(I Just) Died In Your Arms ~ Stanley Uris

015

Julia's POV

I was back in the sewers again, back to before we defeated it. I was huddled with the group, the intense feeling of fear washing over me, the guilt and shame that I had lost Stan in the sewers. I was spiraling, crying out for him, I needed to know where he was.

Even though I heard his distinctive screams, I was horribly lost in the sewers, suddenly separated from the group. I panicked, running into every turn I saw, the water splashing up my legs and coating them with god knows what. I finally after felt what like hours of running had found Stan.

I was feeling deja vu, and expected there to be the woman he constantly saw in his dad's office. Instead, to my horror, his face was perfectly fine, but his wrists were slashed. Blood was pooled around his body, the back of jeans darkened with it. His eyes were staring at the ceiling, not a single hint of life behind them. I was too late.

"No!" I cried, my voice echoing through the long tunnels of the cistern. My screaming didn't seize, shouting Stan's name over and over again.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to end! He was supposed to fine!" I shouted, trying to stop his bleeding, even though he was already dead. My hands was bright red with his blood.
"He was supposed to live! We defeated it!"

Tears were raining my cheeks heavily, my tears splashing over his cold skin. I didn't even get the chance to tell him my hearts desires, how much I loved him, how much I wanted to kiss his soft tender lips.

"I love you Stan! I love you, I love you, I love you!" I screamed, hoping my words would some how resurrect him. He still laid there limply, his hand pressed at his sides. The muck around us felt mocking, the smell of sewage flooding my nose. "We defeated it..." My voice trailed, caressing his cheek with shaky hands.

"Are you sure about that? Are you sure this didn't happen?" A voice said from above, coming from no individual around us. I had no idea who it was, where it was, or what it was. I was to distraught to come up with any sane answer.

"What?!" I looked up at the ceiling, my voice hitting it's peak. A few minute pause went by, convincing me that it was all in my imagination. I sobbed in my hands, crouched over Stan's corpse. How'd this happen? I've here before, a woman was supposed to be clamped down on his face while he was resisting. He was supposed to be alive.

"Sure, you've only seen the version where everyone lives and you all get a happy ending, but don't you think there's versions where you didn't make it? Stan? The losers? What's to say this isn't going to happen in the future?" It sounded like a man, an old wise man who knew more than I could possibly know, a man who knew everything.

"But this isn't the right version!" I was furious. He was playing tricks with my heart, my mind, my entire existence. What'd he mean by version? Does he mean another dimension?

"None of them are right, Julia, but none of them are wrong either. There's a version where you never existed. See, that sounds wrong because here you are, breathing with your own pair of lungs. But in the other version there's no Julia Louise Parker in existence. You simply aren't there." The man explained and I felt his stare from above, watching me cry over my everything's dead body.

"What does this mean? What's even happening?!" I was confused, my heart and mind being separated into pieces, everything I thought that was real felt to have shattered all around me, the feeling of uncertainty consuming me. How could I not exist? I'm here, I'm alive. I'm real. I'm thinking, or at least I think I am. I can feel my skin, I can feel my own pulse, I had feeling. How was I not real?