Chapter Text
This is a new low for him, Graham thinks as he sets down one of his notebooks on the table and sits down on the couch. He stares at it for a long time, waiting for that familiar sense of being watched to return. Soon enough, it hits him. Something is observing him again, as it has most evenings.
He still remembers how unnerving it was to feel the first few times it happened, but by now he’s learned to differentiate it from the feeling of “being followed by the thing he’s yet to see but is certain it wants him dead”. This is… comforting, almost. It tells him he’s not on his own just yet, that maybe even if all else fails he might be remembered. There’s just one issue, though… it’s not strong enough. Not yet.
So he’s going to change that. He’s going to give it a show tonight.
With his hand shaking just slightly, he reaches forward and opens the notebook. His own handwriting stares back at him, repeating on a loop, but he doesn’t pause to read the page. He gently tugs at its edge and uses his other hand to hold the notebook down, and he finally rips the paper out.
He takes a deep breath, collects himself, and slowly puts it in his mouth. For a pitiful moment, he imagines what a sight this must be. He’s certain the lack of sleep has made him look sickly at this point, and now this. Now he’s sitting here and he’s so desperate to change anything that he turned to eating his fucking notebook. Because he’s all out of ideas and almost out of time.
He starts to chew, and… it doesn’t taste like paper.
The page doesn’t taste like anything, really. Not paper, not ink, not anything he’s kept near the notebook… but it doesn’t taste like nothing either. It simply tastes like something that isn’t real. The closest he can get to actually describing it is a texture. It tastes like something… sharp. Sharp but fuzzy, leaving the insides of his mouth feeling a little numb. All that, but as a taste. It still feels like paper on his tongue.
He’s not sure when his ears started to ring, but they stop as soon as he swallows the page and suddenly, everything around him feels more intense. He pauses for a moment, looking around the room in search of explanations before his sight settles on the notebook again. The feeling of being watched is so much stronger now. He takes a deep breath as he reaches for the next page.
It changed something. Eating that page changed something, he can tell. Not only is he feeling more watched, but he’s also feeling… different. The paper felt wrong and horrible, this whole idea had his mind screaming “Don’t do this, it’s wrong” the entire time, but… it felt New. He feels like he shouldn’t do this again for reasons deeper than “don’t eat paper” or “ink poisoning”. For reasons that are clearly unnatural.
That could only mean one thing.
That means that whatever is after him, it doesn’t want him doing this. And whatever upsets it must be helping him!
So he eats the next page.
And the next one. And one more. He sits there, painstakingly slowly going through his notebook, removing page after page until three hours later, only the cover is left on the table and he feels ill. He… probably should’ve stopped when the 2nd page already tasted like ink and paper, he muses as he carefully closes the cover and puts the pitiful remains of the notebook back on his bookshelf. He really should’ve, he notes as he eyes a different notebook. He wonders if it’d taste the same-
He shakes his head and heads to his kitchen to get himself a glass of water and try to forget about what he’s just done. If he doesn’t touch that notebook again, he can pretend it never happened and look for other, hopefully less… drastic ways out of his situation.
(He does touch that notebook again not much later, while he’s rearranging his belongings again. And he does eat another one the very next day, in his kitchen this time. He feels like this is not something for the prying gaze that catches him in his living room to see. It’s not the last time, either)
(All the following notebooks he eats still taste like paper.)