Causality without Counterfactuals: Finale
The bitter conclusion.
Back. Back in the globe, alone and cold and dying. This time his nightmares were empty. White walls, white walls all around and wanting to hold him in. Familiar.
It was back. But now there were no tricks, no disguises. It wanted him. Wanted his body. Wanted to merge, become one. Dmitri wanted to resist. But the static… it had become welcoming - it’s constant irate buzzing now an eerily serene hum, a sound the young man felt deep in his bones. It warmed him where he was once cold, warmed with something quiet and… enraged.
Ascend.
He felt so broken, so empty inside. And It was the first being in what felt like years (perhaps it had been years) to welcome him in such a way, to make him feel human again. No not human. Something else.
It promised him things. To hurt all who had hurt him, to protect him, to free him. Free as a bird.
So, after resisting for so long, fighting its whispers, trying to scratch it out from under his skin in the dark of night - he said yes.
AWAKENED.
ASCENSION.
He was awake now and they knew it, staring at him like deer in the headlights and he smiled. A jagged and horrible smile and then he burst free from the globe. He was in absolute agony but It gave him strength, kept him moving- It and the rage.
They shot him, the guards did, and Dmitri relished in the looks on their faces when they realized it did nothing- right before they were splattered onto the walls. The scientists were next, the puppeteers that had been manipulating his terror for what seemed an eternity. Then the engineers, who had kept every cog in this fucking nightmare machine going. All of their screams, all of the blood - every drop spilled - made him hunger for more.
Not just by my hand, Dmitri realized, I was not the only one wronged.
That’s when the lights began to flicker, when the entire security system in Mt. Massive Asylum went absolutely haywire. When the doors opened.
All of them.
The flock was free.
Dmitri smiled to hear the symphony from upstairs, composed in blood and guts and screams, an undercurrent of the hum of static, and realized he had those whom he wanted saved for himself.
He took his time searching the corridors. No one was leaving, after all. The asylum was on maximum security protocol, complete and utter lockdown. Dmitri was once one of them, he knew Jeremy Blaire would doom himself to preserve the company.
What a colossal prick.
A flash of white caught his eye and he recognized a familiar face running down the hallway.
“Andrew!” Dmitri called out after the scientist, who was hauling ass down the long stretched of corridor. "Been a while, hasn’t it? You don’t look so good, but that’s what I’m here for. To make you feel better."
He parroted those words from that first encounter in his cell, sounding eerily similar to the man sprinting away from him- like an echo, having bounced here and there and had finally returned to haunt.
Dmitri was on him in an instant, gently clasping his shoulders to whirl him around.
"Don’t you worry", he whispered, softly grasping him by the jaw so that he was looking him in the eye, "You’re going to be alright."
Complete and utter bedlam. They'd sent Tacs, the best available, in order to contain the damage, and they'd failed horribly. Now corpses lined the stained hallways, every corridor was coated in blood and decorated in guts.
The Variants had gotten out, all at once, a complete security breach that nobody could explain.
Correction: That nobody dared to explain. Nobody wanted to acknowledge just how far they had gone, and now that they were here, the consequences were beyond any human ability to deal with.
Most had left, or shot themselves. Others had been torn apart. Nobody had made it off the premises alive, and nobody was going to.
Andrew didn't care much about anyone's survival or well-being but his own, and right now this ignorance had become an unmatched survival skill. He'd stabbed a few guards, shot some more, and now he was chasing the fuck away from whatever the hell was coming after him.
He could care less about the lunatics running free, the majority was too fucked in the head to calculate a proper defense, and soon enough most were down. Andrew had rid himself of his suit and now sported a stained onesie, only the focused and non-drugged eyes and the strong grip around the gun he'd stolen seperated him from the patients.
Too slow.
He was grabbed by an inhuman force, lifted up against the wall, and if the voice - his own, contorted voice rasping back at him - hadn't convinced him of what he'd feared all along, the face did.
Black eyes, thick, tar-like liquid pouring from the crimson sockets and nostrils, dripping off the entity's lips and chin as he spoke.
No, not liquid. Nanites. A steady flow of pure energy, held in its moldable form by static, and the thing's will.
"Let me go!" The former orderly whimpered, viciously struggling in the tightening grip.
The noise Dmitri made next could only be described as a purr of sorts, but distorted and scraping like shattered glass. His hands, clutching Andrew like a vice, lessened in strength and he brought one up to cup the terrified man's cheeks.
"Don't recognize me, Andy?" He rasped, "Hurts."
Looking at Andrew now, the man who had beat him, cut him, touched him, he looked so fragile. With his eyes large and shiny, mouth agape like a fish plucked from the water and gasping for air. So mortal. Pathetic.
"You know..." Dmitri murmured, finger tapping against the other's sternum before it slid down. "I was lookin' for Blaire."
Baring his teeth in a sinister grin, Dmitri drug his claw down Andrew's torso, slicing clean through his jumpsuit, through the soft flesh underneath. Red ran down his body and it was beautiful.
"But you'll do, sweetheart." He echoed before he ripped into the mortal man's stomach with a vicious shove. "You're fine."
*************************
He kept wandering, sifting through the nightmares until he found the right dream- alone, rich and utterly alone. Betrayal, my fault. All my fault, Rick.
He followed it like a hound on the scent and soon he came upon its epicenter.
Jeremy Blaire sat on the grimey, bloody floor, holding tight to a limp corpse. A corpse that looked rather familiar.
Dmitri didn't say a word, but he knew Jeremy heard the static.
They all did.
Jeremy Blaire was a shaking figure hunched over the crumbled mess of a broken human being. His near soundless sobs echoed through the otherwise quiet floors, his shoulders trembling with every breath he took. He didn't move when he heard the hissing swarm approach, nor did he raise his head.
The CEO knew he was as dead as his former colleague, and his agony, so much heavier and more excruciating now, outweighed any possible future torture. Currently, he was wrapping a blood-stained shirt he'd stolen around the wiry skinless shoulders, meticulously buttoning it up.
He removed Rick's self-made monocle and slid a hand into his suit pocket, withdrawing a pair of glasses which he placed over the mangled features. With another sharp intake of air, Jeremy unfolded a pair of grey slacks, at this point at least two sizes too large for its past owner, and carefully put them on Rick, tossing away the make-shift apron.
"That's sufficient." He muttered. "It has to be. Maybe take it in a little at the sides, you wiry bastard." He chuckled, patting the corpse's motionless chest.
"Didn't bring any shoes." He went on a little more stable now and he shifted to sit Rick back against the wall, taking a seat next to him. "Not that you ever were a fan of those."
He didn't get an answer, but the cold gnarly hand slipped off of the dead executive's thigh, so he took it in his.
"I would have brought the rings, but I had no clue how quickly this place would go to hell." Jeremy explained, smiling warmly as his bright eyes met the dull lifeless one. "I know! I know, I promised, but they...well, you know how they are. Not letting a tiny piece of platinum through the scanners. I..."
His breath hitched, and tears poured down his face once more. "I - I got them at home, babe. I got them still. I... ah, fuck, I have yours too. I swear to God I would have brought them both, my love."
When the blue eyes closed, shaded by the free hand that wasn't clutching the other man's, he felt the entity coming closer and closer, not addressing him yet. Maybe he was too pitiful, maybe he wasn't worth the Walrider's strength.
"I'm sorry, Rick." Jeremy whispered as he fumbled with the gun he'd unearthed from his belt. "We could've made it, and I - I knew that. I knew it before you - and I didn't do shit. I'm so sorry."
Dmitri observed the pathetic display, watching the man responsible for what he had become cry over an empty shell. He couldn't help but smile. It gave him a sickeningly sweet sense of satisfaction.
That's right. The fucker's dead and you'll join him in hell soon.
"Oh how tragic..." He whispered, gliding closer, "I must have been in here longer than I thought."
He stood directly behind the now oh-so little man, reaching down to brush the gently back of his dark blue Armani suit with his claws.
"Last time I remember, Richard was wearing one of these."
He chuckled then. "And his skin."
"Shut the fuck up! " Jeremy roared, glaring up at the ghost with blood-shot eyes. Like that bastard had any fucking clue what he'd gone through during the past few months, what he'd forced upon himself. What he'd done, to him, and to the only person he'd ever loved.
"Should have just...fucking cut your throat, Meyer."
Jeremy was insane with grief, he was unable to fathom the pain awaiting him. Maybe he didn't care anymore, but his nerves just now started cursing him for his foolishness.
"Go ahead and do it before I do it myself!" He spat, trying - without success - to shake the nanite-formed hand off his shoulder.
"Come on, you coward. Even as a God you're a ridiculous excuse for a being...fucking DO IT! "
The scent was so strong now, the stem of the nightmare.
"What's the hurry, buddy?" The monster sleezed, echoing Rick Trager's voice as well as his infamous nickname for everyone.
Anger boiled in his rotten gut but it brought about a deeper, darker smile. "What exactly did you put your honey bun through, hm? Rick himself told me Andrew 'liked 'em sweet.'"
He shoved the man's face down onto the ground, hand around the back of his neck. "Did he like your boyfriend the way he liked me? Hm?"
"Stop that! You can't! You can't... talk like that to me...don't..."
Jerem bawled then, the last ounce of self-restraint gone when he heard his deceased lover's voice.
"No-" He choked, wiping at his eyes as he inched closer to Rick's corpse. "No, I didn't...they f-found out and...and they made an example out of h-him, and it turned out awful. It turned out awful, he d-disap-p-peared and I didn't get to see him a lot...but they m-made me watch."
Every globe session, every pointless bipolar discussion with himself. Every little moment of self-mutilation, of screaming at the cameras.
Oh, and when he asked for Jeremy. When he'd begged on his knees, willing to cut off his own feet, willing to drink piss or suck cock for five minutes of privacy...they'd spat in his face.
"You've gotta be the saddest fuck I've ever seen." Dmitri snarled , claws digging into Blaire's flesh. "As if you'd give two shits about anyone but you."
He turned Blaire over onto his back to look up at him, before dragging his claws down his torso. Blood pooled on the other's stomach where he'd been sliced.
"How couldja leave m', Jer?!" Rick Trager's voice was back again, haunting the room with agonized echoes. "I'm saw his dreams too, you wanna know what he dreamed about you? "
Jeremy's whines and moans originated equally from the rising physical pain and the agony of having to listen to that voice again with the dead body so close.
"No!", he rasped, shaking his head while tears clouded his vision and the torment fogged his mind, "no, please, don't - oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, babe-"
He didn't. He didn't want to know. He wanted to die know, he wanted to die and never feel a thing again.
"I DON'T WANNA KNOW!"
"At first, he wasn't angry with you," Dmitri said calmy, dragging his claws down again to strip flesh once more. "He understood and knew he would've done the same thing you did."
"But then the testing began and the torment and the nightmares and all the while you were upstairs in your comfy office chair doing nothing about it..." He continued and the black from his hand swarmed into Blaire's wounds to writhe and dig deeper. "Submitted to enough hurt and anguish he grew to hate you. Ha... Almost as much as, well, I hate you."
He reached down to cup the other man's face gently, voice evolving into something soft and sinister. "Beg me."
His thumb wiped away the fresh tears that flowed from the others eyes. "Beg me to kill you. Who knows, you might even see him again..."
The sheer impossibility of that prospect was beyond Jeremy as much as any clear thought and reasoning. Life, crimson, pink, pulsating out of his dying shell, poured from him and onto the stained tiles accompanied by the unsteady dripping noise where his blood hit the floor.
"Please", he begged, his voice nothing more than a desperate whisper, "please, please kill me. Please, oh God please, kill me, Dmitri."
He couldn't stand it, but he was too weak to fight, couldn't even turn his head back to look at Rick.
His tunnel vision was already blurry, all sound gone but the clear one in his head. The mocking, sneering, satisfied voice that, once it had wiped the nightmares from his skull, was the only presence next to himself.
"Kill me, please." Jeremy gasped, his heavy limbs losing feeling after having grown cold at an unnaturally rapid speed.
"...please..." The CEO mumbled, blood and drool oozing from his shiny lips.
Dmitri sat and watched as the life drained from Jeremy Blaire, trying to snapshot every little whimper, snivel, the way he rasped from the blood in his failing lungs. He wanted to remember it all. Didn't know how much longer he himself had left, his physical body was so weak. But however much time he did have he wanted to treasure this exact moment.
"Good." he murmured, hand traveling down to Blaire's throat. "Hope the two of you are very happy together."
He squeezed the other man's windpipe ever so firmly.
"In hell."
With a harsh clasp down, Jeremy Blaire's throat gave way with a sickening crunch.
There was nothing and nobody that awaited him when the pain, sharp and short, shot through his trembling body. There was only an iciness that seeped through the very fibre of his being until there was nothing but a unwelcoming void.
His last thoughts Jeremy Blaire spent on himself, however, pitying what he had become by his own decisions, yet knowing that if he'd had the opportunity to turn back time?
He would have done the same thing all over again.
Long after Blaire was gone from this world, Dmitri remained at Mt. Massive. He was a God to the masses now, and soon even he believed this was so. Wave after wave of hired Murkoff guns descended into the bowels of the asylum to retrieve what Murkoff wanted most- the Walrider. And Dmitri disposed of every single one of them. He and the Variants were safe under his care for a time.
Then Murkoff decided to activate the burn notice on the project and set fire to the mountain. Nothing remained of the asylum after that- only Dmitri.
Lost, empty inside, the god took to the forests, where all animals fled from the static, where the trees and flowers shriveled and rotted under the presence of the Walrider. Murkoff still pursued him, but after several convoys of their mercenaries went missing they were content to simply observe from a distance.
Dmitri wasn't entirely Dmitri by then. Most of what he had been was wiped away by the nightmares. Now he was somewhere in the between of things.
Murkoff would probably catch him again someday. Until then he was content in his freedom.
His empty, lifeless freedom.
