Tales Of The Telekinetic

Filming: "I Watched Him Stop Thinking"

It was The Man's idea to read the original script of Chronicle. Andrew and Steve went along with it, only curious to see what it was like, how different it could be, and different it was. For starters, Steve had a different last name, a nickname, and he was white like Matt and Andrew. Andrew had a BEARD, a thing he absolutely despised when he read, and was grateful when this other him shaved the beard off within the first few scenes. Most things were the same, the cave, the party, the trip to Wal-Mart, the flying. Steve's death however, was more caused by some sort of effect of the crystal, not by Andrew himself. They all lifted the car together, Andrew never threw up on the red-haired girl, and most importantly, he had killed his own father, just like the spider. Andrew smiled at the gory description of Richard's death, glad at least one of his many doppelgangers got to exact revenge. His mother's name was different, she had spinal meningitis in this crude version of the script. So much swearing, smoking, Andrew was a little disgusted. When they compared their powers stretching to a vagina instead of a muscle, Andrew almost stopped reading, truly horrified he would ever partake in that. It did make him laugh when that correlated with the term "face period". The worst part of all was the ending, the destruction of everything Andrew knew, including his home, which wasn't Seattle. It was Portland, Oregon, and the boys laughed about how nothing interesting really happened in Oregon, despite none of them ever going there. The gas station was twice as brutal, as was Richard, for he outright HIT Andrew twice. The director's mention that Andrew was comatose, he was COMATOSE, made them all the angrier, tears in Steve's eyes. The battle was much more destructive, but followed almost the same pattern as the movie. Andrew scowled, this version of him was suffering more than he had, Matt looked like the villain, dialogue was cut and added. They all knew the end wouldn't change. It did, and brought unseen consequences with it. It wasn't the spear through his chest that killed Andrew, he was still ALIVE after that, in SHOCK, a survivor. It was the bullet that went through his head that destroyed him. Andrew's mouth was wide open as he read, Steve's hand over his eyes. The Man stopped everything. His hands shook, his phone plopped into his lap. There was no thinking in his brain, that Andrew could see, for the first time in years. For the first time in his life. It was simply an image, one image. Andrew, but not HIS Andrew, dying from a bullet, the light in his eyes going dark, his broken body going limp, the bullet hole in his head. And then the Man WAS Andrew, looking out for only a second at Matt, his last words of "WHY?" echoing through his brain. The Man looked up suddenly, his eyes dim, tears flooding his face. "He killed MY BOY." Steve and Andrew weren't scared of this, they simply looked at him, all of them broken from seeing another person, another Andrew, another bright light in the infinite multiverse, snuffed out. Dead. 

There was no Tibet, no camera recording, no Matt saying "I love you". It was just Matt's heroic story. 

But he wasn't the hero. 

He wasn't even A hero. 

Maybe the story wasn't that different after all.

Andrew promised himself he would never read the end again. He'd seen his movie, overcame that, but this. This was far too great of a loss for him to comprehend. This was another him, another innocent Steve. Another corrupt Matthew Garretty. Andrew Detmer decided that he wanted no part in that sadistic place, no more dying. For he was now reborn, and looking back was just an excuse to find only pain. Andrew Detmer wouldn't become his cousin. He wouldn't look for more horror stories to read. He looked only to the future, and his future was forward.