The Eyes of Markov
Fanfiction By Clockwork Projects
DDLC was made by Dan Salvato. This is a fan project. I do not own DDLC or anything relating to it.
Prologue ~ "Portrait"
A young lady sat atop a windowsill within her room. In her hand she played with a bright, lavish purple knife. She knows that she should be asleep right now, yet something seemed to bother her, itching at the back of her mind. A very...perplexing, yet oddly obsessive feeling. It was that story. The one she keeps by her side at nearly all hours of the day.
A strange, crimson-colored book with the ominous symbol of an eye printed on the front cover stood atop a desk. It seemed to stand out from the rest of the books. It was oddly unorganized from the rest of her books, yet her room was like a large library of shelves and books everywhere. Wouldn't it be easier to just keep it on a shelf instead?
She had hoped to read the book with him, but...no. This cannot wait. She stood up and slid her drawer open, storing her knife inside with many others. Each one was different in shape and size. They were a wide range of colors, from bright reds to deep purples. Each of them were, strangely, very precious to her in their own way.
"Just...one more chapter…" she thought, as she pulled a sheet of white paper from her shelf, flicking a fancy-looking lamp on which stood atop her writing table, "One more chapter, after I finish this poem."
The bright light illuminated the white paper in front of her, which already had only a few words written down. With a click of a fancy-looking purple pen pen, she thought for a moment before she began writing down her words. The words on her paper were written in a fancy, script style handwriting. And atop the paper stood the poem's title, Ghost under the Light. It was short, yes, but she still put a lot of thought into it.
"The tendrils of my hair illuminate beneath the amber glow.
Bathing.
It must be this one.
The last remaining streetlight to have withstood the test of time.
The last yet to be replaced by the sickening blue-green of the future.
I bathe. Calm; breathing air of the present but living in the past.
The light flickers.
I flicker back."
Beneath the poem she signed her name, Yuri, with a different pen. This one was instilled in purple ink, yet it shared the same script style of writing. She picked it up to read it over once more, before setting it down on her table for tomorrow.
She flicked the light off, and then picked up her book. The one with the ominous eye symbol printed onto its cover. Portrait of Markov, read the book's title. She laid down in her bed facedown and placed the book just in front of her face to see the words carefully.
She reached over her end table to flick her reading lamp on, which allowed her to see the words clearly, and read them carefully.
Chapter I ~ "Doubtful Shadow"
A young girl leaned over her a balcony, staring over the small town below, which stood under a somber dark sky. It was almost time to say goodbye to this small place, as her family insisted on moving in with her older sister. She nearly shed a tear at the thought of leaving, for she had lived there all her life. There, she had met so many kind people. She was worried that she might not see them again, yet she still had many of them in her contact. And there was a lingering bad feeling, of sorts. What if, once the two meet, the two long-lost siblings wouldn't be able to get along?
As much as she tried to put this perturbed feeling behind her, it kept resurfacing over and over again.
She almost went pale with the thought of, after many years of not even knowing her existence, not knowing that she even had siblings in the first place, things wouldn't go according to plan. No. She tried to push that thought out of her mind, no matter how many times it may come back to haunt her.
Eventually, she stepped back into her room to finish packing everything up. Once she finished, she fell into her bed, which was monstrous in size but exceptionally comfortable. She tossed and turned roughly in her sleep. The small household stood by her, trying their hardest to wake her up to almost no avail. Once she finally woke up, she looked at her father.
"C'mon, Elyssa," He spoke. His voice was deep, yet calming. "It's time to go. We gotta meet up with her by tonight, and we have a long road ahead of us. We'll wait for you downstairs."
Elyssa nodded, nearly struggling to pull herself out of her comfortable bed. Once she managed to escape the confines of her bed, the first thing she did was head downstairs to eat breakfast. She met up with her family at the dining table for a conversation.
"Elyssa, dear? What's wrong? You seem a bit upset," Elyssa's mother spoke softly.
Elyssa quickly shook her head, "It's nothing. Don't worry."
"Are you sure?" Her mother let out a deep sigh before she continued, "I know when something's wrong. Please, tell me."
"I'm...not sure if I'm ready for this," Elyssa spoke rapidly, almost too quickly for her mother to hear. Her mother tilted her head.
"Nonsense. I'm sure she'll be happy to see you," She reassured Elyssa, placing a hand on her shoulder. Elyssa took one final bite of her toast before she headed upstairs to take a quick shower before the family heads out.
"So, Charlotte, let's talk business," Elyssa's dad spoke to her wife, "I've thought about Renier's invitation. Fortunately, our trip to Libby's home places us just beside his little shack."
Charlotte sighed, "That's nice, dear," She spoke, as she held a slice of toast in her hand, "It's good that you've already found a job so close to home."
The rest of their breakfast was mostly silent, as they ate their food quietly. Once they finished their crisp breakfast, Charlotte and her husband stood up to wash their dishes together. She spreaded the soap on the sponge onto her own plate, washing it off carefully. Once they finished they set them down to the side gently to dry, and waited for Elyssa to finish getting ready to leave.
Elyssa swung a dark, russet-colored jacket over her black button shirt. She looked into the clear glass over the bathroom sink. In it she saw herself looking back at her, directly into her blue eyes as graceful as moonlight as she gently combed her long, snowy blonde hair with her hair comb. She grabbed a small, circular elastic hair tie and scrunched her hair within her hand, wrapping it around into a ponytail.
Once Elyssa finished she placed her hairbrush back in to her white drawer. She went downstairs to meet up with her family and they headed out to their car. The two parents sat in the front seat, while the young Elyssa sat in the back. Her dad twisted the key to the side, and then they were off.
A slightly younger girl with similar blonde-colored hair and eyes just as graceful as her older sister's sat down silently on her house's porch, as she waited for her new family to arrive. She looked nearly identical to her older counterpart, and could be mistaken for a twin. Her bangs were long, almost covering her forehead entirely.
However, her attention wasn't directed at the road. It was focused on the ominous-looking shack in the distance. That creepy, dilapidated building had always gave her bad vibes, as if something could crawl out of there at any second of the day and try to pull her in. Yet, at the same time, she was almost drawn to it. Whatever "it" may be…
The shack was made of wood, with many fractures engraved into its wall. She had a desire to stay as far away from the place as possible. As she stared at the shack for long periods of time, she could almost remember things. Things from her hollow childhood. Experiments. Bitter, cruel experiments. Things she would rather push to the back of her mind, and never bring up ever again. The place reminded her of some abandoned hospital, or a haunted asylum.
She sighed, forcing the thought away from her mind once more. Now would be a really bad time to inquire. Once she entered, there would be no telling whether or not she'd make it out alive. And she wouldn't want to perturb her new family, would she?
Her name was Libitina. An odd spectacle of a name indeed, being the Roman goddess of death. She thought about it for a moment, before heading inside her own house to conjure up a dinner for her guests.
As she prepared a simple stew, many dark thoughts began to concoct in her head. Her head seemed to pound as she perceived the disfigured body of a shadow lying just adjacent to her eye.
She saw the shadow of liquid appearing to trickle down its arm, a thick, watery substance. She lifted her ladle out of the stew as her arm twitched.
She jerked to the side, shifting her arm's position in an attempt to threaten whatever was lying behind her with her rather blunt metal weapon.
As she snapped out of her odd, zombified trance she heard a loud banging sound at the door. Must be her new guests.
Libitina approached he door cautiously, ladle in hand. She violently shivered with anxiety as she heard the decrepit floorboards creaking beneath her. She slowly cracked the door open as she came face to face with her sister. Elyssa, as her parents called her.
She lowered the ladle and looked her in the eye. Their eyes were indeed similar, yet there was something unique about her.
Her older sister simply stared at Libitina with a dark, clouded expression on her face, "Um..." She spoke puzzlingly, giving her head a little tilt, "Hi…"
"Great…" Libitina speculated to herself, "Just great. Not even one minute in, and we're already off to an AMAZING start. Put the damn spoon down, Lib! Focus!"
She set the elongated spoon down onto the closest possible table she could find and made a gesture towards herself, motioning for Elyssa to come inside. Though, she wouldn't blame her if she didn't. The house, both inside and out, looked extremely run-down.
The walls were crumbling over time and it appeared as though it could collapse on itself at any interval, but it was the best she could afford at the moment.
Once Elyssa took her entrance, her family followed suit. They surveyed the inside of the dark, eldritch house.
If they were not family but instead simple travellers, one would perhaps confuse the young Libitina for a ghost.
Her skin was pale. Sickeningly so. And her hair was so blonde that, at a distance, it appeared white as the sky on an overcast day.
"Sit…" Libitina spoke. Her voice was soft and melancholic. Another comparison to her sister at the time. Although one could testify that it's due to her glum situation, rather than her instinctive tone, "I made dinner. Stew. Beef and carrots. Nothing special."
Elyssa nearly shuddered in disgust but managed to halt herself. She didn't want to make a pathetic first impression of her younger sister.
Once Libitina finished firing up her meal, dinner was relatively hushed. Their dad occasionally murmured something into his wife's ear, while Elyssa practically had to force it down her throat.
She first picked the carrots out of the sloppy brew, then ate the meat afterwards. Knowing where the meat came from, she practically shuddered. But she was so ravenous that perhaps she could even eat the table, given the opportunity.
"...How is it?" Libitina spoke in her traditional hushed voice.
"It's good. Really," Elyssa gave her a thumbs up in an attempt to establish the fact that perhaps she wasn't lying.
"You know...if you're a vegetarian, you could've just said so..." She looked away, effectively avoiding eye contact with her sister, "I would've removed the meat from the dish."
"No, no. It's fine...I'm sorry." Elyssa set her eating utensils down on the table, "Just...remember that the next time, please. Okay, sis?"
Libitina flashed a smile at her older sister, before promptly returning to her gloomy character.
"It's fine, what are you apologizing for? C'mon," She stood and led Elyssa up a rickety shaft of stairs to show her to her bedroom, visibly noticing the exhaustion on her face.
At last. Elyssa felt tired out, not simply from the trip but also due to the rather rough downpour outside.
Elyssa's consciousness began to fade into a dream. However, as with most of the time, she could not recall the cognitive landscape around her.
She woke up in the middle of the night due to heavy bolts of lightning striking the ground with vigorous force. The thunder strobed intensely, causing a blinding flash to her eyes. Alone, in her family's ragged apartment.
Her horror movie instincts half-expected an heavy metallic axe to come slamming through her doorway, letting out a cheesy "HEEERE'S JOHNNY!" for the whole house to hear.
"Well, not necessarily alone," She thought to herself intently, "But, I might as well be. My family's asleep. My dad's at...wherever he may be…"
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the shambled old shack in the distance. Was it open before? No. She didn't think so. After all, she saw her sister gazing at it, just a little while ago. Either someone came in, or someone...or maybe even something, left.
The place was definitely unrealistic, perhaps even supernatural. How she knew it, she had absolutely zero clue. She just had a feeling.
The wooden door swayed frantically from side to side, eerily creaking as it did so. She immediately shivered, curling upwards into a sitting position. If an abandoned shack in the distance didn't spell out the word "trouble" right in your face, she didn't know what would.
This close to home, Elyssa had the thought that whoever was in there might be out for some blood...and, what better target than some shady, freaky-looking cabin right around the corner?
Elyssa rose up to a stand, deciding to take a look around her house for clues. She started downstairs, being extra careful not to wake her family up. She'd feel really bad if it had to come to that.
The floorboards that squeaked loudly with nearly every press forwards didn't help at all. Elyssa made her way downstairs, and her eyes immediately locked onto a card which stood atop a cracked, crooked coffee table.
As Elyssa approached the table, she noticed something about the mysterious card. It wasn't normal. It was a business card! On it was a name. "Renier…" she whispered aloud. It sounded French. "A very unique name, for sure."
The address on the card matched the house almost exactly! Same street and all! With that, she immediately took a look outside the nearest window to discern the shack's location.
As Elyssa suspected, the address on her dad's invitation matched up exactly with the shack. She shivered, scared out of her mind. Who out of their mind would want to take up a career at a dusty old shack? Looking at it, she expected the place to smell as old as time itself, as well, and she did not want to be the one to have to drag her dad out of it.
She immediately decided that, now being a grown woman, she had to take her own initiative and liberate her dad from whatever twisted things go on within. Walking to the kitchen, which withstood time's trials no less than the rest of the home, she reached around to find a knife.
"Hope I don't fall ill tomorrow, especially after eating from this dumpy place," Elyssa's thoughts ran wild once again as she shrugged, continuing her investigation.
She picked a random knife up from the drawer and curiously look at it. The handle was black, the edge was sharp, and the metal had dried blood on it. Elyssa nearly dropped the knife on the floor in intense shock and fear. Her whole body shook furiously as she stared at it. Her insides churned rapidly as she was hit with an intense nauseating feeling.
"Did...did a murder happen here?! Shit...shit, shit, shit…"
Elyssa cursed to herself silently in the dark as she was bordering on vomiting. This was sickening. Absolutely sickening. Not even Libby, her own sister, could be trusted through all this madness. There was clearly something horribly wrong here. She cursed under her breath over and over again as she curled up on the cold ground below.
She reluctantly picked her head up from her knees as she heard the sound of grinding metal on a wood surface in the distance. She felt an odd presence, similar to the one she felt being near her sister. It seemed dark and filled nearly entirely with malice, except...worse, almost.
"Libby?"
"I know you're heeeeeeeeere!" The voice of a boy. Someone completely unfamiliar to her. He sounded very, very sinister. Yet he had a slight tinge of cheerfulness to his voice.
How could he know she was here, in this house? It was almost as if he read her mind, hearing her call out her sister's name. This was it. There was nothing good that could come of this. All she could do was make an attempt defend herself, as well as her relatives, and hope for the best.