entrancelogs | + Your imagination can't hurt you! +

...The tape from that camera. [She jerks her toward the video camera pointing at the now destroyed wall. Up to now she's still pointedly avoided looking at the chair.

She looks at him with an almost resigned expression, tapping the tape against the palm of the other hand.

They're going to have to watch this, aren't they?]

[He wanders away from the vault to peer at the innocuous black square in her hand. His expression, like hers, closes into something weary and empty, and he abruptly feels - extremely tired.

Great, says Jay's voice somewhere in his fractured memory, dryly, more tapes.

He'd laugh, but it's not funny at all, really.]

I guess we'd better stick it in.

[She looks at him a little sharply, unaware of what's going through his mind. As far as she can tell the tape is going to be about her- it was pointing at her, after all. And she was the one... tied down.

She grits her teeth and grimaces, but finally relents. Her hand shakes slightly as she holds out the tape to him.]

...You do it.

[Why's he got to -

He bites back the urge to snap that she do since she's so eager to, a flare of distaste that coils bitterly beneath his tongue as he swallows it down. She's scared, and for damn good reason. The least he can do is make sure she doesn't have a worse time than she already is.

So yeah. He'll just casually - casually relive his trauma for this. It's fine. It's a stupid tape, and he takes it from her hand, jamming it into the receptacle with a soft click and whir of engaging mechanisms.

The video feed flickers to life, and he only needs to see the first few seconds to know exactly what he's looking at.

Tim blanches.]

[Max stares as the screen comes on, unable to look away despite the mounting horror and disgust. She's unaware that she's holding her breath, watching the words on the screen that make zero sense to her- until a face comes on screen and she breathes out in surprise.

It's unmistakably Tim. She glances at him to make sure, but it's pretty clear already.]

...That's you. Why're you...?

[What's going on? She thought the video would be of her, but it's Tim...]

[Tim's face twists painfully as he glances away, grimacing. He has to muzzle the horrible urge to just - rip the tape out of its receptacle. Tear it apart, shred it, burn it until it curls into useless frizzes of charred plastic. Burn the evidence, just like Alex -

Alex. He shows up in the tape too, right on cue. Haggard, thinner, the lower half of his face a melange of bruises and patchy beard. And Brian gets the drop on him, and Tim's pressed up against the wall, hunched there like something caged until Brian brings the camera over, and Tim just - Tim stops watching.

He's gonna be sick.

He's gonna be fucking sick.

He doesn't need this. He doesn't need this twisted reminder of all the messed-up shit he's done. He doesn't need some random girl knowing that he's something this torn-up, this broken, this wrong.

The lump swells, tightening painfully in his throat. He backs away until the heel of his foot strikes the wall, and then he sinks there to the ground with his back braced against it, head buried in his hands.

He can hear the tearing of static that muffled Alex's screams and the thuds of Tim's fists on his flesh.

It won't make any of it go away.]

[The video goes on- someone following another person through abandoned corridors, and then finally attacking. Max winces as the victim gets knocked out, still confused as to what the heck is going on.

And then the flash of someone tied to a chair. But not her- it's a different place, a different chair, a different person-

Alex Kralie?

Max gasps in alarm, bring her hands up to cover her mouth.]

A-alex?

[Max only vaguely notices Tim reacting in the corner of her eye. Her attention stays locked on the screen... even as her friend gets assailed, knocked down and beaten up by Tim. Punching over and over again...]

Stop it! [She yells involuntarily at the TV. Then she throws a harsh question at Tim, frightened, turning to glance at him with his head in his hands.] What did you do to him? Why-

[She looks back at the screen with mounting horror as it goes black and silent, breathing heavily and at a loss for words- until a gun is pointed at Alex's head.]

What the fuck is going on?

[And then something- something appears and it all gets too loud, and Max backs into the wall as well, not understanding a damn thing.]

Who- [Who was that, she thinks. What was that? But she changes the question as she turns to look at Tim, her expression a cross between anger and fear.] Who... are you?

[He expected scathing judgment. He expected to be screamed at for beating up an apparently defenseless guy roaming the halls (a murderer, an arsonist, someone who didn't deserve what was coming to him), and he expected - god, he expected any number of responses.

He didn't expect her to recognize Alex. How the hell does - how does she know him? He didn't think that anyone would. No one would. Alex was an antisocial asshole even before he got launched off the deep end. She's not - she can't know -

His blood runs cold. He locks his gaze onto her in stunned terror. He can't for the life of him stop shaking.]

How do you...you knew him?

[The words rasp out of his throat, high-pitched and shocked.]

How'd you know him?

[She rounds on him, ignoring the rest of the video. In a moment of calm she would rethink accusing a guy who's huddled up on the floor, obviously in distress- but Alex Kralie died and she hasn't figured out who did it.]

He was my friend. A few months ago he died and disappeared. So you tell me, Tim, how do you know him? [She crosses her arms over her chest, trying to be brave, letting the anger drive her words.] And were you-... were you here? Were you already in Wonderland when we had those parties back in September?

He's...

[He's her friend. Her friend? Alex didn't - Alex didn't have friends. He never stood still, so to speak, long enough for anyone to get to know him. And anytime he did, most of them just couldn't stand to be around him for longer than a few minutes.

So he was -

He was here. He was in Wonderland. And now he's not. He's dead. Disappeared.

Of course he's dead. That's not the surprise. The surprise is that he was here at all in the first place. Tim swallows thickly, hoping to god that he's not about to be sick.]

I knew him. He and I were - I knew him. I didn't know...no one told me he was here.

[The words crack, his tone tearing as it lands somewhere between stricken and horrified.]

Were what?

[She watches him, takes in the catch in his voice, notes his hesitation and distress. She wants very much to not be mad at him- but the honest truth of it is that she is, that she just saw him beat up her friend... That all this time someone in Wonderland knew something about Alex and she had no clue.

She huffs.]

...Were what?

[She asks him again, her tone sharp and demanding.]

I knew him.

[He can't say they were friends. That'd be another lie, wouldn't it? Could he say they were - what, enemies? That's even worse. He hadn't wanted to do it. He hadn't wanted to make it all just...

He'd tried. He'd tried. It was never enough. It never is enough.

He keeps speaking into his hands, unable or unwilling to look up at her, the words muffled, torn.]

We went to the same school. He was just some guy making a film. It wasn't supposed to go like that.

[This wasn't supposed to happen.]

[They went to the same school.

Fuck.

She just now remembered- Alex had made a list of names once and crossed them out, in one of his crazy night-time episodes, and he... She can't remember the names, but when she asked him who they were, he said they were a bunch of people he went to school with.

Tim and Alex went to school together.

She instinctively checks her pockets for her device so she can look up that old video, but the event seems to have taken it away.

She crouches down next to him, steadying herself with a hand on the floor. Her voice is quieter but no less firm, no longer driven purely by anger but also by a compelling curiosity. She has to know this story. She has to know what happened to Alex.]

Go like what?

[Tim makes a strangled-sounding noise in the back of his throat, jerking a hand vaguely in the direction of the TV as it plays that - that stupid, stupid tape. The thing that'll just make it...

She saw It.

She saw It, didn't she?

She saw It.

Fuck. Fuck. No. No, now It's - is It inside her now too? Is she gonna keep seeing It? It's his fault, it's his fault, it's his fault, he did this he did this he did this he did this.

He finally looks up at her. His eye are wild, panicked.]

You didn't see It, did you? Did you see It?

[Confusion drowns out the harshness of her expression as she follows the jerk of his hand, glancing toward the now blank TV.] It? What, the-

[The static thing.

The thing that made the video go crazy and the sound go nuts, just like Alex used to do.

The... monster... thing.

She turns back to Tim, afraid, and further put on edge by the wildness in his eyes. She shakes her head as she tries to reason it all out.]

Newsflash, Tim, there are... crazier things in Wonderland than whatever was on that video.

[She says it with a confidence she doesn't have.]

[He makes a sound that could've been a laugh, but mostly emerges as a cracked sob as he covers his face in his hands again.]

How well'd you know Alex, huh? [The words might as well be screamed, the way they break in his throat, a fracturing accusation that manages to be both desperate and scathing.] How well'd you know him before he started -

[Before he lost it? Before Tim entered his life, and turned everything to shit? Before Tim made him the person he was, the hateful, murderous thing that saw killing everyone, killing the people that knew him, as an acceptable solution?

He wasn't in control. He was never in control.]

That...thing. It took him. It changed him. It - It does stuff to you. You don't know, okay, you - you can't know.

[The only people who know are the people who have to live with it.

And by that point it's already too late for them.]

[She recoils slightly at his words.

She'd known Alex... for a while. Months. And there was that one time he went home and came back, and after that... she hardly knew him at all anymore. None of her usual dork jokes would make him laugh.

Is that what Tim means? That maybe Max knew him before he changed, and she saw what that change did, and couldn't do a damn thing. Couldn't win him back.

He went over, or something. He crossed a line. And he wouldn't go back.

She takes a ragged breath, trying to calm down, which is difficult in the face of all of Tim's panic.]

Why can't I know? I'm trying to understand, but he never really explained it to me...

[He said something about a virus, something memetic. Something worth killing her over, apparently.]

Figures.

[He's on the verge of something. Panic, or one of those messy moments where he sobs into his hands like a damn child, or something worse. He's teetering, barely able to steady himself, and she just keeps asking questions.

He manages to shake his head, shakily.]

Please, [he rasps, quietly.] Please don't - don't think about It. Don't talk about It. It just...It's not safe.

It's not safe.

[That won't change anything, will it? If she doesn't know what It is, It could still come for her. It could still send everything straight to hell.

Even an entire world away from It, he's still doing everything It wants.

He should've driven himself off a cliff. He should've put that bullet in his skull. Gulped down too much medication. Something, anything that would keep him from this - this hell. From keeping himself from condemning everyone else to the same hell because he's too goddamn selfish to just do what he knows he deserves and fucking end it.]

[She breathes a heavy and disappointed sigh. She gives him one last piercing look before getting back onto her feet, frustration and annoyance etched into her features.]

Nobody ever talks about it.

[She stares at the blank TV again, looking at nothing. She could keep asking- he's practically on his hands and knees with the weight of it already, and it probably wouldn't take much to send him over into a babbling, uncontrollable rant.

Then rewind- like nothing happened. He wouldn't even know.

But... she's not like that. Right?

...Right.

And she wants him to remember this happened. She wants him to know that she knows now, and that she's going to be watching him- especially if Chloe continues to insist on liking the guy.

She doesn't say anything. With angry strides she moves to the keypad and punches in a random set of four numbers, which obviously doesn't work.]

[And she's...pissed, right? That he's not saying a damn thing about it. That's - fine. It's okay. He can accept that. He deserves that. It's better than her continuing to pry, continuing to ask questions. Only that won't save her. Even ignorance won't save her.

It wasn't enough to save Jay. It's never enough to save anyone.

He scrubs a hand over his face, frantically trying to wipe away any vestiges of his messy, selfish breakdown with little success. She's taking steps to get out of here, right? He should be helping. He should be doing...something.

But first he stands up, shakily, and opens the tape deck. Extricates the little black square of the tape inside. He should rip it up, tear it to pieces. Burn it with his lighter.

For now, he simply slips it in his pocket.

Later. He'll do it later.

He tries to keep his voice steady, as though they haven't just - just learned something new and absolutely terrifying about one another.]

It could be a word. [He's pretty sure he knows exactly what word it is, actually. His tone trembles, but he works to keep it firm.] A coded word.

[She's already feeling guilty about the whole thing. And she knows Alex has done worse things than punch someone while they're down, but to see it so suddenly... and to have so much shit shoved so rudely in her face all at once...

She might actually need to apologize to Tim at some point. But for now being angry feels like the right thing to do. Her friend went missing, after all, and now there's someone who knows all about him. That's too much of a coincidence.

She snaps out of her deep thoughts as he speaks. Sure. A word. She punches in 2539. Alex.

Doesn't work.

She sighs.]

I've got nothing.

[He flicks his eyes shut for a moment, pulling together all the different words that have been significant over his life. Over the last few years in particular. Narrows them down to four-letter words, which nixes ark and Jay and Amy and Jessica.]

Here.

[He heads over. He tries a few combinations, one after another - SEES. LIES. HIDE.

When it's none of those, he sighs, 'cause he knows exactly what it is.

He punches in 5427.

LIAR.

The vault beeps and swings open with the low grind of metal over metal.]

[She watches the door open with a little bit of surprise.]

What was it? ...Or is that off-limits too?

[She tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice.]

5427. Liar.

[The words drop from his mouth dully. He's just...surpassed the threshold of caring anymore what she has to say about him, or why she thinks he's a piece of shit, or anything along those lines. She can hate him all she wants, for what he did, for what he represents - it really doesn't matter.

And hey, that'll give them one thing to have in common.]

[Liar. He is a liar were the words scrawled on one wall in the video.

She only nods without raising any further accusations, conscious that she's probably torn into Tim enough as it is. It's easy to think she knows him, can judge him by the little she's seen... but she has to fight against that instinct, and she knows it.

All the same, this is probably Wonderland's way of telling her to not believe everything says. And she certainly won't be.

The sigh she lets out is tired but soft, as she walks past him to enter the darkness beyond the door.

Hell of a day.]

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postictal - 2016-11-18 03:52 (UTC) - Expand

+ Your imagination can't hurt you! +

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cw suicide ideation

:(

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