True Blue Civil Servant

Damien started panting. What was going on? Why was he in a box? How did this happen? He was scared. So scared… So why couldn’t he feel his own heart racing in his chest? Where was he? Somebody would be out there that could help him, right? It couldn’t… He couldn’t… Damien was desperate to remain calm, bringing his arm in to steady himself, but when his fingers brushed against his chest, there was a burning in his lungs, and his hand became slick in something. He felt a fluid run between his fingers. Touching them together to test it, he found the substance to be tacky, and he could feel little pieces of dirt and grime in it. It smelled like rot. He touched his chest and found the source of the fluid. Or at least a source. He found a gash in his chest where his skin had been cut open. It was a pretty bad cut too. Was this liquid supposed to be blood…? No… That couldn’t be right… It was too thick and gritty to be blood. But that was beside the point. He didn’t remember getting hurt like this… When did he…? But then he felt another cut in his torso. And another and another. His chest was littered with lacerations and he became surprised how each cut seemed to be longer and deeper than the last. He shouldn’t be… How deep were these wounds anyway…? Picking one wound in his abdomen, Damien hitched his breath before pressing a finger into it. The pain was immediate and agonizing. He shivered and shook, swallowing a scream down, certain that he would pass out at any moment, but pressed onwards anyway. He only stopped when his finger bottomed out, much to his shock and horror. But the wound still went deeper than even this… How was that possible? How did this happen? How was he still alive…?

After pulling his finger from his wound with a shout, Damien tried to evaluate his situation. He needed to keep a cool head if he was going to get out of this alive. He was desperate for some kind of help or a solution for what was happening to him, but everything hurt, and it made it hard to think. He could only figure out a startlingly few number of things: He was wearing nothing but a filthy silk robe and some kind of cloth around his neck (perhaps it had once been an ascot?); He was severely wounded and yet he wasn’t dying; He was trapped in a small space, and no matter how hard he pushed at any of the sides of this box he was trapped in, they didn’t budge.

Was this a dream? Maybe this was all a dream. If it was a dream, how could he wake up? Could he wake himself up? Why wasn't he waking up…? He had never had a dream as frightening or cripplingly painful as this before. He didn’t know that dreams could even be this painful. This was… Agony… He couldn’t see anything. He could only feel pain. He could only hear his own labored breathing as he tried to figure a way out of this. And he could only smell and taste something musty in the air that reminded him of dirt.

Dirt…?

The realization struck him in the chest, shattering any false pretense of calm that he had. Dirt. He could smell dirt. He solidly pounded on the lid of the box and could hear something shift and dryly trickle into the box next to his ear. It was dirt. He was surrounded by dirt. How did this happen? Why was he in here? Who did this? He was buried alive. He didn’t understand.

And then panic started to set in as the true helplessness of his situation sank into his bones. The air was beginning to feel stale around him. This was his last chance. He needed to get help. He needed someone to get him out before he suffocated and died. He pounded at the wood in front of him with a dull thud. “Help…” His throat felt rough and his voice was only barely able to croak out the demand, but he kept at it anyway. “Help. Help! HELP! Please... Is there anyone out there!? I’m trapped! I can’t get out! Someone? Anyone! HELP! I don’t want to die!” he pounded at the walls of his wooden prison with his hands and feet, doing everything that he could think of to make noise.

But he was alone. On his own. No one was coming.

He didn’t understand. What was happening? Why was this happening? What did he do to deserve this? Did he do something wrong? He must have done something wrong. That was the only reason that someone would have done this to him, right? What did he do wrong? Could someone please tell him what he did wrong?

He was screaming in panic. Screaming for help. It made his throat feel raw, but he kept screaming. He didn’t have any other choice. He was crying. He didn’t know what else he could do.

The air was thin. So thin. He couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t any more air left in here. He had used it all up. But Damien kept screaming anyway. He had to. If he didn’t, he was going to die.

He was desperate. But it was useless. No one could hear him. No one knew that he was here. No one that cared, at least. Not that he knew that yet.

Damien had been buried alive. And now he was suffocating to death. In pain. Screaming. Scared. In the dark. 'I don't understand. I don't understand.' It was all he could think as his body gave out.

That was where he died. In a hole. Alone.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

-

Damien opened his eyes to find himself completely surrounded by void. He could see nothing but a distant, colorless gray stretching out in every direction around him. This was a different kind of emptiness compared to the one he had just awoken from… Fallen asleep to? What just happened to him? His brain was slowly trying to make sense of everything that he had just experienced to little success. He remembered being buried alive. He remembered dying. But that wasn’t happening anymore. He wasn’t there anymore. He was somewhere new. The darkness that was now around him was different from the suffocating black of his own grave. He was standing on his own two feet now. At least he thought that he was. He could feel his legs beneath him, and while he couldn’t see it, he could also feel a floor pressing against the soles of his shoes. But as he glanced down at himself, almost as if to check that his body was still there, he only saw blue. Damien held his hands out in front of him in fascination. These hands were indeed his own, and as he glanced back down at himself, he could make out his clothes, but now it was all glowing with a cyan blue light. He was blue. He was a single bright cyan candle in the emptiness.

He took a step forwards just to see if he could, and was almost surprised that he was able to, half suspecting that he wouldn’t be able to move at all. He took another step and then another and soon he found himself walking through the blank nothingness at a steady pace. And yet something was off, though he couldn’t exactly put his finger on what it was. Whatever it was… Somehow he didn’t feel alone.

At least he wasn’t in that awful dream anymore… Or maybe… This was the dream and that was his reality…? No. That couldn’t be right… Not unless he was… He shook his head to clear it. It didn’t bear thinking about. Whatever it was, that awful experience was over. He didn’t have to think or dwell on it any more as he walked into the darkness.

Where was he going anyway? He couldn’t see anything here, and he had nowhere to go. Nowhere to head towards. Should he keep walking in a bid to find something in this nothingness? Was there a reason to keep heading forwards…?

As if to answer his question, it was then that Damien could hear voices in the distance. He began to move towards them, and soon he realized that there were two of them. One male and one female. And as he cautiously approached they became clearer and clearer until… He knew that voice… “Celine…?” he asked himself out loud, surprising himself at hearing the sound of his own voice, though that didn’t last long. Instead he broke into a sprint. He could hear Celine! Thank God! If he could just find her, then maybe she could explain things! Maybe she knew what was going on! Maybe she would know what to do about this! As he ran, her voice grew louder and louder until…

-

Damien’s eyes fluttered open, quick to take in the room around him. This place felt familiar somehow, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. There were two other people in this room… Three other people? No. Two other people. He could tell that it was night outside, even as the curtains over the windows were tightly drawn. There were chairs scattered around the room, and in its center sat a table with arcane ‘tools’ resting on it. A crystal ball. Mats sewn with mystical patterns. Tarot cards. A magic 8 ball. Silver jewelry. A hand mirror. The only source of light in the room were the candles strewn about, five of which lay in a circle on the table, only barely keeping the darkness at bay.

Where was he? He recognized this room… He had been here before. This was the room where he had performed the seance with Celine… Right? He could only faintly remember it now… It felt like that had been ages ago, but... Was the seance still happening? Looking up, he finally realized that it was Celine standing in front of the chair beside him. Had only a few minutes passed since he left? How was that even possible?

It was then that Damien finally fully registered that there was another man in the room, sitting directly across from Celine. The resemblance was uncanny. Damien gawked as he looked at what seemed to be a perfect copy of himself. But everything about this duplicate was… Wrong. He couldn’t help but to ask himself... Did he really have that smarmy of a smile? Did he always hold himself like… Well… That…?

Damien’s double looked directly at him, acknowledging his presence for the first time since he entered the room. “Oh, Damien. Damien, Damien, Damien. Damien, my sweet baby boy! It’s always normal, boring suits with you, isn’t it?” the man addressed, shaking his head as he looked at the hem of his sleeves. An arrogant grin was spreading its way across the imposter’s- across his own face. “Black and white. Only ever black and white. Always so formal and never any fun! I suppose that it just goes to show what ‘proper breeding’ gets you.” After a moment, the stranger who looked exactly like him stood, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, taking a few steps to test out those legs that weren’t his own. “Oh, Damien,” he tutted, “No wonder you would always carry that cane around with you everywhere you went… This does not feel good. Not very good at all. This simply will not do. But I can fix this. Yes… Once I fix these legs of yours, this body will do quite nicely.” What was he going on about?

Celine and Damien came to the realization at the same time. “... Mark…?”

“The one and only.” Damien’s doppelganger replied with a sly smirk.

Damien furrowed his brow. It was so hard remembering anything right now… Why did Mark look like that? Why did he look so much like him, even to the point of wearing his clothes? “Mark… What happened…? How did this…? Why are you dressed like that? Didn’t you die...? You… You died… I remember now… You died, so we held a seance to try to communicate with you… It really worked…? Was that really you, Mark? The one knocking under the table? I’ve seen parlor tricks like that before, so I wasn’t certain… But it’s really you? How did you die? Who killed you? I feel like I’ve been the only person in this madhouse to actually care about you dying… Even the Colonel didn’t... I haven’t known what to do... So how can we help you? Do you need help moving on?”

But Celine simultaneously came at him with a series of her own questions. Not that Damien could hear them through his own concerns. “So it really worked… Mark... It’s really you in there… What does it feel like? Being in someone else’s body that is. Did I hear you correctly? Are you able to feel Damien’s old leg injury? I swear to God, Damien, if you’re pulling some kind of tasteless prank with this... But if you’re really in there, Mark... Where is he? Where did Damien go? Can he hear what’s going on right now? Were you just speaking to him? How long do you think you have? How long can you stay in his body? How were you able to do… This? You said before that you weren’t alone. Did whatever that’s in here with us help you with this? Is there anyone else in that body with you? What was it like being dead?”

“One at a time! One question at a time!” Mark laughed. “I know that you wanted to see me, but I didn’t think that you were that desperate!” He was glancing between the two of them. “But yes. It’s me. It’s really me, Mark, in your-” he looked Damien in the eyes before turning to face Celine. “-your brother’s body.”

“My body…?” The memories of the seance were slowly coming back to him. He had offered up his body for Mark to take… This... This was good. Damien didn’t understand what was happening, but they wanted this… Right? “Mark… I’m so glad to see you alive again!” Whatever was happening to him, Damien was just relieved to have his friend back. With Mark’s help, he knew that they could finally get to the bottom of this.

But that didn’t seem to concern Celine in the slightest. “It worked… It’s really you. Mark… You’re really alive again…” Celine took a deep breath. “But before anything else… Where is Damien, Mark? Is he in there with you right now? I need to know that he’s safe, so where is he?” Now that alarmed him.

“Uh…” Mark was looking at Damien, clearly not knowing how to respond. But Damien was too frightened and worried to care about how Mark was acting right now.

“Celine… I’m right here.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Celine…? Celine!” When she didn’t respond, he tried to shake her, but she didn’t budge. In fact, his hand passed right through her. He stumbled, quickly catching his balance and pulling his hand back, looking at it, confused. “What…?”

“She can’t hear you.”

A voice seemed to rasp out of nowhere, digging its venomous claws into Damien’s brain.

“She can’t see you. She can’t feel you.”

It was whispering to him in a united cavalcade of voices that painfully rattled around in his ears.

Damien spun around to try to find the source of the voice but saw nothing and no one in the room with the three of them. But he could feel it. There was something in here. He couldn’t see it, nor did he know what it was, but it was definitely something. And it was gripping and pulling at every fiber of his being. “Where are you!? Who are you!? What’s going on!? Show yourself!” he demanded, shouting into the empty air.

“Damien, Damien, Damien. Sweet, innocent, Damien. My naive child.

This isn’t about you. It’s about him.

It’s not your turn. You’ll have your turn. You can have your own turn. We’re going to turn you into something beautiful.”

It was becoming too much. The voice was overwhelming him, forcing Damien to his knees. He covered his ears as unseen lightning cracked too close to him. Before Damien could even ask what was happening, he could feel himself vanishing. Being pulled from the room. Falling into darkness once more.

-

When Damien opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anything at all. He was surrounded by darkness. He was alone. His lungs hitched, desperate for air, but he couldn’t breathe. Everything burned. Everything hurt.

In a panic, he threw his arms out, but only found a wooden wall in front of him. And then another and another on each side. He was laying down again. He was trapped in that box again.

He screamed even though he had no air in his lungs to scream with. He hit the lid of his coffin but it didn’t budge.

Why was this happening? Why was this happening again? He was just with Celine. He had just spoken to Mark. Why was he trapped in here? Why did he have to be alone like this again? Why could he never stop being alone? He hated being alone... So why... He wanted to be with his sister. He wanted to be with his friends. He didn’t let any of them know how much they meant to him and how much he loved them. What did he do to deserve this? What did he do wrong? Why…?

Why why why WHY!?

-

Damien opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by an empty gray. He was glowing blue again. He panted, relief surging through him, glad that he was no longer in pain. It hadn’t occurred to him yet that his lungs didn’t hurt anymore because he no longer needed to breathe. At least not while he was in here.

He let himself fall backwards, landing in a sitting position on the unseeable ground, wrapping his arms around himself. It was a small comfort, but it was all he had. He could take this. He could tolerate this. He still didn’t know why he was glowing blue, but at least he wasn’t in pain anymore. He didn’t mind staying here, resting in this silent emptiness. And in a few minutes… He would be pulled out of here and brought back to Celine and Mark, right…? That's what happened the first time at least. So it only made sense that it would happen again. The box, this void, and soon he would be in the room again. Right? If this was a pattern… It had to be a pattern. Even if he had to be put in that box again… So long as he kept seeing them, he was going to be alright. He didn’t care what it was. He didn’t care what they were doing or what they were talking about. He just wanted to see them again. He needed to see them again. He had always just wanted to be with them... This was nothing. He could easily handle being here until he was finally home.

But such relief never came.

Instead as he sat and waited, a voice began to whisper into the nape of his neck. It was just quiet enough that he couldn’t make out what it said. But it was still undoubtedly there.

“What…? Who are you?” Damien practically spun around trying to find the source of the voice. “Where are you? Can you…. Can you please speak up? I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

The voice didn’t seem to be listening to him as it kept whispering in a ceaseless string of words. Damien was right. He must not have been alone in here after all. But so long as the voice wasn’t doing anything, it was easy enough to ignore. But just as he was getting used to the droning of the whispering voice, it was joined by one more. And after a time, the two voices were joined by another. And then another. And another. The voices buzzed in his ears, scratching at his eardrums and digging their way into his head. What he thought would be easy to ignore was quickly proving to be overwhelming to his senses. But new voices just kept coming. And with each voice, the void around him grew just a little darker. Before long, there was a ceaseless hissing haze of voices around him, pressing into him, trapping him, clawing their way into his head, and he was surrounded by a thick and inky black.

Now he clutched at his ears in a futile attempt to keep the voices away and out of him. He was able to take a small bit of solace in the idea that this would be over soon. Right? He’d wake up and Celine would be at his side. He’d wake up and Mark would be alive and smiling back at him. He’d be away from all of this soon, right…? He just had to wait. So he waited. And waited. And wait…

-

Damien opened his eyes and he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t understand. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be with Celine. And Mark. Where were they? Why couldn’t he see them? Why couldn’t he see anything? He was in that hole again. In that wooden crate again. Why was he here? Did he do something wrong? Did he just imagine seeing Celine and Mark that first time? Was seeing them just a dream…?

He needed to get out. Damien didn’t know what was happening, but he knew that much. He needed to escape. He needed to do something. Anything. Anything to see the people he loved again. He started to scratch at the lid of his wooden prison. He needed to get out. This was the only way. He would have to dig his way out. There was nothing else that he could do.

He screamed. He clawed. He was suffocating. He was dying. Dying again. He would die again and no one would know. No one would hear him. No one would help. No one would care. No one was coming for him. No one.

He was alone.

He was never going to see anyone else ever again, was he? He let out a cry of despair. He needed to get out. He just wanted to go home. He couldn’t…

-

Damien opened his eyes, only to immediately be swarmed by voices. They were louder now. Clutching his head in his hands, Damien curled in on himself, trying to block out the voices. He could feel the darkness crowding in around him and blotting out his cyan light.

He could hear them now. He could make out some of what they were saying to him as their voices filled his ears. They told him that he was beautiful. That they were going to make him so perfectly beautiful. They whispered a thousand tiny promises to him. That he was going to be strong. That he was going to be perfect. That they were going to break him. That only broken things are beautiful. And he was beautiful. But he wasn't perfect. Not yet. But in time he was going to become their masterpiece.

And Damien was just huddled by himself in the sea of voices, screaming in an attempt to drown them out. The voices didn’t let him think. Brilliant blue tears fell from his eyes. And though there were a million voices swarming in around him, he was utterly alone.

-

He opened his eyes and they were flooded by darkness again. And he was in the box again. He was a beautiful, festering, little package all tied up in an earthen bow. And he was screaming. And he was in pain. And he was pounding on the lid of his grave. And he was suffocating. And he was clawing. And he was dying.

And he was in that gray void again. And voices deafened him. And he was screaming, desperate to block them out. And he was sobbing. And that blackness crowded him out. And he was being consumed.

And he was suffocating. And he was clawing. And his fingers were cut. And his hands were raw. And his voice was rough, hurting almost as much as his fingers.

And he was being suffocated, drowned in voices. And his light was being stifled. And he was curled up in a ball on the ground, crying.

And he was in pain. And his nails tore off. And his throat bled. And his fingers bled. And he couldn’t scream anymore. And he could only let out a desperate gurgle. He was drowning in his own blood. But he kept screaming. He kept fighting. It did nothing to stop him from dying.

He was being drowned out. He was vanishing. He was being deafened. He was being made beautiful. He kept crying. But he kept hoping. And that hope only wounded him more. Hope couldn’t save him.

And again. And again. And again and again and again and again and again.

The pain didn’t stop. The voices never quieted. The darkness never retreated. He was drowning. And he couldn’t escape. He kept screaming. He kept crying. But it wouldn’t be long before those ceased.

Time passed and Damien was made beautiful. He had given up. He lay in his coffin, broken. He stared into the void, empty. He didn’t know how much time passed. There was no way to tell. For a while he hoped that it had just been minutes. Hours. Days. But it felt like it had been so much longer than that.

Decades. It felt like he had been here for decades.

And soon, nothing else existed.

His entire world had shrunk.

Now there was only the pain. The voices. The darkness. And the hole.

And it didn’t end. He stopped thinking that it would end a long time ago.

-

He didn’t even register it when the voices had finally stopped. He didn’t acknowledge the red light standing next to him nor did he feel the hand on his shoulder.

“Damien…?”

It was a voice. A familiar voice too. But there were a lot of voices in here. What difference did one more make?

“Damien!”

And this voice was so loud. When would it just shut up? The voice hurt his ears. Not like how the whispers soothed them.

Two hands grabbed him and forced him to look into the light. It was red... So colors other than cyan blue still existed after all... And it was so bright. The light hurt his eyes. He just wanted it to go away. It was so harsh unlike the comforting darkness that always embraced him.

“Damien! Look at me. Do you see me?”

A question. Should he answer? Answering never did anything anyway. They would keep doing whatever they wished regardless. But why not? What did it hurt? “I see you.” He was surprised at hearing his own voice. He didn’t think that he could do that anymore.

The red light was kneeling next to him, moving closer to look him in the eyes. “What happened…? What did he do to you?”

His eyes just drifted to the side. More questions. How annoying. If it was just going to keep bothering him like this, he was going to ignore it until it went away. But one little word in that last question did tickle something in the back of his head. Some sort of dim realization or the shadow of a thought. “He? Who's he?”

The voice fell silent. That was nice. But the light was still there. That wasn’t so nice. But just as he was about to sink back into the quiet, the voice spoke again. “Mark. Mark did this to us. He took your body, Damien. He’s out there with your body. And he used… Something to push me out of mine too. Do… Do you remember Mark?”

Now that was a hard question, but there was something scratching at the back of his head that made him know that he could answer it. But it was so hard to think on his own again. Where were the voices? He just wanted them to think for him. It was nice, not having to think. Why did thinking have to be so difficult? He was starting to miss them. He was finding himself wanting the voices back. “Mark…” he repeated the name with a fuzzy kind of reverence. A thought scratched at him until… “The hero of the story. Right. His name is Mark.”

More quiet. Why was it so quiet now? This wasn’t right. Now that he only had this one voice with him, the silence felt so uncomfortable. While he still wanted the voice gone, he also wanted it to speak just so he didn’t have to deal with the quiet anymore.

“Damien? Damien. Look at me.” The voice again. “Look. At. Me.” The demand made him turn his eyes back towards the light. The light was so much like him. It looked like a person. It didn’t look like him, but it still looked like a person. He hadn't seen another human form in such a long time... At least he didn’t think that it looked like him. It was hard to know what he looked like anymore. He thought that he must have looked like… “Damien! It’s me. Celine. Do you remember me…?”

The being that used to be Damien stared at the light that looked like a person for a long time. The light that called itself Celine. Did ‘Damien’ know a Celine? Did this light look like someone he knew?

The memories came back to him in a slow drip. Yes. He knew Celine. She was… She was someone who cared about him. Someone he cared about. He cared about people… There were people that he cared about. That was surprising.

She was close to him. She… He grew up with her. They lived in the same house. There was a word. What was the word again…? They were a matching pair. They had been born together. What was that word? Sibling? Close… Sister! Celine was his sister. His twin sister. How silly of him to forget.

As he stared back at her, Celine saw the faint glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

He stared at her blankly until… That’s right. The memories were coming back to him more easily now. He was Damien… Right? He had been with her. Trying to talk to someone… To the hero. To a friend? To Mark. He trusted her. He offered his body and… And that’s how he ended up here. “Celine…?” He was staring at his sister. “I do remember you.”

He let out a dry laugh.

Gripping her brother’s shoulders tighter, Celine shook him to try and snap him out of it. “What happened? Damien, what happened? Why are you laughing?”

“This is just… This is just so funny. A good joke. This one hasn’t happened before.”

“A joke? I’m just a joke to you now?”

“No one… I did something wrong… And now I’m here. I don’t get to see anyone anymore. That’s my punishment. It’s better than what I deserve. No one else exists. Not in here. I’m alone. I’m not allowed anyone else. I have to be alone. I’m the only person in here. It’s only me… I wish I could see Celine again. I don’t know why this joke is being pulled on me. But I’m alone. I'm always alone. There’s no one else. Being alone… Loneliness is supposed to break me, right? It’s supposed to make me beautiful. Only broken things are beautiful. I’m lonely… So, so lonely… Been alone for so long with you all. Does that make me beautiful yet? Am I broken enough to be worthy yet? Am I beautiful?” He let out a disjointed laugh.

Celine was stunned into silence. What happened to him? What happened to Damien? What happened to the warm and kind brother that she always knew? Who hurt him? Who did this to him? It was Mark. It must have been Mark. Mark did something to him.

His laugh suddenly stopped and he turned his head to stare at the floor. “It’s about to happen.”

Celine studied his face, begging for answers. “What is? What’s happening?”

“Life…” He pointed to a section of floor under and slightly to the side of the two of them.

By himself it took a very long time before he first saw it, the shape was so hard to make out in his cyan light. But now that it was joined by Celine’s red, it was still murky, but easier to see. It was the shape of a man wearing a red robe. Celine recognized the body right away.

“Can’t stop it. Can never stop it. I can feel it when it’s about to happen.” The thing that used to be Damien could even choose to go into the body at will if he so wished. Sometimes he just wanted to feel pain instead of the numbness. Once he died, he was always pushed out, back into the void here. But no matter how long he wanted to stay here in this emptiness, he would always be dragged back into this unwanted, painful life. He didn’t have a choice. He understood it now. It was his punishment for everything that made him less than perfect. It was breaking him so that he could be made beautiful. “You’ll be gone when I come back, won’t you? That’s alright. Talking to you was different. But I’d like to go back now. Go back to the black. Go back to the voices.”

Celine could only stare at him, flabbergasted.

There was a smile on his face as he was being brought back to life. He expected this by now. And while it wasn’t pleasant, he was used to it and stopped fighting against it long ago. He barely remembered fighting against it in the first place. But things were different now. This time Celine was with him. She was holding him, and holding onto him tight. So when he was pulled back into the land of the almost-living, for once he was not alone.

-

Eyes opened and for the first time, Damien could see the interior of his coffin. Dirt that had leaked in at his sides. A lid that had been hit, scratched, pounded, and at clawed, but still held. A red robe that lay underneath him, filthy and stained. Damien could finally see himself in his nudity and the myriad of wounds that decorated his body, all of them leaking some kind of sickly black coagulated fluid that must have once been blood. And he was glowing. But he wasn’t glowing in the same way he did in the void.

He tried to bring his hands to his face, but only one obeyed. It still gave him plenty to think about.

His skin looked pale and ashen, but perhaps that’s what should be expected from having to try to live in a moving corpse. And around his hand- his whole body, really, a red and a cyan blue aura hovered just above and around his skin, bringing light to the pitch black interior of his wooden prison. And it was only then that he found that his thoughts were not purely his own.

He could feel panic beginning to grip his soul as questions began to fill his mind. Questions that were not his own, yet they were ones that he already had the answers to.

‘Where are we? What’s happening? Why can’t I breathe? Why does everything hurt so much…?’

The hand that he had previously been unable to move began to pound the lid of the coffin. “... Help…” his voice tried to croak out. “... Help…!” It wasn’t very loud.

‘No one can hear us. No one’s coming. We’re on our own.’ Damien spoke the words in his head, but didn’t exactly expect to get a reply.

‘... Damien…? So that was you... You really are in here.’

‘Celine…?’ The other voice really did sound like her.

It was then that he started to feel it. He could feel in his very soul that he was not alone. He could feel how Celine was there with him. He could feel Celine inside of and around him. He could feel himself inside of and around Celine. In a flash he- no -they realized that their thoughts were no longer their own. Damien could only see through one eye. He was looking through both. Celine didn’t understand anything. She already had an answer to every question she had. Learning what had happened to the other was now as simple as recalling a memory. ‘Celine’ remembered how Damien had been trapped. Caught in a cycle of undeath and unliving. ‘Damien’ realized that compared to Damien, Celine had been here for hardly any time at all. She had been shoved out of her body and found herself red and void. She walked through the black gray, following an odd sound; a ringing in her ears, only to find Damien. Or at least the person she thought was Damien. The person who used to be Damien.

Soon it became impossible to tell where one of them ended and the other began. And as their souls twisted around one another and merged, energy sparked and radiated from them. Power now surged through their veins and it was a fight to keep it contained to their too small and weak body.

And as the reality of their united mind washed over them, one question came to their separated single mind. “Who am I?”

But their body was quickly failing them and the realization that they would die for the first, the thousandth, and the first time was washing over them. Celine needed to cry out in anger. Damien had to laugh over the sheer novelty of it all. They let out a screaming laugh of despair.

-

Two lights, one cyan, the other red, opened their eyes.

The two stared at one another for a long moment trying to make sense of what just happened, until…

“Damien… What happened? What did they do to you? What was that?” A thousand questions came to her mind and she was intent on getting answers.

However the few words that Damien uttered silenced her. “Celine… So it really is you.”

Celine was completely unable to read the expression on her brother’s face. Was it joy? Sorrow? Disappointment? Or maybe it was simply just… Apathy. After everything that he had been through, Celine was coming to realize… She barely recognized the man standing before her anymore. The way he looked at her was alien. Almost empty. At least the emotion he expressed next was easy to understand.

“He took everything from us. And now we’re trapped here. Dead. I didn’t think that he had it in him. But that bastard… He betrayed us… Both of us. I never thought that he would ever hurt you… But then he killed you… Of all people, he killed you. And me too… We never should have given that son of a bitch a second chance. And now you’re trapped here with me…” Damien let out a roar. An honest to god roar as Celine watched his form flicker and unnaturally shift.

… What happened to him…? Was Damien even human anymore…? He had been here for so long… What had this place been trying to turn him into? What did they mean when they said that they were ‘going to make him beautiful?’ But she did know one thing. She could feel it as they had shared Mark’s body together. Damien had been broken. She could feel the very cracks in his soul as theirs overlapped, hers filling every empty fissure of his in, having merged together into one person.

“... If I ever see him again, I’m going to wring his neck,” Damien growled with an animalistic kind of fury. “I’ll make him suffer. Tear his guts out with these fingers and hang him from his intestines until he begs. Make him watch his own insides squirm from the agony of it all. I’ll make him regret the day he-”

“Damien… Damien! Stop!”

Celine’s order made him quiet. He took a long breath to calm himself down, if only a little. “I just can’t believe that he did this to you. You of all people. And now you’re trapped in here with me.”

Celine thought for a long moment. “... Maybe not.”

Now that caught Damien’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“That body… When we were inside of Mark’s body together… What was that…? We were one person.”

“... I don’t know what that was. It was like… We became someone entirely new… I… I’m sorry that you had to go through that, Celine… That you will have to keep going through that… I can’t stop it…” Damien stared down at Mark’s form embedded in the floor underneath them.

After taking a moment to consider it, Celine responded. “I think that I can.”

“... What?”

“I think that I can stop us from being dragged back into his body. I may have to try it a few times before I get it right, but having experienced it once… I think that I can stop us from having to go in there.”

“... So you really do have… Powers over the arcane or whatever… Maybe I should have put more stock into-”

“No. It’s alright. It only makes sense that you wouldn’t believe. And now… Well, now you- we have plenty of time to learn, don’t we? We’re going to get out of this, Damien. Together. I promise.”

“... So I trust that you have a plan?”

Celine nodded. “It seems to me that the reason you were being dragged into Mark’s body is that… This place is trying to put your- our souls back into our bodies. But since Mark took yours and… Something else took mine, his is the only available one left, and so that’s the only place our souls have left to go.”

“So it’s just putting us wherever it can… Even if it’s pointless…”

“Exactly. But if another body were to become available- If someone else died in this house… They would come here. And when they do… Perhaps we could convince them to let us join them when they return to life.”

“... But with just the two of us in one body, we were barely able to keep ourselves together without being torn apart…”

“It’s just a risk that we have to take… Unless…”

“Unless… After we come back, we push them back out… Put them somewhere where they can’t escape or try to reclaim their body…” The solution came to Damien with a surprising amount of ease. “And you think we can do that…?”

Celine solemnly nodded. “Once we’re in another body… We should be able to more or less do whatever we want…”

“And how do we know that someone- Anyone’s going to be dying in this house anytime soon?”

“I suppose that we’ll just have to wait, watch and see.”

“And how do you expect us to do that?”

Celine focused for a moment, taking Damien’s hand. There was silence and then…

They could see. They could move and look through the house at will.

“... You really can do a lot with this magic stuff, can’t you?”

Celine smiled back at him. “Well, someone has to know what they’re doing around here, right?”

But Damien made no move to smile back. Things really had changed, hadn’t they? It hurt to see.

They moved, looking through the house together to find… “It looks like everyone’s left... Wait… No. The Detective is still here… The Colonel… I guess that it only makes sense that they’d both remain here and…”

“No… The District Attorney…?” There was desperation in Damien’s voice. “What are they still doing here!? They don’t have any reason to be here anymore! Why didn’t they go home!?”

“Damien…! It’s going to be alright. We don’t have to- If it’s them…” But Celine couldn’t bring herself to lie so blatantly to him.

Damien fell silent for a long moment before he let out a resigned sigh. “No… No matter who it is… We don’t have any choices left anymore… No matter who comes here first… We have to take it. It may be the only chance we get. We have to… If anyone else dies here today… Let’s just pray that it’s going to be the Detective. For both of our sakes, I hope it’s the Detective.”

Celine squeezed Damien’s hand just a little tighter, the place where the two of them touched and overlapped shone with a white light. Celine could feel Damien’s despair. But also his resolve. In the end she couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

-

And so all they had left to do was to watch and wait. To prepare, to practice, to iron out the details, but ultimately they could only wait.

Eventually the time came. The Colonel and the Detective came to a standoff, the District Attorney helplessly watching from the sidelines. The Colonel got his shot off first, his bullet finding its home in the Detective’s chest.

Celine could feel the hope rise in Damien but then… The District Attorney went for the Colonel’s gun. Another shot rang out. There was blood on the District Attorney’s hands. Their own blood. Their eyes rolled back. They fell backwards, over the railing. They hit the floor. Their neck snapped.

They died immediately on impact. And Damien and Celine could do nothing to stop it. They could only watch.

“It’s just not fair, is it?” Those were the words Damien muttered.

Damien turned from Celine, but she grabbed his hand.

“Damien, you don’t have to do this! The Detective is still out there! He can’t survive this! He may be alive now, but it’s only a matter of time! He took that bullet through the heart! Any minute now he’ll…!”

“We knew this could happen… We agreed. No matter who it is… At least it should be easy for me to convince them…”

“But don’t you-”

“... Yes. Of course I do. But we both loved William too. And we both knew that even if it was him… We don’t get to choose anymore, Celine. We’re not alive. It isn’t our place to choose anymore.”

Celine fell silent.

“... We have to do this. I’m not backing down. Not anymore…”

“Damien… What happened to you?”

He didn’t answer. “I’m going to recieve them… Stop them from going into Mark’s body. Just as we planned. When I come back with them… You better be ready. It’s now or never.”

Celine could only stare as Damien vanished. He had changed so much… She wasn’t even certain that man was even Damien anymore, he was so broken… But this place… In here… Maybe she could do something about that…

There was power in this place. She was powerful in this place. And maybe it was power enough to fix him… Maybe she had enough power in this place to fix everything. So she made a plan of her own.

She would do it. She would save her brother. After everything he had suffered... She was the only one who could fix this.

She would fix everything. And Damien wouldn’t need to hurt or break any more. She would make it all better. No matter what it took. No matter how much it meant betraying and going behind Damien’s back. No matter the cost, she was going to pay it. And she knew that the cost was going to be steep. But that was fine. She was going to save her brother.

-

You made this place For broken things. But some things can’t be fixed. You made this place for me.

-

Author’s Note: Ehehehehe~ So. Was that everything that you thought that it would be? Yes, it was my goal to make this just… Cripplingly sad. But that’s just Who Killed Markiplier for you, really! In any case, here are some thoughts and reasons for why I wrote this.

It’s always been a personal headcanon of mine that something just… Incredibly horrible must have happened to Damien to make him change as much as we see at the end of WKM. Like… Damien was always capable of doing bad things, and betraying us, but he never would unless he had no other choice. Something or someone must have pushed or hurt him so badly that he stopped caring about the implications or consequences of his actions. The single frame at the end of WKM where you can faintly see Celine’s red, but Damien’s blue is entirely gone… I don’t really take that as the Damien we see in that scene being a fake version of him or anything like that, but rather that Damien has changed so much that he’s no longer the man we knew anymore. So what could have done that in so little time? Well…

I always kinda thought that end scene where we talk to Damien and Celine took place somewhere in between Mark’s body and the upsidedown. (You can see Mark’s body all throughout that scene after all.) And just… That’s kinda fucked up isn’t it? We know that body was real fucked up by the time Mark left it. But given the darkness and the creaking all around us… I always thought that it would make sense and add to the horror of the situation if that body had just been… Buried. And so us being in that body essentially means that we were buried alive. And that. Damien being scared, alone, in pain, and buried alive… Dying but unable to stay that way as Mark’s body continues to bring Damien back to life… Now THAT could break a person beyond recognition. That could turn a man who dearly loves and cares about us into a monster. So that’s kinda how I’ve always seen Damien’s death going.

So fun fact. I have a Damien ask blog over on Tumblr. It’s been open for a few years now, actually. And this whole idea and thing may kinda sorta… Be canon to it. How relevant is that to the story of the ask blog itself? I suppose that’s for you to decide! But in either case, that blog is why I came up with this whole idea in the first place!

-

He was still having a hard time believing it. His own sister. Having gotten herself caught up in the occult. He was never a superstitious man himself. In fact, he’d been talked into attending more than his fair share of seances and invited to witness psychic ‘miracles’ on more than one occasion in the past, much to his chagrin. But never once did he believe that any of it was real. While he didn’t always know how they did it, Damien knew enough about that crap to be able to tell that it was all fake. Parlor tricks. Sleight of hand. Misdirection. Pretty words. He knew a conman when he saw one and however they performed these tricks, he could tell that they were always just scams. Nothing magical about it. Nothing. Not unless you counted huxters taking advantage of the vulnerable and bleeding their believers dry of all of their resources as ‘magic.’ So the thought that Celine not only believed in this… Stuff... But that she had actually been practicing it… He didn’t want to believe it. And yet at the same time, Damien knew that this was exactly the type of thing that she would end up seeking out and getting herself involved in.

“Take a seat.” Celine motioned to the chair across from where she was presently sitting. It was more of a demand than an offer. “You can continue in your friend’s place.”

Not wanting to fight Celine over it right now, Damien did as he was told and sat down. “So... What exactly was it that you and the District Attorney were doing in here again?” he asked, uncomfortably shifting in his chair. Damien had no idea what had been happening. Alls that he knew was that Celine and the District Attorney had shut themselves into this very room for a few minutes before Celine started yelling, demanding answers. He had been standing guard, waiting just outside the room when the yelling had started. While he knew that the two of them had been talking, he couldn’t see nor hear anything that was being discussed beyond the door. At least not until Celine started shouting.

“We were about to hold a seance to try and communicate with Mark,” Celine explained, “But before I could finish the preparations, it seems that your friend fell into a trance. I’m… Impressed. They seem to be rather gifted in the arcane arts.”

“They really are gifted aren’t they…?” Damien wistfully smiled in spite of himself at the thought of his friend. Though he was uncertain how to take Celine saying that they were gifted in supernatural affairs specifically. “So what do you want me to do?” He didn’t like nor understand any of this kind of stuff, but he still wanted to help in whatever way he could.

“Just take my hand. We need to make a circle,” Celine told him.

“Are you sure about that? Aren’t you afraid that you’ll get the cooties?” Damien teased, reaching his hands out towards her.

“As if. Everyone knows that you can’t get cooties from your own family, Damien.” She rolled her eyes in an overly exaggerated way, the faint smile on her lips betraying her real feelings.

With how tense things had been lately, Damien was infinitely glad to see that Celine was still willing to play along and joke with him. But his relief was short-lived as she spoke again.

“Are you ready?” Celine asked, taking both of Damien’s hands in hers.

“I suppose that I’m as ready as I’ll ever be… Just… Celine… I don’t understand. Why…?” There was a pleading look on his face.

But in that moment, Celine refused to meet his eyes. “... There are a lot of things that you don’t understand, Damien. A lot of things that you don’t know… About me.”

A moment of hesitance. “... I know… Just… I hate it when you shut me out like this...” Damien couldn’t help but to let out a resigned sigh.

There was a beat of silence between the two of them before, “I know.” Her words were hushed as if Celine was revealing a secret.

Putting a smile on his face, Damien tried to cut through the tension in the air, returning their attention to the task at hand. “Well…? Shall we get started? You’re the boss, it seems,” he suggested, giving his sister’s hands a small but hopefully reassuring squeeze.

“Or the only one around here that seems to know what I’m doing.” Celine shot a small grin back at her brother.

“Yeah, that too,” he acknowledged with a nod. “But isn’t that usually the case?”

“Usually. At least around these clowns. But Damien…” Her tone turned deathly serious again. “Are you sure that you want to do this?”

“Honestly? No. I don’t want to do this. But I do know that if I don’t do this with you now that you’ll do it on your own later anyway. And this supernatural stuff… It’s dangerous, right?”

“... It can be,” Celine admitted through the silence.

“So I’m not going to let you do this alone,” he insisted.

Celine never understood how Damien was able to keep up that optimistic smile, even in situations as dire as these.

Leaning in just a little closer to his sister, Damien tried to catch Celine’s eyes, even as she was looking away, ashamed. “Just tell me what I need to do. I want to do whatever I can for you.”

Why did Damien always have to be so… Kind…?

Celine let out a breath in acknowledgement. “Well for starters, now that we’ve made a circle, we need to get in contact with the spirit world. You will need to close your eyes and listen to me. Things may start to get weird, but don’t let go of me. Just relax. You may start feeling emotions and sensations that aren’t your own. You may experience things that can’t be explained. But whatever happens, just keep holding my hand. So long as I’m here, I won’t let anything hurt you, alright?”

Damien nervously nodded, indicating that he was still listening.

“Alright, Damien. Close your eyes. Just focus on the spiritual energies around us and try to beckon them into joining our circle.”

His eyes slowly closing, Damien set himself to do as he was told, even if he wasn’t 100% certain what Celine meant there at the end. While he still had his doubts and reservations about all of this, if there was even a sliver of a chance that they could contact Mark and finally get some answers, they had to try. And he was going to do his damnedest to do what he could to help.

“It’s time.” The two took a shared breath before Celine declared out into the room, “We are reaching out to any spirits within this house to join us in our circle tonight. If there is anyone with us here today, please make yourself known.” She paused, the two of them listening for a long moment in complete silence, trying to sense anything in the room around them. They waited, searching for anything out of the ordinary at all. When nothing happened, Celine continued, “We are more specifically looking to communicate with our friend, Mark, who used to live in this manor, and who died here earlier today. If you’re here, Mark, make yourself known.”

While she didn’t hear anything, Celine felt that something was slightly off. And when she opened her eyes, she saw that Damien was trembling. “Damien? Damien! Look at me. It’s okay to open your eyes now. What is it? What’s happening?”

Damien flitted his eyes open to look at his sister. “I… It’s nothing. I’m fine. Let’s just keep going.”

But Damien was unnaturally pale, looking like he could throw up at any moment. “Like hell you’re ‘fine!’” Celine was shouting again, which failed to make Damien feel any better. “Tell me what’s happening! What you’re experiencing. This may be what we’re looking for!”

With a hesitant nod, Damien explained, “I… I feel cold… Something… Something doesn’t feel right… I don’t know what it is… I don’t know what’s going on… But something feels… Wrong… Bad...?” He shrunk in on himself as another wave of this terrible feeling washed over him.

After dwelling on it for a time, Celine called back out into the room, “Mark? Is that you? If it is, give us a sign.”

Damien felt a chill run down his spine, his stomach twisting itself into knots. He let out an uncomfortable groan. “I feel worse… Do you think that could be a sign…?”

“I don’t know… It’s hard to say…” Celine was hesitant to admit it.

“Then how can we know…?”

Celine considered it for a moment before once more turning to the rest of the empty room. “Spirit, if you are strong enough to interact with our world, prove it by knocking on something. Any surface will do. You can even knock on this table if you would like.”

The two paused, sitting in silence, but after a minute, they could hear a knocking coming from underneath the table between them.

“Now I really don’t like that…” Damien admitted in a mumble, but at least the terrible feeling inside of him was beginning to ease up.

“But this is good, Damien!” Celine wasn’t even trying to hide the excitement from her voice. “This is really good. We can get clear answers now!”

Damien nervously nodded as he tried to keep his composure. “Alright. If you say so…”

Celine didn’t really seem to hear him as she started speaking again. “Okay, spirit. We’re going to ask you a few questions. To respond, give us one knock for a yes, and two for a no. Do you understand? Again. One knock for yes, two for no.”

After a long moment, a single knock could be heard coming from underneath the table. Yes.

Celine’s face lit up at that. “It’s working! It’s really working!” she excitedly whispered before trying to go back to something of a calm and professional demeanor.

Damien could only nod in reply as he tried to swallow this awful feeling down. He may have found Celine’s reaction amusing if it wasn’t for these horrible and odd sensations washing over him… And if it weren’t for the fact that they were trying to speak to the dead.

Once she regained her composure, Celine addressed the room, “Is it our friend Mark that has joined us here tonight?”

There was a single knock.

“Damien, did you hear that? This is great! We’ve got him. We have Mark!”

Damien nodded, having pushed the terrible feeling aside enough to look back at her, though he still looked and felt sick. “Right. This is good... Well… Terrible to confirm that he’s actually dead… But now we can find out who actually killed him, right?”

But Celine didn’t seem to be paying attention to what Damien was saying as she continued, “Mark. Wherever you are, are you alone?”

Two knocks.

“Is that someone or something with you right now?”

One knock.

“Are you stuck here?”

One knock.

“That something that’s with you right now. Is that what's keeping you here?”

There was a moment of silence as if the entity in the room with them was hesitating before it again knocked once.

“Is it something unnatural about the house that’s keeping you here?”

Another singular knock.

“I knew it,” she muttered with a satisfied look on her face.

But the fact that she said it in little more than a whisper did nothing to stop Damien from hearing. Not when they were sitting so close to one another like this. “You knew what…?” There was confusion clear in his voice.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Damien. You can ask your questions about his death or whatever after I’m done.” She gave him a venomous look.

They heard a single knock.

Now that really seemed to boost Celine’s ego. “See? Even Mark agrees with me!”

“Fine, fine. Just… Can we just get this over with? Quickly? Please…? I don’t know how much more of this I can take...” While he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary around him, it still felt like something was pushing down on and smothering him.

“Sure, Damien. Whatever you say. I’ll let you get on with your little investigation soon enough. Just stop interrupting me.”

Damien furrowed his brow, unhappy to hear the dismissiveness in her voice, but he didn’t do anything in retaliation. He only nodded before knitting his mouth shut to let Celine continue, trying his best to stay out of her way.

“This… Entity. Whatever it is that is with you, has it always been here?”

One knock.

“May I communicate with it?”

This time they were answered by a long stretch of silence. Celine was about to repeat the question when they heard two knocks.

“Hm… Interesting. I can’t communicate with it… But he was certainly thinking about it... I wonder why...” She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the side in thought before, “Is this entity malevolent?”

Another pause before they heard another two knocks.

“The answers are coming more slowly now… It sounds like we might be losing our connection,” Celine noted, mostly to herself. “Mark, are you having difficulty communicating with us right now?”

One knock.

“Well that’s not good,” Celine muttered as if Damien wasn’t there.

However, even if Celine was going to ignore him, Damien continued, “Not good at all…”

After more silence on Celine’s part, Damien decided that it was finally his turn to speak up. “Mark. Is there any way that we can make communicating with you easier?”

One knock.

“Well? What is it?”

There was a long pause as Damien eagerly waited for a response which was eventually interrupted by Celine. “Damien, if you want a clear answer, you need to ask a simple yes or no question. It’s difficult for spirits to-” but before Celine could finish, Damien started looking wildly around. Pulling back in surprise, but still not letting go of her brother she asked, “What is it?”

“I… I heard a voice,” Damien admitted, “Right behind me. And it sounded exactly like Mark! I swear!”

“And he said…?”

“It was hard to make out… But I think that he said, ‘body?’ Maybe, ‘nobody?’ He said something about a body at least…”

After considering it for a moment, “Maybe he was trying to say, ‘no body.’ Since his went missing?” It wasn’t much of a suggestion, even Celine herself would admit.

But in spite of that, a single knock came from underneath the table.

“Well, I suppose that we have our answer then…” Celine gave Damien an impressed look.

Damien on the other hand just let out a stressed sigh. He really didn’t know what to make of all of this. “Is that it, Mark? Are you not able to use your own body anymore? And if we somehow got you another body, would you be able to communicate with us easier?”

One knock.

Both Celine and Damien leaned back in their seats, still holding the other’s hands, sharing a concerned and baffled look. “A body…? If we can’t even find his, how are we supposed to help him? Start digging up graves or something? Visit a morgue? But we can’t even leave the manor grounds with that strange storm outside… So what can we even do…?” Damien asked quietly.

“Well… He doesn’t necessarily need to return to his own body… Or an uninhabited one for that matter…” The words left Celine’s mouth as if she had just uttered a confession.

“... What?”

“Well, if he’s a spirit, he may be able to temporarily possess a still living body. While he may need a body, that doesn’t necessarily mean having to return to his own...” she explained. Celine immediately regretted saying those words.

A single knock.

The two stared at one another for a long moment.

“I’ll do it. He can use my body,” Damien relented after a time.

“No.” The answer was immediate.

“But Mark needs our help. He’s our friend. It’s the least I can do for him after… Everything...”

“Damien, no. I’ve never even heard of anyone successfully doing something like that before. Putting the spirit of a dead man into someone else’s still living body... I don’t know what could happen...”

“Celine, we need answers, right?” Damien confronted her. “We aren't going to be getting the answers we need if we can only ask simple yes or no questions. You know that. And we can lose contact with him at any moment, right?"

Celine begrudgingly nodded.

"This is just the easiest way… I'm not exactly… Enthusiastic about doing this either. I mean, I already have you, do I really need to share every intimate detail of my body with anyone else?" Celine gave Damien a sarcastic look. "But if Mark can tell us what happened… If we can hear it directly from him... I think that it's a risk that we have to take. Besides... This is Mark we’re talking about. It's just Mark… Our friend. I know the two of you didn't exactly leave things on the best note… And knowing that idiot, there's probably some part of him that's still in love with you. But... He wouldn't hurt you. Never on purpose. He wouldn't hurt either of us, right? I don’t know if he’d speak to me… But he’ll talk to you. I know that he would. And you still have more questions for him, right? So I have to be the one to do it… We're going to be alright. I’ll be fine. You can ask your questions, we can give Mark the justice he deserves, and then we can finally wash our hands clean of this whole affair…"

"Damien… There has to be another way..."

“Then what is it? What else do we have, Celine? If you have some other plan for how we can fix this whole mess, I would love to hear it, but right now… This is all we’ve got. We have to do this.”

“But this is dangerous and I don’t want you to get hurt! If anything happened to you… I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself... What if you can’t come back? If we do this, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be safe...”

“Celine… I know. But whatever happens, I’ll see you again. You’ll always be able to find me. No matter what. I promise. Besides. You may be my big sister, but I can take care of myself now. It’s alright. You don’t need to baby me anymore.” He gave her a warm smile that felt like a lie. “I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that! This could kill you!”

"You’re right. But you can’t talk me out of this one, Celine. This is my body. My choice. And I’ve already decided."

“... Please don’t do this. Damien… I have a bad feeling... I know that we don’t have many options, but please. For me. Would you at least consider?”

“I’m sorry, Celine. But we have to do this. I know that you’re scared, but it’s better this way. Whatever happens to me, at least you’ll be fine.”

“I don’t care about what happens to me!” she shouted back, her hands trembling. “What about you!? Don’t I matter enough to you? Your life matters more to me than anything else in this world! Ever since mom died…” she wanted to say more, but her voice fell away. She didn’t need to say anything. Damien already understood.

“And you know that I can’t just let this opportunity pass us by. It wouldn’t be right. I can’t just let Mark stay here, anguishing, never having his justice served. Mark was our friend. Don’t we owe him this much at least?”

Celine let out a frustrated huff. “After what he did, we don’t owe him anything,” she spat.

“Celine… If we don’t do this together now, it means that I’ll have to figure out how to do this on my own.”

“What…? But that... That could be suicide!”

“I know. But I can’t just let the culprit get away. You know that I can’t. This is the only choice we have left… If we want to catch Mark’s killer, we don’t have any other options…”

“Options… Choice… Do you really believe that we don’t have any other choice?”

“... We never did. Well… At least I never did. If you don’t want to help, I won’t blame you. But I have to do this. You know that I do.”

Celine was taking deep breaths. She wanted so badly to stop Damien from doing this. But in the end, she knew that he was right. "... If you're so sure…"

"I am.”

“And I really can’t change your mind?”

“I’m sorry but no. You cannot.”

"Okay, fine. You win. I’ll help you… But only if you promise me that you’ll be safe! I’m only helping you do this stupid thing to keep you from accidentally killing yourself! To make sure that we have the best chances of this actually working without something going wrong. The moment anything doesn’t go according to plan… Come back, alright!? Once Mark is in your body… If you can, talk to me as soon as you’re able to. If not… Just give me a sign that you’re safe as soon as you can." The tone of Celine's voice almost sounded resigned, if still determined as she began to ready herself for anything.

Damien gave her a gentle smile. “Of course. I promise. I’m ready whenever you are.” Taking a deep breath, Damien shut his eyes, bracing himself for whatever was going to happen next.

"Alright…” She took a deep breath before turning her attention to the rest of the room. “Mark, we offer Damien’s body as a vessel to you so that you may communicate with us here in the living world. If you wish to tell us your story, come forth and…"

As Celine spoke, Damien heard her voice drifting further and further away from him. It almost felt like something was gently pulling him away from the conversation. Pulling him away from the room. Distantly, he could hear a crack of lightning, and soon the warmth of his own body slipped away from him.

All became silent and black.

-

Damien shivered and jolted, pulling his hands away from Celine to clutch his head.

"Damien...? Damien. Are you alright?" Celine stood up from her seat, placing a hand on one of her brother's shoulders.

Slowly, Damien's eyes cracked themselves open as he took a ragged breath. After a long moment of being still, Damien began to move, holding his hands out in front of him, examining them with rapt fascination. After taking some time to flex his fingers, Damien brought his hands back in to feel his chest as he looked down at his own body.

It didn’t hurt anymore. It actually worked…

"A new body at last," he whispered to himself, an arrogant smile slowly spreading its way across his face.

"Damien…?" Celine drew her hand back as 'Damien's' eyes snapped to meet hers.

"Ah, Celine! It's so wonderful to see you again! Isn't this just perfect!?"

Everything about Damien was wrong. The smarmy expression on his face, the openly confident way he held himself, the boisterous tone in his voice. If it wasn’t for the way he was dressed, even Celine wasn’t certain that she would recognize the man in front of her as her own brother. She was rendered speechless.

Celine searched the man in front of her for signs that he was still the brother she knew, but the man took the silence as a chance to glance down at the sleeves of the suit he was wearing. “Oh, Damien. Damien, Damien, Damien. Damien, my sweet baby boy! It’s always normal, boring suits with you, isn’t it? Black and white. Only ever black and white. Always so formal and never any fun! I suppose that it just goes to show what ‘proper breeding’ gets you.” His eyes had wandered off and he was smiling at some random corner of the room with an arrogant expression before hopping to his feet. As he took a few steps, ‘Damien’ let out a tisking sound. “Oh, Damien. No wonder you would always carry that cane around with you everywhere you went… This does not feel good. Not very good at all. This simply will not do. But I can fix this. Yes… Once I fix these legs of yours, this body will do quite nicely.”

Celine was frozen, unable to do anything as she watched her brother’s body pace the room. Who the hell was this stranger in Damien’s body supposed to be talking to anyway? It certainly didn’t feel like the words were directed at her.

It took Celine a long moment before she could find her voice again. “... Mark…?” she asked with hesitant suspicion. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

He lifted his eyes to meet Celine’s before standing tall, motioning to himself with a grin. “The one and only.”

“So it really worked… Mark... It’s really you in there… What does it feel like? Being in someone else’s body that is. Did I hear you correctly? Are you able to feel Damien’s old leg injury? I swear to God, Damien, if you’re pulling some kind of tasteless prank with this... But if you’re really in there, Mark... Where is he? Where did Damien go? Can he hear what’s going on right now? Were you just speaking to him? How long do you think you have? How long can you stay in his body? How were you able to do… This? You said before that you weren’t alone. Did whatever that’s in here with us help you with this? Is there anyone else in that body with you? What was it like being dead?”

Mark took a step back as Celine began to move towards him. Seemingly he was being overwhelmed and overcrowded by her questions. “One at a time! One question at a time! I know that you wanted to see me, but I didn’t think that you were that desperate!” Letting out a chuckle, Celine noticed that for some reason, Mark was having a hard time meeting her eyes. “But yes. It’s me. It’s really me, Mark, in your-” Mark seemed to drift off in the middle of that sentence as his eyes blankly searched some random corner of the room before he turned back to meet Celine’s in earnest. “-your brother’s body.”

“It worked… It’s really you. Mark… You’re really alive again…” Celine took a moment and a deep breath to collect her thoughts. “But before anything else… Where is Damien, Mark? Is he in there with you right now? I need to know that he’s safe, so where is he?”

“Uh…” Mark hesitated in his answer for a long moment, glancing over Celine’s shoulder, once again not meeting her eyes. Why the hell was he spacing out, staring at some empty wall, for so long? “He’s not in this body with me right now, but he’s… Around.”

“Well? Can you tell me where he is?” She was starting to get real sick of how Mark was refusing to look her in the eyes as they talked.

“Celine! My dearest! Of course! Anything you wish!” Finally he was meeting her gaze. “He’s… Uh…” Aaaaaand he was looking away again.

“Well?” she asked impatiently, wanting nothing more than to grab Mark by the face to make him look at her.

A clap of thunder could be heard outside. Celine rolled her eyes. Someone had probably just said, ‘murder,’ somewhere on the manor’s grounds again despite her previous warnings.

“Ah! Right. Sorry if I seem to be a little distracted right now. Everything is just so unexpected and new!” As if he could sense her irritation, Mark finally seemed to put his full attention towards the woman in front of him. “This isn’t exactly how I expected things to work out, but maybe this could end up being even better than I had planned! Everything’s going to be perfect! Oh, it’s all just so exhilarating! Don’t you agree? So much to take in! So much to do! But no need to rush it. We have all the time in the world to do whatever we want now. Just the two of us.”

“Whatever we want…? What’s that supposed to-”

Suddenly Mark grabbed Celine’s hand, startling her. “Of course, my autumn flower. Anything we want can be ours. You know that I would have given you everything that you’ve ever wanted if I could. Now I finally have the means to.” The possessive and lusty way that he kissed the back of her hand made Celine’s stomach twist in sickened knots.

She pulled her hand away, only barely trying to hide her disgust. “You still didn’t answer my question, Mark. What happened to Damien? Where is he?” Celine kept pressing.

“Oh, him? He’s fine. Safe and sound with my body. Or rather, in my body, I should say… It’s a bit uncomfortable and cramped in there, but I’m certain that he’ll be able to manage in time.” Mark waved Celine’s concerns aside as if they were nothing and she was just being fussy.

“Your body…? He’s in your body- your corpse!? The one that was strangled, beaten, drowned, shot, and stabbed 37 times...? Why… Why would you do that to him?”

“Well, if I was going to successfully take his body, I had to put him somewhere . If I just left him hanging around as a disembodied spirit, he might get… Ideas. Might think that he can just reclaim his body when he gets tired of me being in it. Besides. I wouldn’t want to force him to watch us as we run away together. It’s a mercy to not make him watch as you choose me over him, if you really think about it. He’ll be fine. Probably.

“Take his…? Run away…? What the fuck is wrong with you? You killed him for that !?”

“Woah woah woah! Celine! Don’t be so hasty now! I didn’t kill him. We just switched places, so to speak.”

“But you died! How is ‘switching places’ with him not just a nice way of saying that you killed him!? You were a spirit without a body. You swapped places with Damien. And now Damien… Damien… He just wanted to help you! Or are you saying that you never died? That he’s in your still living body. Have you been alive this whole time? Then why the fuck did you tell us that you didn’t have a body!? What has this whole charade all been for, Mark!? And that still doesn’t tell me where he is!”

“He’s not in danger, if that’s what you’re asking. And he’s still alive, I swear! Well… Sort of… I died, yes, but I came back to life! I was alive… But I could barely use that body anymore. I was worse than dead in that thing. So I didn’t return to it. I really was dead. I really didn’t have a body, and I really did need a new one! But now I have Damien’s body, and he’s still alive in mine. He isn’t dead! Not fully at least. I promise. And nothing can hurt him! He’ll probably be back. Eventually.” Mark’s voice had a tinge of something resembling panic in it as he tried to placate Celine.

“So if he’s alive and fine, then where is he!? Your body went missing! I need to know that he’s safe, Mark. So where did you put him!? Just tell me where he is already! I swear to God, if you hurt him in any way at all... I’ll make you regret it.” Celine was becoming increasingly angry with each answer given to her.

“Alright, fine. Maybe he’ll be a little less than fine. But put him back? You’re kidding, right? I’m not going to put him back. Why would I do that when I can put this body of his to so much better use!? Honestly, Celine. You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about a single thing. He’s just buried underneath the house somewhere. I’m sure that you can find him eventually, if you really want to. But I promise. Nothing can get to him down there. He’s safe as… Well… Houses.”

“BURIED!? You buried him alive!? You son of a bitch…! What the fuck’s wrong with you!?” The fury coursing through Celine’s veins was palpable in the air as she stepped towards her ex-husband, grabbing Mark by the front of his clothes.

“Woah, woah, woah! Okay, okay! I’ll show you where he is! Celine, just calm down! I get that you’re upset. It makes no sense, but I won’t blame you for getting carried away over nothing like this. But you brought me here because you want answers, right? There’s still so much that I need to tell you! If I start to answer your questions, will that make you feel better? We can still get your brother back up here after I explain things if you want, but first hear me out.”

While a deadly look remained on her face, Celine let him go. “Fine. Start talking,” she demanded rather unceremoniously. “I swear to God, Mark if you don’t-”

“Alright! Alright. Now where to begin, where to begin!? Well, you see, Celine, I discovered something in this house of ours. Something that will make everything better! Something that can give us everything that we’ve ever wanted, deserved, and more! You always used to talk about how you didn’t like being this manor of ours alone. That there was something unnatural about it. You said before that you thought that there might be something in here. Something supernatural. Something alive and living in this house beside us, but always going unseen. And… Well… I found it. I met it. And you wouldn’t believe how much it’s taught me! I know that you’ve been searching for this entity for a while. Would you like to speak to it? It’s been wanting to speak to you.”

“Speak to it…?”

“Yes! And you would not believe the kinds of things it wishes to give you! To give us! The riches! The acclaim! The power! It wants to give the both of us everything! Isn’t that wonderful?”

But Celine seemed unimpressed. “What’s your point?”

“My point…? Celine! You don’t understand! With this being- this entity at our side, we can have so much! After the Colonel stole you away from me… Separated us… I wasn’t in the best place. But that’s all in the past now. We can have our revenge against him for splitting the two of us apart! We can be together again, Celine. Just you and me. The two of us. Just like when we were happy.”

“When we were happy…?” Celine shook her head, resolute. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t care about any of that. I just want you to bring Damien back already.”

“But why would we want that? We can start over. We can have everything we’ve ever wanted and more! The kind of power that we would have together… No one would be able to stop us anymore! Especially not Damien . We don’t need him! We can just leave that useless, conniving brother of yours behind. You know that he never approved of our relationship, right? Never said anything against it, of course. That would just be too rude for such a perfect, innocent man like him, wouldn’t it? But he didn’t have to say anything for us to know. Isn’t that right, Celine? Always watching and judging... But he didn’t know anything! This is true love we’re talking about! What could he possibly know about that?”

Celine rolled her eyes so hard they almost looked like they were going to fall out of her head. In spite of their history together, during the duration of her marriage, Celine knew that her brother and (now ex-)husband weren’t always the most fond of one another. But come on . Melodramatic, much? She found herself having to push down the urge to interrupt.

“We don’t have to listen to Damien ever again! We don’t need him! We don’t need anyone anymore! Together we can finally kill the Colonel and ditch your brother. It’ll just be you and me. Just like I’ve always wanted!”

“What…? You… You want to kill William…?” Now that one really took Celine by surprise.

“Why of course! With Damien’s body, I don’t need to worry about keeping William around anymore! I mean, that’s why I set up this little party in the first place. To get my revenge on everyone who’s ever wronged me… With the power living inside of this house, why, we never have to die! Using its power, I was planning on taking Will’s body. Obviously. I mean, there has to be some reason he was able to trick and steal you away from me, and it certainly wasn’t his brains or that winning personality of his. But not before ruining his life first. I was going to make him beg on his hands and knees to make it end. Make him beg for death… It’s what he deserves after he took you away from me. And then I would put him in my empty husk of a body. Make him feel all of the pain that I’ve been in for all these years... He would beg for death, but no matter what happens, no matter how hard he would try, he would never be able to truly die. It’s what he deserves. He ruined me. So is it really a shock that it was so easy to get him to kill me? But Damien… I hadn’t considered trying his body on for size until he suggested it. I really do need to thank him for that…” Mark seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment before he put on an expression as if he were struck by brilliance. “Oh! I know! As a favor to you and to thank him for his sacrifice, I’ll reconsider his role! Oh, how exciting! Yes, this will do quite nicely.”

“What the fuck…? Kill…? The Colonel was the one who killed you…? You were… You were trying to frame him!?”

“Of course! You know that it’s what he deserves! He ruined my life! He ruined you, my perfect wife. He ruined everything! So it was my time to ruin him. It was supposed to be so easy. I made the clues so obvious! Everyone should have seen that he was the culprit right away! But no ! Damien just couldn’t help but to protect the bastard until the very end, could he? He even tried to convince the District Attorney that he was innocent… I should’ve known that a crook like him would have someone like the DA in his pocket… It was so obvious… Damien was just supposed to be the beloved, reliable witness. It was such an easy role for him! It’s only the one that he’s been playing for his entire fucking life! As if anyone could be that innocent. As if he could be anything better than the liar that we both know that he is. And yet he somehow managed to fuck it up! I’ll have to consider him for a much different role next time. Something that he would be good at but something new… It was because of him that after the Colonel killed me, no one was able to figure out who the culprit was… I could only watch all of you running around in circles, completely lost when the answer was so obvious! He was standing RIGHT THERE! Guilty and with blood on his hands. What a waste of a death. Hurt like a bitch too. Probably wouldn’t heal either.” Shaking his head, he let out a disappointed breath. “It really did cause so much damage to my body. And for what? A wild goose chase? Such a waste... But nevermind that. Now that I have a new body, that’s no issue.”

“So you were telling the truth before…? You really did die and come back to life…”

“Oh Celine, my sweet... I never wanted you to know… I couldn’t let you suffer on my behalf. But it’s true. I’ve died a lot.” Mark’s teeth were gritted as he spoke. “Ever since he took you from me… I’ve died… So many times… Over and over and over again… I died… But it didn’t end. Every time I killed myself, it didn’t stick. I could never stay dead for very long. I didn’t understand... But now I do.” He took a deep breath before pushing his chest out, standing tall and triumphant. “Now I know that I was meant for so much more! It was all leading to this! It’s finally time for my big break! This is the last time, I swear. No more death. Now life is mine to live! I’m leaving my old body behind and starting anew. And Celine… I want to start over with you.” He took her hand in his, pulling her close. “Run away with me. Together we can do anything we want. Bend this world to our will. We could even rule over it if you wanted us to. I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I want you to come with me. It’ll be perfect. I’ll be perfect. We’ll be perfect. Together. This world is ours. We’ll make it perfect together.” And with that, Mark forced Celine into a kiss.

Having been taken by surprise, Mark had managed to slip his tongue into her mouth before Celine managed to angrily shove him away. She spat in disgust the moment he wasn’t on her anymore before smacking him across the face. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Mark!?” she demanded. “That’s my brother’s body! How dare you make me… Don’t dare you touch me ever again! Disgusting…” Taking a step back, Celine’s teeth were bared in aggression. “This has been so much fun, Mark. But I’ve had just about enough out of you. Bring Damien back right now!”

“But Celine… What about me? I need this body. I can’t… I can’t live without it. Trying to exist in my old body… It hurts… It hurts so much… That’s not living... What would I do…? Why would you do this to me? Don’t you love me…?”

“I don’t care what you do after this, Mark! Just give Damien back to me, and then you can go fuck off and die for all I care! And when you do die, would you do everyone a favor and actually stay dead this time!? God… I should have known better than to try to talk to you of all people.”

“But Celine…? What about us…? I’m better than anything Damien could ever be!”

“Jesus Christ, Mark. What’s wrong with you? It’s over! It’s been over for a very long time! I thought that we talked about this. I just don’t love you like that! Not anymore.” Celine was uncertain if she ever did in the first place. “I thought that you would have gotten over this by now… Mark, you need to move on. I’m not coming back.”

“But I… You… I- I…” Mark fumbled, finding himself at a complete loss of words. He ran a hand through Damien’s slicked back hair, messing it up. “I’ve got it! William’s brainwashed you! I see it now! But don’t you worry! I can make it all better!”

“No, Mark!” Celine was putting her foot down before Mark’s sense of denial got out of hand. “I haven’t been brainwashed! It was my choice to leave! And this is why! You were suffocating me… I just couldn’t take it. I know it broke your heart, but I couldn’t stay. I had to leave... Get over it! I’m happier without you! We are never going to be a thing ever again! After the divorce, I was hoping that we could remain friends. But after this stunt? Forget it! Give me my brother back! I’ve had enough of this. Put Damien back in his body, and once you do, I never want to see you ever again.”

“But Celine… I… I had so much planned… I… I should have known better.” His tone turned dark. “Why do I keep giving you these second chances when you only ever use them to betray me? You whore. I keep trying to give you another chance to be a part of my story, but Every. Single. Time. You only ever stab me in the back! You’re right. I don’t need you! I don’t need anyone anymore! I’ll make my own world. Yes… I’ll write the perfect story. And you’ll be able to do nothing but watch! It’ll be so good, you’ll just be crawling and begging to come back to me! You’ll want to join my story so badly… Just watch!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me ? What’s wrong with you !? I’m offering you everything ! I’m offering you a starring role in my story! You can have and be anything you could possibly want or imagine! I can give you the whole entire world! Why can’t you just accept it!? What more do you want!? The whole fucking universe!? You just don’t appreciate this… You don’t appreciate me! You’ve never appreciated me!” There was a fizzle of electricity in the air, and the first of many thunderclaps reverberated through the air around them.

“I just want my brother back, you son of a bitch!” Celine didn’t know what was happening, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to back down now.

“Oh, you can have him back. But you better appreciate it! It’s the last thing I’m ever going to give you! And he’ll be the only thing you’ll ever have ever again! It’s what you get for choosing him over me. I sure hope that you don’t mind being close!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Celine. I didn’t want to have to do this to you, but you’re leaving me with no choice. It wanted this, but I was hoping that things could be different.” His eyes shifted to something behind Celine and she was suddenly overcome by a feeling of dread. “You were right. She isn’t agreeing. Send her to her brother. I did everything that I could to help. Just get rid of her.”

“What are you…” A chill ran through Celine. There was something touching her. It wasn’t human. She could hear a thousand little whispers in her ear eating at her mind as lightning crashed all around her. Whatever this thing was, it reached into her. Passing through her skin and into her body. Pushing her out. But she refused to budge. Thunder cracked and the lights went wild as Celine tried to fight for control over her own body. But it was a battle that was lost long before it even began.

Whatever this power was, it was building. Accumulating. Lighting the room in awful purples and whites.

She was overcome.

And then she was gone.

-

Author’s Note: So this is an idea that I’ve had for a very long time. This fic is kinda more or less an excuse to put my Opinion on what happened to Damien and Celine out there. You know. Explore how they died and what happened in the immediate aftermath of it. It's sort of a fill-in fic to explore the things that we didn't have the chance to see in the series itself while we were in the garden. This is my personal sort of headcanon on how Damien and Celine died. I just… Have a lot of headcanon involving this series in general… I would love to discuss it if asked! But this is just my excuse to explore some of it.

This was initially going to be a one shot, but it quickly got out of hand. So all the good stuff and the reason I really wanted to write this in the first place is really in part 2. So while I hope you liked this first part, it’s part 2 where all the good, juicy stuff is. This part is pretty much just set up. So I hope you’ll stick around to see part 2! I'm going to try and put it out before In Space With Markiplier comes out.