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It’s far past midnight when Dude finally returns home. There are only two steps leading to his front door, but each time he lifts a leg it feels like agony. It’s not that his muscles are too tired, though. It’s a separate exhaustion that’s ailing him tonight- the kind that festers inside his head. It makes everything he does feel like a grand display of strength and resolve. Just the task of walking here has rendered all of his muscles taut and his jaw aches to the teeth under the tension.
Feeling this sullen and depressed, to the point that he feels there is a physical weight resting on him, is not something that Dude is used to - at least not since recently - yet tonight he is feeling particularly dirt-bound. Truly, it’s as if God himself has placed a finger on the top of Dude’s head and is slowly pushing him down into the soil. A thought crosses his mind that karma might also have something to do with all of this. The powers that be, and at times it truly feels like all of them, never give him as much as an inch. Maybe he doesn’t deserve it.
Despite his woes, Dude does defeat the two fold-out stairs leading to his front door and he does successfully find the right key for the right hole to unlock it. The dim interior of his trailer welcomes him with familiar smells that ease his weary mind, even if only slightly, and locking the door behind him certainly doesn’t hurt either. He’s made it back to his little pocket of safety. Nothing can get him here inside his trailer- or at least, nothing ever has. And Dude is riding on the belief nothing ever will, because today has been far too difficult to put another issue on his plate. If he doesn’t give himself a moment to decompress, he’s surely about to collapse.
Turning on the TV is the first order of business; it’s important that it drowns out the quiet, lest Dude hone in on every little pop and creak his home makes. This is another new problem for him that’s come about in the last few months. Sure, he’s always enjoyed having something for background noise, whether it be music or a movie, but now it is imperative that the noise be there so he won’t lapse into overblown hypervigilance. The last time he had ignored this tactic in favor of just toughing it out, he had spiraled to the point of not leaving his trailer for a handful of days.
He’d lost count after the second night spent trapped, but he’d had to go out for smokes at some point and Catharsis had looked different somehow. The people weren’t acting the same. Their movements were verging on uncanny and the way they spoke made Dude feel as if he were in some sort of simulation. He even caught himself looking around for a teleprompter at the gas station, certain that the cashier was reading a script. It just wasn’t natural. None of it was.
Of course, that little episode had ended eventually. The paranoia and fear had gradually ebbed off of him, and without hypervigilance hounding his every step he was able to look for work again. This is what he had been doing today when it all came crashing down for the umpteenth time.
After setting the pitiful amount of cash that is the day’s wages aside, along with his pistol and smokes, Dude removes his tan duster and lays it across the couch. He takes a seat on one of its sagging cushions with a bone-deep sigh and removes his shades from his face, rubbing at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“Pull yourself together…” he mumbles into the empty trailer while attempting to fend off the concoction of emotions brewing in his neurons. All of them negative and out for blood.
This isn’t working. This whole “doing chores for random strangers in exchange for pennies” bullshit. Despite the wad of ones and twenties on his table, Dude is still no closer than he was this morning to affording a tank of gas to escape this place. This sad stack of bills will be gone by the next grocery run. It’s almost as if the people here are pit against him, like they’ve all made up their minds not to help the freak who rolled into town. He’s almost died multiple times for nothing! Not a damn thing! And it’s really starting to eat at him.
Worry is giving way to anger. His hands ball into fists and before he can think twice he’s standing and turning, facing the wall behind the couch to reel back and send home a punch hard enough to break drywall. A horrid cracking sound announces the creation of a fist-sized hole. One Dude’s hand is half way inside. As soon as what he’s done settles in, and it doesn’t take long, the anger inside him deflates just as quickly as it came. He shakes the pain from his knuckles and turns away from the damage like a reprimanded dog. But there’s no one here to scold him, only his own despair threatening to choke him for his misdeeds.
“Nice one.” A voice he has heard before speaks up inside his skull. It sounds like who Dude used to be.
“Fuck you! Fuck off!” Dude responds immediately, speaking aloud to the thing inside his head. Unfortunately his voice doesn’t have the edge he had hoped, instead it sounds rather startled.
“And leave you here by your lonesome to destroy all your shit?”
Dude has to take a seat again. His vision is swimming and his skull is pounding. He rests his head in his hands, fingertips brushing against the scar on his temple. His mind wanders toward his medications, but the only thing he still has around are anticonvulsants. His anti psychotics ran out months ago. Maybe even a year ago at this point. They aren’t exactly cheap without insurance.
“I’ve got enough going on, I don’t need you sitting on top of it,” is the next thing Dude manages to grit out. It feels like his voice box is being suppressed by some invisible hand on his throat.
“Maybe you’d have room for me if you weren’t spending all your time getting swindled,” the voice responds cooly, but Dude can feel the snark those words are meant to carry.
“Maybe I don’t wanna make room for you!” is all Dude can think to respond with, his normally sharper wit crushed under the weight of his humiliation.
Despite taking a hit to his ego, though, Dude’s quip lands as intended and the anger within him returns. This time it is all consuming, and the world swoops and turns to static in his ears. His hands fall from his face and when he looks down at them they aren’t his. Neither are these jeans, this shirt.
“You’re gonna learn to,” Dude hears the voice say, and though he wants to speak in turn, he feels helpless to do so.
Gritting his teeth, Dude forces himself back against the couch cushions, staring dead ahead, past the TV’s colorful screen and to the window on the wall beyond it.
“All of those people out there,” the voice continues, “they all want you dead for the shit you’ve done to survive. Look at how they treat you.”
Dude shuts his eyes, jerking his head to the side to look away from the window. He can’t reply aloud, and so instead he attempts to speak within his head. His mind feels muddy, thoughts zipping this way and that, but he manages.
“They don’t know me-”
“They know something!” The voice is growing hostile now.
Dude’s eyes open. He can still see the window and the door as vague shapes in his peripheral vision. His body is full of strangeness. Anger, desperation, fear and disgust. They’re all mixing together and putting out an emotion Dude can’t quite parse. His body won’t obey him like it should, his mind is too full and he can’t think. It’s a terrifying predicament, one he would happily trade for a firefight any day of the week.
“You think they know me from the news?” Dude asks, once again with no vocalization.
“They could,” the voice says, the sharpness to its sound softening just slightly. “You think my face isn’t known? After the coverage I got?”
Dude snarls at nothing. “ Your face?”
“My face. The one you took to wear.”
Dude groans pitifully. Whatever this voice is, it sure knows right where to hit him. To be fair, no one wants to be told they are an intruder within their own body, but for Dude this idea is one quick to run rampant. He assumes all of this is nothing more than a psychotic break. Those always extrapolate his fears, but he’s survived every single one. He just needs to figure out how to deal with this one. He’s attempting to think of solutions, anything to get this voice away from him, but each time he tries his thoughts melt into themselves.
“Whatever…” Dude mumbles, eventually taking to outright dismissal of his situation; his usual go-to.
The voice is none too pleased with this approach and it’s really getting excited now. “No. Not fucking whatever . You’re gonna get killed. Or worse.”
With a body so numb and a brain so foggy, Dude is having no luck dissuading his little friend. But this isn’t their first rodeo. This voice had been there last time Dude got lost inside his own head, though it hadn’t stuck around to see the damage it caused with its incessant need to warn him about doomsday. No, instead it had barked orders at him to fix himself- whatever that entails- and to get them before they got him. Dude is no stranger to fretting over this illusive they , but the voice in his head seems to think they’re not so illusive after all. Its ability to talk Dude into believing someone is here and they’ll be knocking down his door at any second is where the problem really lies. Even now, if he considers it too hard he nearly slips into believing it. His fingers itch for a trigger to pull.
“You’re sloppy! How many motherfuckers are gonna get to use this face as the fall guy for their shit plans before you actually learn something?!” the voice roars with fury. Dude’s hands turn clammy and sweat beads on his brow.
“Whatever happened to…” Dude tries to speak again within his head, but every time he tries the thoughts get swept away in the voice’s violent current. “The demon? Am I not that anymore?”
There is silence for a moment before feelings of disapproval and disappointment press onto Dude with force and he is left feeling like a scolded child. If kids had the ability to hate themselves so wholly, that is.
“No, you’re too fuckin’ incompetent to be that thing. You’re just an intruder, and I don’t know how you got here,” the voice’s tone is lowering, becoming something sinister, “but I won’t let you fuck this up.”
“What… Are you gonna do? Kill me…?” Dude grinds his jaw, brow furrowing down with frustration. His own this time.
“I just might.”
The emotions tearing through Dude’s body are becoming unbearable. His stomach churns and his body twitches as he vies for control against his invisible assailant, desperate to stop this sudden flood of despair. He can hear the shivering exhale he sighs more than he can feel it escape him. He has to take the reins on this situation back.
“Fuck this!” Dude exclaims, this time out loud. And he’s forcing himself from the couch, standing up once more to pace around the room, clinging tightly to the control he managed to wrestle back into his hands.
“Fuck you!” The voice growls in his ears.
“I don’t know what the hell this is or what you are,” Dude mutters into the darkness of the kitchen as he approaches it, leaning his weight against the countertop, “But you’re not gonna be the thing that takes me out, you bitch.”
“I won’t have to at this rate. You walk into bullets more often than they’re fired at you.”
Dude lifts one of his fists, slamming it into the counter. It feels like all he can do, just shy of punching himself in the nose. “I’ve survived this long. Does that mean nothing?”
“Your luck is gonna run dry,” the voice states plainly, “how many holes in your middle do you think you can take before one hits your stomach? Your lung? Your heart?”
“So what do you want from me?” Dude rumbles, moving to rest both forearms against the counter for stability. “I do as well as I can with-”
“I want you to fucking kill them first, moron! Kill them before they get a chance to kill you!” The voice sounds urgent now, and the hostility has returned to its tone. “Haven’t they proven their fucking intentions yet?”
This gives Dude pause. His mind has cleared somewhat since regaining his composure, allowing him to try and debunk what the voice is saying. It is true that more often than not violence seems to follow Dude wherever he goes. The people he interacts with, despite that they’re from all different walks of life and backgrounds, all seem to only want one thing: for Dude to roll over and show his belly. Honestly, it's expected. That much is obvious by how he’s spoken to. Jen, the postal babe he had done security for, is the only one who offered him any sympathy for his trouble. And she works with him. For all he knows, her extending her little apology was out of pity more than respect for his wasted time.
While all of this is downright infuriating, however, this urge to wipe out the entirety of Catharsis that Dude is being presented with surely isn’t the answer to the problem. In fact, Dude could quickly come up with several reasons why such an action would create more problems than it solves. Assuming that he survived the attempt.
“Jumping to killing isn’t usually the best idea…” Dude says after a beat.
“Oh, come on,” the voice sounds exasperated and Dude can picture and feel the way its presence looms around him like shadow, “You do it nearly every day anyway. How shit does a person have to be? How much lead do you have to eat before you share with the rest of the class?”
“Yeah, I do it nearly every day, shithead, that's the problem. And that’s on my best behavior! You think showing up to the function gun in hand is gonna make things easier?!”
“Fuck the function! Fuck everybody here! Give them what they deserve, steal a credit card off a corpse and get the fuel to fuck off back into the damn desert!”
Dude growls aloud. “We do that and we’re really gonna have an issue with authority knowing this mug. Wasn’t that your problem at the beginning of all this?”
That point renders the voice in his mind quiet. Dude can still feel it there, is still harboring its emotions, but it isn’t speaking. The pause lasts long enough that Dude wonders if he’ll hear anything else tonight, but the voice does return eventually.
“We have to do something. It’s us or them, and I refuse to die because some idiot got a lucky shot.”
Another sigh and Dude is on the move toward the refrigerator. He isn’t particularly hungry, but he feels compelled to do something, anything to ground him back into reality. The only thing he has stocked is beer, and so he grabs one and cracks it open, downing the whole brew in one go. Then he grabs another to take back to the couch. His body still feels stiff, but he at least can feel the cold of the can against his palm.
“Well, I think we need a better plan.” Dude’s voice sounds rough with exhaustion.
“Do you have one, genius?”
“...Not exactly… But I guess we could always resort to just stealing.”
Immediately Dude’s brain is alight with ideas on how he could possibly steal gasoline from a pump, but all roads end in someone's death. He needs to be able to swipe a credit card, or maybe if he could find a sucker with enough cash…
“So you just want to play assassin and leave? You just want to walk in here, get beaten black and blue, then waltz out? You’d let people take advantage of you like that?”
Dude is shaken out of his planning by the voice’s interruption and its words make his guts writhe with upset. “We either cut our losses or hunt down every employer I’ve had since getting here. And honestly? That doesn’t sound good for my health.”
“I’d rather die getting justice than attempting to flee.”
“And I’d rather not die at all!”
“You fucking idiot!” The voice is harsh and Dude can feel it creeping onto his person again. “You’re gonna die no matter what! You don’t mean shit to anyone, no matter how useful and competent you think you are, they can see you’re a pushover. They see how weak you are. They’ll leverage it against you the first chance they get and they’ll cap you right between the eyes after you’re all used up.”
Taking hit after hit to his ego really isn’t helping Dude come up with solutions to any of his current problems. His expression darkens considerably and he takes another long drink from the beer can in his hand. It isn’t strong enough, though. He’d need at least five of these to feel something, and that’s why he decides right then and there to remove himself from the couch again to start snooping around the various liquor bottles strewn about the living room and kitchen. One of them is bound to have enough alcohol left in it to knock him around.
“Christ…” Dude says, once again unable to come up with all of the words needed to successfully defend himself. He picks up and peers at a few empty whiskey bottles as he continues. “You know if you get me suicidal that’s gonna be the end of you, too.”
“Like I give a shit,” the voice retorts.
Again, whatever this thing in his head is, it’s showing itself to be a complete hypocrite, and a jerk.
“You care enough to badger me about how I handle things,” Dude says, still inspecting the liquor bottles he finds, and he does come across one that’s nearly half full. It’s white rum and not his favorite, but it will certainly do.
As Dude retrieves a shot glass from the kitchen sink and makes himself comfortable on the couch for the third time tonight, the voice continues their argument. “I don’t care if I die, I care how I die. Eating dirt for some freak who couldn’t give two shits and just needed a delivery made isn’t it, either.”
Dude can’t deny there is sense in that statement, but the voice’s solution to it all is where he can’t continue to agree. No matter which way he swings it or how strong the compulsions are, Dude cannot justify killing that many people. People he’s never even seen, much less met, would get caught up in the violence. And Dude cares about that. At least on his good days. At least he tries to. What is honestly more pressing is the anxiety and fear that comes with being on the run. He’s had enough of being the one at large for one lifetime, even if authorities have dropped the Paradise bombing case due to lack of evidence. He can’t get away with it twice. There’s no possible way.
“You know, you accused me of being a demon or some shit, but you’re the one filling my head with evil deeds,” Dude says after taking a shot of the rum. It does not go down smoothly.
“I’m only suggesting we deal the violence back. You’ve been here less than a week and half of Catharsis is your enemy,” the voice counters.
“So is that what you consider yourself? My voice of reason?” Dude drawls, immediately knocking back another shot. His throat is still numb from the first one, but that doesn’t mean the rum treats him any better the second time.
“No. I should be in control. I was here first.”
Grimacing, Dude sets the shot glass down on the table with a thud and grabs his beer to down the rest of it to cleanse his palate.
“What the hell does that mean?” The nonchalance is returning to Dude’s tone and the familiar warmth he can feel in his cheeks along with a gentle burn in his belly offered by the rum is extremely comforting.
“You know you’re missing a chunk of your past. Who do you think has it?” The alcohol is also affecting the voice, the edge to its tone is being buffered.
It’s true that Dude can’t remember anything from before his last week in Paradise, but he had just put a bullet through his skull. From what he can recall, the doctors seemed pleased he even remembered where he was when he woke up. It comes as no surprise whatsoever that he lost a chunk of his memories, but the idea that this voice has them is just absurd. It’s not even real! Dude is almost sure of it.
“Yeah, sure. I bet,” Dude says and rolls his eyes.
“You don’t believe me?” the voice asks.
“Why should I? The only thing you’ve actually proven to be is a pain in my ass. As soon as I get enough cash to pay for my meds, you’re fuckin’ outta here.”
“No.” Is the only response Dude receives at first.
“No?”
“I won’t let that happen. I’ll figure this out-” Dude’s thoughts have gone from mingling together to floating along his stream of consciousness. It’s affecting how he hears the thing inside his head. Its sentences break apart strangely, but Dude can still understand what it’s trying to say. “I’ll get control back and end all of this. I’ll get us out of here. I’ll save us if you won’t.”
Again Dude’s limbs are seized with a buzzing static that prickles his skin and makes the hair on his arms stand on end. He flexes his fingers and tilts his head back, groaning softly. Already this song and dance is getting old, but with alcohol in his system, Dude can’t find it in himself to care enough to panic. Instead he forces his body forward, grabbing the rum to pour himself another shot.
“Fuck off, would ya?” Dude says lowly before downing it. “The people here are fucked. Incompetent for sure. Assholes… Yeah. All of that. But in what fucking world is killing every loser we meet the solution? Why the hell are you so stuck on this?”
“In this one. This fucking world. These people are… Something is wrong with them. You’ve seen it.”
“I think maybe I was just unmedicated, pal. Seeing shit and it looking wrong is nothing new. You just gotta wait for it to pass.”
“This isn’t going to pass. I thought it was just Paradise… But I think it’s spreading. Everyone is so goddamn hostile and violent. Everyone’s got an agenda. If you keep rolling over for them, you’ll be next.”
“Next for what?”
“To catch the infection.”
Dude pauses when faced with this new piece to the puzzle. Infection? That implies a number of things, chief among them being that his visitor is completely off its rocker. Another interesting fact about this is that Dude hasn’t worried about getting sick in… Well, ever. It’s not something that lingers at the forefront of his mind. It’s strange that his subconscious would cling to the idea of it hard enough to manifest this hallucination.
“Infected with what? The flu or somethin’?” Dude says, completely at a loss on what the voice could possibly mean.
“No. I don’t know what it is, but it could be airborne. Or maybe in the water. However it’s being distributed, it’s gotten to everyone. Is that not obvious? Look at how they behave!” The voice has swung from confrontational to urgent again and Dude gets the sense he’s being gripped, forced to listen to what’s being said.
“We have to leave, we have to get the fuck out! And before we do we need to cleanse this place. Or it will follow us.” The voice concludes its piece and it sounds as if its flame of passion is snuffed out toward the end. Dude is surprised when he feels sympathy pangs.
“Now you’ve completely lost me,” Dude says, resting his forearms on his knees. His tone gives away how unconvinced he is when he continues. “You think there’s something getting to people? And it’s spread its way across all of Arizona?”
“You say it like it’s an impossible task. The military-”
The voice is cut short when Dude interjects. “The military? So this is just some kind of wild conspiracy.”
“Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” the voice chants, the urgency in it ramping up tenfold. “It’s not a conspiracy, it’s the fucking truth!”
The emotions and sensations the voice is causing within Dude’s body are getting tough to bear again. The anxiety is being kept at the fringes by the rum, but the others rush to the front of his mind and creep through his nerves. He feels incredibly upset, burning up as flames lap at him from somewhere he can’t quite pinpoint. Brow pinched, Dude rubs his clammy hands against his jeans and grimaces. It’s painful to feel so much at once.
When Dude doesn’t reply, the voice continues. “The evidence is everywhere and everyone I tell refuses to see it! You, the people in Paradise, the authorities! You’re all fucking useless!”
This is getting pretty serious, Dude thinks. He tries to speak, to ask what the hell the voice means, but the sound that escapes him is more akin to a whimper than words. Somehow this thing is controlling him and despite the way he wants to blame all of this on his schizophrenia, because that would be easy and familiar, there’s something awfully wrong here. Again, he looks down at hands that aren’t his and the way they shake. He wants to scream, to lash out at anything. Anyone. Everyone. The entire goddamn planet.
But he also wants to rest. And he needs to be heard. And he needs someone to see what’s happening to him. And he needs help.
Dude buries his head in his trembling hands, gripping at his hair. He is so full of despair and hate and fear. His throat closes, his teeth grit.
“Don’t be a coward. Don’t fucking turn your back on me,” the voice says, sounding sinister again.
Dude stands against his will, walking toward the wall where a few of his guns are hanging. He feels as if he’s somehow watching himself act from the inside as he grabs the M16 from its place, feeling the weight of it in his hands before he takes aim with it. His grip on the weapon is too tight and the gun quivers slightly when he looks down the barrel of it toward the refrigerator.
“They’d never see it coming. Not from you,” the voice carries on and the gun is lowered to Dude’s side.
Stepping forward, Dude’s arm is lifted and his fingers part the blinds covering the window nearest him. It’s dark out there, but the light from the moon is just enough to make out the details of the gas station and houses around him. He doesn’t see any people, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t present. In fact, he’s got a feeling he’s being watched. And it’s getting worse. However, the alcohol is making his vision swim just enough that focusing on any fixed point in the dim moonlight proves to be impossible. This only causes a painful wrenching in his stomach, fear pressing past the poison in his veins to take full effect.
Dude retreats from the window and hurries to the lamp on his coffee table, turning it off and stepping back into the darkness of the small hallway leading to his bedroom. It’s the darkest place in the trailer at present, and the shadow concealing him is comforting. He doesn’t bother shutting off the TV, allowing it to drone on at a low volume while its light dances in blue hues across the couch. He isn’t trying to hide- there’s no point. They already know where he is. He just needs to be able to get the drop on them when they enter.
Pressing his back to the wall, Dude slides downward until he is sitting on the floor in the dark. His fingers trace the contours of his weapon, mapping out every single bolt and plate he knows is there. It could be his salvation, if only he could will himself to use it. He could escape this hell. He wouldn’t have to run anymore. He wouldn’t be the prey any longer, but the predator. He could execute the culling, stop the spread.
But Dude doesn’t rise from his spot. The voice has seemingly vanished, too, with how quiet his mind is. Hell, it’s happening again. The fucker riled him up and ditched him, didn’t it? Dude curls into himself, around his gun, and he squeezes his eyes shut tight. He’s no coward, but this feeling of eyes on him that are somehow able to pierce any wall with their gaze is maddening. His body wants release from it, too, where it shakes and sweats under the load of his emotions.
“Not again… Not again,” Dude breathes softly to himself, and it’s at that point he realizes he’s speaking aloud with little effort.
Lifting his head, Dude takes a look around the trailer and it actually feels as if he’s in control. This much is grounding and it settles the pain in his body brought on by the desperation he’d felt just moments ago. He doesn’t feel right , but at least he can move. If he can find the energy to. He’s exhausted right down to the very marrow of his bones.
It takes a good while, but eventually Dude does stand and place the gun back on the rack he took it from. The paranoia is subsiding, the episode is hopefully over, and his body feels as it should. But there is something nagging at him still. He doesn’t feel alone in his home, and the strangest part about it is that it isn’t affecting him at all. Somehow he feels comfortable with the invisible presence. Like he knows it. And that’s because he does.
“Gah, you’re stubborn.” It’s the voice again and this time it sounds far more subdued. Its tone now matches the way Dude’s own voice pitches low with tiredness.
“Wore you out already, did I?” Dude quips halfheartedly and immediately he is flooded with frustration.
“Is everything a joke to you?” the voice rumbles.
Dude frowns. “I start taking things too seriously and I’ll wind up sounding like you. The world doesn’t have to end every weekend, y’know.”
Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe this thing just wore itself out, but whatever it says next is something Dude can’t make out. It’s said too quietly.
Walking back over to the couch, Dude grabs his pack of cigarettes he’d discarded on the table earlier and lights one. He takes a long, hard drag, aching for relief. The feeling of nicotine releasing into his veins quickly helps settle his nerves.
“Look,” Dude starts, exhaling a lungful of smoke, “we can’t keep doing this. If you’re gonna keep showing up here, you gotta act right.”
The frustration still bubbling under Dude’s skin flares gently.
“Oh fuck off, would ya?” the voice retorts, still speaking rather softly. It sounds ragged.
Again, Dude is experiencing something akin to actual empathy for his new pal. It sounds awfully defeated at the moment, and though Dude had fought for this outcome, he still feels that maybe he hasn’t been handling this in the best way he can. So he readies himself for his next attempt at communication, taking a seat once again on the couch.
“So… About this infection stuff. You really believe it?” Is what Dude decides to ask first.
“I believe something is wrong with this place. All these places. The only thing that makes sense to me is that it’s… A chemical maybe. In some kind of resource,” the voice answers.
“I mean… I see what you’re saying,” Dude says and runs a hand through his hair, trying to be open minded. “But I still think it’s pretty unlikely. If it were some crazy drug getting to everyone, don’t you think they’d also be attacking each other?”
“They will, if you give them enough time.”
Dude hums aloud and takes a glance at the rum still sitting on the coffee table. Then he glances at the clock on the microwave that he can see from where he sits. It’s nearly three in the morning. He could keep drinking, but he’s a little afraid he won’t remember this conversation if he does. He’ll have to persevere on the fading loopiness still being provided by his earlier shots.
“Maybe… Maybe,” Dude mutters, and to his surprise, a sense of relief washes over him that feels like at least a thousand pounds has been lifted from his person.
“So you’re finally seeing sense,” the voice says.
“I guess so, but I still don’t like your solution. Still don’t think it’s the right move. Think our best bet is to steal some cash and hightail it out of here before things get worse. Assuming you’re right.”
Dude takes another drag from his cigarette and haphazardly flicks it against the ashtray sitting near him. Half of the ashes spill onto the table.
“... Fine,” the voice relents. “But promise me you won’t hesitate when shit starts going south. Don’t fucking ignore it-”
“I won’t!” Dude interjects in his own defense. “All I’m saying is I’m gonna need to see a little more proof everyones so ill before I go lopping random heads off, but if we get lucky enough we might not even be around when it happens. If it happens.”
Though the voice is being surprisingly agreeable at the moment, Dude can’t shake the feeling of unease still gnawing at him.
“Still think your bleeding heart is gonna getcha killed.” The voice hisses after a beat, and Dude is enlightened on exactly why he still feels like a rabbit in an open field.
“Man, you really got a bad case of the heebie jeebies, smiley. Every time you’re here you get me fucked up, tell me to go on a rampage and leave.” Dude scoffs, blowing smoke from his nose.
“And you’re a moron. A blind one, no fuckin’ less. The way you look around you, see the obvious bullshit, and just decide to ignore the problem is pretty impressive.”
“That ain’t fair!” Dude exclaims, tossing his hands up in a lazy gesture. “Like I said before, people have been acting like shit, but- ugh. Forget it.”
Dude and the voice sit in the following silence for just a few moments before Dude decides to take another shot at explaining his point of view.
“Then again... Let’s say you’re right, and I’m a no-good deadbeat who just can’t see the world for what it is… I’ve still survived this long. No more bullets through the brain in the last five or so years, planted there by me or otherwise,” Dude says and huffs a rather despondent chuckle.
“So I must be doing something right. You gotta start trustin’ me a little here.”
The anxiety tugging on Dude’s stomach finally loosens its grip.
The voice speaks up again. “I guess. But I still think you rely too much on luck.”
“I rely on any means I got,” Dude says. “Lady luck included. And honestly, I think she likes me! All things considered.”
“Oh, please.” It’s the voice’s turn to scoff, but it doesn’t start another argument. “I don’t have much of a choice one way or the other. Whatever you decide to do in any given situation, I’m stuck in here with you.”
“That’s right!” Dude chimes, suddenly feeling triumphant. “ You’re stuck in here with me . And don’t forget it.” His tone has a playful uptick to it.
“Christ…” The voice mutters, but its anger doesn’t rise to the occasion for once.
Dude smiles to himself, still puffing smoke. He’s starting to feel much lighter as the minutes tick on.
“Just promise me,” the voice continues, “that you won’t be leaving anything left unsaid in the future. If someone wrongs you, you gotta put ‘em down.”
Dude wants to bring up his earlier points, those about causing more problems for himself, but he doesn’t. The voice had agreed to Dude’s boundary earlier, so Dude can meet it halfway.
“Fine. Deal,” Dude says and snuffs out his dwindled cigarette in the ashtray with a little more force than needed.
Quiet falls over the pair once more after this, and though Dude still feels a little wired from the night’s events, the exhaustion seeping into his very atoms is far more pressing. He’s shutting down, his eyes burn and water when he yawns. He tries to shake the sleepiness from his head before his eyes scan over to the picture on his television. There’s a sitcom on and he can hear the laugh-track playing softly from the old speakers. That will work just fine for sleep noise.
The presence the voice carries with it has changed from feeling like something looming above him to a sensation that reminds him of someone resting their weight against his back. It’s interesting how much its presence feels like a person, and that makes Dude’s mind wander while he fetches himself a blanket and removes his jeans to settle in for the night.
Brains are complicated organs. There could be a thousand different answers for something like this. Probably. And Dude doesn’t need those right now; nor could he afford them. He just needs to figure out what his normal is and stick to it. Survive. Keep moving.
The voice in his head does not leave him, though the conversation dies entirely. It sort of feels like he’s watching TV with a friend, as odd as it seems. It’s nice to not feel so isolated, at the very least, and it helps Dude drift off to sleep.