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Chapter 17

War Paint

Titus

T he second Fortitude Trial feels like trying to wake up from sleep paralysis. That moment when you feel yourself gaining consciousness, only to realize you’re being sucked back into a dream you can’t escape.

That’s how it begins, the drugs trickling into my system, making me lose grasp on time and space.

I don’t hear the same voice as last time. Instead, there’s a haunting, all-surrounding chanting. Like before, the words are indistinguishable. If they are even words. It could just be sounds, vocals designed to transport me to today’s particular nightmare: the future.

I can’t claw myself out of the blackness, its grip on me unshakable, inevitable. Eventually I just give in, knowing that whatever is waiting for me on the other side is probably exactly what I deserve. It’s pulled from my own subconscious after all.

Perhaps that’s what makes these trials so effective. They turn our biggest fear and heaviest guilt into one inescapable loop.

It’s not long after I surrender to the darkness that I feel myself waking up. Something wet and scratchy is under my cheek. I hear birds chirp, a car putter by, a dog bark, and kids playing in the distance. The sounds of suburbia. 1

Despite my eyes feeling dry and heavy, I manage to open them. The smell of fresh-cut grass makes sense as I realize I am lying on a lawn. I roll onto my back on the dewy ground. Did I sleep out here all night? Where even is here?

Still dazed with a head full of cotton balls, I try to take in my surroundings. A nice family home is to one side of me and a classic white picket fence is to my other. I don’t recognize it as anywhere I’ve been before, but it looks like the upper-class neighborhoods Ecker used to work in, servicing the mothers of the PTA while their corner-suite husbands were out of town.

I hear Ecker’s bright laugh next and realize that must be right. Except when I manage to pull myself up to sit, it’s not a bottle-blonde cougar kissing him goodbye.

It’s Sinclair.

And she’s kissing Bishop goodbye. He waves with a smile as he walks down the footpath to the driveway, wearing a nice dress shirt and slacks, leather shoes smartly polished. Ecker stands in the doorway, wearing nothing more than a low-slung pair of sweats, with his arm around Sinclair.

I wait for them to notice me, to ask what the hell I’m doing out here, but they never do. Bishop walks right past me, gets into his sleek black SUV, and drives away without so much as a look. Ecker and Sinclair wait for him to disappear down the idyllic street before turning in and closing the door.

I lumber to my feet then to the front door. When I try the handle, it is locked. I search my pockets for a set of keys but come up empty, so I knock.

“I got it!” I hear Sinclair holler from inside and listen to her feet shuffle to the door. “Back so soon? What did you forget—” The playful smile that was on her face when she opened the door fades as she stares at me, confused.

“Bishop? Hello?” She sticks her head out and looks around the front of their house.

“Nope, just me.” My voice is hoarse and raspy like I haven’t talked in days.

“Hellooo?” she calls again, then shrugs and closes the door. Right in my face.

“Who was it?” I hear Ecker ask from inside.

She answers, “No one, it must not have been a knock.” Like hell it wasn’t.

I’m about to try again when the door swings open, my fist suspended in the air. Ecker stands in the doorway. Thank god.

“She needs to get her eyes checked,” I grumble and push inside . . . . Ecker remains standing, untouched. But I’m on the other side of him, now in the house’s foyer.

“Weird, I thought I heard a knock too.” He goes through the same shrug, close door routine as her.

“Bro, it was me,” I say, exasperated, only to get no response.

When he starts to walk away, I reach for his shoulder and am stunned frozen. My hand goes right through him. No, no, no, that can’t be right. I knocked . . . . I knocked!

Breaking out of my shocked stupor, I chase after him. “Hey, wait!”

We turn into the kitchen, where Sinclair is shrugging off the light-weight robe she was wearing over a pajama cami set. Ecker wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her as close as he can . . . with her round, full belly in between them.

The room spins. I reach for the counter for support but it’s no use. Faster and faster, it spins until I’m on a tilt-a-whirl, surrounded by flying colors and Sinclair’s sweet, carefree laugh.

This time, the darkness comes and goes in the blink of an eye. I come to already standing up. My feet sting something fierce, and I look down to see I’m barefoot in a thin layer of snow. The wind whips and I shiver, huddling my arms tighter around me as I peer into the window in front of me.

Warm light fills the living room, and a colorful Christmas tree twinkles. Bishop picks Sinclair up by the hips, hoisting her into the air to place a star on the top of the tree. I can hear the faint sound of holiday music.

Ecker comes in, handing a glass of wine to Bishop and a mug of tea to Sinclair. She rests it on her round stomach, even bigger than last time. Her flannel pajama top can’t button all the way, showing off her smooth, pale skin.

A knife twists in my gut as I watch them decorate the tree, stopping to feel the baby kick. They look so happy, so complete. They’re a perfect family, not missing anything . . . not missing me.

I’m pushed backward by a sudden invisible force. I fall back, never hitting the ground, just falling, falling, falling. Until I eventually land flat on my back, like a bug splattered on a windshield. I blink up at the sunny sky and once again try to resituate to my new surroundings.

I’m back on grass. There’s yelling all around me . . . . No, more like cheering. Kids and adults. Something hits my head, bounces right off it. I turn to get a look and realize it’s a soccer ball. What the fuck?

I sit up, and little children in fluorescent jerseys that hang to their knees race past me. Every time one of them kicks the ball, I can’t tell if they did it on purpose or if their foot just accidentally collided with it as they run.

Standing, I look around at all the parents cheering on the sidelines with their camp chairs and coolers full of orange slices. I find Bishop, Sinclair, and Ecker.

Immediately, I scan the field for their child. I spot him right away. There’s no doubting who he is. One of the taller kids, he’s lean with long legs and arms. His short hair is an intricate mix of tight ash-blond and brown curls. His light brown skin has warm, amber undertones that appear even more golden by the bright blond coils at his temples. He has his mother’s piercing eyes, dark blue-green, almost teal, but the rest of his features are one hundred percent Bishop. And he plays like Ecker. Bold, aggressive, and confident.

He zips around the field like he belongs everywhere, going after the ball even when his own team has it. He misses a goal and is completely unbothered, ready to keep playing and having fun. He’s not even embarrassed when he slips in a muddy patch of grass and lands flat on his butt. Instead, he sticks his fingers in the mud and paints streaks on his cheeks like eye black.

A painful memory strikes my chest. Bishop, Ecker, and me as kids doing the same, making war paint out of mud before chasing each other all over the park in an intense game of tag, one where instead of just touching the person, you had to tackle them.

Tackle tag we called it—not very creative but we had so much fun. We came home completely covered in mud. So, why does the memory sting so bad? Why do I see their son do the exact same thing and feel like I’ve lost something?

Why are they so happy without me?

The question circles my mind as the darkness comes for me once more. The voice returns, only this time its words are cold, crisp, and clear:

Why did you think they’d want you?

Swirling black surrounds me, and lights and colors flicker like an old-timey slide projector. The spinning slows just enough for me to make out the flashing images.

Bishop leans over a young blonde girl at a table, helping her with homework.

Sinclair’s asleep in a chair with a book open in her lap and glasses on her nose. Ecker comes and picks up the book, sliding in a piece of junk mail as a bookmark. He removes her glasses and drapes a blanket over her.

Ecker is cleaning a sink full of dishes, and Sinclair stops by with a baby on her hip to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Bishop makes pancakes shaped like Mickey Mouse and brings them to Sinclair in bed, but before he can deliver the tray, three kids dogpile on top of her. Ecker jumps on top of them next, laughter everywhere.

A sea of graduation caps while Sinclair, Ecker, and Bishop look on proudly. She sits between the two of them, and they each hold one of her hands. She squeezes them as the caps are thrown into the sky.

The spinning comes to a slow halt. For the first time, I’m not thrust somewhere new. I trickle into existence like pixels trickling into place. I’m in a hospital hallway. I know immediately by the sights and smells, distant machines beeping and antiseptic strong in the air.

The blinds to a room are open in front of me. A family gathers around an old woman in a reclined hospital bed. Her hair is white and thin and her cheeks are loose and lined with wrinkles, but it’s Sinclair. I know it is.

Just as I know the two old men sitting on either side of her are Bishop and Ecker. My heart grows heavy as I recognize their adult children. The boy from the soccer field is tall and handsome, just like his husband, and their daughter is the spitting image of a younger Bishop. The girl who was doing her homework has grown up and has two toe-headed kids of her own. Their youngest son is trying hard to be stoic, but he wears his emotions on his face just like Ecker.

She knows these are her last moments on earth, but instead of a tearful goodbye, she smiles. Her eyes are just as bright as when she was young, her smile soft and beautiful. She’s lived a good long life, a happy life full of family and love just like her hospital room is now.

Her eyes gently close and wetness coats my cheeks as I watch her take her last, slow breath. Peaceful.

When I turn around to wipe my tears, I see there’s another room across from hers. The lights are on, but the blinds are down. I don’t know what compels me to let myself into the stranger’s room.

It is mostly dark, save the weak, fluorescent light on the side table and the faint glow of the vitals machine. But it’s enough for me to make out the elderly man alone in the bed.

I recognize the scar above his eyebrow, and even though his eyes are closed, I know they are an icy gray. Just like mine. Because he is me.

Dark stubble shades my cheeks and chin, like no one has visited me to shave it in a while. There are no flowers or books or cards, no chairs pulled up to the bed or coffee cups on the side table to indicate someone ever sat with me.

My chest rises with a raggedy inhale and wheezy exhale, the only sign I’m still alive. I may not be dead yet, but there’s no life left in me.

I don’t think there’s been any for a while.

My throat constricts as I step closer to the bed, pulling a pillow out from behind my future-self’s head. My hands shake as I hold it over his face. His weathered hands claw at the pillow as I hold it down. Sobs wrack my body, but I don’t let up. Even as tears fall and wet droplets shade the pillowcase, I keep pressing firmly.

The old man stops fighting eventually, and I collapse on top of him, crying harder than I ever have.

We find ourselves on the same patch of lakeshore just like after the first Fortitude Trial. Also like last time, Ecker is the first to ask what we saw.

“It was the future, and we were happy,” Bishop says hollowly. “I was working from home when the doorbell rang. I answered it and two cops were standing there. There was an accident. You were all dead.”

“Same,” Ecker mutters. “Except it was a fire. It burned the house down. Everyone was inside but me.” He snaps a stick, and I dread the question I know is coming. “What about you?” he asks me.

My stomach sinks, nothing but emptiness because while we all share the same past, we don’t share the same future. Ecker and Bishop’s worst fear is losing each other and Sinclair because it’s inevitable they will be together. But for me, it’s inevitable that I’ll be alone. Deep down, I know they are better off without me.

“Ti?” Ecker asks again.

The word is sour on my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say anything else. So, I lie. “Same.”

1. “All That Really Matters” by ILLENIUM, Teddy Swims