JONATHAN

Jonathan was living on borrowed time, and he knew it—at least, sometimes he did. The truth was, he had no idea how long he had before his mind slipped away completely.
The past few days had felt like drowning in darkness, surfacing only sporadically, without warning. He didn't know what happened during his blackouts. All he knew was that whenever he crawled back from the edge, it was Evelyn's voice that pulled him from the abyss.

When he forgot who he was, or where he was, or what had happened, she was there—the steady voice just beyond the door, reminding him. She told him whether the monsters and shadows that reached for him in the dark office space were real or not and taught him how to press his hands against the solidness of the doorframe until the visions stopped.

Her words brought color to a world that had grown achingly monochrome. The lightness in her voice as she bantered with her siblings, the music she played for him— it was these small, fleeting things that reminded him of a life now distant and a world he wasn't sure he could claim anymore.

Her voice was the tether that held him back from the hunger within him—the hunger that would erase everything, leaving him hollow. It gnawed at the edges of his consciousness—whispered to him like an old friend, coaxing him into surrender. It offered relief, an end to the ache, the chaos of his mind. It promised peace; without pain, without feeling. But peace, Jonathan knew, came with a price. It was a lie wrapped in numbness.

In his lucid moments, all he could think about was how much he had once craved this escape. How many nights had he wished for his guilt, his fears, his memories to vanish into the void? Maybe, he thought then, they could take him with them.

But just as he'd learned on the roof of Metrotown Tower, no matter how many times he swore that nothing mattered, he couldn't shake the feeling that it did. And Evelyn wasn't helping. In her stubborn way, she refused to leave his mind, and maybe it was just the virus clouding his thoughts—but even in these fragmented glimpses of life, through the narrow keyhole of his zombified existence, something about her presence felt... real. More real than anything else.

He both loved and hated her for it.

He both loved and hated how she stayed.

He both loved and hated the way she refused to let him be consumed by the dark.

She had a way of making him feel human again, even if it was only for a few fleeting moments. Her voice, soft but firm, could break through the haze of his fractured thoughts. She would tell him, "It's okay, Jonathan. Just breathe."

Sometimes, it worked. Sometimes, he could push through the void and hear her clearly. Other times, he felt himself slipping again, lost to a place where nothing made sense. But even in those moments, he would hold onto her words, like they were lifelines, even if he didn't know how long they would last. She was trying to pull him back to himself, but he wasn't sure he could go back.

Every time he looked at her through the fog, it felt like an impossible question. She was the one thing keeping him tethered to the idea of something more than just his fragmented mind. Yet, despite her persistence, he knew the truth. He couldn't let her stay.

The guilt gnawed at him. He couldn't keep asking her to watch him disappear, to live with the man who was slowly unraveling at the seams. He wasn't himself anymore. How could he ask her to live in that limbo, to keep offering herself when she couldn't move forward? It would be too selfish. He wouldn't do that to her.

Finally, he made up his mind and presented his ultimatum.

"You don't know what you're asking." Evelyn protested. There was a slight tremor in her voice, and he knew she was avoiding letting her emotions show for fear of setting him off. Still, he could tell in the brittleness of her tone that his moments of lucidity were becoming less frequent. Strangely, his head had not felt clearer. Perhaps this too was a sign the end was near. His words, slow and deliberate, seemed to hang in the room. He knew she could feel it too—the time running out, the growing sense of inevitability.

"Well, we're not just going to leave you." She said. He tried to picture Evelyn beyond the door, nervously twirling a strand of black hair through her fingers, that stubborn scowl of hers etched across her face, but the image was hazy at best. "That's not even an option."

"Then... you... know what... I... want," he replied, hoping she could sense his resolve. His words seemed to come more slowly now, and it took a substantial amount of effort to speak.

"You know that the option of trying to save you means killing you, right?" It was Elliot. He was less adept at hiding his feelings and Jonathan had to push the primal urge he felt rising within him back down, willing his body to hold back the darkness.

"Elliot's right." Liz said, her tone as level as ever. Of the three siblings, she was the best at keeping her emotions in check. "What you're asking is dangerous and not guaranteed to work. We don't have any equipment here, and it has—"

Never worked before.

Liz's unspoken words hung in the air, heavy as a weight.

"I'm... asking... too much..." he said, voice cracking. "I...know..."

Evelyn's breath hitched, but she didn't speak right away. Jonathan could hear the strain in her silence, the weight of a decision she couldn't bring herself to make.

"You know I'd do it," Elliot said, filling the silence. "I don't know how I'd be of any help, because I'm only 12 and not a doctor or anything, but I say it's worth a shot."

Jonathan imagined Elliot turning to face his sisters, his expression pleading. "He said it himself. This is what he wants, and honestly, what has he really got to lose?"

"Thanks... Elliot," Jonathan said, hoping his gratitude came through in the words enough to pierce the barrier between them.

He addressed Liz next. "Your... father's... theory...your theory—I... am... willing... to try—"

"Well," Liz said, a sigh slipping into her voice. "I won't make this decision. Not again. So, this is up to you, Evie. Whatever you choose, I will support you. I know what it's like to be the one who lives. When Dayna died, I had to live with that guilt... it is not something I would wish on anyone..."

"This shouldn't even be a conversation!" Evelyn's voice was firm, though tinged with raw frustration. Jonathan's pulse quickened at the sound of her voice, the aching clarity in the way she spoke.

"There is no way in hell that we're just going to leave you here to turn soulless all alone, and we're not going to kill you! After everything, how can you still be this apathetic, this nihilistic, this—" Her voice dissolved into an exasperated sound.

Jonathan wanted to argue, to tell her she didn't understand. But her emotional outburst sent the hunger clawing at him again, pulling at his insides, and for a moment, words turned to ash in his mouth.

Shockingly, it was Liz's voice that came next, softer and gentler than he had ever heard it.

"We can't go on like this, Evie," Liz said. "He's going to be lost one way or another. He's right. We either try this or we're just waiting for him to turn. It will break you either way! At least if we leave, you won't have to watch—"

"No!" Evelyn argued, "I won't do that to him!"

"This... isn't... just about... me," Jonathan said. "Watching... me... slip away... day... by day... it's ... killing... all of us."

"We're not leaving you." Evelyn growled through gritted teeth. The raw emotion in Evelyn's voice seemed to stir the monster inside him, and he felt the primal urge to destroy roar within him, like an animal slamming against its cage.

"Then...?" he ground out.

"Then, you're asking for the impossible, Jonathan," She whispered, "You're asking us to kill you."

"I'm... asking... you... to try... to... save me." He spoke the words slowly, each one a fragile plea.

Evelyn let out another frustrated sound, muffled by the door. "Why did you have to choose now to become an optimist?"

A scraping sound escaped his throat, a pathetic attempt at a laugh. "I'm... just... annoying... that way," he said, surprised at himself for the small, fleeting echo of humor of the old joke between them. The memory of its origin blurred at the edges of his fading consciousness.

"I don't know if I—" Evelyn's voice broke, and the primal roar within him turned into a scream so loud, he had to brace himself against the doorframe just to keep the darkness at bay.

"I... know... what this means," he rasped, his throat becoming raw with the effort to keep talking. "If I... can't... hold on... you have to... do this. Before it's... too late."

His heart ached with the weight of the words, the burden of his plea. He didn't know how much longer he had before the darkness claimed him entirely. Maybe this was it—the last clear thought he would have, the final lucid moment.

Evelyn's silence stretched into an eternity. He could hear her struggling to keep her composure, but the tremor in her voice was unmistakable when she finally spoke.

"It shouldn't be me... It can't be..." she whispered, "I don't know if I can do it."

A weighted silence filled the air. Jonathan took several deep breaths, willing the shadowy tendrils clawing at his vision to clear. "Evie... I..." Jonathan began, but the darkness surged again, pulling him under. The words became impossible, slipping away like sand through his fingers. The room around him faded—his thoughts fragmented. He fought it, struggled to stay tethered to this fragile sliver of clarity, but it was a losing battle. Even so, he knew Evie's optimism had rubbed off on him because as the darkness came to claim him once more, Jonathan held onto the faintest hope that somehow, they might still find a way to bring him back. He just needed her to believe, as he did, that she could pull this off.