“It’s too late. You had your chance. Once I’m done, I’ll go back to the Art Institute and start over. I have more worlds to conquer, and you won’t be around to chase me. You failed again, Dylan. I’m stronger than you are. Face it, I always have been.”

He pushed himself to his feet and limped away.

I tried to focus, but my eyes spun in circles and then blinked shut. I lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, I didn’t see him anymore. Inside the spinning kaleidoscope of my mind, I saw my father instead. I was a boy huddled in the corner of the bedroom, and my mother’s gun was on top of the dresser, and my father was reaching for it, cocking it, aiming it, pulling the trigger.

I should have been able to stop it.

All my life I’d looked back on that moment and wondered why I’d let it happen. I should have been able to stop it!

If only I’d reacted faster. If only I’d seen him going for the gun, if I’d screamed, if I’d warned my mother, if I’d leaped off the floor and run to him, if I’d put myself between him and her. I could have done something. Instead, I sat there and watched my father pick up the gun and shoot my mother in the head. I did nothing.

I let her die.

I let Roscoe die.

I let Karly die.

Losing them was all on me, one failure after another.

Never again. I heard myself shouting somewhere in my head, trying to jolt myself awake. Never again! I wasn’t going to let it happen to anyone else. I’d come here to set myself free, and that was what I had to do.

The blur of my memories faded away. Somehow, I came back to life. I was still in the park. I’d passed out, but I had no idea for how long. The other Dylan was gone. I was alone on the sidewalk in a river of blood, but I was still alive, and that meant I had one more chance. I grabbed the railing on the riverbank and pulled myself up. When I was standing, I tried to swallow down the pain. I pushed a hand against my abdomen to stanch the bleeding, and I staggered up the trail.

Where was he?

I didn’t see him.

The trail crested a hill beside the trees. With each step, I dragged stale air in and out of my chest. Bugs swarmed around me, as if smelling that I was close to collapse. No, it was my blood they wanted. I felt them landing on my fingers, beating their sticky wings, drinking their fill from my wounds. I didn’t have the stamina to swat them away. Let them feed.