PAIRING - None
WARNING - None
POV - Steve
Stepping into the cool night air, Steve looks around nervously, tightening his jacket around himself.
The lights to the other houses are off, and the village is quiet, save for the iron golem clunking around the perimeter.
He holds his breath as the golem passes behind his house, realizing that he's standing out in the open and not moving won't prevent the iron giant from seeing him. But it's a gut reaction, and either way the golem passes without so much as a glance his direction.
Letting out a breath he winces as he feels a sharp pain in his side. He rubs a hand along it and hurries into the darkness.
The others would scold him for such a reckless action, but he knows he's safe. Well, safe is relative. Though he shakes when passing by creepers and skeletons and zombies, they don't attack him. Not because they don't care, but because they're afraid. Like he is.
The nice gravel path dissolves into a coarse dirt trail leading to a roofed forest. The moon casts strange shadows that dance across the grass, and the occasional sound of bones rattling and zombies groaning pierces the night air. Another jab into his side and he grinds his teeth, knowing that it means impatience and mounting anger and a command he'd be foolish to disobey. He hates it.
But he needs it.
The house he walks up to is ruined, from time, from mobs, from weather. There's a hole in the roof, and the foundation is cracked, but it's solitary and dark and quiet. The mobs are afraid to come here. He is too. But he can't escape.
The being feels best here, though it won't say why(and boy does Steve desperately wish to know why). It speaks to him during the day with quiet whispers of too many voices, and screams at night until he gets up and comes to this house. His friend Alex has recently been commenting on the bags under his eyes. He wants to sleep. It keeps him awake and forces artificial energy into him. He hates it.
But he needs it.
The being has no body of its own, and some time ago had taken a liking to him and his look. It forms disheveled brown hair, a raggedy light blue shirt, and torn blue jeans. And as weird and unsettling as it is to see himself reflected by the being's otherwordly powers, its the eyes that truly frighten him; white, empty, soulless. When it looks at him he can't move, can't breathe, can't think. Because it does those things for him. It forces his lungs to relax and contract. It forces his muscles forward.
It does all the thinking.
So far it hasn't spoken to him legitimately, something Steve feels conflicted about. He's more scared than anything, but he's confused as well. He should be dead. He should be laying in a stronghold, crushed under stone from a cave in. He'd even closed his eyes and accepted death.
But the next thing he'd known had been the sunlight streaming down on him, and he felt foggy and cold. There'd been a gap in his memory, and everything seemed dimmer, like color had faded from the world.
After that, things had slowly been revealed to him. Apparently the being now inhabiting his body had saved his life, at the same time dooming him forever. He had been crushed, but the being had...done something. Something unnatural. Steve should be dead. But he's not.
Alex is smart. She's noticed his change. He'd been sociable before, always smiling, always laughing. He doesn't do that anymore. She knows something's wrong. But not what, and neither does he.
He shivers. The house is freezing, and it's a wonder he can even feel the cold. He lays a hand to his chest. No beat. No pulse.
No life.
The being floats around him, staring at him with his own face. It's eyes bore into his and he hears a thousand voices whispering-talking-yelling all at the same time, all for his attention. He's used to it. He doesn't know how fucked up that makes him. It's probably too late for him.
"What do you want?" He asks, for the who-knows-how-many-ith time. He doesn't expect a response.
you want
He jumps, startled at the definitive voice rising above the others. Actually he can't hear them anymore. It's silent.
He doesn't know what to do. Did it answer him? Did it finally talk back? Or is he finally starting to lose his marbles?
YOU WANT
He winces, holding his hands to his ears, though that does nothing. The voice is inside his head. He brings his hands down, palms bloodied, and looks up at it through watery eyes. It doesn't like being ignored.
It lands on the ground and walks towards him. Steve walks backwards, knowing already that there's a wall behind him and he's nowhere to go, and he backs right into it. It walks closer until it's within striking distance, and wraps an ethereal hand around his neck. It's weird, the sensation. This thing has no body, but it has substance. Maybe it's a trick? Maybe it's forcing him to think there's something there when there's not? He doesn't know. All he knows is that when his own face frowns at him and the hand tightens, he feels it.
"I...I-I don't...u-unders-stand," he whimpers, feeling a wetness on his cheek. The hand tightens.
It leans forward, until they're nose to nose, and stops. There's not enough pressure to hinder his breathing, but the proximity is wearing down any resolve or sanity he has left. The more he stares into its empty white eyes the less he feels like himself, like anything around him is real. He wishes this were a dream. It's not.
Eventually it blinks and it's like a breath of fresh air. Suddenly he feels normal again—well, 'normal,' as if he's been normal these last few...days? Weeks? He doesn't know.
Still, the hand around his neck tightens and his vision blurs. It's harder to breathe. Does he need to breathe?
i want you i u-unders-stand
The words are jumbled up, disorganized and out of rhythm, but audible. And terrifying. He recognizes that the being is talking to him with his own voice, playing back over his ears as answers.
The hand releases him and he crumbles to the floor, legs not quite ready to support him. They're broken anyway, or they should be. (It had fixed that too, it had fixed everything). He's not broken.
But he should be.
There are still tears streaming down his face.
He sits like that, huddled within himself all night, only stirring when he feels sunlight on the back of his neck. He lifts his head, his eyes bloodshot and skin pale. It's nowhere to be found. (Except he feels it crawling under his skin, using him as a vessel when it can't sustain a form. It's more fitting this way, considering how it controls him already. It might as well wear his skin like a jacket if it's going to live his life for him.)
Steve's tired. He wants to sleep. But he doesn't want the nightmares. His life is hellish enough as it is.
He walks home, watching mobs scurry out of his way. They fear it. Fear him. Just one less thing he has to deal with, he supposes.
He wants to go home and lay down, but his legs walk past his house and he feels a wave of despair wash over him, bringing tears to his eyes. The sudden emotional display alerts the thing inside him, and it zips through his nerves, up into and around his brain to figure out the problem. It can't see that it's slowly driving Steve mad. It can't tell it's doing something wrong. He hates it.
It forces him to Alex's. He gets the feeling it likes her. That makes him sick.
And as his hand lifts to knock on the door, he hears the voice again, its words a thick balm to his raging mind.
give in
He does. He needs this, and he hates that.