Summary: Something very weird happens to Pacey one night.
"Pacey," came the faint voice. "We need you, Pacey."
Pacey Witter opened his eyes with trepardation, suspecting to see Daswon playing one hell of an unfunny joke. He had the beige sheets pulled tight around his naked body, he looked out into the darkened room. Nothing.
"Pacey," it said again. It was cold, rasping, like if a snake could talk. "We need you. You must help us. We need you, Pacey."
He tucked himself into a tight ball, sheets wrapped like clingfilm around his sweaty and shivering body. He was suddenly very thirsty.
"Pacey, you are the only one who can help us. Please, Pacey. You must."
That voice. THAT VOICE. Why didn't it stop. If it was Dawson, he swore he was going to kill that sonnafabitch with his bare hands.
"Pacey, please, you must - "
"That's it," Pacxey screamed. He threw the sheets of him and dashed over to the light. The single lightbulb snapped on, the room was empty except for his old cold and faltering body.
"Pacey."
Again, why? This time it came from outside. He pulled on a pair of pants and then picked up his baseball bat. He gingerly opened the door and looked into the blank hallway. He crept across the hall and switched the light on.
"Pacey, we can give you what you want if you help us."
Louder, closer. The bathroom. The voice was changing, instead of a single person, it seemed to be a legion of male and female voices, each speaking in rhythm, but strangely apart.
He summoned up all his courage and peered into the bathroom. There was a woman standing in the bath, naked, in a few inches of water. She was still, so very still, not even breathing. He went closer, hanging back at the doorjamb.
"Hello, are you okay?" Pacey asked her. She didn't reply. It was like she didn't even know he was there. Pacey wasn't worried, his fear and trepadation seemed to slip away when he saw her.
She was tall, Pacey size, six feet plus. Her ginger hair cascaded down her face and around her shoulders. It seemed to move, like a breeze was caressing her, but the window was closed. In his pants he could feel his loins stirring at her athletic figure.
Was this a dream? A naked woman in a bath, statuesque, it sure felt like a dream.
He looked closer at her, his head extending towards her face. Her ruby-red lips were closed, so were her eyes. Then, they opened. The irises were black in their entirety. The sudden motion shocked Pacey and he shot back, hitting against the sink.
"Pacey," she said. The voice coming out was the voice of the many. Her hair was moving faster now, like she was in a force one gale. Her arms moved from her side, up, as if to embrace him. "We need your strength, your vitality."
"I, I," he was stuck for words. What the hell was happening? It couldn't be real.
She stepped out of the bath onto to the powder blue towel layed on the floor. Her feet were wet, from her ankles down they dripped. Her arms seemed to extend, longer, and longer, until they were almost touching him, but she was seven feet away.
"Look," she said as she gestured towards the mirror behind him.
Pacey turned around, the bat dropped from his hand and clattered on the tiled floor. His own face met him, but it was wrong. Face, longer, nose, pointed, mouth, red and wide and full of pointed teeth. His eyes were pure black. In an instant, the woman closed her arms around him. Pacey felt her warm flesh press against him, savouring it. In the mirror she was hideous. Grey flesh, with cracks and fissures, and covered in warts. Pacey was repulsed, but he couldn't look away.
"Will you help us?" she whispered into his ear, her breath sweet and moist.
"Yes," Pacey replied. "Yes, I will help you. How?"
"Allow us in, to join with your, gain strength from your strength, heat from your heat, we need you, Pacey, for so long we have needed one such as you."
The mirror fractured, a spiders-web of cracks broke it apart, and it fell into the sink, breaking like glass as it hit the enamel. Behind the mirror was a whorling black mass, like treacle, yet able to remain upright, guiding its own flow. The body behind his dissapeared, leaving only the memory of her nubile form. Then the treacle erupted forth from its prison. Pacey couldn't move, he was transfixed as it engulfed his head, forming a helmet around it. Then, as fast as it had moved, it was gone, leaving Pacey feeling like a million bucks.
"What happened?" he asked himself. The mirror was back, like it had never gone, and his face was normal. In the back of his mind he heard voices, buzzing like bees, he concentrated and picked out one. Male, raspy, very dry.
"We have returned to form again," it said. "We thank you, Pacey Azrael Witter, you are the vessel of our restoration. We feel your strength, and we add our own to it."
"What the hell?" Pacey said briskly. "Who. Are. You?"
"We are ageless," this time it was a female voice, a young woman's, silky and tight. "We were imprisoned aeons ago, under where Capeside is now. You are the vessel of our return. We love you, Pacey, and we add our strength to yours."
He looked around, no-one. The voices were definitely in his head. He rested both his hands on the sink, and bowed his head to think about what the hell was going on.
He did feel better, like he was as strong and as tough as twenty men. His senses had more clarity, the leaky tap in the bath - he could hear it, feel it as drops appeared and fell to their own end.
"I need answers," Pacey asked again, this time as much in his own skull as spoken.
"Answers?" replied a voice. Male, young, like Dawson's. "We are grateful for you help, we will answer anything you ask, Pacey."
"What's happening to me?"
"Your are strong now, Pacey. Like you always wished to be. Our strength is great, we add it to your own. All we seek from you is sense, pleasure, pain, anything except the void of our imprisonment."
"You were imprisoned in a void?"
"Yes, Pacey." Pacey was getting use to the change in voices now, he never talked to the same one twice. "The void of our own indulgence, we were imprisoned there for countless time. With you, we have a vessel of return. We thank you, Pacey. We love you."
He felt like he was being comforted by someone, he was pleased, happy, enraptured. If he concentrated he could get more from them, these voice in his own mind. Was he mad, he sure felt sane. He grabbed a facet and let some warm water pour onto his hands, he felt the joy as the others clamoured to the feeling of water running down his face, of the heat of the night. They were happy, and it made him happy.
"What do you want from me?"
"We wish only to feel, as you know, Pacey. Anything is better that was lied for us back there. The endless, senseless void. We know . . . Andi?"
"Andi, how?" Pacey asked.
"You know, so we know. We wish to seek out Andi, your lover. Emotion, feeling, strongest when two souls are entwinned as one. Please, Pacey, help us again. Our strength is yours."
Silence. The buzzing was still there, but he was ignoring it. He felt compelled to find Andi. He turned the facet off and went back to his room where he sat on his bed, his legs slung over the side. He decided to speak to them again.
"Your strength, can it help me?"
"Yes. Our strength was great. Though we were never together, we crave to know the limits of your strength now, Pacey. Please, you must help us once more."
"Then you gotta explain to me, how do I use your strength?"
"You can use it as you see fit, Pacey."
"Hey, do me a fovour and stop saying Pacey at the end of each sentence, please."
"Of course."
"Now, you were saying?"
"Our strength was great as individuals, but we were incapable of stopping those who saught to imprison us. Together, our strength must be greater, we can explain how to use it to greatest effect."
"Go on, let's hear it."
It was explained to him. More voices joined the single voice that taught him, many becoming one, greater than the sum of their parts. Afterwards, Pacey walked over to the window, opened it, and looked out. He hopped onto the ledge, and was reassured by the others. He took a deep breath and stepped off. He hit the ground with gathering speed, his legs absorbed the impact quite easily. Pacey smiled.
He walked over to the tree on the back lawn, still in just his pants. He pulled a fist back, then hit it. Wood shattered, sprayed away from him, leaving a gaping hole where he had hit the tree. He looked at his knuckle, not a scratch.
"Enjoyment, Pacey?"
"Oh my God, I'm . . . superman. I can do anything." He felt invincible, like a god. The feeling were enjoyed by those with him.
"Hey," came another voice. At first Pacey thought it was one of those with him, but then he realised it was coming from the path behind his house. "Pacey? What the hell did you just do?"
Dawson Leary, Pacey's friend. Pacey smiled and walked over to him. "What are you doing out this late, Dawson?"
"Just going to see Jen, Pace. Hey, did you just smash that tree?"
"Sure, Dawson."
"Whoa, how did you do it?"
"Mind over matter, pal. Mind over matter."
Dawson gave him a funny look, Pacey was only wearing a pair of pants, why?
Somehow Pacey knew what he was thinking, he could sense his thoughts, like clouds in his skull. He felt compelled to do something.
Dawson was stunned when Pacey's hands closed around his neck, squeezing tight, crushing his throat. Dawson tried to pull his hands away, but his grip was like a vice. In front of his eyes, clothing identical to Dawson's appeared on Pacey. Dawson thrashed about as life ebbed out of him.
"Pain," came a voice. "Death and life interlinked, joy when he expires, pleasure in his pain, Pacey. We thank you."
Pacey's hands kept applying force on his friends neck long after he stopped flailing. When it was over, Pacey let the limp body drop.
"What have I done?" Pacey cried out. "I've killed Dawson, my best friend."
"You have helped us, you have given us sense, and we love you. Pacey, you are not bound by rules anymore, laws are not meant for you. Your strength is great, together, we make you great."
Other feelings clouded his guilt, his self-loathing, they goaded him on, pushing him forward. Strength pulsed in his body. He cast a hand at Dawson, and a sorcerous spell ignited Dawson's body in orange light. Pacey waited until he was no more than ashes and fragments of bone and buried them near the tree. All the time he felt loved and adored. He looked up when he had finished, the sun was coming over the forests of Capeside, and eerie glow sprayed across the land. Pacey went forward once more.
To be continued, if you like it, that is.