Chapter Text
The lead in your pencil breaks, and clicking the eraser doesn't produce any more.
You frown. Scattered across the floor are messy scribbles of your findings around the Hadal Blacksite, and the paper you're currently hunched over looks the worst. Due to your desperation of grasping onto what little lead you had left, you had made awkward lines and dents in the paper from the plastic of your pencil.
You lean back against the railing of your rented ledge in Sebastian's shop. Although the metal digs into your back, it's still respite from the horrible posture you had moments prior.
“Solace?” You ask, not bothering to fully face him but instead tilting your head towards his direction. A sudden shift of light tells you that Sebastian's turned to face you.
“Mmmyeuh?” He replies before yawning. You doubt he was sleeping, but he does have a tendency to ‘rest his eyes’ while reading files.
“You got lead?” You ask. You scrutinize the mechanical pencil in your hand for details. “Uh… point seven?” You finish.
There's a short clatter from Sebastian's direction. You don't pay it any mind, and you instead absentmindedly spin the pencil in your grasp. Soon enough, a sudden burst of light in your surroundings appears; which is a clue that Sebastian is near, and the lead container being shoved in your vision shows you he's resting on the railing beside you.
You crane your neck upward to meet him as the light from his esca frames his face in a golden hue. He has his cheek resting in his hand, with that arm propped up on the railing and the other bent above your head as he dangles your much-needed item mid-air. His lower third arm is out of sight.
“Yoohoo.” He drawls, wiping the sleep out of his eye. “Delivery.” He mutters as he shakes the container in front of your face.
You raise a hand and grab the lead container. You're careful to make sure your hand is placed as far away from his as possible. No accidental touches.
“Thanks.” You say with no second thought. You waste no time in transferring the lead from container to pencil. Sebastian shifts slightly above you, his arm grazing your head as he pulls it back towards himself. You can't stop the flinch that rattles your body at the physical touch (even though it was accidental).
Sebastian pretends not to notice. You believe him.
You've been doing that a lot lately— believing. Too much of it, honestly. Believing Sebastian when he says to trust him. Believing that when he fulfilled your plea to be shot (when you were at the fireplace, where you politely asked to be killed by his gun so that you could return to the submarine docks) he didn't find any satisfaction from it. Believing that he'll remember your name.
Believing that this punishment you face is because of your sins. Guilt flows through your every action.
Sebastian doesn't word a response, instead humming quietly as he turns his head to get a better look at your papers. “That looks like chicken scratch.” He says with no real bite.
A retort is on the tip of your tongue before you take a moment to look at the papers spread in front of you. Huh. “I guess it does.”
“Yup.” Sebastian pops the ‘p’. “It looks like a madman got ahold of some stationary.”
“Are you worried that I, a madman, might scare off potential customers?” You tilt your head up to meet his gaze as you speak.
“See how empty it is here? You already did.” He jokes.
Morbid. But two of you force out a heavy chuckle to ignore the weight of his words. Something in you tugs at the cruel tease.
“Anyways.” He starts, and he reaches over you to pluck your pencil out of your grasp. “I’m going to go be productive. So you have to leave.”
“What?” You frown, watching as he drops the pencil on the ground next to you. “I can't stay in your shop while you're gone?”
“Unless you want that—” —Sebastian points at your PDG that rests on the ground a few feet away from you— “—to detonate, I'd advise you leave.”
“It’s just a shotgun shell though, right? It can't do that much damage if I'm not wearing it.”
Sebastian laughs dryly. “You'd be surprised how much gunpowder they shove in there. It's a big enough explosion to cause serious damage to my shop, and it's loud enough where every nearby creature will come running to you.”
A proper response doesn't occur to you, so you simply nod and offer a strangled ‘uh-huh’. “Okay.” You somehow manage to say. “I’ll head out, then.”
Sebastian takes that as his cue to leave. You hear him shuffling around his shop, most likely preparing for whatever business he has to take care of, and you, likewise, prepare as well. Shrugging on your PDG and duffle bag, as well as the Flash Beacon you procured before arriving at Sebastian's shop, you leave your stationary on your rented ledge. You're running out, so you'll take this trip through the facility to gather some more.
As you tidy up your messy piles of paper, a specific drawing catches your attention. It's of the buttons from the elevator, directly made before your encounter with Sebastian. There are still creases in the paper from how hard you had gripped it when seeing him.
You had given it to him. Not permanently, but you had gifted him your belongings so that he could bring it back to his shop for you to pick up after you died. The fact that he did so is still unbelievable to you.
How long has it been since that elevator ride? If you remember right, you've died twice since then, but in total have lived much longer. Weird blanket metaphors be damned, having a home base has lengthened your survival time like crazy. It's also very useful to have a place to store your belongings without having them disappear.
You stare at the drawing. How big is the Hadal Blacksite? Are there areas, like the carpeted elevator room, that you've never seen? Will you ever see them?
You place the paper gingerly on the stack you've made on the ground. Those are questions for later. Now, it's time to venture through the facility… but first.
You walk to the railing and snap your fingers a few times. Sebastian's head snaps towards you.
“What am I, your waiter? Talk about impatient.” He huffs, slithering over in your direction. He follows the routine the two of you have fallen into and slides his hands under your armpits, lifting you in the air.
“Come here often?” He teases. You think that if you and him were on friendlier terms, he would've winked.
You aren't though, so he doesn’t wink, and you reply with; “I visit occasionally.”
A joke forms in the back of your throat, something about how ‘you only visit whenever the shopkeep isn't being annoying’ or ‘visiting to only see Sebastian’, but something you can't place stops you from speaking any more.
Sebastian ignores the dryness of your words and places you on the ground. He pulls his hands away from you as fast as he can.
“...thanks.” You say, the words feeling foreign and heavy on your tongue. Sebastian glances away from you and jerks his head harshly towards the vent.
“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. Out you go.” He replies.
You don't need any further instruction. With a stiff nod you lean down and crawl through the exit/entrance of Sebastian's shop. The cramped fit of the vent is unwelcome, but you're used to it.
Once out, you stretch out your sore muscles and craft a plan of action. Stationary is on your list of necessities, but clearing all the Searchlight rooms is your number one priority. Thus, your plan is summarised by two simple words: move forward.
You unclip the flash beacon from your belt, and continue onwards.
The keycard is in the same area as always; next to the door, on the floor. You slide it through the card reader easily and place it back onto the ground. With the door now unlocked, it opens easily. Your feet carry you forward with the muscle memory of all the other rooms you've previously entered.
You enter room fifty-three, and fall into the easy routine of opening drawers and grabbing whatever office supplies and data you can find. By the time you reach the next door your bag is already weighted with two manilla folders, a few pens, a couple lead containers, a pair of scissors, and multiple stacks of paper.
Room fifty-four shuts the door behind you.
You know this song-and-dance already. The Navi-Path flickers to black as the room begins groaning with movement. A pen rolls off a desk. The overhead lights sway. Dust falls from the ceiling. The room settles into place.
The Navi-Path sign to the next room begins to turn back on, displaying; ‘97’.
Huh?
Your jaw drops as the next room entices you; ninety-seven. You've never gotten that far. The crystal could be close—hell— the crystal could be in the next room! Hope fills and swirls in your chest. Is it really this easy? What about the preparations you've been working on to help others? What about Sebastian?
That last question throws you off balance. What do you care about him? Sure, he's trying to help you now, but, what about before? Why does he matter? What is this twisting feeling in your stomach?
You shake away the flurry of questions. The drive to move forward overtakes everything else. You approach the door to the next room with a lift to your step.
Something you've forgotten, though: all things lifted will one day fall. There is no hope for you.
Before you can even realize the threat, a loud screeching noise comes from behind the left wall of the room. Not the scream of an Angler, but instead the wail of something heavy and big fastly approaching your location with no means of stopping. You find you need to amend that belief quickly; it does have a way of stopping.
It's you.
Whatever it is, it SLAMS into the wall on your left and pierces through it. Rebar and concrete slice through the thick wall like butter, leading you to the conclusion that the thing that's hit your current refuge is another room. Your balance is thrown off kilter as you, along with every other non-mounted object in the room, is pulled against the left wall.
Rather than stopping it, the rogue room has simply adopted your current room as an accomplice in its careening. Momentum launches you across the room and slams your back against the wall. The air is knocked out of you as a strangled cry tears through your throat.
You narrowly avoid having your arm punctured by a piece of shrapnel, and instead merely scrape it. Your sleeve has certainly seen better days, but you'll take a nasty cut over the loss of your limb (again).
Then the furniture comes. A locker slides straight to you and you narrowly avoid it by quickly rolling over. You can only manage shallow, uneven breaths. Your lungs burn. Your heartbeat rattles loud in your ears.
You glance at the Navi-Path, and are met with a blank black screen. No! No! You were so close!
A forced, grating chuckle echoes through you as you finally catch your breath for a moment. The temptation to be spiteful is given but not fulfilled by you, as you feel the room jolt to a stop as it hits something on the wall opposite of you.
The sudden shift in force leaves you sprawled on the ground. You groan, slowly shifting to your knees as you lightly rub at your injured areas with your hands. It's difficult; you don't think there isn't a part of your body lacking a bruise.
The room is still moving, but you can't tell what direction. Your sense of balance is so terribly thrown off that you struggle to even keep yourself at least somewhat upright. The room is drifting somewhere, slowly, as if teetering on the edge of a cliff. The furniture in the room moves at a snail's pace.
There's a sudden burst of speed, before quickly dropping off. The room is falling.
…and you are rising. Fast. You can barely comprehend the fact you're moving before your skull cracks against the ceiling.
A thick darkness envelops you.
When you wake, you are not in the River Styx.
You almost wish you were. Before your eyes open you can feel your entire body crying out— your limbs hurt at the slightest twitch and your head feels as though it's filled with cotton and needles. The injuries you've sustained in your past attempts flare up, with your previously dismembered arm being the main perpetrator. Ow.
You groan, and your voice sounds distant in your dry throat. You sluggishly open your eyes.
It's dark. Not unbearably so, since there's light coming from somewhere, but enough where your surroundings are only bathed in midnight hues. Some debris is on top of you, but it's nothing too heavy, thankfully.
Actually, there's debris all around you. Concrete, wood, metal… the inner workings of the facility has its tissue splayed around you. It's a miracle you aren't pinned under worse.
Leaning forward causes you to take a sharp inhale. Man, that hurts. You push the debris off of your body with shaky and scraped hands. Stumbling to your feet makes your vision swim, but you will yourself to stay upright.
You bring a hand to your temple to try and rub away an incoming headache, only to be met with bloodied skin. Your fingertips are slick with red, and the source is somewhere on your head. How awesome.
Thankfully, you still have your duffle bag and Flash Beacon. While the Flash Beacon seems operational, the items you collected in your duffle bag aren't so lucky. The pens you grabbed had burst open and caused all the papers to be stained with ink. You spy that the pair of scissors and a few lead containers seem intact, though.
So! You are wounded, and nearly all of your loot has been ruined. However: you are somewhere…different.
New. Which is normally bad, except you're trying to explore the facility and learn some semblance of its layout, so this time it's good. It does nothing to quell the rapid beating of your heart, but the thought gives you an objective that you've been following from the start; continue onward.
….and you are nothing but obedient.
Every step feels worse than the last. You grit your teeth and bare through it, forcing yourself to keep an even pace. You push through debris and shrapnel, and it's easy to equal it to the sensation of sifting through thick muck, except it's sharp and heavy. You suffer a few more scrapes, but the injuries are minor compared to what you've already sustained.
You blink, and it feels slow.
There's a door. The Navi-Path screen is dark, void of any symbols. It's unnerving how unsettled you feel by it.
With a shaking hand you open the door, and it complies. Beyond the threshold is the facility as you know it, but unfinished. Construction equipment is littered around the ground, and walls are mere suggestions with only the basic infrastructure standing. It feels improper to see the beast known as the Hadal Blacksite in its weakened state.
There's a sign forcing the wearing of hard hats. You let out a forced dry laugh, and you're unsure if you actually find it funny or if it's the blood loss. Probably the latter. Shit, you are not doing good right now.
Beyond you, another door lies. The Navi-Path to the next room flickers from a black void to a room number, ‘29’. Your heart nearly skips a beat. The fact that the Navi-Path still works anchors your anxious thoughts. It's a pain to find out you've backtracked so far from Sebastian's shop, but the undying thrill of exploration fuels you.
Wincing with every step, you open door twenty-nine and continue.
The next room follows the same pattern; it's under construction, with toolboxes and power tools scattered around. A large gaping pit is in the corner of the room, and you make a mental note to avoid it. Best not test the deterioration of the Hadal Blacksite by standing too close.
The thing that stands out to you the most, though, is that the Navi-Path to the next room displays ‘28’. The number of rooms are counting down, not up. Why? Where is the Navi-Path leading you? Is this the handiwork of the same thing that creates the duplicant doors?
More questions, but no answers. Honestly, you should be used to that by now.
A loud clatter of something falling behind you. You think you should be used to that too, the ambience, but your adrenaline still kicks into gear in your ragged body and you rapidly whip around. You're unsure what you expect to see. Maybe more dim hallway? More mysteries?
More monster? …because that is what you witness when you turn around. Tall, terrifying, monster. You think you make out an Urbanshade logo on his tattered uniform, but the unmistakable figure of a stretched and mutilated man stands in front of you. His hands are sharp, clawed, and only one of his eyes remains trained on you.
A scream is caught in your throat. You blink and your instinctive survival reflex compels you before rational thought can. You grip your Flash Beacon with a shaking, injured hand, and you pull the trigger. The light blinds both you and your new monster companion. The Flash Beacon sounds worse for wear, with the climax of its whirring turning into a grating screech. That can't be good.
You rapidly blink away spots and stumble a few steps back. Your thought process finally catches back up to you and royally slams you, allowing you to realize that you inadvertently provided the creature with a prime opportunity to kill you. Whether or not the Flash Beacon blinded him is unimportant; one wild slash of his large claw in your direction would've left you bleeding. With yourself being blinded, you would have no way of preparing for it.
You aren't bleeding out, though. Although the monster did move his hand, it was only to shield his eyes from the harsh light. A strangely human action.
The creature lowers his hand slowly. The steady movement soon lulls to a stop once it reaches his side. He pauses, before his crooked smile stretches larger.
Crooked. That's a proper placeholder.
The Crooked— because really, you don't know if there are multiple—remains motionless, save for the edges of his grin that twitch unwillingly. He doesn't blink. His chest doesn't rise and fall with breath. He is a statue; still, stoic, but also unknown.
You swallow thickly. Okay. You got this.
“Hello.” Your voice is hoarse and quiet. To compliment your sound would be to call it a rasp, and a true insult would be to call it unrecognisable.
Physically, you're currently a shell of your typical self. Every muscle in your body feels taut with stress, and you can't tell if the liquid running down the curvature of your back is sweat or blood. Despite it, though, you still remain tenacious and hella curious.
The Crooked doesn't respond. He doesn't move.
You take a slow step backwards. Then another. Your gaze remains trained on the Crooked while you shakily walk backwards. Still, he doesn't move.
Every blink you take feels hazardous. The Crooked feels similar to a ticking time bomb— and every moment spent with him not in your vision is pushing him further towards detonation. You stare at his clawed hand, inspecting the way it's fully stretched. His fingers are positioned straight down, filled with anticipation like a soldier waiting for the command ‘at ease’.
A blink, and his fingers curl slightly inwards.
You furrow your brow. What? You blink again, and there, you see his fingers curl more. You don't see the movement, mind you, but the aftermath, and it's all you need to see in order to make your heart pound louder.
You take a sharp inhale, and remind yourself that you can revive. Death is normal for you, and you shouldn't be scared. You let out your deep breath.
You close your eyes.
Not for long. It's for barely a full second, but the moment you hear movement your adrenaline kicks in and your eyelids fly open. There. You were right.
The Crooked is angled forwards now, his heel lifted off the ground as he was taking a step towards you. He's unmoving now that you see him, but there's still a glint in his eyes and a twitch to his smile that tells you he can move at any time. You don't know what is holding him back, but you're grateful.
You grit your teeth as you continue walking backwards. Every blink carries the weight of your life. Every step intensifies the pain in your body. Continue onwards. Persevere.
Your back hits the door to the next room. You train your ears to listen for breathing, but are only greeted with eerie silence. With the affirmation that this door isn’t inhabited by the Good People, you fumble with the door handle. Your hurt body seethes with pain at the uncomfortable movement, but you manage to open it nonetheless.
Cold air hits your back, and you've never felt more exposed. The urge to twist your head and catch a glimpse of the new room fills you, but you bite your lip and force it down. Fear racks your body, but you keep it in with shaky breaths. Composure. You have to stay composed.
Your steps echo in the empty space behind you. One of your hands remain stretched behind you, feeling for obstacles, while you slowly slide your toe behind you to feel on the ground. Your heart beats loud in your ears. You are not safe.
Still, you don't look away from the Crooked. It remains in the room you were in prior, positioned perfectly in front of the doorway. You notice that his raised heel is now lowered on the ground… have you really blinked that much?
One step. Two step. There's always a pattern. Whether it's searching through rooms, or navigating through a Searchlight's lair—
—SLAM! Suddenly, there’s a loud clatter beside you. The sound of grinding rock rapidly approaching you. Thump. Thump. Footsteps. Fast. Run.
You whip around, forgetting the threat of the Crooked. Some creature, monster, made of concrete, metal, and flesh charges towards you. You aim the Flash Beacon and fire at the monster before you can even realize you're moving.
The Flash Beacon whirrs, charges, and doesn't fire. It's broken. It lets out a pained whirr as it sputters its last dying breath. Much like you soon will.
Your breath catches in your throat. The monster pauses, as if expecting a flash, before catching itself. Its single, fleshy eyeball flickers from you to your Flash Beacon. Purely functioning off your fight or flight response, you do the most logical action;
…you throw the Flash Beacon at it, and run. Fuck. You're done for.
You can hear the plastic bounce off of its hard body, before a set of heavy footsteps follow behind you. It gets closer and closer until you can feel it nipping at your heels. You're too injured. You can't run fast enough. Your lungs feel tight, as if they can't get enough air.
You twist your body to glance at it. Maybe you can juke it? Fight it off?
It lunges, and slams its body weight against you. You fall to the ground and it knocks a substantial amount of air out of you. You raise your hands to try and push it off, all while you feel the sharp divots of its body against yours. It raises an arm that has a spiked club at the end, and the world slows to a halt.
There's blood staining the creature in front of you. You doubt it’s its own. A second stretches far and you think this is where you see your life flash before your eyes, and all you feel is guilt. Is this your penitence? …or punishment? It slams the club against your already-wounded legs. There is no escape.
It plunges rebar into your skin. It beats and cuts and beats and cuts and it tears you apart, splaying your gore like an art show. You scream and scream and no-one is helping, and it cuts your stomach and trails the gash across your body, and oh fucking shit are those your organs? Your flesh?
You push and yell as your blood stains your hands and its body. Your ragged breaths grow wet with blood. Your body feels wrong, like someone twisted it inside-out, and you wish you could succumb and let this be over. You wish you could beg, but you know you don't deserve the luxury. Despite that belief you still sputter out moans and screams of pain as blood dribbles from your lips.
It hurts. It hurts. Then… it stops.
There's a sound faintly in the distance, and the hairs on your arms (or more properly, what's left of them) stand up at the realization. The monster who's mortally wounded you stops dead in its tracks. It offers you a mere glance before it runs away, leaving its only connection to you being a trail of blood. Your blood.
It's mercy. You realize. It's merciful that an Angler would come kill you. Otherwise, your side effects from death would be focused on the injuries from the concrete monster. Nonetheless, your dying pulse still quickens. You don't recognize the scream, so it must be a new variant. Please don't be like Pandemonium.
You close your eyes. Realistically, there's not much else to do. A part of you wonders if the Crooked is moving now that your gaze isn't trained against him. The other part of you hopes that this will be your last trip to the River Styx. You're unsure how much more you can handle.
Both parts of you are incorrect.
You don't remember opening your eyes. You must've, because you can suddenly see your surroundings. Your eyelids feel heavy with exhaustion (and death) but somehow lightless at the same time. Around you, everything is… green?
It's the best way you can describe it. Green. It doesn't encompass the fluctuations of your environment, or the way that every unmoving object seems to change positions but remain the same, or the fact that everything feels askew, as if while your eyes were closed someone moved everything slightly to the left. It does, however, include the change you notice first; everything around you is bathed in a green hue.
Thankfully not one single shade of green. It fluctuates, adjusting to darker areas with darker shades. The more you stare at one color, though, the more it changes. It moves and waves and, wait, is it even green? What is happening?
Your head swims, and you want to blame it on blood loss. Is this how you die? Truly die? You expected to, y'know, ‘see the light’, not… see green. It's kind of disappointing, honestly.
You're standing.
You shouldn't be. You didn't move, didn't blink, and your legs aren't fit to carry any weight in their current state. In fact, not just your legs— your whole body isn't fit to be moving. You shouldn't be standing. You have gaping stab wounds littered around your body in different sizes, and you can see your insides peeking through them. Your muscle. Your bone. Your blood. You should not be standing.
Yet, you are, and you feel lightless. Your senses feel dulled and the air around you thick and encompassing. You haven't moved a muscle. You haven't even blinked.
A hand wraps around your own.
You don't see anyone. Yet you can feel the presence of someone, cutting through the thick air like a hot knife through butter.
Your feet move rhythmically in a practiced movement you cannot place. You sway and spin, with the only indication of someone else being a hand encompassing your own, and another on your shoulder.
Your body doesn't scream out in pain. You cannot resist; your movements are at the will of whatever puppeteer has you in your grasp. They don't force you, they merely suggest, and in your weakened state you find you can only say yes.
One…two…oh. Huh. You're dancing.
A waltz.
…what?
The scream of the Angler grows quieter, before falling into complete silence. The greens around you fall away and dull into black. Void. Nothing. Through it all you can still feel the presence of your dance partner. A constant in the depravity of all your senses.
Then; you see him.
You think you blinked. You're unsure; in one second it's just your hands in darkness, then in the next there's a man in a suit standing in front of you. Haha. He's green.
A green human. Mostly. The green part is undeniable— even his skin is tinted a shade of it— but the human part of him is debatable. There's something strangely uncanny about him. His eyes pierce through you, as if he's looking at a part of you that you aren't aware of. He dances smoothly, but mechanically. Every single one of his actions has a purpose.
“Apologies for the disruption.”
His mouth doesn't move when he speaks. His voice isn't something you can process, and it registers in your mind solely as words. You think you can hear something masculine behind it, but it also blends with your internal voice; all this to say, people do not speak this way. To put it to words would be to say you understand it, which is false.
“This area is not suitable for you.”
He doesn't have any physical indicator that he's speaking. He continues dancing.
“Please accept this gift as compensation.”
Then, finally, he does something other than dancing. His eyes squint slightly, and there's a tug at his lips that makes you think he's trying to smile.
“A friend of his must be a friend of mine.”
He raises a hand, and spins you.
When you finish one half of your rotation, your senses come back to you, and pain rushes through you.
Once the spin is finished, he is gone, and you're in the Hadal Blacksite. The proper, finished version of it you're familiar with.
Your balance is lost the moment he leaves you. You fall to the ground with a slam, and it doesn't take long for your blood to pool beneath you. It's unnerving when you realize your skin is colder than the cold concrete floor. Your back remains flat against the ground.
There's a clatter nearby. You try to pick up your head to look around, but you can only manage to lift it a few inches. You let it fall back down, and you allow your eyes to close.
Something enters the room. You can hear it cross into the room, accompanied by the shuffling of cloth.
A pause.
“...oh shit.”
Huh. You know that voice.
Something slides underneath your head, and it takes you embarrassingly long to realize it's a hand.
“C'mon, expendable.” Sebastian says and why is he close? He lifts up your head gingerly, and the movement causes you a sudden spike of pain. Your eyes fly open and you take in a raspy, exhausted inhale.
Sebastian is leaning over you. One of his hands is placed under your head, another is used to brace himself against the ground, and his lowest hand remains hesitant in the air. His lure is off, but the bright light of his eyes frame his face with a cold blue.
You blink away wetness in your eyes to see him more clearly. His expression doesn't fit him. It's not his smirk or frown or… however you describe the pout he does when he's deep in thought. He's, uh, worried?
No. No. He can't be worried. It's not him. Sebastian knows you revive, he knows this is the song-and-dance you perform at the facility. This isn't abnormal for you. This is typical. Normal. Average. Expected. You're shaking.
His eyes are wide. His mouth is open slightly; his lips part with the weight of unsaid words. His tangled hair falls in front of his face and brushes against your skin.
Cold. You're cold.
You try to blink, but you can't manage to open your eyelids once they close. Darkness floods your vision, and you think it would be soothing if it wasn't for the pain pinching and twisting every part of your body.
Oh hell, is this how Upreppa felt? Choking on her own blood? Feeling her life slip away?
You're a monster. If you had just turned around to check on Upreppa— if you ran faster— if you—
—Sebastian pulls your eyelid open with the pads of his clawed fingers. The touch and the rush of seeing sends a sharp jolt through your body. It's your fight or flight response, you think, but you don't have enough strength to do either.
He pulls away his hand as if it's burned you. His brow furrows.
“Not yet.” He says, as if that means anything.
You've ruined so many people's lives. You deserve this. A fit punishment for your crimes. Your contrapasso.
Your movements feel distant, but you perform them nonetheless. Slowly, you shift one of your hands to your duffle bag. You clench your jaw at the harsh pain.
You feel the fabric of the bag under your blood-stained hands. Good. Sebastian's gaze traces your every movement, from the movement of your hand to the slowing rise-and-fall of your chest.
“Ta—” You start, but your words are sliced by a sharp cough. You feel thick liquid slide up your throat. You harshly jerk your head to the side and spit it out. It's blood.
“Take it.” You force the words past your lips. Sebastian leans closer, trying to capture your nearly inaudible command.
His hair bunches up on your blood stained cheek from the proximity. Your grimace tugs upward into a pained smile.
With the last of your energy, you raise your hand towards your face. A shudder escapes you. You swipe your fingers against the tangled strands of Sebastian's hair that are strewn across your skin.
A pang of mourning twists your insides. Hair. Humans. People. You miss people.
“Cut.” You manage to say, because apparently the phrase ‘you need a haircut’ is too much for your dying body. You think if you had enough blood you would flush and feel embarrassed, but the most you feel is just awkwardness.
“Yeah.” Sebastian mutters, his voice dry. You push your hand further upwards, your chilled fingertips grazing his lukewarm skin.
Your hand drops, and if Sebastian's breath hitches upon your touch you don't notice, because your own lungs have stopped intaking air.
You enter River Styx. That feeling of helplessness as the world digs its fingers into your flesh will never seem mundane, no matter how much you try to brush it off.
When your body is lifted above the water, you realize you have a… companion. A hand grips your ankle tightly, trying to drag you back below the surface. Or to hitch a ride with you out of the river.
Either way, it doesn't matter, because Lady Death acts before you can even realize what's wrong. In a smooth movement she shifts you from oar to her grip, and spins the oar around to its scythe side. Without a shred of hesitation she slices the arm effortlessly.
She places you on the dock, where you promptly lose your balance and stumble backwards, falling straight on your behind.
…because what the fuck?
So much happened. Too much just happened, and holy shit the hand is still gripping your ankle. It's still there. There's a dead body (soul? corpse?) part on you.
You frantically try to pull it off you while a stream of curses accompany every breath you take. With a crack you manage to pry it off you, retracting your leg from it as far as possible.
Crackly, slippery skin stares at you from the hand's place on the boardwalk. It's disgusting and malnourished, with some nails missing. Gross. Your expression fills with disgust. Super gross.
A glint of metal catches you— in its palm there's an embedded object. It's forced into the skin, but it looks easily removable.
You aren't left any further time to ponder it as Lady Death scoops up the hand. She removes the small object with one of her hands, and raises the dismembered limb high in the air. Is she gonna throw it back in the water?
She brings it closer to her face. While she's obscured by shadow, so you can't see the intricacies of her face, you do still manage to catch multiple rows of teeth and mandibles open wide. She swallows the hand whole, and you can hear the sickening crunch when she bites down. A chill runs down your spine as the hairs on your arms stand up.
“...fucking hell.” You huff softly under your breath, trying to regain your composure. You close your eyes for a few seconds to take a few deep breaths. When you open them, you are greeted by Lady Death standing right in front of you.
You take in a sharp inhale as a yelp dies in your throat. How did she move so fast? How didn't you hear her?
She extends her oar towards you, and funnily enough, the only thing you can think of is the similarity between someone airplane feeding a baby with a spoon. Except the spoon is a big oar, and Lady Death isn't your mother. Probably. You're still coming to terms with the fact you're seeing the afterlife, and you're not ready to explore whatever connections humanity shares with the divinity of the world.
The oar stops right in front of your face. ‘Here comes the airplane…!’
Inside the oar is a file and golden coin. You recognize the latter object from being inside the dismembered hand (prior to Lady Death's snack time). Weird food choice.
Glancing between the contents of the oar and Lady Death's intimidating figure, you hesitantly take the items with shaky hands. You don't realize you blink until you look up and see that she's disappeared and returned to her brooding at the edge of the dock.
Weird airplane pilot… or, mother? You've lost track of the analogy.
“Thank you.” You say to her, hoping your voice carries the amount of weight you want it to. You are thankful, truly, and the idea that Lady Death doesn't believe you twists at your insides.
You investigate the coin before opening the file. It's surprisingly light, given the sturdiness of it. There's a skull with a hook in it etched in black in the golden face. You turn the coin around in your hand and catch small cursive writing on its borders; ‘a token for those who wish to return’.
It's a small coin that fits easily in the palm of your hand. Why does it fill you with such unease?
The Green Man's (as you've taken to calling him) words ring loud to you; ‘please accept this gift as compensation’. Was the gift Sebastian? The coin? Something else?
Onto the file. It's a manilla folder, similar to all the other pieces of data you've scavenged in your time at the Hadal Blacksite. You open it and immediately catch the Urbanshade logo printed on the first page. Great start.
The heading catches your attention immediately— ‘REVIVE TOKEN’. The pictures attached to the file via paper clip contain the same coin in your hand. Not a coincidence. Is Lady Death trying to help you?
‘The Revive Token functions as a necessary payment in order to retrieve someone from the River Styx after their death. They are highly expensive, and the price for them is not an earthly monetary currency. They are bartered for with divine beings. No human has been found to be able to distribute these tokens.’
Weird.
‘When the N.O.S.T. subdivision of Urbanshade first discovered these coins, they offered…’
Black text. There’s lot's of redacted information, and you're forced to flip to the next page in order to continue meaning.
‘...this granted them the normal, typical Revive Token. Since then, Urbanshade has formulated more reliable methods of acquiring these tokens. If someone dies when carrying this Revive Token, the Ferryman [AMENDMENT: LADY DEATH] will fish them out of the River Styx. Once they re-enter the earthly plane, their body will heal completely with no consequences from the death, and will be able to function again.’
Familiar. All of this is sickeningly similar to your revival.
‘After further acquisition of tokens and experimentation with the bartering process, N.O.S.T. discovered that cheaper prices for revival can be achieved by omitting certain processes bought with the typical expensive Revive Token.’
You reread the last sentence once. Twice. Three times. This is how you revive. This is…. damn. You swallow the lump in your throat and flip to the next page.
Examples.
Two— three…. nearly four pages of designations and their deals for revivals. Guards. LR-P's. EXR-P's. Secretaries. Parents. Kids. Upreppa. You.
The last two lines, the most recent entries;
‘EXR-P A-005:
Hadal Blacksite Expendable Protocol (SCOUT).
Revives: 52
Full recovery of injuries after revival, randomized revival locations throughout Hadal Blacksite docks, Urbanshade Branded Black Duffle Bag and High-Energy Container kept after revival, loss of substantial situational awareness.’
Upreppa.
“Oh.”
‘EXR-P B-023:
Hadal Blacksite Expendable Protocol (CRYSTAL RETRIEVER).
Revives: Currently In Use
Injuries carry somewhat after revival, fixed revival location [See File: EXR-P B-023] in Hadal Blacksite Dock ███, Urbanshade Branded Black Duffle Bag and High-Energy Container kept after revival.’
You.
“Fuck.”