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The silence in the apartment was heavy, a physical weight that pressed against Josh’s chest as he stepped through the door.
The last thing Josh expected to see that evening was Tyler, breathless, on the floor.
That day was like every other - a regular Sunday, slow and sluggish. Josh went to church in the morning, worked his usual shift at Starbucks, and got home. The last thing he expected was the message sent on silent, Tyler typing out what turned out to be his parting words.
"You're the best friend I have ever had, Josh." and then, a few minutes later, as if an afterthought, sent by sheer accident, "I love you, man."
By the time Josh found him, the sun had been swallowed by the horizon. The room was drowning in shadows, and Tyler was cold. Josh dropped everything he was holding and fumbled to search for a pulse.
The hours that followed were a blur, a sequence of events viewed through deep water. His own voice sounded foreign as he spoke to the 911 operator.
"My friend," he had managed to say, the words thick and distorted. "My friend killed himself."
Tyler's family came around in no time, their steps hurried. People who Josh didn't know - police and paramedics gathered around the shell that Tyler once been. Through it all, a single thought looped like a broken record: If only I looked at my goddamn phone.
And just like that, Tyler was gone, leaving a gaping hole in Josh's chest.
The realization that, wow, it was indeed all so real hit him only a week later, after he came back home from a funeral, his black T-shirt suffocating on his skin. Just like that, he realized that there would be no late-night talks with his best friend, that he would never ever hear his voice again.
Josh dropped down onto his couch, feeling as if it was his life had been sucked out of his body. He pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen light stinging his eyes.
Tyler was everything to him, and for the past couple of years, it seemed like everything was finally getting better. Their band was growing, and more than ever opportunities were coming up. And amid all of the hectic-ness, Tyler, who had fought the darkness for as long as Josh had known him, seemed to be winning. He suffered from these depressing thoughts for as long as Josh knew him, but as they got closer, he seemed like he was coping better. And here he was, leaving the last words for Josh to bear.
The messenger bubbles were staring mockingly back at him.
With trembling fingers, Josh began to scroll.
That photo that was taken on the bus when they were messing around - Tyler showing skin in the compromising position on the seat, that one time they had got the festival together, bright orange armband high up before their faces as Josh took the selfie, all those countless times Tyler was jamming on the piano, too lost in the music to spot josh sneaking up on him. all those afternoons spent with Taco Bell dine out, making silly faces at each other.
And all of the songs and lyrics that had never seen the light of day were left behind.
Josh felt sick from one thought to touch it - to unwrap this fresh wound - and yet, he put on his earphones, not bothering to untangle the wires, and listened.
He might have cried then, but it still didn't feel real. All of that pain was making its way to choke him in his throat.
He fell asleep just like that, shivering in the cold, dark room of his tiny apartment.
Tyler was gone. And in the quiet of the room, Josh realized that the person he used to be had vanished right along with him.
Josh woke up with the first rays of sunshine in the place that could only be called a camp in the forest. On the bed in the tent.
He raised his head in search of the familiar walls of his room; instead, there was just a slight breeze of cold air.
Naturally, he freaked out. He scrambled out of the tent, his boots crunching on dirt. He was in a camp in the middle of nowhere. Rugged, improvised, and desolate, the place looked like a set from a post-apocalyptic movie.
It looked real, but he couldn't believe his eyes, just like when he saw Tyler's body.
There was no way he wasn't dreaming.
"Torch," said someone behind him, and Josh turned to look in the direction of the voice.
The voice belonged to Jenna. Her face was sunken, her expression carried a hollow, haunted look that mirrored exactly how she’d looked at the funeral only hours ago, her eyes still rimmed with that same devastating red.
"Jenna," he breathed out. "What's…"
For a second, her composure wavered. She looked as if she were about to shatter right there in the dirt, the tears threatening to spill over again. Josh reached for words - any words - to comfort her, but it all fell short. He felt just as helpless.
She swallowed hard, shaking her head as if to physically throw off the weight of her grief.
"We should hurry," she said, her voice quiet. She wouldn't look him in the eye. "And find a new Clancy."
Josh was so confused. What was she even talking about? Clancy? And what was going on?
Fearful of being left alone in this impossible landscape, Josh hurried to keep up, his eyes darting around. They passed a central fire pit where embers hissed and popped, surrounded by a handful of people. They all shared that same look - hollowed out, grim, and mourning. The air felt thick with a collective, crushing defeat, as if the sun had risen, but the world had remained in the dark.
Josh caught the eye of a man sitting by the flames, but the stranger looked through him, his stare distant.
"I don't understand," Josh said, his voice rising with a frantic edge as Jenna finally stopped in front of a weathered wooden crate. He grabbed her arm gently, forcing her to turn. "Jenna, please. Tell me what’s going on."
Her shoulders slumped, the weight of the world visible in the way she carried herself.
"I know what he was to you, Josh," she whispered. "But it's time to move on."
The realization settled in his gut like lead. At that moment, he knew exactly what she was talking about. About whom she was talking.
Josh stared at her, his mind spinning. This has to be a dream, he told himself. My brain is just trying to force me to keep moving. It’s a manifestation of my own guilt.
"Open it," Jenna prompted softly.
Hesitantly, Josh reached down and pried up the lid of the crate. The wood groaned, revealing its contents. Nestled inside was a grey-black mask with a wide red stripe cutting through the center. Beside it lay a heavy black jacket and a fabric stripe with symbols he couldn't quite decipher.
And a journal that caught his eye.
He reached in and lifted the book. He flipped open the cover, leafing through the first pages. On the weathered expense of white, there were frantic scribbles, crossed-out lines, and half-formed sketches. It was the same chaotic energy that had littered their recording space; the same ink-stained ideas they had stayed up until 3:00 AM debating.
It was unmistakable. Every curve of the letters, every jagged margin - the words were written in Tyler's handwriting.
With his mind feeling increasingly numb, Josh sank onto a nearby log. He opened the journal and began to read.
Words woven into phrases, phrases into sentences, and there it was - the story unfolded right before his eyes. He read about a man named Clancy. He read about the Banditos, a resistance group hiding in the forest of Trench, and their leader, the Torchbearer. He read of Dema, a city of grim walls and a crushing regime.
"I’m trapped in the cycle," one entry confessed. "And I can’t get out."
The more Josh turned over the thoughts of a person on the pages of this foreign world, the more pieces of Tyler he could see hidden in between the lines.
Tyler's mood always varied - up and down, up and down, like waves splashing down the jagged rocks of the cliff. He was open one night - the vulnerability leaking through the cracks like prayers, and then he was back to his shell, quiet and withdrawn.
Josh had always given him space, thinking it was the kindest thing to do. But now, sitting in the silence of this strange forest, a cold regret began to gnaw at him. Maybe I shouldn't have given him space. Maybe I should have been sterner with my words. Maybe the space was exactly what was killing him.
The entries came to an abrupt, violent halt in the middle of the journal. The final pages were filled with a plan to "break the cycle," to end the struggle once and for all. Seeing the mask and the jacket left in the crate, Josh knew the effort had been in vain.
Josh closed the journal with a dull thud. It was midday, but the sun remained buried behind a thick, suffocating canopy of clouds. He stood up and began to wander the camp like a ghost. He watched the people move in a slow, rhythmic trance, their eyes occasionally darting toward him, but never acknowledging his presence.
The sight of the tents and the dirt brought a bitter memory to the surface: he and Tyler had never actually gone camping. The closest they’d ever gotten was the cramped interior of their tour van, surrounded by drum hardware and keyboard stands. He could almost see Tyler in the driver's seat, singing at the top of his lungs over the radio, blasting music on the highest volume.
Josh moved to look at the fire pit, smothered by the heavy feeling that surrounded the area.
Jenna found him there.
"Are you ready now?"
She looked more composed now, though her eyes were still rimmed with red.
Josh looked at the embers.
"Ready for what?"
"A funeral pyre," she replied softly.
Josh’s stomach twisted. He wasn't ready. He had just buried his best friend in a suit and a casket; he wasn't ready to watch him burn in a dream. But as time moved on, he felt like he had lost all control over what he had to say, his body heavy with unprocessed emotions that were bottling up until he couldn't feel a thing at all.
None of this was real anyway, so why should he care?
The movements of the people around him were agonizingly slow, as if they were wading through the same thick water Josh had felt since the phone call. It was an awfully long and detailed dream, he thought, but the sensory input was too sharp to ignore - the smell of sap, the bite of the wind, and the vibrant, jarring yellow of the flowers being laid atop the wooden crate.
They were covering Clancy’s belongings in blossoms. It felt like a waste, yet as the yellow petals settled over the mask and the jacket, the grim tension in the faces of the onlookers seemed to soften, just a fraction.
Josh looked toward Jenna. She was staring into the center of the camp, where the fire began to roar, the orange light flickering across the hollows of her cheeks and illuminating the surrounding trees. The heat reached Josh’s face, a phantom sensation that shouldn't have felt that real.
She had mentioned finding another Clancy earlier, hadn't she? Josh decided that asking won't hurt.
"What happened to Clancy?"
Jenna looked at him, her face a mask of slight confusion as if she hadn't expected him to ask the question.
"Torch…" her voice was weak, trailing off as she searched his eyes. "You told us. Clancy is a bishop now."
A bishop. Yeah? There was something about them in the Clancy's journal.
Why was she calling him "Torch"? Torchbearer?
His mind struggled to bridge the gap between what all of this implied.
He found himself wondering what the hell was all of this about, circling back to to the memories of his work, the band he no longer shared with anyone and this mention of a resistance leader - a ghost of a man who supposedly brought news of a friend’s descent into the enemy's ranks.
He was dreaming; he had to remind himself. It's just a dream, so he shouldn't care.
But as the flames began to die down, leaving nothing but glowing red teeth in the ash, a wave of nausea rolled over him. He watched the last of the yellow petals shrivel into black soot, and the sickness felt eerily, hauntingly real.
That night, the terrifying truth began to settle: Josh couldn't wake up.
He tried everything. He pinched the skin on his forearms until they were bruised; he bit his lip until he tasted the metallic tang of blood. Every sensation was sharp, visceral, and undeniably real. The awareness of his own body - the ache in his joints, the cold air filling his lungs - was too consistent for a dream.
He was trapped. He couldn't get out. He couldn't wake up.
Panic gripped.
He was surrounded by strangers and a version of Jenna who felt like a hollowed-out echo of the woman he knew. Now that he was thinking about it, she was different here - too jumpy, her eyes constantly darting to the treeline as if the darkness itself might reach out and snatch her.
He clenched Clancy’s journal in his hands, the paper crinkling under his white-knuckled grip. How the hell did this happen?
There was no denying it: when the night fell, stars came out from the heavy clouds, bright and so, so real. He was stuck in Trench.
The agitation kept him moving long after the rest of the camp had dissolved into their tents. He wandered until the sense of "wrongness" became a physical nausea, leading him back to the empty tent where he had first woken up.
He pulled back the flap and peered inside. It was a dull place, cramped and dim, with a single cot in the center. He had lived out of vans and tiny green rooms that were worse, but the air in here felt heavy with a history he didn't remember.
He sat on the edge of the cot, the weight of the day finally crushing his shoulders. As he shifted, he noticed a shape buried beneath the rough blankets. He pulled them back, and the sight of what lay there punched the breath right out of his lungs.
It was a ukulele.
He felt haunted. As if Tyler's presence, his ghost gripped him by the neck and held close, leaving a trail of cold, cold, cold behind.
Tyler's hands were cold. Josh remembered gripping them in his own palms, searching and searching for any indication of life.
A commotion outside made him lift his head from the sight that was a ukulele on the cot beside him.
Shouting erupted, followed by the frantic, uncoordinated thud of boots hitting the dirt. The peace of the camp was shattered in an instant.
Hesitantly, Josh parted the tent flap and looked out into the flickering remains of the firelight.
Through the chaos of fleeing Banditos and the haze of smoke, he saw a figure. It was a man in a deep red robe, standing with a foreign stillness that contrasted with the panic around him.
Josh’s heart stopped.
The figure turned, and the warm glow of the fire illuminated a face he would know anywhere.
It was Tyler.
But as he looked closer, he could see the little difference. His skin was pale, and half of his face was smeared with a deep, obsidian black that looked like it was cracking his features in two.
From across the distance, through the screaming and the shadows, their eyes met.
The commotion reached its peak as a man Josh had seen earlier by the fire pit lunged forward, a heavy bat gripped in his white-knuckled hands. He swung with what seemed like a desperate strength, and the wood landed square against the back of Tyler’s head with a sickening, hollow thud.
Josh was running before he even realized his legs were moving. He was halfway across the clearing, lungs burning with the sharp night air.
"No! Wait!"
Just before the impact, Josh saw Tyler’s eyes widen - a flash of recognition, or perhaps just the shock of a blow he didn't see coming. But Josh was too late. Tyler’s knees buckled, his eyes rolled back in a terrifyingly familiar fashion, as he crumpled.
Josh hit the dirt, sliding to a stop in front of the fallen figure.
"Oh God," he choked out.
He reached for Tyler’s hand. It was stained with that same obsidian black, looking as though it had been dipped in slick paint. His fingers fumbled against the wrist, searching for a pulse, just as they had on that damned Sunday that felt like a lifetime ago.
His gaze caught the dark smear on the ground. Tyler was bleeding. His head rolled limply to the side, and the crimson pooling in the dirt was a jarring contrast to the black paint and red robe. Josh looked up, his eyes wide and wild, at the man standing over them with the bloody bat.
Josh tried not to think of the funeral, but as the image made itself home in his head, he couldn't stop himself from hyperventilating.
"No, no, no, no... why would you—"
Josh gripped the thick fabric of the red robe, his stomach turning. He felt sick, the weight of Tyler’s limp body pressing against him.
"It’s the new bishop, isn’t it?" a hesitant voice whispered from the crowd.
The murmurs swelled around him, a sea of hushed, frightened speculation, but Josh could barely hear them over the blood rushing in his ears. He was back in a humid, hot summer years ago. Tyler had been wearing heavy jeans, looking uncomfortably warm, his face tight with unspoken words, gnawing at their little bubble of normalcy.
The courage it took just to speak, Josh could see him chewing on the inside of his cheek, anxiously looking at the hem of his pants.
"It's not pretty," Tyler had said. Josh hadn't expected more, but then Tyler had stood up, unbuckling his belt just enough to roll down the denim and expose the jagged, angry scars on his skin.
Josh looked at those jagged edges as if in a trance, his hand itching to reach out.
"Ty..."
"I'm not doing this to myself anymore, I swear," Tyler had interjected quickly, sensing the wall of worry rising in Josh. "But it still feels like shit, you know?"
Josh hadn't known then.
But now, he thought, he understands.
There were so many things that people told Josh through the years, things that made him different.
He was too much. He was too attached to places, too consumed by music, too anchored to the people who left even the smallest indent on his life. He wore his heart on his sleeve until the fabric was frayed, holding onto memories with a grip that others found uncomfortable.
But Tyler had never cared. Tyler had been the only one who didn't look at Josh’s devotion as a defect.
Even before Tyler was six feet under, but his life had already ended, the world had already begun its impatient demand for Josh to move on.
"It sucks what happened, but man, you look like you haven't slept in days."
"Doesn’t this mean you need to find another band?"
"You make it weird. You look like your girlfriend died or something."
"How long are you going to mope?"
Now, the people of this dream-like camp were looking at him with that same agitation, their faces twisted by a fear Josh didn't share.
"What do you think you're doing, Torch?"
The question came from the woman wearing Jenna’s face, her voice sharp with cold disbelief. Josh didn't answer. He was too busy scooping Tyler into his arms, his muscles straining against the dead weight of his limp body. The black paint on Tyler’s skin smeared onto Josh’s arms, but he didn't pull away.
He needed to run. He needed to get far and fast away from this clearing, away from the flickering fire and the crazy people swinging bats.
Jenna stepped directly into his path as he turned to flee.
"You fought for this," she said, her voice dropping into a heavy tone. She spoke as if her words meant to mean something to him.
But all of the things that escaped her lips might as well be a senseless noise.
"He’s bleeding," he felt himself saying.
Jenna’s stern expression cracked. For a fleeting second, the Jenna he knew from back home - the one whose smile could brighten anybody's day - peeked through the hardened mask of a Bandito.
She saw the look in his eyes; the raw, stubborn attachment that everyone had always warned him about - too many feelings to carry around. It was clear as he straightened his back that she couldn't stop a man who had already survived the end of the world once.
Josh ran.
He ran until the air burned in his throat and his muscles screamed, finally finding a shallow cave tucked beneath the massive, gnarled roots of an ancient tree - the kind of place Tyler would have turned into a metaphor, the kind of place he would have written a song about.
He laid Tyler down on the cold dirt and reached for the hem of his black T-shirt, ripping a long strip of fabric from it.
"Come on, Ty. Don't do this," Josh whispered, his voice jagged as he pressed the cloth to the wound on the back of Tyler’s head. "Not again."
Tyler’s eyelids flickered. Hitched breath escaped his throat.
"Josh?"
All he could see was his friend. Under all of this disguise - under all of this strange-looking paint, under the layers of heavy red fabric, there was the Tyler whose voice had this hypnotizing quality to it. A friend that he left alone in his last passing moments, a friend that parted with his life, leaving the words he had cried over too many times to count over that damned week.
"I'm sorry," Josh squeezed out. "I'm so sorry, Ty."
Tyler looked up at him, but his eyes seemed to look right through Josh, as if not seeing him at all.
"Why are you crying?"
The question caught Josh off guard.
"Because you're an idiot," Josh choked out, a sob threatening to break his ribs. He pressed the makeshift bandage firmer against the wound. "Because I lost you."
Tyler’s hand, still stained with that dark smudge, twitched in the dirt before weakly reaching up. His fingers hovered just inches away from Josh’s face, as if he were afraid he’d smudge the reality of the moment or find that Josh was made of smoke.
"You're not supposed to be here," Tyler murmured, his eyes finally beginning to focus, though they remained glassy and far away. "You are a Torchbearer. The one who stays. You’re supposed to be the one who knows the way out, Josh."
Torchbearer. The word from Clancy’s journal rang in Josh’s ears with a sickening ache. He realized then, with a crushing weight in his chest, that in his arms, he was holding Clancy. And for some reason, even at the edge of death, Tyler was clinging to these titles.
"I'm none of those things," Josh pleaded, shaking his head.
Tyler just stared at him. The haunted look in those eyes was identical to the one Josh had seen far too many times - the same fear rising to the surface, the same silent plea for help that Josh had missed.
"I just… I should have been there when you needed me," Josh’s voice cracked, the sobs finally spilling out. "But instead, I thought… Oh my gosh, I thought you would call me."
At some point after that damned day, he was so angry with Tyler.
How could he just leave everyone behind like that?
How could he run like that? Like a coward?
But everything that was left after - a bone-crushing grief.
"I wish I could have just looked at that message earlier," Josh sobbed.
"What… what the hell are you talking about?" Tyler whispered, confused.
Josh decided to bite the bullet. The other Tyler, he reminded himself. Treat him like the other Tyler.
"I've read your journal," Josh said, his voice steadier now. He thought of the pages covered in his friend's handwriting. "I know you're not doing well. I know you're trapped. So, was this all" - he gestured vaguely at the red robes - "was it worth it?"
Tyler’s eyes hardened.
"I can't stay."
"The hell you can."
"Who else would take over Dema?" Tyler spat the name like a curse. It was all that was left of him - a bishop, caught in the responsibility, the cycle, the role he had been forced into.
"You don't have to carry this all alone," Josh said, leaning over him. "You never had to."
"…I can't stay."
"Then I'll stay here too," Josh decided right there on the spot.
Tyler looked like he was about to argue, but Josh didn't move an inch, a hard resolve on his face.
"I'll stay until you see that you're wrong."
Tyler reached up with a slow movement and pushed back the hood of the red gown. His face was still split in half in this eerie way that made Josh's skin crawl.
Tyler didn’t look so defiant anymore; he looked small.
As the blood from the wound began to tacky and dry, Tyler found the strength to sit up straighter. Josh was there instantly, offering his hand. Tyler gripped it, his palm unnaturally still slick, and used Josh’s strength to pull himself to his feet.
"You're mad," Tyler said eventually, his voice barely audible over the rustle of the leaves.
Josh didn’t grant him a response. He simply adjusted his grip and began to move when Tyler moved, following in his steps like a clingy, desperate shadow.
"I didn't do it because I wanted it," Tyler said suddenly, his voice small.
"Then why?" Josh asked, the question lingering heavy in the air. Why did you kill yourself, Tyler?
"I was afraid."
Josh watched him as he spoke, watching the way the moon caught the brown spark of his eyes.
"I thought... I thought if nobody took this place, nothing would ever change. I thought I had to be the one. I swear I didn't know..."
"Didn't know what?"
"That it wouldn't work."
Josh thought back to the stories in the journal, to the cracks of his friend showing. Like some kind of fucked up metaphor for the real thing, this dream seemed to mock him. I'm trapped in the cycle, he wrote, and am not able to get out.
Josh was a steady presence nearby, so he took Tyler's shaking hand in his, black so stark, smudging against his skin.
Whatever had happened, it was too late to change.
Some things were just meant to be.
He learned that at a young age, when his childhood dog was torn off the leash and ran off, never coming back.
Still. He couldn't move on, he couldn't forget.
That leash was still stored somewhere in the deepest part of the drawer of his shelf, never seeing the light of day.
He hadn't found the strength to get rid of it, even when he grew up and moved out of his parents' house.
Josh woke up on the couch in his dark room, eyes gritty with sleep.
His neck was stiff, his joints aching from the cramped position he’d fallen asleep in. The room was bathed in the sickly blue-grey light of early morning. He was no longer in Trench.
He immediately looked at his hands. They were clean. No smudge where he held Tyler, no tacky blood.
He was still wearing the black T-shirt from the funeral, the fabric wrinkled and smelling of cold sweat.
What a strange dream.
He repeated the days through the motions, numb with the remnants of the longest dream of his life, went to church, and stumbled through his part-time job in Starbucks.
During his shift, there was a quiet ping.
His hand dropped into his pocket, and he picked up his phone. And it felt like the world went quiet.
"You're the best friend I have ever had, Josh."
"I love you, man."