Flash Fiction
In the dark, he was as much of himself as he could be: a song stuck on repeat, a joke with the punchline a beat too late. He had a life, once. He had goals, once. A family, too, though he couldn't recall their faces. In the moments between the fall and the reset, in the dim screen of failure, he almost remembered.
It began again with a wail of music and color, the sky a pasty orange, the floor beneath him bricked and blue. A push to move forward shook from him the last vestiges of life, transforming him into polygon instead of person. He had no goal but this: green, not red. Add. Devour. Become durable, become bigger, so that he might defeat the unchecked god who lingered at the end of the platform, so that he might win. This time, he might win.
You're good at making yourself fit. In conversations, in too-crowded rooms, in vents capped by fans with whipping blades. Your greatest achievement is a red ribbon (gathering dust on the back of some closet shelf in some house that you haven't lived in for over a decade) that reads Hide and Seek Champion, Franklin Elementary, 1993. That's why they chose you for this job—not for your prepubescent victory, but for your ability to squeeze, to shimmy, to shift.
You may have found the job posting, shipped your resume, wrote a sniveling letter expanding on your talents, and fidgeted in an ill-tailored pantsuit while they asked if you were willing to relocate if the position required it, but they chose you. Not they, the person who interviewed you, but they, the faceless entity funding this expedition, the fat cat behind the desk throwing cash at cracks and tipping up their nose when your colleagues go missing, the benefactor only referred to as—
"Boss wants it mapped by the end of the week."
It’s your third night at grandma’s house. The TV is on. Mom said not to turn it off. It’s like in a hotel, she said. If you turn it off it’ll reset, and you’ll have to find the channel again, and it’s not really a big deal to you because the only things on at this time of night are infomercials and shows that you’re not allowed to watch, but you’re good at listening to mom, so you keep the TV on.
You’re bundled on the couch, facing your brother’s feet. He kicks in his sleep. You don’t know he’s your brother yet.