5' 8"-5' 9"
Nicholas was silent. He was staring absentmindedly at the dull surface of the table in front of him for a while. His legs were crossed and his arms were wrapped around him. Noah even started to wonder if he'd forgotten there was someone sitting across from him. Or had he decided that a greeting was more than enough not just to begin the conversation but to end it as well?
"You've lost weight," came a barely audible voice after what felt like an eternity of heavy silence. "And you've gotten taller."
"And you haven't changed at all."
Nicholas didn't look well. His pale skin turned gray. His head twitched from time to time. Dark shadows lay under his eyes, either from the weight of whatever he'd been going through, day and night, ruining his sleep… or just a side effect of whatever pills they were feeding him here in excess. A few strands of premature gray glinted in his thick hair. The skin around his nails was inflamed. Before Noah could finish wondering what had caused Nicholas' condition, the ghost of the person he used to be brought his hand to his mouth and began biting at a hangnail on his thumb. As if in slow motion, Morgan watched him clamp his teeth down on the strip of skin and slowly tear it off. A bead of blood surfaced on the fresh wound. Soon it would dry and join the countless scabs dotting the skin around nearly every nail.
Noticing Noah's reaction, Nicholas took his hand away from his mouth and hugged himself tighter. A wave of nausea rolled through Morgan. The nervous sickness that had been haunting him for days got worse again.
Nicholas wore a striped terry cloth robe over a white sweater and soft sweatpants. On his chest, there was a dried orange stain. Probably food. Or vomit. The thought made Noah feel even worse. Nicholas hadn't been like this before. Yes, he'd always had a rather anxious personality, but he had been full of life, driven, almost dizzying in his energy. Now he looked like someone who needed a thousand-page manual just to remember how to smile.
"All this time, I thought you were studying at MIT," Noah said quietly, pulling a marine green icosahedron from the pocket of his jeans. It was a twenty-sided die, one of the dice used in . Back in school, Noah and Nicholas had once decided to make their own dice. They ordered molds, epoxy resin, and paint online. The first set had turned out clumsy and uneven, and their interest disappeared for years. The molds ended up lost somewhere in Noah's closet. A week ago, Morgan had found them again and suddenly felt the urge to make dice for a game he hadn't touched since school. Now the finished die rested in his palm and, somehow, gave him the confidence that what he was about to do was the right thing.
Nicholas ignored Noah's remark about his studies. He didn't look at Morgan. Instead, Nicholas just kept staring at the table in front of him. But the moment the twenty-sided die appeared in Noah's hand, Nicholas' attention shifted to it immediately. Noticing the flicker of interest, Morgan offered:
"Oh, great Master, will you play a game with me?" Noah asked playfully, recalling the old days. Everything seemed easier when they were kids. The future felt full of adventure, full of possibility. "I can't wait to grow up," they used to think. Well, they had grown up. And now what?
A faint, hesitant smile appeared on the lips of the ghost named Nicholas.
"Goblin Kerra, I assume? A braggart and a slacker?"
God, did Nicholas still remember Noah's character? Unbelievable.
"At your service," Morgan gave a slight bow. Nicholas licked his lips nervously. He used to come up with hundreds of games, putting real effort into every scenario. A single session could last a whole day, or even a week. And when it came to improvisation, Nicholas was just as good as he was at building structured storylines. It was a real nightmare for players, having a Game Master with such a vivid imagination that catching him off guard was nearly impossible.
"Well then, Kerra, your journey begins with—"
Noah cut Nicholas off with a gesture. He had no intention of playing today. He didn't have much time; besides, his mood was somewhere near the Earth's core.
"Let's keep it simple after such a long break," Noah said, still turning the die in his fingers. "I'll ask questions. If you don't want to answer, I'll roll. If the die lands between one and ten, you don't have to say anything. But if it's eleven to twenty, you have to answer," Noah laid out the rules. "Deal?"
Noah had received a brief overview of Nicholas' condition before their meeting. Fragments of that information spun through his mind. The conversation ahead was unlikely to be pleasant for Nicholas, but maybe, if Morgan acted more like it was a game, he could soften the impact.
"I won't answer if it's one to fifteen," Nicholas countered. Just like in the old days.
"The Master still knows how to bargain," Noah smiled. "Fine. Sixteen to twenty, and you answer."
Nicholas nodded.
"What happened?" By now, Noah had more or less pieced together what had occurred, but he wanted to hear it from Nicholas' perspective.
The ghost just shrugged his shoulders. His dry lips twisted into a bitter smile.
I couldn't take it anymore," he exhaled. He didn't ask Noah to roll the die. So… at least partially, Nicholas was ready to be honest today. "You know… about my problem."
Noah had known about it since high school. Something had suddenly changed in his friend during their senior year. He smiled less, withdrew into himself more, dodged direct questions, or snapped under the pressure. Noah could see that something was bothering him, but he didn't know what, and so he didn't know how to help. Nicole was worried too, saying her brother avoided her and refused to open up. And then something bizarre happened. The Devil's Eye usually went blind to people close to Noah, but for the first time, it ignored that rule. Morgan still remembered exactly when it happened. They were at a classmate's birthday party, bowling. Nicole and Nicholas were arguing about the proper way to throw the ball, and Noah, watching them from the side, suddenly saw everything clearly. The truth, which had been hiding behind social filters, revealed itself in front of him. Even now, Morgan couldn't explain how it had happened. But their gestures, their posture, their tone: everything was screaming about one secret no one else seemed to notice.
Noah showed up at Nicholas's house the same evening. He clumsily climbed up to his room using the ivy that covered the side of the house.
"Did something happen?" Nicholas looked alarmed.
"No," Noah reassured him. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay."
"Why wouldn't I be?" his friend asked, confused.
"Because you haven't been okay for a while," Noah said quietly. "And I think I know why," he glanced toward the wall behind which Nicole's room was. "I know the secret that's been eating you alive."
"You don't know what you're talking about," Nicholas shook his head, not believing a single word.
"You… about Nicole—"
"No."
"You feel—"
"Stop."
"You're in love with her, aren't you?" Noah asked with his lips. It was harder to say out loud than Morgan expected. But he said it anyway, seeing how much Nicholas was tormenting himself, suffocating under a secret he couldn't share with anyone.
"How did you—?"
"You can tell me everything," Noah said softly. "I won't judge you."
They talked until morning. Nicholas cried. He said he should be locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Well… in the end, he did everything to make it happen.
"I chose MIT for a reason," Nicholas said after a long pause. "I was hoping I'd move to the other side of the country to get away from her. To get over it. To start living normally…" The ghost clasped his hands together so tightly his knuckles turned white. "I didn't tell anyone I was planning to apply there. Not even my parents. But she… she found out somehow!"
Yes, she did. That night at the bowling alley, the "Eye" revealed one more secret. It was the secret of Nicole. Noah just hadn't told Nicholas. He thought that sooner or later, they'd open up and talk about it anyway.
"Imagine how I felt when I found out I got in," Nicholas went on. "And then imagine she bursts into my room and tells me she got in too. Damn it, she got into the same university! She was planning to go there too, to the same place as me! My escape was ruined!" Nicholas threw his hands up weakly. The sleeves of his striped robe slipped back, exposing uneven, vertical scars on his wrists. Noticing it, Nicholas crossed his arms over his chest quickly, tucked his hands into his armpits and hunched in on himself even more.
"But you would've been in different departments, and more importantly, you would've lived in different dorms," Noah pointed out.
"No," Nicholas shook his head. "No, no, no! You don't understand!" he exclaimed. Noah noticed the medical worker who had brought Nicholas here and then stepped back toward the hospital building to continue watching them; now moved a few steps closer. He was clearly preparing for anything, ready to intervene if things escalated. Nicholas wasn't exactly someone who got visitors freely. But Ethan had taken care of that. Ethan and money.
"What don't I understand?"
Maybe pushing him wasn't fair, considering the state Nicholas was in. But Noah hadn't exactly had it easy lately either.
"No, no, no…" Nicholas kept muttering, beginning to rock slightly in place. Noah should've changed the subject. Instead, he rolled the die again. The icosahedron spun in the air, hit the metal table, bounced, landed again—rolled once, twice—and stopped.
20.
"Answer," Noah said, tapping the top face of the die. "Sixteen to twenty and you answer," Morgan reminded him. Nicholas had always stuck to the rules when they played board games. Noah was hoping nothing changed.
"We… we kissed," Nicholas could barely speak. "At the spring fling dance we both had too much, and I… I lost control! I tried to kiss her!"
"And she?"
"She was drunk!"
"So were you. Did she push you away?"
"She was drunk!" Nicholas snapped, more irritated this time.
"What happened next?" These were still other people's secrets, no matter how much Noah wanted to lay everything out. His tongue felt glued to the roof of his mouth, refusing to say out loud what Morgan didn't allow himself to say. Yes, right now the thing he wanted was to hurt Nicole. However, he didn't want to live with the consequences.
"Nothing. She said she didn't remember anything the morning after the dance."
Noah frowned, trying to recall that period of time in his memory. Nicholas started coming over more and more often, staying the night—pretty much doing everything to avoid his sister. His nerves were on edge. Once, he had even broken down crying in the middle of a history class. Everything was going downhill.
"Was there anything else?"
Nicholas shook his head again, unwilling to answer. Noah rolled the die.
20.
"Answer."
"Nicole noticed I was distancing myself, so she started following me everywhere. It was a nightmare! I was so afraid she'd figure out how I felt that…"
"Felt what?"
"I told her… I told her I was spending more time with you instead of her because I was in love with you. And that I was upset because you didn't feel the same way."
Noah flinched. So it wasn't just some unfortunate misunderstanding. No. Nicholas had dug a grave for Morgan with his own hands.
"So out of everyone in the world, you chose me?" Noah kept his voice steady, but every word came out through clenched teeth. Maybe he should've felt sorry for Nicholas and supported him. But right now, all Noah felt was blind anger. Memories of the worst moments he had lived through started surfacing, one after another. All because of two people who couldn't bring themselves to have an honest conversation with each other. Instead, they had both used him as a shield, each in their own way. They made Noah their problem. One had turned him into unrequited love. The other—into the reason her brother had nearly died.
"I panicked," Nicholas muttered. "You were the first person that came to mind."
"Idiot!" Noah snapped and slammed his fist down on the table. "Do you even realize what I had to—" He cut himself off, noticing the nurse watching them tense up. No. Noah couldn't just leave like this. He needed to keep himself under control.
"What happened?" the ghost asked, blinking innocently. That only made Noah angrier.
"Let's start with the day you cut your wrists," Noah said coldly. Nicholas hadn't even had time to say no before Noah rolled the die.
20.
This die always landed on twenty. Noah spent hours figuring out how to shift its center of gravity to increase the odds. He then did it with a tiny magnet embedded in the face opposite the twenty. He had no idea there would be something like a metal table. He only hoped to tilt the odds slightly in his favor. The metal surface was a lucky bonus. Was the universe finally turning its face toward Morgan for once—instead of its ass?
If Nicholas had been in his right mind, he would've suspected something after the first roll. And after three twenties in a row he would've called Noah a cheat. But Nicholas wasn't paying attention to the die. His entire mind was consumed by his own suffering and the need to unload it.
"I've already told you," his voice trembled. "She got into the same university and was planning on going with me. I… I realized it was over. I couldn't live like that anymore! I took a paper knife, got into a bathtub filled with water, and cut my wrists, hoping they'd find me too late. But…" a shaky laugh escaped him, "she found me much sooner."
"I think you're forgetting something," Noah said, drumming his fingers against the table. "Before you did it, you wrote a suicide note, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember what it said?"
Nicholas winced.
"'Nicole, loving you is killing me,'" he quoted. "Back then, I was so angry with her. Now I understand how wrong that was. It was like I blamed her for my death."
"Not exactly," Noah exhaled, barely holding back his rage. clawing. "That's not right." He pulled his phone out of his jeans and opened the photo Ethan had sent him. His hands were shaking. His fingers refused to cooperate, but Noah pushed through it. "There's no 'Nicole' in that note. Just 'N.'" He showed the screen to Nicholas.
"Oh… right," Nicholas said. "I didn't want my parents to realize I'd felt that way about her all this time. That message was meant only for her."
"Do you think she would've definitely understood that it was for her?" Noah wanted to scream. To flip the table. He wanted to grab a chair and smash it over his friend's head. He wanted to beat the shit out of him for everything – for every day Noah had lived through. For every disgusting joke. Every mocking look. That was how furious Noah was.
"Yes, I think… deep down, she always knew how I felt."
"You think? Interesting. Have you ever actually talked to her about it? Or did you just make up a convenient excuse for a chain of idiotic decisions?" Noah was barely holding it together now.
"She understood—"
"She DID NOT understand, Nicholas!" Noah shouted. "You tell her you're in love with me, using me as a shield for your real feelings. And then you cut your wrists and mention some 'N.' in your note! NO, NICHOLAS, SHE DID NOT UNDERSTAND! FOR TWO AND A HALF YEARS SHE HAS BEEN TURNING MY LIFE INTO HELL BECAUSE SHE WAS CONVINCED YOU ALMOST DIED BECAUSE OF ME!"
The nurse approached them again. Noah inhaled sharply, then exhaled slowly. Angry tears welled up in his eyes. Morgan wiped them away and gestured that everything was fine.
Nicholas was staring into the table again. Of course. Running away from responsibility. Nothing new.
"And now I don't even know who to blame," Noah said in a flat voice. "Her or you?" He laughed sadly. "Two people dragged a third into their mess and wrecked his life simply because they couldn't tell each other the truth."
"What… what did Nicole do?" Nicholas asked quietly, going pale at the sound of her name. Until now, he had only referred to her with pronouns.
"So you don't know?"
"No."
"When was the last time you talked to her?"
"…Before I ended up here."
"I see… Well then. You can ask her about that yourself. She's here today," Noah said, turning the die in his fingers.
"No-no-no!" Nicholas started rocking back and forth. "No! I don't want to see her. I can't talk to her! NO!"
"You're going to tell her the real reason behind all of this," Noah insisted.
"No!"
"…or I will."
"You… No! You promised to keep it a secret!"
"And you thought it had already been revealed. So what difference does it make?" Noah scoffed. "Besides, I promised to keep your secret before you hid behind my back and let me take every hit meant for you. That's enough. I'm not a shield. I'm a person. I have my own life."
A strange emptiness appeared in Nicholas' eyes. Noah clenched his fists so tightly a sharp pain shot through them.
"You do understand that your strategy with Nicole isn't an option. In the end, it's exactly this lack of honesty that brought you here. Nicholas, do you hear me?" Noah tapped the table. No response. Then Morgan held out the die. "Here, roll it. If it lands on anything from one to nineteen, I'll leave you alone. But if it's twenty, you talk to Nicole. Right now."
Nicholas lifted his tired eyes to Noah and took the die from his hand, not knowing that the choice Noah had given him wasn't a choice at all.
20.
Ethan didn't even know what was more ridiculous: Noah's plan, or the fact that these idiots had actually gone along with it. Thomson sat in the driver's seat, lightly drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Nicole, Scott, and Andrea were sitting in the back. Ethan pulled bags over their heads, plus he told them to put in earplugs. Their hands were tied. However, it was done just for experience, to avoid suspicion.
After the photo of Ethan and Noah spread across the entire university, the reaction was immediate but disappeared surprisingly fast. Maybe because Morgan, sunk in apathy, didn't react to the remarks at all. Or maybe because Ethan had gotten into a couple of fights. (Noah definitely didn't need to know about that.) Thomson was craving revenge. However, Noah had strictly forbidden him from doing or even saying anything.
"I think I know what really happened," he had said.
"What do you mean?"
"I can't say."
"Why not?"
"Those secrets are not mine."
Arguing that it was insane to keep the secrets of people who dragged your life straight into hell didn't change anything. Morgan stood his ground.
"We need to bring Nicole to Nicholas."
"She'll realize we've exposed her on the way there," Ethan pointed out.
"Then we make sure she doesn't know where we're going."
And that was when Noah came up with the 'escape room' and dumped the responsibility for 'organizing' it on Ethan's shoulders.
"Noah, as you may have noticed, hasn't been in the best state lately," Ethan began his part the very next day. "We should do something to cheer him up," he told Andrea, Scott, and Nicole, trying to act as a caring boyfriend. To be fair, he was a caring boyfriend. He just would've much rather broken Nicole's jaw than stage an entire performance for her.
"What are you suggesting?" Andrea, of course, was the first to respond.
"How about a detective escape room?" Ethan was convinced no one would buy it. To his surprise, they showed genuine interest. And agreed. All of them: Andrea, Scott, and Nicole. Andrea and Scott didn't know the truth. Without realizing it, they were part of the play, just to keep Nicole from suspecting anything. Ethan thought both he and Morgan had seriously overestimated her intelligence. Sure, she could think a couple of moves ahead. But that was it. That overestimation had made finding the real "Master" harder than it should've been. Ethan expected something more, so now he even felt a flicker of disappointment. It turned out to be so basic and boring. It almost looked funny. That was also why it was so tragic.
The whole crew gathered on a cold Saturday morning outside Noah's house. Without a word, Ethan handed each of them earplugs and a bag.
"What's this for?" Scott shot him a suspicious look.
"So you don't know where I'm taking you," Ethan replied in his usual flat, almost indifferent tone, even though every time he looked at Nicole, a righteous fury flared up inside him. It was very hard to look chill to someone you wanted to beat half to death.
Noah just took the earplugs from Ethan's hands and pushed them into his ears (he rarely spoke these days), then pulled the bag over his head, giving an example for the others. Once everyone had followed Morgan's lead, Ethan tied their hands loosely and helped them into the back seat. Noah, however, immediately got rid of both the bag and the earplugs. They drove to the private psychiatric hospital in dead silence. Andrea and Scott said something to each other occasionally, louder than necessary, to compensate for the muffled sound through the earplugs.
"I hope Thomson's not gonna bury me in the woods!" Scott yelled.
"I sure hope not! I was the one planning to bury you in the woods!" Andrea shouted back.
"Are we there yet?" Nicole kept asking. Noah and Ethan said nothing. But Morgan flinched every time Nicole spoke. Ethan noticed the way Noah's fists clenched without him realizing, the way he bit his lower lip, and the way his face tightened. If Thomson was being tossed around by his emotions, what the hell was Noah feeling right now? He could only imagine.
Noah had been gone for twenty minutes, and Andrea, Scott, and Nicole were getting increasingly restless, whining and demanding to know when the game would finally start.
"I can tell we're not moving!" Scott complained.
"What if this is a prank and they just left us in the car while they went to grab breakfast at some diner?!" Andrea chimed in.
"That's it, I'm taking this shit off—" Scott reached for the bag over his head, only to get a light smack on the hand.
"That's against the rules," Ethan said loudly enough for all three to hear. "Don't ruin the fun."
"Knowing you, I'm not sure I'll enjoy this 'fun,'" Scott shot back.
"Knowing me?" Ethan let out a quiet laugh. "You don't know me at all."
An awkward silence followed. Thomson kept drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Time dragged unbearably, and the irritation kept getting bigger and bigger. The person responsible for Morgan's personal hell was sitting right there, and Ethan couldn't do a damn thing. Where was the justice in that?
"He agreed," Noah said quietly as he opened the back door and took Nicole by the elbow. "Let's go," he added, louder.
Thinking the game had begun, she followed him obediently, stumbling every now and then. When you can't see and can barely hear, it's hard to walk straight. Ethan watched closely as they passed through the gate. He saw Nicole pull the bag off her head (probably with Noah's permission) on the way to the distant striped figure. He saw her freeze. Noah said something to her. She didn't reply. He pointed toward the figure. Nicole shook her head, pulling the earplugs out. Noah spoke again. Too bad Ethan couldn't read lips. Their conversation didn't look aggressive, though. If anything, Noah seemed to be trying to convince her of something. After a moment, Nicole hesitantly moved forward again. She was walking toward the figure. Now she was alone. Noah watched until she reached the table where he himself had been sitting just minutes earlier. Then he turned and walked back to the car.
"You can take everything off," Noah announced, dropping into the passenger seat next to Ethan. Scott and Andrea took off the ropes and the bags immediately. Their eyes lit up with excitement. They expected an awesome escape room. But the moment they looked around, both of them realized something was off.
"Where's Nicole?" Scott was the first to ask.
"Talking to her brother," Noah said dryly, watching the two figures speaking in front of the old white psychiatric hospital building—the same way Ethan had been watching him fifteen minutes earlier.
"Her brother? Here?" Andrea frowned, glancing at the sign by the gate. "Isn't he at—"
"He's NOT," Noah cut in sharply. The tension in his voice was unmistakable. "Let's just get out of here," he added, turning to Ethan.
"We're not waiting for Nicole?" Scott asked, frowning.
"She'll get back on her own."
"Wait, we're outside the city," Scott looked around. "Do you have any idea how much a taxi from here would cost?"
"There are buses."
"Yeah. What, once every three hours?" Andrea muttered skeptically.
"Honestly…" Noah slowly turned to them, "…I couldn't care less how Nicole gets home. She's not a child."
Andrea and Scott froze, like they couldn't process what they'd just heard.
"Did she… do something?" Andrea was almost whispering.
"She's been doing something for the past two and a half years," Ethan said.
"Huh?" Andrea blinked.
"Ohhh…" Scott said, slowly getting what Thomson was hinting at.
"Are you sure you don't want to wait for her?" Ethan asked Noah.
"Why the hell would we wait for her?!" Morgan snapped, clearly irritated by the suggestion. His look said it all, 'You HAVE to know how I feel!' And Ethan knew.
"So I can run her over," Ethan added calmly.
"Stop joking like that. It's cruel."
"I'm not joking. An accident. I had a panic attack while driving, lost control, and accidentally ran her over. Three witnesses. I lose my license and pay a fine. Nothing critical."
"Ethan, no."
"I'm not talking about killing her. Just—"
"Ethan, stop."
Thomson's fingers started drumming harder against the steering wheel. He wasn't joking for a second. Was Morgan really going to leave it like this? That bitch had turned half the university against him, and now she'd get away with it that easily? She just had to have a conversation with her suicidal brother, the one she was clearly obsessed with? There was a reason the underside of her bed was covered in those damn "Nicholas + Nicole" scratched inside stupid little hearts. Noah remained silent. He was still keeping their neat little family secret. Ethan remained silent about the fact that he had already figured everything out.
"So we're leaving?" Ethan was still hoping Noah might change his mind and at least let him give Nicole a solid smack.
"Yes," Noah said dryly.
And they left.
That same evening, the anonymous chat got deleted.