I walked up to John slowly, not believing my eyes. He had been my best friend all throughout college, and I hadn't seen or talked to him for twenty years. He looked like I remembered him, trim, tan, with wavy auburn hair. Only new crow's feet around his eyes and a dash of gray at his temples betrayed the passage of time.

I hug him tight, and on my hands down the sleeps of his suit coat, camel With leather patches on the elbows. I draw back and look him in the eyes. "John," I said, "It's happening again. I'm all fucked up. I don't know what's real anymore. Are you real? Am I?"

John grasped the back of my neck gently and looked me in the eyes. "Deacon," he said calmly, "I'm real. I'm just visiting from Virginia and I heard that I might catch you here. Have you been sleeping? You sound like you haven't been sleeping."

I went back to my desk and sat down at the chair. John took a seat opposite me. "Is your dad fucking with your head again?" He asked. That guy is the king of mind games."

I shook my head. "My dad's a shell of who we used to be. Cognitive decline. He got hit by a car eight years ago and has been gradually getting more and more forgetful. No, I don't think it's him."

"Geez, I'm sorry to hear that," John said sincerely. "I had no idea."

"It's OK." I answered. "Do you remember how it was before you and I got to be friends and people got comfortable around me? You know how they used to call me psycho and devil boy and all that?"

John shifted in his chair. "I don't think very many people have ever called you that. You really just kept to yourself."

"Before I met you, my goal every day was just to get back and forth to class without talking to anyone." I looked up at the ceiling. "What if they were right? What if I'm always been crazy, and dangerous, and I just got really good at hiding it?"

He leaned forward. "What did you do, Deacon? If you tell me, I can help you. It's probably not as bad as it seems."

I explained about Freddy, the murders, and the tape I just watched. "Did I put them up to it? Was this part of some plan that Freddy got roped into, where they took him and they made him into a killer, and they used my movies to do it?" My mind was spinning and I was talking fast.

John started laughing, and it stopped himself right away. He looked at me very earnestly. "Dude, I remember when we filmed that scene with Freddy and the fish wire. That was a joke that Greta and Mariana had. It was some weird antique toy puppet that Mariana loved as a kid and they made up a murder scene where the victim would become that puppet. That wasn't even your idea."

I must have looked dazed. John continued. "And even if it was your idea, there's a big difference between having the idea for what a murderer can do and sending someone to go kill somebody. There's no way any of this is on you."