Chapter 40
Jason had experienced time seeming to slow in intense situations before.
In the moment before death, it apparently slowed down like crazy.
He wasn’t seeing his life flash before his eyes, which was good, since that was one movie he didn’t care to rewatch, but his eyelids fluttered as he fought the urge to open them and see what was taking so damn long.
It was stupid and didn’t matter and probably there’d be no time for the realization to register anyway, but he really didn’t want to see the gun fire.
He heard it instead, a sharp retort in his smartbuds, and a simultaneous screech of electronic static.
His eyes shot open, to his surprise, and the surprise was even greater when they landed on the Sprite avatar he had known.
But she was screaming, her eyes and mouth stretched wide and black.
Her face and form glitched and shimmered, and her scream was distorted into something almost mechanically shrill.
She pointed a flickering hand at the girl in the core, and there were staticky syllables in her scream that he thought were Hurts hurts hurts let me die.
Jason reached toward her, but his hands passed through. So, still looking at her, he crouched and grabbed the hand of the girl in the core, held it, squeezed it, though he knew she couldn’t feel it. It was all he could think to do.