Chapter Text
It’s over, Sam thinks, as he stumbles past what used to be Aster. Not a trace of his friend seems to remain in the absurd, giggling creature. It’s all over, and it’s your fault, he stumbles, a migraine making him feel unsteady. I killed them. It’s over. I failed them. He takes a few more steps. He needs to finish this, companions or not. He wishes he wasn’t alone, but he made the others stay back in the apartment in case something went wrong. Something like this. Another wave of pain hits him, and he leans against a wall so he doesn’t collapse. A few drops of blood hit the ground. He tries lifting his hand to his head to where he feels the trickle of blood coming from, but it barely raises before falling back to his side again.
His friends are probably worried. He should go back, explain what happened, but he can’t. He needs to finish this. He can’t let it all have been for nothing. Can’t let the Astronomer’s have lost themselves for nothing.
His vision blurs and seems to split as he keeps walking, a horrible cracking sound ringing in his ears every few moments. Distantly, he realizes that might be the sound of his own skull splitting in two. More blood falls, and he can taste it in his mouth.
He’s almost there. He places a foot on the first step, and a sickening crack, louder than any of the previous ones, sends him down to his knees. He looks straight up as his skull splits open like a budding flower, and he catches sight of something. No. It. For just a moment it feels like his agony is erased, only to be replaced by something new. Something worse. Colours swirl in his vision, consuming him from the inside out. He tries to cough them up, but no matter what he does there are more, inside his mouth and ears and eyes and skin. He can’t even form another thought before it’s all over, and he’s embraced by a cold darkness.
-
Sam wakes up with a scream, quickly pressing his palms to his forehead with heavy, frantic breathing as he tries to feel for a fissure that isn’t there. He... a nightmare. It was a nightmare. He blinks several times, trying and failing to remember what he saw at the end. Every part of it is uncomfortably crystal clear, except... the Visitor, it must have been. The colours were unlike anything he’d ever seen, but he can’t remember what they looked like. What It looked like. Maybe that’s a good thing.
Ugh. Sybil was right, he really is stressed about going to the roof. He just hopes none of his friends heard him scream. That’d be embarrassing. He leans back against his headboard, and drags his hands down his face-
Wait.
Hands.
He falls out of bed with another scream, grabbing his left wrist so tightly Sam knows it will bruise. That makes him grip it tighter. His arm, his arm is back. Oh shit, is-
Is he cursed? How?! He didn’t look outside! Is dreaming about the Visitor enough to curse someone?! He frantically pats all over his body with his right arm, and feels nothing. His breath hitches. Is he going to start growing more arms? More limbs? Is he doing to end up like Edwin, or- or-
He takes a breath in. Holds it. A breath out. He repeats that until his breathings calmed down enough, and drags himself to Sybil’s hole in the wall. Except it’s gone. The crack in his wall that allowed him to speak to his neighbour is gone, without a trace. He places his hand against it, then both hands, and presses against it as hard as he can. Nothing.
“Sybil?” He tries, throat dry. Nothing. No evidence she’d ever been there. He lets his head fall against the wall, panic rising. He cautiously brings his hand up to his newly regrown(?) arm, and runs it up and down. Up and down. It feels normal. No weird bumps, or worse, eyes, or maybe worse, teeth. It feels weird, definitely, but weird in the way you’d expect. Sort of like his phantom limb pain, but his mind seems to be getting used to it again. Slowly.
He has no idea what’s happening. His arms back, and Sybil’s gone like she’d never been there to begin with. They use the wall to pull himself up, and glance toward the window. They freeze. It’s not the window itself, curtains pulled tightly together with a flicker of light coming through. It’s his calendar.
He walks toward it quickly, pressing a hand against it, rereading the date over and over. Then, much more frantically, throws open his laptop to check the date.
Over and over.
One week.
One week before the world ended. Before the Visitor arrived. One week to the day.
He wonders briefly if he’s dreaming, but they’re never this realistic. He’s never this aware, this conscious.
And that means what happened before, to the Astronomers... his usual nightmares fade quickly, but the memories of their panic, their bodies agonizingly contorting are all still clear as day. His own body contorting, skull exploding open. They’d kept his eyes low the entire time, but there, at the end he saw it. The Visitor, in all it’s... not glory. Far from it. But he’d seen. They can’t remember, and that’s no doubt a very, very good thing, but it did something. If he focuses enough, he can almost feel that pain in his skull. They don’t know if it’s their mind playing tricks on them, or something worse, but he chooses to avoid thinking about it. The pain fades slightly.
Okay. He saw the Visitor. Got cursed and might have died, now he’s here. He shudders. If circumstances were different he’d be far more skeptical, but he’s seen impossible things. Time travel is far from surprising at this point.
Or maybe he’s hallucinating? Maybe he’s completely lost his mind, and this is all that remains. It doesn’t feel like that, but how would he know? Maybe their friends will wake up the next morning to find what remains of him on the roof, still facing the sky. He shudders.
But, assuming he isn’t losing their sanity, and they’ve actually been sent back... why? They’re curious as to how, but it seems most things that happen now happen without reason.
He leans heavily against his desk. Maybe it’s a punishment. His punishment for killing the Astronomers- for killing Aster, Beryl, Jasper and Aurelius. A punishment for failing them, for failing the world.
Or- no. But...
Maybe it’s a second chance. A chance to do things right, with more time- just barely enough time to prepare, to warn others, warn Joel’s family. Warn his neighbours. Protect people.
But he can’t save enough people... they can still reunite David’s students, but the hand-people from the bus are another story. The only people he has a shot at truly saving are those in the apartment building, but even then, would they listen? Some of them, maybe, but he’d need to come up with something convincing. Nobody would believe the truth, he definitely wouldn’t. He hadn’t known what to think of Sybil’s warning, but after seeing what became of their injured neighbour... it was impossible to deny the truth.
But they need to make sure the ritual items are actually correct this time. Sam doesn’t know how many chances he’ll have. It’s safest to assume this is a singular second chance- fuck up again, and the world’s doomed.
Without the Visitor looming overhead, things should be a bit simpler. They’ll wait until the Visitor arrives, and get the camera recording without looking, somehow. Seemed like guessing and praying wasn’t the right call. They’d have to make sure the video was a clear shot of the sky before it arrived to ensure it was right this time. Get the painting from Frederic- the right one this time. Maybe Sam could bribe him into giving it another glance, just to be certain. Get the photograph from Edwin’s telescope-
Edwin. That’d be... a mess.
Some of the Cursed were either lucid enough to save, but Edwin... Edwin was a different story. Sam had no idea how badly his cognitive ability had fallen since his last note. Was he beyond help? Was it Sam’s right to decide who could be saved and who couldn't?
They’re hit by an uncomfortable thought that they aren’t strong enough to shove down. Maybe it is. If Sam was sent back as a second chance, if he’s the only one with future knowledge, they were the one who needed to make these decisions. They’d have to be careful not to let this go to their head, unless they want to become something they would have struck down in the hallways.
They’d have to talk to the Astronomers about what to do about Edwin. They’d become his allies, they deserved to know the full extent of what he had become. What he’d done. Sam’s tried and failed to push the memories of that room out of their mind, but he couldn’t.
Sam would need the manuscript as well... he’d gotten it right, he thinks, but it was unfinished. Maybe the other half was somewhere else in the apartment? But that requires waiting for the man to be Cursed. Just so Sam could kill him. It was understandable, maybe even justifiable the first time around, but he doesn’t think he could just let a man die for this.
...Maybe Sam could write it himself? He’d seen the Visitor after all, and even though their memories were fuzzy, he knows they can remember it if they need to.
But what would happen to him afterward? He hadn’t even properly looked up at it until the end, but he’d still...
...They’d better leave that for last. The Astronomers would be able to do the rest if something happened to him.
He sighs, fidgeting with his hands. They really weren’t cut out for all this hero stuff, huh? That had been made painfully obvious by the events that had transpired just moments ago. Or weeks later. They had really thought they could do something. Do something good, and instead they got four people killed. He can’t waste this second chance, but he has no idea how to be good. He’s always known there was something broken inside him, and he’d almost forgotten about it near the end. But their failure was bringing it all back to the front of his mind, a heavy ache in his chest and a barely noticeable throb behind his eyes.
Maybe they could start small. Like... watering their plant. Even though the rejection had been rough, he still cared for it deeply. Although the plant had likely forgotten about the rejection now that he’d been sent back. Would it be manipulative to try again...?
Sam laughs quietly. God, it’s stupid but he still thinks it’s funny. Jokes aside, it had become a nice routine in those two weeks. Helped keep him sane, and it helped him grow closer with Hellen. Yeah, he can start with that. He pushes himself back up and away from the desk, and he feels his leg brush against something. He looks down curiously, only to see nothing. The realization strikes him like a weapon, and he scrambles away with a barely restrained scream.
Shit, shit, Spine, oh shit. He brushes himself off despite the fact nothing's actually there, and shudders horribly. They’re suddenly very aware of the fact they are not alone in their home. Not alone anywhere in this apartment.
“Uh- I-! No thanks, Spine!” He uselessly shouts as he breaks for the door. If he taught his Friend about boundaries, maybe he could teach Spine? Hopefully? Ideally?
Still, he never wanted to sleep in here again. Not until that was dealt with.
Sam bolts out of the room, nearly tripping over his couch. His eyes flick over to the bathroom, around the room and all he can think of is Spine’s eyes on him, Confusion’s begs that felt more like demands for death, Stretchface’s madness- he felt sick all over again. He throws his front door open, slamming it shut and collapsing against it, sliding to the floor. He shut his eyes tight. He couldn’t lose his nerve, not now.
Breathe in, and out. Over and over. Just breathe.
...
It was... easier, when the problem was gone. With the knowledge the room had been emptied out. Hellen had torn Spine off of him as her claws dug into his skin, and ended her with one swift swing of her cleaver as Aster helped him to his feet. Sam hadn’t been able to sleep after returning to the apartment, so he’d returned with a few others wielding molotovs and grenades and cleared the whole room out.
But now it’s worse than ever. Before, at least Sam hadn’t known about what lurked in that other world, but now he knew up close and personal. He didn’t think he’d be able to step back in there, not alone.
...Okay. Okay. Stop this. He’s fine. He looks up and around the hall. It’s weird to see it so... normal. No bloodstain, no door made of teeth or covered in ice... eugh. He shudders as he remembers the horror still waiting at the end of the hall. Pierre. He’s making the Astronomers deal with him.
He stands up once he’s confident his legs won’t give out. Starting off this second chance by making the neighbours think he’s losing his mind would not be ideal. He needs to decide what to do first. They’re on a very strict time crunch. He needs to check on Sybil at some point, but he knows she’ll be okay so the current priority is dealing with Edwin. Tied with that is getting the Astronomer’s together and telling them what happened in the future. Everything. If he wants to do this right, he needs to be honest.
They would have gone to Aster first, but he doesn’t live in the building. He’s not sure if Aurelius does, either. They never saw their names on the ledger in Edwin’s apartment.
But he did see Jasper and Beryl’s names. Apartment 26 and apartment 15, respectively. He’ll head over to Jasper’s place first, and if he isn’t there he’ll head to Beryl’s. If neither of them are there, he’s screwed.
With a plan in mind, Sam makes his way toward the staircase.
He hopes he can do things right this time. For the sake of everyone.