28.2 Fic: Compelled

Mika’s stomach dropped.   The imperative filled his head, reverberated around his skull, drowning all else in a roaring flood. Fighting the reflex to shut his eyes so they didn’t shake out of his head, to cover his ears even though they had nothing to do with the sound – with whatever his brain was attempting to parse as sound—was as difficult as it was reflexive.   Why now? Why here?   Questions with about as much point as they had chance of answer.   Focus, focus! Eyes open. Unclench your jaw. Anyone notice?   He forced his focus outward. The room was all-but empty, the muted laughter and voices in the air were mostly drifting in from outside, muffled by piles of cushions on the floor and heavy drapes on the walls. A group of three were chatting quietly by a side table laden with snacks and polished glasses. A halfling was dropping off a refilled pitcher of water. An Avariel teenager – or twenty-something, always hard to tell with elves – was reading in an armchair big enough for her to sit sideways with her feet tucked up. Her only movement was to tuck hair that kept sliding forward back behind her long ear. None of them paid him any mind.   Good.   He got off the couch and walked to the door, easing it ajar again behind himself as he stepped into the hallway. Kept his pace on the faster end of normal, but relaxed enough to pass as simply purposeful. Took an exit into a huge ballroom; the intricate wood tiling shifted patterns to delineate a massive oval that took up most of the floor, and a band was playing from a dais on the long wall. Cri was dancing through the air with a gnome who floated on trail of glitter. She waved, and he pushed the vice grip on his focus back just enough to give a genuine smile as he waved back. He kept walking; if the windows were on his left before, then that door over there would lead outside. But then, no.   This was the ground floor. An external exit would lead into the gardens, which were lit with lanterns and as full of guests as any indoor space. Bad positioning.   The Imperative sounded again, and he fought the reflex to grab his head, to check his ears for blood. How was it possible no one else heard it? Again. Louder, insistent. Dread and the cold certainty of doom its icy echo.   I’m working on it, for fuck’s sake!   Thinking back at the noise did nothing to quiet it. Not for the first time he wondered if there was a way to make it understand that he could do this shit a lot faster if he could hear himself think.   His mental voice was swallowed by the Imperative, but he shaped it anyway, gripping white-knuckled to the intention of syllables.   Okay, upstairs, I’ve got to get upstairs.   He continued through the ballroom – it was less conspicuous than turning around. Found a hallway lined with snack tables and benches, alive with animated chatter of the adjoining rooms. The stairs leading to the second floor weren’t roped off, but did sport an absence of azure, a silent indication of a space discluded from festivity.   It’s fine, our rooms are that way, I can just say I’m getting something from there.   If I just had more time-   But complaining wouldn’t give him any, would only cost more. Horror surrounded the very idea of running out. It sped his steps. He felt his pulse shake his veins, hoped the cold sweat wasn’t enough to show though the fine fabric of this shirt. The imperative blared like a roaring siren. How long had the reroute taken? Was it too late?   The second floor hallway was empty, dim. He passed the guest rooms at a jog and found the second flight of stairs. It was new to his steps, but not to his mind. Third floor – high enough. Ran for the open door with the moonlight streaming through it, pulled up short on the wide balcony, scanning the sky.   Please please please.   It was a full moon. Enormous, glowing a soft yellow that didn’t dim the stars around it at all. Small shadows fluttered against it, a flight of some noctournal creatures. Faint, carefree strains of revelry floated up from below.   I made it.   He swallowed, and it did nothing to dislodge the lump in his throat or the lead in his stomach.   But hesitation wasn’t a luxury he could not afford.   No time. Get to work.   Distortion felt like a balm. Three floors up on a dark balcony, the risk of being seen was already minimal, but the extra layer of remove always felt worth the expenditure on errands like this.   He wasn’t sure whether the flying creatures were birds or bats, but either way, it wouldn’t take long. This high up, and with no apparent ground below, he wouldn’t even need to tangle with their instincts. Paralyzing their wings would be enough, or disabling their proprioception.   But he had to be fast. He kept his hands by his sides, focused, and reached out.   Olá, e desculpe.   The answering intelligence would have made him recoil, but the reverberating wall of the Imperative gave him nowhere to back up to. The bird wavered in the air, confused, the joyful revelry of flight, companionship, successful hunting paused, touched by uncertainty and the startling beginnings of problem-solving. Cold dread curled in his stomach, spreading hands to grip his spine.   NO TIME NO TIME I’M SORRY I’M SO SO SORRY   He scrambled for the marionette strings of sensation and intention, ripped them from the wings. Failed to retreat before the fear registered.   The next four weren’t any easier. Seeing the first fall into an uncontrolled dive sent them into a panic. It was loud in their heads, messy. The last one almost got out of range.   He collapsed to the floor as it fell, hurtling like a stone, too fast to track against the dark sky. The Imperative faded, but his head still shook with its echoes. He gripped distortion like a blanket. Pulled his knees to his chest. He felt sick.   What was that? A parrot? A hawk? It... It understood.   His stomach lurched. Squeezing his eyes shut, he reached for the threads of sensation running through his insides, started to comb them aside, and froze.   Distorting external perception was always just that, external. Bending the vectors away from the surface of self, leaving the sensations of blood in veins, air in lungs, the buzzing live-wire of nerves the only evidence of his presence. His skin was a border he’d never been able to reach through. At least, he thought it was. He was struggling to remember why.   Doesn’t matter. How do I...   The difference was stark. Interoception was no world of floating threads. It was coiled, bounded. Loops of wire fretted at multiple points, so taut they couldn’t be moved, only severed, or, maybe loosened?   Worth a try. Easy, now...   The tightness in his stomach faded. Became distant. Ignorable. Cautious, he moved upward. Hammering heart; softened, muffled. Clammy skin. Tight throat. Numbed. Sedated.   The risks were obvious, but it was hard to argue with separation so complete that he was only dimly aware of breathing.   I’ll tighten them back up. Later.   Absent sensation, he leaned against a door that still wouldn’t close, but whose oppositional force had abated, for the moment. The whispers were quiet again. But with all else pushed aside, harder to ignore.   He felt around; his head was loops on loops, a tangle of wires so thick it was almost solid. Which ones carried sound? They were so tight, so densely packed, was it even possible to tug on only one? Would it snap?   He ran a mental hand over the bundled tethers, toyed with their frets.   Would that be so bad?   The temptation had a familiar cadence that probably would have made his chest tighten if he could still feel it. Like a ghost not fully exorcised, still looking for easy exits in the shadows.   I should probably head back before I’m missed.   The relief he felt as he tuned the strings registered as looseness in his muscles, interrupted by a shuddering tensing against the cold. His clammy skin felt iced over.   Fuck, I’m freezing. How long was I sitting here?   He tried to push himself up and found his fingers still numb. Frowning, he reached for their tethers. Connected. Chafing them burned. Pins and needles.   He stood up and speed-dropped the rest of the spell as he stepped backward into the hallway. Forced stiff limbs toward the stairs. Erratic points of heat fired from his fingers and toes. The empty hallway felt loud. His heart and breath were audible, so was every step on the varnished floor.   He stopped at his room to splash his face. Stared into the mirror as the water dropped off his nose and down his temples.   Of course it’s not done. Why would it be?   How long do I have until the next one? Another week? A month? Hours?   There was, as far as his considerable effort could figure, no way to know. Neither the timing nor the purpose had never made sense, never bore explanation any more than the nameless breath-on-his-neck promise of devastation should he fail. Certain as gravity, and about as compromising. But he’d dared to hope, to justify, to excuse, that it wouldn’t ask for blood again.   And it hadn’t. For a long while, the Imperatives stayed weird but harmless, hurting nothing but trust he didn’t deserve anyway. Stack all the stones under the emberbrush in piles of five. Bury an empty potion vial shallowly in the riverbank across from the cattails. Pull all the weeds that grow around the exposed roots on the edge of this cliff.   Now it wanted five birds, flying before the full moon, dropped over the open air.   He swallowed. Are they still falling?   Insanity would have been kinder. But there had been no time. He couldn’t risk them making landfall.   The imperatives were always desperately urgent. There was never any time to plan, procrastinate, look for loopholes. Do it now, or face the End with a big “E.” The necessary details were rammed into his head like nails, and took root in memory as if he’d always known them.   He didn’t pretend to know the specifics of the disaster such failure would have brought, but the relief of avoiding it was pouring through him like a warm shower, washing all else away, easing the burning circulation from his fingertips, filtering tensions from his neck, his shoulders. It shivered over his skin like a lover’s caress. He shut his eyes. Let the whispering trails of fog play his senses like a harp, soothing guilt, fear, revulsion. Was there any point fighting it?   Done is done.   He grabbed one of the frankly silly number of folded towels from beside the washbasin and dragged it over his face. Studied the result. Pretty close to normal. Kind of wan, and those dark circles really weren’t going anywhere, were they. But relaxing his brow and jaw was getting easier, and he’d shaved that morning – or, well, late the previous night - making the gaps in stubble from the scars and lost genetic lotteries less noticeable than usual. Good enough.   He headed downstairs.