Chapter Text
Mike wakes up—no, that’s not right.
Mike isn’t awake. Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever again.
Mike comes to, awareness stuttering back in fits and starts. Like a car that’s been left to rust for years, engine turning over and over and over. Like when your alarm goes off but you can’t quite drag your eyes open, so dream and reality melt together. Like a broken record, looping the same two seconds ad nauseum until it suddenly jumps to a new place entirely.
He exists in fragments. Consciousness split, segmented, shattered.
Like a View-Master, he cycles through the slides.
Click: Bathed in blue light, he relives the pain. What should’ve been his last moments. Misery and regret, fear and desperation.
Click: Shrouded in red fog, he hangs from a post. One of four monuments to Vecna’s victory. Revulsion and violation, helplessness and immobility.
Click: Through the orange glow of his eyelids, he hears the steady beep of a heart monitor. Ticking off borrowed time. Longing and despair, stale air and antiseptic.
Click: Engulfed in a black void, he wanders endlessly and alone. Lit by an unseen source but all that’s illuminated is nothingness. Numbness and isolation, detachment and dissociation.
He can’t settle in one place, can barely get his bearings before he’s violently wrenched away. Do not stand—
Click: Blue light. He is a dying man, broken bones and broken promises.
Click: Red fog. He is a corpse on display, no breath no heartbeat no organ function.
Click: Orange glow. He is an empty vessel, stiff limbs and dulled senses.
Click: Black void. He is a spirit without form, body just a projection.
Aware but not awake. Existing but not alive. Here but not present. Do not stand by my grave—
Click: Gentle arms hugging his mangled body.
Click: A cold, clawed finger stroking his face.
Click: Warm hands wrapped around his.
Click: Cool water lapping at his feet.
Where is he? Maybe nowhere. Maybe everywhere at once. Is this hell? Purgatory? Do not stand by my grave and weep—
Click: “Mike, stay with us, stay with us!”
Click: “Michael. So good to have you join us at last.”
Click: “Me, I’ve always called it shining. That’s what my grandmother called it, too.”
Click: Oppressive silence.
Faster and faster. The barrage is overwhelming. Fracturing. Crippling. Do not stand by my grave and weep. I am not there—
Click: Blind eyes, unable to see.
Click: Dead eyes, unable to stop seeing.
Click: Closed eyes, unable to open.
Click: Open eyes, but nothing there.
He’d throw up, if he had a body to do it. Punch something, if he had fists. Scream, if he had a voice. Do not stand by my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep.
Click: Agonized.
Click: Paralyzed.
Click: Anesthetized.
Click: Derealized.
He is only thought. Sensation. Consciousness without shape, without substance, without control.
Do not stand by my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.