Work Text:
In a hospital room in Seattle, the sound of rain drowned out the beeping of a heart monitor. In the bed, there lay a frail looking girl of around 17. Her cheeks were sunken and her face held a sallow tint.
There were no cards or balloons and the guest chairs had grown dusty.
As Shay sped out of the Gary’s in her local shopping complex, she felt as though she was missing something important. When she tried to recall what it was, though, all she could think of was a foggy greyness. It couldn’t have been too important, as she had no reminders left on her phone. She only had fifteen minutes to walk around and buy something for herself. Her father would be checking out soon.
Water marks quickly appeared on her new suede boots as she walked along the street, looking up where to buy presents. While she stared down at her phone, the burnt orange trim of a storefront caught her eye. Hearth Antiques, the shop sign read when she looked up.
She smiled to herself, delighted by the perfect coincidence. With a cheery jingle, she walked into the shop, almost tripping over a vividly blue children’s rocking chair placed next to the door.
The rest of the interior of the store, however, seemed almost colorless in comparison to the exterior. The walls were lime washed using a greyish blue paint that seemed to shift with each step she took and the narrow tables next to her were stained an ashy brown. It was also much colder inside, and Shay’s breath fogged up as she looked around curiously.
She was drawn to a curio cabinet that was placed along the wall directly in front of the front door. Slowly, deliberately, she crouched down and placed her phone on the ground to take a look inside.
On the topmost shelf, there was arranged an elaborate tableau of a king’s court. A ginger rat was arranged on a throne, holding a scepter and a scroll with an almost smug expression on its face. Next to it, a stuffed bat hung from the top of the cabinet and seemed to whisper in its ear. Boxes upon boxes of pinned butterflies were arranged along the side in a facsimile of a council. There were two almost unnoticeable ticks pinned to the carpet at the rat’s feet. For a second, Shay saw a sun drenched version of the court. The rat was replaced by a king with booming laughter; the bat, with a black haired woman who had a cruel smile; the butterflies, with bejeweled courtiers sporting expressions of delight and horror alike; and the ticks with cloaked peasants whose emaciated arms reached upward. Her hands flinched away from the cabinet but her face remained uncomfortably stoic.
From the counter behind her, a gravelly voice rang out. “Audacious child,” it mocked menacingly. “She doesn’t have what it takes.”
Another voice, a woman’s this time, chided in a language that seemed foreign but somehow understandable, “Be careful, you tread too recklessly. If you had said two more words, she would have gotten up and left. I have seen it.”
Against her better judgement, Shay’s back bent and her neck tilted so that her gaze landed on the middle shelf. It held only an innocuous collection of mirrors and a woven bracelet that was practically invisible in the darkness. Shay’s hands strayed to the bracelet unconsciously, drawn in by the elaborate craftsmanship. As she held it up to the weak shaft of light that reached the back of the shop, she noticed indicidual strands in the weave. It was made of human hair. She placed it back on the stand robotically, but brushed the crushed velvet cloth covering the shelf underneath due to her trembling hands.
Once more, she was taken to a brightly lit scene, this time of a seashore. A melodic voice rang out as its owner slowly counted to 24. The scene slowly shifted to reveal a black haired man sitting in a cave with his back to Shay. His tangled hair glistened unnaturally as he bent forward, tapping glimmering objects with webbed hands. “Vain indeed,” Shay’s lips contorted to force out in a deep voice. Before she could see any further, though, she felt as though she was being watched and snapped out of her reverie.
Shay did not stay to look at the third shelf and stood up to close the doors. Before she could turn around, though, she spotted a door only a few steps from the cabinet. Her feet carried her into the darkness of the closet, where she stood motionless while her eyes adjusted. One box in particular called to her.
When she reached inside, all she felt was a small object with the texture of a corn husk. Upon taking it out, she saw that it was a human hand, small and slender. Its nails sported the same gray color as the walls.
Shay turned on her heel and walked to the counter, looking only at the object in her hands. She handed it to the cashier, who brushed the fingers on her right hand as he took it from her. His touch left black lines on her skin in the form of scales that sprouted from her skin, like those on the wings of a butterfly. Her fingertips lengthened into sharp points.
She silently pushed two dimes over the counter upon his instruction, took the hand, and walked towards the door. As she stood on the threshold, she felt a sense of profound regret hit her. She glanced at her ruined hand and berated herself for ever having set foot into the antique shop. She stood outside for a second before she remembered that her phone was still on the floor in front of the curio cabinet.
Before she could lose her nerve, she burst into the shop, bells heralding her arrival once more.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologized as she sprinted to the back of the shop and picked up her phone, still only looking at her feet.
She made her way back to the front, heart pumping furiously, her steps deliberate. She kept her gaze directed away from the counter, where she could sense a weighty presence tracking her. As she pulled the door open once more, a gale tore through the shop, almost slamming it shut.
With all the strength she could muster, Shay tugged the door open and burst through, sprinting away from the shop as though her life depended on it. As she ran, though, the presence remained. Its weight remained pointed at the back of her neck no matter where she turned. Shay remained calm despite her fear, though. She held an unshakeable belief that her father would come. He would finish checking out at Gary’s, put the groceries in the car, and come get her as long as she kept running. As long as she stayed alive. When she looked back, though, she saw that the eldritch emptiness of the presence had drawn close.
When she took a turn too closely, she slowed down, the horror drew close, and—
On a rainy day in Seattle, a heart monitor in a lonely hospital room sped up for the first time in 13 years. A girl sat up in her bed panting after a nightmare, her grayish blue nails raking through her hair to push it away from her face.