Chapter Text
The world does not, strictly speaking, shatter.
This distinction is, admittedly, a matter of mere technicality --- after all, the barriers between one dimension and the limitless vacuum of inter-dimensional space beyond it do break down in a way that looks rather like shattering --- but it exists all the same. The world actually shattered years ago, sometime in the chaos of 2005; now, it has merely re-fractured temporarily, along exactly the same seams-turned-cosmic-scar-tissue that failed to properly heal years before. It is a difference that might mean nothing in most contexts and yet holds all too great a significance now, for those self-same, half-mended barriers have dissolved under nothing more than an incantation from a cursed book and the suffering that gave it weight.
Duke doesn't entirely understand it. The incantation in question is a simple one, prefaced only by some vaguely enigmatic passage about opening doorways and having the desire to look through to the other side, and it's not a well-hidden spell by any means; hell, he's even used it before, when situations got desperate, and for far more mundane doorways at that. Nothing particularly cataclysmic has ever happened as a result.
Not until now, that is, when the Black Book he kept stowed carefully in his bag has found its way onto his kitchen table without his say-so. He certainly doesn't remember putting it there, anyway, and, once he'd noticed it there, he doesn't remember deciding to move towards it. (Nothing about the Book has ever been good, after all --- not beyond the bittersweet sort of good anyway: the kind contained in sacrifices for the greater benefit and ends justifying the means --- and about spontaneously moving objects even less; he can't imagine having decided to approach it, yet the fact remains that he had done so.) Neither does he remember having gathered any spell components, or assembling them, or even starting to read the passage aloud. In fact, the only things he remembers about the situation are the flash of pure, violent white light that had first drawn his attention to the misplaced Book and the final few words of the incantation, when it was already too late to stop.
He had made the decision to investigate after the fact, though; of that, he was relatively sure. The nondescript near-emptiness of his apartment --- to which he'd never been able to grow particularly attached anyway --- had melted away into a grim grey-black haze, save for a darker patch that he presumed was the doorway in question, and of course he'd moved closer. Peered through (with no luck). Stepped inside.
Which brought him to... Well, wherever he was now.
Contrary to the colouration of the portal he'd apparently summoned, the area surrounding him is not an ominous, pitch-black darkness; rather, it is an almost sterile white, with all the uncomfortable, aseptic harshness of a hospital despite its overwhelming featurelessness. It's almost a relief, trading in concerns about limited visibility and the obscurity of unknown dangers lurking out of sight, except that it leaves him feeling entirely too exposed. Too out-of-his-depth. His skin crawls with the feeling, and he doesn't exactly feel watched, but he does feel noticed.
It takes several moments --- measured solely by the lengths of his breaths, for his watch has stopped --- for him to notice the figure.
She stands not far away, all things considered. Her features are unremarkable for all they are beautiful, pointed and precise and unforgettable and unmemorable, and they slip away from him even as he stares, unblinking. White cloth --- layers upon layers of gauze, or perhaps extraordinarily thin silk --- hangs elegantly from her frame, yet he cannot estimate her height, could not describe her build. The merest attempt pulls at the thoughts running through his head, memories slipping away the more he tries to grasp them, but he tries again anyway. And again. (And again.)
Perhaps it is merely the fact that he's noticed his observer, or perhaps it is something else, but the uneasy sensation at the back of Duke's neck vanishes. And, whether motivated by strategy and wisdom or ignorance and foolhardiness, he calls out to her in turn. "Hey-a, there, ma'am!"
She answers with a voice that does not particularly feel spoken. It rises and falls as voices do, and it has the rhythm of speech, and yet it flows more like water or thought than conscious speech. "Douglas Keane." A bit of that prickle returns to the back of his neck, though he can't place why. Can't quite bring himself to care about that anymore. "Welcome."
"Who are you?'
"You may call me Webby." She still hasn't moved, yet his attention is drawn, spontaneously, to the delicate sleeves of her robes. They almost float, somehow --- a hypnotic motion, back and forth --- and that unsettles him too. It takes him too long to place why. To realise that there is no wind in this bleached expanse that might be moving them. To realise that, without wind and without her own movement, they shouldn't be shifting at all and yet, somehow, are. "Welcome," she says again. (He realises what's wrong this time. She hasn't opened her mouth once.)
He tries to look past it. Forgets what he was trying to look past when he does. "Where are we?"
She smiles. It's sharp. Keen. So easy to fall into, and unsettling if you don't. "This is the White. A temporary refuge." A glint of teeth, too plentiful and too sharp --- inhuman-looking, mandible-like and glossy --- and then her lips close around them again and everything seems normal. (What had he been worried about?) "Perhaps it would be easier to view it as... a landing point."
"For what?" Duke shifts closer, feet silent against a pure white floor he can't see. He's not entirely sure what he's standing on --- the entire area looks like nothing more than a glowing white abyss; he has just managed to find purchase, somehow --- but he trusts it to hold his weight and it does. Another step. The woman --- Webby --- hasn't moved. (He's not even sure she's even actually looking at him.) "Why am I here?"
"It was prudent."
"What was prudent?" The question spills out before he can question his own willingness to backtalk her, and he immediately tries to walk it back. "I mean--"
A scuttling noise cuts him off, though he cannot see whence it came. Works up the energy to whirl on his heels despite the all-consuming urge not to move. Sees nothing. Turns back. By the time he's facing forward again, Webby has moved --- not much, but she's closer --- and her hand has lifted slightly, like she's trying to calm him down. "You may ask your questions."
"Then," he starts. Hesitates. Eventually finishes through repetition: "What was prudent?"
"Many years ago, you made a deal, did you not? A deal of power and forgetting."
Flashes of echoing recollection break through the numb white serenity that has settled over him. Memories of eerie light in a forest clearing, of lopsided smirks limned in chartreuse and equally slanted posture, of loss burning green through Duke's very core. Thoughts of slightly messy and definitely wild red hair, of a jean jacket, of the smell of coffee and apple lip gloss. "Yeah." His voice breaks around it. Wishes for that forced, anaesthetic tranquillity back. "How'd you know about that?"
"The beings with whom you made the deal were my brothers." Her voice doesn't shift, even with the revelation. "And I know a great many things."
"Can you break it?" He tries to keep the hope from his voice. Probably fails. "The deal, I mean?"
"No. I'm sorry." Of all the things that could be said about her voice --- dulcet and soothing and gentle and hypnotic --- repentant is not one of them. "But I can help."
Duke tilts his head. "Help how?"
"Yours is not the only reality. Neither are you the only person to make such a deal." A moment's pause, though she doesn't seem to need it. Doesn't seem to be using it to think or choose her wording. Seems to just be pausing because she wanted to pause. "There is a power to be had in sacrifice. A greater one in mutual sacrifice."
"I don't understand."
"In this world, you made a deal. In another world, someone else did. Someone special. If either of you were to try opening a door between the universes, you could not hope to be successful, and not even my assistance could have allowed it. If you were both to try, however, at exactly the same time, from exactly the same point in space, and with the full weight of my power... A door could be opened. Passage from one reality to the next would be possible."
"So when I--" A pause. An amendment. "When we--" The word tilts up in a question, though he does not stop for an answer. Isn't quite sure what that question was, anyway. "When the door was opened and I walked through it, what happened?"
"You left your reality, yes."
Duke blinks. "Can I go back?"
"No."
Before he can help it, thoughts of Darlene flicker before his eyes. More memories: of her music, of the diner, of afternoons spent there with her. "Then I've simply vanished?" He wonders if she'll think he left by choice. If she'll wait for him to come back, and wait, and wait. If she'll even remember that he ever existed in the first place.
Webby doesn't answer.
He takes it as confirmation. Pushes aside his devastation. Lets himself fall back into the gossamer, external peace that his surroundings offer. (Insist. Instil.) "Why did you want this door to open?"
"It was prudent."
"But why?"
"It was prudent," she says again.
"Prudent why?"
"Because it was." She doesn't exactly sound annoyed --- there's little by way of emotion in her voice, never mind her face --- but she is firm. "You have answers I would not typically provided, Douglas Keane. Do not press further. Content yourself with the knowledge I have granted you already."
It's a reprimand. He takes it as one. "Right, yeah. Sorry." A beat. "What now?"
"Do you still want your revenge?"
"Yes." It's all he has left, now; what else could he possibly say?
"Good." She smiles again. The lines of her teeth are even sharper now. He thinks a few would qualify as fangs, and they shine unnaturally in the light. He wonders if her bite is as venomous as it seems. "As I have said, this is a temporary reprieve. Once I leave, you will find yourself in the Black once more. I trust you remember it."
Duke nods. Can't bring himself to speak.
"The entity you know as Uncle Wiley dwells there. They are not easily handled, but you have power and you will have an ally."
"The other person who opened the door?"
"Yes." Webby nods. "It is ideal for them to no longer be a concern. Good luck," she says, and then she's simply... gone. She does not turn, does not walk away. Doesn't leave by any human means (though that is, perhaps, unsurprising). She simply vanishes, and takes the light with her.
All of it.
Where the White had been --- as per its name --- a hauntingly bright place, swallowed in pure light, the Black is exactly the opposite. The floor oozes underfoot, tacky against the soles of his shoes, even as he still can't see it. Can barely feel it, even when he takes a few hesitant steps forward. The air feels different, too --- musty and sick, like air that has been trapped underground for too long, sticking thickly against his skin --- and he has to breathe deeper than he'd like just to feel like he's gotten enough. Coughs when he does, with all the rasping, guttural force of a weeks-long illness.
By the time he straightens, he isn't alone.
He knows her, of course; how could he not? Knows the whole of her, but the pieces too: Familiar red hair, as wild and untamed and vibrant as her spirit. Earrings --- long ones, all dangling silver and clinking loops --- that catch non-existent light and set it flickering across their surroundings. A jean jacket he knows by touch and loves by association, worn from use. Darlene Holloway, in her entirety, beautiful and sad and always, always just out of reach. She looks just like he saw her last, like the memory has been pulled from his head and made manifest in front of him, and he can't technically dismiss that theory, but he can't bring himself to care. Something settles in him to see her, to know she's okay, and he temporarily ignores the questions bubbling up into his throat so he can just bask in her presence, hallucination or no.
He blinks.
It is at this point that he notices the book. Recognises it. The same black binding and ominous white sigil that rests in his own hand. The same rough-edged pages, waiting and eager to slice paper-cuts into any fingers that happen to get too close. The same choking miasma surrounding it, subtle and insidious and unavoidable. For someone else to have a copy... they must be the other deal-maker Webby mentioned.
So he looks up again. Assesses the stranger holding the book. She's pretty, with an old-timey sort of aesthetic that calls the word retro easily to mind, and an easy, confident stance that makes him think she's been around this block before once or twice. Battle-hardened: that's another word for her. Scars litter her fingers that match Duke's own --- sacrifices, no doubt, of blood and flesh and pain --- and, if his guess is right, tell of other injuries for which they haven't even been given the solace of lasting memory. Her eyes are a piercing blue, even in the surrounding gloom, and--
"Why are you crying?" In any other circumstance, he'd feel bad for blurting out the question. He can't now, though, because he's too preoccupied by the fact that she is crying. Or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say she was crying, because still-wet trails of tears are visible in the darkness, stark against cheeks gone paler than usual, but they aren't still falling. Her eyes are dry now, if slightly conflicted. "Are you okay?"
She lifts a hand. Runs it against her cheek and looks surprised when it comes away wet. "I'm... not." Another moment of consideration, and then she looks back at him. "Who are you?"