Devouring the light.

Like the way fate splices into many fragments, a division, eventually leading back to the beginning in its conclusion, they are brought together once again.

Merris had seen this man before, a face of a face she had glimpsed in passing, perhaps in her dreams or nightmares, but never quite able to commit it to memory, as there was always something that could not stretch beyond the specific point of permissability. Something taken, but always something left behind in its place. Arbitrary, random. A hidden meaning from somewhere behind the curtain, not meant for her eyes or ears, in utterance of those very words that she had long carried on her mind and tongue for what felt like much too long.

❝Night Springs?❞ Scratch supplies, feeling it like a frame of a shadow, growing distorted and becoming more unclear of what it is a shadow of. Except if he runs enough laps, he can remember, and does he run? He crosses the overheated thought again, and it clicks into place. ❝Merris.❞

And then in that moment, he regains himself. Enough to grin at her, and enough to push the writer's games away. Enough to stop the writer's breathing and be in the front of the vessel.

❝Oh. My clever little girl,❞ He mutters. ❝Thorn in my side,❞ Scratch adds, the shadow like watercolor smearing from his face, distorted and containing multitudes. ❝Can't leave well enough alone.❞

❝You keep Wake busy. He should be writing... You waste our time.❞ Scratch wasn't a jealous lover, nor was he a lover at all. He simply wanted the writer writing. Wake was his prisoner, knowing he kept sneaking off to the two men parties with Zane was infuriating.

The darkness had to take over, and it's difficult to gauge how long they've been there. A decade, or maybe less... perhaps even more. Scratch never cared for time, but he was growing impatient.

Scratch moved forward in quick strides, eyeing the other with contempt. He could snap his neck, see if the filmmaker awoke again. If he looped as well. Raising his hand, he stopped himself an inch from his throat, all the willpower he had.

It had been a long day for Alex Casey.

And it would be a longer day, still, if their only witness to this mess decided to stay as uncooperative as he had been.

"My life would be a lot easier if you'd tell me how you ended up back on that beach, Wake," Casey started, sitting opposite him at the long breakfast table once his coffee was ready.

At least the two had one thing in common: Coffee in a skin suit.

❝I was summoned,❞ Scratch spoke, clear. His brain in a tangent with Wake's, both fighting for who is in charge. But the summoning? They miscalculated, really. The Andersons were calling for the writer, but forgot Scratch always trails behind. The darkness never leaves, it's always there with the light. ❝The lake carried us out. The darkness was cruel, you should know, agent Casey.❞

Rose wasn't stupid. She knew the woods were a dangerous place. Perhaps more than most, if not all, of Bright Falls was aware of it. She knew exactly who it was that went bump in the night. She recognized her neighbors in them. The lady that always walked her yappy little dog at 6 am. The man that always shouted out his windows at anyone passing by. The man that always took his coffee with two cream, two sugar. He used to get three sugar until he went on a 'diet'. Rose knew what they were, too, at least in the fact they were a threat. She couldn't let them crawl out of the lake unchecked. Even if she wasn't supposed to be the hero, she could still do whatever she could to help her dear writer. She could keep Bright Falls safe.

The voice causes her to jolt, her grip on her shotgun tightening as she whirls around to face the source of it. The light from her flashlight attached to the gun - a girl has to have her accessories, of course - only barely illuminates him.

" You- "

She repeats, though her tone is one of tension. Agitation. Rose knew of this double. She was told about it. She wrote about it.

❝I'm not going anywhere, we only just got to see each other again,❞ He rasp through a grin. ❝Such a poor overworked girl, big dreams growing in her. You write!❞ Not an astute observation, he got to witness her little story play out. Hated it. She wasn't useful, not in that sense. The writer himself, atoning for his sins couldn't stop himself for running to rescue. Scratch just had to keep her with him for now.

Withstand his own punishment.