Chapter Text
And In the back of your mind there’s a piercing question that you can never seem to answer. No matter how simple it seems, or how much you may think you know what response to give, you are never truly sure about it.
In the back of your mind there’s a thought that berates you and your feelings, it drills into your skull and holds you back from those you love most because what are they if not just another absent thought of yours
The clock is racing yet you don’t seem to have a solution to this question, you will lose soon, you know you will, and with those two who cradled you in their arms for what you see as the only years you were truly alive, goes those who you rely upon most, your friends that you don’t have to hide from.
Just a few more months now, it’s coming up, three years has never felt so small, you can see it on those two faces, the worry, the fear, sometimes the anger that they hold against themselves because they have no solution to the inevitable loss.
And yet in the back of your head there’s just one question that you can hear at night when you attempt to lay down and sleep, the one question that berates itself into your mind as you interact with them for what could be your final moments together.
“How do you want this to end?”
And somehow the answer only comes to you just a moment too late, because you don’t want this to end at all.
But now that question Dosent matter, because now you don’t remember why it would be so concerning, you don’t even remember what was ending.
And with that you’re back to the old routine, back to the days of grueling school work and confusing schedules, back to way you used to live before the clock started.
But the others haven’t forgotten about you, why would they? They weren’t on a timer, so when they finally track you down, when they finally find you.
You don’t know them, you don’t know their names or what they have to do with you, yet their faces look familiar and in your head you see small flashes of simple domestic moments with them.
They are obviously devastated by the reality that they are unrecognizable to you, some seeming more upset than others.
The one that seems your age is brought to tears, you don’t know why, but he can’t look at you, his frame trembles as he seems to sob into his own hand and you wonder what happened.
The tallest of the three seems shocked, a kind of mortified, yet somehow he seems to be the only one who can properly ask you questions.
The last one, a weird creature you can’t decipher, looks paralyzed by the information, almost completely out of it.
You can’t help but keep your attention on the crying one, feeling guilty, and some sort of empathy for the kid, maybe you meant something to him.
They ask you about two names.
You don’t know the names, but they seem pretty to you, and comfortable when you repeat them, ones that roll off your tongue like muscle memory because according to them you’ve said their names hundreds of times before.
When they leave you are left with your thoughts and an empty fish bowl by your bed, another question now prods at you, why do you even have a fishbowl with no fish?
Now you seem to find your own room ever so slightly unfamiliar, where did you get all these things you never had before?
And In some far away realm, the clock ticks once again, only this time its tick is for you to gain, and this time, you may have the answer.
You know how you want this to end.