“Hey buddy!” The man picked up the pace, quickly disappearing into a hallway. I ran for them, knowing they must’ve just heard what went down.

As I rounded the hallway on my right, I found him standing next to a door on my left. Turning to me, he smiled. His face was a bit wrinkled and sun damaged, with a five o’ clock shadow, his smile filled with crooked teeth. He wore the same getup as me, his voice implying he came somewhere from central America, “Hey man, hope you don’t mind, but I was listening in on you two.”

“Yeah, I pieced as much together, why? What’d you find so interesting huh?”

“Wow, I’m sensing some hostility.” He put his hands up in a jokingly defensive manner as he leaned against the wall, “Cause I heard your outburst when they wheeled you in. Thought you were just plain crazy. Well, until you said something caught my attention. About ‘The lighthouse that brings them in.’ Look, I’ve been a part of a bunch of circles, and the only time I’ve heard about things like that, is when suits bring in some crazy guy.”

“Hold up, who else here knows about this shit?”

He sighed, “He got taken out back a few years ago, sorry to tell you. And the one before him, well, he got taken out about five years before that. I got a feeling the government isn’t too fond of keeping people like that around.”

“So what’s your deal then?”

“Eh, had a runin with some shit about ten years ago, landed me in here. I mean—” He cut himself off, “Then just after that, I threw down an ace and won everything!”

A nurse turned the corner just then, smiling at the both of us, “Good morning gentlemen.”

“Good morning Miss Tabitha, I hope you’re doing well!” The man replied.

“I’m doing wonderful Cole, I hope you have a great rest of your day.” She waved us off as she continued on her way.

Once she was out of earshot, Cole continued, “I mean, I used to be a contract killer, but umm…” He looked uncomfortable as he remembered something, “This guy hired me for a job. I think his name was Bard, or Brad or something. I almost put a bullet right between the contract’s eyes. But that was when… well… something ended up finding me, that guy had to be the luckiest motherfucker I swear. After I missed my chance and dealt with that—” He shuttered, ‘‘… Thing, I put myself here until I got better. But there’s another reason I decided to stick around.

“Did it have something to do with what you saw?”

He looked to his left, then right, “Nah, I never completed that contract, I don’t want to know what Brad, Bard, whatever the fuck his name is, will do to me when he figures out where I am.”

“Well shit, do you have any ideas on how to get out of here at least?”

He scoffed, “Yeah, no. Whether or not I believe you’ve seen some fucked up shit, I saw you when they wheeled you in. I think this place could actually do you some good.”

“Look man!” I took a breath, “Alright, I know I’m a bit fucked up. But I need to get to Grizelda, I don’t know where the hell she is a—”

“Woah, slow down, ease up there for a second. Who the hell is Grizelda?”

I thought for a moment, “She’s uh, my coworker I guess you could say. Well… was at least. I blew the lighthouse up so it isn’t like she’s still there. But I brought her out, she should still be fine. I NEED to go find her before they kill her or something.”

“Hold on, you blew up the lighthouse.”

“Yes.”

“Where was she?”

“Outside unconscious… that part’s a long story.”

“So they put you here, after blowing up the government’s lighthouse, which you used to capture and contain entities.”

“We call them shades, but yes, I also let them all go.”

“AND you let them all go. You do all of that, and you’re STILL here. Why would they kill her?”

It was a fair question, it held some weight, hearing it even took a bit of the edge off. Rubbing the back of my head, my hands brushed against something wrapped around my ears. I felt around it, something was in my ear connected to it. Pulling the ear piece out of my right ear, I looked down at it, “Is this what I think it is?”

I could only hear his voice through my left ear, “You must’ve been whacked the fuck out to not know you’ve got hearing aids. What the hell did they do to you?”

“I don’t know, what day is it?”

“Sunday.”

“No, what number, and what month?”

“February seventh?”

“Fuck…” I gazed up, putting the ear piece back in its place. “It’s been a month since I blew that lighthouse to hell.”

“Damn, seriously?”

“No, you don’t get it, I’m missing almost a full month of my memory, I don’t even feel the withdrawals from the adderall I was taking. I don’t feel the pain from my ears bursting. I only remember a few days between when I blew that place up and now.” I fell against the wall across from Cole, my legs giving out from under me, I couldn’t do anything but sit against the wall. As I sat there, I fell into my head, staring up at the ceiling, “If Grizelda is in the same situation as me, what’s going to happen to her? If she doesn’t have someone like Cole around, she could already believe everything that happened was just a bunch of vivid hallucinations. She would’ve been out even longer than me, and wouldn’t even know I set up explosi—”

“You need a can? You look like you’re about to hurl.”

My mouth was watering profusely, “…Please.” I had to choke it down a few times, but when he finally got a small trash can between my legs, I vomited, more bile than anything else, but a bit of food from the previous day seemed to come up as well. “I just, I can’t let that happen to her.”

“Hold on, I think you skipped some stuff. Let what? Happen to who?”

“I can’t let them make Grizelda think she’s just been crazy this whole time. I don’t want that for her.”

“Do you love her or something?”

I grimaced at the suggestion, “Like a sister, yeah. We’ve only known each other for a couple months or so, but we spent every waking moment together.”

The air went still. During the silence, I heard a pair of shoes come from down the right side of the hall, this time, a masculine voice greeted me, “Are you doing okay Xavier? Feeling sick?”

I looked up, giving him a thumbs up, “I feel perfect man, having the time of my life over here.”

“Here, let’s get you to the bathroom.” The man tried helping me up.

“No, really I’m fine now, it was just a bout of nausea, nothing to worry about. I already feel better.”

He was persistent, and after some back and forth, I was practically forced into the nearest bathroom until he was sure I wasn’t going to puke again.

Leaving, I tried to find Cole, but no matter where I checked, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I didn’t want to start peaking into bedrooms in hopes of finding him for obvious reasons. So instead, I just went about the daily shit. Had food, tongued my meds, avoided the crazy Australian guy. Overall it was an alright day. Toward the end, I had to see a therapist, who I told the complete truth to, despite knowing how he’d see it. It felt good to talk to someone about it in person, no matter how condescending the looks I got were. Afterwards, I even had some time to write in my journal.

Days passed like this on repeat, I got to talk to Cole from time to time, but it was mostly just casual chit chat. Even when I tried to bring everything up with him again, he would just get a bit anxious and change the subject.

As my life fell into this routine, my desire to find an escape route only increased. The therapy sessions were good for my mental health, but the company was… less than desirable. Not to mention, I had to get to Grizelda before they convinced her she was crazy. Despite all that, I could never quite manage a way out. The security was tight as hell, and no matter what skills I’d picked up from Bill, I couldn’t take on the night security guards. I didn’t have any sort of weapon, and they had billy clubs, tasers, and pepper spray. Ask me how I know.

So as more time passed, I decided the best course of action would be to just play along until I’d convinced them I was no longer delusional. After an indeterminable amount of time, I’d actually started to make progress too. That’s right around when the investigator showed up.

He had orange hair with a trimmed, three day beard. He wore a brown cardigan with a white undershirt, black jeans, black tactical boots, and a pair of black, metal frame glasses that I was almost positive didn’t have prescription lenses. He talked to the people at the front desk before heading down the hall to the cafeteria.

One of the male nurses I’d learned was named Jullian, then came into the tv room where most everyone was, “Alright everybody, we have a detective in today. He’d like to talk with each one of you personally. However, you’ll need to go in one at a time to speak with him. So we’ll have you all go in alphabetical order by first names. Alright?”

There were a few complaining groans, but there wasn’t much any of us could do or say. I was next to last; which, while it was nice to not have to deal with the guy for a while, it felt like putting off the inevitable.

Most of the guys came back after just a few minutes. That is, except for Cole; they must’ve talked for a good half hour before he came back, pale as the schizophrenia meds I’d been avoiding. I tried talking to him about it, but he said he didn’t really want to.

Eventually, my turn came around, I sighed, hoping to get everything done and over with.

When I sat across from the man, he introduced himself, “Hello, my name is Detective Simmons, it’s nice to meet you.” He held out his hand, which I shook as I sat down.

“Nice to meet you Simmons, I’m Xavier.” I glanced down at his notebook, which was opened to a page of names. I saw a bunch of X’s next to most of them, but before I could get a better look, he closed it.

“Well Xavier, would you mind telling me what put you here exactly?”

“Do you want the official version, or the actual version?”

He raised an eyebrow, “I wanna hear your version, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, it started with a lighthouse just off the Oregon coast, by Tillamook.” When I said this, he opened his notebook to a blank page and began writing, “I used to capture shades, erm, I guess most people would call them entities, paranormal shit if you will. But yeah, I used to capture these shades for the government. The lighthouse would lure them in, and it was my job to lock them up. But one day, I decided to blow the thing to shit, took 25 pounds of C4.”

“And you said this was where exactly?” He asked, looking up from his notebook.

“Just off the coast of Tillamook? Or, right around there at least.”

“Well I’ll be.” He smirked, “Didn’t expect another, but he could be helpful around the office…” He trailed off, mumbling to himself.

“Ahem.”

He looked back up to me, “Oh sorry, just got a little lost in thought is all. Please, tell me more about your experiences and what landed you here.”

-——————————

After about an hour, he’d filled a couple pages with notes and was getting ready to have the last guy come in when he revealed one last thing to me. He leaned in, gesturing for me to do the same, “Be ready tonight, I’ve got a plan for getting Cole out of here, and if you’d like, you can come with, and work for me. Just be at the back door near the garden at midnight. I don’t expect an answer now, but your presence will be enough.” He leaned back, “Anyway, head on out, I’ve got one last person to talk to.”

“Can I just ask you one thing? Why do you believe me?”

“We can talk all you want if you show, now head on out of here, I got work to do.”

Questions swirling in my mind, I did as he said. Instead of heading to the tv room though, I just went back to mine, laying in bed and thinking.

“Of course, this is what I wanted, there’s no reason to believe he harbors ill intentions. Except of course how pale Cole’s face was, what would’ve made him so uncomfortable? Even if it turns out he’s trying to kidnap me or something, he is a little smaller than me, both in height and muscle mass. I have no doubt if worse comes to worst, Cole and I could handle him. That being said, there’s no guarantee Cole will even show.”

A knocking on my door shook me out of my thoughts, “Yeah? Come in!”

Cole quickly opened it, shutting it behind him immediately after, “He believed you too didn’t he?”

It took me a second to realize what he was talking about, “Oh you mean Simmons?”

“Yeah, you were talking with him for a while. Look, I’m worried about him. He said he knows what I did and he’s willing to give me a job. Apparently he knows someone to kill me off legally so I can lay low without actually having to. But he gave me a weird vibe.”

“You worried he’s lying? Cause from what I saw, he seemed like he genuinely wanted to help me. Maybe you’re just paranoid. I mean, you have been hiding in a mental hospital for over ten years.”

“Yeah, you’ve got a fair point. But even still…”

“Well, I’m going with him. I need to find Grizelda, even if I end up dying, it’s better than holding up here hoping they’ll actually release me. As for you, I don’t mean to try and sway you or anything, but do you really wanna just hide out here till you die?”

“I uhh, well, I mean I guess not, this isn’t how I pictured retirement.”

“Alright, while you think about what you’re going to do, I’m having an existential crisis, so… if you don’t mind.” I gestured to the door.

He looked at me one more time before leaving.

Flopping back on my bed, I just stared at the ceiling, my heartbeat strangely relaxed. I suppose I didn’t really have much else to think about. Unless I felt like giving myself pointless anxiety, I’d be better off just waiting to see what all went down.

-————————–

It was nearly midnight, and I was hanging around the garden entrance. No guards stood watch there thanks to the giant electric fence surrounding the enclosure. But even still, if it had been day, there would’ve been nurses standing watch to make sure no one did anything stupid.

I had mostly just been going up and down the same hall repeatedly, just waiting for some sort of signal. Checking the clock in the hallway, I still had a couple minutes, and it didn’t look like Cole was going to show. I sighed, resigning myself to what very well may have been an elaborate kidnapping.

Then I heard the sound of grippy socks on tile. I turned around to see Cole full tilting it over to me. Reaching the door, he stopped, catching his breath, “Good… I’m not late.”

“You aren’t indeed, he should be showing up any sec—”

The door to the garden swung open, revealing a man in all black tactical gear holding bolt cutters, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He whispered, turning back the way he’d come after giving us a quick look over. Seeing this as our cue, we followed right behind.

We had to be careful about some of the guards looking through the windows, but eventually, we made it to a door-sized hole in the fence. Considering that, I assumed he must’ve shut the power to it off, following his lead as quietly as possible. Which became much more difficult when gravel came into the mix. Let me tell you, the socks you get at a mental institution are great for a lot of things, but they just ain’t shoes.

A painful few minutes later, we made it to a disturbingly white van just off a back road. Opening the back up, he instructed us to get in.

Cole and I looked at each other before hopping in, Simmons headed up front, tossing the bolt cutters back with us, “Well that wa—”

An alarm cut him off, “Well you at least got some shoes back here or something?” I asked with mild concern as we shut the door.

“Yeah, I got clothes for you guys, but you’re gonna wanna buckle up for now.” It was only then that I realized, the back of the van was lined with four seats on each side,the floor was carpeted, and there were boxes filled with all sorts of supplies. Realizing how bright it was, I looked overhead to see amateurly installed lights.

Buckling ourselves across from one another, Cole and I looked each other in the eyes, right before Simmons peeled out of the road like a bass during fishing season. His fishtail causing much more noise than I remembered tires makin

The next ten minutes were full of dizzying turns at unsafe speeds, before he eventually stopped, turning back to us, “Alright, there’s clothes and shoes for the both of you in the clothes box back there. Nothing special since I didn’t know if I’d actually find you there Cole, and I didn’t expect to see you Xavier so I had to drop by a thrift shop.” His face went serious all of a sudden, “Now, you guys get dressed, then stay silent. I’ll be playing some music until we get to where I’m dropping you guys off. I’ve got an office, but first you guys will need to get removed from the government’s database. So shut up and sit tight, it’s gonna be a long ride.”

He definitely wasn’t wrong, the ride was excruciating. All we could really do is take intermittent naps and think while piano music played in the background. But as time passed, the light began to shine in. Looking up through the windshield, I was surprised to see as much snow as there was. It was the rocky mountains, and considering the time of year it wasn’t that strange, but Simmons never put any chains on. Which is when I remembered all the extra noise the tires had been making the whole trip, but, even if he had snow tires, it was way too much snow for them to handle, but I guess he was just too stubborn to be bothered. Luckily, nothing came of it, and we made it down the mountains with minimal sliding.

Time continued to pass, and a couple gas station stops later, Simmons was pulling over in front of an old log cabin in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. He hopped out without saying a word, opened the back up and shot Cole in the neck with something. I covered mine, hoping to avoid the same, but no pain ever came.

“Calm down, I had to bring him all the way out here as a favor. You can rest assured I do intend to actually hire you.” Unbuckling the now unconscious man, Simmons picked him up like it was nothing, carrying him out.

It was around this time I began seriously questioning whether or not I should actually stay. The reasonable thing to do was run, but I had no idea where we were, and I had no survival skills to speak of. But if it meant getting taken to some creepy guy’s house in the woods, I decided I’d prefer to take my chances with the elements.

Unbuckling my seatbelt, I slowly glanced out the back doors. Once I’d confirmed no one was around, I dashed down the gravel path. I was about to head straight into the forest when my muscles stopped responding. I blinked slowly as I came to a shamble. I tried to turn around to see what was going on, but before I could even manage, I collapsed to the ground.

-———————————

When I awoke, I saw metal bars, concrete walls making up the other three sides of me. Laying my head back down onto the bed, I sighed, “I really should’ve seen this fucking coming huh?” Taking a moment, I staggered to my feet, it felt like I had a hangover, just without the headache, “Who the hell might I have the privilege of being captured by!?” I yelled in as stirn of a tone as I could manage. My head pounded.

A minute or so passed before I heard a door open, shortly thereafter, Simmons rounded the front of the cell, “Alright, I know how this looks, trust me. But it isn’t what you think.” He took a sip from the coffee mug in his hand, which read, “World’s Best PI.”

“So you didn’t kidnap Cole and I, human traffic Cole, then proceed to lock me in a sex dungeon?”

“Eh, I owed Brad a favor from some help he gave me a while back. That’s the only reason I was able to save you. If I were in your position, I’d be pretty grateful.” Cocking my head only slightly, I glared at him down my nose, folding my arms. “Alright look, I never lied to you, I do need a new employee, but I couldn’t risk you lashing out at me. If you’d like, I can give you some answers, if you trust me after that, I’ll let you out, then we can get all the paperwork signed and get you legally killed. By that I mean—”

“If you mean anything BUT filing me as being reported dead while I am in fact, still alive, I don’t think we’d really need to have this conversation.”

He paused mid sip, “Fair point.”

As he lowered the mug, I considered for a moment, “Okay, if I’m going to work for you, I have a couple conditions.”

“We’ll see.” He gestured for me to continue.

“One, we need to go save Grizelda. Two, any questions I have on the way to her, you have to answer.”

“I’m gonna come back to your first condition here in a moment, but I’d prefer to specify the second. You may ask me any questions in regard to what we discussed at the mental hospital, and I will be required to answer them. Any other questions you may have, I can’t promise I will answer.”

I sighed, “That’s fair.”

“Now as for your first condition. I can’t guarantee we’ll find her. I remember everything you told me at the psych ward, so I know she’s important to you, but really, I only found you by dumb luck on your end. We’d have to look into every psych ward database, potentially in the country.” I was about to give my two sense when he continued, putting his thumb on his chin, his gaze lowered, eyes glazing over, “Unless they didn’t want to waste many resources, given she was unconscious, they pretty easily could’ve convinced her everything was a hallucination…” He kept talking, but his mumbling had grown too quiet to pick anything else up.

After a few minutes, I spoke, “So… what are you thinking?”

He jerked his head to me, taking a few moments to process his surroundings, “Oh right, I think I may have figured out how to find where she is. Not the exact location, but how to narrow it all down.” Pulling a keychain from his back pocket, he inserted a key into my door, “I’m going to need your help, any good with computers?”

“Wait, we’re really doing this?”

“Assuming you can help me.” He paused, key still in the lock.

“Yeah.” I cracked my knuckles, “I know my way around the interwebs.”

“God I hope that was a joke.” He said defeated, unlocking the door.

I followed him through the door he’d come in before. It was a sort of office. There was a door at the front, but it had a wall between it and the rest of the office with a fogged glass pane. A couple tinted windows in the front let in a small amount of light, and the rest of the walls were lined with hardwood up to about three feet, with the rest being covered in that cheap paint that’s basically a paste when you put it on. There was a desk in the middle of the room with a computer and a filing cabinet. Then toward the back where we were, there were a couple other desks, each with their own pc and assortment of miscellania.

“Well, this is my office. Pick one of those two desks, the computers are both on fresh installs. You’ll need to clear whichever you choose though. Oh, I’m also going to need your phone number, and you’re going to need a new email. Once you’ve got everything set up, I’ll email you everything I need in order to get an exact location on Grizelda.”

Now, I won’t bore you with all the tedious work we put in, but suffice it to say, it took a few days of coffee, and very little food or sleep. Essentially, they’d moved her a couple times after the break in, and were planning to move her again. So our goal was to catch her right after they dropped her off. Given the location, we had some time to catch up on sleep. By the time we woke up, she was already in transport, and we had eight hours before midnight.

We didn’t do too much, we showered in the back room, did our laundry, and just generally got cleaned up. What I hadn’t noticed when I was locked up was that the back room was essentially his bedroom. Minus the fridge and freezer, which I had learned was actually inside one of his desk cabinets. He definitely wasn’t living the life of luxury, but it seemed like he was happy. I mean, aside from his practically daily night terrors and clear PTSD.

After a while though, the time had finally come, we were going to go save Grizelda, and then I could finally get my life back on track, we both could.

On the drive, I finally had time to ask some questions, “Alright, I have to know, why did you believe me before. Back at the mental hospital I mean.”

“Huh? Oh, that. Cause I saw it on a tiny news station. It only aired in a few minor locations, and I’ve got contacts that keep an eye on that sort of thing. They said there was a lighthouse that had blown up off the coast of Tillamook. Claimed it was a terrorist attack, but who the fuck ever heard of a terrorist attack in Oregon? Of course I still looked into it, turned out there was residue that indicated C4 had been used to blow it up. Not only that, the lighthouse was still in operation, and local scans revealed an underwater building of some sort. So when you told me about how you blew up that light house, I figured you couldn’t possibly have learned so much about it from inside a psych ward. I took a chance, albeit a small one, and turned out my hunch was correct.”

“Well damn, and given I told you about how we captured shades, I assume you’ve seen some shit yourself?”

He hesitated, as if debating whether or not to tell me, “Well, yeah I guess you could say that. A skinwalker, a tall faceless man, and I even killed this one guy who placed a contract on this one girl’s head. It was actually with this.” He pulled a knife from his pocket, flicking it out. It was clean, not a scratch on it, and had a slight blue tint to it, “Unfortunately, no matter how far I dug, I was never able to find the murderer. That was until the faceless guy I mentioned came into my office. It’s a bit of a long story, but it turns out the murderer was already dead, happened a few months or so after I started looking into the case.”

“God damn, so are you trying to find whoever murdered him then?”

He scoff-laughed, “No, lately I’ve been digging into all the police and political corruption. Hell I used to be a detective until I looked into that murder. Shit hit the fan pretty fast, and now that the murder is solved, I’m trying to fix this fucked up state. But I gotta take on some side jobs to keep myself alive long enough to at least find the source of everything.”

“So I assume that’s why you need me then, and why you’re so willing to help me find Grizelda?”

“Yeah, essentially. Do you know how hard it is to find humans who have legitimate experience with the supernatural? I can’t just craigslist this shit, I need people with experience because I can’t have novices in this life trying to figure out how to cope with their worldview collapsing. I know how hard it is on your mental state, and I’d rather not be the reason people have to live with something like that.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, “So you aren’t quite as heartless as I thought.” He side-eyed me in response, “I just mean, if you don’t have to put innocent people in a bad situation, then you won’t. I think that’s commendable, considering you’re still willing to do the dirty work when push comes to shove.”

“One thing you’ll learn working for me, you’re going to need to have flexible morals, because ultimately, I just want answers.”

I wondered, “Did he realize he’s actually working toward the greater good? Or was he legitimately oblivious he was actually a good person? If a little chaotic.” I didn’t dare speak the thought out loud, considering the look he’d given me before.

As the minutes passed, Simmons turned up his piano music, tapping his finger along with the rhythm. While I couldn’t get into it, I respected how he didn’t give shit what I thought. The rest of the drive was mostly silent, only being broken to make passing comments and the like.

Once we’d finally made it, Simmons shut off the car, got out, and headed to the back. I followed suit, and we hopped in, getting dressed for the crimes we were about to commit. He had a few extra sets, which I had assumed were backups in case anything unexpected happened.

As we made our way to the garden area, Simmons made a call, “Hey, yeah Jeremy it’s me… we can talk about that later, I already sent you the money, I need you to take out the security we talked about for Dusk Blue Psychiatric Hospital. Yeah, fifteen should be plenty, alright, ring me when they’re down.”

By this point, we were waiting by a fence toward the back. Once his phone buzzed, we got to hopping it.

Once I’d landed, Simmons handed me a taser, then whispered, “Just in case you run into any guards, but we should be fine so long as we finish in the fifteen minutes we’ve got. Let’s go.”

He took the lead, taking us through the garden. Opening the door to the central building, we headed to the right, managing to pass by every guard undetected before finally reaching her room, “You head in, talk to her, and try to convince her in five.” I nodded, heading inside.

She was asleep, she looked so peaceful, and as much as I didn’t want to, I was about to terrify her. Even if she recognized me, I was dressed in all black, so even whispering till she woke up would scare her. I only had one option, and it was a pretty shitty one.

I covered her mouth, waking her up by whispering her name right into her ear. She tried to scream and fight me, but it seemed she hadn’t been training as much since getting put there. I tried to get her to focus on my face, and after a minute, she’d finally calmed down.

Slowly, I removed my hand from her mouth, her eyes were still wild, but she spoke, “X-Xavier? Y-you’re not real.” She squeezed her eyes shut, tears beginning to form, “Go away, just leave me alone.”

“No, it’s me, listen I came to… get you…” I looked at her, she was absolutely terrified, on the verge of a mental breakdown, “You’re uhhh… you’re scared right now aren’t you.”

The tears began streaming as she opened her eyes again, “J-just leave me alone, I don’t want anything to do with you. I’m finally getting better. Please, just leave.” Her pupils seemed to vibrate as they shrunk, before she squeezed her eyes shut again, “You’re not real.” One side of her knew I was real, the other wanted to believe I was a mere figment. She was torn between two strong beliefs, and the truth stabbed at my heart repeatedly.

My conscious and subconscious waged war for what the right call was. I was so certain that pulling her out of here would be best for her. But now, seeing as she fought off screaming with tears and denial, I couldn’t say I knew what was best for her. Whether I should bring her with me, and let her realize everything she had seen was real. Or let her believe it was all in her head, and eventually rejoin society as a normal person.

I stared her right in the eyes as they fluttered open again, a look of both recognition and incomprehension stared back at me, piercing my soul. “Do you want to believe I’m real?”

“I-I want you to leave.”

“That’s not what I asked, tell me right here and now, do you want me to be real or not?”

She hesitated, “No, no no no no no. I just want to be normal again! I want to feel human again!”

“Alright, alright… quiet down. I understand, I just want you to know.” My eyes began watering and my throat tightened, “You were the best friend I ever had.” As the last tear rolled down her cheek, I wiped it away, “Don’t cry anymore, there’s no need to. I never existed in the first place. Goodbye.”

With that, I stood, walking out of her room, tears rolling down my face, “Let’s go.” I shuttered, closing the door behind me.

He looked me in the eyes, and sighed, “I heard the commotion. While I understand, you owe me BIG time for the favor I pulled for this shit.” He turned, and we began running down the hallway.

At one point, a guard saw us, but before he could follow, Simmons and I pulled our taxers out and charged him. Once we were sure he was out of commission, we picked up speed, sprinting the whole way to the fence. We both lunged, climbing the fence faster than I thought possible.

The entire way to the van, I thought about her, the way she looked at me as if I were a close friend, yet a complete stranger. It was terrifying, and I just couldn’t justify forcing her to come with us. As we hopped the fence, as we sprinted to the van, I almost felt like giving up, the only thing pushing me along being the guard yelling at us from the entrance.

We eventually made it back to the van, and sped off before anyone could see where we’d parked. He still sped most of the way out of town, but when we’d finally reached the city limits, he slowed down to the speed limit.

As I gazed longingly out the window, still questioning if I’d made the right call, he interrupted my thoughts, “As much as I hate how you treated that whole situation, I can’t say you didn’t pull your own weight. I’m not sure what all happened back there. But now you’re gonna have to work for me until you at least pay off the favor I called in.” He paused for a minute, then held out a hand, “So I guess, welcome to Apex Investigators, officially that is. Feel free to call me Jones.”

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