Adam Silvera - They Both Die at the End

“I really like that. What do you think is—”

The train’s lights flicker and everything shuts off, even the hum of the fans. We’re underground and we’re in total darkness. An announcement on the overhead tells us we’re experiencing a brief delay and the system should be up and running again shortly. A little boy is crying as a man curses about another train delay. But this feels really wrong; Rufus and I have bigger things to worry about than getting somewhere late. I didn’t observe any suspicious characters on the train, but we’re stuck now. Someone could stab us and no one would know until the lights flash back on. I scooch toward Rufus, my leg against him, and I shelter him with my body because maybe I can buy him time, enough time to see the Plutos if they manage to get released today, maybe I can even shield him from death, maybe I can go out as a hero, maybe Rufus will be the exception to the Death-Cast-is-always-right record.

There’s something glowing beside me, like a flashlight.

It’s the light from Rufus’s phone.

I’m breathing really hard and my heart is pounding and I don’t feel better, not even when Rufus massages my shoulder. “Yo, we’re totally cool. This happens all the time.”

“No it doesn’t,” I say. The delays do, but the lights turning off isn’t common.

“You’re right, it doesn’t.” He reaches into his backpack and pulls out the Legos, pouring some of them into my lap. “Here. Build something now, Mateo.”

I don’t know if he also believes we’re about to die and wants me to create something before I do, but I follow his lead. My heart is still pounding pretty badly, but I stop shaking when I reach for the first brick. I have no clue what I’m building, but I allow my hands to keep aimlessly laying down the foundation with the bigger bricks because there’s a literal spotlight on me in an otherwise completely dark train car.

“Anywhere you wanted to travel to?” Rufus asks.

I’m suffocated by the darkness and this question.

I wish I was brave enough to have traveled. Now that I don’t have time to go anywhere, I want to go everywhere: I want to get lost in the deserts of Saudi Arabia; find myself running from the bats under the Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas; stay overnight on Hashima Island, this abandoned coal-mining facility in Japan sometimes known as Ghost Island; travel the Death Railway in Thailand, because even with a name like that, there’s a chance I can survive the sheer cliffs and rickety wooden bridges; and everywhere else. I want to climb every last mountain, row down every last river, explore every last cave, cross every last bridge, run across every last beach, visit every last town, city, country. Everywhere. I should’ve done more than watch documentaries and video blogs about these places.

“I’d want to go anywhere that would give me a rush,” I answer. “Hang gliding in Rio sounds incredible.”

Halfway through my construction, I realize what I’m building—a sanctuary. It reminds me of home, the place where I hid from exhilaration, but I recognize the other side of the coin too, and know my home kept me alive for as long as it did. Not only alive, but happy too. Home isn’t to blame.

When I finally finish, in the middle of a conversation with Rufus about how his parents almost named him Kane after his mother’s favorite wrestler, my eyes close and my head drops. I snap back awake. “Sorry. You’re not boring me. I like talking to you. I, uh, I’m really tired. Exhausted, but I know I shouldn’t sleep because I don’t have time for naps.” This day is really sucking everything out of me, though.

“Close your eyes for a bit,” Rufus says. “We’re not moving yet and you might as well get some rest. I’ll wake you up when we get to the cemetery. Promise.”

“You should sleep,” I say.

“I’m not tired.”

That’s a lie, but I know he’s going to be stubborn about this.

“Okay.”

I rest my head back while holding the toy sanctuary in my lap. The light is no longer on me. I can still feel Rufus’s eyes on me, though it’s probably in my head. At first it feels weird, but then nice, even if I’m wrong, because it feels like I have a personal guardian looking out for my time.

My Last Friend is here for the long run.

10:39 a.m.

I gotta take a photo of Mateo sleeping.

That sounds creepy, no shit. But I gotta immortalize this dreamy look on his face. That doesn’t sound any less creepy. Shit. It’s the moment, too, I want. How often do you find yourself on a train that’s having a blackout with an eighteen-year-old kid and his Lego house as he’s on his way to the cemetery to visit his mother’s headstone? Exactly. That’s Instagram-worthy.

I stand to get a wider shot. I aim in the darkness and take his picture, the flash blinding me. A moment later, no joke, the train’s lights and fans come back and we continue moving.

“I’m a wizard,” I mutter. No shit, I discover I have superpowers on my End Day. I wish someone got that on camera. I could’ve gone viral.

The picture is dope. I’ll upload it when I have service.

It’s good I got the photo of Mateo sleeping when I did—yeah, yeah, creepy, we established that—because his face is shifting, his left eye twitching. He looks uneasy and he’s breathing harder. Shaking. Holy shit, maybe he’s epileptic. I don’t know, he never told me anything like that. I should’ve asked. I’m about to call out for someone on the train who might know what to do if he’s having a seizure when Mateo mutters “No,” and repeats it over and over.

Mateo is having a nightmare.

I sit beside him and grab his arm to save him.

10:42 a.m.

Rufus shakes me awake.

I’m no longer on the mountain; I’m back on the train. The lights are on and we’re moving.

I take a deep breath as I turn to the window, as if I’m actually expecting to find boulders and headless birds flying my way.

“Bad dream, dude?”

“I dreamt I was skiing.”

“That’s my bad. What happened in the dream?”

“It started with me going down one of those kiddy slopes.”

“The bunny slope?”

I nod. “Then it got really steep and the hills got icier and I dropped my ski poles. I turned around to look for them and I saw a boulder coming for me. All of a sudden it got louder and louder and I wanted to throw myself off to the side into this mound of snow, but I panicked. I was supposed to turn down another hill where I saw my Lego sanctuary, except it was as big as a cabin, but my skis disappeared and I flew straight off the mountain while headless birds circled overhead and I kept falling and falling.”

Rufus grins.

“It’s not funny,” I say.

He shifts closer to me, his knee knocking into mine. “You’re okay. I promise you don’t have to worry about boulders chasing you or flying off a snowy mountain today.”

“And everything else?”

Rufus shrugs. “You’re probably good on the headless birds, too.”

It sucks that that was the last time I’ll ever dream.

It wasn’t even a good one.

11:08 a.m.

Infinite Weekly has secured Howie Maldonado’s final interview.

Delilah herself hasn’t.

“I know everything about Howie Maldonado,” Delilah says, but her boss, Senior Editor Sandy Guerrero, isn’t having it.

“You’re too new for a profile this important,” Sandy says, walking toward a black car sent over by Howie’s people.

“I know I work in the absolutely worst cubicle with the most ancient computer, but that doesn’t mean I’m not qualified to at least assist you with this interview,” Delilah says. She comes off as ungrateful and arrogant, but she won’t take it back. She’ll move far in this industry by knowing her worth—and by landing a byline in this piece. It may have been Sandy’s industry status that persuaded the publicist to choose Infinite Weekly over People magazine, but Delilah grew up with not only the Scorpius Hawthorne books, but also the films, all eight of them, which nurtured her love for this medium. From fangirl to paid fangirl.