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He has a video of it somewhere. Of the Crew disposing of your body. It happened quickly. You were in a firefight with the Felt. You told Slick to make a run for it while you covered him. He argued with you, but you told him to go anyway. You opened fire on the Felt, and before you knew it, everything went black.
They tell you it was a headshot. It took out a good portion of your skull.
The next thing you were aware of was being surrounded by writhing tentacles and gnashing teeth and multitudinous voices. They told you that you didn’t have to stay dead. They told you that they could help.
They offered you a deal. You accepted, even when they refused to tell you their terms. You commit atrocities on a daily basis. Whatever they wanted, you were sure you wouldn’t have any problem with it.
You woke up on the riverbank, soaked and filthy from whatever lurks at the bottom of the river. You shambled back to the hideout, and Slick was so shocked to see you that he screamed at you for hours straight. When you finally got a moment to yourself, alone in your room, you laughed.
You were alive. You were dead but then you were alive.
Then you called him.
Pickle Inspector. You weren’t sure why. You’d had a few run-ins with him that weren’t entirely unpleasant, and you occasionally entertained thoughts of shoving him up against a wall and fucking him until he screamed. You assumed it was just the adrenaline, the euphoria from cheating death. You weren’t going to hold back anymore. You would act on every stupid instinct, because you could.
That’s what you told yourself then. Now you aren’t sure that was it.
You’re smoking a cigarette. He wouldn’t approve. He doesn’t like it when you smoke in his apartment, but you’ve never made a habit of listening to anyone. He’s asleep, still in his ink-stained clothes, and you watch the rise and fall of his chest with rapt fascination.
You’ve been a shadow mage for a long time. You were lighting your cigarettes with purple flame since long before your untimely death. You can tell at a glance if someone else has the potential, and you’ve never sensed even the slightest potential from the Inspector. He didn’t have the personality for it. He was too upbeat, too cheerful, spent too much of his energy daydreaming about butterflies.
Today he just flung shadow flames about like a pro.
You still can’t sense any potential from him, even after seeing him do it. This wasn’t him. That power wasn’t his own.
It was you. It was Them.
That’s what they wanted from you all along. They wanted to get to him.
The Inspector on his own is not a remarkable individual. He’s a mediocre detective, without the drive or the courage to ever do much with his life. His existence would be completely inconsequential, except for the fact that he created the universe.
He didn’t do it himself. He did it by proxy, by creating the Godhead and the part-pickles who make up all matter in the universe. He still seems to have a connection to them, even if it’s a faint one. You have wondered what would happen if something were to corrupt him, if he were to lose the carefree demeanor that keeps the Godhead content. You figured it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t happen.
It wouldn’t have, except now you’ve given the Horrorterrors a way in. They’ll force that magic down his throat until it takes him over, until he’s little more than a shell of his former self. Then what will happen to the Godhead? What will happen to existence?
Do you even want to find out?
The solution is obvious. You need to get away from him, you need to break the connection. You can’t. You’ve been sitting here trying to convince yourself to leave for an hour now and the thought hurts you. It shouldn’t. You shouldn’t be this attached, but you are.
Maybe even this is the Horrorterrors’ doing. You didn’t call him that night because you wanted to, you did it because the Terrors compelled you to.
This relationship—your feelings—was a lie.
You stand. You take a step toward the door, then stop. You bite your lip.
You can’t do it.
You climb into his bed instead. You sit beside him and stroke his face.
You’re furious. They could have told you what they wanted. They could have just asked you upfront to do this. You would not have said no. You’re not a good person, they had no reason to trick you. They had no reason to get in your head, to manipulate you, to change your feelings to meet their needs.
You won’t stand for it. They won’t let you leave his side, but there’s another way out.
You put your hands around his neck. Gently, at first. Everything inside you is telling you to stop, to think about what you’re doing, to let go. As far as you’re concerned, that’s proof enough that this is the right thing to do.
They can’t have him if he’s gone.
You tighten your grip. The Inspector wakes and tries to cry out, but his voice won’t come. He grabs at your hands, trying to pull them off, but he’s too weak.
“This is for your own good,” you hiss.
He struggles. He kicks his legs, he thrashes, he does everything in his power to get you away from him, but he’s weak.
He’s always been weak.
His eyes begin to roll back into his head, and he stops struggling. He puts a hand on yours.
You realize that you’re crying.
“You’ll thank me,” you say, your voice small. “This is for the best.”
He loses consciousness. You don’t let go. You keep strangling him until you can no longer feel his pulse under your fingers.
You stand up. You knock his nightstand over and scream.
You take a deep breath, then another, then another.
You can feel the Horrorterrors’ presence. You can almost see them in the corner of your eyes, squirming just beyond the shadows.
“I am not a tool,” you say to them. “And I will not be used like one.”
You turn your back on them and leave. You can’t actually leave them behind. They’re always present, just beyond the veil of existence, and they are always watching. They’ll probably retaliate. They won’t suffer your insubordination, but you don’t give a shit. You’ve made your point. Diamonds Droog is nobody’s patsy.
Pickle Inspector is lying dead in his bedroom. He is out of their reach, even if you aren’t.