#spiral!tim

Mirrors lined the walls as perceived regular intervals, neatly spread apart in even, unmeasurable measurements. Tim recalled the knowledge of the distortion changing someone. He stepped forward.

It was similar to standing in front of those bent carnival mirrors you would sometimes find on piers. Tim naturally had avoided them in his later years, they far too often reminded him of his brother but, in a strange way it felt natural to be standing before the mirror. Perhaps it was the effect of the Spiral or perhaps it was a slight relief that came with enacting some sort of justice for his brother's death. 

Tim shook his head and forced himself to properly stare at his own appearance in the mirror. He looked the same...and off...and identical to every possible iteration of himself. He closed his eyes for a second before attempting to focus in on details, some sort of visual anchorpoint that didn’t overwhelm him as his entire appearance did. 

His hands; long and short and pointed and heavy and light and thin...Tim shook his head again, glancing at his shirt. He recalled putting one of his hawaiian shirts on that morning but the patterns and styles shifted and jumped about as he tried to fixate, flicking between his entire, extensive collection. His hair? Still short but he couldn’t quite see the edges, they seemed to blur and blend into everything else. Tim couldn’t look into his eyes, it made him feel dizzy and he had to step back as if to gain his balance, blinking his eyes out of mere habit more than anything else.

“Don’t worry!” came a chipper call, “You’ll get used to it soon enough!” Tim looked over to a woman dressed in a neon ensemble of a suit, patterned with the design of the carpets you find at dingy old bowling alleys that glow under UV. Her hair was curled and coiled into her surroundings, longer than his own though significantly shorter than that of Michael. He faintly remembered Jon mentioning the new avatar of the spiral being Helen Richardson, a woman who’d come in to make a statement about her encounter with these very corridors. 

“Helen?” Tim tried to ask, his words almost seemed to dance about him, looping past one ear and then the next as Helen beamed.

“The very same!” she gestured for Tim to come closer and began to usher him down the corridor with a sense of purpose, “Now this is all going to be very… different at first but as I said you’ll get used to it soon enough. Life is after all full of changes and transitions and this just happens to be one of them!”

“How am I even here?” Tim managed out, the echoing words still jarring to him, “I thought the spiral only had one avatar at a time but, I’m not particularly frightened so I assume I’m not food but…” He gestured vaguely at Helen,”you’re not dead.”

Helen laughed, it was grating and melodic, overlapping with infinite voices that were his and hers and others and more, “Is that what your silly old Archivist thinks?” She chuckled again, the sound dancing around Tim as if inspecting him and judging him for not laughing too, 

“No, no” Helen continued, “The Spiral can take just as many avatars as any other entity, but when we exist outside of the normal parameters of time there isn’t much point beside interest.” Helen tugged Tim’s arm and they were suddenly dragged sideways into a small, almost living room like area. She gestured for him to sit which Tim reluctantly did.

“What about Michael?” Tim asked.

“What about him?”

“Well, you killed him didn’t you? You... replaced him.”

Helen paused briefly, taking a sip of tea clearly for some sort of effect before dropping it out of existence. “Michael was already dead so there wasn’t really anything to kill but I suppose I did replace him, but...less in an exchange and more...” she mused for a moment, “more in a promotion, demotion kind of way.”

Tim sputtered, “You...demoted him?”

Helen nodded, “Demoted, grounded, suspended without pay. I think they’re all pretty solid metaphors for what Michael is going through now.” She gestured vaguely to a door that wasn’t and was there before, “He’d forgotten some of the rules about being an avatar, got too distracted with personal issues while not even letting himself play about with individuality. In the end he became a boring liability so he’s sitting in time out.” She cackled again, the swirls around them turning with every sound, “The individuality makes this so interesting! We are as much a part of the spiral as the spiral is of us but what is the point of an avatar that can’t comprehend what it becomes” She laughed again but Tim felt himself eyeing the door.

“What about me? Becoming an avatar is a choice, what choices did I make?”

Helen sat, staring with a smile that spread far past her cheeks, “These things are wonderfully confusing aren’t they?” The colours of the room twisted, blending and separating as the walls seemed to twirl into Helen’s form before she disappeared completely.

Tim remained sitting. Staring off at the absent space where Helen had once been...where Helen still was in some sense... Tim could feel it, all of it, wrapped through his spiralled veins and heavy bones. He could feel Helen’s presence and absence as strongly as he felt Michael's or his own. He knew, if he wanted, he could find either of them but a stronger feeling writhed in his gut, like hunger but off, more a craving than anything else. 

Guilt bubbled in part of his mind as he found himself suddenly standing in a new corridor, his corridor and its corridor. The door lined walls now seemed recognisable. He knew exactly where each led with warm familiarity, like each of the doors was a friend or an acquaintance. Maybe they were more like books or DVD cases, he could order them, sort through them and their infinite number with a flick of his warped hand if he so chose. Everything felt so...easy.

For a brief moment he eyed a door that he knew would, if he willed it to, lead him to the archives. He pictured Sasha, sat at her desk beside him. Martin, moping about as he made some tea. Basira and Daisy pouring over books together. He could also picture Jon, squirrelled away behind his door...and Elias cooped up in his own room. He didn’t even know if any of them were still there. Perhaps Elias had taken out the distractions while the others laid buried under rubble. Maybe they were all alive and Elias was the one six feet under. 

Tim slammed the door that was already closed, willing it out of his sight. He didn’t care. Or he did but it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to care or think about that. His job was done and he understood exactly how he’d treated the others, and as he stared at his new sharpened hands Tim knew he was dangerous too. Not dangerous enough yet, not strong enough yet, but maybe he’d pop in for a visit further along the line. For now however, Tim was hungry.

-----------------------