Arc II, Chapter 68: Moonlight

Arc II, Chapter 68: Moonlight

This wasn’t the kind of story where slumber parties made sense. Our characters were bound together by having some connection to the Die Cast. Some of us had helped summon it; others had merely witnessed it. Still, hanging out in a giant glass house together was probably not completely in character.

It didn’t matter. We needed it. Spending time alone in Carousel was grating, even with Carousel moving you forward days at a time. It was easy to get lonely even with so many unseen eyes on you.

So we had our slumber party. My character’s house was as good as any place we had stayed at. Antoine and Kimberly took the bedroom at Kimberly's request. It was all jokes when they asked for it, “Haha,” have a good time, but really, the reason they needed the bedroom was so Antoine could get his past-due dose of You were having a nightmare...

And there were smaller windows in the bedroom. Windows that could be covered.

Otherwise, Antoine would be stuck in a giant terrarium staring at trees. I wasn’t going to make him admit to anything, but I knew he was still haunted by his time in the Straggler Forest by more than just mental fatigue or panic attacks.

I didn’t know how haunted he was until that night.

Bobby let his dogs sleep everywhere. They seemed to think we all wanted their attention. Cassie didn’t seem to mind, but Ramona did. Isaac was awake with dread from his part in our plans most of the night until he took a whiskey lullaby.

“You can use Riley’s sleeping trope,” Antoine had offered.

“I’m good,” Isaac said with obvious regret as he laid out in a t-shirt and shorts on the fainting couch. I could tell he wanted to take it, but he knew Antoine needed it more. Everyone did.

It was hard to understand what Antoine was going through. The trope we used to keep his demons at bay was supposed to suppress memories down to barely remembered dreams. We thought that would quash them. The Insider apparently had, too.

It turned out that barely remembered dreams had their own toll.

When I heard them talking, everyone had gone to sleep. My couch was above an air vent that connected to their room.

Kimberly whispered something like, “No, no, we’re not there anymore.”

“I don’t want to open my eyes,” he would respond.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, you’re in Riley’s house, remember.”

No response.Folll0w current novÊls on n/o/v/3l/b((in).(co/m)

“You’re just having a nightmare,” she would repeat over and over. “You’re just having a nightmare.”

And he was.

Carousel had warned or teased him about his secret, the one that, if it got out, would cause people to lose trust in him.

As I lay on the couch, I could almost hear something in his voice. The way he whispered, the way Kimberly reassured him.

The way he said a word over and over again. I couldn’t tell what he was saying for the longest time.

I felt something in my pocket. It wasn’t really there. I wasn’t even wearing the jacket Carousel had replaced my hoodie with. I felt something appear in the sub-space we put our tropes in.

It was my Out like a light trope. Antoine had used it before but had woken up since then. Now, it had returned to me.

I listened to see if they would say something.

Whispers. I couldn’t make them out.

He was still awake. Maybe Kimberly would come up and ask for it? No dice.

I got up from the couch and took the stairs down to the bedroom door. I had to step over one of Bobby’s smaller dogs. It didn’t pay me any mind.

I knocked on the door, and Kimberly answered. Antoine was standing, looking out the covered window.

There, with the door open, I heard the word he had been saying.

“Trees. No trees. No trees,” he chanted like he was trying to convince himself. He was reaching out, caressing the blanket that had been thrown over the window. It seemed to comfort him.

I handed her the sleeping trope and walked away without even making eye contact.

No wonder Antoine had been kept “off the board” for most of the last month. He was having trouble none of us could understand.

His trope made it feel like his time in the Straggler Forest had just been a nightmare. Alas, the cure was incomplete.

What good was turning trauma into a mere nightmare when you were in the one place where nightmares were real?

As I walked up the stairs to my couch, I realized what Antoine’s secret was. I knew why his Incapacitation indicator was flaring even when we were just relaxing.

Antoine believed, on some level, that he was still stuck in that forest, and in a way, he was right.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

~-~

Early morning. Breakfast. Bobby’s sunny-side-up eggs got turned into scrambled after a mishap with a jumping dog that caused him to break a yolk.

I didn’t mind.

“Why do I have to leave?” Isaac asked. He was being a good sport, and I was making the best promises I could that we would protect him.

“Oh.”

“I’m just calling because you see,” he said, looking down at the notes he had made for him. “Have you seen the papers?”

There was a pause.

“I guess I haven’t lately,” Roderick said nervously.

“Oh. I gotcha. I was thinking we might meet for lunch. To catch up.”

Another pause.

“I don’t see why we would need to do that,” Roderick said. He was paranoid as ever.

“There’s something you need to know. Maybe we meet at the Italian bistro on South Kareem Avenue? ASAP. Trust me.”

A final pause as we waited to see if Carousel would go along with things.

If he were wise and cautious, he would never agree. I didn’t read that from him. I thought he would be paranoid and reckless. I was counting on it.

“I’ll have to see if I can make time,” Roderick said.

“Okay. Just know it’s important,” Isaac said. That might have been too much.

“Will our friend, the director, be joining us?”

He was talking about me.

And there was the kicker.

“No,” Isaac said. “It’s better he not come.”

“I see. I’ll head there now,” Roderick said.

Bingo.

I figured that Roderick might not want to go if he thought we were going to rat on him. I figured that maybe if Isaac implied I was untrustworthy, he would be curious enough to hear what Isaac had to say. Isaac’s decent Moxie was enough to sell it, even if Carousel might not have wanted it.

Now, we needed to see how Carousel would respond.

Isaac hung up.

“Sorry, I don’t know why I said you were in the shower.”

“Me neither,” I said.

The conversation wasn't On-Screen, so that meant Isaac and Roderick would probably summarize it when they met.

“Let’s get moving,” Antoine said.

~-~

The Italian place on S. Kareem Avenue had no name, but that wasn’t an oversight. It had several different menus and could serve as any kind of restaurant. We read about it in the Atlas.

When we got there, we sent Isaac ahead. He had memorized his talking points. He only needed to stick around long enough to look suspicious and then get arrested. I thought he could handle it.

Of course, that was assuming that Carousel went along with our idea.

It did. In a way, it did.

But it had its own flavor to add.

As Isaac was walking toward the café, I noticed that Future Mayor Roderick Gray was already there.

He wasn’t alone.

He was talking to a smiling, well-dressed black man wearing a period-appropriate mustache and a hairstyle that could not have been accomplished without pomade. I had never seen him before, but I knew he was at least part of the story.

His name was Elliot “Moonlight” Morrow.

Mayor Elliot “Moonlight” Morrow.

His Plot Armor was 27, just like mine.

His poster showed a silvery version of himself standing over his own axe-impaled body.

It read simply:

Moonlight Morrow is The Departed.