Chapter Text
He brushed his fingers across the weathered stone. A gravestone, slanted into the wet grass that soaked his pant legs. There'd been words carved into it once, now all but one were erased by time.
He traced the smudged outlines of what had once been dates, a name, an epitaph.
All that was left was a name. First? Middle? Last? It no longer mattered. Nobody had set foot in this graveyard ringed by overgrown fields in decades.
Nobody, that was, except the exception.
“What's your name?” The shadow asked him.
He couldn't remember.
He couldn't think why it would matter, anyway.
“Clancy,” he lied, tracing the name on the grave again.
Although, in a way, it wasn’t a lie.
He didn’t have a name, and the owner of the worn gravestone no longer needed a name the way Clancy did.
“Hello, Clancy,” the shadow said.
Clancy looked at the shadow again. “Who are you?”
“I am your fears.”
“I don’t have any fears.”
“You did.”
“What did I fear?”
“Many things.”
“Well, I fear nothing, now,” Clancy said.
“You should.”
“Am I supposed to fear you?”
“You will.”
Clancy laughed.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, the shadow faded away into the long grass, and Clancy stood, brushing grass seeds from his knees. Despite the high sun, there was an unmistakable chill in the air, biting his cheeks, but Clancy’s jacket, a lightweight black affair, kept him warm.
He set off across the graveyard, the knee high grass that had soaked his boots and pants this morning now drier, if still a little damp.
He thought back on the morning’s events.
He’d woken up to the first rosy fingers of dawn in the middle of a field, soaked with dew, or rain.
It was clear how he’d gotten there.
A drag path, etched through the grass, trampled crushed stems.
Whoever had left him there was gone. Looking back, along the path, he saw shadows and mountains, and so he’d turned the other direction, and started walking towards the sunrise.
East. That was where the sun came up.
He wasn’t sure where he was going, or where he’d come from. But something was following him, slinking through the shadows.
The shadows were following him.
They wanted his name, but he had none to give them.
Nobody knew his real name, least of all him.
So he’d used one he saw on a grave.
Was that a normal way to find a name when you didn’t have one?
Clancy didn’t know.
Now, Clancy walked through fields identical to the one he’d woken in, all fallow, wild grass and flowers just starting to turn yellow with the cooling weather. He’d have thought he was in a wild, untouched prairie, if it weren’t for the faded paths and decaying fences arranged in orderly rectangles.
It was a bit of a dessert, in his mind.
But he would keep going.
The sun was starting to slant across the field, the grass and occasional fencepost casting long shadows, when he spotted the house.
He quickened his pace, and reached the house as the sun indicated late afternoon.
As he got closer, it became apparent that it was abandoned. Paint peeled on the front door, and the porch sagged. Still, Clancy knocked, and waited a full five minutes before pushing open the (unlocked) door.
Inside smelled of dust and mold and damp.
He paused at the kitchen sink.
Kitchen sink.
There was something…
He shook his head and ventured upstairs, treading lightly.
More dust, and mildew.
He was about to leave, head out and downstairs into the deepening twilight, when he caught a glimpse of an oblong object leaned against bed as he walked past.
He paused, then walked in the room and picked it up. A case.
He set it on the bed and opened it.
He felt his lips turn up into a smile as he held the instrument.
A ukulele.
He could play it.
He knew how.
Had known how?
No, he still knew.
He strummed the strings and immediately winced. The ukulele was horribly out of tune.
He'd tune it later, he decided, putting it back in the case and slinging the case over his shoulder and adjusting the strap.
The house grew dim fast, shadows pooling in the corners where daylight struggled to reach, spreading across cracking walls and festering carpet.
Clancy, compelled by a feeling of unease, strode purposefully down the hall, then down the stairs.
“Clancy,” the shadows said. “You cannot run forever.”
“I'm not running,” he replied, shutting the front door of the house. “Just leaving.”
He set off towards the forest. The sky was overcast now, clouds having rolled in while he'd been inside, and the world darkened rapidly.
By the time he reached the forest, it was too dark to consider pulling out and tuning his new ukulele, so Clancy sat down, leaned against a tree, unslung the ukulele case, setting it by his side. The shadows were closing in now, whispering things he couldn't quite make out. Clancy closed his eyes, and let the whispering lull him to sleep.
+++
The morning dawned sharp and clear. Bird song woke Clancy, and as soon as he opened his eyes he was met by brilliant sunlight glittered in the dewy grass, and Clancy, for the first time, felt a credible, distinct bite of cold, seeping through his jacket.
It was tolerable enough, and as he stood and continued on his way, the chill faded, even as the damp grass soaked his pants and shoes anew.
Birds chirped and twittered in the trees as Clancy ventured deeper into the forest. It was a sunny, sun dappled affair, and by the light of day the colors of early fall adorned the trees.
When the sun reached its zenith, Clancy sat on a fallen log adorned with shelf mushrooms and pulled out the ukulele. In the case there were a few crumpled sheet music pages, a few short pencils, and a notebook. He scanned the sheet music. None were songs he knew, at least not as far as he could remember. The notebook was empty. Clancy replaced the notebook, sheet music, and pencils to the case, then returned his attention to the ukulele.
He spent a few moments examining it by the light of day. It was, a small logical part of him realized, in better condition than to be expected. He strummed it slowly, listening to the discordant notes.
Clancy made a thoughtful noise, then twisted one of the tuning pegs, then strummed it again.
He continued like this until the ukulele sounded–if not good–at least tolerable.
He strummed it a few times, then paused, sorting through what few memories pooled like multicolored ink in his mind, before seizing on a song from another life.
“Oh Ms. Believer, my pretty sleeper,” he sang. “Your twisted mind is like snow on the road…”
+++
Clancy continued onwards like this, across forests and fields. Sometimes he played the ukulele while walking or while perched on a log. Sometimes he would climb trees. Sometimes he would lie on his back in the middle of the fields and watch the sky.
But all the while, he sang.
Songs he made up. Songs he hadn't.
He didn't pay much attention to what they meant, simply stringing together words and phrases, drowning out the whispers of the shadows that came out when the sun set.
“How much longer will you keep going like this?” The shadow asked from the shade of the trees.
“Forever, maybe,” Clancy said, trying out some new chords on his ukulele.
“You are tired and hurt.”
“I am not tired,” Clancy said, glancing up at the clear sky. “And there is nothing that can hurt me.” His fingers stilled on the ukulele strings, a half formed thought–a washed out fragment of a memory–tugging at his mind. “At least, not anymore,” he whispered.
“There will be,” the shadow told him.
Clancy shrugged, putting away his ukulele. “I will keep going, anyway.”
“What is the point?”
Clancy didn’t answer.
That night, the shadows were louder, a buzz in the corners of his mind, hungry fingers stretching out as the last of the sunset faded.
He pulled his jacket tighter with a shiver.
I can feel the pull begin. Feel my conscience wearing thin.
He could. The edges of his vision were fraying, and he could feel threads, tying him to the world, grow thinner as the sun set.
And my skin, it will start, to break up and fall apart.
He looked at his hands.
His hands were too pale, faded, and stained with black, like ink under his fingernails.
Clancy stood stiffly.
He didn’t want to fall away.
He didn’t want to leave.
“I don’t wanna fall, fall away,” Clancy said, above the hum of the shadows.
“I don’t wanna fall, fall away,” he sang, setting off through the woods again.
“I’ll keep the lights on in this place.” Clancy wished he had a light. Something to cast the shadows out.
You’re gone, they told him, they all told him.
You’re gone, the very same blurry shadow that had cordially asked his name in the graveyard whispered in his ear.
“Cause I don’t wanna fall, fall away!” Clancy raised his voice, turning his face from the shadows and quickening his pace.
“La da da da da!”
You think your songs can do anything?
Clancy ignored the shadow.
“I disguise and I will lie, and I will take my precious time.” Clancy must have known this song, once.
He’d written it, he thought, ducking under the silhouette of a branch.
“As the days melt away, as I stand in line, and I die as I wait, as I wait on my crime
And I'll try to delay what you make of my life
But I don't want your way, I want mine
I'm dying and I'm trying, but believe me, I'm fine
But I'm lying, I'm so very far from fine…”
Someone was chasing him now, rustling through the bushes behind him.
Clancy burst into a run, heedless of the dark and the trees.
You cannot escape the inevitable.
Clancy’s foot caught on a root hidden under the leaves, and he went down hard, half catching himself. He scrambled to his feet, risking a glance over his shoulder.
Red eyes, gleaming in the dark, pinning him down like a rabbit, inspiring him to run.
His mouth was dry, and his heart was pounding.
Still, he sang as he ran.
“And I, I can feel the pull begin,” he gasped, tripping again, staggering into a tree.
“I feel my conscience wearing thin.”
Hands, reaching from the trees, to drag him into the shadows, to become a shadow. Red eyes, flickering to life in the darkness, exposing his flaws, seeing his memories, the ones he’d forgotten.
“And my skin, it will start
To break up and fall apart…”
Clancy burst out of the trees, and tripped over the edge where the asphalt met gravel.
Brakes screeched, and a car door slammed open.
Clancy pushed himself up, squinting into the glare of the headlights as footsteps approached him.
“Hey, kid, are you alright?”