hey just a thought but for everyone who likes drawing/writing/imagining tma aus where Sasha comes back after being replaced, or someone else is replaced and comes back, or whatever just someone manages to survive a not-themming: no one seems to consider that they'd probably remember their appearance wrong too. Their memories would be rewritten just like everyone else's.
Imagine Sasha or Jon or Tim waking up and wandering around before catching their reflection and freezing because who the hell are they looking at. They don't remember looking like this. No, they're certain they were tall, or white, or black, or had a crooked nose, or tattoos, and when they ask someone for help, their voice sounds wrong in their ears, and no one seems to recognize them either or believe that they're who they say they are, and why would they believe them, when they're so obviously not that person?
Georgie: The Wilkinson House–also known as the Floating House or Trespasser House–was built in 1896 in Rodell, Kentucky, USA. Two brothers, Joseph and Mathias Wilkinson, inherited their late father’s coveted plot of land. Unwilling to reach an agreement over the use of the land, the brothers descended into an increasingly ugly feud. Joseph built a house “overnight” to stake his claim, using materials bought at short-sale auctions in a nearby town. Said town was suffering from air and water pollution from newly built factories surrounding the steps of the Appalachian Mountains where it lay. The town as it was slowly dismantled and moved out, and the area has since been named Smog, Kentucky. Fun fact: three of these factories belonged to Wilkinson Sr. It is unclear whether they were included in the will.
Georgie: Joseph contracted tetanus while finishing the house and died soon after. Mathias tried to have the house torn down, but apparently had a change of heart and moved it to the same lot as his own home. His body was found with a broken neck in the attic by a neighbor a few days later.
Georgie: The house was made into a tourist attraction the following year, on account of the shocking tale behind it as well as its eerie creeks and slamming doors–most likely due to the rushed craftsmanship. The story went that Joseph’s ghost had possessed his brother and made him move the house, then killed him in revenge. The attraction was moderately popular up until the Great Depression. It never officially closed, despite additional unexplained deaths on the property and a growing negative reputation. The body count only drew in a steady stream of onlookers, according to tour records.
Georgie: It wasn’t until the spring of 2017 that things began to change. On April 18th, the house was observed to have disappeared from the lot without a trace.
Georgie: Five months later, a house of identical description allegedly appeared on a small island in the Pacific Northwest. A retired entrepreneur reported to local police that it had been placed illegally, as she had bought the island privately several weeks before. Police were ready to dismiss the complaint when they arrived and found nothing. She was adamant that the intrusion had occurred and went on record with a vivid argument she had had with one of the two occupants, who she says had been reading a book written in Spanish on the porch. The other was repairing part of the railing and shot her dirty looks. The complaint was sustained after fresh scratches and paint chips were found in the soil, but the case was otherwise shelved.
Georgie: Surprisingly, the pair of men don’t appear to be the Wilkinsons. The brothers were both Kentucky-born and -bred, white, average height, muscular, and almost hairless. The house’s new occupants were “British-sounding”. One was very thin and short and appeared to be of Indian or Middle-Eastern descent, with silver hair. The other was tall, heavy-set, and white with brown hair.
Georgie: Similar reports would crop up in North, Central, and South America over the next few years and get passed around on Tumblr, Twitter, and Reddit. The house would almost always appear in secluded areas that were off-limits to the public and disappear itself shortly after being found. It was always inhabited by the same two men, with the added consensus that they were married.
Georgie: They were rarely spotted in nearby towns and never spoke with anyone enough for their names to become known. When they were interacted with, they were generally polite--if a little tired or distracted. Otherwise, they were found to be wandering the area around their house together, mending the exterior, reading, or reciting aloud. Even the most invasive person couldn’t attempt to film or approach the house without suffering a migraine or severe paranoia before losing consciousness. The house would be gone when they woke up, and their recording device rendered unusable. But written descriptions match a file photo of the original Wilkinson house. Debate sprung up over whether the two were ghosts, aliens, witches, a made up meme that keeps coming into fashion, or two eccentric recluses who happened to be living in a haunted house and deserved to be left alone.
Georgie: Sightings became more sparse toward 2023. When the couple were encountered, they never responded when spoken to. A reddit user in Mongolia supposedly used their home telescope to take photos through the house’s windows where it sat in a glen behind their apartment. The two men sat still or paced in separate rooms for a few hours. They stopped and came together to talk once. The redditor recorded the conversation through lip reading and concluded that they were arguing in English about “where it was going” or “what we are being”. Their accuracy is disputed. The occupants then began pulling books and papers off of the shelves in every room. The user stepped away for a few minutes and came back to find that all the windows were greyed out. They were unsure if they were covered in smoke or paper. The house stayed for a week in that state before disappearing. This account used to be widely discredited, as it didn’t fit the behavior profile at the time and the photos taken are unreadable. More radical accounts are believed to exist going backward, but have suffered from link decay and regional internet suppression.
Georgie: On May 8th of 2024, an elderly woman living next to a military base in New Mexico told her connected family that there had been a security threat that morning, complete with sirens and troops rushing out with rifles and buggies. Her husband–who works as a janitor there–only alluded to “some kind of prank with an old empty house”. Their grandchildren relayed the story to their mutuals on tumblr, stirring attention in the States again.
Georgie: Following reports of the Floating House usually included some description of a visit by a pair of American “secret service” agents or men in military garb with weapons. The usual couple either answer the door or refuse to come out, and the house is gone within minutes. Similar accounts were made by users in China, Chile, Australia, and Turkiye, but were discounted as the agents were always said to be American. The circumstances of each encounter continued to escalate until it was claimed by a cyclist in Mayak, Russia that there was some kind of standoff between the two sides, followed by a “nuclear” explosion that left nothing behind but the house. The area appeared untouched the next day, but had apparently become irradiated due to previously unaccounted-for material in the soil that had been agitated by construction efforts. A few people were found dead in the area. The cyclist himself had to be treated for burns.
Georgie: From here, it gets a little muddy. Despite a renewed surge in popularity for the Floating House, agreed-upon sightings are very rare for the next two years. It only appears in very sparsely populated areas along the north and south poles and is even faster to disappear. A researcher in Antarctica thought she saw the outline of a roof on the horizon as the sun rose after six months of night, but it was gone a few seconds later. She managed to get a quick drawing of the shape, which will be included in the image links in the description. There are often claims of similar encounters to the American secret agent incident. Sometimes it’s cultists. Sometimes it’s businessmen. Or “werewolves”. Sometimes it’s members of a particular subgroup that also follows the sightings. It all ends the same, with the house as the only thing standing when the dust has cleared. The house’s legend has become so routine, that many accounts are ignored out of hand and highly disputed. Though, it is notable that the inhabitants haven’t been a visible part of the story in several months.
Georgie: Phew. Now, to wrap up our deep-dive on the Floating House, we’re going to hear a first-hand account from just last year.
Napâttuk: Okay. Um, hello. My name is Napâttuk Waska. I saw the house in the woods near my hometown–south of Salluit, Quebec, basically. Almost at the tip. I’m not sure exactly how long it had been there by the time I found it. I practically lived in those woods from birth, but I’d been away at university in Montreal with my partner, Tootega.
Napâttuk: I kind of have to tell you about all that for this to make sense. She had some friends there who were willing to let us stay with them. And it was… it was really bad. Not the friends. I’d just never lived in a big city before, and I wasn’t expecting all the trash and noise and giant ugly buildings. And then, there was a really big forest fire nearby a little while after we got there. We didn’t end up having to evacuate, but smoke came in on the wind for two weeks. I was covered in ash and my eyes hurt by the time I got to class every day. The way the sun came through the smoke made everything look orange and menacing. I tried my best to stick it out because Tega was handling it alright. But I just found myself sitting inside all the time, watching people talk on the news about the new giant ugly buildings they were going to put in the place where the trees were burning down. I had to make myself not freak out every time there was a little change in how the air smelled for the rest of the semester.
Napâttuk: Anyway. By the time we finally went back home after finals, I was desperate to feel normal again. This was December, and it hadn’t really snowed yet–which is very odd. But the weather said snow was coming, so I tried not to let it bother me. I decided to go hiking in a spot I knew about ten miles from town. It’s a bowl surrounded by hills, so it’s hard to get lost. I didn’t make Tega go with me. She hates hiking. But it was fine. It was just like I remembered. I felt great.
Napâttuk: And that’s when I saw it. Just–this house sitting in the middle of the forest. First of all, this is the Low Arctic. We don’t even have a ton of forests. It could have been put anywhere else. Second, this is my forest. I mean, it’s not. But. It was like someone had just dumped the house there and knocked over a bunch of trees, and then left. There were skid marks on the ground, like it had been dragged. It even looked like trash. It’s exactly the same as the picture you showed me, but the windows and roof had been covered up with metal. Most of the wood I could see had bullet holes in it. The paint was almost gone, and the slats were discolored and caked in brown and yellow stuff. Like some kind of glue. The weirdest thing was that it looked… bloated. Have you ever seen wood that’s been left in the water too long, and it gets swollen and bent? It was like that, but something had been pushing at it from the inside at the same time. I could hear it creaking and groaning under its own weight. The whole thing was slanted away from the ruts in the ground, which was also strange. I was too mad to really think about that at the time.
Napâttuk: It reminded me of some of the scary neighborhoods around the university, so I was nervous about getting the attention of anyone inside. But I made myself get over it and marched up to the door. I heard rustling when I knocked, so I knew someone was in there. I–I don’t know what was wrong with me. I tried opening the door. It barely moved, like there was something heavy barricading the other side. I kept pushing on it, and it suddenly swung inward.
Napâttuk: …
Napâttuk: The… the inside was so dark, I didn’t see anything. But I knew that I was staring down into a chasm. I swear. The vertigo almost made me collapse. I jerked backward to avoid losing my balance and took a tumble down the steps of the porch. I was okay, but I still felt myself slipping. I had to cling to the ground to keep from falling into the house. There was nothing to grab onto, and I kept sliding back on the pine needles and loose soil. I slowly crawled my way back into the trees until I could stand. Then, I ran until I was back at my car.
Napâttuk: I told Tega about it, and she said it sounded like the Floating House stuff she’d read about. I had no idea. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. She’s much more online than I am. She really likes SCP and things like that. I’m not sure she fully believed me about the falling part, but she and some friends agreed to go back with me. I didn’t want to go too near it again. I just wanted it… reported, I guess.
Napâttuk: The thing is, we couldn’t even find the place where it was. It’s not a huge area. It made Tega more excited, but our friends were pretty annoyed to be dragged into the freezing woods for nothing. I was mortified. I knew where it was, we must have just been circling around it. I cut through another way, and when I turned around, Tega and the others were gone. I kept looking, until I saw that the sun was going down. They weren’t picking up their phones, they didn’t hear me calling them. I decided to just leave and see if they were waiting for me by the car. But then, I couldn’t find the treeline. The trees just went on and on and on. It got hot. I was hot even after I took off my parka. And then, I smelled smoke. It hung in the air all around me and got thicker until I couldn’t see. Ash came off of me in sheets as I waded through it like gritty snow. I couldn’t tell which way the bowl went anymore. I eventually felt something through the ash, but it was hard and flat like concrete. It hurt to walk on. I don’t know, it sounds crazy. I was tired and deprived of oxygen. I don’t remember getting to the road, but I woke up in the medical center in town. One of my neighbors had found me on their way home.
Napâttuk: Tega and the others had gone home without me, apparently? I asked them about what happened, but they wouldn’t talk about it. They keep saying they didn’t find the house, but I think they’re lying. They did say they saw the fire–there really was one. Nobody knows why. Heavy snowfall put it out before it did any real damage. It wasn’t where the house was, and there hasn’t been any word about people finding it. Nothing’s really happened since then, but I had to move to Alberta to get away from the smell of smoke.
Georgie: I see. Do Tega and your friends still live there?
Napâttuk: I’m not sure. They’re mostly her friends, and she and I don’t really talk anymore. The last couple times that we did, she was really agitated about something. I got the sense that we were losing touch because she was busy trying to deal with it. A few months ago, my mom told me she had gotten in trouble for stalking this guy who lived out by the water and had his lights off all the time. Only came out at night. Never had a flashlight. Walked with a cane. I just assumed he was a little blind and sunburned easily. He was always super friendly and chill. But I asked Tega about it, and she said he’d been accused of kidnapping when he lived in Sweden?? Like, kidnapped a whole lot of people??? What????? It’s messed up if it’s true, but then Tega got arrested trying to break into his house with an axe. I just–I can’t believe any of this is happening.
Napâttuk: A while ago, I dove into the Floating House forums to try to make sense of it. I made a bunch of posts about what happened, and people asked all kinds of questions. I was so relieved. I felt like I could actually talk to someone about it. I even put up the coordinates of where I’d seen the house. But lately, my mom says there’s been a lot more tourism at home, and I can’t help wondering if that has something to do with me. I don’t think you can even get to the bowl anymore. The road was closed after some kind of accident. She says people still park up there, though. I… I haven’t thought about going back there before, but… do you think I should?
Georgie: Wh–I–why do you ask?
Napâttuk: You’re the professional. I’m the one who opened it, so maybe I should close it.
Georgie: … I don’t know.
Napâttuk: That’s okay. Sorry… For all I know, it’s not even there anymore. Did you have any other questions?
Georgie: I did see that you took down the locations you’d posted.
Napâttuk: Yeah, it just. It made me nervous. But somebody else probably has them saved and put up somewhere.
Georgie: Hmm. You know, This kind of thing happens all the time. It blows over when something else interesting comes along. And honestly, a lot of these “sightings” are on pretty shaky ground. I wouldn’t worry.
Napâttuk: Right. You’re right.
Georgie: Okay, well, I think that’s about it. Thank you very much for coming on.
Napâttuk: Uh, yeah. No problem. Bye.
————
Prev
First
Whoa. Wow. I can’t believe it. That’s it. That’s the end.
I’ve had this fic slowly taking up more and more space in my head since 2020. And now, it’s fully out there! Spiraling off into the internet like the big crazy snake that it is.
I know the process was rocky, but I’m really glad I stuck it out all the way. I learned a whole lot, and I actually feel more sure that making comics is what I want to do than ever (while working out a more sustainable way to do it, of course).
And I’m really grateful to you, if you’ve read the entire thing or just a page. All the comments and reblogs and kind words have been really nice to hear and helped me keep going. Seriously, thank you.
Maybe have a look at my other stuff, if you’re so inclined.
Martin, Jon, Sasha, and Tim take in fresh air they never thought they’d breathe again and sunlight they never thought they’d feel again. They stare absently at the smoking hole where the Institute used to be. The persistent bustling of the town around them, totally unheeding of their presence, helps draw them out of their shock.
Both sets of Fears are still there. Distantly, but unmistakably. But the hold that the invading set had in the enigma has grown faint, like a droning noise suddenly absent. The world is still and quiet.
Jon feels half-blind–partially because his glasses are nowhere to be found.
The absence of hunger tells them that Not-Jon and Not-Martin are still out there.
After a long heavy silence, they begin to talk in low voices about what to do next. They did make it out, though no one can quite remember how. Their shaky progress has given them some tepid confidence. If they can get themselves away from here without incident, they could potentially rebuild some form of normalcy. The four of them could keep in touch, helping each other monitor their stability.
And they should hurry. There’s a rather uncomfortable feeling in the air.
The four of them do worry where the doubles could be, what they could be doing. But they can’t let themselves get distracted already. Maybe they can work on it later, if the two start making noticeable trouble.
Tim makes a Scooby-Doo joke. Everybody needed it.
They’ll definitely have to find new jobs too, they realize.
The pair uncoil. Jon looks into Martin’s eyes.
NJ: How bad is it?
Martin tries his best to look placid, but the pain of the hunger is evident on his face.
NM: It’s… bad.
NJ: I’ll help you work through it. I know some tricks to take the edge off. And, maybe we can find some better ways now. Less self-punishing.
NM: Sounds manageable.
Jon smooths his partner’s hair back and brushes his cheek with a thumb.
NM: How about you?
NJ: Better. So much better. I can’t believe I–
He swallows with difficulty.
NJ: Martin, I’m so sorry.
Martin nods.
NM: I am too.
Jon looks incredulous.
NJ: For what?
NM: For wasting time, I guess. We spent so long letting them make us miserable, and I didn’t even…I don’t feel like I was much better than you, in the end.
NJ: Well, they don’t get to tell us how to be miserable now.
The wind rustles the grass as the clouds pass their shadows over the pair.
NM: What do we do now?
Jon curls his lip thoughtfully.
NJ: We should probably make ourselves scarce. The police might be sweeping for arson suspects. And… maybe we should let you get more used to the hunger before we go anywhere around people.
NM: Right.
They hesitate. Jon stares into the trees. Martin can’t help doing the same.
NM: There’s definitely one of them among the EMTs.
NJ: Yep.
She reeks of Spiral.
Section 31 is on its way, too.
The surviving archival staff should really get going if they want to make it out clean.
There are more. Others. Moving and agitating, attracted to the vacuum of power. Yet, they’re small. Vulnerable. Containable.
It would be easy.
Jon tears his eyes away and squeezes Martin’s hand.
NJ: You wanna go for a walk?
He gestures at the open field behind them with a thumb.
Martin brightens.
NM: Sure.
They get up and start walking through the brush, hand in hand.
NM: So, if a tomb is out… You think we could go for a house? Probably abandoned, but hopefully not too falling-apart.
NJ: That’d be nice. Maybe something in the country.
NM: ...Oh! And we still need to go let Gerry out of the book.
Everything feels smaller and emptier now. Further away than ever.
Jon spends a long time looking for Martin, calling his name. He hasn’t heard anything back. He feels like he’s being wrung out like a rag as the Entities revoke their favor in him. His head hurts terribly.
There’s a grinding sound rising behind him. As he zig zags around in search and the sound steadily grows, he starts getting scared that he’ll never find Martin. That something happened to him.
Jon finally feels his hand brush something warm. Martin’s hand. He turns around and clasps it as it clasps at his. They can hear each other. See each other. They’re relieved to see the other alright.
They decide to go look for the others. On the way, Jon retells his revelation to Martin, who listens intently.
They get interrupted by the grinding sound catching up, and the terrain pounces on them to drive them further away from Not-Jon. As they run, they encounter many branching paths. Rather than agonizing over which are right and which could lead them to worse traps, Martin suggests that they not overthink it and just pick the ones that appear to be the best choice based on the information they have in hand. Jon’s stomach turns, but he agrees. He refuses to grant the enigma his doubt and indecision. He squeezes Martin’s hand and lets him pick the lane.
Their method proves true. They quickly escape the upheaving terrain and–amazingly–find Tim and Sasha.
~
The two are aghast to see Jon and Martin in one piece each. The boys don’t have much of a plan for the moment, but they want the two of them to come along before the landscape catches up. Tim and Sasha hesitate.
Martin: What’s the matter?
Tim and Sasha have the grace not to let Jon know that they heard his tape, but they ask if he detonated the TNT after he split off in the tunnels.
Only then does Jon’s stifled memory resurface. He saw the blast from halfway down the tower shaft. The explosion had reached him before the emerging hellscape did. He remembers the scorching and crushing pressure. They all remember.
None of them could have survived. They’ve been fabrications within the Entities’ sphere of influence the entire time. It could explain why Jon and Martin’s avatar status progressed so quickly and why it has gone back out with the tide. Their minds have been kneaded so that they couldn’t realize it on their own, even as they clambered over the wreckage that killed them.
It’s a deflating revelation. If any of them manage to escape, there’s no telling how much of what they do will directly serve the Fears. Even without Jonah, the Institute, or the Mother of Puppets in play, their fates are still not their own. At the same time, how can they throw away the hard-won revelation that they do–no matter how small–have agency here? At least enough to walk away, to refuse to act. It could make all the difference, and it’s certainly more than Not-Jon has shown himself to have.
They talk it out.
There are two options. They could stay here as the creature digs his way out in hopes of not spreading the Extinction themselves. There’s a chance he’ll die here, leaving the rest of them to handle the hunger until they too pass away. If Not-Jon escapes or Not-Martin succeeds him, they’d be difficult to stop. Or, the group could try to monitor their manipulation and escape, themselves. If they’re fast, they might be able to trap the doubles before they get out–assuming that they won’t invent a reason not to.
The safest thing to do from there would be to avoid involvement with any other rituals or disturbing activity, no matter the circumstance. It would be too much of a risk to participate, even with good intentions. As much as they’d all love to put this behind them, the probability of actually doing it with how much they know seems… unlikely. There’s a good chance they’ll inherit the full brunt of the hunger.
On the other hand, how can they justify not acting on their knowledge of the Entities in some way? They could, as Not-Jon had said, save lives.
It could all be part of the Fears’ plan to have them escape, Tim argues. But then, what about the plan to have Jon take over? It’s possible for them to have two plans, Sasha simply replies.
Jon explains that the Fears have no plan. He saw it himself–they’re creatures with as abstract a concept of their prey as their prey has of them. Avatars make plans on behalf of the Fears’ desires. Even if their motivations are somewhat influenced, they aren’t being “puppeted”. Martin agrees. If the Fears had that kind of control, they would have won already. As long as the four of them try to stay actively aware of their impulses and shortcomings, they might be alright.
Sasha asserts that it won’t be that simple. They just destroyed a massive site of power and became part of an irritant to residing avatars. Trouble’s going to seek them out.
Sasha: For all we know, they’re already on top of us out there.
Martin: Or it’s been no time at all. There’s no way to know how much time has passed in the real world.
Tim: I guess we could just bolt and hope they never find us. The avatars wouldn’t necessarily know what we are just because they get headrush when we happen to pass by.
The other three perk up in surprise at Tim’s comment.
Tim: That doesn’t mean I agree. I still don’t think we'd be able to keep it together out there.
They continue to debate the same points for some time with no consensus. There will be massive risks no matter what they do. The near certainty of failure burns in the back of Jon’s mind. The possibilities nag and bite.
His attention drifts, tracing a path back the way they came.
He knows he could still corner the creature if he tried.
Martin: Jon. Jon.
Jon stops staring off.
Jon: Right, sorry. What were you saying?
Sasha: We can’t agree on going. But we’re willing to… try it. We try to find a way out without letting the place get to us.
Martin: Which might work better this time if we know what we’re doing.
Tim: And if we can’t do it, we stay.
Jon rubs his neck.
Martin: You don’t think we should do it.
Jon: No. But that probably means we should go for it.
Utilizing a mix of Sasha and Tim’s methods and Jon and Martin’s methods of counteracting the hellscape, they begin trying to find their way out. If they’re lucky, they might find the hole in the wall from before–or some other loose trapping that could be pried apart as the hellscape twists itself tighter and tighter around them. The wet parts are starting to dry, making them brittle.
They can’t find a stable path, of course. The journey quickly becomes intimidating, and the environment punishes that to the fullest extent of its ability. It’s grueling and frustrating and never seems to get them any closer to their goal. Jon constantly has to fight the impulse to abandon the others, especially as the Fears descend upon him to remind him of what they want. But he stays. He fights not to pry, but the same thing is happening to the other three inside their heads. And they stay. They face their obstacles and the danger they pose head-on, with the unfounded certainty that they can handle it. It becomes a kind of shared psychosis. Their blind faith allows them to put more trust in each other, which bolsters their fluidity as a team. That trust only deepens with time. Their mission demands it, as their exit eludes them for days, weeks, an eternity. They never escape, but they survive.
~
Not-Martin watches from afar with the burgeoning sight of the Eye. Long invasive fingers pull at his consciousness, seeking refuge from the rapidly decaying vessel they chose, used, and have wasted. Not-Martin knows that it’s happening at some level, but he can’t really feel it.
He had tried hard to stay in his cell. But there he was, outside of it, once again steeling his nerves to kill his partner a second time and looking for something sharp. That is, until the group caught his attention.
Hearing their discussion felt like white noise at first. It took a while for the meaning to sink in. He watched as they shakily put their theory into action. Without the paralyzing logic of the enigma in play, they seem more... themselves. Not that he really remembers what that means.
Not-Martin fully expects them to fail. To give in, to be crushed or show signs of insidious sway.
The group continues to evade the hideous alien presence that now saturates the very fiber of their being. Of his being. He keeps watching, a motionless phantom waiting for its grim reality to reach the foolish occupants of the haunted wreckage.
It always happens. Why would this time be any different?
As time passes, the definitive proof of this radical solution that he knows won’t arrive doesn’t arrive. The group falters. They fall apart.
Not-Martin lets out a deep sigh. He hadn’t noticed himself tense up.
He catches himself hesitating to move on as the victims of the enigma languish in tatters.
Knock it off, he thinks. He shouldn’t be drinking this in. He has work to do.
But before he can tear himself away, the members of the team change their scattered course. Slowly, difficultly, they come back together and start again. Their observer counts their inches of progress as they face their first obstacle. They fail to be defeated, moving on to the next. Their quest is the same as before, with its tiny little victories. Only now, Not-Martin isn’t watching for failure.
A nagging feeling prompts him to wonder why.
His punishing journey has taught him that the only way to progress against the Fears is not to care what happens next. These four people fighting tooth and nail to see an uncertain future reawakens a piece of him he’d been trying to kill for ages–something he had set out with into the unknown, but had had to leave behind in order to continue.
That piece remembers how repulsive the Lonely feels. It’s the part of him that felt something at seeing the passions of others reflected in himself, despite his isolation. The desire to realize his own passions despite the dread that always held him back.
Life. His life.
He’s been dead for so long, the remains of a failure long ago. But now, he feels acutely aware that he’s still here. Still acting. Just as they are.
How much of that time has he spent trying to destroy himself? Watching his partner destroy himself? For what? They still became part of the trap. Betrayed the promise they had made to defy evil that had threatened to swallow them. The future he had hoped for that had carried him out of the Lonely’s shore and through the apocalypse.
One way or another. Together.
But it isn’t over yet. They’re still here. They still have that promise to keep. They could still have that future, however brief. They could be themselves again.
And the thought of that, looking at where he is, nearly scares him to death.
Not-Martin feels something burn inside a frozen hollow place that grew over the years of detachment. It’s barely there, but a drop of warmth feels like a fire when you’ve become accustomed to the deepest cold.
It’s so hot, he falls to his knees with tears in his eyes.
He clutches his chest, desperately trying to hold on to the precious feeling as instinct tries to force it back.
He feels paper-thin, like he could expire in the breeze.
Nevertheless, he gets to his feet and sets off toward the root of the island, high above him.
The creature slithering and scraping in the darkness below him answers without pausing.
NJ: Go back, Martin. It’s almost over.
Not-Martin–or just Martin, here–can’t find it in him to argue, looking at the circumstances. He’s too winded from the climb anyway. He settles back against an outcropping of busted wood.
Jon notices the lack of response, but only turns his head for a moment as he tears at the last of the rubble with unraveling hands.
The shade on the ridge sits silently. There are arguments he knows he needs to make and vanishingly little time to make them, but he suddenly can’t find the will. It’s all he can do to hold on to his warmth as it drains the cold determination that was preserving his inertia.
Below, the shrapnel flays away more of what’s left of his partner with each stroke. It kills him to watch. He looks away, but it kills him all the same.
To his surprise, Jon slows to a stop and speaks first.
NJ: Have you seen what the others are up to?
Martin picks himself up a bit to answer.
NM: Yeah. I was surprised, but it seems to be working so far.
NJ: They’re persistent, I’ll give them that.
He sighs tiredly.
NJ: Still can’t risk letting them out, though.
NM: They kind of make me miss the old days. Never thought I’d say that.
Jon makes a haggard noise that he thinks might have been a chuckle. A long silence follows.
NJ: I miss the way we used to be, too. I’d nearly forgotten.
His voice is quiet and fragile with regret. Martin can barely hear it.
NM: It’s working, Jon…
NJ: For how long?
Nothing.
Martin’s guard drops, and his partner can feel what’s going on inside him.
Jon turns himself around in the pit with concern. His many green eyes wink up from the darkness.
NJ: Martin, what did you do?
His voice is alarmed, and it wakes Martin up.
NM: I’m letting it go. The whole plan. I don’t… I don’t want this anymore. I want us to make it through this. It doesn’t have to be the end yet.
NJ: It’s too late for that. You’re going to get killed if you turn back now.
NM: No. I’ll be fine. They’re right, Jon. Neither of us are going to pull off what we’re trying to do. The Fears only have more of us the more we think we’re pulling away.
NJ: It’ll be even worse if we give up. We can’t just unleash this thing.
NM: We don’t have to give up, either. I was wrong. This is how the Entities win, Jon. It’s how they always win. It’s our fear. We play their games and fall right into their hands because we’re scared of what’s going to happen. So this time, why don’t we just go on and find out? Maybe we can try to get back a little of what we’ve lost while we’re at it.
The man within the creature can feel the meaning of the words. Emptiness reawakens with longing for all the things that both of them were so committed to think weren’t possible for them.
NJ: How can you believe that?
NM: I don’t. But we don’t have to. We’ll just do it anyway.
NJ: Martin, stop.
He feels weaker by the second.
NM: We promised. This is our last chance.
His partner extends a hand toward the pit.
NM: I can’t come down and get you this time. You have to come up.
Jon hesitates.
They’re right there. Just behind the door.
They knock again.
The rapping of Their fingers shakes the tenuous shape of the wreckage loose. Martin falls, followed by a crunch.
NM: I’m–I’m stuck.
Jon knows. Pain. Blood. The cuts are deep. His partner is going to die.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
The creature is paralyzed, the consequences of loss and failure shrieking at each other at the forefront of his mind.
It’s happening again. He has to choose. If he shares the burden with Martin, it would relieve the vulnerability. Martin will live, sustained only by the maddening burden of Jon’s mistakes–and so will the Fears. If he leaves, Martin will die. No matter which he chooses, he’s still being drawn forward by fear.
Jon has never been more sick of it.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
The sound of screeching, straining metal echoes up from the pit.
Martin: Jon?
Jon’s knifelike fingers claw at the rubble, showering him with brick and glass. The components that lead into his back–buried deep in the remains of the Institute, connected to beings beyond reason–drag behind him like an anvil. Partway up the climb, still far from his partner, he runs out of leash. He pulls with the final ounce of strength that never seems to leave him to hoist the entire mess upward, but he only ends up breaking some of what’s holding him together. It falls and clatters in the darkness.
This will destroy him. He knows it.
Martin: Jon, can you hear me?
Jon: I hear you. I’m coming. Just keep talking to me.
The certainty of defeat has sobered his panic.
Martin: You remember the cabin?
Jon: Before or after I read the mail?
Martin: ^smiles^ Before.
The wreck comes loose, and Jon slides down.
Jon: I remember getting stranded on the road the night we got there. We had to walk to the nearest town. It was terrible.
He starts up again and loses more parts.
Martin: Yeah. It wasn’t so bad, though, looking back.
Jon: Well, not compared to the walking we did after the cabin.
Martin: That doesn’t seem as bad either, now. There… there’s a lot I don’t regret about the times we’ve had to go back. Or the time we spent driving each other up the wall at the Institute. I think I could do it all again if you were there with me.
Jon: ...I would too.
Martin doesn’t seem to hear him.
Despite it all, Jon aches to walk straight into the eye of the abyss with Martin’s hand in his again. Even though they’ll fall apart. He wants it more than anything.
He just has to make it a little further.
Something yanks him downward. He clings as tightly as he can and cranes his head back to see the speck where Martin is. With that movement, he snaps a crucial thread holding him together. Layers of his horrible body separate with each movement. He burns, the foul soil in his chest smoldering to dust. He doesn’t care.
He keeps moving. Just a little further.
His hands fall away on contact, leaving weak spindly limbs of armature to climb with. His body is a tangle of loose snares that rapidly shakes apart. Cords and ventricles tangle and burst. The tether that leads back down into the dark remains intact as the creature is left with less and less of himself for ignoring his keepers. The pain reaches new unbearable heights. Pieces continue to fall as he slowly climbs.
Martin hears the clatter come closer, even as it grows thinner. Gasps and shudders echo up the walls of the heap. He stretches his best arm downward as Jon reaches up.
When the walls finally settle, the remaining group is left with one path down to the Panopticon. Sasha asks Not-Martin if he can conjure them a way in that isn’t curated by their opponent. He says he can’t do anything like that–not this close to the Eye’s center of power. Tim is given the option of staying behind, but he can’t feel assured that the walls won’t push him along anyway.
Tim: Besides, I’m developing a strong need to kick that thing’s ass when we find it.
Reluctantly, carefully, the three archival staff pick their way down warped stairs and lopsided halls. Their spectral escort leads the way. Degraded uneven stone and poured cement eventually give way to the slightly more preserved inner walls of the prison. The rumbling returns to muttering, which then becomes footsteps on concrete and clanging steel doors on rusty hinges. There’s too much echo to tell from where. The increasing presence of the Eye makes them all feel watched and makes Not-Martin as blind as they are. They change the flashlights’ batteries.
The dust breeding on the decaying pipes above floats down through the air into the dark. They glint and dance like distant spirits before the group’s flashlights, playing tricks with the imagination.
Martin feels like his heart’s going to leap out of his chest. He tries to match Not-Martin’s stride, diving into the darkness without hesitation. It doesn’t matter if something’s out there, he tells himself. He knows where he’s going. Tim and Sasha stick to Martin, watching their backs more than anything. Tim doesn’t like following Not-Martin, but he doesn’t feel like throwing out pack security right now. Sasha’s half expecting the walls or floor to turn over in their sleep at any moment. She walks on the balls of her feet.
Her apprehension is the only reason that she’s ready to pull Tim and herself out of the way when a door suddenly swings shut between the group. She meant to catch Martin too, but she missed. Another door slams on the other side of the Martins, enclosing them in the closet-sized security chamber they were passing through. Not-Martin is first to try the handle, but it’s hot. Liquified metal from the latch dribbles down the door jamb. He braves the heat and pulls, but the door might as well be part of the wall. Martin kicks the other door with the same result.
Footsteps–near ones–clatter down an adjoining corridor. Different from the sharp snapping of the dress shoes Jonah always wears. Not-Martin shouts through the door.
NM: Don’t let him get to the bottom of the guard tower!
Tim and Sasha run off.
Martin: This didn’t happen before, either?
Not-Martin sighs.
~
Jon makes his way through a wide intake corridor in the prison with the spiderweb lighter as a torch. He feels the need to hurry, but precaution stands against it. The supernatural interference that he was hoping to use to track the presence of his adversaries is completely drowned out by the affronted gaze of his native patron. His head pounds. Not-Jon could already be following him. Steering him.
Martin’s bold assertions from before give him courage. He does wish Martin was here beside him, though.
Jon blinks away a staticky discomfort in his eyes and checks his periphery. Nothing but darkness and dust motes. Picking up on Jonah’s trail doesn’t prove difficult. After meandering around a bit, he stumbles upon a set of footprints in the dust. They’re too big to be his own.
The thin twang of struck iron yanks his attention directly behind him. Then again–higher, overhead. Jon only needs to catch the faint sway of buckling structure in the dim light to break into a run in the other direction. A churning, skidding screech rings through the hall behind Jon, stripping the pipes and support beams overhead in the process. Seeing them pulled out of their fastenings just ahead of him pushes him to go faster. He refuses to turn and look. The sheets of dust falling around him, vibrations underfoot, and approaching cascade of noise needs no image. Nor does he stop when the screeching and crashing attenuates into a granular rasp.
It fully stops at a small empty office. Jon lets himself collide with the far wall rather than trying to slow down. He catches his breath, his lungs burning, body shaking, blood vessels firing like they’re filled with gunpowder. He turns over to lean his back on the wall and finally has a look. The path behind him is shut, the floor and ceiling about 20 feet behind pressed tightly together. The exposed rebar and debris sticking out of the seam twitches and creaks, reaching for him like skeletal hands. So do the ones still hung from the ceiling. They stop after a few seconds.
Jon sinks down the wall to the floor beside a metal cabinet, relieved to think that Not-Jon can’t reach him here and has stopped trying. From afar, at least.
He lets himself rest. His eyes hurt.
Jonah: It is nice to drop the pretense and see each other plain, isn’t it? Sooner than I thought, though.
Jon steadies immediately.
Jon: I was looking for you.
Jonah: I know.
He produces his crescent-shaped piece of the plastic ring from his vest pocket.
Jonah: You were looking for me because you couldn’t save the others because you couldn’t find out what was really going on. Sounds familiar.
Jon makes the sinking realization as the words slither out. His head falls limply back against the wall. Jonah was privy the entire time–even of the summary of prior events that Not-Jon gave the team.
Jon: So glad we could entertain you.
Jonah: I’ll admit, it has been interesting. I’ve watched a lot of people come and go, and it never fails to astound me how resiliently some will fight a current even when it’s plainly obvious that they’ll never reach the shore. Resting all their bets on little objects is usually a bad sign.
Jon is thoroughly unmoved by this poetry. He doesn’t have to be–Jonah is plenty satisfied with himself. He twiddles with the broken ring in his fingers.
Jonah: So, isn’t this the part where you try to leverage your extranarrative knowledge to force or convince me to give you my piece of–what is it? From the American comic books?
Jon: Kryptonite.
Jonah: Ah. I give up my kryptonite so you can go find the last piece, kill your doppelganger, and… get on with the rest of your swimming.
Jon: No. I just came to give you mine.
He holds his tiny square of plastic out for Jonah to take. The steady expression on Jonah’s face falters with the raising of an eyebrow. His spellbinding eyes pierce Jon’s curiously. Jon volunteers to speak before he’s forced to.
Jon: I get it. No matter what I do, no matter where I go, you’ll always get your way. The Fears will get their way. Putting it off just gets people killed. We don’t need to have any more monsters around than we have to.
Jonah takes the piece from Jon, but he doesn’t break eye contact. His gaze delves deeper, searching for something in particular. Jon feels it groping. Cold shivers run up and down his spine. He can’t even move.
After a few long seconds, Jonah retracts unsatisfied. He looks annoyed, like something was in the way.
Jonah: You really expect me to think you’d go through with this?
Jon: Well, it’s one thing we haven’t tried yet.
Jonah breaks into a chuckle. He turns to go.
Jonah: I suppose it doesn’t matter if you mean it or not. But I wouldn’t get too comfortable. I’m going to see if I can’t tweak the ending a bit.
Jon takes some time to recover after Jonah’s footsteps have receded down the hallway. When he’s ready, he picks himself up and starts looking for a way back to the tunnels.
~
Tim and Sasha pursue the footsteps. Once in a while, they’ll see part of a black shirt, the heel of a shoe, or a lock of silver hair wink out of the edge of the flashlight’s field of view. Down the stairs, through more halls, down more stairs. Not-Jon gains lead as the footsteps grow fainter. By the time the two of them reach a series of filthy chambers on the very bottom floor, they can barely hear anything. The hanging cobwebs caked in dust are so thick, they can hardly see, either.
The last trace they hear leads them to another heavy security door, sitting slightly askew in its frame. Its hinges have completely given in, along with part of the wall leading into the adjoining room–a room full of drains with a long wire mesh window in the connecting wall. There are handprints in the dust all around the door. Tim and Sasha work together to try to unjam the obstacle, but it’s wedged against the edge of the next wall. Their only option is to try to pull it from the drain room. And take up more time. The footsteps are already gone.
The door to the drain room is all the way down the hall to their left. They hurry inside, cross the tile floor littered with fallen plumbing, and latch onto the bit of door peeking out from the far wall. The door’s finish is pearly and slippery under the grime. It takes them several minutes to inch it far enough out of the way for both of them to be able to squeak through the gap when they get back. By the time they’re done, their fingers and arms hurt. They head back to the door to the hallway, only to find that it won’t open. The doorknob is warm.
A familiar figure passes by the mesh window at a shambling pace. Not-Jon is haggard, barely able to hold himself upright beneath the crushing weight of the center of the enemy Eye, let alone concentrate enough to manipulate architecture again. Tim and Sasha don’t need proof of that to realize the ruse. They shout at him in resentment. Not-Jon doesn’t turn. He disappears through the slim opening in the doorway.
Sasha grabs a pipe and tries hacking at the drain room door’s hinges. The hinges fly off, but the door stays firmly in place. She turns around when she hears Tim bashing at the metal mesh with a club-like joint piece. The mesh is rusted enough to bust apart after a few good hits. She joins him. The sound of something heavy crashing to the floor up ahead adds to the cacophony of metal on metal. They create a decently wide clearing and help each other climb the half wall. Sasha goes first. Bits of jagged rust cut her legs and hands as she hurries through. Her hair tie gets caught and breaks. She lands with hair spread over her shoulders and eyes. Tim grimaces as he makes the vault. They squeeze into the next area and find themselves barred by a lockdown gate designed to separate the cells of the inner Panopticon from the rest of the prison. Their injured hands and legs scream in pain as they try to lift it. The sliding parts have been welded together. The only other outlet leads back into the halls. Sasha instantly dashes off, determined to find another route. She turns at the door when she doesn’t hear Tim behind her. He’s staring through the bars, his expression of outrage washing over with growing panic and anguish. She has to swallow her own terror in order to speak.
Sasha: Tim!
He follows wordlessly.
With nowhere to go and nothing to do, Martin listens to “The Last”. He’s tired of guessing at how bad it was. Not to be mistaken, it is bad. He already knew that Not-Martin–no, the old Martin–had had to stab the old Jon to detach him from his ultimate place in the Fears’ designs. He knew that Jon had gotten there by killing the man who had victimized everyone he cared about. But now he understood how hard it all was to live through. How resentful, disappointing, uncertain, and destroying. Martin’s heart leaps out to them in their hope and foolishness. His aching loneliness envies them.
There was maybe a trace of that when it was retold to him by the Thing That Used To Be Jonathan Sims. But it was more like an actor conjuring a feeling.
Martin looks up at the person stoically pressing his fingers into the crack of an iron door, one centimeter at a time, to melt the fused part and push it out. His flesh resists the whole way, but he doesn’t make a sound or flinch. His expression is unreadable. It doesn’t seem like much remains of the old Martin now. Martin wonders with wariness what could have taken its place.
Not-Martin finishes with a section and retracts his hand to correct the warped bones before starting again. Martin has to look away. He’s glad his double has stopped trying to squeeze through the holes in the corners of the room, at least.
The flashlight on his knee rolls to his crossed ankles.
NM: Steady light, please.
Martin puts it back and holds it there. He continues to stare. Not-Martin notices and eyes him stoically, glancing at the tape.
Martin: What... happened to you?
Not-Martin: I told you what happened.
Martin nods.
He doesn’t ask what he means to ask, but Not-Martin hears it anyway. The latter considers for a moment before going ahead with the answer.
Not-Martin: It’s a survival thing.
He says that the more he and Not-Jon relived their history throughout the cycles of time, the less they felt over it. They knew that whatever was lost or changed would return unaltered the next round, and re-experiencing something they’d seen before didn’t inspire the same urgency of feeling. It was all less precious. Many of the unknowns were known.
They had used that kind of apathy to their advantage. Conducting their operations and overpowering avatars is relatively easy when fear can’t stand in your way. It certainly has its drawbacks, alienating them from other people and driving them to make questionable decisions in the name of a greater good that hasn’t yet materialized. All the events and people that used to motivate their actions are now no more than pieces on a chessboard.
Martin: That’s horrible.
NM: It’s the only reliable agency we have, given what we’ve become.
Martin: You don’t feel anything at all?
NM: Sometimes. It comes in waves. The context just kind of… fades in and out of focus.
They did it for so long that the behavior became part of their being, as everything now does. As long as they remain unafraid, they can’t be killed by outside forces--with one exception.
Because Not-Martin and Not-Jon are the only ones who permanently change, the consequences stay potent. The fear of those consequences makes them more vulnerable to each other.
Not-Martin rubs his mottled fingers with a thumb.
As he realized they were approaching what would be the last world they’d ever see, Not-Martin clung to that immunity by surrendering his sense of self-preservation. If he has nothing to lose, there’s nothing to hold him back.
His gaze has drifted down into the flashlight. His voice softens to a dwelling murmur, like he’s talking to himself.
NM: It’s funny. We initially thought denying our fear would be a way to place ourselves out of the Entities’ reach. We’d be free. That was never going to happen, obviously. We’d nearly forgotten why we were doing what we were doing. We were just going through the motions, wasting time as the pent-up hunger got worse. Jon actually knew it before I did. There’s a part of him that just can’t let go of his old self, I suppose. Or the Fears just have their hooks too deep in him for him to get away with not caring. So, he’s stuck between being afraid of failing and not being able to afford to feel that fear.
Martin: And so are you.
NM: I stand a chance, at least. It’s too late for my Jon to get the ending he wants, and I think he knows it. He’ll stop if his back’s far enough against the wall. We gave it our best, but we’ve become part of the problem before we could fix it. Just like last time. It’s time to give up and disappear.
Martin: But you won’t be able to do it alone, will you?
He takes a deep breath and looks Martin in the eye.
NM: If you really want to help, you’ll have to play by our rules. I have a bad feeling it’ll only get worse from here. We really can’t afford to lose.
Martin nods.
Thoughts bother him.
Martin: Even if he did agree to share the hunger, you’d still be risking losing the only lucid person between the two of you. That’s why he won’t share it, isn’t it?
NM: Yes.
Martin: You’d be the only one who could kill--
NM: Yes.
Not-Martin’s mouth curls sourly.
NM: But I won’t have to. With any luck.
Martin: … There aren’t many good outcomes here, are there?
NM: No, there aren’t.
Not-Martin sets his face back to stone and returns to working on the door.
Martin sits back and accidentally pushes the tape player into a small hole just behind him. It tears away from the headphone cord and tumbles down through the levels of the prison and lands at Jon’s feet.
Jon calls out, but no one responds. He considers, then takes it with him.
