Entry #12050104001305

Jay Has Left The Chat

Jay was running. He felt like he was always running and he couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been running. His feet thundered against the ground, pounding against the leaves underfoot that littered the forest floor even though it wasn't autumn yet. His mind spun, reeling for something concrete or just simply real that he could latch onto to ground himself but there was no room.

So much space in the forest, so little space in his mind.

Colours danced in his vision: green, blue, red, yellow, purple. The world shifted sideways as if life was a video captured on one of his cameras and the device had been dropped on its side. Then everything corrected itself and he was given a moment to breathe.

Hands on his knees, Jay panted for breath, nearly gasped for air. His legs had ceased in their panicked pace but they shook unsteadily as he stood there. What is wrong with me? he thought, but the thought came in broken up segments, as if the words had been spoken through a telephone and Jay had only caught a handful of them because of the poor connection.

Wht sw rngw ithm ee?

Wha tsr ng whme?

Wt sgh e?

The once simple thought reduced itself into unintelligible fragments that quickly dwindled past the point of recognition. What had the thought originally been? Or had it been something he had said? He didn't remember saying something but his memory was about as trustworthy as Alex himself.

Jay's legs nearly felt like jelly when he started moving again. Each step forward resounded in his ears, rattled his skull, disturbed his frequency. Why was he moving again? Why had he been moving in the first place?

The sound and movement of his pounding footsteps as he resumed running echoed throughout his entire skull, shaking the static that had wrapped around his brain like a blanket. The fuzzy lines - not unlike the common visual tears found on a VHS tape - shook and ripped, creating the most intense headache Jay had ever felt. He thought for sure that his brain was going to tear itself right in half, if for no other reason, than to just relieve the pressure.

A pressure itched at the back of his throat and by the time he realized he had stopped running to cough, he was emptying his stomach onto the brown leaves that covered the ground. The disgusting puddle at his feet was vibrant shades of red, blue, yellow, turquoise, even black. Everything about it was wrong but oh-so-familiar. It was the lines on the television screen when a station was experiencing technical difficulties. It was the distortion that appeared in so many of his and Alex's precious tapes. It was the world blending together in nothing but bright colours and fear.

Jay's mind was fading fast for reasons he could neither understand nor control. Words had no place in his brain, only numbers and letters and symbols. They were so obvious now; everything was so clear. How had he not seen it before? The cryptic messages, the confusing codes, the difficult puzzles. Their simplicity astonished him; how had he ever been so stumped by them?

Running again. Jay hadn't remembered moving his legs again or anything else about making the decision to move but he was moving again. The solid black and white contrast of trees before him was broken only by the thin, noisy static overlaid on top of it, the colourful tears pulling at the edges or ripping across the top every now and then.

A deep voice filled his ears and he stopped dead in his tracks, coming to a halt so fast that he nearly toppled right now. His head cocked to the side, but he simply listened, not bothering to look with his eyes. There would be nothing to find anyway.

The voice was deep, distorted so heavily that he couldn't be sure who it belonged to. Something in his mind told him it was the brunette, the one with the pale skin and black lips. The one with the endless black pits in place of eyes. The one who had been crippled by their common enemy. The one who made the static disappear, even if only for a second, so that he could realize he was human.

They were no longer human. That much was plain to see. Humans weren't created by a faceless creature, humans weren't corrupted minds and mindless creations.

The voice croaked out something that vaguely sounded like, "Jaaaaaaaaayyy."

Jay? Was that a person? Was that who he was supposed to find?

Jay, the buyer? Jay, the believer in the liar? Jay, who trusted the supplier? Jay, who would kill the denier?

No, no, no. Jay was weak. Jay had no part in this. He couldn't understand how important this was. He would ruin everything, and that was why he had to leave, albeit temporarily.

Colours danced in his vision again, wiping out all precious traces of the monochrome scenery.

Always running, running, running. Everywhere to be but always too late.

The static had mixed with the sound of the warped voice and drowned out the common sounds of the forest. The colourful static and tears in his vision were warped and shook, a series of binary code flashing at the edge of his vision.

White masks, black masks, glasses, and tapes. Cigarettes and cameras but always too late.

The liar with the cigarettes.

The buyer with the cameras.

The supplier with the black mask.

The denier with the gun.

Always running, always running late. Always running late. Always late. Always running, running, late, running, falling, dying, supplying, denying, running.

Always dying late...

Then everything was black, but that was alright because he no longer existed.

📼 📼 📼 📼 📼 📼

I actually wrote this chapter in the dead of night before I'd even finished the previous chapter. Probably the most foreboding shit I've ever written. Guess what that means.