I dropped him and stumbled away. My head swam.
“What the fuck?”
“Knock knock,” the corpse said from the floor. A smile spread across his face, and his milky white eyes slowly turned to look at me. Well, I did love a good joke…
“Who’s there?”
“Your subconscious,” he said.
I grimaced. “That’s horrifying, not hilarious.”
“Bree’s outside again,” he repeated. After a moment, I ran over to the window and peered out to see a new patient. Long red hair… She looked like…
“Please, god, don’t think she looks like your mom again,” Frank groaned.
“Rude,” I mumbled.
“Baz,” Frank said seriously. I peeled my eyes away from the girl wearing a muzzle and looked at him, collapsed on the floor.
“What?”
“Bree’s outsideagain.” Honestly, I was too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know what he was talking about.
“Bree’s outside again,” I repeated.
“Very good. Now, I know you don’t have many brain cells, but try to use afewmore and figure this out.”
“Why is my subconscious degrading me?”
“Because you like it.”
“Yeah, okay. Fair.”
“Stay on task. Bree… is outside… again.” Finally, it all hit me.
“Holy shit,” I said in shock.
“Now you’ve got it.”
“I’m psychotic, aren’t I?” I asked. Frank didn’t respond. Actually, he was looking as dead as he should be. I chuckled and lay down on the floor next to him, twirling a lock of his hair.
“No one can take a joke anymore,” I told him. Milky eyes slowly slid up, looking at me. “I do remember everything now. Thanks.”
“Asshole,” he mumbled. I kicked him under the bed with Harry. “Ow! You’re in Hell, if you haven’t realized!” He yelled at me.
“Yeah, but worse than that, I fucked up with my partners. Bad.” Fuck, I shouldn’t have dumped them. I should have opened up, come up with a plan. Bought them fucking oxygen tanks and masks and whole body gimp suits with my credit card. Told them what they had to do to make us all safe.
“Gonna be honest, I think being dead is worse,” Frank added.
“You’ve always been dead. Wait, how are we— how are youmoredead than me?”
“Because I’m not real.”
“Whatever, not important.” I waved my hand in dismissal as I dove into my wardrobe, finding clothes.
“Being trapped in a time-loop from Hell where nothing is real is … not important?” Frank asked. Was he always this chatty?
“No. But finding my partners is. Just like Bree said,” I paused as I pulled on my old Venom mask. This thing had unfortunately burned in the Verfallen fire, so I was pleased to have it back—real or not.
“What did Bree say?” Frank prompted me.
“As long as we’re all together, everything is fine. I fucked up once, and it led to me killing them. I’ll never fuck that up again.” I kicked open the door, and inmates scrambled. When I stepped into the hall, someone smashed themselves against the wall and squirmed. I saluted the guy, and he whimpered. I smiled under the mask.
“It’s good to be home.”
