Your Cooperation Is Appreciated

A few miles outside of a small town in the English countryside named Dursley, the Cotswold way passed through a cow farm and then jutted upwards, right up a hill so steep that you had to reach out your hands to grip the grass to keep from falling back. Footholds were worn into the hard soil from so many hikers who’d passed this way before. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” David said, when he saw the hill.

He realized, belatedly, how similar his voice sounded to the distressed bellowing of the bulls in the pasture. They’d been hearing the cows for nearly an hour, due to some acoustic trick of the valley they’d been hiking alongside. David had been calling back, imitating the noises and putting words to them. “Fooooooooood,” he’d call. “Helooooooooooo.” He was trying to keep his own spirits up, and Jenna’s. This trip, the honeymoon they’d saved up money for two years for, was not what they’d expected.

It was their fifth day on the trail, though it was supposed to be their fourth and would have been if they hadn’t gotten lost and walked in circles for three hours on their first day, following what they realized eventually was a sheep path. David recognized it might have been sort of his fault, but it didn’t help that Jenna said this aloud. Kind of a lot, actually, though only when she was really hungry. Neither of them had expected there to be so much hiking in between the places where food was, or that the restaurants were only open during certain peak meal times. “We came here to get away from all that American crap, I guess,” Jenna said, trying to be a good sport about it, the second time they came to a town too late for lunch.

“Almost there,” David said, looking up the hill. His feet were the most pressing pain, at the moment, but there was always more pain lurking – in his muscles, his spine, his shoulders where the backpack rested – no, not rested, but clung, like a desperate child. It pulled at him as he began climbing the unbelievably steep hill behind Jenna, who was springing goat-like from foothold to foothold. So graceful, so much energy. Usually he loved this about her. Almost always.

Halfway up the hill, as David’s breath became ragged, he slipped. The weight of his backpack pulled him back and he slid downwards, the skin of his legs ripping against dirt and stone. He managed, at last, to catch himself, anchor his feet beneath him. Back in control of his body, he peeled his pack off and flopped, panting, in the balding grass next to the trail and examine tiny blooms of brown blood along his legs. Goddamn. He waved to Jenna to indicate that he was fine, that she could go ahead. He wanted to mean it, he really did. No, more than that, he wanted to be able to hike twenty miles a day and love it, enjoy the beautiful scenery and his beautiful wife and have record-breaking sex in the cozy B&Bs they’d booked.  He didn’t want to be lying here, covered in blood and dirt, before getting up to count the steps to the bed he would fall asleep in before he even thought to reach for Jenna’s body.

Jenna. Here she was, to help him, her hair hanging over her face as she knelt to examine him. He liked even the smell of her sweating body. It was a comforting smell, a home smell. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry.”

And that was when it happened. A schwup sound, and the hill no longer had a David and a Jenna on it.

David was sure this was what it was like to be the cylinder in bank drive-throughs, the one that is sucked neatly through a tube. It was not an altogether unpleasant sensation, though he needed to pop his ears when it was over. Must have gone through some sort of massive elevation change, David figured. Odd. And then he looked around.

Jenna was still there. Good. Okay. He took a deep breath, discovered they were, somehow, lying on a soft shag carpet, surrounded by leather couches. A bit like the ones he and Jenna looked at together when they were doing what they called what-if shopping. With the wedding and honeymoon paid for, most shopping was what-if, and would be for a while.

The walls were covered in paintings, frame-edge to frame-edge, and David recognized the Mona Lisa and Starry Night and guessed the rest were equally famous. Not that he was an art scholar or anything, but you got that feeling. And yet they seemed a bit off, as if the colors had been reproduced from a very confused memory. The shapes were right, but David was distinctly sure the original Mona did not have green skin. The effect was generally unsettling, paired with the fact that he had no idea how they’d gotten there. He looked back over at Jenna, to ascertain that he hadn’t just missed something major, but she looked just as stunned as he felt. Her mouth was slightly open, something she did when she was working really hard to figure out a problem. He liked this face, told her sometimes she must be trying to pull in extra oxygen to power that brain of hers. He reached over and grabbed her hand, and she looked down at it as if to make sure it was real, then squeezed it.

“Hello,” a voice said. The source of the voice – and how could David have missed him, when he first took inventory? – was a man. A very tall, handsome man. Or would have been, if his skin weren’t also a bit the wrong color, sort of bluish. Other than that, he had the carefully coiffed look of a news anchor, suit and all – though the suit was a violent shade of orange. “We have determined that your language is English.” He spoke with a crisp British accent, the sort you’d hear in nature documentaries, and the sound would be pleasant and soothing if not for a strange bassy-ness that rolled beneath it, so strong that it rattled David’s chest. “Please acknowledge if this is correct.”

David tried to look the man straight on, but something about him, the uncanniness of it all, made him nauseated. He turned to Jenna. She raised her eyebrows and David raised his back. “Yes,” Jenna said. “We speak English.” That was good, David figured. No reason not to be polite, since they were in a pretty compromising position at the moment. Plus his legs stung and were still bleeding, in danger of dripping on the carpet.

The man sighed. “I thought as much. We are in the English-speaking bit, an area that, according to several of your television shows, is where extraterrestrial beings always seem to show up. We thought that this would be best, would mitigate somewhat the shock of your experience with us. I say we and us. But, if it were up to me, we would be doing China instead. Have you tried Chinese? Chinese is a nice language. Very much up and down. Like music. It is somewhat similar to how we speak, though our language is far more complex. And more beautiful.

“Though, I could just be lying to you to confuse you. This would be very like us. We would rather know about you than you know about us. So for the moment assume that I was lying about all of that. But the reason you are here. Learning, as I said. We would like to perform some tests. Would that be all right with you?”

David was having the distinct feeling that he was talking to an alien that had just abducted them. This was uncomfortable, seeing as he’d never believed in alien abductions. Sure, he never thought for a second that humans were alone in the universe, but he’d never put any stock into the fuzzy pictures of so-called flying saucers, or the stories of anal probing. “What kind of tests?” he asked.

“Do we have a choice?” Jenna asked.

“Oh, nice tests,” the man, who was maybe not a man, said. “And no, we’re going to do them anyway. But we’ve learned that humans enjoy the illusion of choice. That’s the right phrase. Illusion of choice. This is a thing you like, right? Yes.

“So now you should make yourselves comfortable. We’ve designed this room with your comfort in mind. Humans like sitting on soft things. We have soft things for you to sit on.”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Jenna said. “Out of curiosity, what happens if we don’t participate in these tests?”

“You are punished, of course. Your linear conceptualization of the universe relies upon cause and effect. And, for the sake of your time with us, so shall we. Now, please sit down.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, seemingly more to herself than anyone else, and helped David off the floor and onto one of the couches, he wincing a bit. He didn’t like the sound of the punishments, figured compliance would be in their best interest. At least for now.

“Here are the first tests,” the man said. He held out his hands, and there were suddenly packets of paper in them. He handed one to Jenna and one to David, and then two blue pens. Two small desks then rose from the carpet. “Enjoy,” the man said, and then dissolved.

David settled the papers onto the desk closest to him, feeling like he did the day he took the SAT – nervous and incredibly unprepared. He looked desperately over at Jenna, who was chewing her lip and staring at the place where the man had been.

“What – ” David said, but suddenly felt a jolt in the back of his neck. He’d never been poked by a cattle prod, but had a reasonable notion this was what it felt like.

“No talking during the examination, please,” the man’s voice said from nowhere.

This was not good. Sweat gathered in David’s armpits on top of the sweat from climbing the hill just a few minutes ago. Maybe he’d hit his head in the fall. Did that give you very vivid hallucinations? He hoped so, but, just in case – in case of being shocked again – best to get to work.

It wasn’t entirely unlike tests he’d taken in high school – in format, at least.  Though some of the questions were far easier – he was given a picture of a frog, for example, and asked to identify its habitat from a list of options, from which “bog” was clearly correct.”Each time he got a question right, he was overwhelmed with a feeling of wellbeing, like stepping into a warm bath in winter. However, some of the questions were inscrutable. He didn’t know how to perform a Type 4 quantum leap – a short answer question – or the molecular makeup of Saturn’s outermost ring. Each time he got a question wrong, he felt a deep sense of shame, like discovering he’d had an unzipped fly for the entirety of his shift at the bar.  These feelings were so disproportionate to his investment in the test that he figured they must be coming from some external source. He did not like this thought one bit.  From time to time he’d look cautiously over at Jenna – very cautiously, because if he glanced at her paper he would receive another shock to the neck. From the looks on her face, she was experiencing similar waves of pleasant and unpleasant feeling. He recognized her fear, too, and wished he could comfort her. He wondered if he ought to attempt some sort of escape. That’s what people in a movie would do, would find a clever way to outsmart the captor. Though outsmarting was really more in Jenna’s wheelhouse than his, she the one who actually enjoyed learning and who made it the whole way through law school. David hadn’t even been able to hack college. Not that he was stupid, he told himself, as he tried to label the component parts of a perpetual motion machine and was forced to feel the way he had when Ashira, the pretty girl in fourth grade, told him he had green gunk in his teeth.

Finally, he reached the last page, which asked him to identify the largest boulder of four – a very obvious choice, not even one of those tricky optical illusions (pride like when his idea for Ladies’ Night on Thursdays took off).

“Very nice,” the voice said. This time it was coming from the blue-skinned man again. “I’m sure you did your best. Which is not very good, but still. It’s important to test the lowest common denominator. Not that I’m saying that’s what you are.”

David felt scattered and disoriented from the constant switch between reward and punishment. He shook his head vigorously and looked around the room to figure out how they might get out, but there didn’t seem to be any doors. This inspired a claustrophobic sort of fear. It was bad enough that they were doing this to him, but they couldn’t do this to Jenna. No. He wouldn’t tolerate it. “We did what you want. Now let us go,” David said, in an attempt to sound authoritative and firm.

“What he means is,” Jenna said, in a voice that was so amazingly calm and level and rational – what an amazing woman she was – “now that we’ve completed your test, will you allow us to return to our hike?”

“Yes,” David said. “That’s what I meant.”

“Almost,” the man said. “By which I mean, not yet. Not for a while. We have more tests to perform. No use bringing you up here and inconveniencing you if we don’t learn all that we can. Wouldn’t you agree? No, I suppose you probably wouldn’t because you like having fun more than you like bettering your kind. It helps you to know this about yourselves, I think. This is my gift to you. Some frank observations. Anyway, we are going to look at your memories now. We want to understand your pairbonding practices more thoroughly.”

The man approached, though it looked a bit more like gliding than walking, since he didn’t move his legs. And then he was in front of them, and there seemed no point in resisting, and David felt embarrassed by how easily he was giving in to all of this, and the man placed two fingers on David’s left temple and two fingers on Jenna’s right temple. It wasn’t so much like being touched as being opened. David let out a little yelp without meaning to.

Suddenly, it was yesterday. Jenna had David’s left foot in her hand, and was swabbing the blisters the size of his thumbs with alcohol, and then he shut his eyes and she slid a needle into the swollen flesh, letting out a trickle of blood and pus.

“Interesting,” the man said over the moment, like a movie narrator. David felt the exquisite painful relief all over again, and, all over again, lay back on the bed and felt the welcome cush of it on his sore back.

But, superimposed, he now felt what he recognized as Jenna’s feelings – the pain in her feet, too, the difficulty of pretzeling herself to care for them, her belief that she couldn’t ask David to help, that, since he hadn’t offered, he must be really suffering, more than she was, bundled with her knowledge that he was, in some ways, more delicate, needed more care. And yet, David could tell now that their pain had been equal, hers perhaps worse, and there he was, lying there, useless to her. And, because it was the past, he just riding along, he couldn’t get up and cup her feet in his hands, make it right.

“Look at this!” the man said. He sounded – well – gleeful. “One of you is self-absorbed and lacks empathy. The other doesn’t communicate her feelings effectively and considers her partner to be weak. Not desirable for a healthy pairing, if I’m not mistaken. Fascinating. Let’s do another!”

The scene shifted, and David recognized it immediately. The honeymoon suite overlooked the courtyard, and had a canopy over the bed and a Jacuzzi. They knew what all the knobs did, because when they chose the room they’d turned every one until the woman giving them the tour told them to stop.

But now they were drunk. Not the happy, giggly kind, but the kind that makes the world come in dark, jagged snapshots. It was all so real, again. He remembered every drink he’d had with his friends and Jenna’s friends and his family and Jenna’s family. Too much, too much, and it was supposed to be the romantic night with his new wife. But her dress was sagging and her makeup was smeared and his tie was somewhere – not around his neck, and hadn’t been for a while.

David filled up the Jacuzzi with bubbly, steaming water, but getting in made them both feel dizzy and ill. They got out and shivered, holding each other’s wet nakedness without desire.

“This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” David felt himself say.

“No,” Jenna said, just as she had a few days ago.

It was worse, doing it all the second time. And there was the man’s voice. “This, as we have learned, is the night the sets the tone for your relationship. I read this in one of your internet articles that people are tricked to click on. Very informative. Very poorly written.

“But let’s continue.”

And it was night, what David recognized as his parents’ backyard, lit with the dancing gold of a fire. He recognized the people around it – his high school buddies, Jack and Vash. They had bundles of colorful things in their hands, and so did he. Oh, yes. He remembered this night. He didn’t want to do this night again.

“You have to do it again,” the man said. “Because this is an important night. It’s filed away in your brain under Do Not Tell Jenna. Did you know you had a file like that? Well, you do. In a sense, anyway.”

Jack and Vash and he were all peeling the firecrackers open and pouring the powder inside into a can. They were going to throw it in the fire. David didn’t want to do it, but his past self did so badly, was so excited about it. It was all his idea –  his parents away for the weekend, he’d gone to the dingy shop just outside of town and bought as many things that had flash powder in them he could find. They’d been watching a lot of war movies, he and Jack and Vash, and David suggested they see what kind of explosion they could make.

It was horrifying, being behind his sixteen-year-old eyes again, his body propelled by the will of his former self, unable to do anything but be puppeted along. And to know that Jenna, somehow, was seeing all of this too.

And then David’s voice, saying, “A little more, I think. We want this thing to be fucking nuts.”

And Vash’s face, the lines of worry growing shadows in the flickering light. “Are you sure we’re not going to blow ourselves up, too?”

David laughing, needing to remain confident to stay the leader of his little group. “It’s just firecrackers. Nothing to worry about. It’ll just be a huge bang.”

And then his hands, putting the lid on the can and tossing it into the fire, shouting run, and he and Vash and Jack running, still laughing, but then Jack going down, tripping on something unseen in the dark, still too close to the fire, and that enormous noise, the air thick with it and the heat, licking outwards, the flames on Jack now, his body alight with them. Vash was running back for him, down on the ground and rolling Jack back and forth to try to smother the fire that was eating, eating away at Jack, his face bright and twisted with agony, his screams in the air now over the ring in David’s ears from that enormous sound, and David knew he should be going to help, his past and current self saying Go, go, do something, but his body unresponsive. This was who he was. The one who stood by. He could feel Jenna taking this in, inside his mind, and it was too much, being sixteen and thirty-two and Jenna all in the same brain, hating him for what he couldn’t do.

“See why I showed you this?” The man’s voice was back. David had nearly forgotten about him, but of course this was all his doing. David wanted to reach out and put his hands around this man’s blue neck, if he could see it. They were back in the living room again, but David’s mind went forward anyway, to the ambulance arriving, and David watching as the paramedics lifted Jack, carefully, carefully, but a piece of Jack’s shirt snagging, ripped away to show the red pulpy flesh beneath. David finally working up the courage to visit him in the hospital, saying sorry over and over to Jack’s unconscious body, kept in a medically-induced coma to manage the pain. David offering his own skin to graft on and the nurse shaking her head and saying that wasn’t how things worked, that there was nothing he could do for his friend.

“Did he live?” Jenna asked. Her voice was unsteady, and David couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

“Yes. He lived.” He was not the same, after. David got a job at a gas station to try to help the family pay for the medical bills. He didn’t know what else he could do, and the family nearly wouldn’t take the money. Good people. He didn’t tell Jenna about this. It felt like a pathetic offering, even now. Last thing he heard, Jack was working from home and dating a woman who was legally blind. David hoped it wasn’t because they both understood what it was like to be stared at, to feel always on the outside.

“You should have told me,” Jenna said. Underneath, David heard, So I wouldn’t have married you. Maybe that was unfair and paranoid. David didn’t know. He felt sick like he hadn’t in years. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten any of it, but he’d learned to tuck it in a place where he didn’t need to look at it every day.

“I am really enjoying this,” the man said. “Aren’t you enjoying this? It’s like going to your movies, but so much more. Because it’s all real, and you’re in it. You see what kind of gift I’m giving you? Real drama. This is what you are all seeking, are you not? Yes. You love drama. Let’s do some more.”

“No,” David said.

“No,” Jenna said.

A sharp pain, at the back of his neck, twice as awful as the first shocks. David felt his bowels nearly release, his tongue curl in on itself. Jenna was doubled over next to him, letting out a sound he never wanted to hear her make.

“Your cooperation,” the man said pleasantly, “is appreciated.” He returned his fingers to their temples and David was suddenly in a large room full of people, their voices buzzing and twittering.  There was Jenna – he wasn’t quite looking through her eyes, like in his memories, but he was tethered to her, moved when she moved. She was holding a glass of scotch in one hand, and holding out her left with the ring on it. David had sold his motorcycle to buy it. No regrets. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad memory, seeing Jenna show off what he’d given her.

“I mean, it’s really nice,” the woman standing in front of Jenna said. One of her work friends – Lacy? Judy? He hoped Jenna couldn’t hear his thoughts at this moment. This must be a work party. “But, “ Lacy/Judy said, “are you sure? I mean, really sure about David? I know you love him but is he – it?”

David waited for Jenna to snap back at her, sharp in the way she was when asked a question she didn’t like. This was what made her such a good environmental lawyer, keen and tireless no matter how much pushback she got. Plus that she actually cared, an almost frightening amount. But she just bit her lip and said, “What’s wrong with him?”

“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with him, per se, but is there much right with him either? I mean, the man works at a bar for god’s sake. Doesn’t it bother you, that he doesn’t have any – I don’t know – ambition? You’re the most ambitious bitch I know.”

“I’m happy with David. That’s more than enough for me. I don’t need ambition. I don’t want it.” This was better. David could feel something loosening in his chest. Still, he didn’t like what this woman was saying about him.

“Well, sure, you don’t need it, but look around you. All these men here are making something of themselves, worked their asses off to get here, just like you did. I’m just saying, because we’re friends. And maybe because I’m a little drunk. But all I want you to do is think about it. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jenna said.

So Jenna had doubts, for a moment. That was fine. David could live with that. And he supposed he could be more of a go-getter, but school had never been his thing and he actually really liked working at the bar. Didn’t that count for something, and didn’t Jenna say she wanted him to be happy? Of course, since she’d gone ahead and married him.

Then things seemed to jump forward, and the party turned from buzzing to shouting, people moving less steadily, more rolling around, teetering on the edge of succumbing to gravity. Except Jenna, it seemed, who was still her usual self, still probably nursing her second drink, still, as she preferred, in control. He was tugged along as she walked over to the bar, leaned gracefully against it, felt whatever passed for his body in his strange state lean with her.  And then another face was very close to her face. Anthony. He helped Jenna with her research sometimes. He wasn’t terribly good-looking, David had always thought, felt a bit sorry for him with his embarrassing semi-mullet and his big glasses, which he was always taking off so he could chew their stems. He was doing this now. “I just wanted to say,” his nasally voice said, “that I’m sorry you’re getting married. I mean, I’m happy for you, because all I want is for you to be happy. Because – well – ” He reached out a hand, rested it on her forearm, lightly, gently.

Jesus. Had Lucy/Judy put him up to this? Jenna was going to just brush him off. Wasn’t she? She was looking down at her scotch, swirling it around as if she hadn’t noticed the contact. She did this for a very long time, and suddenly Anthony’s hand had moved, was around her waist, and she was allowing herself to be towed into his sweaty, tweed-suited body. And then his sloppy lips were against hers and David’s brain felt like it’d just been doused in acid but he couldn’t move or look away because he was entirely powerless, and then Jenna was putting her hands up and pulling herself away and spilling her drink all over her own dress.

“This is a mistake,” she said

“This,” the man’s voice said, as David watched Jenna back away and run her hands over her wet dress, “was in the Do Not Tell David file. See how this works?”

And they were back in the living room again, the blue man stepping away from them expectantly. “Discuss,” he said, smiling.

David didn’t really want to. “That’s all it was,” Jenna said. “Nothing ever happened again.” She swallowed, and he watched the rise and fall of her pretty throat. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry. That I let him get that close, and that I didn’t tell you. I thought it would just upset you, and it was really nothing, one big nothing.”

“It seemed like you were going to change your mind about me,” David said. That was what bothered him more than anything. The hesitation, the moments she’d stared into her drink and considered that someone else might be a better choice.

“Look,” Jenna said. “All we’ve seen here is that we’ve both done things we regret. Made mistakes. This is nothing we don’t know already. Everyone makes mistakes. I forgive you for being afraid to help your friend. It was a long time ago, and you’re a different person now. Will you forgive me?”

“Do you regret marrying me?” David asked.

“David.” Her voice had gained an edge. “No. Of course not.” Her eyes darted to the blue man, back to David. “He’s playing with us. You’re letting yourself get played with.”

“Maybe I am,” David said. He didn’t like the tone in her voice, as if she were blaming him for falling for something she was clever enough to resist. But she was right, of course. Drama, the blue man had said. This felt like the reality shows he’d watch sometimes when he was cleaning the bar after closing time. He would be better than those petty people, wouldn’t be so easily manipulated. “I do. I forgive you.”

“This has started to bore me,” the man said. He clapped his hands. “I know what I’ll do. I’ll turn you both into rabbits. Haven’t you always wondered what it’d be like to be a rabbit? This is your chance to find out.”

David was now hunching over, resting both hands and feet on the couch, but they were not hands and feet anymore so much as paws, and he felt the vertical jut of his ears. He opened his mouth to speak, but a labored squeak came out instead. His tongue and teeth felt all wrong. He tried to move, but his limbs didn’t respond in the fluid way he was used to, but rather in sharp twitches. And the couch now felt enormous, and the ground very far away. He looked over to see a rabbit next to him, a very fine-looking brown rabbit with impressive whiskers, staring at him with frightened, glossy eyes.

David looked up to find the man, but he seemed to have dissolved away again. His heart fluttered in his chest. How long would they have to stay this way? Would it be minutes? Days? Years? It wasn’t as if he could predict anything that had been done to them. And now he was hungry, wishing desperately for something green to graze on.

And then, just as suddenly, he was himself again, crouching, knees on either side of his human jaw, and Jenna was back, too, but they’d been left naked. Gooseflesh rose raw and vulnerable on Jenna’s arms and back, and he reached for her, wanting to warm her, but suddenly the room had transformed, become what appeared to be an office, Jenna’s office. But it was different, unlit and grey, the desks and furniture ravaged and overturned, coated in dust as if the place had been left abandoned for years, decades. There was a smell, too, thick and musty. And then David’s eyes found Jenna, or the only part of her that was visible. Her hands, clutching at the edge of the window, a window thirty stories from the ground, which had been smashed in, her fingers grappling at the wood jagged with shards of glass, drawing blood. And, for a moment, as she struggled, he glimpsed the top of her head, her wild eyes.

He’d been placed on the opposite side of the room, but he could make it to her, pull her in. He sprang forward, but, as he did, a line of fire rose from the dingy floor, shot high and fierce, releasing a wall of heat so intense that he stumbled back. He could hear the man’s voice in his mind, now. “This is the next test,” he said. “This is just like the movies that humans are always pouring money into. You get to experience it, yourself. The ‘save the girl’ scene. You must find it very compelling, and not repetitive or cliché. It is very, very popular.”

David gritted his teeth, felt tears gathering. “I don’t want to play anymore,” he said. “Please. Let us go.”

But the man said nothing, and all David could hear was the hungry crackle of the fire. He understood what this was about. He’d have to go through it to get to Jenna before she fell, which could be any moment. He’d seen the desperation on her face, seen her slipping. He’d have to choose to sear his exposed flesh, feel it eat away at him, leaving him, likely, permanently damaged. Leaving him like Jack. He looked down at himself, the perfect healthy intactness, told himself, Do it. He was sixteen, hanging back, too terrified to move. Wasting time. Leaving Jake – no, leaving Jenna. He tried to swallow, clenched and unclenched his fists, picked up one foot, then the other. They felt so heavy, his feet. Do it.

And then he was moving, lunging forward, and his world was white heat, agony screaming through him, so intense it felt almost cold, time lagging impossibly as he pushed himself through the fire, but his body fighting forward, still, until he was, miraculously, at the window, reaching with livid burnt arms for – nothing. The sill was empty, gaping, as he forced his roiling back to bend, his singed eyes to look at the drop, towards the street hundreds of feet below where Jenna must be. He’d waited too long. He’d been too late. He opened his mouth, his face cracking with sores, to scream.

And then, as if he’d been thrust under a cool waterfall, the pain was washed from him, the miserable burns wiped away, and he was back in the room with the shag carpet, clothed, shaking. And so was Jenna. Alive. Not crushed and broken, but alive. He threw himself at her, collapsing into her shoulder, allowing himself to breathe into her hair which smelled exactly as it always should, like her mango shampoo and her salty skin and sunlight. “I thought I hadn’t made it to you in time, that – ”

“It’s all right,” she said, rubbing his back. “I figured, after a moment, that it was a simulation, that they wouldn’t want us to just die. So I let go, wanted to see what would happen, how they would respond to my rejection of the test. And everything just shifted, and they put me back here to wait for you. He said it himself. That this was just like the movies. Not real.” She sounded a strange mix of dazed and triumphant.

“You were dead,” David said. It was all he could think to say about the belief, just a moment ago, that he’d lost her, that it had been all his doing that he’d spend his deformed life without her, with that horrible guilt and loneliness and emptiness. That it had been real, for him.

“I’m right here,” she said, cupping the back of his head.

“What if you’d been wrong?” David was crying. He couldn’t help it, the sobs jerking themselves free from him. “And why didn’t you wait for me to come to you?” A terrible thought occurred to him. “Did you think I couldn’t do it? Did you think I’d just stand there, like I did when I was sixteen? Because I didn’t. I went through the fire. For you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “It means so much that you did that for me. Really.” Her gaze was intense, grateful. But David noticed she hadn’t answered the question, hadn’t said whether she thought he could save her. Well, now she knew he’d at least tried, would sacrifice himself for her. He wanted to feel satisfied by this, not angry that she hadn’t considered what it’d be like for him to imagine that he’d failed. Or considered that he, for once, could be the hero, the one to make things right for the two of them.

“One of you,” said the blue man, who had manifested again, “appears to be unfit to continue. It is our policy to release humans who have reached their maximum tolerance of stimuli. I will note that we are impressed with the other, her above-average acuity and stamina. Even if she didn’t exactly adhere to the parameters of the test.

“This has been most edifying for us. We appreciate your time and involvement in our experiments. You will not see us again, but feel free to tell others. We find stories of us amusing. Thank you, and have a nice day.”

The unnatural living room faded, the wrong-color paintings turning transparent, through which David could increasingly see sky and the grass of the hill. His ears popped, and then that was all there was, the two of them sprawled in the middle of the path. The path they had been on earlier, before.

David dug his hands into the dirt, felt it between his fingers, pulled a hank of grass until it released, held it to his face. It looked like grass. It smelled like grass. Should he taste it, too, to make sure? He didn’t know if he could trust any of his senses. Everything around him felt thin, two-dimensional, painted on, like the theater backdrops he used to help hang in high school. At any moment it could be peeled back to reveal what was lurking behind, what had always been there, hidden, waiting.

Next to him, Jenna picked up her backpack, which was just where they’d left it, and stood, rubbing her palms against her shorts. “We should keep going,” she said. David could tell she was trying to keep her voice calm and level, though he could hear a hint of a tremor.

Jenna reached out her hand to him and he took it, because that was how things worked with them, her pulling him along. Her hand was cold and sweaty and gritty but it felt right in his. He stood up, and they did the only thing they could, began walking, finishing the ascent to the crest of the hill, where they could see the even greens and browns of farmed fields spread before them. They didn’t stop to enjoy the view, as they might have earlier that day, before. They kept going, neither speaking.

There was a lot he knew that he didn’t want to. About himself, about Jenna, about the two of them, about what he understood as reality. He would need to work through it – they would need to work through it, this thing that had happened to them. He could feel the ugly edges of it, still, at his back, somewhere beyond the blue above his head. He wanted to ask, Is it over? But that was a stupid question. It would never be over. Not for them.

This, at least, was something they could share. As he began the gentle decline, following Jenna, David hoped it would be enough to hold onto.