Work Text:
Rosie thought she knew what she signed up for when she joined the Magnus Institute, London. And for a while, she did. She was a receptionist and she did her job the best she could, greeted those who came and went from the Institute with a bright smile, even if their guests rarely even looked at her when they fled the building. She fielded complaints about Robinson and, later, Sims, and strung together her best bullshit excuses for why they acted as they did, and that the rest of the Institute was different, honestly. She scheduled appointments and spoke with new hires, and, over time, perfected her complimentary overview of the Institute.
Most of the time, the weird or possibly supernatural phenomena that plagued the other departments didn't even reach her little island of a front desk, and it was… remarkably easy to spend her days here. It certainly helped that the job paid better than any other receptionist position she'd applied for.
However, her near two decades of experience at the Institute never prepared her for this.
It starts with a blackout.
One moment she's on the phone with yet another concerned individual—context forgotten amidst the hundreds of callers just like this that she speaks to every day now. The next—the line is dead and her blackened computer screen shows her own surprised face, faint in the dim light from outside. Soon, even that disappears, a previously unnoticed storm bringing heavy cloud cover and howling winds and a distant cacophony of sound that grows louder by the second. For too long she struggles to make sense of the noise and then it hits her, all at once.
Screaming.
The world is screaming.
She is screaming, though she doesn't know when she started or how to stop or where she is or who she was and the air is so thin up here so hard to breathe with everything so close so full of terror—
Everything falls away.
The world continues. Sometimes she can barely remember what it used to be like, can't remember if there was ever a time when the wind didn't scream or the sky didn't look back at you, a time when fear wasn't as routine as hunger.
Other times, she wishes she never woke up after passing out, that awful day so long ago.
Rosie is having a bad day.
All the days now are bad, objectively, but she likes to be decisive with simple truths when she can, and her little truth, today, is that she is having a bad time.
The Institute is different now. Gone is the elegant Regency building, its four floors and basement and doors that never quite closed entirely, even after she called in people to fix it. It had been an impressive building, clinically white and nearly blinding in the sunlight, but it was shorter than the skyscrapers around it, less memorable than the colourful cafes nearby.
Now, the floor plan has changed into something large and open, no corners to hide behind, no doors to close and lock and sit in the dark where nothing can see you—
There are eyes everywhere. Some have stayed the same, holdovers from the old world, forms of being watched that she's used to. Security cameras, webcams, smartphones. Others are much more literal: the faint design on the wallpaper or the carpet that, if you look close enough, resolves itself into millions of eyes, unblinking but definitively alive. They follow her when she walks past, analysing and cataloguing her every movement, every involuntary muscle spasm. They do not judge, but it's still so hard to breathe when you know something is watching. How hard it is to swallow when you're aware of it, when you know that everyone is aware—
Hiding under her desk to hyperventilate doesn't actually hide her from the Watcher, but it takes her mind off it nonetheless. In those moments, all she is narrows down to her too quick breaths, the spinning sensation in her skull, tight and thick and dancing silver stars encroaching on her vision. Her eyes are open but she can barely see, can hardly comprehend the shifting colours before her, warped by the tears that will never fall.
She can't remember putting on makeup but she knows that it must be smeared to hell by now. She rubs her eyes and the heel of her palm comes away streaked with black, eyeliner or mascara or ink, layered over fainter shades from previous breakdowns. She takes a moment to breathe, remembering counts and techniques, all designed to calm a racing heart. She doesn't think anyone thought they would be used in this type of situation.
Rosie resettles, and gets back on her feet.
She has something of a schedule, even now, redesigned to fit into this nightmare. Most time spent at her desk, doing her work though she knows it's nothing now, it doesn't matter, the world outside this building and the lives trapped inside it don't work the same way and everything she's doing is pointless and meaningless—
What used to be her lunch back is now the time she spends curled up and sobbing, the only time during her day when she is blind, finally able to block her view of the horror she finds herself in.
After lunch, she returns to her desk, answers emails from other staff. Sometimes she walks around the building, speaks to the other employees (prisoners) in person. Trite little conversations that use a lot of words to say nothing, that help no one. It doesn't take long to return to the foyer, to her pride of place in Reception. She does not sleep, and the routine restarts.
Her desk faces the front doors of the Institute, which she used to love and hate in equal measure. Love, because she could watch the city move through its day, pedestrians and vehicles going by, each at the centre of their own stories. She could watch whatever piece of their life happened to play out in front of her own, and write her own backstory and dialogue to fill in the parts she didn't know. She could witness what sort of weather London decided to throw at them today, safely inside and away from any damaging conditions.
She hated it for all of those same reasons; kept away from the bustling and lively world outside, away from the warm sunlight and refreshing rain. She was cursed to simply watch, trapped behind glass and brick, a silent observer until, and only until, someone dared to step foot inside and ask her for directions to whichever part of the Institute they were headed. And then they were gone again, and she was left behind.
Her desk is still facing the street, but she tries not to look outside. Not that it really matters, in this new state of existence.
On the side of her computer screen there are twenty or more small video feeds, all showing a different horrible scene. Darkened streets with views into all the flats, the writhing shadows and terrified children. Dense forests, creatures and what might have once been people stalking through the underbrush, jumping at every rustling leaf. Battlefields awash with blood and gore and frenzied carnage. A theatre house full of audiences that laugh while their eyes scream for mercy, who want to but can not leave any more than the actors strung about the stage can. There are a dozen more nightmares to see, and the images change every time she finds her eyes drawn back to those tiny squares. They are always different, and there are infinite more to come.
At first, she tried to convince herself that they were movies, fakes filmed in studios and edited to look appallingly real, too horrible to be anything else, but of course they weren't—
But of course they are. She knows the truth, as much as she wishes she didn't. These horrors are real. They are the last real thing.
The videos on the screen are at least generally easy to ignore. They're small and off to the side, and if she just looks at whatever program or website she's working on, she can pretend they aren't even there. The same can not be said for the skylight that has replaced the ceiling, the Eye of the Watcher that sees all, the multitude of printed or painted or drawn eyes that look into every single possible space in the Institute. The TV monitors bolted to every wall, above their heads and perfectly placed to draw your gaze, wherever you may look. The horrors from her computer screen are there, too, larger and more vibrant, crystal clear. She feels as if she can reach out and touch everything they show, as if there is nothing between her and them.
Rosie wants to leave. But she wants to be out in that nightmare of a world even less, and at this point she Knows those are her only two options. Stay in here, forced to watch all the horrors this apocalypse has to offer; or be out there, experiencing it all first hand.
She doesn't even know if she has a choice, to pick one or the other. She thinks she might have already made it, all those years ago when she signed the paperwork and gave her life to the Institute.
She doesn't know if she would choose differently even if she could.
Very occasionally, though she doesn't know how long it is between messages because time no longer exists, there is a message from Elias, or James, or Richard, or Jonah. The only difference between these emails is the name signed at the bottom. The contents are always similar. Comments on her work or the behaviour of the staff, requests or tasks that she's to complete at her earliest convenience. Always ending on the same simple note.
Good work.
Rosie doesn't want to work anymore. She wants to go home.
But she Knows, just as well as everyone Knows, that she has no other home. There is no other place she can go.
And so she stays, and tries not to drink in the sight of the world in ruins like a woman desperate for water. She stays, and she fails.