An Imago of Rust and Crimson (Worm crossover)
- Thread starter EarthScorpion
- Start date
And you have asked - repeatedly - by PM. Quite apart from throwing un-prompted suggestions at me, and trying to get me to use characters from a game which I have never played, and which I told you I had never played.Racheakt said:
Please don't play the victim. I do not have other people contacting me in the same way throwing unprompted ideas on PM, save from a certain kind of denizen of ff.net who doesn't even get a reply. You're the one who's asking repeatedly when I will update.
If you feel you are being singled out for my ire, yes, you are. Because no one else does it to the extent that you do. No one else for my other fics feels that the best possible thing they can do is start telling me how I should lead the plot and start telling me all about characters who I should totally use [1].
[1] Save for certain people in the Overlady thread... and, oh, look! A simple check of it will display the multiple occasions I have snapped at them, and how it's generally known in the thread that trying to "establish facts about the setting" or "trying to get Siesta in" is a no-go area.
Since I last updated Imago, I've gotten out two chapters of A Certain Droll Hivemind, a 10,000+ word chapter of A Green Sun Illuminates the Void, started work on planning the next three arcs of Overlady, produced over 4,000 words for an experimental original work for the "not usually seen in magical girl things" thread, spent a week putting most of my free time into grinding Invasion missions for Warframe, gotten about 700 words out of an Imago chapter and deleted them because they were as dull as dishwater [1]... oh, and done all the normal things I do as a beta-reader and co-writer for friends' things.Racheakt said:
What more do you fucking want? Me to bow and scrape and apologise for being terse because some person I don't even know has repeatedly, in a twoish-week period, asked when I'll update something, PMed and forum-posted unwanted suggestions, and is now resorting to a very unattractive passive-aggressive "I deserve respect" line of approach?
Hey, funny thing! If you've noticed that I may be treating you in a brusque manner, while I'm being rather more friendly with other people - why, it may not be fans in general which are producing that attitude. Something to think about, hmm?
[1] Oh, man, it's almost like one of the reasons I'm a good writer is that I'm willing to go "no, this chapter is terrible" and cut it and start again, and this for some reason produces delays in publication.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
We don 't know for sure what the cross is yet. It's likely Mage: The awakening, which is a pen and paper RPG from white wolf.enderverse said:
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
I kind of hope it is, if only because I really want to see ES' take on an Abyssal intrusion.Satori said:
TheSandman said:
Humor aside, I'm sure it will be epic if he does it. But probably not something to read before bed.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Not yet, as we haven't yet confirmed this is Awakening. We think it is from the hints we've gotten so far, but until we do we're not going to start trying to crack things that might not even show up in story.Alasnuyo said:
As it has already been mentioned multiple times we do not know it yet but the leading suspect is Mage the Awakening a role playing game published by white wolf.Cancelled for A said:
FalseDead
Consuming Fear
- Location
- Boatmurdered
The Very nature of sending people to that other world disqualifies Taylor from being a hero...Cancelled for A said:
Anti-hero for the win!
Or Kleptomaniac Murderhobo...
Whatever you wanna call it..
1.09
An Imago of Rust and Crimson
Chapter 1.09
The ceiling fan spun lazily, a faint whine in the cluttered office. Every free surface was stacked with folders and loose sheaths of paper, and the old dented filing cabinets were bulging. The curtains of the ground-floor office were wide open, letting in the grey wintery light. My psychiatrist was looking at me questioningly, his pen hovering over his notepad.
"Oh, that?" I winced, an expression which hurt in itself. I had to stop doing that. You would think I'd have learned that the scabs on my face didn't like being moved, but apparently not. "I just dozed off in the meditation. And… well, I told you already that I was having nightmares, so-" I shrugged, trying to not look too affected. "Yes."
My assigned psychiatrist, whose desk declared he was called Dr. Erwin Vanderburg, nodded. "Well, that's understandable," he said, carefully, making a note on the paper before him. He had a faint accent, which I couldn't recognise. "And, mmm, you would say this has been going on for less than two weeks?"
"Less than two. I wasn't having nightmares before, because the painkillers I was on meant I wasn't dreaming." I shrugged. "Or didn't remember it, which is just as good."
"Yes, you mentioned that earlier," he said. "Hmm. Well, at the moment, after only one meeting I'm not prepared to prescribe you medication. I try to deal with things without immediately resorting to it." He tapped one finger against his lip. "We'll see how you're doing tomorrow, and whether you're feeling any better about being here. If you're still very nervous, or are sick again, we might look towards a short course of a very mild sedative. Just to help you get over the initial acclimation period to the new environment, and to calm those nerves." He smiled at me. "After all, if you're being sick because of homesickness, you're going to be feeling pretty miserable, right?"
"I suppose so," I said, trying to sound – well, I didn't know what the best emotion to convey was. I didn't want to sound enthusiastic, because who on earth sounded enthusiastic in here, but sounding reluctant or annoyed would just have him thinking I wasn't being cooperative. As a result, it just ended up coming out in a flat monotone. That probably wasn't the best, but it was done.
"I'm here to help you, Taylor," he said. "I can understand that you don't necessarily want to open up to me, but it'll be easier for both of us if you don't clam up whenever I try to engage with you. I'm on your side, remember?"
Well, that was a not-too-veiled threat, I thought darkly. Who would say that unless they wanted to raise the prospect of what would happen if he was not on my side?
"After all," he added, "considering some of the behaviour in your report... I'm talking about the incident with the nurse here, so-"
"To be fair," I said, blushing slightly, "that wasn't deliberate. I was having a nightmare and when I got woken up, I thought that the nurse was part of the dream. I just tried to-" I cleared my throat, "uh, stop her dragging me back to the locker."
"Yes, Taylor," he said, with almost insulting patience, "but you also headbutted her while screaming incoherently."
"I didn't mean to!" I protested. "I said sorry afterwards!" It was very unfair. When you're waking up from a nightmare, you shouldn't be held responsible for what you do. Especially if – as had been the case – what I now knew to be the Other Place had been bleeding into my dreams and the waking world.
Of course, I couldn't admit that in public, so I was just having to take my lumps for something which really hadn't been my fault.
"And as long as it doesn't happen again, everything will be fine. Especially for all the people who aren't being headbutted," he said, smiling at the last remark. He made another note on the paper before him, and then rose. He offered me his hand, and I shook it, not entirely sure why.
"Well, it was very nice meeting you for the first time, Taylor," he said. "I hope we can get along and you'll feel more comfortable opening up to me later. I can tell that you don't want to be in here, and that's entirely understandable. There are worse places out there, but no one in their right mind would want to be in a psychiatric hospital."
I couldn't help but smile, and that produced a slightly wry grin from him. "That's the first smile I've got out of you all the session," he said. "Your sense of humour's a bit dark, isn't it?"
"I think you're better suited as a psychiatrist than a comedian," I told him.
"Touché. Well, uh…" he leaned back to check a calendar, "I'll have a schedule sent to your room for our meetings. I'm sorry, everything's a bit of a mess at the moment for the schedules due to one thing and another, but we should be able to hopefully meet at the same time each day. How does that sound?"
"Okay, I think," I said, adding, "Thank you."
"Well, okay then," he said, leading me to the door. "You're heading for lunch?"
"Yes," I said.
"Lucky you," he said. "I've got to prep some paperwork for a meeting this afternoon, so I'm eating at my desk. But some other time, we should have lunch together. Maybe you'll be able to relax better if I'm away from my desk and this more formal environment, yeah?"
'No', I didn't say. Having someone trying to be nice to me to get me to tell me things is the worst possible way to get me to trust them. Some of the other girls had been nicer to me before the winter break, which had surprised me a bit at the time because some of them had been in Madison's circle of friends. Now looking back, of course, it was clearly just something to get me to let my guard down. Maybe they'd been in on it too, or maybe one of the three had just asked them to do it as a favour.
"That might be nice," I said out loud.
It didn't matter. I would prefer that he didn't try to get friendly and we stayed purely professional, all things considered.
And because I had been a good girl throughout the entire chat and hadn't looked into the Other Place once – mostly because I didn't want to freak myself out and so get him suspicious – I looked back. Like Orpheus, I couldn't resist the urge to see what was behind me. Unlike Orpheus, of course, I wasn't rescuing my wife, and no one had actually told me not to look back with the threat of dire consequences. And also I wasn't a brilliant musician. So perhaps I wasn't much like him.
Regardless of my similarities or lack thereof to mythological figures, though, I risked a glance to see what the psychiatrist and his cramped office looked like in the Other Place.
Eight eyes blinked back at me above a fixed smiling face, and his six hands rested on the desk. Tendrils of pale silk bound him to his desk and hung from the ceiling. There were indistinct shapes wriggling in wrapped bundles, and I shuddered at the sight of them. I didn't know what they were, but they hovered at the edge of familiarity. Either way, I wanted out of the room, and I turned and wandered down the rusted corridors, headed for the cafeteria.
So, I thought, passing a morbidly obese woman whose flesh rippled and crawled, tiny hands and feet pressing against it from the inside. Let's look at what that might mean. Spider? Yes, certainly he's a spider in some way, if that represents something about him. A predator? Lazy, willing to wait and so do nothing? But he's trapped in his own webs in some way, I thought. That much seemed to be clear. Even if everything else wasn't.
I stepped around a patch of oil-black water, dripping down from the walls and ceiling. It looked deeper than it should have been. Was there a hole in the floor in the Other Place there? What would happen if I stepped in the puddle?
Urgh! Why couldn't my power tell me things in nice and simple ways? Why did it have to wrap things up in metaphor? I bet most Thinkers got to just know what their power told them, not have to piece it together from symbolism. I should start doing the crossword. It'd be training.
Still, it was a warning. I should be on by guard around him – preferably without letting him know that I didn't trust him. A spider-man couldn't be a good sign. Maybe I could see if I could talk to Hannah and see if another one would have any space to see me. But what if they were worse?
Why was I using it so much? I really couldn't say myself. There was a bit of me – and not a small bit, either – which really didn't want to see the horrible things I saw there. I didn't want to see the filth in the toilets, the strange black-red oil on my bed, or how there were all these monstrous renditions of the normal-looking people just an eye-blink away. And then there had been the thing in the meditation session. Could I make monsters from my own mind? It seemed like it. That should be enough to warn off any normal, reasonable person. But I kept on doing it.
It was probably because now I knew about the Other Place, it was always going to be there. At the back of my mind, I knew it existed, and closing my eyes to it wouldn't work. Everyone – apart from me and Kirsty, I wasn't sure what was going on with her – seemed to have a monster inside them. The world was always so close to being filthy and horrific. And certainly, that seemed to fit pretty well with what I'd found at school, and… well, my dad did have a temper. Which, I reminded myself, he tried to control. Even if the Other Place stripped people to their core, people could try to change themselves. They didn't need to act like the monsters the Other Place showed them as.
That was something, at least.
Maybe I should go stare at the butterflies in the cafeteria for a while. At least they were beautiful. And I could get some food there, I reminded myself, stomach grumbling. I had thrown up most of breakfast, after all.
I ate quickly. The macaroni-and-cheese was overcooked, but at least it was filling. I'm sure the sticky, stuffed feeling would go away in time. No one else sat at my table, so I was free to stare at the beautiful butterflies on the wall in the Other Place, ignoring the rainbow mist, the rust and the monsters around me. And at least in the Other Place, the macaroni was just grey and flavourless, which made it taste slightly more palatable. It certainly didn't have the too-strong aftertaste of the normal version.
Hmm. I made a mental node of that. Taste was another sense which was different for me when I was looking into the Other Place. Except I really couldn't just call it 'looking', could I? It covered touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell. It was a full sensory thing.
I was going to call it 'seeing', though, because there wasn't really a good word for 'all my senses experience it, but I'm not physically there'. It's not something the English language evolved to deal with.
Probably not any other languages, come to think of it.
Having eaten, I went back to my room. I had to think. I also had to be alone. Not just because I thought best without other people around me, being distracting, but also because I was going to see if I could do anything else with that strange not-me I had made during the meditation session. It probably wasn't a good idea to do that around other people. I didn't know what it had been going to do to Samantha, and until I knew what it was, I didn't want to find out. I had to find out what I could do and if I could control it. If freaky mind things were going to escape from me – I don't even know what I'd do. I'd have to tell people. It would be wrong otherwise. But until then, I wasn't going to breathe a word about it, and part of being not-crazy was not taking stupid risks.
Plus, the whole not 'freaking out in front of people and making them think I was crazy' thing was useful.
I can't say I didn't close the door behind me with a sigh of relief. I couldn't lock it, though, because the doors didn't have locks on the inside, and I couldn't even wedge something in the way because the door opened outwards. Not that I would have, of course. I was just innocently practicing the meditation. Just feeling a little homesick. No other reason. Certainly not experimenting with parahuman powers, no sir, not me.
Getting in the right frame of mind was hard. I couldn't sit on the bed, because the bed was where the probably-death reddish black oil was. But the bed was the only comfortable place to sit in the room, because there weren't any chairs. I tried perching on one of the counters, but that was no good. In the end, I wound up on the floor, sitting on one of my pillows.
But physical comfort was the least of my concerns. I had been relaxed, bored, even kind of curious when I had made that thing last time. Right now? I was on edge. I didn't want to see it again, but I did, and all the time I was worrying about what would happen if I managed. Matters were only made worse by the unpleasant full feeling I had sitting in my stomach from lunch.
I eventually turned on the television, flicking through the stations until I found some old timey radio station playing classical music. That would do to help me relax, I thought.
Turns out, classical music sounds really freaky when you're in the Other Place. Or at least this music did. Quite apart from the waves of static which pulsed through the speakers and the fact that the entire piece had both sped up in tempo and shifted to a minor key, the woman singing sounded on the edge of tears.
"Help me," she pleaded in between tracks. "I'm stuck in here."
I changed channels pretty quickly, to some boringly slow folk music that, while still afflicted by static, at least didn't have radio people begging to be let out.
Focus, Taylor, focus. Keep yourself together. And yes, perhaps later I would go through all the radio stations and see if mysterious radio people begging for aid was a common thing. If the Other Place showed something hidden about the world – well, that said something not very pleasant about the station or that track, or possibly the radio itself. But that would come later.
I just had to do what I'd done this morning again. I just had to try to change the Other Place, keeping an open mind. I'd started out not being able to control whether I saw the Other Place, and now I could. So I should be able to control if I made creatures or not. I had to learn control.
"Control," I whispered to myself, breathing in and out. My legs were going numb in this crossed position, but I wouldn't let myself think of that.
I exhaled, and a dark shape flowed out from my mouth and nose. I blinked, trying to clear watering eyes, and looked up into the face of a newly made monster.
The creature this time was different. It was more human than the last one, and bore more of a resemblance to me, but its expression was locked in a permanent rictus of terror. The figure wore a dirty red smock, stained with God only knew what. Its wounded, pale hands covered its eyes – no, I realised, the hands were fused with the flesh – and I could not shake the feeling that it was watching me with its wide-open, silently-screaming mouth.
It exhaled, and its breath smelt like the locker.
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. Why had I done this? My heart was beating like a drum in my ears and the warped, too-slow folk music was playing in the background. I tried to jump away from it, and realised too late that my legs were crossed. All I managed to do was fall over backwards, tumbling back onto the cold floor. Fear gripped every thought, an iron hand clenched around my gut. Mindlessly, I flailed back, scrabbling.
It smelt of the locker. It was going to eat me alive and then drag me back there. It was all because I'd been a fool and not told anyone and it was all my fault and I was going to die here except no I wouldn't die because there were worse things out there like the locker and the fear radiating off it was a palpable force and-
No.
"Stop," I whispered through dry lips. I willed it to stop. I imagined it bound up in chains, unable to move unless I permitted it to. If I had made it, I would control it. I had to. Otherwise it would take me back and I wouldn't let it.
Just for a moment, pain spiked from my fingers as if I'd just had a red-hot spike driven into each nail. This turned out to be not very metaphorical at all, because before my pain-greyed vision I saw ten glowing chains force their way out of my fingertips. Biting down on my lip, I tried my best not to scream. Hissing like freshly quenched steel, the chains wrapped around the eyeless figure, trussing it up tightly.
Despite the pain in my hands, I scrabbled backwards until my back collided with the wall. I gasped for air. The figure didn't move. Couldn't move, I realised, looking more closely. It was bound up in black iron, which seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. Iron which had come from my hands, I realised, staring down at my fingers. They looked inflamed, reddened, but they didn't look like they'd just been torn open.
Quickly, I flickered back to the normal way of looking at things. They were still bandaged there, and there didn't seem to be any fresh blood or other symptoms that red-hot chains had used them as an exit point. I also couldn't see the bound monster, which probably wasn't a good idea, so I returned to the Other Place.
Heart pounding, gasping for breath, I pulled myself to my feet. The creature was locked in place, bound by the living chains – which I was beginning to realise were the same order of thing as the creature – and so I could see it more clearly.
Now it was constrained, I could feel that not all of the fear I had been feeling had been my own. Or perhaps it had, but it had been fear I had put into making the creature. I had been scared of what my powers were going to do, scared of what I would do if I could do it again – or if I couldn't do it again – and so I had made something which caused fear. Yes. That made sense, and by the symbolic logic of the Other Place – well, it looked like me, but it was covering its eyes with its hands.
I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd made a monster from my own fear of my powers. Which meant that it would make people scared of my powers. Hmm. Or possibly scared of their own powers. I would need to-
No. I wouldn't check that. That would be a stupid thing to check. I'd find something much less alarming and traumatic to test that sort of thing. I'd rushed into this twice, and I'd only just worked out how to control the things. Maybe 'opening my mind' wasn't the way to get controllable creatures. And the chains had come from my fingers, the same fingers I'd torn open trying to claw out the caterpillars. Maybe they were a minion I'd made from that same feeling of 'I'm not going to lie down and give in'.
So. That meant I was a Thinker and a Master. Sensory things from the Other Place and the ability to make minion-constructs which I could now control. Hopefully. I tried thinking really hard about making the thing – Noeyes, I was going to call it Noeyes – walk over to the door. I was rather surprised when it did so, the chain-wrapped creature stumbling to where I wanted it to go.
Okay. That was kind of cool. I could control the things I made, at least once I'd… uh, got them under control. I didn't even have to give them explicit orders. I just had to think about it, and they'd do it. Just to make sure it wasn't premature to declare that I had the thing under control, I made it move around the room, and then for good measure, dance for me.
Noeyes wasn't very good at dancing. Maybe the heavy iron chains binding it had something to do with that.
Next step, I thought to myself, taking a deep breath. "Return," I whispered. Wait, was that the right phrasing? "Come back. Reabsorb. Stop existing. Get back in my head."
One of those commands worked – unless it was a matter of just wanting it gone – and so Noeyes came apart into a black tarry mist, which rushed into my lungs in a forced gasp. Strangely, it didn't taste of anything, but it left my lips and tongue feeling momentarily numb. It was like I'd just taken a large mouthful of ice cream, but without the cold or the ice cream – which as a simile could probably do with some work.
But that annoyance was lost beneath the glee I was feeling. Glee and relief. I wasn't a threat to other people. I didn't have to live my life worried that if I lost control, I might make a monster which I couldn't get rid of. I could try and find out if I could do something directly useful without having to worry that I might unleash something.
I looked around wildly, dismissing the Other Place so I could slump down on my bed without having to lie in the oil. The television was playing a cheerful bit of folk music in the background, and that just about matched my mood. I was still flooded with adrenaline from the fear and that combined with the glee felt amazing. I stuffed my forearm into my mouth, trying to muffle the sound of my giggling.
I sat bolt upright, swinging my legs off the bed, and almost reflexively opening my eyes to the Other Place.
What if I could affect things in the normal world? I'd need something which could – I looked around – yes, something which could pick up that book over there, and bring it to me. This time I'd make a creature which wouldn't need to be wrapped up in chains, which I would control from the offset. I closed my eyes, imagining the shape it would take. It would need hands, and it would probably fly because I didn't want to have to imagine legs, so I'd give it wings, and it's not like I needed to give it a real face or anything, because it would just have to go pick up a book. And it would come with the chains already around it, so it'd do what I said from the start. I gritted my teeth, focussed, and exhaled, feeling smoke escape from between my lips and from my nose.
I opened my eyes, and hovering before me in the Other Place was the thing I had visualised. I boggled slightly at the sight, because in my mind's eye it hadn't looked quite so – I reached for a word. Yes, 'freaky' would do. In retrospect, I wasn't sure why a creepy faceless china doll with rust-red butterfly wings and no legs had been a good idea. Still, it had hands, and I wouldn't have to imagine it walking, so perhaps it might work.
I'd get better with practice. And it wasn't like other people would see them, anyway. Fetch, I thought at the winged doll.
It tore itself apart in a cloud of bloody mist, reappeared by the book, and seized it in both hands. It lifted it up and flickered back to my position, depositing the book in my lap before dispersing.
Well. I had meant it to fly over, pick up the book, and carry it open. But, I thought, staring out the window of my Other room to the misty outside, I was totally fine with being able to make teleporting doll-things. That probably meant that if people couldn't see the Other Place, the book had just vanished and reappeared in my hands.
Considering what had actually moved the book, that was probably for the best.
But still! I had a power which wasn't just seeing horrible things! I could also make… um, horrible constructs! And – I grinned widely to myself – it seemed like I might be rather flexible in what I could make them do. I knew they could stir up emotions, as I'd been hit by fear from that one I'd wrapped in chains, and that they could also move physical objects. To someone who couldn't see them, those two powers would look totally unrelated. What else could I do? Sure, from what I'd read up on the classifications, I was a Master and a Thinker, but those were pretty broad categories. And when I had a better grasp on the range of things I could do…
My thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knock on my door.
Chapter 1.09
The ceiling fan spun lazily, a faint whine in the cluttered office. Every free surface was stacked with folders and loose sheaths of paper, and the old dented filing cabinets were bulging. The curtains of the ground-floor office were wide open, letting in the grey wintery light. My psychiatrist was looking at me questioningly, his pen hovering over his notepad.
"Oh, that?" I winced, an expression which hurt in itself. I had to stop doing that. You would think I'd have learned that the scabs on my face didn't like being moved, but apparently not. "I just dozed off in the meditation. And… well, I told you already that I was having nightmares, so-" I shrugged, trying to not look too affected. "Yes."
My assigned psychiatrist, whose desk declared he was called Dr. Erwin Vanderburg, nodded. "Well, that's understandable," he said, carefully, making a note on the paper before him. He had a faint accent, which I couldn't recognise. "And, mmm, you would say this has been going on for less than two weeks?"
"Less than two. I wasn't having nightmares before, because the painkillers I was on meant I wasn't dreaming." I shrugged. "Or didn't remember it, which is just as good."
"Yes, you mentioned that earlier," he said. "Hmm. Well, at the moment, after only one meeting I'm not prepared to prescribe you medication. I try to deal with things without immediately resorting to it." He tapped one finger against his lip. "We'll see how you're doing tomorrow, and whether you're feeling any better about being here. If you're still very nervous, or are sick again, we might look towards a short course of a very mild sedative. Just to help you get over the initial acclimation period to the new environment, and to calm those nerves." He smiled at me. "After all, if you're being sick because of homesickness, you're going to be feeling pretty miserable, right?"
"I suppose so," I said, trying to sound – well, I didn't know what the best emotion to convey was. I didn't want to sound enthusiastic, because who on earth sounded enthusiastic in here, but sounding reluctant or annoyed would just have him thinking I wasn't being cooperative. As a result, it just ended up coming out in a flat monotone. That probably wasn't the best, but it was done.
"I'm here to help you, Taylor," he said. "I can understand that you don't necessarily want to open up to me, but it'll be easier for both of us if you don't clam up whenever I try to engage with you. I'm on your side, remember?"
Well, that was a not-too-veiled threat, I thought darkly. Who would say that unless they wanted to raise the prospect of what would happen if he was not on my side?
"After all," he added, "considering some of the behaviour in your report... I'm talking about the incident with the nurse here, so-"
"To be fair," I said, blushing slightly, "that wasn't deliberate. I was having a nightmare and when I got woken up, I thought that the nurse was part of the dream. I just tried to-" I cleared my throat, "uh, stop her dragging me back to the locker."
"Yes, Taylor," he said, with almost insulting patience, "but you also headbutted her while screaming incoherently."
"I didn't mean to!" I protested. "I said sorry afterwards!" It was very unfair. When you're waking up from a nightmare, you shouldn't be held responsible for what you do. Especially if – as had been the case – what I now knew to be the Other Place had been bleeding into my dreams and the waking world.
Of course, I couldn't admit that in public, so I was just having to take my lumps for something which really hadn't been my fault.
"And as long as it doesn't happen again, everything will be fine. Especially for all the people who aren't being headbutted," he said, smiling at the last remark. He made another note on the paper before him, and then rose. He offered me his hand, and I shook it, not entirely sure why.
"Well, it was very nice meeting you for the first time, Taylor," he said. "I hope we can get along and you'll feel more comfortable opening up to me later. I can tell that you don't want to be in here, and that's entirely understandable. There are worse places out there, but no one in their right mind would want to be in a psychiatric hospital."
I couldn't help but smile, and that produced a slightly wry grin from him. "That's the first smile I've got out of you all the session," he said. "Your sense of humour's a bit dark, isn't it?"
"I think you're better suited as a psychiatrist than a comedian," I told him.
"Touché. Well, uh…" he leaned back to check a calendar, "I'll have a schedule sent to your room for our meetings. I'm sorry, everything's a bit of a mess at the moment for the schedules due to one thing and another, but we should be able to hopefully meet at the same time each day. How does that sound?"
"Okay, I think," I said, adding, "Thank you."
"Well, okay then," he said, leading me to the door. "You're heading for lunch?"
"Yes," I said.
"Lucky you," he said. "I've got to prep some paperwork for a meeting this afternoon, so I'm eating at my desk. But some other time, we should have lunch together. Maybe you'll be able to relax better if I'm away from my desk and this more formal environment, yeah?"
'No', I didn't say. Having someone trying to be nice to me to get me to tell me things is the worst possible way to get me to trust them. Some of the other girls had been nicer to me before the winter break, which had surprised me a bit at the time because some of them had been in Madison's circle of friends. Now looking back, of course, it was clearly just something to get me to let my guard down. Maybe they'd been in on it too, or maybe one of the three had just asked them to do it as a favour.
"That might be nice," I said out loud.
It didn't matter. I would prefer that he didn't try to get friendly and we stayed purely professional, all things considered.
And because I had been a good girl throughout the entire chat and hadn't looked into the Other Place once – mostly because I didn't want to freak myself out and so get him suspicious – I looked back. Like Orpheus, I couldn't resist the urge to see what was behind me. Unlike Orpheus, of course, I wasn't rescuing my wife, and no one had actually told me not to look back with the threat of dire consequences. And also I wasn't a brilliant musician. So perhaps I wasn't much like him.
Regardless of my similarities or lack thereof to mythological figures, though, I risked a glance to see what the psychiatrist and his cramped office looked like in the Other Place.
Eight eyes blinked back at me above a fixed smiling face, and his six hands rested on the desk. Tendrils of pale silk bound him to his desk and hung from the ceiling. There were indistinct shapes wriggling in wrapped bundles, and I shuddered at the sight of them. I didn't know what they were, but they hovered at the edge of familiarity. Either way, I wanted out of the room, and I turned and wandered down the rusted corridors, headed for the cafeteria.
So, I thought, passing a morbidly obese woman whose flesh rippled and crawled, tiny hands and feet pressing against it from the inside. Let's look at what that might mean. Spider? Yes, certainly he's a spider in some way, if that represents something about him. A predator? Lazy, willing to wait and so do nothing? But he's trapped in his own webs in some way, I thought. That much seemed to be clear. Even if everything else wasn't.
I stepped around a patch of oil-black water, dripping down from the walls and ceiling. It looked deeper than it should have been. Was there a hole in the floor in the Other Place there? What would happen if I stepped in the puddle?
Urgh! Why couldn't my power tell me things in nice and simple ways? Why did it have to wrap things up in metaphor? I bet most Thinkers got to just know what their power told them, not have to piece it together from symbolism. I should start doing the crossword. It'd be training.
Still, it was a warning. I should be on by guard around him – preferably without letting him know that I didn't trust him. A spider-man couldn't be a good sign. Maybe I could see if I could talk to Hannah and see if another one would have any space to see me. But what if they were worse?
Why was I using it so much? I really couldn't say myself. There was a bit of me – and not a small bit, either – which really didn't want to see the horrible things I saw there. I didn't want to see the filth in the toilets, the strange black-red oil on my bed, or how there were all these monstrous renditions of the normal-looking people just an eye-blink away. And then there had been the thing in the meditation session. Could I make monsters from my own mind? It seemed like it. That should be enough to warn off any normal, reasonable person. But I kept on doing it.
It was probably because now I knew about the Other Place, it was always going to be there. At the back of my mind, I knew it existed, and closing my eyes to it wouldn't work. Everyone – apart from me and Kirsty, I wasn't sure what was going on with her – seemed to have a monster inside them. The world was always so close to being filthy and horrific. And certainly, that seemed to fit pretty well with what I'd found at school, and… well, my dad did have a temper. Which, I reminded myself, he tried to control. Even if the Other Place stripped people to their core, people could try to change themselves. They didn't need to act like the monsters the Other Place showed them as.
That was something, at least.
Maybe I should go stare at the butterflies in the cafeteria for a while. At least they were beautiful. And I could get some food there, I reminded myself, stomach grumbling. I had thrown up most of breakfast, after all.
I ate quickly. The macaroni-and-cheese was overcooked, but at least it was filling. I'm sure the sticky, stuffed feeling would go away in time. No one else sat at my table, so I was free to stare at the beautiful butterflies on the wall in the Other Place, ignoring the rainbow mist, the rust and the monsters around me. And at least in the Other Place, the macaroni was just grey and flavourless, which made it taste slightly more palatable. It certainly didn't have the too-strong aftertaste of the normal version.
Hmm. I made a mental node of that. Taste was another sense which was different for me when I was looking into the Other Place. Except I really couldn't just call it 'looking', could I? It covered touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell. It was a full sensory thing.
I was going to call it 'seeing', though, because there wasn't really a good word for 'all my senses experience it, but I'm not physically there'. It's not something the English language evolved to deal with.
Probably not any other languages, come to think of it.
Having eaten, I went back to my room. I had to think. I also had to be alone. Not just because I thought best without other people around me, being distracting, but also because I was going to see if I could do anything else with that strange not-me I had made during the meditation session. It probably wasn't a good idea to do that around other people. I didn't know what it had been going to do to Samantha, and until I knew what it was, I didn't want to find out. I had to find out what I could do and if I could control it. If freaky mind things were going to escape from me – I don't even know what I'd do. I'd have to tell people. It would be wrong otherwise. But until then, I wasn't going to breathe a word about it, and part of being not-crazy was not taking stupid risks.
Plus, the whole not 'freaking out in front of people and making them think I was crazy' thing was useful.
I can't say I didn't close the door behind me with a sigh of relief. I couldn't lock it, though, because the doors didn't have locks on the inside, and I couldn't even wedge something in the way because the door opened outwards. Not that I would have, of course. I was just innocently practicing the meditation. Just feeling a little homesick. No other reason. Certainly not experimenting with parahuman powers, no sir, not me.
Getting in the right frame of mind was hard. I couldn't sit on the bed, because the bed was where the probably-death reddish black oil was. But the bed was the only comfortable place to sit in the room, because there weren't any chairs. I tried perching on one of the counters, but that was no good. In the end, I wound up on the floor, sitting on one of my pillows.
But physical comfort was the least of my concerns. I had been relaxed, bored, even kind of curious when I had made that thing last time. Right now? I was on edge. I didn't want to see it again, but I did, and all the time I was worrying about what would happen if I managed. Matters were only made worse by the unpleasant full feeling I had sitting in my stomach from lunch.
I eventually turned on the television, flicking through the stations until I found some old timey radio station playing classical music. That would do to help me relax, I thought.
Turns out, classical music sounds really freaky when you're in the Other Place. Or at least this music did. Quite apart from the waves of static which pulsed through the speakers and the fact that the entire piece had both sped up in tempo and shifted to a minor key, the woman singing sounded on the edge of tears.
"Help me," she pleaded in between tracks. "I'm stuck in here."
I changed channels pretty quickly, to some boringly slow folk music that, while still afflicted by static, at least didn't have radio people begging to be let out.
Focus, Taylor, focus. Keep yourself together. And yes, perhaps later I would go through all the radio stations and see if mysterious radio people begging for aid was a common thing. If the Other Place showed something hidden about the world – well, that said something not very pleasant about the station or that track, or possibly the radio itself. But that would come later.
I just had to do what I'd done this morning again. I just had to try to change the Other Place, keeping an open mind. I'd started out not being able to control whether I saw the Other Place, and now I could. So I should be able to control if I made creatures or not. I had to learn control.
"Control," I whispered to myself, breathing in and out. My legs were going numb in this crossed position, but I wouldn't let myself think of that.
I exhaled, and a dark shape flowed out from my mouth and nose. I blinked, trying to clear watering eyes, and looked up into the face of a newly made monster.
The creature this time was different. It was more human than the last one, and bore more of a resemblance to me, but its expression was locked in a permanent rictus of terror. The figure wore a dirty red smock, stained with God only knew what. Its wounded, pale hands covered its eyes – no, I realised, the hands were fused with the flesh – and I could not shake the feeling that it was watching me with its wide-open, silently-screaming mouth.
It exhaled, and its breath smelt like the locker.
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. Why had I done this? My heart was beating like a drum in my ears and the warped, too-slow folk music was playing in the background. I tried to jump away from it, and realised too late that my legs were crossed. All I managed to do was fall over backwards, tumbling back onto the cold floor. Fear gripped every thought, an iron hand clenched around my gut. Mindlessly, I flailed back, scrabbling.
It smelt of the locker. It was going to eat me alive and then drag me back there. It was all because I'd been a fool and not told anyone and it was all my fault and I was going to die here except no I wouldn't die because there were worse things out there like the locker and the fear radiating off it was a palpable force and-
No.
"Stop," I whispered through dry lips. I willed it to stop. I imagined it bound up in chains, unable to move unless I permitted it to. If I had made it, I would control it. I had to. Otherwise it would take me back and I wouldn't let it.
Just for a moment, pain spiked from my fingers as if I'd just had a red-hot spike driven into each nail. This turned out to be not very metaphorical at all, because before my pain-greyed vision I saw ten glowing chains force their way out of my fingertips. Biting down on my lip, I tried my best not to scream. Hissing like freshly quenched steel, the chains wrapped around the eyeless figure, trussing it up tightly.
Despite the pain in my hands, I scrabbled backwards until my back collided with the wall. I gasped for air. The figure didn't move. Couldn't move, I realised, looking more closely. It was bound up in black iron, which seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. Iron which had come from my hands, I realised, staring down at my fingers. They looked inflamed, reddened, but they didn't look like they'd just been torn open.
Quickly, I flickered back to the normal way of looking at things. They were still bandaged there, and there didn't seem to be any fresh blood or other symptoms that red-hot chains had used them as an exit point. I also couldn't see the bound monster, which probably wasn't a good idea, so I returned to the Other Place.
Heart pounding, gasping for breath, I pulled myself to my feet. The creature was locked in place, bound by the living chains – which I was beginning to realise were the same order of thing as the creature – and so I could see it more clearly.
Now it was constrained, I could feel that not all of the fear I had been feeling had been my own. Or perhaps it had, but it had been fear I had put into making the creature. I had been scared of what my powers were going to do, scared of what I would do if I could do it again – or if I couldn't do it again – and so I had made something which caused fear. Yes. That made sense, and by the symbolic logic of the Other Place – well, it looked like me, but it was covering its eyes with its hands.
I had a sneaking suspicion that I'd made a monster from my own fear of my powers. Which meant that it would make people scared of my powers. Hmm. Or possibly scared of their own powers. I would need to-
No. I wouldn't check that. That would be a stupid thing to check. I'd find something much less alarming and traumatic to test that sort of thing. I'd rushed into this twice, and I'd only just worked out how to control the things. Maybe 'opening my mind' wasn't the way to get controllable creatures. And the chains had come from my fingers, the same fingers I'd torn open trying to claw out the caterpillars. Maybe they were a minion I'd made from that same feeling of 'I'm not going to lie down and give in'.
So. That meant I was a Thinker and a Master. Sensory things from the Other Place and the ability to make minion-constructs which I could now control. Hopefully. I tried thinking really hard about making the thing – Noeyes, I was going to call it Noeyes – walk over to the door. I was rather surprised when it did so, the chain-wrapped creature stumbling to where I wanted it to go.
Okay. That was kind of cool. I could control the things I made, at least once I'd… uh, got them under control. I didn't even have to give them explicit orders. I just had to think about it, and they'd do it. Just to make sure it wasn't premature to declare that I had the thing under control, I made it move around the room, and then for good measure, dance for me.
Noeyes wasn't very good at dancing. Maybe the heavy iron chains binding it had something to do with that.
Next step, I thought to myself, taking a deep breath. "Return," I whispered. Wait, was that the right phrasing? "Come back. Reabsorb. Stop existing. Get back in my head."
One of those commands worked – unless it was a matter of just wanting it gone – and so Noeyes came apart into a black tarry mist, which rushed into my lungs in a forced gasp. Strangely, it didn't taste of anything, but it left my lips and tongue feeling momentarily numb. It was like I'd just taken a large mouthful of ice cream, but without the cold or the ice cream – which as a simile could probably do with some work.
But that annoyance was lost beneath the glee I was feeling. Glee and relief. I wasn't a threat to other people. I didn't have to live my life worried that if I lost control, I might make a monster which I couldn't get rid of. I could try and find out if I could do something directly useful without having to worry that I might unleash something.
I looked around wildly, dismissing the Other Place so I could slump down on my bed without having to lie in the oil. The television was playing a cheerful bit of folk music in the background, and that just about matched my mood. I was still flooded with adrenaline from the fear and that combined with the glee felt amazing. I stuffed my forearm into my mouth, trying to muffle the sound of my giggling.
I sat bolt upright, swinging my legs off the bed, and almost reflexively opening my eyes to the Other Place.
What if I could affect things in the normal world? I'd need something which could – I looked around – yes, something which could pick up that book over there, and bring it to me. This time I'd make a creature which wouldn't need to be wrapped up in chains, which I would control from the offset. I closed my eyes, imagining the shape it would take. It would need hands, and it would probably fly because I didn't want to have to imagine legs, so I'd give it wings, and it's not like I needed to give it a real face or anything, because it would just have to go pick up a book. And it would come with the chains already around it, so it'd do what I said from the start. I gritted my teeth, focussed, and exhaled, feeling smoke escape from between my lips and from my nose.
I opened my eyes, and hovering before me in the Other Place was the thing I had visualised. I boggled slightly at the sight, because in my mind's eye it hadn't looked quite so – I reached for a word. Yes, 'freaky' would do. In retrospect, I wasn't sure why a creepy faceless china doll with rust-red butterfly wings and no legs had been a good idea. Still, it had hands, and I wouldn't have to imagine it walking, so perhaps it might work.
I'd get better with practice. And it wasn't like other people would see them, anyway. Fetch, I thought at the winged doll.
It tore itself apart in a cloud of bloody mist, reappeared by the book, and seized it in both hands. It lifted it up and flickered back to my position, depositing the book in my lap before dispersing.
Well. I had meant it to fly over, pick up the book, and carry it open. But, I thought, staring out the window of my Other room to the misty outside, I was totally fine with being able to make teleporting doll-things. That probably meant that if people couldn't see the Other Place, the book had just vanished and reappeared in my hands.
Considering what had actually moved the book, that was probably for the best.
But still! I had a power which wasn't just seeing horrible things! I could also make… um, horrible constructs! And – I grinned widely to myself – it seemed like I might be rather flexible in what I could make them do. I knew they could stir up emotions, as I'd been hit by fear from that one I'd wrapped in chains, and that they could also move physical objects. To someone who couldn't see them, those two powers would look totally unrelated. What else could I do? Sure, from what I'd read up on the classifications, I was a Master and a Thinker, but those were pretty broad categories. And when I had a better grasp on the range of things I could do…
My thoughts were interrupted by a sharp knock on my door.
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Ah the joys of video surveillance.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
I still have no idea what crossover this is, but it's getting weirder by the update.
I wonder, are the rooms monitored? It makes sense if they are (prevent suicides, another way to monitor mental health, etc), but constant monitoring is a serious invasion of privacy, and I know barely anything about how asylums work so for all I know either one could be the case (the knock on the door obviously easily could indicate someone looking in because she's displayed powers on camera, but that's not guaranteed to be the case- it's possible it's just a red herring from EarthScorpion/coincidence). But if they are monitored... Taylor, you've just outed yourself.
I wonder, are the rooms monitored? It makes sense if they are (prevent suicides, another way to monitor mental health, etc), but constant monitoring is a serious invasion of privacy, and I know barely anything about how asylums work so for all I know either one could be the case (the knock on the door obviously easily could indicate someone looking in because she's displayed powers on camera, but that's not guaranteed to be the case- it's possible it's just a red herring from EarthScorpion/coincidence). But if they are monitored... Taylor, you've just outed yourself.
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
That's a good point. It could also be related to Taylor's panicked scrabbling away from the invisible (to everyone except her) apparition- a non-negligible amount of time has passed since that happened, and it's exactly the sort of thing that would make people watching concerned. Add in the talking to herself and giggling afterwards, and someone could easily be coming to check in on her because of that.uju32 said:
Olive
Silent Princess
"Hmm, she's just freaking out, twitching a bit. Nothing majo- Goddamit. Send some orderlies."chrnno said:
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I would note that if there was a camera in the room, given that she can see the fact that someone has died in her bed, the odds are at the very least "decent" that she would see a giant unblinking eye in one corner of the room and have to clamp down on freaking the hell out about it.
Well, do you want to bare your innermost concerns and feelings to the sinister, smiling spider-person whose relationship with his patients is implied to be parasitic? No? Truly shocking.Larekko12 said:
- Location
- Little Rock, AR
You say that like that something she knew before the meeting or even during it.Orm Embar said:
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Eh, if she did, she'd probably still be better off than bottling it all up inside. I mean, we all saw how well that worked out for her in canon.Orm Embar said:
Ironically, this version of Taylor is probably already more mentally healthy than canon taylor. She seems much less suicidal.
Truly, EarthScorpion is a Healing-type writer.
He wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for his patients, that's all. All the flies are alive, which is a good sign, and he's as stuck in his job as his patients are stuck with him. For an Other Place vision, that one is practically benign.Orm Embar said:
Lexica
Persevere
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't know, I wouldn't call that time wasted I don't think. It would certainly be interesting to see both what Taylor thinks is going on through the lens of insanity as well as what is actually going on.Cancelled for A said:
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
I read the radio as playing a singer who hates her job. I don't remember how Canary felt about her job before her accident, if it was even mentioned in her interlude.enderverse said: