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Our palms are a stark contrast to one another’s. Mine are clammy. His are smooth aside from the callouses my fingers have crept their way to rubbing against.

“Nothing bad will happen to you. I promise.” The words hang heavy in the air. A sensation, similar to déjà vu, falls over me. I can’t quite place it, but it’s present and nagging at me.

The doorknob begins shaking, growing to a violent thrash.

“We need to go through.” Rennix guides my hand to the knob. His hand doesn’t leave mine, it remains on top while his body towers over me from behind, keeping close enough that he blankets himself around me. Protecting me. “On the count of three.”

His lips hover over my ear. “One.” Our collective grip squeezes the doorknob, fighting its intense vibration. If I wasn’t slightly freaked out—and by slightly I mean majorly freaked out—I’d be tempted to pull the handle off and replace my rose with it. “Two.” His hand guides mine. We turn the knob in unison, slowly. Not for nothing, I know Rennix said we have to keep moving and opening this door is a part of that, but it doesn’t feel like this door wants to be opened. “Three.” Bright rays of neon light take our vision, accompanied by a cluster of noises reminiscent of the arcades I used to frequent for the majority of my preteen and teenage years.

As we walk through the threshold our grip on the knob is exchanged for our hands interlaced in one another’s.

Rennix is the only person who has ever made me feel safe. I’ve never expressed it to him but he’s always been my comfort person. Losing him to this bizarre simulation or whatever reality we’re trapped in was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me.

If he promises everything is going to be okay, I need to believe it and hope the way he’s not-so-discreetly cracking his knuckles with his other hand is because he’s nervous and not keeping something from me.

7

RENNIX

Looks like sad emo lover boy is being

a sad emo lover boy

This is how it’s supposed to be with her living on the outside and you in here. To want anything more would disrupt the already fragile balance. Going against the agreement won’t end well. It’ll only make things go back to how they were…or worse.

It doesn’t matter how good it is to see her or how much you’ve missed or how painful the goodbye you’re preparing yourself to say feels.

It’s what needs to happen.

There’s no other way.

She forgave you once. I think? In time, she’ll forgive you again—hope…

“Hey, Ren, are you okay?” Natalia pulls me from my inner spiral, and in return I mutter them outwardly instead of keeping them where I should, bottled deep inside.

“Hopefully.” My lungs burn as the word hits the air. It’s not an answer to her question, but a reassurance to the one I’ve been grappling with since the night I left all those years ago.

Even if my response confused her, she doesn’t pry the way I know she wants to. Her wheels are turning. I know this because her gaze flickers every which way except for in my direction as she likely ruminates over all the things she wants to ask but is choosing not to.

“It’ll be okay.” My reassurance is for both of us. I’ve never been one for optimism, but right now it’s all I have since the reality of what awaits us when I get her to that control room is too much to bear.

Goodbyes are always difficult, especially when they are inevitable.

8

NATALIA

Sometimes you have to channel your inner

Gretchen Wiener and try to make fetch happen

If I believed in heaven, I would say we just entered it.

I’ll admit I was beginning to get scarned with that whole opening the door that clearly doesn’t want to be opened, all the while having Rennix’s deep, gravelly voice counting down in my ear, but things…

Oh wait, what’s scarned you ask?

Scarned is a term I made up to combine the state of being scared and turned on at the same time.