Chapter 3: Confetti and Static

Chapter 3: Confetti and Static

The silence that followed the phone call was a living entity. It filled Aaron’s apartment, pressing in on him, amplifying the frantic thumping of his own heart. He stared at his phone, at the name ‘Jordan Riley’ glowing on the screen, a link to a past that had just been surgically removed from history.

Struck by lightning.

The words echoed in the cavernous space where the memory of fire and smoke used to be. His mind scrambled for purchase, for any logical explanation. He was overworked, sleep-deprived, hallucinating. Maybe Jordan was lying, covering for him even now after all these years. Or worse, maybe Aaron had invented the memory of the fire himself, a bizarre, self-flagellating fantasy born of stress and loneliness. Any explanation, no matter how insane, was better than the truth that was staring at him from the kitchen counter in the form of a dark green bottle.

His eyes were drawn to it. Le Rire de la Mante. The Laughing Mantis. It was the only solid piece of evidence in a world that had suddenly become fluid and unreliable. It was real. He could touch its cool, smooth glass, feel its weight in his hands. It was the reward for a confession that had just been erased from the timeline.

A part of him, the rational, terrified part, screamed at him to pour it down the sink. To smash the bottle and board up the pantry door and never, ever look back. But the craving, the insidious echo of that perfect raspberry tart, whispered a different suggestion. The first reward had been a taste of pure, uncomplicated joy. What would this one be? What did absolution taste like?

He was already lost, wasn't he? Adrift in a reality he could no longer trust. What was one more step into the madness?

With a hand that trembled only slightly, he peeled the black wax from the cork. The corkscrew slid in with a soft, yielding sound. He pulled, and it came free with a deep, resonant thump that sounded impossibly loud in the silent apartment. He didn't have a wine glass, only a cheap tumbler from a discount store. He poured.

The liquid that streamed into the glass wasn't the deep red he expected. It was a shimmering, impossible black, opaque as ink but shot through with swirling, microscopic flecks of crimson, like a galaxy of dying stars. The aroma that rose to meet him was nothing like wine. It was the smell of old leather, woodsmoke, and something else… something metallic and sharp, like the air after a storm. Like lightning.

He lifted the glass. The desire to know, to feel that perfect satisfaction again, overwhelmed the fear. He took a long, deep swallow.

It was not a taste. It was an unraveling.

The flavor was complex and terrifying—charred oak, bitter regret, the sweetness of a lie well-told, and a finish of pure, unadulterated power. It didn't evoke a memory; it annihilated one. He felt the lingering ghost of guilt from the fire—the shame, the fear of being caught, the decade of looking over his shoulder—dissolve into nothingness. It wasn't just forgotten; it was as if it had never existed to begin with. The wine filled that empty space with a cold, exhilarating sense of freedom. He had done nothing wrong. The shed was hit by lightning. It was a freak accident. He was innocent.

The relief was a drug, a euphoric rush that made his head spin and his limbs feel light. He drained the glass, then poured another, chasing the feeling. For a few glorious minutes, he was king of his own beige apartment, the master of his own history. The loneliness, the debt, the crushing weight of his life—it all vanished under the intoxicating tide of his rewritten past.

But like any potent drug, the high was followed by a devastating crash. As the warmth in his veins faded, the silence of the apartment returned, ten times heavier than before. The euphoria curdled into a profound sense of isolation. The shared secret with Jordan had been a dark bond, but it had been a bond nonetheless. Now it was gone. He hadn't just given away a memory; he had severed a thread that connected him to another human being. He was more alone now than he had ever been. The wine hadn't filled the hole in his life; it had simply anaesthetized him to its depth.

He slumped onto the couch, the empty tumbler slipping from his fingers to roll silently across the cheap rug. That's when he noticed them.

The confetti.

The purple hexagon was still on the sleeve of the shirt he’d thrown over a chair. But now, he saw another, a glittering emerald piece, stuck to the side of the wine bottle. He picked it off, and it clung to his fingertip with an odd, static charge. He saw another on the carpet, a sliver of shimmering gold. He ran a hand through his hair and felt a flake of crimson dislodge and flutter down onto his lap.

They were everywhere. Tiny, iridescent markers of his transgression. They weren't just remnants of a hallucination anymore. They were a part of his world now, clinging to him like burrs, like a creeping, glittering fungus. He tried to brush the piece from his jeans, but it stuck fast, its sharp edges seeming to dig into the fabric. They were symbols of victory that now felt like a brand, marking him as Lady Lacuna’s property. A cold knot of dread tightened in his stomach. The game was not staying in the pantry. It was bleeding into his life, particle by glittering particle.

He closed his eyes, his head swimming from the wine. He tried to think, to force his mind back, to find the edges of the memory he’d sold. He concentrated on the space where the shed used to be, behind Jordan's house in his mind's eye.

At first, there was just a vague sense of absence, the blankness he’d felt before. But as he focused, something else appeared at the periphery of his inner vision. It was a faint, shimmering disturbance, like the heat haze off hot asphalt. As he pushed harder, it coalesced.

It was static.

A buzzing, monochrome field of visual noise, writhing at the edge of his perception. It crackled with a silent energy, defining the exact shape and size of the memory he had surrendered. It was a wound in his reality, a scar on his very sight. He opened his eyes, heart pounding, but the static remained, a faint, ghostly overlay on the corner of his vision whenever he turned his head too quickly.

He scrambled to his feet, stumbling towards the bathroom. He stared into the mirror, his eyes wide with a new, specific terror. His reflection looked gaunt, haunted. The dark circles under his eyes seemed deeper. And clinging to his cheek, just below his eye, was a single, perfect hexagon of iridescent confetti, shimmering like a tear.

The rewards weren't just satisfying his cravings; they were consuming him. He was trading pieces of his soul for fleeting moments of pleasure, and the game was leaving its marks, both on his world and on his body. He was being hollowed out, filled with confetti and static, remade into something new. And as he stared at the glittering parasite on his own skin, he had the horrifying thought that this was only the beginning.