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Sasha James was smart. She knew that she was smart. It’s not like she was braggy or egotistical, she just knew that when it came to things like numbers, puzzles, computers or other general “smart person” things, she could handle herself. She had always considered herself to be a people person too, happy to joke with a cantankerous boss or a shy coworker if the opportunity arose.
Which is why she hated these hallways.
The archive itself had always been a bit difficult to navigate. Tim had told her a story once, explaining that it was built on a prison designed by a famous architect, and apparently all his buildings were haunted. She wouldn’t say she believed him necessarily, but she definitely believed something was wrong with that place. When she worked in artifact storage she never thought one room could feel so much like it wanted to hurt her.
But these halls weren’t like the archives. They moved. Turns changed from one blink to the next, corners that she rounded straightened themselves when she glanced away.
Never had Sasha felt so lonely in her life. She longed for some actual human contact, but it never came. In the early days (hours? Weeks?) she had seen that same stretched silhouette that she’d first seen reflected in a cafe window months ago. Michael, the thing had called himself. But as she wandered and ran through the ever shifting maze her glances of even him and his distended limbs became few and far between. It felt less like she was being chased, as was her expectation due to the statements she’d seen involving this thing, and more like she was being checked on.
She’d been wandering these hallways for… a while now? It was hard to tell how long exactly. She knew that she'd been in artifact storage, hiding from the worms when something had scared her. A figure in the dark reaching for her, shifting in form, wrapping its hands around her neck and pulling something out of her, something intangible. She had screamed in pain, when suddenly something else grabbed her from behind and yanked. She had blacked out for what felt like only a second, to awaken to flickering fluorescents and frankly ugly wallpaper. Michael, was standing over her, smiling its impossible smile, looking even more like a migraine than usual. When it noticed her looking back, it vanished, leaving only its echoing laughter and her alone in the dingy corridor.
She’d tried to follow the sound at first but gave up on that quickly when it started to simply sound like it was coming from next to her. She walked. She sat down occasionally, looking into the mirrors that hung on the halls every ten feet or so. Sometimes she could see herself, though something seemed off. Sometimes she saw a woman she didn’t recognize. Sometimes nothing reflected in the mirror and she felt like throwing up.
Finally, after an indescribable amount of time (it felt like months, but how could it be months?) something shifted in the hallways. The laughter that had been with her stopped, and turning a corner the lights flickered and went out. When they came back on, everything looked different. Of course, nothing was really consistent in these hallways, but they now seemed cleaner somehow, and more modern.
And there was a door in front of her.
Sasha James was smart. It could be a trap. A yawning maw open and welcoming after weeks of letting prey tire itself out. A joke, meant to drive her even closer to madness when it didn’t work out. She knew that.
But she really wanted to get out of these hallways.
She sighed.
“Screw it,” she hissed, before barreling through the door.
And toppling into a bedroom.
She held her hand in her hand and blinked her eyes for a moment, fighting a wave of sudden nausea that swept over her. It took her a moment before she was able to look up and around without colors swimming in her eyes.
She didn’t recognize the room she was in. It was fairly modern but not really noteworthy in any sense. There were two posters on the wall. One was for some band she’d never heard of, and one for What the Ghost , a podcast she’d heard Jon gripe about once. There was a desk littered with papers and open files. A book shelf tucked into a far corner. Despite the mess, boxes seemed to indicate that someone had moved in fairly recently.
And there was a bed.
With someone sitting on it.
To put it simply, he was boring to look at. Not headache inducing by any means- easily recognizable sure, but just so average that she almost wanted to laugh. Dull blond, wavy hair hung limply from his head cascading over a tacky sweater that was too big on him. His dark eyes were downcast, pouring over a book that he held in his left hand. His right hand was in a brace, with no oddly long fingers to speak of.
She stared at him. He flipped a page.
“Michael?” She questioned, shock seeping into her voice that was hoarse from screaming and disuse. He looked up at her. His grey brown (not rainbow, not spiralling) eyes widened as he looked at her for a moment, before he leapt off of the bed, tripping over his long limbs and coming to kneel before her.
“I’m going to be honest,” He said, looking straight into her eyes. “I forgot you were in there.”
She blacked out.
When she woke up again she was on a couch with a frankly massive headache, and there was a cup of tea on the table next to her. Due to the lack of steam rising from it, and how cold the mug was to the touch when she brushed a hand against it, she figured it’d been there awhile. She sat up and glanced around. Seemed to be the same flat, given the design, and once again there he was. Michael. Sitting across the coffee table in an old rocking chair. He was staring at her, and surprisingly the staring didn’t make her see flashes of impossible colors. She could see his reflection in the glass of the oven behind him. It was normal.
She started screaming and nearly fell off the couch.
Michael leapt up and brought his hands up in a placating gesture. “Woah! Woah, calm down, Jesus Christ, I do not need to have the police called on me while I’m house-sitting, alright?”
The absurdity of that statement did make her stop yelling. Michael let out a sigh, and pushed his long hair, but not quite as long as it had been, out of his face. It still curled in places, but as he ran his fingers through she watched as they caught and pulled on some of the ringlets, loosening them into waves.
“Ok, I know you have questions,” Sasha also noted that his voice no longer had that ringing effect that it had before, though he still sounded a bit like he’d swallowed a balloon once and never quite recovered, “And I swear I can probably answer most of them but before you start shouting at me again, I’ll give you the basics, yeah?” He paused, and Sasha realized he was waiting for a response. She nodded. Slowly. He took a deep breath before launching into his story.
“Well to start, hello, hi,” he gave a slight wave, his light and airy voice distinctly familiar and strange at the same time. “I’m Michael Shelley, you may remember me from my previous life as a horrible monster, though I’ll be honest I have some memory problems so I can’t quite say that I know who you are?” She blinked at him again, before his hands waved at her once more. “I mean, christ, I know who you are, you’re Sasha! You’re one of Jon’s archival assistants.” An odd look passed over his face at that. He stood suddenly. He walked over to the kitchen. “Do you want more tea? I didn’t know what you liked, Jon has a decent selection, actually.” Sasha shook her head before realizing he wasn’t looking at her.
“No, thank you. I’m fine.” He gave his own sound of acknowledgment and returned, this time forgoing the rocking chair to sit crosslegged on the ground, hands resting on the coffee table. His fingers curled underneath his palms.
“Anyway, in regards to your employment at the Magnus Institute, we can thank God that you’ve been terminated! In more ways than one.” At that he let out a light laugh, which had Sasha tensing up but he waved a hand and coughed, “Sorry, I’m working on the laughter. It… gets out sometimes. But anyway I vaguely think I remember you? Michael liked you, I think,” and if the third person didn’t throw her off the idea that a extraplanar horrific abomination liked her certainly did, “found you interesting, at least, and you almost died a few times but it got you out of there because it didn’t like the idea of you dying to anyone else but itself. Which, as I say it realize doesn’t sound great but I don’t think I wanted you to die, so I’m really glad you got out-“
“Stop,” Sasha bit out. “Just… stop,” Michael, thankfully, obliged, and Sasha took the moment to put her head in her hands. She could piece together some of what was happening. Michael, the monster, not this… nerd, had found her interesting enough to save her life not once, but twice. Though if this Michael was correct then the monster couldn’t be given too much credit in the matter of her continued survival.
“Where am I?” She figured she would start with the basics.
“Oh, you’re in Jon’s flat,” and that certainly threw her off guard.
“Jon Sims?” She glanced around again, trying to take note of anything that was unique to the owner.
“Yeah, he’s on a trip right now for the archives, and I’m. Um. Between homes at the moment,” another slight laugh that was quickly choked down, and this time Sasha was paying enough attention to notice the slight panic that passed on Michael’s face at the sound. Something about it made her soften slightly. He could just be a good actor, and she wouldn’t let herself get too comfortable, but it wouldn’t be wise to act in a way that could set him off.
“Michael, what— happened to you? No offense, but you’re quite different from the man who met me for coffee or who… pulled a worm out of my shoulder. I appreciated that, by the way, though not the most comfortable surgery I’ve had.” Sasha had meant for her words to be light hearted to lessen the impact of what she knew to be a serious question, but Michael just grimaced.
“It’s hard to say. There are quite a few holes in my memory. Let’s just say that my position was filled, and I was fired.” He waved his right hand in the air. “Rather rudely too. I will say, I think you’re one of the reasons things fell apart.”
“Me?” He smiled.
“Yes, I don’t think the distortion quite liked me keeping someone alive inside it for so long, especially someone who had already been a victim of the stranger.”
“The stranger— was that the thing that attacked me? In artifact storage?” Michael shrugged.
“A facet of it, yes. But a limited piece. Bound to an item that had been delivered.”
“What did it do to me?” She demanded, shocking herself with the sternness in her voice, “What was it going to do to me?” Michael gave another weak smile.
“I’d rather save that for now. Stories are hard. Can we save it until Jon gets back?” Sasha narrowed her eyes at him.
“That’s bullshit.” He spluttered slightly. “Simple question, no story required.” He glanced away.
“It… replaced you. Your friends didn’t even know you were missing months later.”
“Months?” A fragment of joking conversation popped into her mind. Tim and her, joking around as usual, despite both of them knowing that things might always change. He hadn’t known for months?
“That’s my best guess. Time was hard for me, you should really wait to discuss this with Jon—“ Sasha was moving past that.
“How— how long has it been, exactly?”
“Er, you know, I’ve never been that great with dates—“
“Michael.” His shoulders fell.
“Oh. Not long. Just—“ his voice petered out, and he seemed to be genuinely lost in thought for a moment. “When, when do you last remember working at the archives, exactly?” The nervousness in his voice kept ticking up.
“July.” She replied. She couldn’t recall the exact day the worms had attacked. As an afterthought, she added, “2016.” He let out a hiss of air from behind his teeth. “What?”
“Well, good news. It’s been less than a year.” She couldn’t help but let out her own sucking sound at that.
“Bad news, only by about a few weeks. It’s June 15th.” A ringing sound started up in Sasha’s skull.
Michael seemed to sense her sudden stress and immediately took to trying to comfort her.“Hey, it’s, it’s gonna be ok, ok?” He didn’t make a move to touch her, which she appreciated, but God she wished Martin or Tim were here. She’d kill for a good hug. Michael seemed to be panicking the more she did. He blurted out “Hey, at least it beats seven years?”
Sasha’s eyes widened. She brought a hand up to cover her mouth as she looked into his eyes.
“Oh, Michael.” He shook his head quickly.
“No, no, we’re not feeling bad about my life right now, we’re dealing with your stuff.”
“Michael.”
“Sasha.” They looked at each other for a while, Sasha trying to make out the emotion in Michael’s face. Fine. She could learn more about that can of worms (a saying that felt much worse at this point in her life) later.
“What do you mean I was replaced?” Michael was silent for a moment before giving a slight nod.
“The way this thing works is that it erases people, and then replaces them. Living as them, with no one being the wiser, except it seems for some unlucky few. It isn’t perfect though, I know because Jon figured it out and then went bonkers trying to kill it with an ax.”
“That… doesn’t sound like Jon Sims.”
“A lot can change in 11 months, believe me. Anyway, like I said, it did manage to replace you, and it erased quite a bit of you from your coworkers minds, but it managed to grab you before the stranger could fully kill you.”
“Got it.” Sasha said, “So I should thank you, then.”
“Please don’t.”
“I won’t then.” She clapped her hands together.
“Well, I’m going to raid Jon’s closet and see if that man has anything that can replace 11 month old work clothes. And maybe his pantry too, I’m starving.” Michael sighed.
“Good luck, there’s not much of interest in either,” in the voice of someone who had given up hope. She laughed slightly. His tone almost reminded her of Tim complaining about Jon. And just like that, she had a goal.
“Think you could make me some coffee then?” She asked, and received a smile in return. “And do you have a phone I could use? I need to remind some people that I exist.”