Hey NoSleep. You ready for the end? I am.
Shit, it’s hard to talk about. Even fucking months later. I sit down to type and can’t make my fingers stop shaking. Trauma, you know how that goes. Or maybe you don’t, but you can guess. Anyway, I should probably just start, right? Just jump in. I don’t remember everything, but you oughta know what happened as well as I can piece it together. I feel like I owe it to you and all that.
I'll get to Clayton soon. But given that I spent months with her, and I felt we were close in a way, I want to say a few things about Elizabeth Hadwell.
Liz and I talked a lot during our time together. Well, she talked. I mostly listened. She would actually spill her guts to me more often than to her other guys, maybe because she actually felt like I was a friend. I was never a cultist. I didn't grow up in the town. I hadn't started out indebted to or worshipping her. When we'd first met, before I knew what she was, I'd chosen her for her.
In a twisted way, I think she convinced herself this meant I wanted to be there. Friends were fleeting, suspicious things for Elizabeth Hadwell. The daughter of a cult leader is surrounded by followers and fear but rarely true affection. Alan and Jess were the only real exceptions, and she lost them almost as soon as this all began. Can you imagine that? Losing the only people who love you to a power growing inside of you, one you hardly understand. One that wants to be the only thing to love you, the only thing you love. No wonder she kept me and the others around while playing cat and mouse with the Voyager. Otherwise it would've been her and the Entity alone together. She never admitted it, but I think she feared that above all else.
I think she’d been desperately lonely for most of her life. You might be surprised to hear that. The way Clayton wrote about her, you'd think she was a monster. Like you'd look into her eyes and see only empty greed. That wasn't the case. Clayton told a lot of lies and half-truths, swinging the story to fit his view. Most of what he posted here is factually accurate, but take it with a grain of salt. And I think it's important to remember that Liz started out as a regular girl who never chose what was given to her. She didn't choose to be a Hadwell, much less the Vessel of a god. No one wants to be evil.
She told me she resisted the Entity for a long time. That might surprise you too. She started realizing around 13 years old that there was something different about her, and it wasn't just her father or her family. She was the only daughter born of the Hadwell line for more than four hundred years, the only girl, and that always seemed to be important to everyone. But the Entity had been part of her since she was born, and around puberty It started to whisper. It sent her dreams, planted thoughts and feelings inside of her that she knew were not her own. As the years went by, it got harder and harder to separate what she was from the creature that had fused with her soul. She did not know she was the Vessel for all of her childhood - that information was kept strictly confidential in the cult’s inner circle. She often thought she was going crazy.
When she was 17 or 18, her father finally invited her to a meeting with the inner circle and revealed her destiny and purpose. Liz responded by running from them after starting a fire in the ceremonial chamber. She was in denial, she said. She distanced herself from all the cult families - besides Jess - and made new friends.
But things were accelerating. The Entity was growing stronger, regardless of whether It had her permission. It started saying sweet things, whispering words of love. She described It as her only true companion, the only one who really knew her. It was there for her, always on her side, even about her break from the cult - saying she didn’t need them, she’d grow on her own. That they were strong enough together. And Liz, confused and feeling alone, started to love It. Genuinely love It, not the drugged, hypnotized, confused kind of love you feel for It when you’re infected. Love It in a clear, sane, self-aware way. It was part of her and beyond her all at once. She called It her soulmate. Her friend. Her confidant. Her god.
Only then did It show her what It could do.
Lisa was the first. As sympathetic as I’m making Elizabeth out to be, she was still human, with all the pettiness and cruelty that comes with it. And don't get me wrong, most of me hates her. Clayton was fairly accurate in describing her thirst for attention and admiration. It hid a lot of shame and self-hate, maybe an inferiority complex. She needed everyone to find her attractive, to love her.
Lisa didn’t. Lisa disliked Elizabeth a lot. This wasn’t helped by Elizabeth’s clear and demanding crush on Alan. It would be fair to say she tried to steal him from Lisa multiple times. And the fact that he was tempted only heightened the tension.
The night before Lisa was supposed to go to Chicago for her friend’s bachelorette party, Elizabeth drunkenly showed up at their place to see Alan. This next part is from Elizabeth’s notebooks, which Clayton found in a secret room behind a wall in Alan’s apartment. She started squatting there once the mold began to spread. She’d watch her work, the infection spreading its black arms through the building, right at the source. Laughing or crying alternatively. She’d steal the numbers from the apartment doors as the mold crawled into the adjacent rooms, and she’d hang them in this black, secret chamber. At times she told me they were trophies, other times she described them as reminders of guilt. A self-imposed punishment and a point of pride, all at once. I’m still not sure which is closer to the truth.
The oscillation between guilt and pride is clear in her journals. Here’s what she has to say about the night the infection started:
She wasn’t even supposed to BE there! I thought she left already! Did Alan lie to me??? I thought I’d surprised him, you know, when the fugly old cat’s away. But I knock at the door and there’s her STUPID FUCKING FACE and I asked for Alan and she just glared at me and told me he was in bed already with that stupid SMIRK she always has when she thinks she’s making me jealous! GUESS WHAT, BITCH? I WAS NEVER FUCKING JEALOUS!! He loves ME!!
Soulmate starts whispering to me, says we should talk to her in the hallway, so I ask her to step outside and she does. GOT WHAT SHE DESERVED I didn’t write that, Soulmate did, but I have to agree with him.
Soulmate put the words in my mouth more than I’ve ever known him to. I didn’t think you could do that so well, but you must be getting stronger I am and that’s ok cuz she needed to hear this shit, knock her down a few pegs.
Soulmate told her how inferior she is to us, how she can’t keep him when I’m around, but he said it in such a smart, beautiful way that it almost didn’t sound mean coming out of my mouth and she was just crying all fucking pathetically. But then I ruined it by opening my big stupid fucking mouth cuz I’m a fucking ass don’t my love and she realized how mean I was really being and got PISSED. it was funny. And she fucking HIT me! ME!
Soulmate took over again. You’ve never moved my body like that before, love, more than just writing words or stroking my cheek, but you came through me so strongly last night and it felt INCREDIBLE, like I went all numb and warm, like almost post-orgasmic, and I watched my hands come out and cover her ridiculous face with my palms. I want you to do it again.
Will you? soon
go on
I watched fucking Lisa stop just totally still and felt all this… ENERGY or something power come through my fingers and into her skin and she like jolted and shuddered and went limp standing there. And when I pulled my hands away from her face, she was smiling.
I didn’t love transcribing that. By the way, the bolded phrases weren’t written in a different hand, really, but they were pressed much deeper into the page and kind of shaky. The journals really give insight into what went on in Liz’s mind, and it was some pretty dark shit. Into the mind of madness and all that.
So, with that, the infection was out in the world, no longer contained in the Haven’s basement. The rest is history.
And still, Liz resisted. She had moments of deep sadness and guilt, especially watching Jess and Alan. She loved them, but with the Entity love turns into possessiveness. I wonder, if she hadn’t been the Vessel, if she would’ve felt that way.
A lot of her journals seem to be conversations between her and the Entity. It doesn’t always write responses back, but Liz used them to put structure and form to what must have been a chaotic stream of consciousness.
This entry was probably written in the weeks between Jess posting her final update and Alan waking up in Chicago:
I miss Alan. I miss Jess. Why are we doing this again?
you know why my beautiful girl
AREN’T YOU SAD TO SEE ME SAD???
happier now ours forever together forever with all of them soon my love you will see how wonderful it is here us and them together loving you worshipping you one with you
But surely Alan’s been in Chicago long enough to spread it now so please can we just go get him back?
Z
Dad's guy? YOU’RE STILL USING DAD’S GUY? WHY??
find Alan bring him gain his trust spread our light
You know I hate my father. You PROMISED after your little hex bag trick with Jess! This is a betrayal. LEAVE ME ALONE.
[On the bottom of the page:]
I love you.
I love you too.
I wish I could touch you. Really touch you.
soon my love
I’ll skip past repetitive entries detailing her reunion with Alan. They get a bit… explicit, and they don’t say much we don’t already know. But I will say, from what she wrote, he was under Their fucking thumb pretty much the entire time he was posting to NoSleep.
She also mentions Jess following them around Washington when they started travelling. The Entity calls her “strong of will,” which I think means there was something about Jess that allowed her to retain some part of herself, even while she was infected. In the end, Liz decides to let her do her thing. And in the words of the Entity, “I care very little either way, my love.”
I assume the next entry picks up after Alan and Liz stopped posting on NoSleep.
Ok so Alan is a bust. I’m finally willing to accept that, we tried like three times. Oh but he has such a pretty body, let’s just keep him around for a while. No more trying, it’s too stressful for him and he looks worse every time, but can I keep him? Just for a while. Ok I promise, and then we move on. Maybe someone new will come to town. And at least he won’t be demanding we post stories anymore. They’re all so worried it’s so FUNNY! If only they knew how happy he is. I’m gonna pretend we’re dead. You’re such a scary villain, Soulmate ;)
These next parts… these give me chills. Lines between entries.
Voyager is all about the new girl who showed up in town. Trying to warn her away. slippery Yeah, WTF! Can’t catch the little fuck. Why their god would even be interested in him in the first place is way beyond me. yes why? He’s nothing special, never has been. Socially retarded stoner in high school. paranoid idiot Yeah, those shifty eyes… Kinda hot though like Christian Slater. What, I’m an eighties girl!
the new girl interests me
Oh what I thought you only have eyes for me! Now you’re into another girl? :(
don’t fear that
:) I don’t. But yeah she is something new… Brave... or stupid. I know what you want though. What do you say, my love? Shall we follow her? See how that turns out? I’ve been dying to get out of town.
This Blake guy. What do you think?
he is strong
My thoughts exactly. Pretty and strong. And he likes me. Maybe he’s the one.
who would not like you
Aw :) Have you tested the waters at all?
yes
And?
suitable at first but it is difficult to say
Couldn’t be worse than what happened with Alan. He fell apart QUICK once you stopped feeding him. Wonder if Claire knew she was fucking a corpse.
San Fran sucks. I’m bored I want to go back home!
so do they.
Well Claire’s ours. Did you see her last night, wandering around like a zombie? Haha I almost pissed myself! It’s good that she’s finally shutting up now and again because I was getting so fucking sick of her voice! She thinks she’s so fucking cute and so does Blake, it’s nauseating.
we could have her now
Hm. You’re actually kind of into her like that? no Oh but it WILL keep Blake happy, I guess. Even if he’ll hardly remember. Like a really good dream :) fun Yes fun for us too, my love. God, I hope Blake works out. I can’t wait to feel you hold me, to touch you and know it’s really you, ALL you. Not just myself or one of the Ascended - YOU, looking back at me with your beautiful, dark eyes. Truly inside of me, in a way we can’t be now.
I cannot wait.
Me neither. Are we sure you’re strong enough? You’ve taken enough of me? never enough of you You know what I mean.
yes. I am stronger than I have ever been. our influence spreads unchecked by their false god or his voyager. we have plentiful resources.
You said [Something is scratched out violently here. I can't read it.] just after it happens. not for long
But if the Voyager gets to us in that time and tries anything… a little protection never hurts. I’m thinking of building an army.
my brilliant, beautiful girl.
Liz stopped journaling for a while after that. Maybe she was too preoccupied, running from city to city. I have very few memories of it myself, apart from the times she allowed me to be lucid. She liked me lucid, I think.
Some time early last year (Jesus, it’s insane how long I was with her) we went to visit Liz’s mom up in Michigan. It was surreal. After nearly a year living out of suitcases and crashing with strangers, suddenly we were in a cozy family home eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes. The two other guys with us - Christ, I don’t even know their names. They showed up a couple months apart after we left the town, one picked up in Seattle, one in LA. In my head I just called them Thing 1 and Thing 2. We never bonded, hardly spoke. I think they were just around for sex or protection. I think they knew I was Liz’s favorite. Their glares when she wasn’t looking said enough.
Anyway, they had to wait outside at her mom’s house, but I was allowed in. Liz introduced me as her boyfriend. Her mom didn’t say anything, but I think she knew I wasn’t… right. She kept glancing at me nervously.
After dinner, Liz and her mom had this big fight. I was shunted to the back patio, where all I could do was pace back and forth and smoke. I loved it when she bought me cigarettes, I remember. Made me feel normal.
I didn’t catch what the fight was about, but we left shortly thereafter. Liz was pale, scary-furious. Her mom was sobbing, pleading for her to stay. We just got back in the car and drove for hours. When we got to a motel in some town I don’t remember, I blacked out hard.
My eyes popped open who knows how much later, and I immediately found I was unable to move. This happened occasionally when I was coming out of a blackout. Some kind of paralysis brought on by the infection. I couldn't consciously move for a few minutes when I woke up. It only happened when Liz was around. Like my body was still waiting for executive control from its real boss, since she was so close by.
But that wasn’t the bad part. The bad part was knowing that Liz and the thing that lurked under her skin were around. And the worst part was being unable to turn and look at Them. Here, I’ll give you an example of what it’s like.
Keep your eyes on this screen - whatever it is you’re reading this on, a computer, a tablet, a phone. Whatever. Keep your eyes glued to these words. Do not look away. Don’t look behind you, not even out of the corner of your eye. Just keep reading. Stay on this page, in these words. Stay with me.
Now bring to mind a nightmare. A monster. A shadow. A killer. What scares you. But keep your eyes on these words. That thing, well, now it’s in the room with you, just out of sight. But don’t look away from the screen. You can’t look away. The shadow is approaching you now. From behind. From just outside of your periphery. Keep your eyes here. It’s coming, moving towards you, slowly and silently. You can smell it. Just don’t look away. You can hear its wheezing breath. You can feel its long fingers stretch towards your neck. Don’t look away from this screen. Don’t check behind you, even as it gets closer and closer. Even as its long finger gets so close to brushing your skin. Keep your eyes here.
That’s an inkling of what it’s like. Did you check behind you? Imagine not being able to. And imagine knowing that your conjured shade, or monster, or nightmare, or whatever the fuck you thought about - imagine knowing it was real.
And just when my heart started pounding so hard I thought for sure it’d fucking kill me, I found I could move again.
I sat up, looked around, tried to catch my bearings. First thing I noticed was one of the other guys was dead. Thing 2. He was laying on the carpet next to the bed, a discarded ragdoll of flesh and bone. He’d been a solid, muscular guy, big as I am, maybe bigger. Now he was skeletal. Skin the gray-white color of corpses stretched taught over jagged bone. I could see every rib, every tendon in his hands, every cord in his neck. The worst part, though, was his face. His eyes were wide open, bulging out like his head had just been forced into a vacuum. All the vessels in them had burst, coloring them black and red. This weird, viscous black fluid ran out of his eye sockets, and out of his nose and ears. Like blood, but it wasn’t blood. I remember staring at him for a long time.
“Another failure.” Liz’s voice was low and raspy, and I spun around to spot her next to the window.
She looked feral, crouched on her haunches as easily as a stray cat. I recognized her immediately, even though it was quite different from the way she usually looked. I’d seen this change in her anatomy before, especially after party nights when she’d bring home a new guy and he’d be gone by morning. I was sort of used to it. But maybe to an outsider she wouldn’t really look like Elizabeth at all. Maybe she wouldn’t even look human.
She’d elongated and narrowed, particularly in the arms and legs, and the way her spindly limbs were folded as she crouched there put me more in mind of spider than anything. Her face was was unnaturally long and gaunt, as if someone made a clay sculpture of her pretty head then slowly stretched it apart. Her mouth was huge, the skin hanging slack around the corners. Her jaw seemed to unhinge with every syllable, like a snake trying to swallow a rat. Behind rows of yellowing, needle-like teeth, an inky darkness bred, writhing and shifting like something alive. Her eyes were black, too. All black.
I probably don’t need to tell you that’s the closest I’d ever get to seeing the Entity in Its raw, physical form. It bled through Elizabeth’s skin like a disease, no longer hiding inside of her. But It only came out when It needed to do something that required all of Its strength. Something powerful had happened here. I could only assume it had to do with the dead guy.
“Boys can only take so much,” Liz said in that gravelly voice, staring wistfully at the corpse. “We try and we try, but we just can’t find someone strong enough.” Her eerie black eyes met mine. “You came closest, you know. I was so hopeful. You’re so beautiful, you really are. And he stayed inside of you for three hours - three glorious hours* - before you got too weak. I mean, he’s been inside of me since before I was born, but regular people can’t be Vessels. He just takes too much out of them. You almost died that first time. And every time we tried again after, you just got weaker. I don’t want you to die, I really don’t.” Liz sounded so genuine. I believed her. I still do.
“But you’re just not strong enough,” she went on. She sighed, her breath hitched. “It’s so frustrating. We can’t live like this anymore. He needs a Vessel he actually feels at home in, you know? And it’s painful for me, too. All I want is to be able to look into the eyes of my soulmate and see him looking back. To live together with the one I love, to hold him. Is that so wrong?” Her monstrous face, pleading, distorted with tears, was almost pitiable. I couldn’t speak, so I just looked away. Elizabeth sighed again. She gestured to the corpse on the carpet. Thing 2. “I’ll admit, we pushed our luck with this one though.”
Yeah. “Pushed their luck.” That’s what Elizabeth called forcing the Entity to reside inside a man for far longer than the human body could stand. That’s what she called letting her monstrous soulmate tear a person apart. “Pushing their luck.”
I remember laying back down on the bed, silent and complacent. But that’s all the memory I have for weeks. Maybe months.
Liz journaled, though. I think she wrote this next bit the night she killed Thing 2.
Failure is disheartening. And it’s not like we can assess what went wrong and try to fix our process. We don’t know what went wrong, not even Soulmate knows. So we just keep failing. Alan, Zach, Mikey, Anthony, Connor… now Donny. So many dead boys. So many pretty, fallen petals. None of them with the strength to be a true Vessel. We just want to be together - or apart, but together, you know what I mean. And what are we left with? A bunch of fallen soldiers, casualties of our quest. Ha, quest. I like that. Say it like that, it almost sounds noble.
What is it about me that lets Soulmate thrive? Why don’t I waste away like the boys? It’s not that I’m a female - we tried it with that girl, Amanda from Vegas, and that didn’t go well at all. So what? Is it just me? Am I just special somehow? Is it something dad did, or the congregation? Is it because I’m a Hadwell?
Hadwell...
...
Holy shit.
That’s it. The Hadwells. I think we just fucking figured it out, Soulmate! You said you made a deal with my family centuries ago. So maybe, even though I was the one you needed to birth you into this world… maybe our blood is strong enough to hold you in all your power.
my brilliant, beautiful girl
Then… Maybe there’s another chance. Maybe that’s why their god chose him. Maybe that’s why he’s immune to us. Because if what mom said is true and my dad is that much of a cheating piece of shit, then I have a fucking half-brother.
Find the Voyager.
Find him we did. Clayton relayed our meeting with him in his last post. I don’t remember it. She had a tight grip on me, keeping me close. But when he posted his story, Clayton challenged her.
“Hear that, Liz? Come on home. I’ll be waiting.” She rose to that challenge. It was exactly what she fucking wanted.
I can only assume we were camped out in the infected town for a couple of weeks. I think both Liz and Clayton were dancing around each other. Scared little kids. Clayton, trying to figure out how to end this, scared to make a wrong move. Liz, putting off their final meeting, tying up loose ends, scared that her last hope would be a failure.
Clayton must have found Liz’s journals in her secret little room behind the wall in Alan’s apartment. Claire tipped him off to it in the diary she kept near the end. That girl… That girl was incredible. I’d give anything to have her back.
Anyway, the journals were what did it.
When I finally snapped out of my blackout, we were back in town. In Hadwell High School, actually. A huge ground-floor classroom. We’d apparently shoved all the desks back against the walls, leaving a wide, empty space in the center. It was dark, but Liz was lighting candles when I came to, I remember. At once, the area seemed like both a ritual space and an arena.
I looked around. It was me, Liz, three other guys (all of whom were strangers to me), and fuck ton of Ascended.
They filled the periphery of the room - crouched on the desks, huddled in dark recesses, standing back against the walls. There were dozens, and all of them had mutated weapons of some kind. Some balanced on the long, jagged bones that grew from their arms - bones that could slice the flesh from you in one swing. Others had vaguely humanoid claws jutting from their hands or feet. I saw one whose spine had burst from its back in a series of vicious spikes. Another who could unhinge its jaw wide enough to swallow my head, whose teeth were long as railroad spikes but needle thin, needle sharp. Some were slow, dragging dead legs with the spears of bone protruding from their elbows. Others were fast and restless, flitting from desk to desk, heads jerking in every direction at every new sound. Others looked dead - slumped against the wall, mouths slack and crooked - until you approached them. Then they’d jump up to greet you.
Experiments. Different ways of weaponizing a human, as many and varied as the people they used to be. But they all shared similarities - trademarks of the Entity. They were all thin, wasted. They were all much stronger than they looked. None of them had eyes. And, of course, they were all smiling.
Liz’s army, or part of it. Her generals. The cream of the crop, here to protect the king/queen hybrid that had created them. She looked at them with pride. She stroked their heads, cooed at their eyeless faces. Sang to them.
When she passed by me, she noticed the clarity in my eyes.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re up.” She kissed me. “I’m glad. I wanted you to see this. Be a good boy, okay?”
I didn’t reply. I never replied.
“He’s on his way,” Liz said. “I know it. We just have to be patient.”
And so we waited. It felt like hours. It probably was. Outside, the sky grew dark. The Ascended got restless. Their weird, rasping breaths got shallower, faster. They strained towards the windows, looked out to the moon. They wanted out, wanted to run. Liz told them to hush, and most did. Some kept pacing, or swaying back and forth, or clicking their teeth together. I got restless, too. I wanted to be outside. I understood them, understood their needs. I think it was the first time I realized I wasn’t just Liz’s hypnotized dancing monkey. I wasn’t special. I was as infected as the rest of them.
When the night couldn’t get any deeper, when my fingers itched and my legs burned to run through the darkness, the Voyager came.
A hush went over the room. We could feel it as soon as he entered the building, all of us operating on some hive-mind network. At one with each other and Liz and the mold on the walls. There was something wonderful about it, something I’d miss if I let myself. Something powerful and safe. We all knew and saw and thought the same thing, like a chant echoing at the back of our minds.
Voyager. Mine. Ours.
Clayton came through the door into the classroom with a shotgun trained on Liz. Despite our deepest instincts, we resisted attacking. We were told very specifically not to attack.
He looked tired. Weathered. Much older than I’d last seen him. He moved slowly, cautiously. Gray speckled his once black hair, at odds above such a young face. He was wrinkled and dirty and scarred. I realized with something like admiration that this was probably as close to an action hero as I’d ever see in real life. But you could see the fear in his wide, haunted eyes. You could still see the kid he’d been not so long ago.
“Clayton.” Liz’s voice was gentle, lilting. She sat atop a desk, surrounded by her Ascended. She’d dressed up for him, I noticed for the first time. Red dress, red lips, black heels. I felt the jealousy instantly, hot and sharp in my chest, and I fucking growled. The other guys growled with me. It wasn’t my jealousy, I knew, or at least not all mine. But I still felt it.
“The fuck is this?” Clayton hissed, gesturing around with the barrel of the gun. He eyed each of us with deep suspicion. “I couldn’t keep them off me a few weeks ago. And now they’re content to sit and fucking watch?”
“They’re not content,” Liz replied. “I’m not content either.” She pushed away from the desk and paced towards him at the center of the room. Her pout, the way she moved her hips - she was playing the femme fatale now, at once dangerous and unbelievably alluring.
“Put down the gun, Clayton,” Liz said. “We’re not gonna hurt you. And you know shooting me isn’t going to do anything. We’re too strong.”
Clayton blinked at that. His eyes filled with sudden tears. Yet still he stared down the sight of the gun with determination, aiming at Them for a long moment.
And then he made what had to have been the hardest decision of his life.
He lowered the shotgun. He let the barrel touch the ground. He let it slip out of his hands and drop to the floor.
“There,” he said. “No more gun.”
Liz looked surprised for only an instant. Then, slowly, a serpentine smile slid over her lips. She raised her arms to him.
“Come,” she said, her voice mingling with another, low and raspy. “Give yourself to us. We all know what has to happen now.”
“Do we?” Clayton asked shakily. All the same, he stepped towards Them.
“Yes,” she hissed, smiling wider, too wide. Her eyes darkened, the blackness of the pupils spreading across her irises, her sclera. “We’re meant to be together, my love. You and I. We’re family. And we can be so much more.” She licked her lips, opening her mouth to momentarily expose the darkness writhing within. The Entity, coming to the surface. Coiled like a snake waiting to strike.
“What can we be, Elizabeth?” Clayton said, his voice breathy and soft. He seemed enchanted by her, pulled by her magnetism and horror. He reached out to her, too. “Tell me.”
“We can be everything,” They replied. “We can be the sun, the moon, the stars. The universe will be ours, and every life in it. Just let him into you and we can be together. One with him, with each other, with everything.”
Clayton's hand touched her waist. Her arms folded around his neck. I was shaking, thrumming with a force that seemed to engulf the room. A force that engulfed the entire town, the rapidly beating epicenter of which was the Hadwell siblings, together at last.
“You’re my sister,” Clayton whispered, stroking her hair gently away from her face.
“Yes, my love,” Liz whispered back, leaning toward him, reaching for his lips. “That’s why we chose you. You’re strong enough to hold him. You’ll make him what he was meant to be. What we are meant to be, together.”
“Promise?” Clayton asked. He pulled her body against his firmly, eliciting a gasp of surprise and delight from the woman in his arms.
“Oh, my love,” Liz replied. “I promise you the world.”
And he kissed her. He kissed her, as if he could barely contain himself. As if it was all he’d ever wanted to do. I knew the feeling. I still know it. That jealousy erupted through me again, white hot. But it didn’t overshadow my wonder at what happened next.
As the Hadwells kissed, their mouths open against each other, that inky shadow moved between. Out of Liz, into Clayton. Like oil, but too insubstantial to be liquid. It floated and coiled and squirmed into Clayton’s mouth, down his throat. I watched his eyes open in shock, but he didn’t pull away. He leaned into it, even as Liz reached up to hold his face, tears of what I assume were joy streaming from her eyes. And soon, surprisingly soon, the kiss ended.
The shadow, the Entity, had squirmed Its way into the Voyager - Its new Vessel. The Hadwells broke apart, breathing heavily, Liz’s arms still entangled around Clayton’s neck. And as she stood there in his embrace, she searched his eyes and watched the darkness spread across them.
“It’s you,” she whispered, crying.
And the Entity opened its mouth and spoke in a voice all Its own, untinged with even a hint of what Clayton used to sound like.
“My brilliant, beautiful girl,” It said.
Liz let out a sob of pure happiness. It stroked her face, staring at her with something that was clearly genuine love.
“Oh my god,” she said, thick with tears. “My god, it’s really, truly, you!”
She laughed in delight, hugging him, and the Entity laughed with her, a weird hissing noise, holding her close.
“Just you,” she sobbed. “Just us.”
But as they laughed, Its hissing got deeper, smoother. In a matter of moments, his laughter no longer sounded like hissing at all. It was low and smooth and bitter. One of his hands left her waist.
“No,” he said.
When he pulled back, Liz met his dark eyes with a look of confusion.
“What?” she asked, a note of panic in her tone that I didn’t understand.
“Not just you,” Clayton said, the darkness receding rapidly from his eyes. He pulled her against him forcefully and raised the hidden handgun he’d drawn from his beltline. “I’m here, too.”
Liz managed one final, panicked gasp before the blast of the gun tore through the quiet space. It was the last noise she’d ever make.
I couldn’t quite grasp what was happening, even as her limp body slumped to the floor. My ears were ringing.
The Entity screamed then, using Clayton’s mouth to unleash a howl of pain and fury as It sank to Its knees beside her corpse. Clayton’s eyes were black again, the jaw stretched wide. But the inky darkness within had nowhere to go. It gathered Liz into Its arms, wailing like a feral cat, and rocked her. Mourned her.
The Ascended, including me, watched in silence. Tears were dripping from my eyes, but I don’t know what I was feeling, even now. Pity? Sadness? Vindication?
She was gone. Why didn’t that make me happy?
The Entity hunched over the body of Its lost love, Its broken Vessel, lost to the world in Its own grief for what seemed an eternity. I can’t grasp what was probably going through Its head, so I won’t try. I’d like to think, though, that It was only grieving the loss of Elizabeth Hadwell. Not her power. Not Its chance to infect a world. Just Liz. I’d like to think she was enough.
But I’m probably giving It too much credit.
In any case, I watched the Entity, still weeping, lean forward over Liz’s body. I watched the blackness recede from his eyes, watched the human take hold again. I watched him pick up the gun he had dropped, cock it, and raise it to his temple.
“We are nothing,” he said. It was Clayton’s voice, pure and strong.
And he pulled the trigger.
Have you ever awoken suddenly from a nightmare and felt that moment of mingled relief and terror? You look around your dark bedroom and can’t help but feel that the monsters in your head made it out somehow. And you know you’re being ridiculous, but you still reach for the lamp to turn it on. Because that nightmare felt fucking real a second ago. More real, maybe, than waking up in a warm bed.
That’s how it was. That snap into real control, real consciousness, all the more jarring because I’d thought only seconds before that I was conscious. It was like a haze suddenly lifted. I was myself again. I could talk and move without any kind of resistance. I had no orders, no goals that weren’t my own. The tether I’d had to the Entity had snapped. I couldn’t feel It in my head anymore. That’s how I knew It was really dead.
That and the fact that beneath Clayton’s sprawled body an oily black substance was slowly spreading across the floor. Like blood, but it wasn’t blood. I watched It for a long time, puddling around the corpses of Its Vessels, until It stopped spreading and began to dry there on the tiles. It was no longer something alive.
The tether to the rest of the Ascended had snapped, too. Like walking through a packed bar and suddenly you’ve pushed through the door and you’re alone outside in the cold air. It was at once freeing and deeply lonely.
So yeah, I felt like I’d just woken out of a nightmare. But, looking around, I realized I was still in one.
Bodies littered the space. I was suddenly the only one left standing. Jesus, Liz must really have taken care of me. Even the three other normal-ish guys were on the ground, eyes closed. Only two were breathing.
The Ascended… How do you explain dozens of twisted hunks of flesh, lifeless and pale, strewn around the room? How do you describe their skin, already beginning to crack and decay? Their limbs falling away, leaving oozing, rotten pits. Their fused eyelids slowly peeling open to reveal hollow depths of skull. Their smiles going slack or stretching tight enough to rip the flesh around their lips. How do you explain what that looks like? How do you explain what it smells like?
I didn’t stay to help. Couldn’t. Could you?
I ran. Well, I grabbed Clayton’s keys from his coat. Then I ran. Mold peeled from every wall in the school, sloughing off to expose rotting beams and rusting pipes. The jog through that town was almost worse. Bodies littered the roads, dozens, hundreds. All rotting to pieces. The Ascended. An entire town brought to its knees by a girl and a demigod. And not a smile among them.
I didn’t stop to look. Didn’t stop to view the wreckage or do what Claire would have done - try to see if anyone was still alive. Try to see if I could somehow help. I just fucking ran.
If you think I’m shitty for that, that’s fair. If it makes you feel better, nightmares plague me.
Clayton’s truck was parked on the bridge. I started it. Full tank of gas. I thought that was optimistic of him, since he seemed to know before even walking into that classroom that he’d have to sacrifice himself. I took it as a sign, like maybe he wanted me to have it. I see signs in lots of things now. His duffel with Liz’s journals was in the back.
Thanks, Clayton. I mean that. I wish I could tell you what you did for me. For Claire. For the fucking world.
I took one look back at the Infected Town in my rearview as I sped away. It was early morning, when the skies start to lighten just a bit, the blue grays of coming dawn. The place looked quiet, peaceful almost. Like a black shroud had been lifted. Maybe that was just the relief I felt at having escaped. Or maybe it was something more divine.
In any case, I forced my eyes off the town and glued them to the road ahead. And I never looked back.
There’s no epilogue here. I’m trying to pick up the pieces of a life I shattered by disappearing for so long. It’s not easy. I logged in to Claire’s account pretty much as soon as I got back to California. I was gratified to see Clayton had been updating it. I figured I owed it to him to finish the story.
I’m always restless now. I like moving around. Real life doesn’t do it for me anymore, you know? There will always be a part of me, I think, that’ll be obsessed with that town, with Liz and the Entity, with Clayton and the Eye. I don’t know how to go back to what I used to be before all of it started, or even if I should. Knowing something like the Entity exists, having personal experiences with It, that changes things, you know? There’s gotta be more out there. Armed with my knowledge, maybe I could make a difference. Or maybe not.
So thanks. Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping, NoSleep. Thanks for being part of their stories, these people who didn’t deserve the hell their lives became. These regular people, barely more than kids.
The scared best friend. The confused lover. The villain in disguise. The incredible urban explorer (I’ll miss you forever). The reluctant hero. And me, the half-crazy ex-Ascended.
I don’t know where the moral is, or how to end this. So I guess I’ll just leave you with one last request, even after everything you’ve done.
Remember them.
-Blake
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Credits
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