Work Text:
Jade was outnumbered. He couldn’t turn to look at each of the monsters without turning his back to another, which meant there was no way to tell precisely how many there were. What he did know was that he was surrounded, and that they were closing in on him—one step at a time.
“No…”
One of them got close enough to grab his shoulder, curling the fabric of both of his shirts into its fingers.
“No!”
His attempts to free himself only made things worse, as he writhed his way straight into the arms of the other monsters. Collectively, they picked him up and dragged him towards the grave in the center of the chamber. No matter how much Jade kicked and screamed and cursed, the monsters continued on, completely unphased. Still smiling. Still oddly gentle in their otherwise forceful actions. They poured Jade into the dark pit, slowly beginning to cover him, reaching out to adjust his hands every time he tried to push back. It was no use.
As the darkness consumed him, there was just enough light for him to recognize that he wasn’t alone. Sitting across from him, expectantly, was one of the children.
“Anghkooey.” They said.
Jade let out an anguished, guttural scream. The noise reverberated the packed dirt, causing the earth below him to crumble until it finally caved in. Jade plummeted even lower. He frantically reached out for something, anything that he could grab onto, despite seeing nothing but pitch black. He landed with a crash, sprawled out on what appeared to be solid ground. It wasn’t dirt. It wasn’t rock. He couldn’t even really identify what it was, but he couldn’t tell the difference between the floor and the sky, it was just one big, dark, void. He sat up with a groan.
“Jade?”
Oh god.
Tabitha appeared and knelt down next to him. “Are you okay?” She tugged on his arm in an attempt to bring him to his feet, but instead, Jade shrugged her off and buried his face in his hands.
“I’m done. I’m done! I need to get out!” He yelled at the absence of sky.
“Jade, stop—”
Jade pushed himself to his feet. “Boyd!” He frantically looked around, still finding nothing but void. “Capricorn! CAPRICORN!!!”
Tabitha grabbed both of his shoulders and spun him around to face her, “Jade! What is going on?”
Jade shook his head and muttered. “You’re not real.”
“I am. I am real.” She wasn’t pleading, she was insistent, but it still wasn’t enough to convince him. Jade’s chest continued to rise and fall unsteadily as he kept looking for the exit. He could feel Tabitha’s unwavering gaze, as steady as the grip on his shoulders. He couldn’t bear to look back at her. This trip had done nothing but hurt him, and while he pushed through it all for the sake of getting answers, there was nothing he could learn about Tabitha that wouldn’t cause him even more pain. This was just cruel, and it was a step too far.
“What is going on?” Tabitha asked him. He wouldn’t respond.
“Jade.” Still no response. Jade shut his eyes again.
“Jade, I’m right here. Look at me.” Jade sighed and opened his eyes. Fear painted Tabitha’s face. Her eyes were wide, and she trembled with every breath she took.
“Where are we?” Tabitha pressed.
“I don’t fucking know! Shouldn’t you tell me?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Tabitha broke away and paced. “I was at the settlement with Ethan. I was supposed to stay awake but I closed my eyes for just two seconds…” Tabitha glanced around the void uneasily. “I need to get back, I need to make sure Ethan is okay.”
"Weren’t you with Donna?”
“No, you don’t understand, we found something. These dolls in the water, they belonged to me, from before. But there’s something wrong, I think we…disturbed something. We were all staying awake to keep watch but I don’t even remember what I’m supposed to be watching for–”
Tabitha trailed off, she covered her mouth as she fought back the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. Jade couldn’t help but think that if this truly was all in his head, then his mind was a more sadistic beast than he ever imagined.
“I’d tell you to try the mushrooms, but at this point, I don’t know if that’s better or worse.” He shrugged.
“What happened?” Tabitha’s voice was noticeably smaller.
“Well, among other things…this.” Jade gestured to the void.
“Wait, you mean…you’re still…”
“High off my ass? Yeah. I think so.”
Tabitha shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense.”
The silence that they fell into was unbearable. With nothing else around and no other sounds, their thoughts were louder than ever. And that was saying something, because Jade’s thoughts were always loud.
Jade paced in a circle. “Okay. Let’s say, hypothetically, you’re real–”
“I am real.”
“–did you remember anything else? Besides the dolls?”
“Um…I…I remember I was just a kid and this man threw the dolls in the water, but besides that…I don’t know it’s all…blurry.”
Jade took a step closer to her. “What about as an adult? As Miranda or anyone else?”
“I don’t—”
“Tabitha, this is really important. Think.”
“I just told you I don’t remember!”
“You have to keep trying!”
The urgency in Jade’s voice only made Tabitha raise hers bitterly, “How? How am I supposed to do that? I can’t control it.”
“We can. It’s all in there. I can access so much more now, things are finally starting to make sense!”
“That’s good for you. But I’ve got enough going on just trying to keep my family safe, I don’t need other people’s thoughts too.” Tabitha turned and walked in a direction away from Jade. He ran his fingers through his knotted curls out of frustration.
“Tabitha, wait. Please.” His voice grew weaker the more he pleaded, but she just kept getting further. The panic was setting in again. “They wouldn’t tell me what happens to you!” He cried.
Tabitha finally stopped, but didn’t turn around. Jade continued on, “Every time we’ve been here…we die. But I think if we figure out how, I can at least make sure you take Julie and Ethan home.”
Tabitha was quiet, not offering an immediate response, she just continued to stare forward. After a moment, she spoke up, “and you?”
Jade pressed his lips together tightly, taking a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t think so. But I’d rather you alive than both of us dead.”
“I told you I didn’t mean what I said in the barn” She sounded hurt.
“I know. But after everything you’ve been through, everything this place has done to you, I don’t think I can forgive myself if I didn’t at least try to get you out alive.”
Tabitha turned around, and after she locked eyes with Jade her entire expression shifted into something much softer. She looked exhausted, but almost relieved, as if she hadn’t slept in days and she was staring at the reason why. As if she was seeing him for the first time in a very, very long time.
The feeling propelled her forward, taking tepid, careful steps towards Jade, until she came to a stop in front of him. Their chests were only an inch apart. With a hesitant hand that seemed to move on its own, she reached up and brushed a stray curl out of his face. Jade could have melted on the spot. His eyelashes fluttered closed, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her, but he missed her too much to keep them shut. Neither of them moved, breathing in time with each other in the comfort of their proximity.
Until a creak from behind Tabitha broke the silence. An old door, wooden and arched like the one Jade found in Colony House, had suddenly appeared. It inched itself open, squeaking on its hinges. Through the newly formed crack Jade could just barely make out the dim, orange glow of a lantern illuminating a settlement cabin.
Tabitha looked back at Jade apologetically.
“You should go.” He half-whispered.
Tabitha nodded. She pried herself away, the empty air between their bodies still thick enough to create resistance. It was only as she got closer to the door that she quickened her pace. As she walked through and shut the door behind her, the door itself blinked out of existence.
But strangely enough, Jade was not left alone. He turned his head to the left and peered down an endless line of figures, stretching deep into the dark beyond what he could see. All of them the men he used to be, the ones he could now recognize, as well as the ones he could not. In succession, from the back of the line coming forward, he watched as a female figure stepped into the light to face each one, until immediately in front of him, Miranda stepped up to meet Christopher. She, and all the others, stopped at the same distance he and Tabitha had just stood. And just like her, they all reached up to fix his hair. The repetition of the moment rippled through each pair, like energy being transferred through a newton’s cradle. A demonstration of the momentum carried by fate itself. A promise written into the folds of time.
Jade’s heart ached as each woman reached forward, planting their lips on those of his counterparts. A bliss blooming on each of their faces that he had already accepted would never reach his.
But as Jade recoiled his gaze and brought his eyes back to center, he wasn’t met with darkness, but with Tabitha once more. And before a conscious thought could even formulate in his head, she tugged his face forward, bringing his lips to hers. Jade inhaled sharply, trying to contain the wave of emotion that engulfed him at the contact. His right hand floated upwards to cup her cheek–he drank her in, savoring the taste. His free hand came to rest on the curve of her waist, firm enough to keep her there, but not so hard that she couldn’t pull away if she wanted to. She reacted to the touch by deepening the kiss, pressing herself even closer to him.
In that dark, liminal space, they could’ve been like that for seconds, minutes, or even hours. Jade decided he wouldn’t keep track.
After a while, they came apart, both gasping for air. Despite continuing to hold each other, Tabitha wouldn’t return Jade’s stare, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. She removed her hands from Jade’s neck and pushed herself back, and Jade released her in turn, allowing her to take a couple steps back, despite every fiber of his being begging her to stay.
Tabitha, now a couple feet away, finally looked back up at him. “We can’t do this again.” and without another word, Tabitha’s chest pulled itself apart. Deep, bloody gashes ripped through her skin. They grew and layered on top of one another, as an invisible force ripped her to shreds. The white, pointed bones of her ribcage were totally exposed, and her lungs seemed to dissolve before Jade’s eyes. She retched and crumpled to the floor, writhing and shaking until her body finally became still.
Jade couldn’t stop screaming.
“Jade! Jade! Hey, hey, hey!” Boyd reached over from behind and pinned Jade’s flailing arms to his body, restraining him in a tight hold. “Woah…you okay?”
Jade took stock of his surroundings–he was back in the post office. “What the fuck are we doing here? How did we get here?”
The lack of sunlight out the windows left Jade completely disoriented. He squirmed out of Boyd’s grip.
“How the fuck did we get here?” His voice was strained.
Boyd spoke calmly, “Jade…you never left.”