SWAN 2 -Sleep-

Song Without A Name
Chp. 2
from the sad and twisted mind of one Lady Yate-xel

****

There’s a name for what happens when you begin saying words and start to hear only the sounds. At some point, mantras become ineffective, the meaning drops out, and you’re left to wonder what it was you were saying all that time.

He didn’t know the name of it, but knew the feeling so well. How long had he been saying “Have to find him, have to find him, have to find him, havetofindhim…,” before it stopped meaning anything? Before he forgot to go out and ‘find’? It had become such a mantra, such an everyday thing, that he had forgotten why he was looking for whoever it was in the first place.

Johnny.

Nny.

A friend of his in the life before this one, and, oddly enough, his murderer in the one before that. And here he was looking for him – No. Had found him. He had found him, and seen him, nearly exactly as he was before, and he was so, so close.

Had he been recognized? Had Johnny really seen him there, or was he just ‘staring at something that stared back'? Had Johnny been looking through him at some fascinating spot on the wall all the time? Was Johnny crazy again? The purple-haired girl had said that Johnny wouldn’t want to meet him, wouldn’t want to see him. If Johnny really was crazy again, who was she that she could get so close to –

Devi.

Devi, too.

He was utterly stunned by the thought of her being here as well. Why was she here? When and how had she died and gotten into this mess? Was she a something happy that Johnny had wanted to remember badly enough that she was dragged into all this too? Then… Acne-Face?

That was… Jimmy? Johnny’s entire fan club, this life and last. Johnny hadn’t liked him at all, if he recalled correctly. He remembered sitting with Johnny in front of the TV and listening to the reasons Jimmy had deserved to die. If everyone here existed because Johnny wished them to be, then there was no reason for Jimmy to have come along with Devi.

He shook his head a few times, attempting to clear his thoughts. It was more than a little unlikely that Johnny’s brain was used for the basis of the world. Even so, Johnny’s brain aside, there were so many questions in such a small space. So many questions that grew off one another and spawned even more. The worst part was that none of them could be answered and he was trying so hard to fix that when there were a few more important matters at hand.

Follow him, follow him, follow him. Why the hell was he standing here, just thinking?

He chased after Johnny, assuming he’d just sense the general direction, and hoping that Johnny had found this almost encounter weird enough to go back to the only place he could ever be reliably found. Would he have gone back there so quickly? Should he risk going in after him if he was in there? Would he look like a stalker? Wasn’t he already?

Damn.

The choir room door, and his hand against it. He’d managed to make his way here with no conscious decision. He really needed to start paying attention to where he was going instead of thinking so much. Since he had run here, he decided to pretend he had ‘sensed’ that Johnny was here. Shoulder against the door, he braced himself to open it. It seemed a little heavier than it should have been.

Voices. Or just one, muttering perhaps.

He managed to nudge the door open, and saw Johnny standing there alone, apparently completely immersed in his head phones, staring at the ceiling, expression blank, almost mumbling lyrics. The lyrics he was almost singing were actually almost understandable from this position at the door and, for a moment, there was this fear to make a sound, fear of ruining Johnny’s peace. For a moment. Then he realized Johnny’s ears probably couldn’t take any more noise if they tried, and he would go fairly unnoticed.

He took a step, and went to call Johnny’s name, and then stopped, still propping the door open with his hip.

Was his name still Johnny? Even if it was, would he still answer to ‘Nny’, or was that a nickname he had assumed in his prior madness? Could he even just be John now? Gah. The sound of the latter possibility was so massively wrong sounding that he hoped Johnny would have assumed another name entirely rather than use ‘John.’

Well, might as well give it a shot.

“Johnny…?”

Nothing. Just breath. He wasn’t sure whose.

Well, that, and the slight buzz of Johnny’s music.

“Nny?”

Still nothing. He wasn’t surprised.

He walked closer, letting the door close behind him, still completely unnoticed. He drew closer cautiously, still concerned about making any noise. The faint clicks of Johnny’s boots against the floor as he kept time with the music overlapped the breathing and buzzing he was hearing. He still wasn’t sure if it was Johnny’s breath or his own. God, it had to be him… the way he let himself get completely absorbed in the music, the way he…

He reached out for him, his hand within an inch of Johnny’s shoulder.

At that instant, Johnny whirled around, head phones clattering to the floor. He stood there, with Johnny glaring at him, stunned, hand still suspended in the air, reaching. Johnny was almost staring holes through him, and he realized the breathing was his own.

“Nny…”

Johnny narrowed already accusing eyes, as though trying to vaporize the intruder in his world with some grand delusion of laser vision. The glare was so perfectly psychotic, so full of contempt, that he should have been frightened of Johnny, or at the very least intimidated. Quite the opposite, really.

“God, it is you!”

Johnny opened his mouth, presumably to say something, but was cut off from voicing whatever it was as he was smothered in a tight hug. Johnny’s eyes went wide, his mouth still open from his failed attempt at protest, and simply froze for some time. In the same second that he began to think that Johnny had died of shock, Johnny lashed out at what he must’ve seen as his captor, and jammed a sharp elbow into his ribs, knocking him aside.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Johnny spat the words, and the laser gaze continued.

It was most certainly Johnny. And Johnny had posed an interesting question. He really had never thought this far ahead. How to explain this, exactly?

“Nny, let me –“

“Johnny,” he interrupted. “Only Devi calls me ‘Nny.’ Who the hell are you? Following me all over the place like that… Are you stalking me or something?”

He held up his hands in an attempt to beg Johnny to just stop and listen to him. He already felt hopeless and he had hardly said five words to him. It was still the same. He still had to act as though treading around a wild animal or something radioactive when talking to Johnny. Already he had bent over slightly in an inadvertent attempt to lower himself and seem like less of a complete intrusion. Although, it could well have been the reaction to the jab in the ribs he was attempting to act as though he hadn’t felt.

“I just… I need to ask you something, please. If you’d just listen to me.”

Johnny remained still, and looked at him, waiting, visibly bothered by something, more than likely the person talking to him. Said person took a breath, which he just noticed seemed painfully audible again, looked at Johnny and tried to find the best way to approach the situation. In an insecure moment, he happened to glance down and notice Johnny’s CD player had landed by his feet. He nudged it with his toe in a completely feigned accident.

“I noticed,” he began, as he bent down and retrieved the player, “that you seem to be as … invisible as I am. No one notices you singing in here, just like no one notices my playing. I- Do you know anything about it? Do you… know why?” Wow, this was sounding totally stupid already. Maybe Johnny would take pity and find some clever way to murder him with music, thus ending his miserable bout of stupid. He offered the player, hoping it would serve as excuse enough for the distracted sound in his voice.

Johnny’s eyes followed the movements of the hands holding his music, but he didn’t move for a long time. He glanced from hands to eyes, and back to hands. Finally, after several minutes, he reached out took the CD player, finally speaking as he did.

“I don’t know anything about it. It doesn’t concern me who does or doesn’t hear you existing.”

At that moment came the sound of the choir room door slamming against the wall and an excited “GOOOOOD AFTERNOON!” from Acne-Face, who he now believed was almost assuredly Jimmy. He watched as Jimmy began moving about the room, organizing random things and generally making himself busy while delivering a sort of daily report to someone assumed to be Johnny.

“Pushed a couple of seventh graders in the halls today. They deserved it, really. Said a few things I don’t think you would have liked.” Jimmy spoke as though this sort of thought process was not only logical, but incredibly common. He moved some risers across the room, yet still never had cast a glance in the direction of the one he was supposedly talking to. Said person was not amused.

“Jimmy.”

“I wore this shirt today,” Jimmy continued, unfazed, “since it’s Tuesday, and you usually wear these kinds on Tuesdays. I don’t think the boots are quite like yours though, I…” He plugged a few things in, still talking.

“Jimmy.”

“Oh, please, please… It can be Mmy. After all-”

Jimmy finally looked up, mid-sentence, from the little things he had been busy with, rose from his position by the outlets, and noticed for the first time that he wasn’t alone with Johnny in the room. He looked from the new comer to Johnny and back again, obviously confused. His gaze finally stayed on Johnny, silently requesting some sort of explanation.

“I’m trying to have a conversation here," Johnny said. "If you’re going to idolize me, maybe throwing a glance in my direction on occasion wouldn’t hurt.”

Jimmy looked as though he might want to say something in response, perhaps a question, but seemed unable. When his mouth failed, he tried pointing, but failed to convey much more. He finally turned and left, still confused and muttering something about “letting Devi know.”

She was obviously alerted fairly quickly if the clattering sound of a cafeteria tray and the shriek of Jimmy’s name in the hallway was any indication. The door flew open a few seconds later revealing a sorely irritated salad-covered Devi.

“Nny! What is this loser do – Oh. You again. Congratulations.”

Devi made her way into the room, letting the door close, salad trailing behind her. Jimmy managed to shuffle back in after her, opening the door with his shoulder, still on the floor where he had been knocked by the apparent collision, also covered in stray salad parts. He stood up, brushed some bacon bits from his hair and looked at Johnny, who was massaging his temple.

“Come on,” Johnny sighed, rubbing his eye for a moment, “get the salad off the floor and just come in here, all of you.” Johnny opened the door that had proved earlier to be such an obstacle for his new companion, who was now adjusting his glasses, which had fallen slightly in the past few minutes. He jumped slightly, nearly dropping them, when Devi spoke a sharp “Hey!” and motioned him to follow as well.

“Hurry up, you! You were so eager to see him before. No need to be shy now.”

He adjusted his glasses again, though they didn’t need it, and followed the others through the door.

Inside the door proved to be a little less amazing than he had envisioned it to be. There was a small office, which seemed to have been previously occupied by a teacher, but was fairly unfurnished. A larger room that served as a companion classroom connected to the office, and seemed to be where all the singing had occurred.

He watched Johnny hop up onto a desk surrounded by giant speakers and stacks of CDs and sheet music. Devi and Jimmy seemed to have pre-established comfort spots as well, all nestled into the canyon of music. The room looked to be a second home to its occupants; the cushions worn, empty Freezie cups strewn here and there, and random candid Polaroid shots of the small group’s members were paper clipped or messily taped to the little scraps of visible wall left in the space.

He felt so out of place here, so much like he was intruding on something very important that he found himself wishing to be invisible to these three in addition to the rest of the world. He rubbed his arm as he glanced around for a place to sit, and spied a large worn forest green beanbag on a stack of record players that looked reasonably stable. He gingerly let himself sink into it, not completely sure it was reliable. When he was assured it wasn’t going to collapse or implode on him, he let himself apply his full weight and looked back up at the others, hoping to appear relaxed, although he was sure that was far from the case.

“So, I’ve been attempting to get a few little things sorted out on my own, which, thanks to all of you, is becomingly more and more difficult… I thought, then, that we’d all just talk here, since you two seem to know this one already.”

He watched Johnny talk and saw that, contrary to himself, he seemed to be incredibly relaxed. Smiling slightly, he had replaced his headphones, and leaned forward, as if preparing to listen to something very carefully or else teach a group of small children. This had to be some horrible mistake somehow, that he had accidentally wove his way into all of this, and they were wondering why he was intruding on their ritual. He eventually noticed that Johnny was still talking about something, and that he had been staring at a buckle on Johnny’s boot for some time. Just as the traces of Johnny’s words were coming back to him, he was brought back to reality by a sharp interruption.

“Who are you!?” Jimmy had sprung from his chair, apparently unable to wait much longer to question the person who had endangered his ‘Number One Fan’ status. He continued as though he didn’t want answers as much as he wanted to holler the questions at his victim, who hadn’t been paying enough attention to know if the outburst was random or not.

“And what have you been doing, TALKING to him? Devi says you follow him! You think you can stalk him, do you?” Jimmy’s breathing was being forced through his teeth and he had the general appearance of a bothered house cat. The salad bits didn’t help much. His breathing suggested he hadn’t done as much yelling at junior high students as he would’ve liked people to think. “Who are you?!” he demanded again. Johnny seemed neither annoyed nor offended by the apparent interruption. In fact, he looked rather amused at what the answer to Jimmy’s outburst could possibly be. “WHO?”

“I’m-“

How was that sentence finished? In all his time here, had he never spoken his own name? No one else had either, it seemed, as he had just assumed he would know it when he heard it. Surely, he had thought, he would have just recognized it when it came. What was the name he had been waiting for the teachers to call?

“Edgar,” said a voice that wasn’t his. His heart skipped a beat and Jimmy and Devi turned abruptly and stared, evidently just as surprised that Johnny had answered instead of the poor overwhelmed guy in the beanbag.

“Nny, do you know him? Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, I thought that…” Devi trailed off; it didn’t seem that it was worth trying to finish that thought, as Johnny didn’t seem to be hearing her.

Johnny just sat, perhaps absorbed in his headphones, perhaps interested in the patterns he was tracing in the grain of the wooden desk. He was still smiling, but seemed utterly tuned out, as though maybe he had thought to name the desk Edgar when he said the name. He stayed that way for sometime before he stopped abruptly and looked at Devi.

“No. I don’t know him.”

Johnny slid off the desk, and walked over to the beanbag, and, although its occupant attempted to sink into it, leaned in uncomfortably close to the other’s nose. Johnny’s eyes narrowed and then closed in a smile. An indignant squeak from Jimmy behind Johnny was met with a shushing and a look from Devi as Johnny leaned in that much closer, his expression of amusement frighteningly familiar.

“I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know who he is either, do you, EDGAR?”

Was that really it? Was that his name? He tried to recall it being written on something, anything, but there seemed to be nothing. The farther he looked, the more it felt as though his memories were very hazy, as though everything prior to the moment Johnny had said that name had begun dissolving, and he had begun living at every point since. He had had a name. He had a name now. He existed. To give a name is to acknowledge, is to give life, is to give power, is to give existence.

His name was Edgar.

“I don’t kn-No. I really don’t remember much about myself, but…” He stopped there. How had he been planning on finishing that sentence? ‘But I know all sorts of things about you! I’m your CHRONO STALKER!’? That would go over well. Johnny didn’t seem willing to let him ponder it.

“But what?” Johnny drove him farther into the chair.

“But I…” He paused, cringing, then he thought of something and his tone changed to something a little more challenging. “I don’t know much about myself, but I think I’d like to know how you do.” He knew in his prior existences he would have regretted sounding even that demanding, but since Jimmy was still in one piece, he assumed Johnny’s indiscriminant homicidal tendencies hadn’t been born again with him. He was more than likely just as easy to annoy, but that didn’t seem to carry a promise of a swift death any longer.

Johnny smiled once more, before stepping back, and releasing a sigh. He took the headphones off, and took a brief glance at Devi and Jimmy, and then focused his attention on the headphones, turning them over and over in his hands.

“I…‘remember,’” he started. “Just like I remembered these two.” He nodded his head slightly in the general direction of the other occupants of the room. “I have memories of you existing before now, but nothing about you so much. I recall details here and there about these two, but they’re full of holes. Holes and empty spaces and missing pieces and black. Like something doesn’t want me to see those parts.”

He stopped, scratched at something that didn’t exist on his CD player, then continued.

“I remember them, I remember you, I remember ME, but only that we were. We just were. The images are faint if they are at all. Almost like I dreamed it but I’m sure I didn’t. I found these two here when they noticed me, and I remembered that they were, in fact, them. I recognized them, and they could tell I was here. You said something about invisible, right? Don’t worry about that, you get used to it. It even has its advantages.” He looked at the other two for a moment, and they exchanged knowing grins. “So, I’ve answered your question. I want to ask one of you, Edgar.” Johnny put an odd stress on the name, as though trying to taunt its owner with it.

It was still strange to associate those sounds with the face he saw in the mirror every morning. He tried to replay the name over and over in his head while waiting for Johnny to ask whatever it was he needed. Edgar Edgar Ed-gar EDgar EdGAR. When it felt as though he had said ‘Edgar’ in his head far too many times, he looked at Johnny and realized that not only had he been staring at nothing, but that Johnny was waiting for some sort of clearance to ask.

“Um, sorry, I uh- Yeah, go ahead.”

Johnny continued as though no time had passed, still smiling a familiar old smile as he played with the loose pause button on his CD player. “Are you like them?”

“Them?” He pointed to Jimmy and Devi, hoping to try to determine what he was supposed to be comparing.

“Yes, them. Do you remember just as much nothing as they do?” Johnny evidently found great amusement in that fact that the other two believed that he remembered them with nothing to back it up. The tone is his voice was now challenging his newest follower to claim otherwise, to say he DID remember something, although Johnny didn’t seem to expect him to.

“No… Actually, that’s part of the reason I’m talking to you, I-well the thing is, I remember a whole lot about … you.”

And he did remember. Perfectly. He remembered movements and gestures and moods and habits and posture and all of him. He remembered the way the person he knew as Johnny had looked lying dead and discarded in front the hastily erected tinfoil gates. No one had wanted anything to do with the empty shell of a man.

Except Edgar.

The body had formerly been his only friend, he had told them. He had been in an unfortunate and impossible to explain situation, and had been warped based on that. He had simply been given a bad hand in life, would it be ok to take him along on the next round of Operation Reincarnation? It was only to assure Johnny’s happiness, he had said. And with Johnny’s mostly interpreted consent, it was done.

Yeah, that had happened. Yeah, that was also a story that had little chance of being believed, even in these circumstances. He would more than likely make an ass out of himself and Johnny would have Jimmy eat him or something. Sadly, that was something that was something all too easily visualized.

“You remember… me?” Johnny’s voice broke into Edgar’s miniature black and white flashback. There was a touch of eagerness in his voice.

“Yes… I remember almost everything about you.” Man, how weird did that sound to everyone else? He thought he’d make an attempt at sounding a little less creepy and made a mention about remembering Jimmy and Devi as well.

“He’s lying,” Jimmy said suddenly. “He found our names in an old yearbook or something. He’s just trying to get you to talk to him. You’re too good for this one, Nny.”

Devi pointed out that they had never bothered to attempt class pictures again after the year they waited in line all day but were never bothered with due to apparent chronic non-existence. Jimmy sneered at her, arms crossed, looking generally disgusted with the world (or maybe just Edgar) by this point. Johnny had tuned them out completely, and was completely focused on Edgar’s alleged memories of him. He had been so interested that he hadn’t even bothered to yell at Jimmy for using his nickname.

“Prove it. Show me.” Johnny stared at Edgar with intense interest, inching closer with each word.

Edgar had assumed a hunched over position by this point, in an effort to slide away from an ever approaching curious Johnny. He looked down at his hands, as he tried to conjure up the words he wanted.

“How? I mean, I’d be more than glad to tell you what I remember, but, aren’t I making the same claim you are? You knew my name, I knew yours… and even Jimmy and Devi’s, I- I think we’re making equally non-provable claims here.” He had noticed that it seemed Johnny was just as eager to speak with him as he had been to speak with Johnny. Perhaps they could just accept remembrance on the other’s part, instead of challenging it.

Johnny smiled, amused. “True. Equally crazy we are then. Still, I want to hear about your remembering. Maybe I’ll remember more about myself if I hear it…”

No, no, no. Lord, no. Edgar had a deep fear of how Johnny would end up should be ever find out he was a raving murderer in a past existence. Not only that, but the Johnny he had known wanted it to be forgotten. He would do anything he could to prevent this Johnny from remembering the things that made the other suffer so much. Plus, he had an all too plausible vision of this Johnny remembering that he had wished to forget and deciding to kill Edgar for ever telling him.

“I’ll tell you as much as I can…but, I don’t remember everything.” A lie. One that Johnny accepted eagerly and without question. He pulled a chair out of what seemed to be nowhere, placed the back towards Edgar, and sat resting his head and arms on the top, ready to hear everything right then and there. Jimmy had also taken his seat again, but only because Devi convinced him it would make Johnny happy, before sitting in her own spot - a worn dark orange office chair.

Johnny stared at him, waiting.

Right then, yes. What to tell him? He really hadn’t thought this far ahead. He couldn’t very well spout poems about the way Johnny moved or how his voice sounded (not that he had any of those, of course), but memories like that were strongest, and all he really had. He had forgotten some strange details over a life and a half and retained the essential Johnny-isms that he had for some reason took the time to appreciate. Yes, he certainly still remembered being murdered and being not murdered, that was to be expected, but things like Johnny’s hair color, Johnny’s favorite words… things that were being quickly overwritten by this Johnny (or this ‘Nny’), were now becoming hazy. His memories were a silent black-and-white film and it was getting difficult to see through all the grain caused by the new overlapping information.

He should get this out quick, so they both remember it. Deep breath, Edgar.

“Well, let me see… We were older than this when we met the first time. Twenty something, I would think. You, uh, invited me over to your house, and we talked about humanity and such…watched some television…”

A look at Johnny showed he really wasn’t concerned with the story of their lives so much as who he had been. Right then, just talk about Johnny. Not hard.

“And uh, you wore clothes sort of like the ones you have now. You had several striped shirts, and these long pointy boots. I think they might have been your favorites. Your favorite flavor anything was cherry, especially the Freezies from the convenience store downtown. You were an artist at one point, and loved music…” Suddenly the list was not to tell Johnny who he had been; it was Edgar ensuring that he held onto every bit of these memories, this pattern of a person.

“You were thinner. A lot thinner. I don’t think you ate quite right. You didn’t sleep much either; you had dark circles around your eyes more often than not. You, uh, had a rabbit. Yeah... You met Devi before you met me, and Jimmy sometime after. You would ask me to come over to watch television with you, but you wouldn’t let us watch shows, you had wanted me to see your favorite commercials…” Edgar smiled and laughed weakly at that memory. One of his concerns upon Johnny’s death before had been that he wouldn’t be able to watch television. He had realized that was utterly insane, but had noted that it was a valid concern when one took into account who he was dealing with. It was twisted, but it made him smile.

Johnny had taken to staring at Edgar quizzically, head tilted slightly to one side, and he seemed to be relatively amazed by something, if not everything, that Edgar had said.

“I love commercials.”

Edgar blinked. “Pardon?”

Johnny stood up, looked down at Edgar, who was completely confused, and proclaimed again, “I love commercials.”

There was still a mutter of “Bullshit” from the back of the room, but aside from this, the other occupants of Johnny’s musical office hadn’t said much. Edgar wasn’t sure if this meant he should keep quiet or not, but he didn’t say anything for a while, just to check.

“Do you… want me to keep going? Or…” Edgar found himself subconsciously lowering himself in front of Johnny when asking questions. Bad habit. He rubbed his arm a few times. That was one, too.

“No. No, actually. Just wait. I’ll hear the rest later. I’ll listen tonight.” Johnny seemed to make a note of that in his mental calendar, put his headphones on, and held his hand out to Edgar, who wasn’t sure if he was being helped off the beanbag, or offered a handshake. He took Johnny’s hand slowly, hoping he would get an indication as to what to do. Johnny shook his hand enthusiastically, and grinned at him.

“Lovely talking to you and pleased to meet you again, Edgar. I am still Johnny C. But seeing as we seem to have shared some intimate moments before, you can call me Nny.”

He released Edgar’s hand, turned up his music, and strolled out of the room.

Edgar’s hand burned.

****

When he left the building that day, it was still burning. He walked home, staring at the nothing on his palm, frequently saving himself from smashing into trees and traffic just in time.

He hadn’t seen Johnny again that day, and wondered how he could possibly talk to him ‘tonight’ unless he had planned for Edgar to live at the school. He shrugged it off, and blamed it on Johnny excitement.

Life went on as usual for him, despite burning palm. He ate dinner, he stared at the television, he read a magazine. On his way to put a dish in the sink, he passed a small mirror hanging on the wall in the hallway. He paused to stare at the face that looked back at him. So that face was ‘Edgar,’ huh? He put the dish away and tried to tell himself that he wouldn’t lie in bed and practice his signature that night.

As he reclined against his pillows several hours later, doing the very thing he had swore he wouldn’t, his phone interrupted his mental debate about the amount of curl on the ‘E’ he was making. He picked it up and answered casually, fully prepared to tell the telemarketer on the other line that ‘Edgar or Current Resident’ had died a horrible bloody death and was being shown at Smith’s Funeral Home on Saturday, should the bastard on the other line have any sympathy at all for soliciting him to his doom. Part of Edgar really enjoyed telemarketers.

He heard music coming from the receiver. Had he been called while on hold? Elevator music? No. He pressed it closer to his ear, and heard words.

“I know it’s late, I shouldn’t call at this hour…”

“Hi. It’s tonight. Tell me more now. I’m listening. I hope you don’t mind the song, but it helps me think.”

Edgar sat there stunned for a minute, before he just started talking. Spouting off every tiny thing he could think of, all while that song echoed in the background, whatever it was. He didn’t think about it, and neither did Johnny. Maybe it was therapy for the both of them. Maybe Johnny needed to hear it all as much as Edgar needed to tell it.

When he woke up, the song was still playing. But he couldn’t tell if it was the phone in his hand, or the memory making the melody.

“Drown out the machinery in my head…”

His hand still burned.

02