Author's Note
When I first headed over to the library to post this story up on th web, I noticed the weather was eerie. There was a thick blanket of grey overhead, and silence seemed to be choking all around me, silence broken only by footsteps of me and construction workers who were heading off to their job. Then it started to...well...snow.
Weird. But I felt it was a sign. So without further ado, I created "Reversal"! I admit, I've mildly stepped into the "horror" genre before with "As The World Burns", but that was more like a suspense/action/drama story. Not that I'm not very PROUD of it.
Point is, this was rather new territory for me, so I apologize if it's not up to anybody's standards. As Bruce Lee said, I will only consider myself a master when I'm dead and in my coffin. Until then, I'm still a student, always learning. and I've learned this about this story. It is, without a doubt, THE darkest story I've ever made. And there are parts within that shall be disturbing. So I apologize in advance for that.
There's one thing more. Dearest readers...you shouldn't be afraid of telling me what you think of this story. I'm never gonna get better at this sort of thing without feedback. I wish for this story to be one that you can enjoy not merely as one primarily within the Lilo and Stitch realm of fiction, but that can stand proudly on its own merits. But if you feel it lacking in some way, please, I don't mind you telling me what I need to do to improve it.
So without further ado...enjoy.
"This inhuman place makes human monsters." Stephen King's "The Shining"
"The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than or imagining a new primary color, or indeed, of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in." C.S Lewis, "The Abolition of Man"
The mirror mocked him with his own reflection. It's very presence in the laboratory served as nothing more than a reminder of the owner of said lab's need to look herself over in the mirror to remind herself of how she was Science's gift to all the universe. A mirror was hubris.
No, that was unfair. A mirror was a tool for hubris. It, in itself, was nothing of substance. Nothing it showed belonged to it, all it could do was show what others held.
Yet he still hated it. Feared it.
But who was "he"? Well, "he" was a sky-blue alien being with a slightly-diamond-shaped nose and even lighter blue hair. It hung down beneath a red bandanna/cap atop his head in scraggly, poorly-brushed locks with a mood necklace in the shape of a peace symbol glittering pink on his chest, slightly stirring as he shook ever-so-slightly with anxiousness as he stared at the mirror.
He wore his usual white, sleeveless t-shirt and had put a pair of sunglasses over his yellow/golden eyes, unwilling to take them off, not wanting the mirror to reflect his soul as the neon green, rounded gems embedded in his paw/hands seemed to shimmer slightly, as if urging him to do what he'd come to do already and get it over with. Anything was better than this anxious waiting. ANYTHING.
He tapped the ground with his dark blue balled feet, turning to the side to look at her.
No regrets, her face insisted.
So with that...he slowly reached out with his four-digited paw/hand.
His hand touched the mirror.
And with that, everything turned to static, giving away at long last to the ringing of an enormous, lonesome bell that tolled as Frequency fell into the black abyss that stretched out like a maw beneath him, seeking to devour all.
But he would not take his sunglasses off. He was not going to give the darkness the pleasure of seeing the fear in his eyes.
REVERSAL
-
1
THE LOOKING GLASS
He sat inside of a psychologist's office, this green-scaled draconic being. A crest of silver spikes jutting from the top of his head as he folded his wings nervously to his emerald body, silver-tipped fingers nervously tapping against the chair he sat in. His white-pupiled eyes darted back and forth as his tail nervously beat against the chair, in sharp contrast to the calm, collected reptilian figure who sat in a soft-looking red chair at the far end of the room.
With various diplomas hanging high on the walls and several tables lined up with toys, books and what looked like Rorschach tests, the office of King, the Magician of the Major Arcana, was meant to be a "safe zone". The walls were robin's egg blue, calming and cheery like the serpentine being's hair, with gentle but firm piercing yellow/gold eyes gazing at the little dragon, three-digited, clawed hands clasped in his lap as he nodded firmly.
"Remember, I want you to feel you can be open with me about anything, Heartwing." King insisted. "I AM your friend. But I also believe in being as honest as possible with my patients...and with my friends, for that matter." He went on. "...Hershey kiss?" He inquired, holding up a small tray of Hershey kisses from a table by his chair that had his notepad on it?
Heartwing shook his head. "I've got to go to a barbeque after this and tomorrow I head to Izzy's laboratory with the others like I promised." Experiment 421 explained to the serpentine defender of the Earth.
"Well, that's very good of you. I'm always glad to see you're eager to learn more about Ms. Israel's experiments." King said politely.
Heartwing could see a momentary twitch in King's eye. He didn't need to be a shrink to know that King didn't like Israel von Hamsterviel. OR Judah, her brother, for that matter. The two of them were the absolute worst-behaved out of all the Hamsterviel children. Izzy freely engaged in mad science and Judah was...
Ugh. Judah...he got on everyone's nerves, but he was o'hana, and you don't give up on family.
"We're getting off the subject. Heartwing, listen, I'm trying to help you understand the difference between what's real..." King held up his notepad. It showed off the profile of a head with a big smile and the word "Dreams" located at the person's "brain" region with "reality" shown outside of the head. "And what isn't."
"I know, but..." Heartwing began. "But I'm telling you-"
"Heartwing, listen. The person you continue to talk about in our sessions. Why does everyone but you not know about him? Why are there no records of him? Why are there no pictures of him or movies of him in the news? If he really had done all the things you've said, why isn't there any trace of him to be found anywhere in the Universe?" King asked gently. "...what happened. Tell me."
"He didn't "magically disappear", I know you're thinkin' of sayin' that." Heartwing said, his face turning into a dark frown as his lip trembled slightly. He almost felt like he wanted to cry, nt simply from sorrow, but from pure, raw anger. He felt he was being treated like a child. "He's not gone-gone, he's...he's in all of us. At least, what he represented..." Heartwing said quietly, placing a hand on his chest.
"...what he represented...and that was?" King asked gently, silently urging the draconic experiment to go on with his eyes. There was no condescending tone in his voice, mercifully, so the emerald-scaled dragon continued.
"Potential. King, you're the MAGICIAN. Before you comes "Zero", the "Fool", who represents potential. You say I need to know what's real, but THINK about it!" Heartwing insisted. "If the Major Arcana is supposed to be made of 21 people, where's number #21? Where IS the Fool? You know the MA was founded by him, you know that, remember?" Heartwing begged, realizing he was very close to actually crying.
"Yes, but-"
And that was when it happened. A veil seemed to float over King's consciousness.
He could not, in all honesty, remember the name of the founder of the Major Arcana.
He could not remember a thing.
It was like his mind was a hamburger order that had been messed up...like several giant chunks of his memory had been picked out of his head and tossed aside by some phantom force that had decided no, it WASN'T going to eat the pickles, it had ordered NO pickles and by golly it was going to GET his sandwich without pickles even if it meant picking them off the burger with his own dirty hands.
"...hmm." King frowned and folded his hands into his lap. "...I..." He found himself suddenly experiencing something that was hard to pin down. A sense that he had lost something of infinite value. A feeling so terrible and deep that he realized he wanted to cry.
I won't cry I Will NOT Cry I WILL NOT CRY I! WILL! NOT!
"Look, Heartwing, there is one more issue I need to discuss with you. I'm aware you've been skirting the issue out in town, but I want to talk to you about Heatwave."
Heartwing's black eyes widened, the pupils becoming tiny white pinpricks as his mouth formed a taut line.
"You may not be husband and wife, but thanks to Jumba's fiddling with your DNA she IS the mother of your children and you need to support her decisions in some regards. You need to be receptive to other people's ideas, especially if they're family." King added.
"I just...I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of her moving in with me. I mean, I live in a treehouse!" Heartwing admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, I...I'm not...this seems like...it's so much!"
"Heatwave has insisted that this is just a baby step that will help you two-"
"Too much! Too much too soon!"
King sighed, holding his head in his hands for a moment. Heartwing wasn't a coward, he just was too shy for his own good around "adult situations" like these. "Let us suppose...let us use our..." He held his head back up, holding his hands over his head, forming an imaginary rainbow in the air. "Imaginaaaaations. Suppose that Esmeralda wants to get her ears pierced?"
"...she DOES have her ears pierced. And her bellybutton." Heartwing stuck his tongue out in disgust. "What kinda weirdo even pierces people there?!"
"...bad example. Alright, suppose that little Chibisuke wants to go out for ballet even though all of his "children" expect him to be interested in things like, say, running track, or playing baseball or more traditionally "manly" events?"
Mistake.
Heartwing stood up, pointing angrily at the snake. "Hey! He can dance if he wants to! He can leave his friends behind!"
King suddenly realized what was coming next and immediately moaned and shook his head as Heartwing raised his hands in the air, proceeding to party like you just don't care. "Cuz his friends don't dance, and if they don't dance, then they're no friends of mine! Oh, Safety Dance! Yes, the Safety Dance! Oh, Safety-"
...
...
...
... "So I said "What if your son wants to take dance lessons", and Heartwing moonwalks out of my office singing "Safety Dance"!" King groaned as his head hit the counter of the bar, the smell of pee that was thirty years old lingering around the bathroom as a sodden "Silverlight" cigarette lay in an ashtray nearby. As a drunk slurred out "The price is WRONG" at the nearest plasma TV that hung in the corner of the bar, the bartender sighed, cleaning out a mug with a clean rag.
"I know how you feel. If my husband kept ignoring MY good advice, I'd hit him." The bartender agreed, her green-tinted black eyes glittering as she turned her head to glance momentarily at the TV across the way, her thick, long brown locks twirling slightly as she snorted out of her fairly large nose. Her round, mouse-like ears picked up what the man on the television was saying.
"Yeah, well I don't shave and I'm PROUD of it!" She hissed.
It was true. Green Jookiba Pelekai, the "High Priestess" of the Major Arcana never shaved her legs...or, for that matter, her hairy grey chest, which looked quite out of place with the dark green fur on the rest of her body. All in all, she looked considerably imposing unless she was wearing pastel tye-pants like she liked to wear on the holidays. Then she just looked ridiculous.
"You'd hit anybody who would ignore your good advice, you're a typically textbook case of "closed off alpha female"." King informed her. "I imagine the emotional walls only come tumbling down during-"
"King, if you don't want your next drink to be a serving of squid oil, I'd suggest you zip..." Green leaned in very, very close. "The..." holding up a single black claw as a tiny ember of flame danced on the edge. "...lip."
King shut up as Green's husband finally exited the bathroom, gagging as he waved his three-digited paw in front of his face. "Dear Lord in Heaven, how is it possible for a bathroom to go without being cleaned for so long?!"
The white-furred hamster/gerbil/rabbit thing muttered. He was some kind of strange blend of various mammals of the rodent variety, with long ears and surprisingly big feet, a long, tufted tail whisking behind his back as two antennae hung down from his head, curling up and quivering as if they were worms that were slowly dissolving under a magnifying glass.
This was Junior von Hamsterviel. He was in town to visit his wife and check up on his daughter Izzy. Junior was also the head of a league of worlds that were charged with keeping diplomatic peace through the galaxy. So needless to say, he had a lot on his mind besides the smell of Jack Daniels that was lingering in the air and the unshaven man that was grinning toothily at him from a booth nearby.
"Any planets want to blow each other up lately?" King asked, trying to make small talk.
"Nope, thank goodness." Junior said as he sat down next to the serpent anthro, his red and blue eyes smiling warmly as he looked into golden/yellow. "It's been...worrisome...trying to fill the void left by Grand Councilwoman Zoe's death, but I hope I've done her proud." He said, trailing off slightly, one paw digit tapping on the counter in nervousness as he bit his lip.
He missed Zoe very much. The Grand Councilwoman had been a model to him, she'd looked out for him so many times when he was just a page in the Galactic Federal Alliance. Now HE was Grand Councilman and he had no "safety net". What he had was an appointment tomorrow to inspect his daughter's latest invention which she insisted would revolutionize the field of multi-dimensional science.
That's what she had said the last time. But one didn't give up on family, after all.
...
...
...
... "Why would you think that the two of us are dating?" The black-haired, hazel/green-eyed girl inquired as she folded her arms, her long black hair billowing slightly in the wind as she sat outside of the bar, waiting for it to close so that they could take Junior, Green and King to the barbeque that the girl's mother was throwing. She used one hand to scratch the red crop-top she wore, the white flowers scattered across the fabric like the leaves that were circling around her feet, the other resting in one of her jean pockets.
"It's pretty obvious." Heartwing said simply, shrugging as he stood with Daveigh Pelekai, Lilo Pelekai's granddaughter. "You two rent movies, you go on walks, you do your laundry together."
"We basically do everything a normal couple does except...well...it." Ashton Edmonds, Myrtle Edmond's grandson insisted as he nodded firmly, standing on the other side of Heartwing, arms folded across the dark t-shirt he wore, momentarily adjusting the thick-framed glasses he had. His messy red hair was so thick you could have cut it off and used it as a mop to clean up spills.
"It?"
"...IT."
"Oh. OH." Heartwing made a face. Yecccch. They were talking about the "special hug" that adults did when they wanted to make babies...or, in experiment 627's case, when he had 10 minutes to spare with his wife.
"...not that I...haven't thought about it." Daveigh thought to herself. In all honesty, sometimes she couldn't stop thinking about him. It was almost turning into something of an obsession: how long until the two of them could find a spot to make out?
Oh, to hell with it. "LOOK! A two-headed man on a donkey going into that alley over there!" Daveigh quickly cried out, pointing with her finger across the street as Heartwing immediately turned his head and decided to check it out for himself. Thanking her lucky stars that the World of the Major Arcana was so gullible, Daveigh grabbed Ashton's arm as the two quickly slid into the alley behind the bar so that Ashton could start off by "motorboating" between Daveigh's recently much-more-sizable "girls". Had she hit a late puberty?
Ah, well. He didn't care. Love was great and Ashton Edmonds and Daveigh Pelekai were in it.
Green calmly closed the blinds to the back entrance, deciding to give Daveigh and Ashton some private time, chuckling a little as she heard the two knock over some trash cans in their frenzy. They'd gotten past the "Oh, I love YOU so much" phase and the "completeting each other's sentences" phase and were now in the "Make time whenever possible" phase. Next stop-
...
...
...
..."I think I'm pregnant." Daveigh managed to groan out as she stumbled out of the bathroom and flopped down onto the bed, Ashton's eyes wide with surprise as he tried to put on his glasses from the nearby bedstand.
"...wh-what now?" Ashton asked.
"I can't stop throwing up, I feel utterly nauseous and when I'm not throwing up I keep needing to use the toilet for...look, Ashton, I'm pretty sure it's morning sickness." Daveigh mumbled as she lay on her side, taking deep, heavy breaths, her chest rising and falling as she coughed slightly, shivering as she curled up by Ashton's side. "...how could this have happened?"
"...I...don't suppose...there have been other penises?"
"No." Daveigh said immediately.
Little tiny triumphant bells rang in Ashton's head before he found himself immediately screaming in blind terror inside his mind. The red-haired teen held his head in his hands, trying to keep from totally freaking out whilst attempting to clear through the thick fog of hysterical fear and terror.
Think. THINK.
"...four weeks ago." He realized. "Remember when we were swimming in the beach at night?" He murmured nervously.
...
...
...
... "Well." Green said as she gave Daveigh the test, nodding firmly. "You are absolutely, positively, most definitely pregnant." She informed the two as she sat in a chair across from their bed. "I don't mind doing these favors for you, it's GOOD you came to me so quickly." She told them in a kindly fashion, nodding gently. "Also, it'll help me with my future final exam for my nursing degree." She added with a hint of pride. "I need to write up an essay on a real-life teen pregnancy and this hands-on experience will be highly beneficial."
"It's so nice to know that we can be your case studies." Ashton said snidely as Daveigh looked at the little blue "X" mark on the pregnancy test. So it was true. She had a bun in the oven after all. "Mind at least telling us how this HAPPENED?"
"Hmm." Green rubbed her chin. "Well, I imagine that there was some...you know...unexpected friendly fire...though I doubt you honestly "invaded" the "home base", if you understand." She explained calmly, trying not to grin with delight at the nervousness that was clearly showing on their faces.
Awww, they looked so CUTE, holding each other's hands so tightly that they were almost crushing bone, flop sweat triggering on their foreheads.
"Like I said, despite you not "stealing home", there was something of an "air strike" on one of the outlying regions and it really is not uncommon for a woman to get pregnant even if there's no actual penetration." Green explained calmly. "If it makes you feel any better," she added, waving her hand in the air, "You're NOT alone. Approximately one third of all women in the US of A get pregnant in their teens, and 80 percent of it is unintended."
"This is just unreal." Ashton said angrily, biting his lip.
"I can't believe this is happening." Daveigh groaned, holding her head between her legs. "...Green, I'm scared. What am I going to do? I mean...should-should we...keep her?" She asked.
"...her?" Ashton suddenly said, turning his head to look at Daveigh, a soft, gentler tone entering his voice.
Green folded her arms, giving the two a calm, but firm look. "...I'm not going to tell your families about this, if that's what you're thinking. However, you GOTTA tell them what's going on yourself. They'll find out eventually."
"...we'll tell them. We...we just need to figure out how to break the news...right?" Daveigh asked Ashton. "I mean, we've seen our o'hanaget pregnant all around us all the time, this is nthing we don't know everything about, right? We've had "the Talk" eighteen times. We can DO this."
"We can DO this." Ashton repeated.
"We can DO this."
...
...
...
... "I can't do this."
Israel von Hamsterviel, or "Izzy", was splashing water into her face over and over, panting slightly as her tufted tail swished back and forth nervously, the teal-colored antennae-like hair atop her head soaked with water that dribbled down onto her big nose, her amber/brown eyes saring back at her from the bathroom mirror, her labcoat reeking of sweat, grease and blood from a nosebleed.
"C'mon, Izzy, get a freakin' grip. You...ohhh, I can't do this!" She snarled, bashing her hands into the sink, making pain shoot through momentarily. "GAH...what was I thinking?" She groaned, holding one hand over her forehead as she leaned against the wall. "I've tested it so many times, yet why do I keep feeling that something's still not right?!" She grumbled.
"You never feel any of your work is "right". You always second guess yourself and your self-esteem's in the toilet." A distinctly accented voice rang out as a form rested it's body against the frame of the bathroom doorway, thick brown hair falling down in large locks as it's owner let out a "SKRONK" from his large nose, showing off sharp teeth.
"Judah, this is the girl's bathroom!" Izzy shireked angrily.
"I'm not IN the girl's bathroom." Judah said in a childish tone, waving his hands in the air in a "typical distressed girl" fashion, rolling his eyes and laughing slightly as he put one foot into the bathroom. "NOW I am." He then stepped out of it. "Now I'm NOT. Now I am, now I'm not-"
Izzy launched a toothbrush container at his head, and it collided and bounced off with a satisfying "THWIPPA-THWUCK" sound, making Izzy smirk in pride at her marksmanship skills as Judah left, Izzy following after. She needed her brother's help for this since she didn't have his near-limitless strength and the fact that she kept experimenting on her henchmen meant nobody else was going to lift the necessary components in place for the demonstration today.
And what a demonstration indeed. By 9:00 that morning, it seemed like all of her family was there in her laboratory, dozens of bodies packed into a dark red-walled box, machinery littered all around, seemingly important to the average onlooker. Mostly because the average onlooker didn't have a clue as to how mad science worked.
Gesturing with a hand, Israel von Hamsterviel grinned proudly at the largest object within the laboratory as people's gazes were drawn away from the tubes lining up and down a row of desks, drawn away from the odd-looking jars on the walls towards what could only be described as some kind of...
"This mirror?" Lilo Pelekai inquired, scratching her head. "Uh, is an evil clone going to pop out of this or something?" The young Hawaiian woman inquired, looking rather confused. Her brow furrowed as she approached it, taking a step forward, sandals clacking against the cold, red-tinted floor...
An ENORMOUS sword stopped her in her place, held up as easily as a twig by Judah's powerful arms as his long ears were raised up in alertness. "Uh-uh." He insisted. "Get back, get back." He insisted. "Nobody's allowed to touch it. That's Izzy's job: making stuff touch it." He explained as Izzy cleared her throat.
"Thank you for condensing my methodology honed over years of practice and study into mostly monosyllabic sentences, Judah." Izzy said, giving him a baleful stare. "Moving ALONG! I've been testing my latest invention over two weeks now." She informed them all. "In layman's terms, think of it as a window into alternate dimensions. Other dimensional portals have been strictly two-way until now...and all done in regards to worlds directly connected to ours."
Judah wheeled out a chalkboard that Izzy had drawn upon as the mad scientist cleared her throat. "Picture our world here." She said, pointing at a line drawn in the middle of the board. "Other worlds we've reached have been within alternate dimensions, but all with subtle "Branches" connecting our world to theirs." She added, taking a piece of chalk and drawing small branches from the line in the middle to a line above. "What this device does...is allows us to examine worlds that would normally be UNREACHABLE from our reality. Worlds so alien that up might as well equal down, that cowardice might as well be equal to courage!" She laughed.
She then drew a tiny little "submarine periscope" on the line, looking down at a line beneath it. "As I said though, it's only a window, and so far, only one realm's been slightly accessible. I have been able to monitor it though with this." Izzy held up a remote from her labcoat, grinning proudly as she pressed a large red "GO" button.
Instantly, there was a loud BANG noise and everyone instinctively ducked as something shot through the air, rushing along the ground towards the strange, mirror-like thing in the center of the room...a remote-controlled car with strange recording equipment attached, as alien in appearance as the shimmering mirror thing. As it reached the mirror-thing, it went about halfway through, the "trunk" region sticking out like it was mooning the audience and the car twisted left and right, getting camera footage.
This didn't last long. About a minute later, the remote-controlled car was violently repelled outward through the air, whacking into Junior's leg, making him cringe slightly. Izzy's fingers moved to a dial on the remote as the car made it's way to her, and she plucked it up, putting it on a table by a large video screen, taking a small disc from out of the recording equipment, popping it into a computer attached to said screen.
Lo and behold...such a sight greeted them.
It was, quite simply, the strangest thing that they had all seen. What the camera had recorded was a landscape that looked like it was from a post-apocalyptic movie, the skies darkened and cloudy, ruined buildings rising up as if to tear through the heavens, wretched and decrepit, half falling apart. There was a large lake nearby, steaming smoke slowly rising up from the surface, a foul, noxious-looking green color...
A sharp contrast to the ugly, dead-looking earth that the car was half-resting on. The entire world looked...dead. It looked like there wasn't a single trace of life, with reddish/brown grass seen in small patches around the grey-toned earth, and, most oddest of all, black snow falling from the sky.
No, no it wasn't black snow. It was ash. The camera had begun to become covered in thick ash as something suddenly moved, and what the audience had thought had been a tree stump turned it's head.
It's head that had no eyes two black slits across it's pale, dead face, a gaping, almost triangular mouth across it's skinless head.
Don't let it speak. Oh, please, dear lord, don't let it speak, Izzy found herself whispering in her head, realizing that she could not move to turn the video off. Her fingers just twitched as she could feel, FEEL a damning, furious sense of anger and bestial rage emanating from this thing that was looking at them now. It wanted to HURT them, she could tell, and if she didn't reach up and rip that disk out-
Providence intervened. The car had then been ejected from the mirror and Izzy let out a long, deep sigh as she turned to the others.
"As you can see, ah..." She stuttered slightly. "The-there seems to be a limited amount of time anything can be within this other realm. I've even tried tossing balls and inserting other objects into this portal I created, and I met with similar results. After 66 seconds, any item that's even partially entered the portal is violently ejected." She explained. "I'm working on extending that time, however, by trying to hone in on the dimensional frequency..." She went on.
"You're SURE this looking glass is...one way?" Lilo found herself speaking up. "I don't want this to turn into some kinda horror movie where we find out you made a DOOR, not a window...I've seen every Twilight Zone episode, read all the "Stephen King" novels, I know what I'm talking about when I say this stuff usually has BAD consequences."
Izzy shook her head vigorously. "No, no. I've kept this thing "open" since I first created it, and never left it unguarded or unwatched by cameras. NOTHING came through. If anything could get through, it would have done so by now." Israel laughed.
"Now?" Ashton whispered to Daveigh.
"Now." Daveigh agreed.
The two suddenly strode up in front of everyone, turned their backs to the mirror-thing and nervously cleared their throats simultaneously. "Everyone." Daveigh announced. "We've decided to just get this out of the way."
"Get what out?" Lilo wanted to know as her husband's scythe-like black hair bobbed in the air, his arms folding.
"Is there something you...wait." Dibbun Membrane gaped slightly, the glasses almost slipping off the bridge of his nose as his jaws widened. "Don't tell me, you're..."
Daveigh smiled and hugged Ashton tightly with one hand. "We're...we're preg-"
And then something that was a blur of dark wrapped around her and Ashton and yanked them in like it was reeling in a fish. A scream in the pit of Daveigh's throat was quickly muffled as her head suddenly found itself in a dark abyss, sinking down into inky blackness with Ashton by her side-
Wait, no...they weren't totally gone just yet. Their legs...somebody was holding onto their legs, desperately trying to pull them back home as the thing tugging them down let go, seemingly satisfied that the pitiless black around them would do it's job for it.
Heartwing tried. They all tried. Well and truly they did. It had turned into some sort of sick tug-of-war contest with the dark abyss that was threatening to swallow the two teenagers up, Heartwing gripping Daveigh's legs, Junior gripping Ashton as Izzy found herself once more frozen to the spot, unable to move.
How in the hell had she not seen this coming? How was this possible? The crowd was desperately struggling to pull the two youths out, yet the 66 second mark had passed and all that had changed was that the crowd was now getting more and more tired...it was becoming harder to hold onto the person in front of them...grips were slipping and Ashton and Daveigh were sinking deeper into the depths of the black.
They all tried.
Well and truly they did.
Well and truly-
...
...
...
...Daveigh and Ashton awoke to the fresh scent of cold iron as a colorless building rose up in front of them, an enormous mental hospital with the words "Alchemia Mental Hospital" on a faded-blue sign to their right. Windows had been flung open, they imagined it was done to air out the rancid-looking building. A low, groaning noise filled the air and for a moment they thought back to that eyeless thing-
The wind. It was just the wind. It was funny how the groaning of the wind made one think about dying. Oh yes, nature was just a riot.
Wait.
Something wasn't right. There were no birds. There was no sun shining in the sky. There was nothing but a long, silvery-grey cloud thrown overheard like a giant blanket meant to tuck them into bed for an eternal sleep, with a faded little cobblestone path leading into the mental hospital as a set of double doors slowly swung in and out...in and out...in and out...
This colorless building had no life to it either. It also seemed dead, as dead as the dying man the wind seemed to represent with each new gust that filled their ears...
Wait.
Wait, there was a single light on. At the topmost level of the mental hospital, in a room at the far right. The faintest outline of a figure just barely visible. And if there was a person, this meant that there was a chance they could help. Anything was better than staying out there under the grey, just waiting for something to happen.
"Are we sure we want to go in there?" Ashton found himself asking as they slowly stood up.
"...no." Daveigh admitted.
They walked in through the door...
And instantly regretted it. The walls of the mental hospital were a faded yellowish/pink color of slightly cracked bricks and various decrepit, moth-filled coats hung from sharp half-rings on the walls like pale, long, pasty fish on fishing hooks. To their right they noticed an old wing of the hospital that had been abandoned first from the looks of it: there were cobwebs on the cobwebs and the color of the paint had faded so fully that only grey brick was left. Ashton pushed aside a small-looking wheelchair, looking around the building.
"Hello?" He tried to call out. Yet he found his lips wouldn't curve to make the sound. He couldn't speak. It was as if somebody had stuffed some kind of rag into his mouth. Why was he so afraid of trying to see if another human being was inside this hospital?
Maybe it's because you already know the answer
As they slowly moved down the halls, heading for the staircase at the far end of the seemingly endless hallway, they noticed something to their right. A tub of some kind, with a mechanized faucet located at the end with several strange black dials visible...and the tub was in oddly good condition despite the cracked ceiling above reflecting what had once been a pretty little children's drawing.
Suddenly they felt a deep sense of sorrow come over them. This hospital they were in had most likely been a children's mental hospital. The room they were in had once shown bright drawings of cowboys riding horses made of clouds across the skies, wooping and hollering in delight, broad, cheerful smiles as the sun glimmered overhead. Now even the hats on the cowboys seemed to have worms running through them-
What startled them more was in the tub.
Blood. There was blood dripping out into a small puddle from the faucet and into the hydro-therapy tub. Ashton gripped Daveigh's arm tightly as they took a step back.
DRIP...DRIP...DRIP.
"...stairs." Ashton whispered.
"Yeah. Stairs."
They walked back out into the dimly-lit hallway, turning to head to the stairs. Ashton had noticed something out of the corner of his eyes and he turned his head.
...hadn't he moved that wheelchair to the side of the hall? Why was it back in the middle?
...why was it facing them?