Arcane Guardian ↣ Avenged Sevenfold

45 ☼ stories told

Getting into his car it was so quiet Brian could feel his own heart pounding in his head as his shaky hands brought the keys to the ignition. Per Matt's request he hadn't drank, hadn't taken anything, and it was killing him.

But he saw two paths.

The path where he had stayed on that beach and let Noelle make everything right and find a way to start again.

Or to walk his ass back up to his car, take all the pills he stashed in his glovebox, and drive home to leave her life permanently.

He scrambled and could only find three Vicodin and an Ativan, but after everyday use, and all day without even a Percocet, it was a welcome sight for sore eyes.

Driving home was the challenge. Radio stations blurred. He thought about her alone on the beach. God, I should turn back, he thought, having to hit himself lightly in the face to wake himself totally up. It'd been months since he had been taken under by pills like this.

I should turn back, he thought as he looked down to the blue now-bracelet. He glanced up at the road and watched the lights turn into cracks in his vision. Brian, pull the fuck over.

He kept driving. He didn't live far. He'd be fine.

Fuck, why couldn't he remember on his own? Why were all his memories just words?

I should turn back. Fuck, I have a five hour energy somewhere in this damn car. No five hour in glovebox. Maybe center console.

Some shit was going on. Pills don't do this to you.

Vision melts. Head hits dashboard. Another car tears through his.

☼

He woke up on the floor and immediately began panicking. Not this. Not afterlife. I can't fucking be back here. Not this time.

Every memory of Ellowyn, his sister, his history flooded back at once as his head shot up, arms flying in a delay to hold himself back up. He was in the cps room.

"Relax, I'm not a child psychiatrist from 20 odd years ago, or a purple haired Freddy Krueger." A carbon copy of Dr. Gracen appeared in front of him, hoisting him up from the ground like his weight was nothing. "And don't feel like this is a choose your own adventure book. You were gonna die no matter if you'd stepped foot in that car or not. Your clocks up."

"My clock?" He questioned, scanning all the information flooding his brain. "But you're not Thellessany. How can you reset history?"

"Easy!" The eyes of the pseudo Dr. Gracen staring him down said with a smile. "I don't use it to torture people. History resets are part of the ebb and flow of life. You know dimensions and all."

"Dimensions?"

The being sighed.

"Elwin Brian Haner, born 1700s. The reincarnated rockstar born in 1981. The once again reincarnated rockstar, Brian Haner Jr, born in 1981. Thellessany was given a switchboard and smacked them all. Purgatory was a thin shield, easy to break. She created a new dimension to put your soul in each time she reset history. No soul is supposed to do that much work. That many lifetimes. That many bodies. Especially with how unpredictably she let you keep your memories. It's a disaster on all fronts."

"Ellowyn...?"

The being paused. "My name is Giha. I run the control room to the dimensions, we are standing in it right now. I made it a specific memory to you to prove this."

"And what about Ellowyn."

"Could I just show you?"

☼

Brian and Giha stood on the sidelines as they watched a 37 year old Ellowyn folding her laundry, a giant white dog beside her.

"Reincarnation and dimension severing should only be used to preserve innocent life." They crossed their arms, Brian looking at her and realizing what exactly his last life held. "Ellowyn is a producer still. She has a service dog, that white whale is named Bella. She had a husband named Anthony."

Looking in on her life like he did when she was a child, this time he saw every color, he saw the light shining in as she hummed her favorite songs.

"Her sister is alive. Mandy is still her best friend on earth. She's never heard of Avenged Sevenfold."

"Never heard of?"

"Well that's a story for your next visit, I guess. I don't give many the liberty to see in, but I've been watching you for quite some time, and figured you deserved to know how someone you loved so dearly would spend the rest of her life."

"So how does she?"

"She retires at 57. She never had kids, but fostered a few. She visits her dad every Christmas. He always brings chocolate cake."

"Carolyn?"

"Long dead. Cancer took her out in 2011. Ellowyn never found out." Giha tilted his head. "Ellowyn remembers her imaginary friends. They left her seventeenth birthday. And she has a bright rest of her life ahead of her, that she can look back and be proud of."

Brian took a deep breath in. "So this is how it ends? This is my game over?"

"I wouldn't say that. I'm just the middle man."

"So where am I going?"

"I answer questions," Giha smacked a hand on Brian's shoulder as Brian shouted, his world enveloped in white. "Not give spoilers."