Chapter 16 (Patreon)

One last real world scene and then we're back...

Chapter 16 - Lies

Death Timer: <1 Hour Remaining

Lane Residence

Alex

Here he was again.  Sitting in his room… or the other-him’s room.

A posh, extravagant affair.  Silk sheets.  Embroidered draperies.  His bed perched on its own raised pedestal like an altar to the god of sleep.  The room artfully dotted with over-priced, designer furniture built by people whose names he couldn’t pronounce.  Alex could tick off the price of every object in the room like a credit card commercial.  A cold calculus.

They were just things.  There wasn’t a single sign of Alex.  No pictures.  No knickknacks.  No souvenirs.  Nothing uniquely him.  Nothing that created any emotional connection.  That made him feel anything.  And it wasn’t just his room.  It was the whole house.  It was all cold and empty.

Nothing that gave him any clue as to who he was...

Or why George was keeping things from him.

That much was abundantly clear after that meeting.  Who was Cady to George?  Since when had he hired such a high-level employee?  And she just happened to be another avatar?  That seemed too unlikely to be coincidence.  A knot of suspicion tightened in his gut, laced with resentment – Cady knew far too much, and held far too much sway, for a simple employee. Not only that, but his father seemed to trust her implicitly, which only confirmed Jason’s implicit accusation.  That meant he had leverage on Cady.

Because George Lane didn’t trust anyone.  Even Alex.

He’d shown his true face as soon as the others left.

His “father” had done his best to remind Alex of his duty.  His obligations.  His incompetence.  To press on that open wound in his mind – the one every version of him had.  That gnawing insecurity he tried to cover by projecting the illusion of perfection.   A mask that covered the truth he’d been told his whole life.  That he wasn’t good enough; was never enough.

The evidence of that was strewn around him.  His room a scene of pure carnage.

That fancy furniture toppled.  Glass shattered.  Pillows torn open.  The other-him’s clothes littering the floor. $157,680 in damage by his calculation.

He barely remembered doing it.  Even now, every time he closed his eyes, there was only George’s expression – the disgust etched into the weathered lines of his face.  His parting words dripping with malice…

“Why can’t you be more like Jason?  At least he has a fucking spine.”

Now the anger – that rage – was gone.

Which left him feeling empty.  Just like Jason had said… he was hollow.

His memories felt foreign.  This house a cold shell – the impression of a home.  Alex couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.  Missing.

Maybe it was how the story didn’t quite line up.

Like why was why was AO so important to his father?  If Robert wasn’t piloting the ship, then who was?  Why had Claire looked so nervous?  Why had Cady?  Why did it seem like everyone in that room knew what was going on except him?

Just like that, the anger was back.  Building, building, building with each question.

Until he couldn’t hold it back anymore—

Alex rose and spun, roaring as he kicked the bedside table, sending it crashing into the wall.  It was solidly built.  It took more than a few kicks for the furniture to collapse.  Yet Alex wasn’t finished.   He grabbed the headboard and heaved.  Yet the wood refused to bend or break.  The posts were bolted to the ground, the corner rattling with each tug.  A final heave and the whole bed shifted, the corner bolt ripping free and the wood screeching across the tile.

Which left Alex standing there, chest heaving, eyes wide and wild.

Taking in his latest carnage and the exposed wall behind his bed—

Wait, what was that?  His eyes homed in on marks in the drywall.

Confused, he pulled at the bed – more focused now.  Until he revealed the wall just behind the headboard.  Scratches were carved into the soft drywall.  Words.  Some nearly illegible.  Written with jagged, lopsided lines, like a children’s drawing.  The carvings became clearer as they shifted up the wall – the stroke cleaner.

However, all of them started the same way:

He lied…

He lied…

He lied…

About their family dog.  About a childhood friend.  About school events.  Vacations.  Class projects.  About a hundred different memories that were missing from that old-timey mental reel spinning through his broken mind.  The footage just wasn’t there, leaving only a jagged impression.  Connections and details that formed a hazy silhouette around the holes.

Minor details.  Names, and places, but that was it.

He didn’t even remember writing this.  Yet who else could have?

And at the very top, fresh words etched into the drywall with painstaking precision.

He lied about our mother.

“What… what the fuck is this?” Alex grunted.  “What does that mean?”

However, no answers came to him.  Instead, his Core chimed and Alex jumped, shoving the bed back into place smoothly to hide what he’d found.  He didn’t have the time to answer his many, many new questions.  Not yet, anyway.

Because the message was from Jason.

Their respawn timer was almost up, which meant it was time to log back in.

Alex hesitated, his eyes skimming the wreckage that was his bedroom before stopping on the headboard again – those scratches tucked out of view once more.  Then he stooped slowly, replacing the bolt on the post and screwing it tight with his fingers.

He wasn’t sure why he did it, more instinct than anything.

He might not have any answers – not yet – but he knew someone who might.

A necromancer.  A dark horse.  A villain.

The only person he’d seen stand up to his “father.”

Assuming he could trust him…