INFINITY ♾️ INFINITY Chapter 5

 INFINITY ♾️ INFINITY

Chapter 5

Queens, NY 2018

The ghost followed Ramon Atila down the street.

He could feel it behind him—not footsteps, not breath, but a weight at the base of his skull like a migraine that wouldn't break. He'd been feeling it for weeks now. Three weeks. Maybe four. He'd stopped counting. Counting made it real. Counting meant he was paying attention to something that wasn't there.

He walked faster. The ghost matched his pace. He could feel its attention like a finger tracing the back of his neck. It wanted something. It always wanted something. He didn't know what, and he was terrified to find out.

The bodega was three blocks from his apartment. He'd walked this route a hundred times. A thousand times. It was familiar. Safe. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting that sickly yellow glow on the aisles of chips and soda and canned goods. The cashier was a teenager with a gold tooth and dead eyes, scrolling through his phone with the mechanical indifference of someone who had given up on life.

Ramon grabbed a beer from the cooler. He didn't want it. He just needed something to hold. Something to do with his hands.

The ghost was standing by the door. Watching. Waiting.

Ramon walked to the counter. The cashier looked up. His gold tooth glinted in the yellow light.

"That'll be four fifty," he said.

Ramon reached for his wallet. His hands were shaking. The ghost was closer now, standing just behind him, its presence cold against his back.

He slammed his wallet on the counter. The cashier blinked.

"You okay, man?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I said I'm fine."

The cashier shrugged. He rang up the beer. Ramon handed him a five. The cashier made change.

A man entered the bodega. Middle-aged. Worn jacket. Bloodshot eyes. He walked to the counter and pulled a crumpled lottery ticket from his pocket.

"Check this," he said to the cashier. "Check if I won."

The cashier scanned the ticket. His expression didn't change. "Sorry, man. Nothing."

The man's face crumpled. He grabbed the ticket back, pressed it to his lips, kissed it.

"Try again," he said. "Scan it again. Maybe it didn't read right."

"It read fine. You lost."

"No. No, I didn't. I felt it. I felt lucky tonight." He kissed the ticket again. His hands were trembling. "I need this. I need this to work."

The ghost moved. It drifted toward the man, its form flickering at the edge of Ramon's vision. He could see its mouth open. Close. Open. Close. A word forming. A word he couldn't hear.

Ramon stepped forward. His voice came out before he could stop it.

"Kissing it won't help."

The man turned. His eyes were red-rimmed, desperate. "What?"

"Kissing the ticket. It won't make you have more luck." Ramon's hands were shaking. His voice was shaking. Everything was shaking. "The numbers are random. They don't care if you love them."

The man stared at him. For a moment, Ramon thought he was going to get angry. To lash out. To defend his last, desperate hope.

Then the man's face crumpled. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

"I know," he said. "I know. But I have to believe. I have to believe something good can happen. Otherwise—otherwise what's the point?"

Ramon looked at the man. At his desperation. At his hope.

He thought about his own life. The book he couldn't finish. The ghost that wouldn't leave. The wife who was starting to look at him like she didn't recognize him anymore.

"I know what you mean," he said.

The ghost was watching. Always watching.

Ramon walked out of the bodega. He left the beer on the counter. He walked home with his hands in his pockets and the ghost at his back.

•••

West Continent, Year 6X-B

The West Continent shimmered under the amber light of a sky that had never known true darkness. The Earth Library rose from the crystalline plain like a monument to everything that had been forgotten—a vast archive of consciousness, of memory, of lives preserved and catalogued and never allowed to end.

Kael walked through the Library's central chamber. His footsteps echoed off walls that were not quite solid, not quite real. The air hummed with the psychic weight of a billion stored souls.

Before him, suspended in a column of pale blue light, was the body of Ramon Atila.

Not the old man. Not the artist in Queens. Something else. A copy. A fragment. A piece of the original that had been scattered across time and space and reassembled here, in this place, for reasons Kael didn't fully understand.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device. His fingers found the activation button. He pressed it.

The column of light flickered. The body inside it shimmered, distorted, then began to dissolve.

Kael watched. His face was expressionless. This was necessary. He'd been told it was necessary. The Kelari feared what Ramon Atila represented—the beginning. The moment when the loop broke. The moment when something new could begin.

They couldn't allow it. So he was here. Deleting. Erasing. Making sure the story never reached its conclusion.

The body dissolved completely. The column of light went dark.

Kael turned to leave. He stopped.

A figure stood in the doorway. It was Ramon Atila—another version, younger, wearing clothes that didn't belong to any time Kael recognized.

"Thank you," Ramon said.

Kael blinked. "What?"

"Thank you. For deleting that copy. For setting me free."

Kael stared at him. "You're not real. You're a fragment. A ghost."

"Maybe. But I'm also grateful." Ramon smiled. It was not a warm smile. "You've done me a favor. You've ended something that should have ended a long time ago."

Kael opened his mouth to respond. He never got the chance.

The explosion came from everywhere at once. Kael's head simply ceased to exist. One moment he was standing on the catwalk. The next, his head was gone, vaporized in a burst of light and sound that left nothing but a spray of blood on the crystalline walls.

Ramon stumbled back. His hands flew to his face. Blood. So much blood.

The Kelari were screaming. He could feel them in the psychic lattice, their ancient minds convulsing with fear.

The beginning. The beginning. The beginning.

They had seen it. They had seen what was coming. The deletion hadn't stopped anything. It had only made it worse.

Ramon Atila was still standing in the doorway. His smile was gone. His eyes were flat, empty.

"Tell them," he said. "Tell them the beginning is coming. They can't stop it. They never could."

He turned and walked away.

Kael lay alone on the floor of the Library, surrounded by blood and silence, his mind filled with the screams of the Kelari.

The beginning.

He didn't know what it meant. He only knew he was afraid.

•••

Queens, NY 2018

Ramon Atila opened his eyes.

He was in a hospital room. The walls were white. The machines beside him beeped in a steady rhythm. He could smell antiseptic and something else—something familiar.

Maria was sitting beside him. Her face was pale. Her eyes were red.

"Ramon," she said. "Ramon, can you hear me?"

He tried to speak. His throat was dry. His tongue felt like sandpaper.

"Where—" he started.

"You had a stroke. A small one. The doctors said you're going to be fine, but—" Her voice broke. "You've been unconscious for three days."

Three days. He'd been gone for three days. He'd been in the loop. The eternal loop. The place between death and rebirth.

He remembered now. The body. The copy. The deletion. The beginning.

He remembered Gorgon.

Gorgon had been there, in the loop, waiting for him. Gorgon had taken him by the hand and led him back to his body. The real body. The one he'd left behind so long ago.

"Gorgon," he said.

Maria frowned. "What?"

"The man who brought me back. Where is he?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know anyone named Gorgon."

Ramon closed his eyes. He remembered. The moment of transition. The feeling of being pulled back into his own body. The weight of his own flesh.

Gorgon had been there. He had taken Ramon's hand and said, "It's time."

And Ramon had said, "Thank you."

He'd told Gorgon to pass "the message" to Fausto. He didn't know what the message was. He didn't know if Gorgon understood. But it had felt important. It had felt like the only thing that mattered.

"Help me sit up," he said.

Maria moved to assist him. She adjusted the bed. He felt the world tilt, then stabilize.

"Where's Fausto?" he asked.

"I don’t know any Fausto neither.”

Ramon nodded. He thought about his grandson. The baby who would grow up and carry his name. The baby who would need to know something. Something important.

He thought about the book.

The book he was going to quit. The book he'd told Maria he was done with. The book he'd been running from for months.

"I'm going to finish it," he said.

Maria blinked. "What?"

"The book. To Live and Die on Mars. I'm going to finish it."

She stared at him. "You said you were quitting."

"I changed my mind."

"Why?"

He didn't answer. He didn't know how to explain. The ghost. The loop. The deletion. The beginning. None of it made sense. None of it could be put into words.

"I just need to," he said. "I need to see it through."

•••

He left the hospital three days later. The doctors said he was lucky—the stroke had been mild, no permanent damage. He knew better. He'd been given a second chance. A third chance. He'd lost count of how many chances he'd been given.

He went home. He sat at his desk. He opened the tablet.

The cursor blinked. The blank page waited.

He started typing. The words came slowly at first, then faster, then in a flood. He wrote about Mars. The gangsters. The rain-slicked streets. The twin bruised moons. He wrote about the circle and the line. He wrote about the spiral. He wrote about the story that never ends.

He didn't stop until the chapter was finished.

When he was done, he saved the file and closed the tablet. His hands were shaking. His eyes burned. But he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time.

Peace.

•••

Maria came into the room. She was wearing a dress—the same dress she'd worn on their first date, years ago. It was tight across her belly now, but she still looked beautiful.

"Get dressed," she said. "We're going out."

"Where?"

"Somewhere nice. Somewhere we can pretend everything is normal."

He stood up. He walked over to her. He took her hands.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For everything. For the stroke. For the book. For being so distant."

She looked at him. Her eyes were wet. "I know you are. I just—" She paused. "I need to know you're going to be here. Really here. Not just in body."

"I'm here," he said. "I'm staying. I'm done running."

She pulled him into a hug. He held her. He felt the weight of the baby between them. He felt the warmth of her body against his.

"Okay," she said. "Okay, Ramon. Let's go."

•••

The restaurant was small and Italian, the kind of place they used to go to when they were first dating. Cheap wine. Red-checkered tablecloths. Candlelight that made everything look softer than it was.

Ramon ordered the lasagna. Maria ordered the gnocchi. They split a bottle of Chianti and talked about nothing and everything.

"Remember our first date?" Maria asked.

"I remember you spilled wine on your shirt and pretended it was fine."

"I was so embarrassed."

"You were beautiful."

She smiled. It was the first real smile he'd seen on her face in months.

The interruption came at the end of the meal.

A woman appeared at the table. Red hair. Red dress. Familiar smile. The neighbor. The one from the building.

"Well, well," she said. "Fancy meeting you here."

Maria's face went pale. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to say hello. I've been trying to get Ramon's attention for weeks. He's always so focused. So intense." She looked at him. Her eyes were hungry. "I wondered what it would take to get him to notice me."

Ramon stood up. His heart was pounding. "I'm married. And my wife is pregnant."

"I know." Her smile widened. "But sometimes—sometimes people need something more than what they have."

Maria stood up too. Her chair scraped against the floor. "I think you should leave."

The woman's smile didn't waver. "I'm not trying to cause trouble. I'm just being honest. You're a beautiful woman, Maria. But your husband—" She looked at Ramon. "Your husband is lonely. I can see it in his eyes. You can't give him what he needs."

"That's enough," Ramon said. "You need to go. Now."

The woman looked at him. Her eyes were ancient. Hungry. Wrong.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "I've been waiting too long for this. You can feel it, can't you? The pull? The connection? Something brought us together, Ramon. Something bigger than either of us."

Ramon felt a chill run down his spine. He thought of the ghost. The word it had whispered. The word he still didn't understand.

Kelari.

"Get out," he said. "Get out now."

The woman's smile flickered. Something dark passed across her face.

"You don't understand," she said. "Not yet. But you will. When you're ready, I'll be waiting. Just like I've always been waiting."

She turned and walked away.

Ramon stood there, his heart pounding. Maria was staring at him.

"Ramon," she said. "Who was that?"

"I don't know."

"Why does she keep following you?"

"I don't know."

She looked at him. Her eyes were full of fear. Not of the woman. Of him.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"No," he said. "But I'm going to be."

•••

They walked home in silence. Ramon held Maria's hand. She didn't pull away, but he could feel the distance between them.

When they reached the building, she stopped at the door.

"Ramon," she said. "I need to know something."

"What?"

"That woman. The one at the restaurant. Is there something going on between you two?"

He turned to face her. He looked into her eyes. He thought about the ghost, the loop, the deletion, the beginning. He thought about Gorgon and the message and the book he'd just finished.

"No," he said. "There's nothing going on. I love you. I love our baby. I'm not going anywhere."

She searched his face. Looking for the lie. Looking for the cracks.

"I believe you," she said. "I want to believe you."

"I'm not lying. I'm telling you the truth."

She nodded. She took his hand. They walked up the stairs together.

•••

In the apartment across the hall, the woman with the red hair sat in the dark.

She didn't know why she was here. She didn't know why she kept following him. She only knew she had to be near him, had to be part of his life.

Something was driving her. Something older than she could remember. Something that whispered in her head at night, a word she didn't understand.

She pressed her palm against the wall. She could feel him on the other side—his warmth, his presence, his pull.

She smiled.

It was not a nice smile.

But she didn't know that. She just knew she had to keep going.

Because something older than she could remember had told her to.

And she had no choice but to obey.

ATILA