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You feel a sudden rise to consciousness, out of a state you recall nothing of. You are completely surrounded by deep, murky water. It seems to be without end in any direction. No light exists beyond what is provided by the silhouette in front of you, the one you refuse to define. Not yet, you think, just one more moment of distinction.
To your left, a wisp of what could be. From heart, to hope, to manifestation. His green eyes stare daggers into your orange. The water isn't responsible for his funhouse-mirror distortion. You've always dimly suspected he was there, somewhere in this fucked-up reality the two of you shared and loved and lost. Despite your best efforts, a ghost is imprinted on his brain forever. Even after what you know will happen next, that ghost will remain with him. Haunting him.
Was he ever a piece of you? Or was he a piece of him, painstakingly carved as an effigy of you? Is there a distinction between the two?
To your right, a diluted fragment of a shard of a person. Doomed to live forever, to live in silence, to have no mouth and scream. Chained in the mind of an animal; freed from the burden of courtesy, of playing nice, of being you. Finally a passenger, an audience member to impress, instead of the one-man show.
He was the loser of the first coin flip- nothing to be proud of; yet he always said he was beyond you. His capabilities outpacing yours, his processors digesting and memorizing and computing infinitely faster than your pitiful meat brain. Now seeing him in his current state disgusts you- turns something within your stomach.
A fitting end for him. He always wanted to be you; he never wanted to be you. None of you ever wants to be you.
Behind you. You don't see him, but you feel his heart. You feel where it used to beat- the rhythm, the pulse. the wound clean through it. He was never you; you were never him. But you are the same. His shadow looms over you, despite the light in front of you both. You do not want to become him, but you don't have a choice in the matter.
As above, so below. Your body is beneath you, your head above. clean-cut, decisively, immutably dead. The wounds are so effortlessly clean; flat, even through bone. Your halves are a snake without its tail; a hydra, head(s)less.
The weapon responsible for such a clean, perfect, effortless wound doesn't matter. Knife, noose, gallows; Damocles' sword, held to the rafters by a frayed rope above the seat of power. The guillotine, leaving you kneeling in prayer with the slots of the pillory. The ground gives out from under you; the rope will be cut, and you will be cut under it.
You feel the waters around you move, beginning to blend, blur, blinding you. The shapes in the water around you- wisps of what you were, what you could have been, what you will be- are gone as quickly as they were there. The currents twist around your body, contorting you in agony, rushing past you, forcing you to look in front of you. to look at him. It's time.
In front of you, you hear yourself. in front of you, you see
you see yourself, unified. All of you with the exception of yourself.
You are an atom to his galaxy. He looms over you; you are his shadow. You will become him. You already have.
He's almost glowing. This is the apex of your shared existence. In another timeline, one that looks much like yours, he is you. But in this one, you are him. You try not to think about it too hard- thinking isn't your responsibility anymore. Everything that was once yours is his now.
You cannot look him in the eyes. Even so, he reaches out his hand.
Finally, recognition sparks within you. The bizarre noise that filled your mind evaporates into a single conclusion. J███ must have made h██ choice.
...what? J███. J███. You're trying to say J███, but it just doesn't work. J███. The meaning is retained, but the sound is gone. The most important player in this universe, and you can't even say h██ name.
Jesus, dude. Does the name even matter? Does any of this? We both know you already lost.
Get a fucking move on.
He overpowers you easily. The static in your mind consumes you once again;
you take your hand.
You feel your essence being magnetized to his, unable to escape. You can feel yourself dissolving, your endlessly recursive existence finally granted definition, a final end point. The water escapes your lungs.
You blink, and the water is gone. Above you is a bell, a wooden beam; a rope dangles from it. Below you is a large, deep pit; stairs spiral around into an infinite black, curling around the edges. The rope continues down the pit past where you can see.
You have a dim awareness of coming up here, ultimately insignificant to what you saw on the way up. You gave up on running up the stairs partway through; flight was the more efficient means to your end.
You slowly pull up the rope from out of the pit. Your arms burn, but you feel no pain at all. Eventually your hands meet the end, tied in a way you remember well, the hangman's noose etched into your veins.
You pull the noose over your head
and you jump.