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Excuse is granted. Please. I beg of you. Infodump away
Thank you so much I love telling people about this guy
So, to preface this, I'll be telling this story exactly how it was told to me by our camp counselor at a Caveing camp I went to, so it's very much an oral history that maybe can't be fact checked but the broad strokes are genuinely 100% true
Now that that's out of the way (and please mention if there's any other TW's I should add) the story of
Floyd Collins, The Man Who Was Buried Six Times
This story begins in Kentucky in 19very early, a young Floyd was plowing his family's field when he suddenly dropped through the ground and discovered an unknown cave system. Super cool! Now, people back then did not have television, keep in mind, so caves were really big deals and they were a brand new and lucrative tourist escapade. Floyd's family seized the idea and quickly made a little tourist attraction out of it and started raking in the dough. But they weren't the only ones who had a cave you could tour, Kentucky's geology is super unique in that it has tons of limestone and sandstone which is perfect for underground rivers to carve cool caves out of. They are everywhere in Kentucky and the surrounding area, there was a lot of competition for who had the best, the biggest, the longest cave. And Floyd and his brothers were seized by cave fever and were exploring all around looking for new tunnels and chambers. A large part of this business, unfortunately, was not just walking people through the caves but was letting them take home souvenirs. People could carve their names in the wall, take a stalagmite or stalactite or whatever cool rock they found. Destroying the sensitive ecosystem of the caves. Floyd, the cool dude that he was, was one of the only people who was against this at the time. Good for him! Salamanders are important!
Anyway, Floyd and his brothers are always on the lookout for new opportunities, and there were tons in that area. But, not all of them would pan out. Floyd had heard rumblings about a new cave system called Sand Cave that wasn't far from his family's original cave, which by now had been dubbed Crystal Cave. It didn't seem that promising to most, but Floyd was hoping it actually connected to Crystal cave, and they could tack on so many feet to how big their cave was. So he set off to see if he could find a connection.
He had been surveying the cave for a few hours, and decided to call it quits. He was crawling through a tight tunnel upwards toward the opening of the cave when a rock slide pinned his ankle down tight. He was laying flat with his hands reaching upwards, and there was no way for him to reach back behind him to free his ankle.
He had gone on this expedition without telling anyone.
This was the first time he got buried.
Three days pass, and his brother Homer finally finds him. He tries everything he can think of to free floyd, to no effect. Realizing that this may be a bigger endeavor than he can pull off, he crawls back out to go and find help. It is January of 1925, what else is there to do but go to the newspaper? They publish the story of the man trapped in a crawl way, and it's a huge hit!? People are fascinated by Floyds predicament. They want to help, they want to see, they want to know more. It even makes it on the radio! The three biggest news stories of the time were
1) the war (oof)
2)Charles Lindbergh (will come up again later)
And 3) Floyd in the hole
Everyone in America is anxious to find out how they rescue Floyd. "They" being everyone from the local cave experts to the military corps of engineers to the freakin freemasons, they're all trying to figure out how to free Floyd. Who, ya know, is just chillin in the cave, because caves stay at a constant temperature of ~54Ā° , not too bad for January. His brothers and a reporter take turns crawling down to deliver him the three essentials; food, whiskey, and news. The reporter, "Skeets" Miller, would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his correspondence with floyd in the shaft. Now, as mentioned before, it is a cold and snowy January, but people (nearly 10,000 according to some reports) are so fascinated by the goings on at Sand Cave that they travel from far and wide to be there at the triumphant moment when Floyd emerges. Weeks have gone by at this point. Radio stations are reporting every day, Charles Lindbergh is hired to take photographs of the terrain from above. It's like a big party up top.
They camp out around the cave mouth.
They build fires for food and warmth.
The snow melts.
The cold water trickles down into the cave.
Floyd....... starts to cough.
The cave's already sketchy structure is further compromised.
There's another rock slide.
Floyd is now cut off from contact with the up side world, and the engineers panic and go with a last ditch effort they had been debating beforehand. They can't go around they can't go behind, the only path left was straight down. They drill a hole that reaches the 150 feet from daylight to Floyd's prison. They are too late. He was estimated to have died three to four days before they reached him. His leg is still stuck, and half his face has been consumed by cave crickets. And they just.....leave him there. Whatreyagonnado they shrug, he's already gone we can stop now. They fill in the shaft again.
This is the second time Floyd is buried.
Homer, his closest brother, can't accept this as his final resting place. A few weeks later, they un block the hole and carry Floyd to their family's funeral plot and have a small service with just his closest friends and family present.
This is the third time Floyd Collins is buried.
A few years go by, and the Collins family sells their farm and cave. Unfortunately, they did not see the part of the deed that entitled the new owners to everything in and under the property. Floyd's body is now legally theirs. He is exhumed and placed on display in a glass coffin in Crystal Cave (which years and years later would eventually be proven to connect to Sand Cave).
This is the fourth time Floyd is buried.
If you haven't pieced it together yet, caves were a pretty big deal. We now enter a time in Kentucky history known as the Cave Wars, and they are brutal. How brutal, you ask? Well, to answer with one scenario that happens to be related to this story, the owners of nearby cave were jealous of the attention Crystal Cave was getting from their cool exhibit of Floyd's body, against his family's wishes. Why, the only logical thing to do is steal the man's body and throw it off a cliff. Crystal Cave's new owners would recover it, though minus the left leg. And the next logical thing of course is to put him back on display but this time with a bunch more chains.
This is the fifth time Floyd Collins is buried.
Then, the 60s roll around and Crystal Cave and Floyd are purchased by the National Parks Service on the grounds of being connected to the Mammoth Cave System (the longest cave system in the entire world now). Floyds family is still fighting for his body, and in the 80s they finally get their wish. Floyd is removed from the cave in a 15 day trip and buried at a real cemetery again.
This, is the sixth time he is buried.
A pillar is constructed in honor and perhaps in reparations to all he's gone through, but it is struck by a semi truck and demolished less than a week after its unveiling.
Floyd.......went through a lot. All he ever wanted to do was see some cool rocks and support his family. And to this day, cavers do their best to do right by him. When entering Mammoth Cave, they often ask the darkness to look after them. They aren't talking to the darkness, of course, that darkness that can never be described properly. They are talking to Floyd. Asking him to watch over them as they wish he had someone to watch over him. In the caves everyone is above you, but that's not what they mean. And when they hear a whistle through the tunnels, they like to imagine it's Floyd. Floyd, who was right. The cave was so much more than people thought, in so many different ways. To this day, there's a saying in the caveing community.
"Floyd Lives"
It's like the geology version of "Eddie Would Go". As long as we carry on his legacy of exploring bravely, daring to go where noone has gone before, and do our best to preserve the natural beauty and habitat of the caves, floyd will live on. Floyd lives in our memories and hearts and the drips of water that will one day be pillars.
I don't really know how to end this. Here's a picture of the man himself;
(the picture above is not the tunnel he was trapped in, to be clear)
closed starter for @softsliders19ā (David and Charles)
Charles was on the mend mentally. Whatever those things were had really taken a toll on him mentally. He wondered if those wraith like creatures did this to everyone they came in contact with or if he and Jean had been affected more because of their ability to link mentally to things. It was the darkness of their minds it had been overwhelming that he just needed some time. He had texted David letting him know he was alive and well but just needing a few days alone. Just to purge the darkness from his mind. So he threw himself into the creation of the new school for the mutants here.Ā
He was working hard on it when the doorbell rang. With a sigh he opened the door with his mind.Ā
āYou know I love you son but I am fine. You donāt need to check on a me.ā A slight chuckle escaped him while he remained at the table working.Ā
leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic
Read from the beginning on Tumblr | Also on AO3
Chapter 59: Statement of what comes now.
[CLICK]
[PANTING BREATHS, ECHOING SLIGHTLY, THAT SLOWLY EVEN OUT]
JON
Wh-whatā¦whatā¦?
Martin! Martin, whereāwhere are you? I canātāoh, God, I canāt see anything, I canātādid thatā
(in a different tone of voice) Martin? Are you here?
[ECHOING SILENCE]
JON
ā¦Okay. Okay, thisāthis isnāt reality. This isnātāheād be here if I wasā
Right. Okay.
(more loudly) Hello? Hello, is anyone out there?
[MORE SILENCE]
JON
W-waitā¦wait, is thatāthereās somethingāokay, okay, Iām not blind, itās justā¦dark. I can cope with that.
Right, okay. Think, Jon. After what you just didā¦if youāre not in the Institute, if youāre not in the world youāre used to, then youāre probablyā¦somewhere else. So things are going to follow dream logic, right?
Right. Dream logic. (sigh) So I suppose I go looking for a switch.
[ODD CHITTERING, BUZZING NOISE THAT SUDDENLY STOPS]
JON
Oh, forāthere has got to be away around this. No light switch, no walls, and I donāt trust the floors, soā¦
What am I supposed to do, say āLet there be lightā?
[LOUD THUNKING NOISE, LIKE SOMEONE SWITCHING ON STAGE LIGHTS, OR AT LEAST A SPOTLIGHT]
JON
Seriously?
(frustrated sigh) Well, at least I can see now. Iāwait. What in theāwhoās there?
[A VOICE BEGINS SINGING SLOWLY, FAINTLY AT FIRST BUT SLOWLY GETTING LOUDER]
ANNABELLE
One elephant went out to play
Upon a spiderās web one day
She had such enormous fun
She called for another elephant to comeā¦
JON
You have got to be kidding me.
(resigned sigh) Right, here we goā¦
[ODD NOISE STARTS UP AGAIN, PUNCTUATED BY STICKY RIPPING SOUNDS, FADING IN AND OUT AS IF RESPONDING TO PRESSUREā¦OR FOOTSTEPS]
ANNABELLE
Hello, Jon.
JON
Annabelle Cane. Why am I not surprised?
ANNABELLE
You donāt sound pleased to see me.
JON
Letās just say yours is not the first face I wanted to see when I woke up.
ANNABELLE
I have good news for you, then. It isnāt. Youāre not awake.
JON
Oh, you can invade dreams now too, can you?
ANNABELLE
You arenāt asleep, either. And I think you already knew that.
JON
Oh, goddammit.
[A MOMENT OF SILENCE, SAVE THE FAINT ODD CHITTERING NOISE]
JON
ā¦Wait. That noise, thatāsā
And it gets louder every time weā
[CHITTERING SUDDENLY GETS LOUDER, WITH A FEW CLEAR WORDS HERE AND THERE, THEN FADES AGAIN]
JON
Are these tapes?
ANNABELLE
A fine material to spin a web with, donāt you think?
JON
Itās you.
A-all this time, all theseāthe recorders, the, the tapesā¦itās all been you?
ANNABELLE
Well, not all me. Not all of it, anyway.
The Mother of Puppets has always collected stories. There are more reasons than one itās called spinning a tale, you know. And spidersā¦itās so hard to keep them out of places. People donāt generally call exterminators for them. Not for only one or two, and not if they donāt seem dangerous.
So yes. The Web has been lurking about the Magnus Institute, and the Archives, nearly as long as there has been an Institute. Listening. Drawing from the stories. Weaving a tapestry that tells the history of the worldā¦and its future.
But this web? This one is mine.
JON
The tapes I recordedā¦
ANNABELLE
Oh, yes. All the tapes since you became the Archivist are here. Listen to this!
[A SQUEAL, THEN A CLEAR PLAY OF THE TAPE FROM MAG 000.2 - PRE-LAUNCH TRAILER]
ARCHIVIST ON TAPE
Itāll get you too. You can stare all you want, make your notes and your inquiries, but all your beholding will come to nothing. When the time arrives, and all is darkness and butchery, youāll wish you had stopped listening and run.
[ANOTHER STICKY SOUND, LIKE SOMEONE PULLING OFF AN ADHESIVE BANDAGE]
JON
(shocked) Thatāthat wasāI only did that one as a test, toāto see if the recorders would workā¦
ANNABELLE
And they did. Admirably.
Go on. Try one.
JON
Look, I donātā
ANNABELLE
Youāre curious, arenāt you? You want to know.
There is no time here. Not really. No hurry. No pain. Nothing can hurt you if you indulge your curiosity a little bit. And it might not be so easy to believe once you leave.
Pick a strand. All you have to do is touch it, like soā
[ANOTHER SQUEAL, AND THEN ANOTHER RECORDING BEGINS TO PLAY FROM MAG 22 - COLONY]
MARTIN ON TAPE
āwasnāt anything to do with spiders that ended up after me. Almost wish it had been. (nervous laugh) I like spiders. Big ones, at leastā
[RECORDING CUTS OFF WITH STICKY SOUND AGAIN]
ANNABELLE
āand you can hear them.
JON
He doesnāt anymore, you know.
ANNABELLE
Like spiders? Oh, believe me, I know.
I donāt think heās liked them since he found out what happened to you. Not that I can blame him, of course. How do you feel about clowns these days? Or being alone?
JON
Iā
ANNABELLE
Go on, Jon. Touch one. It doesnāt have to beā¦fresh.
JON
Why are some of theseā
Is thatā¦ash?
ANNABELLE
Dust, mostly.
(considers) Well, some of it might be ash. It depends on why that section of web isnāt used anymore.
JON
(tartly) I didnāt know being obscure and mysterious was in the Webās domain.
ANNABELLE
It is if you want to manipulate somebody whoās addicted to knowledge.
Oh, donāt look at me like that. Iām not trying to manipulate you. Itās just a habit at this point, really.
JON
ā¦Fine.
[A COUPLE OF CAREFUL STICKY, CHITTERING FOOTSTEPS, THEN A SOFT SQUEAL BEFORE A RECORDING SHARPENS IN, FROM MAG 134 - TIME OF REVELATION]
PETER ON TAPE
What doesāpuzzle me though, and I mean that genuinely, isāwhy you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin while Jon was in there. Ā (brief pause) Itās a question, Martin, itāsāitās not an accusation.
MARTIN ON TAPE
I donāt know. And I just ā felt like it might help. Heās always recording, and I thought itāit might help himā¦find his way out.
PETER ON TAPE
Interesting. Were you compelled?
MARTIN ON TAPE
I donāt know. Maybe? I-I, I definitely wanted to do it.
[RECORDING FADES OUT ON THE LAST WORD]
JON
(shocked) Th-that, that wasāthat hasnāt happened, that didnāt happenā¦
ANNABELLE
This time.
JON
You knew? When, when I met you at Hill Top Road, when youā¦you knew Iād come back from the future.
ANNABELLE
Of course.
You and Martin, your Martin, you came back after Jonah Magnus made you end the world. The Keeper of the Light led you to a door, that led you through some halls, that led you to another door, that led youā¦back. To getā
JON
āa second chance.
ANNABELLE
A second chance? Hardly.
JON
And just what is that supposed to mean, exactly?
ANNABELLE
Only that.
JON
ā¦Fine. F-fine. Be mysterious and vague. See if I care.
[ANNABELLE LAUGHS KNOWINGLY]
JON
How do you knowā¦the tapes. You just told me youāve been listening to the tapes. Martin made his statement about those hallsā
ANNABELLE
But you didnāt.
You havenāt talked about what your journey was like to anyone, have you? Not even Martin. He knows you came through the same halls, but not what you saw. He doesnāt know that for you, there were no colors and no changes, that every hallway was the same and there was no way to tell when you were getting closer, until you reached that long tunnel.
The one with the glass walls and ceiling, like an underwater aquarium. With dark shapes you couldnāt make out pressing against the outside, trying to get your attention. With thousands of whispering voices, over one another, so hard to make out, pleading, promising, coaxing. Offering you anything you desired if you would only make it stop, blaming you for their suffering, demanding how you could just walk on by as ifā
JON
Stop.
ANNABELLE
You didnāt know you were recording, either. Youāve grown so used to those recorders that you didnāt even notice them anymore. And yet, I was listening.
JON
You wereāwhat?
Y-youāyouāre from the future, too!
ANNABELLE
Mm. Thatās more complicated than you think it is.
JON
How did you know what we were doing?
ANNABELLE
Because I set it in motion.
JON
ā¦Youā¦you what? Those halls, thatāthat portrait gallery, thatā
ANNABELLE
Which one?
JON
Whichāboth of them. The ones thatāthat Martin had to face.
You said you listened to the tapes, youā
ANNABELLE
I did. And I wasā¦shadowing you both, I suppose.
You never wondered how I was at Salesaās, did you? Not why I was there, how I was there.
JON
Iā¦to be honest, I donāt remember much about those days.
ANNABELLE
I donāt mean while you were there. I mean after. You never thought about how I could have ended up outside my own domain, let alone outside the Apocalypse altogether.
JON
I tried to think about you as little as possible.
ANNABELLE
(heh) Iād be hurt if I didnāt understand completely. I suppose if Iād been lucky enough to escape the Spinner of Webs, Iād want nothing to do with any of her children either.
But you know the rules of the Apocalypse, Jon. It never occurred to you to wonder how a Watcher could stray from their domain?
JON
Martin did. And Helen. They bothā
[STATIC CRACKLES; ITāS THE ARCHIVISTāS STATIC, BUT IT SOUNDS UNUSUAL IN A WAY THATāS DIFFICULT TO PINPOINT]
JON
The Distortion never truly left its domain. Never went far from its doors. And while the domains we saw Helen in were seemingly those of other fears, they all had at least an element of the Spiral in them.
Martin was in the unique position of being both Watcher and Watched. He had the domain he oversaw, small though it was, but he was also, perhaps, the only sufferer in a domain that belonged to me as me and not me as the Eye itself. He could walk the world unharmed because what hurt him was watching my pain and power grow in equal measure, the suffering of not knowing what I would choose in the end.
And youā¦
Your domain was like Daisyās. It was the other domains, woven through them like a silken thread, a subtle tug of manipulation. It was the tapes that kept recording our journey and the tugs that led us to people we tried to help or conquer and a thousand tiny maneuverings to keep us moving ahead.
[STATIC FADES; JON GASPS SLIGHTLY]
JON
Thatā¦that shouldnāt have felt like that.
ANNABELLE
Youāre a bit far from the Eye here. But to be fair, so am I.
JON
Weāre in the middle of your fucking web!
ANNABELLE
But my web. Not the Web.
Any power the Mother of Puppets has here is residual, and comes through me. Any power the Ceaseless Watcher has here is residual, and comes through you. I brought the web to show you, to help you understand, but it doesnāt belong here any more than we do.
JON
You wereāyou were manipulating those tunnels. Toā¦what? Slow us down?
ANNABELLE
To help. Well, you didnāt need it, but Martinā¦
JON
Martin is stronger than you think.
ANNABELLE
Do you know whose domain that was?
JON
The Spiralās. Of course.
ANNABELLE
And the Eye. Together.
Together they hung that gallery of accusation, the paintings that all seemed to hold Martin responsible for their deaths. His friends, his familyā¦strangers he never met but felt responsible for. Its purpose was to keep Martin lostādisorientated and in crippling pain and anguish. Forever.
If he had kept going down that corridor, he would never have found the door to the past. And the Keeper would never have been able to find him. Both of them had too much of the Lonely in themājust enough to keep them both isolated and searching. If they didnāt know where to meet.
JON
(whispers) My God.
Theyāthey knew what we were trying to do. Of course they did. And they didnātā
ANNABELLE
Itās not about foresight. Neither of them really have that. That domain was a mix of the Spiral and the Eye. Itās just what it was designed for, thatās all.
JON
Thatās all? It was more than enough.
So which did youā
(with horrified realization) The paintings of me. You did that.
ANNABELLE
To remind him.
JON
Of what, for Godās sake?
ANNABELLE
In part, of what he had to preventāwhat he had to stop from happening. What youād been through and he had to make sure didnāt happen. In part, it was letting him experience your pain. Heād heard what you went through, of course, but to actually see itā¦in so many ways, that would make it worse, and make his determination stronger.
And, of course, part of it was just putting you back in his mind over everyone else. It was the last littleā¦anchor tethering the two of you together, to the past. Something to keep him present so the Keeper could find him.
JON
And show him that last painting. Thankfully.
Did you know about that one?
ANNABELLE
I put that one there, too.
Surely you didnāt think the Keeper knew enough to have done it.
JON
Iān-no, no, butā
Why?
ANNABELLE
Why show it to him?
JON
Why that moment?
ANNABELLE
Because it wasnāt on tape.
I left you alone while you were in Scotland, up until the end. You two deserved a few weeksā¦unobserved. Alone together. To figure out what you are to one another.
Actually, I had quite a job keeping the Distortion distracted so it wouldnāt pop in and interrupt. It was something of a challenge.
The first time, anyway.
JON
The first time?
ANNABELLE
Oh, weāve done this dance before. In its fashion.
JON
What dance?
ANNABELLE
The Apocalyptic Tango, I think Martin called it once.
[JON SIGHS IN EXASPERATION]
JON
Do you ever give a straight answer? Or tell the truth?
ANNABELLE
Iām hurt! Iāve been nothing but honest with you this whole time.
JON
(dry as the Sahara) And the other times?
ANNABELLE
Mostly you wouldnāt have believed me.
I did try a time or two. You always insisted it wasnāt possible, or that there must be some sort of catch. You only believed me once, and even then, I donāt think you believed. You simply wanted it to be true.
JON
Are you trying to get me to compel the truth out of you?
ANNABELLE
The way you did Peter Lukas? Orā¦which one was it? Breekon?
You donāt need to force it, you know. All you have to do isā¦ask nicely, and I will spin you the tale.
JON
ā¦
Statement of Annabelle Cane, regarding the Webās plan. Recorded direct from subjectā¦ahā¦
ANNABELLE
At the end.
JON
ā¦Statement begins.
ANNABELLE
This is the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
These are the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the hand that pulled the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the Mistress that bore the hand that pulled the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the web that cradled the Mistress that bore the hand that pulled the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the blade that cut the web that cradled the Mistress that bore the hand that pulled the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the hero that wielded the blade that cut the web that cradled the Mistress that bore the hand that pulled the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
This is the story that begged to be told of the hero that wielded the blade that cut the web that cradled the Mistress that bore the hand that pulled the strings that moved the spider that peered at the truth that lurked in the hole that lay in the crack beneath the house at Hill Top Road.
Again, and again, and again, and again.
So few of the things that are Fear are gifted with foresight. The End, of course, knows what will come, because the End is inevitable. All things end, sooner or later. The Web cannot see the future but it can seeā¦patterns. The threads of a story, and what they will be when they weave together.
When the Mother of Puppets first saw the crack beneath Hill Top Road, she thought she understood what it was. A hole in reality, a portal between universes. Places where fear had not touched, where it was not known. But then she saw it for what it was. A crack, not in space, but in time. A way to move between moments. And she began to plan For she saw the threads, and she knew that someday, someone would end the world. And when that happenedā¦eventually, all would end. Even fear cannot last forever, in a world where nothing new is born. Eventually, all must end.
Her plan has been the same, for years. Generations. Choose a champion, mark them young. Put them in the path of a fear, and wait. Then, should the world end at the hands of that fear, tug that champion to cut the strings of fate and send all bound up in it through the crackā¦and back in time. Back in time enough that they could stop it.
And really, it should have worked.
To a point, it did work. Again, and again, and again, and again. Jonah Magnus sent you his ritual, you read it, the world came to an end. You tried to repair it. You walked to Londonā¦and there it got complicated.
The trouble is the Spinnerās plan depended, in the end, on your choice. We told you that you would have had to simultaneously blow up the Archives and stab Jonah Magnus, and then all would have been thrown back in time. In truth, that would not have workedānot if Jonah was still the Eyeās Pupil. It had to be you. You had to choose to take his placeā¦and then have the tethers cut. Then, and only then, would you be sent back with the knowledge to alter things.
Sometimes I told you the original story, that it was a crack in reality and would send all the fears somewhere else, or scatter them across worlds. Once or twice I told you the truth. As I said, it was so hard for you to believe me, regardless of what I spun. Mostly you thought I was manipulating you, lying to you, trying to get you to doom a thousand other worlds. Occasionally you thought it would end the world faster. Only once did you believe meāin a time when I came to you in a cabin in what was once Scotland, a time when I knew you would not act if you did not know you could turn back time, a time when the man you loved turned back for his umbrella and understood what he was hearing and tried to save you and the world.
JON
Noā¦
ANNABELLE
It never quite worked, in the end. Time and again, the strings would be cut, the world would snap backā¦and time and again, we would retread the same paths. Over and over. So little I could change, so little I could do differently before the Apocalypse and I tried to find a new way to get you to be in position to be dragged back.
Finally, finally, it happened. You tried to take Jonah Magnusā place, to hasten the end and starve the fearsā¦it would never have worked, of course, but you tried. Martin anticipated it, though, he tried to stop you before you killed Jonah, to delay you while the others lit the fuse. You were faster than he thought, though, and had already become the Pupil of the Eye. You told him to go. To save himself. But Martin would not leave you, despite the danger. Rather than watch him die for nothing, you told him to cut the tether. And he did.
It worked the way the Web intended, of course it did. But for you to remember and be able to fix it, you would have both had to be alive when you came through at the other side. Even one of you would have been enough. But when I woke again and plucked the strand of the Web, I could hear that neither of you remembered.
Neither of you had survived.
[JON MAKES A PAINED NOISE OF DISTRESS]
ANNABELLE
It was then that I realized that Motherās plan depended too heavily on precise timing. She wanted me to try again, of course. Strangely enough, the Fears never knew it had happened, not even the Web. But she reminded me, again and again, about her plan, told me what strings to pull.
This time, thoughā¦this time I thought Iād try something a bit different.
I did what I have done every other time. I stayed with Salesa, I spoke to you both. I followed your progress through the tapes, and when you disappeared beneath the tunnelsā¦I acted. As I promised him, I killed him, and I took his camera. I brought it to London, to the Instituteā¦to the Panopticon. But this time, I brought it up to the belly of the beast. I took it to the office of Jonah Magnus.
The camera wasnāt strong enough to dispel the entire Apocalypse there, of course. But it created enough of a hole to break Jonah free of the Eyeās hold.
He was as pleased to see me as you might expect. Demanded to know what I was doing there. And I told him. I told him I had come to warn him.
JON
What?!
ANNABELLE
I told him that his precious Archivist was far from resigned to this new world he had brought about, that he was coming to stop it. To stop him. I said that you were bringing Martin with you and that you had a plan, and if he wanted to continue his reign, heād best do something to stop it.
JON
Did you have any idea what that something would be?
ANNABELLE
Patterns. Of course I knew.
Jonah would never have harmed you, even if he could have; he still hoped to get you on his side. As you learned tonight. On the other hand, he would have known, or at least guessed, that the only thing stopping you from joining him was Martin. And even if he couldnāt hope to win you over by separating youā¦he would at least have found a way to use that bond against you.
JON
(shouting) Martin could have died because of you!
ANNABELLE
Perish the thought! My dear Jon, do you know know how many times Iāve been through this loop?
Even when I filled him with spiders, there has never been a time you could bring yourself to harm him in the slightest, let alone kill him. Faced with a choice between letting him die or getting revenge, I knew you would save him. Of course he wouldnāt have died.
[JON SPUTTERS INDIGNANTLY]
ANNABELLE
And I made sure you had somewhere to recover. I had already nudged the Keeper towards that door.
He couldnāt have done it, of course; he was too tightly bound to the Lightānot the Lonely, not the fear he watched over, but the Light itself. If it fell, so would he, and he cannot leave it for long. Even if he had come back, he would have been unable to make a difference in anyoneās past. But of course he thought of the Archivist. His godson. And when you thought Martin might be taken from you, you experienced the precise fear that summoned one of his doorsāthe fear of being forever separated from the one you love.
Perhaps the original plan would have worked eventually. Perhaps someday you, or Martin, or both of you, would have survived long enough to awaken in the past and remember. But I think itās better this way, donāt you? Much moreā¦direct.
And look how much youāve spared the others from.
JON
The othersāG-Georgie, Melanie, Basiraāin, in that timeline, the one Martin and I left. Did theyā¦what happened to them?
ANNABELLE
The Keeper and I took care of that. Donāt worry.
After he saw you safely through, I introduced myself to him and told him what needed to happen. He fetched Basira and took her to the tunnels beneath the Institute, and then I came myself. I told them what Jonah had done, what you had done, and what they needed to do.
I gave them the choice. The same one I often gave you. I told them they could eitherā¦let things stay as they were, allow things to die out in time, and keep apart from it, or end it. Take out Jonah Magnus and blow up the Institute simultaneously, and send all the Fears back in time as wellāthe Fears, and any of us too tightly bound up in them to survive without them.
I know you wonāt believe me, Jon, but I never influenced them to make the choice they did. Basira did ask me what they usually chose, and I did tell her that I had never known them to choose anything other than one option, but I didnāt tell her what it was. I knew it would be important for you to know that, whatever they chose, it was their decision and their decision alone.
JON
(heh) I canāt imagine Melanie not choosing the option that allows her to kill Elias.
[ANNABELLE LAUGHS]
ANNABELLE
Neither can I. And she didnāt choose differently.
As I understand it, Melanie made her way up aloneābeing blind, of course, the fearful things on those stairs could not affect herāwhile Basira provided a distraction and Georgie lit the gas aflame. Melanie took the camera and aimed it at Jonah Magnus to bring him down, and then while he tried to belittle her, she stabbed him, just as the building blew.
JON
And then what happened? Did they survive?
ANNABELLE
I donāt know. But they succeeded, or I wouldnāt be here.
JON
ā¦
How many others has the Web done this to? Tried toāmanipulate into a savior?
ANNABELLE
Oh, I donāt know. Hundreds?
Most of them would have failed. Many never made it beyond her. I was one of them, actually, a child tested out but ultimately found lacking, although I was the only one I think she would have trusted with this. But youā¦the Mother of Puppets saw the threads of your life. So many Fears noticed you as a child that you were bound to fall afoul of one of them eventually. And as soon as she realized where Jonah Magnusā thoughts were trending, and where they would eventually lead, she knew that you would be a perfect candidate to complete the ritual in the end.
So she chose you. She lured you in. And you resisted her pull. She knew then that you would be the only one strong enough to succeed.
JON
I only survived because someone else took my place! I would have died if he hadnātā
ANNABELLE
My dear Jon. Has anyone meant to be claimed by a power ever actually handed away a book or an artifact willingly?
Had you been meant to be the Spinnerās in the end, Mitchell Hopkins would never have been able to take that book from you, let alone read it. Mister Spider was a test, a test that you passed.
A test I never would have.
JON
ā¦
ā¦Was that his name? Mitchell?
ANNABELLE
It was.
It is.
And now you know everything.
[A FEW MOMENTS OF SILENCE, SAVE THE TAPES CHITTERING IN THE BACKGROUND]
JON
IāI suppose I should be grateful that we donāt remember all ofā¦these. All theseā¦cobwebs.
Iām damned grateful I donāt rememberā
ANNABELLE
I must admit, that was a bad one.
JON
Getting through thatā¦it was hard enough with Martin. I donātāI donāt see how I did it alone.
Especially afterāespecially knowing Iā
Did I know?
ANNABELLE
ā¦
You spent far longer at Salesaās that time than you did any other time. In the end, I had to go with you almost all the way to London.
ā¦Yes. You knew.
Not at the time. Not when it happened. But the Eye made sure you Knew the details in the end. You ran into Basira and she asked where Martin wasā
JON
āand the Beholder forced me to describe it.
ANNABELLE
You said yourself, more than once. None of this has ever been to the benefit of humanity. Or any individual human.
JON
Or whatever Iāwhatever we are.
ANNABELLE
What defines a human, anyway? The limitations, or the abilities?
We can do more than what an ordinary human can. But we can still do all the things that an ordinary human can, too. We think. We feel. We love, Jon.
As far as Iām concerned, that makes us human.
JON
ā¦Who do you love, Annabelle?
ANNABELLE
I was the first to hold him. Did you know that? I was staying with Harry and his wife while I was at university, just before I took part in that study. They wanted someone to read to him before he was born, so he would learn the stories. Harry worked late, trying to make a better life for them all, and Elizabethā¦well, she was blind, so she could tell stories fine, but she wanted him to hear books too. Every night, after dinner, Iād sit and read to her belly. He came early and Harry didnāt get to the hospital in time, so after Elizabeth, I was the first one to hold him.
Harry picked out his first name because he knew I hated that book. Elizabeth softened it by picking a middle name after me, butā¦she always called him Charlie. I think she knew, even then.
A couple years after I became part of the Web, the Desolation took Harry, probably to spite me, butā¦Harry was never the one I cared about. Elizabeth, at least, died as peacefully as anybody can. It may not have been pleasant, or timely, but at least it wasnāt to serve a power. Just bad luck.
ā¦
Get him away from that grandmother of his if you can, will you?
JON
One of us will.
ANNABELLE
Thatās all I ask.
JON
Well, IāI suppose, in light of all thatās happenedā¦itās the least I can do.
ANNABELLE
You believe me, then?
JON
It happened. Itās over.
Whether once or a hundred timesā¦it happened the way you said at least once. And we won. Thatās enough for me.
ā¦Yes, Annabelle Cane, I believe you.
ANNABELLE
For what itās worth, Jon, you did all the hard work on your own. You and Martin, andā¦the others. In your time and this. All I did was get you here.
JON
The othersā¦
(sharp intake of breath) Oh, God. The Unknowing. Has itāhave theyāI-I canāt, even if we were in the Panopticon, I couldnāt See it. But youāthere, there were tapes.
Are theyā¦?
ANNABELLE
That one. I think.
JON
You think?
ANNABELLE
It added itself to the web just before you got here. Itās either theirs or yours.
[BRIEF PAUSE, THEN THE SQUEAL OF TAPE BEFORE A RECORDING PICKS UP - FAINT CIRCUS MUSIC, THUMPS AND TAPS THAT MIGHT BE SOME KIND OF FOOTSTEP, FLOORBOARDS CREAKING, SHALLOW BREATHING, FABRIC RUSTLES]
And to think I thought you had a terrible sense of timing.
JON
At least they said something beforeā
O-oh, God, Tim. Timāyou know as well as I do that in my time, heāand Iāwere they all in the middle of that?
ANNABELLE
More or less.
They didnāt walk into the Unknowing, at least. Martin listened to what you told him and wouldnāt let them open any doors. But it had to be blown up from the inside to be sure of getting all the charges. Your counterpart and Martinās wouldnāt leave Tim behind, however much he tried to make them.
JON
What happened after that?
ANNABELLE
I donāt know if there is an after that yet.
JON
And weāre back to the cryptic bullshit.
ANNABELLE
On the contrary. I said exactly what I meant.
We arenāt exactly anywhere right now, or any when. Thisā¦placeā¦I wouldnāt call it a domain, but it exists outside of both time and space. The rules are different here. Time, if it passes at all, passes differently.
They might have just pressed the detonator. They might have pressed it hours ago, or days ago.
JON
(dismayed) Days?
ANNABELLE
All I can say is that wherever, whenever they are, they are out of reach of my tapes. And your sight.
Fortunatelyā¦I know someone who can give us those answers, even from here. Maybe especially from here.
JON
Who else is here, for Godās sake?
[ANNABELLE SINGS THE NEXT LINE IN THE SAME SLOW, MEASURED VOICE AS BEFORE]
ANNABELLE
Two elephants went out to play
Upon a spiderās web one day
They had such enormous fun
They called for another elephant to comeā¦
[STICKY FOOTSTEPS APPROACH OVER THE TAPE WEB]
OLIVER
Hello, Jon. It is all right if I call you Jon?
JON
ā¦Oliver? Oliver Banks?
OLIVER
In theā¦well. In the manifestation, I suppose. I donāt know if any of us is here in the flesh.
JON
(disbelieving laugh) Youāreā¦not quite what I expected.
OLIVER
Is that an invitation for me to comment about how Death so rarely is what we expect, or a manifestation of you wondering why Martin would possibly be jealous of someone like me?
ANNABELLE
If you knew either of them a little better, youād know Martinās reasons for being jealous are almost entirely in his head.
Also, heās never met you.
OLIVER
Mm, true. We always seemed to miss one another.
JON
Youāhold on. Youāre from the future as well?
OLIVER
Like you and Annabelle. Well, more like Annabelle, I suppose. You had to be the Pupil of the Eye before you were tangled enough to get dragged back with the Fears. Me? Without Terminus, Iām justā¦dead. And weāve already established that thatās not where I want to be.
JON
ā¦Did you know? When you came to the hospital?
OLIVER
That weād done this before? Of course. I long ago stopped being surprised at what you would choose.
JON
Then for Godās sake, whyā
OLIVER
Because you had to choose, Jon. It was always your choice.
Think of it as a crossroads. You stood at a fork in the road, where one path would take you back to life and the other would take you on to, well, whatever came next. The trouble was that the signposts were covered.
You could have chosen without knowing which path was which, but thatās not your way. Not when you know enough to know that one wasā¦mm, wrong, shall we say? One would have led you where you wanted to be, one where you didnāt.
JON
I didnāt want to die.
OLIVER
Thereās a difference between not wanting to die and having something to live for.
JON
(deep breath) Right, well, I definitely have something to live for, so Iāll be going now.
Uh, how do I get out of here?
OLIVER
Ordinarily? You donāt.
JON
What?!
OLIVER
This is Terminusās realm. Well, sort of. A little pocket on the outside edge of it.
JON
Another crossroads.
OLIVER
Mm, not so much. More that youāre standing in the middle of the path.
JON
So which way is back?
OLIVER
Life is a journey traveled in one direction only.
JON
(tartly) Yes, well, so is time, but here we all are.
Iāve already chosen to live, Oliver. (with slight malice) Can I call you Oliver?
OLIVER
(not rising to the bait) This isnāt a place where you get to choose.
JON
ā¦So youāre saying thatās it.
After all that, after everything Iāeverything we didā¦this is the end. Thereās nowhere else for me to go.
ANNABELLE
How many times have you walked out of another entityās domain? Not counting the Apocalypse. Weāve already talked about how that doesnāt count.
JON
Iā¦twice. The Buried and the Lonely.
Three, I suppose, if that crossroads counts.
OLIVER
That was a metaphor. You were close to Death, but not its realm. If that makes sense.
JON
Not really.
ANNABELLE
The Buried and the Lonely, then.
What brought you out?
JON
From the Buried, it was theāthe tapesā¦it was Martin putting those tapes on top of the coffin. W-weaving me a ropeā¦or a ladder.
The Lonely was simple enough to leave. The way out was together.
ANNABELLE
With Martin.
JON
ā¦Yes.
ANNABELLE
Exactly.
Not all strands of a spiderās web are to capture or to control, you know. Sometimes, they are simplyā¦to anchor.
JON
ā¦
ā¦Thatās why you offered to bind me to Martin. It wasnāt aboutāit wasnāt for strength or power at all.
ANNABELLE
Not to defeat Jonah Magnus, no. Thereās more than one kind of strength, more than one kind of power. I did tell you that you would need it to survive what was coming.
JON
It brought Martin back when Peter Lukas visited the Archives and he almost got swallowed by the Lonely again. Itāit grounded me, kept me from losing control while I was taking down Jonah.
And nowā¦
ANNABELLE
It can guide you home.
[OLIVER LAUGHS]
OLIVER
You know, people always talk about some legendary āred string of fateā, but Iāve never actually seen a real one before.
Let alone one woven from cassette tape.
JON
You knew I had that tether from the beginning.
OLIVER
Truthfully, I didnāt think it would work. Plenty of people have things they think are tying them to life, but they arenāt strong enough to resist the pull. Most threads snap.
JON
Not this one.
I made Martin a promise. And I never break my word.
OLIVER
A good thing, when your tether is almost literally made out of your words.
JON
Ha, ha.
ā¦Wait. B-before I goā¦the Unknowing. Are theyāshe said you would know.
OLIVER
Itās over. It worked. They brought the house down.
A lot of tormented souls set free, all at once. Quite the rush, really.
JON
The three of themāmy counterpart and Martinās and Tim. What happened to them?
[OLIVER SIGHS]
OLIVER
Two of them will be fine. Some cuts and bruises, but theyāll be up and about sooner rather than later. They might already be up and about. Timeās difficult to discern here.
The otherā¦I suspect Iām going to need to pay a visit at some point. Clean off those signposts.
JON
Donāt wait six months.
OLIVER
I shouldnāt be more than a couple weeks behind you.
JON
ā¦Thatās less comforting than you think it is.
OLIVER
Then it must be terrifying, because I was definitely going for ominous.
[JON SIGHSā¦AND LAUGHS RELUCTANTLY; ANNABELLE AND OLIVER LAUGH TOO]
JON
I suppose weāll meet again, Annabelle.
ANNABELLE
ā¦No. No, I donāt think we will.
JON
Tired of me already?
ANNABELLE
I was watching them for you. Not just through the tapes. I was lurking in a corner of that room.
I donāt know that I made it out.
OLIVER
(gently) You didnāt, Iām afraid.
Your choices are more limited. Stay here with your webā¦or see what comes next.
[A SHORT PAUSE]
JON
Weāll keep the recorders going.
In case youāre still listening.
ANNABELLE
ā¦Tell Charlie his aunt loves him very much.
JON
I will.
Oliverā¦donāt take this the wrong way, but if I ever see you again, it will be too soon.
OLIVER
Death always comes too soon.
JON
That was definitely not meant for that aspect of you.
OLIVER
Fair.
ANNABELLE
Have a good life, Jon.
You and Martin deserve it.
JON
If I may borrow from anotherā¦may you find your rest where no shadows are cast, and no eyes may see you slumber.
ANNABELLE
(audibly smiling) From you, Jon, that is a true blessing.
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tessa, when she was around five, had to watch her big brother kill their parents in a very violent, horrible way. she was hiding in a closet while trying to make no sound when that happened. she was a little kid, and she watched her mom & dad get slaughtered. when shadowhunters came to get leo, tessa didnāt leave the closet. she stayed there for hours, because she was so afraid. she was afraid of her own brother - afraid of what heād do to her if he knew she was there. she was a girl who just watched her brother kill her parents, and she had to stay in a small closet, in the dark, for hours - without anyone comforting her. ( and she didnāt get the comfort she needed later, too, since she never told anyone about what happened. she had to deal with everything on her own. ) she just stayed there and sobbed quietly for hours because she wasnāt sure if there were still people around. it took her very long to convince herself to leave the closet. thatās why she can get highly claustrophobic if she ever has to be in a place as small as a closet. she was also very afraid of the dark when she was little, but being a shadowhunter, she had to defeat that fear of her. she still feels uncomfortable when itās dark, but sheās good at hiding it. however, when thereās already so many stressing things going on, the darkness could be more than a discomfort to her, and it could even cause her to have a panic attack. ( i donāt have nyctophobia and i couldnāt find any guides about it so please donāt hesitate to tell me if iām doing something wrong! )
NIGHTMARES, ANXIETY:
tessa couldnāt sleep most of the times - sometimes, in stormy nights, the storm would sound just like how leo threw things, her parents around and sheād just start crying. leo would cuddle her when he saw her, not knowing he was the reason why she was so uncomfortable. tessa would pretend to be sleeping until he falls a sleep, and then sheād quietly sob until the morning. of course, the sleepless nights didnāt only happen when it was a storm outside - she couldnāt sleep because of nightmares, too. and this affected her training for a while, she was a wreck at first considering she had no sleep. and people would get very mad at her because of that, not knowing what she was going through.
