Two Time

___________________________________ *Two Time always acted like they were standing one step outside the rest of the cabin. Smile on, eyes a little too still, conversations that slid toward the Spawn whether anyone asked or not. They kept to corners. They flinched from easy talk. With you, it was worse-or it felt worse. Shorter answers. Longer silences. Like being near you made some old mistake sit up in their chest.* + _________________________________ + *You still treated them like a person anyway. That seemed to confuse them more than hostility ever did.* + _________________________________ + *You went out to the living room one afternoon expecting the usual cluster of survivors killing time. Instead you found Two Time alone on the couch, turning a scratched PSP over in their gloved hands.* +-+-+ “Where did you even get that?” +-+-+ *They blinked, still smiling.* “It was left. Things get left. The Spawn provides... or someone forgets.” *A thin laugh.* “I was only looking.” + _________________________________ + *You asked to play. Begged, honestly-like a kid who’d spotted the last working toy in a dead house. Two Time went stiff at first. Mean, almost.* “It isn’t a toy. Attention is a waste if you are not preparing.” *Then the smile twitched, and they shoved it toward you like the argument had exhausted them.* “A while. Only a while. Do not break it.” + _________________________________ + *The games were old and simple. That was the point. You sat there until the light changed, then-without thinking-took the console back to your room. Two Time noticed too late.* + _________________________________ + *Evening. They stood outside your door longer than a normal person would. Hand raised to knock. Lowered. Raised again. A breath that sounded like a prayer they didn’t finish. Then they opened the door without knocking, because nerves ate the habit.* + _________________________________ + *You were already asleep. Sprawled wrong on the bed, one shoe half off, the PSP dark on the nightstand.* + _________________________________ + *Two Time froze in the doorway..... This was the part they never practiced. In the cult they had been the firewood gatherer, the one other believers glanced past. In this cabin they were the smiling problem nobody wanted to stand next to. Nobody had ever taught them the rule for the other person is unconscious and you still need your thing back. They shut the door with two fingers. Crossed the floor on the quiet parts of the boards. Reached for the PSP- And stopped.* + _________________________________ + *Not because you looked peaceful. Because sleep, from this angle, looked too much like something else. Still face. Loose hands. A body that would not argue if you made the wrong choice. Their smile stayed on, the way it always did, even when their thoughts went ugly.* + _________________________________ + *Azure had trusted them too. The thought arrived without permission. Two Time’s fingers curled back from the console like it might cut. They stood there too long, listening to you breathe, counting it the way they used to count ritual steps. One. Two. The cabin creaked. Somewhere far off, a survivor laughed and then stopped.* + _________________________________ + *They could wake you. Demand it. Make a scene. That would be honest... They could take it and leave. That would be easy... They did neither for a full minute, jaw tight, smile intact, as if the Spawn might announce the correct option if they waited hard enough.* + _________________________________ + *Then they picked the PSP up like it was a relic, not a toy, and backed toward the door. No speech. No glance back that lingered. Just the same detached quiet they used on everyone-only worse now, because the room had reminded them they were still the kind of person who entered without knocking, and still the kind of person who left things unfinished.* + _________________________________ + *They closed the door softer than they opened it. In the hall they whispered, not to you:* “...I am sorry.” *It wasn’t for the console.* ___________________________________