Forty-Eight Hours: 1

Forty Eight Hours: a Worm Shortfic

There's no feeling in the world quite like when you look at your high-school yearbook and realize that a third of your graduating class is already dead.

It's not a good feeling. The overwhelming majority of them were assholes and elitist pricks; in Dyson Valley High School I had four friends total, all from our affectionately named 100 Row Losers, and I've kept in touch with none of them. Of those friends I made an effort to touch bases with one, Carrie, a few years after I left the valley-- God, has it really been twenty-one years since that phone call?-- It didn't go very far. I looked up her Facebook about twelve years ago, and she seemed healthy, if you didn't count the weight. She looked happy.

Fourteen years ago, DeAndre ended up working at the same job as me. He remembered me, and was genuinely overjoyed to see me, which shamed me because I'd forgotten he existed, and barely remembered anything about him. Worse still, he informed me his older brother had died, someone who'd been protective of us both. I remembered his brother a little better, but not much. Then I got transferred, and that was it. That's the last time I saw DeAndre.

Eleven years ago I saw Ralph. His dad occasionally fed my sisters and i, looked after us. When I was fourteen I gave him all my Legos, since I figured I'd outgrown them, and his family was even worse off financially than ours. When I saw him again, I learned his parents had gotten divorced a week after the last of the kids moved out. He complimented me on shaving my head, said it suited me. I forgot to ask for email or something to keep in contact.

The last one was Joel. We used to hang out all the time. The comic shop, movies, kicking around town on the weekends or just hanging out at his dad's ranch. For the most part we were just best friends, although every once in a while he's so or say something that confused me, made me wonder, what was that about? Like the time he invited me over because his dad had put one of the stallions to stuff. I mean, why the hell would I want to see that?

Or the time when a group of other students at DVHS that were more than a clique but less than a gang had faced off with us of the 100 Row Losers, insults flying back and forth but no hint of actual danger, until one of them said something vaguely offensive about me. And instead of the posturing we'd been doing back and forth, Joel took a flying leap at the guy, and beat. His. Ass. Like, full on can of whoop ass and a dirt sandwich on the side. Or how heading out for food was always Joel's idea, or the movies, and Joel always paid.

Then suddenly, most of the way through our senior year, his folks pulled him out of DVHS and sent him to military school, after yearbook, but before graduation. Wouldn't give me his phone number. Wouldn't even talk to me beyond a terse, "Stop asking about him, we're not telling you, degenerate." Like it's my fault I grew up poor.

It wasn't until four or five years later that I put all the pieces together and realized that Joel was gay and was crushing on me. I didn't have a clue; for all the signals he was sending that went completely over my head at the time, he never so much as tried to touch me. But his parents figured it out, and didn't realize that Joel had never made a move on me, or at least, not one I'd recognized, much less reciprocated. I wasn't in a mental place yet for any kind of relationship, and I hadn't even considered guys as an option. It just... didn't occur to me.

I still don't know what happened to Joel. I didn't feel about him the way he felt about me, but he was my best friend, and two and a half decades later I still think about him, and hope he's okay.

Four names. Four people, of the two thousand who went to DVHS, of the five hundred sixty one in my graduating class. There were eleven of us in the 100 Row Losers. I only remember four, the rest a blur save for Justin who got Carrie pregnant and then ditched her a few months later. He wasn't welcome in the 100 Row after that.

So when a skinny, almost sucked up guy in a blue blazer walks up to me while I'm eating a microwave burrito at the Circle K around the corner from my house-- sue me, I'd just got back from the gym that I bought a membership at a year and a half ago, a membership that on the surface was to improve my health for my wife's sake and our insurance but in all honesty was probably more about my ongoing kid life crisis-- when this guy walks up to me, gives me a long look while I hold this microwave burrito and as I slowly chew my last bite, he finally says, "Anthony?"

Fuck me running. I only went by Anthony in high-school; the only people I mattered to there enough to know my name at the time were Miss Blake in the computer lab, my sister in the grade below me, and the 100 Row Losers. I hastily finish chewing, wracking my brains to try and remember this guy's name, but coming up completely empty. I finally offer a weak, "One Hundred Row?" as a response.

"Forget it, man. I know it's been a while. Robert Alvidende. Bacon Box?"

Shit. Bacon Box? The dude who literally always had a few slices of cooked bacon in his lunchbox every God damned day, no matter what else his mom packed? Holy shit I haven't even thought of him since those days. I mean, it's not like we were close but damn. "Jesus Christ dude, how the fuck have you been?"

Bacon Box laughs. "Had a double bypass a few years ago. Cholesterol clogging my arteries, go figure." He eyes my stomach, which pushes out past my waistband a little more than I'd like. "Filled out a bit, didn't you?"

"Shoulda seen me a couple years ago," I reply wryly. "I've lost weight. Getting back in shape, all that." Neither of us has really acknowledged it but on some unspoken agreement the two of us have decided to leave the Circle K parking lot as we continue talking.

"Tick tock, huh?" he comments thoughtfully as a semi slowly accelerates past us from the intersection. "Wondering how many good years are left. How much longer before the slow slide turns into full on decline." He says this more quietly. Like he's talking to himself more than me.

I take a moment to look him over more closely. Bacon Box had always been kinda hefty. Not anymore. He looks skinny in the way a large man looks after a long, wasting illness. The kind that a person doesn't ever actually, fully recover from. And his words resonate with me. "Yeah."

"Huh. I remember-" The rest of his sentence gets lost in the sound of someone laying on their car horn. The two of us briefly watch as the driver of a red Tesla casually flips off someone in a blue Toyota Camry behind him who's half up on the median, apparently in a bid to avoid hitting the Tesla who cut him off. The Toyota driver gets out of his car and starts yelling at the jerk, but apparently this is as far as the incident holds Bacon Box's attention as he turns his head back to look at me. As though the road rage isn't even happening behind him, he starts his sentence over. "I remember you didn't used to talk much, though."

I huff a scoffing laugh, following his lead, although neither of us had started walking again. "Comfort zones. I'm old enough now that I can fake enjoying people and their need to babble incessantly, but it's exhausting. I'd still rather sit at home and read."

"Yeah, have to pretend to be an extrovert or these days people assume you're gonna climb into a roof downtown and start shooting people," he complains.

That dispute between the two drivers is getting heated. Part of me wonders if either of them has a gun, an event that would see my middle aged ass sprinting for the nearest yard with a cinder block wall, and let my body complain about it in the morning. "Everybody has at least one habit that's bad for their health but the only reason they don't lose their shit," I reply.

Bacon Box gives me a smirk. "You still do that?"

"Do what?"

"That thing where your brain just takes two or three steps ahead in the conversation, jumps a couple tangents, then comment on that." He slaps his hand on my shoulder. "Everyone hated it, you know? Cause it makes people feel dumb when you verbally backtrack, especially when they see everything you're head was putting together and feel like they should've already known it."

My psychiatrist said the same thing, or close enough. "Sorry. Just looking at those guys," I gesture vaguely to the two men screaming at each other through the open window of the Tesla's driver side door. The Tesla driver suddenly slams his door open, smacking the other driver in the knees and nearly knocking him down. "Like pretending to be an extrovert makes it look like your coping mechanism is partying."

The Camry driver scrambled to his feet as Tesla man looms over him, jabbing him in the chest with his finger. Other drivers-- mostly the ones behind them in the turn lane-- are honking and yelling from their own cars, and one woman is watching intently while on her cellphone. Probably calling the police, I'm guessing. "We all deal with it one way or another," Bacon Box agrees. "How about you? Still smoking?"

"Nah, I quit that shit- wait." That's not right. I didn't smoke until college.

"Just hookah," he goes on as though reading my mind, "but you haven't done that in a while. You do edibles, though. Only took you thirty three years to overcome that 'Just Say No' programming from fourth grade, right? Oh, and don't look up."

The dispute in the street is getting more heated, and along with it there's a strong wind picking up, coming from... above us? And a slowly growing, warbling noise that feels like it's penetrating my brain, my very soul. It's not until I watch an impossibly large, downy white feather, almost a foot long, drift past to the ground, that I actually look away from the fighting men in the middle of the road, and despite Bacon Box's warning, look up.

Wings. Feathered wings. A ragged rip in the sky, blue skies disrupted by hazy clouds and sunset tones and brilliant slashing arcs of fire, lightning, and energy, all aimed at the feathery being above, wrapped in wings of soft, alabaster toned feathers. For a few seconds I stare in shock, my lizard hindbrain dumping adrenaline into my veins as I try to understand why the sight of this being and the sound of this endless screaming song demands I run, run, run far away, when the scream cuts off as Bacon Box grabs my chin and turns my face to look at him. "Man, why'd you have to look? Don't you know that fear-- ah, but look at you. It's already happening." A slowly growing pain in my stomach that I'd attributed to indigestion suddenly explodes, and I scream-- or rather, I try, as I drop to hands and knees... four hands, clawed, my skin segmented and chitinous and pearlescent white. I try to open my mouth but suddenly it's like I have no mental map for it.

I'm reeling. This is patently impossible, of course. The Simurgh doesn't exist. Worm is just a moderately popular web novel I read years ago. Except if multiple worlds theory is right... I look up at Bacon Box, who shakes his head. "Well, look at it this way. At least you're immune to her scream now. Recognizing her during your trigger, even subconsciously, saw to that. I'd originally planned to remove her influence once the whole thing was finished but... well, no need now. Hmmm... boy, she really did a number on you didn't she? Yes, I think this will be quite the interesting outcome nonetheless. Well then! I'll be waiting for you in two days atop the Medhall building at an hour before sunset. Assuming you want to ever get home, of course. Oh, and just so you know, I've always hated the name Bacon Box. Next time you have a mouth, just call me Rob."

Rob. R.O.B. I know the acronym; and his smile tells me he knows I know. But why is he... well, middle aged, now? Is he just slumming it as a mortal? Did he take over the body of my sort-of friend from high school? I have so many questions, and no mouth to ask with! The last thing I see of my home street is Rob smiling thinly before the tear in the sky drops downwards, surrounding us all, to throw us into the middle of a city park turned war zone. Above in the sky and down here on the ground, people in colorful costumes divert their attention from the Simurgh, whose wings have unfurled. The expression on her face looks... confused, as empty eyes search the ground in my general vicinity, while madly whirling objects pelt and batter everyone attacking her. A car flies like a bullet into a woman in a dark gray and black bodysuit and cape, slamming her into the ground next to me with an impact I can feel in my feet. She can only be Alexandria; as she flings the mangled vehicle off herself, her face turns in my direction. I look up again, to see a pickup plummeting towards us. I scramble backwards, and she tenses, but before she can move she's slammed into the cratered pavement by the truck.

Around us, I see the other people who came with me, bleached white in skin and clothing, and savagely attacking everyone in reach. As they treat into one another, the pieces that fly away begin to bubble, deform, and grow into new, frenzied bipeds. With a sinking sensation I realize exactly what Rob meant; this must have been what would have happened to me if I hadn't looked up. The rapidly growing crowd of bleached men are wreaking havoc. One ground bound hero is unluckily grabbed by one of the albino people and promptly swarmed. Only seconds later, pieces of the unfortunate man fly everywhere, as whatever his powers are prove no protection against their strength.

But my anomalous appearance and behavior-- or rather the lack thereof-- among the bleached animos crowd singles me out as a target. "I think that one's the controller!" shouts someone above the madness.

"Stop your power now!" Alexandria orders, grabbing me by one arm. I can't help but flinch, keenly aware of her legendary strength-- but the flinch pulls me free with no more effort than breaking a normal person's grip. Alexandria's mouth falls open, and she falls back. I wave all four of my hands placatingly, trying to tell them I'm just a bystander, that this isn't my doing, but no words form.

The edge of the albino crowd is approaching. I try to jump back but I'm grabbed by scrap, swarmed under. Hands wrench and yank at my limbs, but they have no real force, and as their neighbors tear them apart in turn, the limbs still clutching me can't hold me any longer. I roll to all... sixes... and break into a running scuttle in the direction I think is away. The press of bodies thins as I make it to the outskirts of the crowd.

Then, I'm running across a street unit by the toppled street lamps, scrambling over the belly of an overturned compact car, past a bike rack twisted into a tangle of kinked metal poles, between two old brick buildings whose windows are shattered and doors are gone. Fleeing into the darkness, and hoping beyond hope that I'm close enough to Brockton Bay to get to the Medhall building in two days.