The bar gave a violent lurch.
Another section of the floor, right where our booth used to be, dropped away into the white void. The table, the wet coasters, the spilled water—all of it vanished instantly.
The walls were peeling now. The vintage beer posters and the neon signs were curling up and dissolving into gray mist. The physical reality of The Cortex Club was being deleted, file by file.
"I don't want to die," Greg said. He was sitting on a barstool that was rapidly fading. He looked heavy, tired, and resigned. "If we disappear... does the pain go away?"
"No!" Desi screamed. "I am not disappearing! I am not a 'part'! I am the main event!"
She spun around, eyes wild. She looked at the shelves behind the bar—the rows of high-proof alcohol.
"We need a shock," she muttered. Her glitching hand grabbed a bottle of 151 rum. "We need to wake him up. If he’s asleep, we wake him up. If he’s hallucinating, we burn it out."
"Desi, put the bottle down," I ordered, stepping forward. "Fire is not a therapeutic tool!"
"He needs to feel something!" she yelled. "He’s numb! Look at him!" She pointed at the mirror. Adam was still frozen, eyes dead and hollow. "He’s dead inside! I’d rather burn than be dead!"
She grabbed a lighter from the counter. It was one of those cheap plastic ones.
"Desi, no!"
She flicked the lighter.
In a normal bar, a lighter is a small flame. In here, in the headspace of a man on the edge of a breakdown, a lighter is a catastrophe.
The flame didn't just flicker. It roared. It shot up two feet high, a jagged tongue of blue and orange fire.
"See?" Desi laughed, but it sounded like a sob. "I'm still here! I'm still hot!"
She splashed the rum onto the counter.
"Do not ignite the subconscious!" I lunged for her.
"Burn it all down!" Desi screamed.
She threw the lighter into the puddle of rum.
WHOOSH.
The bar top didn't just catch fire. The fire exploded outward, but it wasn't normal fire. It was angry. It changed colors—red, purple, black. It didn't burn the wood; it ate the reality. Where the flames touched, the bar didn't turn to ash; it turned into static.
"You're killing us!" I tackled her.
We hit the floor—or what was left of it. Desi was thrashing, screaming, kicking. She was strong, fueled by pure, unadulterated panic.
"Let me go!" she shrieked. "I have to make him feel it! If it hurts, he's alive! Pain is proof!"
"Pain is what put him on the ledge!" I yelled, pinning her arms down. My suit was ruining, tearing at the elbows. I didn't care. "We don't need more chaos, Desi! We need control! We need to stop!"
"I can't stop!" she sobbed, and her face flickered, turning into a blur of motion. "I don't know how to stop! That's my job! I just go! I just want!"
"Greg!" I shouted over my shoulder. "Help me! Sit on her! Use your gravity!"
Greg was standing by the void, watching the white emptiness expand.
"It doesn't matter, Leo," Greg said. His voice was faint. "Let her burn it. Let it end. I'm so heavy. I'm just... so heavy."
"We are not giving up!" I gritted my teeth, holding Desi down as the multi-colored flames licked at the ceiling. "We are the executive function! We do not quit! We solve the problem!"
Desi bit my hand. hard.
"Ow!" I recoiled, and she scrambled free.
She grabbed another bottle. She wound up to throw it at the mirror—at Adam.
"Hey!"
I scrambled up, slipping on the disappearing floor tiles. I wasn't fast enough. She was going to smash the connection. She was going to shatter the only window we had to the real world.
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.