Beyond despair.
Spencer's body twitched violently, sending the formerly stagnant water that encompassed most of his prone form rippling.
He had so many times in the past months wondered why he wasn't dead... why there was still a piece of him alive. Agonized, knowing there was too little of him left to control his body, but that he was somehow alive nonetheless. He could remember... everything that had happened, and that was infinitely worse- he didn't have the shield, the protection that amnesia would have afforded him; instead he unerringly recalled every motion, every thought, like some sort of demented, gruesome nightmare. In those months, he was floating in a sea of wrongness. It was like dreaming or watching everything happen in some sort nightmarish, drug induced haze- a bad trip- having no control over anything. Was that one of the most damaging parts? Perhaps. For a man such as Spencer, who valued control above nearly all else, this was unforgivable. He wasn't precisely real, and yet… he was aware.
Of course he had tried to fight his way out. To overcome through sheer will and stubbornness. Mind over matter, right? It's what his father had always said. "Chin up, son. Be a man. Never let them see you sweat, and by God, never let them see you cry. Mind over matter, boy."
But how does that apply when there's no matter to contend with?
It didn't matter. He fought anyway, futile as his analytical mind recognized it to be, to override the being inhabiting his body.
Tears.
Spencer Armacost was a man who did not cry. Ever. Sons of a wealthy businessman in Kentucky played football and baseball and did what was expected of the eldest son. He was Wally Cleaver. He had mastered the art of stoicism and the learned of the necessity of masks almost before he could walk... and yet in the past months he had been in constant despair. No- despair wasn't the right word. He was in Hell. Spencer was, of course, saddened when he saw his friend die before the eyes that were no longer his, but that was manageable; friends had died before, they knew the risks going in. Chin up, old boy, toast the dead and move on.
Natalie's death, her suicide, had been a bit harder to take- none of this could even remotely be laid at her feet in terms of fault. Horrifying.
But his breaking point, the time at which he wanted nothing more than to claw his own eyes out, to destroy everything within reach, was as he was forced to witness the rape of his wife, the woman he loved more than he'd ever considered loving his own life. The fire of the molten anger and guilt and grief and pain consumed him totally. Because he was able to do nothing- NOTHING- about it. Jillian, his life and beauty, thought her attacker was him, and there was nothing to disprove it. Because, the truth was, it was him, even if it wasn't. Spencer could have lived with the thought that he had attacked her if only- if only- it had inspired anger in her. He would have welcomed the anger and the accusations!
But, alas, she had staunchly withered with her pain and self doubt. He had never wanted anything more than he wanted to reach out and comfort her, assure her, now. To tell her that she HAD TO FIGHT IT. Even if he had failed, she wouldn't.
He couldn't, though. All he could do was watch, in the most disgusting sort of helplessness, as his Jill sank into a gnawing depression, as she began to wonder about her own mental health.
It occurred to Spencer, then, that Jillian had not been the only rape victim that night.
His heart shattered as he heard her distant, hollow voice break as she told the only one she trusted, Sherman Reese, her story of the princess. He had never witnessed such a painful emptiness.
And he was floating in the dark again, observing, watching.
As the thing in his body killed his friend...
Then murdered his sister in law…
His soul was drowning, now, in that vast sea of hatred and evil.
Distantly, he watched it hit her, a bruise blooming like the most delicate of spring irises on her cheekbone… throw her down the stairs... Inhabit her body...
Spencer moaned, the guttural keen of a dying animal, into the water and slowly, slowly, turned over in the pool that was his kitchen, face to the light, and promptly returned to the darkness.