"Please don't scream," he urges, with harsh desperation. "Please."

I take a moment, but eventually manage a slight nod. My assailant studies me intently for a few moments and then slowly lets me go, stepping back one pace. Taking him in, my mouth drops yet again. I am ninety-nine percent sure that I've consumed expired soy milk and now I'm hallucinating because the food poisoning is getting to my head.

"Kurt Cobain?" I ask, just to be sure.

"Oh, Jesus Christ! Yes." He nods vigorously. "Yes, it's me and I don't know how I got here, but I mean you absolutely no harm..."

All I can think right now is that the Cintamani Stone worked... I rub my eyes again, I pinch myself, and he's still there. The same sky-blue, bloodshot eyes, the same golden mane, and the very same low, husky voice from the songs on my phone. "But," I wonder, "how's this even possible?"

"I... I don't know," Kurt says, looking around himself. "What's happening?"

I slowly venture closer to the impossibility, reaching out with a hand to touch him. Kurt immediately steps backwards, inching away from my reach. "Hey," I say softly, as though talking to a scared deer, "hey, I am not going to hurt you. I just need to know if you're really real."

"What?" Kurt stands still, cautiously watching me as I raise my hand to his head and capture a lock of his hair between my thumb and my forefinger; it's so silky, and real! I poke his cheek; deciding that it's actual flesh. Then I pinch his shoulder, he winces and slaps me hand away. "Ow! Are you done? I don't like being touched."

I think it's pretty much been established that he is all solid and tangible and in my bedroom! "Yeah, I'm sorry." I give him a once over; he's dressed in an oversized, olive green sweater, fingerless gloves, and light blue jeans. Every bit of clothing is streaked in grass-stains and dirt and his feet are bare—he's not even wearing socks. A thought strikes me then, and I question, "what's the last thing you remember?"

"I..." Kurt's brows wrinkle in concentration. "I was in my home in Seattle. I—I..."

When he stumbles, his stare dazed and his expression lost, something in me makes me grab ahold of him and lead him to my bed. I sit him down and kneel in front of him. "You remember?"

Kurt nods, his eyes welling up. "I remember writing a letter to Boddah. Then I held a gun to my chin and after that..." He chokes, tears finally spilling over, and he begins sobbing so hard that my heart breaks. He's hiccupping softly, sniffling and rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. I don't know what to do, so I simply pat his left knee as comfortingly as I can. We stay like this for the next ten minutes, and I begin pondering on the legitimacy of this situation again; am I dreaming? How's this come to be? The Stone was authentic? Ultimately, I'm snapped out of my lost thoughts by his voice, "I'm supposed to be dead, aren't I?"

How should I respond to that? I can't lie about it, and even if I can, how am I supposed to cover up a truth as vicious as this? I nod. "Yes..."

"How did I come back?"

"I don't know..." I falsify this once, because I cannot tell him that a jokingly made wish is what brought him back to the life he hadn't wanted to live.

"How long have I been gone?" He seems close to becoming suicidal again, and that makes me feel guiltily responsible. I can't let him kill himself again, especially since it's because of me he's back in the first place.

"About twenty-three years," I answer gently. "I'm so sorry..."

"I need to see them all," Kurt says, putting his face in his palms. "I need to tell them that I'm sorry for what I did... Courtney, Krist, Dave and the others... I need to let them know I'm alive."

"I... Kurt, I don't think that's such a good idea," I tell him as tenderly as I can.

He lifts his face from his hands, crystal-blue gaze searching my face for something comprehensible. "Why...?"

"It's... It's been such a long time," I reason, "I don't think they'll be able to handle this."

"But, why else would I have come back?" He asks, voice rising an octave suddenly. "I know I've been given a second chance at life and I must apologize for what I did back then... I was selfish, I didn't think about my wife and how my... How what I did would affect her. And Frances, my Frances Bean..."

"Kurt, slow down," I insist, "please. Just think about how they might not even believe you, it might just make things worse, I mean, this coming back from the dead is not something that you can expect people to deal with... Put some real thought before deciding."

After a moment's thought, he says, "I guess you're right... I didn't think this through."

I stand up, wringing my hands together. "So... Do you know where you are? Do you have any idea of where you're going to stay?"

Kurt's gaze takes a surveil of my room, as if trying to make sense of his bearings somehow. He looks back at me, lost and confused like a puppy, and my heart melts once more. "Where am I?" He asks, "is this Seattle?"

I shake my head in denial. "You're in Glenn, North Carolina."

"Not even in Washington." He curses briefly, rubbing his face in frustration. "Had to land in some alien town... I—I'm..."

"It's okay," I interrupt, partly because I feel so very bad for him—I can't even imagine what he's going through right now—but mostly because it's all my fault he's in this situation; the sheer guilt is eating me up as we speak. "You can stay... In my closet room, until we work out something."

Questioning my own decisions, I begin wondering if it is safe to be harboring a possibly necromanced, undead musician with suicidal tendencies...

Apparently, Kurt has noticed my discomfort. He says, "thank you so much for offering, but I think I will be able to find someplace to sleep in for tonight. Every place has got to have a hotel." He gets up, awkwardly moving towards the door out of my room. "I'll go to Seattle tomorrow and..."

As Kurt shuffles his feet on the carpet covering the floor, I'm struck again that his attire is covered in filth, he's barefoot, he's in another century, he has no real idea of what to do and where to go, and I'm pretty sure he has no money on his person. The root causes of all his current ailments are me and that stupid wish I made to the even stupider Stone! "Hey," I say, hurrying to place myself between him and the door, "please stay. I can't let you out there like this and... Just stay. We'll figure things out together, starting tomorrow... Right now, let's get you some clean clothes and food... Okay?"

He appears uncertain. "Okay..."

"I swear I will help you get things straightened. Just please, don't make any rash decisions and bad choices again..."

"Alright," he mumbles, his voice cracking a little.

I go towards my parent's room, to sneak out some of my dad's older clothes, ones that will not be missed. Kurt follows me closely behind, now solidifying my impression of him as a lost puppy. Going into the closet, I take to ruffling through the hangers in the far-right corner of dad's side—this is where he exiles all the old and ignored articles of clothing.

"Why're you helping me so much?" Kurt's voice queries from behind me. "I mean, you have no reason to help me... I'm not your friend or—"

"Kurt," I cut him off, "I don't need a reason to help you. But, I... I guess it's because the music you made with Nirvana—those songs really helped me through things." I keep my back turned to him, lest he see how I'm swallowing down the truth and attempting to conceal the immense culpability weighing me down. "And, it's called a moral duty, you know. To help a fellow human."

Kurt scoffs. "Huh, moral duty? You're probably the only person who even knows the word 'moral' in this world. People are selfish as hell."

"Some," I counter, "not most. I'm sure Courtney and Krist aren't selfish."

"Hmm..." He doesn't respond any further.

Picking out a black and gray set of cotton tracksuit, I turn around to see Kurt with my mom's iPad, which happens to have captured his interest in a corruptive hold. He turns it this way and that and pokes the screen, eyes widening when it lights up. Fearing he'll drop it, I snatch it from him and thrust the tracks at him, ignoring his dumbfounded expression. I take him by his free hand and bring him back to my room.

"Go in and change," I tell him, pointing at the bathroom door. When Kurt seems hesitant, I persist, "go on. I'll be right here. You might wanna take a shower too..."

Obeying, Kurt tentatively shuffles into the bathroom and with one last gaze at me, he shuts the door behind himself. Heaving a tired sigh, I plop down on the stool in front of my vanity, and stare at myself in the mirror. My plain brown hair has come loose from its bun in wisps that now float round with a life of their own, my eyes have bags under them—heck, even the bags have bags! My hazel eyes are red in the whites—result of this recent insomnia I've been experiencing—I'm tired as fuck, and to top it all off, I have an impossible situation to keep under control... Great!

What have you done, Mercy?