Ghosts Who Followed You Home

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: The Witch puts on a production for Desmond, Carter, and Alice.
Word Count: 2469
Rating: Teen

         Desmond tries to go into Eagle Vision, to try to figure out where to go next, and as if in response, the surroundings turn dark and...ripple. Not like an earthquake. Like the solid ground beneath them turned into a cloth that someone’s shaking. He stumbles a little, hears Carter yell out “woah!”, and suddenly there’s a line of stones glowing bright gold starting at his feet. Alice picks the first up, tilting her head a little far. Because yeah. That wasn’t there before.
         He only goes back into normal vision long enough to confirm that it’s completely useless, now. It’s darker than it had been when they’d been in the real world, the lack of light an oppressive weight, and the scattered park lights aren’t even on. Carter mutters a spell and then a little globe of light is glowing above her upturned palm, and it’s even glowing in Eagle Vision, kind of like Agartha had been. It’s not quite blinding but it’s kind of like staring at a flashlight for too long, so he tries something a little different. He’d been able to feel the Artifact from a distance, so maybe he can ‘tag’ the stones as important. Given that he’s already sort of feeling that, or they wouldn’t be glowing gold in the first place, it shouldn’t be too hard, just...doing it in reverse. Alice is watching avidly, though from the way she’s reacting she’s got better night vision than even Eagle Vision can provide. Like that’s a surprise in any way.
         “In this dream, I’m walking hand in hand with Mr. Bear through the forest,” a voice narrates with no emotion, echoing around them like they’re no longer outside. Lorraine’s voice. There do seem to be a few more of those barren trees around the paths, aren’t there. They loom larger, more menacing, and Desmond could almost swear those are claws—which, nightmare ghost world. Sure. Why not. “We can’t stay in the cottage. Susie says she can’t even give us breadcrumbs for a sweep. No light, no fire.”
         The thing is...they are still outside, as far as Desmond can tell, but the Park has definitely morphed around them. Again. Desmond can’t make out much maybe twenty feet to either side of the path. He’d say maybe it’s the fog again but it doesn’t shift, at all, and he’d occasionally catch glimpses of something through the fog with Eagle Vision. This time, there’s nothing. Not like there’s a wall of some kind. Like suddenly there’s nothing else to the world, like it’s all disappeared. Just in case, in sudden panic, he checks the charm, and he’s not cut off, not completely. It’s not even like there’s a thread connecting them that’s been pulled further, more like...it’s dampened, like most sound in fog.
         “I think we’re supposed to follow the trail,” Carter suggests in a stage whisper.
         That sounds familiar, but it takes him a few moments to put it together. It’s not another reference to Anne, actually, which was his first thought, but something he’d heard near Winter’s car, from the Buzzing. Something about breadcrumbs. He doesn’t remember exactly, but he’s pretty sure Carter’s right.
         So they follow.
         “It’s easy to get lost. The wrong path calls. My father, drunk and lost himself,” Lorraine’s echoey narration continues, and Alice destroys a woodcutter before any of them realize it’s just another cardboard cutout. The path disappears into grass, the kind of grass that’s not too bad now, but if they wander further Desmond’s mind vaguely registers could be hiding ticks. Huh. It’s not like he’s exactly been hiking in a long time. Funny, the things you remember from when you were a kid. Then again, he’d been really freaked out seeing it burrowing under his skin. Bill had actually praised him, after he managed to calm down, which was rare enough to remember. He hadn’t been so happy about the initial reaction, though.
         “My mother, calling me his doppelganger, unwanted.” This time he thinks it’s just a cutout of a mirror until he sees it actually flicker with their shapes as they walk past, red eyes glowing balefully from out of the...whatever it is. Weird Park facsimile of a cutout. The grass actually gets lower there, showing the signs of dirt underneath, grass trodden to death by hundreds of feet over the years. The darkness seems further away, in that direction, though Carter’s light only reaches so far. The trail of white stones doesn’t lead that way, though. And while the really way too obvious warning about the wrong path might actually be the trap, that doesn’t feel right. No, he gets the feeling that Lorraine, both parts of her, want them to make it to her. For the murderous part of her, as just another trap to try to kill them. The rest of her just wants this to end. Lucrezia at the end, telling Ezio what he needed to hear.
         “The guards declaring me unfit. His family declaring me not one of their own.” That’s more like a guy wearing Bannerman’s uniform to him, but she probably hadn’t been seeing actual reality way before all of this. (Though they look maybe vaguely related? He doesn’t want to just declare that to be the case, given what happened the last time he did that.) And...there’s a bunch of glass slippers at his feet, smeared with blood. Desmond is not going to look too closely. He’s an Assassin. It’s not like he’s squeamish, exactly. But he’s pretty sure that’s a toe and that’s not the only thing there that looks like human flesh and he really doesn’t want to think about any of that.
         “Ewww,” Carter whispers. They hurry past. Except it’s fast enough Desmond almost misses the glimpse of Jack stalking through the trees parallel to them. They’ve already got enough trouble already, but...Well, Jack’s not attacking. Which is weird, but Desmond’s not complaining.
         At least, he wouldn’t be if Rukh didn’t suddenly take off after him, making him stop immediately. “Rukh!” he yells, heart in his throat.
         The call back is the noise his raven makes when he’s trying to be reassuring. “I got this,” sort of deal. God he really doesn’t want to just keep going, because sure, he trusts Rukh but sometimes the bird is a little too arrogant, too sure he’s got this before something like Beaumont smacks him, but also—he’s pretty sure that Rukh can only do this because of who he is, as a weird magic ghost raven, or whatever. Reaching out desperately with his mind (which almost immediately gives him a headache; he is starting to stretch himself a little thin, isn’t he, but he can’t stop pushing until he knows Rukh is gonna be okay) he gets the really, really strong feeling that if they leave the path, that’s it. They’re gone. And—huh. So is Rukh, kind of. At first he’d panicked a little because he can barely feel his raven, only Shaun’s charm flares dully, and that’s similar enough that, well. He’s not sure, but he has to believe it, because he doesn’t have anything else. The real world’s that way, but it’s not a route that any of them can take (well...probably him and Carter; he’s not sure about Alice), but both Rukh and Jack can. Somehow. And while he’s still worried about Rukh, at least in the real world his reckless bird is going to have some sort of backup that they’re not getting at the moment, so...he’s gotta believe Rukh’s going to be okay.
         As if hearing his thoughts, Alice tells him solemnly, “Your familiar will be fine.” He’d feel better about that if he didn’t know, at this point, that even with all her weird powers that mean she might actually know that, somehow, she’s also not the kind of person to be okay with sounding uncertain about anything. Still, he takes a breath and nods, because what else can he do?
         “Good to continue?” Carter asks, which is sweet of her, to care, and from the feel of it there’s no other way out but through, so...yeah.
         “The lawyers. Vampires, all of them.” This one is hastily propped against a tree. At least it’s holding the gas mask in its hand, Desmond notes with amusement. Maybe since it’s dark right now, so there’s no worries about the sunlight?
         And then, by another tree, just watching, a twisted figure in a tophat that’s way too tall for the twisted body. The Bogeyman, going by the picture one of Danny’s kids had drawn. Just watching. They’re worrying him, now, it seems like. At least enough that he wants a personal view on the situation and not just to feel it all through the connection he has with the Park. His own creation.
         “My own son. He’s not himself, now.” Yeah, he’s pretty sure her kid wasn’t a werewolf pup in a red cloak, maw red and glistening.
         “Why twisted fairy tales?” Carter wonders out loud, and he’s pretty sure he has his answer.
         “Her kid. This is all stuff she read to her kid, only it got twisted just as much as anything else in her life.” That’s the kind of twisted thing the Park would do, and even if she’d walked away, she kept coming back. Coming back until she never left, or...maybe just even if she had stepped outside, vowed to never set foot here again, this place had taken enough from her that it doesn’t matter. Taken enough from her, and kept it, here in the Park.
         “And then, at the end of it all, the house of the Witch.” Lorraine sounds equally proud and nervous, as a house comes into view with a speed that could be the black tendrils of fog parting, but honestly is probably the Park manipulating this nightmare-space again.
         From this close, he can see that the walls look just the littlest bit sticky, and the window-panes have bubbled and are turning brown and black from starting colors that he hasn’t seen—okay, that Ezio hasn’t even seen—in any Duomo. The fence and stairs are crooked. But now that he’s staring at the outline of the house against...well, mostly the illumination Carter’s giving, rather than any glow in the sky, it looks familiar. “That’s one of the houses near the Council safehouse, right?” he clarifies, and the teen nods.
         “That’s the Black House. But, um.” She makes a face and then points at the map of the park that’s suddenly here like it’d teleported, just like the weird museum guy. This time, it’s got new graffiti, saying ‘Carrie Killian is Satan’s whore’. Nice. It’s not bad enough that they just murdered this woman in her home. Though—actually, that makes the stickiness and blackening make a whole lot more sense. This replica is mimicking fire damage.
         “That’s when the dream ends, and I wake up, but the nightmare isn’t over. I should have said something. They burned that woman in her house, and I should have stood up for her, but I just kept my head down. Because the mob is never satisfied with burning just one witch.” He hasn’t heard anything about Lorraine dying. The Sheriff had only mentioned the one incident, so...what even happened to Lorraine?
         They’re about to find out, he knows.
         Carter takes a step forward, toward the porch, before he can call out to warn her—because there’s one more of the rocks, he can feel it, on the side of the house, only it’s out of view of the reach of her light. He manages to get in the way to catch her as she bounces right back off, and then Alice barely stops them all from just toppling over. She’s panting a little when they pull themselves back upright, though. It’s hard to tell if two people is too much normally, or if she’s just been pushing herself too hard, mostly because it’s not like she’d ever say so.
         “Pushing yourself hard enough to hurt yourself just means it’ll take longer,” he tells her (something he really wishes Bill had told him), and Alice pouts a little, but glances at his forearms and nods without arguing.
         “I...will try not to do so. Though there is no rest here,” she agrees. Which is pretty much the same as saying she could sleep, or whatever she does, but is practically choosing to ignore that, under the circumstances.
         Who knew getting her to behave was as simple as dangling the promise of an eventual Hidden Blade in front of her? He’s definitely going to have to start from the Creed, though. And given how she tends to react to stuff, difficult philosophical questions might actually be right up her alley. The Dragon really should’ve started with that—that, and maybe allowing her at least a couple field trips, let her stretch her legs and maybe burn a zombie or three.
         “Come on. It’s on the side,” he tells them, holding out a hand for Carter, who takes it. A white stone sits on the porch. He’ll have to pull himself up, then help up Carter and Alice (who probably could teleport up or whatever she’d done to hop the fence the last time, but probably shouldn’t be if she’s already getting a little tired).
         The second he pulls up Alice, the darkness closes in after, and he gets to realize that that’s Filth, or some kind of ghost version of it. Though...maybe it exists here, first, and is spreading into the real world, because it feels even more hyper-real here. Like the exaggerated colors of the Park when they’d first arrived, trying to sell you on the idea that this is Actual Reality and the world you’d known was just a pale shadow of the real thing. A tendril reaches out and grabs at her. She’s growling low and dangerous and manages to kick it off, but it takes her shoe with her. Alice pouts, but it’s much, much better for her to lose a shoe.
         “Nice sock,” Carter suggests, clearly nervous (maybe she’d picked that up from Danny). It...looks like the Dragon had just...given her green socks with the Dragon emblem on them. Alice just gives her a withering look and gets to her feet carefully. It’s good she’s got a sock on at least. Desmond’s not sure if these candy boards have some sort of splinter equivalent (if that’s something Alice can even have; if her skin is more like a human’s) and it’s really good not to be limping into sudden traps or a fight. He helps them both back up and makes sure they’re ready (well, as ready as they’re going to be) before they venture inside. Because there’s definitely a fight waiting for them.