Chapter Text
In your dreams you’re still in that city.
The green visage of the moon glares down at you, his green light washing over your fragile body and infecting you like poison. Your friends are all dead or twisting into terrible monsters borne from Rher’s influence. She is there, in front of you, her blood pumping out of her beautiful body as she crawls feebly and pitifully away from you.
And you’re not you anymore. Your skin is swollen and repulsive, like the body of a bloated leech in a stagnant pond. Your insides, exposed to the fresh air, churn at the moonlight’s touch. Your face feels cold as the skin stretches around the bony ridges of your warped skull. For once, you have the power to do what you want.
To take what you want.
She can’t leave you. She’s your everything. You can’t stop your hands from moving into the signs of Gro’Goroth as eldritch energy crackles across your fingertips.
“Marina!” your hoarse voice calls out, as your obsession manifests into the vortex of Hurting around her legs...
But it’s just a dream.
You jerk up in your bed, your breathing coming in quick ragged gasps as you struggle against the sweat-dampened sheets around you. Terror and guilt wrack your brain for a moment before you remember where you are: you’re not in Prehevil anymore. Marina is far away, and safe. Those desires aren't yours. You’d never hurt her in real life, only in your nightmares.
The light through your bedroom window is faint – the sun hasn’t yet risen over the quiet city around you, but you slip out of bed regardless. After nightmares of Prehevil, you’re not going to be able to sleep, so you might as well try to do… something… with your time. Something other than think about Marina, as impossible as that usually is. Your toes prickle as you touch the floorboards beneath you, and you shiver in your old pajamas before you wrap your blanket around yourself for extra warmth.
Your bedroom is simple and sparsely decorated. The only furnishings are a battered footlocker with your clothes and the vanity piled with your books and writing supplies. You creep over to the vanity, ignoring the wastebasket full of crumpled up papers; they’re all letters you tried to write. To Marina, of course. You never found the right words to say, or the courage to actually send her a letter, which is why your wastebasket's never empty for long. As weeks turned to months, it got harder and harder for you to accept the fact that she’d actually want to talk to you.
Your reflection looks tired in the vanity’s dirty mirror. The bags under your eyes are darker than usual, and you run a shaking hand through your unkempt hair to find the streaks of white reaching out of your scalp. The room feels a little colder as you stare at the signs of your body’s decay; the curse of those bastards in the Ninth Circle. Fate is creeping up on you, and your inevitable end was surely only quickened by the trauma you endured in Prehevil. How much time do you have left before you die? How much time do you have before you truly become too vile to love?
You steady yourself as you press the dark hair down over the pale shoots. You’re still alive. That’s what counts. You can still be useful to someone.
You leave the bedroom on tip-toes, only to step out into the house’s small kitchen and realize you're being quiet in vain. The little house’s only other occupant is leaning on the kitchen table, a lit cigarette smoking in his lips as he stares off at nothing through his one good eye. He’s also dressed in his pajamas, and judging by how heavily he’s leaning on the table you’d guess he’s just as tired as you are.
Occasionally you’re struck by the fact that Daan is still here with you. The months you’ve spent with him haven’t exactly been easy, although time hasn't taken as obvious a toll on him as it has on you. Searching through Europa for any trace of an occult group no one’s ever heard of is exhausting work, especially when one of you is haunted by her dwindling lifespan and the other is haunted by… well, whatever that thing is. The two of you have fought, and each time you told yourself 'this is it. This is when he's finally going to leave you'. And yet… he’s still here.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” Daan asks you as you enter the kitchen.
“More nightmares,” you tell him quietly.
Daan sighs as he shakes his head. “The Gods sure do have a twisted sense of humor, don’t they? Couldn’t just let us off ‘easy’ could they?”
You don’t have an answer for him, so you just sit down at the dining room table beside Daan. “What did you dream about this time?” you ask him.
“I was back in that apartment building – the one with all the mold, remember?” Daan explains. “…Someone was hunting me through the darkness.”
You consider asking him who it was… but you decide not to. It could have been his father-in-law... or his fiancé... or the Pocketcat... or any of the other demons from Prehevil. Daan clearly doesn’t want to share as he takes another drag on his cigarette, so you clear your throat instead. “I dreamt I was hurting Marina again,” you tell him, your voice trembling as you say it. It’s not the first time you’ve told him this… or the second… or even the third. But Daan doesn’t judge you, he just gives you a reassuring squeeze on your shoulder.
“It was just a dream, remember,” Daan reminds you. “You know you wouldn’t do that.”
“I know,” you reply, “but it doesn’t feel that way when I’m dreaming. I feel… disgusting. I feel like a monster when I’m…” You shudder as the sensations from the dream come rushing back.
Daan is quiet for a moment before he walks over to the other side of the table, his wooden leg loud against the tiled floor. The doctor snuffs out the cigarette before he starts speaking again. “Sometimes I have nightmares about the front,” Daan reassures you. “Hell, I think it was… a month ago, now… I had a dream where I had to strangle an enemy soldier to protect my squad. He was begging me for his life while I choked the life out of him…” Daan shivers, before he adds, “He looked too much like that damn soldier from Prehevil, honestly. But it’s just a dream. I’m not the kind of man who would want to do that anymore; they’re just nightmares borne from the damage to our minds.”
His story makes you feel slightly better, but not much. You massage your forehead in exhaustion as you rest your elbows on the table. “It’s not fair,” is the best thing you can think of to say.
Daan nods in agreement. “The Gods rarely are.” He goes to take a drag from his cigarette before he realizes he already put it out. “But maybe we’re not making it easy on ourselves.”
“What do you mean?”
“This… I don’t know, ‘investigation’ of ours,” Daan muses half to himself and half to you, “is it really a good idea? We haven’t found any trace of that fiend from the tower or his cult, and it’s almost been a year now. All we’ve gotten is a lot of sleepless nights and more nightmares of Prehevil. What are we really accomplishing by keeping this up?”
You pause for a moment, weighing Daan’s words in your mind. “What are we going to do if we stop?” you ask. Daan’s single-minded pursuit of justice for Elise has been his driving force over the past months; it’s probably the only reason Daan is still Daan, and not… the other one.
“I don’t know… try to live a normal life, I suppose?” Daan suggests. “Maybe that’s ridiculous, after all we’ve been through. I can hardly imagine working as a bartender and enjoying a quiet existence any more. But maybe…”
You lose track of what the doctor is saying as you feel a sudden tightness in your throat. You turn and cough violently into your hand, which comes away spotted with blood; the result of your lungs rotting away in your chest. You hastily wipe your hand on your pajamas as you pull yourself together – you can’t think about that right now.
“Samarie?” Daan asks you, worry evident in his single eye.
“It’s fine!” you insist as you clear your throat. “N-Nothing new, at least.”
As friendly as you and Daan have gotten, it’s become even harder to discuss your failing body now that the symptoms are becoming harder to ignore. It makes you feel like a freak, a diseased little stray the doctor’s taken in out of pity so you can live out your last days in peace. The only way you’ve found to convince yourself that’s not the case is to avoid talking about the issue at all. It’s not like Daan’s any closer to finding a cure for your… condition… anyway.
You abruptly stand up, an excuse forming in your mind. “I-I forgot to get the post last night, let me go and get it real quick.” You don’t wait for the doctor to convince you otherwise before you hurry over to the front door and leave the house.
The old house is on the outskirts of a small city in Rondon; it’s quiet but close enough to civilization for the doctor’s work, at least with Daan's old automobile parked out front. The building has become more of a home to you than anywhere else. The little yard you try to keep clean and tidy... the run-down fence that Daan never has the energy to fix... the old tree that's home to a nest of songbirds... you feel a sense of comfort here that you're not used to. You'd love to grow old with Marina in a place like this, and it stings to remember that you're not going to get that chance.
You’re not really expecting anything in the unpainted wooden mailbox, but surprisingly there’s something inside. It's not even correspondence from the doctor's office Daan works in the city, either; it's a simple envelope, addressed to “Daniël von Dutch”. That’s odd. Nowadays, Daan goes by a fake surname since his memories of his old family have been thoroughly tainted by the Sulfur cult’s influence. But any questions you have are answered as you look at the return address, and your eyes widen in surprise.
The letter is from ‘Miss Karin Sauer’.
You haven’t seen – or heard – from Karin since you left Bohemia all those months ago. You'd always wondered if Daan still talked to her, because if he did he never really brought it up. Seems like they must’ve kept in touch, if she knows where he lives nowadays. Curiosity wells up inside of you, but you control your urge to snoop into Daan's personal life; it’s not addressed to you, after all.
“Daan!” you whisper as you re-enter the house. “You’ve… you’ve got a letter. From Karin!”
Daan looks over at you, confusion immediately evident in his face. “Karin? Writing me a letter?”
You hand him the envelope with a nod, and you wait with baited breath as he carefully unseals it and reads over the message. His expression is unreadable as you try to think of why the journalist could be contacting you. Could she have a lead on the Sulfur cult, or Per’kele? Is she in trouble? Is Marina in trouble? No, wait, that doesn’t make sense. Everything’s fine, right? You're not even sure Karin stayed in contact with Marina to begin with.
At last, Daan puts the letter down without a word, a wistful expression on his face.
“What’s wrong?” you blurt out.
“Hm? Oh, no it’s nothing like that,” Daan reassures you, before he hands you the paper. “Here, you can read it.”
You take the letter in your trembling hands – Karin’s writing is cramped and flowery, so much so it takes you longer than you’d like to read it.
Daan,
This had better be the right address you gave me; I'd hope you have the sense to write to me if you've already left Rondon.
Anyway, at the time of me writing this it’s about three weeks from the anniversary of the day we arrived at Prehevil. Gods, I don’t like calling it an ‘anniversary’, but I can’t find a better word so I it’ll have to do. It's been a long year for me, full of dead ends and setbacks. If your search for answers has been as fruitless and ostracizing as mine has been, I thought I’d invite you to a gathering to keep the both of us sane. You know, something to distract us and reassure each other that we're not crazy just because the average simpleton looks at us like we are. And before you get any crass ideas, I’m NOT suggesting just the two of us – I’ve written to Marina as well, and if you know how to get in touch with that other girl you can bring her too.
So come if you want, I don't care either way. The return address on the envelope is a good place to find me. If you are coming, meet me there on the 24th. Don’t just show up like a creep or something though, I sleep with my pistol every night and you don't want me to mistake you for a burglar or something
Sincerely,
Karin Sauer.
Your heart is pounding as you put the letter down. Only one sentence of that defensive message really registered in your brain, sending butterflies to dance in your insides and making you feel almost lightheaded.
She’s… she’s invited Marina. If the doctor wants to go, then you’ll get to see Marina in just a few days.
You look at Daan with that desperate question in your eyes. “A-Are you going to go? Can I come too?”
Daan gives you a quizzical look. “Of course? I'm not going to stop you from coming, if you want to go then you certainly can.” He scratches his chin idly before he shrugs. “I think she’s on to something; maybe getting back in touch with the other survivors would be healthy for all of us.”
“Great!” you say, full of nervous excitement. “I’ll pack what I need!”