Work Text:
No sunlight defiles this place.
The only colour present amidst an endless expanse of white is black: black of the laptop, black of the blanket, black of the sketchbook, black of the shadows hiding in the seams and creases and crevices of the doors between this sanctuary and places where other things may exist.
And, of course, black of these clothes.
There's no sound, either. The sanctuary is totally silent, as it should be, with nothing to disturb one who elects to hide away from the painful waking world, one with dead sisters and dead friends to mourn.
Nothing to do but sit and wait for something to happen amidst the blinding white.
Perhaps the Dreamer's oblivion-like sleep can be disturbed— No. He's in a safe spot, lying on a blanket under an umbrella jammed into the puce-coloured ground as it rains all around him. No bloody sunlight can reach him there.
Perhaps this blinding white doesn't need to be monitored.
There is a humming.
The blinding white floods it all again, beheld once more. The humming's source isn't inside the White Space— it comes from a door. The flaking door that leads elsewhere, to a shack governed by her, one where a catastrophe happened and the current plague upon the Headspace was allowed to be born.
If there is a humming coming from beyond the door, there has to be someone beyond it.
Knock.
Knock-knock.
Knock-knock-knock.
The humming stops after the third series of knocks.
Yeah?
It's her.
Hello.
Hi. Asleep?
Asleep.
Same. How are you?
The response needs to be precise.
Bad. Anxious. Worried about tomorrow. Happy to know you're there.
The pink voice on the other side of the door decides to take its time to respond.
You'll be fine.
She isn't even trying.
Promise. Trust me.
She sits down, her back against the door; perhaps doing the same is a good idea. Just to mimic, resonate, sympathise.
I really don't know what we are supposed to do now. I'm afraid of a lot of things, you know—
Like?
Like failure. Separation, maybe, too. I was afraid you wouldn't come back, so now I'm afraid you'll leave me again and I won't reach you again.
It's fine. You'll have to be fine, you know how to make it through—
You really think anyone would want to work with me? Someone who drove a friend to suicide?
Silence.
I didn't have a future is all I can say. You gave me one, so, please—
Please don't take it?
—don't take it from me again.
I don't want to.
No speech, no humming, no sound reaches through the door anymore. The warden on the other side is thinking something over. Planning to react to the words it’s heard.
After several minutes of silence, she speaks up.
I take it there are some things you have to say to me. I would appreciate it if… you shared your worries, too.
It’s not as if anything would be lost if these were shared.
All this. The terror of existence. The case you spoke of.
There has to be an investigation. A lattice of polaroids. Whatever happened in the cabin — it was the same thing as the one mourned in the old home where she died.
I don’t want to be the person I am.
I do like you the way you are.
A vital mercy, but a small one.
That man — he died. Torn apart. That was a murder.
The silence sounds like the person on the other side is mulling these words over.
Screw that. It was the right thing to do. Don’t be concerned with that.
The right thing that let the shell crack and the bloody sun to be born from these imperfections, let them fester and grow and spread and conquer.
Can’t.
A nightmare sequence is recalled.
You’re really worried about hurting me on accident, aren’t you?
Yes.
Same.
No response. Silence.
I was afraid of hurting you, or lashing out like I wanted to back then… I don’t know. I just have to believe that we’re going to be alright. That even if we spent the rest of our lives in these two defiled hollows, we’d be alright.
I want to believe that, too.
You already do.
No response, again. Just a void, until the off-tune humming resumes with the sole audience separated from its source by an old new door.
Whatever problems in red somehow still exist needn’t be addressed.
The humming stops. She knocks on the door again.
Thank you.
The door opens. Beyond it, the young pink-haired woman — in all her mournful glory — flashes a smile, unwilling and unable to cross a threshold. She can only reach out, for an embrace to be reciprocated.
This embrace will be cherished for as long as the shell exists to carry notions within itself.
There’s not much for you to behold.
The City is overrun by clotting water and ruins. The train station is the one thing that still works; all you can do is to get the fuck out of this place.
The train soars above the water as its blue is subverted into purple; you only briefly peek out of the window, for the sunglasses to block the corruptive red of the sun, one that doesn’t, shouldn’t belong there.
The train comes to a screeching halt. You stand up to stumble outside, and leave post haste; the Vast Forest is painfully empty.
You need to get to the White Space. Now. Before that red shadow catches up with you.
As such, you are to take off, as the malevolent echo gives chase. Cross the bridge, hop over a fallen tree, ignore the all-too-creepy blood rain from the torn-up source of light, rush across the playground, dive through the stump and cross the tiny Neighbours’ Room to kick open the door to the White Space.
You shut the door close right after the grotesque red shadow peeks through the stump. Ten seconds after that, someone slams a fist into the door.
Another. Third. There is a torrent of the Red Hands doing their best to bash in the door and all you can do is pant, hunched over.
There’s already a person inside. Two, even. Joined in a hug at the entrance to where Aubrey’s beloathed cabin lies.
At the end of the day, someone to see a companion — to call a friend — to understand your pain — is all you’ve ever wanted.