survival, an island
In the aftermath of his confrontation with Alex, Tim figures out what comes next. (Canon divergent, set after Entry #86.)
chapter 2.
For the first two days, he waits.
He ends up posting the footage, without editing or further commentary, later that first day. It doesn't seem likely, at this point, that anyone is going to turn him in to the police; as far as he can tell, most of the viewers Jay's channel does have seem to think the whole thing is a hoax, and he thinks the few who don't are more likely to be on his side than against him.
Besides, even if someone did report Alex's death as murder, what's the worst that can happen to him now? He doesn't think he's going to make it long enough to go to prison. Even if he wanted to, he can’t run away now, and he’s out of his medication again. Even if he wanted to, he’s not stupid enough to try and get it refilled this soon, because no one’s going to buy that he lost it twice in as many months.
So he waits, lying in his motel room, staring at the ceiling and watching the shadows on the walls. It’s the only thing left to do, he thinks. It’ll come for him soon, and then it’ll be over. Soon it’ll all be over.
It doesn’t come.
He doesn’t sleep, at least not much, and barely eats. He doesn’t leave his room. He keeps Jay’s old camera set up on the tripod, watching the windows, and checks the footage when he changes the tapes. Sees it outside, watching him through the gap in the curtains. Waiting.
When he does sleep, the first night, he has nightmares. The faces of his friends haunt the backs of his eyelids. Blood spills from his open hands and stains the ground. He dreams of Jay’s dead body, lying on his carpet in a pool of blood, and of Brian with his neck broken, his head slumped to the side at the wrong angle, and of fire and smoke that chokes his lungs until he wakes up gasping for air. He can’t sleep again after that.
He imagines it, too, among other things. It's worse than it's been in a long time, now that he's out of his medication again; he sees things moving in the corners of his eyes, and more than once he thinks it's in the room with him only to check the footage and find nothing there. He thinks he hears Alex’s voice in the faint hum of the ventilation, glimpses Brian in that mask leering at him from the windows of the building across the street.
The second night his head feels like it’s splitting open, and he’s sure it’s the end when he can’t stop coughing long enough to catch his breath. He chokes on the blood in his throat and turns over to spit it into the trash can. He feels the seizure coming on before it hits him, comes round afterwards with pain shooting up his leg where he’s dislodged the bone again. Cries himself to sleep, exhausted, overwhelmed, and prays he won’t wake up.
--
On the morning of the third day, with light spilling in through the curtains, he sits up, holds his leg with both hands as he lowers his feet to the floor. His head spins, the room shifting in and out of focus as he tries to keep himself from blacking out. He looks over at the bedside table and slowly picks up the pocketknife.
He's probably tried to overdose a dozen times in the past ten years, but he's never really considered anything else, not seriously. It's just always seemed easiest; he's been medicated with various drugs at varying doses since he was a kid, so the option's always been there, and it's painless, almost painless. Just like falling asleep. Of course, he's always woken up, but that's never been enough to push him farther.
He turns both hands over, examines his forearms. He's out of medication now, but he isn't out of options, not really. He still has the pocketknife. He knows it's sharp enough. He's already killed someone with it once. Surely it's easier to open arteries than someone's trachea. And it would hurt, but not for very long.
He flips the knife open and stares at the blade, angles it so the sunlight glints white off the edge. His grip on the handle tightens.
Then he thinks of first finding it in his jacket pocket, not knowing where it came from. Thinks of seeing it on tape in Jay's hand and recognizing it, the moment of dull horror when he'd realized he's taken it from him somehow. Thinks of Jay, the last time he saw him alive, holding the camera in one hand and the knife, his knife, in the other.
The camera, and the knife. The two things he took from Jay, last time he saw him alive.
His hand is shaking. He realizes he can't breathe. Would Jay want Tim’s blood on his knife, on his hands? Even when he'd come to the house to threaten him, had Jay really wanted him dead?
He drops the knife to the floor and buries his face in his hands.
--
It occurs to him, by the fifth day, that if he’s not going to die, he needs to do something, and soon. He can’t stay here in the motel forever, after all; even the insurance money from the house isn't going to last that long like this. He’s going to need another job, and a new place to live, probably in that order.
He starts hunting for apartments and filling out job applications, and finds, to his surprise and relief, that it's a little easier to get through the days with something to keep him busy. The shadow of death is farther from his mind, and while he never really stops looking over his shoulder, he feels like he actually sees things -- real or imagined -- less often. He has to stop, lay down and close his eyes when the pain gets overwhelming, and it often does -- but the distraction is a welcome change after four days of waiting, helplessly, to die or disappear. It's something to do, at least, in the long night hours when he can't bring himself to sleep.
By the end of the week, the relief fades, and it becomes more exhausting than anything. In two days, he hasn't heard anything back on either front, and he's realized he's not sure what he'll do when he does. He's in no shape to interview anywhere like this -- still badly injured, underfed and underslept, and jumping at every noise. And even if he gets through an interview, he doesn't know how he'll keep a regular job without his meds. He can barely take care of himself now, and it hasn't been that long yet without them; he's only going to feel worse, as time goes on, and he's not sure that any amount of work will be enough to keep his mind occupied for long when it gets bad again.
But he isn't dead yet, he reminds himself, when it feels like it's more than he can take. And if he's not going to die, the only choice left is to keep going.
