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Jimmy woke up with a pounding headache. It hurt, badly; the pain was like someone took TNT and planted it firmly in his skull. The blinking of his eyelids was the flint and steel, sending flashes of blinding white light across his vision and starting up a horrid ringing in his ears akin to that of a broken bell. He rolled over in his bed, trapped in suddenly too-warm sheets; blankets he had to forget were there until the heat of them made him want to tear his skin off with pliers; or a knife.
The covers were strangling him, they felt alive against his feverish body; Jimmy could almost feel the faint heartbeat of the inanimate objects, but that might've just been the loud echo of his own as it drummed annoyingly in his ears and behind his eyes.
The sun was sparkling, peeking through his window like it did every morning in the gleaming streets of Tumble Town, shining brightly through the glass like a stalker, watching him fight against the blankets he happily buried himself in the night prior, an act he was beginning to regret. Jimmy would've shut the curtains if he had any, he'd been meaning to buy some for a while now, or at least fashion up his own, but never had the chance; being the sheriff of a blossoming town such as this left him with hardly any spare time for something a trivial as getting himself a curtain. And considering the ache that encompassed his head he certainly wasn't going to do it today; not with the blinding heat that rushed through his veins like acid, burning him from the inside to the out.
He couldn't even hear the groan that left his mouth over the still-clanging alarm bells in his head.
The blankets finally stopped fighting back, lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of his bed, now completely unmoving as if they hadn't just been choking him with their metaphorical hands. Like the blue sheets hadn't just been plotting to drag him into the underworld by force, taking him out via heatstroke.
He lay there for a moment, attempting to catch his breath. But every heavy drag of air into his lungs sent another wave of agony through his brain and down his spine. Lightning strikes were shooting back and forth in his nervous system. Jimmy didn't even have to imagine he was on fire to make the comparison, the pain that lingered deep in his very core was convincing enough.
The air settled in his lungs, eventually allowing his still over-beating heart to carry that rich oxygen through his veins and into his waiting organs, but the ache in his head remained. Jimmy was about to give up on any prospect of productivity, to once again shut his eyes and let sleep claim him as its own. Wishfully thinking that he could ignore the cracks forming in his skull or the way that every hair brushed over his shoulders like tiny blades digging into his neck; that he could shove aside the ugly feeling of each fiber of his sleep clothes rubbing against his skin like needles trying to stab him apart and sew him back together against his will.
He was not a Toy, he didn't need to be stitched up and held together by a single line of burning, red thread.
Even with his eyes squeezed tight, the sun still pierced through the shield like a sword. Unsurprisingly the sky's favorite star refused to give up on the fight that was setting his head aflame, burning through his defenses faster than a lit match takes to a stick of dynamite. Jimmy shifted to lie on his side, it didn't help with the fabric on his skin, but at least the sun no longer invaded his vision like a parasite, seeping away any semblance of peace he had left.
One ear buried in the pillow beneath his head, the other covered by a shaking hand. Jimmy was curled into a ball like a baby, on the verge of crying like one too; making himself as small as possible made the pain more bearable, and less surface area meant less tiny knifes cutting him up like Sunday's dinner. Yet, the deafening ringing persisted, and the bloody stabbing sensation did not retreat.
The hand not covering his ear clutched blindly at his chest, pawing at his shirt, feebly attempting to stave off the pins and needles against his skin. But before he could yank off the offending fabric, there was a whisper in his ear.
No- Not in his ear. In his head.
The headache began to dissolve slowly, like sugar in iced water, seeping away from the edges and granting him momentary relief. This time, when the whisper returned, light and airy, barely audible over the stinging behind his eyes, he could understand it.
"Altar," it said, quieter than a mouse, a meer squeak among the cacophony of noises that suddenly echoed in his mind. Echos and choruses of the word fought for their turn at the surface; they beat each other down by increasing their volume and screaming for his attention.
Jimmy couldn't move, couldn't open his eyes, couldn't breathe, couldn't fight back against the sudden onslaught of sounds in his brain.
It wasn't real, none of it was real. The scream and shouts weren't being filtered through his deaf ears, they were bouncing around inside his skull like they belonged there. Like their purpose was to torment him, tear him apart, kill him.
Altar, they said. Altar he listened.
Jimmy rolled out of bed sluggishly, falling to the floor and landing on his hands and knees with a heavy thump. His muscles felt like lead as he was forced to stand like a puppet on a string, joints clacked against one another and clinking about with an unreal metal-on-metal grinding noise.
It wasn't real. It wasn't real.
People bones don't grind like that, human bodies don't clink together like a broken puzzle. Human.
Human.
The headache was still a banging ache in his mind, lingering like a bad smell and burning like one too. The clothes on his skin still felt like fire, he was warm, too warm. Everything was wrong.
The whispers echoed in his ears, singing for him, coaxing him to walk. A heavy sway in every step, nimble fingers clutching at whatever he could reach, scrambling for balance against anything they could find. Every ounce of his strength was focused on staying upright, the uncomfortable thrumming under his outmost layer sent him stumbling on air. He was held up only by phantom strings, pulling him along like a doll to be toyed with.
Jimmy went through the motions of changing his clothes like a passenger, he had no control over his body. The voices lead him through it and he listened. The headache kept him docile, helpless to any slight direction; with every followed order the pain dissipated, if only for a moment. There was not a single thought that went uninterrupted in his head. He was putty to be molded by this undeniable presence.
This pressure.
It weighed him down, and he'd never felt like this before. So heavy.
Then he was dressed, after a few, long moments of being unable to pop the buttons of his shirt through the holes. More than once he had to redo them, as he put each one in the wrong spot and made the piece of cloth crooked and all the more unbearable. The voices coached him through the motions, clogging his already blurred vision with promises he couldn't comprehend.
The vest he bore all too tight over the white button down beneath, his lungs couldn't fully expand like they should be able to. The lack of air was dizzying, nauseating even. Breath hitched in his throat, catching on itself as he choked. Unconsciously his two trembling hands clawed desperately at his neck, leaving jagged, red-raised lines against the otherwise unblemished skin there. He fell to his knees, scrambling to scrape his neck open in the hopes that it would loosen his clogged airways.
There was a brush against his ankles, and he had to tear his eyes away from where they were staring blankly ahead of him in misery to turn them toward the feeling. His cat was watching him with a perplexed look on his face, Norman butted up against his leg and mewled, the noise sounded sharp.
It stung. It burned. Jimmy couldn't stop, but he didn't have to; the void whispered in his brain and the oxygen was abruptly pumping through his body like nothing was wrong, as if nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened. Had it?
Norman sauntered away.
"Altar. Altar!" They screamed.
He had to go to the altar. His thoughts were as clear as river water. For the pain to stop he had to go to the altar. To worship, to beg.
Jimmy stood on shaking legs, gripping the dresser in front of him in clammy hands, tear-rimmed eyes made eye contact with his reflection in the mirror. Scratches that stung, that he'd dug in himself, were gone. There was no evidence of anything that had happened apart from his wrinkled shirt and half-unbuttoned vest; far from suffocating. The bags under his eyes stood out like a sore thumb, his face looked sunken in like a sinkhole had swallowed his features whole.
His nails dug into the wood until it dented, the splinters poking into the tender skin curiously. Jimmy didn't feel it over the still hammering pain in his head.
He broke the eye contact with a shaking of his head, the dizziness returned but he managed to ignore it in favor of stumbling heavily toward his front door and plucking his hat from its stand. The only act of today that didn't bring a wave of agony through him like sand at the beach, the sheriff hat settled on his head like it was made for him; which it was.
Jimmy let out a sigh of relief, the strings that controlled him loosened, if only marginally. He gripped the door handle in a white-knuckled grasp. The whispers cheered, a contradictory statement that he would've questioned if he didn't feel like mush. They screamed as the exit to the outside swung open with a heavy creak, hinges grinding against each other, walls shaking when the door slammed into them.
The first step outside wasn't easy, sandy air blew in his face with the wind. It was fighting him, trying to shove him back into the house, but he couldn't disobey the voices. He had to listen, or more hurt was promised. They said so. Hadn't they?
Altar, they had whispered. Altar he would listen.
There was a rush beneath his skin; a raw, unknown, pulsing power that drew him outside. The strong breeze still swept him back, trying feebly to deter his path, but he refused; one step after another, the soles of his boots leaving jagged, stumbling footsteps in the red sand.
One of the voices, quieter than the rest but nonetheless very much loud enough to be understood, wished it was red for reasons less than savory. A small smirk broke out against his lips at the idea, hand twitching for the sword at his side. He hadn't even realized he grabbed the holster on the way out and its enchantments tingled against his palm, tempting him to draw it from its constraints and drive into the heart of something, someone.
Jimmy blinked, the haze that washed over him broke for a brief moment, the gorey thoughts shocking his system and sending him reeling. He tripped on a pebble and his arms were suddenly pinwheeling to keep him upright. He was standing near the center of town, barely a hundred feet away from his home, and a few of his citizens were staring at him, their conversations pausing to consider his odd movements. Stepping away from their jobs to run their curious eyes over their sheriff like he was something to be studied.
Normally it wouldn't bother him, he loved his town, and despite his flaws, the inhabitants loved him in return. They were probably just concerned, but the feeling of their watchful gazes sent spikes of agony into his head, anger sharpening in his gut like a time bomb about to tick out. Jimmy stood there for a moment, half-crouched over in his almost-fallen-but-just-managed-to-catch-himself stance. The eerie, bristling feeling of being barely in control was seeping back into his subconscious like a well-worn coat and then the stares no longer mattered as he slipped back into the passenger seat of his own body and he was walking toward the cliff side; the shaking of his hands went unnoticed as he tapped the pads of his fingers against his thighs as he mindlessly followed the coaxing directions.
Stray stones kicked beneath his feet with every step, the ache in his head was still throbbing but it felt far away, the closer he got to the structure he knew was at the top of the hill, the now the feeling faded. Invisible tethers were dragging him upward until his head crested the peak of the mountainface and he stepped off the rickety staircase at the top.
There was no path up here, just dirt and smooth rock, the heat of the mesa was blistering against his reddened skin, the hat atop his head doing little to to filter out the bright sun; but Jimmy didn't brother to try and move a muscle to block it either.
He stared straight ahead, there standing proudly as ever, was the Altar. It towered over him now, the blueish-green vines reaching up for the heavens like they craved it, begging for forgiveness from a God who had long since given up on them; Jimmy couldn't help but feel the same way. Puddles littered the ground, and he knew that they would be freezing despite the heat surrounding them.
Against his own better judgment, because honestly he hardly had any thoughts in his head at this point, he inched closer. The whispers erupted into boisterous laughter, it was mocking, he felt flushed. There were hundreds of tiny hands shoving against his back, tugging on his front, he was tripping over the greenery on the floor and it clung to his ankles like it wanted to melt into his jeans.
The toe of one of his boots caught in a puddle, and the next thing he knew he was on his hands and knees, kneeling in soggy moss as a million screeching voices sang in his mind. The water soaked into his knees, and gripped the cuffs of his shirt like a vice. He was panting against the onslaught of racket that exploded around him.
Jimmy's headache worsened, and he dropped his head to the ground, it almost looked like he was praying, and the weight against his back was suffocating even though he knew that nothing was there. He couldn't lift his forehead from the floor, and the tiny hands scratched at his skin; or was that just the fabric of his clothes again? He couldn't tell, his lefts and rights were flip-flopped, and nausea rose up from his stomach like the high tide of the ancient Ocean Empire.
He breathed in a heavy gulp of air, a bad decision, the magic of the altar pulsed in his lungs and he nearly choked.
For the first time in his life, he prayed.
But- in all reality, it wasn't Jimmy who sent that plea into the sky; ‘twas not the sheriff who closed those cloudy blue eyes and ducked his head into the dirt to beg for forgiveness. It was something else entirely, the being, or better yet beings, entities, devilish creatures with torn wings and a thin grip on his oh-so-fragile mortal realm. They wriggled their way into his vulnerable head, twisting his bitterness, his friendly rivalries into something more; turning him into the puppet of the man he so passionately refused to become.
Blue eyes melted into crimson, scleras gone dark as pinprick pupils creaked open to make a sight line of the mold before him. The brim of his hat soaked in the muddy water, and when he lifted his head with a muted tug not at all his own the liquid dripped onto his face, the dirt leaving thin and watery snail trails of grime on his skin. Earth was caked under his nails from where they were dug into the soil without him realizing it.
Jimmy stood on no longer shaking legs, suddenly deaf to every noise around him. There was no water splashing from the puddles as he walked, no longer could he hear the bustling of the townsfolk from the streets below. Instead, the chorus of voices took residence, no longer were they a slight whisper in the edges of his consciousness, and they were finally saying their commands in sync.
The sword at his waist was a burden no more.