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Nothing outside of the computer screen exists anymore. Derek’s senses are irreparably tied to its existence, his thoughts intertwined with the superhighway now merging with his brain. Even the knowledge that Avery is safe now brings little relief. His brain is entirely information, driven through the skull like a wall of arrows, each new piece somehow both individual and collective.
It hurts like hell.
Prion diseases are always fatal. They can lie dormant for years but once symptoms start, they progress rapidly, causing death in 100% of cases. Derek feels the proteins in his brain misfolding under the weight of the universe. He is blisteringly aware of what is occurring inside his head. The power saw screaming against the skull bone. The muscle-tearing pop of his dura mater. The pulling, the undoing, the unmaking of his arachnoid mater, exposing the silver-skin sheen of the pia mater underneath which his brain is accessible.
Derek knows that he logically shouldn’t be able to feel his own brain. No person should know their own mind as intricately as he has been forced to, burdened with the immediacy of self-awareness. But things as trivial and one-dimensional as pain receptors and logic do not matter now that Hastur has a pathway inside him, his long, incorporeal hands undoing the grey and white matter, poisoning it yellow and changing how Derek experiences the world.
He takes a shaky breath. His hands struggle to move when he commands them to, elbows stuttering backwards, fingers spasming. He grits his teeth until he hears a crack that resonates back through his head. The pain offers the briefest moment of clarity, in which he slams his hands forward, pressing the button to upload his final goodbye to Avery.
All that remains is to look away from the screen and accept his death; accept that this endless flow of information must be cut off. It will be the end of pain, yes, but it will be the end of all things. Everything he has seen – this boundless, beautiful universe – will be gone from him. He is so grateful to have witnessed it. He is so terrified to lose it and not even know that it is lost.
Brain death is defined as the irreversible loss of all functions of the brain, including the brainstem. His breathing slows and, knowing that apnoea is one of the criteria required to diagnose brain death, he fights against it, half-hyperventilating, half-choking on the air. His hands flail towards his neck but his eyes stay locked on the screen.
Focus. It hurts. Hurting is good, because it means his brain can still process pain. Is the fear of ceasing to exist suddenly now worth a life of endless agony? Derek has spent his whole life passively searching for death, knowing that when it does come, it will likely be a relief. Perhaps he’s fighting this so hard because the actual reality of dying feels unfair, totally unlike the blissful culmination of a boring existence that he has always ritualistically promised himself.
Is this it, then? Will he be stuck here forever, a coward and a scholar? An addict? A dying man who refuses to die?
He feels a hand on his back. A warm, comforting presence, reminding him that some things still exist outside of blue light and tunnel vision. He hears a voice that he has never heard before, but that he knows intimately.
“I’m here,” Avery says. “I’m not going anywhere. I won’t let you be on your own, Derek, I promise.”
Derek’s eyeballs begin to shake, blurring his vision. How can Avery be here? He lives forty-five minutes away. Has it been that long since he betrayed his trust and pushed him from the cliff ledge, refusing his attempt at needless heroism? How has he managed to find Derek’s address? Did he kick the door in?
Instead of asking any of these questions, Derek allows himself to enjoy – for the last time – the feeling of not knowing something. When he speaks, his voice is small and strained. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” Avery wraps his arm around Derek, pulling him sideways in the chair so that he’s leaning into his chest. All he has to do now is turn his head away from the screen, and this will all be over.
“I can’t do it,” he whispers. “I… I need you to help me.”
Avery’s hand is warm, his palm slightly sweaty against Derek’s cheek. Rather than turning him away immediately, he holds him for a moment, steadying him although they are both shaking. Derek leans in, trying to commit to memory the feeling of Avery’s fingertips, picturing the loops and whorls in his mind as he creates an accurate picture from the touch alone.
“Ready?” Avery asks.
Derek nods, his neck juddering.
Like ripping off a plaster, Avery turns Derek away from the screen. And two things happen at once. The intricate orchestra of pain stops immediately the moment he breaks eye contact, and the silence opens up a blind spot in his knowledge.
He knows know how Avery managed to get here.
Because he didn’t.
In the weeks before death, it is well documented that hospice patients report seeing and even speaking to their deceased relatives. When people drown, there’s a critical moment where the mind knows it no longer has any chance of surviving without external assistance. At this point, the drowning person no longer feels like they are gasping for air but floating in a codeine haze of memory and mist. The brain’s capacity to conjure comfort when it can no longer conjure resistance is an astounding thing.
And Derek’s mind has brought him Avery.
But it’s more than that. With the infinite knowledge still echoing around his head, he knows that this is not just his mind’s best representation of a man he never actually met. This is Avery in everything but material existence. An illusion who moves and acts exactly as he would if he could be Derek’s psychopomp in person. A mirage indistinguishable from the real person who, forty-five minutes away, is sobbing with his hand pressed against his laptop screen.
Finally, Hastur has managed a great feat: a convincing Avery.
Avery lifts Derek’s malnourished body from the chair and into his arms. He’s strong, well-built from regular time spent outside as well as the manual labour jobs that carried him for years after high school. He brings Derek, shivering and dazed, into his chest. Here, there is blissful darkness. Derek presses his face against Avery, breathing in the smell of laundry detergent and cheap aftershave, rubbing his cheek against the soft cotton of his shirt.
“I’ve got you,” Avery soothes. He walks through Derek’s apartment, carrying him to the sofa and gently lying him down. He never breaks contact with him, and Derek fears that doing so would shatter the illusion, leaving him to die alone.
Avery brushes the hair out of Derek’s face. He holds his hand with a soothing, weighted grip, his steady pulse offering rhythm to Derek’s passing the way being in a driving car soothes a child to sleep. Though still scared to die, Derek feels okay with closing his eyes, leaving sight behind forever and narrowing his entire world to the feeling of Avery’s touch. This, at last, feels like the comfort he has spent his whole life searching for.
He drifts within it, floating painlessly from moment to moment. Avery’s lips brush against his forehead, his wet eyelashes fluttering against Derek’s cooling skin.
“It’s okay,” Avery whispers, his voice cracking. “I’m staying with you. You can go.”
Derek’s body resists briefly, but his mind wins out. He feels Avery’s hand against his chest, resting right over his heart. It’s like he’s back atop the cliff, only this time, he is the one on the edge. He is the one begging to stay. He is the one who has to go first.
Avery, his mind, even Hastur. They all know what to do. They push.
And Derek falls, but does not land.