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A Map, Drawn by a Knife

The boning knife slid effortlessly into Owen’s chest. The pain that bloomed there was numb and cold, as if she’d stuck him with an icicle. The blade through the rib. Into—what? His heart? His lungs? He swallowed hard. Gasped for air. Tasted blood. Heard Nick calling his name. But standing there. Just standing there. Watching.

And to think, this is what I wanted once, he thought, idly, madly, almost hilariously. All those times of him hiding in his closet or walking out into the woods across from his house, the Schrade Old Timer penknife in his hand, and he’d go out there and peel up the sleeves of his black tee, exposing a biceps. He’d suck in air, holding it tight, his heart thudding anxiously in his chest as he pressed the blade of the knife against his too-pale skin—his technique was always a quick tug, never slow, always fast. Making a thin slash, like a thorn scratch or a paper cut, but just a bit deeper every time. The skin of his arms showed older scars, like a crisscrossing of lace just under the skin. Whenever he cut, he thought, One day I’ll do the real thing, one day I’ll show them, and that last part was the thing, wasn’t it? I’ll show them .

But it wasn’t even them, not really. It was him. His dad. I’ll show him. He’ll see that I’m dead and he’ll feel bad for all the things he said about me . One day, Owen would stop cutting the biceps and he’d do the right thing the right way. Not across the wrist, ohhh no, that was the loser way. And Owen was smart. He knew he’d put the knife starting at the middle of the wrist and then pull it to the elbow. Like he was opening a box. Vvvviiiiip . And the blood would pour. And the life would leave. And they ( his father, okay, maybe Lore, too, maybe Matty, maybe anybody who wasn’t ever appreciative of him ) would all regret the way they’d treated him. But he never did it. Never managed. Never had the courage, he knew. Because that was Owen. Too scared to get it done, to see it through. Always easier to fail, and even better not to ever try in the first place.

Here he was, finally having succeeded at the thing he’d failed to do every day—he put himself in the way of death, and death was happy to continue in its path, throwing him beneath the hooves of its horse, the wheels of its carriage. Like Emily Dickinson had written: Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me. Yet in this moment, it felt all wrong. A surge of something surprising arose in him: regret . Then, on its heels: despair that he was going to die, and the desire to undo it, to change it, to continue .

Owen didn’t merely not want to die.

Owen wanted to live.

I still need time .

But here he was. Out of it. The last sand sliding through the glass.

The dead girl, her hands still on the knife, did not meet his eyes. It was like she was staring at a point near his eyes, but not in them, not at them. “ Now you’re like me, ” she said in a small, sad voice, the anger all gone, finally. In that way, they were like each other. Owen saw only now that he’d had anger in him—anger at himself, at Lore, at Matty, at the entire world—and it dissolved in that moment, like cotton candy on the tongue. He wondered if Marshie felt regret, too.

If she’d wanted to live in the moment she pulled the knife across her arms, then brought it to her throat and swiftly drew it left to right.

Slice, slice, slit.

Owen stepped back, and the knife slipped free from his heart. It made no sound as it did. It felt like nothing at all.

He looked down, waiting for the blood to soak his shirt.

It did no such thing.

Marshie continued to stare through him.

He pawed at his chest.

Still no blood.

The pain that he felt receded quickly. Like it was the ghost of pain, not the fresh pain of a new injury. A memory of it, referred from the past, given a moment to live in the present before fading anew. Owen gulped air and lifted his shirt—

There was no wound.

The knife hadn’t cut him at all.

Nick stood toward the door, frozen in place, staring in horror and, now, confusion.

“She’s not real,” Owen said, softly. Then, to Marshie: “You’re not real.”

She froze, then. Froze in place like a busted animatronic.

Owen laughed. “She’s not real. They’re not real. The—the people, they’re…” NPCs . Non-player characters. Just bits of program written into the story, unplayable, interactive only to a point. If we’re the player characters, they’re the non-players. Like fragments of artificial intelligence.

“No,” Nick said. “This is all real. It’s real . You don’t get it—”

But the entire thing unspooled in Owen’s mind. It wasn’t real. Seeing the knife that cut him on that screen, and later, at the bottom of the fish tank? All the dead people, the half-dead people, the ones who tried to chase them, or the ones who just sat there screaming? All the sounds behind the walls? It was all just part of a grand, horrid illusion. Like a haunted house in the most mundane sense: a place of trickery meant to scare the rubes who walked through it.

“It’s just fucking with us,” Owen said, spreading his arms wide, feeling more alive than he’d felt in—well, forever. This place hates you. That thought, it felt like a warning, a curse—but in a way, it was also the key. “This whole place is here just to break us down and fuck with us. I don’t know why. But I know I’m done with that.” He bellowed to the walls around him, to the ceiling, the floor, all the rooms around them: “You hear that? I’m done with this. I know your tricks, and I’m not falling for it anymore.”

Then, a pause.

Admittedly, he hoped it would all just…what? Collapse? The house of cards falling around him, the trick exposed, the secret mechanics revealed? A door would magically appear? A staircase back out? A glowing exit sign? Or maybe applause from a secret audience, or text messages from the crowd watching this event being streamed live to the dark web? Lore and Hamish and Matty, emerging from that door, smiling warmly, telling him that he had indeed beaten the game?

None of that happened.

Okay. Fine. Okay. It would’ve been too easy anyway, right?

To Nick, he said: “We need to find the others and get out of here.”

“Zuikas. Owen. Listen to me—”

Marshie twitched.

Her eyes snapped to focus on Owen. It was the first time he felt she was truly seeing him—and his heart nearly stopped in its chest.

“ Owen, ” she said, her voice buzzing with not just her voice, but dozens of voices. Deep voices, high voices. An erratic, buzzing chorus. Humming together like summer cicadas.

“You’re not real,” he said again. But suddenly, he wasn’t so sure.

“ Your father’s in here, Owen. He’s real, isn’t he? ”

Owen could barely find his voice when he said, “My father’s dead.”

“ And yet, he’s waiting for you. So is the knife, Owen. So are your bitten fingernails. So is Lauren. Your mind is a house of pain, Owen. Let me add its rooms to mine. And let me add my rooms to yours .” And then the chorus of voices pared away until there was only one voice left—not Marshie’s voice, no, even though it came out of her. “ I wish you were never born, ” said his father.

His words. Her mouth.

He hadn’t heard his father’s words since that day in his bedroom. And those words— I wish you were never born —were the last things Owen heard before—

No, don’t think it, don’t go there, you think about it it’ll never stop, that thought will never leave— like a vampire, once you invited it in, it could always come in, would never ever leave.

Instead, he pushed past Nick and opened the door—pulling his friend through and slamming the door shut behind them.