August 2003

TW: mental health, physical violence, suicide attempt

It felt colder here, so close to the beach. The winds were vile, and the air seeped into the living room despite her best efforts to block it out. Tessa sat cross-legged on her parent's old, broken, recliner. The TV was another hand-me-down, a big boxy thing sitting on the discoloured carpet of the tiny unit. Tessa's neck hurt if she watched for too long, but she hated missing 55 Minutes. The stories were always compelling, especially from Travis Penny. He was talking about an ex-CEO. Three years ago, the guy retired, then out of nowhere he had some kind of psychotic break. Murder-suicide.

'Troubled man. But he was quiet, he kept to himself...' explained a local woman.

Tessa's eyes kept darting to the bookshelf by the door. The pile of unopened letters. She knew what was inside them. Overdue notices and final warnings from the university. The dream was dead, she just hadn't admitted it to herself properly. She couldn’t bear the thought of moving back to the Hills, her Mum’s I-told-you-so dancing around in her head.

cccsshkkkhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

TV static. Shit. She'd leant on the remote again. She held the big, clunky black plastic thing down by her ankles, trying to get it to register. The programme up/down arrows were broken, stuck inside themselves, and the number buttons were unreliable. She tried to get back to Channel 9, but it kept inputting 999 instead and giving her more static. She’d have to get up and use the buttons on the TV instead.

Tessa huffed and threw the remote at the off-white cinderblock wall. What was the point anymore? The hollow clatter was too small a sound to change anything. Her arms fell useless at her sides, like she’d been built only for surrender. Even her anger was second-hand now, borrowed and brittle, burning out before it could take shape.

She stared into the static. The purples and greens bled together in restless swells, shapes forming and collapsing like something alive pressed against frosted glass. The noise was steady at first, a soft hiss, but the longer she looked the more she felt it start to pulse, almost in beat with her heart.

The throb doubled, like a second heart had started inside her skull. She jerked back, afraid she was tipping into another panic attack. I am in my chair. I am at home. I am safe. She repeated the mantra in her head and tried to soothe her rapid breathing.

She pulled herself out of the recliner and bent to pick up the remote from the carpet.

Then, the static surged.

Not from the TV. Everywhere.

She switched the set off. Nothing.

Yanked the plug from its socket. Nothing.

The floor rumbled beneath her, as if something impossibly large was moving deep under the building, and she collapsed to her knees. The hiss was in the air, pressing on her from all sides, drilling into her teeth. She clamped her hands over her ears and screamed, but it did nothing to drown out the noise. Something warm spilled over her mouth, dripping off her chin. She thought it was tears until she saw the dark red splotches blooming across her pink dressing gown.

Just as the world started spinning, and she felt like she was going to pass out, it stopped completely.

Her screaming stopped a moment later.

She wiped the blood from her face, bewildered. Slowly getting up from the floor, still feeling a bit woozy, she washed her face off at the kitchen sink.

As she dried herself, three big bangs pounded on her front door. She knew it was Kenny, but if she didn't answer he'd just yell through the door. More of a disturbance to the other neighbours than her freak-out had probably been. She opened it a crack, leaving the chain. His scent seeped in, beer and cigarettes.

'The fuck you doin in there Newman?'

'It won't happen again,' Tessa replied flatly.

'Better fucken not or I'll get the coppas down 'ere and have them sort it out next time. It's fucken Sunde night you fucken wanker!' he slammed his fist against the brick wall.

Something told Tessa he wouldn't be calling the police, but she definitely didn't want him coming back.

'I'll be quiet,' she promised.

He mumbled something incoherent at her, 'ah, yah bastard,' then turned and wandered back next door.

Tessa shut and deadbolted the door. She leaned against it, head in her hands, and exhaled. At least when she had to move back in with her parents she wouldn't have to deal with him again.

'Yeah, he's disgusting,' said a man's voice, strong and authoritative... and coming from her living room.

Tessa jolted up from the door. It couldn't be.

'Hi! Sorry about the almost-killing-you thing, it's my first time on this plane,' he said.

'Trav... Travis Penny?'

'OH, no. I see your confusion. Not really Travis Penny, I've just stolen his whole... thing. From your brain.'

It certainly looked like Travis Pelly. Full grey hair, perfectly styled back in a neat sweep. The same navy suit and stripy red and blue tie from tonight's 55 Minutes episode. But there was something too still about him. His chest didn’t move. No breaths. His eyes didn’t blink. They didn’t even catch the light. Two matte, unblinking spheres.

'See, I thought I'd done well in the copy. Not much experience with your species, but I figured, how hard could it be? You’re all made of meat and electricity, right?'

She knew she couldn’t scream. If she screamed, Kenny would come back. But if she didn’t, she was stuck here, alone, hallucinating Travis fucking Penny in her lounge.

'Not a hallucination, darling.'

The words hit her brain before she heard them. Her chest tightened, vision narrowing at the edges. Not real. Not real. Not real. Her hands tingled. The air felt thick in her lungs. You’ve lost it.

'Alright, enough now, we don't have time for this,' his voice was both inside her head and out in the room.

She flinched.

He didn’t walk so much as glide, closing the distance between them in a blink. Her knees locked. His finger, glowing faintly, touched her forehead.

'What are y-' And the panic drained like water down a plughole. Heart slowing. Lungs opening.

'There, executive functioning back online. You're welcome,' said Not-Travis in a cheery voice, almost sing-song.

'Wha-'

'Thought the whole E.T. thing with the glowy finger might help. He was the friendly one, right?' he asked.

'You're... an alien?'

Not-Travis scrunched up his face.

'Not really, I just thought the comparison might help. I'm from... Well, I guess it doesn't really matter does it. I'm not from here.' he said, gesturing lazily around the unit.

'You said something about another plane before?'

'Ooohhh, you're observant aren't you,' he winked, it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. 'Well, that was when I thought you'd called me on purpose you see.'

'Called you?'

Not-Travis ran a hand through his hair. Not ruffling it, his fingers literally passing through the individual strands as if they were made of light.

‘You, my dear, have triggered an end-of-times scenario.'

Tessa blinked at him. 'Hm?'

'A rapture, if you like. Though, not exactly. All the Christians would die too. You’d be the only survivor. Which, frankly, I’m not sure you’re qualified for.'

He drifted to her bookshelf, fingers skimming over the unopened letters. The envelopes bent away from his touch, like grass in wind.

‘But we can fix it. If we start now.’

‘We?’ She snorted, gesturing at herself. ‘The fuck am I gonna be able to do to help you?’

‘You need to offer a sacrifice.’

She felt the impact of his words like a stone in her stomach.

‘What?’

‘One of equivalent sentience to yourself. So… another human.’

‘To kill them?’

‘Yes!’ Not-Travis clapped his hands, delighted.

‘No.’

‘I can help you, but I can’t do it for you. Technically I’m not allowed to convince you to kill anyone. But in your case…’ his eyes flicked over her. ‘You’ve clearly called me by mistake. You don’t want everyone to die, do you? All those innocent lives on your hands, your soul travelling the multiverse with the weight of that guilt? For eternity…’

His voice dipped to a near-whisper. ‘This is the only way through. You’ve got seventy-nine minutes left. Let’s make a plan.’

She shook her head hard. ‘No! No, I won’t. You’re not real. This isn’t real.’

She barely believed that anymore, just desperately wanted him to leave her alone.

‘Adorable,’ Not-Travis said. ‘But we really don’t have time for a moral freak-out. Clock’s ticking.’

He made the tick tick tick noise from the show with his tongue.

Tessa spun, unbolting the chain and flicking open the deadbolt in one motion. She yanked the handle. But the door didn’t move. Not even a rattle. Like it had been welded into the frame, or painted onto the cinderblocks.

‘You can’t leave yet,’ he said, voice in her ear. She felt his frozen breath on her skin.

She didn’t look at him, digging in her pocket for her phone and flipping it open. The screen stayed blank. Even after she gave it a good hard shake, nothing.

Not-Travis sighed. ‘You’re wasting time.’

Her pulse spiked. If she couldn’t get out, if she couldn’t call for help, and if this thing wanted her to kill someone... there was one way to end it. If he wasn’t real, what did it matter, she had nothing anyway. If he was real, at least she wouldn’t have to see what happened next.

She moved fast, trying to keep her mind blank. Kitchen drawer, cold steel in her hand. She pressed the blade to her wrist and-

He grabbed her.

His fingers were cold and buzzing, like the live end of a frayed phone charger. The contact went through skin and bone, rooting her to the spot. Her heart fluttered up into her throat. He wasn’t strong, she could overpower him. But something kept her frozen. She was still so scared of him.

‘If you die, I die,’ he said, the words low and twisted.

‘Good,’ she spat.

He stepped into view, almost pitying, but something else behind his eyes. ‘But if I die here, like this, you go somewhere far worse. I’m not the only one of me. They’ll come for you before your soul fades back into the universe. They’ll keep you. Forever. No rest. Just… an echo.’

She tried to meet his gaze. ‘You lie.’

‘I don’t.’

She stared at him, the seconds stretching long enough that she became painfully aware of every creak in the apartment walls, every tiny settling sound of the fridge, the muffled TV noises from next door. His matte eyes stayed fixed on hers. Not blinking, not moving. And it was almost a relief when his mouth twitched. Almost. Not quite a smile. Not quite anything. The movement rippled up his face in a way skin shouldn’t move, as though the expression was being pushed from somewhere underneath. Like something inside him was measuring her up from a new angle. He had realised she believed him, before she had herself.

‘Tell me something first,’ she said. Her voice was sharp, but her stomach felt hollow. She wasn’t sure if she was buying herself time, or if she just needed one more thread of logic to hang onto.

‘You want to know how you called me?’ he asked.

She nodded, slow.

‘You were broadcasting,’ he said, plain as a weather report. ‘Like a busted old radio. Mentally damaged. Sitting there in your little trance in front of the static. It’s practically a summoning circle.’

Her jaw tightened, at mentally damaged.

‘It’s not just that your damaged mentally,’ he paused, like he was searching for the right words, ‘it’s your sinister capacity.’

‘I don’t have sinister capacity.’

‘Oh, but you do.’ His tone softened, almost gentle, which somehow made it worse. ‘You all do. Every mind that reaches a certain depth of thought grows teeth somewhere in the dark. At a certain point, life learns how to end itself. It’s the shadow cast by sentience. You can hide from it for a while, but it’s always there. Waiting.’

Her chest felt cold.

‘You aren’t the first,’ he went on. ‘It’s happened before. Not often. A handful of times in this world, especially lately.’ He chuckled like it was a long-running inside joke. ‘Seems like your species hates being alive. Always teetering on the edge of turning yourselves off.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘At a certain point,” he said, ‘life becomes… incompatible with reality. Too much knowing. Too much being. The killswitch is there to let the desperate slip free. To let the sorry souls of a reality escape before they tear themselves apart.’

‘But you’re here? And-‘

‘My kind,’ he cut her off, ‘we’re necessary, in case it happens by mistake. Which it does. Often. The sacrifice is payment. Not just for me, but for all of us. Otherwise? Existence would blink out constantly, and what would be the point of anything?’

‘You saw one, recently,’ he continued. ‘That ex-CEO knob. Killed his son. Couldn’t live with himself, so he ended his own life after.’

Goosebumps climbed her arms. She remembered the segment on the show, the neighbour’s interview, the blood on the driveway. It felt like a lifetime ago. But it had barely been minutes.

Not-Travis stopped. ‘It’s been longer than you think. We need to crack on with this. Seventy minutes left. Two choices. Someone on the street… or…’ His eyes slid toward the shared wall.

‘No.’

‘Kenny’s big, sure, but he’s out cold. TV on. Passed out drunk. Barely feel a thing. Merciful, really.’

Her gut twisted. ‘Fuck you.’

‘You’re welcome to go with the stranger option,’ he said lightly. ‘But the only people walking past tonight are bigger than you, and they’re all wideeee awake.’

Sixty-five excruciatingly slow minutes later, she stood outside Kenny’s door, knife trembling in her grip.

The air outside bit into her. Winter wind tugged at the hem of her nightgown, stiff with drying blood. Her bare feet burned against the cement, toes curling for warmth. Her heartbeat was in her ears, in her teeth, in the tendons of her wrists. The wood around Kenny’s lock looked ready to splinter with a single shove.

‘One good hit should do it,’ Not-Travis murmured, half-phased through the wall, like a parasite embedded in the building. His outline jittering like bad reception.

‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to kill this guy without-’

A voice cut through the wind. ‘Hey!’

Tessa spun. A woman in a puffer jacket strode toward her from the footpath, eyes narrowing.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘It’s- it’s not what it looks like!’

Her gaze dropped to the stains on Tessa’s nightgown.

‘You’ve got blood all over you! And I heard you talking about killing. I think this is exactly what it looks like.’ The woman’s eyes found the knife in Tessa’s hands.

‘It’s mine!’ Tessa blurted. She turned her wrist up, showing the clean blade. ‘Look! The knife’s clean, I promise! This is a misunderstand-’

The stranger lunged, grabbing her wrist and wrenching the knife free with a strength Tessa couldn’t match. They hit the ground hard, the woman’s knee pinning her arm.

‘Do something!’ Tessa twisted, trying to throw her off.

‘She can’t see me,’ Not-Travis said from a few feet away, waving a hand in front of the woman’s face. ‘I can’t help you like this.’

Tessa barked out a laugh. High, broken, almost hysterical.

‘Jeez,’ the woman said, catching her breath. ‘I’m calling the cops.’ She fumbled in her pocket, still holding Tessa down.

Not-Travis knelt beside them, invisible to the stranger. He took Tessa’s hand, cold, buzzing, and squeezed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply.

With the wild strength of someone whose body has decided dying is not an option, she tucked her knees in and kicked. Hard. Bone jarred against bone. The woman’s grip faltered with a grunt of pain, and her weight lifted just enough.

Tessa lunged. Fingers closing around the knife’s handle. Cold, solid, its worn ridges biting into her skin. It felt heavier than it should, like it knew exactly what it was for.

The woman’s eyes went wide, lips shaping a word that never made it to Tessa’s ears. She drove the blade forward. Once. Again. Again.

Each impact sent a jolt through her shoulder, a nauseating vibration that travelled through her whole body. The stranger made a sound. Not a scream, but a long, wet tear. It shredded into static in Tessa’s ears. Hot wetness slicked her hands, pooling under her nails.

She wanted to throw up but she couldn’t stop. Not until-

A blinding surge of noise, white and endless, swallowed everything.

Then. Black.

She was on her back. The cracked plaster ceiling of her unit stared down at her. Her fingers twitched on empty air. No knife. No woman.

The TV hissed faintly in the corner, tuned to static.

Her chest heaved. She was alive.

The front door hung open, winter air curling in, sharp as a blade. Outside, the street was quiet. But in the air was something faint and acrid. It was like burnt ozone and something older, something that shouldn’t exist here. It clung to her throat, metallic and electric, the way the air feels just before lightning strikes.

Thank you

She whispered into her own mind. And as if it had been listening for those words, the scent dissolved, leaving only the cold.

But as she turned back toward the door, she caught it for just a moment. Dark flecks stained the pavement outside.

A faint blue and red strobe rolled over the far end of the street.