Jay opens his mouth to speak, but the smoke catches in his throat and he barks out a cough. It's agony. He tries to still himself, managing a few thin, wheezing sounds somewhere between a low cough and a heave. Finally, he shakes his head. No, not yet.

He can hear the fire still crackling at the edges of the room, but there's something else he needs to take care of. Carefully, he steps toward the pool, toward the charred hand barely gripping the edge.

As he walks by each showerhead, he turns the knob, as if it would help at all. As if that would be enough to stop the flames.

Jay reaches the pool. He unfolds his pocketknife.

He peers over the edge, down at his own blackened corpse.

"What?" the shadow asks, straining to keep its head above water. Its tone is challenging, but there's a low waver at the edges, like the nasal cavity's swollen shut. "Are you gonna finish me off? Slit my throat and watch me bleed out? Is that what this is?"

"I don't know."

"But you want to."

Jay closes his eyes, breathes in smoke and burning plastic. He grips the pocketknife tighter. "Yes."

The shadow laughs, a soft, painful thing. "Then why aren't you?"

There's silence. Why isn't he? Why isn't he?

Jay shakes his head. "I don't know."

"There's all that stuff in our heads that's so certain. That we know. You know why, right?"

The word's at the tip of his tongue, repeating in a static-laced loop, begging to be written across papers, across film, across images and icons, sent over the airwaves and sung in chorus.

Jay grits his teeth.

He nods.

The body in the bathtub smiles, thin and pained. It looks up, gold eyes ringed with red, and draws in a thin breath. Not much longer now. "I'm scared."

Jay knows he looks similar. He's shaking, but he nods again. "Yeah."

With one of its last breaths, the shadow calls for Tim.