Trigger warning: blood, vomit, and potential disturbing implications.
The creature looked kind of like Stan, with a few obvious differences. Not the least of which was that it was a large gray gargoyle, with fangs and claws and bright orange eyes that were glaring into Ford's with an open hostility that he wouldn't have needed emotion-sensing abilities to read. It was covered in the tattered remains of a black suit that looked like the one Stan always wore, but its hair was in the mullet style Stan had felt the need to complain about the last time they met.
Perhaps it's using different aspects of his memories as protective camouflage, so he won't realize it's here.
As naturally taken aback as Ford was by the creature's appearance, he reminded himself that he was in the mindscape; a moment later he had summoned up a large blaster and was pointing it in its face (somewhat awkwardly, since he had to reach around the giant claw gripping his throat, but he managed it).
"What are you?!" he demanded. "A mare? A tulpa? One of Bill's minions? How did you get past our barrier and into Stan's mind?!"
The gargoyle blinked-and then let out a harsh, rumbling guffaw that sounded far too much like Stan's, and shook his head. Then, with a roll of his eyes, his other claw grabbed the end of the blaster and crushed it in one quick squeeze, before dropping Ford to the floor.
"Wow. I always knew you weren't as all-knowing as you wanted ta be, but this is stupid even for you."
"Excuse me?!" Despite knowing he shouldn't waste time bantering with the monster, Ford spluttered a little as he let the remains of the weapon drop from his fingers and scrambled to his feet, immediately conjuring up another gun into his hands.
"This is me, you idiot." The gargoyle smacked down the barrel of the gun as Ford started to lift it. "There's nothing in my head but me."
"...That's not possible. The quality of this mindscape is damaged far beyond what's healthy or normal, and earlier I felt-"
The gargoyle scoffed. "Yeah, cuz you're such an expert on what my mind is like. Gimme a break, Poindexter. This is what it's always like in here. Not that that's any of your business."
He couldn't sense any kind of deception in the gargoyle's words. Strain as he might, trying to feel with his new ability if there was any chance that he was being lied to-since being deceptive had to count as an emotion, right?-there was nothing there but that same anger he had felt from Stan earlier reverberating from this creature.
Ford stared, slack-jawed, letting the gun drop from his hand. "...What happened to you?"
The gargoyle stared back at him, before bursting into that same angry laughter from before. He leaned against the stairway behind him, and buried his face in his claw, as his shoulders trembled under his mirthless cackling.
"Oh, that's a good one. 'What happened to you.' Gee, I wonder, Mr. Twelve PhD's, what could possibly have happened to me-"
"Calm down, he might be just trying to help."
The voice came from behind them, from the door Ford had been about to open earlier. Ford glanced over his shoulder, and saw that it was actually open a crack. He couldn't see whoever it was that had spoken, but they sounded very...young.
He took a step towards the doorway-but before he could get too close a claw seized the collar of his trenchcoat and yanked backwards, forcing him to become once again face to face with the gargoyle.
"Yeah, an' maybe I'm the empress of all China," he growled. "He needs ta leave, now."
"But-"
"I'm not lettin' him take this too!" The gargoyle glared at the door. "This is the one place we got left that's safe from him, and he's tryna take it over for-for some new experiment or project or whatever and I'll be d_mned before I let that happen!"
"I am not!" Ford finally remembered that he had skills from his time in the multiverse, and drove his boot into the beast's chest; he then proceeded to grab the arm that was holding him and twist, forcing the hand to open and release him. He hit the floor a little hard, but managed to roll into a crouch-just in time for a large fist to smash into his face and send him crashing through the floorboards.
Ford landed in a daze on the floor below, right outside the memories corridor.
...It was beginning to appear to him that maybe he should have brought the children after all, because perhaps Stan's subconscious mind would have been a little less aggressive in their presence.
The sound of the gargoyle's angry roaring from above startled Ford out of his contemplation and reminded him that he needed to figure out a new plan. Quickly he pulled himself to his feet, and in an attempt to avoid the beast so he could think of one, staggered into Stan's memories and turned directions at random, looking for somewhere to hide.
It turned out to be corridor upon corridor full of doors, which were presumably snapshots of Stan's memories. Some of the doors were more open than others; those ones all seemed to be relatively recent. As he sped-walked past them, Ford saw Stan going on a failed date with some one-eyed woman, appearing on a game show, selling more of his fake merchandise to innocent tourists, etc. And they all looked like normal enough memories...but as Ford watched them, he could sense that layer of sadness again, not always as strong as the first time he'd sensed it, but usually lurking in the background unless he had his attention fully concentrated on something else.
How long has this condition been going on for?
Ford picked a random door that was closed, opened it-and gasped at the sight that lay before him.
A much younger version of Stan, in that old dirty red jacket, was lying in an alleyway in a pool of his own blood and vomit, covered in injuries.
After a long moment in which a part of Ford was genuinely afraid that he...wasn't going to wake up, the young memory of Stan's eyes slowly blinked open, and he coughed a few times, before raising a trembling arm and wiping his face. The action made a cut on his cheek open up again, and he flinched and pressed his knuckles to it as he sat up.
"...Well, that coulda gone better," he muttered at last, with a weak smile. Then he reached into one of his pockets, and pulled out a handful of crumpled dollar bills. The smile became a little more triumphant. "At least they didn't find you, huh?" He laughed mirthlessly, but Ford could sense a small surge of satisfaction as he put the money back into his pocket. "Guess I'm just a couple thousand dollars short o' makin' a million now." He grabbed onto a nearby trash can, and after a few false starts managed to pull himself to his feet, before staggering off down the alley. Ford hoped that it was to go see a doctor...but something told him that it wasn't.
With a shudder he closed the door and opened another one.
It opened onto a field, during an intense lightning and thunder storm that reminded Ford of the kind he'd seen in the Elemental Dimension. Squinting against the darkness, Ford could barely make out Stan's car sitting in the middle of the field-and Stan curled up in the backseat, eyes wide open in the darkness and with a gun clenched in one trembling hand, flinching every time lightning split the sky. The terror that the memory was feeling was strong enough to make goosebumps rise up on Ford's arms, and he couldn't keep the door open for long before he had to hurry down the hall to open a different one.
This time he found an empty concrete room, without even a window-just an old, flickering light overhead, a sink and toilet in one corner, and a small stained cot.
A few seconds later a door opened, and Stan was shoved inside by what appeared to be a prison guard, looking like he'd been in a fight again. He was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit with the zipper on the front partially ripped open, and there was a trail of blood down one side of his mouth. His knuckles were split and bleeding on both hands, and more red splattered the front of the jumpsuit. And, Ford noticed with a kind of dull horror, Stan was trembling faintly, but trying to hold it in as the guard removed the cuffs from his wrists and shoved him at the cot before shutting and locking the door. As for his emotions...they were mostly a kind of dull shock, with disgust and horror creeping in around the edges.
Once he was alone, though, his trembling became stronger, and he wrapped his arms around himself while sinking down onto the cot, as the numbness began to wear off. He ran a hand over one bruised eye, and whispered hoarsely, "It's okay, Stan. You're okay, you're fine, they didn't-"
His eyes filled with tears, and he curled up in a ball, burying his head in his knees.
...Oh.
It was beginning to make a humiliating amount of sense why Stan's mindscape was...not fine.
Ford's stomach hurt, even without feeling the amount of pain his brother's memories were experiencing, because he had told himself so many times that Stan would be fine, because he always was fine, he could bounce back from anything. And because he'd never considered that he might have gone through anything like...this.
How many more of these are there?
Are there any that are worse?
I don't even want to think about what that might be like-
"Having fun?"
Ford barely had time to be startled before a set of large claws grabbed his shoulder, hurling him across the corridor into the wall.
He smashed right through it, passing through another memory in a blur before rolling and finally managing to regain his footing, just in time to dodge another swipe from the gargoyle.
"Stanley, wait-listen to me!" he pleaded, creating a shield around himself and using it to block several more attacks. "I-I realize now that I shouldn't have come here like this, I was just worried about you because-"
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" the beast roared as he pounded against the shield. "DON'T PRETEND LIKE YOU CARE-I KNOW WHAT I'M WORTH TO YOU!"
"Please! I thought Bill might've done something to make your mind the way it is-I didn't realize what effect the things you've experienced has had on your emotional state-"
"And you wanna save the world or whatever, blah blah blah, I don't care! I'm done-" he shoved Ford back- "being-" another shove- "your disposable-" another shove- "unwanted-" a harder shove- "TRASH!"
Ford stumbled, tried to retreat; but the gargoyle just hooked his ankle with one of his own feet, and a moment later he was knocked down again. As he hit the ground, the shield disappeared, and a large clawed foot planted itself on his chest.
"Get out of here, Ford," the gargoyle snarled. "I think you've done enough to me."
Ford was still trying to figure out how to answer that, when, behind them, that soft voice from before called, "Wait."