When he wakes up, he cannot tell if it is the same cot. The mattress beneath him is dry, and also when he pulls away from it and sits up, his cheek and hair tack and crisp with the dried blood that must have blown out of his face earlier.
It isn't his blood. He knows that. Any Hermetic worth their salt, with apprentice knowledge of the Ars Vitae, would know that it is not their own blood. The mattress has a patina of rust on it. The floor beneath the cot, and his feet when they connect, is concrete. The air is dank and cold.
A basement?
Nothing of note in the room, aside from the rancid mattress and the rickety cot frame. A small set of steps, also concrete, lead up to the only door in the place. Bits of old garlic husks and dried onion skins litter the corners, along with mouse droppings and scuff marks. But nothing else to tell him where he is or what is going to happen next.
He is not alone. In the room, sure, he's alone in the room. But not in the house.
William
He sits up and his cheek and hair feel… off. William does a quick check to feel the back of his head, half expecting there to be a hole the size of a finger where he remembered metal being pressed to the back of his head. William remembered the feeling, but not the aftermath. He should be dead; he isn’t dead. He should have been dead five times over but, again, William Holmes is not dead.
He places his hand to the wall and does a quick walk of the perimeter- how many steps to each wall? Twenty two and a half inches per step. He is making a map (he is wasting time.) William isn’t alone here; it is an immutable fact. Were he to stay in this room, there would be no exit plausible. Many of his problems could have been solved by the mere ability to not be where he is- either by magick or otherwise. He’s not a mind reader, though- nor does he possess any kind of miraculous fortune telling ability beyond that of people who experience misfortune. Captain Hindsight, this one. It’s what trauma does- makes you scrutinize every detail and wail about how you didn’t see the signs regardless of what should have rationally been expected as an outcome.
All that was just background noise, and had seasoned what his next action would be. There were no exits save for the obvious one, so carefully, quietly, the young man made his way up the stairs to the door. He would exit if the door would give. If not? Well, now, won’t that be fun.
Michael
The door is not locked.
When Will opens it, the hinges whine just a little bit. No more than the hinges in a typical American home tend to whine. Basement usage varies from person to person, as does upkeep and maintenance. This house appears to fall in the category of Average. An Average American Home.
Will opens the door. He comes to stand in a mudroom. At least, it looks like a mudroom. On either side of him are four closets, two on each side. Ahead are two utility sinks, back-to-back, with storage to the left and what appears to be a water closet and another walk-in closet beside that. Two walk-in closets and a doorway on the far wall.
The house looks normal. Looks. Something is hanging in the air, an atmosphere he can almost reach out and touch but he maybe doesn't want to.
Someone is upstairs, or else the wind is blowing with a fury tonight.
William
He familiarized himself with the area quickly. Two closets. Two sinks, and a bathroom. He headed to the utility sinks first, reaching to turn on the water before thinking better of it. After taking a quick check of his hands and deciding they were clean enough (after wiping them off on his pants), he headed to the bathroom to get a look at himself and to, hopefully, get the blood out of his hair.
William acknowledged his own desire to leave, it was made present the minute he woke up in an unfamiliar basement- understandable. He did, however, have the presence of mind to realize that he can’t wander out of a house with blood on his face and without anything that would help him to get from point A to point B. Will didn’t have a point B because he didn’t know where the Hell point A even was.
If he could, he washed up as quickly as he could. No need to turn the water on longer than necessary- just long enough to get shit off his face and abandon ship. The contents of the closets were not ignored, and instead he went to look for something that might either protect him from what’s upstairs or help him when he goes outside.
And a flashlight. You can never go wrong with a flashlight- if it’s heavy enough it kills two birds with one stone. Or, you know, knocks said bird unconscious so you can run away screaming.
Michael
The closets are either just there for decoration, or some sinister force is preventing him from opening them.
Much like the empty room full of sunlight and windows he could not open earlier, nothing he does has any effect on the closet doors. He can rattle them until his arms begin to ache, he can kick them hard enough to shoot pain up into his knee and hip, he can scream obscenities at them. But nothing will open the things.
Which leaves the open doorway leading into the hallway, glowing with soft 60-watt light. Across from it is the darkened master bedroom.
As he turns to leave the room, the toilet in the unseen water closet gives a gurgle almost as a way-belated afterthought, churning down the last of something that ought to have been flushed away long before Will came upstairs.
William
Unlike the panic-inducing doors and windows from his last adventure, William seems content to leave these be. They won’t open, so they get to stay decorative. Something is in the house, and he can’t shake that feeling. He drew a long, slow breath before forcing it out again. There wasn’t enough evidence to indicate that there was danger there (though some parts of his brain want to scream that there is always danger so you need to be ready and prepared for it.)
He know that he had to stay quiet, and his intention was very much to be quiet when he steps into the gently lit hallway. Typical American household. He pays attention to whatever may be on the walls, looking for any indication that would give a hint as to his location, and he counts steps. One, two, three- trying to measure how long the hallway was. The sound of the water closet snapped his attention (and his body) back in that direction.
“…”
He hadn’t flushed the toilet, or done anything of the sort. The toilet gave no indication that anything had happened while he was in there. Will barely washed his hands while he was there. His back was to the master suite for a good ten seconds before he turned back around.
William pressed his back against the wall and crept towards the dark room. I should close that door.
William
But then he gets there and realizes that there was no door. "...shit."
and is now standing in front of a giant dark room.
Michael
Physical spaces do not engage in physiological responses. Hardwood and plaster and copper wiring have no need for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. That is a human need.
Everyone in the audience will have to forgive Will if he gets the impression that the dark room, full of vague furniture shapes and light-consuming curtains and possibly a potted plant possibly a lurking emaciated humanoid creature, is drawing a deep breath.
And then letting it out as it waits to see what he is going to do.
William
William, still pressed to the wall, moved along the wall and patted around for some indication that there was a lightswitch nearby. He only moved away from the wall long enough to press himself to the next one. Something is here, he thinks, can’t pin the exact shape down but knows sure as the sun (the one that refuses to shine) that there is something in there with him.
His breathing stays shallow, slow, and he hopes that maybe whatever is in the room with him didn’t notice him cursing outside.
Michael
The wall is cold beneath his searching palm, cold from disuse and darkness rather than the cranking of air conditioning. In point of fact, no air moves through the place at all.
Other than the darkened room before him as it takes another deep, patient breath.
Something is just outside his periphery, taking advantage of the fact that he is pressed against the wall and seeking out a source of light. It nestles up nice and close so that when it speaks, deep and velvety and sharp, it is right in his ear:
"Don't go in there."
William
He doesn’t make a sound. Instead of gasping he just forgets to breathe entirely, body goes stiff and his hand still rests on the wall and that cold, cold room- unused and silent- breathes and waits for him as though it is expectant. Perhaps it is waiting for guests, wonders if it should put on tea or a record or light a fire. No, no fire- the room seems to like it cold.
“Where should I go instead?” he whispers, forces his voice to stay solid. His fear is real, but it isn’t crippling. Just… insistent.
William moves his arm in the direction of the sound, but doesn’t turn. Doesn’t give the room in front of him any indication that he is taking his eyes off of it (Don’t try anything funny.)
Michael
This place is not interested in either his well-being or his continued survival.
He's already survived something that would have killed him in any other instance. He can reason it away however he wants, but the fact remains that he's not in a place that has to follow any particular laws.
The room keeps breathing. He can almost hear the thing in his ear grinning.
Then a voice that ought to be familiar to him by now rings out in the corridor upstairs.
"Will?" A pause. "William, are you in here?"
William
There is a familiar voice upstairs in a corridor, and he doesn’t call back to that voice. Against his better judgment, the young man tries to make his way across the room along the wall in hopes of finding some other entrance that he could use- something that would lead him to some place that had a path to the front door or a window or-
He takes his eyes off what he thinks might be a human-ish figure in time to try and find an exit. The thing in his ear was grinning, and the desire to leave and not give away his trail was important. Run until despair creps in.
Run into you realize running killed you once. Might not come back a third time.
Michael
In moving down the hallway, he has to slide past another darkened entryway. That space must belong to the guest suite, or full bathrooms. Both, if he were to allow himself the time and the lost sanity to go into the darkness and investigate.
Michael, tenuously present due to the combined powers of Correspondence and Mind, steps out of the shadows and peers down over the balcony on one side, then the other, and then finally over the side where Will is creeping along.
"Will," he calls down. The Chakravat has no idea what transpired in the previous episode of the Hermetic's Mindscape. That's between Will and his Avatar. "Stay there, this place isn't--"
If Will lets him get that far, they're in good shape. This ST doesn't think he will.
William
The ST was, in fact, correct. William does not let Mike get that far and tempts the programming in this particular realm. He looks up towards the sound of the voice and concludes he maybe has a little while before he either gets shot or dragged down to the basement (Whose blood is this?)
He foregoes the comfort of being able to have one side of his body covered in favor of gaining speed when he made a break for the guest room. (Please let there be light, please let there be light-) He if makes it, he shuts the door behind him.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck why is he here?”
Michael
It isn't often that Michael raises his voice. According to apocrypha, the man never panics either. He doesn't experience emotion the way other Adepts do because he's a honed blade, a clean and oiled sniper rifle.
When Michael raises his voice this time, it's with the hope of catching Will before he runs off.
"Will, wait!"
Which, of course, he doesn't. Michael doesn't swear, but he does move quickly down the spiral staircase. The Hermetic can hear the man's rapid footsteps descending right before he slams the door.
He's in a pitch black, abattoir cool room. The predominant scent in the room is ozone. That unsettling sense of nothing.
Why is he here.
Something behind him slithers, then slides, then shivers with pleasure.
There is no light.
William
There is
The man outside doesn’t panic and doesn’t experience emotions in the way others do. He is very good at what he does, and the information William has is what he had once observed and the stories he’d heard from Grace. Grace, who thinks the world of the man, but does not do much to portray her beloved as anything other than inhuman efficiency in a humane suit. William knows him to be devoted and likable; it’s a hard mixture and he can’t reconcile the two.
What he has in front of him is lifetimes of knowing. There is Nothing there, but there is something and it slithered behind him and even if it didn’t touch him William could feel it on his skin breathe the ozone into his lungs and ruminate in pitch black. What he says next is for the ears of the universe alone, insists and repeats some poem that only makes sense in Enochian-
Nothing.
William moves back to try and find the door again. He didn’t lock it, he should be able to walk out, right? He hasn’t encountered many doors that lock from the outside. (He’s encountered enough doors that lock from the outside that it isn’t outside the realm of possibility.)
Michael
Given that he did not travel far between slamming the door and huddling down into the darkness, Will should not, it stands to reason, have to travel far to return.
He does. With his hands wherever they are, he has to take twice as many steps back as he took in with that thing following him. Nipping at his heels. Sniffing and insinuating itself around his ankles. Trying to trip him up.
Somehow Will manages to make it back to the door. He does not find it obstructed. He is able to burst through the door--
And he finds himself back in the doorway where he started.
William
Once he is outside of the door he shuts it behind him, hard. Doesn’t bother to look back and see if whatever was in that room, whatever was there closeby, whatever was underfoot and intent and slithering had stayed behind him.
William pushed himself back against the door. Closed his eyes tight and took the opportunity to force his breathing into something of a more calm state. It was a good solid minute before he could look around again.
This time, he went to the water closet and flipped the toilet seat completely up, unsure of what to expect there but checking just in case.
Michael
The house is not content to give him an entire minute to stand in silence and contemplate his place in the universe. Or its halls. Or in his own head.
Five seconds go by before a rumble begins to issue from deep within the house's foundation. It is an unhappy rumble that grows in intensity with each passing second. Will is a smart young man, in spite of what others tell him and what he may well have internalized on his own. He knows that if this keeps up, he's going to have a quake on his hands.
It gets him moving again. Gets him to look around and open up a door. The toilet is still standing there, although it, like the sinks and the floor and the air, it seems, is dirtier than before. Covered in a fine layer of dust and skin flakes and small bits of hair that get everywhere when a room has been used and used and used and then abandoned.
Another gurgle, as if the toilet is trying to choke down an unpleasant meal. Then the lid flips open.
A red mass of tissue, like a heart or a liver, something smooth and full of blood, is jammed in the bottom of the bowl. It will not go down. As Will absorbs this, in the time between his observation and his reaction, the bowl seems to burp, and a ripple of air moves through the mass, threatening to dislodge it.
William
He was going to stand still, he was happy standing still until the house made it abundantly clear that he was not allowed to stand still and, instead, he launches himself back into the fray. So, there he is, standing in a dirty bathroom with skin flakes and dust, feeling just grimy for his own presence there.
“… the Hell?” he peered closer at the red, formerly living mass in the toilet before he seemed to realize what it was. Will has seen enough horror movies and documentaries to know what human organs look like and the gurgling toilet and the mass-
Slam!
Will was not going to wait for the little human parts to come out of the toilet and, instead made his way out into the hallway again, lingering in front of the master bedroom to give it a quick check.
Michael
That slithering hiss he heard just before he broke into a run and existed the guest room greets him when he peers into the darkness, but this time he has the dingy light from the overhead fixtures to help his eyes adjust to the lack therein.
Somewhat. The darkness of the master bedroom is so completely that it swallows the light beyond a certain point. But it persists for long and far enough.
The walls are moving. Like a nest of snakes, bits of wallpaper and baseboard and hung paintings writhe and slide and twine around and over each other.
In a matter of seconds, the entire tableau comes to a rattling halt. The room knows it's being watched.
William
He was looking for something, for that vaguely humanoid, emaciated form he had seen before. Amidst the things that might be plants or might be a bed. What he had heard in the guest room hissed and made its presence known, made it abundantly clear that the voice he had heard earlier was right: Don’t Go In There. He swallows, running his hands through his hair like he does when flustered or thinking or wound up- and he most assuredly was wound up. His heart was beating loud in his ears even though his breathing was forced and measured. One-two-three-four out-two-three-four-
Other grounding exercises weren’t going to work right now. Will didn’t want to hold onto the fact that the walls were moving and the dark was creeping in and there was Something in all of that nothing and-and-and-
William backed himself against the wall and continued along the hallway, not taking his eyes from the master bedroom. The walls were moving. Why are they moving? He turned his gaze briefly to the hallway for some kind of reprieve- only to snap his attention back to the master bedroom as he crept away from it.
Michael
And the attention of the master bedroom is straight on him as he leaves its orbit.
For all he knows, the skulking shadow creature he had seen before is still there in the no man's land that is far too dark. Waiting in the void for Will to turn his back so it can creep closer.
Down the hallway, the same scene as before: the space outside the guest room, with the second water closet and a second room for the shower. The door to the guest suite in the center of the corridor, closed unlike last time.
The spiral staircase, empty for now. Nothing and no one on the landing overhead, at least not that Will can see.
Somewhere deeper in the house, a doorknob is rattling.
William
As he backs out into the area by the staircase, he visibly relaxes noting that there was no Chakravat waiting for him, telling him to wait, here to beckon the sun to rise (there has to be another way) with the most readily understandable end there. That particular fate was avoided for now, and for that he could be grateful.
He does not open the door to the guest suite. He does not linger in the hall. He heads deeper in the house and tries his level best to ignore the rattling doorknob and knowledge that he is not alone in this place(Why isn’t Mike here? This… this shouldn’t be happening, should it?) William plays it off as the strange that comes with being awakened and continues off to find his quarry.
He was looking for a kitchen. Kitchens had things like knives and pantries and places you could hide if things got bad. Kitchens have things like refrigerators, possibly full of human parts because there was a heart or a liver or some goddamned thing in the toilet and it wouldn’t go down and whose blood is-
One. Two. Three. Four. Out. Two. Three. Four.
Michael
A shadow falls across the hallway.
Whatever the solid body impeding the light is, it's standing in the open door of the room off to the right, and its shadow is so long that it hits the baseboard of the opposite wall and cants upward. The shadow it cuts is darker than a shadow has any right to be.
There's that ozone smell again.
The shadow's head turns towards Will. Where it ought to have a nose, it has nothing. Where it ought to have a chin, it has nothing. Where it ought to have teeth, it has long shards.
Footsteps sound out on the opposite end of the house. Sensible shoes on kitchen tile. They move quickly, as if pursued moreso than in pursuit.
Then the shadow steps back, and the hall is clear again.
William
That is not his shadow.
William knows his shadow, knows the scents and sensations of his avatar, knows its voice and threats and pleas and the cracks in between where its former nature wants to shine through. This is not his shadow, not the shadow that stands stark and solid when the young man was in the umbra with Leah and Henry and Kiara when they all wore their natures openly and loudly.
“Putain de merde…” he hisses when he catches a look at the shadow’s would-be teeth. He wanted to take his eyes off the shadow, but didn’t trust it enough to stay where it was, to stay attached. William’s lungs burned.
Hearing his former path impeded, the Hermetic made a run for the stairs. Upstairs. Yes, upstairs was good. No shadow creature, no assassins. But… he couldn’t shake what he’d seen. What belonged to that shadow?
What does its voice sound like? Are you familiar to me?
Michael
Another shadow strikes the stairwell halfway up but this one is easier to identify.
A burlap sack containing an object around 60 inches long with a broad section about a foot from the top, a tapered section not far from that, another broad section, and then skinny stick-like shapes that continue until the sack ends. Ropes are cinched around the ankles, the knees, and the elbows. The rope hanging the entire thing in place runs from the landing rail to the shape's neck. Its head, such as it is, slumps forward at an unnatural angle.
He can see what look like human toes cinched just outside the sack. Their nails are painted sparkling black. One of the feet has a silver toering on its longest toe. The rope creaks as the body swings with a gentle slight rhythm back and forth.
A folded piece of paper is secured to the sack with a safety pin. He has to climb the stairwell halfway in order to reach it.
William
The body makes him stop dead (ha) in his tracks. William’s stomach hurts when he sees it, his chest hurts, and something in the back of his mind aches because it has suspicions. He goes through the list of things and people that might be in that burlap bag, hanging with its head at the unnatural angle heads do when the neck snaps under its own weight.
He moves up the stairs and reaches out for the safety pinned paper. The note is unpinned and unfolded. William waits by the body as he reads…
Michael
The paper smells like incense. Depraved incense, but incense nonetheless. That thick cloying sort of smoke that is meant to provoke an emotional response depending upon the plant and the oils.
This plant is tobacco. This oil is cedar. Old cedar, cedar that resisted its burning as much as it could. Oil has a high smoke point after all and wood is used for burning but if trees had any say in it that is not what their deaths would provide. They need light to live. They have no reason for providing light. It is not as if they have a say in it.
The note's contents have the shimmering halo of a black hole. The swirling mass of nothingness that aims to suck in anything that passes the event horizon. He can feel that nothingness pulling at him. Can hear a whispering at the edges of the paper. Cannot make out what exactly the voice(s?) means to convey but the tone, that he can feel.
Time is up. The Sun is dead. The Void has come to claim him.
Behind him, the hallway bulb explodes and in exploding consumes part of the illumination downstairs.
William
Together, they do provoke a response in him- together, they are the ending of both the self in a slow, intent way and the consumption of something tall and impressive. The consumption of things that live for lifetimes beyond what humans can fathom- things that lived longer than countries and yet burned and consumed all the same. (The Void consumes. It is its nature.) He looks at the paper and he can’t stop his hands from shaking.
It is coming. His borrowed time has been reclaimed. This is what you’ve been warning me about? All those dreams? You knew this would come (I’m so sorry) and we couldn’t stop it.
“Je suis tellement désolé-” as though his apologizing through ragged breath and pounding, breaking heart would make any difference.
(No, no you couldn’t stop it, could you? You couldn’t stop it because you caused this. You brought this about, you brought down the sun with careless act after careless act you liability, you embarrassment, you-)
The bulb in the hallway explodes, claiming more light and driving the young man deeper into the house, following whatever chain of lighted paths he had. Some part of his mind realizes he’s being herded somewhere. The Void has come to claim him.
He would not go quietly.
Michael
It is around this point that Michael, less concerned about accumulating Paradox and more concerned with Will having a seizure and becoming trapped in a hellish Quiet for however long it takes him to wander through it alone, decides the least of either of their worries is his casting in another Willworker's head.
Also, he has had about enough of Will running through the house and shadows either getting in his way or swallowing up the path he had already taken. They could do this all night, hypothetically, but he isn't exactly thrilled with the idea of seeing how far this nightmare scenario will go.
So: he teleports from wherever he previously was to the top of the spiral staircase. He looks beleaguered. Whatever is in this place is affecting him, too.
His only options are to hear what the Chakravat has to say, fight him, or turn around and run down into the darkness.
William
Mike McCarrick is standing in front of him, which makes William stop in his tracks. He looks back at the ever-encroaching darkness, to Mike, and then to the body. He looks at her details hidden away, at the way the body is hung inside of a sack, and he can imagine death throes and struggle. He can imagine how hard it must have been, how hard-
“Please don’t leave her.”
As though some part of him is dead, as though he is pleading because he was pleading. Is pleading; William knows who is in there but is too afraid to look. Too afraid to confirm. Too ashamed to look at her. This is my fault (it always is.)
Michael
Standing inside another person's head is a dangerous activity for anyone. It requires an ironclad will and near-complete mastery over one's own thoughts. Careless words or actions can have irreparable consequences, especially in a Mindscape. Mages are more vulnerable in these states. They cannot distinguish reality from their own dreams and nightmares, and many of them are not even aware that they are, in fact, dreaming.
It is like a Seeking in a way. Particularly difficult Seekings can leave the Mage scarred, too frightened to attempt further Enlightenment for a long time afterwards. If advancement is so difficult, then Ascension is an impossible task. That anyone ever becomes an Archmage is testament to the power of perseverance and belief.
This is neither here nor there. What is here is Michael's complete attention. His mutable eyes move to find the hung body in the shape of a child, or a small young woman. He does not have to ask what - or who - the body is to Will.
"Will," he says, gentle, crouching down so the two of them are more at eye level. He does not want to tower over him. Fear is threatening to consume the Hermetic and he does not want to further contribute to the darkness. "Kiara asked that I help you. You're in a Mindscape." A pause. "That's not her. She's back home, and she's okay."
You, on the other hand...
William
“Grace asked you to come,” he tells Mike, his own manufactured reality butting against Mike’s actual knowledge of what is there. William swallows, “you came, and- and I panicked- and I’m not fighting this time-”
It takes a second before it really settles in that Mike is saying something, and the man has no reason to lie to him (he has plenty of reason, you shouldn’t trust him, don’t you remember? Run-run-run you know the Void, stop fighting-) and that voice in his mind is not his own and not his avatar but he doesn’t exactly force it away. He hasn’t moved from his position, but he does hold on to the hand railing. William isn’t fleeing, but he is looking incredulously at the older man.
His attention goes back to the body, his breathing is shallow.
“I don’t want it to be her,” William says, “I don’t want any of this but I brought it anyway...”
Michael
Grace asked you to come...
Though a flicker of confusion touches on Michael's brow, he does not interrupt to ask what he's talking about. Will continues all on his own. He stays in his crouch, patient to an extent, wary of the fact that the house is beginning to breathe around them again.
He hears it, too.
"You," he says with a tense smile, "are the reason your friends Margot and Ned are still alive right now, if my understanding of the situation on the outside is correct."
A bulb behind Michael blows. That shadow Will had encountered downstairs in the library doorway begins to peek out from the darkness, defying physics to crawl along the floor towards Michael, its facial features obscured for now.
"I think I know a way out of here, but you have to trust me. I would like to avoid sticking around to see what happens when all the lights go out."
William
It’s breathing, and if they stay still for much longer the house was going to make it clear that they should not be doing so. They’re being herded somewhere and he knows that much. If this is what Mike says it is, there is a way out and the world around him very much hinges on the fact that William must stay.
And here was this interloper offering to show him a way out. William nods, eyes still distant while he parsed through the information- conflicting information but decidedly more pleasant stuff. The ritual worked. Nothing went wrong, he didn’t lead it incorrectly, he’d done what he’d sworn he done and they were alive and-
His attention turns to the shadow creeping out of the darkness, the one with its shards and its too-solid features headed towards the man who said he had a way out. If this was William’s mindscape, whatever lived here didn’t stand to gain much by killing him (though there are far, far worse things you can do to a person). Mr. McCarrick, on the other hand…
“Move!” He wasn’t as fast as Mike, or as strong, but he does move forward and tries his damnedest to pull the man out of the way, tries to do whatever he can to actually protect the person sent to help him. It isn’t that he thinks he can, or that it will do any good, but rather William thinks he must. And there is no room for error or hesitation or doubt or fear. Mike could protect his damned self, but William would try anyway.
So, there he was, attempting to move a Chakravat and put some kind of space (or if need be, barrier) between the shadow and his would-be guide.
Michael
Somehow Will's grab for Mike's arm doesn't send Mike toppling over and down the stairs. He is not the world's most graceful creature, but he is not a klutz by any stretch. He manages to compensate for the weight and the Hermetic's desire to get him out of the way of something.
Which Michael spares a quick glance over his shoulder for the purposes of orientating himself.
"Down," Michael says as he stands again, "down the stairs."
Will has to go first in order for this to work, but as soon as he's turned his back, a burst of ethereal light gives them a pale globe of protection against the darkness.
The Chakravat behind him has conjured a bulb of pure Prime and fastened it to the space over Will's head.
A delighted snarl leaves the darkness, and he can feel the shadow pursuing them at a monster's steady pace.
William
He. Hauls. Ass. He knows damned good and well that Mike can keep up with him, and he has had presumably more time to familiarize himself with the layout of the house, even if the house’s layout would change- he could only expect it to change, and his instruction was made simple enough. Down the stairs.
William is very good at moving, notes the pale glow and the fairest bit of protection for what seemed to be an all-encompassing darkness. Whatever was behind them is pleased, gets the opportunity to give chase. Again: William Holmes would not go quietly.
“Right or left?”
Michael
Two sets of footsteps thunder down the spiral staircase. Something collides with the body hanging in the center of the staircase, slides a distance, and connects with the tile floor a second after Michael's reached the ground floor.
Left or right?
"Straight. Go straight, you're almost--"
Thump!
William
Two sets of footsteps, and he can feel them in his chest when he’s running but all his brain is wanting to process is run. And it doesn’t matter what any other voice is telling him, if his Avatar is screaming for him to fight and stand and not be cowed by this or everything else is insisting that this is real, this is true, he knows it to be true, he knows this has been coming for him since when he awakened and he should just accept it-
Straight. Go straight, you’re almost-
And then nothing. A loud thump and the Hermetic skids to a stop- he could have continued forward but the voice following him wasn’t there. William spins around to see what may lie behind him or what may be impeding his companion- “Mike?!”
Michael
By the time Will stops and turns around, something has dragged something else a far enough distance that he cannot make out what is happening using the glow of the Prime flame alone.
But the flame does persist. That is a sign that Michael is, if in peril, at least still in control of his faculties.
He came here to get Will out. If that means he has to get eaten by a shadow monster so that Will will keep running, it's not the end of the world. Will escaping this Hell his mind has created for him will boot him back into his own body.
There is not enough time to convey that to Will. Michael is in Will's mind, not the other way around. And Michael is currently wrestling with a creature that doesn't have to obey the rules of man or nature.
"Go!" Mike says, bass in his tone and an edge to his voice. Like so help him God if he has to tell him twice.
William
You don’t argue with that voice. It was something he has only heard from either his father and (now) Michael McCarrick. It’s a tone his being associates with you might not like it but I’m doing this for your own good. It’s the voice that has talked numerous things out of his hands and insisted on finishing homework or not killing yourself in the bathroom floor because this was coming and it was too much. You don’t see the aftermath of that tone, and perhaps it’s for the best lest you see those indestructible figures as the humans they are.
He turns back and keeps running. Goes forward even though it rings out on his face and in his shoulders and in his labored, uneasy breathing that he doesn’t want to. It hurts in a different way; some part of him knows this isn’t right. It tries to argue that William is ignoring suffering, ignoring the plight of the world around him but…
This wasn’t real, was it? None of this was real, so could Mike really get hurt? (Of course he could, Will knew that. He was painfully aware of that) He ran anyway.
If I get out fast enough, he thinks, he’ll be okay. Keep running.
Michael
In spite of the wet crunching sound that indicates vicious teeth tearing a mammal's windpipe, Michael keeps silent. He can turn off his pain reception, but he already has so many rotes juggled and if he spares himself a gory, not-real death, it may plunge Will into darkness again.
At least this is distracting the thing that wants Will and his sanity.
Roughly thirteen feet separate Will from the front door. No light glows outside, not even from a fixture. He already knows the stars have all gone out. Neith confirmed as much for him. The spectre posing as Michael was prepared to kill him to bring back the Sun.
All Will has to do is decide he wants to defy the darkness. His Avatar is not with him in this place. Nothing will be, once that Prime flame dies out.
William
He was almost to the door but there was no light there. No light and no sun and no real path save for a continued one of running. His exit would not be out there, the road would only continue to fall apart should he continue to be pursued. There was the reminder that this was not real, but more importantly the addition of another reminded him of something vital: William Holmes had never truly been powerless here. Not unless he allowed himself to be.
The Hermetic turns, does not pursue his exit anymore because it isn’t a place.
“My name is William Charles Elijah Renee Poirot Faolán Holmes, bani Jerbiton. I am Lethe’s Emissary, and I have walked to the edges of your bank. I have taunted your gods and refused your offerings,” his words are in only the truest of languages- the language of creation. He speaks Enochian like he was born for this.
“I have driven your supplicants from their burrows, I have seen the things you mock. You are not Fear. Fear is a being of Respect and you-“ he all but spits, does not finish his thought there.
“I am Abditus Ashmi Tuvene Rheath Zhentka. You will return what you have taken. You will place the stars, you will light the Sun, and you will Wait Until Your Time.”
There is no room for negotiation in his voice. There is only insistence. There is only the impression and the reality that he is the one holding the cards here, he is the one whose Will is Law, because the universe does the Hermetic’s bidding for the sheer reason that William is who he is. And that name, that one true and solid and Real definition said it all: do not fuck with me.
Michael
One of two things was going to happen: either Will was going to keep running, burst through that door, and emerge in a shallower level of Quiet knowing that the darkness devoured Michael with no recourse, or Will was going to remember that he is the master of his own fate.
Or at least a disciple of his own fate. He is not powerless. Drained as he was, confused and afraid and bereft as he was, he was not powerless.
Yet he accepted the help another wiser Willworker offered him, in the end. That is the point of joining a cabal. Of having friends, and keeping them. Of admitting that the journey upwards is not one walked alone.
And he commanded the darkness in the only tongue to which it would respond.
It hisses. It recoils. It keeps drawing back, a curtain allowing in the daylight, and though the daylight reveals Mike's ravaged body on the tile floor, the Sun has returned.
The little Prime flame flickers, sputters, and then dies.
Sunlight streams in through the beveled glass windows flanking the front door. It floods the foyer and the corridor, streams in through the upstairs windows, reveals the body in a burlap sack still hanging from the rail.
Within seconds, the light begins to become unbearable. He has traveled so long in darkness that the light overpowers him. But it is not painful. It is warm, and it is strong, and as he reasserts himself in the face of defeat, it wraps itself around him like a blanket borne by a long lost friend.
Eventually, he has to blink. And when he opens his eyes again, he is back in the living room of the cabal. His head on Kiara's lap, his body lain out on the sofa, his cabalmates in front of him.
He's still in Quiet, but compared to the Mindscape he just left, this is an improvement. He survived the death of the Sun.
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