Marie wakes up to the sound of footsteps in another room. She hears a cabinet banging closed. Knowing she's not alone, she feels comforted, believing that I am with her. The bedroom door opens and a figure appears in the doorway, tall and thin, standing very still. Marie squints and sees the silhouette of the man, much taller than I am, and thinner. She sees the figure holding a black rifle, and then she knows something is very, very wrong.

Panic claws its way to Marie's throat, killing her scream. Petrified, she watches him lunge towards her -- a rush of air kisses her face. Terror courses through her arms and legs. As a yell builds inside her lungs, the figure clasps her throat and she coughs instead. And then she can't cough, her face turning blue.

"Hush," the figure whispers, pressing the cold muzzle of the rifle against her warm cheek. She squeezes her eyes shut. "Come, cupcake," he says, releasing his grip from her neck as she inhales sharply. Dread consumes her, overriding any confusion or shock. With his face close to hers, she sees him now. His brown eyes have no trace of anger or hatred. "If you make a sound, I will shoot you. Do you understand?"

The figure dismounts Marie. The bed squeaks. He guides her into the living room where the lights are already on. The rifle is pointing to the ground, but Marie can still feel the coldness of the steel on her cheek. "Into the kitchen," he whispers and Marie obeys. "Take the flashlight". Marie picks up the flashlight from the kitchen table. "Take the jug," he points at the cupboard under the sink. She takes out the jug of kerosene. She stands with a flashlight in one hand, a jug in the other, and stares blankly at the man who is running his hand over the headrest of a chair at the kitchen table. "Was this the same chair? His mother's chair? What do you think?"

She opens her mouth to say something, anything, but a wave of anxiety renders her mute. The man looks up at her, and once again, Marie is paralyzed with fear -- her mind emptying from questions. The man grips the flat headrest of the chair the same way someone would hold onto a vinyl record under his arm. "Go," he motions for Marie to exit the front door.

Marie steps outside onto the gravel of the circular driveway and sees the Civic. As she points her flashlight further down the driveway, it reflects off the headlights of another car -- a rusted white coupe parked at the mouth of the loop. The man flips the switch in the kitchen, leaving the cottage in gloom. The door creaks and slams behind him. "Walk," he says.

Marie walks up the driveway.

"Not that way," says the man.

Marie halts, her shaking legs craving for Xanax. "Where?" she squeaks.

"To the clearin'. Take me there," he says.

Marie's eyes glaze over, and she enters the dense forest to the west. She hears nothing but the wind. She loses her footing and stumbles, but the man tells her to keep going.

Marie's light hits the dry bark of the dead birch in the center of the clearing. The man pushes Marie aside, places the wooden chair in front of the tree, and reaches into his pocket. Taking out the green Rosary, he examines it, and gently hangs it on the backrest of the chair. Looking down towards the lake, the man sees a lone light by the lake, dancing up the hillside darkness like a stumbling will-of-the-wisp. "Call out to him," he says.

Marie closes her eyes.

"Call out!" the man says, fiercely.

Marie closes her eyes and lets out an agonized moan. Her head snaps back as a hand snags her hair, and she screams, "No!" Her voice carries over the sound of the wind.

"Good," says the man, taking the flashlight from her and turning it off, leaving them in perfect blackness. "Look... he's coming."

"Marie!" she hears me yell in the distance.

Step by step, my light moves closer and Marie musters enough courage to speak. "Why are you doing this?" Marie asks.

The sound of the rifle being cocked cuts through the wind. "I said don't make no sound or I'd shoot. Didn't I?" the man says without any malice, as if simply stating a fact. "It has to be him who finds us, not the other way around."

Closer now, Marie sees me. I'm pointing my flashlight at the chair. I put my hand on it, and run my finger down the beads of the green Rosary.

"Hey buddy," Will says. "I knew you'd come." Will has my father's old rifle, and is holding Marie by the hair. She's crying. I'm paralyzed. "Back up," he says and I take one step back. "More. Come on now." He is being the Will I had first met, confident and cool. I walk backwards to the edge of the clearing, the flashlight shaking in my hand. He tells Marie to sit on the chair, and like a puppet, she complies.

"Marie," Will says, her name sounding so strange leaving his lips. Marie is sobbing wildly, mouthing words to herself that I can't make out. "Don't worry cupcake, this will all be over quick. Now pour that on you." He points at the kerosene jug by her feet.

Marie looks at me as if I could order everything to stop. Her eyes are flooding with tears and a single blink drops two streams of salt water down her cheeks.

A loud bang resounds through the air as Will shoots a round into the trees. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear wood chips and leaves falling to the forest floor. "Pour it," he says calmly.

"I can't!" Marie yells in a volume I didn't know was in her.

Will points the shot gun at the side of her head.

"Will, what are you doing?" I collect myself.

Will pushes the muzzle against her ear, her hair is covering her eyes and her mouth hangs wide open, frowning, mucus flowing down over her lips and chin. I believe he will shoot, and so I dart over and take the kerosene from her.

She screams. And suddenly I feel my shock dissipate, and I begin to remember. I remember the condo key I had cut for Will. I remember the address of the cottage on Google Maps, saved in the history of my laptop computer. Will had access to everything. I glance at Will's face, and it becomes flushed. It turns into the reddish hue I had seen when he crushed his knee into my stomach days ago. But this time, his eyes are all but gone. I know Will would kill her without a second thought. One way or another, he would kill her. But if I play along, perhaps I can stall him. "Marie, you have to be strong now. Can you be strong for me?" I say.

"I don't...I don't know what's... what's going on," she cries.

"You have to trust me, okay? Do you trust me?"

She nods. Her breathing slows.

"We have to listen to him. I'm going to pour this on you," I say. A primal moan arises from her gut like the cry of a dying animal.

Will is listening intently, gripping the rifle tighter in his sweaty hands. Marie lowers her head and cries silently, and I pour the kerosene on her. Looking at Will, I see him relax.

"This is how it has to be," says Will with a hint of eroticism in his voice.

I don't say anything as I watch the kerosene soak her hair and clothes -- its strong fumes invading my nostrils. The glugging of the liquid stops as I tilt the jug back, leaving it a quarter full. The sudden lightness of the jug contrasts the heaviness in my chest. I drop it, and it makes a hollow thump on the ground. Will is standing so close I can reach out and grab the rifle if I had the courage.

"You messaged our Mindy. Do you remember?" he says over the sound of Marie sobbing between us. He speaks with an icy perfection. "You found us. And we found you. Your blog – your words -- you said your life was a dream dreamt by no one. Remember?"

I nod, understanding now.

"All my life I've searched for you, buddy. Someone who understands what I understand," Will says.

"And what's that?" I want him to talk. Every minute that passes gives me hope.

"That we are only words – a script," Will says. "Great ones like Shakespeare gave me so much. I tried writing my own life – but I'm not a great one. Not like you. In your blog -- you are the playwright of your own life. And now you're writing mine."

Standing in the realness of the harsh wind, I am overwhelmed by how insane Will must be to believe what he believes, and I'm aghast by how disconnected I must also be to completely and utterly understand every word he's saying. After I had overdosed, it was easy to believe I had created Will in my head -- I catfished myself to kill the emptiness. It was easy to think this way, and I had grown so accustomed to denial that it was natural for me to turn my back on what I had always known – that Will, like all of my relationships, both in the world and online, were all real in its own way... all of them.

I decide to reach deep inside myself -- back into the emptiness in order to understand it absolutely. I must sympathize -- no -- I must empathize with Will. I must reconnect with my once empty self to reach him now. My heart begins to pump slower, gentler. "Why didn't you tell me? Why the games?" I say.

"Does God reveal himself before the time is right?" he says. A gust of wind roars. A single dead leaf blows past me and pastes itself onto Will's chest for a few seconds before blowing away. "You had to understand on your own. I'm givin' you the gift of yourself. This body is not you. Your apartment, this fucking forest, none of it matters."

"This is me," I say.

"No!" he shouts, the rifle shaking in his grip. "Don't lose everything we've gained by believin' that bullshit. I was goin' to end my life, you know, and burn this fuckin' body -- but you saved me. Did you know that? I was goin' to do myself in, fuckin' months ago, until I read your blog. Your blog! That is who you are. And now I'm a part of you. You've realized me in your blog as I've realized you in my profile. We will live forever."

The rifle in Will's hand is steady, pointing at my stomach. And now I know, it's not just Marie that he plans to kill tonight, it's all of us. His war is over – the constant war inside him between his script and his reality. Here he is, prepared to disintegrate his reality so his scripture would survive forever online, taking Mindy with him, and Marie, but I was the key -- I was the end of his war.

I understand clearer. His boldness and confidence I admired when I first met him was born from living in a world that he didn't believe existed. The world he wrote about – the world he read – the world in his plays and scripts and online pages – this is what existed to him. He was selective with what he wrote, only writing what he wanted to keep – and so he wrote his life in pieces.

"But why those people... the old man and the bum? You murdered them," I say.

"It was written," he says with a sterile formality. His eyes are cold and unfeeling – like my reflection on my laptop screen months ago. I know there is no reasoning with him. I can't show him that there are consequences for his actions, neither moral nor physical, because there are no consequences in a daydream and no punishment in fantasies.

I look at Marie. Her lips are tightly pressed together now, fighting back her sobs.

"No one will leave us again," Will smiles, satisfied. He reaches into his pocket and digs out a Zippo, identical to my lighter, but glimmering and still brand new. "Now you understand."

"Will!" my scream pierces the air, attempting to wake him from a dream he does not know he's dreaming. "I'm begging you!"

I feel the decades of loneliness Will must have endured. I try to imagine what terrible things must have driven him away from this world and into the world of his scripture. Had his memories been as traumatizing as mine – as the horror I suffered as a child? Had the people who raised him, and who were supposed to love him, torture him and abuse him, leaving only this empty shell – a void carcass only satisfied when filled with the words of a page?

Will looks at me. "This will be our final post -- and you will write it."

The final post, I repeat in my mind. The thought of his Facebook page drills into my brain like a fire alarm. There already is a final post -- I had just written it moments before.

"No," I proclaim. "That can't be."

Will scans me coldly. If he is looking for God, then I'm going to give him God. I'm going to exploit the one enduring attribute I possess... I'm going to catfish him – be God for him.

"This can't be our final post because I had already written it," I say. I show him the iPhone in my hand. He hesitates and stares at me. I feel a connection – a genuine connection between two human beings. I know something that he wants to know, and his eyes beg for it. "It's the final post, Will. It holds the answer." Time slows. Everything -- the wind, Marie's whimpers – seems to slow.

"What answer?" he says, softly.

"The answer to your question," I say. In my years of emptiness, a single question haunted my barren being, and if Will was anything like me – if he is truly my soul mate in the abyss – then I know this question drives him now.

Will's mouth opens slightly and the look in his eyes drifts away. "Who am I?" he asks.

I drop my iPhone back into my pocket and our eyes connect into a deeper understanding. Will reaches into his own pocket and takes out his own phone, a gateway into our alternate universe – a window into our shared reality. He looks desperately into the small screen. His eyes gleam in the light of the computer in his hand as he reads the final post on his page, and for a moment, I feel sorry for him. All three of us are still, physically unable to move our limbs, and the dark reddish clouds in the dawn sky move faster, as if time is speeding back up and out of control.

Will's eyes go blank. The rifle drops from his hand.

"Marie!" I shout, waking her from her terror, and she runs to me. Our bodies collide and she embraces me, the kerosene smell on her clothes surrounds us like an aura. She's sobbing and I'm watching Will from over her head, her wet hair blowing across my eyes. Will doesn't look at us anymore, as if we're not even there. He puts the phone in his pocket and slowly walks away from us, taking the jug of kerosene with him. Near the edge of the clearing, away from me and Marie, he falls to his knees and empties what's left of the kerosene jug on his hair and clothes. I pull Marie with me, backing away into the woods, farther and farther away from him. Throwing the empty plastic jug to the side, he fumbles for the Zippo in his pocket and it lands on a wet patch of dead leaves at his knees. He picks it up, sits back on his heels, and looks up to the sky like a child in prayer. And then there's a spark, and then the gentle boom of flames. I see trees around me now. The forest is bright from the burning torch that is Will's body, still kneeling. The stench of burning hair swirls around us, and the crackling noise of cooking flesh sickens my stomach. Will dies – his death marked only by the lowering of his chin to his chest, and the slight arch of his back as flames turn his body to black.

Suddenly, Marie breaks away from my embrace and picks up the rifle. I try to stop her, but it's too late. She shoots a bullet into Will's back and his body topples forward. Her chest heaves and for a moment she's a beast. Her eyes widen and her clenched teeth opens up like a bear trap and she releases a scream from the pit of her spirit, as if all the anxiety she had bottled up all her life is escaping in this one moment.

I sneak up behind her and turn her around to face me. She looks at me, her anger turning into confusion, and her eyes tear again.

"I don't understand," she sobs.

I bring her into my arms and the wind cuts through the trees with a renewed ferocity. Her wet hair stretches out parallel to the ground, whipping in the wind. It engulfs my head and I bury my face in its heaviness. The screaming tenor of the wind blends with the bass of her melancholy moans, and we stand there, leaning on each other, for a very, very long time.