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What is it?
"His back..." My stomach turns upside down, and I have to swallow several times before I can finally speak again. "His entire back is gone, it's the same fucking blur—-"
Then it's what I suspect it is.
"A monster?" I know it's not the time to be sarcastic, but I just can't help it.
You have nothing to worry about.
Writhing, grayish wraith-like things are seemingly feasting my captor's back, and he's telling me there's nothing to worry about?
What if I'm next, dammit?
Panic shoots up inside of me at the thought, and I stumble a step back just as my chest starts to tighten, and I find myself starting to wheeze.
Snap out of it, Halyna!
The professor's harsh voice is like a slap to my face, but it also works like magic, and I slowly regain a grip of myself.
I mean it.
There's NOTHING to be worried about.
All those fucking blurs you're seeing are simply the things you didn't actually lay your eyes on.
"B-But—-"
You can't remember what you never saw.
I stare blankly at the writhing, ghoul-like blurs as my mind struggles to grasp what the professor's telling me. "Are you saying...these...things...are basically...memory gaps?"
Exactly.
"So they can't be...alive, can they? Even if they're moving "
Most likely.
"Most likely?" I barely manage not to yell at him. "You're supposed to know everything about this world—-"
Our god bid me to help you because I'm the only one with the necessary skills to help you retrieve your memories. Not once, however, have I said that I know everything about it.
"But surely in your previous experience—-"
I have never had a reason to revisit my past through memory worlds.
I think the professor just low-key insulted me, but whatever. "You should have just lied to me," I grumble.
Lying might make you feel complacent, and you need to be on your toes over there to keep yourself safe.
When he puts it like that, I guess he is doing me a favor, but...it doesn't make me feel any less anxious. More and more, I'm starting to think I've bitten off more than I can chew by coming here, but because I also don't want to risk giving myself a chance to chicken out—-
To hell with it.
The professor told me earlier I simply need to make any symbolic gesture in order to will this entire world to restart, and so I do the first thing that comes to mind, which is to snap my fingers like Thanos—-
Did you just snap your fingers like Thanos?
The professor's groan makes me feel defensive, but I'm saved from having to answer since the gesture, in spite of being a spur-of-the-moment choice, actually works.
The memory world around me instantly comes back to life, and everything around me that can move...does start moving again - man with red eyes included, and now it's my worst memory playing out right in front of me.
Memory Me's knee hits the edge of one of the stairsteps, and I can only flinch as her face contorts with pain. She tries her best to get away, but she can't, and I find myself fighting back tears alongside her when the man comes to pick her up.
Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK you.
I'm so tempted to snap my fingers and freeze time again so I can save Memory Me.
But I can't.
The professor was explicitly clear before agreeing to help me explore my memories for clues. This world is fragile, and he's estimating it can only tolerate two attempts of time-freezing before it disintegrates...and possibly take my soul along with it.
Remember your promise, Halyna. Don't interfere.
"I know. I get it."
Interfering can lead to unnecessary freezing of time, but it won't change the past. So it's pointless. I get that. I know that. But just because I know doesn't make it any easier, and I find myself clenching my fists as I follow my then-captor carry Memory Me inside the memory room.
I'm not sure if it's trauma or magic, but I've never been able to remember anything that happened inside this room. My parents even had me work with different therapists, but because none of their treatments ever worked, the things I'm seeing now are all new to me.
It's almost like I'm watching a horror movie unfold...except it isn't.
Because this was real.
Everything I'm seeing now did happen, and right now Memory Me is sobbing...as she should.
I had hoped that by the time Memory Me comes into this room, it would've all been over.
But it isn't.
It isn't, dammit, and the professor swears as he hears me choke back a sob.
What's wrong?
"They're all alive," I cry out. "They're all still alive! I saw...I saw them when they were still alive, and I wasn't able to s-save them."
My chest starts to heave, and when Memory Me starts to scream, I want to scream with her.
Why, Memory Me is asking and choking.
But the man doesn't speak. He simply lays Memory Me on the floor, and even though she does her best to struggle and escape him, it's no use. There's a length of rope next to them, prepared in advance just as one would expect from someone so efficiently psychotic. `
Why? Why? WHY?
Memory Me screams it over and over as he ties her up.
The fear in her eyes is gone. All I see is despair, and it's exactly how I'm feeling now.
Why would anyone hurt another person like this?
He has one man chained with his guts slit open while another one has his intestines braided with a fucking ribbon. A woman has her tongue cut out and eye sockets empty while the younger girl next to her has all of her nails ripped off.
Every one of them is gruesomely unique, and when I look back at Memory Me, I find her trembling and pale, her despair turning into anger as she watches our captor acting calm as you please. He's chewing on something while tightening the ropes around her wrists. He's acting like everything's normal. Like there aren't people he tortured around them, and when I glance back at Memory Me, I can see she feels the way I do.
It's just too damn much.
Just too, too much—-
That even though I'm only seeing this for the first time, I understand exactly why Memory Me snaps and kicks her captor in the face—-
But it's a short-lived victory, with the man spitting at her face and chopping his hand down on her injured knee in vicious retaliation.
Memory Me crumples with a cry, and this time I can't help but cry out alongside her.
Halyna!
It's only when I hear the professor say my name in my mind that I remember we're still connected, but before I can find the words to explain what I just saw—-
It's at that moment I realize this nightmare is far from over.
Because Memory Me is sobbing now.
Please stop! Please! Please! Stop it! Stop!
Because the man with red eyes is hopping from one body to another now, and with every person he "visits", he would wrap his fingers around their neck and break it.
Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap.
He does it the way he does everything.
Chewing and hopping and neck-snapping as calm as you please, and he doesn't even seem to hear Memory Me sobbing and crying out for him to stop—-
Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap. Hop. Snap.
And I just can't take it anymore.
I'm already moving before I know what I'm doing, and my knee - the same knee he nearly destroyed - my knee is already lifting up, and even though I know it's pointless just like the professor said, I can't help it—-
I knee the man in the groin as hard as I can, and electricity crackles in the air.
What have you done?
A part of me was expecting my knee to simply pass through the man's body, but instead I feel and hear the sound of my knee crushing his balls, and I stagger back in shock just as the man falls to the floor, writhing and screaming in pain.
His red eyes fly up, and when I see myself reflected in his gaze, fear turns into panic and I unthinkingly snap my fingers—-
DID YOU JUST FREEZE TIME AGAIN?
The fury in the professor's voice is unmistakable, and it has me mentally running around like a headless chicken in search for an excuse.
Don't even think of lying.
Shit.
Did you or did you not freeze time back there?
I give up trying to think of another lie. "Yes, I did, and I know it's stupid—-"
Fuck!
The cuss word makes me grit my teeth, but I tell myself it's something I deserve to hear because I did give him my word...and ended up breaking it.
"I'm sorry," I say stiffly.
Since you've already frozen time, you might as well take advantage of it and search for more clues.
The professor's words make me feel terrified for a moment, but then I remember what he's done, and anger starts to grow. I remember how he's cold-bloodedly killed all of those people, and my anger keeps building.
None of them had to die.
None of them!
And it's this thought that ultimately kills my fears, it's this thought that keeps me from shaking as I slowly crouch down to study him.
A man with red eyes.
A killer without a soul.
And one day, I promise him silently, one day I'll make you pay.
Starting now.
I study his inert form as thoroughly as I can. With his features contorted in pain, it's hard to distinguish anything remarkable about his face, and it takes me a while to notice what looks like dried flakes around his skin.
My gaze moves down to the rest of his body, and it's then I notice something odd.
"Professor?"
What?
"He's molting."
A few moments pass before the professor speaks again.
You're sure of this?
I peer closer, and I'm absolutely sure I'm not mistaken now. "I'm sure. And..."
I draw my breath sharply when I remember yet another odd trait that this man displayed earlier.
I remember how he moved earlier, and the more I think about it, the more it makes horrifying sense: a man who molts and would rather hop than walk...is no man at all.
"I saw how he was moving earlier, professor. He was hopping from one person to another as he killed them one by one—-"
Get out of there, Halyna.
"But—-"
If what you're saying is true, then that man may be part-god...and because those are his memories, too, then he can enter the same world this very moment.
Shit.
I rise to my feet in clumsy haste just as electricity suddenly starts cracking in the air again, and I know right away I'm in big trouble.
"EROTES!"
I yell it as loud as I can, knowing that time is of the essence. A moment later, the man starts to move, and just as our gazes collide one more time—-
I'm out of the memory world in a flash, and I'm back in the professor's office.
Also, the professor kissing me just like he said he must.
Because I've used the safe word, and this...is how he saves me.