Chapter Text
Derek sat at his desk, swallowed by darkness. The air was heavy almost suffocating. The only sound that echoed through the room was the quiet, precise tapping of keyboard keys, each press slow… hesitant, as if the keys themselves might shift beneath his fingers at any moment.
Pain consumed him. Physical. Mental. With every keystroke, it felt as though his fingers were about to give up, his mind on the verge of collapse. The flood of thoughts was unbearable, his headache radiating through his entire body like a slow-burning fire. And yet he forced himself to keep writing. He had to leave something for Avery. Anything. Something that would make him believe Derek had done all he could… that Avery's presence had meant something. That thanks to him, this had happened, not because of him. For even a fleeting moment. He had seen everything this world had to offer.
Every place on Earth. He had seen galaxies impossible, breathtaking, overflowing with colors and stars, some just being born, so distant that humanity would never lay eyes on them.
And still… Realistically none of it mattered as much as this one regret. That he hadn’t spent more time with Avery. That he hadn’t truly talked to him even for a moment. That he hadn’t shown him even a fraction of what he himself had seen. But those were only dreams. The kind that were never meant to come true. Dreams he couldn’t express, so as not to cause Avery any more pain than he already had.
Even as his body and mind began to give in, he kept writing. So little remained. Just a few more letters, and it would be done. Just a moment more and he would finally be able to rest. Maybe then, the pain would stop consuming him.
He didn’t know what awaited him after death. But he hoped at the very least that it wouldn’t be a cold, endless void. He hoped… perhaps foolishly, but still he hoped that somewhere beyond, there was something more. A place where he might meet Avery again. Where he could finally get to know him… truly.
It was foolish to dream. But it was all he had left. When Derek finally finished writing his last message for the world to see, he looked at his desktop. He could feel his body slowly giving up, each breath weaker than the last, each one bringing him closer to the end. The room fell into silence. Darkness. Unease. But the stillness didn’t last.
From outside came a sudden blast then another, and another. He turned his head instinctively toward the window.
Fireworks.
Their light barely reached his room, yet they painted it in fleeting flashes of color hundreds of them, dancing across the walls like fragments of something distant and unreal. With the last of his strength, he rose from the chair. Step by step, careful and unsteady, he made his way to the window letting himself be bathed in those scattered colors lighting up the night sky. Slowly, he sank to the floor as his legs gave in beneath the weight of pain. Then he lay down, still watching the sky. His breathing grew shallow. Uncertain. Fading. He knew the end was near. He was afraid. Terrified. But there was nothing left he could do.
Alongside that fear came something else regret, longing… and a quiet, bitter envy of a world that would go on without him. Emotions he no longer had the strength to name. He didn’t want to leave Avery behind. But he had no choice. Slowly, he closed his eyes holding onto the last flickers of color from the fireworks And then…
There was only silence. Only darkness. And at last Peace.
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Derek was terrified. He was still conscious still aware of everything and yet, he was surrounded by nothing but darkness. He couldn’t feel his body. He couldn't feel pain. But he could feel some presence, something distant and fading yet still there.
“Greetings.” The words echoed with cold certainty. Derek recognized that voice. The voice of the King in Yellow. Cold. Terrifying. Absolute. Why was this happening? What was happening? echoed through his mind
Derek didn’t know how to react. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. Fear consumed him deeper, sharper than anything he had felt before. And a thought crept in “What if I did something wrong? What if I’ve become his vessel? What if the world now faces ruin because of me? “ The questions circled endlessly, tightening around his mind until the voice spoke again.
“ I see your mind is drowning in questions. Do not expect answers. I am mercifu l… but not to that extent.” The voice sounded closer now. From the consuming darkness, something began to emerge A yellow robe. Faint, shadowed yet the only visible thing in the void.
“ You live only because I reside within your consciousness. And so… I have offer for your baffled mind.” His tone shifted. Still controlled but warmer now. Softer. Almost… persuasive.
“I will let you live. I will give you another chance.” Derek froze. The offer was tempting. A chance to thank Avery. A chance to see the sun again. A chance to tell his mother everything he never had the courage to say. It was too perfect. Too easy. Derek couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t let everything he had gone through be for nothing.
“I can feel your mind resisting me. Do not worry this offer benefits us both.” The voice continued, steady and patient.
But Derek didn’t want to listen. He wanted it to end. He wanted the thoughts to stop. The hope to fade. But the King in Yellow would not allow it.
“Death does not suit me. For hundreds of thousands of years, I was nothing more than a concept a thought left behind in Act. And that existence… was enough.” A pause. as if he were trying to understand Derek’s emotions, trying to arrange his words in a way that might best match what Derek felt, as though language itself could be carefully shaped into something gentle enough for him“ I will give you life. And you will return me to where I belong.”
Those words planted something in Derek. Doubt. Could it really be true? Could he truly have another life… if he only agreed?
“There is no better offer. I could take your body, yet I do not.” The voice sharpened again, quiet but absolute. “ Understand this. This is a generous offer. And the only one you will ever receive.”
With every word, Derek felt his certainty slipping further away. Was the King in Yellow telling the truth? And if he refused… “What then? Could he really take control of him? Would everything be lost anyway? Or was this nothing more than a bluff? “The questions pressed in on him, suffocating. Fear returned stronger than before. “What if he made the wrong choice? What if the King truly was as powerful as he claimed?” Derek didn’t know what to think. Uncertainty tore through him, splitting his thoughts apart. He tried to reason with himself, to find the right decision. But there was no right answer. No safe path. He didn’t know if this was just another lie. But if the King truly could give him life… then maybe, Just maybe. He could fix something.
Say the words he had never managed to say. Do the things he had lost the chance to do. Maybe fate wasn’t as cruel as it seemed. If he refused, the only certainty was death. But if he accepted… Then perhaps, within that fragile second chance, he might find something he had once overlooked… A way to change everything.
Derek was afraid. Not the kind of fear that passes, not the kind that fades with time but something deeper, something rooted in the marrow of his being. A suffocating uncertainty crept through him, And yet… what choice had he truly had? If he refused… if he chose death… wouldn’t it take him anyway? Wouldn’t it wear his body like a mask?
Derek was deeply afraid of making the wrong choice. And yet, if he could retain even a fragment of control, perhaps he could still do something, perhaps not everything was already lost. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe the King in Yellow’s offer wasn’t as deceptive as it seemed.
“…So you yield in the end. My offer was sufficient after all.” The voice did not echo. It pressed in. It slithered through his thoughts, coiling around them, tightening every word deliberate, cold, ancient. It was not heard. It was known.
“That pleases me.” The darkness around him thickened, as if the void itself were breathing. And then
Pain.
It did not arrive gradually. It erupted. A violent, tearing sensation split through his consciousness, as if unseen hands had reached into him and begun pulling him apart piece by piece, thought by thought. He felt himself unravel, threads of memory snapping, identity stretching thin to the point of breaking. He tried to scream. There was no voice.
He tried to move.
There was no body. Only the sensation of being handled reshaped, forced into something that almost resembled what he once was. And something else was there. Watching. Not from outside. From within. A presence buried deep beneath his thoughts, vast and patient, like something that had been waiting for centuries just beneath the surface of his mind. It did not need to move. It did not need to act. It already was. Then came the breath. or rather, the need for it. His lungs ignited.
A searing, unnatural heat flooded his chest, as if he had inhaled fire itself. Instinct took over he gasped, choking, dragging air into a body that rejected it. Each breath scraped against his throat like broken glass, wet and uneven. It wasn’t air. It didn’t feel like air. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. His body returned in fragments first the pain, then the weight, then the crushing awareness of flesh. But it didn’t belong to him anymore. It felt distant, misaligned, as if something inside him was wearing him incorrectly.
His fingers twitched. Too slow. Too late. A scream finally tore free—not human, not entirely ragged and distorted, stretching beyond his control as if something else had shaped the sound on its way out.
The voice again. Closer now. Too close. “ Forgive me. I didn’t tell you about the suffering that awaits you.” It sounded… amused.
Derek’s thoughts scattered, slipping through his grasp like water. He could feel it coiled deep within him, vast and unmoving, yet somehow pressing outward, testing the edges of his mind like a predator brushing against the bars of its cage. Or perhaps he was the cage.
The pain began to fade, but something worse replaced it. Numbness. Not relief never relief but a hollow, suffocating emptiness. His body lay still, unresponsive, like a discarded shell. No matter how desperately he tried, he could not command it. All he could do was look. Through his own eyes. At the world beyond.
Flashes of blue and red bled across the darkness outside the window, pulsing faintly, distorting the edges of reality. The colors smeared together unnaturally, stretching too long, lingering too deep like something trying to imitate light without understanding it. For a moment, they reminded him of fireworks. But the longer he stared the more anxiety he felt, the more exhausted he became too tired to do anything at all. Slowly, he began to drift away, not toward death this time, but toward sleep. For the first time in a long while, he could finally rest… and close his eyes, even if only for a moment.