Chapter Text
There was a house in front of him.
A house Lui Duponte had never seen before.
He knew that with the peculiar certainty of someone who had spent their entire life in a small town and could name every road by the shape of its pavement, every building by the colour of its bricks. Deadwood was not large enough to hide things from him.
He looked down at himself. He was dressed normally. He had his glasses and his shoes were on his feet. He just couldn't remember leaving home. He tried to remember where he had been before this, what road he had been walking down, whether he had been coming from home or from somewhere else entirely.
Nothing.
The harder he tried, the further away the memory seemed to retreat so Lui let it go. There was something else he was supposed to be thinking about.
There was a house in front of him.
It was old, but not remarkably so. The kind of house that might have been standing at the edge of Deadwood for a hundred years, forgotten by everyone who had ever lived there. The paint had faded and peeled from the wooden boards. One of the shutters hung crookedly beside a window. The front steps were uneven beneath his feet, and the porch sagged slightly towards the middle.
There was nothing about it that should have made Lui's stomach twist the way it did. The front door loomed in front of him, he felt it hadn't opened in a very long time and yet, he knew it would open now.
Beyond the house, the forest rose dark and dense against the night. The trees were close together, their branches tangled above the roof and stretching away into darkness. Lui could hear the occasional movement of leaves, the distant creak of a branch shifting in the wind.
He did not look at it for long - he couldn't.
His eyes had to return to the door.
For a moment, he imagined what would be behind him. The road, presumably. Deadwood.
He could picture it without seeing it. The familiar streets of his town, the place he grew up.
Lui's fingers twitched. He should look. Just turn around, one time.
He didn't.
His eyes remained fixed on the door.
It was like some force, warning him away from this place yet pulling him into it all the same.
His fingers found their way to the handle, wrapping loosely around it but for just a few seconds more, Lui waited. He couldn't explain what he was waiting for. Perhaps for someone to call his name or for a light to come on behind one of the windows. Perhaps for something to come out of the forest.
Nothing did.
There were scratches around the handle and a small dark mark near the bottom where the wood had been damaged.
He should leave.
The thought was so clear that it almost felt like someone had said it aloud.
And yet the latch released with a soft click and the door opened, its hinges groaning.
Lui stood perfectly still.
Darkness filled the hallway beyond.
The air smelled of dust and old wood, with the damp, stale scent of somewhere that had been closed for a long time. Lui could see almost nothing inside.
Except the staircase. It began immediately beyond the entrance and rose into the darkness, stretching on for far longer than a staircase should.
It was unsettling, it felt as though Lui had somehow expected this - that he knew deep down exactly what he would see on the other side.
The thought of climbing those stairs filled him with a dread so deep that his knees seemed to weaken beneath him.
And still his foot moved.
But Lui stopped himself, staring down.
His shoe hovered above the first step.
He didn't want to. He didn't want to. He didn't want to go.
He looked into the darkness above the staircase - something was drawing him upwards.
The first step was waiting for him.
Lui climbed it - wood creaking beneath his foot. He climbed another. The staircase was narrow. The banister was worn smooth, and Lui's hand found it automatically as he climbed.
Three steps.
Four.
Five.
He began to count without meaning to.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
The sound of his own breathing seemed too loud.
The house made small noises around him.
Wood settling, something tapping faintly against a window, distant rustling from the trees outside.
For just a moment, Lui heard something that sounded almost like footsteps.
He stopped.
Silence.
He waited.
Nothing.
He continued.
The stairs seemed to go on too long. He couldn't remember how many steps he had climbed and he didn't want to count anymore - his legs were beginning to ache.
He kept going - the compulsion had become almost unbearable.
He had to reach the top.
He didn't know why or what he expected to find there. He only knew that stopping now felt worse than continuing. He stared upwards and he could finally see at the very top there was a landing. A landing with a door looming at the stairs end.
Lui stopped climbing. He couldn't go there alone. Where were his friends? Where was-
How did he get here?
The door was only a door and he knew that. It was only a door and the desire to get to it was so powerful that his muscles tensed, ready to move.
Twenty eight.
Twenty nine.
The door seemed to grow closer.
Thirty.
Thirty one.
He could feel something behind it.
Thirty two.
There was a door in front of him.
He wanted to open it and he wanted to run from it. He wanted to do both so badly that the two desires seemed to tear him apart. His head was getting louder and louder with every passing second.
Stop it. Stop.
His hand moved again, closer and closer till he was only centimeters from grasping it.
No.
No.
Stop.
It hovered there as his mind became even louder.
No.
No.
NO.
NO.
STOP IT.
STOP!
NO!!!
Lui awoke with a violent gasp - his whole body flying upright. For a few seconds, he had no idea where he was.
He couldn't breathe properly. His chest rose too quickly, his lungs dragging in air that didn't seem to be enough. His heart was pounding so hard that it hurt.
Lui stared into the darkness. Something was wrong, something was-
He didn't know what, he couldn't-
His glasses.
He reached towards the bedside table.
His fingers knocked into something as he picked them up - accidently pushing it to fall and Lui couldn't help but flinch.
His hands were shaking but he finally put them on and the room came into focus. His room, his bed, his glasses. His empty bottle of water now unceremoniously on the floor.
Just a dream.
A bad dream.
Slowly, his breathing began to settle. He sat there and for a while, he did nothing.
He tried to consider the events. The house, where it was, how he got there, what was behind that door but the ideas kept slipping away and it was only working to increase his heart rate so he tried his best to forget. Not everything needed to be solved.
It was just a dream.
After a while, Lui laid back down, pulling the covers over himself and stared at the ceiling.
The room was quiet.
He closed his eyes and then opened them again. He lay there for several minutes, staring at the ceiling before deciding he probably wasn't going to have much success at getting a good night's sleep anymore.
Eventually, exhaustion would win. He just had to hope tomorrow didn't demand too much of him.