Explain It Like I'm Tree

Follow Up

End of the line.

A hand the size of his whole face grabs the front of his shirt and lifts him off his feet. He dangles over the edge of a cliff, suspended by a fist and a flimsy knot of cloth. His one good hand grips the ghost's arm. It won't be enough to save him.

He doesn't want to die. He hasn't tried hard enough to find Lewis yet. Is this ghost trying to keep him from finding Lewis? Did this ghost do something to Lewis, too?

Adrenaline shrieks through his body as he kicks his legs, struggling to get the words out.

Stop.

Please.

I want to live.

I have to find him.

Where's Vivi?

I'm scared.

He can't unlock his jaw. His prosthetic spasms, twitching around to clamp onto the ghost's arm. In that moment, the wrathful skull shifts into a familiar face. Purple hair. Thick eyebrows. An expression more suited to warm smiles than this bitter fury.

Everything shatters.

"Lewis?" Recognition loosens his lips an instant before Lewis drops him over the edge.

Seconds later, his body is torn apart by the jagged rocks.

The pain is momentary, a brief flash of cognizance before his brain shuts down, his body too broken to proceed.

But he is still there. He sees himself now, as if standing back and watching as a strange figure crawls out of the ruin of bone and flesh among the rocks. The new figure looks just like him, except it is only half. One eye, one arm, one leg. His eye is a black hollow with a glowing, orange iris set in it. A soft orange light spills off the edges of his form. Half an Arthur.

The newly formed ghost of Arthur hovers there for a moment, dazed. Slowly lifts a half-face to stare up at the skeleton that peers over the edge at him.

"Maybe... maybe now," the half-Arthur croaks, "we can talk this through?"

........................................

Arthur twisted around and flailed as he rolled off the edge of his bed and hit the garage floor shoulder-stump first. Light danced at the edges of his vision as the pain forked across his neck and upper spine. He gasped, writhing to get free of the tangle of sheets with just one arm.

Half. There's just half of me left!

Out of habit, he took a mouthful of sheets between his teeth and counted seconds, focusing on his breath. He pressed his forehead against the concrete. Hard. Cold. Frigid, really, against the sweat beading his forehead. It snapped his thoughts in line. Out of the nightmare. Into reality.

This was reality. In reality, he only had one arm and everything else was fine.

In reality Lewis had called up a memory plane of the cave he himself had died in and dropped Arthur over the cliff. Just before impact, Lewis had dispersed that memory plane. By the time Arthur had hit the ground, the stalagmite-riddled cave floor was just the back of a semi-truck with a bunch of boxed Chicky-Licky supplies. In reality, Lewis hadn't carried through with his revenge. Arthur was plenty alive.

Lewis, however, was not. That also was reality.

Arthur lay there a little longer, allowing more bits of reality to trickle in. Lewis was dead, but not murderous. They were all together again. Trying to work through it. No imminent danger. No threat of—bacon? Arthur sniffed the air.