Work Text:
Three months.
That’s how long it took for Andrew to leave the hospital.
Five weeks for his burns to heal. Mosaics of red and pink crawling over his right shoulder, down his arm and inching onto his torso. He hated how he was only injured on his right side. His right side.
Twenty days until he was discharged from the psych ward. People. Always people. So many people asking about everything. They want to know everything. As if they’d know a thing about losing your entire world. Their earth still spins while Andrew’s axis snapped in half years ago, on that June 6 of 2023.
Thirteen hours for him to plan.
Fourteen minutes of silent, bloody, freeing bliss.
Then he wakes to the damned scent of hand sanitizer, and it’s another month before he’s released.
He doesn’t get it. An average person takes two to five minutes to bleed out from their arteries. The calculations were right, the timing was perfect—so how did he live?
How did he live?
. . .
He didn’t believe in ghosts.
Three months.
That’s how long Andrew blamed himself for.
The mathematician blames their process, not the numbers. The architect blames their blueprint, not the structures. The artist blames their eye, not the paints. And Andrew blamed himself, not the code, not the AI, not the function that he never knew existed, and he certainly, most certainly, did not blame Jayden.
Every trace of Andrew’s three years of work, gone in a flash of light, a deafening bang, and a roaring fire. He couldn’t bring himself to visit the warehouse, but the shells of machines and crisps of wires the police brought back were all he needed to see.
They never got an answer out of him. Closed the case in pure frustration. And now, he was alone again. Sitting in the same room he sat in when he first received the news three years ago. Feeling that same dread and numbness eat him from the inside out. Except this time, he didn’t have a solution. There was no body to steal. No death to fake. No project. No Jaide.
Something is beating. It sounds like the clacking of his worn-out keyboard. Or maybe the steps of a Minecraft character on stone. Placing blocks. Mining. Jumping. Punching. A voice calls his name, but it’s wrong. Too high pitched, too nasal, too slurred to be Jayden.
“Andrew?”
He blinks, and his room comes back into focus. Another round of noises come from his right—the door. The sound was knocking, and the voice was not Jayden’s.
Andrew’s youngest sister calls his name again. He rises from his mattress, steps over like a robot. Opens the door a sliver.
The girl stumbles back in surprise. She holds a tablet tight to her chest, and glances down at it before looking back up.
“I found a video,” she mumbles. “Mom said I can’t talk to you, but . . .” She turns her tablet around.
Andrew directs his gaze toward the screen. The bright red YouTube logo hurts his eyes. But a video’s thumbnail makes his blood freeze.
An unmistakable Minecraft avatar. And the words: “PROJECT JAIDE.”
“You were always talking about a—a jade, right? And a project? I dunno if this relates, but it’s a video from back when you—”
Andrew snatches the tablet from her hands. His legs feel weak, and breathing is painful as he stammers, “How did— I-I need to—”
His sister nods shakily. Her terrified eyes are the last things he sees before he slams his door shut and collapses against the wall.
“What Is PROJECT_JAIDE?” occupies him for the next two hours. One for watching the video, and one for sobbing until his chest ached and all he could see was “5201314.”
I love you for eternity.
. . .
He wished he believed in ghosts.