Looking In

By:  Julie

I’d never seen it from a third person point of view.

But then, I never really realized that I wasn’t actually me, but someone—or something—that someone else was controlling. I guess that’s not something that you know until it’s all over, or almost over, and you’re going through the end.

It was worse then to watch them go through it, to watch ME go through it, because I was unattached from my body. It was worst to have to watch and to not be able to do something about it.

We were on some kind of nature hike when I first realized what was going on, when I became what she called Aware. Her name was Alisha.

I never quite figured out WHY we chose that day to take a walk that day, through that area. It was cold, and where we were was dark, the only light reflecting off the water that slashed over the cliffs above us, creating mist that soaked our clothes and turned them to ice. I could hear the rest of the guys walking ahead of me, even the perpetually warm sneezing in the cold.

And then I started seeing it the way that I’d see it until everything was over, like I was watching. I could see me out there, following behind them, all of us in a little line—they’d decided that we should go from shortest to tallest, Chris’s way of making sure he was leading—me at the back, looking cranky.

And then I saw her. She motioned to me, and I moved from my spot, from where I was watching.

"Justin," she said, acknowledging my presence, even though my body was further ahead.

"What are you doing to me," I demanded, for all the good it did.

"You know what I’m doing," She said. But she was wrong. At that point in time, I didn’t know.

"But I DON’T!" I shouted. She ignored me.

I watched as my body walked past Joey, who had stopped to look at something. Alisha walked toward Joey, and I knew then exactly what would happen.

"Joey!" I screamed, rushing toward him. But my hands merely passed through him, as Alisha’s did not. He didn’t even have a chance to scream before he was gone. Disappeared.

I sank to the snow in tears.

"It was his time," Alisha told me.

"No it WASN’T!" I shouted back at her. "He was young! His girlfriend just had a baby! It was NOT his time!"

"You have no concept of what time is," Alisha said. "Time has not meaning to you outside your body. You are Aware."

"I don’t want to be!" I shouted.

"It is better this way." She replied.

~+~

There was a cabin at the end of the road. I didn’t recall it being there before, even though I knew that I had been.

The remaining four of us—Chris, Lance, JC, and my body—walked into the cabin slowly, our bodies tired from the walk and the cold.

"Where’s Joey?" JC asked, pulling his coat off. The perpetually warm shivered, then sneezed. "Fuck, Kirkpatrick, if I get sick because of this dumb fuck idea of yours…"

"Shut up JC," Chris snapped back, cold and tired and worse off than the always-warm JC. "Timberflake, where’s Joe?"

"Fuck you Chris," my body said, a smile on its face. "He left a long time ago. Back by the waterfalls. He stopped and didn’t catch back up, so I guess he went back to the bottom of the hill. It was a lot closer than here then."

Chris shrugged. "Okay." He said.

"He can take care of himself you guys," Lance pointed out. I wanted to scream and yell but I knew it wouldn’t do any good.

"Sure," JC said, picking up the duffel bag from the pile in the corner marked ‘Chasez’ and dragging it into one of two bedrooms to change. My body repeated the process, only with the ‘Timberlake’ marked bag. I followed him into the room.

"Is that really what happened to Joe?" JC asked, worry in his _expression. My body nodded.

"That’s exactly what happened Jace," I said, while at the same time, the real me was screaming ‘NO!’ "Why would I lie?" I asked.

JC shrugged and started to strip off his clothes. "I’m freezing," he stated, pulling me to him.

"What?" I shouted, knowing that they couldn’t here me. If he was going to do what I THOUGHT he was going to do to get warm, I wanted to be in my body for that. "Alisha!" I shouted. Thankfully, she reappeared.

"Yes?" she asked, casting a look of disgust toward JC’s half-naked body pressing against my fully clothed and slightly warmer one.

"Make me unaware!" I shouted.

"I can’t," she said.

"Then put me back in my body!" I cried.

"You were chosen not to die, Justin," she said. "If I put you back, you’re soul will move on when your body dies."

"I don’t CARE," I cried, my pleading becoming more desperate as JC’s lips pressed down on those of my body. "I don’t care."

"You’re still going to be able to see me," she said. "And you’re still going to know everything that’s going to happen."

"I don’t care, just put me back!" I shouted.

"As you wish," she replied.

Within seconds, I was back inside my body, JC’s pressed firmly against it. His breath was hot on my lips as he pressed me back onto the bed with desperate kisses.

"JC," I protested. I had to tell him what really happened to Joey. I had to tell him what was going to happen to all of us.

I didn’t get the chance, because Chris burst through the door at that moment.

"I hate to interrupt your love play boys, but I found this note," Chris said, waving the small piece of paper about in the air. JC turned and gave the elf-like man a look of death.

"Kirkpatrick," JC growled. I slid from beneath him and snatched the note from Chris’s hand. JC groaned and got up to find dry clothes.

"Scavenger hunt," I said. "What the hell?" I asked.

"That’s stupid," JC said. "It’s like, ten degrees outside."

"That’s what it is," Chris said. "And it reads like, if we don’t do it, we’ll never see Joe again." There was silence for a moment.

"I thought you said he was okay," JC said.

"What the hell is going ON Timberflake?" Chris demanded. "Did you fucking ORGANIZE this?"

"No, Chris, JC, I didn’t do anything," I said. But I did know what was going on. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make myself say it.

"Lets just do it," JC said. He immediately stomped over to the closet and threw it open.

"Holy shit," Chris said, seeing inside. "This was WELL fucking planned."

"You’re the one that wanted us to come up here," Lance said from the doorway.

"I didn’t DO this!" Chris shouted.

"We trust you Chris," I said. I DID know what was going on.

JC started throwing down jackets and various articles of clothing—mostly wool—at the other guys. In the very back of the closet were five back backs—all labeled.

"Whoever set this up expected Joey to make it this far," JC said. The rest of us nodded and began to pull on the clothes. Chris calmly read off the directions, even though I could see lines of worry creasing his forehead. Lance looked paler than usual.

"Let’s go," I said, knowing that I was leading my friends to their deaths.

~+~

JC knelt next to me in front of the glowing tombstones. The hood of his jacket had fallen back, and there was snow and ice caught in the long hair that he had lately. His face was tear and dirt stained, his forehead creased where he was holding back tears.

Somewhere along the way we had lost Chris and Lance. I never knew when Lance went, for the poor guy fell without a sound, even though in my mind’s eye, I could see the blood, I could feel the pain, and I knew that it was my fault. Chris had gone loudly, screaming and swearing and crying in pain, trying to get JC and I to help him.

We tried, really we did. We were covered in blood for the struggle, covered in dirt, soaked from the snow. Now both of our faces were tearstained, and my own held a look of fear.

"Is this it?" JC asked.

"Yes," I replied. I knew this was the end of the road, perhaps for both of us.

JC pulled the glove from his right and reached toward the tombstone, his bare fingers brushing the snow away from the stone. In the mirror like surface, I could see my own childish face, dirty and terrified, staring back at me. Fear that came from knowing that my death would come soon, fear from seeing those names carved onto those stones that glowed so brightly.

"Chris," JC whispered, his fingers tracing the outline of Chris’s name on the brightly glowing stone.

"And Lance and Joey," I said, observing the two other stones, glowing as brightly as the first.

"It’s not over, is it Justin?" He asked, as though he knew.

"It’s over," I replied.

JC nodded, but he wasn’t scared. It was as though he simply accepted it. He stood, turning away from me and walking away from the glow of the stones, leaving his glove on the ground. Blood stained the snow where he had knelt.

"It’s not over Justin," he said, his back to me, gesturing to one stone that did not glow, but simply cast a darker black shadow over an already dark ground.

"No?" I asked. "Why do you say that?"

He turned, and tears streaked my cheeks for the look of sadness on his face.

"Because I’m still here," JC said.

"It’s over JC," I said, not wanting to hear him talk like this. Not wanting to acknowledge the dark blood that was beginning to stain the ground around him. He was crying himself. "No one else is going to die," I told him.

"It’s too late Justin," he replied, reaching up to brush away his tears with bloodstained fingers, smearing his own blood over his face. "What’s set in stone cannot be changed."

"What is set!" I cried.

JC knelt once again and brushed those bloodstained fingers over the name on the stone. Where the blood touched, the stone became luminescent and began to glow, lighting the name so that I could read it.

"I’m sorry Justin," he said.

"JC no," I moaned, kneeling next to him. He kissed me and smiled.

"I’ll see you again Justin." He said. "You have a long time left to go."

"You knew the whole time," I said, angry and sad at the same time.

"Yes," JC said. "Alisha never really existed. She was just a puppet, like you were."

"You planned this," I said flatly.

"No," he replied. "This was planned long before you or I ever came into play. And it is planned for a long time to come."

"Don’t leave," I said, holding onto him tightly as though that would stop the blood from slowly leaving him. I could feel it soaking into my clothes.

"I have to," JC said, his voice becoming weak. "I already told you that I would see you someday," he said. "But for now, I have to go."

"That is so cliché," I said, wanting to hear him laugh one last time, to see him smile. And he did.

"Yes, but it’s the truth," he said.

"So now I have to let go?"

"Yes."

"I don’t want to."

"I know. You don’t have a choice."

His stone was glowing brighter, and I knew that I did have to let go.

"I love you," I said, as if those three desperate words would make him stay.

"I know," he replied. "I loved you too."

"JC?" I whispered.

His eyes were closed.

His breath has stopped.

But there was a smile on his face.

"One day," I said, laying the body out neatly before his stone.

Then I stood, brushing the snow from my hood before replacing it on my head.

It was a long journey home.

But I knew I would make it.

Because JC had said that I would.

Because that was part of the plan.

And now I had faith in that.

The End

 

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