Chapter Text
The storm arrived before noon. The sky darkened with angry black clouds. The rain started soon after pouring down from the sky like someone had opened a faucet.
No insects gathered beneath the diner lights. No distant lowing came from the barn. The only sound was the rain belting against the roof tops.
Inside the bar, Jade Herrera sat alone beneath the tangled maze of notes pinned across the walls. Pages overlapped one another like evidence collected by a mad man. Numbers. Symbols. Half-remembered memories scrawled in frantic handwriting that even he was beginning to struggle to decipher.
Threads.
Everything in this place eventually became threads, and every one of them led back to Tabitha Matthews.
He hated himself for the way he couldn't help but think of her. Wanting Tabitha had begun to fester inside him like a wound, deep and impossible to stitch closed. Every look from her lodged itself beneath his ribs. Every moment of kindness replayed in his head long after it ended. Her moments of unkindness ripped him open in ways he didn’t think himself capable of.
The town noticed things like that. Noticed affection. Hope. Attachment. And once it noticed them, it sharpened them into weapons. He had to stop himself. If not for his own sake then for Tabitha’s.
Jade dragged both hands down his face, exhaustion pressing heavily against his bones. He had not slept properly. Drinking hadn’t helped. Now he was drunk and sleep deprived.
Every time he closed his eyes, the town gave her back to him only to take her away again.
Ripped apart in front of his eyes by those creatures.
Blood covering his hands no matter how hard he tried to wash it away.
Different lifetimes. Different versions of her. It didn’t matter, it was the same ending every single time.
Too late. Always too late.
The visions didn’t feel like something out of place like they had before; they felt like memories excavated from somewhere ancient and rotting inside him. The same place all his past incarnations' memories resided.
And the worst part was he was completely alone with them. He wanted to reach out to Tabitha, to get her insights into what it all meant, but she wanted nothing less than to speak with him about such things.
He hadn’t felt so alone since he was a child. Hadn’t allowed himself to ‘need’ another person.
God, maybe everyone was right - those Shroom’s had been a bad idea. They had opened that door in his mind and Jade wasn’t prepared to deal with the tsunami that spilled out.
A glass clinked softly against the counter.
Tom sat across from him looking unimpressed by yet another of Jade’s emotional spirals. He nursed a drink that did not exist, intermittently stopping to polish another.
“You look like shit,” Tom stated.
Jade didn’t look up from the half empty glass sitting in front of him. “Observent as always.”
“You smell like alcohol, rain, and untreated trauma.”
Jade gestured vaguely in his direction. “You’re dead. Your opinion means very little to me.”
“And yet,” Tom said mildly, “here you are talking to me again.”
Jade signed. Talking to himself was really all he had left.
Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the woods. The lights overhead flickered weakly. Jade stiffened.
Tom noticed. “Oh, you hate this.”
“Everybody hates storms.” Jade downed the remainder of his drink and poured himself another.
“No,” Tom replied. “Most people dislike storms. You look like you’re about five seconds away from hiding under furniture.”
Jade looked back down at the papers scattered in front of him, memories jotted down in frantic handwriting.
He did hate storms.
When he was little, before his grandmother died, he used to hide beneath her bed during them.
After she was gone, there wasn’t really anywhere left to hide.
Rain battered harder against the roof. The air itself felt electric against his skin. Jade tried to tell himself it was just a storm. Adults didn’t fear those.
And then another vision hit him.
Tabitha standing in the hallway of the Matthews house. Broken glass scattered across the floor. Julie screaming. Ethan crying. Creatures smiling patiently through shattered windows. And Tabitha - dead on the floor while Jade screamed her name too late yet again.
The vision vanished violently enough to leave him gasping for air as he came too, finding himself kneeling on the floor and clutching his chest with both hands.
“No,” he whispered.
Tom watched him carefully now, whatever humor had existed moments earlier fading from his face.
Jade pushed himself upright too fast.
“There he goes,” Tom sighed quietly.
Jade was already grabbing his coat.
“You’re gonna run over there now?”
“Yes.”
“She’s probably gonna slam the door in your face.”
Jade paused near the entrance, one hand still gripping the doorknob.
“Yes.”
Tom studied him for a moment.
“And you’re still going anyway.”
Jade shoved the door open into the storm.
Rain drenched him instantly.
“Shut up,” he muttered before disappearing out into the darkness.