Chapter Text
Coraline isn’t all that sure where she is. A ramshackle house looms in the near distance, engulfing where she imagines the moon would be. But there’s no light behind it. Instead, the only source is the warm glow of a campfire several yards ahead of her. It digs at her—she’s always so careful when she goes out, never taking a stroll off the path, especially without a compass. And she’s blindsided by something in the woods during her walk? After the Pink Palace Apartments, she was far more careful about the superstitious, even if she didn’t wholly stop her escapades and adventures. The iron in a compass kept her on the path, and her ingenuity kept her alive. She has no intention of repeating the instance with the small door and finding… well, something she doesn’t want.
She rolls her neck and continues toward the campfire, cursing whatever darkness had taken her. All of her hiking supplies are gone! As she gets closer, she can hear the quiet chatter of people at the campfire. It quiets some as she approaches.
The red-haired girl whistles lowly. “I didn’t think the Entity took children,” she notes sourly.
“Meg,” the nerdy-looking man admonishes quietly, looking nervously to Coraline.
“What?! She looks younger than Quentin.” The man grimaces and quiets, picking at the grime beneath his nails, and the red-head—Meg—leans back against a log. “So, where you from, Blue?”
“…Oregon?” she answers, puzzled. Something niggles at the back of her mind. “Where are we?”
“Welcome to the Entity’s Realm,” she sighs, gesturing with faux-grandiose. She turns to look at the boy. Man. Boy sounds right, Coraline thinks. He reminds her of Wybie. Not in any great way. “I’m Meg.”
“Dwight Fairfield,” he introduces quietly.
“So… you got nabbed,” Meg notes, quirking her brow at Coraline. “You got a name, kid?”
Coraline bristles. “You don’t look any older,” she snaps in return.
Meg opens her mouth to argue, but a gruff voice speaks from behind her. “Meg,” it says warningly. Coraline looks to the old man, seeing him for the first time against the tree. He looks as gruff as he sounds, except there’s a softness to his eyes that reminds her of a grandpa. Rough and tumble, seen some shit, but ultimately kind.
In the corner of her eyes, she sees Meg sink back against the log again.
“Introduce yourself, kiddo.”
It doesn’t grate so much when he says it.
“Coraline,” she reluctantly introduces.
He acknowledges her name with a nod. “I’m Bill, but plen’ya yung’uns here call me Gramps.”
“Gramps,” she echoes with a quirk of her lips. It falters a moment later. “So… what is this place? Meg said ‘The Entity’s Realm?’”
Gramps gimaces some. “Yer new. Always hate tellin’ y’all what’s what.” He takes a deep breath and leans forward, pressing his elbows to his knees. “You familiar with th’things that go bump in the night, live in th’cracks of the world? Shit in the shadows?”
Coraline suppresses a shiver as she nods, trying desperately not to think about it.
“Somethin’ that’s just a different kinda evil?”
She nods again, feeling a little as if she’s just been dunked in ice.
“Far as we understand it, the “Entity” is somethin’ utterly evil. We ain’t ever seen the whole of it, but… it’s taken somethin’ shy of three dozen folks now. The group of us, we’re the survivors. ‘N it adopts killers as well. These folks that do dark enough evils that they get its attention and decide it’s gotta have a li’l fun with ‘em. They create fear and evil ‘n a lotta death, so ‘course, the Entity takes ‘em and brings ‘em here. Often takes their ‘ssociated person too.”
Meg huffs quietly and brings her knees up, resting her arms on them. “Listen,” she starts, quieter than before. “We’re all trying to get out, but as far as we know, nobody has done it yet. So what’s going to happen next is your first trial.”
“Meg…” Dwight murmurs nervously.
She shoots him a dirty look and continues talking, brushing a braid behind her shoulder. “Dwight, Claudette, Nea, and I are the originals. We’ve been here the longest. One of us usually goes into the trials. How it works—there’s usually four of us, and one killer.” She pauses. “Usually. Some of them come… with friends.” She looks to Dwight, quirking a brow again.
He sighs, but continues where she left off, picking at his nails. “In these… “games,” we have to try to escape alive. We repair five generators, open the exit gates, and get out. Hopefully.”
Gramps rolls his eyes. “If you don’t get out the exit gates, squirt, yeh die. Not forever, but it still sucks.”
Meg looks down at her lap, Dwight tears at his nails with his teeth, and Coraline looks amongst the trio with horror dawning in her chest.
“You all… die?”
There’s a moment of quiet before Meg answers. “Sometimes. Sometimes we escape. It… depends.” She draws in a deep breath and looks Coraline in the eyes. “All of this… everything we do… the Entity feeds on hope. So sometimes we can sway the Entity’s favor with hope, prayers, offerings…” she sighs. “You won’t be able to do much yet, but… open up your mind. Remember the darkness that swept you into this Realm. Find its web entangled in your mind…”
Coraline looks at her like she’s lost her goddamned mind, but realizes that both Dwight and Bill are quiet. She looks between them and sees them both with their eyes closed, bodies mostly still. She reluctantly does the same.
It takes her a moment, and it isn’t that it’s hard, but—Meg’s words echo in her mind and it isn’t the Entity’s web that comes to mind first. The Other Mother’s shriek echoes in the depths of her lungs, and she draws in a shaky breath and forces her mind past it. And—she feels something itching in the back o her brain, and she can almost feel it quiver, excited at the prospect of what she might have to offer, this supernatural knowledge it has for her—
But she’s stymied for now, the web shuddering with disappointment as she opens her eyes with a huff, seeking Meg’s gaze. Instead of the attitude she expects, there’s a gentle understanding.
“You saw it,” Meg prompts quietly.
“That’s…”
“The Bloodweb.”
Yes, that sounds right. Even still, it makes Coraline’s brain itch. She scratches the underside of her wrist instead, where she wishes there were scars from the rash.
“You won’t be able to use it yet. You haven’t earned any…” she grimaces, an unusual expression on Meg if only for the show of weakness. “Blood. We offer it to the Entity between tials in exchange for things to better protect, arm, and save ourselves and others.”
“Right. So… these trials,” Coraline prompts quietly.
It’s Gramps who answers this time. “Four of us, one killer, five generators, two exit gates, and a hatch—if we’re particularly lucky… or unlucky. Find oneuv us and we’ll teach yeh the mechanics. Avoid the killer at all costs. If you get found, you run, hide, evade, or in the worst situations… fight back.”
“You won’t be able to kill them,” Meg adds. “But you might piss them off or distract them long enough that you can get away.”
Dwight clears his throat, and Coraline looks in his direction, her shoulders sinking. “If you get injured, try to find somebody. Everyone knows enough first aid that they can get you going again.”
Coraline finally drops to sit by the fire, head spinning. “That’s a lot,” she whispers, looking into the fire.
“Yeah, it is,” Gramps sighs. “Sorry, kiddo.”
She draws in a slow, deep breath, and shakes her head. “Tell me what else I need to know.”