Chapter 5: Chapter Four: Impact

It barely registered what was happening to me for the next few minutes. I feel like I had entered a fugue state. I could feel Frank grab me, motion me out of the room somewhere else. Professor what’s-his-name asked Bianca to stay back; I could hear some loud, terse words almost as soon as the door shut behind me, but I couldn’t grasp onto anything that he said. I couldn’t even make out what Frank was saying next to me, my brain was fogged over and slippery like it had just been soaked in olive oil.

Before I knew it we had stopped moving. It looked like we were back in the break room. A room we never should have left, in a building we never should have entered. Frank gently guides me over to a comfortable looking couch tucked in the back corner. I just let myself be pushed over onto the plush fabric seat. 

A lump on the other side starts to stir, a murmuring and a creaking coming from under some kind of uncomfortable looking blanket. I wouldn’t be shocked if none of these items existed more than a few hours ago, and these kinds of conjured things can’t be comfortable to be in. “Gruahhhh,” the lump protests. “Whazz happenin, why am I…” Morty’s head pops up from the arm of the couch, bleary eyed and worse for the wear. Eventually recognition must have hit him, because his eyes bugged out with one look at me. “Brainy!” He lunges forward, gripping me tight. Almost instantly starts sobbing into my shoulder. “I thought I lost you dude. I thought you were gone.”

“He was inconsolable last night,” Frank starts from across the room. I just sort of awkwardly rub his back while he cries into me. “Me and my sis are in the middle of talking when he comes running out of the building shouting about you. Brought us back to find you laying on the floor totally unresponsive. When he called and you didn’t answer, he assumed you died and it was his fault. Ended up staying in here and worried himself asleep before the professor arrived.” 

Well, he wasn’t wrong, was he? I am dying, and it is his fault. Part of me wants to yell at him, to push him over, to drive in just how much he’s ruined everything for me. Make him hurt like he’s just hurt me. But I look down and I see him clinging onto me for dear life, wailing softly between sobs, and I don’t have the heart to twist the knife. Especially with everything draining out of me so fast. I just pat him softly on the shoulder. “It’s ok Morty. I’m fi…” I shake my head. “I’m not dead.”

“Yet.” Ugh, the prick-me comes through the doorway, arms folded, hovering above us. Morty screams at the sight, scrambling over towards the wall, arms crossed over him like he’s just seen a vampire. “Good choice. You don’t know what you could get by touching that thing.”

“What the fuck?” Morty whips his head back and forth between the two mes, clearly confused. “What the fuck! When did you get a twin? What happened to you?”

“You! You happened to me, Morty!” Prick-me squares up his shoulders, leaning over. Exactly like I remember I used to, how I had just wanted to a minute ago. “You finally did it, you messed up badly enough that things are crashing down around me.” He squared right up to Morty, sticking his face right up against his. “You better pray I forgive you.”

“Hey!” I yell out at the other-me, jutting up from my seat. “Leave him alone! What do you have to be mad about, you’re not the one going through any of this!”

“Are you kidding?” He gives up on Morty and marches over to me instead. “Who cares what you’re feeling! We only have to pretend you matter for another few days, and then what huh? I’m the one who has to live with what you’ve done to my life! I’m the one with the violated boundaries, I’m the one who got experimented on. You’re just the skuzzy byproduct.” I narrow my eyes at him, puffing my chest up the same as he does. It’s harder when you see eye to eye with your opponent, but it’s not the first beating I’ve taken or given.

“What… what does he mean a few days?” Right, Morty. Still mostly in the dark. What a show this must be to him; one minute his best friend might be dead, the next there’s two of him and they’re fighting.

Prick-me flares his nostrils before sitting down on the couch, flicking my lighter open and closed repeatedly as he does. “That machine you were futzing around with made him, that’s what it does. That is why I was so adamant you stay away from those things, that they could do literally anything and you wouldn’t know. Maybe next time you could actually listen to me from the jump instead of acting like a moron and putting yourself into danger for zero reason.” He huffs again, looks in my direction. “And maybe show me a little gratitude huh? If I hadn’t jumped in to save you, it’d be you sitting over there, dead in a week.”

A week. I have been given the ultimate terminal diagnosis. Just long enough to stew in it, but too short to do anything about it. I had no affairs to put into order. Everyone that really mattered to me anymore was already in this room, already knows. All that’s left is… “Oh my god. What are we going to tell mom?”

Other-me sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Are you kidding me right now? Nothing. No one can know about this! That would destroy my entire life. Yours too. If anyone found out about you, this whole thing would be shut down and the professor hauled off and then there’d be no one looking after you. You’d have a squad of wizards or whatever hovering over your body watching you turn into stew. Or worse, ripping you apart themselves. If you stay here and put your head down, who knows. Maybe he can figure out how to keep you around a little while longer.” What? The professor is actually going to try and… help me? It seemed like he hated me there.

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“But,” I can’t help but counter, “what if he doesn’t? I mean, it’s not very likely, right? He’s not going to have some sort of breakthrough now where they all haven’t in the last however many years he’s been working on this.” I look up; Frank is looking away from me, Morty is staring with his eyes watery. “What if this is my last week on earth. I don’t want to have died never saying my goodbyes, having sat alone and unloved and unaccomplished in anything. I want to go out and live, I want…” I feel a familiar cool ache in the back of my throat, my mouth dry from all the talking I’ve been doing. “I want a goddamn cigarette.”

“Dude, seriously?” Morty leans over from the wall. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?”

I lean back, crossing my arms. “It’s not like I have much of a future to worry about at this point. I’m not going to go out with my last thought being ‘I wish I had bought a pack for this’.” 

“Look,” other-me starts, “I’ll go get you a carton if you just promise to stay here and keep a low profile. Please. Think about it from my side, think about your potential future. Don’t make our life more difficult than it has to be with this whole thing.” He gets up, walks to the door. “Come on Morty, let’s go.” 

“Wait!” I cry out before other-me can leave. “I want my lighter too.” I nod to the piece he’s flicking in his hand over and over, and he sharpens his eyes at me. “I need something to light them with, right?”

Other-me huffs. “What? No! You know how much this means to me. I’ll buy you a Bic.”

I sit down on one of the folding chairs in the room, propping my head up by my elbow on the table, hand on my cheek. “It’s not like you’ll not be getting it back. Just wait a week.” 

Frank walks back over from where he was hovering. “Brian, come on.” I whip my head over towards him, and so, I notice, does other-me. “Just give him the lighter. He’s going through a lot.”

Other-me pulls a hand to his heart. “What, and I’m not?”

“You both having the same name isn’t going to work.” Morty pulls up behind other-me, apparently ready to follow when he asks him to come along. “It’s already confusing…”

Frank nods along. “I agree. You should have heard the headaches we were having in the control room. You,” he points at other-me, “can be Brian, since you’re the original. And he can be Brainy.” 

Brian freezes up at that. “You want to give him my…” I see his eyes harden, his shoulder creak upwards. “Fine! Have it, have the fuckin’ lighter. You can be buried with it for all I care. I don’t need to be reminded anymore anyways. I don’t need any of this, I don’t need anything.” He whips it at me, slamming my square in the chest, and then stomps out into the hall. “Morty! Come here, I need you!” we can hear him yelling from down the corridor. 

Morty jumps practically out of his skin, before rushing to the doorway. He stops to peer back over at me quickly. “I’m sorry man.” And then out the door he goes.