Sometimes, as we live life, we lose parts of ourselves. Sometimes we have the chance to find them again.

  Today was D-Day, Detention Day. The Thursday afternoon when TJ would have to sit with the other truants and waste two extra hours after school. More for him since he was part of the advanced class doing half days. An unfair punishment for his own success. But necessary. System mandated.

  Maybe it was for the best. Since the lawn incident, TJ had been a ghost in the house, utterly silent and unresponsive. Brom didn't push, his nephew's week had been nothing short of hellacious. The anchor. The Instances. The confrontation. The tension of waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was getting to both of them.

  When his nephew left for school that morning, Brom decided he needed to do something. That was how he ended up in Sheriff Bruce Colby's office at noon, watching the sunlight track through wooden blinds that had probably covered that window since the Regan Era. It plunged the room into a gloom that soothed the man with the handlebar mustache and the hound-dog eyes. Like Roy Quint, Bruce Colby was another Moderator. Unlike Roy, he'd never really had much of a conversation with Brom before now. Shaken hands for a press release, set him up doing dungeon runs for the Sheriffs, just like Brom had done for the Guard. Thanked Brom for keeping that stretch of North Highway between his house and Cold Bay monster-free.

  Brom hadn't intended to do that, it was just that he'd taken up jogging the five miles into town in the mornings. It helped clear his head.

  "If this is about the domestic incident that took place on your property recently, we've decided to classify it as a PvP incident. The Logs show both parties inflicted damage on each other, and that Jason Jones Senior was the first aggressor, it's rather clear cut." Bruce's voice had a relaxed structure, like he'd once been a surfer. Sometimes helpful for de-escalation and enunciation in stressful moments.

  "That's not why I'm here." Brom leaned forward, placing his palms flat and letting the Grip cover his hands. "I need to go into the Lacuna Drive Instance. Within the next four hours."

  [Quest: The Sea God's Request.]

  - Enter the Instance on Lacuna Drive: Time Remaining 04:32:15.

  Sheriff Colby looked at Brom for a long time, somehow managing to look even more tired. "...I'm not even going to ask how you know about it. It's not supposed to show itself to anyone under Level 10. You're two levels too early."

  "I've got a Quest that was personally given to me by the God of the Sea and a timer ticking down on it. Lacuna Drive is your jurisdiction, or I'd have asked Captain Quint. I didn't want to step on your toes." And there was no promise that the other Moderator could do anything about something outside his 'area'.

  Bruce's mustache swished as he sniffed, leaning back in his ancient wooden desk chair. He stared out a gap in the blinds, a broken slat giving him a perfect eye window. "There's a reason that Instance is level locked." A deep sigh heaved out of him. "But if it's on that kind of authority, then we have bigger problems than an under-leveled Barbarian taking on a personal challenge." The chair gave a sharp squeal as he spun quickly and squinted at Brom.

  Brom just stared back, wondering what the whole noir detective routine was about. It was like the Sheriff was trying to 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' him, except he was playing both parts. "Look, all I was told was that the quest was important. So..."

  "So you can go. I'll make sure it's unlocked when you get there. 223 Lacuna Drive."

  "Wait. The murder house?" Every modest-sized town had the obligatory creepy house, and for Cold Bay, it was 223 Lacuna. Everyone born and raised there knew it, the place that every child refused to walk past alone and every teenager swore they'd spent the night in. Really, Brom should have known. His grey eyes fixed on Bruce Colby's tired face, noting the amusement there, and he pushed himself up. "Well, won't be the first time I've been in there. Maybe there's interesting new graffiti to read."

  "I wish you luck. You're going to need it."

  Brom really hated the sound of that. He couldn't get it out of his head the whole way there, the way the Sheriff had looked and sounded. Was it just his personality, or had the Moderator been trying to convey something important? Either way, it felt like Greg was still fucking with him. This time, instead of making him watch memory theater or putting his family in danger, he was forcing Brom to confront a far darker part of himself. Whatever instance was inside that house, it couldn't be worse than the real horror that had gotten its claws on Brom there.

  The place looked the same as it had in Brom's mind, a weary old pile of timbers that refused to collapse. Every few years, someone would buy the place. Put in a few repairs for whatever reason and then abandon it again. Last Brom had heard some guy had bought it to use as a haunt attraction during the spooky season and leased it to filmmakers for horror projects during the off months. Maybe that explained why something that looked like it should have been condemned was actually structurally sound. More than likely, the Instance had something to do with it.

  The sunlight seemed to dim, a full bite of Winter chewing at his ass as he stood there with his hands in his pockets and his expression stony. Twenty years. Twenty years since he'd been in this place and had taken his first innocent steps down a road that had almost ended up killing him. But he was a different person now. Older. Wiser. Sober. "Alright, let's fucking do this. I need to beat TJ home." He was going to make his nephew something warm and homey. Mac n' cheese, maybe. Extra gooey.

  The boards of the porch cracked under his weight, his weight pushing them in and almost sending him crashing through. He moved quick, reaching for the door, the Grip already covering his hand as he pushed the sagging rectangle of peeling paint.

  [Entering Instanced Area!]

  [WARNING!!: Your level is too low!]

  [Override: Access Granted]

  [Confront the Resident]

  [0/1 Encounter Resolved]

  [Quest: The Sea God's Request.]

  - Enter the Instance on Lacuna Drive! Complete.

  [Quest: The Sea God's Request.]

  - Find what you left behind 0/1

  Everything looked the same. It was like stepping back to that one summer night the year he'd turned sixteen. The party at the murder house, the biggest event of the teenage year. A generator, a stereo hooked up to too many speakers, and red Solo cups full of some unholy mix of energy drinks, fruit punch, and vodka. Mostly vodka. Beer procured by college kids helping out the little homies or bums that did it in exchange for the change. Then someone from somewhere had started passing out those pills, and it had become a real party.

  It was the first time he'd been drunk. The first time he'd been high. The first time he and Axel Drecker had acted on what had started brewing months before. He put his hand on the railing of the staircase, testing his weight on the first stair. It groaned, but it held, allowing him to climb up higher. The air was surprisingly clean. It smelled of dust, of damp, but no mold. The graffiti had changed, Brom didn't understand the slang, but a dick was still a dick. There were terrible consequences of that night, but now that he was here, there were amazing memories too. He smiled.

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  And then something hit him square in the fucking chest and knocked him off the stairs like he was a bad guy in Home Alone.

  HP: 650/800

  He coughed, the dust billowing around him, groaning as he put a hand to his chest. He'd never been hit that hard before. That blow felt like it had cracked something. Slowly, he looked up and saw it standing on the stairs. Sixteen-year-old Brom Jones. Shorter by a head, features sharp and hungry, and hair hanging to his shoulders. The faux lip ring he'd made out of a piece of metal, those ripped jeans, too tight around skinny legs, and his arms full of wiry muscle. He looked a lot like TJ but meaner. And apparently, he packed the current Brom's punch strength.

  His young doppelganger opened his mouth, and Brom raised a hand. "Before we do this, can I ask a question?" The teenage Brom paused, folding his arms over his Iron Maiden shirt, and watched him warily for a moment, then nodded. "Can we just talk, you and I. The real you and not teenage me. Because I'm already not doing so well handling teenagers, and I remember my teenage self, enough to know I didn't handle him well either."

  The thing wearing his vintage face tipped its head to the side, and then its expression rearranged itself into one that teenaged Brom Jones never would have worn. "...I knew you'd be special. I can feel it in the echo you left in this place. And you're even here early!" BJ, because you bet your ass Brom was going to call this thing by the nickname everyone always tried to pin on him, sauntered down the stairs with his hands behind his back. He cocked his gaze up at Brom, laughing softly. "You're fucking crazy, you know that?"

  Brom gave a sardonic smile. "I've been told that a time or two. Fact of the matter is I'm not here to challenge this instance. I'm not here to fight you."

  "I know." BJ laughed out the word. "You're here to find something that's twenty years forgotten, and I don't know why I should help you." His teen self paused, gaze flicking to Brom's hands. "Those are nice though." BJ tapped a nail against the back of the Grip, the sound almost musical in the heavy air. "I'd ask for them, but you couldn't give them to me even if you wanted to."

  "You need a reason or do you need equal exchange?" Brom was unsettled by BJ, this younger version of himself that acted nothing like the younger version of himself.

  BJ's eyes flicked over the things Brom wore, letting out a low whistle. "That belt is exquisite but I don't want your things. I want something you can't get back." He pointed to a chair, lopsided and creaky, half hidden in shadow and somehow unshattered despite the wreckage around it. "Time. I want you to sit right there till... oh lets say dinner time. You have to be home in time for dinner, right? What was it were you were thinking about? Mac n' cheese? Extra gooey?"

  Brom stiffened. He hadn't even been in the house when he'd been thinking about that. But BJ just kept smiling at him, amused by his sudden discomfort.

  "You give me the time, and I'll help you complete your quest. I'll even open the door and let you walk out of here. How's that sound?"

  "Too good to be true. What's the catch?" This thing unsettled Brom in ways nothing else he'd dealt with so far had. The Resident of the Murder House was no simple entity. Why this Instance was locked behind level 10, what made it special, Brom had no way of knowing. Maybe this was all part of the act. After all, the Instance didn't say he had to defeat the Resident. It said 'Resolve the Encounter'. But Brom wasn't worried about the Instance, just the mission.

  "I can't tell you that Brom Jones, but you know it, don't you. You feel it in your gut. Time is precious. You can never get it back once it's gone. But if you don't take the deal, then you'll have to find whatever it is yourself, and you'll have to do it while I'm being pretty violent. So, will it be the devil you know or the devil you don't, Brom Jones?" BJ gestured to the chair once again.

  Brom sat. He leaned forward on his knees, eyes burning holes into that younger version of himself. Sat in silence as sunlight stretched into shadow and time ticked by. He watched it crawl across the face that was his but was nothing like him. Finally, the sun vanished, and the chill crept around them. Days were short this time of year. It still made him nervous. BJ said he'd be home in time for dinner but once again, Brom had been an idiot who didn't set dinner time. Just as he was opening his mouth to ask, BJ suddenly moved.

  "Our time is coming to an end. I would have thought you'd have filled the hours with sound. In this place's memory of you, you are loud. Wild. Alive. You were incredible, Brom Jones." A flicker of something, sadness maybe, crossed BJ's face. "Now you've made yourself smaller. Damn shame." BJ opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head. "A deal's a deal, hold out your hand."

  Slowly, Brom extended his hand, slightly confused. BJ hadn't moved. How had he found what Brom had come for?

  The entity in his youthful skin seized hold of him, pulling them close and smiling up at him. Firmly, BJ pressed a small object into Brom's palm and closed Brom's calloused fingers over it. "Keep it safe this time." Then BJ stepped back, looking like he'd been filmed in the wrong resolution. "See you at level 10!" The door creaked open, BJ fading out like the end of an old song on the radio. "Bye bye!"

  [Quest: The Sea God's Request.]

  - Find what you left behind 1/1! Complete

  [Quest: The Sea God's Request.]

  - Return home for the day.

  Brom shuffled outside, staring at his hand. Slowly, he unfolded his fingers and looked at what was lying inside. A silver medallion with a polished alexandrite stone set in the center. A medallion Brom had been given by his grandmother. He could still remember his thirteenth birthday when she'd slipped it over his head and tucked it under his shirt, whispering it would keep him safe. He'd lost it that summer, when he was sixteen, and he'd held off on telling her about it for years out of guilt. When he finally had, she'd just smiled, forgiving him, and letting him know it must have done its job. His fingers closed tightly around it, unsure why the quest wanted him to recover it but knowing he wouldn't lose it again.

  Medallion safe in his pocket, he teleported home, his mind unquiet. It wasn't the Instance that had unsettled him, just how easy the task had been. Too quick and simple. Like this had all been some elaborate distraction. That was when he noticed the mailbox, post splintered and crushed in by what looked like a foot. Then Brom's eyes flicked up to the house. The home. The place that held nothing but good memories and warmth. It was dark. No light in any window. The sag of the porch seemed sadder somehow, as if the house itself were mourning something lost. The door frame had chunks of splintered wood where the door had been kicked in.

  'Time is precious. You can never get it back once it's gone.'

  ...the fucker had known and Brom... Brom was going to burn the whole damn System down.