Clark (clarkdebussy) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-10-07 19:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: clark debussy |
He had to take his chances, though. While the cane Syd brought him was, mercifully, a huge help, it was still difficult to move around a whole city, a whole island (a whole world?) on foot. He was the kind of person who would swallow the pain, never let on just how much it hurt. Even when the burns were still fresh, he buried the pain deep down. Still, he wasn't going to make matters worse by stubbornly trying to walk everywhere.
Clark wasn't surprised when the waypoint brought him to the storied hotel. If it was luring people in, it wasn't likely he'd avoid it. Even if he'd hoped he would. He stepped out in the lobby of the hotel, looked around at its grandeur. Then he noticed the carpet. That red and orange polygonal pattern.
"Fuck," he muttered to himself. "I didn't even like this movie."
Leaning on his cane for assistance, he made his way down the hallway of the Overlook Hotel. He knew the hotel wasn't going to just let him leave, so he might as well play its game. He knew how bad it could be, but he knew how strong he was as well.
At the end of the hallway, he turned, saw those famed elevators. If he opened one, would it unleash of river of blood? He walked over to the elevator, pressed the button to go up. Then he waited. A couple minutes ticked by before a ding announced the arrival of the elevator. He was prepared for blood, but when the doors opened, flame burst forth from the elevator. "Fuck!" He stumbled back, almost lost his footing. He didn't allow himself to be afraid of fire. He wouldn't be weakened emotionally by the thing that had already robbed him of so much.
He turned to hurry away from the elevator, only to find the entire hallway engulfed in flames. His heart began to race so fast he thought it was trying to escape his ribcage. He was surrounded by flame. No way out.
There was a door to the right that the fire didn't touch. Nothing good could lay beyond that door, but it beat being engulfed in fire. Again. He reached out with his left hand, only to realize the entire left side of his body was aflame. He didn't feel any pain, but he knew the fire was eating away at his flesh, creating new scar tissue to match the right side of his body. He turned the knob and pushed the door opened, stumbled inside. He shut the door and leaned his back against it, breathing heavily.
"Hello, Clark." That familiar voice made his good eye twitch. There was David Haller, levitating in front of him. Not this fucking guy again, he thought.
"I'm not afraid of you, David. You already killed me once."
"I'm not here for you," David replied, a maniacal smile spread across his face. He stretched a hand outward, gesturing to two crumpled bodies on the floor.
Clark followed the line of his arm to the bodies on the floor. "Daniel," he gasped. He hurried over to the prone forms of his husband and their young son. He touched Daniel's face with his scarred hand. "Baby," he whispered. There wasn't room for fear when all he could feel was a rage burning hotter than the flame that ate away at the left side of his body. He stood up and spun around, his cane clattering to the floor.
"You son of a bitch," he growled at David.
"You know you're on fire. Again."
Clark hated how matter-of-fact, how ho-hum David spoke to him. This wasn't a pen to the face, though, this was Clark's family. He reached his flaming hand out to grab David who vanished in an instant.
"Fuck." He turned back around and hurried to his family. Without his cane, he collapsed on the floor with them. "Come on, baby," he said, cradling Daniel's face in his hand. Laughter filled the room, echoed off the walls, filled Clark's head like an invasion. He looked around for David, but there was no one there. What he found instead were flickering images projected on the walls around them. Home movies. Film he shot of Daniel on various occasions. In every one, David appeared and killed Clark's husband. And then his son.
Clark looked away, closed his eyes tightly, although that didn't keep tears from escaping and streaming down his cheeks. "This isn't real," he muttered to himself. He looked down at Daniel and Buster. "I should've let up. I should've stopped chasing David. We could've had more time together. I did this- I endangered you both." He reached out for his family, wanting to hold them close, forgetting that half his body was still on fire and when he touched them, the fire spread.
"Shit. No! Shit shit shit." He started to panic, he started to really feel fear run cold in his veins. "No. No this isn't real. It's just the hotel." He put a hand to his forehead and tried to calm himself. "Daniel is fine. Buster is fine. David never got to them."
"But you're not there to protect them." He looked up and saw himself. He saw himself standing there, cane steadied under both of his hands, looking smug beneath the angry red burns that covered so much of his body.
"You're dead. Floating for eternity in the frozen vacuum of space. David could kill them in an instant, at any moment, and you're not there to protect them."
Clark shook his head and turned away from the specter of himself. "Fuck off," he said dismissively. He might not be there to protect his family, but Divison 3 still was. David attacked the airship but so many security officers remained on the ground. Once word got around about Clark's demise, they would take his family into protection. Maybe Cary would build a device that would hide them away from David's prying mind.
His family was still alive. He knew it in his heart, in his bones. They would be fine. They would survive without him. He stood up from the floor, grabbed his cane. "This hotel can really fuck right the hell off," he yelled. "I've faced so much worse than some evil sentient hotel from what was, frankly, not one of Stanley Kubrick's best films."
He strode to the door of the room and threw it open. "I'm leaving!" Fire still raged in the hallway, the air choked with smoke. He walked through with such determination. In the lobby, the hotel tried to show him more images of David's laughing face, of his family meeting their demise, but he ignored it. He was focused on the waypoint that brought him here. It was the only thing he saw, the only thing he cared about. Once he approached it, he reached out his hand and...
After a bright, searing flash of light, Clark opened his eyes to find himself seated on the couch in the living room of his new apartment. There was no waypoint in his apartment. The hotel itself must've deposited him there.
Or maybe it had all been a dream.
CODE BY TESSISAMESS
WHERE: The Overlook Hotel
WHAT: Vallo might not be hell, but this hotel is
WARNINGS: Fire, death, disfiguration, lots of f-bombs