Chapter Text
You exist.
You float, incorporeal, atop a spire reaching from a bed of clouds. An entity of unfocused eyes and bubbling darkness floats beside you. An endless void extends in all directions, dotted with stars and disembodied eyes.
The living darkness seems to notice you, though its eyes do not move to track you.
“Wandering soul. Have you come to witness visions? Yellow visions of the past… gray visions of a different world… or perhaps you wish to see the future? Mayhaps the stars align.”
You attempt to prompt the entity for further information, but its regard for you has faded away. It is just chilling, now.
Confused, you look outward into the void. A constellation of seven stars in an odd pattern catches your gaze. You float over to examine the stars, feeling a strange sensation that the pattern is incomplete. You sense that the stars required to complete it do not yet exist in this world.
This troubles you for reasons you do not understand. It is wrong and must be set right.
You tug against your own essence, tearing off little pieces of yourself to create new stars. These do not quite match the ones in the pattern… but they will have to do.
As you place the stars to complete the constellation, a blinding flash consumes your senses.
…
You are Ashley.
You drift in and out of consciousness, tossing and turning atop a bed of plush pillows. You did manage to cry yourself to a fitful sleep for a little while, but lasting rest evades you as it never has before. Andrew has not returned since you drove him away.
“(Where the hell is that asshole? There’s no way he took me seriously, right? He wouldn’t just leave me here and wander off alone, would he?)”
You tell yourself he can’t live without you. You do everything you can to keep him comfortable and content in his cage. You test him every day to be sure he’ll stick around, and he always has before. You’ve been so good for him lately… but he’s still not happy. You can’t shake thoughts of the demon’s certainty that he’ll betray you.
“(We’ve been getting along, haven’t we? Sure, we had another fight, but… God damn it, I thought we worked this out already!)”
“Ugh, fuck you, Andrew! Leaving me here to worry like this…”
Get out of bed to find your jackass brother?
Yes
>Obviously
You walk to the door, intent on figuring out where Andrew ran off to. But just as you’re about to reach it, you collapse beneath an avalanche of supernatural fatigue.
…
The vision crashes into you like a tidal wave.
You stand with Andrew on top of an altar somewhere in the realm between. Countless demons begin to appear from nothing. They surround the altar, alien faces of anticipation. The entity you have worked with is the last to arrive, blinking into existence right in front of you.
Your sight blacks out for a flash.
When it returns, you see from two perspectives at once. One disembodied gaze stares down at your own body, fallen to the stone like a puppet without strings. The other looks up from that body at a writhing, flailing mass of tar-black limbs with one pink eye.
It’s you.
You see yourself the way the demons see you.
A Tar Soul.
Your body’s perspective quickly fades.
You turn to search for Andrew, instinctively seeking comfort and guidance in a moment of blind panic.
You find him lying in a ring of his own blood.
His own soul hovers above the corpse, confused by his continued existence.
“NO!”
Your scream is impossibly loud, a terrible wail that shakes the fabric of reality.
“Not him! Anything but him! Everything else can BURN for all I care!”
The raw anguish in your voice makes lesser demons turn and flee.
“Not my Andrew…”
It hits you that he’ll never hold you in his arms again.
“You were supposed to stay with me…”
He’ll never make you feel safe again.
“Forever…”
Andrew’s soul seems to recognize you. His little eyes focus on you and begin to weep tears of blood.
“A…” His voice is a tiny, fragile thing. “A-a-a-ashley…”
He speaks your name as if you are his lifeline. Just as he is yours.
“Ashley, I… I…”
He falters, as if he has forgotten everything but you.
You reach out to embrace him with your many limbs, cradling the last living piece of your big brother.
“I’m sorry, beloved… I never meant for anything to happen to you… not now, not ever.”
“I-I-I’m… s-sorry…” As his little soul trembles and weeps, he begins to fade away.
“Please don’t go! Please, Andrew! Don’t leave me like this!”
Your pleas do nothing to stop it.
“...love…you…”
In moments, Andrew’s soul is gone.
There is no way to know how long you stay there, frozen in mourning for the only one who ever cared for you. Maybe seconds, maybe hours. In time, you are interrupted by the traitor.
“Tar Soul. I understand not why you have lost your composure.”
You turn a murderous glare on the entity, intent on shredding its essence into vapor.
Andrew was right all along not to trust this creature.
If only you had let yourself trust him a little more.
Something inside you begins to crack.
The vision ends.