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Michael knew what was happening the second it's gnarled hand shaped itself around the green doorknob of the door that didn't exist. The realisation fell onto it like a bag of bricks and hadn't it been for what was about to happen, the tall creature's knees might have just buckled.
It twisted the doorknob, again and again, before turning to the archivist, fear swimming in the spiralling red that was its eyes. The archivist must have seen it, as archivists tend to do, with their prying eyes. Something bad was about to happen.
"Oh. Oh no."
It must have lasted only seconds to the outside world, but to what was about to be Michael no more, it felt like so long, much longer than you think.
As its form writhed and twisted and wringed and snapped and broke and fused and let go of itself like a snake shedding its skin. The distortion leapt from the swirling spiralling mass, away from Michael. To something else beyond the wax museum, within the corridors of The Distortion. Michael screamed with whatever could be interpreted as a mouth. It was a shrill, broken up thing, without consistency in tone or volume. And then it went silent.
The door swung open.
Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the magnus institute, stared in shock as Helen peered back at him from the doorframe. She smiled. Jon did not.
Michael Shelley lay on the ground in between the two. A quiet mess of limbs and hair that seemed to have been growing wildly for a while, dressed in what seemed like a purple sweater, well-worn brown pants, and a beige scarf. He was incapable of having any sort of expression on his face because he was unconscious.
At least Jon thought so. There was a slight rise between the mass of hair that could be interpreted as breath. Maybe Jon was just seeing things though.
........
"...are you going to bring him?" Helen gestured to the man on the floor, clearly not very pleased about it, but not upset enough to cause a fuss.
"I... I guess so." The Archivist replied. "I mean, he seems to be alive. I can't just leave him, can I?"
Helen tilted their head at an angle a little sharper than you're supposed to be able to. "You're under no obligation."
The Archivist thought for a bit. Oh, how he thought. He was really good at that. Thinking and thinking. That was probably where all his headaches came from.
"Well..." He finally broke the silence, staring down at Michael Shelley's body with a certain hesitance in his eyes. "I.. I don't want Nikola to get a hold of him." He concluded, bending down and hesitantly grabbing a hold of as much Michael as he could.
He didn't feel anything off as he held the man in his arms. He was a little cold, but that was about it.
Helen cleared their throat, only to get The Archivist's attention. "Are you ready?"
The Archivist nodded, and Helen led the way into the corridors.
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Michael Shelley woke up on a couch. It was an old couch that had experienced a couple of moves and had been sat on by many people. It was lined with a tattered gray fabric. Michael didn't have time to pay any attention to this though, because he had a splitting headache.
He blinked a couple of times as he tried to make his eyes focus on the pale white roof that he was staring directly at, but the pain in his head was overwhelming.
The long man lifted a very normal hand to his head, covering his eyes. Everything was just.... Too much!! Right now!! He didn't want to see or feel or taste. It all felt wrong and bad and exactly how it should feel and not at all like how he remembered it at the same time.
He stayed like that for a while, hand over his eyes in silence while waiting for his head to stop yelling at him.
Michael didn't know where he was, but it didn't worry him too greatly. Whatever happened now, it didn't matter. He could die horribly here once the resident of... Wherever he was returned, or nothing could happen at all. Or some third thing that he didn't have the energy to think of right now. It truly did not matter. He just waited. The pain in his head finally subsided, and Michael could finally remove his still very normal hand from his face and see with relative ease.
The blonde man sat up slowly. It wasn't just his head that had been in pain, it seemed. Everywhere ached. Michael decided he had gone too far to lay back down now though, finishing his movement and taking a look around. He was in a living room. In an apartment.
There were loose papers scattered all around, especially on the coffee table in front of him. A bookshelf with dusty books that hadn't been touched in a while loomed in the corner. A television. A kitchen. A hallway.
A door to a bedroom. A door to a bathroom. A door to the outside.
Michael didn't want to think about doors right now. He didn't want to see doors right now.
His head swirled as he tried to get his mind off the track it had been set on. Into doors and hallways and spiralling laughter and twistings of door handles creating fractals of architecture within itself. Michael ignored all pain his body must have felt as he moved and fell forward onto the coffee table with a loud thud. He let out a confused and terrified whimper as he slid off the paper-covered surface into the space between couch and table.
"Oh, you're awake." A voice that seemed familiar but also unknown broke Michael from the plunge his mind had taken. The long man scrambled up and his gaze darted to the sound. The Archivist stood in the doorway leading to the bedroom. He must have woken him up with the noise he was making.
"Archivi-" Michael cut himself off before he could finish. "I..."
The Archivist made a 'stop' motion with both of his hands. "Spare it. I.. needed to wake up anyway. And I think we need to talk."