Considering how much had to burn, the flames slithering away into the home like infernal lassos picked up the needed momentum and size upon consuming dusty furniture. Thereupon the flames rose like pillars, and now not even the dry roof was safe.

  "Why not just light the basement on fire first?" Iker asked.

  The new flames lent Camilo a yellow sheen over his golden face and black cardigan. With the mishmash of memories that no longer cared for linear time making up Iker's new mind, Camilo at fourteen did not look much different as a young adult. He grew up that fast. He gazed into Iker's eyes for a moment before bending a knee to remove his right sneaker. After he moved his foot out of the shadows the firelight revealed that his toes were missing with a bloody bandage covering it.

  "You were worried about me having a concussion with that?" Iker said with a frown.

  Camilo placed his bloody foot back into his sneaker. "That was what that spooky tree took from me. Well... I can't say it's a tree anymore. I am not even sure if it was... whatever it was I saw."

  "Fuck... I have so many questions and I don't know what to focus on. How do you know about my future?" Iker asked.

  "I don't," Camilo said. "I only know about mine. In a weird way... I am not the Camilo you know."

  "... what?"

  "Come closer," Camilo requested.

  Iker did not even finish his first step before he noticed a holographic flicker on Camilo's cardigan. Upon inspection, only Camilo's head and limbs were made of flesh.

  RESETS: 0

  Climate change, billionaires, babylonized citizens, and the continued use of generative models weakened Denver's stability, but none of it came close to the chaos hologram infestations brought.

  Well, it was not just Denver. The holograms, especially when it was combined with generative models, caused an immediate and global catastrophe. It was clear documenting everything that happened accurately would never happen. Even the global map would have to be redone.

  Upon its aftermath changing Denver forever, all twenty-one-year old Iker wanted to do was for his second bender to be more momentous than his first. Nothing remained open in Lavender Hill, so he had agreed to meet up with Camilo back in Pueblo.

  Maybe this is the last time I can actually call you haha, Camilo had lamented, finishing it with a forced laugh.

  You would know how we would meet up if that is the case right? Iker had asked.

  Nope. Not at all.

  It would be like those old movies I love to watch. We set a time and place and commit to it, Iker had explained.

  You. Commit?

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  ... what are you trying to say?

  Why do you love that time period so much? I have to keep looking up references you make, Camilo had asked back.

  It was the last time people had a shared reality.

  Even across the desert Pueblo's energy was ominous. Thankfully the town looked intact, but that was it. The desert highway was devoid of terrestrial cars, only Iker's magnetic car levitated above what remained of the windswept concrete. The eeriness of his lone engine whizzing along made him want to relapse even further. Speculations as to what had happened in or to the town would be endless, anything from a fake kaiju or trolls creating police holograms could be the reason the nothing was on the highway. The day was coming to an end with Iker covering the rays with the car's sun visor. However, something was off about the sunlight now.

  Iker flipped the visor up, discovering black smoke eclipsing the sun.

  Nice hologram, Iker thought with a scoff. Laughing did not stop another pang of guilt. Iker preferred to drive a vehicle that would last so his warm yellow Placere 2060 was fastidious in design. Oftentimes he had to be around technology intentionally built to not do such a thing, and expressing concern with the casual malpractice had built camaraderie with Alice. She had been the one that recommended the magnetic car.

  After thinking about his manager that wanted to overtake Ernest's nepotistic hire in Memoryfeed, Iker arrived in parking range of the Grail Roadhouse right by Pueblo's outskirts. The surprisingly busy restaurant's centerpiece roof was raised with the roadhouse's logo with golden cups on each side. If Iker had to guess, the people in and outside of the building were either trying to figure out what was going on or what the hell to do. Camilo was nowhere to be found. Upon descending Iker aimed towards the small convenient store to the left of the building and parked by it to find the owner clearing it out into a terrestrial white van. Iker observed the man frantically pushing boxes to the back of it before pressing a side button to step out of the sliding door.

  "Did you want to buy anything?" he asked. "I am making this store mobile. The roadhouse ain't gonna be long here either."

  "No thank you," Iker said. "I hope you don't mind me parking here I guess. I saw more room on this side."

  "I don't care," he said, jogging back to the convenient store's entrance.

  "Iker!"

  Walking through the batwing doors was twenty-one-year-old Camilo. "This is the last night we can eat here. How about it?"

  Both men agreed to it and entered the roadhouse, noticeably avoiding physical contact. It was packed with families and people expressing every kind of emotion conceivable. Depending on what they encountered, the holograms could have been either amusing or horrifying. From the bathroom a man was ululating louder than Marvin Gaye's voice on the speakers.

  Someone... definitely died.

  Camilo and Iker chose the most secluded booth, which was near a window facing the empty highway and packed parking lot. Even though the world changed once more, they were compelled to start the conversation light. They sped through the small talk not because they had a topic to get to, but because they did not know how to breach the topic at hand. Even though Iker tried to drag on about the usual wildfire, a sole pixelated clown was marching towards Colorado Springs on the highway. With each proud step the melodramatic clown raised his elbows high. Back and forth the hologram kept shapeshifting between being a crying clown and a tiny blue clown car drifting in glitter.

  Camilo took the loudest sip from his Long Island iced tea yet.

  "Sorry to do this... but was this all you Iker?"

  Whatever played the music in the sky finally breached the most intense part of the song, the roof of Iker's home instantly engulfing into flames right on rhythm. Both boys were covered in a white sheen for a brief second as their mouths gaped.

  "I hope it's not too late," fourteen-year-old Camilo said. "I have a feeling I was though."

  "Why?" Iker asked.

  "Because of what happened earlier," Camilo replied.

  It appeared to be a consequence of gravity and the fire's roar at first, but the culprits that made the rest of the roof and the power line collapse into the flames were in the center of the brightness. The shadow of a goat man and a man in robes were within the center of it all, stepping up above the basement stairs.