Our tenth story begins… at the beginning. I’m not trying to be snarky or mysterious. I mean that a chain of events came out of the two-week special and out-of-nowhere revival of the CreepyToys forum.

I had found myself alone in my apartment on a stormy night, pumped full of self-pity and meds to keep the ghosts pecking at my brain at bay. I was in a group chat, talking to Tyler, Kate, and Jack—still holding onto their aliases after all this time, unlike myself—when an email reached me.

It was from the admin of CreepyToys, our patient zero; the origin of the Laser Tag story which consequently led to every story that followed, and our own exploration that resulted in the four of us getting infected by a monstrous rabbit-shaped creature which can persist in electrical signals… And now wants to inject one of the thousands of competing consciousnesses that reside within us.

Tyler was still the only one who mostly believed all of this at face value, thinking that these “souls” came from a parallel universe destroyed by nuclear fire. I’m not sure what to believe anymore. The stuff we’ve been investigating, that keeps pulling us toward it, exists on the border of some form of spiritualism and what science can do. My long coma, in which I was pursued by the entity that came out of a video game, is still fresh on my mind. And it found me again, in a purer, even more dangerous form. Now it bides its time inside my head, waiting until I’m weak or ready to give up so that it can grant someone else a second chance. And I’m certain that I, myself, the being that is me, will fade away should that happen. Or worse, live a tortured existence within a puppet.

“Hey, Liam,” the email read. “It’s been a long time. Hope you still check this account. I heard you were having a tough time that ‘few people would ever understand.’ That got me curious, so I started reading the stories, since I had only read the Laser Tag one that got posted on our humble forum of all places. I can’t say that I get what’s going on out in your world or offer any theories about Neptune, but damn if I’m not still amazed that it all started with an urban legend style incident that showed up on our server just as it was shutting down.

“There isn’t much I could say to help you or your friends feel better. But I can offer you some warm comfort of nostalgia. I got out the old backups again and restored the forum to working order. It looks just like it did in 2009, with all of the posts, frozen in time. I did update the system and got rid of the visible IP addresses, though, so you’ll have to register a new account with a user name.

“Some of the original members are there already, shooting the shit like the old days. Get your friends to join. Things coming full circle feels awesome.”

It took me just a few minutes to convince the other three to call off our latest night of moping in our private chat and instead sign up on ancient forum software from the mid-2000s. Then I got Boris and some of the members of our larger (but still small) community of supporters in on it. Even if the fun wore off after one night, doing some old school posting on the antiquated, simple, and ugly message board was a welcome distraction from everything.

We’d reply in mothballed threads as if the users who made them nearly two decades ago would come back and respond, capped off a few old mysteries around strange toys with modern knowledge, and kind of satirize what we used to do by making topics about new “creepy toys,” which these days to us jaded adults, were mostly meme products, edgy junk for badass tween boys, or dolls with big eyes that came in boxes covered in catchphrases.

Getting to see Boris, Jack, Kate, and Tyler post messages on an archived community that closed before we met but was now on a brief reunion tour was certainly not how I had seen the night playing out. It gave me nostalgia pangs of my fresh-out-of-college days, when I moderated and talked to some members on AOL Instant Messenger—which was already in its waning days, and we just used ironically or out of what was already nostalgia even then. I could almost hear the ticks of my crappy old iMac’s spinning hard drive and smell the warm plastic.

By about midnight, the charm of flooding the old forum had worn off some and the posting slowed down, so I took my round of meds and headed to bed. My dreams were still corrupted by the faceless, featureless “red ones” that had replaced memories of real people, and kept growing in number despite the pills. We bought ourselves time, but not much more of it, I feared.

When I woke up the next morning, my first impulse, straight out of my moderator days, was to check what happened on the forum overnight. There wasn’t much of note, other than a few messages that I would’ve suspended users for if I was still as much of a hard-ass as I was back then.

But before I closed the browser to go and make breakfast, I noticed the number (1) in the upper right corner, next to “Private Messages.” For those too young to remember, that’s what we used to call DMs.

I opened it, expecting a joke from someone. And that’s exactly what I thought it was at first. But after reading it three times and not finding the punchline, I began thinking that maybe there was some legitimacy to it.

Part I

“Hello, Liam. This is not the way I thought I’d be contacting you. It’s pure coincidence that I’m doing so now, but using this channel has the benefit of demonstrating how closely I’ve been following the four of you. And I think we can both admire the sort of poetry in getting touch this way.

“Having said that, I’m not going to say too much on this archaic message board that must have dubious security. I’ve set us up with temporary and encrypted email addresses so that we can have a safer discussion. Nothing you aren’t used to by this point, I’m sure. If you’re wondering what I’m offering… Well, it’s a chance, to cure you and your friends of your condition.

“But I can’t promise more than that.”

[The mysterious user then provides details on how to log into an email system that is hosted on a private server. Their account on the forum was already marked as “deleted” by the time I first read their message.]

I hesitated at first, but even just the suggestion of there being some vague chance to give me back my life was tempting, especially at a time when I seemingly had nothing left to lose. I logged into the provided email address, its preset password being something only I would know the answer to, and I was presented with a plain dark web page and white text, like it’s a web service from the early 90s. My inbox was initially empty, but me logging in must’ve triggered an automatic message, and it appeared within seconds.

I can’t believe what I’m reading as I go through it.

“Liam. You and your friends have made it to the end of a long journey that began when you were young. By what seems to be another coincidence, I represent someone whose own story is nearing an end, as well. He believed, as he mistakenly had several times in the past, that this hidden corner of history had been buried for good. Only to see a new, lingering remnant sprout up from the dust again and again. You know who I’m talking about. And what group he once worked for. But the person you call the Umbrella Man is not your enemy.

“I know this is hard to accept, but he’s never had anything against any of you personally, nor the others that he’s silenced… or tried to, over the decades. His task was always to simply do his best to destroy a legacy and shield this already fragile world from truths that could disrupt everything it thinks it knows.

“Though his age is difficult to determine visually, physically, and even mathematically… he believes he is in his twilight, and has come to a revelation: helping the four of you is vital to his group’s final equation, which he had long ago given up trying to solve. I’m sorry for speaking cryptically, but there is only so much I can say when we aren’t speaking in person. I assure you, though: his power is diminished. By now, his followers are all gone. He is barely more than a husk, and I’m merely something of his caretaker and assistant. You don’t have to trust him, but you can trust me. He has a method, untested and unproven, that could theoretically free you and your friends from the fonsanimarum’s ‘curse.’

“Reply to this message and I will give you instructions.”

I was unsure what to think. I felt confident that this was, indeed, a real offer from an associate of what we saw as a shadowy nemesis, but it’s not easy to suddenly place your faith in what was once some personal boogeyman.

Still…

I mean, sure, they easily could have read The Crypt Under Denver and lifted the Latin word for “fountain of souls” from there, but the email somehow gave me the gut feeling that they knew more about it than we ever did.

So, I replied, and kept it simple. “I’m interested,” was all I could really say.

The response arrived within an hour.

“Good.

“Gather your friends, or at least the ones that are ready to take such a blind, desperate risk, and come to the Tybee Island marina, east of Savannah, one week from now, at one in the afternoon. This will give us time to make our preparations and you four to make travel arrangements. I know you don’t all live in Florida anymore, but it should still be a manageable drive for everyone. Show the others these emails to help convince them, but I have a hunch that you’re all ready to cling onto any tiny hope at this… possibly terminal stage.

“I won’t answer any further emails. But I’ll leave you for now by telling you who I am, if it makes any difference. You’ve already immortalized the stories told by Isaac and my mother; those that took place onboard a train and in the barrens of Alaska. Thank you for doing so. I look forward to meeting.”

I thought about going to bed and letting my friends get some sleep. Give my brain a chance to process this information and wake up with a clear head. Of course, that didn’t happen. I told them right away, and Boris as well to get his input. We ended up debating into the mid-morning hours about this opportunity and what it could mean. She couldn’t prove who she was through text, nor get us to trust the Umbrella Man’s motives or intentions.

But it didn’t really matter, because she knew we’d take whatever chance thrown our way that gave us any odds at survival. Besides, we all agreed that if this ended up being nothing… then at least we’d get to see each other again, maybe for the last time. We’d already been taking gallows humor-style bets on which of us would drop first. Or wake up as someone entirely different, perhaps a wayward soul lost to another world’s final war. There wasn’t really much of an argument to be had, now that I look back.

And now here I am, writing this on my laptop in the last place I’d ever expect to be. Getting down what I can while there’s time. Tomorrow, we take our chance. I don’t know what it’ll feel like, how long it will last, or which of us, if anyone, will make it through to the other side. We’ve been told what it’ll involve, but, unfortunately, it’s up to us to figure out the rest. We’re pioneers, since this has never been done before, and likely won’t be again.

I’d been to Savannah, though not in many years. The old photo albums had a few pictures of my family visiting Georgia’s historic port town, right at the South Carolina border. We were still happy and whole. We smiled, my sister just a little kid who could barely talk. Parks of mossy trees, riverfront promenades reachable by old stone steps. The heat was what I could recall most. That was before all of it. Kiddie Land, the car crash that killed Mom, the false memories and electric bunnies. If I could just go back and reset my life from that point…

Kate arrived just after me. I watched her pull into the hotel parking lot where we’d be keeping our cars—a rental, in Jack’s case. She drove an electric vehicle and plugged it into the provided charger. It was a small thing, but that gave me a flicker of hope; she still expected to return to a full battery. But, not so much when I realized she hadn’t even brought her camera. She loved to shoot anything and everything with some historic value, so to see her without a big old camera bag in a town like this was… actually kind of borderline heartbreaking. Like she didn’t care anymore, or thought that she wouldn’t get a chance to share any photos. So, really, the charging was probably just instinctive.

Tyler and Jack got there an hour after that, having met up elsewhere and splitting the cost of a rental. Ty, always in a gray hoodie, looked as squirrelly as the day we met. But I could tell he still had his pragmatic optimism: fearing we’d see the worst, yet choosing to believe we’d make it out nevertheless. Probably couldn’t wait for a writeup and a chance to publish this potentially final story on the site. And Jack, who ironically had moved out of Georgia and up to Virginia only six months ago, no longer had the airs of our resident know-it-all, the guy who didn’t fold under pressure. Because he had, over the recent weeks. No one could continue to be unshakable while suffering from an affliction like ours.

Despite our lack of appetites (we’d all lost notable weight since Denver), we had lunch together before heading out to the Georgia coast. We were not very talkative as we dined outside amidst a warm spring breeze. Tyler couldn’t even bring himself to crack a single joke. I’d never seen a group of people that were so defeated and grim.

We weren’t told not to bring anything, so we gathered our bags and gear and headed out to the marina on Tybee Island in a single car.

Every bridge took us further from civilization, and closer to the end of something, it felt like. It’s corny to say stuff like “everything had led to this moment,” and not only because it’s always obviously true, but I hadn’t felt it more than I did when we pulled into a nearly empty parking lot for the pier. It had become quite windy, and the sky was dark but without rain.

By the dock was a modest boat that blended in with the other fishing vessels—save for its noticeably large anchor. Standing on the planks nearby, wearing shades and a long jacket despite the heat, was our captain for the day, crossing her arms impatiently.

“I wasn’t sure you’d all leave your homes,” was how she greeted us. “Maybe my own bias, though. I never got out much, until a decade or so ago.”

“Are you really… Your mom wrote the LIZ-4 journal?” Kate asked.

“Hm. Get on the boat. We have time to talk on the way there.”

Once we were out on the open ocean with the coastline shrinking behind us, she put the boat on autopilot and dropped the speed just a little so that we could speak over the engines. We didn’t see much of the boat interior, but the glance I got gave me the impression that it was treated as a living space.

“If you want a name for your stories, I’ll go by Alice,” she told us.

“Great… Alice. Leading us to Wonderland,” Kate sighed. “Here I thought we’d be looking for you at some point. Maybe try to ‘rescue’ you. I dunno.”

“You’re a bit late for that. Back when Neptune was active and they still had some ‘enthralled’ people in the government, I was something of a ward of the state. When the group stopped issuing orders, because there was no one left to do so, my reins were loosened over time. Only he was left, and I wasn’t so much a prisoner as just a closely-monitored lure for my mother, who never took the bait. To keep her safe, I simply chose… not to look for her.”

“So, you’re not, like, brainwashed or anything, are you?” Tyler wondered.

“Nothing like that. After I smuggled the transcription of Mom’s journal out into the world, and started reading the other stories, I realized I had a bigger role in all of this. I could work for him, eventually become the only person who still had an eye on him. Everyone else that once feared his knowledge, influence, and the rest of Neptune gradually… forgot.”

“It’s insane that I’m even here,” I spoke up. “He conditioned someone who was unwell to kill me only a few years ago, in the hospital where I had just woken up from a long coma. Why the change of heart? Or are you about to do it?”

“Please. I wouldn’t harm any of you, even if he ordered me to. Another reason I stuck with him, was to see if I could change his perspective. You have to understand. For decades, as Neptune’s cleaner, all he did was disappear people to keep secrets. He was in the middle of the group’s civil war—and even blames himself for the turmoil and paranoia getting out of control in the first place. Saw early on the potential of their technology and products to destabilize the world when tensions were already high. And was aware of the damage that had been done, from the leaks of several prototypes. Dealing with others was always worth the unpleasantness to him, if it meant Neptune’s impact on this world got another chance at disappearing entirely.”

After a few quiet moments, Jack replied thoughtfully, “Does he… not do the dirty work himself? All we have to go off about him comes from Isaac’s story, when he was on the atomic train to Denver with Neptune’s last survivors.”

Alice took a deep breath before answering, “To answer that, you’re going to have to start believing in multiple worlds. I won’t get into the specifics—I’ll leave that up to him, if he has the energy today. I still struggle with it.”

Tyler snapped out of a stupor and stammered back, “I… I was right?”

“All I’m going to say—and this should give you some security—is that he cannot kill people that are… local to this version of the world. He can only get others to do it, or do so indirectly. God knows Neptune’s tech is capable.”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Jack grumbled.

“Because it has to do with quantum mechanics. Reality as we know it doesn’t allow for some easy doorway to another universe, like you see in movies. At least, as far as we know. But you’ll have to wait. I’m not going to waste time getting it wrong.”

“I can’t believe no one’s asked this yet, but where are we going?” Kate asked. “Is there a bigger boat out there? Private island?”

“Not far now. First, put all of your phones in the bag.”

Alice brought out a Mylar and mesh sack that looked like it’d block the signals from our phones. The terms of this arrangement were getting worse, but there was no real use in arguing. One by one, we powered down our devices and handed them over. She put the bag somewhere inside the boat, and we mostly kept quiet for the rest of the trip.

About twenty long minutes later, the engines began to throttle down on their own as we came across a spire jutting out of the endless ocean. I thought it was a rock at first, or a half-sunken boat. The truth was much wilder. Thinking back now as I type this on a small bunk bed under the waves, maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised, though.

Alice dropped anchor, extended a gantry, and then went over and walked on water. Or rather, she stepped on top of a hull and opened a hatch.

We let out a few “no way”s and “come on”s. A submarine. Our journeys had brought us to the Umbrella Man’s final, mobile, submersible home. And, I have to admit, I think the reveal reinvigorated us. It was terrifying, sure, but what else was left out there that could instill a sense of childhood adventure in us jaded and weary adults?

“It’s small, and fully automated,” Alice explained, to cut down on any questions. “No crew. Runs on the same nuclear reactor that once powered the train. It was a marvel of technology once, he’s always telling me… It’s a recent parting gift from the government when they cut all remaining ties with him.”

“No missile launchers or torpedo bays, I take it,” Tyler remarked and was the first of us to board—with wobbly legs that almost sent him into the water.

“His days of handling weaponry or dangerous toys are behind him.”

Alice herded us into the tin can and closed the hatch above us. This was too elaborate by this point; if he was planning to get rid of us and dump us in the ocean, he wouldn’t have needed all of this to do it.

Other than the old ride at Walt Disney World, I had never been in any sort of submarine. I knew it would be claustrophobic inside, but from the moment we were locked in, it also felt otherworldly. Like we were aboard a spaceship and cut off from everything and everyone we knew. I realized right away the concern I’m still thinking about at this moment: that we may never return to the surface. I could be typing this for only my eyes and the void.

True nuclear submarines are almost deceptively huge; I don’t think most people consider their size, maybe because there are few features along the hull that would make it easier to grasp their scale. Still, from what I’ve seen in media, I’d roughly estimate that the Umbrella Man’s home was around a third as large as what the navy kept afloat around the world, precariously between sunlight and the crushing abyss. More than big enough to support a single person indefinitely.

The biggest room, just past the ladder and first bulkhead door, featured UV lamp hydroponic gardens for both food and florals; it seemed our host had been breeding flowers as a hobby. Another chamber had a lounge area, shelves full of books, and multiple television sets with old tech: nothing newer than VHS and DVD players. Maybe a satellite connection was available while surfaced.

Like his former home that was derailed in the early 90s, the sub had a dining room and closet-sized kitchenette, and I assume a bedroom past it. It was similar enough inside to a windowless train, so it felt like we were aboard the one from Isaac’s story. I wished he was with us, as the adult in the room who did all the thinking. Then again, he was younger than we were back then. I’ve never felt like much of an adult. Hell, I think all four of us forget that we are sometimes.

“Take a seat,” Alice instructed as we gathered around the dining table, which had enough chairs for everyone. “I’ll begin our dive and then see if he’s ready. If not, you’ll have to wait. There’s no rush.”

“Not like we’re dying or anything,” Tyler scoffed.

“There is sensitive equipment onboard that needs a full twenty-four hours to calibrate, while deep underwater where radio waves in the air and radiation from the sun can’t reach. We can’t make the attempt to save you before then. And you need the time to mentally prepare, as well.”

“We’re going to sleep in this thing?” Kate muttered.

“There are bunks. When the sub first launched, he would still occasionally bring others aboard. You are his first guests in ten years, I believe.”

“Jesus, what a lonely life…” Jack sighed as we went through the forward bulkhead door. Once we were looking around at the collection of small hanging paintings and photographs of seemingly little importance, he wondered aloud, “I bet there’s another resonance chamber on the sub, like the one under Denver.”

“What do you think is gonna happen?” Tyler said what was on everyone’s mind. “Is it going to be another trip, but, like, even deeper within ourselves? Are we supposed to fight off that rabbit creature in some final showdown?”

“There’s no way of knowing for sure,” I reminded the others. “Alice said the tech has never seen a full run. If I had to guess, we might see Kiddie Land or have a shared hallucination like Kate and Boris did in Pennsylvania. As for purging the red things in our minds… no idea. If Tyler’s also right about them being, uh… you know, angry souls from another world… I don’t think they’ll let go easily.”

“You hear that?” Tyler murmured. “The sub’s groaning.”

“The metal is contracting,” Jack explained. “We really are sinking. And at the mercy of our host. I never expected that the kid of the LIZ-4 mom would actually be helping him. I guess I see her reasoning, but to choose that over finding her mom after all these years… Man, I hate being here.”

Alice returned, alone, before any debate had a chance to take off.

“He isn’t quite ready to meet you. Wants to wait until dinner,” she checked her watch, “about four hours from now. You can rest until then, in the lounge or on your beds. You aren’t in any danger, yet. Oh, and I assume at least one of you has been recording audio. You may continue to do so, as a show of trust. Having lived a long life of keeping secrets, he really does seem to finally be easing up. Not that he’s about to step out of a personal prison.”

“Yeah, not feeling sorry for him,” Kate said coldly.

“Not asking you to. He worked for people that destroyed a lot of lives. But, also may have saved untold more. Just… give him a chance to help.”

Now here I am, writing down the story so far on my laptop in a lounge room under the ocean, while listening to what my miniature audio recorder has captured. We were already shown to our quarters, there being enough for everybody to have a much-needed private room.

Although we’re in the belly of the beast and sharing a vessel with a man who had seen and done things beyond our comprehension, we are oddly calm, at least on the outside. The others are skimming through the library of books and movies that I’m betting are more for Alice. It’s hard to imagine our host enjoying a movie night for leisure. At most, maybe he studies films to keep up on culture, or looks for differences in them… if any titles existed in both of our worlds.

A parallel universe. Am I actually starting to buy into it? Alice did tell us that, as far as she knows, Tyler’s idea about other worlds has merit. Then again, if the old man turned Laser Tag Peter into a would-be assassin, he could’ve just as easily convinced her that he came from a different Earth. Thing is, what’s the point? I think I’m warming up to the concept. But it does come with an aspect of cosmic horror, in accepting that we had teetered close enough to destruction to cause a quantum coin to flip… and a neighboring reality met a horrific fate. One close enough to our own that we felt its shock waves, to put it poetically.

Finally. We’re being called to dinner. This is it, the moment we meet him. If he really does intend to help us, then I’ll have a chance to report on how it went. God, this is so surreal.

…

This is going to take me a while to get down. Two hours have passed since the meal. I thought it’d be enough time to process things, or at least give my body a chance to settle from the constant tremors. It hasn’t, but I’ll still try to type this out with my shaking fingers.

I’ll start by describing the scene.

First of all, living in this submarine has affected his sight, and the dining room was lit by nothing more than candles. Probably not a wise choice aboard a submersible, but who am I to question our kind host? There was also an old record playing at a low volume. Symphony music from the 1950s, I think. No one got around to asking what world it may have come from.

The worlds… Things are more complicated than we ever expected.

Alice guided us to our seats, where rather meager portions awaited. Salads and vegetable medleys, likely fresh from the hydroponics garden, with an entrée of fish I assumed was caught in the ocean. Along with bread and wine. An expensive vintage, Alice assured us. I’m not big on wine, but all of us would end up drinking it. More for our nerves than out of appreciation.

Once we were seated and waiting patiently with little appetite, Alice went to fetch the shadow of the entire Cold Relics saga himself from the next room over. And as he emerged, we… Well, I think it was a mix of emotions. Or that we didn’t know what to think. Some intimidation lingered, but this man was not the borderline demigod we may have imagined over the years.

He was small, frail, hunched over. Needed a cane to walk, with his other hand dragging along an oxygen tank on wheels. He wheezed and sounded weak, but his dark eyes were, perhaps, as judgmental and ruthless as always.

No one made a sound as Alice helped him into his chair at the end of the table, where he tried to settle in and study us. We were very still, and very quiet. None of us wanted to play the first card that might determine how the rest of our stay would go.

“So…” he soon muttered, and cleared his throat after several attempts. “You really are just kids. Or, at least… you’re young to me. You’re all fools, I’m sorry to say. You have been since the start…” Alice helped him take a sip of water, and then he raised his fork and knife to cut into his meal. “Not that I can blame you… The program did tend to result in an obsessive search for answers in its test groups. Another of its many flaws.”

The others still said nothing, but turned to look at me. We had spent so many years on this, and they always considered me some de facto leader.

I worked up the courage to ask, “The memory, ah… device… Right?”

He took a deep breath from his oxygen reserves, and then a sip of wine before he continued. Despite his frailty, he seemed to have just tapped into a stockpile of energy, like something he had saved up over the years in case he finally got an opportunity to tell his story one last time.

“I never created anything. That was all them… A tangle and confluence of ideas for what to do with our second chance. When we arrived here, we’d gone back in time several decades. I’ve read your stories, your theories, occasionally broke into your personal communications with our old software. It was my job to monitor others, and my power to discover what people believed were secrets garnered me a fearsome reputation. But your generation’s propensity to uncover facts thought obscure or hidden using only basic tools, historical precedent, and group organization made secrecy a challenge even for Neptune, which had lived through two Cold Wars. Of course… I’ve been its lone, last-standing sentinel for most of your lives. I had to rely on how well my fellows secured their research and technology… And they left me with an increasingly leaky mess.”

“Prototypes got out into the world,” Jack said. “The warehouse in Ukraine wasn’t demolished, the LIZ-4 station was decommissioned a few weeks too late, and if your train to Denver had left a day earlier… who knows how things would be different. I guess it always felt like we, and everyone else who has looked into Neptune, has done so by barely grabbing onto the thinnest thread.”

“Yes…” He coughed for several seconds, and needed a moment to recover. “Mistakes were made…”

“He may not be able to keep at it for long,” Alice cautioned us. “You must have so many questions. Ask them while you can.”

The four of us looked at each other, in silent agreement. We couldn’t know what all he was willing to tell us, and still weren’t clear on why he was opening up at this late hour in life, to us of all people. Although, if anyone had earned the recognition, maybe it was us.

“Tell us about your world, and how you got here,” Tyler said the words.

“Our world… Was not so different from yours,” he began, and we stopped nibbling on our food to make sure we could hear everything. “In 1983, it ended. On the 26th of September. The chain of events happened… so quickly.”

“Son of a bitch…” I exclaimed. “Tyler, you were right. It was Stanislav Petrov and the false radar alarm.”

“Hey, it’s what made the most sense after I read Isaac’s account of the train ride,” he humbly replied. “But even if that ‘go, no-go’ choice was the deciding factor on which world died or survived… Neptune couldn’t have ended up in our 1983, could they? If not, when did…”

“At another pivotal date,” our host answered. “One which both of our worlds survived. I suppose, then, that an unseen third reality may not have, and this created another branch in our forked road, but I’ve nothing to prove it.”

He didn’t elaborate right away, so it felt like we were being quizzed on history—or he was merely curious if we already knew.

As if she were a timid student, Kate raised her hand half-way and murmured, “Well… there was an earlier close call that wasn’t declassified until a couple decades ago, during the crisis in 1962. October… 27th, I believe?”

“That’s it!” Jack huffed and fell back into his seat. “The depth charges and the Soviet sub. Vasily… Vasily Arkhipov, right? But why would one close call event in 1983 take you back to the day of another, twenty-one years earlier? I mean, we don’t even know how you went between worlds in the first place, so I’m skipping a step, but… When did the divergence start? Because if science is onto something with its many-worlds ideas, then there has to be a point where our realities were unified. Did they begin to drift in 1962?”

“When Neptune was itself still relatively unified, shortly after we arrived here with our foresight and then-superior technology aboard our train… we did studies and measurements, and concluded that our worlds began to head into different directions sometime in the early 1950s. On every date with a nuclear weapon test, we were nudged further apart. History became slightly disparate at times. Books, music, and film had variations. When the tests stopped, so did the growing of distance between our worlds. They ran parallel to each other, yet the subtle distinctions were enough to alter circumstances when it mattered most.”

“Damn…” I pushed out. “Nuclear detonations do that? Is it the amount of heat and energy, briefly in one place? It… what, tears space-time somehow? Or sends out quantum… I don’t know, ripples? Bends some other, unknown layer of reality? There has to be something they do that natural processes don’t.”

“We never settled on an exact cause. And this was something we’d been studying long before our world’s destruction. Where we came from… Neptune was founded in 1964, following the missile crisis and amid the space race. We were a nonpartisan group of scientists and engineers. Our task was to monitor long-term effects of atomic weaponry and fallout, and to plan for a coming war and design the means and methods to survive and rebuild. And… we, ah…

“We were among the few that had access to… and helped design… it.”

“It…” Tyler breathed and crossed his arms. “Sounds like a superweapon.”

“The last superweapon. The mechanism of our destruction, that likely lead to a worse outcome than the predicted models for an otherwise… ‘normal’nuclear war. If there is such a thing. In 1983, it was triggered, just as designed. And our predictions around its secondary effects were proven.”

“You made a doomsday device,” I sighed. “Are we talking Dr. Strangelove here? Dead man’s switch, ICBMs fly everywhere, global inferno?”

“Worse. Something stronger, centralized. Then everywhere.”

“Christ,” Jack exasperated and shook his head in condemnation. “You actually completed Project Sundial. And your group, created to try and prevent, or at least survive nuclear warfare, helped make it.”

“We were convinced into believing it would be the ultimate deterrent.”

“Sundial…” Kate mumbled. “Jack, a refresher? Not quite all-knowing.”

Jack explained so our host could save some oxygen, “The final bomb. Too big to move, but doesn’t matter. More devastating than Chicxulub. The simplest way to destroy the planet. It would’ve been talked about in both our worlds, in the early 1950s. But in his, they built the damn thing after the crisis. We’d have found out by now if it ever existed for us. Hard to hide putting that much fissile material in one place, even if the monster was later dismantled.”

“You kids… have studied,” our host said, actually managing the smallest of chuckles that almost gave him back some humanity. “Not that you’d know what it’s like to have lived in that era. Twice over… But I think it’s time to be honest here and explain the nature of things, so far as we know it. Whether or not true multiple worlds exist, the relationship of our own… was not so simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“Alice, my dear… I need a brief respite. If you would, please.”

He put his oxygen mask back on for an extended time, taking deep breaths with closed eyes for the next several minutes. It may have been a bit unexpected to hear such a grand reveal from someone else, but Alice proved to be just as capable.

“Our realities were not split deeply enough to exist in two fully separated pieces. If that were the case, Neptune’s technology likely couldn’t find a way to detect the other, much less access it,” Alice explained. “Instead, the worlds we know… exist, or existed, in superposition. And when that bomb went off, its waveform collapsed. If not only to us outside observers, then completely.”

“That entire reality, isn’t even around anymore?” Jack replied. “Gah, I’ll never fully understand quantum mechanics. But I get the basic concept.”

“So, both worlds existed as an equal possibility…” I thought aloud. “All of Earth was the cat in the box. And the bomb… opened that box? Decided truth?”

 “And reset time to 1962, apparently.”

The sole survivor of the other world took one more breath, removed his mask, and continued, “We had a working theory about the measurable effects of detonations by the time the final day arrived, and after we calculated the way things were heading, we got into position for a chance at survival, if only for us. We thought that a large enough fireball could tear open a gateway, or invert the surrounding space. We weren’t in command, and would never choose mutually assured destruction over life… but we for damned certain weren’t going down with everyone else if we could help it. So… we took our train towards the bomb. At great expense, the wealthier among us paid for the installation of reinforced tungsten tracks that ran, embedded into the ground, the final few dozen or so miles to the Sundial site in Nevada, hoping they’d survive the heat. As sirens called out across the horizon, we took shelter in a tunnel within a mountain, and waited for the world to end. None of us saw the blast, but we felt it. From the ground, the air, in our bones. Even at our distance, the sound was deafening. All of us had poor hearing from that moment on. And yet, we did live.

“Twenty-four hours go by. Our world is cinders, its sky filled with ash and soot, but the temperature is survivable again, at least while within our train. We crawl forward, lurching towards ground zero, uncertain of how long our doorway, if one exists, will last. As the radiation cooks our external camera sensors and doubts within our ark turn to paranoia and hysterics… There it is. A jagged rift in reality, reaching towards and above the putrefied heavens. Pitch-black, I believe. Dead inside. Though I only saw it through grainy, dying cameras. Never with my own eyes… or I’d have died long ago.

“The tracks into the desert survived. They must’ve turned molten for a time, before reforming into bumpy but usable metal. All around us is glass that was once sand. Murky, obsidian, repulsive glass. As we get closer to the rift, it starts to shrink. It’s closing, or healing. We barely make it through, leaving our reality behind. Perhaps our exit even causes its collapse. Our train finds itself in the middle of nowhere, a vast stretch of nothing that had no special purpose in this world. The wheels are dug into sand, and the armored exterior is radioactive enough to be detected by the military. They find us within an hour. We establish communication while inside, but who would believe our story? Once the exterior is thoroughly cleaned… the long process of the government figuring out what to do with us begins. Cuba had just happened, so everyone is still on high alert. But… in time… after we explain where we came from, show them the scientific achievements we had brought with us, and once we swear fealty to this version of America… Neptune lives again. Even further in the shadows than before.

“And that, my visitors… is the nature of things. And the final time I’ll have to tell this story, if whatever god is out there is so merciful.”

We were all silent for several minutes, aside from quiet whispers to each other. We each needed some time to recover after what we’d been told.

“What was your job, originally?” Jack eventually managed a question. “A group of scientists doesn’t typically need a fixer…”

“I was project lead, and the only one of us who had served in the military. Within months of our arrival, there was a coup, so to say. Fractures were already forming in our circle, but then everyone wanted a great negotiator to represent us instead. Someone who projected strength, as we dealt with a version of our government who would take everything from us if given a chance. A reasonable change, at the time… but I wasn’t prepared to take on some internal affairs role. I was soon forced to turn on my friends. At first, we only imprisoned those who shared secrets without consent or outright betrayed us. But even our new home under Denver, built to keep us contained and hidden, didn’t feel secure enough. I did what they asked. I got rid of problems. And, inevitably, everyone sought my services. Our train bought us a couple of decades, but you just don’t come back from the psychosis that results from seeing a cold war reach such a conclusion.”

“And the metal? That makes the mechanism we call the engine possible? How can it amplify energy, cause hallucinations, and transmit living programs into an electrical grid? It’s central to everything, and we know nothing about it.”

“Our most well-guarded secret. The one element we never fully revealed to any country. We considered it a miracle material… at first. Yet we only ever possessed a total of 312 pounds, with it being impossible to create more.”

“And why’s that?”

“A particular light but durable alloy used throughout the train somehow transmuted, within the several microseconds that were logged onboard when we were somewhere… between worlds. We didn’t even realize what had happened until after the government disassembled every part of the train to study it. They never took measurements of the material. Only we, who had designed the train, realized that the metal had changed. None of our hypotheticals ever reached a conclusion, but most… suggested that the alloy had different properties in our reality, that, for some reason, were not compatible with this one.”

“Something fundamental in the chemical makeup?” Jack postulated. “Part of the theories about multiple universes, is how the very nature of elements and interactions could be different for each one, and that they sometimes wouldn’t even be stable enough to let anything exist. Then again, hm, our worlds are so similar and didn’t branch off long ago, so… Yeah, I have no idea. It must have had something to with the transition itself. Did you give it a name?”

“The alloy itself, no. But we gave the phenomena a broader term. Enigma matter. We could have come up with something more… scientific or elegant, but we knew so little about it. Though it seems to be an unassuming bronze-colored metal, its high density doesn’t agree with its light weight. Its atoms oscillate at an incredible speed, and it can produce a powerful magnetic field with minimal added energy. Even when uncharged, the field is strong enough to compact the structure tightly. The material seems to exist in its own quantum state as well, with some of the math only making sense if certain aspects of the metal ‘bleed through’ to another plane, or dimension… Hallmarks of string theory.”

“Okay…” Tyler murmured. “That’s scary as hell…”

“And the strange nature of the material allows it to do things… nothing else can,” I summarized. “You must’ve all run out of time, before you had the chance to discover its full potential.”

“Probably for the best,” he admitted. “It is able to bend, or even rewrite certain natural laws. The most ambitious of us began calling it ‘dream matter,’ and used it to make their sick little creations… Few had any regard for this world after a year or two, erroneously believing that it had a countdown to the same fate as our own, despite the distinctions we saw all around us. So… we experimented. Often cruelly. Some were accelerationists, who wanted to speed us along by selling designs of nightmarish toys to Soviet-aligned companies in order to terrify parents, like the laser guns and game hardware that came out of our discovery of the rabbit entity and its potential to ‘infect’ neural pathways. Others wanted to soften the blow of an apocalypse and designed a network of memory manipulation broadcast stations across the country, guided by the young man we left under Denver… who we turned into a living computer.”

“Central…” Alice said solemnly. “My mother will be glad to know that someone finally found him. I want to thank the four of you for that.”

“I’m sorry that we couldn’t retrieve what was left and bring him to the surface,” I lamented. “But that place felt like an oven to us after the incident.”

“A security feature of the memory device there,” our host explained. “I’m ashamed to say that I, too, was locked out amid the war within our group when they attempted to resolve their issues without me. It can fool your mind into believing your skin is on fire. After you triggered the fonsanimarum, the facility went into lockdown to prevent any attempts to reverse your condition. You will be unable to return until the RTG completely runs out of power, within a century or so. Still… I didn’t believe anyone would ever venture into that place again.”

“Yeah, well, we paid for it,” Tyler sighed. “What about the lights?”

“Like the ones that we found in the warehouse in Ukraine,” Jack added.

“Our first experiment with enigma matter,” he answered. “A simple thing, really. It has the same heat tolerance as tungsten, so we made light bulbs with it. When active, they stabilize my world again, in a limited area. Hence the radiation they seem to leak. And the hunting machines that exist in the light, maybe the only things still moving on the surface. We can’t be certain who built them—we were never able to even scratch the things. But it’s likely that a war of scarcity continues among the survivors, at least during the brief instances we make the other side of the coin real again. This country wanted nothing to do with the research, so we moved that first experiment to the Soviet Union, who was very interested. The lights operated in the building where they also tested the laser toy. Following the collapse, all of our development in Russia ceased.”

The old man was haggard by this point. As much as we wanted to ask many more questions for a chance to delve deeper into Neptune’s projects while we could, our lives were still at stake. What he had already told us confirmed many of our theories, gave us things to think about for years, should we survive tomorrow. Over our cold dinners, we had to move onto our problem.

“Neptune saw the world as an R&D lab, at worst a playground to test out your ‘miracle metal’ on, yet by the end, it tried to unite its ideas into a project that could either offer people nice thoughts before a missile hit them, orgive the survivors lovely little false memories that hide guilt and trauma… so they might get the push they need to rebuild,” I summed up, scolding ghosts. “How generous of you. People died, and the four of usgot our minds screwed up, just because we happened to pass by a broadcast station in central Florida that was left running for years… and pulled us all the way to that thing in Denver.”

“You need to understand,” the old man said with another cough, “we did not know why our world ended in 1983. No one was left to find the reason. So, we simply assumed it would happen again and were powerless to stop it, as we didn’t know whatto stop. When Judgment Day passed us by in this world… and then nothing happened after another week, a month, and years onward, we no longer knew what to do with ourselves. Then we saw the Soviet Union fall, and the few of us still left by then… We went mad, would be apt to say. Imagine finding out that the end of the Cold War could’ve been that close for us, too. Just a few years off. And yet, we didn’t quite make it. We’d lost everything already, and now, in this place, we were being forgotten and left behind. There was no purpose for us, except for my ongoing task to conceal the truth, to keep it buried, to wait until I also one day joined the billions who once lived in… in my version of events. But now, I realize that maybe… I’ve made it to this point to actually share ourstory. To preserve our history, and be… remembered.”

“But what’s happened to us? And how do we fix it?” Jack demanded the big answer. “That bio-computer we saw in Denver… What did it do to us?”

“Are there really ghosts, competing for control? Souls?” Kate asked.

The old man gave us a slight, but worrying smirk. “Personally, I don’t think those many who burned up in our apocalypse infected you. No, I believe they are some of the millions that survived the war, yet still ceased existing due to the collapse of their very reality. To them, you four represent a possibility. Once you let guilt consume you, or can no longer resist… Well. I can’t speak for that which has no precedent, and I was not on that vile machine’s creative team. They had stopped reporting on their projects by then; I’ve no idea how the reprehensible thing works, or what it was made of. I can only guess on how to undo its harm.”

“But why?” Tyler wondered. “Why make something like that, and try to bring over people from your world, whether they were alive or vaporized?”

“It was Neptune’s final effort. The evolution of all of its previous work. A chamber made of the metal, the programable life form it could create, the lights that could restabilize our reality, and the memory reshaping… It led to one last perversion of science. In 1984, what was left of the group saw a growing possibility that this world would survive, and so…”

I finished for the struggling old man, “You looked into a method to pull people out of your collapsed reality, into this one. As long as they could inhabit someone willing to give up their body. Or who felt… undeserving of it.”

He nodded, and it all became much clearer for us. It was still a vast and complicated story, we didn’t have many of the specifics, and the science and technology at play through Neptune remained beyond us, but at least we had all the basics. As twisted as things were… the pieces finally felt put together.

“He’s done for the day,” Alice said. “Hate him and Neptune all you want. They did inexcusable things… not that two superpowers don’t also have blood on their hands. Get some rest. Think about what you’ve been told so far. You will have another chance to speak with him tomorrow, before the operation.”

“Hold on,” I protested. “This has been enlightening and everything, but we still don’t know anything about what we’re about to attempt.”

“If I get into it, none of you will get any sleep tonight, and it’s important that your minds are sharp and clear tomorrow. All I’ll say is that the only chance you have, is to find the source of the guilt that those things feed on… and get past it. To do so, you will use the onboard equipment to dive into the truth. Our machine is much more advanced than any similar device you’ve used before.”

Turns out, not knowing also didn’t make it easy to sleep.

We stayed up late into the night in our windowless metal tube, and I got the gist of what the others talked about as I wrote and transcribed the audio that filled one of my recorder’s microSD cards, word for word. We don’t trust the old man. No one even got around to asking for his name. But his basic human necessity to leave behind some legacy and get his story out there, after spending so many decades in hiding and erasing both people and the things they did… It’s believable. And if nothing else, we didn’t get to the part of the night where we started testing the “can’t kill each other” idea. He did survive getting shot at by Isaac while on the train, not that it proved anything.

“Neptune dissolved along with the USSR,” I remember Jack saying at some point as I wrote. “But that’s hardly ancient history. There must be multiple people still in the government that worked with or monitored them. Something should’ve leaked by now, and yet, it’s always just been us, Boris, and a few others who have been in the know.”

“Memory manipulation, Jack,” Tyler replied succinctly. “Everyone was forced to forget. Sometime in the 90s, probably, after what was left of Neptune got this sub from the derailed train scrap. The old man’s been hiding here for a long time, probably just waiting to die. How old do you think he is, anyway?”

“A hundred?” Kate surmised. “Though who knows, traveling into another timeline may have messed with him. I still can’t get over just where we are. We never would’ve found this on our own. Alice must’ve been watching us for quite a while. And should have contacted us sooner.”

“He wanted to study us for a bit, I’m guessing,” Jack said. “I still have nightmares about that breathing computer… How in the hell did they make something that uses a living program to ‘inject’ people from a whole different reality, living or dead, into someone else? Who eventhinks up shit like that?”

“Desperate geniuses with too much time, who ignore the only person trying to tell them ‘no,’ I’m guessing. Liam, this might be your last chance to give us any new advice on how to fight that creature, if it shows up tomorrow.”

“I wish I could,” I said with regret. “I ran from it every time it showed up in my dreams. But maybe that is what you have to do. Just… resist. Though I’ve been wondering about what it would’ve done if it ever ‘caught’ me. It’s not like any of the people from ‘next door’ were around for it to replace me with.”

“Maybe it’d just erase your mind?”

“Glad I didn’t find out. But then I went and got an even more dangerous version of it put into all of us. I don’t know our odds tomorrow. I’m expecting the worst. We don’t know what we’re doing, and no one can tell us.”

“This really might be the last time we’re all together like this,” Jack added to my elegy. “For all we know, if any of us don’t make it, none of us do.”

“Hey, come on, guys,” Tyler chimed in, trying his best to sound upbeat and cheer us on. “I get why you’re assuming the worst, but we do have a shot. Maybe the tech does most of the work, and it won’t even be that difficult.”

“The hard part might be forgiving ourselves for whatever we were made to forget,” I reminded him. “We can only guess about what we did. And we’re supposed to move past it the same moment we learn about it? I’ve done shit over the years that left me feeling like crap for weeks, even while knowing that the other person had probably gotten over said thing by the next morning.”

“Yeeeah, but…” Tyler took a shaky breath. “If we go in while reminding ourselves that we aren’t the sum of our mistakes, that our families would want us to keep going and find happiness, all that stuff… Isn’t that good enough?”

“Ty, forced optimism won’t help us tomorrow,” Jack tried to reason.

“Look, I’m just saying that maybe other stories have already prepared us for exploring the subconscious and resolving issues that are buried deep down. I’m talking about stuff like Psychonauts. And Omori. Nobody? At least one of you must have made it to Magicant in Earthbound…”

“Tyler, dude, those are video games,” Kate said dryly.

“Okay, sure. Movies, then. Like a late-night artsy-edgy flick to watch when you’re in high school, couldn’t be made in any year other than 2000. The Cell, remember that weirdness? None of us are serial killers, I think, but still…”

“Ty does have a point, sort of,” I told the others. “We all have done this before, if just a lighter version of it. We’ve been to a stupid amusement park that never really existed, that we still see in our heads and swear was real. Hell, Kate’s been there twice. Tomorrow will be worse, but we are ready. And, corny as it is, we got each other. We’ll work it out, use logic, think our way to our guilt demons and… we don’t try to destroy them. We accept them as a part of us.”

“Nice speech, man. Guess one of us had to give it,” Jack said wistfully.

“It’s not even the process or the rabbit that worry me,” Kate murmured. “Like Liam said, how do we forgive ourselves the same instant we actually learn about what we did? People need time. What if we hate ourselves in that moment so much that… it’s over as soon as we find out? I don’t want to give my mind to someone else, or become some empty shell. No matter what I did, I want to live. I deserve to. Especially after everything we’ve gone through.”

“And it could be that feeling that way is good enough,” I tried to reassure her. “We might have more power over those souls, or whatever they are, than we think we do. We just have to keep fighting against them.”

“Speaking of…” Jack dug into his backpack and pulled out a few pill bottles. “Don’t forget to take your nightly regimen, everyone.”

“And hopefully for the last damn time,” I proclaimed.

“Man…” Tyler huffed, and couldn’t help but get in one final joke for the day. “I better not mess up and get a Johnny Silverhand type stuck in my head.”

Okay, so actually, I started recording audio on my laptop without telling the others once our conversation was going in this direction. I knew our last big chat was coming, and I wanted it to be preserved. Let our story be known, in case not all of us make it tomorrow.

I’m alone in my bunk now. There’s barely any room in here, and a dim screen is my only light source; a window into a library of emails, stories, pictures, and hundreds of assorted notes from across years. I don’t want to stop typing, even with nothing really left to talk about. I’m scared. I won’t deny that. But maybe that’s okay, since it means I still want to survive despite the pain.

So… this might be it. I don’t know who could post this story on the internet, if it has a chance to make it that far. If this is the end, then at least we got so many answers, from a nemesis turned deus ex machina. Believe it or not, I’m smiling through my fear. Because we already have a good ending to the Cold Relics saga. It remains to be seen if our own, personal story gets the same treatment. We will try, my friends.

If I add anything else to this account of events… then you will know that I made it, and I’m free from the decades-long grasp on me.

If not, then… To my niece and sis, I’m sorry for everything. This all began when I was a kid and has haunted me since, but it’s not like I haven’t had a good life along the way. Take care of each other. Remember that I didn’t give up, and that I made friends out of people I never would’ve otherwise met.

Okay. Leaving my laptop unlocked for you.

Good night.

————————–

Well. Here I am again, alive. It didn’t go how I imagined it, the cost was high, and I doubt I’ll ever be the same. It all happened two weeks ago at the time of this writing, giving me time to recover and gather my thoughts.

As always, our aim is to tell a story, and I’ll ask for the first and likely last time to not skip ahead. Experience this with me as I repeat the events circling in my cleared head. I’m still trying to figure out where to go from here, as I write this on a warm and sunny day and reflect on what I’ve lost.

Back aboard the submarine, after a restless night, Alice gathered us for a filling breakfast. Not that anyone had much of an appetite.

“Okay, listen,” she called us to attention. “We’ve already told you that no one has done this before, not at this level. He will first meet with you one more time before we begin in a few hours, after the calibrations are complete. Then you will move into a small room, coated in the material. Similar to the chamber you found under Denver, I’m told. I managed to fit four… let’s call them gurneys inside. You’ll be strapped in so you won’t thrash around. This could take hours, maybe even a full day. What is known, is that reality will distort around you, and memories will become reality. It will be a shared experience and pasts will merge, but your personal truths will also be there, somewhere. As you go deeper into the subconscious to find them, expect time dilation and higher brain activity.”

“Inception rules, then…” I heard Tyler mutter, to no surprise.

“What happens at the deeper levels, though, isn’t known. The memory device you all encountered as kids was designed to mask trauma and guilt, in your cases by using a fake theme park. In fact, since it wastuned to survivor’s guilt following a nuclear war… whatever happened to each of you must’ve hit hard, I won’t lie. And it didn’t matter if the incident that activated Kiddie Land happened before or after you were infected. You’ve all found this out on your own, but he asked me to be very clear. Let’s see, what else did he say… Liam, you can keep recording since your device doesn’t send out a signal. He actually encouraged it. This process and how the hardware involved functions is, after all, the ‘last thing in the world that could pique my curiosity.’ His words. We’ll never see what you do, but we can hear you talk to each other.”

“Um… You said we might be in there an entire day?” Kate fretted.

“Uh-huh. So, yeah… You’ll all need saline bags and catheters. I can help you with one of those things. The other, is up to you. I’m no nurse.”

“Great…” Tyler groaned. “Suddenly I’m okay with handing my body over.”

“Ty, don’t joke about this,” I scolded him. “Come on, it’s not that bad. I put up with it for years, remember?”

“You were in a coma. I’m just saying… A lotof effort to save a life.”

“Think of it like surgery,” Jack suggested. “And it kind of is, really.”

“What about the old man? Does he have any parting words for us?”

“He’s bedridden today,” Alice explained. “Yesterday was the most I’ve seen him talk in a while. But he still wants to meet with you, yes. Now if the necessities I just mentioned make you uncomfortable, you are really not going to like this next part. You’re just lucky that there’s stock of the gas aboard.”

“Gas?” Jack said. “What gas? What all is involved in this?”

Alice took a deep breath and got it out, “I asked him if there was any other way, but he’s insistent that there’s only one method that will almost certainly… assuming any of this works… clear those things fighting for control. Letting go of your regrets should make them loosen their grip, but they will find something else to latch onto, inevitably. To get rid of them completely—and he swears by Neptune’s research—you each… have to die.”

“Oh. Is that all?” Jack scoffed, sounding like Tyler for a second.

“Neptune developed a gas that stops brain activity once inhaled, but is also very good at slowing down biological processes. Five minutes dark should be enough to… reset all of you, basically. Force those ‘spirits’ to move on. And then, you’re all revived via the defibrillators strapped to your chests.”

“Wonderful…” Tyler said with more cynicism than usual, what with Jack intruding on his territory. “Now we’re doing Flatliners, too. What are the odds that this gas even works right? It’s been sitting around for decades, hasn’t it?”

“Still your only option. You started something that terrified even Neptune, to the point where they created an elaborate and desperate process to reverse it. And that they had no chance to test. I got to meet a few of the last surviving members, when I was very young. After they took me from my home. They were tired, scared of each other and the things they made… And maybe dead inside, as the last living remnants of everything they knew. But they were also brilliant. God knows what good they could’ve done, if they didn’t think this world’s fate was written. The laser guns and the video game rabbit—those were just diluted versions of what they were capable of, designed to cause panic and make some quick cash. The chamber aboard this sub is their pinnacle, even greater than the fonsanimarum. I’ve been inside. It’s… otherworldly, and is the biggest stockpile of enigma matter. The room in Denver was only coated in the stuff. The circuit boards and the lights use just a few grams. The last 80% of it is just feet away. When you’re in there and your memories come spilling out, you might as well be in a time machine. When the experience begins, you’ll start to trustthe device.”

“If it’s the only way…” I said reluctantly. “How do we release the gas?”

“Your gurneys have switches. For your safety, I wired them so the room only fills up if two of you hit them. Do so at the end, when you’ve all dealt with your demons. If… all four of you can do so. Other than what I’ve said already, I can’t help you further; there’s no manual. It’s different for everyone, so I can’t tell you how to navigate. If you spend too much time down there… I’m sure your bodies and minds will eventually give out from the stress. If it’s any consolation, you’ve been through so much already, and I honestly think you can pull this off.”

“I’ve been wondering, how deep underwater are we?” Kate asked.

“Just a couple hundred feet. But enough to basically cut ourselves off from the rest of the world. Maybe exist somewhere that lacks the feeling of time. I think that’s a good mindset to have right now. You’re nowhere, and your lives are on pause. Let go and focus on saving them. You’re all going to be sharing memories, so it’ll be hard to hide anything.”

“Have the two of you ever, you know… shared, like that?”

“No, never. I’ve known him for over thirty years, and he just… never tells me anymore about his life than what he shared with you. He used to enter the machine a lot, though. So did I, until what few warm and happy memories I had growing up started to feel stale after so many revisits. It’s amazing, the things it helped me remember about the old house in Alaska I shared with Mom. But at the same time, I realized that our minds try to forget certain things for a reason. He’ll probably tell you all about that.”

“It feels like we’re still too afraid to just ask him…” I quietly said. “What’s his name, anyway? Or just an alias?”

“My bet’s on it being one of Neptune’s moons,” Tyler mentioned.

“Nothing like that,” Alice replied. “It’s actually… strangely, maybe you’d even say, one of the more innocuous names. Oliver. Just… Oliver.”

By this point, I think the big bad that was the “Umbrella Man” had disappeared entirely. Oliver. The type of name a neighbor would have.

“I’ll get your, ah… medical equipment. In the meantime, you should take one of each of these pills,” Alice instructed, presenting two bottles of medicine that probably expired long ago. “One will calm your nerves, the other provides clarity and helps you focus. It’s all we have that’ll make the procedure any easier. Then return to your rooms and take some time to gather your thoughts. It’ll be your last chance to be alone for a while.”

I didn’t write or transcribe anything while getting mentally prepared in my room. I spent most of that time thinking about being on a sunny beach as a kid.

And, no, putting in a catheter is not comfortable nor easy. I’ll never laugh at those old late-night ads for “self-lubricating” ones marketed to seniors again.

Meanwhile, the pills took hold, and I left my room a couple hours later never feeling so confident and ready to move on with my life—which, if we could pull this off, would be everyone’s reward.

Alice led us into the old man’s room near the front of the sub, which we hadn’t seen yet. It was a small, sad, and dark place to live out the rest of one’s life. But the bed, surrounded by medical equipment that kept him alive, did look comfortable. Walls had been put up, as well, to hide the cylindrical nature of the room, albeit at the cost of even less space.

As she helped him wake up and his machines beeped, we took a quick tour of the framed photographs on the walls. Some depicted Neptune’s earlier moments, when they still led well-intentioned efforts. There were a few of Oliver and other high-ranking members meeting with various politicians, officers, and even a couple of presidents over the years. I had to imagine that such images were only taken for those in the group, and never released to any greater public.

It was hard to tell which ones were taken in this world, and which were brought from their original reality. Of course, the younger the people of Neptune looked, the more likely that the pictures were a part of the train’s unfathomable journey. I think any lingering doubt about the truth of things faded when I found the uncanniest of the photos: a seemingly duplicate pair, featuring Oliver shaking hands with Eisenhower. Only, one of the men was twenty years older in the photo on the right; Oliver had met two versions of the same president. Shortly after that, I found perhaps the most mysterious single photograph on the wall.

A sepia-toned and tattered image of a simple farmhouse, maybe once located in the Midwest. The picture looked like it had come from the 1920s and was without explanation. But if Oliver had it hanging among the rest of his prized memorabilia, it must’ve meant a great deal to him. Gut feeling: childhood home.

Kate called us over to the opposite wall, where we gathered to look at a child’s drawing, made in crayon. It was on the back of a Denny’s kid’s placemat which had a copyright date of 1991—placing it as a scribble Alice made when she was eight. She had drawn herself standing alongside Oliver, who had a dour expression, a black suit, and an open umbrella beneath a sun done as a bright yellow circle. With elegant handwriting for her age, she gave him the descriptor of… “The Nice Umbrella Man.” It just humanized him even further. I couldn’t believe I was picturing him and Alice, out with some equivalent of a day pass and sharing a Grand Slam breakfast. I mean, damn. He really is just a guy.

“You really also called him that?” Kate remarked when Alice joined our critics’ circle with a long groan. “You must’ve had a freaking weird childhood.”

“To be fair, he did often use umbrellas on sunny days,” she explained.

“Bright light hurts my eyes…” Oliver wheezed out behind us. “Radiation damage, I always suspected. We all had our health issues…” We turned to see him up in his bed, still visibly frail. It was truly starting to feel like our last chance had arrived at the last possible moment, and that he really was trying to make some amends at the end. “Alice… Thank you for your help all these years. You could have left long ago, when no one remained to stop you. Instead… Well, I know you saw a role in keeping an eye on me, and your mother away. Even so… If not for you, I’d have no one. No one… Let me apologize one last time, for the clerical error that sent your mother to that station. For all the lost years. Regardless of what happens, I ask that you give yourself your freedom. Leave me with what time I have left.”

“Tempting as that is… You still don’t deserve to die alone,” she argued.

“Maybe I do.” He breathed deep from his oxygen reserve and faced us. “I need you four to listen. What you’re about to do… is dangerous, even before you go looking to save yourselves. Treat the past like a powerful drug.”

“We’ve been here before,” Jack said. “I’m not scared of the past. It can’t hurt us anymore, if we don’t let it.”

“Inside the chamber, you’d be wrong. It can make your memories so clear, that they may as well be reality. You will access corners of yourselves that were not meant to be relived. These are no mere ‘remembered memories;’ they will be raw, real things, burned into neurons, undampened by time or emotional growth. You’ve all known terror and regret, yet a healthy mind can cope, and shield. But not in there. The body remembers more than your conscious self knows.”

“Are you saying that our memories are more deeply ingrained than we think?” Kate questioned. “That, what… Times and places that are foggy in our minds… were actually recorded more precisely than science says?”

“Yes. Consider the condition of hyperthymesia, the ability to remember everything in one’s life. Exceedingly rare. Only a few dozen people are known to have it… The truth is, we can all do this, with the right equipment. But it is more curse than gift, to lack the natural process that lets us forget or at least move on. When you see the truths still lurking in your subconscious, coldly objective in nature, it changes you. Changes how you see yourself.”

“So… you could say that there’s no protection from our own memories.”

“It’s like looking straight into the unfiltered core of your being. You will lament every moment—the pain in others you did not see as a child, the things you left unsaid. And it will feel so current and real, that it will seem like you can change history. But you can’t, and you will choke on any vain attempt to do so, while you rediscover trauma as if it were happening for the first time.”

“It’s even worse,” Alice added. “Without those defenses, the excuses you came up with over the years—the rewiring of your memories to make them hurt less… none of that applies anymore. Our minds counter pain by trying to lessen it, and teaching us to avoid it, for better or worse. Don’t linger in the dark places that you have softened or stored away. If you let pain take hold for too long… Well. I’ve been there when using the machine. And the only way out of it was to try and forget all over again. But it’s quicksand.”

“… W-wait, wait, hold on,” I replied, realizing something. “Neither of you have our condition, and you both must have some bad memories of your own. If this thing simply amplifies them, have you managed to conquer guilt?”

“The stupid and small regrets, sure. The hard ones…” Alice shook her head. “But our lives don’t depend on forgiving ourselves. Yours do, and I hope that’s the motivation you need. I want all of you to walk out of the chamber.”

“Go on, then,” Oliver urged us. “With every second, they grow stronger and hungrier. Don’t waste anymore of your time on a dying man. I’ll monitor you from here. One more experiment… Neptune’s very last. May it finally die.”

Alice turned the next bulkhead door’s wheel and the heavy thing creaked open. Fate beckoned us, and we moved forward. But I couldn’t leave Oliver just yet. The old man, so used to judging others or following orders, may have been longing for some judgment of punishment of his own. I could tell that he felt like he deserved it. Maybe I was in no position to do so, but still…

“It wasn’t your fault that your world was destroyed,” I told him.

He exhaled roughly, his throat rugged and his lungs weak.

“No, it wasn’t. But we could have killed yours, and no one should be aware of such potential. Please, don’t let even one more death be on my hands.”

With nothing left to be said, we traversed down a tight corridor and set foot into the memory chamber. It was a large sphere with a silvery, bronze-like sheen and barely visible seams, and just big enough to stand up inside of at the center. I thought it was a kind of odd bathysphere at first; something to be ejected from the submarine and dropped into the abyss.

And it sort of was.

Part II

“Let’s get you tucked in,” Alice said as we eyed the ominous gurneys in the chamber, all resting at an angle towards the middle part of the sphere and leaving very little room leftover. “The straps will keep you from thrashing around and hurting yourselves, but in an emergency, you can still break through them.”

My recorder had a fresh, high-density battery and my largest memory card inserted, with the audio quality set to low to maximize file space. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, but was hoping it would capture everything as it sat in my shirt pocket like a trusty companion. No one’s final moments were going to be uploaded to the internet, I told myself. We’d all make it. We had to.

The mattresses were thin but made of comfortable soft foam. We had pillows, attached with Velcro, and some freedom of movement within our bindings. As forward and curt as she could be, given her strange and captive upbringing, Alice did show genuine care each time she taped paddles to our chests that were supposed to resuscitate us, or dabbed our arms with alcohol and inserted an IV line that would drip a nourishing saline mix into our bodies throughout the day… as our minds were being taxed to their limits.

“Is there anything else any of you need?” she asked us. “Because once I close this door… If I reopen it, all of this has to start over.”

I know we all considered it, but it’s hard to come up with requests when all you can think about is saving your own life.

“Well, then… After I seal the chamber, I’ll charge the metal. Once it starts resonating, you will experience a new form of perception. It comes in intense and terrifying waves, but remember to breathe, and let your mind adjust. Good luck.”

Seconds after we were locked into the room and engulfed in darkness—we didn’t need eyes where we were going—a gentle hum began to emanate throughout the sphere. The transition into a dreamlike world of different rules was instantaneous, and the longest day of our lives began.

Stage One

The first area of our shared memory experience is a realm of gray fog and amorphous shapes, sounds, and distant echoes. The first thing we notice is that we’re together. We can see one another, but not the sphere or the beds we are strapped to. We are able to fully move, or at least our minds make it seem that way, but we’re perpetually a few feet apart, no more or less. We can walk in the world, but we each have pull, so if we’re all trying to go in a different direction, no progress can be made. It’s like a multiplayer video game with four characters on screen, and moving elsewhere is only possible if everyone agrees on it. This takes getting used to, but we have the hang and flow of it early on in our journey. Moving becomes a democratic process, and we eventually do it without a word, often going whichever way makes the most sense in the moment.

The endless land of fog is a world of unrealized ideas and fragmented, vague memories. It doesn’t stress our minds at all; in fact, it’s quite soothing, like an advanced form of meditation, where thoughts can briefly coalesce into something visible or audible, but break apart before solidifying. This is basically the machine running at idle, reading our thoughts and playing them back to us, turning the sphere into a mirror reflecting only the surface level.

Rarely, a regret comes through, more sharply than any other transient memory. We hear one of our voices off in the distance, shouting or cursing a mistake or some action we wish we could undo. They are things that only one of us could give any meaning to for any single instance.

We get our bearings here and learn how to work together, even if there is little to see or do in the fog, as it lacks any noticeable landscape. The recorder doesn’t really pick up anything noteworthy or insightful from us (mostly just reactions), so just as we did, I won’t dawdle on this phase of our travels.

There is no time dilation here, and we soon learn how to concentrate and form stronger, longer-lasting, and more cohesive memories. All at once, it’s like some kind of tuning process is completed, and the fog lifts, revealing shapes that rapidly gain detail and “render” right in front of us. In total, it takes us four hours to fully arrive at…

Stage Two

Our memories begin to come in clearly. However, since there are four of us broadcasting together, we always create an amalgam of the past that never really existed. For the first few minutes, we create our current homes. A condo in one case, a townhouse in another, and two regular albeit small suburban houses, all blended together into a structure that would never be built.

It doesn’t last long. Everything blends and smears like oil paint, and the residence reshapes into something warmer, more nostalgic: our childhood homes, where all those early life moments happened… and it feels like they were recorded by the walls themselves. There are familiar elements everywhere, and the televisions are always the big old tube TVs. Kate spots her old bedroom’s neighborhood-themed play rug. My family’s dining chairs where we gathered nightly to eat together surround Jack’s home’s table. The kitchen seems to mostly belong to Tyler, though the microwave is based off of a piece of junk from my middle school days that I hated trying to get to work. I guess my appliance-based struggle was enough to leave a lasting, scarring impression.

The front and back doors are inaccessible and refuse to budge, but that’s okay, since all that is visible out of the large variety of windows is a solid, endless black. This layer of memories, whether by some obscure law of the machine or our minds’ needs for comfort and familiarity, does not concern itself with outdoor areas, leaving us to explore every nook and cranny to find what forgotten object from our past shows up next. Framed family photos are a dime a dozen, found in every cupboard or sliding drawer designed to hold tapes and CDs. Couch fabric and blankets feature quilt-like structures of fragmented patterns and designs. A Minnie Mouse ear here; 80s-style rocket ships there.

Closets are full of our favorite toys, and the bathrooms, similar to those horrible dreams that revolve around toilets or lack thereof, always have some quirk that would make them unusable or a nightmare to use. The house is ever-shifting, either in subtle ways, or in larger strokes in the places where you aren’t looking. Close one door, and reopen it a moment later to find that a completely different room has replaced what was just there previously.

We try to give little tours of our childhoods like we’re having a quantum sleep-over together, but it’s difficult to hold onto any place or thing for long. I’ll find a beloved action figure, only to have it change to something from Tyler’s toy box before I can show it to him. Still… the morphing museum of our pasts never seems threatening. We feel safe, even swaddled by our collective halcyon days indoors. But we know that because it’s safe, it’ll never provide us answers.

Despite that, we spend some time here further adapting to the system and testing its limits… if any exist. We grab photo albums and look through the 4 x 6 pictures, which amaze us with the clarity and accuracy of the images stuck behind plastic sheets. Sometimes they aren’t even photographs that exist in the real world, but rather snapshots of random other moments throughout our lives.

We try out a television and flip through the channels, catching snippets of classic episodes and beloved Saturday morning cartoons. Each one plays out exactly as we remember. If it’s a show or commercial we’ve seen over and over, or if more than one of us knows how an episode goes, it plays out in an even more focused manner; the audio isn’t as muddy, or the animation is less janky, or the characters seem to speak with more confidence. The experience is like the most lucid dream you’ve ever had, and one in which you’re able to recall, without much effort, every detail of a show you haven’t seen in decades.

The house isn’t airtight, though. The contagion in our minds leaks through the cracks, even on this level. In the albums, the red figures sometimes replace loved ones. They appear on the television, as well, in the background or as the extras, including the animations. We quietly acknowledge the intruders in each instance, but don’t let them scare us, in case doing so gives them more power over us. We know they’re lurking, and could even come after us once they figure out what we’re doing, but we can’t afford to lose confidence.

There is also a moment while we’re paying a visit to the kitchen where Jack stares at the oven. I might be the only one to notice it, and he doesn’t really seem aware of it. I mean, we’ve all been staring at whatever stands out in this place, but that ominous gaze… I wonder if a buried part of him is stirring.

Three of us feel done with the house at about the same time, but Tyler appears stuck, and delays our attempts to get to the next level. At first, we give him some time in the bedroom built from our memories to experiment with old video game consoles and titles. We look on with mild interest for a short while to see how our minds present a complex form of media, and each new cart he pops in and boots up can replicate stages with a scary degree of accuracy. We remind ourselves that this is a brain or two, depending on who else played each game, generating controls, physics, sound, and artwork purely from a deep memory.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Tyler says at one point as he’s speed-running some of Super Mario World. “No… it shouldn’t be this sharp. I’ve played a lot of games through the years in my dreams, and they always go off the rails. This… this is even more real than just how a pro would play it out in their heads, like, before a Games Done Quick marathon or something. It’s unnatural. How do our minds hold onto so much more information than we think they’re capable of?”

“Alice and Oliver were right, it seems,” Jack tells him. “This machine lets our minds focus. It’s like… looking at memories through a corrective lens.”

“What are you so scared of, Ty?” Kate asks him. “The past can’t be changed, but we already survived whatever’s back there, remember?”

“I’m not sure if I want to know what I did… If it’s the absolute truth, and there’s no way to cushion the fall…”

Before he can finish the thought, the TV screen flashes for a frame or two. We all see it: Fun Bunn, in pixel form from his video game at Boris’s. He’s already leaking in, looking at us through the seams. Tyler rips the power cord out of the console and steps back, more disturbed than the rest of us.

“You all saw that too, didn’t you? Liam, you’re the only one here who even played that game, and I knew right away what that was just now…”

“Then we aren’t all that safe here, either,” I try to reason against his now apparent hesitance to proceed further. “So… we might as well keep going.”

He nods, our first sighting of the rabbit appearing to snap him out of his clinginess to caution. Before we make an effort to go deeper, he feels something under his foot and reaches beneath the shoes he imagined for himself to grab onto… a pebble. A simple, tiny rock. It’s unthreatening, but the fact that it’s the only thing we’ve seen in the house that is found outside is a little disconcerting.

Knowing he needs to continue for himself and the rest of us, Tyler takes a breath, composes himself, and gives us that look of reassurance signaling that we’re ready to move on. I’ve no idea if it’s some conscious effort from everyone, or if the machine is just better tuned to our minds at this point or vice versa, but the way into the next level of our memories suddenly becomes obvious.

We return to the front door and find that the knob now turns. The house, which sheltered us with warmth and familiarity despite being surrounded by darkness, loses its luster. It turns gray and old, already forgotten as an indefinitely vast landscape builds up all around our perception.

It feels like we’ve spent about an hour in the house, but the real-time audio on my recorder for this stage lasts only half as long. And, yes, this means that our words come out about twice as fast, unlike how we perceived them in the moment. It will only get weirder from here.

Stage Three

All of us grew up in Florida suburbs, so the neighborhood we step out into feels more cohesive than the house amalgam. It also shifts more slowly and less noticeably. The sun has returned, and there is a pastel hue to the washed-out trees, cars, and sidewalks, like we’re a bunch of kids again viewing the world as larger and more fantastical than it really was. The laser tag gang lived in a place just like this as well, long ago. I’m kind of surprised they never show up.

It’s more than just our neighborhoods, of course. This land is where the bulk of our memories reside, the central hub. We visit old schools, our favorite closed restaurants, the buildings where our parents worked, video rental stores, shopping malls, and the homes of childhood friends long gone without a proper goodbye. There’s an aura of hyperrealism here, an ego and grandiosity to the memories, but that’s just how we see our lives; a storybook of personal eras and hyped-up perceived achievements that are small in the bigger scheme of things. The truth is here… it’s just colored by a tinted lens. And a little of that is okay, I think. We all have a need to see our lives as something unique and special.

The wider world that stretches outward forever and generates endless locales from our past is a familiar playground; it is a steadier version of where we go in our nightly dreams. We can’t fly, control time, teleport, or (hopefully) get chased by monsters here, but the stage is the same. While the outside carries with it a modest sense of danger and the unknown, unlike the sanctuary of the house, we begin to wonder if there are pieces of our truths to be found here—hints that could unlock fragments of what has been sealed away, which could maybe speed us towards our dreaded destinations. Unsure of how to go deeper, we take our time and study each building to see if they help us feel anything.

Memories are tied to locations, after all. Even deeply buried ones could let out a whisper if we remember as many places we’ve been to as possible. The suburbs stretch out into an imaginary city, and we’re soon blowing past movie theaters, department stores, mini-golf courses, skating rinks, and our schools. We remain tied to reality and physics, but there aren’t any rules that prevent us from getting into a car and going down empty streets while ignoring red lights.

And on the subject of the color…

The featureless red entities are everywhere. They wander in crowds, crawl out of storm drains, stand motionlessly, and are curled up on sidewalks and park benches. We accept their presence, choosing not to waste time being scared of them. They may have replaced people from our memories, but on this level, they seem aimless, harmless. Either unwilling to attack us, or so confused that they have no idea where they are, or can’t understand their manner of existence.

After what feels like hours, we’ve each found our “spots;” the areas that tug on a guilty string way down in our gut. Our reactions are all alike when we stumble on the places: a sudden choking sensation and a tightness in our chests that makes it hard to breathe. Answers remain elusive, but by the end of this stage, three of us have an idea of where things are heading. A general sense of direction that gives all but one of us time to brace for truths waiting elsewhere.

Kate’s moment arrives first, when we drive by a hospital that visibly affects her right away. She sinks into the passenger seat and shows the precursors of a panic attack. I stop the car and give her time to process.

“Something unfinished…” she murmurs. “That’s what I’m feeling. Like I did an awful thing, and forgot about it before I had a chance to make it right.”

I want to ask her about the hospital, and if she experienced a major tragedy in one beyond the incident I already knew about. But I stay quiet, out of concern for upsetting her further. She says nothing for a while as she undoubtedly thinks up any number of scenarios involving her older sister.

For myself, the feeling also hits hard and unexpectedly. I frequently have dreams where I’m driving down miles of highways and getting lost in unfamiliar places, but they annoy more than frighten. In this world, though, a sudden turn onto a long stretch of interstate just to see where it might lead sends a sharp pain through my stomach, and I hit the brakes on the empty asphalt.

I know right away that my guilt has something to do with the road, and that likely meant it was tied to the accident that cost me my mother. I’m oddly thankful that it’s familiar, though. If it had come at me as a complete surprise from somewhere that I had no remembered connection to, then I’d be worrying even more, about unknown possibilities.

From the backseat, Jack can see my frozen expression in the rearview and reminds me that I have no obligation to go in this or any direction.

“In fact…” he adds, “I should just rip the Band-aid off and see if my lost trauma already has to do with my own life tragedy. There may be a pattern.”

I turn the car around, and he has me go to the “east.” Granted, there are no real directions in this world, but as a kid, he associated his grandparents’ house with the east, since they lived on that coast of Florida. So, we all think about the east coast—and it works, what with this being a universe of our making. We move away from the city and towards sandy streets and dune grass. A salty breeze and the smell of the sea permeate the air.

Once we’re driving by fancy seaside homes along an endless beach, Jack begins to study each residence and becomes more tense by the second.

The sight of one house in particular then causes him to start breathing so rapidly that I’m afraid he’ll pass out. He can’t explain the feeling or describe the memory that caused it, but now he knows how Kate and I felt. That debilitating fear, a sense of helpless panic, an unexplainable self-hatred… like we had failed people in our past in the worst way yet don’t understand why.

They have no faces, but red figures seem to stare at us through the windows of homes. Jack asks me to “get us out of here,” and I gladly oblige.

And later, just when it seems like Tyler won’t discover his own spot, it finds him as mine did with me. While we’re heading back to the city we made together and passing through suburbs, he lets out a gasp and a weak, “no.” I hit the brakes and we look around, but the only notable thing among all of the nondescript homes is a simple plot of green: an unassuming park, with an old playground made of wood that you could still easily find in the 1980s.

“Liam, keep going,” he pleads quietly. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Do you remember this park?” I ask him.

“I… I don’t know. Maybe.” He refuses to look at it again, his eyes now firmly on the mind-made car floormat. “Please, just get me away from here.”

By now, we can all empathize with needing a breather after feeling like our lives are in danger, so I hit the accelerator of our dream mobile, with no direction left to investigate.

I meander for a while, turning down whatever empty streets I feel like with no need to obey traffic laws. All around us, the city becomes quieter and darker, gradually turning cold, gray, and dead like the house before it. Whether it’s the machine detecting that there’s nothing more to be found here, or our brains telling us it’s time to move on, this stage of our journey concludes after four real-world hours that felt much longer. The time dilation has become very noticeable, and it’ll only get worse.

The transition to a deeper level seems forced on us, and yet also denied. The city disappears around us when we’re not looking; it takes a split second for an endless dark void to replace wherever our eyes don’t touch for even just a moment. Eventually, the road itself transforms into a parking lot that stretches to the horizon. Getting the message of what to do next, I park the car. When we step out, the lot shrinks down to a single space under a flickering lamp. Structures pop up all around us, and suddenly encircling our VIP spot is…

Stage Four

Kiddie Land. It doesn’t come as a shock.

While this generic, organically programmed theme park was injected into all four of us, only Kate and myself had actually visited it directly like this before. And for this version, it was how it might have existed at midnight, past closing. No machines run, no lights are on to cast shadows. It’s a dark and silent tomb where not even the entities roam; the shapes in the form of attractions and rides serve no other purpose than to put a block on our progress.

“I know this place,” Jack is the first to speak, as we approach one of the eight entrances, all radially mirrored like the rest of the park. “This is what’s been sitting around in our minds since we were kids. Persistently…”

“It’s going to stop us from going further,” Kate summarizes. “That’s its purpose. We’ll have to find a way past.”

“And… and the rabbit?” Tyler worries.

“It doesn’t need to chase us anymore,” I tell him, feeling that it’s true.

We roam around the cursed park that was never any more real than the photographed “shadow box” that served as a template, and was left to rot in some woods in Pennsylvania. We’re no longer afraid of it. More than anything else, it serves as an annoying locked door we don’t know how to open.

But it’s worse than that, we come to realize. The nostalgic childhood magic Kiddie Land once emanated is long gone, as it’s really nothing more than an immoveable block of dead concrete hindering progress. If there’s a way forward, or deeper, then we need to find a trick, a loophole.

We spend about what feels like an hour to us wandering Neptune’s theme park, looking for doors that can be opened, things that seem out of place, or any sort of hint on how to ‘operate’ this place. We agree that answers won’t just present themselves by walking around enough. We need to be clever and try things we wouldn’t have thought of at first, find a method to defeat the function of the mental barrier. But how? By doing something physical?

“No, it couldn’t be that,” Jack says as we sit about in the main plaza of the park, either on the ground or the benches. He looks at the nearby statue—a bronze rabbit holding balloons—and continues, “What do you want to do? Dig? Tear down walls? None of this is real. It’s not programmed that way.”

Tyler is scraping at the bricks with his fingernail, or more accurately thinking he is and actualizing it into a thought process. Kate is miming taking photos of the park with an invisible camera. And I’m just staring at the statue, wondering if it might move even just slightly. Unable to rely on the machine for a solution, we’re all waiting for the eureka moment to come to us.

“Ty, wasn’t the park on fire in your memory of it?” Jack questions. “Think you can maybe just burn it up for us?”

         “Sorry. Forgot my matches,” he grumbles back.

I look around, taking in the variety of buildings and other forms once more. An amusement park… Even the most basic and disappointing ones remain places designed to transport you elsewhere… Finally, a thought occurs to me.

“Guys, think about the theme parks you’ve been to. All the real ones,” I tell them. “And the little worlds they create. Oliver wasn’t involved with making Kiddie Land, and he’s probably never even been here. He couldn’t explain how it works. He believes it ‘blocks memories’ as much as we do, but… how?”

“What are you thinking, Liam?” Jack asks me.

“I mean, is the park, like, sitting on top of some entrance to our deepest memories? Does it have a random door to them that needs a key? Or do we have it all wrong? What if it’s more… disguise than barrier?”

“What, like… Kiddie Land is our memories, but in a different form?” Kate wonders as I try to come up with the right way to convey my idea.

“I’m saying… A theme park would be the best, most adaptable place you could design to work with the most amount of people. If you create a miniature, infantilized version of the world, you can put inside of it nearly anything. Little houses, cartoon characters, giant candy, castles, vehicles, nature… And if a fantastical thing isn’t what you need to obfuscate a memory, you also have the practical. Restaurants, shops, information booths… Guys, I could be overthinking this or completely wrong, but what if our truths were here all along?”

“Then what do we do to find them?” Tyler asks. “Oh, right… we already got our hints. If we follow the breadcrumbs, see what affects us the most…”

Often the one to take the lead with a brave face, Jack pulls us along in a search for some place that calls to him like the beach house did before. At first, the search feels aimless and hopeless, and it seems like my idea is in doubt. Until he suddenly stops in front of a haunted house ride. The Victorian façade of the attraction has little relation to his grandparents’ place, but the concept of a house with unfinished business seems to speak to him. And if you want to get figurative, I think so does the idea of being taken for a ride that you’re powerless to change, like a small kid experiencing a tragedy.

Jack steps up to the tunnel entrance and stops, petrified, his breaths coming in short and harsh. A veil of unnatural darkness separates the rest of Kiddie Land from the trauma just past the ride entrance. We all say the things you tell a friend: that he doesn’t have to do it, we can give him time, someone else can go first… He stays resolute despite his fear.

Although we return to the theme park and its rules with time, the bulk of our stay there ends after three hours on a real and severely dilated clock.

Stage Five

We step into a living room. The brown carpet is shaggy, the couch has a floral tapestry, and there is a coastal theme to the lamps and wall décor. It looks just how one would expect a retired couple’s Florida home to, in the early 90s.

Jack, like the rest of us, watches as a much younger version of himself is doted on by fairly young grandparents. The memory comes in clearly despite having been sealed away for decades, although there is, and will be for all of us, a strange shimmer and jittery effect on the edges of every object and piece of furniture. Odder still is that large sections of each room we visit fade in and out as we explore the small residence. It’s as if the memory is trying to hide again, or Jack’s mind is unstable here, his past tenuous or on the verge of fragmenting into thousands of pieces. We are somewhere we aren’t supposed to be.

We still walk through the house together, saying nothing and letting the moment happen—giving Jack time to see and absorb everything the deepest recesses of himself had recorded. While sunlight pours in through the windows, we find him watching television with his grandparents, showing fascination with his grandfather’s tackle box full of lures, and learning painting techniques from his grandmother. He desperately wants to play with the ceramic tchotchkes on a shelf, but restrains his young hands. He is rewarded for his good behavior with a plate of warm cookies. The best he’s had in his life, he whispers to us.

“Jack, is this all… real?” I ask him. “What are we seeing?”

“Lost memories, as they come to me. I’m not sure why they’re playing out like this, though. Maybe my mind needs a moment to process them?”

“So, we’re seeing you remember them in real time.”

“This must’ve been the last day I was… I was with them, before the fire. I had forgotten all of this. But something’s wrong…” he says, as we watch the three sit down for a meal. “My parents should’ve picked me up by now. I shouldn’t be having dinner. That would mean that I spent another night at…” his voice fades as the memory transitions again. “No… No, I couldn’t have…”

We watch in quiet anticipation as a little Jack, now in his pajamas, is seen sneaking into the kitchen. It must be late at night, past his bedtime. He fumbles with the fridge door and takes out a carton of eggs, which he nearly drops, but doesn’t seem to know what to do with them.

“Stupid, stupid kid! Why are we so impulsive when we’re young? Always doing random crap we can’t explain. Please, tell me you didn’t…”

“What’s he doing?” Kate wonders. “Jack, what were you doing?”

“I… I think, trying to impress Grandma… Got the dumb idea in my head to try and make more cookies… Probably felt bad for eating too many, wanted to surprise her… God, it belongs in a sitcom. But instead, I must’ve…”

We feel the dread and horror rising in our throats as young Jack grabs a footstool and goes to the oven to turn it on, leaning over to do so. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and is reaching for the gas stovetop’s dials instead. His much older self grimaces and wants to look away, but can’t.

Tyler chokes out, “Jack… You were a kid… We all make dumb mistakes, and…” But he trails off when Jack’s grandmother emerges, lets out a little disbelieving laugh and shakes her head, and returns Jack to bed with the promise of more cookies in the morning.

We breathe a sigh of relief, as if the end result of this night could still be changed. Even so, at least for a moment, Jack must feel much lighter.

“I… I didn’t even touch the knobs,” he murmurs.

“What do you think happened this night?” I ask him.

“I thought I was back home already, so I don’t know! Not… not yet.”

We follow Jack following himself to his grandparents’ guest room, where he is tucked in and appears to stay put this time. His brief reprieve is short-lived, and he begins to stress out again as we watch his young self begin to drift off into a sleep that will keep anymore memories from forming, until…

A fade to darkness moves us right to a sudden wakefulness once more, and we’re as startled as little Jack upon entering a vision of hell. It sounds like the only working smoke alarm in the house is downstairs, and the boy has slept through most of a fire as it became an inferno. His own coughing is what wakes him up, under a canopy of smoke. His room glows orange as flames tear through the wood floor, threatening to drop his entire bed down into an oven.

With no idea why this is happening, he screams for his grandparents for help, but can barely get a word out as his dry throat constricts and he wheezes violently on the smoke. We all feel the terror of the memory as Jack does, and relive the moment second by second. It’s like we don’t even know if he survives, despite being right next to him as we witness his locked-away trauma.

Just as embers begin licking at his blankets, his bedroom door is broken open by an axe, and a creature wearing strange, heavy clothing and gear enters the room. The boy, unsure if he’s in a nightmare, cries out as he is taken by the firefighter and rushed downstairs. His perception of reality in the moment is so disorienting, that even the memory device can’t bring it into sharp focus.

He is brought out onto the lawn, where other firefighters blast water into the home and their truck’s swirling red lights cast the night into crimson. Even in his weak and confused state, Jack can be heard wailing for his grandparents, for them to be saved, pleading—and his words carry over to him as an adult.

“Save Grandma… Save Grandpa…” both of them mutter out weakly.

But it’s no longer possible to go inside. Rescuing Jack was a big enough risk, and there’s nothing more that can be done. The house groans and begins to collapse. Paramedics approach young Jack, and he’s seen enough. The memory ends, and we find ourselves back in Kiddie Land. The haunted house has vanished and nothing has replaced it; we stand in a vacant lot.

Needing some time, but as far as we can see in no danger of letting his guilt overwhelm him, Jack takes a seat on a nearby bench. Of course, we can’t even give him a moment alone, since our distances are forcibly always equal.

“I… I was starting to expect much worse for a second…” he finally pushes out. “Guys. It’s so weird, what this place did to me. I seriously had… no idea I was there that night, at all. The way I used to remember it, was just sort of… finding out that they died in a house fire. I must’ve had inhalation issues for a while. PTSD. Parents comforting me… But all of that was simply… gone.”

“Neptune’s tech seems to do everything possible to erase guilt, even removing any association to it…” I surmise. “For the record, what, ah…”

Jack answers before I had asked the question, “It must’ve been simple. Misplaced guilt, really. But that doesn’t matter to the machine that did this to us. It doesn’t care if we’re kids who don’t know how blame and the world works yet. Shame is still shame, right? I… must’ve felt like if I hadn’t been there that night, that they would’ve been saved. Like I took their place. Now, though, my mind goes instantly to reason, and says they would’ve made that trade, gladly. That it wasn’t at all my fault I was there. Hell, the cause of the fire was always inconclusive, and I didn’t see any explanations in that place. Bad things just happen sometimes. Finding the reason wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“So… are you going to be okay?” Kate asks worriedly.

“Y-yeah… Look, I’ve already been working through this my whole life, even while not knowing I was there that night. If that memory had never been blocked in the first place, I would’ve overcome it, too. And it’s strange to look at the bright side right now, but at least… being here, in this machine… I just got one more day with my grandparents, and it came in clearly and emotionally. I’m heartbroken about it all over again… but that’s not the same as guilt.”

“Then, well… congrats, man,” Tyler says with shaky smile. “I guess that’s one down, and the rest of us have seen that we have a chance.”

“Not free of those things, yet, though,” Jack replies and stands with some newfound enthusiasm. “Night’s just getting started. Who’s next?”

Hardly any time later, Kate is staring at the park’s medical station. Which may have been a little ironic, considering that if Kiddie Land were ever real, it probably wouldn’t have even had one. The tiny clinic is the closest thing we have here to a hospital, and Kate already knows where this is heading.

“It’s always about Madeline,” she mutters and turns to us. “Whatever’s in there, it won’t be a surprise. It’s not like I ever thought there was something I could’ve done to save her, but how I saw my sister during those last weeks… I still have those memories. I remember the jealousy, when she was getting all the attention. So… it’s not going to be good. Maybe… maybe I can forgive myself without even seeing it?”

“You know that’s not going to work,” I tell her, not unkindly.

“Figured. All right, then. Fine. I already went through phases as a kid where I hated myself. What’s a little more of it, for old time’s sake?”

Not giving us a chance to offer any reassurances, we follow Kate through the glass doors and step into the darkness beyond them.

A room in a children’s hospice, also in the early 90s. A rare establishment at the time, and the last kind of care center most people would ever want to be in. The room is spacious and comfortable, with drawings and colorful posters on the walls. A young girl fidgets in one of the chairs as her parents speak with their bedridden elder daughter, still just a child at eight years old.

This… is going to be hard for us to watch. Even Kate, who must’ve been somewhat hardened against such a sight given her prior experiences, is clearly distraught just moments after our arrival and doesn’t know what to say.

She can’t hear her parents or sisters’ words, so she has no memory of them. All she has is herself at six: impatient, impulsive, selfish. Not too different from most any child at that age, and nothing that can’t be forgiven.

“I hated this room…” she eventually gets out. “And the way the staff treated her. And me. Preparing us both with smiling faces, when they got to go home each day without feeling like their world was ending. I didn’t think I’d ever have to come back here, and I tried for years to shove it all down into some deep abyss. Look at me…” she says with a razor-sharp self-loathing.

No platitudes will reach her in the moment, so I ask a simple question, “Do you remember any of this so far? I mean, before now.”

“No. Mom and Dad never got quite this close to her like this on every other visit.” Kate goes over and tries to give Maddy’s little wheelchair a push, finding it to be immovable. “Anything could happen. Like in Jack’s memory… this day is new again. And probably the actual last time I ever saw her.”

Kate’s parents get up and leave the room, barely noticing her. She sits in the oversized chair a bit longer, kicking her dangling legs in boredom.

Madeline then calls to her weakly. Her expression annoyed more than anything else, Kate jumps down and shuffles over to her big sister, who holds out her hand. Kate has no interest in taking it, or offering any sympathy.

“Please, tell me one of your stories again…” Madeline requests. “Or make up a new one. You have such a good imagination.”

Little Kate shakes her head and replies coldly, “No point anymore.”

“How can you be so mean? I thought we were best friends.”

Kate shrugs. “You won’t remember. Your medicine makes you forget.”

“I’m not taking that medicine anymore, Katie…”

“Are you sure you’re gonna die? You been like this forever now.”

“I’m sorry,” Madeline says, as if she has anything to apologize for. “I know you feel ignored. But I still want to spend time with you. Please, Katie.”

“Um… Maybe tomorrow. You look too tired today. Okay, bye-bye.”

Our Kate reaches out to her younger self as she just about skips out of the room, the memory of Madeline fading behind her. But there’s no way to grab onto her, no telling her to stay. As this is a locked-away memory playing out in full, the scene transitions to just outside of the room, where little Kate is shown playing her Game Boy instead of giving her sister even just a bit of her time.

“I was… horrible to her…” Kate sputters out. “I always knew it was bad, but… this was the real last day she was alive. My last chance to…”

“Kate…” I murmur back and try to think up any words that will help.

“Just, don’t. I don’t deserve any pity. I was cruel. A self-centered brat. I was never sure of my last words to Maddy, but that was worse than I expected.”

“You were a kid,” Tyler says to her. “Kate, I was the same way with my grandma when she was in the hospital. We hadn’t learned yet how precious time is, we get bored… You didn’t do anything no one else has done before.”

“But she was my sister! I owed her at least the bare minimum, didn’t I? All the times she was nice to me, taught me things… And that’s what I give her in return?” She suddenly struggles to breathe and clutches at her chest. “Even at her funeral, I still wasn’t sure what happened to her. W-when… When my mom told me flatly that she was never coming back… I think that’s when I lost this memory—because it became a guilty one. Maddy must’ve hated me in her last moments, when I wasn’t even there. A scared little girl, and I wasn’t there to so much as hug her. Eight years old… Remember being that young, being afraid…”

We watch as a pair of gnarled claws reach out from the floor, rippling the tile like it was water. They wrap around Kate’s ankles and begin to pull her down, straight through into whatever lies below, and she doesn’t fight back.

“Kate!” we call out.

“You know that’s not how she would’ve thought about you at the end!” I exclaim, though it’s impossible to know the truth. “One mistake doesn’t define anyone! Me and my sister fought all the time, and usually forgot about why the next morning. She would’ve forgiven you, Kate.”

Tyler adds, “You didn’t realize it was the last day you’d have. Look, kids are stupid and fickle, and see the world in a different way.”

“You said it yourself,” Jack gets his take in, “that she had been sick for a while. Time goes so slowly when we’re young. Do I really have to say something cliché here for you? Like how she’d want you to keep going? It’s true, though. And if you think you deserve some kind of punishment, we’ve all already gotten our share. This was the distant past. Whoever you were back then…”

Kate closes her eyes and takes a breath. The rabbit’s claws lose their grip and slide back under the floor. She lets out a large, disgruntled sigh and looks at herself playing her game. Disappointed like a parent would be… but not angry.

“You messed up again, kid…” she grumbles. “But I guess you’ll get used to it and brush yourself off. Always what Maddy told you to do…” After another exhale, she asks, “Is this how it’ll keep going? It’s like we’re stuck in a coming-of-age movie, taking turns lifting each other up. So corny. Huh. It works, though, maybe as long as the damage isn’t too bad. Sorry… Maddy,” she looks into the darkness of the room, “I should’ve told you a story. I have a hell of a one now.”

“How… did you two forgive yourselves, just like that?” Tyler questions.

“It probably helps when you don’t really have a choice,” I answer.

“Nah, it’s not that easy. Self-loathing is an old friend of mine, too. Only thing that ever helped me was, yeah, the concept that everyone else typically forgets about dumb things you do pretty fast, since they’re more concerned with their own lives. Still never kept me from adding one more screwup file to a metaphorical heavy cabinet full of them, that I browse every freaking day.”

“Well, Ty, then you’re lucky you have us. We all have shit days, but we’re here now, doing this insane… whatever this is. So far, we’re figuring it out.”

“Brave words, Liam, but it’s still your turn next.”

“Right…” I mutter, realizing there’s no way Tyler is volunteering.

Kate’s world disappears around us, and we’re back in another vacant lot. Kiddie Land is holding on strong, despite only two of us still supporting it.

I already know what kind of attraction would be hiding my truth. It came to me back when we were going into Jack’s haunted house, and my association with the open road meant my guilt could only be about one thing.

The park was a solid, programmed thing; it didn’t bend for us, couldn’t be altered. That meant I’d have to find my ride the traditional way, by walking and looking. My dread actually began to turn into mild annoyance as I tried to find it. I already hated finding my way around places like this in the real world.

When I finally did locate it, my legs locked up. The bumper car rink. Kind of a demented fairground classic, when you think about it. Encouraging kids to ram into other vehicles. The others, though, looked at it with some nostalgia.

“Are these things even around anymore? I can’t remember the last time I saw one,” Jack remarked. “This must be you, Liam.”

“I really wish it didn’t have anything to do with the accident. I mean… it’s played out in my head a million times, and I’m about to learn that it happened differently. Worse. It’s going to be my fault somehow. No escaping it…”

My friends look at me, trying to think up the next round of encouraging remarks. We know by now that there is nothing else to really be said until after we each witness our personal sins. And how long will the power of words last?

We step onto the rink, the vehicles vacant and scattered around. Nothing happens at first, and it isn’t like there are any doors or interiors here. Tyler, whether out of curiosity or a genuine guess at what to do, slides into one of the cars, where he looks up at us with a shrug.

It feels stupid, and it is, but the rest of us end up in the other nearby cars with our hands on the wheels. It works; the rink itself disappears, and we find ourselves going around seventy on a typical, flat, and long Florida highway.

“This is one way to relive a memory,” Jack shouts, and then realizes he doesn’t need to, since there isn’t any wind noise. “Oh, that is weird.”

“Feels like being on a modern theme park ride, that just uses video screens,” Kate adds, reaching out with a hand. “No wind, either.”

I squint and see it ahead, past other mostly 80s and early 90s vehicles that my brain had managed to remember: my family’s old car, speeding along and in a rush to get us home after a long day at Disney World. On their own, the bumper cars speed up and get alongside it on the left. It was no minivan or SUV, nothing that could take much of an impact, so the windows are low enough to let us see in. Because of course. The apathetic memory machine “wants” to show me what happened as clearly as possible.

My younger sister, barely past toddlerhood, is in her protective car seat. Mom is driving, taking over for Dad who usually did most of it but was, today, exhausted after keeping us kids in line at the happiest place in the world. And the kid version of myself… I can already see the impatience, or disappointment.

“Liam, did you have a good time at the park?” my mom asks me a question I wish she hadn’t, her voice coming in crystal clear.

I tensed up upon hearing it. I had so rarely listened to it since this day. I tried to avoid the old home movies, just so I wouldn’t have to be reminded that she was a real person, in my life one moment and gone the next. I know; maybe my awful, shut-it-all-out method of dealing with grief over the years should be my real source of guilt.

“I didn’t get to go on Space Mountain…” small Liam complains, making me want to punch him.

“I know, buddy. The line was just too long. Next time, we’ll visit that ride first, okay? Think of all the other ones you got to go on.”

At this point, I go into a shameful, cringey, and incoherent little kid rant that I won’t be transcribing. It’s mostly about how some other kids in my class got to go to the theme parks much more often than we did. Was I really such a little pain in the ass? I became so quiet and introverted after the accident.

I begin to seethe with rage and disgust once the brat me starts kicking my mom’s seat. Not, I think, out of anger at her, but from a typical childish frustration. Even worse is having my friends see this with me. Not that they hadn’t felt similarly when it was their turns.

Thankfully, my outburst does not cause the accident, as Mom’s eyes only leave the road for a couple seconds to give me a stern look that shuts me up right away. But this hardly makes me feel any better, and seconds later, I’m onto my next complaint… about being hungry.

Mom scolds me for not eating more of “that overpriced park food,” so I fire off the good old “I didn’t like it” excuse.

Good parent that she was, she always took a tote bag full of snacks on long road trips. With space at a premium in our small car, that bag happened to be by the passenger seat, under my tired dad’s legs.

It happens in the span of just a few seconds. Mom asks Dad if he can get some food out of the bag for me. He can’t be bothered to bend down and dig around, so he merely shifts his legs to make it more accessible. Mom grumbles and leans over to explore the contents with her right hand. Accidents are so often the result of a series of errors, and this dreamworld gives me a chance to micro-analyze what happened step by step. It’s nothing I want to see and relive, but there is value in knowing, I suppose, however much it hurts.

Mom gets her fingers on a snack pouch or breakfast bar, and nearly pulls it out of the bag… only to have it slip away. Frustrated, she looks away from the road to focus on the simple task of placating me. Dad stirs and asks what she’s doing. It only takes three more seconds for the car to drift slightly into another lane of the highway, where a semi-truck has just merged. Its horn blares out.

Something heavy and unstoppable hits the front left portion of the car.

She screams and I feel a tremendous impact, but from my point of view, I don’t see most of the resulting destruction. Gravity shifts as our car spins, and shrapnel sends searing pain into my left side that I feel all over again. I pass out and the memory goes dark, only to briefly flicker back to life as a part of my consciousness returns to show myself being put into an ambulance. Mom is still in the car. My dad and sister are on the side of the highway being watched over by first responders, having suffered more minor injuries, at least on the outside; Dad has a thousand-yard stare, and struggles to comprehend what transpired.

We return to the bumper car rink, and the attraction exists for a moment longer before it also disappears. I’m left with a tight knot in my stomach, which hurts at least as bad as what Kate must’ve felt. Having to relive trauma, even if you knew about it and worked past it, is bad enough. To see how it may have been your fault all along is soul crushing. The challenge, then, is to do what you can to make sure that “just-kill-me” feeling doesn’t last for long.

The others get right into their reassuring remarks, the same stuff we’ve already said to Kate and Jack. You were just a kid, you couldn’t have known, you weren’t solely to blame. Problem is, by this point, the sentiments are losing their effectiveness and bouncing off of my psyche… which has become a black hole.

I watch as the rabbit’s mangled, clawed arm emerges from the ground and extends its hand, beckoning me. Wanting to make a deal to free me from this pain. This temporary agony, I tell myself. I can get past this, because I have no choice. It’s a matter of survival, and for the sake of those still in my life and who wouldn’t want to lose me. Being robbed of some grace period or time for healing seems torturous, but I suddenly realize the trick to all this. I can work through the steps later; I only have to forgive myself for right now.

It’s not the same as shoving it deeper down, brushing it off, pretending I’m okay, or shifting responsibility. I can’t cheat, and my will to move forward while also acknowledging a mistake has to be genuine. If I was younger and less forgiving of all things, this would be even harder. But at my age, I’ve already learned the lessons of what holding onto remorse and grudges does to you.

I close my eyes, take a breath, steady myself, and return to my friends and the damn theme park. The rabbit is no longer offering its Faustian bargain.

“I think… I need to talk about it,” I tell the others.

They’re accepting, and I get it all off my chest. How the accident broke my family, but also how, eventually, my sister and I got stronger because of it. I grew up never getting blamed for what happened, but to be fair, it would’ve only confused me and made me feel like shit since my memories really were missing.

“I don’t think my dad even considered my part in it,” I say as the sudden group therapy session winds down in one of the park’s plazas. “He’d never talk about it, either. But I knew he felt guilty and suffered for it. Let himself suffer… I wonder now if he got memories of Kiddie Land, as well. Or if it just didn’t work on him. Maybe he never actually drove by that station while it was broadcasting. I don’t know… We didn’t talk much after that. I wish we did. I kind of doubt that things between us would’ve changed, even if I did remember my role that day.”

“Liam… I know you don’t want anyone to say it, but what your mom did was dangerous,” Kate inserts a cold fact into the conversation. “I mean, we all make brief mistakes like that when we drive. In this case, it just happened to…”

“I know. All three of us shared in the blame, the way I see it. Life is also chaos. But if karma is a thing, my family has definitely paid for it by now.”

“That was a rough experience,” Jack states. “But, like we have to keep telling ourselves, a few bad seconds shouldn’t define an entire, complicated life.”

“Guys… Look around,” Tyler speaks up. “Is it just me, or does the place seem to be getting darker, less defined? You think it’s weakening?”

“Well, Ty, you’re the only one still ‘hosting’ it. You ready to find your special spot, whatever it is? Something do with a park, right?”

If there was any color here, I think it would drain from Tyler’s face. The most introverted and non-confrontational of us, he looks even more unprepared to face his truth than he did when we started. Still, he begins to lead the way, quieter than usual all the while. No more jokes, quips, or reference humor.

He finds the equivalent of a park within the bigger park; trees, grass, a few benches. But it doesn’t call out to him, and we move on—finding two more similar locations that also have no noticeable effect. All the while, the rest of us are still dwelling on our own revelations, or the state of our bodies, having been strapped to our beds for an unknown number of hours by then.

The more time we spend here, the closer we get to regressing, or losing our minds to this world. We want to be patient with Tyler, but we’re on edge. If he can’t work up the nerve or is stalling, we’d all be in danger.

“Tyler, maybe it was something specific in that park earlier that called out to you?” I suggest, trying to make progress. “Did you have some green space you visited often when you were a kid? Somewhere your parents took you?”

“Mm-hm… Yeah,” he mumbles timidly. “I lived in a different neighborhood when I was little. Moved to where I did my growing up when I was six. If I’m at fault for a bad thing that happened there… then I’d be around that old…”

“Then there’s a pattern of us all being around five when we did the things we did,” Kate replies. “How messed up is that? We’ve just barely begun to really remember events in our lives, and… No. Bad train of thought. Ty, whatever it is, just… let go of it long enough for all of us to get out of here. We’re so close.”

“I’ll try. But so far, I can’t even find what… w-what I…”

He freezes up as we’re crossing one of Kiddie Land’s small bridges, upon noticing the river below. Which is really more of a rocky creek with about a foot of water. He steps back from the railing, fearing what he has to do.

“I… I think we need to go in.”

“Ty, wait. Maybe we should—”

He doesn’t give us a chance to walk down there and maybe wade in, choosing to instead jump right off the bridge, and forcing us to go with him in a strange way. Space warps around us, and we plunge into the shallow water as if we had stepped through a curtain that provides no feeling of moisture. We then find ourselves standing in any neighborhood’s typical small park, under a solid black sky—though everything is in daylit brightness.

“This was my old park… Mom used to take me here all the time,” Tyler introduces us to the wide-open space, full of old-growth trees and featuring a basic play area. “The last time I would’ve been here… 1993, I think.”

A small kid, a memory, walks right through Tyler and heads to the wooden fort presiding over mulch. Unmistakably a younger iteration of him with messy hair, he moves quickly but not with any confidence, seeming to bumble about with every step. It’s a little weird at first to see him in his pre-hoodie days.

“Guess I… must’ve gone on my own. Can’t say if I got permission or not… But, you know… back in those days, it wasn’t unusual to see kids wandering around the neighborhood. Don’t see that much anymore…”

“You doing okay, man?” I ask him, concerned.

“Just thinking… Worried… Hey, why do you think we see our memories in third person here? Weird how that works, huh? Then again, the alternative might be all four of us getting stuck in each other’s heads, so…”

The quiet sound of metal grinding against metal hits our ears, and we turn to see another boy about Tyler’s age on a nearby swing. For a little bit, neither kid acknowledges each other. The other kid, who actually is wearing a hoodie, in bright blue, soon gets off the swing, runs over, and joins Tyler on the fort. He goes down the slide a few times, and then starts to just… hang around Tyler.

“Old buddy?” Jack asks Ty. “Or just another neighborhood kid?”

“I… have no idea. I don’t remember him at all.”

“Is he bugging you, or trying to make a friend?”

“I was shy at that age… I only ever made friends if I choseto engage with someone else who showed a mutual interest in, like, a game, movie, or TV show. I didn’t like being approached or bothered. I did have friends, though, I swear.”

Little Ty jumps down from the fort to see how far he can make it on the jungle gym, and the other kid tags along. No words have been exchanged yet, so it’s ambiguous if he’s trying to be friendly or only a pest.

The boy follows Tyler everywhere in the park, who refuses to simply go home to get away from him. He’s definitely hyperactive, telling Tyler his name multiple times—Reese—and asking the same questions on repeat. Do you like video games? What’s your favorite TV show? Do you wanna come over and see my house? I have a pet iguana; do you have any pets?

“What’s your name?” our Tyler mouths along with the kid as the memories ‘live-stream’ for us. He begins to look afraid again, and shuffles backwards. “G-guys, I… I need a moment. Can we get out of here?”

“Ty, I don’t think there’s a way to stop it once it’s—”

“Please, I don’t like where this is going,” he talks over me. “I have a bad feeling. I… I-I think this was just before we moved. It m-might’ve even been my last time in this park. It wasn’t a good time to make new friends, and he… I would’ve thought he was ‘ruining’ my goodbye to the park, and…”

“Why didn’t you just go home?” Jack wonders.

“I probably thought he’d just follow me, ask more questions, keep being annoying. Shit, I don’t know, maybe my parents would’ve been all like ‘oh, we’re not going that far, you two could stay in touch.’ They were always worried about me having friends, since I was bad at keeping them!”

“Ty, calm down,” Kate urges him. “Look, I get it. I had social anxiety, too. Your guilt will likely be about you snapping at this kid and making him cry or something. You just have to let it play out. You can’t run from or change it.”

He tries to hang in there, but the longer he watches this event continue over fifteen minutes or so, the more he stresses. It’s like he already knows a truth he doesn’t actually know, that his subconscious hasn’t forgotten.

Finally, the younger Tyler starts telling him off. At first, it’s just that he can’t hang out today. And then that he’s not really interested.

Things culminate when he calls the kid annoying, and Reese seems to, at last, get the hint that the two may not be compatible. The boy frowns, goes quiet, and then turns and walks away to the rocky creak at the edge of the park. Now confident that he won’t be followed home, Ty starts to head out.

“Yes, go…” our Tyler grumbles. “Please just let that be the end of it…”

“Huh…” I murmur, and will soon really wish I hadn’t said, “if that’s the worst thing you’ve ever done, you must’ve lived a pretty good—”

The sudden plunk sound that fills the air appears to hit Tyler in the gut, and his face drops instantly. The reaction is nearly as bad from his kid self, as well. There’s a second sound, coming from Reese. He’s throwing rocks into the water, and Little Ty visibly does notlike this at all.

He turns and shouts, “Hey! What are you doing?”

“Nothin’,” Reese replies, and tosses another rock into the creek.

“Well, stop it!”

Reese shrugs, replies, “I’m just scarin’ the fish.” Throws another rock.

“I said stop! You’ll hurt the frogs and turtles!”

“Shut up, I don’t even see no frogs and turtles.”

“Tyler…” Kate whispers nervously, as if the memories of the kids could hear her. “W-why are you so… so intense about this right now?”

Stone-faced, he explains, “My… my dad and me… Some of my earliest, core memories are of the two of us catching frogs and turtles in that water. We’d keep them as pets for a bit, then release them. It sounds stupid now, but they were my favorite animals back then, and… kids are so protective…”

There’s nothing left for us to do but watch, no matter what happens—has already happened. Kid Tyler shouts out two more warnings, but Reese, who must be upset about being rebuffed, defies him and keeps throwing bigger rocks with his little hands. Any remaining hope that he’ll let it go fades when Ty stomps over to the creek and finds that Reese has lied. Other than small fish like minnows swimming away in a panic from thrown rocks, there arealso some tadpoles. And a frog. And several sunbathing turtles who appear unbothered.

At his breaking point, 1993 Tyler flies into a rage.

“What’s wrong with you? You’re gonna hit the animals!”

“So what? Go away,” Reese fires back.

And with that—no further buildup or tense preceding quiet—Little Tyler picks up a rock almost as big as his hand, shouts, “See how you like it!” and launches it with surprising strength that none of us seem to expect. The piece of stone quickly covers the dozen or so feet that separate the two kids.

Although the throw is messy and unwieldly, by pure bad luck, it hits Reese in the head with a sickening crack. The boy doesn’t even let out a cry or groan as he topples forward, face first into the water. Birds chirp all around the park as if nothing has just happened, and all five observers don’t move or say a word.

After one of those micro-eternities, Little Tyler steps forward, reaching out, unsure what to do. Then he sees the water turning red. He lets out a confused and pathetic whimper, turns, runs up the embankment… but stops mid-step suddenly before leaving the park. He just stands there, vacant.

While I can’t be sure, and none of us see his face in the moment, I think it’s possible that right then and there, Kiddie Land had triggered for Ty. If this is the case, the memory of the terrible thing he did seconds ago was already gone.

The recollection ends once he starts walking again at a slow pace, back home to start a new life. Again, not knowing. Not given a chance to reconcile. We are returned to the bridge. The water below has evaporated, leaving only dried mud. All three of us are staring at Tyler, who is gazing into the void.

“Um… H-hey, Tyler…” I manage to speak up after untold time passes. “I, uh… Y-you were just… I mean, it didn’t even look like you were trying to…”

His first instinct would likely have been to deny his actions, whether out of fear or the pure unbelievability of it all. But this place denies even that much to us. What we saw here was immutable, cold, unforgiving.

“So…” he shallowly breathes out, his body on the verge of a complete shutdown. “That’s it… Not even a single hint, all my life, that… I’m a murderer.”

“Don’t say that, Ty,” Jack forcefully replies, knowing he needs to do everything he can to keep our friend from losing control or his grip on reality. “We all saw it—it was an accident. Kids… throw things all the time.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. You’re all going to stand around, giving me pep-talks because it worked with the rest of you. Thisis different. You guys at least got to land on the runway… thinking it’d be worse at first… But this is a crash.”

“Do you really think you’re some cold-hearted killer?” Kate gets in her piece. “You weren’t given a chance to process any of it, or even the choice to tell an adult. Or… get help, if there was any chance… This place took all of that away from you and buried the trauma instead. Be mad at it, not yourself.”

“Stupid…” Tyler mumbles and looks as if he’s trying to cork up a coming anxiety attack. “We’re so stupid when we’re kids… God damn frogs and turtles, man. I kill… I killed…” he chokes up on a dry throat and can no longer speak.

“You can still do something about it,” I remind him. “We have a name, a place, a year—we can track down Reese’s family and let them know what happened. Closure can really help people. It’s not too late, Ty…”

A minute goes by, maybe two. Tyler appears to somehow compose himself and looks back up at us, though his expression remains blank.

“You’re right,” he says flatly. “It was an accident. We can tell his family that. I still deserve to live, don’t I? I’m not… not a monster…”

“Ty? Are you so you’re okay, buddy?” Jack hesitantly asks him.

“Y-yeah. Mm-hm. I can forgive myself and move on. I have to, right?”

With that, the amusement park of the mind finally begins to break apart, its purpose defeated. The vital step of letting go appears to be complete, with the entities having loosened their grip. Now we need to release the gas and start a long road of recovery. The dilation in these deep layers is extreme, turning what felt like an hour across four memories into just ten real-world minutes.

Stage Six

The thing is, though… Tyler lied. He hadn’t forgiven himself. Not at all.

When I first met him, he told me that his memory of Kiddie Land was of it on fire. I didn’t know what that meant back then, but now I might. The park is an organic sort of program that can be uploaded into people through a signal, and was designed to mask both trauma and guilt. But it has several flaws.

And the thing is, some kinds of guilt, regardless if we remember or not, can only barely be contained. If the program bursts at the seams trying to bury a single case of childhood manslaughter, then I can’t imagine it would have ever worked for anyone directly involved with launching nuclear warheads. The scale of destruction was separated by orders of magnitude, but if the saying goes that to save one life is to save the world… then what of the opposite?

Kiddie Land shakes. Its foundation cracks apart and splits open, and what looks like the fires of hell rise up to consume it. It burns without smoke around us, with Tyler in the middle of it all, not reacting. We don’t mistake this for some harmless dissolution; we know immediately something has gone seriously wrong.

As this level of our minds turns to ash, a new, even deeper realm appears out of the abyssal veil. Tyler isn’t religious—I don’t think any of us are—so I’m not certain of what dictates the appearance of the place that manifests next.

It has the appearance of a nondescript temple, a holy building, but one so huge that it looks to be made for giants. We may as well have been some church mice, exposed in the middle of the floor, against the vast chamber that fades into endless darkness above us. The building is made of ancient, cracked stone, and has stained-glass windows, lit up and composed of blood red glass that only forms confused, disorienting patterns depicting nothing discernible.

The temple vibrates from a rhythmic and heavy recurring trumpet-like sound, though the frequency is so low that it is only just perceivable. If this place isn’t a product of our active imaginations, then perhaps it’s a construct that exists within everyone, deep within the subconscious. If so, it’s possible that it plays some role in common religious mysticism, as an underlying blueprint for things like judgment and how such buildings should be designed.

But I could be overthinking it. Because it may be that only the temple’s congregants, filling the space in the nearby distance, had created this construct on their own while taking up space in our minds. As a shrine to their sins, or their world, or their goal of being reborn… or maybe the impossibly bright thing they are all reaching for. Whatever the truth, the sight is breathtakingly surreal.

Some difficult to measure distance away where a pulpit might preside… is a living, writhing mountain of flesh. At first it looks like bloody muscle, but after closer inspection, we realize that it is actually thousands of red entities. They crawl over each other, tumble down, and worm their way back to the top of the mound for one more chance at reaching the thing floating above, so tantalizingly close: a vibrant, swirling mass of energy, like a small star. It must be some inner essence, whether you want to call it a spark, a soul, or the heart of one’s being. It isn’t clear if it is all of ours, or just Tyler’s. The rules here are never obvious.

The things—people from a collapsed universe if Oliver was to be believed, and the ones actively trying to exist again—seem riled up. They must have been here for some time, but our presence may have accelerated things. And now the blinding stellar chance at life appears to be lowering closer to their clamoring, desperate hands. I can even say that the way the scene is shaped resembles a rising mushroom cloud seconds after detonation, when it still has a lingering, bright fireball inside. And I worry that if they were to so much as touch it…

“Look at them…” Tyler murmurs, seeing what we did. “Maybe… just one of them getting to see our world is fair. Think of what they’ve been through.”

“We can’t let that happen, Ty,” I tell him, trying to reach out in any way I could. “Come on, man. We’re almost there. Don’t you want to go home?”

He looks down at his quivering hands. “I’m not a good person. Someone else deserves a chance. There’s no forgiving what I did—you all knowthat.”

“Tyler, stop it!” Kate tries to snap some sense into him. “We have no idea what this would mean for you! Even if you let them in, who’s to say you still wouldn’t be in there, watching someone else take over your life? We know it’s tough, but you have to keep going. We’re here for you.”

He turns back to us wearing a frozen fake smile, his eyes large and hollow. “It’s okay, guys. Really. I’m not worth all this drama and shouting.”

“Yeah? Is that what we should tell her when she asks what happened to you?” Jack argues. “You’re the only one of us that even has someone like that waiting for you back home, Ty. So you must be doing something right.”

“Ah, yeah, about that… I should’ve told you sooner… We had a big fight before I left. I don’t blame her. It’s hard to explain what we do, and I didn’t really even try to. I’m not sure if she’s waiting for me to come home. But… it’s okay.”

“Don’t say that, buddy. Don’t just give up,” I plead.

“We know how these stories go, and somehow, we’ve lived them. Not many get happy endings, and when they do, how often does every character get one? I’d rather it be me than any of you. Three out of four… isn’t bad.”

“Shut up, Tyler! Stop talking like that!”

A shape catches my eye, and I see a creature fall from the unseen ceiling. It lands with a heavy thump, stands to its full height, and starts an unstoppable but slow walk towards Tyler. It’s the rabbit, in its true grotesque form, exposed muscles and tuning fork through its head and all. Tube-like appendages run from its back to the hill of the red ones, where they disappear into the gaps between their bodies. It is their priest, and its procession heralds the end for one of us.

Tyler doesn’t acknowledge its steady approach, choosing to look at us instead as he feigns bravery or acceptance, whatever his twisted reasoning. But the anguish and fear are so apparent in his eyes that it hurts.

“You know…” he rambles, “when we were seeing all those childhood memories… those were some nostalgia pains like nothing else, huh? It got me thinking about all of the stuff that just… vanishes from our lives, the things you forget about. Toys and household objects, of course, but also your favorite stores that closed and got torn down. Restaurants where you ate with your family. Old hangout spots where you grew up with your friends.

“Life is just… so much rot and decay. People moving away, leaving, dying, usually without a proper goodbye. Constant loss since the day we’re born. Loss and destruction. The machine that led us all here was created just to make that kind of thing easier. So hard for us to let go. But maybe… it really did help me.”

“God damn it, Ty, stop eulogizing yourself and fight back,” I’m yelling at him by this point. “None of us hate, or are scared of you. We’ll get you through it. Just be kind to yourself, for even one second. If not for whoever you are right now, then for the kid you used to be.”

All we’ve had for each other here are our words, so it feels like the most we can ever do is say the right ones at the right time, as if our emotions could be sorted with secret phrases and platitudes. My newest attempt does seem to reach Tyler—he is suddenly looking at me with his sad, tired, and afraid eyes—but I realize that there might be one last, far more impactful thing I can try.

  The monstrosity is just behind him now, wrapping its long claws around his shoulders like he is an old friend. The prong of metal jutting out of its mouth has morphed into some sort of injector, and in the distance, the red things are now scraping at the small star of human existence. Why this nightmarish world looks or behaves the way it does is beyond us, but it is easy to see what is just seconds away from happening. Despite the terror and confusion found here, one could be grateful and impressed by the technology that turns the chaos of the mind into sights and feelings we can comprehend, making it possible to resist.

And Ty is maybe the closest I’d get to having a little brother.

That’s why I push myself against the straps of the bed I can’t see, endure the pain of the IV line being ripped out of my arm, and free myself. My legs are stiff and don’t work too well, but they don’t need to; I just need to cover a short distance anyway I can. I stumble forward, fall, and manage to give Tyler a much-needed bear hug. I hope the sudden shift in what we think is possible here, along with any momentary solace he may have found for himself, is enough.

“Sorry…” Tyler pushes out, with no time to say what he’s apologizing for.

His shoulders slump very slightly and the creature turns its focus to me. It’s enough of a signal for Kate and Jack, who find the switches for the gas. Air blasts from unseen vents as the mixture saturates the chamber. We don’t get one last good look at the mountain of living corpses to see if there’s any sort of reaction before we’re knocked out. Or die, more accurately. It happens so fast.

Fade to black.

Inexplicably, I think the flow of time had inverted in the hellish deepest layer. It’s hard to say how long we felt like we were there, but our perception of it couldn’t have been close to the eight hours of real time my recorder archived.

For whatever reason, nothing we said in there made it onto the audio file. But I remember exactly how it all went at the end. It feels… embedded.

And through our efforts, I believe we put thousands to rest. Or erased their very existences entirely. To want to live is selfish, I suppose.

Awakening

We awoke in our gurneys a few hours later, understandably groggy after having been clinically dead for five minutes and brought back to life. The beds, still damp with the sweat we didn’t feel during our experience, had been brought back down to lay flat, and the chamber door was open. Gauze was wrapped around my arm where my IV line had been torn out.

I stirred first. Then Kate, then Jack, all within a few minutes of each other. Tyler… did not wake up.

Sorry, temptations of a storyteller. That was cruel of me. He would wake up, but later. He may have needed more time to recover, since he’d been right on the precipice of oblivion. We wouldn’t know his condition or how he felt for some time yet, and that quickly became pure anxiety for us.

When she realized we were awake, Alice returned, treated us further, ran some tests, and gave us water and solid food. Echoes of our journey within ourselves continued to reverberate long after we left the chamber. It was like we were dreaming and experiencing the past and present, all at once, but we tried our best to focus. My little recorder’s battery had drained almost entirely, yet the thing had survived all of our thrashing about and who-knows-what kind of signals that filled the hollow sphere.

There was no way of avoiding the first bit of news Alice had for us, since we had to pass through his room on the way out. The Umbrella Man, Oliver, was in his bed… Very still, and covered by a blanket.

“He went sometime in the night,” Alice explained to us, herself at the brink of collapsing. “We had watched and listened for around ten hours. Then he suddenly got up, thanked me, said he’d listen in from his bed, and… I’m not sure when it happened. I think he was optimistic for all of you, though. I could tell that he was enjoying the ‘research’ right up to the end, like it was the first time he felt alive in decades. Whatever you think of him, man or monster, try to remember that he’s not solely to blame for everything that’s happened.”

How cosmically strange that a seemingly borderline immortal old man would die… on the very night that Neptune’s story finally came to an end, yet couldn’t see that ending for himself. It makes me wonder if we severed some link to his world and at that moment, he joined the others. I doubt it… but it’s still possible. Whatever the truth, as the three of us slowly recovered, we began to feel different. Lighter, less burdened by our histories, untethered.

And, for the first time since we got our memories of Kiddie Land, the park suddenly no longer felt real. Blurry remnants of it still kicked around, but we all agreed that it seemed more like an imaginary place we invented as kids instead of anything that could be confused for an actual park. The red ones were gone as well, and the people in our memories, thankfully, were back to normal.

Alice brought us back to the surface and opened the hatch, right by the anchored boat from a lifetime ago. Sunlight and fresh air flooded down and hit our weakened bodies. There was lingering delirium, trembling and sore muscles, and it was like none of our senses were working very well… but we were alive.

There was always a plan set in place for this day, when Alice was also free to return to the world: submerge the vessel with the hatch open. Let it flood and drown, and bury the past by offering it to the other Neptune. The engine chamber would be lost, and anyone else out there with sealed-away guilt would be on their own. Even so, most people would probably choose living with false memories of a pleasant little amusement park over doing what we just did.

Tyler eventually joined us, but said very little. We caught him up and he nodded when we asked if he was okay and feeling like himself. He still needed time to process what we had experienced, and what he did as a young child. There was a look in his eyes that was unfamiliar and this worried me for a moment, but I’d come to realize that all four of us had changed, quite a bit.

He provided us a few facts about himself to prove it was still him in there, so there’s that. Honestly, though, I know I’m going to have lingering worries for an indefinite time about each of us. There’s no way to be sure that every single one of those red entities let go and turned into ethereal mist. It feels like they have, but we went through a one-of-a-kind medical procedure of sorts and don’t exactly have a follow-up protocol to follow. All we can really do is keep going and see what the passage of time brings our way.

I’m feeling hopeful, though. For the first time in any of these stories, no matter who they happened to, I lean towards cautious optimism.

We helped each other up the ladder and onto the boat, with our valuables in tow. Alice lugged a bag of her own, but we didn’t pry into what her keepsakes might be. As our ferry took off to head back to shore, the submarine ballasts filled with water to sink Oliver’s last home for good. We felt the breeze as our eyes, still painfully adjusting to the light, watched it happen.

We didn’t find justice for the kids affected by deadly toys, or a shadowy group playing with a nuclear apocalypse. No company would be punished for nearly bringing a slightly less horrifying version of the rabbit into living rooms. But the people that did those things were gone nonetheless. In the end, all we could do was survive and learn the truth. And that will have to be enough.

So, old and new friends alike, there you have it. Undoubtedly my greatest and maybe last post on CreepyToys, uploaded on the last twenty-fours of its temporary revival. Maybe it warrants a small extension, though. A special thanks goes to Boris for helping us skim through about twenty hours of audio files. We didn’t have the stamina to do it ourselves and wouldn’t get this story up in time otherwise. You’re more than our number-one fan. Be glad you didn’t need to go through what we did; I don’t think a fifth bed would’ve fit in that chamber.

On the return boat ride, we didn’t speak to each other, since we’d already been doing that for hours on end and needed some time to ourselves. Our goodbyes back on land were brief but heartfelt, and ended with us going our separate ways, Alice included. I did feel the urge to give Tyler one last important piece of advice, though, before he went home to work on his life.

“Forgiveness is just the first, hard step, Ty. It’s not absolution.”

I couldn’t stop worrying about him. And since I’m the one writing this story and can’t see inside his mind, I don’t know what he was feeling in those last moments inside the chamber, or how he worked up the courage to give himself a second chance. It got me wondering what “forgiving” ourselves actually meant. We still felt guilty about the things we’d done, after all.

“I know that,” he replied. “And I’ll try to find that kid… Reese’s family, to tell them what happened. People sometimes forget trauma even without the help of a demented theme park, so it won’t be a lie to say that it all suddenly came back to me. Liam… I think, maybe, the way we got out of that place was by seeing a future for ourselves. That feels new to me. Does that make sense?”

Maybe it did. Most my life, it was difficult to see past tomorrow. Everyone in Neptune had that problem, too, since our world’s future back when they were operating was still their past, for the most part. Now, finally, they could no longer drag us down with themselves and their legacy.

During the past few days, as I’ve edited this, I’ve felt my perspective and mindset shift in unfamiliar ways. I’m anxious, excited, and very ready to move on. Almost to the point where I’d rather be doing anything else, just living life, over thinking about and remembering what happened to us. But I’ll still finish this potentially last chapter of our story, no matter how much of an endurance test it becomes. Every survivor or victim of these events deserves to have their truths put out there into the world. I am eager to take a nice vacation, though.

I haven’t gotten any updates from the others as of this writing, and that’s okay since we all need a chance to go at our own pace for a while. On my end, I visited my sister yesterday and told her everything. The whole saga is understandably unbelievable, but my role in our family’s tragedy is grounded and easy to grasp. She forgave me, too. Right away, no hesitation. It’s so natural for people to hold onto regret, and I used to do so all the time. I think I learned some life-saving lessons over the past couple of decades.

A month’s gone by now and I’m about ready to make the final version of this story public. The first draft is inaccessible with CreepyToys offline again, and I’ve about doubled the original length with this revision after adding many more details and personal thoughts. I keep trying to come up with a grand take on everything, like a philosophical view that could change the world or whatever. I won’t, though. I’m not wise enough yet to tell you what it all means. But I think I find some comfort in the very real possibility that there are other worlds out there, even if they only exist as quantum potentials.

Certainly there would be worse ones. Some, better. Others have ceased to exist. And then there might be a few where me and my friends didn’t make those mistakes in our childhoods, but in turn… never met. It reminds me to help make this reality a good one, in whatever way I can.

I got a picture yesterday from Alice, just as I was wrapping up. She was eating lunch at an outdoor restaurant in Bar Harbor, up in Maine. Her mother and Isaac were both at the table, the two of them getting up there in years but still with more time left than countless others ever got. I can’t help but feel a kinship with them; the eight of us—when including Boris—were in an exclusive club that survived the technological horrors a group of otherworldly tortured souls unleashed… and came close to changing our own history with.

Her email didn’t say much, but it did mention that they were planning a trip to Denver to properly deal with the deep underground bunker there before anyone else found it. And, I assume, finally give its sentinel a proper burial.

I forwarded it to the others, but I’ve only heard back from Tyler so far. Even he needed a break from things, which is why he’s “handing the keys” over to me for the time being. After all, he says, I’m the “one that started all this.”

So, I guess I’ll be managing whatever comes next for us, if anything. Alice and her mom make a good point about cleaning up; more dangerous enigma matter is still out there. Unaccounted circuit boards, amplifiers, and who knows what else. If you happen to find engine hardware, do the right thing and send it to me or Boris for proper study and disposal. After so many years, I don’t think I need to emphasize any further how dangerous reality-bending material can be.

Oh, and one last thing… Do svidaniya, Fun Bunn.