Chapter 41: (A/N: I KNOW I'M ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. I truly, sincerely apologize for the delay in update. I started school again and this year it is SWALLOWING ME. I promise I'll still update as frequently as I can, but I can't promise how altogether 'frequently' that'll be. But please know I'm doing my best, and I will never, NEVER abandon this story! (Especially not since we're kinda getting excitingly close to the end! (Another…10 or so chapters. But you all know how terrible my estimation skills have been in the past. So it could come out being a good deal more than that. I can't honestly see it being any less.)) Anyways, sincerest apologies, and here's the update! Hope you enjoy!
To those of you who reviewed and I didn't respond to: I sincerely apologize. I'll definitely do a better job this time.
This chapter has been rated T+ for LANGUAGE and DISTURBING IMAGERY)
Whitebeard stared at the figure. "…What?" he asked, after a brief pause. The figure lifted one hand languidly, pointing at the altered chessboard.
"Do you want to play a game?" it repeated. It sounded amused, nearly mocking. Whitebeard didn't approach and didn't answer the question.
"What did Caterpillar do with Marco and Thatch?" he asked, voice nearing a snarl. The figure, sighing, replaced its hand on the armrest.
"You'll have to ask him that."
"Then let me speak to him," Whitebeard said coldly. The figure seemed to straighten, resuming its former mirth.
"Oh but you have to win first. We can't let just anyone in to see the Wyrm," it said, voice clownishly happy. Whitebeard approached the table. As he did, the chessboard came more fully into view and, upon further inspection, Whitebeard wasn't sure it could even be called that.
It was massive. The table was probably a good sixteen square feet, and the chessboard covered the whole surface. The tiles that composed it, as usual, were white and black, but they weren't evenly dispersed as they were on a regular chessboard. They seemed to be randomly placed, with far more of them than there were of white tiles. On the mannequin's side of the board there were no pieces at all. On the side near the empty chair, near Whitebeard, there were two pieces. Two pawns.
"If you can get your pieces to the other side of the board, you win. I'll let you see the Wyrm and you can ask him your question."
"And if I lose?" Whitebeard asked. "What, you'll kill me?" The mannequin laughed, voice dropping to silky softness.
"As if death is the worst thing that could happen to you. No, you lose you'll be free to go. But…well. Your consequence is tied up in the game. So let's get to playing, shall we?" Whitebeard hesitated.
"…And if I leave now?" The mannequin cocked its head to the side. But in its voice Whitebeard could hear its unseen grin.
"Through what door?" Whitebeard stiffened and spun.
The door was gone.
Not locked, not closed. Gone.
"…You really thought it was just Marco and Thatch that we had snared…?" Whitebeard turned back slowly towards the mannequin. It hadn't moved, but as he watched it turned its head slowly to face him, the black hole in the front of its head empty and void. "…Tell me, Edward Newgate, when did you get so naïve?" The figure remained stationary, but the source of the voice seemed to draw closer to Whitebeard. "You'd better start taking this seriously. More than your life is on the line."
"In comparison to that of my children, my own safety is meaningless to me," Whitebeard said. The mannequin's head tilted slightly to the side.
"Then maybe you'll do better knowing their lives are at risk as well?" Whitebeard tensed, protective impulse surging.
"How dare you threaten-"
"I don't threaten. I state the truth. You're wasting time. Important. Time. You do realize that while you've been down here, three more inhabitants have separately been able to materialize on your ship? Your 'children' aren't properly equipped to handle us. Not at all. It's more than just you, Ace, Thatch, and Marco in the infirmary now, Pops. If you're so desperate to protect them…I have to ask, what are you doing here?" The sneer was back in the figure's voice, and Whitebeard had visibly paled.
"Who?" he choked. "Who got out of Wonderland? Who did they hurt?" The mannequin didn't react as if it had heard.
"So come sit down and I'll explain the rules-"
"Who did they hurt?!" Whitebeard snarled. The mannequin continued as if uninterrupted.
"As I said before, if your pieces make it to this side of the board, you win. You'll get to see Caterpillar and ask him your questions, and then you can be on your merry-" Whitebeard stalked across the room, seizing the mannequin by its shoulders, lifting it from its chair. It felt fragile beneath his grip, like clay or glass.
"Who. Did. They. HURT?!" Whitebeard roared. The mannequin was entirely limp in his hands, and with a jolt he realized the voice continued to emanate from the vicinity of the chair, as if he hadn't moved the speaker at all.
"…Sit down, Edward Newgate, or else I fear this will end unhappily."
"Not until you answer my damn-"
"I said sit down," the voice murmured, smooth as smoke. To his own shock, Whitebeard's limbs began moving, outside of his control, beyond his power to stop or even slow them. He could only watch, stunned, horrified, as his arms returned the mannequin to the chair before he jerkily walked over to the opposite chair, taking a seat. Once he was seated, the compulsion left him, his body once more entirely under his command. He flexed his fingers in front of his face, staring at them wide-eyed.
The mannequin slouched in its chair, sightlessly regarding him through that great, gaping chasm in its face.
"The rules are simple," it said, voice returned to its former mirth. "In each turn, you're allowed to move each piece. If it's resting on a black square, you can move it two spaces in any direction. If it's resting on a white square, you may move it only one space again in any direction." Whitebeard could hear the genial smile in its voice. "The black squares are higher risk. Your pawns stand a higher chance of death on those squares. White squares are safer, but as afore stated, they reduce your speed. After your turn, I will tell you the state of each piece, whether they have lived or died. If they're still alive, it's your turn again. Questions?"
"How is it fair if you get to arbitrarily decide if my pieces make it or not?" Whitebeard asked, trying to remain collected. Inside, he seethed. Caterpillar had a lot to answer for, when he got through this.
"It's not arbitrary," the mannequin replied easily.
"Sure doesn't seem that way to me," Whitebeard responded.
"Well I guess you'll just have to leave it up to those that are cleverer than you, neh?" Whitebeard stiffened, fighting not to lash out. Despite his efforts he was about to snarl a response when the mannequin spoke again. "Silence. This is not a place for pride. Because you are nothing here. You have no power, no strength. You are not 'Yonkou' here, you are not 'Oyaji'. You are owed no loyalty and shall receive no consideration for debts you think are ours." The mannequin would have smiled brightly at this point, if it had a face. "So you might want to be careful of what you say." The mannequin seemed to relax. "To return to your earlier question, allow me to elaborate on my role here. I don't care who wins. I have nothing against you, just as I have nothing for you. So in that way, I suppose you could say the fate of your pawns is arbitrary in that I'm not necessarily in control of what happens to them. But I won't lie about their deaths or continued existence either. It's up to you, whether you gamble them on the faster routes or the safer." Whitebeard remained silent for a good long while, studying the figure before him, searching for some lie in the voice. He found none.
"…Let's begin," he said coldly, reaching for one of the pawns.
He placed it on a black square and the mannequin studied him facelessly.
Marco came back to consciousness slowly. The first thing he became aware of was a dull ache in his head, but that was fading well enough. He cracked open his left eye, and was relieved to find no blinding light.
Sensation began returning to his other limbs, and with it situational awareness. He was not tied up. He was not bound in any way. He lay on his back on some kind of uneven stone surface, and based on its temperature and dampness, it was probably a floor. Even stone tables were slightly warmer than this.
Marco sat up slowly, the throbbing of his headache pushed to the back of his mind where he could make himself ignore it. He was in a stone room. But with the roughness of the walls and floors, it was really almost more of a cavern than a formed room. Water, oily, dark water, dripped from the ceiling, forming small pools on the uneven floor. A slight sound could be heard, almost like wind but more like a sigh, brushing cool air against Marco's face.
There were people.
They stood seemingly random about the room, never more than five or six feet away from the walls. They didn't acknowledge each other, and they didn't acknowledge Marco.
They all stood facing the walls, palms pressed against their eyes.
Marco stood slowly, looking about warily. None of them so much as twitched. He might as well not have been in the room for all the reaction they had to his movement. Even when he took his first step, somewhat shaky in the aftereffects of his unconsciousness, and the sound bounced lightly around the room, the figures didn't react. Didn't turn. They didn't seem to even breathe.
Marco approached one carefully. He didn't stir, even when Marco drew near. Marco licked his lips. …What is this? He didn't touch the figure, but after waiting for a few moments for some form of acknowledgment, he addressed the figure.
"Um…I was wondering-" The figure turned its head slowly, hands over its eyes, and looked right at him.
"Shhh…" it said, voice soft as hearing would allow. "She'll hear you…" It turned back to face forward slowly, never once moving its hands. Marco's brows furrowed, but he dropped his voice as the figure asked.
"Who? Who'll hear me?" The figure didn't turn to face him this time.
"Don't look," it said.
"If you look she gets you," another, behind Marco said.
"You can't look," a third murmured, somewhere to the right. Marco swallowed, feeling apprehension stirring in his stomach.
"She's coming," the one nearest Marco hissed. "She's coming to get you."
"She walks in bones," another whispered.
"It hurts…" one whimpered.
"Who's coming?" Marco asked. He needed to know what the hell he was going up against.
"Can't say can't say can't say," the one nearest him mumbled. "…She…She'll know." Its voice dropped to a whisper. "It hurts…" Marco grabbed its shoulders, intending to turn it to face him, but damn if it wasn't rooted to the stone.
"Who's. coming?" he asked, voice hard.
"The girl," the figure whispered. All the figures in the chamber spoke simultaneously.
"The girl with the eyes."
Marco stood there, stunned. They hadn't answered his question, not at all, so why did he feel so chilled, down to his bones, to his soul?
A sound grated across his senses, distant but audible in the stillness of the echoing caves. It was metal on stone, one unyielding surface being dragged across another. Marco's head snapped in the direction of the sound, one of the tunnels that led off into darkness so pure even he couldn't see the other side.
"She's coming," the figure next to him murmured urgently. "She heard you!" Marco swallowed thickly, feeling something akin to fear welling up in his chest. But why? He hadn't even encountered her yet, how could he know so deep that she was such a danger?
"Don't look! She'll-"
The dragging was getting closer. Not fast, not slow. Even. A constant speed, like a leisurely walk but much faster. Marco's heart screamed at him to go, to leave, that this was wrong, that he shouldn't stay. His mind, though, rebelled. His mind wanted to see.
And just like that, he could. Because she was here.
The Girl With The Eyes.
Marco felt all blood drain from his face, all rational thought leave his mind. "What the fuck is that?" he found himself breathlessly whispering, voice shaking with denial, with fear. Because this girl this child with her dark hair and white dress and hatchet were beyond description were beyond rationality were beyond. Anything. Except all that she was.
The Girl with the Eyes.
Marco felt his heart, frozen, petrified in his chest with adrenaline, terror, disbelief, shock, horror, contract painfully, as if it was trying to shrivel up and die so it wouldn't have to face whatever that thing was going to do. She made no sound as she approached him. Didn't speak. Her footsteps (bare feet, bare like death) made no noise. But she. Approached. Him. Her face, oh God her face getting closer, and that axe that she dragged like it was weightless across the floor behind her, trailing a noise like screams in her wake. And Marco was frozen.
He didn't have a response for this. Nobody in the world had a response for this.
She drew closer, unblinking, and Marco died under that gaze, Marco agonized and screamed silently and he saw hell.
His mind was empty, devoid of anything but terror and his body didn't respond to the frantic commands he sent it. Run. Go. Flee. Live.But he couldn't. He could only stare, horrified, as his mouth moved entirely on its own.
"Real suffering is not known," his voice whispered to him. And still she approached.
"Real suffering is not known," his mouth repeated, louder this time. She speaks through your lips through your mind through your mortality.
"Real suffering is not known." His voice was stronger now, sure, but it still wasn't his words and she approached and he wanted to scream but he couldn't and oh God just let me scream.
"Real suffering is not known." The words bled like poison through the air through his blood through her. eyes.
"Real suffering is not known." She had crossed the majority of the room and was getting closer and closer and he couldn't move and this, this was it-
"Real suffering is not known." What the fuck did those words even mean? Why couldn't he stop, his own voice made him want to cut out his tongue, to burst his ears his head-
"Real suffering is not known." And she was there. Right before him. She stared up at him and he couldn't move, couldn't look away, as he stared and was swallowed all at once. The hatchet was lifted with one hand like it was made of balsa wood, but Marco could see the head was composed entirely of lead, the handle of iron corroded and rusted with age. GO! his mind screamed, and finally, as if he'd never frozen in the first place, he could.
He bolted.
He heard the hatchet embed itself into the stone of the floor with a sound of breaking rock and protesting metal. Marco didn't look back, but she was burned into his retinas and he'd never, never unsee what he saw there. Never. He could feel her presence in his mind, feel how she pulled the axe out of the floor and turned to follow him, walking on the sides of her feet. Her steps were no more than a measured walk, but her paces seemed to cover more ground than was anywhere near logical. She moved faster than she should, and Marco felt the way he heart hammered against his ribs, willing his feet to move faster.
He was quicker than her, and soon that horrible sound faded behind him, leaving him in silence once more. He kept running, though, wanting to put still more ground between them.
He came to a panting, shuddering stop, having wound down endless tunnels, twists, turns, forks in the path, all were now between him and…that. There was no way. No way she could find him after all of that.
True Marco didn't know where the hell he was, but he hardly cared about that right now.
His breath burned in his throat as he gasped, exertion making his muscles nothing but solid pain. He felt like he'd been running for hours. As the adrenaline began to fade (but never the horror. That wouldn't leave him, till death and beyond), his knees began to feel more and more like something gelatinous. He sank, shuddering and panting, against the wall.
This room was very, very similar to the one he'd first woken in. Figures just like the ones he'd encountered were spread along the walls, hands pressed over their faces. They hadn't acknowledged Marco, just as the others hadn't until he directly addressed them. On his mad sprint here he'd passed others just like them in the long halls. All still. All facing the stone. All with palms pressed so hard against their own skulls their tendons stood like wires against their skin. But now Marco understood it.
He stared at his own shaking hands for a long moment before he finally raised them to his face. His palms fit over his eye sockets like they belonged there, and beneath them there was nothing but darkness and darkness could never hurt as much as what he'd seen. But it wasn't enough, so he pushed down harder, willing the darkness to contract, to condense, to press back into his skull until it blotted out everything inside it. It hurt, but that was good, and he pushed harder still. His breathing was somewhere between choked sobs and gasps, but he willed it to fall silent, to avoid attention, to pass out of knowing and into that safety of anonymity. But then his heart froze in his chest and his soul shrieked and cowered.
Metal on stone.
How?! How did she find me?! Marco tried to shrink in on himself, tried to disappear, tried to die. It didn't work, and the noise drew nearer, sounding for all the world like the screaming of his soul. Marco clutched at his face. He didn't want to see her, not again, and didn't want to watch whatever she'd do to him. He drew his knees up to his chest and barricaded his face – hands still pressed over his eyes – behind them. She won't find me she won't find me she can't find me I'm safe I'm safe I'm safe I'm safe The sound was getting closer. He could tell it'd entered the room. I'm safe I'm safe she can't get me here she doesn't see me she won't find Closer still. No signs of slowing at all. She won't find me she won't find me she won't find me. The sound stopped.
Right in front of him.
She's not there she can't find me she hasn't found me I'm not here she can't find me she can't she can't she can't- Something in Marco, some brash, mad part of his mind pulled his hands away and looked up.
He screamed, trying again to cover his eyes, simultaneously and automatically rolling to the side, dodging a blow by a hair's breadth. But he was on his feet again and he was running, his mind blinded by terror as she followed him and he could feel her gaze on his back, could still see her face perfectly in his mind, could feel that cold, inhuman gaze that seared his skin. He ran blindly, like prey, down one corridor after another, but always behind him that screech, that harbinger of worse-than-death. Even after the sound faded into distance, Marco still fancied he heard it in his mind, could feel its vibrations in the hairs on the back of his neck.
And most of all, he could still see her face.
He was shaking and panting and his legs ached but he never dreamed of stopping. He'd run to the edge of the earth and off, off into that black void that safety. Nowhere was far enough from…her.
And then he hit the end of the tunnel. Found the door that was there.
And realized it was locked.
"No," he whispered, his voice so harsh and rough from panting, from screaming. He clutched the handle, twisted at it desperately, but the door wouldn't budge.
And then a sound like hope dying.
Marco's eyes widened and he flung himself at the door, pleading for it to open, begging for salvation, but it remained where it was, stuck fast, that tiny keyhole beneath the handle sitting there mocking him. Desperation soared in his mind, only outstripped by his terror, and he could hear her getting closer, could see her face in his mind-
Marco slammed his shoulder hard enough into the door that he heard something beneath the muscle crack, but still it did not budge. His breathing came in gasps, in choked sobs, in blind prayers, but none affected the door.
The sound of her weapon on the ground seemed to magnify impossibly as she drew nearer, and Marco clutched at his head, begging it to stop, falling to his knees, begging to just die just die and please, please, nothing else. He squeezed his eyes shut so hard bright spots swam across his darkened vision, but anything anything was better than her.
You're entirely useless. But I'm not about to let her have my fun.
Click.
Marco's head snapped up, snapped towards the lock, where the tiny sound had come from. He shot to his feet and twisted the handle, ignoring the flaring pain in his collarbone. It spun with well-maintained ease, and Marco was instantly on the other side, turning to shut it-
His eyes caught on her, on her face and he felt his soul collapse, felt his mind die, felt everything inside of him scream in horror even as the door swung shut between them, locking him in and her out. He collapsed back against the wall, shaking, terrified, his mind entirely filled with her face, with her sound. He struggled to remember how to breathe, how to be alive, but he barely could so strong was the pounding of his terror in his ears, the image of that monstrosity in his mind.
He heard her grating draw just up behind the door that separated them, the door that Marco didn't care how it had unlocked. His guts stiffened and he wanted to flee again, but she stopped behind the door, sound falling into silence. Marco swore even his heart ceased beating for fear of discovery, of her. Silence so pure it seemed to crystallize hung in the air for a long while. When it was finally broken, the voice was the barest of whispers. Marco barely heard it through the cracks of the door. But the words chilled his soul and he shuddered, images and sounds and fear not fading like they should. But he knew. They never would, not entirely.
Not until the day he died.
Even when Marco stood shakily, walking away from the door and never, never looking back, her words still echoed in his head.
"…достопримечательностям ада принести своим зрителям еще в."
(A/N: O_o
Okay, so the majority of this chapter is actually based on a nightmare I had a few months ago. So even if you didn't find it that creepy or scary, I actually had to take breaks while writing this to listen to happy music or browse fan art to make myself feel less hyperventilation-y. Hopefully the fact that I gave myself the shivers will somehow translate into you guys getting the shivers.
BONUS QUESTION: That last bit is in Russian. According to Google translate it means 'the sights of hell draw its viewers back in.' (But we all know how stupid google translate is, so if it means something entirely different I apologize.) This is, in fact, a reference to something. Anyone know what?
BONUS QUESTION 2: I never used any descriptors for The Girl with the Eyes' face. Call it a little psychological experiment. I'd like to know what you think she looked like, if you formed a mental image of her. Drop it in a review. c:
Sooo…yeah. Again, apologies to those whose reviews I didn't respond to. I'll do a better job next time, I promise! Let me know if I managed to scare you! Please? It'd really help me out. C:
See y'all next time! ~Mountain97)