Work Text:
He forced his eyes away from the blaring glares of yellow horrors, ones that clawed their way along his optical synapses and into the now swarming kingdoms of ordered entropy resident in his skull. Their coursing streams of comprehension birthing knowledge into the cramped wrinkles of his hippocampus. The mere 15 seconds stretched along the universes axis until the contents of his mind caved and cratered into babbling before they catenated into clarity with the exact pattering beats of his own heart.
D3rlord3 knew perfectly the exact, calculated number of dust particles that flew into the air as his knees hit their mark in their predestined genuflection. He knew perfectly the composition of the air that screeched its way down his oesophagus, his bronchi, absorbing into a stampeding bloodstream. He, in a laughable moment of comfort among his despair, knew with utter, absolute simplicity that this damnation was inevitable. As soon as he left the warmth of the womb, curiosity would stake its claim over the corpse of the cat.
With minor shifting that imitated rigour mortis more than any truly animated gesture, D3rlord3 arched down over his knees in a last minute protective impulse against the tides of infinity. A crash of the mocking yellow-gold of his helmet becomes a welcome reprieve that grants him the mercy of a moment to focus on the singularities within the vastness that now bulged beneath his skin; nevertheless, the additional acknowledgment of the way his neocortex shuddered under the pressure of processing the overcharged electrical currents almost sends him reeling over the cliff of insanity once again.
Heaving and spluttering into the unforgiving silence, his weeping, abused palms hit the dirty floor. The impact seemed to shake the pages of the archives that had been maladroitly cramped into feeble brain. Entire histories unfolded and sung in ear-splitting notes of disharmony, nasal knights championing the pungent smells of blood and incomprehension charged. Stampeding across the battlefields of his trembling limbs. Clashing in rhyme to the streaming philosophies of the dead and yet born dancing drunkly at the centre of every bone.
Frothing like the crash of water onto rocks, a slice of sensory receptors responding in his face caused reality to finally drop her anchor at the tattered ports of his being. Pain, pain, a welcome distraction. Pain, sharp and around the thousands of dying cells above his zygomatic bone, he now knows with heartbreaking clarity,- near his ophthalmo’s bottom right optical nerve. No, just- his eye, his-
Face and cheek; D3rlord3 slides his fingernails delicately across the slightly damp skin. The knuckles of his bent fingers catching the edge of his eyebrow, sensations which sent shivers down his spine and tugged him back towards the shoreline of sanity. A slow movement carries his other arm around his abdomen and squeezes, prompting a deeper heave of air from the pit in his chest.
The ghosts of wet, hiccupping sobs echo out of the ruin of him and into the empty arms of the cave. Cool, grey stone wails in its simplicity and only makes the pure dissonance between it and the stretched depths of his consciousness strike a increasingly calculated blow. The shaking, low moans of the walls deliver only their harrowing histories of molten rebirth, the stale remains of the wind call to him in their true molecular formations, and it all overwhelms even the need to regurgitate just a drop of this never ceasing feeling. His lungs scream as they strain against the sensation of oil pouring in. The emulsification of his terror and self-pitying anger crystallise and curdle in the heat of his own mouth. He presses his lips together with fervour, before parting them with a gasp as wetness slides against the soft skin.
“The waters of Hali break and burst against the long shores of Carcosa“
A sharp click bounces of the cave walls in time the power of D3rlord3 slamming his mouth shut. It seems as if the mere quick consideration of that far away land calls him back- Back left and through the magnificence of those towering doors of yellow. After all, dear is the debt of the man who denies himself the glance at all he could ever think to know…
The individual sobs of the microfibrils in his neck as he makes to turn jerk him back to awareness. The mechanisms in his body howl in defiance at his every twitch. He throws his head forwards once more with a hoarse groan, the timbre of the notes spinning around into his ears and between. Every vibration turning him back onto the open path in front of him, especially with it looking ever so lighter now.
Squinting, D3rlord3 peers at a sudden glare of light that seems to temporarily press back the tides of heaviness resident in the inflamed meat of his brain. He blinks. It’s but a whisper on the wind. He blinks. It is a hand that beckons him. He blinks. He blinks.
“Reminds me of a cat”, is the thought that manages to break through the wave of dissonance. The thought that is unpredictable enough to momentarily stun him, when he has the entire universe unwillingly catalogued. An event like this in itself is transformed into such a rarity beneath the glare of yellow, a fact has him suddenly grappling the thought with a strength that surprises him. Loosening, tattered threads slip one by one from between his slick fingers, this epiphany fading away in the stifling, inky vastness.
However, the dizzying, momentary belief of losing this one speck of mercifulness left to him sends him spiralling. A streak of determination flooding him in a way that hasn’t occurred since he was confronted with the puzzles that infest this mine. D3rlord3s’ hands tremble with the force he exerts to pull and tug the elusive light closer. Closer still until he cannot feel the grit of the cave below him and the drip of the ceiling above him, just the impossible light of something unknown. He draws in a shuddering breath, pressing the thought close, closer into his gold chest-plate, closer still to his heart and-
Oh, Avery
The unadulterated effects of that one name, that one being, that one someone. Someone who would tread the same path that D3rlord3 had taken to this dreadful place. Someone who, despite the full knowledge of the true monstrosities waiting within this place that he himself now strained under, could be spared. Avery, Avery, Avery. The full breadth of that dear point of the near unpredictability of sentient life a lighthouse in the consuming darkness of knowing anything, and everything at all.
Avery, who prefers Hawaiian shirts, and light brown cargo shorts. Avery, who makes sure to be nice to every stranger, because he can never resist a new friend. Avery, who delights in the adrenaline rush of victory as he watches the last opponent fall. Avery, who is so enviably unaware that it makes him want to scream. Avery, a point to guide him at the centre of an endless stretch of inky darkness. Someone that the mere thought of gifts him strength to lurch away from the encompassing darkness at his back. D3rlord3 only knows the possibilities of what Avery could do, say, to him. How he would turn his head to smile or back away in fright at the sight of his surely dishevelled form. A laugh rips through him, self-deprecating but carrying hope, even now the best and last of all things.
Whispers are silenced by the pounding of his feet upon the hard rock and the heart in his chest. Even if they had the might to scream at him, their words would have fallen upon deaf ears. The fears they perpetuated had long settled in his bones, now only the small hope that this guiding light revealed truly mattered. Only the (blessedly) green person who would unwittingly find his way here, to the same place that had lead him to nearly plunging himself into cold deep disorder, mattered. Common delusions of grander intelligence had granted him a feeling of control in walking straight into the lions den, but now in the raw light of his revelation, it didn’t matter anymore. D3rlord3 was not running for his life. That had splintered in the moment his eyes locked onto It in its purest form, or even first when he first turned his mildly interested gaze to this pre-made mine. No, now he sprinted to save another.
Ink sac in hand, he collided with the stone wall at the end of the cave system. Drawing back his fist he began to slam the wall over and over again, ironically certain in the knowledge that this, this, was where he needed to be.
The constant, desperate responses from his hand and arm were dismissed as more rubble and debris fell away. D3rlord3 knowing exactly where to crack desperately at the stone to ensure he could cleanly force his way through. The insight that had nearly dragged him beyond saving now did some good, the histories of the earth appearing to him to help with this one, final push.
D3rlord3 coughed as he collapsed onto the other side of the tunnel, clouds of dust falling perfectly to the side as to not obscure his view to the chest. The pained complaints of his ignored body reared again and he fumbled and stood. Limping the last of the way to the chest and drawing out his book from his inventory. Placing a bloodstained finger upon the first page, he recited his warning, uncaring of everything except to get his final message across.
—
The parchment fluttered in alarm as he hurriedly aired the ink on the pages. The leather cover smooth under his bruised palm, thudding as he slammed the book shut.
He turned and slid down to the floor. His back pressed against the wooden chest as his head tilted forward in exhaustion, bowing under the orange light of torches. The feeling of darkness creeping up like a wave suddenly overwhelms him, snapping the last bits of strength he possessed and leaving him sinking into the currents of infinity. D3rlord3 clenches his eyes shut against the laggard return of the waves of exhaustion that wash against the tense edges of his form. Dragging his fingers against the bumpy stone floor and towards himself, he uses the last of his fading adrenaline to heave himself properly into a less slumped sitting position. The muscles in his lower back strain and ache, causing him to exhale a hoarse rough hiss. Though, despite the returning cacophony of his internal world, the external remains blissfully silent. The fragile gasps from his dry mouth are accompanied only by far off sounds of the dawn sweeping down from the entrance to the mine.
Soft sounds from the whispering grass gently prompt him to creak open his stiff eyelids. Natures early sighs into the new day coax from him a sort of peace that he hasn’t managed to replicate since he stepped into this infernal place. A sweet chirp of bird, as it stretches out its wings to soar, a snort of a lonely pig, as it meanders through the swaying oak trees. Their sounds cradle him in their embrace and lull him into a rhythm of quiet, one that acts as a levee to the still prowling edges of the bloated void circling him. The wickedness of this day flees in this doorway to the green world outside, temporarily called to heel.
From weeping eyes, he watches as the orange sunlight spills down the steps and rests its tender head at his feet. D3rlord3 reaches forward and caresses the warmth, allowing it to smother him in its arms and lift him away.