Warning: suicidal themes (kind of?) in this chapter. May be triggering to some.

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A glitch in the simulation.  Of course.

Eli was studying to become a programmer.  He knew that no system was perfect.  There was always room for error, even the most marginal of sorts.  The world and its laws were so vast, so complex, that it was impossible to store all those variables perfectly in a world of limited storage—trying to do so only nurtured a climate ripe for error.   And if Eli could witness the glitch, then that meant he wasn't just a simulated character made by a higher intelligence. It meant he recognized what reality should entail; and this wasn't it.

This world wasn't real.

But Eli was.

He was sure of it now.  His existence was external to this programmed reality, which explained his nightmares, the suit, the nodules, the simulation goggles.  The overseers had done their best to keep him blind to the truth, but in the end, Eli didn't need to wait for the torch-bearer—the acrid smoke had given them away. 

He spent the afternoon running through possibilities and theoretical situations, turning to the Internet for answers only to find Buzzfeed articles or scientific papers that ridiculed the theory. The lack of information confirmed his suspicions: his server was tainted.  The programmers didn't want him to learn any more, so they'd stripped his network of data.  They'd burned the library.

Before he knew it, the sun had abandoned him, and he was running late for the soccer party.  Eli didn't want to leave his bedroom and his treacherous computer, but he needed to see Lopez and explain what had happened.  He needed his best friend on his side, a rational third party to tell him he wasn't hurdling past the deep end.

So he snatched his bike and rode straight for the apartment complex off campus, his mind hyperactive, grip painfully tight around the headset.

When he arrived at the party, he realized Lopez could have left out the apartment number in the address—the source of the noise was obvious.  He climbed the stairs two at a time and made for the suite with all the ruckus, pushing through the door into a dimly-lit space full of athletes, red solo cups, and cannabis. 

He immediately discovered the party was too much for his senses. After spending all evening in the dark of his room, paranoid and caffeinated, he was sensitive to everything.  The blaring music, the musty smoke and perfume, the shifting bodies. He was overwhelmed. Overstimulated.

He weaved through friendly faces, nauseous and dizzy.  Then he spotted a patch of dark hair and a familiar set of shoulders, and he felt a relieving gust of air return to his lungs.

Lopez, in his club sweatshirt and black skinny jeans, stood in the corner of the room surrounded by his teammates and a handful of girls.  He held a Coors in one hand, and he gestured animatedly with his other, smiling wide as he related some tale.

He suddenly caught sight of Eli, and he abruptly left the conversation to come and greet him.

Eli glanced at the abandoned circle and back to his friend, who beamed at him and murmured something about his wardrobe choice.  "Weren't you in the middle of telling a story?"

"¿Mande? No." Lopez waved away the thought.  "I was biding my time waiting for you, tonto."

Normally, the sentiment would have charmed Eli, but right now his mind was reeling, and he needed a sense of purchase. "Great. Can we talk somewhere private?"

"That kind of defeats the purpose of the party.  But sure. Let's get some air."

They navigated through the intramural teams to the outdoor terrace, and Eli glared at the two girls occupying the space until they grew so uncomfortable they left.  He quickly slid the glass door close behind them.

The cold night air soothed his nerves, and he scanned the horizon: the western corner of campus, the dazzling cityscape beyond, and in the distance, the roaring, lambent freeway.   So much detail—so much code.

Lopez nudged him with a cold beer.  "Okay.  You're being more standoffish than usual. What's gotten into you?"

Eli rounded on him, feeling the thread unravel, the mask fracture. "Teddy. The simulation theory...it's actually true. None of this is real."

His companion gaped at him, lowering the beer.  "You're still on that? Man, it's just a hypothesis. You need to let it go."

Eli shook his head wildly, back and forth, back and forth.  "No. No, you don't get it.  I almost got hit by a car today—"

"What?"

Eli held out his hand to placate the other boy.  "I didn't get hit by the car, but only because it vanished!  The thing disappeared. One moment it was there, and then it wasn't!  And you were there too, except you weren't. Not really."

The programmers had used his friend's voice to snap him out of his daydream this afternoon, but Lopez had never been there on the street.  

No one else had witnessed the glitch.

"Alright, alright, calm down," Lopez hissed. "Híjole, you're freaking me out."

Eli wanted to cry he was so frustrated.  If his best friend didn't believe him, no one would. "I can't be calm, Ted.  I know what I saw.  Today, last night..."

Lopez huffed, exasperated.  "You think you know.  But you sound crazy, güey.  Like, really crazy."

Eli backed away, his pulse pounding loudly in his temple, his breathing ragged. He was either losing his mind, or he was becoming cognizant in a system that rejected consciousness. 

Neither option boded well for him. But he refused to live life without knowing which was true.

"I can prove it," he declared, and Lopez squinted at him, wary.

"How?"

Eli clenched his fists to keep his fingertips from shaking.  "I could have died today, but the simulation refused to let that happen, as if that directly contradicted its algorithm."  He narrowed his eyes.  "The beings running this program won't let any harm come to me.  For whatever reason, they can't."

His gaze flitted to the balcony railing, and Lopez blanched as he realized Eli's plan. "Whoa, wait a second—" 

Eli lunged for the railing, and Lopez scrambled after him, aghast.

"¡Espera!"

Eli quickly straddled the railing and swung his second leg over the edge, clasping tight to the balustrade. He faced a terrified Lopez, who instinctively reached out to grasp two handfuls of Eli's thin hoodie, anchoring him to this artificial reality.

"Dammit, Eli. Don't fuck around." He tugged at him, brown eyes wide and desperate.  "Get your ass back over the railing right now, or so help me god—"

Eli could barely hear him over his own raging heartbeat.  Somewhere in the city, a siren.

Or perhaps...an alarm.

"I need answers, Teddy," he said.  Tears sprung to the surface, blurring his vision, and he watched them flood Teddy's eyes as well—tears of fear. 

"So what, you're just going to off yourself?" Lopez cried, shaking him.  Eli had never seen the boy so scared. So livid.

"They won't let me," Eli promised, leaning away.  "This is how I prove it."

Over Teddy's shoulder, Eli could see the students' alarmed faces through the sliding glass door. He could hear their startled exclamations as they realized what was happening.  Someone turned the music off, and the vibration of the bass died beneath Eli's fingertips.

Lopez bent forward, hand taut around Eli's clothing.  "But what if you're wrong, E?" He shook his head.  "What if you're wrong, and you leave me here all alone?  You can't do that to me.  You can't leave me.  Not like this. Not ever."

Lopez looked deep into his eyes, absolutely terrified.

"Please don't do this."

And that gentle, shattered plea was all it took. 

The trance broke—the bravery and gall along with it—and hot tears spilled over Eli's cheeks.  He nodded, subdued, and he crawled back over the steel barrier, Lopez refusing to release his hoodie until Eli had both feet planted safely on the other side.

Lopez murmured something to his teammates and shut the door to the host's bedroom, turning to face Eli with an unreadable expression. Silently, he handed him a glass of water, and Eli couldn't tell if he was repressing a storm of anger or an impending breakdown.

"I'm sorry," Eli whispered, taking the cup gingerly.  "I just...I know that none of this is real.  None of it." He looked at the other boy—his scared and lost expression, his dark, glossy eyes—and the truth tasted like poison on his tongue. "You're not even real."

In all likelihood, Lopez was just a projection, an equation. At least in this reality. And that meant Eli was completely alone here.

A warm hand brushed his arm, and Eli stared down at the tan digits curling around his pale wrist.  The hand tugged gently, and Eli obeyed, stepping closer to its keeper—dazed and heartbroken.

"E," Lopez said softly, pulling his gaze upward.  "You feel that?"

His slender fingers traveled down to tangle with Eli's, and he linked their hands together, squeezing tightly. Eli couldn't breathe, so he just nodded along.

"I'm not some projection, cariño. I'm real.  I'm a real person with real feelings and thoughts."  He smiled sadly.  "You're just exhausted, and stressed, and desperate for an escape, and this simulation theory grants you that freedom, so it's got you obsessed."

Eli frowned at the floor, dejected. "No matter what I say, none of you will believe me." Either because they were programmed not to, or because they were built to respond like real individuals, and consequently, would consider him insane.

"I believe that something is going on with you," Lopez said, running his thumb over Eli's knuckles.  "And I think we need to get you some help. Someone who will know exactly what you're going through and who can change your mind about all this."

"I don't know if that's possible.  This idea...it's like a seed that's taken root.  I'm not sure I can ever unsee the possibilities."

"I don't know what the answer is," Lopez admitted. "But I know it's not throwing yourself off a building mid-semester."

A timid smile formed on his face, an attempt to make light of a non-amusing situation, and Eli breathed out, chuckling a little.

They sat down on the edge of the bed, knees bumping together.

Eli took a few moments to observe the room around them—the soccer trophies on the shelf, the pile of laundry overpowering the desk chair, the various dirty dishes and unopened textbooks strewn about the living space. His gaze lingered on the stoner kit on the bedside table and the array of glass bongs fixed to the wall like a work of art. He had to fight the urge to snap a picture and send it to Brenna with the caption, fine art.

"We're gonna get through this together," Lopez assured him, drawing his attention again. "I just need you to believe in us for a little while longer, okay?"

Eli felt his heart crawl up into his throat at that. "Us?"

Lopez shrugged, eyes fixed to the corner of his teammate's room.  "Yeah. Us."

Confused, Eli looked back down at his lap, the cup of water void of ripples—still as ice.

"E."

He turned to Lopez with a heavy chest, but before he could awkwardly excuse himself for the night and escape this strange, uncharted tension, Teddy's mouth was on his.

His mind immediately stopped working, gears grinding to a halt, processors frozen. The only thing he could fathom was his friend's lips.

His warm, soft, and pliant lips.

Eli's hands slackened in shock, and the glass slipped through his fingers onto the floor—shattering against the hardwood and flooding the room.  The sound sent the two boys jumping apart.

Eli gaped at Lopez, barely finding words. "Did...did you just—"

"Yeah," the boy admitted, red in the face.  He glanced to the side and back, and it was the first time Eli had ever seen him so nervous.  "Sorry. Did you...not like it?"

"No...I mean, yes, I—Jesus..." Eli blinked rapidly, perplexed, astounded, and Lopez immediately burst into laughter.  Not cruel laughter—just genuine, embarrassed, and overjoyed laughter.  "What is happening?"

Lopez snorted.  "Well, I kissed you, and you short-circuited.  Which is pretty much exactly how I expected that to go."

"You kissed me," Eli repeated, the sentence bizarre, completely otherworldly. "Why?"

Teddy reached out to cup the side of Eli's face, taking him in with a tender, loving look that had never once been directed at him in all his life.  "I thought you were supposed to be a genius?"

He came in slowly this time, gradual and deliberate, but Eli still wasn't prepared for the soft brush of his lips, the warm hand tilting his chin to the perfect angle, the fingertips tantalizing the dark curls of his nape.

Lopez tasted of honey and sunshine—eternal happiness—and Eli's winded heart danced to silent music.  His lashes fluttered close, and his mouth moved against Teddy's, which had the other boy humming in contentment.

God, Eli was melting from the inside out, pooling at the foot of the bed with the rest of the water. He'd been reduced to a goddamn puddle.

Eventually, Lopez pulled away, and Eli gazed back at him, flushed and heavy-lidded. Snickering, Lopez moved to pick up the shattered glass from the floor, and Eli slid to the ground to help him, blood hot, heart pounding.

Lopez had just...done the impossible. He'd bridged the unbridgeable.  He'd made a move.  He'd confessed. All at once!

And the kiss had been everything Eli imagined it'd be.

Lopez retrieved a small trashcan for him to dump his glass pieces, and Eli glanced up at him—those loving eyes, those perfectly-sculpted cheekbones, that familiar smile.

"I love you, Teddy," he blurted, his heart clenching around that heavy word, holding tight.   "I have for a long time."

Lopez bit his lip, but it did nothing to stopper the wide, radiant grin on his face.

"And...and that's why I have to do this," Eli whispered.

Without hesitation, he thrust the glass shard straight into his own abdomen. Straight into his gut.

He'd expected the world to halt on its axis, for the glass to hit an invisible barrier inches from his navel, for the shard to vanish completely from his grip.   He hadn't expected the razor edge to sink into his flesh and set his veins on fire.

Shit.

Shit!

Eli gasped at the blood pooling around the blade, down over his stomach, and his body screamed at him for his betrayal—his utter idiocy.   The internal pressure was wrong, invasive, and the pain came to him in waves of sharp agony and horrible, thunderous throbbing. 

Stunned, he glanced up at Lopez, the simulated character, the avatar built to fulfill a perfect romantic interest.   The boy who could never possibly love him, and who never would have risked their friendship so carelessly.  Not now, when Eli needed a sturdy boulder to lean on. Not if he truly believed Eli was sick.

But Lopez merely sighed, shaking his head in disappointment, his demeanor transforming into something else, something foreign. When he opened his eyes, they were old and green as the earth.

"Elliot, my boy," he said in a voice that wasn't his, in a manner that wasn't right. "What in the world are we going to do with you?"

And then the world shut off around them.