#fandom roulette

Alex Reagan isn't scared of a lot of things anymore.

Not since she's started dealing with the Black Tapes. Murderers that can move through walls, devil cults, music files that will kill you when you listen to them, devil cults, paranormal entities stalking young children, oh and did she mention the freaking devil cults?

A few missing kids is hardly frightening anymore.

A whole missing summer camp is something else entirely.

Well, the camp itself isn't really missing. It stands empty and forlorn, doors creaking on their hinges, windows pasted with grime, so dark she can hardly see through them.

She pushes through the rotted wood to look inside and it's nothing like she imagines. No tables set for dinner, scattered possessions that would give the impression of a home abandoned.

Instead it looks unlived. Like nobody has been here for months, years, and yet they assured her people were here just last summer.

And now they weren't.

The cabins smell dusty, the air not circulating for a long time and Alex can feel it in the walls. The tingling sensation down her neck that she now recognizes for the dread of all things not of this world.

Or as Doctor Strand would call it: Apophenia.

She opens the door and it's a bedroom. The walls are hung with pictures, vague shapes of humans somehow worn out despite it supposedly not having been long since the inhabitants left, but the bed is made and the table clean. Anonymous.

She can't imagine who might have lived here.

Something moves outside and she stops, feels the burning of curiosity in her gut but the hesitant pull of self-preservation that holds her back.

Hasn't she dealt with enough shit, just because of this stupid research? Mental health decline and insomnia aside, was she really ready to risk bodily harm for a few more listeners?

Then it moved again, a shadow, and she was out, running with not a thought at how the floor might break beneath her footfalls.

The camp is overgrown and it's hard to see, like everything is fuzzy.

A tent flap swings in the breeze and somehow Alex knows.

She pulls it open with shaking hands, prepared for demons and monsters or worse, but it's just a little boy.

Maybe 9 or 10 years old with curled hair and black-rimmed eyes, skin dark yet somehow paler than it should be. And Alex isn't sure if he's alive or a ghost.

Or something in-between.

He looks at her and he's not scowling or smiling or anything. He's just looking, straight into her soul and that tug of self-preservation is back but far worse.

Frozen to the spot she stands, saying nothing and it's so much colder now. The autumn air suddenly feeling like a full-blown blizzard.

It's almost worse than the devil cults.

The boy's mouth moves, slowly and wordlessly at first, until he stops. Looks straight into her eyes.

"Something fucking horrible happened here." He says.

"I know." She answers, not sure why but she does and she knows. Knows that she can't reach them, Dr. Strand wouldn't reach them.

Nobody would.

Somebody shouts, a name, but it's too far off to hear and oddly distorted, like it comes from a broken speaker and Alex blinks and he's gone. The spot where he stood dark, like a stain, but fading quickly. Fading like all the other campers did.

Like a rip in reality that folds back into itself.

The air warms again around her, but there's pinpricks on her skin and it hurts, weirdly. Like a sorrow not her own has flooded her body and left her just as quickly.

Something fucking horrible indeed.

David still worries and Max hates it, despises it, because it doesn't matter anymore.

They are untouched now.

But he comes back and David huffs over him like it matters and brushes hands that are cold as ice over his face, as if it could wipe away the blood.

It never does.

"You need to stop doing that." Gwen says, from the corner, where the others huddle brokenly and the crying stopped weeks ago. The desperation and the trying to find a way out.

It would not let them leave.

"It's fine." David tells her, and Max knows it isn't but he'll be damned if he'll say that out loud. "Stay with the others now, please."

"Fuck off." Max breathes, but it's brittle and frail because he's scared. They're all scared. Scared of their taint and scared of never going back and most of all scared of it, that lurks in the woods still.

That watches them always.

Scared that help will never come.

If it weren't for his inherent need to ingest food, Tim would never stop driving.

Just push down on the pedal and not even once glance in his rear view mirror, unwilling to see what trails in his wake.

But he's still human, painfully so, and hasn't that always been his undoing?

Chasing such basic desires as social interaction

So he stops, in the middle of some town where no-one knows him and no-one will. A sleepy place where he can rest. Leave before his darkness catches up again, spreading here too.

Always spreading to everyone he dare touch

Like the sickness is in his head and it's cold, freezing. He shoves his hands into his pockets, breathing in the crisp air.

It burns in his lungs, as if he's choking all over again

He coughs automatically, deep from within, knowing It is there at the edge of his vision.

Static fills Tim's ears, beats down on his brain, but he doesn't listen, got used to tuning it out over the years.

He decides on a worn-looking coffeehouse, the only place open at such an early hour, and hurries inside to get away from His impeding darkness.

The light never did fully reach Him, did it?

It screams at him, claws, making him stumble. The restroom has tile walls, like the ones he used to have some day in some place. The same place he had safety and friends and a life.

It's gone, all gone, long gone

His pills are a similar color to the ceramic, white and even, that's what they're for right? To stop the taint, keep him clean.

Only taint others now

Little hard ovals of chemicals supposed to save him.

They didn't save Jay

They make his mouth feel dry so he gets some water from the faucet, scoops it in his trembling hands. It has a metallic aftertaste.

It tastes a bit like blood

He gets a dark coffee and a bagel that looks like shit but should keep him going for a while longer still.

It isn't like a home-made meal at all and that comforts him.

But maybe it hurts a little too

An object set in motions wants to stay in motion and Tim just wants to keep running. Never wants to become stagnant again.

Afraid to hurt those he cares for again

He is flighty, nervous, feels like he should have a camera on it, naked without it, but knows it would be useless.

All the cameras in the world couldn't help Alex

So he tries to slow down instead, no matter how hard, breathe in the moment.

People walk in and out, a sudden breeze of frigid air each time the doors open. Those that work their shifts at the crack of dawn, quickly grabbing a drink before heading off to work. Those that haven't slept at all, fetching a much needed caffeine shot to tide them over until morning.

And Tim, watching them. Marveling at what it would be like, such a mundane existence, such an ordinary way of living. To not have a shadow cast over you since childhood.

Why did he ever think he deserved such a thing

The coffee is bitter and doesn't make him feel warm inside at all, just stale. Old and torn, like everything is coming to a head, and he knows he can't sit still for long. He can't be careless.

There is no choice but to keep going.

“Can I sit here?” Somebody asks, he nods and she smiles. Her eyes are pale blue, just slightly watery at the edges and it remembers Tim of Jay.

Of those eyes ringed with exhaustion and worry, filled with conviction and then emptiness. It's that last one he most vividly recalls.

He misses Jay every single day

She smiles and talks to him, but Tim doesn't listen, doesn't breathe. He can already feel It crawling Its way down his spine, into his veins, and he has wasted enough time. Endangered enough people.

Why can't he ever keep anybody save?

He gets up without a word, she probably thinks him rude. Thinks he is just being an asshole, but he's fine with that.

She can get back to her normal life undisturbed and Tim can keep running, the way it is supposed to be.

Until either It stops or he gives in and lets it consume him completely.