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Everything is flat.
Yes. Yes that’s what he notices. It’s smooth. Like a drawing, a sheet of paper, an image on a television screen—
“Just popped in your favorite movie,” the nurse with the beard says, grinning at him indulgently, “fourth time this week. Bit excessive but I don’t think any of them mind.”
Marc blinks. His beard is red, his skin is beige pink, his eyes are blue. His hands lowers to Marc’s ankle and something tightens there. The rest of his body is flat. White.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” he says, then walks out of sight.
The screen is black and bulky against the flat white of everything else. The lights should be bright enough, but the screen is too dark. Inky. Bottomless. There is no reflection. It flashes, turns on, and a film plays.
(‘Doctor Grant, you can’t cross! That’s quicksand!’
The good doctor hums, placing a hand on his chin as he looks closely at the circle of sand surrounding the sarcophagus in the center of the tomb. ‘Don’t reckon you’ve got a better idea Gus, do you?’
The boy hesitates, then shakes his head sullenly.
‘Right then,’ the doctor puffs his chest and grabs firmly onto the vine, ‘cheers!’)
Marc drags his gaze over to the side, where he can faintly see himself in the glass. It’s light blue. It’s hard to keep his eyes open.
“Ste—“
“Let me out of here!” Marc screams, struggling against the damned restraints that’ve got him tied to the wheelchair. “Let me out!”
“Marc!” The director, the man with the stupid looking mustache, moves closer, but the nurses holding Marc down won’t let him any closer. “You have to calm down. “We’re trying to—“
“Fuck off!” He growls. “Steven! Steven where—“
The director sighs and motions for the nurses to ease their efforts. They do, and Marc lets some of the fight drain out of him. The man inches closer. “We are trying to help you,” he starts, low and gaze piercing. His eyes are brown, no shine. Flat.
“Is that not what you wanted?”
“Ready for your shot, Marc?”
Shot. Shot. He was shot, twice, chest, fatal, it hurt a lot and bled a lot but he hit the water and it was colder than he expected so he closed his eyes…
“Won’t hurt,” the woman says reassuringly, “promise. Same as always.”
It didn’t hurt that much this time, that time, not like last time. Three times, stomach, not initially fatal but days dragging himself through the desert and under the sun will do that, death he means. He thinks.
He winces when the needle slides into his vein. His body doesn’t move.
“Well done.” The nurse nods and moves, her skin the only real part of her, still fuzzy at the edges. Everything is. “Have a good rest, Marc.”
The door closes behind her. Marc is staring at the ceiling. It’s made of glass. A little gray, not white.
He squints and opens his mouth. Struggles, tries, croaks a few times, clamps it shut and feels nothing as he stares for what must be hours, time isn’t real.
His eyes droop. But this time, his tongue isn’t so leaden and stuck to the bottom of his mouth. And when a thought flashes, the first thought it must be, the word tears itself out of his mouth.
“Steve—“
Time isn’t real. They wheel him down a hall lined with doors that he would suppose connect to rooms. There’s noise coming from some. Screaming, maybe, whispering, chatter,
“Who… who’s…”
“Hm?” The nurse pushing him hums, then leans forward and follows his gaze to the door that’s slightly ajar. She clicks her tongue. “No one’s in there, don’t worry about it.”
His eyes linger. Something catches his attention inside the room. Something big, red, dark, with depth and width and height. But they move past it, and all that’s left is white and silence.
The screen flashes, changes to something else. A different movie, noire, New York. Marc thinks he’s seen it.
(‘You’re—‘ the woman drops her bag on the side walk and covers her mouth with her hands. ‘You’re alive, you’re—‘
The man grins and takes off his flat cap. ‘Hey Marlene, long time no see.’
The woman sobs and throws herself into his arms. He easily catches her and wraps her in a hug.
‘I thought— I thought you were dead Jake, no one knew where you were—‘
‘Sorry babe, Mexico can do that to ya,’ he says, staring hard at the taxi that’s suspiciously slowed down nearby.
She buries her face in his shoulder, oblivious to the danger. ‘Don’t ever leave me again.’)
“Ah they put on my movie!“ Curly hair settles across from him. Layla . “Excellent.”
“L—“
“You doing ok Marc?” She asks, leaning across the table that’s flat and nothing. Her eyes are wide, brown. Her clothes have shadows, dimensions, she is real. She looks real. Please be real.
“L—Lay—“ He is not doing ok. Self loathing, hatred, a desire to stop existing, be someone else. He doesn’t know why the words are so hard now, they always are because he’s cursed to be Marc Spector, but he needs to tell her because it’s eating him alive but his tongue is stuck. “Sorry… sorry…”
Layla tilts her head. Then grins. “I got you something.” She stands and goes and comes back with something pressed in her hands. She lays it on the table space between them. “Matzah. Not sure if you know but it’s Passover. Happy holidays. It was a pain getting this in but I managed. The nurses can be real sweet if you ask.”
Marc stares at the matzah. Wonders what day it is, what the moon looks like now. Maybe Khon—
“Do you like watching movies?” She asks. “I know that movie they’re always playing is you’re favorite. Tomb Buster. It’s nice. But three times in one week? Bit much, is it not?”
He watches her move, through half lidded eyes, jerky and stiff, until something else draws her attention and she leaves. He looks back down at the matzah.
Flat.
(‘This is MK1 to moon base control, do you copy?’
‘This is moon base control to MK1, you have the all clear for take off.’)
Brief moments of lucidity come at night.
Or what he assumes to be night. There are no windows, so his only real way to keep track of time are the clocks in the common room and the lights out schedule. But he wouldn’t put it past them to fuck that up, just to fuck with him. Besides, what does time matter when he’s stuck here?
Regardless, the sedatives wear off at night since they aren’t constantly being pumped into him. So Marc rises from his bed, muscles sore and tight from being unused, and he fiddles with the locks for a bit. When that ultimately ends up fruitless, as it always does, he wanders to the wheelchair and tries taking that apart, only to end up with a broken nail and bleeding fingers.
“Shit,” he mumbles quietly, then cuts his finger again and slams his hand on the ground. “Shit!”
He sighs heavily and listens to the tv that they never turn off in the corner of the room play some show.
(‘Space wolves spotted, engaging thrusters…’ buttons being pressed, beeping, coms coming to life, ‘ready to engage.’
‘Give them hell, Moon Knight 1.’)
It’s just bright enough that it lights up the floor, flat and clean as it is, there’s a reflection. Shallow, dim, but Marc sees it and feels himself overwhelmed and crawls over to it in a frenzy. Nails claw at the ground, palms press flat.
“Steven, Steven, Steven,” he says, slapping the floor, his face, like that’ll do anything. It will. It must. “Steven come on, I know you’re there. Come on.”
But his reflection does not respond. Does not react besides copying his movements to a t . Besides staring back at him with his own eyes, red and sunken, flat.
(Explosions, fire, spaceships bursting into millions and billions of pieces floating in the void.
‘Mission complete,’ lean back in the chair, satisfied.
‘Great job Captain, Commander Khonshu is expecting you back at base, promptly.’
‘Tsk, asshole.’)
Marc reaches under his mattress, feeling blindly until he finds the doll. He rubs it’s cape between his fingers, traces the moon on the hood, then looks up at the dark ceiling. He wipes his eyes and stays on the floor until morning.
(‘You know how he is. Come back and we’ll switch. I’ll do the heavy lifting.’
‘Aye aye, Lieutenant Lockley.’ A photo flashes on the HUD. A woman. He smiles. ‘I’ll be back soon.’)
Or, until the lights turn on and the world is white.
He runs. And runs and runs, down the hallways he feels like he’s never seen before even though he’s been here for… for ages, he’s been wheeled past these rooms hundreds of times but he doesn’t recognize any of the plaques. Something is weird with the lights, they aren’t normal, but the main thing on Marc’s mind right now is escaping. He’ll worry about the fucking light fixtures later.
He ducks into a room and hides in the corner until the shadows of the nurses pass by, then lets out a sigh of relief that quickly turns into a sharp inhale when he hears something.
Someone is screaming.
The sarcophagus is shaking, rattling with the force of something inside of it banging and raging and desperately trying to escape. Someone is screaming inside. Marc’s heart beats and bangs against his rib cage and almost cracks it. The banging gets louder, the screams get—
Someone is Steven and Steven is screaming. Steven is screaming, Steven is stuck inside the sarcophagus and screaming—
“Let me out, let me out, please let me out, letmeoutletmeoutletmeout —!”
Marc pushes the top off and sees his own face, sees Steven, gasping and struggling for air, staring blankly up. Then awareness returns, and he throws himself out and to the corner of the room, back against the tiled wall. He looks dead. He looks alive. He’s wearing blue and black and he’s color, he’s depth and width, volume. He’s real.
“Steven?” Marc whispers.
The other’s eyes snap to him, widen and water. He takes a small step forward. “Marc?”
Then a small step becomes a few and suddenly he has an armful of him. Warm, blue, real Steven, arms around him, embracing and tight. There’s breaths and sniffles and a heartbeat, frantic and wild. Marc closes his eyes to the sound.
And opens them to color.