Chapter Text
The land was bleak and barren.
It had been this way for so long that trying to remember what it looked like before was almost impossible. To remember a time where there had once been life roaming, with society, animals, and plants once existed. Trying to do so was like reaching for something for something that was never really there in the first place.
Now there was nothing that would even indicate what there once was. It was cold with no life growing. It was forever dead, never to have any life grow in it again. Everything was completely gone.
It was all Extinct.
It has been so for so long that it was all it knew now.
The places and buildings that it once visited and frequented were nothing but rubble, crumbled to the ground as if they had never existed. The people it remembered— even with their faces blurred and the memories filled with static— were ashes and dead. Never to walk the earth again. Everyone was that way now.
Even the other creatures that had been favored by their patron who survived for longer than most, had not been able to survive the end. Now everything was dead and gone. Exterminated by one another or simply time itself, as it ate and consumed all that had energy until there was completely nothing.
The only thing that really remained was it now.
Even the beings that held so much power over the world, were now weakened and hollow with nothing else to feed on. Well, other than itself. Not that there was much to feed on anymore. After so long, there was only a vacant hole inside instead of meat and bones.
It wouldn't be long before it was dead too… Waiting was dreadful. Why couldn't it come sooner?
With that feeling, an itching came upon it and it tilted its head, listening intently. It had truly been so long since it has heard anything from its own patron. Ever since the last ones had started dying, there hadn't been enough to watch to be able to speak to it.
Because of this, it wondered what the Eye possibly wanted to tell it. Whether it was something important or not, it couldn't really find it in itself to care. Though, the curiosity in its nature made it impossible to not want to Know.
Its many eyes widened a bit at the information the Eye gave it. Now that- that wasn't something that it expected. For a long moment, it simply sat still processing and tasting the bit of what it was given. That was until it realized that- oh.
It didn't need to wait. The Eye, for once, in all its existence might have actually listened to its wants. A deep growling-like laugh bubbled from it even though it had no mouth. Its multiple eyes blinked at the realization that it wasn't the only being that wanted- needed the end.
So instead of dwelling, it got up without a fuss and began to tread along.
The process was long as there was really no sense of time, and it was also painful. Its body was contorted and disjointed covered head to toe with eyes that served only to watch. After all, that was the only thing it was created to do after all. If it wasn't for that detail, its body would not have been so unnatural.
The pain continued as it kept on with nothing to watch. With everything dead and desolate, there was nothing it could observe as it treaded through the land where everything was gone. It was in its nature and yet there was nothing to monitor.
A while passed, and though it felt like years had passed— and it really might have— it also had felt like only a moment that he was standing, hunched over a large wooden coffin. There were no chains wrapped around it even though it felt like once there might have been.
It felt so familiar in a way that it hadn't felt in so long yet it wasn't able to grasp at a solid memory. Fleeting images flashed through its mind: dirt crushing its limbs and bones, filling its insides until it could only gasp for a breath, and being held and holding someone with short yellow hair in a bruising grip.
Having these things shoved into its mind didn't do much for it to remember the memory itself. It hadn't been its memories in a very long time. They didn't belong to it and instead belonged to a person who was lost so early most they had known wouldn't recognize who they were before.
Without any more thoughts, it reached down with one of its limbs and opened the coffin’s lid with no hesitation. This was something that also felt familiar to it but once again the memory didn't belong so it simply pushed the feeling aside. Staring down the stairs and into the dirt, it clung to the feeling of emptiness.
This was it. This was its end.
There was an odd comfort to that thought.
Setting the lid down resting beside the coffin, it took a moment to relish in its last moments. The thought scared it, but nothing scared it more than the thought of continuing on… alone. In fact, just the idea made its nonexistent heart thud against his nonexistent ribs. There were no other options for it.
Even though it was filled with dread and a fear it didn't think it had anymore— though it still certainly fed those beings— there was a strange sort of comfort knowing that this was the way it would end. With such a familiar feeling inside of it, it was almost like- like coming home.
What a weird feeling.
With another thought, the Archive stepped inside the coffin and descended down into the dirt.
—
It was dark.
Whenever it tried getting in air, dirt would fill its lungs and clog its throat until it was heaving for a single breath. It gagged at the taste of ground in its mouth, but it only made it worse as the dirt got deeper down its throat and inside it.
As ground got stuck in between its teeth, it clenched its jaw tightly. Dirt got under his eyelids and felt like it was getting into his eyes and into his skull. The earth surrounding him- it crushed in from all sides, making it difficult for any sort of movement. So much so that there wasn't even any room for it to wiggle.
There was dirt and ground and pebbles all around, pressing- crushing from all around until it felt like it was grinding his muscles and bones together. It was everywhere and all encompassing and heavy and choking and oppressive-
It- it was suffocating.
He couldn't breathe-
Then its eyes snapped open and he breathed in a small, quiet gasp of air. The first thing he realized was that, oh, only two of his eyes opened. The next was that he was alive and breathing.
Taking a few minutes to breathe and get his senses back in order, he noticed the familiar ceiling— ceiling?— above him. His eyes, only the two that he currently had, blinked as if the sight over him would fade within a few seconds. When nothing changed, he frowned. Hadn't- hadn't he just been in the Eye-pocalypse?
At the thought, his head exploded with pain. He gasped as his vision blackened and his arms came up to press against his face to try and ease the pain. It didn't do much as it took a few minutes for it all to pass.
What- what the hell? He thought, taking in deep gulps of breaths. Why did that happen? I was just thinking about the Eye-po- When the pain came again but lesser, he hissed and pressed his hands harder against his head. The pain only started whenever he tried to think of the- of the apocalypse, he realized.
Then he realized that this wasn't the apocalypse. Slowly his mind caught up with the revelation and he shot up from where he was laying. His eyes darted around, and it took a moment for him to realize why the place looked so familiar.
It was his grandmother's house.
What? Jonathan thought, confusion overtaking him. Why am I in my Grandmother's house? The last time he had seen her was years ago, in his university years. A few years after then, it hadn't been long since his grandmother died, and he was never able to see or visit her again. It made his throat close with emotion even though he had already gotten over it years ago.
Swallowing back the flood of emotions that threatened to overtake him, he took deep breaths to compose himself. The sudden burst of feelings had caught him off guard and made him wonder why he couldn't control his emotions. He felt sorrow and sadness and panic just at the thought of his Grandmother's death that simply made him want to burst into tears.
After a moment of getting himself back together, he turned his eyes to inspect the room around him. He recognized the bookshelf filled with books and the shelves that held his clothes. It was his childhood bedroom from his grandmother's house. The one he lived in before he moved out to university and then his own flat.
Even with a few minutes of trying to calm himself, Jon still clenched the covers tightly with his emotions still threatening to run wild. He felt so overwhelmed because none- none of this made sense. Why was he in his grandmother's old house? Why wasn't he dead? After everything that happened, wasn’t what- what happened in the end supposed to be his death?
It made no sense, and he hated that.
He felt his eyes begin to water and his throat tightened. With a frustrated sound, he harshly rubbed his eyes to get rid of any tears that welled up in his eyes. That's when he paused. Slowly, Jon took his hands away from his face and stared down at them silently. For a long moment, he simply stared at his hands that- that were small… Too small.
Then, without warning, information got shoved into his mind from the Eye, and his breath hitched. N- no, no, no, it couldn't be.
Throwing his covers off his body, Jon bolted out of his bed and ran out of his room, all while his mind was screaming that this can't be real. Skidding out into the hall, he almost crashed into the wall in his blind panic. He rushed to where he remembered the bathroom was and completely froze when he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
His blood rushed in his ears and his throat tightened, too similar like how the coffin had been.
Jon found himself staring at the reflection of his eight year old self.