Capsule

by Mel Torrefranca

01:00:02

  KAT OPENED HER eyes to a blanket of stars, a sparkly collection of salt floating in a bowl of dense ink. She raised her back from the grass, sitting with her palms crushing delicate shards around her. Several feet away stood a steep ledge. The end of the world. And although she couldn’t see the waves crashing against the cliffside, their hammering slams matched the tone of a warning siren.

  Kat tucked the wisps of hair away from her cheeks.

  I’m here.

  The image beyond the cliff was the same one Emmeline had imagined on her drive that homecoming night.

  Lothen Heights Campground.

  Kat stood. Nothing lit her vision but the glittering water, leaving her in a world of black-and-white. She turned her back to the cliff, searching for a sign of Peter and Jackie, but she met nothing but the menacing imprints of redwood trees, their silhouettes cutting hollow holes into the sky.

  Nicholas killed her. Kat faced the cliff again and walked to the edge of the grass clearing. The rage overpowered her fear of falling as she lowered herself onto the ground and dangled her heavy boots off the ledge. Surely the game had brought her to Emmeline’s desired destination for a reason.

  The last time Kat had been here was two and a half years ago, after Jay had appeared at their doorstep for the first time. She and Emmeline had stood at this very ledge under the beaming sun, but the ocean held an incomprehensible beauty at night. As the moonlight bounced from wave to wave, Kat understood why Emmeline would come to a place like Lothen Heights to clear her mind. Being so much higher than the water—so much closer to the moon—was mesmerizing.

  Kat fell into a state of awe as she basked in the view. She forgot about the blood that had dripped down the side of her sister’s face. She forgot about what Nicholas Moon had done—or had failed to do—that night. She forgot about her argument with Peter at Sunshine Auto. Forgot about the countdown. Forgot about the game.

  The words flowed naturally from her lips, and after starting, she could no longer stop.

  “Sometimes when I visit my family”—Kat lost herself in the water’s bright reflection—“they compliment my new car.”

  Kat’s vision filled with pure white, isolating herself inside her thoughts. For the past two years she had studied the poems by memory—line by line, word by word—but until tonight, they had always been meaningless. With her hand gripping the ledge—the part where the soft grass of the clearing met the sharp rock of the cliffside—Kat recalled a few lines from the longest of the five poems.

  “And as I wonder where you went when you left on vacation that day, I wonder where I will go for mine.”

  The first memory Capsule had given them was Peter Moon’s fifteenth birthday, when he’d assumed Nicholas was heading on a date. “But that’s not why I’m dressed up today,” Nicholas had told him. “After breakfast I’m heading on a trip.”

  “Apparently Isabella’s family was vacationing in Pelle Cove the same time my uncle was,” Peter had said after they’d opened the Level Three capsule.

  Kat closed her eyes, trying to avoid the truth, but her mouth pieced the puzzle together against her will. “Oh, how I wish I could do something right. To play the hero instead of the villain.” Kat recited the last few lines of the poem, her voice breaking every few words. “So if I can’t be the hero, if I can’t do something right, if I can’t be proud—then oh, how I wish in place of the villain I play the victim.”

  Peter’s soft voice filled her mind. “But my uncle—he didn’t make it back.”

  The clues had been there all along. On her first trip with Jay they’d found the five poems tucked under a baby-blue hydrangea, Emmeline’s least favorite color. They had easily deduced that the poems had been written for Emmeline—that she was the stranger—and the flowers had confirmed that the author was someone who hadn’t known her well. But what kind of person would leave behind flowers for a stranger?

  Perhaps someone like Nicholas Moon.

  Kat gulped. “Sometimes I forget my own face. I gaze into the mirror. I see your life, your eyes. I feel what you felt when you left that day.” She scooted backward, pulled her feet up from the ledge, and brought her knees to her chest. A menacing red hue tinted the water. “And I wave goodbye.”

  She thought back to the argument she’d had with Peter only moments ago. She’d claimed that his uncle had been a murderer. That for the past two years, Peter had been trying to live up to the impossible standards of a psychopath. A psychopath who drove away from Emmeline when he could have helped. A psychopath who sacrificed himself to save a twelve-year-old girl from a storm. That same psychopath who’d spent his remaining days following the accident burrowing himself in his own grief.

  It doesn’t make sense. Kat wrapped her arms around her legs. She finally had answers, yet now that she knew the full truth, she didn’t feel the sense of enlightenment she’d longed for. The tears refused to swarm down her cheeks, and the void expanding in her stomach filled her with an emptiness worse than any tears could bring. Why can’t I cry?

  Kat knew where her sister was headed that night and why she was headed there. She’d learned that Nicholas Moon had made a mistake and had spent the next six months of his life regretting what he’d done. Nicholas had written the Dear Stranger poems that haunted Kat and Jay since the day they’d found them, but these answers did nothing but make the blood rush to her head. She wasn’t angry at Nicholas for what he’d done, not at Peter for the person he thought Nicholas was—but at herself. Even with answers, even with a vivid memory of her sister’s crash, as though she’d been there—Kat still felt nothing but numb.

  I really am a monster.

  The red hue at the horizon intensified. She raised her chin to find a source of light rising from beneath the cliff—a sixth capsule that glowed with an aura similar to the one they’d seen at Sunshine Auto. This one, however, was a cranberry red, shining in sharp contrast against the creamy moon. It hovered several feet away from the ledge.

  Kat jumped to her feet and reached for the capsule with a weak arm, already knowing it was too far. She leaned over the edge. The jagged rocks below protruded from under the waves with bodies sharper than knives.

  And she started to wonder.

  Had this game been designed for them to win?

  Or had they fallen into a sick trap?

  A few soft footsteps tapped the grass behind her, and Kat turned around to find Jackie standing by the trees.

  “Hey.” Jackie stepped forward onto the grass clearing with a forced grin. “Is everything okay?”

  “It’s over,” Kat said. Jackie was the one person who could open the reward capsule, but the reward was nothing more than a death trap.

  “No, it’s not.” Jackie held her phone in the air. The countdown revealed that they had just under an hour left. “We still have time.”

  “Time means nothing.” Kat stepped aside, unblocking Jackie’s view of the sixth capsule.

  It was at this moment—as Jackie’s eyes widened at the sight of the game’s cruel plan—when Kat realized that Capsule owned them. The game had taken hold of their lives, threatened them, and toyed with them. The reward capsule floating over the ocean was proof that to the game, they were nothing more than a fun science experiment. And Jackie had it the worst. She was the player. A character the gamer believed they had control over, when in reality all actions were limited and built into the design. She played with the illusion of free will.

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Jackie’s voice was steady, logical, but her quivering eyes denied her calm aura. “What kind of game has a reward the player can’t claim?”

  Kat crossed her arms. This wasn’t an innocent arcade game on Jackie’s phone. Sure, Capsule had similarities to games Jackie had played before, such as challenges, rewards, even a storyline to follow—but this game was real. Of course Capsule was capable of eliminating the ability for them
to win.

  “Maybe it’s a test.” Jackie tossed her phone onto the grass and watched the screen fade to sleep. “If I open the capsule and the game ends, I’ll never land.”

  Kat’s heart sank. “It’s too risky.”

  “This whole game has been risky!” Jackie shouted, her voice more piercing than the sharp rocks that broke the waves below them. “I knew it was risky when I started the countdown in the first place, but I did it anyway, and I’m not gonna back out right at the end. I’m doing this.”

  Earlier at Sunshine Auto Kat had said, “We’re just your entertainment, aren’t we?” Her anger had blinded her so much she’d failed to recognize the sacrifices Jackie had made for her and Peter today. Jackie had chosen to help them get to the sixth location even after they’d abandoned the game in rage—even after they’d abandoned themselves.

  But do people risk their lives for entertainment? Throughout the day it was Jackie who had kept them on track, and now she was willing to take a leap of faith for them. To threaten her own life to stop the threatening of theirs. Do people jump from cliffs with no protection, all for a game?

  Jackie took a few steps back, her shoulders loosening as she positioned one foot firmly in front of the other. As she ran toward the ledge, Kat’s mind cleared for the first time in ages. She didn’t know how to feel about the answers she’d received tonight. She didn’t know how to feel about the fact that she still couldn’t cry. But right now, at this moment—watching her friend rush toward her own doom—all Kat knew was that she cared about Jackie.

  Jackie Mendoza, the girl she’d met in the hallway this morning, but felt as though she’d met a lifetime ago.

  Kat stepped in front of Jackie, pushing her hands against her shoulders and forcing her to a halt.

  “Let me go!” Jackie forced herself forward, but Kat held her stance firm in the middle of the clearing.

  “It’s game over, Jackie.” Kat folded her fingers around Jackie’s shoulders. “I won’t let you do this.”

  Jackie stopped struggling. Her dark eyes held the entirety of space, and Kat found herself lost in them.

  Before she could gather her thoughts, a sharp pain seared through her ribs. Kat dropped to her knees and gripped her side, teeth clenched. As she faced the ground, her glasses slipped from her nose and tumbled onto the grass. It took Kat a moment to process that Jackie had elbowed her to get away. That Jackie had slipped from her grasp. That Jackie’s life had slipped from her grasp.

  Kat raised her chin from the ground to find Jackie’s blurry figure standing in the middle of the grass clearing. Jay’s flannel flowed from Jackie’s waist as a violent wind attempted to push her away from the ledge. She held her figure strong, lips pulling into a straight line as she concentrated on making the jump.

  “Jackie?” Kat dug her fingernails into her side, applying pressure to ease the pain. “Stop!”

  As Jackie ran for the ledge, Kat reached to grab her ankle but only managed to graze the side of Jackie’s sneaker. By the time Kat hopped back onto her feet, Jackie had already reached the edge of the cliff and swung off into the air.

  REWARD CAPSULE

  JACKIE STOOD IN a room made of shadows. The walls and floor beneath her resembled the infinite night sky, but the pressure against the bottom of her sneakers insisted that she wasn’t floating. She raised her palms to her face, and the lack of control over their shakiness left her petrified. A moment ago she’d been soaring through the night sky with the capsule in her grip, but now the capsule was gone.

  Her clothes matched what she’d been wearing earlier today—sweatpants, a dull blue top stained with blood, and Jay’s checkered flannel tied around her waist. Even her arm was wrapped with the same gauze, but when she felt around the wound, the sharp pain wasn’t there anymore.

  Jackie dropped her hands to her side and stepped forward, stopping as her phone buzzed in her back packet. She frowned at the memory of tossing it onto the grass clearing.

  How did it get here? Jackie’s fingers wrapped around the device in her back pocket and pulled the screen to her eyes.

  CONGRATULATIONS, PLAYER. YOU PASSED THE TEST.

  Jackie lowered the screen to her side and searched the room for a sign of someone, but the air around her was nothing but empty space.

  “What test?” Jackie’s voice echoed, slowly fading but never falling completely silent. “Is someone there?”

  Her phone buzzed again. A new line had faded underneath the previous one. PLEASE CLAIM YOUR REWARD. When Jackie lifted her eyes from the screen a second time, a capsule hovered in front of her face. This one was different from the others. It was smaller—the size of an actual pill—with a black body and a red cap.

  Another buzz. PLAYER, YOU MAY BRING ONE SUBJECT HOME WITH YOU. THE CHOSEN SUBJECT MUST TAKE THE CAPSULE WHOLE TO MARK THE END OF THE GAME AND REVERSE THE DAY.

  Jackie took a step away from the capsule.

  One subject?

  She gripped her phone tight enough to make her fingers go numb. “I did everything you wanted me to!” Jackie screamed into the infinite room. “I went to all of your stupid locations, and your reward is to only let me save one of them?”

  Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t acknowledge them. This game really had set them up to fail. Capsule was winnable after all, but what was the point of winning if either Peter or Kat would disappear?

  The capsule remained hovering at eye-level, rocking subtly back and forth as though it were hanging from a string. With a grunt Jackie swiped the pill from the air. The floor of darkness removed itself from existence in acknowledgment of Jackie accepting her vicious defeat. She fell backward into the void and shut her eyes, stars flashing in her mind as a familiar gust of cold air rushed around her, the phone in her tight grip vanishing, leaving her fingers limp.

  00:45:13

  THE JAGGED CLIFFSIDE encased the area of sand by the shore of Lothen Heights, trapping Peter inside the mouth of a beast. With every step closer to the water he found himself backing two steps away. The sand squished and cried beneath his shoes.

  “Jackie, are you there?”

  The wind sucked the air away whenever Peter tried to breathe, so he held his breath, scanning the dense water ahead of him for a sign of Jackie. All he could see was a mass of swirling black fluid, its contents only found in his imagination.

  She’ll be okay. Peter ripped the sneakers from his feet and tossed them onto the sand. She has to be.

  He stepped forward, his ankles meeting the bubbling water.

  “Jackie!”

  With every crash and pull of a wave against his calves, Peter was drawn deeper, further beyond control, but he reminded himself that the false sense of the ocean floor’s movement was only his mind playing tricks on him. The water reached his knees, leaving the upper half of his body covered in goosebumps.

  It won’t end like this. If it did, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself for the mere forty-five minutes he had left.

  About fifteen minutes ago the emergency button had brought Peter to the shoreline where he’d spotted a silhouette standing at the edge of a cliff towering in the distance. When a second silhouette had appeared at the clearing he still hadn’t made the connection until a flash of red appeared out of thin air and hovered several feet away from the ledge. A sixth capsule. By the time Peter realized the two figures had been Jackie and Kat, it was too late for him to shout.

  He’d seen Jackie leap.

  He’d seen her fall toward the water.

  But he hadn’t seen her land.

  A patch of water failed to reflect the moonlight, breaking the shimmering pattern on the waves. Upon closer inspection Peter identified the patch as Jackie’s body. She floated peacefully, the strong rushes of water always slowing down just in time to reach her with nothing but a gentle nudge against her side.

  Peter leapt deeper into
the water, and the sandy floor beneath him vanished. A wave crashed into him, submerging his head, forcing him to assimilate into the cold. He broke the surface with a gasp, eyes burning, turning his head to find the figure he’d seen only moments ago.

  But when he looked at the floating girl’s face, he didn’t see Jackie.

  He saw her.

  Isabella.

  Peter could feel the blood of Nicholas Moon pulsing through his veins. He felt the same level of breathlessness, the same urgency, the same boldness that Nicholas had felt that day. In that moment Peter had become the man he had always wanted to become, but instead of embracing his transformation, he fantasized about stabbing his arms and draining the blood from his system as though it were pure venom injected into him against his will.

  Peter tried to fight, but every struggle against the truth weighed him down, threatening to drag him to the bottom of the sea. He couldn’t deny that the man who had crashed into Emmeline’s car and had done nothing was the same man Peter shared his DNA with. The waves punched him, bullied him, forced him to accept the strength he so badly wished to leave behind.

  Peter swam, the blood in his veins pumping faster, the venom spreading to his fingertips. He embraced the breathlessness, the urgency, the boldness that Nicholas had felt that day. He embraced it all, and when he reached the floating figure on the water’s surface, Jackie’s face was back.

  Peter wrapped his arms under her shoulders from behind and pulled her toward the shore. The water didn’t fight him anymore. He was one with it, and as he reached the shallow end, lifted Jackie from the water, and set her onto the rocky sand, he couldn’t help but feel proud of Nicholas for the gift he’d given Isabella.

  Peter dropped to her side, reaching for Jackie’s left arm to check her pulse. Her heart was still pumping, and she was breathing normally with her chest rising and falling in a steady pattern. Her right hand rested on the sand in a fist, fingers tense.

  “Hey, can you hear me?” Peter shook her shoulder, her head bobbing against the sand. “Jackie?”