Chapter 104 - Revelations - II

The two stared at each other for a little while, Arthur's body was still slowly floating away, but he kept eye contact with his clone. Arthur noticed that there were tears running down his clone's face.

"I'm sorry." The clone quietly mumbled as Arthur phased through the wall.

Arthur couldn't do anything but helplessly float around. He had so many questions, if his clone could see him, if he apologised, that must mean that he knew what was going to happen.

But why didn't he stop her, why would he just stand there and let her leave?

Arthur watched his sister peacefully walk down the street without a care in the world, humming a catchy pop song that came out five years from now. Anna made her way to the closest shopping centre, it was a little bit away, roughly a ten minute walk.

When she arrived, she grabbed a trolley and made her way into the store. When Arthur saw her grab a trolley he knew this was going to be a dreadful experience.

Anna made her way to where the eggs were, she picked up a couple cartons and then briefly made her way around the produce section, picking up a couple pieces of fruit that caught her fancy. But as Arthur expected, the second she left the produce section, she immediately made her way towards the snack and confectionery aisles.

Arthur very rarely went shopping with her solely because she was the type of person who could turn a twenty minute grocery run into a three hour adventure. But now, for some reason he was forced to hover around her helplessly as she struggled to decide between chocolate chip and creme filled cookies.

'You already know that you're just going to pick both!' Arthur was screaming in his mind. This was his own personal hell.

Anna finally decided, and like Arthur predicted she threw both into the trolley.  What should have been a three minute shopping trip turned into thirty minutes as she began walking back and forth between the aisles while trying to decide what other snacks she wanted.

Anna's trolley was filled with fifty dollars worth of snacks and a few other things, alongside the two cartons of eggs she originally went to the store for. She slowly made her way to the cash register to complete her purchase. Now with a couple loaded shopping bags, Anna began making her way home.

Arthur noticed a familiar face walking down the street, it seemed Quinn was walking a dog in the area.

'Quinn is here too?' Arthur thought to himself. 'What kind of fever dream is this.'

In Arthur's memory, what should have happened that day was that he and Quinn were playing a ranked game together, which was one of the contributing factors for him not wanting to go shopping with her. And now that Arthur thought about it, Quinn didn't even have a dog.

'Do I subconsciously blame Quinn for her death?' Arthur thought to himself. 'What a stupid thought.'

Before he could continue his theorising, a loud screech caught Arthur's attention. It was time.

The sound of sirens blaring became louder as several police vehicles sped down the street, they were in pursuit of a large car that was swerving around dangerously, it seemed as though one of the wheels was damaged.

A police vehicle attempted to bump the rear of the vehicle, causing it to swerve towards the sidewalk.

Arthur couldn't see the driver's face from his angle, but he could see the panicked steering as the driver tried to regain control of their vehicle. The car seemed to be heading straight for Anna.

Arthur shut his eyes and tried to block his ears, but he could still hear everything. He heard the loud screeching of tires, followed by the loud scratching noises as the car scratched against the gutter. Arthur could feel tears welling up as he heard a thud, followed by a much louder crash, and eventually everything became silent.

Arthur opened his eyes to see several police officers surrounding the vehicle and apprehending their target. Arthur's gaze wandered until he eventually found his sister's body laying unconscious in someone's front yard. Her shopping bags were torn apart and their contents had been scattered around the incident site.

Arthur wasn't there to witness his sister's death, but he heard several details about it, and even visited the place of the crime after the fact. But he could see this crime scene right now as if he were actually there when it happened, everything looked similar to how he imagined it.

The scene faded away into nothingness as Arthur broke down in tears. He remained this way for quite a while, or at least he thought he did, the passage of time was impossible to estimate within the black void.

Eventually, another scene started building itself around him. He seemed to have been dropped into a small apartment building. 

He didn't really feel like looking around, the last scene had hurt him too bad. All the scenes so far had shown him nothing but people getting hurt or killed. He didn't want to witness any more death today.

Unfortunately the scenery didn't change, no matter how long he waited. So he at least began surveying his surroundings.

He was in what seemed to be the main room of a one bedroom apartment, there were three doors that led into the room he was currently in. One of the doors had a set of keys dangling from the lock, which led Arthur to assume that was the entrance.

Another door was open, showcasing a small amount of the room within, Arthur saw what he believed were tiles, leading him to believe that it was the bathroom.

That left the remaining door, which was closed but the lack of a bed in the main room caused him to assume that the remaining room was the bedroom.

The main room that he was floating around in currently was the kitchen, laundry and entertainment area. Although it looked like it had seen better days. The sink was full of dirty dishes, there was laundry laying around on the floor and an overabundance of empty alcohol bottles strewn along the floor and tables.

His eyes locked onto a calendar that was stuck to the fridge door, it seemed to be roughly fifteen years in the future, if the apartment owner's consistency of updating the calendar was to be trusted.

Arthur heard a creaking noise coming from behind him. Followed by the rattling of beer bottles and footsteps that were slowly getting closer. Arthur's body turned around to face the person who he assumed was the owner of the apartment.

Although the man's face looked older, especially with the unkempt beard that looked like it hadn't been cut in several years, and the long tangled birds nest he called hair, the man looked remarkably familiar.

There was no doubt about it, Arthur was staring at yet another one of his clones, albeit much older than the last.

'And another one appears.' Arthur thought to himself. 'Why does he look so pathetic and defeated?'

"Don't judge. You'll end up like me one day too." The clone said in a sullen tone. The message didn't seem to be addressed to anyone, but Arthur could feel that he was the intended recipient.

The clone walked over to the fridge, pulling out another bottle of alcohol before walking back into the bedroom. The clone slammed the door shut, leaving Arthur floating there alone once more.

'I guess I blame myself the most.' Arthur gazed out the window, it seemed to be late at night. The stars in the sky seemed dim tonight, but fortunately the dark sky was illuminated by a bright full moon. 

A few minutes passed and he heard a familiar whirring of machinery coming from the bedroom. It seemed that even as a depressed mess in this timeline, he was still addicted to that game.

Arthur entertained himself for several hours just gazing at the city below. He appeared to be quite high up, which gave him quite the view.

Eventually he noticed that thick plumes of smoke suddenly rose into the air. There seemed to have been a pretty serious fire, it looked to be coming from a large building in the distance.

Glancing at the area, he started putting pieces together. Only now did he realise where he was, and what the purpose of that building was.

A bright beam of white light shot up into the sky from the burning building. It was almost blinding at first.

Arthur noticed that all the lights in the buildings closest to the beam of light had turned off. The next row of buildings had their lights turned off a few moments after, and the pattern repeated itself again and again. Eventually it seemed to have reached the building Arthur was currently floating in, he knew this because the light suddenly shattered, and he could hear pained screams from the bedroom.

Arthur turned back towards the beam of light, which was now more bearable to look at. But he was surprised to see that the previously dark sky was now instead appearing as a dark shade of purple, the colour was slowly becoming more vibrant as time passed.

'What the hell is going on.' Arthur thought to himself as the scene before him faded away into the dark void he had become familiar with.

Arthur felt a sharp pain in his chest, and then he suddenly woke up in a cold sweat.

Arthur found himself laying in extremely damp clothes, his bed sheets were also uncomfortably damp. He could feel his heart beating fast, he tried to sit up before he was once again hit with a wave of nausea.

Arthur rushed out of his bed, almost tripping over the book he had dropped onto the floor earlier. His legs were wobbly, and his head was spinning, but he made it to the bathroom in time. He sat there beside the toilet for several minutes, waves of extreme nausea hit him one after the other until he had nothing left to throw up.

Eventually he waddled back into his bedroom and checked his phone, it was only two in the morning. What felt like almost a full day had only been a couple of hours, but there was no way he was going to be able to fall back asleep after what he just went through.

Arthur noticed that he had a couple messages on his phone, one was from Donovan and the other was from his sister.

From Anna's message he understood that something bad had happened at the lab, and extra medical staff were called in to work. While Donovan's message just asked that he find his own way to the beta test facility.

It must have been really bad, Arthur thought to check up on everyone, and maybe pay a visit to Doctor Hudson if he wasn't busy. But that would have to wait, he currently smelled of vomit and sweat.

He threw his phone back onto his desk and made his way back into the bathroom. He decided a cold shower is what he needed to calm down.

Arthur kept thinking of the messages he was sent, and then he remembered the first scene he was shown during his fever dream. His brain was trying to associate the two, but he shook his head thinking of it as impossible.

He sat there on the shower floor, allowing the water to hit the back of his neck. He tried clearing his mind, but one final thought broke through.

'But so is going back in time....'