Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 317. Dirty Night Clowns (by Chris Garneau)
"Stay back; that is a command." I pulled myself out of Henry’s arms and walked toward the figure as if under a spell, thinking nonsense like,
’Are you the proof that I am not initially bad?’
’Do you know what I have been through? And if you knew, would you feel the same?’
’If you knew, would you be as helpless, scared, and fucking angry as I am?’
’Can you take over a part of this suffocating responsibility that constantly weighs on my shoulders?’
I felt the eyes of the other survivors as I took step after step, my counterpart doing the same.
I couldn’t look away, not scared at all, as if the dreams in which I had been beaten or killed by the crystalline figure had never happened.
Maybe because I had misunderstood him, the counterpart that would only attack after I did—a harmless reflection bending to what was shown to it—maybe because I finally understood its nature, there was nothing to be afraid of.
I came to a halt when we were only a step apart, and for whatever reason, I felt like crying.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, suppressing the urge to scream, to hug my counterpart, to break down.
I put my hands down and saw my counterpart do the same.
"Hi." I said, choked up, the faceless mask not moving.
"Can you show me where the portal back home will open?"
The figure in front of me raised his arm, motioning to my right.
Fuck, I cleared my throat, trying again to swallow a sob.
"Than—thank you." Sadly, I couldn’t touch it, because who knew what my blood would do to it? So I walked with it to a tree and sat down.
I leaned back and closed my eyes, hearing the steps of Henry and his counterpart coming closer.
"Are you alright?"
"I am fucking homesick." I said, not opening my eyes.
"...I know. What did it point at?" He asked.
"The way home."
"The moment the portal opens, you will have to put me back to the past."
I snapped my eyes open, seeing that more people emerged from behind the trees, starting to eat and drink what I had conjured up for them.
None of them tried to talk to each other, nor did they attempt to speak to the others, as if they knew it would be fruitless.
"Was that written in the letter?" I asked Henry.
Present-Henry had no idea of the portal when he had written the letters, so it shouldn’t have been stated in there.
"Something similar." He snorted unhappily.
"Okay, tell me when I should put you back."
"Won’t you miss me?" He asked me accusingly.
"I am missing you even now." I closed my eyes and leaned back again.
"Because I come from the past? Do you miss the present me?"
"Yeah. You belong to the Past-Kenny, and Present-Henry belongs to me. How can you leave poor Past-Kenny all alone? Don’t you feel bad for him?"
He chuckled.
"When you put it like that, I can’t wait to go back, though I had dreaded it before."
I smiled and felt him sit beside me, though I didn’t hear his counterpart sitting down.
The half hour or so went by faster than I thought, and we were ready to go.
I let the commander walk in the back with the sign raised, while Henry and I, together with our counterparts, walked in the front, Birthmark at our side also holding the sign with the house.
"Please stop when the directions change, then point out where we need to go, okay?" I asked the figure, and maybe I imagined it, but I think I saw it nod ever so slightly.
I held Henry’s wrist, constantly flipping the coin and confirming that my vision stayed the same when we found a few of the other office people on our way, without any crystalline figures by their sides.
I threw them at the commander to take care of in the back after providing them with a bag of apples, burgers, and water.
There was a restlessness in the air, or maybe it was just me, but I was so damn done with anything in this world and just wanted to see the place from my vision.
At one point, we stopped, my counterpart being absolutely reliable, pointing out another direction.
When I felt a light wind, I already knew we were near the spot where the worlds had melted together.
I breathed out the air that seemed to have been stuck inside my chest when I saw a tree a few hundred meters ahead of us, a real tree, with real bark, real roots, branches, and leaves.
Henry patted my shoulder.
"It won’t take much longer." He said.
"Mhm." We walked to the seam, the crystalline earth eventually bordering into the real one, the night sky in this world not nearly as blinding as the daylight in the crystalline world, the spot where the skies overlapped giving off a stunning violet color.
Additionally, the smell of a forest hit me, making me feel alive again. Only now did I notice the extent to which everything had been so damn plastic inside the crystalline world.
The moment our group had crossed into the real forest, I could feel the whole group’s spirit lift, even if they didn’t get loud or cheer.
This was so much more similar to home.
My counterpart led us through parts of the forest, and then we finally stopped, looking down from the top of a hill at the flat field, a dozen figures already standing there. Half of the field still had crystalline earth, although the sky over our heads was now completely dark.
The transition from one world to another wasn’t clear-cut, but just like waves that had swapped over.
"WE WILL REST HERE UNTIL THE PORTAL OPENS!" I hollered. It was the spot we had been in during my vision, and it was the best place to be because it wasn’t amidst the figures and not too close to the portal; at the same time, we would reach it in a few minutes if we ran.
On real earth, at the top of the hill, I leaned against a real tree with my counterpart and conjured up a cigarette.
Henry took it from my hands, none of our counterparts mirroring us as we shared a cigarette in absolute silence.
"Don’t let it touch your counterpart," I joked, before stopping to speak because something was nagging at me.
When it was my turn again, I stared at the glint, the feeling that I had forgotten something, something really important, overwhelming me.
"Something is wrong, and I don’t know what it is." I took a drag and handed the cigarette to Henry, grabbing his wrist after he took it.
Same vision, the portal opens, the street with the cars—snap—I was pulled out. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
Again, I flipped the coin, portal, street—snap.
I let the cigarette disappear and called Birthmark to me.
I touched him and flipped the coin.
Portal, street—snap.
"Maybe it wasn’t important then," Henry tried to reassure me after I told Birthmark to go away.
"No. It was important." I insisted, conjuring up a new cupboard and drawing a red stop sign on one side.
On the other side, I drew a green arrow, but even when I finished, I didn’t remember what it was, though my instincts were screaming and shaking me.
My head hurt because I was so tense, and when the sign was ready, I leaned back and watched more and more crystalline figures arriving at the field in front of us.
I watched the sky change from night to dawn and waited with my sign, with Past-Henry, with the office people, and with the others who couldn’t speak or understand.
We all waited for the door that would lead us home, back to our loved ones.
And while every second passed so leisurely as if it had hours to go by, I constantly thought of Henry, even the damn Center, Henry, my grandma, Henry, my friends, Henry—finally, the moment of time came.
I could feel it with every fiber of my body and stood up, roaring for everyone to hear,
"GET READY!" I held the sign up, the stop sign visible for the people behind me, hearing them stand up from their resting places.
I stared at the spot ahead, the place where the portal would open; the moment it appeared, I would teleport through it, no matter what would happen behind me. There was only one person I would think of now and in the future.
"Not two years." I said to the world, to the universe.
"I will give you one year." Not longer, not shorter.
"I can pay with my power, but I demand that no longer than a year has gone by since I first arrived in this world. That means three months since I last saw Present Henry." Call it a prayer, call it desperation, but wasn’t that enough time sacrificed between us?
YOU OWE ME THIS.
Henry laughed, hearing my words, and hugged me from behind, planting a kiss on my cheek.
"I will miss you, Future-Kenny."
"I will miss you, Past-Henry." I answered, feeling his finger wander to my chest, tapping twice on the spot right above my heart, while I stared straight ahead, unable to tear my eyes from the spot that would bring us home.
"Don’t be angry with my future self, because I fear he will be angry with you." He whispered in my ear when the earth started to tremble ever so slightly.
"I won’t." I promised, feeling the air bristling, seeing the spot in the landscape ahead change.
Feeling something grave happening, something OPENING.
"Remember your words." He chuckled deeply, kissing my neck.
"Send me back."
I grabbed his wrist.
"I can’t wait to see you," I mumbled, watching the portal open, a street appearing, the spot growing bigger and bigger, cars halting, crashing, accelerating.
I put Henry back to the past, where he belonged; his warmth was still lingering as I prayed that my Henry—the one belonging to me—was just out there, just ahead, so close that I would instantly fall into his arms the moment I set foot back into my own world.
