Chapter IV: My Favourite Obsession


AN:

Hey there, Fan-fic-folks!

Had a weird burst of inspiration to finish this one. I've realised the first few chapters were in present tense and the stuff I've done here is in past tense, so I've gone back and tidied that up. Plot is basically the same though.

Thanks for reading and, as always, please review.


"So, you're an art kid too, huh?" I asked him, only half listening as I poked at the weird twisty puzzle lock on this door. Fun little thing, it was kind of like those weird wooden puzzles my dad liked. All push and pull and twist and jab.

"Uh, yeah." Nathan responded, sounding utterly baffled at the thought of talking about himself to someone. "Photography. Not that anyone but my sister cared."

"Oh, cool." I was used to conversational weird. I'd been friends with Maxie for over ten years now, so... yeah. Awkward was my thing. "Maxie back there is a photographer too. Right Maxie?"

"Yeah!" Max beamed out her enthusiasm. "Chloe's dad helped me get into it. He has this amazing polaroid camera. What kind of photos do you take?"

"I always liked monochrome." The guy offered. Still baffled, but slightly more comfortable with the topic. Damn I'm good.

"OOoh," Max ooohed. "Chiarascuro. Nice."

And with that, the two of them were off, talking at a mile a minute. I guess Nathan was as much of a mega-nerd as Max about this stuff. Honestly, it made my job a lot easier, because this door was not as easy as it had fucking looked. I kind of had to move that bit at the same time as that bit, and- Oh. Nevermind. Easy peasy.

The door swung open.

"Right, sorry to interrupt Artist Corner, but we gotta get moving."

We headed into the next room, only to find a sports hall filled with projector screens. All of them were on, showing text conversations, IM logs, a couple of website reviews, and a bunch of other stuff I didn't recognise.

I walked up to one of the screens and the image sort of coalesced into words. "Jefferson's a creep. Leather-bound chicks tied up and unconscious? Definitely something fucked up about that dude." I looked back at them. "Marked deleted." I paused. "No pun intended."

They both looked blankly at me. "Marked? Like Mark Jefferson?"

They both rolled their eyes. Which, y'know. Fair. But I didn't intend the pun.

The next was a news article - "Outlet attacking Jefferson in time of grief shuts down!" Huh. Oddly happy about a fellow news place getting shut down. "Reporters accusing Mark Jefferson (37) of murdering his missing wife have come under the watchful eye of Jefferson's ever-present legal representation. We reached out for comment: 'Mark is going through an emotional time, as I'm sure you understand. Speculate all you wish, we'd never block genuine and moral press from doing their jobs, but when you cross the line to libel like the New York Star did, then we will do our own jobs and defend Mark from unfounded attacks."

I shook my head. "Some quality journalism at the New York Star. Guess they saw what nobody fuckin' else did, and Markiepants kicked 'em for it."

"Markiepants?"

I shrugged. "Doesn't it have a good ring to it?"

The silence was a pretty clear response. No genius is appreciated in their time. I moved on to the next one.

It was a transcript: A fight, between Jefferson and his wife. The guy was cursing her out, and she was fighting back. Girl got him good. Frankly, I noted down more than a few of her insults for later use. But we know what happened to her, so short-term victory, I guess. Still. She made him work for it. Strong woman.

Fuck. This kind of thing made me furious. Bullshit that it could still happen.

We kept on going.

I looked back at Max. She was a bit behind, scuffing her foot along the floor. Huh. I let Nathan stomp ahead to growl at another set of messages and fell back to pace beside her. "Hey. You okay? This shit can't be easy to hear."

Max was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that I wondered if she was gonna say anything. Then she shook her head. "I guess they say you should never meet your heroes. Or the creepy horror galleries full of all the evil things they've done, I guess." She sighed. "I can't remember if I said, but he was born in Arcadia Bay. The same hospital as us, too. And if he could-" Another deep breath. "Your dad got me really passionate about photography, turned into something I was really interested in doing. But Jefferson made me think I actually could do it. Like I could actually make it as a photographer." She let out the breath in a slow, wheezing sigh that drew even Nathan's attention, turning back to look at us from across the room. "It's hard to feel that way now, knowing all of... this."

"I mean... there is another way to take all this."

"What's that?"

"That if an evil douchebag like Jefferson can make it, imagine what you can do." I took hold of her shoulders and made her look properly at me. "You're kind, totally badass, hard-working, and you've got cool artist talent points dripping off you."

Nathan suddenly appeared, slinking out of the shadow of a projector that gave him an almost monochrome look himself, like he'd stepped out of Casablanca or one of those old films my mom liked so much. "Jefferson is a mass murdering shithead. The less thought you give that asshole, the better."

I pointed back at him. "See?"

The kid got it.

Max giggled. "Thanks, Chloe, Nathan. But I think I just need some time to get through it. And also to get out of here."

"Well, you heard the lady. You find a way out of here, Nathan?"

He pointed off into the distance, behind all the screens and messages. "Yeah, there's another room back there."

"Cool. Well, Maxie? You ready to blow this popsicle stand?" I offered her my hand.

She took it and off we went.


"It's like a Dark Room!" Max exclaimed, "Well. Aside from the Easels."

I studied them, and something jumped out at me from the pictures. Metaphorically. Important to make that distinction in here. "Is it just me or is there a theme here?"

Every picture on every easel or hanging was of the same few sets of trees. Couple of firs and some pine, I think. I'd definitely seen trees like this around Arcadia, either way. All of the pictures seemed to have been edited somehow, bits of colour and effect adding weird distortions to the trees.

"Jefferson always did have a hardon for the hardwoods."

We both ignored Nathan's joke.

I noticed a dab of that same photo development fluid again, this time marking a spot on the floor. "Hey, there's some more of that development crap here."

"Like, on the floor? Maybe it's a clue - go stand there." I looked over at Nathan and he just shrugged.

Fuck it, why not. I wandered over and stood in the spot, peering around to see if I could spot anything and- "Hey, if you tilt your head kinda here, it looks like there's something written in it."

Max hurried over, excitement all over her aspiring puzzle-master heart. Nathan was slower, and somehow satisfied. I guess he did call this one, so fair to the guy. "What does it say?"

"Uh... all that glisters is not gold."

Both of us frowned at that. "Isn't that Led Zeppelin?"

"It's Shakespeare." Nathan's voice was a quick bark, almost amused and irritated at the same time. "Merchant of Venice."

"Huh. Cool." Never took Led Zeppelin for plagiarists. Or did Shakespeare even have copyright? Isn't that a thing that runs out? "What's it mean?"

"That shit that looks pretty usually isn't as pretty underneath." He shrugged. "Pretty accurate quote for Jefferson. Not sure what it means for the room though. Probably a clue for the way out."

"Well... lets start with the obvious, I guess." Max said. "Is there anything gold about?"

"Uh..." I looked around, catching another glint of development fluid. Hell, maybe our horny invitee wanted to help us out again. I headed over and stood where it marked, looking around me for more clues. No gold, but there was a bunch of silver markings across a few of the trees. I bent myself around and tilted my head until it all lined up and- shit. That was an apple.

Something in me just went "Oooh, shiny!" like a fucking magpie and immediately reached out and grabbed it. I pulled it back and looked up again and it was like the silver had melted out of the trees. Little flecks of it were still there, but I'd pulled the apple out of the pictures.

I really should be used to this shit by now, but fuck if it wasn't still weird and mind-fucky.

"So, uh, I got an apple? Does that help?"

I stepped off the development fluid and through the treeline and we all found ourselves standing in front of that giant mouth back in the corridor - the one that had tried to eat me a couple times before we got to the creepy room with all the hanging bodies.

There was more development fluid on the wall above it now: FEED ME.

I looked at the apple, then at Max and Nathan, then at the mouth. Pretty clear message, right? "Fuck it."

I tossed the apple into the mouth.

The mouth suddenly made a loud, violent "mmm!" sound and licked its lips. I wasn't sure if it was more Rolling Stones or Rocky Horror, but it cleared its' throat like it was going to start singing, then groaned as it opened wide into a new door. The tongue unrolled like a red carpet.

Well.

That happened.

Nope. Still not used to it. Fuck this place is fucking weird.

"Should we..?"

"Probably. It might start singing, and as much as I liked Rocky Horror, this isn't really the time."

I grinned down at Max. I loved when we were in sync like that.

We stepped onto the tongue. "Oh my god that's fucking gross." I looked down at Max again and her face was crinkled up in disgust. Cutest thing I'd seen in a while.


The next room was full of weird multi-coloured photos of the Statue of Liberty. All of them were muttering to themselves, low excuses and explanations - "I only did it because-", "It's not my fault, I was just there", "It's not a big deal, you overreacted", "She deserved it", "She earned it", "What a disappointment", "Her corruption, her loss, her-"

I tuned out of the weird narcissistic statue pictures and back to the room. We pushed on and the whispers came with us, even as we walked past the statues muttering them. Like a light breeze that follows you along the beach. "What a fucked up room."

"Yep." Nathan drawled.

Max said nothing. She just pulled her jacket a little tighter around her as we walked on. The floor started to feel unstable, like- almost like sand? Sifting powder, shifting surfaces. But every time we felt like falling, the words would swoop down and pick us back up. Provide a platform, something stable to work with.

Finally, the sands and statues resolved into a plush red staircase, like something out of the fancy clubs I'd seen pictures of Mom and Dad going to when they were young. Deep brown woods - that fancy 'walnut' or 'mahogany' shit, whatever that actually is - and all the poles and bannisters were gold. The walls had mirrors on them and-

The moment we stepped on, the mirrors shattered. I got half a glance at me and Max and then it was just in pieces. I pulled her back and rolled her behind me, but none of the shards hit me either. And the moment they hit the stairs, they shattered again into- birds?

Seriously, this fucking place.

I let go of Max and step back. "You two okay?"

"Yep.", "Yes. I'm okay." Both of them answer.

We head up the stairs. No other way forward, and all the mirrors were gone anyway. At the top of the stairs, there was just a curtain. We stepped through and with a flash found ourselves in another vision.

We stepped into one of those fancy theatre balcony things, and took our seats. That's when I looked at the person with me, a pretty asian girl, all long and lean. Like a model. I quickly realised what that probably meant - I was the callous psychopath serial killer again. Why is it always me?

We both leaned into together and picked up some fancy fruity thing from the little table and snacked lightly. "It's been a lovely evening, Mark."

"It has. Thank you for doing this, Yui", I felt my face saying, "Since my wife went missing, things have been... rough. This has helped."

Yui smiled. "I'm glad to help, Mark. You've done so much for me, it's... I'm happy to do it. Honestly, I've been wanting to do this for a while."

"Oh?" Mark asked, polite interest. Yui didn't notice.

She leaned in, gently laid her hand on him. "You've done so much for me, and I've noticed you feeling more distant recently. I want to help you, like you've done for me."

"You don't owe me anything, Yui. You've been a pleasure to work with, both behind and in front of the camera. Like a... light in a dark room."

"You're pretty bright yourself, Mark." Her mouth curled in a way that sent something through me.

The pretty girl was flirting outrageously and Jefferson... allowed it? He wasn't directly flirting back, sure, but something in his tone or maybe just being in his head let me feel that he was just going with it. Didn't particularly feel anything for her, at the moment, but he'd allow the flirtation to sink his hooks in. Opportunity. That was the feeling.

We both turned to watch the show as a bunch of ballerinas fanned out onto the stage. Jefferson and Yui were quiet and companionable through it - with a little hesitation, Yui interlaced her fingers with Jefferson's and smiled as he accepted.

We watched the dancers spin and twirl and leap about the stage as classical music boomed. Probably to cover up all the tapping of people's shoes on the stage. I bet that was real loud without the band. Either way, it was certainly impressive. The show... wasn't bad, I guess. Some of the background sets looked like Bob Ross paintings, which was pretty cool, and the music was loud and impressive. I still didn't get why people liked this shit though.

After, Mark held Yui's hand while she got up and we went down to what I presume was backstage as one of the ballerinas gracefully charged up to him. She evaded several people with an almost instinctive-looking grace and then threw herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "Mark!"

"Nina! You were excellent, as always." Mark released her from the hug and the ballerina flushed as he leaned in to kiss her cheek. "This is Yui, one of my most talented students and models. Yui, this is Nina, I saw her talent on the stage several years ago and sponsored her ever since."

Nina, still flushed, leaned in and hugged Yui. "It's so nice to meet another of Mark's favoured investments. This man has an excellent eye, I have no doubts we'll be seeing great things from you, girl!"

"Thank you." Yui smiled prettily. "I like this one, Mark."

"I do as well." Mark smiled benevolently, winking at them both. They both smiled back.

Fuck this felt weirdly awkward. New people meeting always would be, I guess.

"Will you be joining us at the afterparty?" Nina asked.

"Afterparty?" Yui laughed, gesturing vaguely back to the stage. "If I'd just done all that for three hours straight, I'd just want to go home and curl up on my couch."

"No way," Nina responded, her eyes blown wide. "Dancing makes everything fire up, and I just need to get it all out, y'know what I mean?"

"I don't think I do," Yui allowed slowly, "But I might like to find out, if that's an invitation. Mark?"

"I do always enjoy your parties, Nina." He said simply, letting the two talk.

"Brilliant!" She smiled, and threw her arm over Yui's shoulder. "Then you're both more than welcome. What's your poison? Don't worry, we can provide anything you want."

The three started walking off into the corridors, and then there was a bright flash and the theatre was gone.