Chapter Text
The melody didn't stop
Monarch’s eyes snapped open, but the freezing black cavern was gone. Instead, the soft, amber glow of the bedside lamp bathed the familiar wooden panels of their lighthouse. The heavy, suffocating scent of salt and stone had vanished, replaced by the faint, comforting aroma of old books and chamomile tea.
They sat up fast, gasping for air, their hand instantly flying to their chest. No wet clothes. No bleeding hands. Just their favorite oversized sweater and the soft cotton of their own mattress.
A dream, Monarch thought, a breathless, hysterical laugh bubbling up in their throat. It was just a horrific, twisted dream. Harvey, the sirens, the underground pool- none of it was real. They were safe in their home . The anchor of their life house always kept them grounded.
They swung their legs over the side of the bed, eager to wash the lingering terror from their mind. But as their bare feet hit the floorboards, a strange sensation rippled through them. The wood felt wet. Squelching.
Monarch blinked, and the floorboards dissolved into a dark, swirling void of liquid.
Before they could even scream, an invisible weight slammed into their chest, dragging them straight down through the floor. The warmth of the bedroom shattered into a million icy shards. Suddenly, they weren't in their room anymore—they were deep beneath the surface of the black pool, the heavy pressure of the water crushing their ribs.
No, no, no, I'm awake, I'm at the house! Monarch’s mind shrieked, thrashing wildly.
Through the murky depths, a silhouette materialized. Harvey. He drifted toward them with terrifying, effortless grace, his sapphire light casting grotesque shadows across his face. He didn't grab them. He didn't need to. He simply raised a hand, and the water around Monarch’s face began to boil with localized pressure.
Monarch clamped their mouth shut, but a sudden, blinding spike of pain exploded behind their eyes. it felt like a physical bud blooming inside their skull, forcing its way outward, expanding against their temples until their vision swam with red.
Monarch gasped, and the freezing, stagnant water poured down their throat, burning their lungs.
“Did you really think you left?”
The voice didn't come from Harvey’s mouth. It came from inside Monarch’s own chest. It was their own voice, perfectly replicated, echoing in the caverns of their mind with a sickening, mocking tilt. “You’re safe at home, Monarch. Just close your eyes. Go back to sleep.”
With a brutal surge of current, Harvey violently dragged them back to the surface. Monarch broke the water, coughing violently, retching up liquid onto the slick stone floor of the cavern. The beautiful life house was gone, replaced by the damp, suffocating reality of the underground tomb.
"Please," Monarch choked out, their throat raw and bleeding.
But their own voice betrayed them again. As they tried to speak, the sound that left their lips wasn't theirs, it was a distorted, mocking mimicry controlled entirely by the siren, echoing back at them from the walls.
Above them, Harvey slithered half-way out of the pool, leaning over their shivering, broken form. He didn't look angry; he looked entertained…almost pleased
Oh fuck this guy
He reached out, his cold, webbed fingers gently tapping the side of Monarch’s throbbing temple, right where the blooming headache was pulsing like an heartbeat.
"The mind is a fragile thing, little bird," Harvey whispered, his voice a lethal purr that vibrated right through the marrow of their bones. "You can pretend you're anywhere you like. But your pain belongs to me."
Monarch couldldnt even draw a clean breath, Harvey’s webbed hand wrapped around the back of their neck. The grip was vice-like, bruising and absolute. With a sharp, casual jerk, he shoved Monarch’s face straight back down into the freezing black pool.
The water rushed over their nose and mouth, a shocking jolt of ice that made their lungs instantly seize. Monarch thrashed violently, their hands clawing frantically at the slick, mossy rock edge, their nails ripping as they tried to find any leverage. Harvey pressed down harder, leaning his weight into them, pinning them effortlessly beneath the surface.
Bubbles tore from Monarch’s lips as they tried to hold onto the meager scrap of oxygen left in their burning lungs. Through the dark, distorted lens of the water, they could see Harvey looking down at them, his eyes glowing with that horrific, rhythmic pulse. He watched their desperate struggles with a detached, clinical fascination, like a child drowning an insect in a glass.
“Look at you,” Monarch’s own voice echoed inside their head again, vibrant and sickeningly clear despite the water clogging their ears. “So weak. Did you really think you were dreaming? Did you really think you deserved to wake up?”
The lack of oxygen was starting to play tricks on their mind. The blooming headache in their skull flared into a roaring inferno of pain, pulsing in perfect synchronization with the siren’s light. It felt like their brain was expanding against their skull, pushing against their eyes until white-hot sparks danced across their darkening vision.
Their lungs burned, a desperate, screaming agony that demanded they breathe. Monarch’s body betrayed them, their mouth opening in a helpless reflex. Freezing, stagnant water poured down their throat, choking them, filling them up with heavy, suffocating darkness.
Just as the blackness began to close in completely and their limbs went limp, the crushing weight on their neck suddenly vanished.
Harvey yanked them up by their hair, tossing them back onto the stone floor. Monarch curled into a tight, shivering ball, violently vomiting up water. They lay there gasping, trembling so hard they couldn't even lift their chin from the wet rock.
"Not yet," Harvey whispered, his voice a cool, silken caress that seemed to come from everywhere at once. He circled them slowly in the water, the ripples softly lapping against the stone. "We are nowhere near finished."
Harvey didn't strike them as they though he would, instead, he simply reached out and placed two freezing fingers against the base of Monarch’s skull, right where the blooming headache was centered.
A sharp, electric hum buzzed through Monarch’s nerves, and then
Nothing?
The ambient sound of the dripping cavern vanished instantly. The ragged, gasping sound of their own breathing went dead. Monarch opened their mouth to scream, but they couldn't hear the sound leaving their throat; they couldn't even feel the vibration of their own vocal cords.
Darkness took their eye, the dim sapphire glow of the pool dissolved into an absolute, crushing blackness. It wasn't like closing their eyes in a dark room; thi s was a total, terrifying void. They blinked wildly, but there was no difference between keeping their eyes open or shut.
Panicking, Monarch tried to push themselves up, but the sensation of the slick stone beneath their hands faded away. The freezing cold that had been torturing their skin vanished, replaced by weightless numbness. They couldn't tell if they were lying down, standing up, or floating in space. They couldn't feel their own limbs.
They couldn't feel their own limbs
They were completely trapped inside the prison of their own mind.
“Stop!” Monarch shrieked internally, but the thought just bounced uselessly against the walls of their skull.
Without sensory input, the human brain begins to eat itself. Minutes felt like centuries. Deprived of sight, sound, and touch, Monarch’s mind desperately tried to fill the void. Phantom shapes danced in the blackness
Whispers that weren't theirs began to echo in the silence, a chorus of mocking voices telling them they were already dead, that they had died in the pool hours ago and this was eternity.
They floated in the terrifying, empty nothingness, entirely at the mercy of the siren. They had no way of knowing if Harvey was standing over them, if he was preparing a killing blow, or if he had simply walked away and left them to rot in their own fractured consciousness.
Just when the isolation threatened to snap their sanity completely, a single sensation pierced the void.
A sharp, agonizing prick of pain directly in the center of their forehead.
The world slammed back into existence
Monarch gasped, their senses returning all at once in an agonizing flood. The blinding glare of the light burned their eyes. The roaring sound of the splashing water ringed in their ears.
They were flat on their back, staring up at the jagged ceiling of the cavern. Harvey was leaning directly over them, his face inches from theirs. He had a single, sharp claw pressed right against the skin between their eyebrows, drawing a tiny bead of blood.
Monarch couldn't even weep. Their tear ducts felt as dry and burnt out as their frayed nerve endings. They lay entirely paralyzed on the slick stone, their chest heaving in shallow, pathetic hitches as the phantom echo of the void still rippled through their brain.
Harvey stood up to his full, towering height. He looked down at them with cold satisfaction
"Sleep well, little bird," he murmured.
With a smooth, backwards glide, the siren sank back into the pool. The water swallowed him without a struggle, the black surface rippling out until it became perfectly still once more.
He was gone.
For now.
Monarch closed their eyes, letting out a weak, shuddering breath. Harvey had left them alone in the dark. They were entirely, utterly solitary in the freezing tomb.
Or so they thought…
Monarch opened their eyes in the blackness, frowning weakly. The ambient sound of dripping water hadn't changed, but the air in the cavern suddenly felt heavier
It wasn't the malicious hum of Harvey's presence. This felt entirely different. It was a cold, piercing pressure prickling against the back of their neck, distinct from the damp chill of the stone floor. It felt like a physical weight pressing down on the space between their shoulder blades.
The hair on Monarch's arms stood on end. Every instinct they had left, flight or fight had chosen freeze
Harvey was gone, submerged deep beneath the pool in the ocean. But as Monarch stared blindly into the shadows of the cavern ceiling, a horrifying realization settled into their chest
They weren't alone.
Something else was in the dark, and it was watching them.