Settling In
by The Last Waltz
Rating: T
Disclaimer: I do not own Control, the Alan Wake franchise, or anything contained therein. All elements of this work except the narrative of my own fiction and certain characters specific to my story are owned by Remedy, et-al. Should they request, I will delete this story. Thank you.
Chapter 1:
Jesse stood in front of the large desk in the director's office. Her desk, in her office, she noted. A slight uneasiness settled in her gut once more as the reality that she was now the Director of the Federal Bureau of Control washed over her again. All the lives of her employees, and all the potentially world-ending forces within the Oldest House now her responsibility. She suddenly felt three times older as the leaden weight of authority now rested on her shoulders. Her nose twitched slightly as the copper scent of the former director's blood tinged the air in her office. Zachariah Trench's blood had vanished from the office, but the odor remained. Thankfully, the late director's body had either vanished courtesy of the House itself, or had been removed by some thoughtful employee wearing an HRA. Shifting uneasily, Jesse moved behind the desk and sat stiffly in the chair. Never mind the unsettling feeling that she was sitting in the same chair in which the previous director had blown his brains out less than twelve hours prior, the entire scenario felt too stiff, rigid, and official for her.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a small object on one of the shelves to her left that hadn't been there earlier. Rising from the chair swiftly, in an effort to shake the creeping feeling the seat was giving her, she walked towards the item. A small maneki-neko figurine, with its usual devious smile fixed in place, beckoned her. Gingerly, Jesse reached out and tipped its upraised paw with one of her fingers, causing it to wave back and forth. The large brass panel to her right slowly rose up into the ceiling, revealing a small space hidden within the wall behind it. No sooner had Jesse stepped in front of the opening, than she was blasted back against the opposite wall, her head hitting the concrete molding with a loud smack. Dazed, Jesse raised her hand to gently touch the back of her head. Her fingertips came back smeared with red before she turned her gaze towards the safe she was just hurled away from. A massive red cloud was spreading from the safe, its presence twisting the confines of her office into strange shapes, and extending into the hallway beyond. The Hiss, Jesse realized.
Her vision doubling, and insides twisting with nausea, she forced herself to her feet and lurched towards the safe, reaching it on unsteady feet before stretching her arms and hands forward, using all the mental energy she could to force The Hiss out of whatever object in the safe was powering their second emergence. Her brain was on fire, screaming in pain as she strained her mind to combat The Hiss. A blood vessel ruptured and her nose ran red as she pushed herself to the limit of her psychic abilities. She could sense the Hiss weakening as she continued to press forward mentally. The cloud began to dissipate and Jesse could see the object within. Nothing more than a simple flashlight, with a copy of the slide from Ordinary through which the Hiss originally entered. With a loud crack, the flashlight imploded, crumpling into a small ball of steel and glass, and the slide began to bubble and warp before catching fire and melting into a puddle of plastic slag. The Hiss cloud let out a choked scream of impotent rage before evaporating into nothingness. A second later, alarms began to sound throughout the building.
Author Note: Hello everyone. I've been away for a while, dealing with a major case of writer's block, so I decided to start this project in order to dust off the cobwebs before restarting my Evangelion fic, Interregnum. Please read and review, but also please don't flame. Thank you all, and I hope to be back with the next chapter of both of these fics shortly.