Page 122 of Kiss Slay Replay

I dash into the woods, weave through the trees without looking back. I search for something, anything familiar. Tanya mentioned gravity, said that—

“Shit!”

The ground shifts under me, and I roll my ankle.

I collapse against a tree, hyperventilating. There’s no time to recover. I hobble forward; I can’t seem to get my footing.

The earth has gone elastic, I swear, and it’s impossible to balance on a surface that won’t hold.

A small, concentrated area that somehow exists in its own gravitational field. That’s what the sensation of falling was from. You’ll feel more unsteady the closer you get.

Am I close? How close?

Another step. My ankle gives and I slam against another tree.

The world warps. For a moment, everything is neon, wavy. Then sepia toned, still. Loud and pulsing. Eerily quiet.

My heart thud-thud-thud-thuds, vision blurs, the dirt surrenders underneath me—squish—soft, warm, yielding.

I crawl around on my hands and knees, looking for…something. Something incomprehensible.

I turn to see the reaper in the distance. It points at me again, its long, tattered sleeve rippling in the breeze. It peels back its hood, unveiling a smiling, desiccated corpse head. Pocked, leathery gray flesh recedes in places, permitting its skull to peek through. Worms slither out of its empty eye sockets; maggots pour from its open jaw.

No, no, no, no, no.

Mud collects between my knuckles and under my fingernails as I pull myself forward, toward who fucking knows what. And even if I find it, what then?

The future?

A future beyond the next few hours, beyond the familiar. A future I don’t know. That I can’t see. That I’ll face alone.

This is it. Here and now. The worst of it. The scariest moment. The most formidable monster. Not what’s chasing me through the woods, the grim reaper with its scythe raised high over its head, a mass of bugs swarming around the hem of its robe. Not even death.

It’s life. It’s the rest of my life. The time I’m not sure how I will spend, if I will find happiness within it. If I can embrace what’s ahead of me with everything that’s behind me.

I don’t know what’s next, but I do know that I want it. I want it so badly, and that’s what’s so terrifying.

My fingers dig deeper into the dirt; hands curl into fists. I scrape my knees forward to get to my feet. I’m tired and I’m filthy and I’m bleeding but I am not beat.

The stench of the reaper carries, stinging my nostrils and down the back of my throat. It’s coming.

“All right.” I spit at the ground where its maggoty brigade skitters toward me. “Let’s go.”

I turn on my heel and take off running.

My ankle screams, but I understand that pain is temporary. I keep moving. I can’t tell if I’m just woozy or if the woods are swaying, undulating. Changing. My arm clips a branch; it drags across my skin—or is it a skeletal hand? Dizzy and disoriented, my eyes lose focus, and I knock headfirst into another tree.

I bite down on my lip to keep from screaming, from panting. I try to breathe quietly out of my nose. Hugging the bark, I peer over my shoulder to see how much distance I managed to put between me and the reaper.

Death stands in a clearing at the foot of a slight hill. Its skull swivels slowly, the rest of it remaining oddly still, even the bugs at its feet.

Its stillness gives me a moment to identify that this scene is familiar—and why. It’s where I first saw the Eyeball Man, at the top of that hill. It’s where this all started. Which means the wormhole is nearby.

I creep closer, transfixed, closer, closer, heart pounding, palms sweating, closer, closer, closer, and…and I see it. An opalescence in the air, floating just beyond the reaper, like a fading rainbow. Like a mirror that reflects the world without you in it but holds space for your shape. It’s magnificent. Mesmerizing. But…

The reaper’s skull snaps around a hundred eighty degrees, sockets straight to me, jawbone slack and shaking with silent laughter.

Death is not standing still.