you are lost.

     Sʜᴇ ʟɪᴋᴇs kids. Always has. Not Helen, of course: Helen was all focused on her career, and didn't much care for them, but the other thing, the one that wears something akin to Helen's face now, that did. A kid's mind was so different from an adult, reacted to far different things in ways that are often unpredictable, and this one was yet special. Maybe a fun little side project to keep eyes on.

SHE ISN’T FOND OF STRANGE DOORS making themselves comfortable in her library, leading out into hallways that weren’t her own where people could get lost and confused and frightened. But things had a way of turning up here whether she wanted them to or not. Perhaps she ought to turn this into an inn for the wretched and horrible. Charge an entrance fee and serve hot bread by a fire. 

Then again, there was already a movie about that. The killer was too clumsy for her taste. And, anyway, she smiled wide for her guest, colorful and twisting and endless beyond the door, though very nearly human in front of her. 

“Has she?” Ruby’s ego is large enough that she swells with a bit of pride at hearing Jane’s been gossiping. “Only good things, I hope. Or awful. Whichever one makes you more afraid of me.” It’s a joke, of course, and one she’s shameless enough to chuckle at herself, regardless of how Helen takes it.

     "Iɴ ᴛʜᴀᴛ case, I'm sorry to disappoint." She laughs. Something does, anyway: not a sound that comes from any throat, but it mimics it well enough. Still, not a lie this: fear is a concept that has lost all meaning to the Distortion. There is no fear in madness, there is no fear in ending and beginning and the lines blurring all together. Fear of it, but not inside. Paranoia is not quite the Spiral's forte, although it bleeds into it, and in fact, most victims of theirs immediately become useless to feeding on once they reached a certain degree, and dead they are no better. No madness in death, either.

As much as Jon wants to protest that, to immediately fire back that it’s lying to him, he… Knows that she is right. That he never knew Helen. Hell, he had turned her away, questioned her sanity, done everything wrong. So he doesn’t respond, doesn’t look at Helen when she smiles. 

He just keeps clicking his pen. 

Up until she mentions how long Helen had been left in the corridors. Jon sits up straighter, forcing himself to glare at the other. “You didn’t save her. You killed her. Replaced Michael. Or are you going to tell me that now he’s wandering the corridors now? Lost again?”

     Aʜ, ʜᴇ's really eager to misunderstand what she says, isn't he? She had mentioned neither of these things. And yet he's so eager to use words she never used against him. He would have matched the Spiral well if he had encountered it first: but the nature of the Eye is against that of the Spiral, and that is simply how things are.

     THE ANSWER might come from Jane’s mouth, but it’s not her to speak; or rather, it’s her and the Hive both, it sharing its knowledge of itself to her and her using her tongue and vocal chords to pass it onto Helen. There’s no more telling one from the other. Sure, the worms and her flesh differ from each other, but who’s to say they aren’t chunks of her own flesh coming to life and joining the crawling ranks of the Hive? Is there a line between house and inhabitant? Isn’t home always an extension of the self, and isn’t one shaped by the space they live in? 

     (If she told Helen, Jane thinks, she would understand. But she doesn’t.)

     An answer, then; and there it comes. “I doubt it.” She pulls the arm out of the ground and rises up to her feet, uncaring of the dirt she’s spilling all over the floor. “Some parts of it might move to someone else, but never for long periods. In the end, everyone has only one home to go back to, and so do we.” 

     Although, although. She looks at Helen standing in the middle of her private hiding place (a tiny domain of sorts, before the time of claiming a proper one comes) and thinks there might be exceptions to the rule. And those are words she’ll never say out loud; and those are words she doesn’t need to say out loud.

     Sʜᴇ ɴᴏᴅs. She understands well: as much as the Hive is a multitude contained as one, as much is the Distortion, to a lesser degree. Not yet: but eventually there will be so many there is no more sense of self, just many many many. It's similar. It's not comparable at all. But she understands. The way she replaced Michael and someone else will replace her, the same way someone will replace Jane, inevitably. Nothing to be too worried over: the time will come when it comes, and there's no use in worrying about it before, and nothing to be done when it does. She understands.

     … WELL. AT least he was already done recording that specific statement. (In fact, the tape recorder is still whirring next to his desk lamp, recording the few seconds of silence that preceded her arrival and the ones that now follow her musings.) Even with all of his Eyes opening wider and wider with every passing day, he doubts he’d be able to read anything on that slice-riddled sheet of paper. When he replies his tone is exhausted, just as usual. Not only a matter of actual tiredness; these interactions take a lot out of him and give nothing but headaches in return. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t touch anything in my office, thank you.” 

     Surprisingly enough, he doesn’t feel scared. Months ago the barely concealed threat would have terrified him to the core, but all he feels now is tension running through his body, together with the knowledge that she could strike at any moment. There, that’s what changed - he isn’t getting ready to run; he’s getting ready to defend himself.

     “Are you planning to do as he wanted, then? No, as you wanted. And perhaps still do.”

     Sʜᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋs down at the shredded statement in mock surprise, as if she hadn't realized what she did, but they both know well enough it's a play, like anything is. Like she does anything else. Still, at least she has the decency to not continue doing so, for now. She is tempted to. It amounts much to how nice the little Archivist plays now.

     "I'm not Michael. We've been over this." It's funny: as much as Michael had much more of a sense of self than Helen does (diluted down into two, into three beings, further and further), the more Helen insists on having one. Michael, he had an identity crisis over it. Helen sees it as a weapon, as a tool for sympathy. It's easier to feel with one person instead of two. Instead of an idea.

He pauses in his clicking to glance over at her, eyes narrowed into a tired glare. His wellbeing. It was a laughable thought, given how used to being told that only for it to mean as a way to meet their own ends. Elias, Nikola, Michael… 

“Helen and I were friends.” Jon finally says, clicking his pen with more fervor than before. This wasn’t Helen. He had to keep reminding himself of that, no matter who it had fooled, this wasn’t the same Helen that had brought him a map. 

Or was it? 

She spoke in such ways that made him think it was still her in there, and yet… Not at all. “And you wouldn’t have to worry about me anyways, I’m fine. I’m not dead or dying.” Yet.

     "Nᴏ, ʏᴏᴜ were not." She says it in a heartbeat, not even a second of consideration, and why would she? It's a simple truth, and one that will not taste well to him, so she is more than delighted to inform him of such. "You didn't know Helen. She didn't know you. Tell me one single thing about her that you knew aside from her name, her job or that she was terrified. One."

     She smiles, but it's so sharp, it's cutting at the edges. Were her teeth and flesh real, it would. Tear on each other, that is.

Almost right. That’s what comes to mind when she looks at the woman, this vague feeling that something isn’t exactly right, isn’t exactly as it should be. She can’t put her finger on it, it isn’t anything she can see, but there’s something that makes her eyes want to blur, trying to shift focus any time she looks too closely.

Nine makes no move to back away, tries to act like she hasn’t noticed anything strange at all, though it doesn’t do much to mask the air of curiosity that surrounds her when she looks at the woman. “Not lost,” she says, tilts her head for a moment of pause. “Are you?”

     Tʜᴇ ᴏ̨ᴜᴇsᴛɪᴏɴ takes her by genuine surprise, and so the sound released not from a throat but somewhere akin is also one of amusement and puzzlement. Oh, she liked that one, liked her already. Nobody ever thought of asking her that. It's funny, all things considered, but it also makes it tilt it's head to the side, thinking, thinking, thinking.

     (Are they lost? An excellent question!)

Jon reaches about his desk for something, anything, to hold or click obnoxiously while she’s here. Something to calm his nerves, which have already spiked far beyond what they were before she spoke up. He can’t find a pen, and instead settles on a few loose staples and a paperclip, absently shoving them back and forth, or flipping the smooth, rounded metal around in his hand. 

“No you don’t.” There’s little conviction behind it, more of a statement than an accusation. He is tired, feels empty, but he had told them he wouldn’t go around eating people’s trauma. But that didn’t mean anything when he tried to sleep. “I sleep.” Not enough to help him chase the migraine away, but he did sleep enough for a normal human being to barely function off of. 

Jon might not be able to remember exactly when that last full night’s rest had been, but he knew he took enough naps to continue functioning. 

     Sʜᴇ ᴅᴏᴇsɴ'ᴛ mind the nervous habit. In fact, it's rather welcome: an act of nerves flattering, something that would annoy another, would slowly push them a little bit further along madness. Not much. Not much at all. But still, in a way, he does serve the Spiral with it, and she can't help but be fond of it, even if she doesn't say so. Don't need to. It still sings to them.

     (Not in the way Jane hears the song of Rot, but it sings nevertheless.)

some meme | @sealone

     Tʜᴇ ᴛɪʟᴛ of her head is at an unnatural angle: anyone else would have a broken neck at this rate. That's the entire point now though, isn't it? And her lips too stretch into something that could be considered a smile. Maybe.

meme i dont remember | @hivebody

     "Nᴏ, ɴᴏᴛ really."

     She exhales. She doesn't need to: breathing is only a requirement to produce sound, after all. The curls of her hair sway lightly in it, but they are always moving, always looking as if they were alive on their own, and they are, in a way. All of her is. Not in the way most people would classify something as being alive, but she's not exactly most people, now is she.