Archive of Our Own

(There’s always something behind the mirror.)

(A meadow of silver paper flowers. Edges crinkled and swaying in the faux wind. If you are being honest, you feel as if there is something looming over the horizon. A dark imposing figure that twists nature and folds up the stars into oblivion.)

(Rolling paper bouquets of grass that cuts. You are in the midst of it all. The soft white form of the circular moon above, delicately torn from its page and thrust into the pallid sky. It all materialises like pale white bark. Peeling back in thick, folded layers.)

(Papier-mâché flowers, spinning aimlessly in the breeze. They are beautiful and they are sharp. This reminds you of something. A distant memory calling your name, that you are too far away to catch.)

(It is full of sorrow. The tears disintegrate the paper flowers around where you stand. It seems that not even paper can be folded enough times to stay standing.)

(It is weak by itself, and perhaps now, you see that it is weak altogether.)

(You miss the hiraeth of familiar paper grass. You do not want it to leave. Tearing, ripping at the soil, you grasp for its stem, its roots, its remnants.)

(It dies in your hands.)

(It dies from your hands.)

Michael wakes up. He feels an immense sense of dread.

Hanging remainders of grey paper flowers linger in his mind. He feels as if there is paper lodged in his throat. Like if he were to speak, folded petals would come rushing out his mouth in a series of violent coughing.

There is a pain in his heart. A missing organ that aches, yearns, wants, for something deeper than it all.

This is not something to think about so early in the morning.

He gets up.

Silver eyes meet him as he peers into the bathroom mirror.

He gathers his essentials into his bag, and for measure, wraps a coat around his shoulders, and puts his gloves on. It’s getting colder. If he goes to the institute without his gloves, his hands will turn purple and stiffen in the chill. It’s hard to write in such conditions, and even worse if he had to wait half an hour until his hands were warm enough to use a pen.

When he peers out of the window, sitting on the tube, he sees paper leaves for a moment. Then the white-grey folds disappear into the obscured abyss of the concrete tube wall, and he is left realising that he is only being naive. His nightmares have a tendency to linger during the day, and Michael knows that this is not uncommon for him.

Tangled, shredded paper grass beneath his boots. But it is only the floor.

-

When he gets to the Archives, there is a Leitner lying on the central table. It would be a stretch to call it a typical Leitner, as it appears to only be a newspaper, but it is stamped as one, and Michael knows Gertrude must be planning to dispose of it. It is rather unbecoming to leave Leitners out in the open. Michael thought they had agreed on that.

Before he can stop himself, his fingers meet the front cover. It is a photo of a hallway in what looks to be a hotel. Black and white. Michael cannot help but know the depth of the image. It does not feel flat. It feels as if he could walk straight in.

(You take an unsteady step forward.)

(Walls of twisting, folding, turning newspaper fill your vision. All around you there are doors.)

(The floor is folding too, changing every single moment in a dance of its own origami.)

(You walk forwards. The walls are uneven. Some steps, they seem to be far apart, a stretching passage. Other steps, they are so close that you can place your arms to both of them, feeling the folding of their inner paper as you trace your hands over the crinkled edges.)

(You hear something. A distant melody. Music, disjointed and inharmonious. But to you, it is the most beautiful song you have ever heard. Take more steps forward, and you will discover it.)

(It is an eternal cacophony, and you cannot get close enough to hear it further. Deeper, deeper, deeper. The halls are arching and you do not know how many doors you have passed. No matter how far you step, you cannot hear the music louder.)

(Then there it is.)

(Something bright. Folding, moving, and beckoning.)

(The yellow door at the end of the corridor.)

(You step forwards and realise that the music is coming from there.)

(It is hungry. A deep want so apparent, that even you can tell it is there. The strings of paper and shredded tissue all around you fold inwards, retreating as you step forward.)

(There is the door calling you.)

(Its door knob feels like pins and needles. A painful numbness that contradicts this place’s very existence.)

(You begin to twist.)

“Michael, are you alright?” A voice asks, and Michael hears the noise of a closing newspaper.

“Oh.” Michael looks around him and recognises the man as Gerry, his coworker. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“You sure? I saw you were looking awfully deeply at the Leitner.” The said Leitner is now bundled in Gerry’s hands, likely to keep Michael from grabbing it again.

He nods, still feeling a little unsettled. “I’m fine. Thank you. Is… that Leitner going to be incinerated soon?”

“Yes. I just haven’t worked it out yet. It’s a dangerous one, this. One of those Spiral Leitners that make you feel like you’re going insane in your own head. It’s much better to keep them out of reach.”

“I understand.” Michael says, taking a sip of water afterwards, hoping it’ll help clear his mind. “...It’s not exactly safe to leave Leitners out in the open, though.”

“Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Gerry says, carefully placing back a tray of tapes into the shelf. “It won’t happen again. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Michael nods.

Before Gerry makes his exit, he turns to face Michael. “I’ll see you soon, Michael. I just need to go get Gertrude so I can schedule a time to decimate this newspaper.” He grins.

-

Michael dreams again.

(Folded paper flowers. Crinkled silver tissue that sways in the breeze.)

(Papier-mâché grass with sharp edges that cut.)

(The meadow of peeling white forms. The origami moon makes its way across the abyssal sky. Searching.)

(It feels like manipulated card beneath your fingers. Soft and dry and different.)

(The more you dig, the more paper comes up. Heaving itself through the soil and tearing at the seams of their folded sheets.)

(Tissue falls all around you when they die. Intricate paper roots torn from their ground.)

(There is something falling all around you, and you realise it is stars.)

(Folded, mettlesome, wafer-thin, and collapsing into torn pieces of paper.)

(There is a yellow, buried deep within the folded arms of the soil. It is not paper. There is a polished wooden sheen. A painted yellow that yells out at him, that begs him to open it.)

(He resists.)

He awakens. It is a recurrence, and it hurts.

Michael does not understand. But he is late, so he eats his breakfast and ties his shoes.

There.

At the end of the hallway in his flat. There is a door, and it is yellow.

There has never been a door there. Michael can look out of the window and peer at London outside. He sees that there are no rooms behind that yellow door, only the wall of his block of flats.

He feels that something is deeply, deeply wrong.

But it calls him. It beckons him to enter.

There is something in his heart that wants to satiate his fatal curiosity. So he opens the door.

In a single blur, he enters its domain.

All Michael feels, all he can feel, can only be described as an entirety of rooms in himself as if they were his own organs. It is nauseating.

He is the walls. He is the floors. He is the ceilings. He is the doors. And he is none of them at the same time.

Then it is all over.

He cannot bear to open his eyes. But he has to.

(Take a deep breath, and open your eyes.)

Michael turns back to where the yellow door was, and it is not there. He is effectively trapped.

(You are so foolish, Michael. You plunge into things so intricate and deep, that they consume you whole.)

Michael follows the hallway wall with his hand. It makes him feel slightly less nauseous.

He cannot shake the feeling that he has been here before.

There is a voice down the hall. Flowery and echoing, with a strange bounciness that sounds like if a white cloud were to be pinned to a corkboard. “Oh, Michael.”

The way it says his name is deeply sickening, but for which reason Michael cannot decipher. Perhaps it is only the dizziness racking his brain.

He cannot see the person who spoke. He only feels the vehement dread in his stomach as he inches closer and closer to the next turn. The halls are crooked, unevenly-carpeted, and stretching like arteries from a heart. Michael isn’t quite sure what the heart is, until he sees it.

There is a sort of man at the end of the corridor. It looks exactly like him, only glazed, somehow. As if he was polished and sheened until he sparkled with a glamour slightly too unnatural to be considered human. Silver eyes stare back at him.

Michael is a trapped mouse.

(Think.)

He turns around and runs back through the halls. Rhythmic beats of shoe meeting carpet.

The figure sighs, and it is loud. Far too loud for such a far away person. It rings in Michael’s ears like a funeral knell, letting him know that he will not come out of this the same man.

Michael notices that he is not really running.

No matter how far he runs, he is still the same distance away from the figure. The carpet works like an escalator, pulling him further in.

The shimmers of the figure don’t fit into a static form. Even Michael can see that the fluctuating, undulating mass of its hair does not behave like it should. There is a misplaced shadow to it. Another laugh, this one rolling like waves. “You are very out of your depth.”

Michael peers at him, eyes wide, unable to stop the floor from moving him closer.

The figure’s hands are wrapped around Michael’s wrists. He doesn’t notice it at first, but there is a clear sensation on his skin. It feels like ribbons tied around his skin, not like the warmth of human hands. When he looks down, the appendages are just regular fingers. Confusion clouds his mind until he notices that he is feeling pain.

Numb pins and needles that dig deep into his flesh. Michael wants to pull away, but cannot muster enough willpower to move.

“It has been so long since I have known you.” The figure says. An echoing web of vowels. Michael knows it is the Distortion. It Is Not What It Is. There is an intrinsic bond between them, and Michael feels wholly overwrought by the consequences of this.

Michael breaks the eye contact. It hurts. Everything around him hurts. If he focuses enough, he can feel colours on his skin. He feels the shades, and even without imagining it, he can feel that the ribbon-like fingers around his wrists are silk red.

The Distortion has a realisation, feeling the skin beneath Michael’s sleeve.

It pulls Michael’s sleeve up, half-aware of what it will find.

“Ah.” The Distortion says, voice echoing solemnly, though it is a little curious. “It seems you’re not doing very well at the moment.”

There are cuts on his arm, jagged and scabbed over like beaded thread.

“I’m doing fine.” Michael’s limbs seem to thaw, and he tries to pull away.

“You aren’t.” It says, and it begins to laugh. A rolling echo of giggles that makes Michael’s ears hurt. “It isn’t good for you to do that, you know. Those stay forever.”

Michael ignores it. He needs to speak, needs to get this over with. He pulls his arm away from its grip. “...You’re me, aren’t you? I feel it.”

The Distortion’s face seems to split, like delayed slow-motion movement. It is flowery, and it is embroidered. Speech of petals and leaves that entwine like spiralling wallpaper. “Yes.”

Michael wants to throw up.

“I can’t stop you.” The Distortion laughs, a layered paper flower of vowels. “I can’t bind you to these walls. I cannot change anything that will matter.”

“Then why bring me here?” Michael asks.

It seems so innocent, so gentle in this light. But Michael knows it is lying. He cannot trust anything here. The Twisting Deceit looks at him once more. “I wanted to see you, Michael.” The name rolls off his tongue like a familiar season. Orange-red leaves strewn aimlessly in the wind.

The Distortion’s hands on him feels like unravelled fabric. Unseamed thread spinning with silver beads. Not flesh at all, only folded origami paper made of a writhing hallucinatory emptiness.

Michael cannot tell how he feels. Perhaps wrong, as if he is pushed into a door not right for him, a wrong design, maybe. Too elaborate, or perhaps not elaborate enough. Only ordained with yellow strangling stripes and a glittery sheen over its paint which tells him that it is not a real door it is not a real door it is not a real door it is not a real door.

Michael wretches. Nothing comes up.

“I don't understand.” Michael says, when he feels well enough to speak.

The Distortion, it seems, is far too pleased with that answer. It grins further, pulling Michael closer into its dizzying embrace.

Spirals pull apart and tear. He feels like static glitter, frozen in place and shining, shining, shining until everything goes white.

It grins. Far too many teeth. “I am quite fond of you.”

Michael does not know whether to feel disgusted or pleased.

“I feel sick.” He says simply.

There is a laugh. Rolling and echoing and convulsing. “Oh, you do.”

It seems pleased with this information.

Michael studies the changing walls for a possible exit. There are no doors. He looks back at the Distortion and notices that its eyes look just like his own, only shimmering with something strange. It is wholly uncanny, and it fills him with fear.

The Distortion suddenly kisses him. It is alike to an explosion and it is somewhat painful. Lips shouldn’t feel like a kaleidoscope, but the Spiral’s do. Every colour that the human eye can comprehend rushes through Michael’s nerves as the folding of paper tears.

There is a wholeness.

The labyrinth of changing hallways that stretch for miles, though it cannot be measured. It is a trap. It is a paradise. It is everything in between, and it is a body. Nothing can control it. Nothing can tie it to one identity. It lays, and it waits, for another to fall into its madness.

Oh.

Oh no.

Michael immediately pulls away. It pulls him closer, so he cannot escape its embrace. “What-”

“Relax.” The Twisting Deceit says, its silhouette far more sinister now, sharp as the curled blades of corkscrews. “You are safe here.”

(Sometimes you feel as if you are in a palace of mirrors.)

(Reflective and sharp and distorted. They hang on the walls and floors and ceilings. Peering through the sewn aether of clear air. Walking on a thin sheet of ice, until you plunge into the depths below.)

(Erupting into a sudden crash. Every shard falls to the floor and it hurts.)

(It shattered into that existence and the crash sounded like cracking ribs. The ending of a state of being. An abrupt reminder to you that being is temporary, and that an ending is sewn out of unimaginable agony.)

“Make it stop.” Michael says, closing his eyes and swallowing down his dry nausea.

It smiles. There are far too many teeth. “How truly innocent you are, my dear sweet boy.”

“Make it st-”

The room stops spinning.

The Distortion watches him from across the table. “We never should have gone to Sannikov Land, dear.”

There is a short silence.

“Zemlya Sannikova?” Michael asks, eyes wide for a moment. “That’s where Gertrude and I are going next month-”

“Oh.” It laughs. “Forgive me, Michael.” The words are spoken with pain in them. As if it needed to get it out. As if it tore it from its being and handed it to him like a last wish. “There is no time here. That’s why I was able to reach you. Time can be manipulated, stretched. There are always ways to jump through.”

Michael feels a pit of dread in his stomach.

“So I’m going to become you.” He says.

“Yes.” It says. “Do you even know why you’re going to that Russian island?”

Michael takes a moment to remember Gertrude’s words. “...No. I never asked why.”

“How naive.” The Distortion says. “I know you never asked why, because I am you. But it hurts to hear you say it.”

(There is a far away memory. You have never felt it before, but it is clear in your mind.)

(A distant foghorn over a silvery paper ocean. It is colder than cold. Your hands have long since gone numb. They hurt, so stiff that any slight movement makes pain rush through your fingers. If you took off your thick gloves, you’re sure that your hands would be purple with lack of oxygen.)

(There in the horizon.)

(There is a whiteness, an island in the middle of the papery snow. Sannikov Land. It is too bright to be a normal island. You will know it. You will spend years in the future turning over this little island in your mind as if it will fix everything.)

(It doesn’t.)

(Zemlya Sannikova does not exist, and never will exist.)

(Except you were there. Bright paper snow in the murky ocean like a palace of glass.)

(You will never go back.)

“It hurts,” it says, “to be like this.”

Michael stares at him, solemn. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t trust Gertrude. I want to trust her, I really do, but I shouldn’t, and I suppose I will pay the price.”

It smiles.

“But I can’t fix you. That’s not my responsibility.”

It turns away.

There is a cry of agony. It is the Distortion.

The Twisting Deceit’s faces and hair and hands and arms and eyes are twisting into each other and arching like silver needles.

Michael steps back.

It cries. Needles erupting from its skin. And then it is wholly apparent that it is splitting

Michael can’t speak. The words linger on his tongue like an emptiness.

“I miss you, Michael. I miss me, and the Spiral does not like that.” It says, face still full of glamour and glitz. “It hurts so much. It aches every single second I experience, and I know that it will continue until the madness takes me over completely.”

“It wants to numb me, Michael. It wants to make me forget you, to be trapped in this nonsensical state of existence that feeds me like a frantic madness.” It cries. Its hands are on Michael’s shoulders, digging into his skin.

Michael swallows. “...I’m sorry.” There are no other words to say, but despite this, it feels patronising.

It pauses.

“If I can’t escape the madness,” it says, its embrace painful and sharp, “at least I can have you.”

It kisses him again.

It is a painful warmth. They cut his own, and the contact tastes almost entirely of iron. Needles pressing into his lips, a sharp numbness rushing through his nerves. It is desperate, an expression of such a ravenous desire that lingers and bleeds into everything else, until nothing else can breathe.

Amongst all of this, it feels like a goodbye.

It pulls away. Michael feels his lips bleeding. “... That hurt.”

The Twisting Deceit laughs, blood still on its lips as it visually erupts into an impressionist painting, possibly out of joy or fear. “You cannot tell me you don’t enjoy it. I am you, after all, and I know you felt no discomfort.”

Somewhere, deep in Michael’s heart, he hates the Distortion. He has no control in this place. There is nothing he can do to stop it, and this is what hurts him so. Another part of his heart, however, loves the Distortion. It is something that knows him. Understands him to such an extent that it feels impossibly deep to be in the same place.

(You are tearing, just as the Twisting Deceit is tearing. A splitting of the brain and heart and values that leaves a wet residue of blood on the surgical table, because it hurts to change.)

(It hurts to change.)

(You are always changing.)

(You are not a sacrifice, Michael. No matter what Gertrude wants you to believe. You are merely a catalyst.)

(You don’t deserve such a fate. Just as it does not deserve to be bound to its own pain.)

(But then, what are we? Perhaps we are nothing but sensations. Nothing but the madness of our own minds. We are made through pain, made through change and alteration. Sometimes it is not you who chooses to change. Sometimes you are forced to change. You aren’t ready. You were never ready.)

(Perhaps trust is a dangerous thing.)

(You trusted her.)

(You believed that her actions were rational. You knew that it would hurt to continue. And yet, you fed yourself to it, didn’t you?)

(You will choose this fate.)

(A thousand times. A thousand chances. You will always choose this fate, no matter how hard it hurts.)

(Perhaps that is the greatest tragedy of all.)

“There is no outcome.” Michael says. “No way this will end.”

It peers back at him. Its face is painted, brushstrokes onto folding paper like a fading memory. “So you have figured it out.”

Michael feels tears on his face, and he realises he is crying.

(Everything is eternal.)

(Nothing is temporary.)

Michael sobs.

The Distortion wraps its arms around him, softer than previously. “I am very sorry.”

“I don’t want to be like this.” He says simply.

It comforts him. Too-long fingers brushing through his hair and holding his face. “Would you have gone if Gertrude had asked?”

Michael does not speak. It knows. There is no need for him to say it.

(Perhaps existence is insanity in and of itself.)

(You never really know yourself, do you?)

(You only know what you tell yourself. You only truly understand what your brain can comprehend.)

“I don’t understand.” Michael says.

It closes its eyes. “You don’t have to.”

(On an island, in the middle of the Arctic sea, is Sannikov Land.)

(It has never existed, and it will never exist. It is a figment of insanity, a pinpoint of unimaginable madness. It is a folding paper snowflake that falls on the breeze, and you realise that it is all around you.)

(The cold hurts you in more ways than one.)

(It runs deep into your bones and the eternal chill feasts on your trembling form.)

(It is where you become yourself.)

(It is where you become someone else.)

(It is where you will end.)

(It is where you will begin.)

(It hurts.)

“Have some tea.” It says, holding a teacup full of warmth. It does not matter if it is not real tea. Michael does not care. He takes the cup and brings it to his lips.

“How is this supposed to help?” He asks, blinking slowly. There is a heavy exhaustion in him.

It smiles, and then begins to laugh. A rolling, thundering, aching sound of a turbulent ocean racked with frantic hysteria. “Oh, Michael. It is not supposed to help.”

And then Michael notices that he is falling.

Every bright colour materialises around him in swathes of iridescent glitter. It is a gloss of reflection.

It Is Not What It Is is behind him. “You have a job to do.”

“I do.” Michael says, dizzy once more.

The Twisting Deceit laughs. “Then do it.”

Then, Michael is pushed.

He crashes.

Dizzying pain.

Beige clouding his vision.

A blur.

He is in his office. This is not where he entered, but he is here now.

His entire body aches. Sparkling pain that reaches every nerve and twists itself into a state of being.

There is a shaky breath, and at first Michael does not realise it is him. Part of him still feels as if the Distortion is beside him, whispering sweet nothings into his ear and liquidising into a kaleidoscope of colour.

But he is alone.

The Twisting Deceit is not here.

(There are things you must do in every future.)

(You will do them in every single universe, Michael.)

Michael stands up.

The sun outside is a white light in a solemn sky. It speaks of hope, of new beginnings, and of the everlasting nature of choice.

(And no matter how much it hurts, you will do it.)

(That is desire.)

(The everlasting grip on your mind when you realise that that is what you will become.)

(Deep inside, you want to. That is the raw essence of human longing.)

(There are sacrifices that you will make.)

(Perhaps they are your hamartia.)

(All you know, is that you will sacrifice yourself for what you love.)

(And you love the madness it makes you lose yourself in.)

(The rush of energy and adrenaline when you are given to something. The insanity that begins to spiral from the seed of being a sacrificial lamb. The uncertainty of your mortal fate in something else’s hands)

(Perhaps you were built for this.)

Michael sits at his desk, clearing the files from yesterday off his desk.

(Maybe you are the paper.)

Folded flowers that sway.
A white sun of far away hope.
Crinkled paper secrets.
The meaning of it all.
Unconditionally bound to the tree it was made from.
(Take my hand.)
You hear it say.
(There is no need to be afraid.)
It tells you.
And you know that it is a lie.
Nothing is what it is.
You are folding.
Changing and altering.
And you still hear the paper melodies
Of forgotten lilted songs
Calling
From the unventured wilderness
Of a place you know has never existed
And will never exist
Sannikov Land.