4338.207 · July 26, 2018 AD
The Scales Don't Balance
Sleep shatters when laughter around the campfire turns cruel—"the zombie is sleeping"—reducing Joel to a punchline that cuts deeper than any wound Clivilius has inflicted. Then Luke arrives whiskey-brave and wanting something Jamie can't give. What follows strips away everything except the bitter arithmetic of two people who've been destroying each other for longer than either wants to admit.
There's no winner in the accounting of mutual destruction—just two people tallying wounds and pretending the scales balance.
Jamie lies in the darkness, trying to process a day that included his son's death and resurrection, when laughter pierces the tent walls. "The zombie is sleeping." The words reduce Joel to a joke, and something in Jamie breaks that won't easily mend.
Then Luke arrives. Drunk. Wanting. Climbing on top of Jamie with familiar movements that once meant love and now feel like violation. When Jamie doesn't respond, Luke reaches for the weapon he knows will cut deepest.
"Oh, wait. I'm not Ben. Is that it?"
The affair. The confession. The truth Jamie offered in guilt that Luke now wields in anger. The confrontation escalates until there's nothing left but bitter acknowledgment of what they've become: two people who can't occupy the same space without drawing blood.
"I may have fucked up our relationship. But Luke has fucked up our lives."
The scales don't balance. They never will. And in the silence after Luke storms out, Jamie is left wondering if they ever could.
