Terminal Fuse

{TWENTY_SEVEN}

My HUD rouses me. It's pulsing red, a warning alarm:

T1M3 L3FT:

02:59:59

The countdown ticks off each second, and we're out of time.

We're totally screwed.

So I float on, apathetic to the doom befalling us. Okay, maybe not apathetic — just numb. Moving to the US taught me that sometimes being numb is the only option. When you lose your home and find yourself lost in the deafening noise of a new city, it's better to be numb. When the school bully calls you ugly and your grades are below average, it's better to just be numb. When your brother dies and you cannot forgive yourself cuz it's your fault... being numb is the only way to survive.

That day as the day being numb stopped being a default setting and instead became my key survival tactic. It was the day of Ben's middle school graduation. He thought it was stupid to have candles and a cake for a graduation celebration, especially when you added the mortarboard hat and surprise party; I thought it was funny. He also wasn't amused by my gift for him, a Sesame Street pocket notebook, which I assured him all the Freshmen students had in high school. My dad had appreciated the joke and been sure to hide it away before Jaydon could tear it to shreds.

Then we took our photos, gobbled up our cake and ice cream, and went to Ocean Beach. I convinced Ben to build a sandcastle with me, at the price of letting him bury me in the sand afterward. Yet all it took was a handful of sand to my face, and I was chasing him into the sea to dunk him beneath the waves in revenge. The waters were freezing at that time of year, and my legs and toes lost all feeling as we fought. Even though he was three years younger, we could look eye-to-eye, so the battle was fierce and long. Great splashes of water were made, as if two kaiju were battling. There were cries of failure and cheers of victory. We laughed, we screamed, we brawled until... until the wave — the wave — hit us.

In that moment, all I felt was desperation. I couldn't even swim for the surface cuz I was caught by the sea and tumbling head-over-heels. Sand scrapped at the face and back. I opened my eyes but only saw green and brown. I lost my breath and swallowed the salty water. I thought I was going to die. My body smacked against something hard — sand, and the wave rolled me onto the beach and into the sunshine.

But when I'd gotten to my feet, Ben had vanished: lost to the rips, stolen by the sea. I screamed for him and searched for him. I got my parents and they searched too. We got the lifeguards, and they searched with us. Emergency services were called, and the search went on for hours. Eventually, the tide returned his body, but my brother was long gone. That was the moment everything changed in my family; after that, nothing was the same, and we began breaking apart, piece-by-piece.

"You don't have to be alone anymore," says the voice that's become second nature to me: Archie... But no, that cannot be right. For the words were spoken aloud, not whispered inside my mind.

Not Archie — Tag, and he's here.

Trying to get my feet under me, I thrash in the liquid which bubbles and brightens at the disturbance. My fingers brush against the base of the pool and knock through rough obstacles: rocks, maybe? I push back and find the wall of my enclosure, fear rising in my gut like bile. I sink to my knees until the liquid is at my neck but I now have access to a rock, my only weapon.

"Soon you'll be a part of us. It's a better existence, Angeline. No more pain or fear." In the dim light cast by the pool, I see a dark shape across from me move, and the liquid around it glows stronger, illuminating Tag's face.

Instinctively, I reach for my Glock but it's gone, then my knife but...

He's twirling it in his hands.