Book Five, Chapter 125: The Hospital

I shut the camera off for this time jump.

We had already described what we were going to do, and frankly, it was possible that our entire detour to the hospital would get cut from the final film. So I didn’t really see it as important to be filmed.

I was also tired. So very tired.

While we had technically had a night’s sleep, in theory, it had not been a full night. Time moved forward as Carousel deemed fit, and while we had some breaks, I had never rested my mind.

So, as we slid through time with my camera off, I could focus on nothing but watching the infinite shores of time.

Once my brain was able to comprehend what was going on beyond the kaleidoscope and start to see the overall structure of everything around me, I started to see the true beauty—and ferocity—of the network of timelines we were a part of.

I was mentally drained. And in pain. And numb.

I just stood still, opened my eyes, and stared at Infinity.

Until it stared back.

I couldn’t describe to you what it looked like. I could feel my brain seeking to comprehend it, to reduce it down into dimensions of height and width, to describe its shape, its color. But it didn’t have any of those things.

Time was time.

Time contained all of the scary things—and the endings of all the good things.

Time contained serial killers and hopeless college kids.

Time contained blood and despair.

Time contained haunted scarecrows and mutated bedbugs.

Time contained a little boy who saw the reflection of a dark figure in a TV screen and thought it was his father.

Time contained no happy endings.

And when my brain was done failing to comprehend it, what it looked like—

It looked like rivers in the sky. Like the many-fingered God of Death.

I traveled down one of its streams, holding tight to Camden. Holding tight to a terrible little history book about tragedies.

Time was a lattice like a rainbow stretched every which way across the sky.

Time really did contain everything. And if someone was standing on the black shores, they could look up and see it.

But I wasn’t standing on the shores.

I was moving in the currents.

Bobby stood upon the shores. His dogs stared up at me.

Dead generation killers lay at the shores.

Every black grain of sand was a broken thing—something that didn’t flow where it was supposed to.

Something that didn’t flow to the end. To Event B. To the moment that had to happen for reasons I didn’t understand.

Time…

Time contained a bridge collapse.

🔴 REC    SEP 25, 2018 13:52:02    [▮▮▮▮▯ 80%]

“Come on, man! Let’s go!” Camden screamed to me as the earth beneath us started to shake.

My camera had turned on—on its own.

I supposed Carousel wanted this footage after all.

Camden pulled at me.

I snapped out of my cosmic daze and began to run after him.

We were off the bridge long before it collapsed. But that couldn’t be said for everyone.

More death. More destruction.

I was so sick of it. It was worse than the torture.

It was inescapable.

But I couldn’t dwell on that now. If I was still alive, then I was still playing the game. And people counted on me.

We ran halfway across town on nothing but fear and fumes.

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That little kick of Grit I had added really made a world of difference in a lot of ways. Not only did I not feel as much pain as I should have from the torture, but I didn’t even feel pain as I struggled to get air into my lungs when we finally stopped running.

We were at the hospital.

According to the book, we had around a week and a half before it burned down.

Now, my theory was that because the hospital was about to burn down, maybe the records of who went there would also burn down. That might buy us some time.

I saw two possibilities.

Either that would help hide us from Generation Killer…

Or he had figured out this exact thing before, and we were about to walk into a dozen of him getting treatment for various ailments they had incurred over an infinite, loopy timeline.

But as we ran into the hospital—

I didn’t see him.

■ STOP

Finally, I could rest.

🔴 REC    OCT 05, 2018 15:35:11    [▮▮▮▮▯ 80%]

“So you’re saying that these Frenchmen in tracksuits pulled you off the street and tortured you… but didn’t take any of your money?” the police officer asked as I lay back in my hospital bed, freshly bandaged.

“Yes,” I said, with as much conviction as I could muster. “The Frenchmen.”

The police officer didn’t look like he believed me, but I had more Moxie than him, and I didn’t care if we were docked points for not coming up with a good excuse.

I was going to say we had gotten the injuries in the bridge collapse, but having a wooden armrest nailed to your arm is… not a common injury from such a disaster.

I still should have done it. Instead, I needlessly slandered Frenchmen across the multiverse.

“They were in a white van,” I added. “If that helps.”

“Yes, I’m sure that it will,” the officer said as he closed his notebook and went to have a word with the doctor.

Honestly? I felt great.

They had pumped me full of whatever cocktail of pharmaceuticals was appropriate for my condition. They had sewn my ear back on, which I wasn’t even sure was medically possible. The wooden armrest was no longer nailed to my left arm.

I was doing great.

Best of all, my hair was long enough to cover up an ear injury, so I looked good, too. If there were a makeup department for this shoot, they would be really glad.

If this was a movie, of course.

I looked to the table left of my bed, where my camera sat, having turned itself on.

I wanted to believe that Carousel just wanted to hear the tail end of my lame excuse to explain away my injuries.