Chapter Text
The chill was getting much worse as they ascended the stairs, inching their way over long falls and sharpened material, the toes of their shoes supported by nothing but air. The wind wasn’t helping at all, and the rocking structure made Desmond’s stomach clench with each shift of the metaphorical sea bed.
They were so high up, it was dizzying. He was no stranger to heights; being friends with a lighthouse keeper and a man who studies the stars as a hobby means that he spends quite a bit of his time high above the ground, but that’s doesn’t mean he has to like it. Especially like this. Plenty of Personal Consciouses have high places that he’s had to navigate to continue, and he hated all of them. Something about dying in the Collective just felt so much scarier than dying in the real world.
Desmond tried his best to not think about the worst case scenario that was falling down, down, down, all the way to the disgusting sea below them, but it was hard not to when it was such a clear possibility.
“Is it getting colder?” Suze spoke over the wind when they reached a safer spot, her teeth chattering. Desmond nodded. He knew this cold. Sure enough, rounding a corner, he saw a massive freezing shadow in the way. Suze only had a few flares left, and he loathed wasting ammunition on the shadows, but it was often unavoidable.
Suze pulled out the flare gun, aiming it at the unnatural darkness. They kept their distance as the flare exploded, dispersing the chilling shadow with a satisfying sizzle, replacing the darkness with a bright red glow. As soon as it was fired, Suze was reloading the weapon; at least she stayed prepared.
The rest of the way was a relatively straight shot, and soon enough they found themselves inside a small room (an office?) with a ladder going up to the upper level, where they should be heading next.
First, however, they had to listen to whatever was on the other side of the ringing phone. Yet another memory, as it turns out. Only this one was a bit different from the others, in that it was almost intelligible.
There wasn’t any truly coherent conversation, but the message came across just fine, even without the budding second-hand panic leeching into his lungs. The man on the line sounded completely hysterical, hyperventilating and stammering over his words. Caz called him Innes, trying to get a clear answer out of his frantic coworker.
The only thing that could be deduced from the memory was that another friend, Muir, had turned into one of the monsters. Screams and howling made it hard to make out Innes’ last words, but his purely terrified wail made it clear that something had scared or forced the man into dropping the call. The last thing they could hear of the memory was Caz’s panicked swear, before it cut off.
“Caz told me about Innes and Muir, once,” Suze spoke up as they scoured the room for any supplies. A couple batteries, but they had plenty of those already. “During one of his good days. Good men. Apparently, they were a couple. Tried to keep it under wraps, but he said that it was obvious to anyone with eyes.”
Suze sighed, shaking her head sadly. “Together to the end, Caz said. All Muir could talk about was Innes, even when he was… when he was…” she trailed off, neither of them really knowing what he was, in the end. What any of them had been. A physically realized Shadow? A different being entirely? Some sort of twisted, foul entity somehow relating to a Shadow, yet existing as its own new abomination without rhyme or reason?
Endless possibilities mirrored by the endless corridors, confusion melding the very space around them into a prison of fog and metal, fear and determination, death and twisting flesh?
Friends, coworkers, enemies, either dead, doomed or stuck alive in the worst ways. And Caz was no different. He was doomed from the start, by his own narrative. Stuck in an endless cycle of running and climbing and hoping for a light on the horizon, when he knew full well that no one could help him anymore. That he was helpless ever since he left his home for the Beira D oil platform. Ever since he beat a man half to death.
Even now, here he was; broken, self-destructed, the very thing that he was running from that day, when he went to the rig, when he almost killed that man, doing him in. Helpless, doomed, might as well be dead already. The very monsters that he was running from, that he fought in the quarry, the very thing that he vowed to never let hurt another person, had taken his subconscious and now his life. It was only a matter of time.
What would you do, Desmond? In his place? If you found yourself in his boots, on that rig? Break down completely, probably. Maybe scream a whole lot. You’re certainly much better at that than you are at athletics.
“Shut. Up.” Desmond hissed to himself, or rather, to the sickly, pessimistic him that decided at that moment to surface in his own head. (Technically, he was already inside his own head, but the technicalities didn’t matter.)
Suze looked at him strangely, surprised and a bit offended. “Excuse you?”
He waved his hands, digging for an explanation that didn’t sound insane. Oh, whatever. Everything sounded insane, inside the Collective.
“We didn’t hear from my Shadow last time, and now I know that it’s because he was biding his time in order to build up energy, so that he can do one of his stupid tricks.” It sounded strange, but it was the best way that he could think to put it. “Basically… he’s in my head, my thoughts. Again.” Again, because while he didn’t do it often, he did it often enough that Desmond had come to expect it after not encountering him for a while. But why now, after all this time?
Suze’s expression went from offended, to concerned. At least she didn’t look like she was going to throttle him, anymore. Note to self, he thought; don’t insult Suze.
“So he’s… talking to you, right now?” Desmond could practically hear the gears turning in her head, and he lightly pulled her over to the ceiling hatch so they could continue this talk on the move. “That’s normal? But, you said he needs energy to do it… why would he do that, when he could just call?”
“Because he likes to influence my thoughts, be demotivating as long as he can get away with it, without my knowledge. He treats it like a game.” He could see the door leading back to the interior rig, and mentally steeled himself. This was going to be… fun. “It’s annoying, but I can usually just block him out, once I figure out what he’s doing.”
“Let me guess - this is another side-effect of him being so in tune with the Collective Unconscious?”
“Most of his quirks are, yes.”
“And just when I thought he couldn’t get any more annoying…”
“Ha! Just wait until he sneaks up on you, to try and give you a heart attack. He’s a bastard, but he’s a stealthy one at that.”
Desmond would certainly have to keep watch for his thoughts taking negative turns like that, for a while, but he knew that Rainbow wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever. Eventually he would get bored and go back to his usual calls and occasional sightings. But until then, he should just try and stay focused on the mission. Suze was still sending him worried glances, but let the matter go once they reached the door.
As soon as he passed the threshold, goosebumps rose up his arms, the hair at the nape of his neck standing on end. Something was wrong. That’s not to say that things were right, but whatever was on the other side of the door separating the small room from the rest of the interior… it wasn’t good at all.
Suze felt it too, from the way she brought the flare gun back to her hand, holding it in front of her as they approached the door.
Something caught his eye, though. Something bright red and cylindrical. He held out a hand to stop her, before scooping up the two flares from the bench, passing them to her.
“Oh! Thank you.” She gratefully pocketed the flares, not questioning the placement of the ammunition. She was learning quickly that questioning how the Collective and the tapes work just led to more questions.
Desmond unlocked the metal door, and before he opened it he let the shotgun fall back into his hands. He didn’t have that many shells left, but he was sure that he’d find some more, somewhere. Right as he moved to the doorway, though, another rumble made them trip into each other.
It was much worse, still underneath them but closer to their location. It was as though something had burst upwards, making the very world shift, the ceiling creaking but staying put, thankfully, the floor almost rippling with the motion.
As the heavy door slowly swung open, Desmond gawked at what he saw in the other side; solid oil, broken through the staircase across from them and stretching up into the upper floors. It looked a bit like stretched taffy, or bacon, almost, if he squinted, with uneven spheres at the base, like boils. The flickering lights made the black oil refract into a shower of colors, bouncing off of his glasses when he tilted his head just so, blinding him a little.
It appeared to be undulating, shifting, like an artery. If he listened hard, Desmond could make out the sound of a slow heartbeat, deep and thrumming, pressure building in his head with each low beat until he was swaying, dizzied and nauseous.
Beside him, Suze shook her head to clear it, rubbing at her eyes even as she struggled to look away from the sight before them, and Desmond snapped out of his stupor to nudge her along, down the hallway to their left, far away from the solid oil - symbolizing the thing that had changed the rig and it’s inhabitants, in the first place.
Better hope it doesn’t change you into a monster as well, Wales. Well, a bigger one than before, that is.
Go away.
At least the Shadow’s voice was getting fainter, rougher, less integrated with his own thoughts, indicating that he was already running out of steam for his little stunt.
The hallway was a dead end, but a quick look around revealed a yellow-edged vent, just like the one outside of the laundry room. The reminder of just how close they came to dying back then made him shudder, and he hurried to break the cover off, letting Suze crawl through first as he kept an eye out.
The other side seemed to be yet another end of a hallway, though debris had completely blocked off the corridor. There was, however, an open vent cover. Only this one went up into the ceiling, with a tarp-clad crate providing a boost up.
Desmond sighed, going first this time. The ventilation shaft was dusty, bits of trash and broken metal and plaster lining the thin metal walls and scratching his arms as he crawled farther in. He heard Suze climb up behind him, and suddenly had the thought that the vent may not hold their weights combined. Images of them falling through the ceiling, landing on something sharp, or right in the path of another Inkblot or, god forbid, Caz’s Shadow, ran through his mind unbidden.
Desmond mentally shooed his own Shadow away once more. He couldn’t wait until the bastard tired himself out. Why now? Why couldn’t the asshole just leave him alone? He was probably brought back by Desmond’s anxiety earlier, about falling, and was now being fueled by his frustration.
The small vents seemed to go on and on, occasional sparking wires and sharp jutting metal creating hazards that eventually became more annoying than anything else. Sometimes, they would crawl over a grate, and he could swear that he can see something in the wrecked halls, following them from down below. He wasn’t sure just how much of that paranoia was caused by Agent Rainbow, or by the ambient energy that clung to everything, or how much of it was actually warranted, but he still tried to keep his eyes on the path ahead.
Eventually they reached a part of the ceiling that had collapsed, a support beam being the only way to the other side. Desmond considered just hopping down and hoping for the best, but the sight of curling solid oil covering the floor and clumping the walls made him think twice. He wasn’t sure what touching the stuff would do, but he wasn’t keen on finding out. Suze had been fine after touching the oil veil in her old home, but this stuff was very clearly different from the veils, despite appearing to be more or less the same material.
So, Desmond held tight to the metal, and slowly inched his way across the gap. Between the effect the stuff had on him, the thick dust and the loose debris, it was hard to grip some spots and harder to stay steady, but he made it over just fine, and he paused and turned to watch Suze cross next.
She made it about halfway, before everything shook again. He reached an arm out, grabbing her hand as she slipped off of the beam, managing the cling onto the edge before falling completely. Her feet dangled dangerously close to the sickly substance, and he tried his best to pull her up, with how awkward the angle was.
Thankfully, she was able to anchor a foot on the metal, and she pulled herself back up, practically hugging the beam as she panted. The rig shuddered once more, and they both held on tight to whatever they could. As soon as the movement ceased, Suze quickly crawled the rest of the way to relative safety.
“That… that was way too close…” she breathed, rubbing her sore palms. Desmond nodded his agreement. He noticed the small cut on her hand was bleeding again, but not much. They could deal with it later. Maybe after they get out of the tape, back to the office. There was never much time to tend to wounds inside of the tapes, and the cut didn’t warrant a lure pill. Hopefully that would be the worst of their collective injuries, but he was honestly doubtful.
They followed the narrow tunnels for a while longer, until they crossed over another ceiling grate, and heard the Shadow roar again, making his ears ring. It was very close and, sure enough, a moment later Desmond saw it run through the hallway underneath them. It didn’t see them, of course, but it was still way too close for comfort. And it was also heading in the same direction as they were. It seemed like their respite from running for their lives would be a short one.
They still kept moving, though. As though they had anywhere else to go. The ventilation system ended soon after the sighting, and he dropped down into… the laundry room storage closet. Broken-down door and everything. He hadn’t noticed them looping back around, but then again, they’ve been sort of everywhere. In fact, maybe they hadn’t been circling at all. Maybe it was just the non-euclidean nature of the tape.
Either way, they should get away from the area. With the Shadow roaming around nearby, he didn’t want to stay in one place for too long. Suze readily agreed.
A quick glance into the laundry room revealed that it was completely wrecked, either from the chase before, or the quakes, or even just Caz’s worsening health. Machinery and cables and pipes and metal sheets and so much other stuff that Desmond couldn’t name were creating a blockage, meaning that they couldn’t go through it. That they shouldn’t go through it. That’s not where the tape, or Caz, wanted them to go.
The vent opening that they had used to enter the first time was still open, and they left the laundry room behind, reentering the labyrinth of halls and locked doors and annoying obstacles. There was no other signs of Caz’s Shadow yet, but they still moved quickly and quietly, flare gun and shotgun drawn and the shard in hand, making sure nothing snuck up on them. Though, it would be pretty hard for the beast to move silently enough to get the drop on them.
Still. They could never be so certain, when it came to Shadows.
Speaking of…
“Did you see that?” Suze whispered, halting and pointing to an intersection up ahead. He had seen it, the blur of yellow and purple dashing across the hallway. He kept walking, Suze hesitantly following.
“That would be Rainbow.” He said, looking down the corridor where his Shadow had gone. As he had expected, there was nothing of note. Just a dead end. For a brief moment, he could see the faint remnants of blue and purple mist, before it vanished completely. “He must be getting desperate for a reaction.”
Suze hummed, relaxing a bit. Only to immediately tense back up as they heard the beast cry out again, not far away at all.
It was time to get moving again.
The passageways were definitely different from when they last came through the area. Coiling oil rose from the floor, piercing walls and the roof and making his head pound every time they got close to any of the foul, swirling material.
Occasionally, the Shadow would bellow and wail somewhere close by, and they would change direction to try and avoid it. It hissed to them, saying that it knew where they were, and that it misses its girls. At that, Suze froze, looking vaguely ill, and Desmond dragged her along to get her moving again. He could understand her distress, but they had to keep going.
But the voice just grew louder and louder, their attempts at dodging the monster proving fruitless as it drew nearer with every passing moment. Eventually, they could feel its movements through the walls, vibrations in the metal plating making his vision blur as it dragged its claws and howled in frustration and pain. They couldn’t avoid it, but hopefully they could escape it when it found them.
And find them it did. Desmond saw movement in the shard before he heard it snarl from right behind them, and broke out into a dead sprint, Suze right beside him. It was the laundry room chase all over again, with the Shadow having to go through all of the miscellaneous stuff in the way, and gaining on them anyway.
Desmond took one last look in the mirror, seeing it not too far away, before stuffing it into his pocket and whipping around, aiming the shotgun at the exposed eye in its neck. He got the shot off, but he knew that it wouldn’t be as effective as a flare, so as it wailed and thrashed with agony, he took out the little plastic bottle and tossed a lure pill ahead of them, pulling Suze into a hallway to their left.
They didn’t stop running, but he heard it take the bait, and allowed himself to slow a bit, trying to regain his breath as Suze did the same at his side. The new hall was almost void of debris, but he could see a narrow gap up ahead, created by the solid oil bursting from the walls and pressing them almost together. Just enough that they could squeeze through, and not the beast.
Just as they started speeding up, the Shadow found them again, bounding down the hallway without anything to get in its way. It roared, deafening them as they ran to the pinched walls. Once they reached them, Suze waved at him to go first, spinning around to level the flare gun at the monster. It hadn’t learned its lesson, and left its eye out in the open for a second too long.
Desmond shuffled through the opening as fast as he could, and once the Shadow was distracted, Suze followed close behind. The Shadow seemed to be getting stronger, though, and it recovered faster than it had last time. Just as she squeezed her way into the gap, the beast lunged at her, trying to claw and bite its way past the walls. Desmond couldn’t see very well, but from her pained grunt, he could tell that its claws had found her.
Finally, he fell through to the other side, moving out of the way as Suze stumbled her way out of the passage. Desmond watched the Shadow attack the walls as it screamed at them, most of its words intelligible with rage, until it seemed to give up, or forget them. It cried out, running back down the corridor.
Suze dropped down next to him, sitting against the wall. Desmond checked her over, finding blood starting to soak her left leg. There wasn’t a whole lot, but it was still worrying. Leg injuries were never good, especially when they were in a constant state of run or die.
“How bad is it?” He asked, nodding to the gash in her calf. She rolled up her pant leg, hissing at the pain. The cut wasn’t too big, but it was rather deep. A lure pill wouldn’t help very much, and he only had one left, anyway. “Think you can still walk?”
Suze huffed, as though she were offended. “I’ll live. It’s not that bad. You wouldn’t have anything in the way of a bandage, would you?”
“Not really. Everything medical stays in the office, these days… you can use some of your sleeve?” That’s what he used, before he had the mind to stockpile first aid kits for when he returned from a tape more battered than when he entered. Right after Allen’s, he believed. “Maybe we’ll find something up ahead.”
She pursed her lips, before sighing and lowering her pant leg again. “It’s fine. It’s cold enough as it is, I don’t need to start tearing up my sleeves just yet.”
Desmond chuckled. “Alright then. Let’s keep…” he trailed off, finally taking a look at where they were. Suze, confused, glanced around them, and paused when she saw that they were right outside of the canteen.
Just then, he faintly heard a ringing phone. Another memory, it seemed. Why else would they come back here? He helped Suze stand, and made sure that she was able to walk okay, before they left the hallway.
The room was untouched by the oily structures, but it was much worse off than it was a while ago. Soiled food and fallen pots and pans and trays littered the kitchen, and the pantry door was closed. It wasn’t locked, but it was barricaded from the other side.
Suze pointed out a vent that he hadn’t noticed, hidden under a table, and he made quick work of it with the screwdriver (which was still dripping with strange black liquid, even after all this time stuffed in his pocket). The pantry was a mess, cans all over the floor and shelves collapsed into each other like dominoes, but the desk lamp was still on, and the phone was still ringing, showing no signs of stopping even after it should’ve gone to the answering machine by now.
Suze’s hands were shaking, he noticed. Her breaths were deliberately even, and her eyes refused to leave the telephone on the desk. No matter how much she denied it, hearing Roy again was clearly a bit much.
“You don’t have to listen, you know.” That made her look away, turning to him with an expression that would’ve seemed angry, if she didn’t look so crestfallen. “Only one of us has to hear it. I don’t think either of them would fault you for not listening to this.”
Several emotions flashed over her features in rapid succession; grief and annoyance, anger and doubt, contemplation and guilt, before she finally settled on stubbornness.
“No. I’m going to find out what happened.” She let out a deep breath, going up to the phone to start the memory. “I owe it to Roy. To both of them.”
“Caz! You alright?” Roy had exclaimed all those years ago. “Jesus you look terrible!”
“Do not go down those fucking stairs.” Caz groaned, leaning on the desk by the sound of it.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Trots.” Fear and uncertainty filled the air, a hopeless hope that he was wrong, even though he knew it was just denial. “I think it was Trots. Now it’s just fucking horrible, whatever it is. Just stay in here and keep quiet.”
“Did you get to the lifeboats?”
“Yeah… fuck knows if they ever worked, but they definitely don’t fucking work now.” There was a bit of a pause. “I had a chat with Rennick about it while I was out there.”
“How did that go?” Roy asked with a tone that implied that he knew the answer.
“Badly. The cunt still reckons we should get to the bird.” Caz barely felt anger about it anymore. He had just felt tired.
“You think?”
“You got a better idea?”
There was another pause, and Desmond could make out someone exhaling, like they were smoking. “Caz, mate, I’m not gonna make it over the deck. I’m not feeling so good, pal…” the tiny bit of calm that had settled was broken, just like that. “I think I need my insulin.”
“What? You’re fucking kidding Roy, now?”
“Oh I’m sorry to inconvenience you mister bloody fit and healthy.” Roy snapped, sounding increasingly exhausted with each word. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll have a… little chat with my pancreas, shall I? And tell it to pull its socks up.”
“Alright, alright, fucks sake. Could you not just eat some fucking jam or something?”
“Oh bloody hell, the man’s a medical genius! I’ll get on the phone to Doctor fucking Spock and tell him not to panic. We’ve solved diabetes here!”
“It’s fucking McCoy, not Spock,” Caz huffed, just as Desmond was thinking the same thing, more or less. “He was the pointy eared cunt.”
Roy laughed, wheezing as he chuckled. Once his hysterics had calmed a bit, they were silent for a moment, the only sounds being the smoking and the ambient noise that Desmond had long since gotten used to.
“You think you can manage to get to your cabin?” Caz spoke up finally. “You’ve got some in there, yeah? I’ll get to the helipad, make sure the cunt doesn’t try leaving without you.”
“Alright.” Roy sighed. “I’m not useless, I can get there. Listen… wh-when you get to the chopper, tell Archie to radio in the support ship.” His voice became shaky and frantic, and it was rubbing off on the other man. “W-we need all the fucking help we can get, Caz.”
“Alright big man, alright.” He could hear Caz pat the man on the back. “Just be careful, okay?” Sadness and dread filled his lungs. “My girls need their godfather in one piece.”
The memory stopped there, with fading footsteps following those last words. After the tone played for a moment, Suze put the receiver back in its place. Rainbow didn’t call, and Desmond was glad. He doubted he would help the situation.
Suze’s eyes were watery, and she swiped her hand over them. She let out a shaky sigh and squared her shoulders, replacing that ready-for-everything front that she kept up.
Grief was a strange thing, and you could never quite push it away. Not for long at least.
“And you said I was a nerd.” Desmond said quietly, trying to lighten the mood a bit, knowing by now that she would rather not talk about it. Thankfully, it worked, and she barked out a startled laugh. It was less because it was a particularly funny comment, and more because she needed to do something with her chest or she’d cry for real, but he’d take what he could get.
“I never said you were a nerd, you said that yourself.” She was still wracked with tiny giggles, shaking her head. “Both Caz and Billy love that stupid fucking show…” Her face dropped a little, brow furrowing again.
“Hey,” he waited until she had her attention on him to go on. “We’re getting out of here, and we’re bringing Caz back, okay?” He put a hand on her shoulder. “We can do this. We just have to keep our heads.”
Suze sucked in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut until she let it out in a big huff. “I know, I know… we’re not leaving without him.”
“Exactly.” Desmond emphasized. With that, their little break was over. Aside from the new mess in the room, a couple shotgun shells sat on one of the few shelves still standing, even though there certainly wasn’t any before. But he would rather not question these things; it wouldn’t do him any good to look a gift-horse in the mouth. Who cares if theres shotgun shells in a pantry, or lure pills on the ground, or a broken gas mask in a flooded boiler room in the basement of a collapsing building?
Suze noticed them as well, and while her face twisted in confusion, she didn’t question it out loud. They would find some more flares and shotgun shells and lure pills at some point, but until then, they would just have to keep their eyes open.
When they left the pantry and kitchen this time, the Shadow was nowhere to be seen or heard. Instead, the area outside of the canteen had changed yet again; instead of the narrow gap that had saved their lives, there was instead the door leading back to the deck. The hallway outside of it was different, but it was the same door. Opening it revealed the dividing room full of shelves and equipment, with a black stain where the screwdriver had sat, long since dried even though the tool itself hadn’t.
“I hate this. So confusing…” Suze comments with a groan, rubbing at her temples. Desmond couldn’t help but agree. It was always headache inducing, no matter how long he’s experienced it, and even come to expect it. It messes with your head, the random shifts in direction and environment. The random maps that they’ve come across seemed to change with the Conscious, though, so that was good. Not that they helped all that much after a while.
The deck was layered in a thick, heavy fog, the sky darker but just barely; it’d be night by the time they could leave, at this rate. He could hear the light pitter-patter of rain, could feel it through his clothes and hair. It wasn’t pouring down, like it had in Lucas’ tape, nor was it acidic and painful like he’s seen on several occasions, but it still induced a feeling a paranoia, outside of the usual ambiance.
Desmond got a single step in, before the wall behind them exploded outward.
He heard Suze yelp as she got thrown, and he would’ve reached for to her if he hadn’t been thrown as well. He pitched over the wobbly railing, falling down onto a shipping container, landing hard. He hit his wrist at a bad angle and felt it pull painfully, not broken but not unhurt either. But that didn’t matter, not when Caz’s Shadow was leaping from the platform above, clearing the container completely and disappearing into the mist.
He had to find Suze.
He hadn’t seen where she fell, but he knew that she fell farther down than him. Hopefully, she would be okay. Between the longer fall and the Shadow presumably roaming the deck now, she was in a worse spot than he was.
Staying low, Desmond crept his way to where he thought she was. He couldn’t hear her, but that meant that the monster couldn’t either. Most likely. Please, let that be the case.
From somewhere below, it wailed, though he couldn’t make out what it was saying. It was incredibly eerie, hearing its guttural voice echoing off the metal surrounding them. He couldn’t pinpoint its location, and that just made it scarier. He wanted to pull out the shard, to try and find where it was, but he didn’t want to risk staying still for too long, up high like he was. Easily visible if it managed to look up.
Then, he heard a groan, somewhere to his left. He found a hole in the sheet metal, too small to climb through, but big enough to see Suze sitting up, running a hand down her face. She seemed to have found herself in a small area surrounded by miscellaneous junk and heavy machinery. He tried to catch her attention, startling her before she noticed him up above her.
“Was… was that the…?”
“It was, yeah.” Desmond looked around, but there didn’t seem to be any way to get down to her, or for her to climb up to him. They were separated. “Is there a way out of there, that you can see?”
She took a look around, and seemed to narrow in on something he couldn’t see. He noticed that she was limping a bit on her cut leg, and hoped that the injury hadn’t gotten any worse. “Yes, there’s a path through there… what about you?”
Desmond checked behind him. The Shadow was still screaming, its voice too echoey to really make out, but it was still impossible to tell how close it was. All he could really see was the faint outline of the crane, and the edge of the crate he was on. “I… I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with this fog. I’ll figure it out.”
“Let’s try and meet back up, somewhere.” Suze said after a tense moment of just listening to the cries all around them. “We just have to be careful.”
Even though he didn’t necessarily like the idea of splitting up, what other choice did they have, at the moment? “Alright.” Before she could run off, he stopped her, reaching into his pocket for the pill bottle and lowering it into the hole. She jumped up to catch it as it dropped, wincing as she landed on her bad leg. “There’s only one, but… just in case.”
She nodded sharply, stuffing the bottle into her own pocket. “Stay safe.” With those last words, she disappeared out of sight. He couldn’t hear her with the wails bouncing off the rig. It was definitely getting closer.
“Why did I survive!? When they all…”
Time for him to find a way down. Preferably without breaking something. His wrist still ached, and he’d rather not sprain an ankle now.
“I’m broken! I’m a mess!”
It took a bit of careful footwork, but he found a safe way down to the deck. The Shadow didn’t sound so all-encompassing, farther down, but it was still difficult to track it by sound alone.
So, he supposed that there was an upside to being trapped in the same general area as it. A very, very tiny upside. Because that meant that he could see it, and that he won’t have to worry about it finding Suze.
“I can hear you… please… so hungry…”
Desmond quickly ducked down under some fallen equipment as he saw it emerge from the haze, right in front of him. It hadn’t seen him, either due to the aforementioned haze, or because it was looking in a different direction, or because they were starting to do some real damage to its eye. He sincerely doubted the latter, but it was a nice thought.
“Why can’t you just stay?! I’m sorry, I never meant it!”
Either way, it passed by without spotting him, taking its mutterings and sobs with it. He took that moment to finally bring the shard back out, tilting it this way and that until its outline appeared in the perpetually smudged glass, just in time to watch it jump on top of something, walking away until it was out of range. Only then did Desmond move, swiftly making his way across the deck. He checked the mirror often, making sure it wasn’t returning.
He managed to find an open shipping crate and get inside, just as the beast let out a particularly loud roar. He heard something crash, so heavy it shook the whole deck, and loud enough to make him freeze. All he could do right now was hope that that wasn’t Suze, and keep moving before it found him instead. So, that’s what he did.
After a few more minutes of him sneaking around, and being slowed down significantly when the Shadow returned to the part of the deck he was traversing through, Desmond found a small, sectioned-off spot with a control panel and some random tools and such. Judging by the crew lift nearby, the controls were for that. It seemed to be the same lift that took him and Suze down the first time, but the area was completely changed.
He didn’t see any entrance to the control room, but maybe he could just wait for Suze on the lift and hope it worked when they needed it. So, with a plan in mind, and the Shadows last-known location being out of sight completely, he started walking to the crew lift.
Only, he made the mistake of not looking up, with the mirror.
“You should’ve just let me go! You can’t help me!”
For a long, long moment, all Desmond knew was noise and flashing sunlight. He registered that something had fallen over him and started rolling, taking him with it, but that’s about it. It was very reminiscent of the boat ride in Allen’s tape. Less of a ride and more of a fall, really. One that left him with a scar on his temple and occasional headaches that came on with the littlest things, in and out of the Collective. With any of his rare luck, this tumble would be less brain-damaging.
Finally, things settled, and Desmond took a second to just breathe and recover from the chaos. When he looked back up from where he was laid flat on his ass, he found some light streaming in from a gash in the container that had been dropped on him, and some cracks in the metal walls helping to illuminate the small space.
From what he could tell, the exit was blocked by something heavy, and the gash was way too small to squeeze through. He was thoroughly trapped.
Desmond swore loudly, dropping his head back onto the metal. He didn’t bother with being silent anymore. If the beast wanted to make sure he was dead, he’d be very, very dead by now.
“Hm, I dunno… you seem pretty, infuriatingly un-killable to me.”
Just to make matters worse…
Desmond tilted his head up to look at the new speaker. He was hidden in the shadows, but his glowing red irises and the colorful, glowy chemicals oozing from the trypophobia-inducing spots dotting his face made him easy to make out. Agent Rainbow stared back at him, unblinking.
“What a pickle, hm? More so than usual, at least.”
“Shut it, asshole.”
“Wow! So angry! You sure your patient’s mind isn’t influencing you?”
“No, you just have that effect on people.” Desmond pushed himself up with a groan, wincing at all the aches he felt. At least it wasn’t his head, this time. Small mercies. “Why are you here?”
Rainbow laughed, wheezing as the smell of chemicals and mold and decay got stronger. If he were in the light, Desmond would be able to see the cloud of hallucinogenic smog pour from the not-man’s pseudo-mouth. He staggered over to the slash in the side of the container, hoping that the close proximity wouldn’t send him into a bad trip.
He could try and attack his Shadow. If nothing else, it would make him leave, even if it was temporary. But he didn’t want to be stuck in an enclosed space with the mist created by the being vanishing. Besides, even if the bastard was annoying, Desmond knew that he wouldn’t do anything to hurt him physically, or to get Caz’s Shadow to attack him. He’d sooner give Tonia pets than let something other than himself kill Desmond.
It took a while to see that, though, with all the times he’s left him to freeze to death, or fall to his death, or get sliced to ribbons by Inkblots, or incinerated, or crushed, or blown up, or drowned, or go insane and kill himself, or go insane and let Rainbow kill him, or… well, there’s been a lot of instances of Rainbow seeming to want him dead by any means, but there’s always been more thought behind these attempts than just simply killing him. Rainbow’s always known that he’d survive these situations.
The only thing he didn’t plan for, was for everything he’d been through, including those attempts on his life, to strengthen him. And it pissed the Shadow off more than anything. Egotistical, dramatic, loud and boisterous and chaotic and demotivating and everything else that Desmond could think of to describe his Shadow, Rainbow never expected to be bested at his own game. And a game it certainly was. The being had always loved playing with his food. He loved a spectacle.
And here he was, testing Desmond’s sanity and self-control once again.
Patience and grace, Desmond.
“What? I can’t pay my least favorite therapist a visit?” Rainbow chuckled, and the scent of tobacco joined the fray. There was the rustle of ruined fabric, and the Shadow sauntered forwards, finally coming into view as he leaned on the metal across from Desmond, in all his purple, molted, foul, judgmental glory. He took another puff from his pipe, breathing out the smoke with a dry rattle. “You seemed lonely. Have you gotten used to having a friend here, in hell?”
“Leave her alone.” Desmond snapped, leaning a bit closer to the opening as his vision swam, going purple and blue at the edges, white spots floating in his peripherals, his bad thoughts turning into ever-so-slightly happier ones. “You-“
“Jesus, calm down!” Rainbow barked out a laugh, though it was barely one with how his voice went out. “I couldn’t care less about McLeary. Collateral.” Desmond scowled at the casual tone. The Shadow just seemed amused at his anger.
He shouldn’t be getting worked up. That’s exactly what Rainbow wanted, by appearing here. He wanted Desmond’s mental state to weaken.
Patience, and grace. Rainbow was the very least of his worries, at the moment.
Suze was still out there, and with the beast’s guttural screams echoing every few minutes, it was growing more and more likely that it had seen her. He wasn’t an overly religious man, but he’s found himself praying again and again lately, and right now he prayed for her safety.
“Yeah, that’s always been more your boyfriend’s thing, hasn’t it? Thinking something like that could ever be kind. Foolish, if you ask me.”
“Good thing no one’s asked you.” Desmond growled, almost forgetting his mantra and throwing himself at the bastard. “Could you shut up for five minutes?”
“A please would be nice.”
“Fuck you.”
Rainbow laughed, breathing in more tobacco smoke and blowing it Desmond’s way. He waved the haze from his face, looking outside of the metaphorical and literal cage. To avoid looking at the being, to get some fresh-ish air, to look for any sign of Suze? He wasn’t sure. Maybe all three.
“I don’t see why you’re still doing all of this,” and he’s back to wanting to bash the asshole’s possibly intangible face in. “What makes you think your patient even wants to live? He sounds pretty against that, actually.”
“What makes you think you have any right to say things like that?”
“Hypocrite.”
Desmond kicked a scrap of metal at the Shadow, and he caught it with the toe of his shoe, tapping it to make an annoying clanging sound each time it stuck the floor.
“Haven’t you learned this lesson with nutcase number thirty-one?” Rainbow quipped, and Desmond took a deep breath, clutching his fists tightly and repeating his little saying over and over again, in his head. He still couldn’t get over the look in the man’s eye, the moment when he realized that there was no saving him. It was burned to the backs of his eyelids.
“What does that have to do with this, exactly?”
“I’m just saying,” he shrugged, finally ceasing his tapping and kicking the scrap back to Desmond. It glanced harmlessly off his shoe. “Caz may have gotten off that rig, but he sure as fuck never escaped it. Sometimes, being The Survivor is a crueler fate than just letting yourself go.” Piercing red bored into Desmond’s eyes. “But you’re too selfish to notice that. Aren’t you, Wales?”
Desmond took a second to absorb his words, but before he could respond, Rainbow looked past his head, seemingly staring through the metal.
“Welp! Have fun!” He started to fizzle out of existence. “Let me know when you’re ready to lay down and die, ‘ight?”
With that, his Shadow was gone again, at least from this place. As he sat there, trying to gather his thoughts, his sluggish senses registered footsteps nearing the container. The chemicals had been effecting him more than he’d realized. That was probably on purpose, on Rainbow’s part.
“Desmond! What happened?” Suze was out of breath, whispering over the wails. Her voice carried just enough for Desmond to hear.
He decided to leave out his encounter with his own Shadow, for the moment. “It trapped me, didn’t bother coming back to finish me off.”
“Guessing you can’t get out?” She ducked a bit farther back into the small passageway that she had come through, as the Shadow’s bellowing drew nearer.
“Something fell in front of the doors, and it’s too heavy to move.”
“Yeah, it’s blocking the way to the lift as well…” she seemed to follow something with her eyes, eventually looking over at the control panel. Maybe it wasn’t for the crew lift, after all. “Let me see if I can go move it.”
“Be careful, Suze.” He stressed. The beast wasn’t very far away, probably in the same area.
Rainbow had put a lot of emphasis on The Survivor… he wasn’t sure if the Shadows all had names by virtue of simply existing, or if Rainbow gave them names himself, but all of them did have names, all of which he’d told Desmond himself. The Survivor…
It certainly fit Caz’s Shadow, either way.
“I will.” Suze promised, before disappearing into the fog. Desmond was left alone once again.
It was stressful, hearing the Shadow’s - The Survivor’s - random shouts and cries, and not being able to see it nor Suze. All he could do was sit there and try not to panic. He felt useless, which probably wasn’t helping his Rainbow problem.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he heard her walking into the control area. He could see her through the thick grating separating it from the deck.
“Is there any way to lift it?” Desmond asked, hardly daring to speak above a whisper. She scanned the panel for a second, before finding what she was looking for with a triumphant sound.
“Let me just…” she pressed a couple buttons, then moved something to her left, and then an earsplitting whine came from the machinery. It bounced off the container walls and made his ears ring horribly, but he could still hear The Survivor’s responding roar.
The thing blocking the doors (which appeared to be a stack of crates and tanks attached to a small crane, possibly used for moving heavy things from layer to layer, but what did he know) was finally taken away, allowing him to see the crew lift.
“Go! I’ll catch up!” Suze called over the Shadow’s cries. Desmond had no choice but to comply, sprinting to the lift before The Survivor could reach them. He made it in, and tucked himself into the corner to avoid being seen.
He couldn’t hear what Suze was doing, but the monster was clearly pacing the area, searching for them. A minute later, a very familiar pop and sizzle joined the sounds echoing through the deck, and the Shadow seemed to walk away, lured by the pill Suze had thrown.
Then, he heard it roar again, and start running in the direction of the lift. He saw Suze round the corner, slipping on the slick metal as she ran, but managed to catch herself before she fell. The Survivor was right on her heels, colliding with the container Desmond had been stuck in as it chased her. It slowed it down, but not by much.
“HIT THE BUTTON!” She yelled, reaching the crew lift. As she got onto it, she slammed the small gate shut as she crashed into the opposite railing. Desmond was pressing the button before it was fully closed, and the lift started moving upwards.
The Shadow slammed into the lift, shaking the whole structure but not damaging it, thankfully. It tried to reach its claws in through the grate, and one of the deadly sharp points got dangerously close to his face, knocking his glasses off his face as he threw himself back, landing beside Suze on the platform. They huddled up as far from the slashing beast as possible, until it was forced to withdraw as its available space ran out, screaming profanities as they ascended until it lost interest.
They sat there for a minute, panting. Once they both caught their breath, they untangled from the heap they’d fallen in, and Desmond retrieved his glasses, grateful that they hadn’t went off the lift or been broken in the chaos.
“I know I keep saying it… but that was way too fucking close.” Suze huffed, shaking out her arms, either to shake off the adrenaline or to help with aches. She was trying to avoid putting too much pressure on her leg, but the bleeding didn’t seem to have started back up. “I had to use the last pill, though.”
“That’s fine,” he reassured her. “We’ll find more, somewhere.” The lift slowly reached the top floor (tier, layer, he didn’t know the correct terminology), and they stepped off on wobbly legs. Suze handed him the bottle back, and Desmond stowed it away.
The stairs to Rennick’s office were partially collapsed, and a poorly placed puddle and some sparking wires made going the other way impossible (likely purposeful). That left the helipad. If he paused and focused hard, he could almost make out the sound of phantom blades whirring, even though they’d long since gone silent.
They started to retrace their original steps, but Suze stopped him before they could go far.
“Is it…” she looked a bit nervous, fiddling with her sleeves before noticing and crossing her arms instead. “Is it normal to have… visions? Of what happened in the past?”
Now that was new.
Well, it wasn’t that strange, per se. With Lucas, he’d seen scenes of war and chaos, landmines and barbed wire and enemy fire overhead, planes flying and bombs dropping and unseen soldiers throwing gas grenades through diner windows. With Allen, he wasn’t quite sure if the vision on Thanatos was just induced by Rosemary, or if it was triggered by that bad trip, or if it was part of the trip in the first place, or if was a combination of the three. The woman had never specified if it was her or not.
The one constant had been the occasional echoes, instead of actual people. On that ship, they ran as the lights went out, rushing past him harmlessly, mostly just shadows on the ground. In the diner, they’d followed him, invisible until he dissipated them, slashing at him painfully and disorienting him, a testament to Lucas’ paranoia and violent past.
“Were there echoes? Usually these visions happen-“
“No.” She interrupted, sighing and shaking her head. “No echoes. It was actually them. I don’t know… it felt so real.”
That’s a little concerning, if he was being honest. He’s never experienced something like that, seeing real people living out the past.
But, right now, with the whirring of the chopper increasing in volume, and Suze looking pale as a ghost, looking to him for answers, he didn’t need to worry her any more. If the issue persisted, then they can get a little panicked. But as it was, it didn’t seem to have hurt her, just startled her a little. And him standing there silently, trying to think of an answer, wasn’t helping at all.
“Visions aren’t uncommon, really, but oftentimes they have echoes, occasionally they don’t.” Desmond started to walk again, gesturing for her to follow. The sounds of a helicopter ready for flight only got louder. “It really just depends on what was happening at the time, both in the vision and to you.”
“And what about the people I saw?” Suze stressed, going back to twiddling her fingers now that they were moving. “I saw Caz, Desmond. I saw him.”
“I…” he didn’t know how to banish her worries. The most that he could do was try and lessen them. “I’m not entirely sure. It could be your connection with Caz, or due to your brain not reacting the same way mine did to the chemical. But, as long as these visions aren’t aggressive, you should be just fine.”
For a long moment, Suze was quiet. They inched over a thin outcrop of jutting metal, trying not to look down at the ocean crashing against the legs of the rig. A quick glance told him that she was deep in thought.
“What if I have a vision while being chased?” She brought up. “Or while we’re doing something like this? I froze up completely, almost fell off the rig.” She gestured at the dangerous stunt they just pulled. It was slowly becoming trivial again, to Desmond. Just another obstacle in the way.
“I’ve only ever had them in safer areas, when my attention can wander.” She didn’t look reassured. “And if you do freeze up, it won’t last for long. I can cover for you.”
Suze scoffed, but at least she didn’t look on the verge of panicking anymore. “That’s been more my thing, recently, hasn’t it?”
Desmond found himself laughing. “I suppose, yes. Thank you, by the way.”
“Don’t mention it.”
They way up to the helipad was now littered with crates and tools and other things that weren’t so destroyed before. The helicopter only got louder as they ascended, until they reached the top.
Sure enough, the chopper was there, when it shouldn’t be. It didn’t look like anyone was piloting it, but with the sun glaring off of the windshield, it was impossible to tell. The blades spun, and just as they stepped up on the helipad, it lifted off the ground, turning in the air and flying away.
“Is that normal?”
“Not really, no.”
There was nothing else of note. Nothing else had changed from when they first entered the tape, so what was the point of…
“Desmond?”
“Yes?”
“Desmond!?” She sounded panicked.
He looked up from where he was scanned the rest of the rig down below, fog making it hard to see much, and turned to where Suze was pointing.
The chopper was returning, and it was returning fast. Too fast to stop.
“GET DOWN!” He shouted, hitting the deck. Suze did as well, but they were both just a second too late.
Debris flew every which way, the copter shooting past sent them rolling across the landing pad, and Desmond felt himself slam into something hard. Something exploded, the wind howled, his head throbbed and his vision went out. Someone shouted for him, but he was already too far gone in the darkness to hear them.