revenant

He wakes slowly, soft sunlight drifting in through the curtains, the room pleasantly warm. He sits up, his head feeling like cotton, and glances around. Everything is quiet, and his room feels a little too clean for someone like him. He stands up and sees himself in the mirror, dull blue jeans, an off-white shirt, and a dirty brown jacket adorn him. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and leaves the room.

The whole house is quiet, it seems. The tv is off, there is nothing on the stove, and no plate of lukewarm food waiting on the table. He rummages around the kitchen for something small to eat and ends up with a granola bar. He sits curled up on the couch in the quiet, dark room and eats.

He goes back to his room and checks that his backpack is packed (it always is), and slings it over his shoulder before putting on his scuffed black boots. He checks the house to turn off anything that shouldn’t be on, finds nothing, and leaves.

Outside is brighter than the house, though not by much. He walks down the sidewalk, listening to the soft chirping of birds, and the light rustle of the wind. His destination is in mind, and his body on autopilot, as he makes his way downtown. When he passes the corner store, the same one that has been there for years, he stops and pulls his wallet out of his bag. He pulls out exactly $2.75, stuffs the wallet back in his bag, and continues his walk.

As he descends the subway stairs he can’t help but feel something is off, wrong, uncanny. He tries to brush it off, but it lingers in the back of his mind. He buys his ticket, makes his way to the platform his subway train will arrive at, and waits—the same spot he waits at every day, close to the edge of the track, but a safe enough distance away—for the train to arrive.

Minutes pass, and then he hears the rumble of the subway as a train approaches. He grips his backpack straps tighter just to give his hands something to work with. This train doesn’t stop here, it keeps going at the same speed to its next stop. His train arrives 23 minutes after, like always.

As the train that never stops starts to roll in, he feels hands on his back, and the body of someone else follows. The full weight hits him, and he realizes, dimly, that he isn’t standing on the platform anymore. Time seems to slow as he falls towards the tracks he won’t ever hit as the train gets to him first.

Then time flashes fast and he can’t even open his mouth to cry as the train hits him and— h i s b o d y s e e m s t o e x p l o d e i n t o l i g h t, b r i g h t a n d w a r m, a n d h e f e e l s n o p a i n.

He wakes, soft sunlight drifting in through the curtains, the room overly warm. He sits up, his head aching, and looks around. Everything is quiet. He stands up and sees himself in the mirror, clean blue jeans, a bright white shirt, and a brown jacket adorn him. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and leaves the room.

The whole house is quiet, it seems. The tv is off, there is nothing on the stove, and no plate of lukewarm food waiting on the table. He rummages around the kitchen for something small to eat and ends up with an apple. He sits curled up on the couch in the quiet, dark room and eats.

He goes back to his room and checks that his duffle bag is packed (it always is), and slings it over his shoulders before putting on his black boots. He checks the house to turn off anything that shouldn’t be on, finds nothing, and leaves.

Outside is brighter than the house, though not by much. He walks down the sidewalk, listening to the soft chirping of birds, and the light rustle of the wind. His destination is in mind, and his body on autopilot, as he makes his way downtown. When he passes the corner store, a recent addition to the street, he stops and pulls his wallet out of his bag. He pulls out exactly $2.85, stuffs the wallet back in his bag, and continues his walk.

As he descends the subway stairs he can’t help but feel something is off, wrong, uncanny. He tries to brush it off, but it lingers in the back of his mind. He buys his ticket, makes his way to the platform his subway train will arrive at, and waits—the same spot he waits at every day, close to the edge of the track, but a safe enough distance away—for the train to arrive.

Minutes pass, and then he hears the subway rumble as a train approaches. He grips his backpack straps tighter just to give his hands something to work with as he reasons with himself. He doesn’t need to take the next train, he could even walk to where he wanted to go. He doesn’t have to stay here with the off feeling, so he starts to leave.

As the train that never stops starts to roll in, he watches someone push someone else in front of the train. Time seems to slow as he watches them fall towards the tracks they won’t ever hit as the train gets to them first.

Then time flashes fast and he can’t even open his mouth to cry as the train hits them and he closes his eyes. He hears the screams of witnesses, the anger pointed at the perpetrator, but he does not open his eyes.

He walks back home after the officer questions him about what he saw. He makes his way to the house, his room, his bed, and sleeps.

He wakes slowly, soft moonlight drifting in through the curtains, the room cold. He sits up, his head pounding, and frantically looks around. Everything is quiet, and his room feels a little too much like someone else's. He jumps up and sees himself in the mirror, dull blue jeans, an off-white shirt, and a dirty brown jacket adorn him. He rubs at something smeared across his face, a black substance, and messes with it between his fingers.

He goes into the bathroom across the hall and turns on the light, looking at the substance on his hands. It doesn’t reflect the light, or feel like it has a temperature. He blinks, slowly rinses it off his hands, and goes back into his room to sleep.

He wakes and tenses. Something is wrong. He listens carefully to the sounds of the house, and notices a noise coming from the kitchen. He rises from his bed slowly and creeps out of the room.

The moment he steps foot into the hallway the noise stops. He quietly checks around the corner of the hall, and into the kitchen. On the stove is a pan, the mess of whatever was made still on its surface, and there is a place of steaming food on the table. He blinks, and rubs at his eyes before running into his room, grabbing his backpack, and running out of the house.

He walks down the sidewalk quickly and tries to remember the last time he was at the warehouse. He goes every day, and hasn’t missed a day since he started so why is this happening. He nearly falls down the subway stairs in his rush, quickly buys his ticket, and waits for the train.

Minutes pass, and then he hears the subway rumble as a train approaches. He grips his backpack straps tighter just to give his hands something to work with. This train doesn’t stop here, it keeps going at the same speed to its next stop. His train arrives 23 minutes after, like always.

And 23 minutes later his train shows. He steps on and makes his way to the farthest seat from the door and waits. He still can’t remember if he went to the warehouse yesterday. His ride is spent leg bouncing sporadically, twisting the straps of his bag.

He’s the first off the train and walks out of the subway. When he finds himself alone he breaks into a sprint, running out of town. Usually, his walk to the warehouse feels peaceful, but today it is far from it.

It’s tiring running up the hill, but if he truly didn’t go to the warehouse yesterday, then his pain is nothing compared to what will happen if it gets out. He finally makes it to the warehouse, legs aching, as he pushes open the metal doors.

The warehouse is dark and silent. There is a choking stillness in the air as he makes his way through the warehouse, his footsteps echoing through the room. As he walks he listens for the hum of life that comes from it. Every day when he checks up on it, he always hears a low hum emitting from the room it’s in, a sign that it’s still there.

He doesn’t hear the hum. He hopes the hum is just too quiet to hear from where he’s at, and if he just gets closer he’ll hear the hum, and everything will be fine. It’ll be fine and he can check up on it and go home and repeat the same routine he has done for years.

He does not hear the hum. He’s standing outside the door, and he hears no hum. He stands paralyzed, waiting, hoping the hum will come back, but it doesn’t. Slowly, like his pace will fix the problem, he opens the door. The room is empty. It. Got. Out.

He rushes out of the room, heart racing as he runs through the warehouse. He needs the notes he’s kept for so long and never hoped to use. He burst through the door of a different room, runs over to a desk, and shoves everything off of it. Underneath the desk is an old file box, he pulls it out and puts it on the desk.

He skims the papers inside, looking for something specific, keywords flowing through his head as he hopes to catch one. He finds it and pushes the box away and brings the paper close to him. How does he fix this how does he fix this how does he-

Sleep. He needs to sleep, it’ll reset the day and give him a chance, or at least it should. The train ride back home is not one he enjoys. His face is blank, fist held on tight to the ends of his jacket.

When he finally gets home, he makes his way to the bathroom and opens the wink mirror, inside is a bottle of melatonin. He doesn't count how many he takes, he barely even looks. He lays down in his bed and sleeps.

He wakes up in his room, on his bed, if everything worked the day should be reset, he needs to make his way the- wait, if the day reset he shouldn’t…remember that it needed to. He sits up in bed slowly. Something is wrong, besides the obvious. He walks towards the mirror, scared of something he isn’t sure of, and looks.

What he sees…still looks like him, to some degree. The face shape is the same for the most part, his hair is the same length, and he’s the same height. But his skin color and hair were never the same thing, the same material, the same color, and never the color he is now, a yellowish off-white. His face never had those, details, those spikes on the right side, and his eyes were never empty.

He thinks he did something wrong, forgot something important in his worry about it. He doesn’t think this was supposed to happen, it’s never happened before, never in anything he’s read about it.

He’s tired, he decides. He gets in his bed, pulls the covers up to his neck, and goes back to sleep.