Halloween 2022: Choose Your Spooky Outcome: Chapter 12
The sound of a creaky door opening. A yelp of surprise. Short-lived scuffling.
The crack of a beer can.
Alright, now let’s try this again, from the top.
This is the story of my roommate, and best friend. A normal man, surrounded by the extraordinary.
Colleges are natural habitats for beings of chaos, so I was partying on campus one night when I felt the strangest twinge of fate. Most lives follow twists and turns, experience little touches of magic as they wind through the world’s curiosities, yet the one I found that night was so overwhelmingly mundane, I had to investigate.
That was the night we met. The night I became enthralled by this case of severe normalcy, a sharp contrast to the brother who’d been clearly blessed and leftover high school crush on a woman who cavorted with Halloween’s power. People love the idea of living in a world touched by magic, ignoring that a “touch” is by definition a light, fleeting gesture.
For every chaos god and enchanted bloodline, there are dozens of normal humans who will never know such grandeur. My buddy had it especially bad though, not just because he so was incredibly normal. Living with Thad meant he knew, on some level, what he was missing. That magic had passed him by.
But I didn’t.
I moved in, curious to experience such a depth of mundanity. And in short order, we became buds. Which brings us to Halloween, our original Halloween. The one you’ve never been allowed to come back to.
Until tonight, that is. So where we?
After Jim vanishes, you walk through the dormitory room door, stomach no longer twisting at the idea. Inside, you see Jim and a younger version of yourself. Eighteen years old, freshman-aged you. Together, the two of you are tossing fun-sized candies back and forth from your respective dorm beds, a Halloween horror flick playing in the background.
“I guess Halloween was always my favorite because I liked the idea of being someone else,” Past-You says while chomping through a chocolate bar. “Not even being them, really, just having their potential. Their futures. Anything has to be more exciting than what I have in store.”
On his bed, Past-Jim grins, a mischievous expression you know all too well means things are about to go sideways, though usually in a fun way. “What if you could pick your own future? Live through life, make decisions, experience consequences, but then get the chance to learn from them and try again? With enough chances, I bet even a regular person could do some incredible things.”
“Sounds too good to be true.” Past-You is playing it cool, but you can see the hunger at even the notion burning in his eyes. Nobody knows you like you, after all.
“Oh for sure. Living that way means thrusting yourself into all sorts of crazy, unpredictable, dangerous situations. Plus, I’ll have to take your name for safe-keeping. Names and fates go hand-in-hand, without yours, we can loop your fate, in a fashion. Assuming you’d be interested in that sort of thing.”
The scene before you suddenly freezes, as Current-Jim steps out of his past-self’s body like it’s a doorway, an open beer in hand. “Don’t worry, I left the narration on automatic. Figured I should be here for this.”
Looking over to Past-You, the glance is just in time to watch him start moving once again. Only he’s different this time. Not the looks, which are unchanging, but his mannerisms. His eyes are dead and detached as a sneer twists itself across his face.
“Time to meet the man who’s been keeping you in this prison: you.” Jim chugs the rest of his beer and walks over, dropping down next to Past-You, who spares a moment to glare at him.
“I thought you were my friend.”
“I am,” Jim replies. “I’ve been the best friend to every version of you that’s existed in this world. Which includes him, and you. It’s the same deal as it’s always been: I only facilitate, you make the choices.”
Past-You gestures to Current-You. “Then I choose to cast him out.” For the first time, he looks you fully-on, eyes sweeping up and down. “The unmitigated nerve of it all. To think that you deserve to become our true future. Do you have any idea the heights we’ve reached? The futures we’ve ascended to? Yet the version of me working short-term jobs, living off an enchanted skeleton’s success, with no significant achievements or aspirations, this is the future I’ve been holding out for?”
“Where are they?” You start forward, glaring right back at yourself. “Those amazing futures you talked about, the skyscrapers and the moon base and whatever else we did, why aren’t those our true future?”
“Because we could do better!” Past-You practically screams back. “The more I saw, the more I understood the potential of this gift. The chance to form a perfect future. The opportunity to have a truly flawless life. And all it requires is patience.”
Silence falls as you stare at the version of you who is both ten years younger and infinitely older. Tossing his empty beer can in the waste basket, Jim rises to his feet once more.
“And now, at last, we reach the final decision, which was also the first decision.” He chuckles as he moves closer. “I did warn you about the circles.”
With a snap of his finger, the image of Past-Jim warps and shifts into a physical doorway, gleaming silver and white. “You made it to the heart of your cage, now it’s time to choose an exit. Go back out the way you came, and things reset yet again. Freshman You gets to continue his quest for a perfect life, and odds are he’ll decide when the cycle ends.”
Past-You leaps up from the ground and bolts for the silver door Jim entered through, slipping when the handle refuses to turn and smacking his head on it with an audible bonk.
“Option two is taking my hand, breaking out of the cycle, and locking in the timeline as it stands,” Jim continues. “Life picks up as normal, only no more death-resetting. And don’t worry, I’ll fix things up so everyone is back safe and sound.”
“What happens to him?” You ask, nodding to the recovering form of your younger self.
“The same thing that happened to the you who asked that question a second ago: they slot into their natural place along the timeline, forming the continuum of self. But enough philosophy, you’ve still got one option left.”
Jim points to the door Past-You just bounced off of. “Through there is the space where the old you has been shaping things all this time. If you use that door, you can become the narrator. Start a new cycle, one where you get to see all the potential futures and decide which one is right.”
“So I’d be like him?” You ask, nodding to Past-You.
“Maybe. Maybe having this perspective means you’ll make better choices. Seeing the future is tricky from the best of angles, which we don’t have. I can’t tell you which of these is right. That’s a question only you can answer.”
What Will It Be?