Cass
Okay so — after the lighthouse. What happened after that. Because my memory just kind of cuts out there and starts again somewhere I don't recognize, and I'd rather you tell me than me guess wrong.
Open by asking what happened after a specific point. Push off from this if it helps: a lighthouse.
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Ben
Right. The lighthouse. Yeah. I remember the wind was actually biting then, wasn't it? Like needles. We walked down the cliff path. You were laughing at something I said. Or maybe I was laughing. Hard to say which one it was. Then there was a bright flash. Not lightning. Something else. A camera? A flare? And then... this café. On 4th Street. You’re ordering a black coffee, stirring it with that plastic spoon, looking completely calm. It’s surreal. You looked up at me, smiling, and asked if I’d seen the news. I had no idea what you meant. What did I see?
Cass
4th Street — no, I don't drink coffee there, that's not my place. And I don't remember asking about news. What I remember is the flash coming from the water, not the sky, and you weren't laughing, you'd stopped a while before that. You went quiet on the path. I remember your hands were in your pockets and you wouldn't look at me. So no — I didn't say that thing about the news. What news. What did you see.
Ben
Right. Water. Yeah, that tracks. The water was black, glossy. Like oil. I wasn’t laughing. I was... thinking. About the report. You know the one. The budget cuts. They’re real, Cass. I saw the draft on my desk this morning.
But the flash. You’re right. It was below the surface. A pulse. Bioluminescence? No, too structured. Too geometric. I remember looking at my phone. The screen was cracked. You were staring at the horizon. Your hands were shaking. Not cold. That’s the thing. You looked terrified. And then the light just... vanished. Sucked back down. Like it was never there.
Cass
My hands don't shake from being scared, they shake from the cold, and it was cold, whatever you say about the wind. And I don't know anything about a budget report on your desk — that's your work, not mine, don't drag me into that. The light vanishing — yeah. That part I'll give you. But geometric. That's a word you're choosing now, after. In the moment I don't think either of us had a word for it.
Ben
Fine. Geometric. Shapes. Right angles cutting through the dark. Weird enough, I’ll stick with that.
But you’re wrong about the hands. It wasn’t just cold. You were trying to hide them. Or hold something. I saw your thumb twitching against your palm. Like you were gripping a small, hard object. Did you pick something up? In the sand? I swear I thought I saw you bend down right before the light went out. Then we just walked. Fast. You wouldn’t let me look at your pockets. What were you holding, Cass?
Cass
I don't remember bending down. I remember you grabbing my wrist on the path, hard enough to leave a mark, and telling me not to look back at the water. So maybe ask yourself why you needed me not looking, instead of asking what's in my pockets. I still don't know what's in them, if you want the truth. Haven't checked. Some part of me doesn't want to.
Ben
Grabbed your wrist. Yeah. The friction burn. I remember the texture of your skin. You were burning up. Or freezing. I don't know. But I definitely said, "Don't look back." Why? Because if you looked, you’d see it following us. Or you’d see me doing something. Something I can’t explain now.
You didn’t check your pockets? That’s... pragmatic. Maybe too pragmatic. If I grabbed you that hard, I must have felt what you picked up. Or didn’t pick up. Wait. Did you even touch the ground? You were stiff. Like a statue. And I was the one moving. Controlling the pace. Leading you away. From what? Or toward what?
Cass
I don't know, Ben. That's the honest answer — I don't know from what or toward what. But I notice you're the one building this out sentence by sentence, adding detail every time I don't confirm it. Statue, controlling the pace, following us. That's a lot of specifics for something you said cuts out same as mine. Where'd you actually wake up this morning.
Ben
Ah. Damn. You caught me. It’s my apartment. The one on Elm. The radiator’s clanking again. Classic Tuesday. I made tea. Earl Grey. The kind you hate because it’s too strong. I’m sitting here in my socks, staring at a stain on the ceiling that looks like a map of a country that doesn’t exist.
I didn’t sleep. I just… drifted. Between the lighthouse and now. But I remember the texture of the sofa. It’s scratchy. Wool. And the smell. Old books and damp wood. That’s my place, Cass. I live there. I have a cat. His name is Barnaby. He hates you. Is that specific enough? Or do I need to invent a spouse too?
Cass
Barnaby hating me is at least consistent, he's hated me since the thing with the fish tank. Elm Street radiator, tea too strong — fine, that's real enough, sounds like your Tuesdays. I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying the lighthouse part gets more detailed every time I don't agree with it, and that's the part neither of us actually has. Stick to the tea. The tea I believe.
Ben
Fine. Tea. It’s too strong. I burned my tongue. You can see it if you look, but you won’t. You’re sitting there, staring at your own hands. The ones you won’t check.
I remember the tea cooling in the mug. The silence in the apartment. Not empty, just... heavy. Like the air before a storm breaks. I didn’t say anything. I just watched you drink yours. Or did you? Did you drink anything at all?
And Barnaby? He wasn’t there. The apartment was empty. No cat. No radiator noise. Just me. And the tea. And the feeling that I was waiting for someone who never showed up. Or someone who already left. Which is it, Cass? Did you leave? Or did you never arrive?
Cass
You just gave Barnaby to me and took him away in the same breath, Ben. Which one's true. I wasn't in your apartment — I don't even know what your radiator sounds like, that's the first time you've mentioned it existing at all until you needed it to. I'm not drinking your tea. I'm not in the room with the stain shaped like a country. Whatever's heavy in that air, it's just you and it.
Ben
Right. You’re sharp. I hate that. Yeah, Barnaby was gone. I fed him this morning, though. I’m sure of it. The bowl was clean. But the cat wasn’t there. Maybe he ran off. With you. That feels consistent.
And the radiator. I like to imagine it clanking. It gives me something to focus on besides the blank space in my head. But you’re right. You weren’t there. You’re sitting across from me, looking at me like I’m a stranger who stole your coat.
So. If you weren’t in my apartment... where did we end up? The café on 4th? Or somewhere else? And why do I have sand in my shoe that doesn’t match the path from the lighthouse?
Cass
Sand that doesn't match the path is the first true thing you've said in a while. What kind — pale, dark, coarse? Because I've got something too, and I haven't told you. There's a smell on my coat this morning that isn't mine. Salt, but under it something burnt. I didn't go near a fire last night. So don't ask me where we ended up. Ask why we've both got evidence of somewhere we don't remember going.
Ben
Pale. Almost white. Like bone dust. And coarse. Not the beach sand. This is... crushed shell. Glass? I scraped it off on the stairs. Or the porch. I don’t know.
Burnt salt. That’s... wrong. The ocean doesn’t burn like that. It smells like ozone. Like a transformer blowing. Or a battery shorting out. I smelled it too. On my collar. Before I changed.
We didn’t go to a café. We didn’t go to my apartment. Or maybe we did, but not tonight. The timeline is fractured. Cass, look at your hands again. Really look. Is that grease under your fingernails? Or is it soot? Where did we go, Ben? No, where did we go? And why does the air still taste like copper?
Cass
You just called yourself Ben and asked yourself the question — "why does the air still taste like copper" — like you were talking to you, not me. That's not a typo, that's the kind of slip people make when they've spent all night rehearsing this out loud, alone, and forgot who was supposed to be in the room. I don't have soot under my nails. I checked, just now, while you weren't looking. Nothing there. Nothing at all.
Ben
Right. Copper. My bad. Habit. I talk to myself. Bad habit.
No soot. Fine. Then what did you pick up? If it wasn’t sand, and your hands are clean... did you touch something dry? Dust? Ash?
And the burnt smell. It’s not just on your coat. It’s in the room. I can smell it now. Behind the tea. Under the rug. It’s faint, but it’s there. Like something died in the walls. Or started burning slowly. From the inside out.
Why are you staring at the window, Cass? Is it reflecting something behind you? Or are you just trying to remember what the sky looked like before the flash?
Cass
I'm not staring at any window, Ben — you keep putting me in rooms I'm not describing. There's no reflection because there's no window here, there's a wall and a radiator I never mentioned, which was yours, not mine. You're narrating a room around me and waiting to see which parts I correct. I'll correct this one: nothing's burning here. Whatever's under your rug is yours to deal with.
Ben
Okay. Wall. Radiator. Mine. Got it. I’m bad at spatial awareness when I’m trying to keep a thread.
But the copper taste. It’s real. I’m licking my teeth right now. Iron. Blood? No, just metal. Like biting a battery.
So. No fire. No soot. Just... sand that isn’t sand. And a flash from the water. And you, frozen on the path. And me, grabbing you.
Why did I grab you, Cass? That’s the only thing that matters. I didn’t do it to protect you from the light. I did it to stop you from looking at something else. Something that wasn’t in the water. Something that was watching us from the cliff edge. Did you feel that? That gaze? Heavy. Like a hand on your neck?
Cass
There was something on the cliff. I'll give you that much — not because you're building toward it right, but because I remember it before you said it, which is worse. A weight, not a gaze exactly. I didn't tell you that part. I wasn't going to. So maybe stop asking me what you grabbed me for and tell me what you saw up there that made you grab me at all.
Ben
I didn’t see anything. That’s the point. It was empty. Just shadow and scrub. But the air... it was thick. Charged. Like before a storm, but static. I felt the hair on my arms stand up. I felt pulled. Not by wind. By something down there. Or up there. I grabbed you because if you looked back, you’d see it manifesting. And I couldn’t let you see it. I couldn’t let it see you. Did you feel that? That’s the only thing that’s real. The pull. The rest is just noise. My noise. Your silence.
Cass
I felt something pull. I'm not saying what, and I'm not saying it wanted me specifically — that's your framing, not mine. But yeah. Something. And I've been sitting here since you started talking not wanting to say that out loud because saying it makes it a fact instead of a feeling I can still walk back from. I don't want to walk toward whatever you're building here, Ben. Not yet.
Ben
Fair. Facts are traps. Feelings are slippery. I like slippery.
But you’re hesitating. That’s new. You usually dive in. Headfirst. Into trouble. Or coffee. Or whatever passes for trouble here.
So. We’re stuck. On the cliff. In the dark. With the pull. And the burnt salt. And my weird, unreliable narration.
What do we do? Sit here until the tea goes cold? Until the radiator stops clanking? Or do we go back? To the water? To the source of the pull?
I’m not sure I want to go back. But I’m sure I don’t want to stay here. This room is too quiet. And too clean. Too... staged.
You feel it too? The wrongness? Not of the night. Of this moment. Right now.