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A g a i n…
The command was silent, more an abstract thought crawling into the mind of the one it was intended for and never to be heard by anybody outside of the four walls keeping him contained.
And yet, from where he lay on the ground, the Fool still protested with a whine like a petulant child, though his eyes gave him away, burning bright with a malice that would chill a lesser being to the bone.
Ha.
A g a i n ! !
The thought was louder this time, firmer, pushing its way into the Fool’s mind where it couldn’t be ignored (the way the Fool’s ears twitched lightly confirmed that). With a soft groan, the Fool pushed himself up with shaking arms and stood on wobbly feet, using his tail to keep himself from falling.
His eyes stared ahead at nothing, glassy and dark with deep black and purple rings underneath. The usual mischief in them was replaced with bitter resignation and a longing to just get the matter over with, and fortunately for the Fool, the presence shared the same desire.
A G A I N ! !
They were on borrowed time and the Fool knew it, a temporary liminal space was the only thing keeping the other creature, monster, crude approximation of a being, whatever, tethered to their reality.
A tether that could snap at any moment.
Ã̰͇̠̣̺̞͌̒ ͚͓̻̲̫͔̟̫̒̈ͯ̀̌̍̈Ğ̭̳̀ͪ̇ ͓̭̦͖̅ͧͤ̽͋A̝̤̳͔ͫ̒̄̋ͦ͛̀ ͚̖̫̮̦̤̗̝̎ͥ͛̓͑ͩ̓Ȋ̺̤̳̮̦͍̹̀̈́͆͗ͫ̔͋ ͍̮̂ͥN̼͕̩̝̑ͬ̒ͨ̾ͤ ͕͙̑̐!̟̪͕̙̪̩ͩͧ ̟̜͖͔͎̎̈́̄̐͒̄ͯ͋!̰̻̥̱͖̗̻ͫͬ̂͒̈́̅ ̬̺́͊!̙̖̤̝͚̐̇͗̐
The Fool flinched, ears pressed flat against his skull as if it might dampen the sound, but to no avail. He swayed dangerously on the spot but managed to catch himself before he fell again. There was no winning in a game against a cosmic entity and the sooner he got this over with, the sooner he would be free to sleep, he couldn’t remember the last time he had slept…
Perhaps there had once been a fragment of the creature that would have felt a shred of empathy for the Fool’s plight, but why should it now? The Fool wasn’t real, this world wasn’t real, nothing was real, and the flickering code of the universe buzzing and humming constantly in both beings’ heads only served as a cruel reminder of that.
The creature itself vibrated with a desperate, frantic energy. It wanted to come back, to once again be able to see and be seen by its old friends again, by its children again. It wanted to be real again even though it wasn’t real, it had never been real, its friends were never real, its children were never real-
The humming of the universe, the code, rose in pitch until the Fool was gritting his teeth against it hard enough that his jaw ached. He summoned his magic, felt it pulsate throughout his body until his feet left the ground and hung limply beneath him, and then released it all in a deafening, dizzying cacophony of madness.
Chaos begat chaos, chaos could never be fully predicted, chaos could be brought about by the tiniest, most insignificant change. If energy was always lost from input to output, then the entity needed a tremendous amount of power to bring about the change it wanted.
Therefore, what better a catalyst for this experiment than a powerful wild card?
The Fool felt the entity’s presence growing stronger, forcing its way through the code using his chaos as its portal, and swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat. The taste of copper filed his mouth from unconsciously biting down on his tongue and, over the ringing in his ears, he was sure he could hear his bones, or maybe just his entire being, rattling under the pressure.
His magic spluttered, he wouldn’t be able to hold it much longer, nor did he particularly care to anyway, so the creature would have to be quick if it wanted to succeed. It wasted no time slithering through its newly created doorway, ready to insert itself back into the reality that had so cruelly erased and forgotten it, ready to taste freedom after so long-
Finally reaching its limit, the Fool’s magic fizzled out and he collapsed on the floor, enjoying the brief moment of respite where everything was quiet and still and the code was no longer buzzing in his ears.
The entity stood, present, finally seeing through its own eyes instead of through the code. It gazed around at its surroundings in silent, almost childlike wonder. It moved forward, reaching out with one of its hands-
-Only to find that the hand was translucent, dissolving into nothing but static before fading back into view, but still no more whole.
With a gurgling cry, it attempted to press its hand against the cell wall, only for the hand to pass through as if there was nothing there.
N o ! !
It hadn’t worked. Whatever plane of reality the creature stood in was not the one it had been trying so desperately to reach. No, it had failed and was left still tip-toeing the line between reality and nothingness, cursed to be a spectator in a world that had long forgotten it…
The sound of cackling rang out from across the room. “Trapped! Trapped!” The Fool sang, voice high, mocking and grating on none-existent ears as he pushed himself up with what little strength he had left, a horrible too-wide grin on his face. “Just as trapped, trapped as the rest of us!”
The half-formed remains of the once proud dignified scientist roared in rage and lunged at the Fool, a mass of disembodied hands, broken, half-dissolved bones held together by a sickly, sludge-like matter flailing and clawing out at anything it could grab.
But of course, it couldn’t.
The Fool never stopped laughing, never even flinched, as the creature was dragged back into the Nothingness before it could even reach him.
Experiment failed…
But the Strange Someone would be back and the Fool knew it.
After all, what use was time to either of them?