18. Seven Minutes in Heaven （Atavan Halen）
Seven Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)
Dustin didn’t know what he thought he’d find on the other side of that door, but it certainly wasn’t a sprawling forest made of gnarled trees, limp brown grass, and the stench of rot.
He immediately scanned the area, trying to find any trace of James, but there was nothing.
Actually, less than nothing.
No birds singing, crickets chirping, not even the eerie silence of the woods at night. Just… absence.
An absence that was only interrupted by the sound of bickering voices in the distance.
“This is a complete shitshow. James just blinked out of existence and the next thing we know we’re in the middle of some creepy ass woods, and we still can’t find Dustin!”
Chloe’s frustration was palpable, but at least she sounded close. As Dustin moved in the direction of her voice, he heard Bailey’s next.
“We’ve gotta keep our heads on straight. I’m sure we’ll find Dusty soon, but it’s clear we’re in James’s trial now. If it’s like Dustin’s, we won’t be able to interact with him directly,”
“Can’t we just speedrun this bullshit?” Chris snapped, “if he’s stuck in a forest, I can just burn it down and clear a path. And then we can move the fuck on,”
“Yeah, because that worked so well when you tried to evaporate the water during Dustin’s trial. Nothing you did had any effect at all, and he had no idea you were even there, even after you jumped in like a maniac” Chloe bit back.
Dustin stopped in his tracks.
The others… had been there while he was drowning?
His stomach twisted. Did that mean the voices he heard; Bailey’s disappointment, Chloe’s cold judgment, James’s panic, had been real in some way? That the Lotus Garden had taken their cries for him and warped them into weapons?
His chest tightened as the truth settled in.
They had seen it. All of it. And they hadn’t been able to do a damn thing.
And if that was true… then neither could he.
The realization hit him harder than the water ever had.
James wasn’t waiting for rescue on the other side of this forest. There would be no door to kick down, no current to redirect, no clever way to shoulder the burden for him.
James would have to survive this the same way Dustin did.
Alone.
By facing whatever the Garden decided to drag out of him.
Dustin barely even had time to register that reality, before the others emerged through a cluster of trees in front of him. Their eyes went wide at the sight of him, and Bailey immediately rushed over and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.
“Thank God you’re okay Dusty! Seeing you in there and not being able to help you was like getting hit by a fucking train!”
“I wouldn’t be so feely about it, but… it is nice to know you’re alright,” Chloe added with a soft smirk.
Chris on the other hand, hung back closer to the trees, eyeing Dustin like he wasn’t quite sure how to approach, his face a strange mix of frustration and deep sadness.
Dustin wanted to call out to him, to finally try to talk him out of the funk he’d been in since he got out of the hospital. But he didn’t have a chance before a distant sound like screeching tires caught everyone’s attention.
Chloe’s eyes were the first to snap in the direction the sound came from.
“Over there! That’s gotta be where James is,”
Chris immediately stormed off, with Chloe following closely behind, but Dustin’s eyes just lingered on him for a moment longer; torn between calling out to him, and running off to find his boyfriend.
“He’s seriously fucked up, isn’t he?” Bailey asked, her eyes locked onto Chris’s back as well, “what are we gonna do? If he won’t talk to you, he won’t talk to anyone,”
“I… really don’t know,” Dustin admitted, his voice barely taking shape, “I guess what we have to focus on right now is just making it through this,”
James had no idea how he’d ended up here.
One moment he was stuck in a black void with the others, watching Dustin writhe, struggle, and scream against an invisible current. The next he was… wherever this was; stumbling around an endless husk of a forest completely alone.
Well, alone except for the gleaming silver Lexus that was completely totaled with the airbags deployed and the windshield shattered.
Exactly like the night of Junior Prom.
James’s eyes went wide and his breathing got shallow, his hands trembling as he took in the scene before him.
“No… no fucking way,” he muttered, stepping back so fast that he nearly tripped over his untied shoelaces, “S-Sima? Sima can you pull the plug on this? It’s not funny man, please!”
No response. He didn’t really expect there to be… but the enduring silence shook him to his core.
He couldn’t stay here. Couldn’t just exist in this mockery of the night that almost took his life. He needed to get out. Right fucking now.
Without another thought, James turned on his heel and booked it in the opposite direction.
He had no idea where he was going, he just knew he had to move.
Dried grass and dead leaves crunched under his feet, decaying vines whipped past his face, and the unmistakable scent of rot assaulted his nose as he sprinted, but he never thought about stopping even for a second.
When he finally looked back to confirm that the crash was far behind him… he finally skidded to a halt.
He hadn’t actually gone anywhere. He was still standing right next to the wrecked remains of his old car as if he hadn’t just put half a mile of distance between it and himself.
“What the fuck man,” he panted, trying desperately to catch his breath, “how the hell am I supposed to get out of here?!”
The silence persisted, but the driver’s side door suddenly sprang open, with something falling out of it and hitting the forest floor with a soft thud.
James screamed out of horror as much as recognition.
It was him… or at least, a plant that looked exactly like him; green skin and rotting purple veins, completely lifeless and rapidly wasting away into the dead soil beneath his feet.
“Oh FUCK THIS!” he shouted, taking off in a different direction this time. He ran until his ankles stung. Until the soles of his feet ached. Until breathing felt like a herculean task.
Yet, when he looked over his shoulder, the car was still right there… it was like he hadn’t taken a single step.
Defeat crashed over him like a tree limb, forcing him to drop to his knees as his twitching eyes locked onto the car, taking in all the details.
James had been unconscious after the crash happened.
The photos of the damage didn’t do justice to how completely fucked it was up close.
But what was worse was the knowledge that he had been in that car.
If it wasn’t for some weird quirk of fate, he would be little more than a mangled corpse…
just like the one made of leaves and vines currently decaying into the ground.
Maybe that was the key! If he could stop the plant version of him from dying, maybe that would get him through this insane nightmare.
He rushed over to the decaying plant-corpse, standing over it as his eyes frantically scanned its body. There had to be something he could do; Dustin saved his life with CPR that night, and while James couldn’t do that, he wasn’t powerless.
His eyes dropped to his ring, and he took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself down. He felt like there was electricity in his blood as his power rushed through him, lighting up his veins in that neon green that made him feel like a superhero.
He stretched out his hand over plant-James, extending his awareness into the foliage to stop it from decaying.
For a moment, it seemed like it was working; the body stabilized and seemed to resolidify…
but then the green skin quickly turned brown and the light in James’s veins flickered and faltered.
His stomach flipped violently, and he dropped to the ground as he started vomiting profusely.
The message was clear; he couldn’t fix this. He couldn’t stop it. He was gonna die. God. He was gonna fucking die.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as panic overtook him.
His veins glowed and faded erratically as his mind grasped at solutions and quickly discarded them.
The ring around his finger felt heavier than it ever had before; as if it were locking him in place, forcing him to watch himself fade into nothingness.
Looking down at his own hands only made it worse; the color was draining from his skin, and while he wanted to freak out even more, he was just so fucking tired. Sheer exhaustion, right to the bone. The kind that made it impossible to run, to fight, to do anything but just… sit.
He ignored the feeling of the cold dirt biting through his jeans and looked over at what was left of the plant body. It had completely deteriorated now, with nothing left but a cold, dead-eyed face, staring up from the soil.
“I… I’m sorry,” James mumbled, though he couldn’t quite name what he was apologizing for.
The accident that night hadn’t been his fault, and he turned his near-death experience into a lesson instead of a tragedy.
That was a win! Most people would’ve crumbled into a shell of themselves after that, but not him.
He was determined to live louder and more freely than ever…
so what was this emptiness in his chest? Why was he feeling sorrow? Why regret?
He leaned back against that stupid fucking silver Lexus and just let himself cry. It was honestly fitting that he’d die braced against the damn thing. If it wasn’t for Dustin, he would’ve ended up exactly like the car; shattered, scrapped, forgotten.
He'd never entertained that thought before, not explicitly. It had lingered in the darkest corners of his mind like a monster under the bed ever since that night, but he’d locked it away. Focused on literally anything else; soccer, literature club, pottery classes, fucking anything.
For all the good it did. Where had that gotten him? He was still here, staring at the literal face of his mortality and there wasn’t a god damn thing he could do about it. He couldn’t escape it, he couldn’t outlive it; he just had to… carry it. Grow with it, instead of in spite of it.
Too bad he wasn’t going to make it out of here. None of it even mattered anymore.
With the last bit of energy he had left, he did the only thing he could think of doing; he reached out and gently closed his plant version’s eyes. Even if it wasn’t really him, it still deserved to have peace. Stillness.
He leaned back against the car, preparing for darkness or for the omnipresent silence to finally overtake him… but something else happened instead.
Flowers.
Where the plant-body had been, there was now a small patch of lilies.
His veins pulsed with light; weak, but noticeable as the green grass slowly crept outward, spreading tentatively throughout the forest. He could feel his energy beginning to return as he struggled back to his feet.
The forest hadn’t miraculously healed. Neither had James, not really. But in the distance, he could’ve sworn he heard something; the first time since he arrived.
The soft, peaceful song of a solitary bird.