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“You Don’t Want To Do That~”
Jon froze, finger on the lever of the fuse box. He felt hair rising at the nape of his neck as his peripheral vision caught something moving in the darkness. He gulped down breaths to stay quiet, although aware that it was futile: whatever was there had spoken to him, knew where he was.
“I Mean, You Can If You Really Want To, But You’re Not Going To Like It~”
Jon frowned, only able to fight the sense of impending doom because the voice was intensely and unsettlingly familiar. The shadow moved past his blind spot, too quickly to process, and he felt the chilling touch of cold, stiff fingers on his skin.
“Sometimes not being able to see something is actually quite a good thing~”
“Who are you?” He found the courage to speak.
The shape straightened up and for a moment Jon thought it looked humanoid, before he realised its proportions were wrong , its limbs mismatched and its head too small.
“Well, My Father Called Me Nikola, And Then I Killed Him! So I Thought I Rather Deserved To Have His Second Name Too. Which Makes Me Nikola Orsinov. Pleased To Meet You At Last!” It spoke cheerfully, strengthening that feeling of familiarity gnawing at him from inside. It was a Stranger: he recognised the name, so it would make sense that it sounded familiar, but this voice hit too close to home.
Where had he heard it before?
‘Are you chickening out, Jonny?’ That same voice teased from his memories.
Jon tensed up, stomach feeling rock hard as that vague sense of familiarity settled into something more substantial. He knew exactly where he’d heard that voice before.
“J— Jess?” He croaked.
No, this was a Stranger. It was trying to fool him, it couldn’t be her. And if it was— if it was—
“Jessica? Is that you?”
It laughed. “Was that her name? I had to borrow a voice box, and she sounded so perfect!”
Jon felt his teeth clatter as he trembled uncontrollably. It would’ve been better if it said it didn’t understand, that he was mistaken, that it was tricking him—
This— this was so much worse.
—
“What time is it?!” Jon rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His head was pounding something fierce, still riding out the hangover from the previous evening. Kofi had somehow lost most of their clothes overnight and Frank’s makeup was all smushed over the pillow, like a grotesque imprint of their face.
Jess grabbed Jon’s hand. Unlike the others, she seemed to be lively and awake, and most importantly, fully dressed sans shoes. “Just past seven, come on!”
Jon looked down just to check he was still wearing pants, and upon confirming so he let Jessica drag him outside in the cold February morning. As Jon made sure the door stayed just open enough for them not to get locked out, Jess started climbing a ladder propped against the wall just outside the house.
“What are you doing?” Jon asked, intrigued.
She grinned, already halfway to the roof. “Listen!” She nodded at the road, her ginger hair tangling in the slight wind.
Jon held his breath, listening carefully. He could hear nothing but the early morning birds chattering in the neighbourhood. “I can’t—”
“Exactly! Now, come on!” Jess grinned, egging him on. She finished climbing the ladder and disappeared from view.
With a sigh, Jon followed her, flinching and swearing under his breath when he clasped the freezing cold metal with his bare hands. Despite himself, he was curious what she was doing.
Jess’ head peeped over the edge of the roof. “Hurry up!” She called. “Are you chickening out, Jonny?”
“Aren’t you reckless, Soldier?” He grinned, the cold air starting to chase away the sleepiness and hangover, although it didn’t do much for his headache.
She laughed.
When he finally clambered onto the rooftop, he saw her sitting on the very top of the roof, strumming a ukulele. A few metres away a camera laid precariously balanced.
Shooting Jessica a knowing look, Jon went for the camera and sat down, legs astride the rooftop and opened the camera to start filming just as Jessica started singing, with the background of loud morning birds in the outskirts of Oxford.
“I’m not a gambling man…”
—
“She’s not answering,” Georgie put down the phone. “I’ve asked the others but no one has heard from her in months.”
Jon dropped his face in his hands. “God…”
Georgie put down her phone and slowly walked to the sofa, sitting next to him. “I’m sorry—”
“This is all my fault—” was all he could say without breaking down.
Georgie made a discontented noise. “Right. I don’t think so.”
Jon looked up in disbelief. “What?”
“I mean, you cut ties with them after Death To The Mechanisms, and that was way before the Institute. How could it even be your fault?!” She crossed her arms.
“M— maybe it got to her because it thought it would hurt me.” He fumbled with his words.
Or maybe he was just looking for a way to blame himself and not think it was just some sort of horrible bad luck stringing those events together. If it was just… chance, it would mean that there was no way to control how those things hurt people, no way to protect himself and those he cared about.
“Look. G—Georgie, I need to move out.”
—
“What’s this?” Tim grabbed the flyer that Jon had slid across the table.
It depicted their logo, the Starship Aurora, in the process of shattering into pieces. Heartbreaking, he knew, and kind of on-the-nose, but it felt appropriate.
“Look,” Jon sighed. “These past few years have been…” he grinned, “fucking spectacular. But it’s time to hang up the guns— And that’s an order from your Captain!”
“First mate!” Tim peeped up.
Ben slowly put down his drink. “You can’t be serious…”
“First Mate,” Jon shrugged, almost an afterthought. “Look—” he took a long swig of his drink and heavily set it down, passing his gaze across the table. Jon made sure everyone’s eyes were on him before he spoke. “It’s a good time. I’m about to graduate and move to London to work in academia… and I’m sure everyone’s got their plans too.”
“I actually agree with Jonny, there,” Frank nodded gravely. “But a collection of our most successful songs, without Nastya and Jess is…”
Jon grinned devilishly.
“What did you do…?” They asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jess sprung out from the next booth over, having eavesdropped the whole conversation. “Retrieved this old wreck from storage!” She exploded in boastful laughter. Several of the other members were already on their feet as they welcomed her.
“When did you get back?!”—“Just this afternoon.”
“How was Manhattan?”—“Boorish…”
“Is it true you joined the Circus?”—“Somewhat.”
Jon smiled to himself, confidently. He had faith in this show, it was an explosive way for the Mechanisms to go and after that, it would be over for Jonny D’Ville.
There was no place for the old pirate in the future Jon had envisioned for himself.
—
The room where Nikola kept him was dark and quiet. Sometimes, if Jon listened carefully, he could almost hear the traffic and chattering outside. At first, it had helped him distinguish day and night, but he’d eventually lost track of time. Had he been there a week? A month? Hard to tell. His circadian rhythm had gone to hell even before he had gotten kidnapped.
Jon was fed and hydrated every few hours, given a few bathroom breaks in which his feet were unbound, but otherwise kept tied up to a chair in the darkness. Alone, apart from the few times Nikola visited to take care of his skin.
The sensation of its hands on his body made him feel unclean, despite the unnatural care it took with him. In between its visits, Jon adopted the habit of zoning out, repeating lectures and facts to himself in a futile attempt to fight the mind-numbing boredom he was subjected to.
It was the third time Nikola visited, while it spread lotion on his scar-littered flesh, that he first heard it sing.
At first, Jon thought he was mistaken, but the melody, barely audible, was painfully familiar. A children’s song, taught in most schools, but its tone so hauntingly familiar he had just known he had to include it in one of his albums. Was Nikola humming the song merely another coincidence? Did it know what it meant to sing it in that stolen voice?
With a faint voice, almost a whisper, Jon clung to that treacherous emotion of hope and started to sing.
“Rose, rose, rose red.” He sang, his voice shaking.
Nikola’s hands stopped. For a moment he was quiet, then he continued, hesitation melting away as he dusted off the old persona, closing his eyes to envision the fiery hell of a space opera battlefield.
“Will I ever see thee wed?” He continued as Nikola quietly intoned. “Rose, rose, rose red.”
“I will marry at thy will, sir, at thy will.” — “Will I ever see thee wed?”
Nikola slowly moved in the darkness, he could hear its joints clicking, but he pointedly refused to open his eyes.
“Ding dong, ding dong.” — “I will marry at thy will, sir, at thy will.”
In his mind, he was back on the stage, the crowd quietly drinking in his words in awe. He liked telling these stories so much.
“Wedding bells on an April morn.” — “Ding dong, ding dong.”
Why, oh, why had he ever stopped?
“Carve thy name on a moss covered stone.”
Jon hesitated. Toy S— Nikola hadn’t sung the last part. Before he could open his eyes, he heard a ripping noise and felt something cold and sticky being slapped on his mouth. His eyes flung open as he struggled, trying to scream through the gag as he found himself face to face with the horrible deformed visage of Nikola Orsinov. Even its face had been stolen, sewn onto its head, mouth stretched in a horrifying parody of a smile.
This wasn’t Jess, and it wasn’t the Toy Soldier, either. It was just a monster.
—
The venue was small and badly ventilated, the bright lights illuminating the stage burned hot and bright, and the air smelled like sweat and cigarette smoke, but if he could have chosen to be anywhere else, he would have not.
“The Toy Soldier, of course, well,” Jon turned around to smile at Jess, who strummed her guitar with a blank expression, though her eyes glinted under the lights. “It was never real to begin with.”
The crowd was huge, bigger than any of their gigs, it almost made him regret this was their last time on the stage. At least, as the Mechanisms.
“And when all its friends are finally gone, it will decide to stop pretending.”
Jess’ hand went slack and her upper body leaned forward, like a toy that had stopped moving. The crowd gasped.
Jonny grinned, there was one last song to play.
He was going to enjoy it.
—
From his prone position on the floor—or at least, he thought he was prone, were those his hands holding him up? Was that his body?— he saw Tim facing the abomination that was the Circus’ ringleader, clad in the sewn skins of Gertrude and Leitner.
“The World Is Ours! That Toy Won’t Help You Now.” It said, but it sounded nervous, sounded exactly like Jessica on their first gig, when she still wasn’t used to slipping into character.
“Back! Get back.” Tim— Tim Stoker, that’s right. Tim held the detonator high in his hand. Nikola stepped back. “That’s right.” He grinned.
So, this is it.
Jon groaned and grunted in pain as he lifted himself up. “Open fire, open fire!” He shouted— sang, under Tim’s incredulous gaze.
It wasn’t his stage, but if he was going to die here he could at least go out like good old D’Ville had.
“Turn your home to a funeral pyre. All she knows is pain and death and a moss covered stone!”
Tim grinned. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Boss. I don’t know if you’re still in there or just going insane. Just know this,” he was still staring at Nikola, but addressing him. “I don’t forgive you.” He gritted his teeth. “But thank you for this.”
Goodbye, Tim.
Unlike the Mechanisms, he was truly going to have a glorious, meaningful death.
“That’s Not Funny.”
Jon pictured Jessica’s hair flowing in the wind, singing with the birds just before dawn.
Fare Thee Well, Soldier, he thought.
“I know.”
Goodbye, Jess.