Too Broke For Afterlife

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"I can't believe this. We were sitting right next to her! How could she get lost?" I frantically walk around, hoping to find Judy somewhere.

Nox grabs my arm and pulls me back to the group. "Don't get lost as well! I doubt she just walked away and got lost."

"Then where is she?" I yell.

Nox covers my mouth with her hand and then forces me down to sit on the ground.

Through the fog I can see the silhouettes of Walter and Clemens, cowered together closely.

"I think that she got kidnapped by one of the soldiers."

"Kidnapped..."

If that was supposed to comfort me, well it didn't.

"Yes, kidnapped. Walter?"

"Mhm?"

"How's the teleportation looking?"

"One sec."

He plays around with his wristband as I stare at Nox. "You want to leave Judy behind? First Parker and now her?"

"Isabella, listen..."

She grabs my shoulder. Her voice is calm and quiet.

"I am certain that we will see them again soon. They kidnapped Judy to use her to pressure us. 'Give up or we'll lil her blabla'. And I don't know where Parker is but he can't be far. The Mayor wouldn't kill one of us just like that, she loves manipulating people. Okay?"

"But what if one of them is still here somewhe-"

"They are not. Trust me. Have I ever been wrong?"

I think about it and then shake my head. Nox has never been wrong. And I know that looking for Judy in here is stupid and impossible.

It's an endless space where you can't see anything unless it's literally sitting on your lap.

<<<

2019

Eckley, CO

When he wakes up the first thing Cameron notices is that everything is wet. His face, his clothes, his hair. He is soaked and his body cold. He opens his eyes, slowly getting up.

Cameron is outside again but this time he is not at the basketball field. In front of him dark pine trees are stretching themselves into the sky, like tired giants. There is a fence, the border of the school grounds. Behind the fence is a street surrounded by more trees. How and why did he get here?

Cameron is freezing. His clothes are dense because of the wet grass. How long has he been lying here? The sleep walking is getting out of control. Maybe he should find something to take against it.

Cameron starts to walk back and soon the basketball field comes into his view. And then the memories start kicking in.

He had another dream last night. The strip club. Kaz. The storage room. They had sex. Fuck.

Cameron checks if he is still holding the hair pin. He took it in his hand when going to bed to see if it would travel with him just like it had came out of the dream. It's not there. He should have checked the grass.

He jogs back and starts searching, hoping the pin could sparkle in the light of the faintly rising sun but he can't find anything. After a few minutes he gives up.

Okay back to the having sex part. It had felt so real. If it was for him he'd go right back to bed, repeating last night. The hands on his skin, the lips against his. He had been waiting for this for so long.

After some walking Cameorn finally reaches the dorms. When he is in his room he checks his phone. 6:15 am. So no time for sleep left. That's fine, he is wide awake anyway so Cameron decides to take a long hot shower instead. He enters the bathroom and takes off his clothes. Before he gets under the shower his eyes glide over the mirror and- Wait.

He freezes.

Then he gets dizzy and Cameron has to kneel down so that he doesn't pass out. He tries to get his breathing back under control while his brain starts to go crazy like an overheating battery. How is this possible? What does this mean? What actually happened last night? When his legs feel normal again, he slowly gets up, grabbing the edges of the sink just to make sure. He leans closer to get a better view of the mess.

Hickeys. And a lot of them. His throat and chest are full of reddish brown love bites. And now Cameron realizes that what had happened was not a dream. It was real. He was there, in Chicago, in the strip club. Kaz was there. They had sex. Real sex. If someone had given him hickeys as a prank he would have woken up. Unless he got drugged. But who'd do such a thing?

No, he must have travelled through time or something. But how? Last time he checked time travelling was not a thing. It's not possible. So how can he explain this?

He can't. It doesn't make sense.

But the thought that possibly he did actually sleep with Kaz, the real one who actually wanted it, not some dream projection, makes his heart beat faster. Cameron gets under the shower and lets the warm water wash away the cold wetness of the forest. He stays there until his skin starts to get wrinkly. When he walks back into the room, with a towel around his hips and clean hair, Sonny is already awake, typing something on his phones. He looks up smiling but then his smile fades quickly. Shit.

"You do have a girlfriend." "No I don't!" Sonny gets up and walks towards him, Cameron backs away. "Right, you just fell, huh? Dude, do you think I don't know what hickeys look like? Why are you making a secret out of it? Just stop lying!" Cameron doesn't know what to say.

'I travelled through time and had sex with Kaz who is also a stripper?'

Yeah, not an option. "I don't have a girlfriend. I...I can't explain it to you okay? You have to trust me." "What do you mean you can't explain it?" "Please dude, I just can't. I'm not lying to you, I swear!" Sonny doesn't say anything for a second and then makes an irate sound. "You're fucking weird."

~~~~~~~~~~

The day is a slow one and more than ever Cameron is not able to look at Kaz, he doesn't even want to hear his voice. How can he look at the boy who he apparently did actually sleep with if Kaz can't remember? If he wasn't actually there? Or maybe he was there as well and only acts like he doesn't know shit to mess with Cameron's brain? And then there's also this burning desire of touching him, kissing him. But he can't. He just can't.

"For this project you will research a French artist who you will then present in front of the class. Find out what impact they had on their country but also internationally. 50% of the presentation has to be held in French. You have the rest of the class to find a partner and choose an artist."

Cameron looks over to Sonny. He doesn't think that his friend is mad, he's probably disappointed and confused. Cameron wishes he could just tell him everything and hear what he has to say about it. But he probably wouldn't believe him and think he's either insane or just coming up with excuses. His friend looks back at him, wiggling his eyebrows. Why is he doing that? Cameron is about to mouth a confused 'what' when he hears a voice next to him.

"Hey Cam, let's be partners."

He turns around and stares into Kaz' face. What the hell? "Why do you want to be partners with me?" Kaz pulls up the chair from the table next to him and sits down. "Because as far as I've noticed in the last few days, you...how can I say this in a nice way? Your French sucks. And if I was you, I wouldn't team up with Sonny because he still doesn't know the difference between fromage and pompage. So I'm your best option. And I don't want to do it with any of those idiots because I'll end up doing all the work on my own." He points to his friends.

Cameron doesn't know what to say. On one hand yes, of course he wants to spend time with Kaz. But things are already complicated enough. How is he supposed to handle two completely different friendships with the same person? "I..." He looks over to Sonny but the blonde has already walked over to Seth. Fuck.

"Okay yeah, why not." "Cool. Do you have an idea who you want to talk about?" God, his smile. It will take all of Cameron's strength to act normal. "I'm not really into French culture, so I don't know anyone." He shrugs his shoulders apologetically. Kaz thinks for a bit, then his eyes lighten up. "Molière? He wrote 'The Hypochondriac'." Cameron has never heard of either of those. Hypowhat? "What's it about?" Hippocrates? Hippopotamus? "It's a play about a man being obessed with doctor's and being sick. His doctor gives him pills he doesn't need to make quick money because all of the man's illnesses are in his head, they are imaginary. He thinks they are real, he wants them to be but they're not."

Cameron feels his heart starting to beat faster. Is there subtext he is missing? Is Kaz talking about his nightly dreams? Telling him they aren't real? But how would Kaz know about them? "And then there is some drama with his daughter and his wife. It isn't the greatest play ever but I don't know, the concept of being convinced of something being real when it's all just in your head fascinates me." Cameron wishes he would stop talking, stop making him doubt his own sanity again.

He was there, in Chicago. His hickeys are real. Where else could they have come from? He isn't sure about that one dream where he was in D.C. and Kaz- No, he doesn't want to finish that thought. Cameron doesn't know if that one was real as well but last night did happen.

"So, what do you think?" Kaz' voice pulls him out of his thoughts. Stan looks into his face, tries to find any sign of him knowing what had happened in the strip club but Kaz just smiles. Okay but what does normal even mean with this boy? What if stripper Kaz is normal? What if cocaine Kaz is normal? What if no Kaz is normal and he is just in his head? And what about last summer's Kaz? Wasn't he normal as well? But how can all of these Kaz be normal if they are all different?

"Cam? Everything okay?" This Kaz looks worried, his thick eyebrows are furrowed and he puts a hand on Cameron's shoulder. The touch makes him shiver. "You suddenly went really pale. Are you not feeling okay?" "I-" His heart is racing and only now he feels how dry his throat really is. "I feel a bit dizzy." "Oh, then you should lie down a bit."

Kaz raises his hand and calls the teacher who quickly comes over. "Cameron seems to have some sort of circulatory problem. I'll bring him to the nurse real quick if that is okay." The teacher looks through her thickly framed glasses and pulls a worried face as well. "Yes, of course. He should probably drink something." Kaz helps Cameron up and supports him by grabbing his arm. "Can you walk? We'll have to climb some stairs.." "I can, thanks."