The Book of Dema

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + Will They Be Alive Tomorrow?

The passage of time has a way of either relieving a person of the thing that ails him or compounds it for lack of resolution. For Tyler, it was the latter. There seemed to be no escaping the presence of Blurryface and his accusations. His companions had begun to notice his growing signs of distraction and weariness. He himself was becoming aware that he was something other than the mission-oriented, self-assured person he wished to be.

He had even admitted to Jenna his struggles with the cold depression that boxed him into an empty place as his anxiety increased. He wished that he could have these conversations with his father. Chris Joseph had repeatedly insisted that he could be a confidant for his son, but Tyler was unsure his father would be able to process the multi-dimensional struggle he faced.

He hardly believed it himself. How was it possible that in the depths of his despair and insecurity that he would find himself the front man in a battle against forces that preyed upon the susceptible? Whatever Dema was, it had inserted itself into his life in an impossible way, demanding terrible things from him, or at least placed on him a burden that was growing heavy.

He carried on himself the persecutions of so many in the Skeleton Clique. They were weary, broken people. He remembered the conversation with the Skeleton Man on the train. He had to listen to the muses because he was called to inspire the broken people to accept their breaks and missing pieces, to look for loved ones who could remind them of why they should build their lives on hope rather than misery.

Jenna had held his hand as he told her of Blurryface. They talked of this force in his life, while exposed to the bright daylight in the coffee shop window. She had been a part of the light that day, trying to spread a little calm over him. It always worked while he was with her. In these moments, Blurryface let him be. She had a power over both the man and the alter-ego, with which neither could contend, and he told her so. She made him strong, and she made Blurryface ineffectual. She wondered aloud how she could make the ghoul leave Tyler for good, but it was a mystery without any obvious clues. They could find nowhere to start.

He also told her that since the most recent encounter in the field, his dreams had returned. He noted they were different. They were mostly focused on others and on other places he did not recognize. Darkly inspired by Antonio's lone assault, he had begun to see his skeleton people in chains. They were bound in a large circular city, but this was all he could see. He assumed it was Dema, and he worried this was the fate of the Third Circle and that he was running out of time to help them.

"Josh and I have a plan. I can't speak it or write it to you, but you will notice that someone (not me) will be gone for a while. It all depends on him," he had said to her. She had pressed him for more details, wanting to know who they were putting in danger. He had insisted this person was doing this thing willingly and had even asked for an assignment like this.

"I can't say anything else about it, Jenna. They might be listening. He might be listening and try to stop it," he said. She knew who He was. They'd had that conversation immediately after Tyler's confrontation in the snow building. He avoided saying Blurryface's name around others in a sort of superstitious way. Maybe it would bring unwanted attention to the people he trusted. Maybe it would be like announcing to him that they were making plans. Tyler couldn't tell when Blurryface was present unless he wanted to be known. Sometimes it was a reflection in a window, or a voice on a music track, or a thought he knew wasn't his because of the violence in it. That reality had made him jumpy and sleepless. The edginess was pushing into his conversations with Josh and the Skeleton Clique. Jenna could see him struggling with this new dark cloud in his life and seemed to be able to do little more than talk to him quietly and hold his hand.

Why she put up with it, Tyler could not fathom. Each day, she would call to check up on him, asking how he felt, how his dreams were that night, if he'd had any visions.