Archive of Our Own

When you’ve lived your life with a fascination for the macabre, one might think you’d be delighted to have a chance to indulge your passions. For those interested in taxidermy, dissection, or dealing with those already dead, presenting them with a corpse wouldn’t be unwelcome.

For Callum Brody, a child who dealt in the very literal dark, it was a most unwelcome affair.

The entire affair was unwelcome, in fact. Jonah Magnus seemed to have taken several measures to host a dinner party he wouldn’t attend, and his guest list was, in Callums perception, eclectic. For a man over 200 hundred years old, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but while the room itself was annoyingly bright, he could see the dark shapes over people as they looked at each other. No one trusted anyone, least of all him.

Did they have any reason to, even still? It’s the thing about all these powers– you will lose yourself in every way that matters, and if you can’t claw up from it, something else will. He had managed only because Maxwell Raynors ritual was incomplete, him still being himself, but… touched, in a way that was evident from the stares people gave him.

No one expected a 12 year old at this dinner, but they could all tell he had his own tricks up his sleeve. Not that it would break out into a fight unless someone else started it. He didn’t trust the Eye as far as he could throw it, as knowing what’s in the dark makes it incredibly boring and stupid. Jonathan Sims didn’t seem to like him either, as he could feel the man's eyes on him, and he wondered if they noticed how the shadows his shape cast were darker than all the others around them.

In any case, it was interesting to see Basira Hussain there as well, the person who had undoubtedly saved him (or kept him? Was it a bad thing, after all, to feel the peacefulness of darkness?) from his fate. When her (now that he thinks about it) dim beam of torchlight struck upon his eyes, it was like a supernova, brighter than any brightness, eclipsing the dark so full he felt like he had all the wind knocked out of him as Raynor fled.

The dark had seemed so jarring, then, so… impenetrable. Now it was just another, just as important, part of his life. Helen Distortion was another interesting figure, both in personality and in the fact that her torso twisted in on itself several times. Her eye-wateringly purple suit and polka-dotted skirt was in high contrast against the more drab and Victorian style mansion Jonah had apparently placed them in like dolls. She was currently using chopsticks to knit the pasta she had been eating into something that seemed impossible to make with an impossible type of knit. He let the darkness of his peripheral vision soothe his eyes for that one, the flashing colors and eyesoring clothes not his favorite.

Sitting next to Basira lingered Daisy Tonner, staring boredly at the food placed before her, only the knife seeming to have been touched, its shadow looking jarring against the still, perfect shadows of the plate and other cutlery. She was an interesting figure, her eyes tracking the moments of everyone yet still seeming bored and uninterested. It was fascinating, at least, but he didn’t want to be the first to catch her eye.

The person actively glaring daggers at people was Melanie King, whose dyed hair was almost as bright as Helens, whole… existence, and she seemed the most uncomfortable to be in the room, glancing around wildly, scoffing at him, before retreating into her own mind as she refused to eat her food.

He saw no reason not to eat it, that he could guess Jonah wouldn’t invite them there to poison them, as it wasn’t his style. If he was, he would be there in person to watch them choke. The opposite of Melanie's heightened awareness of the situation was Georgie Braker, a woman that he originally thought might be someone like him, touched by the night, but then he realized the calm emanating from her wasn’t a dark touched restfulness, but a fearless one. Certainly a character, her.

Last for him to turn his eyes to was Tim Stoker, who had also refused to eat his food and was going so far as to start carving things into the wooden table with the knife. Not a happy camper, it seemed, and to be honest, neither was he. He didn’t expect to get treated seriously by anyone, let alone someone who was 20 times his age, but when he received a serious enough  invitation, he had thought Jonah Manus might be the exception to the rule.

He was still the exception, but less because he was being treated seriously and more because he wasn’t there himself. It was beginning to become night outside, and he let himself relax. He knew no harm would come to him during a time he could control. Already, shafters of darkness were streaming in through the windows, and even Tim looked over at him, frowned, and kept carving.

Helen had begun to infect the table, it seemed, the wood grain on it shifting along its entire length slowly, board by board. Heplen didn’t seem to notice, her knitted pasta swirling on her plate. The food in front of him looked normal if slightly green tinged, and while he wasn’t  actively choosing not to eat it, the simple truth was that he wasn’t that hungry. At least, hungry in that sense. The darkness swiftly approaching was doing well in the other regard, at least.

Even before the dark, he had always liked the strange and unknown mysteries of the world. Not in a sense of mimicry, or theaters- no, he liked the idea of finding things in alleyways, in deeper, hidden trails. Dark leads, in the end. Maybe that’s why Maxwell Raynor chose him- someone already marked with darkness would be easier to find with whatever he did.

In any case, he wore his badge of darkness with pride, as shunning your own nature would make everything a lot more hellish than it already was, as he couldn’t become nocturnal yet. The dinner was overall quiet, no one wanting to be the one to leave first, yet no one wanting to stay. Well, that was debatable, no one could tell what Helen actually wanted even if they spent all their time focussing on it.

Jon seemed to be trying to, as he wondered if Jonah was actually there, just... Taking some joy in watching them sit there. Usually he’d do something more than just not show up, but… he wouldn’t pretend to know the guy, nor did he want to. He’d be very glad to leave that particular matter, well, in the dark.

It was then that the floor seemed to go static, the air itself seeming to flicker in and out of existence, in a way that didn't leave the empty parts dark, but just… wrong. He turned to Helen instinctively, and he saw her almost… convulse? How do you describe the death throes of someone whose natural movements were in their existence convulsive and unpredictable?

Helen was unwinding, in a sense, the spiraling strands of her beings stretching out before bunching back in, her constitutional elements of her being seeming to be… disintegrating. Doors were popping up everywhere, and several people had their hands on their own utensils, not wanting to approach but afraid to back away. Jon seemed to be Looking at her, which didn’t seem to be… doing anything (of course, if that wasn’t the thing that caused it in the first place). Helen cast no shadow, which meant he couldn’t really do anything to her, but used the shadows Jon’s arm cast, as it was tilted slightly up, to reach up and push his hand down, and when Jon looked down at it, concerned, and then over at him, he just squinted at the man.

Helen let out an excruciating scream, everyone covering their sears, even him, before he let the dark quiet him as he took the time to look out at the scene. How could this have happened, seriously? Helen was… to say Helen was ‘the best of them’ was a bit of a weird statement, but she was the one that you just couldn’t kill. The stranger could get exploded, even if they were so, so versatile, but the Distortion could only be, well, more distorted? The distortion was usually bright, and sure, Helen was an eyesore in the most perfect way, but it was duller than the inhuman colors it had once assumed.

And would… never assume again?? No strange figure swept out of a door to replace her (for of course, a dimly lit basement cast so, so many shadows, and on occasion he could get a glimpse of things through them, on his better days. The door was gone, and Helen’s still… crackling corpse sat there, the wood grain still flickering between different patterns.

“Hey guys,” Tim said. “What the fuck? Jon, did you know about this?” Jon turned to him, wildly, and he presumed that they would spend a good bit of time arguing, so he stood up to get a look at Helen’s corpse, ro what was truly left of it.

“Why would I kill Helen? She saved me from the Stranger, she stopped Michael from killing me! She said she liked me! Or, she said the original Helen did. I think that Elias did it, as it’s his dinner party, she was… doing something to his food, and she’s incredibly antithetical to the eye, almost as much as the Stranger is.”

“Oh, so Elias Bitchard’s big plan is to kill all of us? Well, I’m sure you'd get out of it, he seemed oh so disappointed I returned from Great Yarmouth.” Melanie and Basira seemed to also be standing up, so he hurried his way over to Helen. Some things he could see better when they were shrouded in the unknown, in the dark. Helen seemed to be seeping away, very slowly, but she was. He could see strings of hair slowly spiraling, particles of her suit floating into the air before they started to wink out. He could feel, somehow, that there was still something… moving, in there, but it was very likely it wouldn’t stay the night.

“The Distortion isn’t gone,” he said. “Helen is, surely, but the impossible framework it’s built upon isn’t something that can be destroyed with, what, poison?” He could see in his peripheral vision that Melanie seemed to squint, almost in fear? Admittedly, he wasn’t very good at identifying fear that wasn’t of his own ideals, and so that remained a noted mystery to him. Basira sighed, and started to pace over.

“Clear the scene,''' she said. “Kid, I’m sure you can tell something with your… Dark… magic or however you call it, but Daisy and I are trained detectives. Please stand back. So we think Elias killed her, for now? It’s not like any of us hold any grudges.”

“Even if J-Elias, he said, remembering that everyone else in the room didn’t know that their spooky boss was around 200 times spookier than they thought. “Even if Elias did want to kill Helen, you think he’d use poison? How would a poison kill a manifestation of delusion? Avatars can only be killed by avatars or supreme acts of violence. Poison doesn’t fit the bill, unless someone here has started talking about the song and worms a lot, which doesn’t seem like it.”

“Well, Jon,” Georgie said, seemingly unconcerned but, again, she was absent of fear. “You’re being usurped by a twelve year old. How do you feel about it?” Jon sighed and glanced over to the corpse with a fearful look.

“You’re- if this is Elias, even if you’re sure it can’t be, you’d be next, you realize that, right? The Dark, that’s… that’s also antithetical to the eye. You can’t See into it, that’s the whole point. But I can't imagine Elias would–”

“Kill a child?” he said. “Don’t get your hopes up on his moral fiber. In any case, if the spiral is so antithetical to the eye… you’re the only real avatar among us, and the eye is very good at doing things subtly, even if Elias never does.”

‘How do you know all of this?” Melanie asked him. “I’m sorry, I don’t even know who you are, okay? I went here because I thought I would be able to explore and maybe steal a couple things, I’m not above it. Cause if this is Elias, I know for sure he would want to kill me. And we can’t kill him.”

“I mean, if you steal his eyes, you’re probably going to be fine,” he says. “Just don’t let them do any creepy voodoo magic.” Everyone looked at him. “Well, I’m not explaining that one to you. As the guy who can’t stop staring at things and see if he knows.”

“So what do we do?” Georgie asks. “Ignore it? That the hardest to kill weird-entity-magic-thingy (besides the fear of death itself, which you can’t kill) is dead, and none of us have any idea who did it? You say only ‘avatars’ can kill each other. Define that term.” Jon sighed, before turning to her and starting to speak.

“Monsters,” Jon said, and Daisy cocked her head slightly. “People who have- like the women you saw, in the sciences building. Like Nikola. People who have given up their... Humanity, for their entities. Like me.” He squinted at Jons expression, and realized that his experiences were nowhere near universal.

“I think I feel insulted,” he said. “I go to school and stuff, I’m basically still normal. Plus, Nikola Orsinov was a devotee of the ‘completely replace yourself’ entity. She was also skinned and placed onto a mannequin, of course she isn’t human at all. I don’t know who this other woman is, though, I can probably guess, but the lines blur too much for anyone to be discounted.”

“Yeha, and you’re twelve,” Tim said. “Obviously you aren’t killing Helen with what, shadows? It’s either Elias, who Jon says kills people, or Jon, who I think kills people.” he squinted, before remembering what Tim was talking about.

“You mean Jurgen Leitner? You think Jon did that? Have you looked at him?” Jon started to stare at him more intensely, and he could feel the shadows around him shift in annoyance. He liked talking, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be looked at, goddammit. You’d think the kid that was supposed to be body hopped into a stupid old man of a church leader would like talking to people, but hey. “Listen, obviously I didn’t do it, and Elias didn’t do it himself, but he would set someone else up for him. I don’t like him, you don’t seem to like him, does… anyone here like him?”

“I’ve never met him?” Georgie said. “I mean, I’ve heard Jon’s horror stories called ‘he killed my old boss and also this old man and framed me for it’, but I… I do run a true crime podcast, so if you want a suspect… I guess I’m here? I’d never met Helen either, to be fair. Or any of you besides Melanie.”

“Respectfully, outright killing is not your type of deal,” he said. “I mean, the End will come for everyone, right? Even the Distortion. Whoever did it, they basically ripped off someone's skin. If there was a stranger bitch here, this would be a different story.” Jon had seemingly ignored him, and turned his gaze over to Melie, who seemed to shrink into her own seat.

“Melanie,” he said. “You were trying to kill Elias for so long and then just stopped. What happened? ” he sighed. The air was beginning to get slightly staticy again, bits of Jon’s hair not seeming to be fully… there. Compulsion, his favorite.

“I wanted to poison him,” Melanie said, her voice seemingly disconnected from the fear that was evident on her face. “I didn’t believe that he would die if I killed him, I thought he would be the one to lie about that, to save himself. I think he was afraid of death, but I don’t know why i think that. I was going to go to drinks with Basira and Martin afterwards, and if I was wrong it wouldn’t matter because I think the world would be better without him, even if none of us were there as well. I used the painkillers I had been taking for my leg, and crushed them up and put them in tea. When I brought it up to his office, he immediately knew something was wrong. He then told me how my father had died. He was taken in by John Amherst. That was why I stopped. Because I knew he would not relent with that image if I didn't.” Melianie closed her mouth, and squinted at Jon, scowling. “Even if you didn’t kill Helen, you’re no better than Elias!” he said. “You’re not- you’re not entitled to my secrets. I didn’t kill Helen.”

“Jon, if you can know everything, can you know, say, Who killed Helen? What poison was used to kill her? Where Elias is? If you’re going to be a spooky motherfucker, you’re going to have to do something good with it besides taking statements from everyone you’re curious about.”

“It’s not like he can stop,” he said. “Do you think he wanted Melanie to give a statement? No. Blurry lines. He’s the Archivist. It’s what he does. But if you can, knowing things might be useful.” Jon sighed, but before he could speak Daisy interrupted him.

“Elias he-” he paused. “He did that to me as well. With my childhood friend.” Melanie sighed, and they turned back towards Helen once again, who was mostly decomposed, and then turned back to each other. Well, it seems like Elias was really cultivating an office comedy up the archives. One hilarious 200 episode show, one for each year Jonah was alive.

“I’m going to try to leave,” Tim said. “Would it really be something made by Elias if we could get out of it? Georgie, you're not part of the Archival crew, could you come with me? I don’t want to bright the night child, no offense.” Georgie nodded, gave a thumbs up to Jons sullen face, and follow Tim out. He was staring at his food in some mock horror as they left.

“If we can't leave, I’ll probably be able to see outside. Not for long, but… it might help.” True enough, Tim was a bit scared of the dark, and he took a deep breath, less tired than he had been before. “Your knowing, Jon. Can you try to do any of that on Helen?” Jon nodded, before walking over to the corpse and squinting.

He stood there staring, before leaning in to brush his fingers on Helens suit, and true enough, it came away with a powdery residue that seemed to seep into it, and Jon shuddered. “She’s still…. Buzzing. She's dead but, like you said, there’s definitely something waiting to get out there.” Jon reached his fingers up this nose, as if to smell it, and came away confused.

“It’s… oh god, that’s pungent,” he said, and wiped his hand on his cardigan. “It smells like… the most powerful cleaner you’ve ever smelled, oh god.” Jon stuffed one hand in a pocket and backed off. “Does that ring a bell for anyone? Smell it yourself if you need to.”

“Smelling salts?” Melanie said, and several people turned to her. She pushed a section of her hair behind one of her ears. “There was a trend a while back that they were supposed to let you see- in any case, that sounds like them, but I’d recognise the smell when I sniff it, unfortunately.” Melanie approached the corpse, as did Jon had, brushing her fingers along the edge of Helen’s suit, before bringing it halfway to her nose and immediately recoiling.

“So I’d take it we’ve found our culprit?” Basira asked her, and Melanie nodded. “Helen, she was– the Spiral, right? Insanity, distortion, all that stuff? How does smelling salts kill her? Shouldn’t they… do nothing? And if we’re going to believe you, Callum, how would this count as some extreme violent thing?”

“I mean, it’s a tricky thing any way you put it,” he said. “But here’s how it kind of makes sense? I might be wrong, I’m not an eye guy. But the spiral, it’s all layers upon layers and twisting your senses, and distortion how you experience the world, and smelling salts… clears that up? Still, unless it was an avatar with a tie to it, that wouldn’t have killed her, just... Unwound her for a while.”

“The eye doesn’t have a tie with it, does it?” Jon asked, and he shrugged. Before they could discuss it more, Tim and Georgie walked back in, sullen. “I’m guessing there’s no getting out of here, then?” He asked, and Tim sighed himself,Georgie making a so-so motion as they walked back in.

“Not exactly,” Tim said. “The place is surrounded by fog.” his eyes darkened. “Lukas fog. Now I’m glad Martin’s out on that research trip, but this would not be a fun place for him.” He sat down, running a hand through his hair. “Not that it’s fun for any of us, now that there’s a murderer on the loose and we’re trapped here. This really sounds like Elias is at least encouraging it,” he says, turning to him, and he nodded.

“So what are we going to do?” Daisy said. “Will we only be allowed to leave once everyone’s dead? I say we find Elias and kill him, or try the fog, at least. We can’t let this just play out,” she said, and several people nodded, and Jon sighed, sitting down himself, fingers straying along the woodgrain, no longer shifting.

“Elias wouldn’t be in the mansion when he can just watch us whenever,” he said. “Especially when he’s invited only people who.. Mostly people who hate him,” he corrected, turning to him slightly. “And with Peter… we’d be separated, isolated, and there's every guarantee we wouldn’t make it out. I wish it was a viable option, but it isn’t. I guess we just have to wait out the storm, somehow.”

“And let more people die?” Daisy asked, seeming to take the empty silence as affirmation. “I can’t stand for that. We need to watch each other, and watch this place. What’s the likelihood this is a Smirke building? Tim, you know that stuff, right?” Tim noded, before squinting at the ceiling.

“It might be,” he said. “It seems to have a lot of symmetry, and there are several buildings he built that aren’t known and are generally known as private property, and it would be like Elias to have one, but it could just be a building. Sometimes they’re like that. In any case, what does that have to do with the killer on the loose?” Daisy stood up.

“Not much, but knowing it is better than ignorance. We all need to watch out for each other, have a buddy system. Don’t be alone in this place. If they can kill someone in broad.. Dusk, they can kill someone sometime else.”

“There are seven people,'' Georgie pointed out. “How would a buddy system work with that? Would someone just do triples, or… would someone be left out? I wouldn’t recommend it because obviously, but…” Jon looked around for a couple seconds, before raising his own hand.

“I could be left alone?” he said, and at Georgies and Tim’s starting protest, each for different reasons, he held out a hand to stop them. “Listen, if Elias is encouraging this, he wouldn’t let me die, right? And plus, I have the eye on my side. I might be able to figure things out. I know Elias will kill people around me, so it would be better if I'm left alone.” People nodded, and then began to split into pairs, Daisy with Basira, Georgie with Melanie, and Tim… with him.

“I’d be fine as well,” he said as TIm approached him. “It’s going to be night, and all of you guys cast a shadow. Sure, I’d be tired as hell after it but I can wrap them in shadows if something happens.” Tim laughed, and put a hand on his shoulder, grinning, a sharp thing that wasn’t exactly friendly.

“And I can’t!” he said. “And I’ve spent this whole dinner carving up ol Elias’s fancy table, so I’m definitely not in his good books right now. Daisy and Basira protect each other always, Georgie and Melanie are friends, and Jon isn’t exactly the pinnacle of a good bud, and you seem pretty chill at least.” He shrugged.

“Funny to hear from someone scared of the dark,” he said, he could feel more than  hear Tim still, before sighing and following him up onto one of the larger staircases to try to find rooms, Tim eventually following after him, hurrying up them. The shadows, while soothing, weren’t exactly helping them find a good room, so he drew them around the floor and the ceiling instead of the walls and while Tim seemed weird out by the fact that none of the wall fixtures had any shadows, and the room seemed unnaturally clear, but eventually he accepted it for what it was and started to open sports with little abandon, not caring for the space.

“Just- let me ask this,” Tim said, peering into a room which he had just drawn the shadows out of under the door crack and was letting them infest other rooms. He could hear other people scurrying around, and he didn’t really want to spend that much effort to save them from shadows that didn’t have anything in them right now, anyways. “Do you like the Stranger? Circus fuckers? Them?” he paused, and the shadows stilled from when they had been swirling idly.

“The stranger and the dark were never really truly separate,” he said, “I mea, the stranger deals with being unknown, and the dark, being unseen– they fit together quite well. The stranger, however, they like spotlights. They like audiences, dancing, being perceived yet unknown, because when you perceive them your mind cannot trust what you see. When you perceive us,,, it’s just darkness. Or, well most of us. I’m just touched.” It was a bit more than ‘touched” when he could see through shadows and move them about, but he couldn’t conjure them, and his world went all screwy in bright lights, so he was certainly no Maxwell Raynor (and didn’t specifically want to be? Like yeah yeah the dark is cool and all, but he liked the world as is.)

“Yeah, well, shadow-toucher is not a good name for you,” Tim said, turning around, the room behind him evident to be some type of bedroom. “And this seems to be the spot. When were we meeting up again? Was it 8 or nine?” he shrugged, entering the room and cringing when Tim turned on the lights, though he conceded by turning off both of the bedside lanterns that were turned on when the lightswitch was flickered. “Jesus, I’m turning them off in a second,” Tim said. “What, did you think I sleep in bright lights? No. Uhhh, don’t leave the room, I know you’d be safe but just- no. Not tonight.” he shrugged and went over to turn the lights off, taking one of the beds.

Who did he think was the killer, truly? Even if Jonah was setting everything up, who was he setting it up for? Everyone hated him, and he could guess those feelings were genuine, but… Helen had been poisoned. The Distortion was unwound. Dead, in one sense. It wouldn’t make sense for Georgie, touched by the end, to kill her, because the End very rarely took direct action like that, but… would it be some type of revenge? Helen technically avoided death by becoming merged with the Distortion, right? Would ‘killing’ her now fix that?

Melanie had already tried to poison one person, so it would make some sense that she’d try it again, but compulsion couldn’t just be lied through so easily. She obviously had a connection with the slaughter, the rage in her form, concentrated on her leg, was unmistakable the longer he spent in the same place with her. She had also ran a ghost hunting youtube channel, so she could have reasonably known how to kill Helen, and might have a motive to do so.

Tim didn’t seem to be heavily touched by any entity, the desolation, eye, dark, and stranger weaving their way across his actions, but never full enough for him to become anything resembling a full fledged avatar. The stranger was the most potent, but he guessed it was mostly attribution through hatred, (how the more you want to be clean the more you are drawn into the corruption), and wouldn’t represent murder in his mind.

Jon was the most interesting of the bunch, with a clear motive (the spiral drives the eye insane, and Jon could frame killing Helen as avenging what Gertrude did), but no reason to use smelling salts to do it. It didn’t fit with Eye’s whole way of doing things at all. Well, wouldn’t clearing up the spiral count as being… known? No, it seemed like too much of a stretch so at least Jon was off the hook.

Basira and Daisy (for he considered them a pair, and each wouldn’t be able to just steal away and kill someone without the other noticing) we're vaguely related to the hunt, Daisy more than Basira, and also vaguely towards the eye, Basira more than Daisy, which would give good credit for knowing how to kill Helen and… killing her, and having someone to advocate for the other would work well as a disguise, but… they seemed like all they wanted to do was get out and find out who did it, so he wasn’t sure.

And, obviously, he didn’t do it. No use thinking too much about it. As he drifted off to sleep amidst the dark, he wondered what Jonah’s end goal was for this. Everyone is dead but Jon? Someone specific dead? He didn’t come to a conclusion before his consciousness drifted off.

When he woke up, he could fear the unfamiliar fear around the place. He instinctively looked over to where Tim was, but he was still asleep. They were supposed to meet up again at 9, he remembered, and it was… he checked a nearby clock, it reading 10:04. He sighed, shook Tim and then headed downstairs as fast as he could without seeming panicked, Tim slowly following him, trying to make his hair look somewhat presentable as he cringed at the bright lights. He was doing the same, but he sensed there was something more important than his own comfort.

“You haven’t seen Georgie, have you?” Daisy barked at him, and he shook his head. Daisy turned to Jon, who was pacing around the room, Melanie seemingly trying to console him as Basira was writing things down. Jon turned over to Daisy, briefly hopeful, but his expression settled when he saw the two of them standing there.

“What’s happened?” Tim asked, and Basira let out a sigh, before starting to gather everyone together, the fear very literally palpable. Georgie's lack was more pronounced than it would’ve been, as her fearlessness almost seemed to drive fear out more? Or because of her disappearance. People were even more scared than they were.

“Georgie’s missing,” Melanie said, tight lipped, sounding like she’d been crying. “And I know we were supposed to look after her and I know it looks like I’ve killed her because I was supposed to look after her but my leg was hurting so, so much and I didn’t have any of my painkillers cause I thought this was just going to be a dinner, so she said she’d go out and look, or find an ice pack or something, and obviously even though we both knew it wasn’t safe I couldn’t walk, and now she’s dead. Even if I didn’t kill her, it was because of me.”

“She could just be trapped somewhere, right?” Jon said. “There’s no guarantee she’s dead, and plus, we don’t know if she can die, she heard the woman at the medical sciences building, and she told me about it. Can anyone tell if she’s alive or not?” People turned to each other, and he at least tried to, searching through the darkened mansion for something that was alive, was moving, seeing through the shadows in a blurry film, but even he couldn’t find anything, which…. Spoke of something different.

“I can’t find her,” he said. Which means she’s somewhere with a lack of heavy shadows, in example, not anywhere in the mansion that I know of. I don’t really have special awareness when looking around, so I can’t tell you if there were any gaps anywhere, but… is there a chance she went outside? Or found her way to the roof? She might’ve tried to bear the fog.”

“Basira and I will try to track her down,” Daisy said. “Jon, I really hate to say this, but try to use your powers or anything to find something out. And eat something, you’re going to pass out.” Jon seemed to be restless, and now there was truly no doubt in his mind that Jon had done it. Melanie, however… Even with her leg pain, which seemed to be a truthful story, she was up and walking fine now, and would’ve been fed by the slaughter for it, and she would know how to hide the body, and the story she told worked quite well. But he had no proof, so he settled into watching her seemingly barely keep herself together. Daisy and Basira seemed to be else on his list now, both seemed very adamant on findinging Georgie and keeping everyone safe, which even Melanie seemed a bit lackluster on. He got himself food, Tim staying mostly away from Jon himself, barely eating.

That was another thought. Georgie and Jon were friends, it seemed, good friends, even. Jon knew things about her no one else did. And Tim didn’t like Jon, and had told him that somewhat in confidence. He wouldn’t have noticed TIm leaving at night, but could iIm pairing up with him be a conscious choice? Choose the one you think would be the easiest to get when the time came? The easiest to fool? The distortion had trapped Tim in its halls before, he remembered, so there’s motive for Helen, and Georgie… he didn’t know. Everyone but Jon seemed to be just as potentially guilty, and if Jon died next he didn't know what he’d do. He probably could bear the fog, but it would take a lot, and he definitely couldn’t bring anyone with him, and he wasn’t inclined to leave everyone behind just yet.

“Anyone want to come up with me to the roof?” he asked, and Tim nodded, Jon just laying his head down on the table, his plate pushed away from him. Melanie looked over to them, before shaking her head. Good, they were all sticking with at least one person. He used the shadows to find his way higher and higher, as while his measure of where he was on a floor plan didn’t pan it, he could tell the altitude pretty well, and eventually they made it up to the roof, the shingled expanse seeming infinite. “You see anything?” He asked Tim. His shadows were pretty useless, as the sun hung almost directly above him, and the only shadows he still had were the ones he and Tim cast, and the brief overhangs of the shingles themselves, neither of which was a good option for finding things.

“I don’t think so, though there’s a different section over there. Do you know where Georgie and Melanie were staying?” Tim asked him, putting a hand over his eyebrows and starting to walk, him following behind, thinking of the previous night in order to tell if he did, in fact, know anything.

“I think they came in after us,, so on that wing over there. That’s at least where we should start looking.” Tim nodded, and they set off, the midmorning sun hot on their backs. He could start to see over the leg of the roof two shapes that might’ve been Daisy and Basira, and they started to head inside. Before they did though, he could see them facing each other, almost as if… they were arguing? He couldn’t know, to tell the full truth, but he could see shapes that looked to be arms moving wildly, and they took the opportunity to see through their shadows, not being able to hear anything, but seeing Basira squint in fear, before Tim snapped him out of it. The fog outside the brief area they were in was thick, and somewhat stormy in nature. Peter Lukas wouldn’t do this on a whim, would he? There had to be a greater purpose, because this must’ve been hard to maintain, even for… whoever Elias was to Peter. The questions he was thinking about last night came back to him as he looked at it.

“You see something?” Tim asked him, squirting out at the fog himself. “Guess Daisy and Basira went back in, I doubt they found anything, unless…” Tim looked up to him (or down at him, really, but he was going to ignore that for a second) and he shook his head before turning to him.

“I’m just wondering why,” he said. “This is bigger than anything he’s done to you before, right? He doesn’t do giant fog walls or murder mysteries or giant mansions. So why now? Helen and Georgie are both dead, and… I don’t know, maybe he’s doing it to isolate Jon? Helen saved him once, he lived with Georgie… why else?”

“Then why are you here?” Tim asked him, and he shrugged. “Not to discount you, but you are literally just a child. And plus, why am I here? I hate Jon! Well, not hate, just… I bet you don’t like the eye any more than I do. And Jon doesn't especially like anyone still alive that he knows. The cops? He’s not a fan. Melanie, who he’s constantly in arguments with? Me, who he stalked for half a year? Whatever Elias is doing, cause obviously he’s doing something… it might not be for Jon, in the end.”

“Well, in the end, everything’s for something,” he said. “Do you think the eye’s planning a ritual? Like what the stranger did, but not… circus themed. More watcher-y. I don’t know how they’d manage it, truly. Make a really big library? To be honest, no one likes Elias, in the entity weird shit. I still somehow get invitations, and, y’know, free food’s free food.”

“I mean, Peter likes Elias, right?” Tim asked, staring rather pointedly at the giant mound of soul-sapping lonely fog that made up the circumference of the area around the mansion. “And look how your free food turned out. I don’t think underestimating him does you any good. Especially if he’s probably planning to kill you somehow.”

“Obviously not Peter,” he said. “But think about it. What can the eye do? Know things? Sure, it can suck, but can it kill you? No! Elias uses weapons to kill people. He’s a loser! Literally every other spooky person or even slightly spooky person, can do something other than go ‘ooh i’m going to beat you up because i can’t kill you in any other way’ the slaughter and the hunt have something different with it, though.”

Tim snickered. “Listening to a child mock my boss would be funnier if we weren’t looking for a dead woman,” he said, and they started to walk again, peering over the roof until they found a place with what looked to be a chimney and an overhang. An overhang meant shadows, and he ran gratefully into them, Tim looking up at the roof before back down at him, smiling softly. “Do you need the dark to live? If they put in some… simulated brightness, would you die?”

“It’s impossible to completely remove the dark,” he said. “I mean, even if everything around you is oh so bright, you can just cup your hands and put them to your eye. Boom, dark! In any case, I like the dark, surprisingly enough. Sure, I’m never going to church again, but the dark is nice. Speaking of these shadows… What is this place?”

“I don't know,” Tim said, squinting up at it. “Are there any shadows inside? Maybe there’s a room ro something.” He unread towards it and tried to feel if there were, but the headache he was getting showed that he was definitely not ready to try yet, so he turned back to Tim in a hurry.

“I can’t tell right now,” he said, and Tim squinted. “Think about it,  I spent all morning searching for Georgie, then spent the rest of it in direct sunlight with no fear and barely any shadows. I can’t do much about ti except stay here, and you can’t do anything, because a shady overhang is not scary to you, and I”m not going get you something that is.”

“Could you?” Tim asked, seeming somewhat concerned.

“Make something scary?” He asked. “Yeah. I mean, there’s shadows, right? That’s what I do." He lifted the shadow up from the shingles and formed it into a hand grasping at them, before he let go and they returned to their normal form. “It uses energy, and terrorizing you is not what I want? I mean, seems antithetical enough, but sitting in the shadows does work, it just takes a while.”

“Well, I’m not leaving you alone up here,” Tim said, and started to walk around. “Tell me when you think you can at least tell if there are shadows in there. Why couldn’t you see this place earlier? I mean, presuming it has shadows, of course.” He shrugged, before looking away, slightly guilty.

“To be honest, I didn’t think there’d be anything on the roof, so I didn’t check,” he said. “It’s stupid to think about now, because why wouldn’t there be something on the roof, this is Elias Bouchard, he isn’t rich but someone gives him a lot of money, so of course he’d put something here.” Tim laughed.

“To be honest,” Tim said. “I once found out where Elias lives.” His jaw dropped. “Mhm,” Tim said. “It’s not here, and it’s not in any mansion or anything. He literally just lives in some random flat.” He squinted at Tim as he nodded. “Of course I broke his drain pipe and stole the screws off of his doorknob, but he just lives in a flat.”

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “Peter gives him thousands of dollars in cash for stuff like this. And he lives in some overpriced London flat? What, is he trying to relive the glory days of the black plague?” Tim didn’t seem to understand him, so he shook his head slightly, before pausing. He didn’t owe Jonah Magnus anything. “Take a good look at any portraits of Jonah Magnus when you can,” he said. “Take special care to look at the eyes. And then go meet with your boss.” Tim squinted, before seeming to get what he was implying.

“Now you can’t be serious,” he said. “I will… look at those portraits. Are you destimulated enough, child?” He laughed before nodding, turning around to the wall and pressing his hands to it, feeling the shadows in the overhang seeped through the crack to be met with… resistance. Light! He swept them around in a ring, the darkened rocks looking odd against the door's perfectly lit ground, and he realized that this roof wouldn’t let them in. He turned back to Tim.

“This is our room,” he said. “No shadows, all light. I bet, if someone were to hide a body, it’d be here. And I bet we could find our way up here through the hallways. Once we’re up here, we might be able to tell who did it, and we could maybe hold a stakeout- leave a patch of darkness for me to watch through? - to see who comes to look if we’ve found anything.” Tim nodded and took a look around the structure himself. He was currently facing the back bit of the building, away from where they had come, while Tim had walked around to the front.

Footsteps thudded over the shingles, rocks cracking, and he heard a ripping noise before they were too close to him and he didn’t have enough energy left to move anything more than subtle shadows to cover him, and even so they covered his eyes, preventing him from seeing who knocked him unconscious.

The next he saw, he was dreaming.

Ever since the church, he had started to have very vivid lucid dreams. They were somewhat prophetic, in a way, and he wondered if that was the only part of Maxwell Raynors ritual that had gone right. Here, all he saw was the void. He knelt down in it and embraced it, but he seemed to be fine enough here, which implied that either time had passed or his mental state in the dream was different from his mental state in real life. Even still, he took it as a blessing, and had shadows following him wherever he went. If he was going to be trapped in a weird dream state reflecting to world to come, it would probably involve murder.

At first, it was just a caution, in case something happened, but it quickly became clear it wasn’t going to be a conflict. He felt watched, in a way that wasn't normal. Seen, in a way he despised. Hunted, almost, but not truly, not yet, it seemed. Now he was just being gazed at, for whatever reason. As he walked, he dragged more and more shadows from the seemingly endless abyss and drew them around himself, the coolness comforting him when the gaze only tightened.

Had he been wrong? This was the eye, in a very clear form. He might’ve thought it was the hunt, but… He was being watched. He was being Seen, and known, and he hated it. Had Jon actually done it? Killing Helen he was adamant about not doing, but with the spiral and the eye, that could be explained. And plus, the original Helen had liked Jon, he said. He might’ve wanted to completely erasure Gertrude’s failure. With Georgie, it was a touch case. He seemed wrecked inside. Maybe there were two killers?

No, there was only one killer, he hoped, but there was a puppeteer to it all. Maybe Elias did want to isolate Jon, and what would be better than making him kill all of his friends? Maybe Jon killed Tim out of his own free will. Maybe… they had gotten close to something there, hadn’t they? The bright room. Maybe Tim wasn't supposed to die (though he mentioned Elias not wanting him alive once before), but when they found something, he had no choice.

So why was he alive? He was the one who found the bright room, who could see in there if anything went wrong, so why was he… unconscious, sure, but basically untouched? Tim probably wouldn’t be able to find it with him dead with no explanation, so… what was up with it? Had the bits of shadow he put over his eyes somehow protected him? He doubted it. Was he dead now, somehow? He certainly didn't feel like it.

The feeling of being watched pressed on, and he finally just turned around and stared out at the black behind him, and then suddenly the world seemed to shift on itself, and his eyes pounded against his skull as he belarily opened them to an incredibly bright room.

There were no shadows in this room, light fixtures bouncing off of light fixtures in a way that seemed designed. His hands were tied around his back, light coming from everywhere, and the small shadows he could feel his hair making against his scalp not helping with the burning sensation he was still stuck with. There was a trapdoor in the middle of the room as he wearily looked around, the bright lights doing more to suck the faint amount of energy he had out of him than even the sunlight did, and eventually he caught a small bit of shadow in the corner. It wasn’t much, but it was real. And it was…

A match sat in the lit corner, its bright red head somehow building into the walls. Must’ve been accidentally dropped by the killer. Didn't Jon smoke? Even still, the room didn’t smell like cigarettes. It smelled like something was burning. It was about then he realized the bright room was very insulted, and very not made of wood, and that smell was coming directly from the trapdoor, where he guessed the whole house (or at least the start of it) was burning below. He had to get out, and fast.

The closer he looked and searched, the more small bits of shadow were revealed to him. He spent most of it with his eyes closed, trying to feel round the light seared into his brain and into the cool darkness there was supposed to be, that he could use. There was never a room with no shadows in it, he told himself. He just had to find them. He used the tendril from the match to twirl around the ropes on his arms, in which it found friends, and the slightly larger shadow was able to unknot them by forcing its way between them. It was quite hard because it wasn’t big enough to see though so he was working through whatever he could feel and a lot of guesswork, but eventually his hands were free.

He immediately cupped them and put them over his eyes, just to see the dark again, the real dark, before he let the shadows unknot the ones on his legs, and he stood up, casting a faint shadow. He leaned down to pick up the match, and unlatched the trapdoor from underneath, the smell of wood and everything burning getting stronger and stronger.

Thankfully, smoke made things dark, and the floor below, while burning fiercely, had just cast fierce shadows in front of the fire, which he used as a shield. He tried to smother the fire when he could, but he was more focused on getting out than he was stopping the flames. They hadn’t grown as much as he had feared, and when he ran down to the bottom floor nothing at all seemed to be amiss. His shadows dissipated the second someone turned to him, and he paused.

“Callum, where have you been?” Basira asked. “And where’s Tim? Did you find Georgie?” He paused, starting to breathe faster and faster, because he wanted to answer their questions but they needed to get out but where would they go? The fog was incredibly close, and the killer was definitely with them, but how and who and–

“Someone killed Tim,” he managed to say, shadows once again weaving around his legs, grounding him. “They knocked me out, and I woke up in some room on the roof filled with lights, and the house is burning, it hasn’t spread yet but on the third floor– it’s all up in flames, I could protect myself but I don’t think anyone else could. So who had the time to get up on the roof? You guys all split into pairs.”

“Daisy and I were looking around the fog and on this floor the whole time,” Basira said, staring at him intensely. “Are you sure someone killed Tim? The roof is very dangerous.” she looked away, as if even she knew it wasn’t a very good excuse. Was she so reluctant to believe Tim was murdered? Why?

“Melanie and I have been here,” Jon said, a book before them with various drawings on them. “I wanted to make sure I remember things. I didn’t want to lose everything I had of her.” Melanie nodded, and true enough, there were two very distinct styles of art on the page. Seeing what Tim had told them of the two getting into arguments… he didn’t know any more. He didn’t know anything anymore.

“Tim didn’t just fall,” he said. “You can go up, investigate his body, but trust me when I say he was murdered, and it’s one of you that had to have done it.” Daisy paused, and turned to him, and he realized that since he was alone with Tim, and if everyone else had an alibi… it didn’t spell good things for him, in any case.

“You know,” Daisy said. “No one ever entertained the idea, but I’ve seen kids younger than you kill, and you’re the one who was alone with Tim all day. You definitely could’ve done it, and it just so happens we can’t go back up and check cause you set all the evidence on fire? I don’t believe you for a second.” Melanie squinted, and Jon paused, but no one dared to outright defend him– sure, they didn’t know him and weren’t entitled to do anything, but if they were all going to die, why not? Obviously he didn’t kill someone– kill three people, actually, and burn down a mansion? That least bit is the last thing he wanted to do (fire didn’t even cast a shadow itself, the bitch). It just didn’t make sense, so matter how you looked at it. And Basira seemed to recognise that.

“Wait a second, Daisy,” Basira says, and puts an arm on her shoulder. “If he killed Tim, he would've had to have killed Georgie and Helen as well. How and why would he have done that? He could, but would he?” He stared at them, wondering how they could be so- so ignorant, before staring down at his hands and realizing.

“When I woke up, I had ropes tied around me!” he said, and shoved his arms in their faces. “I can’t do that by myself if I’m killing Tim, moving Georgie around, and setting the palace on fire? They were tied behind me, You can- probably tell that somehow, right?” Sure enough, the ropes made deep marks on his skin, and even Daisy seemed to admit that he himself couldn’t have done it.

“If you didn’t do it, it must be an outside player,” Basira said. “Because I was with Daisy, Melanie was with Jon, and you were up there with Tim. Is there anything you heard or saw, or… anything? I’m really at a loss here,” she said, looking around the room, as Jon picked his head up slightly. “I don’t know anything.”

“You do,” Jon said, sounding frightened, and sitting up fully, shaking. “I don’t know why, but you do. I Know it. Why, after all this time, after everyone who’s ever been nice to me dies, is this when I Know something for sure? You know something. You definitely know something. Basira, what do you know? ” Jon was still shaking as the static started, more powerful than before, and Daisy stood in horror as Basira started to talk, in a more easygoing voice.

“I’ve always prided myself on my knowledge. I mean, not just that, of course, but I loved reading all through my life, and I like knowing things for what they were. It was something that routinely saved me out in the force, or recognising when something was going to be a sectioned case and letting the more squirmy officer out, so they wouldn’t have to go through it. It helped me survive the Unknowing, clearing my head with what I Knew for sure, enough to help Tim find the great hall. I know a lot of things, but in that, I know a lot of secrets. I know some of your secrets, Jonathan Sims, even if I’d never speak them. I have a lot of free time, and you leave tapes everywhere, it seems, and when turning one on accidentally, staying to listen wasn't very hard. I know so many things, from so many people confiding in me, trusting in me, but I can’t tell anyone. I won’t tell anyone. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” She seemed to be, against all odds, resisting the compulsion. She began to shaked, and Daisy grabbed her and held her close, as Jon once again slumped to the table.

“You did this, didn’t you?” He asks Jon, who recoils, Melanie with him. “I don’t know how, but you had to have. When I was knocked out, I felt watched. And who would Elias- Jonah, save, over and over again, isolate you, make you isolate yourself, even– why would he do that if you weren’t the focus of it? If you weren’t also at the heart? You had to have done this.” He isn’t sure why he’s so convinced, but Jon seems to take his words as a sentence, and sits in silence.

Daisy is the one that breaks it, walking with Basira closer to the door. “No, he didn’t,” she said. “I did. You all,” she started. “Are monsters. Helen was the first one, she was so far from humanity it was almost a surprise when a packet of smelling salts I always keep with me managed to kill her. Then was Georgie. She was a monster not because she was far away from human, but because she was too close. What person can’t feel fear? It's what creates everything we do. I couldn’t let her live with it. And with Tim, well, that’s the unfortunate coincidence. He, and you,” she said to him. “Got too close. I knocked you out because I didn’t want to leave two bodies, and I thought I might be able to frame you, but I’m done with this. I’ve done what I wanted, and now I’m getting the fuck out of this place. It’s going to burn down anyways, and you’re powerless to stop it, so don’t try.”

“Daisy, what-” Melanie said, before he turned his gaze on her coldly.

“It makes sense,” he said. “Touched by the hunt and the eye, it could be misconstrued for watching, but no, you’re seeing who was a monster and hunting them down. You must’ve told Basira when you were looking, right? She knew something, obviously, of what you had been doing.” While he was talking, he was drawing the shadows from around the room, trying to get enough that he could potentially wrap them around Daisy and Basira enough to trap them.

“You’re next,” Daisy said, before turning to leave, Jon and Melanie seeming frozen still.Then, the lights flashed into a brighter state, the fog outside the door cleared, and the door opened to reveal a fancily dressed man with shining hair and eyes that did not match his face and never would again, grinning. He stared straight at Jon, as Daisy froze herself. She seemed to shrink into the wall, Basira recovering just enough to close her eyes once more.

“Apologies for the deception, Jon, but I rather wanted to make sure you were there,” Jonah Magnus said, and then the game was finished.