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It was night when he first met it.
He had been stumbling, drunk, in what he thought was the general direction of the motel he was staying in at the moment. The night was milky with fog; his boots rubbed against the the gravel with a satisfying crunching sound. Loud, rambunctious singing of the more companionable drunks carried, quietly, from the bar she had left into her ears.
Italy was nice, and so was burning certain books, and Gerry had thought they might try doing the latter while staying in the former. The Leitner they’d been chasing belonged to the Stranger: each page a torn, cut-off skin of the face of its previous owner. Now, the only powers that could hope to have any claim over its scorched pages were, perhaps, the Desolation, and maybe the End, if you squinted hard enough while looking at them. Gerry had destroyed the wretched thing quite thoroughly.
As soon as he had finished with the book, he decided he deserved a fucking break from it all… and had rightfully gotten marvelously, royally pissed in the nearest bar he could find. It worked in their favor, so far; the booze drowned out most of the unpleasant memories which popped up during the encounter, and god — the Beholding? the Entities? — divine-fucking-something knew they needed it at the moment. Pages made of skin struck… quite the dissonant chord in their mind. More importantly, though, it meant that he didn’t have to look into any mirrors, and if he did catch his reflection accidentally, he could write the sheer wrongness of the sight off as the doings of his drunken mind. Leitners tended to leave an imprint like that on a person’s psyche.
So there Gerry was, dragging their feet towards (they guessed) their dingy room in the motel. The night surrounded them in a damp blanket of mist — not even the Lonely sort, either, but rather the warm, uncomfortable, evening-by-the-seaside-in-extreme-heat kind, which Gerry didn’t mind half as much as they did the former sort, even in their leathers. She didn’t even feel like she was going to throw up. All in all, it was shaping to be a pretty good night.
And then. And then. This fucking thing, with its sharp, twisted hands and its eerie laugh and its rolling waves of blonde — and was that really blonde? Was it not polka-dot-purple laced through with stripes of static? — hair, appearing out of nowhere with just a creak of a door he couldn’t see, and asking him… well, he didn’t quite register that , but he was sure it had asked him something.
What he did register was the enormous height of the thing, stretched out and rail-thin in its striped jumper and furry pants. A ridiculous thought, consisting of, How is it not overheating? It’s the middle of the summer, crossed Gerry’s mind. He also registered the impossible curve of its face, which went together with its too-wide smile, which seemed to scream, “I am a normal smile! Trust me! Believe me! I certainly do not belong to a being that will most definitely devour you and have your loved ones for dessert!”
As she stood there, registering — or, if put more accurately, gaping — the creature spoke again.
“I’m- I’m sorry, what?” Gerry spluttered, finally snapping out of their daze. The person — and he was almost certain now that it was a human person, with long blond curls, a cherubic face, and an absolutely darling smile (Gerry frowned at the thought), and wearing the most inappropriate clothes for the weather — giggled and shook their head.
“I was asking if you had a light,” it — they , Gerry corrected himself, I can’t go around calling people ‘it’, — said. “I thought I’d try a trick I picked up from an acquaintance,” they drawled, “but clearly it didn’t work. Ah, well. I suppose I shall just have to stick with methods tried and true.” They giggled again, the sound bouncing around Gerry’s head as if its walls were a bouncy castle and his senses had just decided to throw a party for a threescore of seven-year-olds.
“I, uh, what?” He croaked, smartly. The person — the creature — the very-human-person raised their eyebrows and hummed.
“Nothing,” they clicked their tongue at her. Gerry was sure she was no expert, but she had always thought that tongues were supposed to be short enough to fit into a human mouth, or a second one. Oh, well. You learned new things every day, in his profession, you did. “Would you like to come in?”
They gestured with their screamingly-normal hand toward a door that Gerry could swear hadn’t been there before- wait, no. That wasn’t right. The door had always been there, how had they not noticed it? It was mustard yellow, stark against the grey brick wall. What was there not to notice? Now, the door was the only thing Gerry could focus on, bright and inviting.
“You are welcome here,” the creature murmured. Its voice was a breath against Gerry’s ear, completely ignorant of the fact that it was standing several meters away from the goth — wait, ‘it’!? Not again, Gerry moaned at herself. Maybe it wasn’t even a ‘they’, he mused. Maybe it was a distinguished all-pronoun user such as herself.
“Uh, shit, sorry,” he forced himself to speak, rather than simply run towards the very inviting door, as he very much wanted to do — because it was a polite thing to ask for pronouns and he was going to get better at other people’s genders if he was going to hoard so many of his own, “what pronouns do you use? I can’t decide what to refer to you as,” he gestured vaguely at his head, “you know, in here.”
The creature had the audacity to look surprised. Yeah, Gerry was making an effort to interact with a possibly cis person, was that a fucking problem!? He clenched his fists in a way he supposed would be threatening. Wait, no, she thought distantly, you can’t do that if you want them to tell you anything…
“You may refer to me as an it,” it said, and copied his motion with its long-fingered, terrifyingly normal hand, “in here.”
The door behind it seemed all the more inviting. Gerry forced her eyes away from the spiraling brass handle, instead pumping her fist in the air.
“Fuck, yeah! I guessed it right the first time, I’ll have you know,” she told the creature proudly, whose smile widened and its eyes widened and its eyebrows widened in gleeful surprise.
“Really,” it drawled. “If I may know, why is it so important to you to refer to me as anything at all, in your mind?”
Gerry frowned. He hadn’t thought about it much, but you had to call people something, even if it was in the confines of your own head, didn’t you? Otherwise no-one would be anything and they would all fall to the Stranger, no Unknowing required.
Which reminded him… the creature was hazy at the edges, swirling and wavering. They hadn’t even noticed when it had stopped being so, but now it was oozing unreality with full force, just as it had before. And Gerry hadn’t noticed… how the hell did they not notice? This was what he got for getting drunk post-Leitnerlysis.
“Hey,” he said, carefully sneaking a glance down to its so-very-normal, sharp, swollen fingers that were twitching predatorily and could probably slice through his skin like a knife through butter, peeling his skin — his face? — off in one swift motion, “you aren’t with those, hah, Stranger guys, are you?”
Well done, Gerry, she thought as a wave of regret with bits of hatred for her own ineptitude washed over her. Such a smart thing to say. This won’t get you maimed at all, it’s not like you just confessed to knowing of the monster’s patron! In Gerry’s experience, the less ignorant ones died the fastest. You might hope to toy with somebody who has no knowledge of what is happening to them, but if the meat on your pan knew exactly how you were planning to cook it, it tended to ruin all the fun. Which should have been a relief, on some level: to know that she would die, if not painlessly, then at least quickly; but she wasn’t feeling particularly suicidal today, so it wasn’t.
The monster chuckled a jingling, drawling chuckle. “No, no,” it said, shaking its head slowly, and its luxurious curls with it, “you misunderstand. I am not with the I Do Not Know You, but I will give you one more guess to get it right.”
Gerry’s breath hitched, his senses finally catching up to his mind to remind him that he was in the presence of a predator. What he heard was, I will give you one more guess to get it right, and then I will eat you. His hands took upon a tremor.
“I, um,” he swallowed, trying his best to rapidly assess the situation — so overdue, Keay — and figure out just which entity the monster before him belonged to. It was certainly messing with his mind somehow, otherwise he would already be feeling much more sober — what with all the fear. So, not the Flesh, or the Desolation, or any of the more… physical ones. On the other hand, they were feeling very much like prey in the moment, so maybe it was with the Hunt? And its hands were knives, so- wait a minute.
They were walking right into its trap by playing its game. Assuming there was a trap, and that the door wasn’t exactly that, of course. They’d have to be a little smarter than that, come on, Keay. The monster wanted them to figure out what exactly it was, right? What could it be gaining from that? Nothing but the entertainment of watching him squirm, and unless it didn’t know, itself — which, he found to be extremely unlikely — the entertainment would be very short-lived. With all the confusion and the mind-fucking and the unreality, the monster before her was an obvious creature of the Spiral. Not that she’d tell it that. Not when it could buy her a couple more seconds of the good old livin’ and breathin’.
One more guess, and then you get eaten. He’d have to provide a bit of fun for the thing, and then it would devour him, hopefully killing him in the process. Which was a thought that didn’t make her sound anything less than “particularly suicidal”, but really, she would prefer death to being spat out on the other end, with all which would follow that.
“Good!” Gerry exhaled, running their hand over their rapidly dampening forehead. “Because I just took out a Leitner of theirs, and it would be a real pity to get caught up with them right after. You wouldn’t just corner someone out at night and steal their skin over a silly thing like that, would you? I mean, to think, a knockout thing like you, you’d probably find… better ways,” they let the words tumble out of their mouth, thinking, what the hell am I saying? just as a puzzled expression appeared in the nearest vicinity of the monster’s face.
“What is,” it tilted its head to the left and down, down, down, “a Leitner?”
Oh, good, Gerry thought. Yes, keep the conversation going. As long as they were talking, he wasn’t being eaten — at least, so he assumed.
“Oh, you know,” they said, taking a scuffing step backwards, “those weird books you guys — I mean, the Fear Entities — tend to spawn all over the place, the ones that get people, I mean, I mean, humans, eaten? You know the ones,” Gerry drawled awkwardly, rubbing a strand of their hair between their fingertips. “I burned one that belonged to — how did you, ah, so charmingly put it? The I’ve Never Met You? — yeah, I burned one of those. Nasty stuff, it was: stealing people’s faces, of all things. Can you imagine?”
The monster raised its eyebrows in what seemed to be polite interest, but felt more like being rubbed all over with a file.
“Yes, I believe I can,” it smirked (was it not already grinning ear-to-ear?) “It does really seem like their style.”
“Right, right! Yeah, so what I’m getting at is, you wouldn’t just, up and steal someone’s face, right? I mean, that’s just plain rude. And, and primitive. I bet a… stunning creature like yourself would find much more… creative ways of claiming your prey, won’t you say?” Here, he popped a hip, trying his best to loosen up his posture just the smallest bit. Was he really flirting with an avatar — or was it an aspect? — of the Spiral? You had better bet he was. You’d have won yourself a whole load of cash, if you had. “Something a bit more… intricate, than the Stranger’s antics. And if you don’t, I’m sure I could, um, show you a few things. I’m sure you want me to go into your door — and trust me, I’d love to, but — how about we go to my place instead? It’s probably nowhere as luxurious as whatever you have in there,” they pointed behind the monster, whose eyebrows had now slid altogether off its forehead and over its hairline, “but you can’t really do that with someone — sorry, I meant something; is that right? — you’ve only just met. I mean, I don’t even know your name! But,” he leaned against the nearest wall and congratulated himself on the almost-flawless execution of the movement, “I would really,” she ran her tongue over her upper lip in what she hoped was a seductive manner, “love to,” they cracked a slightly-daring smirk, “learn.”
The bit of Gerry’s brain that was trying to keep up with their mouth thought: I wish I knew what we are doing here, I’m not sure I get it at all. But the booze and whatever effect the Spiral creature was having on her mind were banging together and making a kind of music. She wasn’t sure she had all the notes yet, but there were bits she could hum. She just had to listen to herself for long enough to find out what she was talking about.
“By a few things you mean-“ the monster said.
“Come over. I’ll show you. Seriously.”
“Wh- how? Why?”
“Maybe you’ll like it?”
“You’re smirking at me!”
No, I’ve frozen because I’ve just heard what my mouth said, Gerry thought. I don’t have a clue, I’ve just got some random thoughts and just enough desperation to want to live. It’s…
“It’s about paradoxes,” paradoxes should, by all rights, be a topic that would interest it, right? “and why I’d rather my life didn’t become one. As well as, if you’d be amendable, some good old-fashioned snogging. Or both, at the same time, if you’d like.” I know a thing or two about paradoxes, he thought, hoping desperately that his meager knowledge would be enough to at least spike the thing’s interest.
The monster hummed like a growing migraine.
“Paradoxes,” it stated. Gerry held his breath.
“Paradoxes,” he answered, exhaling. The monster’s smile crumpled into an origami bird and flew up from its face as it roared with laugher.
At last, it wiped a tear from the splashes of color that were its eyes, finishing off its chuckle with a long, contented sigh.
“The things you offer me, Bookburner,” it said, giggling still. Gerry cleared their throat.
“My name’s Gerry,” he offered, and immediately cursed himself for volunteering the nickname. He had always wanted his friends to call him that; the rest could do with ‘Gerard’, even if it did hurt him to hear every time someone said it in a voice anything like his mother’s. Gertrude could call him ‘Gerry’, just like he could call her ‘Gertie’ — and get away with it. She never did, of course, but it was the thought that counted — and really, it would’ve been a little strange to hear the nickname fall from the old menace’s lips. Nobody else could call him ‘Gerry’, either, so it was okay. He really didn’t have that many friends.
A swirling monster made of madness and whatever the negative space of reality was made up of would not be making the list, Gerry decided.
“Names are… difficult, Bookburner,” it replied, and tilted its head just so that Gerry’s world tilted with it. “There are so many of them, and they are ever-changing. How… do you… remember them all?” It sounded genuinely perplexed as it murmured, seemingly to itself, “Michael used to be able to remember all the names… but he never remembered the faces… Titles are so much easier,” the monster finished, now looking directly at Gerry, whose skin shriveled and folded into tight spirals under the intensity of its gaze. She shuddered as she realized the sensation was only imaginary, her skin as smooth and scarred and human as it had ever been.
“Well,” they said, acutely aware that they were pushing some unseen boundary, “I’d like you to call me Gerry.” No backing out now. “Change my “title”, or whatever, from ‘Bookburner’ to ‘Gerry’ in your mind, if you must.”
The monster stood still, mulling the idea over for a few seconds. A faint breeze ran through Gerry’s matted black hair, caressing the strands clumsily.
“Well?”
“Nooo,” it drawled in a speculative voice, “I don’t think I will be doing that. There are just so many Bookburners in the world, but I suspect that there is… only one Gerry,” it said with a giggle.
After another few seconds, it added, “If you must… call me Michael. Is that a name you can use… Gerry?”
Gerry blinked up at it. He hadn’t been expecting to get even this much, if he was honest. Michael blinked back with its swirling, mesmerizing eyes, and smiled a thin gap between its lips.
“Yeah, yep, sure. Michael,” Gerry rolled the name over his tongue. Too normal a name for a thing like you, came the unbidden thought. He pushed himself off the wall, tentative in his next question: “So, are you still going to eat me?”
For a solid two minutes, Michael didn’t respond. It had frozen unnaturally still, the only sign of it still being present mentally (or as close as counted) being the expression of thought on its face. It didn’t even seem to be breathing.
When it spoke up, its voice was quiet, the eerie echo of it all but diminished.
“No, I don’t think I will,” it told Gerry. “But I hope to take you up on your offer concerning… paradoxes… whatever you might mean, by that.”
But you won’t take me up on my offer to snog? Gerry wanted to ask, suddenly feeling very offended. So what if ‘Michael’ was incomprehensible? It was the exact kind of thing Gerry would go for, when he could afford it — which wasn’t often, considering that things like it were usually hellbent on killing him first, but he took what he could get. Except that he had just met Michael. And Michael did try to eat him.
Plus, it only made sense, that when the meat on your pan propositioned you, you declined. Gerry shook her head. The alcohol in her bloodstream must have been messing with her head.
“Not tonight, though,” Michael leaned down, the smile lines around the endlessly swirling colors of its eyes crinkling gently. It placed a heavy, surprisingly not sharp hand upon Gerry’s shoulder. It felt like leather. “You’re drunk. Go to where you sleep, and do that. I might find you… or I might not. We will make plans. That may have been a lie.”
Well, fuck, Gerry thought, stunned. Do I have a potential date with the Spiral to plan? At least I will get time to brush up on… whatever needs brushing up on. Which might be a lot, considering how long it had been since they’d actually went on a proper date.
“Oh, and Bookburner?” Michael turned, its long fingers already encasing the spiral brass knob of the yellow door (which had definitely not existed there before). “You won’t get lost… that, I can promise.”
Gerry nodded, still speechless. So, he got to get out of this alive. He got to get out of this with a promise.
“Goodnight, Gerry,” Michael murmured against his ear, and disappeared behind the door quite the distance away from anywhere Gerry’s ear had been. The door creaked longingly as it closed.
“Goodnight…” Gerry whispered into the empty silence of the night.
Well, fuck. He had a date to plan.
With the Spiral, of all things.
He was majestically, royally fucked.