The Pulver Chronicles – 13. A Vision Softly Creeping

It was a nice summer day. The sun stood high in the sky, without a single cloud in its vicinity. The air was hot, but there was just enough of a breeze to make the heat bearable. The grass alongside the hill was warm from half a day of being caressed by the sun’s rays. Somewhere around, grasshoppers were singing, as if they too delighted in this warm, relaxed atmosphere.

Jackson was serene. It wasn’t every day such a word could be used to describe him. Usually, he would be running around in the fields, or jumping around in the hay, or maybe even trying to climb on the farmhouse’s roof again -and his foster dad’s warnings be damned. But on that day, that particularly beautiful and relaxing day, he was content just lying on the grass, his arms behind his head, a blade of grass in his mouth.

The presence of a young woman by his side, head resting on his shoulder, was probably part of the reason he felt so happy relaxing. She was wearing a clear sundress with a white bunny embroidered on the front. Some grass was stuck to the side of her face, and some dirt covered portions of her dark skin, especially around the knees. A cute little snore escaped her mouth, and her breath tickled Jackson’s torso. Her smell of lavender inundated his nostrils. Her arm was lying lazily on his chest. Jackson was cuddling her, one hand on her shoulder and the other down her back. He couldn’t resist the temptation to lift her dress; he already knew she wasn’t wearing anything underneath, but all the same he appreciated the reminder.

He didn’t know how long he had been lying there for. A couple of hours, probably. He might have fallen asleep, at some point. Actually, what time was it? He was starting to get hungry. The last time he ate was… lunch. No, breakfast. No, no, lunch; this was the afternoon. Right? Ah, he had definitely taken a nap: his sense of time was a little out of whack.

It didn’t matter, though. All that mattered is that he was happy, under a warm sun, with a nearly naked girl peacefully sleeping at his side. The only thing missing to make this perfect would be a plate of caramel corn bars, and a pitcher of sweet tea with ice cubes. He could get up and go fetch some, but first of all, that would mean standing up, and second of all, it would wake her up.

Well, he wasn’t that hungry or thirsty anyway. He could just lie there for a while and wait for her to wake up on her own.

His internal debate was solved when his stomach let out a loud protest against his neglect. The girl groaned, and began stirring.

“Hey,” she said in a sleepy voice, slowly opening her eyes.

“Slept well?”

“You’re a nice pillow.”

They kissed, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Which, after all, it was. Then, Jackson lifted up her sundress, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Which it absolutely was. She giggled, and went to kiss him again. His jeans felt awfully tight, all of a sudden. Thankfully, she knew just what to do about that. Before the situation could get anywhere interesting, however, Jackson’s stomach rumbled again.

“Let’s go inside,” the girl said. “She’s probably going to call us anyway.”

She? Jackson frowned.

“Food’s ready!” a female voice called out.

He looked at the farmhouse. On the porch stood a middle-aged woman. She was well-built, with strong arms and legs, and a prominent chin. Golden locks of hair hung around her head. She was wearing some overalls, and her feet were bare.

“Are you coming?” she said.

“Yes!” the other girl said. “Come on, Jackson.”

Jackson nodded absent-mindedly, and dusted off the dirt and the grass from his shirt as he stood up, then followed the girls inside. The living room was bathing in nice scents; Jackson recognized lavender, iodine, and a variety of foods being cooked: beef, corn, and potatoes. As he went to take a seat at the table, the woman served him his plate, and kissed him on the cheek.

He ate with appetite. The food was simply amazing. The beef had been cooked to perfection, the corn was just right, and the potatoes melted in his mouth. And with the company, this was definitely the best dinner he ever had. The best lunch he ever had. No, it-

“Hey, Jackson,” the girl in the sundress said, her foot brushing against his calf. “The weather is nice out.”

He took a look out of a window. “Yeah, pretty sunny.”

“I’m thinking of taking a nap on the hill after this. You wanna join?”

“You know it,” Jackson said, finishing his meal quickly. “Mrs Dorsett, you want some help with the dishes?” he asked the blonde woman, hoping she’d say no.

No answer came. He looked around the living room and the kitchen, and saw no one. She had probably gone out to buy groceries for lunch. He blinked, and stared down at the empty table in front of him. Wait, didn’t-

“Are you coming?” the girl said.

“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Hey, can you wait for me? I just need to hit the bathroom and clean myself up a little.”

“Err, okay?”

He stood up and went to the bathroom. Hunching over the sink, he opened the faucet and splashed some cold water on his face. What was going on? Was something going on? It felt like there was. No, there was. Jackson searched his memories to pinpoint exactly what. Let’s see… First, he was having dinner with his foster moth- No, first he was having a nap with… With, err… The girl. What was her name?

“Her name is Carla. And you’re not remembering because that memory is blocked.”

Jackson jumped. He turned on his heels, looking for whoever had just spoken, but the bathroom was empty. His eyes went to the mirror above the sink. Now, there was something wrong with his reflection. Since when did he have blue eyes and black hair? And since when did he look so… old?

“It’s me,” the strange reflection said. “You need to break out of whatever this is.”

“Who the Hell are you?” Jackson asked.

The man’s face deflated.

“Of course you don’t remember me either,” he mutters. “Look, none of this is real. I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to find a way to break out of this place.”

“What the fuck is going on?” The young man took a step back. “Am I hallucinating?”

“Well, technically yes. But, ironically, I’m the only real part of all of this.”

“No. No, no, no. You’re not real. I must be losing it.”

There was a knock on the bathroom’s door.

“Jackson, is everything okay?”

“She’s not real,” the man in the mirror said.

“She is!” Jackson said. “She’s… Her name’s… Her name’s Clara! I… I…!”

Jackson rubbed his eyes, then his forehead. He was tired, and his head hurt. But that was okay. He just had to get out of here. A nap was what he needed, especially one taken by Clara’s side. That always helped him get his mind off of things.

“No, Jackson!” the hallucination in the mirror cried out. “Listen to me! You are in dan-”

He slammed the door behind him. Clara was still waiting for him in the living room. Jackson walked to her, and took her hands in his.

“Ready to go?”

“Sure am.”

As they exited the farmhouse, Jackson took a glance at the barn. He tugged on Clara’s hand, nodding to the old building.

“How about we take our nap there, for old times’ sake?” he said.

She chuckled, and agreed.

Wait, “old times’ sake”? Jackson wasn’t sure why he had said that. It didn’t seem like that long ago since the last time they had fun in that barn.

They took the ladder to the attic, and found their usual spot on that mattress under the skylight. Clara laid down on it, slowly lifting her sundress with a mischievous smile. Jackson kneeled above her, and hummed the air. The smell of lavender, of old wood, and of the heat from the sun rays was wonderfully soothing. And yet… jarring.

Something was missing, Jackson thought. He had no idea what. The smell was familiar, and at the same time incomplete. Jackson bent forward and smelled the mattress, not really knowing why. He worried Clara would find him weird, but she simply placed her hands on his cheeks, and guided his lips towards hers. She was so soft, and so warm. Jackson slid his hand behind her head, losing his fingers amongst her curls, and opened her legs with his knee. Her chuckle of delight as he embraced her was music to his ears.

And there was that feeling again. That feeling that something was missing, that something was not right. But what? Everything seemed just fine; more than fine, even. Clara, the farm, the barn… even the weather. What could possibly be wrong? He was probably just thinking too much. And he had the perfect remedy to that right there, underneath him. He abandoned himself in Clara, drowning his worries in her body, her scent, her laughter. Bliss overtook him, erasing all feelings of oddness.

The sun was still shining when he emerged. Clara was still asleep, her head resting on his chest. How long had they been lying there for? It must have been some time. From the position of the sun, Jackson assumed it was close to lunch time. Which was good, because he was getting hungry.

As he found his way to the dinner table and sat down in his usual spot, something resonated in him. Some sort of deja vu feeling. He shook his head. Obviously, he had eaten at this table many times, so there was nothing abnormal about that. Clara poured him a glass of iced tea, which he gladly took. But, as he put it to his lips, he did a double take. The reflection in the liquid was… wrong. It had dark hair and blue eyes, and looked too old. And then, it even spoke!

“Go back to the bathroom, Jackson.”

“What the fuck?” Jackson mumbled, bewildered.

“You know something’s wrong,” the reflection continued. “Go to the bathroom. Now! Before you forget.”

Forget? Forget what? None of this made any sense. Maybe he needed to sleep. Indeed, he had been on his feet for… No, wait, he did just sleep. He took a nap with Clara on the hill… No, in the barn. He… But…

“I should wash my hands,” he suddenly said, jumping out of his chair.

Maybe there’s some aspirin in the bathroom, too, he thought as he closed the door behind him. He was only half-surprised when he looked into the mirror above the sink, and saw that abnormal reflection once again.

“Will you listen to me this time?” it said.

““This time”? We’ve met before?”

The reflection sighed. “That thing is affecting your memories. Probably so you don’t realize that none of this is real.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This,” it showed around with a large gesture of its hands. “You’re not really here. That girl is not real, either. Think about it, Jackson.”

“Who are you? What do you want?

“I want you to wake up, Jackson. We’re both in danger if you don’t.”

Jackson’s headache peaked, and his vision blurred.

“No, no, this is… This is bullshit. It’s real. Clara is real. You’re the hallucination.”

“Jackson, listen to me!” the man in the mirror said. “Think about it. How old is Clara?”

“She’s… She’s fifteen, of course.”

“Fifteen years old. And how old are you?”

“We’re the same age. What are you trying to pull?”

“You’re fifteen years old too? You joined the US Army at fifteen?”

Army. That word triggered something in Jackson’s brain. A set of memories, most of them unpleasant, along with a migraine strong enough to blind him.

Yes, he had been in the army. He remembered that. But… The hallucination had a point. He couldn’t have joined while underage. So… No. No! That made no sense. How could he had joined the army? And why?

“Clara…” he said. “No, she has to be real. She… Why would I leave her? We’re together…

“You were together. Focus. Think about her father. What did he do when he found out about the two of you?”

“He…” The migraine was back, stronger than before, but Jackson pushed through. He felt like he had to, for some reason. “He got mad. He told Clara to stay away from me. That I was a messed-up kid, good for nothing. Some brat nobody wanted, not even…” His throat tightened. “Not even my own parents.”

“Yes,” the man said softly. “And then what happened? Remember.”

“We continued seeing each other behind our parents’ backs.”

“Until…”

“Until we got caught.”

Jackson blinked. In addition to the headache, his eyes now burned.

“Her dad… I don’t know if he followed us, or if he heard us, or what… One day, I was with Clara, he caught us.”

“And what happened then?”

There was a knock on the door.

“Focus on me,” the man said. “What happened after Clara’s dad caught you?”

“He got mad; like, really mad. Pretty sure if Clara didn’t step in between us, he would have sent me to the ER. She gave me time to get out through a window. I nearly broke my ankle from the drop. And then…”

He swallowed his saliva. Another knock, more insistent.

“Jackson?” her worried voice came out from the other side of the door. “Are you coming out?”

“Ignore her! I’m blocking her for now. Keep going.”

“And then, Clara was gone. Her dad had sent her to live with some relatives in Georgia. I never saw her again.”

The knocking turned into banging. The door bounced from their strength. Jackson still heard Clara’s voice coming in, but it sounded off-key, distorted.

“Come out, Jackson,” she said.

Bang, bang, bang!

“I love you, Jackson. Come out.”

Jackson shuddered. She no longer sounded worried. There was no anger in her voice, either, in spite of how hard she was now banging on the door, like she was trying to break it open. Quite the opposite: she sounded perfectly calm. There was not a hint of any emotion in her tone, no warmth or coldness. And it barely even sounded human now.

“Come out. I love you. Come out.”

“Okay, let’s say I believe you,” Jackson said to the reflection. “What exactly is going on?”

“Like I told you: none of this is real. This entire place is a dream, or a hallucination, or something.”

“Jesus Christ. What should I do?”

“You need to get out of here.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Find a way to wake up.”

The voice rose again from the other side of the door, and this time, it wasn’t anything like Carla’s.

“Come out, Jackson. Come on. The sarge is gonna kill us.”

The young man jumped. Oh damn. How long had he been staying in the latrines? It had to have been a while, which meant his bunkmate was right: the sarge was going to kill them both. Jackson knew better than the rest of the squad how the sergeant “rewarded” any attempt at slacking off. He closed the tap and dried his hands, then left in a hurry. As he stood on the door’s threshold, he stopped and turned around. Odd. For a second, he could have sworn he had heard someone call out his name. But there was no one in the latrines, except for his own reflection staring at him through the mirror.

Back he went into the main hall. The rest of the unit was already there, and likely had been for a while now. Thankfully, no one paid attention to Jackson and his bunkmate Lawrence as they took their seats. Everyone, it seemed, was focused on sergeant Duval, who was herself too engrossed by her lecture to notice that the two bunkmates had missed a good chunk of it.

As often, Jackson barely paid attention to the subject matter -something about proper weapon maintenance, apparently-, and had to make a conscious effort to keep from yawning. With an additional effort, he actually managed to look interested all through the lecture, convincingly enough that when the sergeant’s eyes shot to him, she seemed satisfied. Once the lecture was over, a young man came to Jackson, who smiled when he recognized him.

“Hey, Jack.”

“Oh, hey, David.”

“We’re still doing that thing tomorrow?”

“Huh?”

The memory flashed inside his mind, causing a bit of a migraine. Tomorrow, of course. David and Jackson both had a leave; their first in a long while, since the previous ones had been canceled for… too many misbehaviors to count. Thus, the two friends had decided to hit the town, get some drinks, and just see what kind of trouble they could get themselves into.

“You bet it’s still on. You’ve got your ID card?”

David looked over his shoulder, a little spooked. “Yes, but… Look, I’m still not sure about this.”

“It’s fine, dude. We’re in this man’s army, risking our lives for our country and all that shit. Least we deserve is a drink.”

“I just don’t know,” David said. “What if we get caught? What if they see that it’s fake?”

“Relax, Dave. They’ll be looking at our uniforms, not at the IDs.”

“I guess…”

David still seemed uncertain over dinner. Jackson tried his best to get his mind off things. Truth was, he wasn’t worried that David would buckle. He knew that, deep down, his best friend wanted to do this; he wanted to break the law, to get drunk, and to do something stupid, preferably something his father would never approve of -or, God willing, know of. Daddy’s boy wanted to misbehave, Jackson could tell.

“What about you, Lawrence of Arabia?” Jackson said, turning to his bunkmate seated next to him, his mouth full of grub. “Wanna join us? Might still have time to put in your form.”

“You know it can take weeks to get leave approved, right?”

“Yeah, well, just say you got a sick mom and you need to attend, or something.”

“My mom’s dead, so that probably won’t fly,” Lawrence said, his scaled nostrils flaring as he snorted.

“Well, your dad, then. Come on. Don’t you want to get drunk and party?”

“That’s a great idea. As an added bonus, I’ll get to be hungover for PT tomorrow!” He shook his head. “Pass.”

“Suit yourself, private Buzkill.”

Dave bit his lip. “Crap, I didn’t think of that. What if we’re still hungover when we come back? The sarge is going to kill us!”

“Don’t worry, Dave,” Jackson smiled, “Worst case scenario, we’ll just call in sick.”

“Oh yeah,” Lawrence muttered. “Brilliant plan. The sarge will never see through it.”

“Um, are you sure about that?” David said.

“You remember Patrick? The nurse? He owes me one for the Tylenol fuckup. I talked to him, and he agreed to cover for us and say we’ve got the flu or something.”

His friend sucked on his teeth, then said: “All right. Hopefully, it will work like you said.”

“It will, trust me.”

Jackson didn’t sleep much that night, excited as he was for the next day. In fact, when Reveille started blaring at 0530 the next morning, he, for the first time in living memory, had no difficulty jumping out of bed and getting started on his routine. Even Lawrence, morning person that he was, was annoyed by his energy.

“Right, that’s me off,” Jackson told him after getting dressed. “Enjoy your… What’s the lesson today?”

“Logistics.”

“Well, that sounds like a hoot. Have fun on my behalf!”

“Yeah, yeah, just fuck off already.”

Jackson did so, with a large smile on his face.

David was waiting for him near the base’s gates, his cap obscuring the anxiety in his eyes. Jackson greeted him with a playful slap on the back of his shoulder. The both of them took advantage of the kitchen clerk needing to get some supplies into town to get a ride.

“Looks like a good place to start,” Jackson said as the clerk’s truck stopped at a red light, near an Irish pub called MacBride’s.

He got off the truck, followed by David.

“What do you mean “start”?” the latter asked.

“Never heard of a bar crawl?” Seeing his friend’s confused expression, he laughed. “Then you, Davy boy, are in for the night of your life!”

“Have fun,” the clerk said as the light turned green, and he drove off.

“We will!” Jackson called out after him. “But first things first: let’s have breakfast.”

“We just had breakfast,” David pointed out.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I meant real food, buddy. Eggs, bacon, mash… Shit, even some oatmeal would be better than… whatever that sludge was.”

“It was oatmeal.”

Barely paying attention to David’s last comment, Jackson approached the pub, and read a menu displayed near the door. Unfortunately, the place didn’t offer breakfast. In fact, they didn’t even open until the afternoon. Shrugging, Jackson analyzed both sides of the street until he saw a small chain restaurant with “waffles” in the name. That’ll do.

Jackson ate his second breakfast with great appetite, but David was still stuffed from the first one, and only ordered a small orange juice. They had chosen a booth near the bay window, with a nice view of the street. A large mirror hung on the wall next to them.

“Those are some good waffles!” Jackson said, his mouth full of them. Some syrup dripped from his lips and stained his pants. “Sure you don’t want any?”

When David didn’t answer, Jackson looked up from his plate. His friend was turned toward the bay window, apparently staring at something outside. So fascinating was whatever he was looking at that he wouldn’t even blink. Jackson called out for him a couple of times, but was ignored. A little miffed, he stood up to snap his fingers in front of David’s eyes, when a voice called out to him. Jackson nearly tripped against the table when he realized that voice had come out of the mirror.

“Pay attention, Jackson. This is not real either.”

Jackson’s heart leaped in his chest when he turned to the mirror and saw a strange man standing where he should have seen his own reflection. The man had mid-long black hair, and piercing eyes the color of cold seas. Something seemed off about him, outside of the fact that he seemed to only exist in the mirror. Jackson glanced around the restaurant to check, but there was no one even remotely similar to him. But, wait… Why was everybody else completely still? Much like David, they seemed to be frozen in place. A waitress was pouring a cup of coffee for a guest at a nearby table, and the brown liquid was completely immobile, as though it had turned to ice. Going from spooked to scared, Jackson reported his attention to the mirror.

The strange man’s appearance seemed more precise, more defined than the other people in the restaurant; it was as if he was more… real than the rest. The effect was jarring. He looked like he had been superimposed on the scene, like a bad photomontage.

“What… Who the fuck are you?” Jackson said.

“We’re going to have to do this again, are we?” the man muttered.

“Why is everybody standing in place? What the fuck is happening?”

“Ignore them, Jackson. They’re not real; none of this is. I found a way to block it, but I’m pretty sure it’s only temporary. Listen to me. You need to get out.” His voice had dropped to a growl. “You broke out of the first illusion, you need to do it again. This is probably your only way back to reality.”

“I don’t understand what the fuck you’re-” Jackson said, but the man interrupted him.

“I’m starting to lose control. Jackson, find a mirror. Go to a bathroom or something. I can’t find any other way to contact you. Find a mirror, as soon as you-”

“All right, I’ll have some.”

Jackson recoiled, slamming his back against his seat. It was David talking to him, this time. He had seemingly broken out of whatever spell had put him on pause, and was now looking at him, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jackson immediately said. “Yeah, no, just, err… Here.”

He pushed his plate towards his friend, who cut himself a small piece of waffle.

“Almost as good as my Nana’s,” David commented.

What the hell just happened? Jackson thought. Was he hallucinating? Was it some sort of prank? Maybe it wasn’t a mirror; maybe it was a window, with an actor on the other side who…

Wait, where was the mirror? The young man looked around, but on his left was now nothing but a completely blank wall. He felt goosebumps appear on the back of his neck. There was a mirror there. There was. Wasn’t there? Confused, Jackson touched the wall. What the hell was going on?

“Everything okay?” David asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Uh… Yeah, I… Err, I need to go to the bathroom.”

He jumped out of the booth, heading straight for the door with the “men” sign on it. Something was wrong, his instincts told him, very, very wrong. Maybe if he found another mirror?… That strange man had said some very weird things, and his appearance in a reflection was more than a little unsettling, but he seemed to know what was going on, and Jackson had the intuition that he could believe him.

Why? He couldn’t say. It was the first time he ever saw that man, yet he seemed oddly familiar.

His hand turned the handle, he pushed open the door, and almost ran past it. A gasp escaped his mouth, and his eyes opened wide. There, on the other side of the door, was… the restaurant. The exact same room, as if he had left the bathroom instead of entering it. Everything there was identical, down to David who was staring at him. Jackson walked back to the booth, fear encroaching his guts. To describe his present situation as wrong would have been redundant now.

Unbelievable as it sounded, the strange man must have been right: this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Right? Or maybe… maybe he was just tired or something.

“It’s getting late,” David said. “Should we get started on this, err, bar crawl?”

Jackson blinked, and took a gander outside. It was indeed getting late. He didn’t have a watch, but by the position of the sun and the color of the sky, he estimated that the afternoon was over. Damnit, he thought.

“Yeah, let’s go. Time’s a-wastin’, and those beers won’t drink themselves.”

They paid their bill, left a tip, then went back to that Irish pub they had found earlier. It was now open, as the loud singing coming from inside indicated. A nice smell of warm food and alcohol greeted Jackson as he pushed open the door and walked in. He and David found two seats at the bar, and he ordered them a couple of pints. The barman didn’t even ask for their IDs before pouring them.

“First of the night!” Jackson said happily as he raised his glass for a toast. “How many do you think you can take?”

“I… I don’t know,” David said. “I’ve never done this before.”

“What? Getting drunk?”

“Drinking. At all.”

“Ah, right. So, how is it?”

David timidly sipped his beer. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Only okay?! That’s Irish beer, buddy. That stuff is world famous.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just don’t like beer.”

Jackson gasped dramatically, his face distorted in faux horror. “I can’t believe you said that. I must drink to forget!”

The two thirds of his pint disappeared within moments. Jackson let out a satisfied exhalation, which almost immediately turned into a burp. Meanwhile, David had only taken two more sips from his drink.

“Come on!” Jackson said. “We’ll only do a couple of bars if you keep drinking that slowly.”

“I’m trying to get used to the taste.”

Jackson groaned, and went back to his own beer. It was finished less than a minute later, which meant he had nothing to drink and not much to do for the fifteen minutes it took David to get to the bottom of his pint.

“That was… a lot,” he said. “Can we do half a pint on the next one?”

“Seriously?” Jackson’s shoulders sagged. “Fine.”

They paid up, and left. Their next bar was a rather nondescript establishment called Glass Half-Full. Jackson found the name rather fitting, given the occupancy. The mood was also very different from the previous bar, more subdued and less noisy; more boring, Jackson thought. But that didn’t matter, he decided, so long as the beer was good. And it was, mostly. Jackson challenged his friend to drink his in one go. David, slightly loosened up by the previous pint, agreed. He actually managed to gulp down most of it before it started going down the wrong pipe. The rest ended up on the floor in a series of coughs. They didn’t stick around for long after that.

Bar number three was some kind of biker bar. Jackson and David received some strange looks, whether it was because of how young they looked or on account of their military clothing, Jackson couldn’t say. David paled a bit when the barman took an extra long look at his ID card. Even Jackson started feeling a little queasy when the man’s expression changed to one of suspicion. Seconds passed, then turned into minutes. Jackson began to worry that they had been caught, but then the barman just handed the ID back to David, his face blank. This change of attitude was such that Jackson felt that something was wrong again.

Wait, “again”? Had he felt like that before? No, that was probably the beer going to his head-

Yes. Yes! There was that moment in the waffle place where he… Where he… What was it again? The mirror. Something about the mirror. 

But what mirror? There wasn’t one when he left the place. In the bathroom, maybe? No… There was no bathroom either. Wait, but that didn’t make-

His train of thought was derailed by the barman plopping down two bottles of beer in front of them. This place only served beer in bottles, it seemed. It’s fine, Jackson decided as he took his, beer is beer.

They didn’t stay very long in this place either. It seemed the customers weren’t particularly fond of army men. Jackson overheard a couple of clients whom he assumed were regulars complain about soldiers of the local base who had patronized the bar previously. He didn’t hear the whole story, but it had apparently ended with the police being called. The two friends paid, got their change, and booked it.

The next bar was an Irish pub called MacB– David rushed in before Jackson could read the entire name. Jackson followed him.

“Hey, someone’s finally eager to get polluted,” he said.

The pub was quite nice, with its wooden interior, his large selection of beers, and its overall ambiance. There was a lot of laughing and chanting among the patrons, many of whom appear to already be buzzed. Jackson blinked. The whole place seemed familiar. Very familiar. Jackson had experienced deja vu before, but he didn’t believe that was it. He actually had been to this place before. Recently, in fact. Actually, it seemed like he had just been there.

A sharp pain went through his head like a bolt of electricity, nearly blinding him. Memories flashed in his mind. They were distorted and obscured, as though Jackson was watching them on an old television set. The migraine intensified as he tried to focus on them, but still he persisted. He had to remember. He knew he had to.

Yes! Yes, he had been to that pub before. It was the first one of their bar crawl. Then, came that place whose name he couldn’t recall, then the biker bar. And then… Jackson focused harder, the pain in his brain searing like a red hot poker. Then, David had started feeling sick, and decided he couldn’t drink anymore. Jackson was disappointed, but agreed to take him back to base.

As soon as he remembered that, the pain ceased, and the rest of his memories began flowing back, as if his thoughts had punched through a wall that obfuscated them.

This was false. All of it was false. He wasn’t in this small town near the old base where he had been sent after boot camp, anymore than he was in the Dorsetts’ farm in Wyoming. He was not even on Earth at all.

“You did it!” a voice called out.

“Byron!” Jackson said as he recognized the veteran among the crowd.

“You’re breaking through. Keep going, you’re almost out.”

Jackson moved towards him, but someone immediately stepped between them. It was David -no, it was something that happened to look like David.

“You’re not going to drink your pint?” it said.

He looked at the fake David, and wondered how he could have been fooled for a second. Sure, it wore the mask and the rest of the costume, but he couldn’t have played the role more incorrectly. There was no way the real David would have smiled in such a setting. He was too much of a square to enjoy himself in a bar -no matter how hard Jackson had tried to make him. Jackson didn’t even bother answering, instead shoving him aside.

The crowd had become denser in the blink of an eye. Jackson let out a humorless laugh. As if that would be enough to stop him, now. The “patrons” were all looking at him, all smiling at him. Several offered him another drink, or simply tried to push one in his hands. It was as if the illusion was trying twice as hard to fool him now that he was waking up to its irreality. This had the opposite effect: the increasingly chummy behavior of all those people just cemented how fake it all was, in Jackson’s eyes.

“Hey, Jackson!”

He glanced to his right, and saw Lawrence trying to hand him a bottle of whisky.

“You’re not even supposed to be here,” Jackson replied before ignoring “him” entirely.

After a minute of searching, he spotted Byron again. He rushed to him, bumping into a few others in the process; it didn’t matter, he no longer paid attention to them, whatever they really were. As he got close, Byron turned to him and gave him a large smile which immediately alerted him.

“Did I ever tell you about the man who taught his asshole to talk?” he said.

“Great,” an identical voice said, coming from somewhere close. “And it’s quoting one of my favorite novels, too.”

“Byron!”

This time, it was the real one. There was no mistaking it: between the fact that he was the only one not to smile, and the fact that he once again seemed out of place, as if this whole scene was from a movie, and he had been added in post production. Once more, before he could reach him, someone intervened, this time by grabbing him by the arm.

Jackson’s heart sank when he recognized her. But no, damnit, that wasn’t her! As much as he tried to concentrate on that, he had to admit that this time, the illusion was very convincing. The smell of lavender, the dark, freckled skin…

“Are you going to leave me again, Jackson?” Clara said.

“I didn’t leave you,” Jackson said softly. “Our parents…” He shook his head. “You’re not here. And neither am I. Byron!” he called out.

“The wall!” Byron answered.

He peered at the wall, on the other side of the crowd. There was a large gash in it, but not like someone had hammered a way through it. More like a portion of it had ceased existing. Jackson could distinguish Byron on the other side, holding out his hand to him.

The crowd seemed to have gone delirious by now. All of them tried to grab at Jackson, laughing, hollering, and shouting. They didn’t look at all Human, now: their facial features seemed to melt as if they were wax figures in a microwave. In fact, the whole scenery was decaying faster and faster as Jackson got closer to the gash. The creatures surrounding him were beginning to form a denser barricade; it was clear they sought to prevent him from taking Byron’s hand. It was akin to trying to run underwater. Jackson pushed them away as hard as he could, punching and kicking when it wasn’t enough. Step by step, he got closer.

Their nails clawed into his skin. Another step. Their shouts deafened him. One more step. Their faces were now so distorted they looked more like poorly made Halloween masks. One more step. The chorus of screams intensified. One. More. Step.

The whole scenery was falling apart now. Ripples appeared along the walls and the ceiling; the floor became uneven, as if a groundswell moved beneath it. The screaming was so discordant it sounded more like an alarm or a foghorn.

When he finally made contact with Byron, it was like the whole world around him imploded. Everything turned to static, then to nothingness. There was not a sound, not a sight, not the faintest smell; Jackson couldn’t even feel the floor beneath his feet. Panicking, he called out:

“Hey, you there, buddy?”

“Yes,” Byron said.

Jackson sighed with relief.

“Where are we? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. We broke through the illusion. Now we should-”

Another voice rose from somewhere in the abyss that surrounded Jackson. It was raspy, nearly guttural, sounding neither male nor female, and definitely not Human.

“You don’t like happy, soldier boy?” it said. “Maybe you’ll like lonely better then.”

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