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If pressed, Michael Shelley would have defined himself as someone with a very firm grasp of his sense of self. He may have been a socially anxious wreck a lot of the time, but he knew it, and after 24 years, he thought that he was even comfortable embracing the fact. Not to say that his life hadn’t shaped him to be that way; early childhood trauma landed him with what he liked to think was a healthy caution about interpersonal relationships, as well as a demeanor more inclined to the introspective than any form of extroversion. Top that with the money, time, effort, and no small amount of pain he had gone through to arrive at this point in his physical and emotional becoming and he was compelled to refer to himself as a self-made man. If he had friends he might even make a bit of an in-joke about it, as it was he swallowed the nervous laugh that still echoed dizzily around him.
Gertrude Robinson was not a friend. At the beginning he would have vaguely referred to her simply as his boss, but in the last 36(?) hours, she began rapidly creeping into the ‘untrustworthy’ box that he had shoved most all early authority figures into as a child. There was something to be said for coming full circle, but it was a lazy something and Michael couldn't quite focus on that while also trying to decipher the thrice damned map that the Archivist had shoved into his hand before pushing him - none too gently - into this maze. Was that supposed to be a turn? A fork? He rubbed at his eyes, lashes stiff with salt that he couldn’t remember the source of. Had he been crying? No, they were on a boat before, weren’t they? Did boats have salt?
He shook his head, hair falling loose around his face - when had he taken it down? He was sure it had been up when he’d entered, but that was before -
Before what?
He glanced down again, trying to resolve the winding puzzle of what he was sure had been a map before into something even vaguely recognizable.
Another left turn, another mirror to shatter, but this time something caught his eye as he raised his fist to break the glass - a figure beckoning from the space he should occupy in the twisted reflection. He only hesitated a moment staring into the woman’s tear-stained face before the realization of who he was looking at twisted his confused fright into rage. The fall of the glass was accompanied by an inhuman screech that made Michael shield his ears with his hands, blindly rushing to what he thought was supposed to be his next turn - or had that been back one hallway?
He skidded to a halt almost too late, fractals teasing his vision in such a way that he didn’t see the door until he was almost upon it. It was an uncomfortably faded yellow, sticking out even in the riot of colours the maze had been tormenting him with since he took the first turn. He was sure it didn’t belong - here at least, if not in general. Despite the years that had passed, Michael’s memory of the door was untainted - similarly undulled by time was the emotion it evoked, some awful mix of heartbreak-wrath-fear that brought to mind hushed conversations between his parents when they thought he hadn’t been listening to them discuss the madness plaguing their child.
Michael remembered living in fear of doors for a few years after Ryan had wandered through this door that shouldn’t exist- unwilling to walk through them himself, but even more terrified when seeing one of his loved ones attempt to travel through them. He made an effort to quell that terror now, face to face with the basis for his childhood nightmares. Inhaling deeply, he reached out and turned the unassuming knob.
It opened with a sound like he’d never heard before - breaking bones and grinding teeth and something not all together dissimilar to what he imagined screaming through a leather bag into a megaphone could sound like. The ground beneath him thrashed and his only thought was to hold on tighter to the knob in his hand, keeping it from tipping him back into the impossible halls he had been venturing through. He didn’t realize that the thrashing would throw him into the open doorway until he felt gravity loosen its grip and then the awful weightlessness that came with falling.
**
Michael’s hands were bleeding. They may have already been bleeding, he wasn’t sure he had the presence of mind to notice earlier, but he was certainly aware of it now. The edges of the room crowded against him, threatening more cuts even as he stumbled through the half-light to whatever was in the centermost chamber. The trembling was back - maybe had never left, he couldn’t quite remember how long he had even been in the room at this juncture. Maybe he had always been here? Maybe it was time to venture back out, see the world-
He wrenched himself away from where he thought the door was supposed to be, hard enough to rip himself (his coat, something clarified) with one of the hard edges. The laughter was louder here, and desperate. He had nearly forgotten about it in his haste to get here. Where was here again?
His eyes danced along the impossible angles of the room, head pounding in time with what almost looked like writhing if he unfocused his gaze upwards. Everything here seemed to be pushing him away from whatever hid behind the densest of the sharp edges, letting him know that he was at least going in the right direction.
Directions.
Did Gertrude give him directions for this?
Who was Gertrude again?
The Archivist a nameless voice supplied, echoing a deafening cackle.
“A Great Evil.” Michael felt himself mouth - was that him? Was that not someone else - A name on the tip of his tongue, strangling him as it stuck in his throat.
Michael came back to himself just as suddenly as the terror had begun to rise, anger quickly overshadowing the fear. If he knew nothing else, he Knew himself. He pushed forward through the edges and impossible angles, gritting teeth against the seering tearing that only felt like being pulled apart if he tried to close his eyes through it. His cheeks burned, dripping tears and blood as his vision swam. He could see his prize now, or what he assumed his prize to be. It was terrible and beautiful and he wanted nothing more than to scream at how it made his head pound and his mind contort or perhaps he was screaming and he wanted to stop.
A sharp pain drilled against him, feeling like a physical force trying to push him back even as he pressed ever forward. Was the room larger or smaller when he first got here?
Surely he had been closer three steps back than he was now?
The space behind his eyes pounded and his mouth tasted like battery acid as he approached the twisting, turning mass at the center of the chamber. The screaming had quieted and Michael couldn’t help but feel as though he was being watched, the room bowed outwards like something holding its breath.
Michael reached for the pulsing and curling heart, cold dread running up his spine in the brief moment before angles of the room descended upon him as his hand made contact. A shrieking laugh echoed in his ears and behind his eyes, fractal patterns overtaking his vision as his nerves lit with what felt like being covered in papercuts and then doused in lemon juice.
He writhed against his bonds - when was he bound? It didn’t matter anymore because they dug into him and against him and tore through him in their violent, unbreakable hold. On a better day, he would have laughed at the absurdity of his life and its looming resolution. Michael was not having a very good day, so instead he screamed.
And then his scream was subsumed by It’s scream, spiralling ever upwards in pitch until he was sure that it was audible to only the basest of creatures, the room thrashing against him as he wrenched his eyes open again- When had he closed them?
And then the darkness dissolved into a writhing static and Michael only vaguely noticed his screaming turning to helpless cackles that seemed to wind into and out of him with every heave as the foundation of his entirety shook and splintered and crashed and finally, after an eternity of cacophony-
He was still.