Archive of Our Own ^beta

With the last seal uncovered, its ensuing fracture brings almost imperceptible sound. Not the noise of the physical disturbance but the low hum of eager unraveling.

The garden view seems the same to you. The Estate doesn´t enter the process of accelerated disrepair, chasing the years before ultimately crashing down the cliff. The Prisoner doesn´t rage. There is nothing at all in the visible layers of the world. Yet.

You didn´t truly think the results of the Breaking would immediately manifest but one can never be too careful. The long-standing anomaly of this magnitude will take its time to properly affect the environment while the chains of the pact dissipate.

And then whatever is hidden even deeper will come to light. Numbers of Ditchlings will work as a great weather forecast. Likelihood of seven seals being a coincidence is low. Although The End of All Things event following pact dissipation won´t start in a day, you dare to assume.

You can hear the shift in the deep recess of your mind as if you were out there.

(Mystical: Strands of the dissolving covenant radiating from the seals lift and then intersect again. In yourself. They continue to pull at your consciousness. As they should. You are the descendant, you are the inheritor. Finish it.)

A few minutes later your phone vibrates. You peel yourself from the window to read the message. "Done. See you in two hours. We will proceed after the funeral. Take care of yourself."

Is it even possible to take care of oneself anymore? Was it ever? The reality has lost similarities to anything previously known to you. You won´t be leaving tomorrow, that much you predict.

Exhaustion compels you to sit down on the bed. Your funeral attire can survive a bit of creasing and frankly, you don´t care about appearances.

You were gently discouraged from attending the final Breaking today. Wayne told you to remain in your room at the Estate and let your cousin finish the task instead. Tabby took it upon herself to receive last revelation. She would do anything for you, however unbelievable it seems in comparison to the beginning of this strange journey. She should be safe for this moment. Stella is with her, their bond holding them together. Avery should be nearby with their newly-discovered skillset. And hopefully Kaneeka remains by their side, if she managed to escape the influence of her accursed mother. You chew everything over once more, not sure whether you would do anything for them in return but maybe that won´t need to be tested.

Something stirs again. Soft waves of liminal change bend the outlines of your perception.

You can´t discern whether the movement has its roots under the town or directly within its foundations.

Has something inside yourself also cracked open, answering to whatever awakens all around?

(Mystical: Yes. You are free to act now.)

Do the others feel the unfolding too?

The interior of the mansion becomes even more suffocating. You are supposed to wait before you can watch. Before panic can claim you, the familiar smell of sweet rot invites itself into your awareness.

You breathe out with relief, allowing yourself a cautious smile. Battling pervasive stench of cadaver, you stand up to meet Wayne.

He speaks your name, distance curiously coexisting with something akin to deep care, embalming you into habitual comfort.

(Book Smart + Keen Eye: The minds different from humans function on different frequencies. There can not truly be a feeling in this being imitating a man. A decomposing one at that. Yet, every time he talks to you in relation to his protection over you, you notice a change in the timbre of his artificially modulated voice. A skip, a drop and an answering tug in your chest as if your heart, however stupid it sounds from biological perspective, reacted to his proclamations. I already won your heart, he said. It makes no sense, there must be a different connection.)

The body he uses is at the end of its road. You are almost surprised the flesh didn´t already slough down from its skeletal frame.

Despite it, you reach out to him, out of habit and he avoids your direct touch as usual. The blood-crusted veil lingers in the sharp angles of the skull beneath. But at least he takes a few steps closer to you, shading you with his figure.

"I´m glad you listened this time. I half expected you´d dismiss my warning again."

"I decided maybe I could make you happy for once."

"You did."

"Is it time then?"

"Yes."

"To go to the funeral, I mean."

As you turn to pick up your bag, the familiar pressure of his palm on your lower back gently directs you back to the bed. It guided you throughout the week, you have no qualms about following for now.

"Sit, please."

"All right, it seems I am in quite an obedient mood today."

Plopping back down on the ever dusty bed, you look up at him, pulse quickening. He is close. So is his odor and the barely noticeable pull on your mind.

"You don´t need to attend meaningless rites."

Your voice skips in mild confusion: "I don´t understand. It´s why I came to town. And it´s not like we don´t have other matters worth tending to. (Mystical: The stones were moved, the bindings were broken. Whatever was hidden is getting free and we must be ready, you said so yourself.)"

His hand rises, and to your surprise, stiff bruised fingers softly slide through the strands of your hair. The electricity of the contact erases the rest of the sentences from your lips. A whisper of a touch and yet, your whole being suddenly feels so much joy. It is almost as if he was petting an animal but you would swear you feel each single hair falling around his fingertips, the tingling overlaying your head, spreading to your limbs, disrupting the pattern of your breathing.

His eyes shine in pinpricks of unnatural light.

"No. Your arrival was inevitable. Are you aware of the change which you have caused?"

"Everything is different," you admit. "The seals have been broken, the town is prepared to let go of its old alliances. And to pay the debts. (Mystical + Keen Eye: The powers are shifting as we speak, Wayne, you know that. -I- am different now. Something unwound inside me when it happened.)"

"You are what you are meant to be. Or will be, at the very least. You are becoming. I will help you all the way. You just have to let me."

You feel a bit silly but a large chunk of your consciousness lingers in his touch. The curious texture of his fingertips gliding down your cheek. Your eyes see through the fabric of existence, layers upon layers of old histories and the sick glow of the entity in front of you. It is the light of a dying sun in a forgotten corner of the universe, a distracting and choking flame of the swamp.

A power that is and the power to be.

You let out a confused, half-lost breath when his strange eyes bore into yours and the hand of the dead man locks on your chin.

Calm melody of his rustling voice washes over you, followed by the breath of an open grave: "I already mentioned you are special. There is a key in your blood. A key meant to open and, when the conditions are met, also allowed to lock."

"I thought you didn´t want to touch me," you say with a bit of a bite in your tone.

"I promised there´d be a time and place for us. That time is now. The place is suitable."

"Wayne, wait," you slowly extricate yourself from his grip and in your words you detect an unfortunate edge, laced with pleading. "Give me a moment here, please."

"As you wish. Take the time you need."

He is patient with you but you know already the sharp background whir of annoyance close by. He always gives you a choice. The choice to always arrive at the destination he needs you to arrive at. You trust him that he cares about your well-being but his idea of your well-being is sometimes quite different from yours, if not completely at odds with it. But he takes a step back from you now, providing you an illusion of space.

(Mystical: He´s never going anywhere. He is never leaving you. You may as well come to terms with it. You remain bound and while being set free from the tethers of the contract, there is no freedom he will grant you.)

You let go of caution, steeling your voice into a solid foundation for the conversation you want to have: (Book Smart: "What I wish is for you to speak plainly to me. To confirm for me what I suspect is happening and what you evaded to explain. You claim you are helping me. Please, help me now. Tell me what I ´m heading towards . Who-- what are you. What am I? And don´t tell me I´m some substitute harbinger of doom because Tabitha couldn´t become one! Is the Book of Revelation correct? Is this all a preamble to the Apocalypse? Or to a particular version of it? Are we supposed to heal the town now that the seals had freed what lain hidden or are we supposed to push forward (Mystical: to push forward the change, the Breaking, the Collapse? Because I feel the shift in power now. I feel myself from the different angles, Wayne.")

Raising your forearm in front of your eyes, you observe a scarlet glow permeating your veins, as if your blood shone with its own immanent light.

When your amused gaze finds the dead man again, he locks it into his silent command.

"You are not ready. Not complete yet."

"Do not try this domineering approach with me. I´m not some fragile medium, blindly infatuated with their spiritual guardian."

"You try to push me for no reason. Don´t forget, the chains are loosened, I am no longer bound and can restrain you if you don´t cooperate."

"Are you threatening me now?"

"Not threatening. Warning you. I care for your safety first and foremost. If you can´t see the danger, you have to be redirected."

The joy which overwhelmed you when he touched you transitions to something else, mixing with your own feeling of inner empowerment, something seemingly integral to you.

But it is pushing against other influences and it clashes against Wayne´s compulsion which infiltrates the pores of your energy and connects to the inherent link you undoubtedly share. He is strenghtening it, enforcing something.

"You seem quite agitated. You can´t control it, can you?"

"Don´t mock me."

"I will help you navigate the unknown."

You feel as if you ate too much sugar or how you usually feel when you go hungry, drinking only strong coffees for hours and your brain is on tremendous alert, riddled with anxiety but also riding savage high.

You feel that nasty inner discomfort, restless pressure inside your body which comes from the correlating unrest of the brain. It is similar to being horny but not for somebody, just somehow to the void. Lust for the void. Undirected but no less intense.

It can turn you aggressive and irrational. Chills spread from the crown of your head down your neck. You don´t really want to confront Wayne, do you? You lick your lips which went horribly dry, trying to concentrate, trying to lighten the mood.

"Seems we are at an impasse here. I really want to go and you won´t let me go. My guardian angel slash demon is a bit of a dick then?"

"Only if you get confrontational."

"Are you going to turn on me?"

"Would you wish me to?"

"... No."

"I will never work against you. You are my priority."

"However I feel about it, right?"

Something clicks in the place, stuck inside you.

"Do you trust me?"

"I thought I did. Yes? Probably?"

"I never lied to you. Feel the seams which connect us. Search for them. Feel for them. Now the motion is set, you are able to detect them."

Your thoughts struggle to come together, you try to ground yourself, to remind your body of the solid objects it usually interacts with. Your feet, catching the ground, bearing down on it, rooting themselves into the thick, old carpet. Your hands, restless at your sides, fingers curling and wringing the bedsheet.

(Mystical + Keen Eye: "Are you trying to manipulate me, Wayne?")

He is so damned calm. You focus, treading the gap between your vibrant life and his putrescent finality. You bridge the banks of your experiences, lift the lid of ages, follow the line wedged in your soul if you ever had a soul, since your birth to the quiet, collected but radiant and horrifying presence of him.

His question comes out slowly, words replete with meaning.

"What am I, y/n?"

(Mystical: "The spectator. The missing taste, the forgotten song. The lost word which never passed my lips. The shadow following even in the absence of light. The curse bred into bone.) What will happen to me?"

"You will be taken care of. I promise."

The shapes the room consists of lose the defined outlines, it makes you feel like you are back at the library, trudging through the parade of Charlie´s deformities.

You feel cold. Your mind is raging.

Your quick breathing fills up the silence in the room.

"Wayne... I think I´m irrationally scared."

"You can forget that borrowed name. You can use my name now."

"Tell me."

" ------."

"------. It sounds... foreign. Strange in my mouth."

"It will cease being strange soon. We will be so close you will not even spot a difference between us."

You shape your mouth around the unknown syllables. Nowhere in the available sources on angelic or other entities did you fall upon this name. You admit your lack of knowledge.

"I studied many occult texts following up on the Book of Enoch in my day but I don´t recall reading about you."

He may not be one of the angels, after all. There are multiple beings in between the realms, you read a lot but always deemed it little more than folk tales inspiration or original fears. Demonic royalties. Vortexes. There are eldritch horrors beyond your imagination.

Yet his name sounds right, slipping over your teeth, tasting full and reverberating on your tongue, almost sweet. It is the correct password, code which belongs to you, binding you. And him, if the good old true name narrative is correct.

But he wouldn´t give you his name if he didn´t trust you (?).

No, he would give you his name this easily if he knew the true names concept is a bunk.

"Human knowledge is sorely limited, you know this well. Lie down, y/n."

You do, limbs preceding the mind´s order.

He joins you on the bed, leaning over you, arms on each side of your head. The dirty, crusty bloodied veil reeks of old iron and deterioration. It slightly touches your face and you flinch.

At your expression he discards the veil, leaving you looking straight up to the face of the skull. It still echoes the good looking man it used to belong to but the texture is rough, the blotches of blood clots and the decomposing lips making way for teeth, some of them broken. It truly is the sight out of a nightmare if not for the eyes. Liquid lakes of light fill the holes where Sam Wayne´s eyes used to be. You feel revulsion mixed with terrible excitement.

You know he has to power this festering vessel somehow, whether through organic, fungal means or the electricity.. or magic, herbs. Sibyl´s herbs? It still leaks and you don´t want to think about the microbes which must have field day in the necrotic flesh.

All the rational musings are hammered down by something akin to desire. Concerning, to feel anything similar in the close proximity of a corpse. You don´t know what to do with your hands so you don´t move them.

His voice always sounded unnatural, dead vocal cords forced to function by an unearthly power. Now it descends into a deeper set of tones: "I want you to feel comfortable, y/n."

"I-I don´t know about this," you whisper incoherently.

There is so much that is wrong here.

You should be on your way to the funeral. You should be with your family, with Tabby. You should be anywhere else than here but did Wayne ever lead you astray? Did he ever betray you? Did he ever give bad advice? And you do like him, you almost can´t imagine the times when you weren´t aware of his presence by your side.

He guards you, he protects you, doesn´t he?

D o e s n ´ t   h e ?

You say you do not know.

But you do know. This is the only correct time, the first and the last time.

Your body stills.

"I... I can´t move. What are you doing to me?"

Your next words choke in your throat. The split, the crack, the rift.

"Breathe. In. Out. Deep breaths. Good. It´s all right now. You are made for this (Mystical: ... made for me, he means. Won´t he say it because he knows that you know?) You will adjust."

"Do you want me?"

No, please.

(Mystical: Yes, please. Yes.)

"I didn´t want to touch you with this provisional vessel. It doesn´t matter now. It outlived its usefulness. Remember – I will not harm you."

The transition is fluid. It seems to be only natural, the return to the primordial state.

The opalescent filaments leave the decay of Sam Wayne and rebuild in front of your eyes. The branching form reminds you of the humanoid nervous system, all with seemingly electric impulses running over the threads and sparkling at the connections, distantly resembling synapses.

But it is much more and as the remnants of the dead miner slump to the floor, you can see what was previously forced into the human form spreading and expanding, unraveling. Tendrils, seemingly organic and subtle at once. Spirit mycelium.

The growths and the head remind you of nothing at all.

Remember. Return. Reclaim.

You feel it on your skin, the feather-light touch, whole structure sinking underneath and descending deeper into your body.

When it communicates, you can still hear the appropriated voice of Sam Wayne but you are aware of the fact that it is just the autosuggestive echo. The simple method of communication the entity uses to be closer to you.

"Do not be afraid. Your heart yearned for me. Accept me."

Your heart? That´s still not what -

The part of you which could always see just a bit behind the mystery veil almost eagerly opens up. (Mystical: Accept.)

Your still prevalent human part, your person, is reeling in horror.

"Open yourself to me."

Your eyesight goes blank, everything drowns in thick darkness.

The viscous threads wrap themselves around your organs, slip between your ribs and vertebrae, crawl up your spine from the inside. Settling in, climbing up towards your brain. You would scream and thrash about if you weren´t paralyzed. The experience doesn´t hurt but it is uncomfortable, filling you up with alien presence, and you desperately wish for it to stop. You plead in your thoughts, hoping against all hope that your misery will make this entity you considered your ally understand.

"Wayne... please... ------, do you hear me? I didn´t want this! I never agreed to this."

I just wanted you to love want me.

That last sentence is vomited from your subconscious, thrown into the light of your mind which no longer fully belongs to you. Your body shivers, you feel your eyes fill with tears which freely flow down your temples.

The response to the unwilling mishap of the thought rolls through you, crackling in the twisting pathways of your brain. "I know. You are mine."

The fog sets on your consciousness, making thinking difficult.

You feel caressed from within, abnormal arousal spiking your senses. (Mystical: It is only right to join, to unite, finally.)

"Welcome me."

It whispers through your mind, flooding you.

Your body wants to break itself against the onslaught of sharp, overwhelming pleasure.

You have difficulty breathing. You can´t brea----

"Calm yourself."

Your nerves are forced to obey, instantly reprogrammed, reactions adapted and twisted. The voice of your companion tends to you, cleans you of panic.

"I entered your body gently. I am taking your mind slowly. We will be required out there soon. Let the process complete in peace. I will give you what you need to pass it without struggle. No pain, no fear. Do not resist me."

" Are you killing me ?" You communicate the loud thought through your growing connection. Uncertain whether you always needed this or---

Y o u n e e d e d t h i s.

"No. I am evolving you."

"My personality will cease to exist, won´t it?"

"You will not fade away. You will fade into me. We will be as one. Efficient. Perfect. Now concentrate on your breathing. Remember, you are loved, y/n."

Every place of your body burns, stimulated to unbearable heights.

Your skin tingles, every milimeter hurts with absurd pleasure.

Your throat, your thighs, your back even, everything is mercilessly caressed and your vocal cords are permitted to produce small, strangled sounds you are not even fully aware come out from between your lips. Deep in your belly you feel the strange, inhuman arousal mount. The tendrils of light suffocate. There is no outside stimulation, everything happens from the inside, permeating you, violating you. You feel the rush between your legs, unlike anything you've ever felt, making your teeth clench in an echo of phantom pain.

All your nerves are being operated, channelled, controlled.

You want to scream.

But you only whimper.

Suspended in pure darkness, overwhelmed, dismantled.

What comes is not any human orgasm. Your body and mind contract, previous blueprints expunged. Void reflects into you and you reflect into it and for a fraction of an indefinite unit of time you understand it all.

"Let me take you fully. There is nothing else. You are safe now."

Your mind is compressed.

Remade. Reformed. Integrated.

You are complete.

S a f e.