Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gillian knew it was all coming apart. From 3,662 miles away, she felt the final last part of herself that made her something even akin to a human begin to warp and shift under her ribcage. Her heartbeat changed rhythm, no longer beating in the familiar repetitive thump. It felt like…it felt like her heart was blinking. 

Suddenly, she could feel everything. Everything, every atom, every particle, was screaming either in triumph or terror. Everything pulled at her attention, wanting to share their suffering or their joy with her. She clutched at her chest, at the odd thing in her sternum that used to be her heart, though it wasn’t what was causing her pain. Sharp needles of agony stabbed her skin as she looked down at her arms. She watched in horror as drawings of eyes began to appear on her forearms like welts. Black ocular tattoos bloomed on her skin in every shape and size, irregular and disorganized. As Gillian stared down at the tattoos now blossoming on her skin, each iris, each pupil turned to stare back.

--- [Three Years Before] ---

“So…what did she say?” Ben asked excitedly, rolling his chair over to Gillian’s desk. He rested his chin in his hand, blinking up at her with a roguish smile.

Gill sighed through her nose and sat down heavily. “She said I can ‘Temporarily fill the position until the board finds someone more suitable,’.”

Ben’s brow wrinkled with disgust, “What the fuck? That’s bullshit! More suitable? The board’s aware you were Annabeth’s second in command for like, eight years, right? This job should have been yours to begin with! And it should especially be yours now that Jason isn’t available,”

A head spit-dyed red and black peaked its head over the wall of Gill’s cubical. “Isn’t available? Jason got run over by a truck, Bennett,” Sierra said pointedly.

“Yes and now he’s no longer available for the Head of Archiving position. Stroke of luck, honestly. He would have had no idea how to run this place.”

“The board still thinks he’ll come back by the end of the year,” Gill said, picking at a random sticky note still stuck to her computer monitor from weeks ago. “Though I have my doubts. That truck fucked him up pretty badly, at least that’s what his wife said when I went to take those flowers we were all supposed to pitch in for,” She gave Ben a very expectant look over the top of her glasses. 

Ben rolled his eyes and flicked a strand of blond hair away from his eyes. “I told you, I’d get it to you on Wednesday, but you’re getting us off topic. Why does Jason even want this position? He has that cushy job with the corner office as one of our points of contact with The New York branch. Why would he take a job in the basement? It can’t be that much of a pay raise.”

“It’s not one at all,” Sierra said, leaning gingerly on the flimsy cardboard wall. “He’d be making the same amount of money down here in the Archive than he would be if he stayed up in Communications.”

“Then why the fuck did he even accept the job?”

“Status, probably,” Sierra said, wiping a bit of black lipstick off her teeth. They all had found ways for their personalities to shine through the Usher Foundation’s dress code, and the Archiving Department’s resident goth was, today, dressed as if Wednesday Addams were selling real estate. “In communications, Jason is just another worker. Down here, he’d be in charge.”

“Yeah, and he’d run this place right into the ground. I cannot imagine what Adrianna’s thinking.”

“It’s not really up to her.”

“What do you mean? She’s the President of the Foundation. Why wouldn’t it be up to her?”

Gillian shrugged, “The Board has final say on the hiring of Department Heads.”

“Oh, so the board’s just being sexist?”

“Yep probably.” 

Sierra frowned, pursing her lips. “Wait, wasn’t the Foundation founded by a woman?” 

“Yeah, and every President, since Virginia Usher started the Foundation in ‘52, has been a woman. That doesn’t stop a room full of old white guys from being sexist,” Gillian flopped her head down into her arms which were crossed over her desk.  “As much as I don’t like Dr. Holloway, I don’t think I can blame her for this.”

“Holloway’s a bitch. We can blame her for everything,” Ben said, “Especially you not getting the promotion you deserve.” 

“Oh no!” They all heard the elevator door slide open and turned their heads to see Angela step out, carrying plastic bags full of everyone’s lunch order. “You didn’t get the promotion?”

“Well, I mean I will still be doing all of the work as if I did get promoted,” Gillian put on a sickly sweet smile, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “I just don’t get the job title or the pay increase.”

Angie’s arms went limp, the food hitting gently against her legs. Her mouth fell open in outrage. “That’s bullshit!”

“That’s what I said!” Ben said, pointing at Angela as if everyone else didn’t agree with him. “Thank you, Ang. Did you get my spring rolls?”

“And made sure you got the rangoon sauce instead of the usual egg roll sauce,” Angie said, smiling proudly and handing Ben his lunch. “This is not my first day, Benjamin.”

Ben’s nose wrinkled, “That’s not my name,” he muttered under his breath.

Angie rolled her eyes good-naturedly, “Yes, I know. Now if you and Sierra could take your lunches into the break room so I talk to Gilly in private, I’ll take it as a thank you for picking up the food.”

Ben looked very much like he didn’t want to leave, but his eyes flitted to Sierra, who was eyeing her lo mein hungrily, to Gill, who looked extremely exhausted and possibly on the verge of tears, and then finally back to Angela. He sighed, “Yeah, alright. C’mon, Si,” He took his and Sierra’s food and both of them trailed out of the main office.

Angie turned back to Gillian. Her hair was dyed a dark shade of green and it made her brown eyes look almost black as she watched Gill worriedly, “How are you doing, hon?”

Gillian sighed, the unmistakable sound of unshed tears clogging her throat. “I’m trying not to take it personally. The board said they want us to be more like the Magnus Institute. Apparently, their Archive has doubled in productivity since replacing their archivist.”

“Didn’t they find the dead body of the previous archivist like, in the floor?”

“I think she was in some kind of catacomb under the building. They have those in London, I think”

“Still, That cannot be a great workplace,” Angie laughed lightly before her face became serious and she squeezed Gill’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry, Gillian. You don’t deserve to be mistreated like that.”

Gillian took a deep breath through her nose. “You’re right. I don’t. I've been working for the Foundation for almost ten years. I’m done with Adrianna and the Board’s shit. If this Interim Archivist thing doesn’t become something more permanent, I’m just gonna quit.” 

---

The Archivist and The Bookkeeper sat opposite each other, the whirring of a tape recorder on the table between them the only noise to fill the deafening silence. 

The Archivist’s face was dotted with scars as if someone had taken a hole puncher to his cheeks, forehead and neck. The Bookkeeper knew the scars covered much more of his body than she could see, at least, with her eyes. His hair was long and clearly hadn’t seen a brush in quite some time. The Bookkeeper understood. She’d taken a pair of kitchen shears and hacked hers off at the chin when her life began to warp and she could no longer maintain it. She vaguely wondered why The Archivist hadn’t thought to cut his hair if he wasn’t going to care for it but the thought was fleeting and she had far more important things to care about. 

“Who are you?” The archivist growled. He wore an expression The Bookkeeper could read clearly and apprehension and preemptive anger.

“Don’t you know that already?” The Bookkeeper’s accent, American with just a dash of the melting pot southern she’d picked in the years of moving constantly all over the south in her youth, seemed to clash with the very air in these archives, which somehow seemed more dank and musty than her’s at home, despite the fact the archive at The Usher Foundation was literally several floors underground.

The Archivist grit his teeth. “I could, I’m sure, but I'm affording you the luxury of just telling me,” His eyes narrowed and The Bookkeeper felt the hair’s stand on the back of her neck. He’s trying to compel me, She thought, It’s not working. 

The Bookkeeper took a short breath. “My Name is Gillian Cenatt.”

“And Who are you, Gillian?”

“I’m the interim head of the archiving department of the Usher Foundation.”

That seemed to surprise him, “You work for the Usher Foundation?”

The Bookkeeper nodded. She began to imagine an eye in each one of the holes that pockmarked the Archivist’s skin, all watching her with the same confused ferocity as the man who sat before her. It all seemed far too familiar for comfort. 

“And why are you here? Are you looking into the Institute?”

“No, just someone who used to work here.”

“Ẁ̵̮͇̱̠̳͒̅h̴̪̩̽̽̈́ȯ̴̻̏́̊́?̸͈̯͗̊ͅ”

There it was again. That stinging sensation across her senses that made her hair stand on end. “Compelling me won’t work, Jon. The Observer looks down upon me as well and trying to turn its curse on me won’t do anything”

The Archivist’s eyes widened in surprise and possibly fear, though The Bookkeeper could not tell. It was true that The Archivist couldn’t use his eye-given powers on her, but the same was still true for the reverse. “How do you know my name?” He asked.

“I listened to your tapes,” The Bookkeeper answered curtly. “Someone’s been sending them to me for years. I thought it was you at first; that we were simply sharing resources, archive to archive. I know that’s not the case now,” She looked at The Archivist sympathetically, “You’ve had a hard time.”

“Yes, I don’t need reminding,” The Archivist rubbed the burn scar on his hand and a memory of listening to his recorded scream as she rode The Metro home fell into the Bookkeeper’s mind. “It looks like you have too,” He said, his eyes sympathetically sliding over her, with her ragged haircut, burn in the shape of a hand around her neck, and sleek, clean scar that went over her left eye and across her mouth. It felt as though he was assessing her, determining whether or not her traumas endured in “the line of duty” had earned his respect. 

“Tell me your story, Bookkeeper.”

Chapter Text

The fog was so thick here. Lia felt it fill her lungs like cement, every breath she took catching ever so slightly in her chest. She hated this place, The Magnus Institute. It stood for the Observer, just as the Usher Foundation did, but there was something about this place that made her want to curl away in fear and revulsion far more than The Foundation did. A presence hung over this place like…well, like fog. The same fog that had followed her mother and that followed her.

Lia looked impatiently over her shoulder in the direction she’d seen Gillian disappear into. Gill was going off to do ‘Important Avatar Business’ with her British counterpart and Lia already didn’t like him. The way he looked at them, contempt and apprehension in his far too powerful eyes; It made Lia’s skin crawl. 

And then there was that damned fog . She could see it, blanketing the shit-ugly carpet that seemed to be on every floor in the building. The fog clung to her, sensing her connections to Isolation and lapping at her heels like water she knew was just waiting to drown her.

“Is she gonna be done soon?”

Angie, who was sitting next to her, annotating the margins of some mystery novel, rolled her eyes. “Like I said the last three times you asked me that, I don’t know.”

Lia fiddled nervously with a strand of her platinum blonde hair. “I’m sorry. This place gives me the creeps.”

Angie put her book down, “How? This place is literally no different than the Foundation.”

“It’s older,” She looked over her shoulder again, hoping Gill would just come out and they could leave. “It’s so foggy, Ang. Isolation is here.”

Angela sighed, “I…I’m sorry, Lia. There’s a lot of that shit here, just like home.”

“This is w-”

“I know this is worse, Li, I know,” Angie tapped her painted nails slowly on the hardcover of her book. It flitted along Lia’s brain and she was briefly reminded of a hypnotist. “But we need the information the Archivist can give us. This is important for Gill,” Angela said, her words hitting Lia like a brick through her chest, pinning her down. This was important to Gillian.

Lia took a haggard deep breath. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right.”

Angela smiled coyly and returned to her book. “Go to the bathroom. Walk around and clear your head.”

Lia didn’t need to use the bathroom. Her mind wanted to say no and go back to scrolling mindlessly through twitter, but as though it had a mind of its own, her mouth opened and she said “Yeah, sure. Good Idea.” And she stood quickly and wandered away. Out of her peripheral vision, she swore she saw Angie smile again as she rounded the corner.

Lia walked for far too long before realizing she didn’t actually know where the bathroom was and when she turned around, she wasn’t sure how to get back to Angela and their stuff. The fog began to billow around her feet more quickly as if picked up by an unfelt breeze. It curled around her legs in thick tentacles. Her breath became icy in her chest, crystals stabbing her as she tried to draw breath. Her throat began to close in terror. She was alone. All alone and-

“You can’t be here.”

Lia jumped about a foot in the air, “Holy fucking shit!” She yelled, grabbing her chest reflexively.

The stranger did not apologize for startling her. He barely even acknowledged it, staring at her glassily from behind round spectacles.

Lia blinked, thrown off by the lack of reaction. “S-sorry, you really snuck up on me.”

“You cannot be here,” He repeated, sounding annoyed. “These floors aren’t open for the public.”

The hairs stood up on the back of Lia’s neck. “Sorry, I was just looking for the bathroom.”

The guy with the glasses rolled his eyes, letting out a beleaguered sigh. “We don’t have public toilets, but if you go to to the cafe across the street-“

“Oh no no no,” Lia held up her laminated Guests Pass. “We’re here on assignment from the Usher Foundation, or well, Gillian is. We’re kinda just here as her entourage.” Lia chuckled, attempting to lighten the mood. The stranger’s face remained stoic and Lia’s weak smile dropped.

The stranger’s eyes flicked from Lia’s badge to her face. “The Foundation wants to use our archive?”

“Apparently,” Lia sighed, trying to sound nonchalant, “And apparently it was so important and secretive that it couldn’t be sent through our usual channels of connection. 

The man’s stoney face flickered with annoyance. “That’s because they don’t trust Peter. None of our contacts will respond to me because they’re all so wary of Peter. It makes things so much more difficult.”

Peter. Lia’s blood turned icy. “Peter? L-Like Peter Lukas?”

The man nodded slowly. “He’s the current Head of the Institute. I’m his assistant.”

Lia could feel the breath catch in her throat, her voice cold as if she’d swallowed dry ice, “Is he here?”

“I don’t know. He comes and goes as he pleases. Why? Do you know?” He stepped uncomfortably close, ice cold radiating off of him in a way that wasn’t scientifically possible. 

Lia wanted to run. She wanted to hide alone in the dark and never come out again. But, no, she wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t do that. It was what Isolation wanted and she couldn’t let it have any more from her. She straightened her back, “Yes, I do. My name is Ophelia Lukas-Brown. Peter Lukas is my great-uncle.”

---

“You said you were looking into someone who used to work here. Who?”

The Bookkeeper leaned back in her chair. “My mother.”

The Archivist laughed, before catching her expression which was deadly serious. “Seriously? Your mother worked at the institute?”

The Bookkeeper nodded, a slight smile pulling at the scar that slashed over her lips. “Oh, more than that. Have you ever noticed a little plaque in the library proclaiming that a baby had been born there twenty-nine years ago?”

The Archivist could see it clearly as she described it. A small golden plaque displaying the date of October 31, 1990, and the message A Baby Girl was Born Here. He blinked. “You’re that baby girl?”

The Bookkeeper nodded. “Pretty clandestine, right? Born on Halloween, a week early, on the floor of the Institute. Pretty sure it was decided right then. The Observer had already picked me.”

An electric chill ran up the Archivist’s back. “But you’re American,” was all he could think to say.

The Bookkeeper’s smile became more incredulous, “I can see why they made you the big bad avatar and not me. Yeah, after my brother was born, Mom got a job at the Smithsonian and we moved to the States.”

“S-she quit?” The Archivist’s ears perked up, trying not to let himself hope.

“She requested to leave and was approved. She didn't work in the archives. I think it was field research since that's what she did for the Smithsonian. I don’t know what to tell you. if they want you to stay, you will.”

Those words burned in The Archivist’s stomach. If they want you to stay… He cleared his throat. “You came with friends. I saw them when you came in.”

The Bookkeeper chewed her lower lip, her teeth brushing over the scar on her lip. “That’s my team.”

“Your assistants?”

“I don’t think they’d appreciate being called that.”

“But they’re not your friends?”

The Bookkeeper sighed, looking down at her crossed arms. “Well, one of them is my brother. That's Grant. He's only here to visit our mom. She moved back to England a few years ago and Grant wanted to see her. Lia is…that’s particularly complicated.”

The archivist’s right eyebrow crept towards his hairline, “The blonde one?” His eyes combed every inch of her face, desperately trying to glean any information their shared patron couldn’t give him. “Are the two of you…together?”

“On some level,” The Bookkeeper looked deeply uncomfortable. “I don’t think I could keep going without her but…you can only get so much from a Lukas, right?”

“S-she’s a Lukas?” The Archivist’s heart stuttered with apprehension.

The Bookkeeper nodded slowly. “Her mother ran away from it all I think. She wants to give you a statement herself. It’s not my place to tell you.” Her eyes, shining with a familiar green, stared into his matching ones and he felt her conviction land. He was just going to have to wait.

“And the green-haired one?”

“That’s Angie Warner. She’s the last one left.”

The Archivist blinked. “Of your team? Have they all…”

He watched as her face contorted into an expression he knew well; A scowl of anger and grief. “Died? Not quite.”

Chapter Text

Elias smiled, for though he had his back turned away from the bars of his cell, he knew exactly who was approaching. Her high heels clicked against the cement floor, approaching slowly and with purpose. “Pleasure to see you, Doctor Holloway,” He said as the door blared to reveal his visitor.

Adrianna rolled her eyes, “Cut the shit, Jonah.”

Jonah Magnus laughed, though the sound did not travel past his lips. He didn’t bother to contain his grin as he turned to face his visitor. He didn’t recognize her appearance, with almost unnaturally pale skin and long auburn hair that was slowly greying under a thick layer of Garnier brand hair dye. She wore a smart black dress and gold earrings that only those in the know would be able to discern were eyes, appearing to the uninitiated as an abstract ovular design. The woman’s hands sat on her hips, her stance confident in a way it hadn’t been nearly 70 years ago when Jonah had last seen her. They were literally both different people staring back at each other with the same eyes.

“Oh, are those the names we’re using then? My apologies. Then it’s a pleasure to see you again, Lavinia . I do, however, think the doctorate adds a bit of much-needed gravitas,” He watched her face, hoping to see any change in her cold expression, but she gave no such indication.

“It really is quite funny to see you in chains. You deserve nothing less,” She said, her tone sharp like a school teacher.

“You call me by my given name but insist upon using that ridiculous accent?”

That granted him a smile, showing off the perfectly straight teeth the Eye so helpfully informed him had taken an extra year of braces for Adrianna Holloway to get. “This tongue knows nothing else, Magnus. Though I can put on an English accent if it will make you more comfortable,” Lavina said, her eyes glinting.

Jonah matched her smile. “Best not bother with trivial things. I get limited visiting hours. Why did you come, Lavinia? To see me in cuffs?”

“A pleasant bonus, dear brother-in-law. I simply came to inform you of our efforts at The Usher Foundation.”

“And?” Jonah felt a sliver of anticipation fall from his chest into his stomach.

Lavinia sat, crossing her legs and examining her perfectly manicured nails, “If you think you will be able to control her, you are mistaken. Gillian is not your malleable little archivist. She is not so easily twisted.”

“But she has been marked?”

“Not in the traditional sense, though she has accrued many scars. Razing and Festering have taken two of her beloved friends, while the remaining are consumed by fog, cobwebs and earth. The marks are on her soul, on her capacity to love. It would not make her the Archivist, but it has served its purpose well. The Bookkeeper does well as a, what was the word you used?”

“Amplifier,” Jonah said, knowing full well Lavinia knew exactly what word he’d used. “Jonathan will speak the words, Gillian will amplify them. The two will work in tandem to bring about what we seek.”

“The end of the world,” Lavinia said it slowly, like the words tasted of caramel and victory. “After all these years.”

“After the centuries we’ve worked,” Jonah could see the hunger in the bright blue eyes that watched him from the other side of the bars. He’d always understood why his fool of an older brother had fallen for the young italian Lavinia Occhiello, for though he did not desire the love of a woman, he respected her beauty and her sharp mind. The sharp mind that had slain his idiot brother and given him the opportunity to take Augustus’s fortune. Lavinia was always someone Jonah would rather have as an ally than an enemy, even if that meant sharing the secrets to circumnavigating death he’d learned. She was useful to have, first as a secretary, and then when he wished to expand his influence across the pond, someone he could trust to run the sibling organization. 

The Usher’s had been incredibly easy to kill. Montgomary Usher had been even more a fool than Jonah’s brother, with grand idea’s of being the “American Magnus.” The way he belittled and disrespected his wife, Virginia, it was almost poetic to kill him where he sat, leaving her to take all the glory Monty had wanted for himself. Of course, Virginia had entered James Wright’s office with brown eyes and left with the sparkling blue eyes that now bore rather familiarly into Jonah’s own grey ones.

“I can hardly wait another second.”

Chapter Text

The Archivist’s eyes fell to The Bookkeeper’s arms, still crossed against her chest. The sleeve of her shirt had rolled up slightly, revealing a row of raised bumps of scar tissue. Perhaps chickenpox scars, or…

The Bookkeeper’s eyes followed his gaze to her wristed, dotted with little bumps, “Insect bites,” She voiced his thoughts aloud.

“What kind of insect leaves bites like those?”

- 2016 -

Sierra sat in front of Gillian, fidgeting with the end of her sleeve. She looked awful. Her eyes were sunken, with dark smudges under her eyes. She’d clearly lost weight and her clothes hung off her in a way that looked very uncomfortable to Gillian. Her hair was pulled back into two low ponytails, the hair dye hiding the grease from days of feverish sweating.

Gillian clicked on the tape recorder, hearing it whirl and hiss. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You’ve been out for weeks.”

Sierra nodded tiredly. “I need to get this out of me.”

“Are you-”

“Gill…please.” There was desperation in Sierra's voice. A quiet, exhausted plea to let her get this over with.

Gillian sighed. “Alright. Alright. Statement of Sierra Cortez, regarding…”

“A childhood illness.”

Gillian swallowed down her own apprehension. “Whenever you’re ready, Si.”

Sierra took a deep breath, her fingers twisting in her lap. 

“ I used to get sick a lot as a kid,” She began, “It was never anything particularly serious and I never got that ill, but my immune system wasn’t the strongest and about once every few months, I would get the flu or something and it would knock me out for at least a week. It wasn’t fun, and it didn’t make going to public school very easy, but my teachers were understanding for the most part, and we had a pretty good system worked out. I think it bothered my parents more than anybody. They didn’t see me as a burden or anything. Even when I was really sick, I was pretty self-sufficient. I had to be, I was an only child and my parents worked so much, there was no way they were going to be able to take time off unless I was actually dying. They both worked in the medical field, my mom as a doctor and my dad as a paramedic. They were sympathetic enough to my plight, but when you spend your whole life around the worst diseases and injuries, a bad case of strep throat doesn’t exactly worry you. I think that maybe they thought it reflected badly on them to have a kid who got sick so often. I mean, it’s not exactly my fault. I did spend a lot of time at the hospital with them. 

“Hospitals are meant to be this clean, sterile place, but they’re…they’re not. They are absolutely rife with sickness, filth and despair. The odds of infection are a lot higher in a hospital than just out in the real world. That’s one of the reasons surgery used to be so dangerous. Before penicillin, even something as simple as an appendectomy could be fatal. And while the chances of dying from an infection post-operation have gone down, the diseases are still there, clinging to every surface in an invisible layer of illness and death. You’d think that, with all the time I spent there, I would have been desensitized to it. But I wasn’t. That’s not to say I was afraid of the hospital, it just never felt comfortable to me, which I think disappointed my parents a little bit. I think they wanted me to go into medicine just like them. They never said anything, but I would catch them exchanging disappointed glances every time I mentioned wanting to be a historian. There was even a point where they started getting me books on medical history, trying to bridge the gap between my interests and the life they wanted for me. I wanted to make them happy, but there was no way I was ever going to become a doctor. Not after what happened when I was fourteen.

It was late fall, just when the weather started to turn unpleasant, or as unpleasant as it gets in Orange County. My friend, Carly, who usually drove me home after school had rehearsal for the play that week, and the hospital was only a few blocks away. I had decided that the hospital was as good a place as any to do math homework. The sun had already set by the time my mom came into the doctor's lounge where I had been working. She told me that dad was on call that night, but her shift was nearly over so we’d be going home soon. I think we were going to get dinner, but I can’t really remember. It’s been nearly twenty years, the details are a blur. I do remember the beepers though. Back then, doctors still used pagers, and at that exact moment, every single one in the lounge went off. That could only mean one thing; a patient had just arrived in critical condition. 

I wasn’t allowed in the I.C.U. There were too many moving parts and I could easily get in the way. It was one of the hard and fast rules my mother had when I got too old to be in the hospital daycare. And, up until then, I had never broken it.

I don’t know why I wanted to see what was going on. I knew I wasn’t going to like it. Once, while looking for the restroom, I accidentally walked in on a woman giving birth, and that had successfully stifled any morbid curiosity I might have had. Something about this was different though. I absolutely had to know what was down there. It was like something was calling me to see it. So I waited long enough to be sure I wouldn’t meet my mother on the way there and snuck down to the ICU. 

My hiding place wasn’t very good. I was pretty much just peeking out from behind a wall and hoping that everyone would be too busy to notice me. And, luckily for me, the controlled chaos of the hospital floor kept me mostly hidden from view. 

A young man was being wheeled in on a stretcher. According to the EMT barking out information, he had been walking alone in the park when he collapsed from fever. A dog walker had called 911 and when the ambulance arrived, his temperature was so high that he’d had a seizure. He wasn’t particularly memorable looking, though he definitely looked sick enough to be in the hospital. He was rather scrawny, and his clothes hung off of him like they were several sizes too big. His face was gaunt and flushed a burning red. His sweat-soaked hair and shirt were the same shade of muddy brown and they looked like they hadn’t been washed in months. Looking back on it, he shouldn’t have been conscious. His eyes were open calmly taking in the swarm of doctors and nurses around him. It was a bit unsettling, watching him be completely unfazed by the fact that these people were actively working to save his life. 

He shouldn’t have been able to see me. I was on the other side of the room and there was so much chaos around him that there was no way he could have noticed me watching. But he lifted his head and looked at me like I'd called out his name. His eyes were glassy and clouded by fever, but I knew he saw me. He smiled, and I felt a chill run through me like something cold was slithering down my back. I can’t tell you what about him was so unnerving to me, but seeing that sloppy, almost crooked smile gripped my stomach with a wild, panicking fear. I wanted to scream, but I knew I would get busted if I did. So I stayed there, watching the fevered man smile at me like we were sharing an inside joke. 

It must have been obvious on my face how scared I was because the man’s expression changed from delirious amusement to triumph. Whatever he’d wanted, he must’ve gotten it, because he laid back and began to convulse. He was having another seizure. Doctors and nurses around him hurried to save him. I didn’t wait to see if they succeeded. I took off running and as I sprinted away I heard the telltale tone of the heart monitor flatlining, and I knew he was dead. I booked it back to the doctor’s lounge and started to cry. It was still empty and I just sat over my math book and wept. I don’t know how long I sat there, but by the time my mom came in to tell me she was ready to go home, I’d mostly composed myself.

I’d also started to feel sick. I tried to convince myself that the rolling nausea was just from what I had seen, but by the time we got home, my head was pounding and I was almost shaking from the chills. Like I said before, getting sick was a pretty common thing to happen to me back then and my mom recognized it pretty much immediately. She took my temperature and sent me to bed with a trash can next to me in case I couldn’t make it to the bathroom. She told me that she’d be gone before I woke up, but if I still had a fever in the morning, I could stay home. I went to sleep, shivering, nauseous, and half hoping I wouldn’t be well enough to go to school.

That night...That night I had a dream. I know we don’t usually take dreams that seriously, especially fever dreams, but this one was...unsettling. For one thing, I remember it with crystal clarity seventeen years later. Usually, I don’t even remember my dreams and yeah, this one was weird but...I shouldn’t remember what it felt like, right? Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I was back in the hospital, but it wasn’t as clean as it was in real life. The usually cream walls were stained a dingy brown and the wallpaper was peeling off. I could see scattering beetles and flies buzzing around me and the thick stench of disease and rot hung in the air. That’s another thing. I don’t usually dream in all four senses, but the sharp chemical smell that I usually associated with the hospital was replaced with something like rotting wood and unwashed sheets and...something else I couldn’t quite place. 

I was in a bed in the middle of the room. The sheets felt slimy and I was so tightly wrapped in it that I could hardly move. I was strapped to a bunch of equipment that whirred and buzzed and made my head hurt even more.

The dead man was standing beside my bed. He looked just as terrible as I felt. He was smiling again, but this time, instead of inciting dread, it was warm and inviting. A wave of calm washed over me. I stopped struggling against the cocoon of slick blankets. I felt...at peace. Or at least sort of at peace. I also felt horribly ill. I could feel tears streaming down my cheeks, though I know that doesn’t make any sense. I was dreaming. I know I was dreaming, but just felt so real. 

The man stepped closer to me. His breathing was labored, but he still wore that same contented expression, like there was nowhere else in the world he would rather be. He put a clammy hand on my shoulder and I realized with a jolt that the buzzing wasn’t coming from the machines. It was coming from him. 

I wanted to scream, but my voice was gone. I started struggling again and his grip tightened on my shoulder. He opened his mouth and for a second, I thought he was going to scream before a swarm of chirping cicadas came pouring out of his mouth. There were so many more than should ever have been able to fit in that man. They crawled up my legs and arms. They were in my hair and on my face. I must have been trying to scream because I could feel them going in my mouth and down my throat. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. There was nothing except the feeling of them covering my skin And that’s when I woke up, leaned over the side of the bed, and...lost my dinner, so to speak. I don’t know if it was the need to throw up that pulled me from that awful dream, but I definitely didn’t feel any better in the waking world. 

I was pretty much out for the next week. I couldn’t keep anything down and my temperature never dropped lower than 100, no matter how much ibuprofen was in me. It got so bad that my mom actually took a couple of days off to take care of me. I did eventually have to go to the hospital, having passed out from dehydration, but the doctors didn’t have any special insight. They told me it was just a rather nasty stomach bug. And eventually, I got better.”

Gillian felt nausea rise in her own stomach. “But why are you telling me this now?” She asked though she wasn’t sure if Sierra could even hear her anymore. Her eyes had become bright and cloudy and Gill suspected she was running a fever again.

“ Do you know anything about the life cycle of a cicada?”

Gill’s heart stuttered, sure Sierra was delirious. She shook her head.

Sierra gave an odd dreamy smile, “The adult cicadas lay their eggs underground and then they die. The eggs hatch and grow in the ground and then, after seventeen years of living underground, they emerge and the cycle starts again. Well, it’s been seventeen years since I had the dream, and...a couple of days ago I had another one.” Sierra looked Gillian in the eyes and Gill felt a shiver run down her spine. The Way Sierra blinked, it was unnerving somehow. 

“Last Friday, do you remember I wasn’t really on my game? Told you I hadn’t slept well?”

Gill nodded, “Yeah I remember telling you to go home.”

“It wasn’t just that I hadn’t slept,” She continued, sounding as though she was drifting away, trying to recall a long-forgotten memory, “I was pretty sure I was coming down with something. So I took your generous offer to go home early and tried to sleep it off.

I don’t actually know if this was a dream. I mean, there was no way this couldn’t have been a dream, but I don’t remember falling asleep and definitely don’t remember waking up. 

I was lying on the cold hardwood floor of my bedroom. Everything was hazy, but I could still see massive splotches of brown and purple steadily creeping up my walls. My stomach was crawling with nausea, and I could tell from how I was shivering that I was burning up. I tried to focus my vision, but my head throbbed and my ears rang. I needed water. I needed to throw up. I needed to not be on the floor . But I didn’t have the energy to move. It was like everything was being leached out of me.” The pain was so obvious in her voice, but it didn’t even seem to occur to her face to react. It still had that same dreamy smile that began to unnerve Gillian. 

“I didn’t see or hear him come in, but I blinked and the dead man was standing over me again. Despite the almost 20 years that had passed, he looked exactly the same, but I guess the dead don’t grow old. His eyes, still bright and cloudy from fever, were warm and inviting like he was happy to see me again after all these years. He smiled, and a bug skittered across his yellow teeth. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t even find the strength to open my mouth. He bent down and put his hand on my cheek. his hand felt like ice against my face. He wiped away a tear that had slipped out without me even noticing. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice sounding like he’s been swallowing glass. “It’s just a stomach bug.” 

Suddenly, the pain in my stomach intensified. It felt like someone was clawing at my insides, trying to escape. I curled in on myself and everything melted away. Next thing I remember was being in the bathroom with my face resting against the toilet seat. I felt god-awful. The sudden jolt back to awareness made my stomach flip and I immediately started vomiting. It felt like at least 10 minutes before there was nothing left in me but bile. Still, my body kept trying to force something out. And after several minutes of just painful dry heaving, what came out...was an insect. I didn’t get a good enough look at it to see what kind it was, and it may have just been in the toilet already, but I hadn’t noticed it and it certainly felt like it had come from inside me.” Sierra rubbed her stomach like it still ached, and judging by the green in her cheeks, it did. Gillian made a mental note of where the trash can was in her office. 

Sierra licked her lips before continuing, “Obviously, I freaked out. I’ve worked at the foundation long enough to notice when something could be supernatural. And puking up bugs isn’t exactly standard. So that’s when I called Ben. I figured if anyone was going to be able to tell if something legit weird was going on, it would be someone from the Foundation. And Bennett is my best friend. I trust him.

“And did he find anything?” Gillian asked.

“No, but he did help. I was definitely way too sick to take care of myself. I think I might have puked on him more than once. But Ben’s a good sport, and I’m pretty sure he got some good videos of me while I was loopy. And after a few days, I got well enough to come down here and...tell you my story.”

“You still look like shit,” Gillian said rather bluntly.

“Wow, thanks Gill. I thought I was runway-ready,” Sierra joked, “I’m not better, and I’m not back yet. I just wanted to tell you what was going on. Give a big fancy statement in case there is something supernatural about my sickness. The British guys just had a bug thing, right?”

“Yeah, they had some kind of worm infestation. I just got a bunch of tapes from over there. When I’m done listening to them, I can give them to you.”

Sierra nodded sleepily, before slowly getting to her feet. “I-I think I’ll go home now. I’m starting to feel sick again.”

“Here, I’ll help you,” Gillian got up to help, but before she could, Sierra doubled over in pain. She clutched at her stomach, screaming.

“Fuck!” Gillian ran over, “Sierra, what’s wrong?”

Sierra slapped a hand over her mouth, and Gillian reacted fast, grabbing the trash can and holding it out for Sierra to be sick into. Sierra gripped the sides and heaved but instead of vomit, what poured out of Sierra’s mouth…were thousands of chittering, chirping cicadas.

Gillian screamed and the insects began crawling up her arms. They crawled under her sleeves, biting every inch over her arms they could find.

The last thing she recalled before she blacked out was Sierra looking at her, her eyes milky and her drunken smile still dripping with insects.

---

The Archivist stared as The Bookkeeper scratched the raised scars on her arm. “I didn’t know this because I was unconscious but that's when Angela came running in. She doused Sierra in cleaning vinegar. Apparently, cicadas hate vinegar and these supernatural ones hated it even more. Sierra’s skin bubbled like it was made of baking soda and she…she melted like the wicked witch of the west,” The Bookkeeper looked deeply distressed, running her fingers through her hair, “Not enough that the Clean Up Crew couldn’t identify her, but enough that they were sure she was…she was dead,” The Archivist could see tears on The Bookkeeper’s cheeks. “They kept me under observation for weeks but I never got sick. I never started puking up bugs. Apart from looking like I have chickenpox forever…I got out of there relatively unharmed.”

The Archivist let the silence hang in the air, his own worm scars aching in sympathy. “Was there a funeral?” He asked.

The Bookkeeper nodded. “I wasn’t able to attend because I was under quarantine but…yes. Ben apparently put together a lovely little service,” Her voice caught in her throat again. “Ben…I don’t think Ben ever stopped blaming me for Sierra’s death. He said that if I hadn’t wanted her to give a statement, she’d have lived.”
“Sounds like he’s looking for someone to blame,” The archivist said, pretending to be oblivious to how harsh his words were. “What happened to him? He’s not with you now.”

The Bookkeeper’s hand crept, almost instinctively to the burn in the shape of a hand on her neck and the Archivist’s stomach sank. “He…He got his revenge, I guess.”