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 Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:54 pm
When he woke Mare was not there. She hadn’t woken him up in the night for more stories, though he had just finished one but she hadn’t been his living alarm, hovering above him to get him up. The time here had shifted his body’s internal clock and he’d begun waking up at the same time every day - early as requested - taking a light breakfast and moved onto his workout.
The hall from his room seemed different, the way to the kitchen now inaccessible, and he was being guided it seemed to the main room where he’d first been when he came. It was what Mare called a study, though looked more like a library, and he hadn’t been allowed since he came.
No books. No reading. No writing.
Algie stretched as he walked, feeling the subtle change in muscle tone under his skin from the daily training. His waist was trimmer also, and though he still maintained a belly his entirety was firmer and his face, he’d noticed, was thinner and his jaw a bit more defined. What would Jeremiah think? How noticeable was it from the outside?
The study door was wide open, not changed much since Thorne had brought him here, which told him the young man hadn’t done much to the place to claim it as his own. The shelves were neat and orderly and he itched to pick up a book, flip through, give it a glance, but instead he paced because he was alone.
Perhaps this in itself was a test.
After minutes alone, how many he didn’t know, the door opposite was opened and entering was a mirror of himself. A crooked smirk, glasses, green eyes and tweed. He recognized one of his darker vests, something from the back of his closet, and a pair of shoes he hadn’t even gotten to wear yet. Alg’s stomach turned to see it, to think that this must be the creature who had been living as him. Sleeping in his bed, wearing his clothes, embracing his husband…
Alg’s fists clenched as a shrouded attendant entered with a silver tray. The doppelganger blinked before reaching into its jacket and producing his notebook, his grimoire and his cellphone which were set on the tray. The figure disappeared with them and left the doors to the study open.
The doors gaped, halls stretched out beyond. An invitation, an exit.
“Well,” The other Alg smiled and adjusted his glasses in an eerily familiar motion, “Here we are.”
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:54 pm
She’d worn a sweet face the first time she threw him down. He’d been lured in by the cherubic features and his own softness towards things that seemed like they needed help. He hadn’t know then that they would be training like this, it was his first day, but he’d ended up on his back - bent - bruised - his shoulder popped out and later healed.
She’d beaten him down with a snarl on the sweet face. She’d belittled and shamed him and when he’d tried to strike back she laughed and laid him flat again. He learned what she was capable of and just how effective the fetch glamours could be.
He would not underestimate her again. Alg would not be fooled by the pretty face. Nothing and noone, it seemed, could be trusted.
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:56 pm
“After you,” There was a sweep of an arm and the imitation Algie gestured towards the door. “All you have to do is leave. I thought perhaps I’d give you a head start.”
Alg wondered if he sounded as smarmy when he was polite as this thing did, but his time here had taught him not to doubt his gut and when he felt something was dangerous to give into instinct.
“Pardon me if I don’t take your arm and skip out into the gardens..” Alg was still pacing, fists clenched, waiting for the thing in his face to make it’s move.
It chuckled, “So you look a gift horse in the mouth? Haven’t they taught you to take every opportunity?”
“And not to fall into traps..” Alg stopped pacing and stood his ground.
“But don’t overthink it, Alg..” The doppelganger laughed and waggled a finger.
Algernon gritted his teeth, it figured some version of himself would want to have a debate, “And that if something stands in your way… sometimes you just need to go ahead and break it down.”
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:57 pm
He was in a locked room with windows shadowed by ivy and a single door. There was a desk with locked drawers, a single painting hanging on the wall, and a chair.
Nothing more nothing less.
He was locked in.
Alg spent all day searching for a way out. The door was locked, so were the windows. The desk drawers had nothing in them (they hadn’t even slipped with pens, paper or books). When he took down the painting there was a safe behind and it and the man became convinced that the secret to his exit was within.
It was painstaking trying to break the safe combination, a collection of tricks he’d learned from Jeremiah and a difficult job of remembering numbers as he worked them out. He’d ended up scratching things into the painting canvas with his nails - something he’d regret later - until the the safe door popped open.
Through the ivy shrouded window he could tell it was evening (or something like it). Nearly the whole day he’d spent in here, stuck, only to find the safe had nothing in it at all.
Nothing.
He must have fallen asleep in his frustrated exhaustion. He’d only sat a moment to gather his thoughts when he was waking with a jolt, hit hard by cold water and sputtering in shock. He was interrogated on his failings, berated on the failure, and asked over and over and over what he did wrong.
Overthinking, Algernon. Always overthinking.
But he could hardly think now for the fatigue, for the questioning, his brain worn and exhausted when the simple answer revealed to him made all the others seem over complicated and confusing.
He should have just broken his way out. The window. The door. Forsake your manners and your pride and fight your way out. Smash and break and push forward without apologies.
Don’t look for a puzzle when a puzzle doesn’t exist.
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:57 pm
Who moved first was hard to say, as soon as one twitched the other leapt to action and both Algernons ended up locked, grappling and straining together. They bent, each trembling, the same grit of teeth, the same veins bulging at their temples, each a grimacing mirror of the other.
“Is this all you learned?” The fetch hissed, bowing Algie back with superior strength, but it had been living cushy back on the other side while the real Professor had been here. Fighting.
“Punch your problems?” It’s voice sounded less and less like his own as they strained, it’s pudge tightening, it’s cheeks cutting harder lines. The fetch’s feet rose from the floor, using the man’s power to float to gain leverage on him. He felt the hands gripping his skin pouring out his unique power - the waves emanating exhaustion.. He was bending, grunting and soon pushed back to one knee.
“You have a nice life Professor..” False Algie grinned with greed, “And I’d like to keep it.”
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 9:58 pm
Alg began to feel like he was at a retreat… or rehab. He was denied the things he wanted and told he didn’t need them. He found particular trouble not being able to write things down. Thoughts, inspirations, ideas or musings… thing he was meant to remember.
They used it.
And it became a game for them and a trial for him.
The next room he’d be trapped in couldn’t be bullied out of. No smashing this time around. A word game, a memory game, a number game. He’d worked slow, relied on scratching things into surfaces, and even when he got out and solved the puzzles - was punished for the writing.
He couldn’t keep track of them all, sometimes memory games triggered earlier in the day would resurface at night after he was worn and tired, and he wouldn’t be allowed to sleep until he was successful.
The only entertainment he was given were cards… memory cards. Like a child.
When he wasn’t fighting, training his body into some shape, they were working and testing and wearing at his mind.
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:00 pm
Alg was bending under the fetch’s strength, he could feel the energy sapping even though he was trying to fight. To think he could overpower it was foolish. He had no powers and the thing that gripped him seemed to duplicate his own in much more effective use than he’d ever managed.
He hadn’t failed though. He was still here, still fighting, because he knew that where there wasn’t overwhelming power there was something else, something smarter that would gain the advantage.
And so he stopped.
Very suddenly his body went limp and the fetch, pushing with overwhelming strength, bearing down on him from the air, had just a moment to realize what had happened before it’s own force and momentum sent it crashing down. Alg sidestepped just fast enough to avoid it but caught a shoulder to the face that sent his glasses flying. The fetch ungracefully hit the floor with a noise of surprise.
It was up in an inhuman speedy flash, turning to say something - to mock or jeer - when it was met with a brain scrambling punch. A long time ago Alg had been good at finding that sweet spot, that clock ringing punch that had the recipient seeing stars. His time training here had only awakened something in him long sleeping, skills he’d abandoned when he stopped being young, stopped being trouble, lost his fire.
Not anymore.
The fetch made a noise, a sickened groan, and writhed on it’s back as it waited for the world to stop moving and sparks to stop flying in front of it’s eyes.
It was too late.
The real Algie knelt a strong knee against its chest, clamped a powerful hand to it’s throat to keep it down, and had another punch ready and cocked, “Take it off.”
He shook it, the thing’s eyes rolling, “My face. Take. It. Off.”
The fetch blinked as the glamour faded, the skin sunk in and tightened and no longer in any way looked like Algernon. The fetch made a lamenting sound, it’s hair greyed and thinned, the skin around it’s eyes hollowing, but Alg stopped it when it looked more like a gaunt old man, “That’s fine. I’ll give you that bit of dignity.”
He felt it swallow under his hand, a panicked gulp, it’s skeletal grip on his wrist enough to bruise but Alg had the upper hand and they both knew it.
“Will you stop? Do you yield?”
The fetches eyes, a pale blue grey now, focused on him, seemed to weaken, but then in a last ditch effort tried to surge forward with a hiss.
It was met with another clock-ringing punch, making the thing finally give up, coughing sideways onto the floor.
Alg’s newly raised fist finally lowered and the hand around the thing’s throat loosened.
The fetch seemed to have given up and when Alg stood and backed away from it, it curled sideways and no longer could Alg see himself at all in the old man on the floor. It looked like a stranger in his clothes.
The Professor breathed, backed up, and found where his glasses had skittered off. They were bent but he could see and that was all that mattered. He turned, almost stumbled from the sudden exhaustion in his muscles, and plodded out of the study doors which seemed to close on their own behind him.
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Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 10:02 pm
He walked the only way the hall led him, for how long he wasn’t sure, until he came to another room. There sat a single chair, high backed like a throne, and in the seat was his grimoire, his notebook and his cellphone in a neat and orderly pile.
Alg approached slowly, unsure if this was some other trap. Mare had told him his trial would be soon… he hadn’t known the nature of it but now that he’d met the thing with his face he could only dread what else was ahead of him.
He leaned to run his hand over the front of his books, something rising thickly in his throat to have them there and real. He gathered them reverently, cell phone slipped into his pocket, and clasped the books in his hands as he took a breath.
“It is your seat, My Lord.”
Algie near jumped out of his skin at sudden dry, lilting voice behind him. He spun, books clenched to his chest, and fist raised again when he realized the culprit was too far away to hit.
There was an old man dressed impeccably in a slick dark suit and gloves, with thin slicked grey hair. Across his cheek and around his intense silver blue eyes was one hell of a developing black eye and bruising. It’s eyes dropped deferently when met with Algie’s and it bowed very similar to the valet and footman he always saw in Jeremiah’s childhood home.
“It’s you.” Alg was on edge, though relieved to see it didn’t look or sound anymore like him.
The fetch nodded, looking a bit ashamed for a short moment, “I yielded to the better man. You had every right to kill me.” His eyes lifted, uneasy, as if to do so were a violation.
“Kill you?” Alg could have, truly, if it had pushed him that far. It took him a moment to contemplate. “Is that what you want? To die? I have a bit of a reputation for assisted suicide..”
Alg took a step forward and the fetch curled a small smile, “No. I would not.”
The Professor turned to look at the throne again.
“I just want.. Wanted a nice life.” A real life, “You have a very comfortable life.” The fetch’s voice softened, “I would have lived it well, I promise.”
“But it’s MY life.” Alg growled a moment.
“Yes it is.” The fetch agreed, head bowing to the growl again. “And you have proved to be the rightful one to live it.”
Algie felt a small pang then for the thing, thinking of Mare as well. Would he have failed, he imagined such a fate would be his own. Had they been people once? All of them?
Algie wouldn’t sit in the throne, not yet, but his fetch did seem to approach.
“My seat?”
“In the court of the Sorrowful One, my lord.”
“Don’t-” Alg paused, a hand raised to dismiss when the term ‘Sorrowful One’ struck him to pause, “Don’t call me my lord.”
“What should I call you?”
“Professor. Sir is fine…”
The fetch bent and nodded, “Of course, Professor.”
Alg didn’t quite like all the bowing and deference. At one point he’d have loved it, to be considered on equal footing with ‘his betters’. Now it was slightly disconcerting.
“I will keep your place here in the court tidy and organized for you, sir.” It straightened, “And tend anything you need on this side.”
Alg couldn’t imagine what sort of business he’d need handling, if he was honest, “What do I call you?”
“Whatever you’d like,” But Alg was giving the fetch a look, a look that he wasn’t playing that game. “Adze, sir.”
“Adze.” Alg repeated, like the tool, “Can I leave?”
The fetch nodded, as if following an order, moved to doors set in the far wall and opened them.
“This way, sir.”
Alg moved towards it, the throne only given a backward glance for a moment before he was set to leave. Adze was given slight pause which had the fetch bowing his head again.
“You’ll be here? Alone?”
“Not quite,” Adze smiled a bit, “Go home Professor. Your husband is waiting.”
Alg’s throat tightened, his lip curling at mention of Jeremiah, as if him being brought up by the creature was a violation.
“You both are very lucky to have one another,” Adze continued, looking almost like he was their fan, “And it’s an honor to serve you.”
Alg didn’t know what to say. Even less so when Adze bowed his head with a strange smile, “I’m proud of you.”
It was uncomfortable. Beyond uncomfortable. And Alg was at a loss for words.
So he left.
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