code is the root of control. The atmosphere? Code. Manipulating objects? Code. Respawning? Code. And of course, getting back home also relied entirely on the code. It's the computer's language, it's way of comprehending what he needed it to do.
Most of his time is spent replicating and tweaking Airy's work, something which only really works half of the time. He almost always has to refactor everything later on, once a thousand bugs and errors inevitably start popping up all over the place. And when he does finish fixing that, more just seem to show up. It's like an infestation, except actual bugs would probably be signifcantly easier to handle.
So far, remaking Airy's work hasn't been the most viable strategy. But Liam has nothing else to go off of. It isn't as if starting from scratch would be any more effective. Hell, the fact Airy managed to learn as much as he did on his own is puzzling enough. How do you learn a language when you don't know what that language is? How do you know where to start with that?
He keeps trying though. It's the only thing he can do.
Texty's laptop is still dead, so Liam works alone for everyday and every hour.
There are times he thinks the isolation will drive him crazy. It isn't that he can't talk with the others, because he talks with them daily. Amelia, Bryce. It's them that helps him keep his grip on reality. It's them that gets him to working on that stupid computer when he wants to smash it into bits. It's them that keeps his head above the water, no matter how much he wants to let himself drown.
But things aren't the same anymore. Not while they stay trapped in the Plane, and not while he's out here. He's just as trapped as they are, sure, but that doesn't change how he's become more of a looming presence than their peer. An overhead, booming voice, poorly controlling the planet they're stuck on.
They don't say it to him, but they don't need to. Their livelihoods hung precariously in the balance of his actions—and if he made a mistake, a single mistake, he could get everyone killed. He didn't exactly know how to bring them back from the Waiting Room yet, and them not acknowledging it doesn't mean he's any less aware.
Part of him wants to think he'd never be that careless. That he'd never let anything happen to them, that he knew enough of what he was doing that they didn't have to worry. But then he thinks of Airy. He thinks of the first season of ONE. He thinks of the original batch of contestants, and he thinks of how one blunder permanently cut their lives short.
He thinks of Julien. Sitting in the Waiting Room for years on end, dull and lifeless.
His glossy eyes, his mouth hanging open, his dazed expression.
Rotting away inside.
The truth of the matter was that if it happened once, it could happen again.
Liam doesn't think he'd be able to forgive himself if it did.
Fear and anxiety are constantly gnawing at his chest, at his throat, at the pit of his stomach. Their fates are entirely dependent on him, and the weight of it is crushing. It's stressful. It's terrifying.
Most of all, it's lonely.
Sometimes, against every bite and fibre of his being, he finds himself wishing Airy was still here.
Airy was company. Company he hated, and company he wanted to tear apart limb from limb, but company regardless. Better to have something and someone, than nothing and no one. And right now, Liam has no one. Loneliness often creeps up on him, prickling like ants all over. It reaches into the crevices of his brain, and stuffs him full of cotton. And maybe it's his own fault. Maybe if Liam hadn't tried to kill Airy, rattled him, maybe he wouldn't have died. Maybe he'd been his own undoing, at the end of the day.
No guilt lingers in Airy's absence, but the what ifs haunt Liam still.
Each second that goes by is spent on his own. Talking through the microphone helps, but it's basically the equivalent of calling long-distance friends—it's nothing like a real, human presence physically next to him. There's no one to help him up when he stumbles. There's no one to offer comfort when he cries himself to sleep at night. There's no one he can just tell everything he's kept inside for the past 183 days, because otherwise he'd be dumping his baggage onto every other person in the Plane too, and he doesn't want that.
He's on his own. Utterly and completely.
So, he works. He works on the computer, trying to put the pieces together so he can understand how it functions. He works until his fingers are aching and his eyes are burning, and he works until he gets lost in it, until he doesn't notice when the sun has gone down, or when the pain has gone numb. And when he can't work anymore, he's thinking of work, and the potential routes and options for success. He works, and he works, and he works. Because it has to work. Eventually, surely, it has to.
It will.
At least, that's what he tells himself.
Amidst the monotony, the solitude, and the sheer fucking boredom, it's work that gives him a purpose. As frustrating and headache-inducing as it is, it also keeps him feeling. And that's all he needs it to do.
A point comes where Amelia notices something is off with him in the middle of a conversation. He's not sure how she did, considering the fact she couldn't see him, but she did, and she wasn't happy about it. She insisted he promise to take care of himself more—and God, he would've refused, really he would've, but then Bryce started piling on after her, and who was he to say no to them?
He promises them.
He barely keeps it, but he doesn't break it either. He still works to the point his bones are stiff and senseless, and he still passes out at the desk occasionally. But he starts cleaning himself at the river more often, which has to count for something. While nothing can compare to a proper boiling hot shower, it makes him feel a lot less disgusting, so he tries to keep it up regularly. His clothes stay grimy as they are, mostly because he doesn't want to walk around naked while waiting for them to dry. Nobody else is in here—it was just him and Airy before, and the latter is dead now—but on the off-chance that changes one day, he stays clothed.
It's a blessing there's no mirrors in this dimension. Otherwise, he'd feel even shittier when seeing his reflection. He can tell dark circles have formed underneath his eyes from how dry the skin there has gotten, and he can tell his eyes are bloodshot from how they're always burning. His hair is matted and frizzy from the lack of maintenance, and his roots have grown so weak that his hair is constantly breaking off. And that isn't even mentioning how his entire body hurts. It reeks and it itches and his broken left leg is definitely not healing—there's no feeling in it anymore, and it's lost all form of movement.
He'll probably have to get it amputated when he got back.
If he got back.
It's something he tries not to dwell on too much.
When nighttime comes, it's the one time Liam ever lets himself break.
The first time, on the 8th day, he tried to fight it. Crying did him no good. Meltdowns less so. Time was a limited resource, and he couldn't waste it when everybody was counting on him to get them out of here.
Now, it's the 183th day, and he expects it to happen. He'd still prefer it doesn't, but his body needs a form of release—catharsis. Otherwise, he'll feel it always, buried deep in the very back of his mind. Boiling and boiling and boiling over, smelling his own skin as it burns him from the inside out. It's not particularly something he wants. So he'll sit on his bed and cleave himself clean open, as long as he has nothing better to do. It's become integrated into his routine, the way gathering for reeds and trying to write a new source code is.
Today isn't any different.
He's in the middle of draping his jacket over the pile of reeds when it happens. His vision begins blurring, the little color there is melting into watercolor spots. His heart picks up the pace, hammering so violently that he thinks it wants to rip straight through his chest. Honestly, it would be a mercy at this point, rather than going through the same old tired routine again. Liam is quick to slump onto the makeshift bed before losing grip on his crutch, which clatters unceremoniously to the floor. He pays it no mind, and takes in a shuddering breath to try steady himself.
It doesn't help very much.
183 days. That's half a year already.
183 days. And no matter how hard he tries, the finish line doesn't seem to be getting any closer.
Liam gasps, desperately trying to claw air back into his system. It's easy to ignore everything bubbling inside of him when he's focused on work, but when the moon rises and he has nothing to divert his attention to, it forces him to face it. To look at it, and let it overflow. And it hurts. It hurts so much, and God knows he should be used to it at this point, and God knows he's spent enough nights like this that he should know how to handle himself when this happens, but it doesn't make it any less painful.
Strangely, he doesn't want it to. He holds onto that hurt, cradles it and tucks it away like it's something precious. Hurt keeps him feeling—it reminds him that he's human, that he's someone outside of this. That beneath Backpack, there was still Liam. That he was still Liam. The hurt draws blood and pries open flesh, but he holds it close anyways, and lets it linger when he doesn't have to. If he stops hurting, and if he stops feeling, he'll detatch. Disconnect, deaden.
Just like Airy.
He's felt it before. That jaded, apathetic nature crawling up on him. He's felt it while working, while talking with the others, while flipping through the cameras. Once, he'd decided to check up on Owen. And it was nice, seeing him again. It was nice. Until the thought of bringing Owen over flashed through his mind, and his heart, stony as it had grown, stuttered and cracked wide in half.
For a split second, for just a split second, he swore he saw Airy in the reflection of the computer.
But when he turned around, there was nobody.
It was only him.
After that, he stopped looking through the cameras.
How much longer? How much longer until he can leave this behind, until the memory of ONE is too faint to even grasp? How much longer does he have to survive, work on that computer, spend his nights feeling like he's dying? How much longer until he stops being Backpack and starts being Liam again?
How much longer until he can have himself back?
He had a life. A good fucking life. A well-paying job, a nice apartment, a few friends. It wasn't perfect, nothing was, but fuck, he'd worked his ass off for it and it was his. His, his, his. His to throw all away if he chose, his to damn to Hell if that was what he wanted. His. Not Airy's, not anyone's. His.
And now it was gone.
Liam thinks of Airy, and how it'd taken him 10 years to get as far as he did, and his insides twist further into knots. More tears fall down his face, more air leaves his constricted lungs, more, more, more—it's too much, it's too much, it's all too much. Suddenly, he's acutely aware of how greasy his hair is, how oily his skin is, how bitter his mouth tastes and how fuzzy his tongue feels. It's so much. It's too much.
10 years. 10 whole years.
That's how long he could be stuck here, working towards something he might never reach. Alone and disgusting and slowly slipping through the cracks.
He can't do 10 more years of this. He can't. He'd die.
"F—uck!" He chokes out, burying his face in his hands.
He hates this. Fuckfuckfuck, he hates this so much. He hates this dimension, he hates ONE, he hates the computer, he hates Airy, he hatehateshates Airy. He hates what he's done to him, how he's made it so he can barely recognize himself anymore. Why? Why him? What could he have possibly done that life decided this was something he deserved? Wasn't he a good person? He made mistakes, but everyone did, didn't they? So why? Whywhywhy was it that out of the billions upon billions of people in the world, why was it Liam that got forced into this stupid competition? Why was it him made into entertainment for an apathetic, deranged psychopath? There are millions of evil people in the world, so why not them? Why him?
Maybe it's selfish—he knows it's selfish—but if he doesn't wake up tomorrow, he'll be okay with it. And it's so selfish, fuck, it's so selfish and he wants to beat himself until he bruises for it, he really does. He's everyone's only chance at escaping the Plane and getting back to their lives, their only chance for ONE to become a distant memory, so how can he ever think of giving up?
Liam remembers the night he went up to the smokestack. How he and Bryce had fought. He remembers the blood pounding in his ears, and he remembers screaming that everything he was doing was to stop it from happening to anyone else ever again. Bryce had told him then that he was doing it for himself.
And he was right. Because why else would he be feeling this way now?
Death is out of the option. No matter how badly he craves it.
If he dies, he'd be leaving them to rot.
Just like Julien.
Just like Airy.
When Liam falls asleep, he dreams of going home.
Where that is, he doesn't know anymore.