Chapter Text
I walked through the tunnel behind the cairn, feeling a strange sort of uneasy anticipation mixed with… excitement? I wasn’t sure, but this whole situation felt vaguely familiar, yet so unique that I was absolutely sure I’d never experienced anything like it before.
Looking around, I didn’t notice the ringing in my ears until it was nearly deafening, drowning out all sound as it increased from silent to impossibly loud in a matter of moments. I screwed my eyes shut, grimacing as I rubbed at my ears. My vision was spotty and speckled with splotches of light and colour, despite the fact that I was only seeing the insides of my eyelids, but the strangest part was the veritable flash that interrupted my internal complaints as I stumbled forwards.
And with that flash, miraculously, the ringing was gone.
I opened my eyes tentatively, head still aching from that abruptly unpleasant experience, despite the fact that it hadn’t even lasted for half a minute. Something felt off, somehow, the trees appearing somewhat different from this side of the cairn as I emerged from the stone tunnel. Everything looked more muted, almost, and I was left to wonder if I’d just had some weird sort of flash migraine that screwed up my senses and messed with my perception of colour. Looking around the clearing, I shivered, feeling the mildly humid air drifting past my arms and going right through my army jacket. There was a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before – what was wrong with me? It almost felt like it was autumn instead of summer.
The crackling sound of dead leaves being crushed underfoot startled me out of my baffled thought process, and my head snapped over to where the sound had come from. Something moved, and my body went after it on an urge, like a rat terrier spotting a rodent. I jogged after the flashes of movement, trying not to lose who I hoped was the girl I’d heard earlier, but also trying not to freak her out too much.
But my efforts were for naught. It was only moments before I lost sight of her, the flickers of movement on the edges of my vision fading as she got too far away for me to see. I stopped and looked around, practically squinting to see if I could find something, anything useful to figure out the situation, but there was nothing but plants.
“Well, this is just fantastic,” I muttered, sighing. “The crazy must be setting in again.”
Chasing a stranger through the woods because of a coincidence. How pathetic was that? And I didn’t have anything to show for my jaunt into the broken-down house except for another few photographs and some soggy wood splinters on my clothes.
I went to turn around, return to the cairn and find my way back to the mansion and then the town from there, but as I started to move, I stopped, realising one important thing: I didn’t know which direction I’d come from. In my haste to catch up to the stranger I’d been practically chasing down, I had gotten so turned around and distracted that I now had no idea where I was.
Lovely.
Sighing again, I looked around, picking a direction that seemed to have slightly less trees in it than the other directions – or maybe I just picked a random way. Walking forwards, I forged my own path through the underbrush, dodging thorns and snapping off stray dead branches that threatened to poke my eyes out.
How had my life even gotten to the point that it was this much of a mess? The nightmarish eldritch horror, the message my grandfather had given me as his last words, my parents. Everything was piling up into a mountain of disaster, and it was all stacked right on top of my chest, suffocating me under the pressure. There wasn’t even anything I could do about it. This wasn’t something I had personally messed up that I had to fix. No, that would have been too easy. Instead, this was every external problem possible, all banding together, and as much as I tried to fix things on my own, I didn’t know what to do.
How was I supposed to puzzle out all these layers of mystery and conspiracy when nobody ever told me anything? When I was actively discouraged from pursuing anything that might be remotely helpful, like any information on my grandfather whatsoever? I understood that my dad had issues with his own father, somehow convinced that he’d had an affair despite the only evidence being a rather familial letter from literal decades ago (a letter that I was almost positive my dad had shredded), but why did that give him an excuse to take out his issues on me?
Not to mention, I had no one to help me. No adults, not that I would expect help from the three adults intent on dictating my life – my parents and that unsettling therapist – but I didn’t really have any friends, either. Ricky was the closest thing, and after what was basically a parentally ordained house arrest, I had barely seen him in months. I was sure that he’d want to avoid me after the mess with my grandfather, and frankly, I couldn’t blame him. I would be avoiding this mess, too, if I had any choice in the matter.
And worst of all… how was I supposed to figure anything out when I couldn’t even tell if I was sane or not? When I could barely trust my own memories, my own mind, to tell me if I was right?
But I was startled out of my thoughts by a sudden realisation – there were voices coming from up ahead.
There were people ahead of me. Somehow, my pick of a random direction had led me back to the town – though, that meant I’d probably just used up every ounce of luck I would ever have to avoid my father’s wrath if I were to come back past sunset. It was still midday, at the very least, the sun hanging high in the sky.
Taking a decisive breath, I started forwards once again, following the layered voices off in the distance. At least the day wasn’t a total waste – I had still gotten those photographs, even if I knew now that there were no living remnants left of my grandfather’s past.
Back to square one.
oOoOo
Emerging from the treeline, I started to head into town, and then stopped. From where I was, I could see that there wasn’t anyone I recognised out on the street, but that wasn’t the strangest part. No, the strangest part was their clothes – everyone was dressed oddly, wearing stiff-looking fabrics in muted tones that would have been more common in the thirties than present day. I remembered looking at pictures of civilians during WWII wearing similar clothing to that, though the pictures hadn’t shown the exact colour of the clothing in question. None of the hoodies or cargo shorts of the modern day were here – and to be fair, it wouldn’t have looked too out of place, if not for the fact that I recognized this era of clothing. Styles hadn’t changed much over the years, but I was a history buff. I knew what I noticed.
However, if this was some sort of town-wide trend – and I hadn’t really looked at the townsfolk earlier in the day, so maybe it was – then I would have stuck out like a sore thumb. My army jacket and jeans might have been okay, sure, but certainly not my trainers or my faded white graphic tee hidden under the jacket. Somehow, I doubted that a hand-me-down t-shirt with the front striped in various pastels would have fit into the town’s sudden change in fashion.
Closing the front of my jacket, I walked briskly forwards, hoping that no one would notice my out-of-place shoes. Maybe I could get a pair of Wellingtons somewhere – rainboots seemed to be a safe style, at least, judging by how the few people I saw around had been wearing them.
Nobody spared me more than a few skeptical glances as I made my way through the sparsely populated streets. Evidently, that advice I’d heard about ‘confidence being key’ was really spying off. If I looked like I knew exactly what I was going and where I was going, then people would be a lot less likely to question me on it. They would just trust that I had my things in order, and let me go on my way. Now, I just had to hope my plan held up.
But the real question was, why did I feel the need to do that? Why had my instincts immediately screamed at me to blend in when I reached the edge of town? Was this some sort of subconscious response? Obviously it was a good one, since I hadn’t had any trouble yet, but… why?
As usual, though, the time that my brain chose to start asking questions was also the time that I chose to stop my brain from doing that. I didn’t have time to sit here and get philosophical – I had to find that girl if I could, and if I couldn't, then I had to find another clue to my grandfather’s message. And though I was doubtful that I would accomplish either of those goals, doubtfulness was no reason to give up.
Pushing open the door to the Priest Hole, I briefly noted that it was a lot more full than it had been when I’d left, not to mention that someone else was manning the bar. I walked over to him, waiting for the new bartender to turn towards me.
“Lookin’ a little young there, kid,” he said, voice wary. “’Fraid I can’t serve ya here.”
I shook my head. “Oh, no, I was just wondering if you saw a girl around my age go past here.” I didn’t really have any other identification for her besides my estimation of her age – I hadn’t seen her for long enough to figure out what she looked like, except maybe that her hair looked pretty light – still, that could have been the lighting, so I left that bit out.
The bartender looked a bit confused. “Only kids your age’re the ones up in the home. You lookin’ for one o’ them?”
Home? If he meant the old children’s home, then… but I’d just been there.The whole place was busted. There was no way anyone could live there. Kevin hadn’t mentioned another children’s home, but maybe they’d rebuilt it somewhere – could this man just know more about the island’s layout?
Taking a chance, I nodded decisively. “Yeah, I am. Could you point me in the right direction?”
“Sure, kid. Go up that way, follow the path – ‘s a bit buried, mud and all that, but you’ll see it all right. Say… you related to the boy who lives up there?”
“Which one?” My mind was telling me to lie, but deceit always had consequences when it involved other people’s participation. I didn’t want to assume an identity that would come back to bite me later.
“Y;know, the boy. Looks just like you – he’s the on’y one o’ that lot who comes down here alone, th’rest of ‘em stick in a gaggle. Like a bunch o’ chickens, they are.”
Lie. He’s giving you the perfect excuse, just take it already. “Oh, yeah – that’s actually who I’m here to find. I just saw the girl earlier and thought I could ask her more, plus she was in the area. Didn’t know if any of you would know the way to the home.” It was a fairly transparent lie, considering it relied on the participation of this ‘boy’, but for now, it would have to do. As long as it didn’t get too out of hand…
“‘Ey, hol’ on a mo’,” started one of the customers, a middle-aged balding man with a reddened nose and a half-empty tankard. “Boy who lived up there ‘asn’t been seen in ages. We all think he’s left. How’s you lookin’ for him here iffin he’s been gone?”
Thinking quickly, I spun up another layer to my lie, almost relieved that there was no one else around now who would have to corroborate. “I didn’t know if he’d already left or not – he didn’t arrive back home, so I came to find him. You said there’s other kids up in the children’s home?”
“Yeah, maybe one of ‘em knows ‘bout your lost boy,” the barkeep noted. “‘Ere, head on out there and have a peep. They’re a little weird, y’know, but they ain’t gonna do you no harm.”
“Speak for yerself,” muttered another drunkard, but I ignored him.
“Thank you for the directions,” I said gratefully, exiting quickly before anyone had the chance to question me further or notice my out-of-place choice of shoes. Hurrying past the few people out on the streets, I managed to make it to the edges of town with only a few more weird looks, heading into the woods once more as I prepared to hunt for my new goal.
But as I left the town, I realised one very important thing: the path was much harder to find than the bartender had implied. In fact, there basically was no path to find.
For one thing, there were no cobblestones, mud-covered or otherwise. If there had been a stone path once, there certainly wasn’t anymore, hidden and erased by the forest’s best efforts to remove any trace of human influence.
I ended up heading in the direction the man had indicated, only to get turned around as soon as I lost sight of the town. The trees were gnarled and looming, blocking my sight more effectively than a blackout curtain, not offering any assistance as I attempted to figure out which way I was supposed to be going.
This whole situation feels off, somehow, I mused as I pushed yet another broken branch out of my face. It was like I’d fallen into an alternate reality or something. Not to mention, everything was just too convenient – my weirdly specific instincts couldn’t explain how there was suddenly another children’s home where there was supposedly a boy who looked similar to myself. Or rather, there had been a boy like that. If the men in the bar were to be believed, he had probably left a bit ago – but still, there was a chance he was there.
This was a series of incredibly odd coincidences, and I didn’t know if I really liked any of them. It was like the universe was trying to balance out my karma and weigh down the ‘good’ side of the luck scale, gearing up to drop a bombshell on the ‘bad’ side.
In short, coincidences did not bode well for my future luck.
Almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I noticed something rather odd off through a few lines of trees. There was a flicker of light, like someone had a campfire going – but it was too high up to be a campfire. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to figure out what it was, but the light was just too far away for me to make out more than its meager glow.
Making a split-second idiotic decision, I sighed and started walking towards the flickering glow, its light becoming clearer and clearer as I neared the source. But as I approached, I noticed that most of the illumination was hidden behind slatted boards covering a boarded-up window. The probable fire was inside of an abandoned house, and I fought the urge to let out yet another sigh. Eh, what’s one more abandoned and potentially dangerous building on the repertoire?
Well. I was already here. Might as well take a look.
Pushing down the very sensible notion that I should absolutely not go into that house, I circled it for a moment until I found a door, noting that it wasn’t boarded up – or even locked, for that matter. I nudged it open easily with a muffled phoof as it swung open into a dust-filled room, revealing what looked like it was once a hunting cabin, or perhaps a one-room house. Most of it was still in shadow.
I stepped inside, feeling my spine tingle with irrational fear as my mind started coming up with scenarios of every single unrealistic thing that could happen to me in here… the top of the list being the Creature. I quickly shoved that one out of my head, swallowing down the reflexive nausea that accompanied the unwanted thought.
Looking down, though, something else became clear as I saw a set of ordinary footprints in the dust, looking like they’d been made by a set of worn Mary Janes. I’m not the only person in here. The fire’s gone, but there was, maybe still is, someone else in this room.
And this fact quickly became incredibly relevant to me when a ball of that flickering fire from earlier was held right up to my neck.