More Than This

Seth Wearing slowly regains consciousness after drowning. He wakes up on a summer morning, lying on a concrete pathway leading up to a house that seems vaguely familiar to him. He is confused about his surroundings and his mind is still foggy. He does not remember his name, nor much about himself.

The boy gets up and realizes that he is in a dusty, deserted neighborhood overgrown with weeds. There are no sounds of people or cars, and the houses look English. He decides to go into the house, and panics when he notices a painting of a horse from Picasso’s Guernica above the mantelpiece in the living room. The painting jogs his memory, and he realizes where he is.

Seth is in his childhood home in England, where he grew up with his parents and his younger brother Owen before moving to the United States after a traumatic event. He believes that he must be in hell, a place tailored to make him relieve his worst memories after he drowned. Seth closely associates this home and the painting of the horse with his own personal hell. Exhausted and confused, he eventually passes out.

This chapter is written in italics, indicating a chapter that explores Seth’s memories as dream sequences. In this memory, he and his teenage friends Monica, Harold (or “H”), and Gudmund are sitting in a car parked outside the Fletchers’ house at night. The Fletchers have put on an over-the-top Christmas lights display. The teens are planning to steal their baby Jesus and plant it in a neighbor’s garden as a joke. Monica and H, who are dating, are bickering. Gudmund is friendly and outgoing, and Seth sits in the passenger seat in silence.

Seth Wearing wakes up having now remembered his own name. The dream felt real, and he is initially disoriented. He realizes that he is extremely thirsty. He also notices that he is wearing strange bandages around his torso and limbs, but nothing else, leaving him exposed and vulnerable. Seth begins exploring his surroundings.

Seth goes to the kitchen, where he turns the tap on. At first, nothing happens, and Seth is afraid that this is his punishment for the baby Jesus incident. After stealing it, the teenagers accidentally dropped and broke it. After a while, water starts running, rusty and muddy, until it turns clearer and Seth can quench his thirst. Seth contemplates the painting he saw in the living room, a reproduction from part of Picasso’s Guernica by his uncle. As a child, Seth was equally fascinated and scared of it.

Seth wonders why he is back in this house where his family’s worst trauma happened. He thinks he may be stuck here forever, or perhaps he has been brought here to solve a problem. When he gets hungry, Seth looks through the cupboards and finds old cans of soup. After eating, he needs to relieve himself.

Seth goes outside because he cannot bear to go upstairs yet. He starts peeing in the garden, but he is confused when it hurts. He notices that his body is covered in small cuts and marks, and he rips off his bandages. He notices a metallic foil underneath the wrappings and, now naked, feels more vulnerable than ever.

In this italicized dream sequence, Gudmund and Seth are texting about Gudmund’s graduation party. Seth is worried that his mother will not let him go because she inexplicably does not trust Gudmund, but Gudmund insists. Seth bargains with his mother until she agrees to let him sleep over at his friend’s if he babysits Owen during his clarinet lesson. When he goes downstairs for breakfast, Seth sees his father working on a home project, which he tends to do as a coping mechanism according to Seth. His mother, on the other hand, prefers running to deal with her underlying anger. Neither parent pays him much attention. His mother clearly favors Owen, a bright 12-year-old boy who developed neurological problems after the still-undescribed incident back in England. Seth reflects that he only needs to survive one more year at school before he can go to college and leave the oppressive atmosphere of his home behind.

Seth wakes up in the English house and recalls happy memories with his friends with nostalgia. Watching himself in the mirror, he notices that he is gaunt and his hair is shorn. He rummages for clothes and finds mismatched shoes, a too-small jacket, and sweatpants, before deciding to go explore the neighborhood.

Seth walks to the nearby High Street, where he remembers there was a supermarket. Down his street is a sinkhole, at the bottom of which he is shocked to see a fox and her kits. Seth is unsettled because they appeared at the same time he was thinking about the absence of life around him, making him wonder whether he called the foxes into being.

Seth is elated when he finds a nearly intact outdoor supply shop. He breaks a window and grabs some supplies, including a first-aid kit. In it, there are similar bandages to the ones he was wearing when he woke up, and he learns they are called “conductive tape,” although he is still unsure about their purpose. He also finds more suitable clothes, then walks to the neighboring supermarket.

Seth gathers cans of food and uses an old cart to bring them to a nearby park. He sets up a camp stove and opens a can to eat, still wondering how he got to this place. He remembers his death clearly and starts crying when he thinks about his parents. He imagines they feel relieved that he died rather than Owen.

In a dream sequence, Monica, H, Gudmund, and Seth are hanging out watching the cheerleaders practice. Monica teasingly comments that Gudmund could easily get with Chiara, one of the popular girls, if he wanted. Gudmund good-naturedly plays along while the others joke about it. After H and Monica return to the cross-country practice they were avoiding, Seth comments on the fact that Monica is clearly in love with Gudmund.

Seth wakes up and brings his supplies back to the house. He thinks about the nearby prison, whose outer fence lies at the back of the garden and reminds him of the incident with Owen—which he still refuses to acknowledge fully. When he gets back to the house, he notices for the first time that there are footprints coming down from the stairs. He initially believes that someone else is there. He soon realizes that they are his own, so he must have awoken upstairs and come downstairs in a haze before passing out in the front yard. He goes upstairs to investigate, looking through the bathroom, his parents’ old bedroom, and the office. He follows the tracks up to the second landing, where his and his brother’s childhood bedroom is. Everything is as he remembers, except for an open black coffin lying on the floor.

Seth examines the coffin. It is shiny and metallic, with tubes inside as if he had been plugged into it and the same conductive tape he had on him. There are no other coffins in the house, so Seth concludes that he is the only one in his family who died. He runs out the front door in a frenzy.

Seth thoroughly searches his neighbors’ houses, but he does not find any other coffins.

In this dream sequence, Seth and Gudmund are in bed. They have been sleeping together for a while, but none of their friends know about it. Seth has just told Gudmund about what happened to Owen when he was younger. On the day of the incident, Seth and Owen, who were eight and four respectively, had just returned home from an errand with their mother. Realizing that she forgot some money at the bank, she left them on their own for a few minutes. A man who just escaped from the prison showed up at their back door. Seth let him inside against his mother’s instructions. Gudmund comforts Seth, telling him it was not his fault. Gudmund then takes a couple of pictures of them together, kissing in bed.

Seth wakes up missing Gudmund. He washes up and makes food again before going to the park, where he spots some ducks. He returns home when it starts raining, then decides to go exploring.

Seth walks to the train station, remembering more and more about his hometown as he goes. He climbs onto a train and reminisces about his childhood. He is suddenly attacked by an enraged boar he accidentally disturbed.

The young boy runs up to the bridge above the platform and climbs onto the roof. He waits until the boar leaves, then examines his surroundings. He has a good view of his neighborhood, deserted and dusty, but the other side of the train tracks is completely burned down.

While surveilling the ruined area, Seth realizes that if an event like fire can happen, that must mean that time is not eternal in this place. He wonders once again whether this is all real or a figment of his imagination.

Content Warning: This chapter depicts explicit anti-LGBTQ+ biases.

In this dream sequence, Seth’s parents are talking to him after the pictures with Gudmund have been leaked. His mother is angry that he was so careless, while his father tries to support him. In the middle of Seth’s personal turmoil over being outed, his parents are distracted by the costs of Owen’s care increasing as his neurological conditions are worsening.

Seth wakes up and contemplates that his favorite part of his relationship with Gudmund was that it was entirely his own, which was ruined when it got out. He was harassed and ostracized at school, and Gudmund’s parents kept him at home away from Seth. When the rain starts, Seth uses it to shower and tries masturbating before passing the time reading inside.

Seth is tired but refuses to go to sleep for fear of experiencing the life-like dreams. He searches through the old office, where he finds a note with the name of one of the officers who helped them after Owen was kidnapped. Seth is shocked to realize that although he remembers her well, he cannot even remember the name of the escaped prisoner, which he should know.

Seth decides to go running after the rain stops. His anxiety peaks as he despairs over being trapped in this desolate place forever. Seth starts frantically cleaning the house despite being entirely alone and having nobody to clean the house for.

In this dream sequence, Gudmund and Seth say goodbye to each other. Gudmund’s parents are sending him away to a different school. Seth is scared that they will never see each other again despite planning their lives together.

Content Warning: This chapter depicts suicide and suicidal ideation.

This chapter jumps between the present and Seth’s dream-like memories. In the past, Seth goes to the beach after cleaning his entire room and enters into the water, calm and purposeful, to drown himself.

In the present, Seth starts running, going faster and faster toward a place called Masons Hill, where there is a cliff that he plans on jumping from. Before he gets there, he sees a black van driving in front of him.

Seth calls after the van, but someone pulls him away from behind, silencing him.