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Adam couldn’t really tell if this was real or not.
There he stood, face to face with… a tree? It was weird. They were in the client’s house investigating. Jonah was off sleeping early, and Adam couldn’t sleep. So, he naturally did what his first instinct said to do. Sate his thirst for knowledge by exploring more. He would either find the cat, or find the source of whatever made everything feel so wrong. It was a win-win scenario, really. He’d get paid or know more -AND- get paid. What more could he ask for?
But the paranormal investigator might’ve gotten a little more than he bargained for when he walked into one of the rooms and saw a surreal image. Not a literal image or anything—because it was… strangely real. Despite how fake it seemed. It was likely midnight by now, but the sun managed to seep into this room, right behind a fully grown tree. An apple tree, at that. And Adam couldn’t tell if he was imagining the soft breeze or not. It wasn’t like he was crazy though. And it’s not like hallucinations were… -THIS- reality-altering… right?
The hooded male found himself stuck in a state of limbo currently. Conflicted with himself. Was it real or fake? Was his mind fucking with him, or was there more to this? Whatever the answer was, he -had- to know more. His curiosity wouldn’t allow him to just stand idly and never find out.
But before Adam could make any move, he heard a voice. He couldn’t tell where it came from. “WILL YOU TAKE IT?” The voice questioned, whisper-like in volume. The words were so fast, Adam barely had any time to even register what it was saying. But when he did, he scoffed a little.
“Take -what?- There’s not really much to take here, if you haven’t noticed,” he replied snarkily. He knew that this would make him seem insane if this was all in his head—and maybe it was. And it was weird. Any other person would be scared by this—or off-put at the very least. But he was just more pissed than anything, really. At this point, he always was. But that wasn’t important at the moment.
Adam looked down at the floor. It seemed like the world in the room and the actual house were merging together, in an odd way. Wooden planks were very loose and creaky. Beneath them, grass was sticking out. This continued further until the planks were becoming less frequent and vice versa for the grass. This was also weirder, because it was literally in the middle of winter. Why the hell would something like this—something that looked like it came straight out of a warm spring or summer day—be in a cold dark house? It made no sense.
The paranormal investigator let out a huff, deciding that it was too obscure to be real. Though he was a little embarrassed by how long it took him to come to that conclusion. He got ready to leave, but when he looked up, something stopped him in his tracks. The tree was bending itself sideways—more like forwards. Towards Adam. And at the loose end of a branch, there was an apple.
He blinked, and the voice he had heard previously spoke again. “WILL YOU TAKE IT?” The voice repeated. Now, the ‘it’ was made clear to the hooded male. ‘It’ was the apple. Something inside of him said that he shouldn’t. It was a bad idea. But when was Adam one to care about whether or not things were bad ideas? In fact, these thoughts seemed to fuel the fire inside of him.
He took his first step inside the room, the grass crunching beneath his feet. Inside the room, it smelled like mild dew, and a light scent of apples. It was as though it had just finished raining in there. And as much as he hated to admit it, he honestly -did- really like the smell. And the view was… admittedly, a -very- good one.
Continuing the steps that lost caution with each one he took, Adam was now face to face with the tree. His blue eyes examined the apple in front of him. It was… perfect. Too perfect. It was like those apples you’d see in some cartoon when you were young or something. Very crisp, and ripe. A bright red. Despite seeming like a summer day in there, the apple came straight out of autumn—the perfect season for apples. It was big, too. And once again, the blond heard the voice speak. But this time, it was directly into his ear.
”EAT IT ALL. YOU WILL FIND KNOWLEDGE AND ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS YOU HAVE.” It whispered, causing Adam to slightly shiver.
“Jesus—back up, will you?” He grumbled out, though it was more of a simple halfhearted response. He was more caught up on what it was saying—and the apple itself. He… couldn’t see what could go wrong in this situation, honestly. Yeah sure, it was a suspicious voice. So what? The worst that could happen is that he was way too sleep deprived and he needed to hit the hay like he originally planned. At best, he’d have more information at his disposal!
Despite his reasoning, his hands were shaking a bit. Maybe he was just cold, or something like that. That wasn’t it at all—it was hot as hell in this room. But you’d find Adam dropped dead on the floor before he admits that he’s scared.
The hooded male reached out, and plucked the ripe apple off of its stem. “EAT IT.” The voice spoke, before an echo was heard. Then, there were several whispers overlapping, all chanting the same thing. Eat it, eat it, eat it. He stared down at the apple, sweat starting to form a bit. He swallowed dryly, his head starting to hurt from how loud it was getting. Fuck. It wouldn’t stop until he ate it, would it? He shouldn’t do this. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t—
Against his better judgement, Adam took a quick bite of the apple, closing his eyes tight.
His first thoughts on the taste stemmed from one singular word.
Metallic.
Warm, and metallic.
Warm, messy and metallic.
Adam opened his eyes to get a look at this strange apple. The first thing he noticed was that the scenic view wasn’t there anymore. It was a plain, rustic room again. No sun, no grass, no tree. Just a room with creaky floorboards, cracked walls, and some stains. The same dainty house he was in for the last—what, 30 something hours?
At the moment though, that wasn’t a concern. At least, not his biggest concern. He looked down at his hands to see the “apple” he was holding. Just what was this thing?
It was certainly large, and red. Not crisp or ripe anymore, though—it was soft. And mushy. Something most people wouldn’t enjoy biting into. It tasted and smelled foul. It was certainly there for a long time—likely untouched. The sight of it made Adam want to vomit on the spot, really. Horror dawned on him and it seemed as though shock and terror were making its way on his face. Had he really bitten into such a thing? No, he was—just imagining this. It was some horrible nightmare. It couldn’t be real. He was hallucinating.
What he bit into wasn’t a crisp apple, or a rotten apple. In fact, what he bit wasn’t an apple at all.
It was a human heart. Filled with blood. It looked recent, yet smelled as though it was years old. The blood was on his hands, dripping from inside his mouth down his chin. The pieces of the heart were stuck between his teeth. Adam felt nauseous. His hands shook, resulting in him dropping the heart.
“Wh… wh—at…” He rasped out, staring down the heart on the floor. God, it was sickening. The damn thing looked as though it was still beating. He felt sick to his stomach. “What the FUCK?!” The paranormal investigator practically screeched, attempting to run his hands down on his jacket to wipe the blood off. It only worked a little bit. It mostly made it more smeared.
The hooded male used his sleeves to wipe the blood from his mouth, smearing it further across his face. Tears welled up quickly, overwhelmed with everything. he attempted to wipe them, only to remember the blood on his hands again. He was practically covered with blood now. His eyes turned to the door of the room and he rushed to get out, only for it to slam in his face. Adam rapidly banged on the door with his curled fist, desperately trying to get Jonah to hear him.
“JONAH! JONAH, WAKE UP!” He yelled, feeling the side of his hands starting to get splinters from the old wood of the door and his aggressive banging on the door. It was as though some otherworldly force was holding it shut. “WAKE UP, FOR GOD’S SAKE! PLEASE!” He begged, feeling a tear run down his cheek. He was never one to cry, or beg, or whatever the hell. He usually was never scared, but this? This was something else entirely.
”LET ME OUT, YOU PIECES OF SHIT!” He screamed, suddenly growing angry with whatever trapped him in here. Were there even multiple? He couldn’t be sure. But he was assuming so. He wasn’t exactly thinking about it much when he was covered in blood and he just took a bite of a literal heart that might still be beating out of a body.
Adam slowly slid down against to door to his knees, sobbing and looking down. “Sh—shit…” he let out a choked noise, his banging against the door slowing. He hit his head once against the door, panting. How could he get out of this? What did he do? Why -him?- Why is it that he was targeted? No, no. This was on him. His own fucking stupidity. He -really- believed that there was some apple tree in this house? How idiotic could he get? He was crazy. And a moron. And this was his own punishment for his actions.
He hiccuped, before covering his mouth and looking back at the room. There was suddenly writing on the wall. It was in a strange black substance that he couldn’t identify. He stared at it for a good minute. It read two simple words, but it was enough to make Adam feel like throwing up again.
“EAT IT.”
What was this sick shit? They were making him eat the damn heart just so he could leave the room. Adam’s eyes widened again before he turned away and hit his head against the wall a few more times. He was so tired, and his head was spinning. His vision was blurred, and if he stayed in here a minute longer he knew the madness would gnaw at him little by little until it ate him alive and left nothing but a hollowed shell of what he once was.
The hooded male looked back at there floor. And there it lay, right where he left it. He grimaced and looked away again, only for the voice to whisper to him again. “CONSUME THE KNOWLEDGE. DO NOT PLAY THE FOOL. DO NOT FOLLOW THE SHEPHERDS.” Adam turned to the source of the voice, and he could swear he saw a glimpse of what was speaking to him. It was mostly covered in black, but it had a white face and its mouth remained wide open, inhumanly so.
“CONSUME THE KNOWLEDGE AND BE FREE. WHAT IS THERE TO LOSE?” Whatever it was questioned. That same question rang in Adam’s head over and over. What is there to lose? What is there to lose? What is there to lose?
The paranormal investigator slowly got up, clumsily so. His legs almost buckling on the spot, and leaning on the wall for support. But he managed to keep steady and kept his balance. He took a couple steps forward while leaning on the wall, and sat back down. Right in front of the knowledge bestowed upon him.
With a shaky hand, he lifted it. Blue eyes examined it once again. There was a chunk missing from where he’d bitten. He saw the inside—all the blood and vital connections, the organ pulsating in his hand. It was then that he decided he didn’t want to think about it any further. That would result in this going much worse than it had to.
Adam closed his eyes, forcing them shut. He wouldn’t open them, no matter how much his body instinctively told him to.
The hooded male took another bite. He heard the dripping of the blood, but tried not to listen. He heard the blood splatter on him, but he didn’t dare look. The chunk he’d bitten remained in his mouth, but he couldn’t speak. This is all he had to do. Let go of his senses.
With that, he swallowed quickly, trying not to chew as much as possible.
He took another bite.
And another.
And another.
And this continued, until Adam now had two hearts inside.
A TV in the room suddenly flickered on, catching Adam’s attention quickly. It provided light in the room, allowing him to finally see the mess he’d made. It wasn’t big, but it was thick and messier than anything he’d seen before. He was bilious at the sheer sight of it. He averted his attention back to the white screen, and there appeared a man. A grinning man. Text appeared below. Captions. Though no words were being said.
”did you have fun?”
Adam gritted, curling his hands into fists again. But he remained silent.
”good.”
He didn’t even provide an answer. What the hell?
”do you feel your knowledge surpasses others now?”
Adam didn’t respond. He didn’t want to. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing him like this -and- hearing how hoarse his voice likely was. And it was worse because… he did. He felt like he knew more than he previously did. He wanted to know more. And he hated it. He hated it more than anything at this very moment.
”would you like more?”
Yes, Adam involuntarily thought. But he still stayed quiet, in fear of what would happen if he voiced his opinions out loud. He wondered if there were more organs he had to eat. But frankly, he’d rather not find out.
”ill tell you a secret.”
The paranormal investigator stared intently. It was unwillingly, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away.
”that heart belonged to jonah.”
It was then that Adam let out a gutteral scream, followed by him finally throwing up onto the bloody floor.
Finally out of the room, Adam walked out of the house. There was the car, which Jonah hopefully resided in still. He hesitated a bit, before sprinting over. He still had blood and vomit practically covering him from head to toe with a tear-stained face, but he couldn’t care less. He had to check something first. He had to check if Jonah was still alive.
Adam panted when finally there. Reaching into his pocket, he fumbled with the keys and unlocked the door.
Was it all a lie?