Chapter Text
It started with his eyes.
Predictably
He launched into a series of mild expletives as he nearly knocked the glasses off his face in his rush to rub at his streaming eyes. It must have been a fleck of dust or some ash getting flung into his face from one of the older files, he thought. Unlucky, sure, annoying, definitely, but that was all.
But in both his eyes at once?
He stopped rubbing his eyes, and his fingers came away wet with tears. It had helped, though; the pain had finally become less severe. He dabbed at the salty tears with a handkerchief and grabbed for his glasses, ready to get back to work. And then he froze.
He’d noticed… something. He didn’t know what it was. But he knew it was something.
He squinted around the room, trying to figure out what, exactly, was different. Did the lights look… brighter, somehow? They did seem to be shining into corners that had previously been in shadow; at least, he had definitely not noticed those cobwebs being there before.
He forced himself to stand up and examine the cobwebs. He still felt like someone had stabbed his eyes with hot needles, but he needed to take a look at the things. Keeping his distance, he peered at them. The silvery threads seemed to be uninhabited. That, at least, was good. With a sigh, he resolved to simply stay away from them, and politely inform the cleaning staff later.
What was he doing?
He glanced back towards his desk, where his glasses lay, abandoned, on top of an open folder. In the stillness of the basement, he could hear the slight whirring of the tape recorder as it rewound a tape. The sound jogged his memory. Right, statement. He walked back and glanced over the words scrawled on the form in squiggly, almost unreadable lines.
His mind was foggy, as if focusing on the pain in his eyes had managed to derail every other train of thought. He tried to focus. Let’s see- Amsterdam, John, money, flat, architecture, coffin…
Familiarity buzzed, and he let out a sigh of relief. He knew this one- the cursed coffin that would moan during rainstorms. He’d just finished recording it. He lifted the page, looking it over one more time just to be sure. As he did, his hand automatically strayed to his nose, finger reaching to adjust his glasses.
He froze. There was nothing there.
He wasn’t wearing his glasses. He’d knocked them off earlier and… never picked them back up. Indeed, there they were, still sitting on the desk. Upside down and half folded. Heart rate beginning to increase, he looked back at the page, trying to read the words; and found that he could.
What?
His gaze spun around the office, settling randomly on the pile of thick folders that lay on the furthest bookshelf. He could read the obscure numbers on the spine - said numbers being a testament to Gertrude’s… questionable cataloguing system.
He could read them. From at least nine feet away.
Ice cold shivers running down his spine, he grabbed for his glasses. (He neither noticed nor cared that the statement in his hands fluttered to the ground.) His hand met his glasses, and, trembling slightly, he put them on.
The world was instantly distorted by a thick blur.
What?
He removed his glasses. Clear borders, sharp colours, lights. He put them back on. Indistinct shapes, blurry, muted colours.
Slowly, he set them back down on the table, vaguely aware his hands were shaking.
That’s a thing? It’s a thing that can happen? No, of course it can’t happen. Who even ever heard of this ever happening?
His heart beat faster and faster. It felt as though the room was spinning.
He forced himself to breathe. Close his eyes, inhale slowly. The- the burning feeling hadn’t faded, maybe the thin layer of tears provided by his overworking tear ducts were acting as a sort of lens, temporarily providing him with decent vision? Yes, yes, that was it. That had to be it. Drying his cheeks again and blinking, he tried to convince himself there was a chance it was true.
Nope, no change. Things in the room were just as clear as before. Which meant that other things were far less clear.
He bit back a scream of frustration, as that would’ve alerted his coworkers in the next room over. And, well, being seen, like this? That would be highly unprofessional. Like this? Shaken, crying, confused.
Afraid?
Definitely unprofessional. And Jonathan Sims was nothing if not professional.
He grit his teeth. He would not be seen like this. Which meant that he needed to collect himself. And so, with a huff and new priority, he headed out of his office towards the dingy staff bathroom in the far corner of the archive - the one where the motion sensor that was supposed to turn on the light never quite worked right. He could hear the muffled voices of his assistants as he walked past their office door. Reminding himself to tell them, advise them, not to chat during work hours, he made a beeline for the bathroom.
As usual, when he entered, the light didn’t turn on.
Muttering a mild curse under his breath, he attempted once more to wave his hand in front of the motion sensor. Still nothing. Abandoning the futile task, he resolved to simply leave the door slightly ajar so the light from the hallway would trickle in.
He turned on the faucet, splashing cold water onto his face. The solace was welcome, but brief. Absent-mindedly, he plugged the sink with the stopper and let it fill with icy water. Once it had reached a reasonable level, he grabbed the sink with both hands and, taking a deep breath, submerged his face under it.
Bliss.
He opened his eyes to the dark and cold water, letting it wash away the pain, relishing the relief it brought his aching eyes. He could feel the water spilling over the sink edge, trickling on the floor, but couldn’t bring himself to care. The soothing darkness was only disturbed by a dim greenish light illuminating the bottom of the sink.
He frowned. Green?
Feeling his lungs starting to protest, he straightened up and took a deep breath. Water dripping from his hair and chin, he looked around in confusion. The light from the corridor was the same white light as usual, and the bathroom light stubbornly refused to work - also as usual.
The pain in his eyeballs had finally faded. It was still present, but it had reduced to a mild nuisance when compared to the burning agony from earlier. Relieved, he finally faced his reflection… and found himself staring at two bright green lights.
His eyes, previously, all his life, a dull brown colour, were looking back at him from his reflection, a vivid, unnatural green. The surrounding sclera was dark, inky black.
Wrong.
Wrong.
He stared.
He screamed.
He slipped.
The back of his head slammed against the floor in an explosion of pain.
He heard a door slamming open, voices, steps.
And then he heard nothing else.
The recorder in his office stopped, having finished rewinding the tape.