Chapter Text
"Michael?"
That was it. The face he could never forget. The way she looked at him as he emerged, unsure what she was seeing as his emotions overwhelmed him, the spiral burying itself deep into his mind. He felt something roll down his face (faces?), either blood or tears or both or something completely new, he didn't check, neither of him did.
He glanced at himself and saw himself staring back.
"Yes?"
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The archives had gathered dust already. It hadn't been that long since it had been left, only a few days, but the dust still gathered in every corner of the room, covering each surface in a thin layer of grime. It already looked so different than it had before. Enough that the figure, spiralling through the stack of dusty files, barely recognised it as their hands brushing over piles of statements and approaching one of the tape recorders that always hunched over in the darkest corners, excitedly recording every word. In their spindly hands, they clutched the envelope, the letter already alight in one of the waste paper bins.
How strangely familiar.
With a grin, they released the envelope, letting it slowly spiral down towards the reaching flames, catching light before it hit the bottom, both letter and flame going up in a roar of light and desolation. The harsh light made the sickly yellow shadows glow with a deeper darkness, filled with stringy webs and spiders who eyes seemed a little too focused, each lonely fly trapped there completely still, waiting for the hunter to approach and end it all.
Jon glanced around nervously as he entered the vast room, eyes immediately settling on the stranger, bent over the waste paper bin, looking down on what looked suspiciously like ashes. He choose not to ask.
The figure looked up at him, shining blue eyes filled with a swirling, spiralling kaleidoscope of pure colour, spinning around and around and around until it all seemed to fold into the hypnotising pupil, barely visible in the light, faded like a picture, left out in the sun until all that remains is the memory of what should have remained. The person unfolded themselves, limbs bending and curving as the person rose to their full height, towering over Jon.
All, all at once, the figure slumped, colour draining from them, leaving a tall, smartly dressed man, long, curly blond hair falling over his shoulders in cascades. The inhuman figure Jon had seen, vanishing in a second as the man slowly approached him, limbs bending like normal, eyes a normal, plain blue.
"Y-You must be Jon." He stood before Jon, smiling weakly down at him, looking strangely apologetic. He looked up at them and nodded slowly. Up close, the figures eyes still looked like they were moving, like the irises were folding in ad in and in, continually replaced by a deep blue that didn't quite match. They smiled, teeth the colour of storm clouds. They held out their pale hand. "I'm Michael Shelley. Um, welcome to the archives? Uh, the other haven't arrived yet, or I haven't seen them at least, but, um, but I'm sure they'll be here soon."
Michael watched Jon carefully as he looked around the room, seeing his eyes, filled with scepticism, scanning everything with an air of uncaring. Yet, Michael could still feel the mark of the web practically shining out of him. He chose to ignore it, plenty of people were still sceptics, eve after encounters with the supernatural, though very few of them ended up working at the Magnus archives. Either way, he shouldn't judge. Jon must have his reasons, right?
Either way, he didn't like how he could feel the eye's gaze on him constantly as he sat down and started to get to work, grabbing one of the statement and starting to do whatever follow up he could do, though it didn't matter too much. The statement was clearly false- not someone who though they saw something but didn't, but someone who just made their story up- lied to the institute.
Michael was never sure how to feel about those statements.
He looked over and noticed Jon staring at him. He paused his work as he remembered that Jon had never been told what he was supposed to be doing. He was expecting Michael to give him instructions.
"Oh, uh, yeah, right, um. I'll do follow up on this statement and, uh, you then, uh, read it? Record it? S-sorry, I never really paid attention to what Gertrude did a-and she left a lot anyway so, uh, yeah." Jon continued staring for a moment before nodded and turning away, which didn't help Michael's growing unease as much as he thought it would, the eye's gaze was still firmly planted on him.
"Is this my office?"
"Huh? Oh, yes, it is. That room there is, uh, document storage. I think Gertrude kept a camp bed in there too? S-sometimes she stayed overnight."
Seeing that door, opened again sent a pang through Michael. How long had it been since he saw Gertrude sat in there? Longer than he'd like to admit. After... everything that had happened, he had started avoiding the archives, and her in particular. She had probably been doing the same, he wasn't sure. The last time he had seen her was when it all happened, when she had that look on her face.
One by one, the other all arrived, all either early or on time. Michael had arrived as early a he could, he had wanted some time alone there before, well, before everything started up again, just as it had done before.
He knew now, there was no avoiding it. No avoiding anything.
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The colours were so bright, so bright and beautiful, so gruesome and dull and Michael couldn't tear his eyes away from them as he watched the people walk past his door, none of them giving it a second glance.
In the back of the front of his mind, he could feel a pushing pull that he recognised as the constant, gentle, ebbing, forceful tapping of his other self's cacophony of emotionless emotions. His silent laugh could be heard echoing over the quiet of the busy street, filled with people talking and cars slowly zipping past the chattering figures who looked up at the tiny, towering man, their eyes still fixed on their dark phones and the swirling street before them, ignoring the sound they didn't hear.
Then, Michael's eyes fixed on a multitude of a single figure, his unfocused eyes gliding over them, as they were unaware of the bright, shining, dull figure that followed him from its spot, unmoving. They spotted the door, hidden from sight, in the empty space right before them. The door clicked as it remained closed, letting the figure step inside as they continued down the street, walking past the door that they never hadn't seen.
Michael smiled as a frown crossed his face, his safe victim walking down the endless corridors and round the corner onto a bigger street, passing a abandoned shop, it's sky blue orange doors opening as a customer left, arms filled with the nothing they bought from the pale navy blue shop.
And Michael feasted.
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Back at the archives, Michael resisted the urge to throw up as he felt the, unfortunately, familiar sensation of the distortion feeding. He held his hands out, almost expecting to see blood and, for a second, he did, until it cleared and the image of the blood covered corridors vanished. Martin glanced over, noticing his sudden panic, but Michael was too focused on the sensation of that life ending, clutched in his blade like hands.
He balled his hands into fists, feeling his short, soft, human fingers pushing into his palm. He took a deep breath and focused on the file before him, pushing the spiral out of his mind, or, rather, back into its corner of his mind the one he could never force it out of.
Not that he wanted to try too hard.
"Hey, Michael?" Martin had put his work down and slowly approached Michael, concern etched on his face. "Are you okay? You look, uh, worried?"
Michael's head shot up, his eyes dug into Martin's, briefly glowing with blinding colour, before turning back to blue as his shoulders slumped. "Uh, um, yes, I'm fine? This statement it, uh, just remined me of, um, something?" It wasn't entirely false. He was reading a statement that reminded him a little too much of the spiral, though he knew the whole story was false, the details seemed a little to familiar at times.
No one seemed to react to that, or, not the way you'd expect anyway. It wasn't uncommon for people working at the institute to have had their own experiences with the supernatural, either before or during their time there, so no one was surprised.
"Oh, okay, I can make you some tea, if that would help?"
Michael smiled, and accepted, though the idea of drinking or eating anything at that moment disgusted him, reminded him too much of his other self. Yet, despite this, he took the tea and slowly tried to sip it, trying to ignore the metallic taste of blood. He gave up and put it down, looking back up at Martin and quietly thanking him.
"So, Michael," Sasha spotted the two talking and came over to them. "How long have you worked here, in the archives?"
"Uh," Michael took another sip of his tea, the taste of blood stronger than before. "I'm not sure? There's, uh, there's a lot of, things? Here? Well, uh, no there's, um, stuff that does, uh, things and, um...yeah... I don't know? Sorry."
Sasha glanced at Martin, who shrugged. Michael watched them then looked back down at his feet, hands still clutching his quickly cooling mug of tea he couldn't even bring himself to sip again.
"Okay then."