Page 168 of Irreversible

The claps and whistles are background noise. Sound drowns out as my eyes search and scan. So many faces, none of them are his. I try not to let my dismay show as I strut forward and undo another button while dollar bills are tossed at my feet.

Music seeps into my ears.

At first, I don’t recognize the song. The singer’s voice is synthesized, the melody garbled, and I’m too zoned out to register the tune. A deep, erotic bass sets in, prompting my body to swing and sway as I reach for the pole.

But then…

I hear it.

Awareness punches me in the chest.

Until it becomesallI hear.

Freezing in place, I curl my hand around the pole, my knuckles going white. My heart ricochets between my ribs like a pinball in a rusty machine. My pulse pounds in my temples, my ears, my throat.

It’s a cover of “The Scientist.”

I can’t breathe.

Everything around me blurs. The crowd, the lights, the clapping hands. It’s a slow-motion swirl of debilitation. I feel my legs shaking, my breaths coming quicker and shallower.

The song plays, my mind reels back in time, and something inside me snaps.

Withers. Dies.

I can’t catch air as I gaze out into the sea of formless faces. Confusion washes over the crowd and the applause falters as people stare and look around.

I blink over and over, trying to scrub the fog from my eyes as my chest caves in and my airways tighten to smothering. The Timekeeper’s voice echoes in my ears like a sinister lullaby.

“It’s your favorite song. I thought this moment was deserving of a soundtrack.”

I’m there again.

I’m in that sterile room, forced to make a decision as Isaac struggles with his binds and begs for me to choose him.

To trust him.

To save him.

And then, as my vision fights for clarity…I think I see someone.

The Timekeeper.

He’s moving through the mass of people, stalking toward the stage. He tracked me down. He found me. Two mismatched eyes twinkle with devilish joy as he straightens his bowtie andwatches me from the edge of the platform. His arms extend like he’s waiting for me to run to him.

Like he wants me to come home.

No…

The world distorts around me. My hand shoots up to clutch my neck as my oxygen locks up, sticking in the back of my throat. I scratch and claw. Panic infiltrates me, body and mind, and then the image of my captor transforms.

In a blink…he’s gone.

It’s just a regular man standing there, staring at me as I fall apart.

I’m losing my grip on reality. It was a smokescreen, a destructive mirage. It wasn’t real, but the room is already spinning.

Funneling. Pinwheeling.

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