Disclaimer: Fox logos, the LXG trademarks and characters do not belong to me. I make no profit from this venture, the folklore/ghosts stem from Black Hart Storytellers and Meercat Tours.
Author's Notes: Okay, I hate to be fan-girlish but my god, reading your wonderful, intelligent, thoughtful reviews is an absolute privilege and I have to give major thanks: ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThan kyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou...
Once again, individual shouts at the end.
PS: If any of y'all know any great Skinner-centric works then drop us a line.
Brace yourselves; it's time to do some exposition.
But don't get too comfortable, everything's not as it seems...
Shards
Chapter 4: Things which are not.
"What are we dealing with?"
Jacobs blusters, flushes red and tries to stand up from the seat that Nemo has pushed him back into.
"I don't know what—"
Nemo forces him to sit down again. There is this terrible graciousness in his manner that Sawyer knows could boil over at any second.
"Any falsehood is not welcome at this time Mr. Jacobs," Nemo states, eyes sparking, "I would suggest that you tell us absolutely everything."
"And when he says absolutely everything" continues Jekyll, "we mean absolutely everything."
A cliché that Tom recognises, but this cliché is beyond effective when coming from Jekyll. There is a darkness to him that Hyde does not have; something which Tom knows can only be glimpsed rarely. Something he spat out when he uttered the words 'sneaky blackguard', something he spits out now.
Jacobs is beyond flustered, almost boiling with indignation.
"You think that I have some ulterior motive? That in some way I am connected to the deaths of my dear friends? How dare you—"
Tom sees him for what he is: A bland, blind little man, indifferent to the darkness surrounding him. Darkness embodied in Nemo; in Jekyll; in the roasted skin of a man in so much pain he couldn't stop screaming.
"Shut up." States Sawyer and his voice carries a bitterness, an anger he didn't know it could contain.
There is a pause; the colour beginning to fade from Jacobs' face as he takes several deep breaths and looks at Sawyer in some shock.
He looks deflated, grey. "Fine," he states finally, voice deadened, "Fine. What is it you want to know?"
"What are we dealing with?" Nemo repeats.
The atmosphere still has that horrible inquisitional tack to it, and Tom folds his arms protectively as Jacobs shoots each of them a bitter glare.
"We're not sure," He begins, mouth twisting around the words, "Perhaps a demon? Some sort of ambiguous demonic force: A motiveless malignity." He laughs a strange, hollow laugh. "Something we though we had under control."
"You've been keeping this thing?" hisses Jekyll, and there is horror in his voice.
Jacobs' face coils into an expression of distain. "We are not idiots Dr Jekyll; we do not seek to provoke the darker side of things and then keep them bottled up."
Sawyer winces at the direct insult.
Jacobs pauses, snorts as Jekyll backs off, retreating into a corner, and then continues: "We did not know what was happening at first. A few accidental fires in our old temple; banners would fall down, statues would be broken. Normal occurrences; perfectly acceptable if you were experimenting with new spells as we were."
He frowns, sight focussing into his memories, "And then—chaos... Much the same as you've been experiencing here. Fires and... burns..."
Jacobs seems to shudder. Tom knows the memory: The warm smell of cooked flesh—
"We would heal our wounds, perform spells to calm things down—and they would for a time—then go back to the experiments and... 'it'... would happen again.
"After a while we thought we had it figured out: The door we required for our magic was letting out something indigenous to the temple—something that had been there for years, something that wanted to do us harm.
"We performed binding spells, packed everything up and left—soliciting your help to take us as far away as possible. The demon could have the place! We didn't want a fight, we wanted peace."
"But it followed you." States Nemo and Sawyer can see the anger he is repressing. "And you didn't warn us. Even with the damage—you just continued with your experiments—"
Jacobs looks at him, eyes with that same dull sheen of insolence.
"—it wasn't indigenous, it's something you created." Rage is crackling from Nemo, threatening to set the situation alight.
"No." States Jekyll suddenly, and both Sawyer and Nemo focus on him abruptly. "No, not that you created—that you released." He says; eyes locked on Jacobs.
"Things without souls that we have always known about. Things indigenous to mirrors." he states nodding to Nemo and then looking at Sawyer, recalling the memory of their earlier discussion.
"Things you gave a doorway to."
"And there's no way out?"
"None at all." Skinner responds, avoiding eye contact desperately, picking at the bandages he is holding.
Mina takes them from him with a sigh and begins wrapping them around the burn on the patient's leg. Skinner can barely watch this either- the sight causing aches all over his body- scar tissue tightening as if in sympathy.
"So, you're sure that this is not a memory, or a sign of the trauma you must have—" Mina questions, seemingly absorbed in her task.
"We've been over this before, haven't we?" Skinner responds abruptly. "It can't be a memory because I've never been there—"
"And it is not a sign of trauma because it doesn't echo your own experience?" Mina looks up and into the holes where his eyes would be. She takes a deep breath. "Then we come back to another conclusion—that your dreams are a message."
"Of what? From whom?" He asks, and he can feel trepidation bubbling in his throat.
"I don't know Mr Skinner." She cuts him off, and there is distance in her eyes even as she attempts to reassure him with a sympathetic look.
He has never felt so alone.
Something else is seeking human contact and this isolates him, frightens him, and burns him in his sleep. He looks at his reflection in the mirror on the medical bay wall and sees his own wide eyes- empty holes surrounded by greasepaint.
He turns to pick up more bandages, and as he does so, the ship gives an almighty groan- a metallic shudder.
His hair begins to stand on end; he turns to shoot a frightened look at Mina, but he can no longer see her.
The lights have gone out.
They stand in darkness.
Jekyll can hear the sounds of movement; a rustling to his left.
Something brushes past him softly.
He jumps and turns around, wincing as Nemo brightens the lamp he is now holding.
"What the hell is this?" asks Sawyer, and Jekyll can hear the fear in his whisper, something he knows is echoed in his eyes.
"It's-"
He reaches for Mina's hand, and feels his heart contract with relief when he finds her small, cold fingers.
In the blackness all he can hear is the sound of his own heart, and he feels the dizzy sensation of a shift in space—as if the walls have shrunk around him; a cloying sense of the air tightening, increasing in pressure as the walls move.
He feels his skin begin to flush with heat, and he waits, breathless, for the groans and the feel of others scrabbling away, pulling themselves into a tight huddle.
Instead he hears a clattering and feels the reassuring squeeze of Mina's fingers. Hears the flare of gas as she lights a lamp on the table.
Henry
Edward's voice; insistent, harsh after weeks of silence.
But it's not the only sound in Jacobs' room.
"Do you hear them?" asks Sawyer and he can, Jekyll can hear them; Loud as a whisper, clear as snow:
Voices; hundreds, whispering just beyond human hearing: Laughing, taunting, cajoling.
Nemo draws his sword, the sound of metal scraping against metal too harsh in the soft sibilance created by the whispers.
Jekyll feels panic beginning to tighten his chest, his breathing becoming audible.
He watches Nemo looking wildly about, his breath visible.
It is cold.
Henry please
"What is it?" He asks, voice sharply addressing Hyde, addressing anyone who might know what this is, anyone that might calm the rising terror he feels...
it burns
"Do you hear them? Do you hear them?" His voice is a panicked rush and he watches Mina with wide eyes, afraid to release her hand.
"Yes," She whispers, eyes darting around the room, larger than his, "I can hear them..."
Skinner hears the sound beginning to build in the dark corners. It circles them, louder behind them, then in front...
"It's cold..." she begins, and Skinner feels her jerk suddenly as she makes a lunge for the lantern, pulling it into her hand.
The light in it is fading. Dying.
Help me
His teeth are chattering. Jacobs is sitting stock still, Nemo still turning wildly, Sawyer has drawn his pistols and is watching Jekyll intensely.
He can't but help looking at Edward:
Something dark with light flickering behind it in the large dressing mirror; Edward—a shape writhing against this terrible light which grows brighter as the gas lamp fades.
Help me
Jekyll is drawn to the mirror even as the room around him grows darker.
He can see her breath even in the dark.
They are reflected in the small mirror to his left- he can see them: his face painted white, invisible hands clutching thin air while ahead of him a lamp floats; its light fading. The invisible man the only visible one in the reflection.
Behind them, he sees the shadows begin to writhe and shudder.
The light goes out as Mina lets go of his hand.
He hears the smash of broken glass and a dull thump.
Jekyll can feel his skin begin to stretch; his bones begin to rearrange themselves.
A low moan escapes him as the pain dulls everything around him but the beat of his heart, the gasping in his lungs.
He grabs his head, trying to hold it together as a pain threatens to cleave it open.
He collapses, and around him the light fades.
TBC...
Funyun: Ooooh! It's fun making you think/worry/wonder: I'll try to keep this up! If I answered any of you're questions I'd just give the whole plot away and that isn't fair... BTW: "I gotcha where I want ya and now I'm gonna eatcha!" Is a fantastic quote! Deeper? Hmm, depends, I think I'm spelling out what's to come- but that's just me- I already know all the answers, (apart from, of course the location of my Red Hot Chilli Peppers ticket, but that's another story...) Congratulations! Correct poem, though if you can guess the link between this work and Donne's masterpiece I'll be ultra- impressed... Jump starter ideas? Give us a while to think...
Keyanna: Hyperbole?! What do you mean Hyperbole?! ;-) Funny you should mention my punctuation and spelling, they're so bad usually that my teachers think I'm dyslexic. No, I'm not kidding! Let's see if you like this chapter- bit off the garden path for me this time round...
Crystal: Halleluiah! Another Skinner fan! Where've you been all this time? ;-) Seriously though, thanks for reviewing! Hmm, italics, I might if they were actually dreams, but... (Oops bit of a giveaway there!)
Author's Notes: Okay, I hate to be fan-girlish but my god, reading your wonderful, intelligent, thoughtful reviews is an absolute privilege and I have to give major thanks: ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThan kyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou...
Once again, individual shouts at the end.
PS: If any of y'all know any great Skinner-centric works then drop us a line.
Brace yourselves; it's time to do some exposition.
But don't get too comfortable, everything's not as it seems...
Shards
Chapter 4: Things which are not.
"What are we dealing with?"
Jacobs blusters, flushes red and tries to stand up from the seat that Nemo has pushed him back into.
"I don't know what—"
Nemo forces him to sit down again. There is this terrible graciousness in his manner that Sawyer knows could boil over at any second.
"Any falsehood is not welcome at this time Mr. Jacobs," Nemo states, eyes sparking, "I would suggest that you tell us absolutely everything."
"And when he says absolutely everything" continues Jekyll, "we mean absolutely everything."
A cliché that Tom recognises, but this cliché is beyond effective when coming from Jekyll. There is a darkness to him that Hyde does not have; something which Tom knows can only be glimpsed rarely. Something he spat out when he uttered the words 'sneaky blackguard', something he spits out now.
Jacobs is beyond flustered, almost boiling with indignation.
"You think that I have some ulterior motive? That in some way I am connected to the deaths of my dear friends? How dare you—"
Tom sees him for what he is: A bland, blind little man, indifferent to the darkness surrounding him. Darkness embodied in Nemo; in Jekyll; in the roasted skin of a man in so much pain he couldn't stop screaming.
"Shut up." States Sawyer and his voice carries a bitterness, an anger he didn't know it could contain.
There is a pause; the colour beginning to fade from Jacobs' face as he takes several deep breaths and looks at Sawyer in some shock.
He looks deflated, grey. "Fine," he states finally, voice deadened, "Fine. What is it you want to know?"
"What are we dealing with?" Nemo repeats.
The atmosphere still has that horrible inquisitional tack to it, and Tom folds his arms protectively as Jacobs shoots each of them a bitter glare.
"We're not sure," He begins, mouth twisting around the words, "Perhaps a demon? Some sort of ambiguous demonic force: A motiveless malignity." He laughs a strange, hollow laugh. "Something we though we had under control."
"You've been keeping this thing?" hisses Jekyll, and there is horror in his voice.
Jacobs' face coils into an expression of distain. "We are not idiots Dr Jekyll; we do not seek to provoke the darker side of things and then keep them bottled up."
Sawyer winces at the direct insult.
Jacobs pauses, snorts as Jekyll backs off, retreating into a corner, and then continues: "We did not know what was happening at first. A few accidental fires in our old temple; banners would fall down, statues would be broken. Normal occurrences; perfectly acceptable if you were experimenting with new spells as we were."
He frowns, sight focussing into his memories, "And then—chaos... Much the same as you've been experiencing here. Fires and... burns..."
Jacobs seems to shudder. Tom knows the memory: The warm smell of cooked flesh—
"We would heal our wounds, perform spells to calm things down—and they would for a time—then go back to the experiments and... 'it'... would happen again.
"After a while we thought we had it figured out: The door we required for our magic was letting out something indigenous to the temple—something that had been there for years, something that wanted to do us harm.
"We performed binding spells, packed everything up and left—soliciting your help to take us as far away as possible. The demon could have the place! We didn't want a fight, we wanted peace."
"But it followed you." States Nemo and Sawyer can see the anger he is repressing. "And you didn't warn us. Even with the damage—you just continued with your experiments—"
Jacobs looks at him, eyes with that same dull sheen of insolence.
"—it wasn't indigenous, it's something you created." Rage is crackling from Nemo, threatening to set the situation alight.
"No." States Jekyll suddenly, and both Sawyer and Nemo focus on him abruptly. "No, not that you created—that you released." He says; eyes locked on Jacobs.
"Things without souls that we have always known about. Things indigenous to mirrors." he states nodding to Nemo and then looking at Sawyer, recalling the memory of their earlier discussion.
"Things you gave a doorway to."
"And there's no way out?"
"None at all." Skinner responds, avoiding eye contact desperately, picking at the bandages he is holding.
Mina takes them from him with a sigh and begins wrapping them around the burn on the patient's leg. Skinner can barely watch this either- the sight causing aches all over his body- scar tissue tightening as if in sympathy.
"So, you're sure that this is not a memory, or a sign of the trauma you must have—" Mina questions, seemingly absorbed in her task.
"We've been over this before, haven't we?" Skinner responds abruptly. "It can't be a memory because I've never been there—"
"And it is not a sign of trauma because it doesn't echo your own experience?" Mina looks up and into the holes where his eyes would be. She takes a deep breath. "Then we come back to another conclusion—that your dreams are a message."
"Of what? From whom?" He asks, and he can feel trepidation bubbling in his throat.
"I don't know Mr Skinner." She cuts him off, and there is distance in her eyes even as she attempts to reassure him with a sympathetic look.
He has never felt so alone.
Something else is seeking human contact and this isolates him, frightens him, and burns him in his sleep. He looks at his reflection in the mirror on the medical bay wall and sees his own wide eyes- empty holes surrounded by greasepaint.
He turns to pick up more bandages, and as he does so, the ship gives an almighty groan- a metallic shudder.
His hair begins to stand on end; he turns to shoot a frightened look at Mina, but he can no longer see her.
The lights have gone out.
They stand in darkness.
Jekyll can hear the sounds of movement; a rustling to his left.
Something brushes past him softly.
He jumps and turns around, wincing as Nemo brightens the lamp he is now holding.
"What the hell is this?" asks Sawyer, and Jekyll can hear the fear in his whisper, something he knows is echoed in his eyes.
"It's-"
He reaches for Mina's hand, and feels his heart contract with relief when he finds her small, cold fingers.
In the blackness all he can hear is the sound of his own heart, and he feels the dizzy sensation of a shift in space—as if the walls have shrunk around him; a cloying sense of the air tightening, increasing in pressure as the walls move.
He feels his skin begin to flush with heat, and he waits, breathless, for the groans and the feel of others scrabbling away, pulling themselves into a tight huddle.
Instead he hears a clattering and feels the reassuring squeeze of Mina's fingers. Hears the flare of gas as she lights a lamp on the table.
Henry
Edward's voice; insistent, harsh after weeks of silence.
But it's not the only sound in Jacobs' room.
"Do you hear them?" asks Sawyer and he can, Jekyll can hear them; Loud as a whisper, clear as snow:
Voices; hundreds, whispering just beyond human hearing: Laughing, taunting, cajoling.
Nemo draws his sword, the sound of metal scraping against metal too harsh in the soft sibilance created by the whispers.
Jekyll feels panic beginning to tighten his chest, his breathing becoming audible.
He watches Nemo looking wildly about, his breath visible.
It is cold.
Henry please
"What is it?" He asks, voice sharply addressing Hyde, addressing anyone who might know what this is, anyone that might calm the rising terror he feels...
it burns
"Do you hear them? Do you hear them?" His voice is a panicked rush and he watches Mina with wide eyes, afraid to release her hand.
"Yes," She whispers, eyes darting around the room, larger than his, "I can hear them..."
Skinner hears the sound beginning to build in the dark corners. It circles them, louder behind them, then in front...
"It's cold..." she begins, and Skinner feels her jerk suddenly as she makes a lunge for the lantern, pulling it into her hand.
The light in it is fading. Dying.
Help me
His teeth are chattering. Jacobs is sitting stock still, Nemo still turning wildly, Sawyer has drawn his pistols and is watching Jekyll intensely.
He can't but help looking at Edward:
Something dark with light flickering behind it in the large dressing mirror; Edward—a shape writhing against this terrible light which grows brighter as the gas lamp fades.
Help me
Jekyll is drawn to the mirror even as the room around him grows darker.
He can see her breath even in the dark.
They are reflected in the small mirror to his left- he can see them: his face painted white, invisible hands clutching thin air while ahead of him a lamp floats; its light fading. The invisible man the only visible one in the reflection.
Behind them, he sees the shadows begin to writhe and shudder.
The light goes out as Mina lets go of his hand.
He hears the smash of broken glass and a dull thump.
Jekyll can feel his skin begin to stretch; his bones begin to rearrange themselves.
A low moan escapes him as the pain dulls everything around him but the beat of his heart, the gasping in his lungs.
He grabs his head, trying to hold it together as a pain threatens to cleave it open.
He collapses, and around him the light fades.
TBC...
Funyun: Ooooh! It's fun making you think/worry/wonder: I'll try to keep this up! If I answered any of you're questions I'd just give the whole plot away and that isn't fair... BTW: "I gotcha where I want ya and now I'm gonna eatcha!" Is a fantastic quote! Deeper? Hmm, depends, I think I'm spelling out what's to come- but that's just me- I already know all the answers, (apart from, of course the location of my Red Hot Chilli Peppers ticket, but that's another story...) Congratulations! Correct poem, though if you can guess the link between this work and Donne's masterpiece I'll be ultra- impressed... Jump starter ideas? Give us a while to think...
Keyanna: Hyperbole?! What do you mean Hyperbole?! ;-) Funny you should mention my punctuation and spelling, they're so bad usually that my teachers think I'm dyslexic. No, I'm not kidding! Let's see if you like this chapter- bit off the garden path for me this time round...
Crystal: Halleluiah! Another Skinner fan! Where've you been all this time? ;-) Seriously though, thanks for reviewing! Hmm, italics, I might if they were actually dreams, but... (Oops bit of a giveaway there!)