Page 123 of Kiss Slay Replay

It’s standing guard.

It’s standing between me and all my tomorrows.

Fuck me.

A cosmic problem I need to confront head on. There’s no running away, no hiding, no going around, no pretending this isn’t happening. There’s no easy out.

I know. There’s only through.

I don’t hesitate. I don’t waste any more time. I sink to my knees, feel through the dirt for the biggest rock I can find, and I whip it at the reaper’s skull. It lodges into the left eye socket.

The reaper reels back, dropping its scythe.

I sprint forward, slide into the clearing like it’s home-fucking-plate, reaching for the fallen scythe at the exact same moment as the reaper. My fingers lock against its cold, cold bones. We fight for it. Its strength is supernatural, but so is mine.

Every death replays in my head. Every time my eyes were shut for me. Every time I opened them again.

I see you.

Beyond the reaper, the wormhole murmurs, its iridescent edges expand, widening like a yawning mouth. I stare into the infinite void, hypnotized by it, by the kaleidoscope of possibilities, of what-ifs. What if I do somehow make it in? Does that mean going back to the first today—morose, sticky with margarita and anxiety? And if I go back, won’t the wormhole remain open to inevitably lap up someone else?

Wormholes can, theoretically, collapse.

The reaper’s jaw dances again, more silent laughter as I struggle, my grip slipping as my hands sweat. This ugly, selfish, cruel thing is mocking me, trying to destroy me. To take my life.

Bugs crawl under my clothes, up my calves, my thighs, my back, onto my neck. Thousands of tiny legs pricking my skin.

If something were to happen, you could cease to exist in time.

But what if…

There’s only so much I can explain; a lot of this is hypothetical. Hypothetical.

So what if…

It’s a waste not to wonder.

What if…

You can what if yourself to death, Willa.

The colors pulse, and I know in my gut it’s now or never.

I want to live without anticipating the worst, to breathe without fear of the moment I stop, to exist in time without worry of wasting it. I want my past. I want my present. I want my future. My time. My life. This life. This world. This shitty, messed-up, amazing, beautiful world.

The wormhole flares brighter, brighter. In the glow, I catch glimpses of the days past. Eyes. The glint of a knife in moonlight. Dark feathers. Antlers. Spatters of blood. Neon lightning. Flowers. Fire.

The only thing that will come from constantly looking back is an inability to move forward.

I make my move. I act on pure instinct. I don’t question. I trust myself.

“The only way out is through.”

I release the scythe.

I let go.

The reaper falls back into the expanse of brightness, that folds in gently at first, then clamps down fiercely, like a predator’s teeth. I watch fragments of light suspended in space, spinning slowly toward eternity, reflecting colors I’ve never seen before. The reaper dissolves into the spectrum with a mind-bending, hyperphysical fizzling.