#tmas5countdown

“Why is it locked?” The archivist spat, and the lie could tell that he was not lying. 

“It can’t be!” It said, tension seeping into its voice. 

“Well you try it!” The archivist stepped away from the door, motioning for the entity to try for itself. 

“That- that’s not-” Something clicked. After years of spirals and distortion and broken minds, something clicked inside of Michael. “Oh. Oh no.” 

And then he was screaming. He hadn’t felt this sort of pain in so long, or perhaps he had never stopped feeling it and the twisting in his mind had simply caused him to forget. He was unwinding, separating. Was he still holding on to the door knob? He couldn't turn the handle, but that couldn’t be right. The handle was part of him, as was the door, and his ending twisting corridors. But were they? 

When did he become himself again? 

With that thought, he let go of the handle, tears streaming down from eyes that no longer saw impossible colors, and he was gone. 

Michael Shelley woke up on a sidewalk in the middle of London with a splitting headache and a broken hand. The sky was overcast as he looked up from where he was lying, the gray clouds twisting and rolling above him like the sea. Laughter bubbled up inside him, but fizzled and died as a strange choking sound. A few passers by seemed to notice the sound and went from simply avoiding or ignoring him to glancing down worriedly and hurrying quickly along. 

Michael sat up, groaning slightly as he did so, clutching his hand that could no longer pierce through flesh and bone. He stood slowly, before quickly making his way over to the steady brick wall on the other side of the path and leaning against it, taking deep breaths. The world had stopped spinning. The world was still and hard and constant, and all the people around looked like people, and for a single moment Michael could almost convince himself that his memories had simply come from a drunken nightmare. But he had spent so long lying to himself and to deny himself the reality that he hadn’t experienced in so long felt like a betrayal. 

He needed to figure out where he was. Yes, yes, that was it. He could figure out where he was, and then try to find his way home.

He realized, however, as he had this thought, that it would be impossible. He had been gone for so long. He had certainly been declared dead, his flat sold, his dog adopted. Gertrude was never one to forget to tie up loose ends. And even if he hadn’t been confirmed dead, he had at least been missing for nearly a decade! Nothing would be the same. Hell, everything would’ve been gone if he’d been missing one month, much less seven years. No one was there to look for him; no partner, an estranged family. It’s not like Elias would call Gertrude out on what she’d done. Even if he hated her too, he’d become such a bastard after becoming head of the Magnus Institute. 

When he realized he would need to go back to the institute, he almost started crying. He didn’t want to go back to the institute. He loathed the place. In fact, he’d hated it so much that the hatred had stayed with him while he’d been an unfeeling eldritch horror. 

He supposed it was why the spiral had finally seen fit to spit him out.To many feelings unrelated to its own goals. To much clear hatred burning through the haze of being a living distortion, it almost made sense that he was evicted by someone better. Like being sacrificed to for being an annoying employee. 

He had seen Gertrude again while he was Michael. She hadn’t been alive, but it had seen her corpse in that dark room in the tunnels. And it had laughed and laughed and laughed, unendingly pleased that the woman that made it had finally gotten her due.

Now he just felt sick. And confused. And so restless and irritated that he didn’t even realize that he had been walking until he looked up and saw that bloody owl looking down on him. 

Oh how he hated the eye. 

He introduced himself as Michael to the woman at the front desk. She hadn’t worked here when he had, and it was a common enough name that he doubted it would automatically be related back to a mysterious figure that occasionally terrorized archive employees.

“I’m here to see Jon,” He said with a nervous smile, one that he’d worn thousands of times in the past but felt foreign in this context. She returned the expression, but it looked odd. Like she couldn’t quite believe him. That, or she assumed it was a prank.

“Jon?” She asked. “Really?” 

“Yes?” He replied, cocking his head to the side, “I’m sorry, is there an issue? I- I haven’t heard from him in awhile, he said I was free to come visit his work. He’s not too busy, is he?” The lie slid easily off his tongue, but not as easily as it once would have. 

“No, no, of course,” She said, waving her hands in the air gently, as if trying to placate him. “Jon doesn’t get a ton of people coming to visit him at work is all. And he has been gone for awhile, some bad sickness or other. You can head down now no problem, I’ll just have to give you a visitor’s pass. What did you say your name was?”

“Michael.”

“Last name?” He almost hesitated.

“Shelley. Michael Shelley.” She just nodded and typed it in, before smiling and handing him a name tag. 

“Have a nice visit,” She said cheerily, and Michael headed down.

It was amazing what he remembered, both from being a monster and working here. Michael the distortion never really had a need for directions or a good memory of proper turns. Michael Shelley on the other hand, was great when it came to navigating the twisting halls of the institute. Perhaps that’s why the spiral had become him instead of digesting him. 

But he clearly remembered how to find the stairwell leading down to the archives, and from there the way to the head archivist’s office. He didn’t pass many people in the halls, which wasn’t too surprising. By the time Gertrude had seen fit to be rid of him he’d really been the only one to make any noise down here. Even if Jon had more assistants, he doubted they would want to be wandering the halls. Not alone anyway. 

He came upon the door leading to Jon’s office. Boring some unknown piece of him laughed. He reached for the handle. 

“Hey!” He flinched, his hand falling to his side. He took a deep breath, before turning to meet whoever had discovered him and smiling his nervous crooked smile. 

“Hello, um I’m sorry I’m just here to talk to your archi- Jon. I’m here to talk to…” Michael could hear his own voice fading into nothing as the man who had been locked in the distortion’s corridors for a few hours (or weeks, depending who you asked) stormed toward him.

He really should have seen the punch coming, but damn did it hurt. 

Tim was shouting something at him, but it just sounded like noise. Michael waved a hand at him, the other being used to hold his now bloody nose. 

“I just need to talk to Jon,” Michael bit out, interrupting the other man in the middle of his tirade. 

“Yeah? And why are you going this way, huh? Don’t you have your own fucked up methods of travel?” Michael shook his head almost sheepishly.

“I don’t anymore, and I really need to talk to your archivist so if you’ll just let me-“ it was Tim’s turn to cut him off.

“Oh what so you just decided to stop being a monster, that it?” In the past Michael had rarely been one to get annoyed, but the longer he stood, bloody in the hall of the Magnus Institute, the closer he felt to snapping.

“Not exactly, though honestly I wouldn’t say that’s exactly a negative development, and if you want to punch me again or yell at me for the things that it- I- we did to you feel free but can you please wait just ten minutes?” 

Tim looked pissed. Michael realized that, and he let out a deep say, fully accepting that after surviving becoming the muscle of an otherworldly being of fear he was now going to die at the hands of a ticked off library science major. 

And then the door opened.

“Tim I thought I heard…” Michael stared at the archivist. He looked different then he did the last time he’d seen him. Less beat to hell, obviously, though his skin still looked relatively great. He had different clothes on, ones that weren’t torn and bloody from a month in a demented wax museum. 

But more than that he just looked… normal. When the spiral had looked at Jon, it had seen twisting thoughts, confusion and doubt. Fear wrapped in a tight package of green jumpers and too many eyes. But to Michael the man just looked human. Tired sure, with his eyes still a bit too bright to be normal but not really enough to be noticeable. 

For a second he almost felt jealous that the man’s beholding characteristics were so concealed, but he tamped that feeling down and locked it away. Jon spoke first.

“Michael?” He asked softly, as if talking to a scared child or a rabid dog, “Michael Shelley?” Michael didn’t know how else to respond to the question other than to nod. He noticed Tim looking rapidly between them, so he decided to speak.

“Can I come in? Is that alright?” There was a moment when no one said anything, but soon Jon was opening the door to the office wide, ushering him inside. 

“Ah Tim, I’m not sure you should…” Michael heard Jon say once he was in the room and out of harm's way, so to speak.

“You can’t keep doing this, Jon, you need to tell me what is happening. It doesn’t matter to me what happens to you, but I’m not going to be blamed for you getting snatched by another monster!” Michael couldn’t make out Jon’s response, but he couldn’t find him to involve himself in the conversation. He glanced around the office. 

It had been here recently, a few months ago at the most, pestering the archivist about something or other. He couldn’t remember what it looked like. Surely it hadn’t changed much, it’s not like Jon was suddenly inclined to change the decorations, but it seemed so much less… colorful. Like a strobe light had been turned off. The last time he had been in this office with it looking anything close to how it did now had been when he had excitedly come to inform Gertrude that the cab was here to take them to the airport. How thrilled he had been to be of assistance, how excited to have been going on his first ever international trip, and with a woman who he respected so much no less. What an honor, what an opportunity, what a… mistake. 

He’d been so focused staring holes in the desk chair that he hadn’t noticed Jon saying something. When the other man gently laid a hand on Michael’s shoulder, he spun around, causing Jon to jerk back as a look of panic overtook his features before being schooled into academic normalcy once again. 

Michael supposed some fear was to be expected. After all, something with his mind and body had threatened to kill Jon not too far in the past. 

“Would you like to sit down?” Jon asked, gesturing to one of the chairs. Michael suddenly remembered how tired and sore he felt, nodding and collapsing into the chair, careful not to hurt his injured hand. Michael smiled at the archivist, even if it felt a bit forced.

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m afraid that would just add to the current confusion.” Jon went over to sit in his own chair, watching Michael, but not exactly meeting his eyes. Tim was inside the now closed door, with his arms crossed. A poor imitation of a security guard. 

“How are you… here? The distortion said you were gone.”

“The distortion isn’t exactly the most truthful of beings, don’t you think?” Jon made a noise of affirmation. Michael watched as the archivist glanced quickly over to Tim, the door, and then back to Michael. 

“Michael, I… I want to help you, but I need to ask you first… do you still want to kill me?” Michael shifted in his chair. No was the obvious answer, and it was the truth, he didn’t want to kill Jon. But he would be lying if he said he could no longer feel the writhing thing in his stomach urging him to leave the archives, lock the doors, and burn it down with everyone still inside. 

“No. When I was… merged with the distortion, the only thing I could recall was the betrayal I felt from Gertrude. The Michael you knew was aware that she was dead, but saw you as only The Archivist. Her replacement. The small piece of me in control could only see you as connected to the person who didn’t care about me. I was angry. I am… really sorry.” Michael let out a nervous laugh, but stopped when he saw both Jon and Tim freeze at the sound. He felt cold.

“And are you still connected with the distortion? Can you still feel it?” There came a slight buzz with the archivist’s word and Michael’s nervous expression quickly transformed into a frown. 

“I do not know, archivist,” He said the word with some contempt, “and while I respect you and your assistance, I do not appreciate being Beheld, Jon.” In response to this, Jon jerked slightly, shaking his head and bringing a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, like he was trying to shake off a headache. Tim was now staring at him with something akin to disgust.

“I apologize, it’s hard to tell when I’m doing it or when it’s… nevermind, this is not about me. Is there anything that you think is important regarding your recently regained humanity?” 

Michael thought for a moment.

What an odd question. What he thought was important, what a subjective thing. What he thought. He was just getting used to thinking linearly again. 

“It’s hard to say… I feel... fuzzy. You know when you’ve just woken from being sick? You’re warm and confused and there's a jittery feeling in your fingertips. I feel like I am fully here for the first time in years, but I’m afraid that in a moment I will fall back into that… twisting. Isn’t that terrible?” He giggled on the last word again and choked on the sound. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m trying not to laugh. It’s not funny and I’m not that thing, I promise I…” Tears had sprung from his eyes, and through his cloudy vision he could see the discomfort clearly on the two men’s faces, and he looked down, and suddenly he stopped, “Oh right,” Jon straightened in concern.

“What?” He asked seriously. Michael glanced up sheepishly.