Chapter Text
Jon had barely enough time to look up as Martin dashed into Sasha’s office. It barely processed in his brain before the door slammed open and he pushed inside.
“I need to make a statement.” Jon heard Martin say before he and Tim booth followed quickly into the open office.
The sight of Martin after two weeks of him having been declared missing was jarring to say the least. Jon was used to the bumbling idiot who made tea and didn’t format his research correctly, but the Martin in front of him was wild and determined. His gaze was focused on Sasha as he demanded to tell his story.
His normally brownish ginger hair had also been dyed a deep inky black, not quite to the void color of the handprint, but still darker than natural, almost blue. His skin was pale, though it was difficult to tell if it was from shock or a lack of sunlight, though the freckles dotting his cheeks were more saturated than they were before.
“I need to make a statement,” Martin repeated, making Jon realize he had been staring at his now darkened hair. He looked away quickly, not wanting to be rude.
Sasha furrowed her brow. “Martin, are you sure you’re okay, I mean-”
Martin took a breath in “I’m fine, I just- how long has it been?” he seemed to settle down, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
“...Two weeks.”
Martin leaned back and let out a breath of air, rubbing his head. “Christ. Two weeks?” she nodded solemnly.
“I’m sorry, what the fuck.” Tim finally broke into the conversation, and Jon couldn’t agree more. He gestured at Martin with his hand. “What the fuck happened. We thought you were dead, you idiot.”
Martin winced. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where I was and-”
“Don’t apologize, just-” Tim breathed out slowly. “Christ. I’m not mad at you, Martin, you just worried us to hell is all. I mean, Jon said that you had gotten taken by ‘something made of shadow,’ and- god, just try and tell us what happened.”
He nodded. “Right, sorry. I almost forgot you were there, Jon, i was just panicking, and I couldn’t find a way out-”
“Just,” Sasha interrupted. “Start from the beginning, alright?” She clicked on the recorder in front of her and directed her speech to it.
“Statement of Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant at the Magnus Institute, regarding…”
“Two weeks spent in a shadow-realm of sorts.”
“Statement begins.”
All Martin remembered was the feeling of two ice cold hands grabbing his shoulders, Jon’s shocked face, and then darkness.
He was reeling, falling into the shadows. The world was nothing but pitch black, and the only thing he could hear was his own fast breathing.
Then he hit the water, and all there was was a piercing cold. It found its way deep into his bones, weighing down his limbs. He fell slowly in the water, and for a moment there was peace as the biting chill wrapped around him.
Then the panic set in.
He floundered a bit, reaching over his head, but he found he had sunk too deep to reach the surface. Or he had fallen upside down. He let out a few bubbles from his lips, trying to gauge what direction they rose in, but all around him was the same suffocating darkness. It made it impossible to see a surface or wall or even his own hand in front of his face.
No no no no NO
How did this even happen? There was no warning, nothing that caused this to happen. Why was he even here?
He couldn’t die like this, just dragged into the void never to be seen again. So, he picked a direction and started kicking.
He swam for a while, probably longer than he should have been able to hold his breath for. Every part of his brain was running in circles, screaming for him to survive, get out, find something.
It could’ve been minutes or days when he found the shore.
The first change that registered was the pain. Not cold, digging pain, like he had felt forever before, but a sharp, hot cutting pain on his hands. It rested against something sharp and painful, but it didn’t matter.
He scrambled quickly to grab onto it and pulled himself up, breaking the surface with a long gasp. He dragged himself onto the shore, ignoring the way what he thought was sand cut into his arms, stinging like they were made of salt. He couldn’t tell if what was dripping off him was the water or blood.
Wheezing, Martin curled up on the shore, letting himself breathe. It was as dark on land as it had been in the water, no source of light whatsoever wherever he was. He contemplated briefly that he had gone blind, but quickly dismissed it. He knew the lack of sight wasn’t anything to do with his eyes, but rather an unnatural darkness that swallowed everything. He didn’t know how he knew, but decided not to question it at the moment.
He pulled himself off of the ground, gripping his arms and feeling the stinging wounds cut deep into his arms.
“Hello?” he whispered in the blackness. There was no response, so he tried again, louder.
“Hello? HELLO?”
This time, he heard a noise. A familiar but faint sound of ragged breathing came from his far left, and he turned to the sound. As he figured, he could see nothing there, but he ran towards it anyway. Maybe it was the panic of the situation, maybe it was a need for something to happen, but he didn’t think to consider it would be a bad idea.
He ran until he was right next to the voice, calling out the whole time. He slowed to a stop when he heard the breathing next to him.
“H-hello? Can you help me? I think I'm lost.” he spoke tentatively, but his voice was muffled. He had to fight himself mentally to speak, as though this place was not supposed to have sound.
The breathing stopped suddenly, leading to a stark silence where the only sound was Martin’s own blood rushing in his ears. Without sight to guide him, it was like whatever was making the noise had disappeared.
He reached out to where the sound had been, before feeling an ice cold hand grab his ankle. It dug its fingers in, the icy cold spreading up his leg and making it go numb. He tripped at the sudden force and fell face first into the cutting sand. The glass like shards shredded his skin even more, and he could feel a few pieces stick in his skin as he cried.
The hand dragged him across the sand, and he kicked at it desperately, trying to break free from its iron grip. The cold seeping into his skin made him sluggish and weak, and despite Martin’s desperate flailing, he couldn’t break free.
He flailed like a maniac, trying to fight off the spreading chill, when he felt his hand brush up against a larger glass shard. In an instant he gripped it tightly, ignoring as it cut into his hand, and stabbed at the hand desperately.
The grip loosened, and he pulled out the shard and stabbed it again and again. At last, it’s grip broke free, silently letting go and disappearing back into the silence. He scooted back in the sand, wheezing and coughing from blood loss. He pulled his now unfeeling leg close to his chest, feeling the area where the hand had been. The entire leg was ice cold and numb, and where the hand had touched he could feel his blood dripping down from where the fingernails had pierced his skin.
“Fuck.” he sobbed, curling up and letting the tears flow. If anything, they would wash away the blood. He continued to swear under his breath as he slowly got into a standing position. He could put weight on his numb leg, which was good, but it was frozen in a buckled position, impossible to bend or straighten. Walking proved difficult, but he managed to find a limping pace that, even if it was not quick, was movement.
He walked like that for what felt like an eternity, but could have been no time at all. Cuts and half buried shards of glass covered his skin. He spent his time walking idly pulling out pieces of glass, wincing every time.
He had barely registered just how chilly the realm he found himself in was, until he felt how hot the blood covering his skin was. He didn’t know how much blood loss it took for someone to pass out, but he figured he had long since surpassed what it should’ve been.
He didn’t notice when the sandy ground turned into solid floor, but eventuall’y he realized he was no longer wandering on a sandy shore, and instead what might have been a house. It didn’t feel homely at all, it didn’t do anything to block the chill, and the layout was sprawling and confusing. He only knew it was a building because he had to navigate through furniture and walls, and spent more time then not feeling around a room for a doorway.
Sometimes there were doors. Sometimes the wall just ended, leaving a gap that had a chance of being large enough that he could go through. He tried sitting down on some of the chairs once, but the wood was decayed and they crumpled as soon as he put any weight on them. The building seemed designed to just be an endless maze of black, mold smelling corridors meant to exhaust him.
The monsters attacked him every once in a while. He started to call them phantoms in his head. It just seemed to fit, the way every once in a while they would swoop in and grab him, dragging him around. They always came with the unhealthy wheezing noise that lured him there in the first place, but it never stayed for long. Some would go silent, others would turn to animalistic hissing and growling, but either way meant it was time to run.
They came in groups and individually, though he could never say how many were in a group. Sometimes, he would find a cabinet to hide in while he waited for them to leave. He would sit inside them, silently sobbing.
The quiet “huff, huff” of the phantoms kept him from sleeping in that dark place. He knew that the second he fell asleep the claws would come tearing through the door, and with it the cold would come. So he hid, waited for the breathing to fade, then moved again.
Martin had no grip on how time was moving. He had tried to count his steps more than once, but he would never remember what number had come before and what came after, so he always gave up. There was no routine there, time had no meaning, just a constant movement, a constant terror.
When he opened a door to find light on the other side, he was blinded. After spending so much time in the oppressive darkness, his brain had trouble processing colors and light. He cried out in pain when the light hit his eyes, but pushed through and collapsed onto the ground.
He stayed curled up, slowly blinking and letting his eyes adjust. When he finally was able to look up without tears welling up in his eyes, he was outside an unfamiliar restaurant. It was simultaneously too bright for his eyes, but the little dark there petrified him, like if he stepped into a shadow he’d be dragged right back in.
Gasping for breath, he pulled himself off of the ground and leaned on the large sign next to him that portrayed the restaurant's name in bright colors. He tried to reorient himself, tried to readjust to reality. The noise of the street and passerbys was deafening compared to the silence of the darkness.
Where was he? He didn’t know. Didn’t he have some way to find out? Yes, his phone. He dug it out of his pocket and found, unsurprisingly, it wouldn’t turn on. He wasn’t sure if it was due to water damage or loss of battery, but either way it was useless.
He assessed the state of his body. He could still feel the chill deep in his bones, and the cuts on his skin, but surprisingly he seemed unharmed. Damp, yes, but without any visible injuries. He could’ve sword he had felt the blood dripping from those cuts, but maybe he had just been feeling the water.
Even without the cuts, there still was one thing that proved the shadowy beach hadn’t been a hallucination. Wherever the phantoms had touched him, on his shoulder, leg, arms, ankles, there was a handprint the color of a bruise, it almost looked like the blood underneath the pale skin had been turned black and frozen.
He stumbled his way into the restaurant, which seemed to be some sort of 24 hour diner. It was quiet inside, only attended by a couple employees and the only customer was a stressed looking woman drinking some coffee. The man behind the counter looked at him strangely as he slowly walked up to him.
“Uh, hi,” Martin said, wincing when his voice came out louder than he intended, then clearing his throat and trying again. “Do you have directions to the nearest bus station?”
The man looked him up and down with concern, before nodding slowly. “Yeah, it's just down the street to the right of here.” he pointed in the direction.
Martin muttered a thanks, but the man stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Look, man, are you okay? You look pretty beat up. Do you need some food? It's on the house.”
Martin shook his head, thanked the waiter, and quickly exited the diner. The bus ride to the magnus institute took longer than he had hoped (apparently he had ended up nearly on the opposite side of London). When he got off the bus he ran all the way to the institute, not even caring if no one was in.
“-and now, well. I’m here.”
Sasha pursed her lips, and Martin stared at her with trepidation. He knew she couldn’t dismiss the event as a hallucination, he had shown her the handprints, and they had obviously known he was missing. Still, a little part of him was worried she would dismiss it out of hand, and an even smaller part of him worried if she would be right. He didn’t think he was crazy, but he knew that if he was actually crazy he wouldn’t think he was crazy either.
“Anything else?” Sasha asked, and he took a breath in. This was what was most likely the worst part of the story.
“Yes, actually,” he fidgeted. “While I was on my way here, I tried to stay away from the shadows as much as possible, but I did have to go into the dark a few times. When I got too close to a dark part of the street I saw the hands reaching towards me again. When I passed by alleys, I heard the wheezing sound more than a few times. I even was able to see one walking the street, which was the first time I got a good look at one of the phantoms.
“It looked more like a silhouette than an actual person, like it was just a shadow. It stood at maybe… 8 feet tall? It looked almost like a skeleton, with how skinny it was. It was something straight out of a horror movie, really. I ran when I saw it, of course. It didn’t chase me, just watched, breathing that ragged cough.”
He let himself breath fully for the first time since had started the statement. There was something about giving a statement that made everything just come together in a cohesive narrative, strangely enough. He didn’t consider himself the best storyteller, but when he talked into that tape recorder it was just… easier.
He briefly considered using a tape recorder to do his poetry, to see if it had the same effect, but filed that under things to think about later. Preferably when he wasn’t recovering from a traumatic supernatural experience.
Sasha frowned. “That means these things aren’t done with you yet. Do you have a roommate?”
The question caught Martin off guard. “Uh, No?”
“Any family or friends you can stay with?”
“I-I mean, not really?”
“Oh, right, your mum. I don’t think it's best for you to be by yourself for now, there's no guarantee that these ‘phantoms’ won’t try to target you again. I’d offer my own flat, but between me and my roommates there's not any space.”
Martin noted with alarm and confusion her comment about his mum, but decided not to interrogate it.
“I don’t want to be a burden.” he said quickly “I’m sure i’ll be alright going back to my flat, Sasha.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Do you really believe that?” he hesitated. He didn’t really want to be alone, especially with the chance of being taken away by the phantoms again, or worse, killed. Still, he would rather not intrude on anyone else’s space.
“I mean… kind of? Safety is probably a good thing to be concerned about?” he muttered.
“Alright then. Tim, Jon?” she looked up at the two other assistants who had been listening to the statement silently. They both had grim looks on their faces, and Jon was peering over Martin with what he almost could have mistaken for concern.
Tim shrugged. “My house is one person, but you could crash on my couch. Isn’t the comfiest, but it may work.” Martin pursed his lips, already feeling the neck pain. If it kept him safe, he might as well accept.
He opened his mouth to speak, when Jon muttered something under his breath before he could. Sasha tilted her head. “What was that, Jon?” she asked. He cleared his throat and repeated himself louder.
“I said I have a spare bedroom in my flat if you would like to use it, Martin.”
Martin blinked. That… that could work.
It would mean having to live with Jon, which wasn’t ideal considering Jon’s hatred for him (though the fact he was offering a bed might’ve meant he didn’t hate him that much… or it could’ve just been basic human decency. Honestly, it was quite rude on his part to assume that even if Jon didn’t like him he would just leave him to be hurt like that).
That also would mean being painfully reminded of his crush on the guy constantly. Being around him at work was awkward enough, but having to live with him? That might break Martin.
But, just maybe, exposure was what he needed. Maybe being around Jon for so long would help him overcome his feelings! It was a stupid hope, but it might work.
Martin also really didn’t want to have to crash on Tim’s couch. From the conversations he had had with the man, he could tell that having Tim as a roommate was not for the faint of heart. Besides, Jon might actually end up being a good roommate.
He realized the pause he had taken to contemplate the offer had gone on a bit too long, and cleared his throat.
“Right. That would work.”
Jon’s expression didn’t change, but Sasha nodded in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring.
“I'll give you two the rest of the day off then to get that sorted.”
She got up out of the chair, Tim following her like a strange guard dog, leaving Jon and Martin alone in the office.
Jon glared at nothing in particular. “So, uh, roommates, huh?” Martin tried, which caused the glare to go from nothing in particular to him.
“Temporarily, yes. I assume you’ll need no assistance getting your belongings?”
Martin nodded quickly.
“Good,” Jon sniffed. “I’ll be back at my flat. Please be sure to move everything by yourself.”
He then promptly walked out, and Martin was alone. He sighed, clicked off the still running tape recorder, and prepared for what was most likely going to be the worst housing arrangement of his life.