Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The climb down the ladder into the bunker was like descending straight into Hell. Looking down at the black abyss at the top was terrifying, but actually going into it was so much worse. The darkness embraced Ocean and Mischa with cold, open arms, wrapping them up in its inky tendrils and welcoming them to the nightmarish world that lurked beneath the light.

Ocean wondered if this was what the Void was like for The Shattered.

The old mining tunnels were dim and smelled like the earth. Some dust floated through the air and made Ocean sneeze. It hurt her head.

  “What do you call a man that’s short of time?” Mischa said, and his voice cut through the thick silence like a knife.

Ocean glanced back at him. In the light of their dim phone flashlights (the time displayed on the screen was 5:34), the blue rings around his eyes looked more prominent than ever. 

  “Hm?” Mischa pressed. “Have you heard this one before?”

  “Uhh,” Ocean said. “I have no idea. What do you call him?”

  “Tim,” Mischa told her. “You call him Tim.”

Ocean stopped and stared at him.

  “It’s not one of my finest.”

That got a small chuckle out of Ocean. She continued walking.

  “Can I, uhh… Can I ask you something?” Mischa asked, falling into step beside her.

  “Yeah, of course!”

  “Okay, well… I didn’t want to say anything to the others back up top, but… I’m really not feeling well,” Mischa said. “Like, at all. And it’s kinda worrying me.”

Ocean frowned up at him, and she could easily see the horrible pallor of his face. He looked ill, like he had the flu or something. His eyes—dull and glassy—were sort of sunken into their sockets, which helped make the blue rings around them that much more noticeable, and even his lips were drained of proper color, now a sickly shade of grey.

  “Do you think you can keep going?” Ocean asked worriedly, gently touching his arm.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mischa nodded. “I mean, I don’t really have much of a choice. We have to do this. But yes, I’ll be fine. I can make it.”

  “Are you sure?” Ocean was practically interrogating him, but who could blame her? She had to know if he was going to be reliable in a potential final battle against twenty-three ghosts that could literally possess them and manipulate time itself. More than that, though, she just wanted to know if he was okay. She cared about his well being more than anything right now, and she needed to make sure if he was genuinely alright. For his own sake, if not for her own.

  “I mean,” Mischa signed. “I’m not okay in the slightest. Honestly, I feel like I’m rotting while I’m still alive, but I promise, I can keep going. Again, I don’t have much of a choice. I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

  “But…”

  “Are YOU okay?” Mischa struck out at her, looking at her skeptically, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Ocean said. “You know, it just feels like I have every disease known to mankind. And I’m scared out of my mind. And I also have the worst headache in existence. But aside from all of that, I’m good!”

Mischa laughed a little. “Same here. That all kinda goes hand-in-hand with the whole ‘rotting while I’m still alive’ sensation.” He paused for a moment. “Do you think this is gonna work? Like, actually?”

  “It doesn’t really matter if I think it’s gonna work,” Ocean said. “It’s all we got. Like, I’m pushing all my poker chips onto the table. If that makes sense. I don’t play poker.”

  “Yeah, it makes sense,” Mischa confirmed, nodding. 

  “I’m just trying to say that I’m betting everything on this working,” Ocean said. “And by ‘everything,’ I, of course, mean by skin, body, sense of self, and humanity. Because we both know what will happen if we don’t succeed.”

Mischa shuddered, hunching his shoulders in uncomfortably. “Yeah… So, let’s succeed. Let’s end this.”

Ocean looked up at him and managed a small, hopeful smile. “Yeah. Let’s end this.”

They soon came to a staircase leading up through the earth. Their exit into the amusement park.

Before Ocean could even mount the stairs, Mischa stepped in front of her. He was like a wall, almost, and his expression was firm as he gazed down at her.

  “Look—” her brother said. “Whatever happens up there— don’t be stupid. Cut and run, okay? If I turn into dead weight, or if I start freaking out… Just go. Get to the boat. Do whatever you have to to get away from here. Don’t hang around and wait for me. That could get you killed. And I don’t want you to get killed.”

  “Have you ever considered that maybe I don’t want you to be killed, either?” Ocean said. “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’m not asking, I’m telling,” Mischa said. “This isn’t a choice.”

  “Like hell it isn’t a choice!” Ocean snapped. “I’m not leaving you behind, Mischa. I’m not losing you.”

Mischa sighed at her stubbornness. “Ocean…”

Ocean jerked one arm up to point at Mischa’s beanie on her head. “Look! I’m wearing your hat, buddy! While I wear the hat, you have to come back! To get it. From me. Because I will keep it, and I’ll show everyone how good I look in it, and then you’ll never be able to wear it ever again because you’ll realize you won’t look as amazing in it as I do!”

Mischa laughed softly. “Alright. Alright. Fine.”

Ocean nodded once. “Good. Glad that’s settled. Nobody is being left behind on my watch, mister! Now, let’s go make these ghosts wish they never left their stupid portal.”

A smirk came to Mischa’s lips. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

They turned to the staircase—

—and then a tune began to echo through the tunnels. 

Ocean turned around, and in the darkness, she thought she could see a faint white glow emitting from a tape player. The music was coming from it.

How long had that been there? 

  “Okay, okay, okay— that is, like, the tenth time I’ve heard that song all night!” Mischa said while marching over to the tape player. 

  “But— Mischa— we gotta—” Ocean floundered.

  “I’m sorry, Ocean, but I need to figure this out,” Mischa said.

Ocean sighed and trudged over to Mischa and the tape player. “Sure, let’s figure out the weird music anomaly. It’s not like our lives are literally on the line right now!”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mischa said. “This has just been bothering me so much. This is something my mother used to sing to me, and it just doesn’t make sense as to why it’s playing now.”

  “Mischa, we’ve been having weird stuff happen to us all night,” Ocean said, crossing her arms. “I mean, I literally saw Astrid in the flesh a few hours ago! This is probably just a trick to distract us.”

  “Maybe, but…” 

The tape player sputtered to a halt, the music dying off. Ocean was about to breathe a sigh of relief, happy that it was over so they could finally get back on track, but then Mischa turned to her and asked, “Can you fix it? You’ve done it before with the other tape players we found, and it worked. Can you do it again?”

Ocean wanted to say no so badly, but Mischa’s eyes were so pleading…

Ocean sighed again and began to wind the tape player up.

A blue light lit up on the tape player. The music resumed, and this time, there was something else present. It almost sounded like…

  “It—” Mischa’s eyes were wide. “It sounds like— it’s her. My mom. In the static. That’s my mom singing! Do you hear her?”

  “Kinda…” Ocean said uneasily. Nothing about this felt right. 

  “This is— oh my god…” Mischa crouched down on his knees in front of the tape player. His hands were over his mouth. Tears were gathering in his eyes. “мама?” he whispered. Then, he looked up at Ocean, desperation captured in his gaze. “Can— can you try to tune into it? Maybe it’ll make her clearer.”

  “Mischa, we shouldn’t—”

  “Please!” Mischa begged, cutting Ocean off, and she had never seen him this fervent before. “I just— I want to hear her one more time. Just one more. Please, Ocean.”

  “Okay,” Ocean relented. “Okay. “Let me try.”

  “Thank you!”

With one more second of hesitation, Ocean took out her radio and tuned in.

93.4

An axe came down on Ocean’s skull. 

Ocean let out a cry of pain, stumbling backward and clutching at her head. Through hazing vision, she saw the tunnel ripple and shift, and Mischa rippled and shifted with it. It looked like he had gained the power of teleportation but didn’t know how to use it; his body was blinking all over the place, never staying in one spot, a wavering snapshot in the veil of unreality.

And then, he was gone.

Mischa was gone. 

Ocean was all alone.

  “No, no, no, no!” Ocean cried. “Mischa, come back! I— I need you!”

Nothing.

  “Mischa!”

No answer.

Mischa was gone.

Ocean had no idea where he was, no idea where he could have possibly been transported to, but she had to hope that it wasn’t permanent and that he would eventually return. As much as she wanted to search for him and make sure he was alright, she couldn’t. She had to end this, or else they all would be doomed.

So, Ocean had no choice but to go up the steps and through the door at the top alone.

She stepped out into the wind and rain, into the amusement park, where it all began.

The Cyclone loomed into the stormy sky like a giant mountain, illuminated with blue light. Right in front of it, the Deep Gate gyrated, and the Void churned within it. And down below, The Amazing Karnak sat. He turned his head to her.

  “Ah,” he said. “You have returned. I always knew you would come.”

  “You did?” Ocean asked, approaching slowly, cautiously. She kept her eye out for Noel or The Shattered, but she couldn’t spot either of them anywhere. It was just her and The Amazing Karnak weathering this storm.

  “I did,” The Amazing Karnak confirmed. “I knew this would happen the day I gave you the fortune that there would be a 37% chance that you would live alone. I knew about your adopted brother far before you did. I knew about your cousin’s fate, your visit to this island, and how you would tune into the signal of The Shattered and release them from their prison.”

  “Then why didn’t you try to stop me?” Ocean said. “If you knew something this horrible would happen, why didn’t you make an attempt to stop it?”

  “I did try to stop you,” The Amazing Karnak replied. “Have you already forgotten? I gave you a warning, you just chose not to listen. But I always knew you would ignore it.” He tilted his head at her. “The predicament you are in is terrifying, I know, but do not try and shift the blame onto someone else. There is a reason as to why this is happening, and that reason is you. Is that not why you’re here and nobody else is? You want to try and fix what you have broken.”

  “Will I succeed?” Ocean implored. “Does our plan work?”

  “I cannot tell you that,” The Amazing Karnak said. “Not because I don’t want to, I would gladly tell you if I knew, but because The Shattered has interfered with my future sight. Not even I know how this storm ends. I suppose it will be a surprise to us both when it comes.”

Lightning arcked high in the sky, and thunder rumbled deeply. The Deep Gate trembled.

  “Ah, it seems like it is time,” The Amazing Karnak said. “Good luck, child. Heaven knows you will need it.”

The world shifted, and suddenly, Noel was there, sitting cross-legged on top of The Amazing Karnak’s box. Black mist wreathed around him. His eyes were aglow with infernal blue light.

  “You know,” he said as Ocean stepped back to look at him fully. “We could have left. Whenever we wanted. We weren’t prisoners to the park.”

  “Then why stay?” Ocean asked. “Why not leave? Move on?”

  “Because it’s scary, that’s why!” Not-Noel roared, rearing up to his feet, and the Deep Gate shivered with anticipation at The Shattered’s agitation. “Have you ever stared into nothing, and moved with it, and felt apart with it?! It’s worse than when we were wilting away into atoms!” His voice quieted, and he almost looked pitiful. “It’s worse than…dying…the first time.”

  “No, of course I’ve never felt something like that,” Ocean said. “And I’m so sorry you all went through something like that, but you have to move on. You can’t keep beating yourselves up over what happened.”

  “‘Beating ourselves up?’” Not-Noel echoed with a scoff. “You think this is— is, what? A choice? It’s not. Us being here at all is a constant struggle. It’s like the entire universe is pulling at the zipper of our being, threatening to spill out everything we were. Are. We’ve had our claws dug into the cliffs of this place for longer than we’ve been gone, desperately scratching for anyone to look our way. We let it slip from us with Talia. We aren’t going to make the same mistake again.”

The atmosphere itself began to quake, and Ocean could see the veil between reality and unreality rippling like a curtain caught in a breeze. Blood welled up and dripped slowly from her eyes.

  “Whatever you think you can do,” Not-Noel said. “You can’t.”

The Deep Gate began to rotate around and around and around like a—

Like a cyclone.

  “We can’t go back. We won’t!”

The image of Not-Noel flickered and then disappeared.

  “Child. Wait your turn.”

Once again, Ocean was alone.

Through the burning red haze blotting out her vision, she looked up at the spiraling Deep Gate, and she wondered if this was the real Cyclone.

  “You know what you must do, child,” The Amazing Karnak said. 

Ocean took out her radio and tuned in. 

95

A crack splintered off of the Deep Gate, shedding faint beams of light, like the sun slipping through drawn curtains.

100

More cracks broke from the Deep Gate, fissures ripping through reality itself. The atmosphere grew impossibly tight, as though it were trying to crush Ocean’s skull. There was a pulsating intensity in the air, and she felt some kind of strange pressure pressing down on her, like something was trying to push free from restrictive confines. Pieces like shards of broken glass began to float off from the fracture.

105

The world distorted, then bent inward on itself. Reality shattered, and the Void spilled in.

When Ocean opened her eyes again, she was sitting in the front seat of a roller coaster cart that was slowly chugging its way up a steep incline. It didn’t take much for her to realize that she was aboard the Cyclone, but she couldn’t recall standing in line or even getting into the train. And yet, she was here, and her hands were grasping so tightly at the metal bar in front of her that her knuckles were turning white.

She looked to the side. There was nobody sitting next to her. 

She looked to the other side. She was thousands of feet up in the air, and she didn’t remember the Cyclone being this tall.

She looked forward again. 

At the top of the hill, the roller coaster ground to a halt with Ocean’s cart tilted down the incline, practically dangling her over the stomach-twisting drop. Down below, thousands of forms stood, staring back up at her with wide, too-bright bloodshot eyes.

  “Welcome back,” said a voice behind her, and she knew she wasn’t alone on this ride. She never was. “Have you enjoyed the ride?” 

(Don’t even bother.)

(She won’t answer.)

(She won’t even listen.)

(She never does.)

(We don’t even think she’s listening now.)

She isn’t.

Outside of her own body… 

(Bodies.) 

Outside of her own mind… 

(Minds.)

Empty churches have more room for visitors than full ones.

(She’s different.)

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?

(No, not at all.)

(It’s just…)

(It’s complicated.)

  “It’s almost over,” said the rider behind Ocean.

(We all know that isn’t true.)

  “What does infinity look like in your eyes, Ocean?” the rider then asked.

Ocean looked up at the broken sky.

C

   l

     i

       c

          k

       c

     l

   i

c

   k

      c

         l

            i

               c

                  k

Metal - sharp

A soul.

Many souls.

Lost. 

All of them.

(Lost.)

We’re all lost.

  “It looks like this,” Ocean said, and then the coaster took the drop down the hill.

This time, Ocean did not scream.

But they did.

(We did.)

We did.

They cried.

Screamed.

Howled.

It bled—

                 red!

(We bled red.)

She bled red.

Ocean bled red, and she bled heavily. She felt the full impact of the coaster crashing when it reached the bottom of that hill. It was an indescribable sensation, assaulting every part of her body, and she was sure she would have died if she weren’t already humming in the white-hot in between of life and death. 

The cart was in pieces, sprawled across the ground. There were cracks in the ground where the Void was leaking into this existence. All around her, those figures she had seen at the top of the hill moved in. They were hungry. Hungry for her. For her skin. For her warmth. For her humanity. 

She wouldn’t let them have it.

Ocean freed herself from the wreckage. It left her legs torn and mangled, the wounds so deep she could see the pale yellow of her fat peeking out through the gooey lips of the gashes. Her chest felt as smashed as this world. There was blood boiling up in her throat.

And still, she ran.

She ran. She ran. Then, she stumbled. Falling. Face against the cracks split across the ground, one eye peering into the mind-breaking world beyond. Scrambling up, pushing so hard her nails shattered. Blood, an immaterial color in this throbbing, distorted haze.

She ran. She ran. Farther and farther. She ran. 

Reaching forward, fingers in the solicitation, clawing for an escape. The metal, the air, how they cut, how they stung. Blood at the boiling point. Let me be, please. God, let me go. Leave me alone!

She ran. She ran. Further. Faster. 

Footsteps closed in. They were fast. Too fast. Too fast.

No world existed beyond the rushing roar, the concussive cracks breaking through her mind. She could not tell. Could not know. Would never truly know. Was anything (she watched this wavering existence) real?

(Nothing felt real. Everything felt hollow and holographic beneath her fingers whenever she touched it. The only thing that was true were her own breaths, so sharp and coppery, slicing her insides to pieces. They felt real, but she did not.)

(Had she ever been real in the first place?)

She ran.

Then, she stopped. Feet skidding in the dirt. Toes just barely peeking over the border and the endless drop below. Eyes, so full of blood, turned upward to stare at the edge of existence. 

The Void.

She expected it to be black. It wasn’t. It had no color at all. It was just dark and empty. Completely empty.

She looked behind her. Her chasers have stopped. Frozen. Petrified. They gazed at the Void, and there were tears flowing from their eyes. 

She looked back. Her blood dripped into the Void. 

She had always known there were fates worse than death.

She thought she might have found the most awful of them all. 

The ground crumpled, and Ocean fell in.

Almost.

Something grabbed her by the hand. She looked up. Twenty-three pairs of eyes looked back down at her.

It was them. The victims of the Cyclone accident. The Shattered. 

They looked…human. More human than she expected. More human than she felt. Than she was. 

A young man with sandy blonde hair had her by the hand. Keeping him from falling in was another man and two women. And hovering all around them were the nineteen others, watching anxiously, wordlessly begging her to use all her strength to climb out. 

But what would change if she managed to get back up?

She looked down. Dangling weightlessly over the opening into nothingness, she thought about everything that had brought her to this point. The island. The radio. The Amazing Karnak. Penny and Ricky and Constance. Noel. Hank. Astrid. Mischa. 

She couldn’t go back up. There was nothing up there, not for her. She could claw as much as she wanted, but nothing would come from climbing back to sanctuary.

The only thing that was left was down. Deep down.

One last time, she looked up. And she smiled tearfully. And she said, “It’ll be okay.”

And then, she let go. 

Into the Void, she fell down

dow n

d   o       w                      n 

…

…There’s someone listening.

(We know.)

(We can hear them.)

(Breathing.)

You there.

You with the glass eyes.

Yes, you.

I know you can hear us.

Listen.

Answer us.

(Do you believe in fate?)

We used to. We thought this was fate’s doing. It was something no one could have stopped. Perhaps, we thought it was even something necessary—a way for this world—the world beyond this place, of course—to keep running its course. To balance out every existence it held. To keep chaos from breaking in.

Sometimes, sacrifice is just necessary.

(But this?)

(This should have never happened.)

We shouldn’t be here. We should have died. But we didn’t. Not really. Instead of getting to eternal paradise beyond life, we fell in here. In a place worse than Hell. Worse than any plane of existence your puny mind could ever come up with.

(You will never know true suffering.)

(Not like we have.) 

What else could we have done? What else was there for us to do? We fell for an eternity. And when we weren’t falling, we were reliving That Day over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over a nD OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND

(Well.)

(We think you get the point.)

(It just never ends.)

(You never really understand how ‘forever’ feels until you actually live it.)

We’ve had enough of thinking this was the work of ‘fate.’ This isn’t fate. This is torture! And we’re done putting up with it.

We have our way out.

We’re not going to let it slip from us that easily this time.

...

Oh.

She’s about to land.

This is goodbye then.

(For now.)

We’ll be seeing you again soon.

Ocean wasn’t sure how long she spent falling, probably longer than her own lifetime, but when she did eventually land, the rain had returned, and it felt wonderful on her skin. She turned her head up to it, letting the coolness wash over her face and body. 

She had forgotten she even had a body, truthfully.

  “So, now you’ve gotten a taste of eternity.”

She opened her eyes. She was in a dark clearing in the woods. Not-Noel was a few yards away from her, suspended in the air, eyes alight with azure fury. Behind him, the black figure of The Shattered lurked ominously.

  “It’s not very pleasant, is it?” Not-Noel said.

  “It’s not,” Ocean agreed. 

  “It’s not a fate we want to doom you to,” Not-Noel said. “We aren’t heartless. Closing the hole, if that is what you have come in here to do, will not stop us. It will not change anything. You want to know what your little plan will succeed if you go through with it?”

Ocean humored them. “What?”

  “It will succeed in trapping you in here with us.”

The entire world blurred. They were standing amid broken, smoldering wreckage underneath an endless storm. The Deep Gate could be seen in the distance, the amusement park visible through its gaping maw, and Ocean realized they were on the other side of it. Inside of it.

  “Your pathetic little friends will be saved from our bloom, sure, but you won’t,” Not-Noel said. “You will be locked with us in this place. Is that really the fate you want for yourself?” When Ocean didn’t answer, he went on, “Look at your hands, sweetheart.”

Ocean did so. Most of her nails were broken from her time in the unreality, before she fell into the Void. Blood smeared her skin.

  “Memorize what they look like,” Not-Noel instructed. “Memorize the patterns on your palms, the grooves in your fingers, the twist and bend of the veins beneath your skin. Because if you close the Gate, if you condemn yourself to the nothingness with us, you will begin to forget what they look like. That is what happened to us. And it’s horrifying. Do you want that to happen to you, too?”

Ocean clenched her fists and looked up. “You’re lying. You’re just trying to scare me!”

  “What would we gain from lying about our unending hell?” Not-Noel said. “We’re trying to make you aware of the damnation you’re sentencing yourself to. This plan you’ve come up with… It isn’t unique. You aren’t, either. You aren’t even special. Every possible solution you may come up with to get you out of this won’t work because we have already spent a millennia trying everything to get free. And every attempt has failed. There is no reason as to why it will be different for you. You need to open your eyes to that, Ocean.”

  “One. Last. Chance,” rumbled The Shattered. “You don’t. Have to. Die.”

A large tear sliced itself into existence behind Ocean. It was glowing blue, not unlike Not-Noel’s eyes, but this light was gentler, more soothing. Less demonic.

  “You can leave, you know,” Not-Noel said. “Through the Gate you opened.”

  “And we keep. The boy. Noel.”

Ocean approached the gateway slowly, and its light bled onto her skin like the first warm rays of dawn. Looking through it, she swore she could see the docks and the ferry approaching and her friends waiting there. For her.

  “So…I’m free to go?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Not-Noel said.

  “He’ll be happier. With us.”

Ocean’s hand raised slowly, and she wiped the trail of blood trickling down her face.

  “No.”

She turned and walked back up to Not-Noel and the figure of The Shattered.

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “Who— who do you think we are?!” Not-Noel snarled. “Do you think we wanted to be thrown away?! Because that’s what everyone did! They forgot about us! They moved on like we meant NOTHING! They couldn’t even shut down the damn roller coaster that killed us!”

  “Talia remembered,” Ocean said. “You said it yourself, she dedicated her life to trying to bring you guys back! She never forgot.”

  “Yes,” Not-Noel said. “We have watched her attempt to free us in every timeline. Out of guilt, maybe.”

  “Does it really matter why she tried?” Ocean asked. “She still did. Isn’t that enough?”

Not-Noel stared at her with his cold blue eyes. “No.”

The silence that was left between them all was tense. Thick. Horrifying. It was only then that Ocean was noticing the hunched bodies of her friends appearing in her peripheral vision.

  “We can feel us…binding,” Not-Noel said. “You have maybe just a few moments left.”

Ocean could feel it, too. Her head was being crushed- actually crushed. She could almost hear the chips of her bone as cracks fractured across her skull. Blood dripped from her nose, then her ears. Her eyes had already been shedding red for quite some time now. She felt so dizzy.

She felt so tired.

She couldn’t let this happen. The Void was beckoning, but she couldn’t fall back in.

Ocean took out her radio and began to tune in. She could feel the Gate echoing into her bones. Into her soul. Not-Noel faltered.

  “What are you doing?” Not-Noel demanded.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” Ocean said. “But I’m not letting you hurt my friends.”

101.1

The edges of the Gate shuddered treacherously.

  “Oh! You wanna play chicken with the void? Fine,” Not-Noel growled. “Let’s see how long you can last in the throttle.”

Ocean grit her teeth. Her entire body was quaking. The strain slit her guts open, and she began to bleed internally. 

  “I don’t care what happens to me,” She grunted. Her hands were wracked with tremors, and she could barely see the station numbers, but she continued to twist the dial anyway.

90.8

The Gate shrunk, the edges folding in on itself. The storm raged powerfully.

  “Ocean, wake up!” Not-Noel yelled. “This course of action will only save those morons, not you! Don’t you understand?”

  “I know that,” Ocean said calmly.

  “You don’t even comprehend why this is happening, do you?” Not-Noel said. “This was never supposed to happen! Our accident could have been prevented! It’s not fair! It’s—” He faltered again. “It wasn’t supposed to be like that. And neither is this.”

Ocean looked up at Not-Noel again and narrowed her glowing blue eyes.

  “You said you only needed one.”

10—

Not-Noel lashed out at Ocean, and Ocean couldn’t move fast enough to evade; he smashed into her like a small truck, sending her sprawling to the ground. Blood gushed from her lips. The radio fell from her grasp, and Not-Noel picked it up before she could retrieve it.

He crushed the radio in his hands as though it were nothing more than a dead autumn leaf.

  “NO!” Ocean screamed through the blood in her throat. Above her, the Gate yawned open again. Dismay pooled like an oil spill in the pit of her stomach. 

  “You should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy,” Not-Noel said, towering over her. “Nothing ever is.” He tilted his head down at her. “We feel terrible about this, we do, but you have to understand why everyone chose to forget about us. Everyone just…shut us away…”

  “Wait— wait, wait!” Raising her voice made Ocean’s ears feel like they were about to burst, but she was being pitched into full panicked desperation. “Think about what your relatives would think— what your family would think! Most of them are still alive!”

Not-Noel shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what they think. They aren’t here. We can’t see them anymore.”

The whole world was shaking again. Fissures appeared through the air, oozing like fresh wounds.

She was out of time. 

  “We’ll try to make the change as painless as possible. We wouldn’t want your vessels to be damaged in the process,” Not-Noel said. He then laughed. “But we hope the trip was worth it! Seeing the deprived tourist trap they’ve built upon our carcass. Did you see the gift shop?” A hideous, toothy smirk split across his face. “Enjoy the scenery. It gets old very fast.”

The shaking got more intense. The vibrations went straight up through her body, and she could feel her ribs breaking apart inside of her chest. Desperation rose higher and higher and higher, as though she were drowning all over again, and she clawed for everything, anything, and then, finally, grasped at something.

  “I think— I think there was a rider on the Cyclone named Riley?” she said. “Riley, if you’re in there, don’t do this. Please. I know you’re a person, I know you’re all people, come on, just— please help me. Help my friends. Stop this.”

Everything stopped.

  “Riley…” Not-Noel murmured. “Was our name ever…”

  “Riley?”

In a blink of an eye, Ocean and Not-Noel were in front of the queue building for the Cyclone. For once, the transition wasn’t painful.

  “I…almost remember…”

  “My. Name.”

  “You were—” It was difficult to speak through all the pain, with her body in a half-broken state. Her voice sounded nasally with her nose stuffed with blood, but she worked with it. “You were people once. All of you. Don’t lose that.”

  “It’s— It’s—”

  “My name…”

  “Riley Whitman,” Not-Noel whispers. “It’s— it’s hard to remember certain things. Our faces went a while ago…and then our names.”

  “Names. Our names. But our anger…”  

  “Our anger is, I’m afraid…all we have left.”

Ocean thought for a moment. Then, she looked up into Not-Noel’s eyes, The Shattered’s eyes, and said, “Then take it with you.”

They stared at each other for a long time. A clot began to form in one of Ocean’s nostrils.

  “Scrap. It.”

  “Keep your nature,” Not-Noel said. “We’ll keep ours.”

Ocean closed her eyes. She clenched her fingers, feeling more and more disconnected from her body as time went on.

It wouldn’t be long now.

  “Strange girl. Odd tempered.”

  “Take care,” Not-Noel said, “with the time you have left, child. We give you this opportunity out of the good of our hearts. Take notice of what you choose to—”

The Other-Ocean went over to the door to the room Mischa was in, ready to try and bust the thing down—or she would have, if she hadn’t gotten distracted by the mirror for the third time.

She was frozen in the glass. 

  “What the hell?” The Other-Ocean whispered. “This is— this is really getting old. I mean—”

Ocean shuddered and twitched before opening her mouth, even though the Other snapped its own firmly shut.

  “When the time comes, don’t let Mischa talk to his mom. It won’t be good for him.”

  “His… his mom is dead. I know his mom is dead! How does…”

-.. --- / -. --- - / -... . / ... -.-. .- .-. . -.. .-.-.-

  “Yeah,” The Other-Ocean nodded, walking past a large pond. “Well— not a lot, but sometimes.” She paused for a moment, then went on, “With, umm… With Astrid.”

She said that, but there was no leading question.

There was no Mischa.

  “Mischa?” The Other-Ocean called out. “Mischa, where— where are you?!”

She pulled her jacket around herself as she hurried down the path that passed by the pond. Rockets of anxiety were shooting through her, more so now that Mischa wasn’t there by her side.

It was strange, she thought, how attached she had become to the boy she’d only known for—she checked the time on her phone. the numbers were stuck at 12:11—such a little amount of time.

She looked down from her phone.

Down at her reflection in the water.

Down at her in the water.

The Other-Ocean’s muscles clenched so tightly she thought they might snap her bones in two.

  “Wh-what the…”

  “Don’t tell Astrid to stop hanging out with Hank. They really like each other,” said Ocean.

  “How— But Astrid’s… Astrid’s dead. How could I even—”

.. - / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -... . / --- -.- .- -.-- .-.-.-

The Other-Ocean’s vision blurred, and she was back in the bedroom. She trudged out the door and found three tape players scattered across the house. She sluggishly cranked the handle of the two on the second floor, her mind far away, but when she walked downstairs to get to the last one and passed the large mirror, her reflection shifted.

She froze.

  “When you see Astrid again, don’t listen to what she says,” Ocean said. “Please. It’s better for you that way.”

  “Why— why does it even matter? She’s not— Astrid’s not here…”

-.-- --- ..- / .- .-. . / ..-. .-. . . .-.-.-

  “Aw, man, are you dozing off? Was my speech really that boring? I tried to make it interesting! Didn’t you hear all my amazing jokes?”

Ocean blinked her eyes. Soft yellow sunlight was bleeding in through pink curtains, spilling across the familiar bed she was sitting on. She looked around, and there was Astrid, smiling and holding a piece of paper.

  “Maybe it needs, like, a theme or something?”

  “Uhh—” Ocean glanced all around her again. It felt so safe in Astrid’s bedroom. It seemed like it had been forever since she was in there. “Yeah. Make it different.”

Astrid nodded. “Have I told you about my scholarship yet?”

Ocean perked up. “No! That’s great! Congrats!”

Astrid smiled, but she was fidgeting slightly. Something was on her mind.

  “Listen— don’t tell anyone, but Hank and I are talking about leaving. You know, getting an apartment somewhere. Just to get away from it all.”

This was familiar.

Ocean knew this.

  “Anyway,” Astrid shifted. “I wouldn’t feel right about it if I didn’t have your blessing, so can you just give me the ‘okay’ to do this?”

  “Yeah,” Ocean smiled. “Go for it.”

Astrid beamed. “Thank you! And, Ocean, just…get good friends, okay? And when you’re with those friends, just say yes to everything. And keep away from boys when you talk to them it feels like you’re performing. But also, stay away from girls who look you in the eye for too long. And match every beer with a water. And take classes outside of school. Classes you don’t need.”

Ocean laughed. “I’ll make a checklist!”

  “This is a ‘just in case’ package, okay?” Astrid said. “Just in case I’m not around.” She smiled again, and it made Ocean’s heart hurt. “And I love you, and you’re amazing and…”

  “I… I love you, too.”

(goodbye forever, dear friend)

  “‘But soon, I shall be so that I cannot remember any…but the things that never happened.’”

  “Yeah, I— I don’t know.”

Ocean stirred and then groaned softly. She struggled to open her eyes because of the light that immediately stabbed into her retinas. She groaned again.

  “Ugh…”

  “Hey, she’s walking up!”

Mischa was kneeling in front of her. Behind him, four others stood nearby, watching carefully.

  “Are…are we in ghost heaven?” Ocean slurred out.

  “I think that’s just regular heaven, honey,” Noel said.

His voice was what really made Ocean’s awareness register. It was normal.

Ocean blinked hard, and the fuzzy black splotches spotting her vision faded away slowly. She sat up on the bench she had been lying on and looked at everyone. 

No one had glowing blue eyes.

Even more than that: the storm had passed. The light of dawn was shining through the pale yellow and pink clouds. The smell of salt was thick in the air. They were on the ferry.

  “Did we…did we win?” she asked tentatively. “Are we okay?”

  “Yeah,” Mischa answered. There was a smile on his lips. “Whatever you did at that amusement park, it worked. We’re going home.”

Ocean’s breath caught in her throat. She glanced all around the boat again- Constance’s smile wasn’t strained, Penny’s face wasn’t the color of a corpse, Ricky wasn’t shaking like a newborn lamb, Mischa was there with her, Noel was himself.

They were alive.

  “Oh my god…” Ocean whispered. “Are we— are we alright? Like, for real? Is it really over?”

  “Yeah,” Mischa nodded. “It’s okay. It’s over. We’re safe now.”

They were safe now.

Tears filled Ocean’s eyes, and she launched herself into Mischa’s arms. Constance, Ricky, and Penny joined the group hug, and Noel got pulled in in the process. They all embraced each other tightly, crying. Crying in relief, exhaustion, joy, bliss.

They were free.

That was… Wow, Ricky signed after they all pulled away. He laughed and wiped his eyes.

  “Are you crying, Ricky?” Noel teased.

So are you!

  “I am, and it’s completely ruining my persona,” Noel said, wiping away a tear that was rolling down his cheek. “That was— insane.”

  “How do you feel?” Ocean asked him.

  “Umm— weird, truthfully,” Noel answered. “I’m still getting used to feeling again, but I’m honestly just happy to even have my skin.”

  “We gotta tell people!” Penny said. “Right? I mean, it’s not like anyone will believe us, but, like…we could go on a freakin’ book tour or something!”

  “We encountered real ghosts!” Constance added. “I mean, we don’t have proof, but still!”

  “It’ll definitely be quite the story,” Noel chuckled.

Ocean finally stood up and, when she did so, she felt no pounding against her temples. The agonizing migraine that had been infecting her head that entire night was gone. There was no dull static buzzing in the back of her mind.

They really were safe now.

She was out of the Void.

  “What happened back there?” Ocean asked. “Does anyone know?”

There was still some blood beneath her fingernails, and she could still taste something faintly metallic on her tongue, but aside from that, she had been cleaned up of most of the blood, she could breathe properly, and none of her bones felt like they were about to shatter into tiny pieces, so did whatever went down in that storm really happen? Or was it all a hallucination after she tuned into the Deep Gate inside the amusement park?

  “Well, Ricky, Penny, and I hunkered down by the docks after you and Mischa went into the bunker,” Constance said. “Honestly, I thought we were dead several times. I mean, everything started to shake, then it stopped, and then it started again. And there were all these weird sounds and lights in the air. But then it all just…went away. And then the rain subsided.”

Mischa carried you here, Ricky signed.

  “Well, of course I did.” Mischa crossed his arms. He looked at Ocean. “You were unconscious at the front gates of the amusement park, so I ran down to get you.”

  “What about Noel?” Ocean asked, looking at the boy. She was relieved every time she looked at him and didn’t see any sickening blue glow in his eyes. 

  “I carried him,” Penny said. “I’m really strong!” She flexed her arms, then went on, “He was also unconscious by the gates with you, but he woke up along the way.”

  “One more question,” Ocean said. “What time is it?”

  “Seven in the morning,” Mischa told her.

Ocean breathed a small, impressed breath. “Wow.”

  “Did…” Noel spoke up. Everyone else turned to him. “Did anyone else experience, like, dreams when they were ‘taken’ during the night?”

I didn’t. Ricky shook his head.

  “Only one,” Constance answered.

  “I had a few,” Penny nodded. “They were of my parents.”

  “Just the one of my mom in the bunker,” Mischa added.

  “I had some of Astrid,” Ocean said. 

  “I had my dad,” Noel said. “We were playing in the yard or something completely random like that. But I don’t know why that memory would visit.”

  “Maybe it’s something that’s close to us?” Ocean guessed aloud. “I don’t know. It’s over now. That’s all that matters.”

They all nodded.

  “Hey, Penny, didn’t you say you lost a book?”

The others looked over at Constance, who was holding up a book. Penny perked up and snatched it from her excitedly.

  “You found it!” she chirped. “I thought one of the ship guys would have thrown it overboard! Thanks!”

What were we talking about before Ocean woke up? Ricky asked.

  “Prom?” Constance said, and the others groaned.

  “I think I’m gonna defer my crown to the guy in the wheelchair this year,” Noel said.

  “Ocean, are you gonna go?” Penny asked.

Ocean shrugged. “I don’t know. I might.”

  “You should come with us!” Noel turned around to face Ocean. The old light he used to have in his eyes before the deaths of Hank and Astrid was returning slowly. It bathed Ocean in its tender friendliness. “We can go dress shopping for you. It’ll be fun!”

Ocean blinked, genuinely shocked by the offer, but then she smiled. “I’d— I’d love to! That sounds great!”

Noel smiled back. A real smile.

  “You can even bring your adopted brother,” he said, nodding at Mischa, who laughed.

  “I’m glad I got your permission to go,” Mischa said.

  “Alright, everyone! It’s picture time!” Constance suddenly exclaimed. She scampered out onto the deck, into the warm morning light bleeding out from the soft clouds above. “Come on! Tonight has been, uh, noteworthy. We gotta take a picture to commemorate it!”

The others gave in to her pleas and all grouped together.

  “Hey, Penny, what is that book, anyway?” Mischa asked as they got into position.

  “I actually don’t know,” Penny admitted. “I can hardly make heads or tails of it! Like, look— I’ll open to some random ass page and… ‘When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. But soon, I shall be so that I cannot remember any…but the things that never happened.’” 

  “Yeah, I— I don’t know.” Mischa said.

  “Cheese!!”

  “Dear Diary…yes I have one now…

Before we left, Mischa and I told our mom (Mischa’s new mom at the time) that we were spending the night at a friend’s house. When we got back, I didn’t see a reason to change that story. And you know what…I still don’t.

Constance began studying culinary in a city nearby after high school. She visits a lot to see her family and help out at their family-owned cafe. Apparently, she’s trying to convince her parents to add her own recipes to the cafe’s menu. We’re still best friends to this day!

Penny started studying toxicology. She wants to help kids who are being affected by drug-addicted parents. Also she’s been talking about fostering kids! I look forward to hearing more about that as the years go by.

Ricky’s a computer science major in college, which is a surprise to absolutely no one. He’s making his own video game and has asked all of us to voice act in it. I, of course, agreed! 

Noel left to study English literature. He was thinking about dropping out, but he’s sticking with it for now. We talk a lot, actually. It’s nice. He’s scared of roller coasters now. Also he got a cat. If you care.

Mischa was the first to introduce me as his ‘sister’. You know, without the ‘adopted’ part. It was nice. We’re still really close- he goes to school in town, and we see each other all the time.

It’s funny. What happened on the island used to pop into my head every single day. And then every other day. And then a week went by, and I realized I hadn’t thought about it at all. I guess that’s a good thing, I think.

But anyways… What time is it? Oh, yeah— sorry, I gotta run, or I’ll miss the ferry! Ricky is dragging me out to Cyclone Island for the yearly beach party thing. Mischa is coming, too. It’s supposed to be a ‘bonding exercise’ or something. I hope it won’t be weird.

Whatever. I’m sure it’ll be fun. It’s something to do. Right?” 

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  “It used to be a mining island, if you can believe that. This place was FULL of uranium back in the day.”

Yeah, and then it got turned into a whole tourist attraction. 

  “Is it true there’s an amusement park on it?”

  “Yup! It’s pretty small, but yeah, it’s there. It’s sort of the ‘big thing’ on the island.”

  “That’s…a bit strange.”

That’s the point!

  “Ocean, hey? Still with us?”