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The world was nothing but shadow, cloying, choking, almost tangible.
He fought and struggled and bit, lashing out with sharp claws and tearing with barbed suckers. He rent flesh and metal and bone and carapace and things he could not identify, and his fabric was torn in return. The forever darkness beat down on them all.
Through it all he was distantly aware of his tether, that point of non-space that chained him here, and he could not tell if he loved or hated it for its reminder that this was not all that there had ever been.
Then something changed. There was the faintest warmth from that non-space, an impossibly far-away star impossibly glowing just a little, the almost-impression of a hand on unfeeling leather. It was almost like hope.
He reached for it with all his might, crooned his siren-song of yes yes yes free me I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted your wildest dreams can be yours just let me out let me out LET ME OUT!
And then suddenly he could feel a rushing interdimensional wind and he was being lifted, yanked upwards, away from the chaos and blood and the eternal black pit, up and out and into the blinding sun!
There were a pair of bitter but inquisitive eyes and a set of long, delicate fingers and then he was pouring himself into those eyes and into those fingers, taking them for his own. Yellow electricity surged forth, twisting maddening fractals up nerves and muscles and bones, claiming this new territory. It was his now.
There was another presence here, a bright and fluttering thing like a moth, but it was nothing compared to him. He shoved it back, snapped its wings, caged it in tentacles and shattered masks that closed tighter and tighter around it. Soon it would be snuffed out altogether. He tore pieces from it, stealing pictures and words to apply to the world around him.
He had arms and legs now, fingers and toes. He could hear, smell, touch, taste and ohhhh he could see. He was nearly ecstatic as he watched the book that had so long been his prison hit the floor in satisfying unison with that loud, weighty thump!
There was a creak of floorboards behind him (another wonderful sound, rich and brown) and he turned to see a man—tall, broad, short black hair, dark eyes—behind him. The man was looking at him with curiosity and vague confusion.
The entity wanted that expression to change. He wanted to watch it twist in terror, in pain, in ecstasy, in worship, just to prove that the entity was here, was real, was alive and could have a tangible effect on the world. His mere presence didn’t seem to be eliciting any of those results, so his new arm shot out and gripped the man by the throat.
The man’s face did indeed turn to comic shock and horror then, and he scrabbled for freedom but the strength the entity brought to this vessel was too much for him. He managed to wheeze out a panicked, “Arthur!” with the last of his breath.
…Something in the back of the entity’s mind snapped. He turned his attention to it in confusion and beheld that other presence, the dwindling spark of this body’s previous occupant, suddenly rekindled into a blaze. It burned through its cage in an inferno of grief and rage and determination and didn’t stop there, spreading further and faster. It took every hit he gave it and came back brighter, hotter, not a moth, but a phoenix.
The entity was abruptly losing control, walls of fire piercing through his tendrils and cutting off his access. They closed in on him, constraining, squashing him down, trapping him just as he’d gotten his first taste of freedom.
He watched as his arm let go and the man it had held crumpled, dead, to the floor. A split second later, he was locked within a tiny cage behind the vessel’s eyes. He could do nothing except watch.
The vessel collapsed as well, slumping down to half-sit, half-lie on the floor. The entity didn’t think it was conscious. He wasn’t sure its take-over had been a conscious battle either. Just what kind of human being had the entity attempted to possess?
The entity must have botched it somehow. He shouldn’t have gotten distracted and killed the man until he was sure the vessel’s consciousness was entirely dead.
He’d done a good amount of damage, that was for sure. The mind around him was patchy and in disarray. The human would suffer some memory loss for sure. But it was slowly starting to piece itself back together again. Humans. Ridiculously durable creatures.
What the hell was he meant to do now?! He couldn’t just ride around inside a human’s head watching its pitiful life, he was a (monarch) (king) (god), not some mortal movie-goer! …Hmm, he’d definitely pulled that analogy from the human’s memories, he wasn’t even sure what that meant.
The vessel’s eyes still hadn’t closed, and the entity could see most of the room. An office, his stolen words provided, with desks and bookshelves and a coatrack. There was another piece of clunky furniture in the corner and after a moment the word ‘piano’ came to him. Apparently, he’d also picked up whatever tongue was spoken here, as he could read the words “Arthur Lester and Peter Yang, Private Investigative Services,” written on the open door.
Hmm, open door, freshly murdered corpse on the floor. That…was probably going to be a problem. He doubted that this human—Arthur, probably, from the door and what the other man had cried out—had the credentials to murder people without heavy questioning. Of course, the entity couldn’t do anything to fix it, considering he’d fucking lost control of this body!
A stirring returned to the mind around him, and he forced himself to calm down. He was a (monarch) (king) (god), a…something, and it wouldn’t do to show weakness to this human. He was already in far too weak a position here. He needed to leverage any power he had, which in this instance would be his further knowledge of the situation.
The human gasped himself awake. “Where am I? What’s happened?” he exclaimed, and the entity’s field of vison jerked around nauseatingly as he tried to look around and stand up.
The entity barely stopped himself from snapping at the human to not do that. “Don’t you remember?” he asked instead in his smoothest, most friendly tones.
The human—Arthur—recoiled at his voice and the entity’s vison jolted around some more. If he’d had his rightful stomach, he would have thrown up. “Who are you?”
That…was a question the entity didn’t want to think about. Luckily, he didn’t need to answer it truthfully. “Who am I? I’m a friend. The best friend you have right now… the only friend you have right now,” he added, side eyeing where probably-Peter Yang’s corpse lay.
“What happened? Why can’t I see anything?” Arthur asked, and the entity couldn’t help but laugh a little. He deserved to enjoy the one thing Arthur hadn’t managed to wrest back from him.
“I know.”
“What do you mean ‘you know’, who are you?!” Arthur demanded. He seemed to be on the verge of panicking. That was fun, but unhelpful.
“Relax, take a deep breath, relax.”
“I can’t - I can’t… I don’t remember who I am, or where I am, or what’s happened, and I can’t see anything…”
“Calm down, friend. I’ll tell you everything you need to know, okay?”
“Ok-Okay.”
Good. This would go a lot smoother if Arthur let the entity control the flow of information. The possession fuck up was definitely on the entity’s end, this human was a real idiot. The entity absently gave Arthur a brief overview of their surroundings to make him feel a little safer while he figured out what to do next. His gaze landed on the dropped tome still lying by Arthur’s feet.
He knew it was what had trapped him, but no more than that. Perhaps it was a full-on spell book, perhaps he could use it to free himself from this mortal. He just had to get Arthur to help him look at it. Wonderful, not degrading at all.
He told the human, “Reach down by your feet.”
“What am I reaching for?”
“Something you dropped.”
“Alright… I feel, um…I feel a book.”
“Yes. Pick it up.”
Arthur then asked a phenomenally stupid question about what the book was, and the entity responded with unfunny deadpan snark, as was his right as a being who was having a very trying day. Arthur didn’t even get the joke.
It took far too much effort to get Arthur to do the very simple task of walking to the desk to look at the book, and then of course he tripped over Peter’s body, realized what it was and started panicking again.
The entity may have lost his temper a little bit. “Arthur! Listen to me! I have your eyes now so you’re gonna shut the fuck up and listen to me. Walk to the desk. Put the book down.” That finally scared the human into shutting his trap for once.
Arthur’s long fingers clumsily flipped the book’s pages. The entity told him to stop as he spotted something that seemed maybe relevant, but as soon as he focused on the words too hard, they began to pull and yank at the corners of his being, threatening to send him right back to that accursed hell. Arthur obediently slammed the tome shut at his yell.
The book would be no help at all if he couldn’t even read it safely.
Arthur still had far too many questions and the entity answered them as best as he could. The human needed the reality of them being bound together to be spelled out for him apparently. And of course he couldn’t let go of the big question: “What are you?”
The entity laughed and evaded it smoothly, turning the question back on Arthur. He also avoided the topic of what had happened to Peter. Arthur would likely become much more argumentative if he realized he was talking to the murderer of his partner. Time to get that problem out of sight and out of mind. “Arthur. Question and answer period is over, did you not hear me? The door is open,” he barked.
“And?”
“And your partner is lying dead in the middle of the floor. You need to move him before some passersby looks in.” The human held himself together long enough to get the door closed, despite smacking into the piano on the way. Then the full panic attack set in.
The entity tried to wait for him to get over it already, but the silence seemed to make him even more anxious that his only guide might have vanished. Probably good that he was already so reliant on the entity. He did need Arthur to calm the fuck down, though. “Looks like someone plays the piano, maybe it’s you.”
“What? You want me to...?”
“Stop asking what and just listen to what I’m saying. Sit down at that piano you bumped into and play something.”
“But Peter…” Arthur protested.
“Isn’t going anywhere. The door is shut. I shouldn’t have alarmed you so.” He paused. “You’re a tender soul, friend; I shouldn’t have put such a fire beneath you. Now head over to that piano for me. There. Just put your fingers on the keys. Play something that comes to mind, anything.”
For all the entity knew, the piano was Peter’s and Arthur had never laid hands on it in his life. Also, Arthur was scattered, panicking, suffering memory loss, and newly blind. He wasn’t expecting much more than a few random notes.
But Arthur began to play with hardly a second of hesitation. His fingertips softly moved across the ivory, calling forth a slow and yearning lullaby, like snowflakes and droplets of water and shimmering purple glass. He didn’t make a single mistake or misstep, like the keys were color-coded and visible to his unseeing mind, notes dancing up and down the scale.
The entity was…surprised. It was beautiful.
After an eternity and far too short, the melody faded away to nothing. “Well. Now look at that. And don’t you feel a whole lot better too?” the entity asked.
“A little bit, yes. I, um... I also remember things.”
Oh? The mind around him did feel firmer now, more put together. Had the song somehow anchored him, reminded him who he was?
“I remember opening that book. I remember hearing a voice, and I remember turning to Peter… and...”
This could be bad. The entity intervened, saying as seriously as possible, “And you remember killing him.”
“It was an accident,” Arthur said desperately.
Wait, what? Humans were suggestable, but he was really accepting the lie that easily? His body had quite obviously been moving without his input when the deed was done. Perhaps he had a predisposition to doubt his own memory. Still, couldn’t hurt to reinforce the notion. “Of course it was. I was there. I saw the whole thing, but that doesn’t change the fact that you killed Peter. And if somebody finds out that it was you, you and me will be going away for a long time. So. What do we have to do first, Arthur?”
“First, we need to... well, if we call the police, then…"
“Then you’ll need a world record silver tongue,” the entity sighed. He could convince them, of course, but Arthur certainly couldn’t.
“Why? Why can’t I just—"
“Explain that something is controlling your sight? Do you understand what that would mean to these people?”
“Right.”
It really wasn’t that hard, Arthur. “Think. There is a solution, albeit temporary.”
“We need to get rid of the body,” Arthur realized with a firmness that the entity had yet to see from him. Finally.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Arthur jumped. The entity totally didn’t mentally flinch. “Arthur, it’s okay. Relax. We’re in this together. Do you remember anything else?”
“I remember... Peter, um... was my best friend and—”
The entity rolled his eyes. Now was not the time. “About who might be here.” Whoever was out there was still knocking…
“Right, um. No, uh… maybe, yes. Yes, there was an appointment and a widower, um... Mrs... um... Um.”
Damnit, they didn’t have time for this! “There’s a closet in the corner. Is it empty?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“You’re gonna have to move Peter in there.”