AN: Hey guys, another week means another chapter so yay. Also I finished up Outlast 2, so if you're looking on information/explanations about the story I have an almost embarrassingly long theory on my profile so feel free to check that out. More importantly though thanks to splinterclaw for reviewing (really, thanks to all three of you who have commented it means a ton) and I hope everyone enjoys the chapter.

***Ch 27***

The shelving bent and rained broken bottles down on me. For the eighth time in a handful of seconds I went tumbling through the air again. With all the willpower I had left I tried to grab onto something, anything, to steady myself or brace for the landing. I didn't find anything and instead got to break my fall with my remaining arm.

Do something!

I am!

I was getting bashed into the ceiling now, then I was half buried into the ground.

The power of that other creature that had buried itself into Connor's mind was thick in the air. If I were in any other state of mind I would have been doing my best to shut it out, but now it was the only thing I had to hold on to. As I was getting used as a wrecking ball I felt the thing trying to rip me apart from the inside like I had done to so many other people. This wasn't some weak parlour trick like the figure had been, this was something that made everything I had done pale in a comparison of shear power.

The front counter toppled over and tumbled into the wall from the force of my body slamming into it, a second later I was sent flying again. I tried to reach out with the swarm, only for it to be wiped away. Well that was fucking helpful.

The trip through the air was one filled with more screaming and fighting not to be ripped limb from limb. If this thing was so high and god damned mighty then why was it fighting like a little bitch and throwing me around instead of taking a real swing! There was another push to rip my torso in half, The Walrider did what it could to fight against the demon.

I had other plans.

The thing still radiated madness and fear, I latched onto that like it was the only thing I had ever known. It noticed and did what it could to break free. I was dropped onto the rubble floor. The peace wouldn't last long. I felt another wave coming. Without thinking I ripped at the wall next to me. It had to be barely standing at this point, but I found a pipe for the plumbing and gripped it. Just as I did another wave of force swirled through the room.

My feet lifted from the ground but my hand held firm.

Anger joined the mix, some of it my own, some of it the walriders, most of it that other demons. My skin crawled, my grip tightened, I drank it in. I could see it now, the way I had seen Schaefer in his last moments alive. The beast was a clear as day, draped over Connor like a murderous coat. A hundred thin arms whipped this way and that around the room creating the storm that ravaged the store. A few of them wrapped around my legs and meant to bash me into a thousand different places. More arms joined in to pull at me harder.

In a blur I let go of the pipe and gripped one of the arms that held my shoulder. I went barreling through the air once again, this time I looked down at the thing on Connor's shoulders. It hated me, and I it. Tiny limbs ripped at me like everytime before but now it was different. I welcomed them with open arms, the beast realised too late that I had it right where I wanted it.

Blinding, hungry anger drove me closer to the demon along its own frantic arms. For every inch I earned it pueraid another organ, only for the Walrider to follow behind it and repair the damage. Terrified children's screams pierced the air, whether or not they were Connors or the demons coming through Connor's lips I didn't care. The son of a bitch was going to die here today and it was going to be delicious.

The hurricane happening around me was losing steam as the demon became more and more focused on just saving itself. I wonder, had it know what the dreamers were? Did it know that this would happen? It had to have had some idea.

Not that it mattered. The thing pumped more anger and now fear into the air, I breathed the emotions in and drew ever closer to Connor. Any semblance of normal vision cut out as the walrider was spending more time keeping my body in one piece. It didn't matter though, the gray demon that strained to stay embedded on Connor's shoulders glowed with a silver lights that called to me like a beacon in the dark.

A little closer now, my feet touched the ground. I took growing steps against the dying wind that tried frantically to push me back.

I could touch it now, so much life, so much desperation, so much power, it all poured out from the gray demon and the boy beneath it. The swarm could finally stand up to the dieing storm. I reached out, little beads of cold lead reached into the beast and child, my hand came to grip something small and solid. The desperate hum in the air cut out, Conners screaming dropped to nothing and left only a distant echo hanging in the air.

The world that had been a crumbling drugstore reformed into the night-dimmed halls of a home. A handful of faceless black-clad men toting rifles and kevlar tore down the hall and through where I stood. This was Donalds house, the night after Mount Massive just over one year ago. Little nodes of fear and confusion swirled through the air, I followed them like a ghost to the basement.

Half way down the stairs the world shook out of focus only to come back a shade darker and devoid of color. Thick, oily, misery soiled the ground; I let myself wallow in it as I continued on my way. At the bottom of the stairs was the basement. Connon and Garrett sobbed in a far corner, the ground between me and them glowed with a hot red light. Lisa -their mother- was little more than a twisted lump on the floor; her limbs flung at odd angles and frozen that way in death. A distorted memory of Waylon screamed and howled in a useless rage on the ground. A man towering taller than the room would allow curled over the scene.

I wish I could have been here when this happened, instead of being resigned to wallow through a memory of it. Mostly because it was all I could do I picked my way over the dead mother and wounded father to the children who sat in the back of the room. Connor, as deep as he was in his own personal hell, saw me through the haze of trauma.

He screamed "No, go away! Go away!"

I did not go away.

The boy scuttled backwards until he hit the wall, then he just flailed in a failed attempt to move further. The secen folded out in slow motion, the tall man on the other side of the room spoke in deep distorted words, Waylon drug himself across the ground to Lisa, a petrified Garret had slow tears crawling over his face. I drank in the fear. While I savoured the moment thin gray tendrils phased through the wall and roof, like probes reaching in and searching for something they had lost long ago.

I took a second to consider the new thing in the room. I was here for it, not the small thing cowering against the wall. With some alien speed that I hadn't grown used to having I tore my way up the wall and latched onto the gray arms hanging from the ceiling. They shuddered and flailed, as if the great beast that they were attached to had been burned and was desperately trying to flee the flames. The room shook under the force of the arms. I ripped what I could reach away from the demons unseen body, the remains faded from the dream world as I did leaving me there to consume the power they had held. The room shuddered and deformed under the beasts struggle, bits of drywall and plaster started to flake from the walls, great rifts formed in the ceiling. Through them I could see an endless gray void where currents of a slightly darker shade thrashed this way and that.

Connor had not stopped screaming, though when the room twisted and cracked I heard his little feet hit the ground and carry him in a spirit over the fearsome memory and up the stairs.

I would deal with that later.

Now there was more emptiness than building left. I clung to the mass of energy that had nearly torn me limb from limb in the real world. This was my place now, there was no hope for this thing in the uncaring, unending, void of its own psyche.

Between the fading and deformed shards of Connor's memory a thick black haze- something that stood in stark contrast with the pale gray- snaked its way out from the empty places of my mind.

"Balthophed! You old fool, I told you this would end badly for you." The static voice of the Walrider buzzed out into the gray. A more solid black shape of a faceless man formed from the dark cloud.

"You wouldn't dare kill me." The shrinking bundle of shifting gray produced words from some unknown place.

"I wouldn't, but he might"

I tightened my grip on the thing. Yes, I would be the one to wipe this monster from the earth, whatever past it had with the Walrider was none of my concern.

The gray pleaded with the black "You have to know killing me will only sign your death warrant."

"You're too late, I already signed it myself!"

Whatever they were talking about meant nothing to me. The gray demon was on it's last leg; I felt new waves of power stronger than I had ever know crashing over me. This time I didn't fight it, there was no reason to, nothing holding me back.

"Bastard, if you don't listen to me, maybe your dog will." The void was crumbling away. The words were small and distant, the gray demon was barely bigger than my hand now.

The void was crumbling away.

The gray broke into hulking masses, scattering bits of rubble as they fell. Behind the tattered void was a new layer of images. These were the dying thoughts of something ancient, the remaining slivers of a thing that had once been great washed over me.

The visions behind the void were not of a memory, but rather of something that has yet to come. A thousand howling voices called up from a burning pit, wayward screams- some of pain others of perverted joy- wafted upwards carried on an acid wind.

Some hellish horde rose up from its infernal prison. It flooded the land as a dark tide lead by something that lusted for spilled blood. Small towns in the west were the first to fall to the black tide, cults twisted their way into power and did evil things in the name of masters they did not understand. Next the cities crumbled under the weight of madness. Brother killed brother in the streets, fathers slaughtered families, not a soul was spared.

In that second I had a moment of clarity.

I was doing something wrong.

The last threads of this great thing gave way. The scene before me blinked out of existence, the gray void fell away as rubble. I was left in a familiar hall standing over Waylon's lifeless body. Beyond the growing pool of blood stood Garret and Connor. Both were sobbing, but when he saw me Connor spoke in a frightened whisper.

"Go… away…"

We were still in his personal hell.

What the fuck was I doing?

"Leave me alone!" the small boy screeched.

The echoes of what I had just seen were still fresh in my mind. The power of the demon I had just killed buzzed through me.

My job here was done.

I looked back at Connor. I did my best to step back into the hall behind me.

"Make it all go away" he said through heavy breaths.

The room faded into a haze. The gray and blue of the Zeichner facility twisted away and became brown rubble. Broken shelves and lights hanging by frayed wires greeted me back to the store. There was no more low hum in the air, nothing came from the little body that laid at my feet.

A cloud of swarm floated around me, a pang of fear and anger split the air and caught my attention.

Garret was still in the bathroom.

He was no longer slumped against his grandmother, who sat with a stillness that could only mean she was dead. The young boy was standing and shaking with a grief that he had grown far too familiar with.

I pulled the swarm in as close as I could.

"..." What could I say at a time like this?

Garret shook like the last leaf on a tree in the middle of a hurricane. In spite of his effort an ugly sob would occasionally force its way up from his lungs.

"Uh…" I edged back ever so slightly. I may have just absorbed some ancient creature, but the dreamer infection still prodded at me to lunge at the kid.

There were distant sirens under the sound of sobbing. Someone must have called the police after they noticed the neighborhood drugstore going all to hell. I started moving away more quickly.

I was nearly at the door and Garret was still just standing there, sobbing over the little form of his brother.

I hadn't killed the kid. I couldn't have. He was still alive when I left.

And yet…

No, he would wake up. It would be ok. It had to be.

As much as I told myself I didn't have more blood on my hands I couldn't help but notice that there was nothing coming from the little body that laid on the floor. No turbulent nightmares or traces of fear. No hints of happiness from a safe dream.

I reached the gaping hole that was once a door. The sirens were getting closer. I turned tail and ran.

I ran away from the destruction I had caused. I ran away from the lives I had managed to ruin just a little more.

I ran away.