At first it hardly looks like anything – just a speck, almost too small to see. But the speck quickly grows into a dot, and the dot into a tiny patch of dark-grey against the background of silvery fog. As you hurry towards it you realize that whatever-it-is is also making its way towards you. Thud, thud, goes your heart. Your hands on the controller are slippery with sweat. You know it’s the Demon, even from this distance, you can tell from the way the hairs on your arm stand up, the room thumps with your heartbeats, the night-colours drain and pulse in rhythm. And now it steps at last out of the mist.
Reality lurches left then right.
Because you know its face.
You rub your eyes. You pinch your arm, glance around you. The room is still here; you are still cross-legged on the floor, your floor. Behind you, Ruprecht’s SETI scan bleeps quietly to itself. In the window, the usual stars and the far-off sound of Casey Ellington chasing Cormac Ryan around the car park with a shaken-up can of Dr Pepper.
But when you look back at the screen nothing has changed. On one side, Djed, with his golden hair, his Sword of Songs, the princess’s amulet. On the other –
On the other is Coach.
He looks just like he always looks, in his hoodie with the Seabrook crest, a whistle on a string around his neck. His body listing slightly to one side, his hands hanging empty at his sides. He looks back out at you.
You don’t know what to do. Is this supposed to be happening? Is this still the game? You laugh, because it’s so ridiculous. But there’s no one there to hear your laugh. You wish Coach would stop looking at you, out of the screen. But he doesn’t stop. And now he says, ‘Swim meet.’
Your whole body jolts. The walls of the room churn round like a fairground ride.
Maybe you imagined it. But then he speaks again. ‘Swim meet,’ he says.
Is this really happening?
‘Swim meet.’
‘Coach?’ you say to the screen.
But he just says it again, ‘Swim meet,’ and again, louder, ‘swim meet.’
‘Stop!’ you shout back.
Now he’s coming towards you. ‘Swim meet.’
‘This is impossible, you’re in a game –’
‘SWIM MEET.’
You pick up the controller where you’ve dropped it at your feet. Maybe you can just run past him? But without appearing to move he blocks your way. You try another direction. There he is again, standing in front of you. It’s getting harder and harder to think. Mist rolls around the two of you, like a ring of ghosts watching a schoolyard fight. And now he advances towards you – you-you, like he’s going to come through the screen. ‘SWIM MEET,’ he says.
You let out a cry, lunge at him with the sword. You slash at his arms and neck. The blows have no effect, he keeps coming forward. ‘SWIM MEET.’
You run backwards, take out the bow and release four arrows into his chest. They stick out, shafts wobbling, as he advances towards the screen. ‘SWIM MEET.’
‘Shut UP!’ You take out the Axe of Invincibility and run towards him, you hack at him, hew at his face and body. You cast spells, Fire Storm, Reversal, Banishment.
‘SWIM MEET SWIM MEET SWIM MEET.’
Now you start to cry. ‘Shut up?’ you plead.
‘SWIM MEET,’ he says.
You yelp. You kick the monitor.
‘SWIM MEET.’
You go for the console but something has gone wrong because it won’t switch off, you flick the button back and forth but nothing happens and now Coach’s face is right up against the screen going over and over and over
SWIM MEET SWIM MEET SWIM MEET SWIM MEET
and there is a sound like a door opening and you reel back from the screen as like it’s been summoned it appears there right in front of you, the Door, its gold number, and you see yourself walking inside
into a hotel bedroom
Hey there, Daniel, what’s up? He’s rising from the chair, on the dresser the pills and a glass of wrong-tasting Coke, and you know what’s going to happen but it’s like you’re locked into the movements, like you’re watching yourself –
You just relax there, don’t worry about a thing, he says, his hand reaches out for you
Yes, you remember now don’t you
Into your hair gritty with chlorine
while Mum lies on her back with tubes going into her
And your soul slides down a slippery slope your body is black-magic encased in ice never again to escape or change or grow
And tomorrow it will happen all over again.
BUS LEAVES FOR BALLINASLOE 8 A.M. SEE YOU THERE!
Do you understand now, Skippy? You cannot run any longer. You’ve come fifteen trillion light years to the very place you started from. That’s the shape of the universe, that’s called the Way It Is, it’s a door that pulls you like a black hole into the future: and everything that promises to take you away from it, a girl, a game, a portal, these are no more than stray gleams and sparkles of light, shining at you from somewhere you will never be able to go.
On the monitor the Third Demon turns expressionlessly and walks back into the mist.
Now you’re lying with your head on the carpet. Somewhere above you a clock ticks. Your body feels like lead, it feels like you’re already dead. But then you notice something.
On the game-over screen, from his mist-shrouded body, you see Djed’s soul fluttering upwards. Up and up it goes, a dancing ball of light, till it’s reached the title screen, to bob around the princess where she waits in her glittering cage of ice. Around and around her it dances. And suddenly you think:
His soul.
You sit up.
A soul doesn’t weigh anything, it doesn’t have a size.
On the screen the princess’s eyes twinkle at you.
The dimensions are there at every point, too small to be perceived by clunky human bodies. But if you were just a soul –
That’s when you see them! As if a veil’s been pulled away, suddenly you see the air is full of little doors! All around the room, they’re floating there everywhere, and when you scramble up to peep through them, you can see what’s on the other side! Each one leads to a different time and place! Through this one you see you and Ruprecht, in the basement, working on the Invisibility Gun –
And here’s the Hallowe’en Hop, when the things she said on her doorstep tonight do not exist yet, and you’re realizing that Lori is the exact shape of what’s been missing from your arms –
Here’s tomorrow morning, 8 a.m., the sulky sky denim-blue, shivering boys with otter-like morning eyes, Siddartha and Garret and Antony Taylor, climbing one by one up the steps of the bus, fighting each other for the back seat, as Coach checks his watch, his clipboard, his watch again, studies the school door, which does not open –
(Faster, Skippy! a voice, the princess’s voice, urges you, as the room swims, the particles break apart, the strings unweave like an old school jumper)
And here’s summer, years ago, before any of this started, and Mum’s in the back garden giving Dogley his first bath, he’s still a pup, he doesn’t know what water is, suds are flying everywhere, he yaps and wriggles, nipping at anyone in reach, and Mum goes, If you just hold him so I can scrub his – when he squeezes out of her arms and shoots up in the air like a bar of soap, then landing on the grass turns and barks at you, shaking off the water so it flies all over you, and Mum laughs so hard she has to lie down on the grass, her hair is gold, her tummy round with Nina, the rainbow bubbles bob over the garden like perfect brand-new universes, the sound of her laughter is like music, it is music, and it guides you towards the door, against the rushing tide of time, swimming with all your strength, up and up –
‘What are you doing?’
You open your eyes. Ruprecht towers over you with a baffled expression.
‘Must’ve fallen asleep…’ You haul your head off the carpet. ‘I was playing the game,’ you say, gesturing at the monitor. But it’s not switched on. You drag yourself onto the bed and sit up.