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Having given up on sleep, I keep an incessant watch over my bandmate. I know that every time I try and close my eyes, I’m back in the old warehouse, watching the blood drain from Brian’s body and not being able to do anything about it. I desperately try to think of some explanation to tell my friend when he wakes up, but so far, I haven’t really come up with anything convincing.

“W-why are you looking at me like that?”

I look down, seeing him blink in confusion. His eyes are a bit glassy and he has a hard time focusing, but otherwise he seems alert.

“H-how you doing?” I stammer.

“Fine…” he mutters, frowning as he studies my face, “are you okay? You seem a little… spooked.”

“Am I- am I okay? You’re actually asking me if I’m okay?” I scoff, shaking my head in amazement.

“I-I think I just did,” Brian replies, trying to sit up. He sways dangerously for a moment and I grab his arm to steady him. “Woah…”

“Take it easy,” I instruct.

“It’s fine. Just a little dizzy. What’s going on?”

“What do you remember about yesterday?” I ask, my face stern.

Brian looks at me for a few moments, trying to make sense of the intense stare I give him, “Umm, we-uh, we went to that Fight Club movie, right?” he clarifies, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

I nod, “What else?”

“Uh, I don’t know. You called a cab and-” he trails off, his gaze shifting, “Did we go to a park?”

I clench my jaw nervously, nodding slowly, “Yeah, yeah, I had to meet someone there, remember?”

“Not really,” he admits, shooting me a helpless glance, “I just remember being worried that you were in trouble, that you were gonna do something stupid. I followed you into the park and-”

I try not to show the panic I feel when I notice him unconsciously touching the spot on his neck where Roland stabbed him with the needle. Instead I nod stiffly, trying to look anywhere but at his face.

“Nick, what’s going on? You’re kinda freaking me out,” Brian whispers, fear creeping into his voice. “I don’t- I don’t remember going back, I don’t know how I got here. What happened?” he grabs my wrist, forcing me to look at him.

“You- You scared the crap out of me, that’s what happened,” I say, taking a deep breath and see him frowning at me, not understanding. “You always scare the crap out of people, Brian, and now you tell me that you don’t remember?” my voice rises in volume as my statement sounds more and more accusatory. I decide it’s better to keep the exact details of my false story out of the picture for as long as possible. I notice it’s actually working as a guilty look flashes over my friend’s face. Only Brian can do that, feeling guilty for something he doesn't know.

“Nick, I’m not lying,” he tries to convince me, “I really don’t know. I only remember this odd pain in my neck and then… that’s it.”

“You passed out,” I mutter, looking away. If I look at him right now, he’s going to know I’m lying in a heartbeat, “I thought you were dying, man!” I glare, the fear lacing through my voice. The little bit of truth in my words give me something to build on as I see Brian struggling with the little chunks of information I give him.

“I- what? How?” he stammers, confused.

“I don’t know!” I throw up my hands in frustration and stand up to pace the room for good measure, “You were completely out of it, I had no idea what to do, man! I wanted to take you to an ER, but figured it was best if we just headed back to the hotel, I know how you hate hospitals,” I add, thanking God for Brian’s irreversible fear of hospitals, making the story just a tad bit more believable. “When’s the last time you ate a decent meal, dude?”

Trying to hide my relief, I watch Brian avert his gaze, looking to the ground instead, “I dunno,” he mutters, defeated, “I guess I just been a little too busy with everything that’s going on, you know? It’s a little hard to think about decent food when you’ve got a whole tour ahead.”

“Yeah, McDonalds isn’t everything either,” I sigh, “but it’s better than nothing. You should take care of yourself, for a change. You look like a twig on legs.” I flinch, repeating Roland’s words. I feel kinda bad for lecturing Brian about something that isn’t necessary per se, but on the other hand, he seems to be buying it, indicating there might me some truth to the story.

“You know what’s funny?” he muses, watching me with a small smile, “I thought the exact same thing yesterday… twig on legs.”

I swallow thickly, “So I’m right?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, nodding slowly, “it won’t happen again, alright? I promise.”

I nod, releasing a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Damn straight it wouldn’t happen again, I’d make sure of that. “Good.”

“When did you get to be such an adult all of a sudden, bro?” Brian smiles, punching my shoulder playfully, “I would have expected the speech from Kev, but you on the other hand-”

“Oh you know, I kinda figured Kevin would go on and on and on and-”

“On?”

“Exactly.”

Brian laughs for a few seconds before his face turns serious. “Nick?”

“Hmm?”

“You didn’t tell anyone I fainted, right?” he mumbles and as I look over, I see him looking down in shame.

“What? No, God no, that better stay between us, bro.”

“Thanks.”

“Sure,” I whisper after a few moments, as I watch Brian walk out of the room, still a bit wobbly. He would probably be as good as new by tomorrow, but nothing could change the horrifying images imprinted on my mind about last night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe I couldn’t rid myself of the guilt raging through my stomach, but it did seem kind of funny watching Brian struggle himself through an intensive dance-rehearsal that morning. Although it was getting better, his balance was terrible and he moved with the speed of a snail at times.

I try not to laugh as he shoots me another panicked look, then nervously checks if anybody else has noticed his lack of rhythm that day. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for me, everybody else has too much attention for my poor memory of dance moves I haven’t performed in fifteen years.

“Nicky, dude, you move like an old man,” AJ lets me know when finally, the instructor calls a break. “You sure you’re not 91 instead of 19?”

“I dunno,” I answer, “If my pimpled face doesn’t tell you anything, then I don’t know what does.”

“It’s not fun if you start making fun of yourself,” Alex corrects me seriously, “Only we get to make fun of you.”

“Get in line then,” I smile, standing up to stretch my legs, “I’mma get a soda, you guys want anything?”

“I’ll go with you,” Brian offers, leading the way out of the rehearsal room. “Thanks, dude,” he says once we’re out in the hall.

I give him a confused look, “For what?”

“For pretending not to know the moves, I don’t think anybody even noticed I was actually the one that really sucked, thanks to you.”

My eyebrows shoot up as I finally understand what he’s implying, “Riiight…” I mutter, slowly nodding, “That… that is what I was doing… yeah.”

“Thanks again,” he says, grabbing a coke and waving a small bag of chocolate chip cookies in front of my face.

“You gonna eat those all by yourself?” I question incredulously.

“You bet,” he replies, turning around as he heads back to the rehearsal.

I smile, scoffing to myself. Brian has certainly learnt a lesson about the importance of food, even though it may not have been the cause of the problem to start with. I wait a bit impatiently for my own soda to drop when I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder.

“You told him the story?” Roland’s voice whispers right behind me. I tense in shock, dropping the spare change I just received from the vending machine.

“The hell man? Don’t do that,” I curse silently, turning, “What are you doing here?”

“Did you, or did you not tell him the story?” Roland insists. Although he’s about five inches shorter than me, his rough appearance seems all the more intimidating when he’s standing right in front of you.

“Yes, I lied to him, happy?” I spit and watch Roland nod in agreement, “He’s definitely going to make sure he doesn’t miss another meal of the day from now on, that what you wanted?”

“Sure, whatever,” Roland answers hurriedly. “Listen, our job is done here, we should head back.”

“What? Now?”

“Yes.”

The thought of going back to 2014 was soothing, as well as causing me to panic. In 2014, I had no idea what was going to happen, in 2014, we were on the brink of disaster. All because of-

When Roland grabs my wrist and jams some cold metal plate against my temple, I have only time to close my eyes before the pain explodes behind my eyelids. I feel myself falling, but don’t notice hitting the floor or anything else.