Young Writers Society

Charlie studied the room.

"There has to be something we can do," he said, sitting down on the very edge of the bed - and ignoring how its springs creaked when he did. "The shadow must have brought us here for a reason. Maybe it wanted to watch us grieve."

As the others spoke, Jay thought of a moment about twenty years before he died. The TVs were still squares just like they had been for most of his life, and this was shortly after Adam had come to visit him to tell him that Sarah had died of lung cancer.

They'd had a movie night in prison, and it was called Groundhog Day. The main character in that movie hadn't died but he had to relieve the same day until he figured out how to be a better person. As far as he knew they weren't reliving the same day, but maybe there was a lesson they could learn.

"Maybe there's something we haven't figured out," Jay said. "To pass on."

Kazimir stepped back from the others a little. He didn’t know why, but being stuck in the room with them was starting to feel suffocating.

There had to be a way out. A switch. A door. A ladder. A safe word. A sign.

Why did it have to be a lesson? He was never good at stuff like this. Figuring something out so he could die? Why would he want to figure it out if it just meant he’d die again? He couldn’t even remember how he died! It was the only thing he couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to think about the shadow bringing them here just to watch them suffer, or to force them to figure out some puzzle.

“Or - maybe it’s a like a dream,” he said, looking at the floor. “How in dreams... if you die in the dream you just wake up.”

"What's the last thing you remember?" Jay asked. He tried to think of what the answer had been for him.

The truth was that it was hazy.

The young girl had visited him. She had looked so much like Sarah, and said she was his granddaughter. What was her name? Lacey.

"I want you to know," She'd said. "I forgive you."

There'd been another movie night. Jay was confined to a wheelchair and could barely see. He was in pain. But they'd watched....

Oh god, what was it?

A modern remake of A Star Is Born except it was about music instead of Hollywood, because what the world needed was another remake of that movie. But if Sarah was still alive, she would have eaten that up.

But beyond that, it was hazy.

"I don't remember..."

The boy bit his lip. "I-I don't know. I lived for centuries. If I didn't learn whatever lesson I had to in that time then I don't know...I mean, I don't think I will now."

“Fiddler has a point.” He pointed at the fiddler. “I can’t remember jack shit about what I was doing before this either. I just know things must’ve gone to shit at some point because I ended up dead!”

Charlie thought it over.

"...I think I remember what I was doing before ending up here," he admitted. He glanced over at Kaz. "I don't remember doing it, but I remembering doing things to prepare for it. Something went wrong with it. It wasn't really something I could learn a lesson from."

He gave a tiny, bitter smile - the first smile he had given in awhile.

"Other than not messing with the world's mechanics," he added.

The bed creaked again as he shifted his weight.

"There has to be something else," he said. "Something that we're missing. Some kind of pattern with everything so far that can give us a hint."

Kazimir scoffed. "What, like how every damn thing I've seen just ends up making me feel bad?"

Jay took a deep breath. If the Shadow could just give them some answers as why they were here, maybe they could move on. Maybe he could even see Sarah again.

"I really don't know," he confessed. He was surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth. He always had the answers. But now he supposed it didn't matter. He didn't have anything to prove to anyone.

Charlie blinked.

An idea suddenly came to him.

He couldn't help but jump to his feet, eyes alight with understanding. It wasn't confirmed, and he wasn't sure why he was so happy with the answer. But he liked solving things like this. It felt like he was saving the day. And if he couldn't have gotten the life that he wanted, at least he could get this.

"What if that's the point?" Charlie asked. He glanced between the others in the room. "What if we're supposed to be feel bad? Everything has been designed to make us feel terrible - the graves, the memories coming back, and this bulletin board."

He paused for a moment, a little bit of the energy he had been missing for so long finally coming back to him.

"...The bulletin board doesn't really get the point across, though," he said, tilting his head to the side a little and studying it. "It's more like a pathetic last ditch attempt. I mean, we had to be locked in the room to actually look at it, and the blood didn't even have anything to do with the shadow wanted us to see."

Charlie crossed his arms.

"If I was the shadow," he added, "I would have done something a little more impressive than an arts-and-crafts project."

"Gods - if this is a god we're dealing with - can be very strange," the boy said, "I dealt closely with several while I was alive."

The last memory he could recall was actually of one. His Lady Grave, offering him a new fiddle. His had broken. So many years with it and it shattered just like that.

She'd wanted something from him. Something to do with his music.

Kazimir frowned. "God's not real," he said. "And if he is, he never gave a shit about me or my life, so I don't know why he would now."

The boy furrowed his brow. "Um, 'gods', plural. And they are real. If they aren't, I was nineteen for hundreds of years by force of will alone, I guess."

"Sure you are," Jay said to the Fiddler. The truth was, he believed life was like a Rorschach Test -- there was no meaning other than what we provided to it. "And God's not real."

Kazimir pointed a finger at Jay's face.

"See? Even he agrees with me. Not that his opinion means much, but still."