A Normie's Guide To Mind-Reading | ONC 2023

Seventeen ∆ Stepping Back Is Always The Hardest Part

As the sun sets, I return to the trampoline to avoid seeming out of place. Then again, there's no one left to judge me except me. Still, it seems right for me to stay with the poor boy and mourn for him and everyone else. Jacob, unfortunately, is nowhere to be found.

Because I no longer need eyes to see, I dislodge my eye and become one with the skull. Make no mistake. I am the world. I am everything and nothing.

Zazen.

"Did you have fun, Bryce Millwood?" asks the boy as he stitches his body together in mere seconds before popping my eye into his left socket.

"I did." My teeth clack. "My future self helped me grow."

"I will disintegrate into ashes in a while."

I smile. "I know, my younger self. Thank you."

"Thank you too." The boy hugs his knees and leans against my side. "Do you know the other children are also you?"

"I know now."

We sit in silence for a minute. Then, he speaks.

"Do you think you will be like him in the future?"

"No one knows, for certain." I wink. "I have validated him... Myself."

"I won't hold you back any longer. Be done with your redemption."

A gentle breeze fondles us and I feel his ashes on my skull-body before it scatters over the sea and sinks into the abyss.

I don't know when I will return to HydroDash again so I take the opportunity to challenge the obstacles till the moon arrives with her soft glow. I leave, knowing full well I can always experience the water park again through other people.

Oh, I am alone.

I hit the shore and bounce my way towards the taxi, my wet body squelching on the sand and the pebbles. The friction between my body and the sand ushers in a welcome warmth.

So Death is capable of warmth too.

I bite the handle, pull the door open, and sink into the seat before realising, belatedly, a skull is incapable of driving.

Why couldn't I be a skeleton instead?

No response.

It appears all thoughts are at rest now.

Hopping off the driver's seat, I skip my way out of Sentosa. The truth is, a skull moving on its own accord is more aligned with the nighttime so I took my time. This is what happens when you're too used to being around people, when every gesture, every look and every word is a judgement upon you. And when they are gone, you take the mantle.

But Singapore is eerily quiet. It seems like all the animals have disappeared too. All photos have become landscape photography and the pictures featured on the photo booth in Vivo City are of backdrops. The real things are the worst. The pet shop in VivoCity is barren while preserving signs of life. Leftover food, tiny bowls of water, the hamster wheels... I would be convinced they had all found freedom if I didn't know the damage my ego had done to the world. For the time being, the only solace arrives in the form of nature and concrete coexisting harmoniously. Vines crawling onto highways were a common sight too and I am glad they do not swathe the roads just yet.

With plant life being the only life around, I wonder if this means we are heading back to the Hadean era. As time ticks by, water escapes me and I shrink till I am palm-sized. For the sake of etiquette, I wait for the traffic lights to turn green before crossing the road. Any smoke from car accidents has since faded away. The chaotic scene of cars stacked atop cars or dented into one another are more than I can count with my fingers.