Shadows Of The Past - Chapter One
Word count:3,613
Warnings: none
summary: Left alone in the mirror, Y/N reflects and is found by the Jim twins.
You stand in utter shock, your hands pressed against the mirror’s fractured glass, your heart still shattering, even though it has been... Hours? Perhaps even days, since Damien and Celine betrayed you, shoving you out of your body, after you agreed to let them come with you in that horrible, pitch-black void. They left you to go elsewhere - whether to find William, or to leave this cursed place, you cannot tell. But you haven’t heard William’s voice in a long time - although someone did ring the house phone... You couldn’t hear who had answered it, but someone had, as it had only rung a couple of times.
You wonder what happened to the detective - he’d been shot either in the chest or in the gut somewhere... But death didn’t hold the same meaning here as in the rest of the world. That had been made painfully clear. You hoped that he had found a way to stumble back into his own body... But if the detective had died first, then why hadn’t Celine and Damien gone to him, rather than approach you? Perhaps they had, and he had refused their offer... Or maybe, they had believed that you would give them the chance to return to the world of the living that they so desperately wanted.
The only way that you could tell the passage of time, was the play of light and shadows as it passed through the window and on the ground. Then again, you weren't ever really able to figure out how quickly time was passing in this miserable house. But you've exhausted your store of misery, and with a deep breath that you're not sure that you need anymore, you attempt to leave the mirror, curious as to whether or not you even could. You frown with stubborn determination and slam one of your shoulders into the mirror, bouncing back and staggering backwards over the table, falling the the tiled floor with a groan. You stagger up to your feet and sit down on the reflection of a bench that William had been sitting on, while he'd stared at your dead body, while you had been in that cold, black void, being lied to and manipulated by someone you thought that you could trust.
You don't know if it was Celine or Damien who had cast you out of your body, and into this mirror... Or even if it was intentional... But the rage and bitterness that had morphed Damien's usually amiable face was shocking. It was almost equal to the shock of him shoving you out of your body and into this mirror. Part of you wondered if he'd done that, as he needed you to possess something... But why? What reason did he have to do this to you? You would have willingly shared your body with him as he had asked? What had driven him to betray you like this?
You couldn't guess, and you were too tired and upset to continue thinking about the whys - you really wouldn't know, unless he - or they? Came back and explained themselves... And from the dark expression on his (their?) face, you rather doubted that they would come back for you. You'd stopped being useful to them, from the moment that you helped them get into your body. It hurt that they would use you in such a way... And you knew that if the spirit of Damien had actually been one of the ones to speak with you, he'd never have betrayed you like that... He'd always been willing to lend you a hand, and had come to your rescue on more than one occasion.
A miserable sigh leaves your lips as you lean against the wall, wishing that this mirror was placed in a room that had something more comfortable to rest on, than this hard wooden bench... But would you even need to sleep? What would happen to you if you did fall asleep? Would you find yourself in the pitch black void between this world in the next... Or would you fade into nothingness, or into the next world? You didn't know, and you feared that the answer to your question would be a fate worse than the one that you were currently suffering... Not that you wanted to know what that could possible be betrayed, trapped and betrayed as you had been.
You hear voices from another room - but it's not the being who took your body, nor is it William. "-is way to see the Gruesome sight of a dead body! Be very Jim, Jim! We need to be careful, lest the deranged murderer finds us and kills us too." A young man who looks startlingly like Damien, Mark and the Colonel comes running into the room... Or rather, lurching and lunging into the room, rolling across the floor and nearly getting coated in the dried pool of blood that you're pretty sure belongs to you.
Hope fills you, and you smack your hands against the glass, shouting "Hey! You! Jim, was it? Please... Please listen to me! Hey!" The words echo loudly in your ears, over and over again, fading after what felt like an eternity. You continue to pound your fists against the glass, desperately hoping to catch their attention.
The cameraman - Jim - spots you first, and moves a little closer to you, tapping his colleague - or brother ? - on one shoulder, pointing at you. "Jim, look! There's someone in the mirror!"
"Ah, god no! It's a Demon, Jim, RUN!" the reporter yelped, trying to run, but tripping over the
coffee table and falling flat on his face, groaning in pain.
"I'm not a demon! Do you see the blood on the floor there? That... That's my blood. I was killed here last night!" You shout, shaking and silently pleading with anything that will listen to keep them in this room, hoping that they could hear you - or read your lips.
Cameraman Jim moves closer to you, and Reporter Jim calms down a little, squinting at you closer before asking "Aren't you the new District Attorney, Y/N?"
You nod, saying "Yes, I am. Can you hear me?"
The reporter pulls out a small, hand-held device, putting it up to the mirror, right under your lips, explaining "This is a recording device. It's sensitive enough to pick up the voices of ghosts talking. I'm not sure why you can't come out of the mirror, but Medium Jim says that sometimes ghosts can get stuck in objects, especially if they are new to being dead. "I'm Jim, and this is my brother Jim. Can you tell us how you got in this mirror?"
"My soul was forced into this mirror, after I was killed and temporarily brought back to life." You respond, speaking as clearly and loudly as you can, hoping that their recording device actually worked. You never really believed in many supernatural things... Apart from the fact that Zombies were dangerous pests, if not put down immediately, but everyone knew that. Smart Zombies could be reasoned with to an extent, but their insatiable hunger for flesh often caused the few Smart Zombies to take their own lives quickly, rather than allow themselves to become the monsters that Zombies were so often painted as.
You hear your own voice moments later, as the brothers play back what you had just told them. Your voice was much quieter than the shout that you'd given, but you hoped that it was clearly heard. Both of the Jims' faces light up in delight at your words, and Jim the Reporter asked "Do you know who died here?"
"I knew almost everyone who died here, at least in the past twenty-four hours." You respond, speaking loudly and clearly. "The Actor, Markiplier was killed by Colonel William Iplier. Mayor... Mayor Damien Doom, and his sister, Celine Iplier were also killed, though they were killed in a magical... Incident of some kind, although the exact nature of the incident, I cannot tell you. Detective Abe was killed by the Colonel shortly before he... He accidentally shot me and killed me." You make sure to indicate to them that you've finished speaking, so that they can replay the message.
To your deep distress, most of what you just told them is lost - static overtakes most of what you say, only Mark's and the Detective's name were clearly heard. Everything else was garbled, and you frown in worry as you realize that the shadows around the two living beings is starting to grow darker and elongate. Jim the reporter asks "Can you repeat that?"
"You need to leave. There are dark forces in this house." You urge them, not wanting to see anyone else get claimed by the madness of this house.
Again, most of what you say is lost to the unexpected static, but Cameraman Jim spoke up quietly "I think we need to leave. Something is draining the battery of my camera faster than anything I've ever seen. Jim, grab the mirror, and we'll be able to continue this investigation... I think the video cut out as soon as we started to speak with Y/N."
Jim the reporter nodded, putting his microphone in his belt before turning back to where you were still standing, the recorder in hand "Okay, I'm going to take your mirror off of the wall now - unless you don't want to leave this place?" He moved closer, keeping the recorder close to where your mouth was.
You spoke up as loudly and clearly as you could "Yes, I want to leave!"
The reporter nodded when he played back the message- your voice still cutting out, but the yes perfectly heard.
You were worried that the malevolent entity inside of this manor - the dark forces that allowed you to stay in this world after death, might have other opinions about you leaving this place - or the two living beings leaving this place... But perhaps whatever was in this house, left when Damien and Celine inside your body - that was altered to look like Damien's - and probably took the colonel out of here as well.
You wondered if the detective was still around - perhaps having stumbled his way out of that black void and into his body... Or if the other's spirit had been allowed to pass onwards to whatever afterlife might await one when they died in a place that wasn't corrupted by dark forces. But you couldn't warn them about what might happen - not that you really had a guess as to what the house could or would do, as you could only speak to them through that damned recorder (at least in the manor). You also worried that trying to tell them more about this manor and what had happened would only be met with more static - interference from the manor... Or whatever was inside the manor that caused the corruption.
Reporter Jim took the mirror off the wall, grunting a little at how heavy it was, before setting it down on the floor. He pulled something out of one of his pockets, kneeling down and opening a small compact mirror, asking "Can you jump between mirrors? This is really heavy, and while I'm certain I can carry you all the way out of this manor, it is far to our news fan, and this Jim is worried that I might drop you, and I wouldn't want you to get more hurt than you already have been." His hands almost but not quite touch the center of the cracks in the mirror - created when Damien had cast you out into this damned mirror.
You shrug up at him, and suggest as the recorder comes out again "Touch that mirror to the surface of this one. I'll see what I can do."
Reporter Jim nods after he plays back your instructions - and suddenly you see that in this dimension, there is part of the ceiling that is reflected as if it's part of the floor and walls. You prepare yourself, taking in a deep, unsteady breath and run for that small patch of ceiling, bracing yourself to feel... Something. For several seconds, all you see is a pitch black nothingness, and a high pitched ringing pierces your ears.
But you manage to tumble into the small mirror, the breath in your lungs (do you need to breathe? You are a disembodied spirit inhabiting a mirror, after all... But you don't want to test that thought, not yet at least) catching as you realize that you made it into the smaller mirror. It would be easy to fall out, back into the larger, cracked mirror, but you stay as far away as you can, as Jim the reporter lifts you up and away from the big mirror.
He beams at you, delighted "Okay, District Attorney Y/N, my brother and I will be very Jim in leaving this house - as there has been several terrible things happening in this place, as your death is in addition to whoever the hell lived in this place. Â Do you know if the killer is still in the house? Nod or shake your head, depending on the answer.
You shake your head - while you were fairly sure that William was gone - you couldn't hear him calling for Celine, Damien and Mark ... Or occasionally, for you, as he'd apparently discovered that you'd gone missing at some point. Not that he had once looked in the mirror that you'd been trapped in, to discover what had happened to your spirit. Perhaps... Maybe Damien had caught up with William and the two of them had left this cursed place? Or... And you wouldn't have ever thought that Damien was capable of such a thing, up until he'd betrayed you to gain sole possession of your body... Damien had killed William, perhaps framing the other for all of the murders that had taken place here.
The reporter nodded, and was about to ask another question, when his brother, tapped him on one shoulder "Jim... I think we should ask them more questions once we're out of this place. I feel like someone is crawling all over my Jim, and we need to leave, just in case the murderer is still here. The killer might try to kill us too. Remember what Oracle Jim said about this town?"
Reporter Jim sighed a little before nodding a little "You're right Jim, we need to leave this place before we get killed - we might not be as lucky as Y/N and our spirit get caught in a mirror to try to warn anyone else who tries to come into this house to understand what's going on."
They both glance at you, and you nod emphatically at them, urging them "We need to get out of here as soon as possible!" You enunciated each word as best as you could, hoping that one or both of them could read your lips.
Whether or not they understood what you said, reporter Jim put the mirror that held you into one of his pockets, making sure that you were securely there, before he made his way through the house. You had to close your eyes - it was pitch black in Jim's pocket, and it reminded you of that awful place, where Damien and Celine had convinced you to let them in... Let Damien in, because you had so naively believed that they would share your body with them... Had Celine come with Damien, into your body? Or had only you and Damien been sent back? Celine hadn't said whether or not she would ride back with you... Just that she could send you and Damien back.
You decided that it didn't really matter, whether or not Damien went with you into your body alone, or with his sister - because either way, he had betrayed you in one of the worst ways you could ever imagine. Keeping your eyes closed and pretending that you were trying to sleep helped. You could only hope that whatever dark forces that caused time in the manor to stretch and bend so strangely - and caused people to appear and disappear seemingly at random wouldn't also trap these two reporters inside of this place until they went as mad as Mark and William had.
You bury your face in your hands, still keeping your eyes shut tight, as you tried to remember if there was anything about Damien in that pitch black void of nothing that could have given away that there was something wrong... Then again, who was to say that the beings that you were speaking to, were really Celine and Damien? There were dark forces in the manor after all... For all you knew, it could simply take the forms of anyone who died, as well as their voices, to manipulate those inside that void to do as the entity wanted them to.
You had certainly fallen prey to that, after all. Then again... One of the main reasons why you were so determined to find out who had killed Markiplier - along with wanting to bring to justice the person who had killed a friend of yours... Was that it might have brought a measure of closure, of peace to Damien - who had been so terribly distraught by the loss of one of his childhood friends. You wondered what might have happened, had the detective not interrupted the séance or whatever the hell Celine was trying to do with you... What had been interrupted. She'd been furious that she'd been interrupted - and she had said that she'd wanted to talk to Mark.
Did that mean that Celine's plan had been to summon Mark's spirit into your body? Would she have reversed that process, once she'd gotten the spirit of her ex-husband into your body... Then again, you remembered how the seer had managed to manipulate almost everyone against you with a frightening amount of ease - trying to paint you as the murderer. Maybe she'd been trying to summon Mark into your body, convince him to tell the others that you had killed him, and that Celine had thought it a proper punishment for you to lose your body, your life, so that Mark could continue to live on.
You hoped that you were wrong about her plan - that she wouldn't have done something like that...But you remembered what she had been like during the divorce with Mark. Before Damien had suggested that you become his new divorce lawyer, she would have been getting almost all of his fortune, as well as this damned manor, despite the fact that she was the one who had been unfaithful to Mark... Who had been utterly heartbroken and lost at what she'd done to him. Mark had been crushed by her infidelity and betrayal...
And the fact that his own brother, William had been having an affair with her behind his back had been a further betrayal - a stab in the back that had broken his will to fight against what she'd wanted until you'd stepped in and argued that Mark needn't suffer for his wife's infidelity more than he already had. In the end, she'd gotten quite a sum to live off on, but Mark hadn't had to pay for any additional support for her, as she had been the one to be unfaithful, and she had been the one to want the divorce, as Mark had wanted to try to work things out with her. But she hadn't wanted any of it, and had flounced off, check in hand and vanished.
You truly couldn’t stand to be surrounded by such darkness any longer - as even though you had kept your eyes closed, you couldn’t pretend for very long that you were trying to sleep... In part because you were terrified as to whether or not you could sleep - or what would happen to you if you did actually let your mind relax enough to fall asleep, given the state that you were in, and in this miserable, cursed manor. You bitterly wished that you’d never accepted the invitation to the poker game that had been the start of this misery and madness. You weren’t sure what all what would have happened, if you hadn’t accepted the invitation, but had you stayed away, you’d have been able to keep your body, at least.
Someone’s fingers wrapped around the mirror you were in, lifting you out of the utter darkness, and into the light. It was so blindingly bright, you had to hide your eyes as you adjusted to the light. It’s the large driveway that leads to Markiplier Manor.
“We have left the manor! Jim, wasn’t it morning when we entered this place? Why is it almost dusk?” Reporter Jim asked, a confused expression on his face, as he brings the mirror that you’re in up to his face.
You clear your throat a little before responding “That manor has... Unusual qualities to it. Time passes differently in there than it does outside.”
“I can hear you, Y/N!” Jim the reporter says, a wide grin appearing on his face. “We are going to the News Van, and there I will interview you on what happened in the manor.”
You nod, wondering silently where Damien and William went off to, and hope that wherever they are, that you and the two of them never cross paths again.