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Chapter 539 - 36

If it hears you, it doesn't say anything. Still, you feel better having expressed your anger. It's an affirmation that you haven't given up.

The fog blankets the water so thoroughly that you can see nothing.

When it parts again so that you can see, Burbridge is in front of you.

Somehow, as impossible as it is, Rex is there too.

"What the hell?" he repeats to himself over and over again as he claws his way onto Burbridge's shore, pale and shaking so hard that he can't even push himself up to stand.

You follow him up onto the shore, not in as bad shape as he is, but still a little worse for wear.

You see it before he does. The body lying in the sand. The unmoving heap of teenage boy drenched in seawater.

Rex stares at his own body. He reaches out to touch it, thinks twice, then reaches out again to flip the boy over.

His face stares back at him, and he stumbles backwards.

"Help!" he screams. "Somebody! Help!"

Even if he were alive, there is nobody there to hear him but you, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's already come to pass.

"I don't. I don't under—I need," he sputters, unable to string a sentence together as he grabs his body by the jacket and pulls it up further onto dry land, then onto the grass, screaming for help the entire time.

You follow him as he drags his own body all the way up to the clearing where it was found. He pants as he falls to his knees. For a moment, he just stays there, trying to catch his breath though he may not even have breath anymore, then pushes himself back up to drag his body only a few more yards to a tree. With a frustrated and pained groan, he props it up and falls back onto the ground.

For the first time since fifth grade when his cat Milly died, you see Rex cry. It's an ugly cry, the kind that makes you look like you've never experienced anger or grief before and are having an allergic reaction to it. Watching him drown was hard, but this is somehow harder.

To the left, trees sway and twigs snap. Rex turns to look through red puffy eyes.

A thick blanket of fog is plowing through the woods in your direction, making the current layer of fog look like nothing more than a gentle haze.

Rex Gets Up and Runs