Page 65 of Kiss Slay Replay

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No. No. It’s not bad. It’s…it’s not real. I’m telling you. We’re not actually living this. You’re…” I can’t keep carrying him, wandering through the fog. I’ve lost my sense of direction. A caw overhead. Movement. Footsteps. “You’re all right. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to Tokyo, remember? You have to take me to Tokyo, asshole.”

He laughs faintly and it’s too much for him; he stumbles a little. I can’t hold him anymore. He’s too heavy. He falls to the ground. Hits it hard.

“Danny! Are you okay? Danny?”

“I hate weddings. I’ve always hated weddings.” He laughs again. “Now I’m going to die at a wedding.”

“No, you’re not. Listen to me. This isn’t real. Think about it. All those ravens? Ravens? A guy with red eyes and a…”

Tick tick tick tick tick tick.

Pocket watch.

He’s in front of us, the malignant glow of his red eyes piercing through the fog. He steps closer. Closer.

I can’t run. Not without leaving Danny.

The man is almost to us. He lifts the brim of his hat, revealing his full face. Except he doesn’t really have one. I can’t tell if he has no skin, if I’m looking directly at his skull, or if he’s just that gaunt, that ghostly pale. His lips curl over gray gums. His teeth are big, way too big, and they’re…they’re black. It’s confusing. It’s…it’s because they’re not teeth. They’re beaks. He has a mouth full of raven beaks. I don’t know if he’s smiling or if that’s just the shape of his awful, awful mouth. His jaw hangs loose, misaligned. His tongue is bone white.

“Tick, tock. Tick, tock.” He raises his ornate silver pocket watch. “Tick, tock.”

His voice is pure torture. It makes me long for the Eyeball Man’s wheezing.

In this moment, I feel a strange affection for my former villain. He was a ruthless psychopath, but I don’t know. At least his evil was of this world. At least he was of this world. He wasn’t whatever is in front of me now. This macabre revenant, this gothic phantom with his sinister pocket watch and army of ravens.

Only…maybe this villain is of this world, and I’m the one out of place.

“Run,” Danny tells me, coughing up more of the black substance. “Willa. Go.”

“I’m not leaving you. You didn’t leave me.”

“I’m already dead,” he says.

“I…”

He grabs my arm, gives me his classic crooked grin. “It’s okay. This isn’t real, right?”

“Your time is up,” the man says as a raven lands on his shoulder. He slowly lifts his arm, and Danny rises off the ground.

The shock of it sends me stumbling backward. My breath withers in my lungs. I can’t scream. I can’t beg for his life. I can’t do anything. I’m helpless. Again, doomed to watch someone I care about suffer with no recourse. Only this time the suffering isn’t plain violence. It’s something worse. So much worse.

Danny is in the air, his feet off the ground, in a supernatural choke hold. He’s rigid. He’s no longer in control. He lets out a scream, this forlorn wail that makes him sound like a child. It’s the loneliest sound. A hopeless sound.

And the man in the top hat, he’s inhaling. He’s sucking in and Danny’s disappearing inside his suit. His shaggy overgrown hair turns gray, and then white, and then to ash. His face is putrefying. And his insides, his blood, his…

It’s his soul.

He’s getting his soul sucked out.

And no, no, no, no, no, no. The vulgar squish of it—the wet, feasting, merciless consumption. The man’s pale tongue wags, slurps up the shapeless pink iridescence of Danny’s soul.

He drops Danny’s lifeless body to the ground. It barely makes any noise. There’s nothing left of him. He’s a shadow. He’s gone. He’s dead.

But I died last night, and I’m here now. Maybe it’s all right. Maybe it’ll be all right.

I want to believe that, but I can’t because what if this time is different? What if the rules aren’t the same? I was stabbed; I didn’t get my soul slurped out. What if I was wrong to reassure Danny? What if this is real? What if last night was a dream, and this is reality? What if this death is forever?