40 Days of Deliberation; Chzo Mythos fic, Trilby gen
Title: 40 Days of Deliberation
Author: ink_n_imp
Rating: PG
Fandom/Pairing(s): Chzo Mythos games; Trilby gen
Warnings: Horror, violence.
Disclaimer: Trilby belongs to Ben "Yatzee" Croshaw, creator of the Chzo Mythos games. This story takes place after the games 5 Days a Stranger and Trilby's Notes.
Summary: Old ghosts are one thing. Vengeful wraiths trapped in wooden idols that practically leak malevolent influence another. Finding out you AND that idol are the lynch pins in the master plan of crazed cult that worships a god of pain? Yea, that takes the cake.
Trilby, ex-cat burglar, survivor of the Defoe Manor and the Clanbronwyn Hotel, and agent of the Special Talent Program has some SERIOUS thinking to do…
A/N: This was a challenge every step of the way, so I want to thank the mod for this comm AND for the deadline extension! I bow before zekkass. Without her beta-ing and knowledge of all things Chzo Mythos, this wouldn't have gotten written. If this story interests you at all in the character of Trilby, or you just are curious about the original games, come and join Trilbys_notes !! You can find links to the free downloads of the four games there, as well as fanart, fanfic, icons etc etc.
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.'>
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.
from "Within You Without You", off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
====
I shall have to think about this.
--From the notes of STP agent Trilby, 29/7/97
At least this could be said.
He no longer really needed an alarm clock.
He fought the shadows and his sheets, trying to escape the danger that wasn't there, but that felt so NEAR. In his panic he couldn't control his breath--his lungs burned with need for the oxygen used up as he tried to flee his dreams. He struggled to hold his breath anyway, fighting through the pounding in his ears to listen for the predator that waited in the darkness.
Time froze; realigned itself as his eyes and ears finally assured him the shadows were only shadows; his dreams were still only dreams.
His heart calmed down, but his senses remained alert, certain his safety was false. He couldn't even bear to lay down again, to blink his eyes. When his adrenaline finally crashed, animal instincts ceding to rational thought, he looked towards the digital clock at his bedside.
3:29 A.M.
…Damn.
He fell back, head landing on his pillow. There was little hope for sleep now, but he might as well try.
Tonight he had dreamed of the Tall Man, of wanting to move but tied down by his own rivulets of blood. The wooden idol containing the soul of John Defoe was placed by his head; his skin burning--
"And that's when I woke up," Trilby whispered to the whiteness of his ceiling.
He was still on medical leave--the stitches were suppose to be removed soon, though there was still a while to go before the stab wound to his side healed completely.
The idol recovered from the Hotel, infused with the wretched soul of Defoe and the violence of Chzo was in the hands of the Department of Occultism. Agents had come to collect it a few days after Trilby returned to his flat. 'For your protection' they had explained as they carefully placed the idol in an iron box.
He was glad the idol was no longer on his desk, haunting him with it's malice; but with little else to do but wander around his apartment, run errands, and fail at sleeping, Trilby was left with nothing but his thoughts.
3:36 AM. He had tried sleeping during the day, thinking that daylight could keep the nightmares at bay--in fact, the light of day only made them realer, brought the Shadow Realm closer. Nightmares during the day were too much like being back in the Clanbronwyn Hotel, especially in the reddish glow of sunset. At least in the dark of night the nightmares could be banished back into the shadows…
3:41 A.M. He knows he's fighting a losing battle; it's rare, to find sleep again after waking up from one of his nightmares; the few times he has, he woke up some how feeling worse for wear. So, he admits defeat, getting out of bed to shuffle to his desk in the corner.
The desk light is harsh, and he has to fight the panic he feels in the circle of it's light--it doesn't light the whole room, but instead makes the shadows more substantial. He has to stare out into those shadows until he's accustomed enough to the light to assure himself there's still nothing there.
He's thirty-seven, and he hasn't been this terrified of the dark since he was out of nappies.
His notes from the case have likewise been confiscated by the department heads--he assumes they are 'classified' now, and he'll never see them again. Lucky him; he doesn't need a reminder.
When his life was more orderly, more gentlemanly, and more free with other's property, he had NEVER kept a journal. A thief, taking notes of his daily to-and-fros? Why, yes officer, I've all sorts of lovely evidence for you if you'll only come right this way!
He opened the book on his desk, and took up his pen. Date. And Time. And Place.
Writing was better than the alternative; an idle mind to dwell on all the horrors than dwelled within him now…
====
His reputation preceded him when he first went to work at the Special Talent Project. It's not a GOOD reputation by any means. Thief, for one (as if thief equated a lack of Honor). 'Thief' he can change, he already has. After he escaped Defoe Manor, he tried to carry on with his life--what a mistake that was. He became reckless, careless; rarely going on jobs, and making stupid mistakes when he did. It finally caught up to him after two years. So worried about murderous ghosts he forgot about the police.
He ended up in a cell for his troubles--the media had a field day for that, you'd think Christmas had come early. If the Department of Occultism hadn't come calling, he'd still be in jail now. Honestly, at that point he'd sunk far enough--how much farther could being obliged to the government sink him?
Eccentric. Ah, that was another whisper. His superiors had been…displeased by his insistence to continue wearing his impeccable and yet rather easily identifiable 3-piece suits and name-sake hat.
When he had first become a thief, he reasoned his dress was peculiar for a thief--hence, without the hat and the clothes, he would be unrecognizable. It was a simple enough of a misdirection that had saved him time and time again, and that was how he explained it to his superiors. After a few terse moments, they conceded that he may have a point.
--And yet when his undercover cases were assigned, he couldn't bear to take the trilby off his head.
Oh, he still used charm and wit to misdirect--only now, they were his only disguises. He supposes that's one of the reason Siobhan recognized him so quickly at the hotel. If the world hadn't turned upside down, the mission could have been ruined.
But Murderer. Murderer is the whisper that strikes him to his core like a knife every time. He can't shake the feeling that he's marked now for all too see. He was a thief, but he was careful; there was never risk of confrontation, never risk of someone else getting hurt. He had always found the thought of violence distasteful. Some times, when he really hasn't gotten any sleep and he's had far too much time to think, he can swear the other agents at the STP can see the blood on his hands, can see something darker lying beneath his skin.
He can only remember what happened through his nightmares, but James and Simone had witnessed him standing over the dead body of Phil, blade in hand. 'A ghost made me do it!' isn't a terribly good defense. Then again, Trilby doesn't know if he wants the excuse. Maybe if he had been stronger, maybe he could have stopped himself; maybe it was his fault, maybe within himself there was a monster capable of killing--
He is terrified of how easy it was to become possessed by John Defoe. He wonders if it could happen again to him. Some days he wakes up afraid he'll find himself covered in blood that's not his.
He's afraid of what he might do when he can't even trust his senses.
At the hotel, as he slipped into the Shadow Realm, he found himself facing the Tall Man. He had tried to run, but had tripped. The Tall Man had drawn nearer, had kneeled and reached for him. Animal instinct finally took over, and Trilby kicked him away with all his might.
He blinked to find Siobhan at his feet, out cold.
He shudders to think what if he had had a weapon.
Murderer.
====
The scope of what he's gotten involved in overwhelms him. When he broke into the Defoe Manor years ago, he thought he was looting a dead man's house and ended up haunted by another wraith entirely. In the five days he was trapped in that house--that HELL--he dreamt of murdering the others in the house; he soon found himself with blood on his hands. He went to the Clanbronwyn Hotel to hunt down the idol, to destroy it, to tie up loose ends. He died only to come back to find there was a bigger picture.
He may have been on hospital leave, but a stab wound doesn't impede one's ability to make a few calls to those in the STP that were good for a favor. He may be trapped in his flat, both by his injury and by the department's investigation, but he makes the research come to him as he dredges through what he remembers of the notes he took during and after the Hotel incident, the strange religious tracts he found, and the names and dates he discovered that stretched far back through history.
He followed the best lead he got in the lot, the name of the man who started the Order of the Blessed Agonies, the cult Lenkmann spoke of. Trilby didn't find much. But what he did find--
The Prophecy. He damn well doesn't want to know how the STP got their hands on it. But he reads it over and over again, and the feeling he has is unfathomable. It would sound like rubbish to anyone else, but he had lived it. He could name each person alluded too: the 'Spying Thief'…AJ, the first to die…the 'Covetous Thief'…Phil, the tomb robber he had snubbed AND killed…the 'Thief-Wife'…Simone, killed by the Tall Man, he was certain of it…the 'Thief-Son'…James, still alive, but hardly escaped…and the 'Cunning Thief'.
…he certainly didn't feel Cunning.
Everything Lenkmann had said to him as he laid on the tree stump dying fell into their place. And suddenly the events of the Defoe Manor aren't just the cosmic shockwaves of a terrible family secret. He, Simone, James, AJ, Phil…even John Defoe, the deformed, murdered son that brings death where ever his trapped soul is.
All pawns of the Tall Man, of Cabathdath, the man that first summoned Chzo and started this all.
Who in turn is slave to Chzo--the very being of Pain.
====
In his dreams he's back in the hotel; back in the fetid, rotting cellar, splayed on the tree stump. His hands and legs are cold, his face is tingling. He feels light; makes sense considering how much blood he's lost. He tried to reason with Lenkmann, tried to convince him not to do it, not to summon that Monster. But he can no longer find the strength to speak, and Lenkmann only continues his incantations.
Reality frantically shifts back and forth, as if breathing in and out. Trilby tries to take in a deep breath, but it rattles in his throat. He can hear Siobhan in the corner, struggling, sobbing, but he's drifting away.
…this was certainly not how he imagined himself dying.
====
"Ah, Mr. Trilby. How are you feeling today?"
Damn. He thought he had gotten out of the medical check up scotch free. He's really let himself slid if he's getting caught by the department psychiatrist.
"Just Trilby will do, Dr. Patel," he says as he buttons his vest and picks up his hat. The stitches have been removed, but the wound is still healing, still reminding him with every movement of what happened. At least the scar will be impressive. "I'm fine, thank you," he says, hoping that will be that.
Dr. Patel makes a noncommittal noise, and glances at Trilby over the frames of his glasses. "I've been meaning to speak to you, but it's been very difficult to get in touch with you. It seems you don't have a voice machine," he says, and there's a bit of good-natured disapproval in his voice.
"Anyone who might need me knows where to find me," Trilby explains. "But if you'll excuse me--"
"I'm afraid you can't return to work until you've had a psych evaluation," Dr. Patel interrupts, dropping the 600-pound gorilla in the room right on Trilby's lap. "And by the way you've been avoiding my calls I'm going to assume you knew about that."
Trilby adjusts his tie. "Well, I'm sure you're very busy right now, we'll have to--"
"Oh, I'm free actually. Quite free. All afternoon. And until I clear you, so are you."
"You aren't tiptoeing around this, are you Doctor?" Trilby asks with a weary grin.
"That would be an insult to your intelligence and experiences," Patel quips. "Please, follow me, my office is right down the hall."
This is the wrong battle to fight, so Trilby follows him, and takes a seat across from Patel once inside his office. "Your case didn't go well," Dr. Patel begins, soft and calm. "You've been isolating yourself since you've returned, researching on your own time--"
"That doesn't mean anything besides I'm trying to do my job," Trilby cuts in. "I'm fine."
"Trilby; you are a very good liar, but a liar nevertheless," Dr. Patel smiles as he sat back in his chair.
Trilby falls silent. In a way he's exhausted of this. It's just too damn big for him.
"I still don't know what to do about the idol," he begins. A few hours later, while Dr. Patel has offered him a generous tea break, he breaks out into hysterical laughter as he's filling up his mug in the break room. Someone forgot to turn the TV off and a news broadcast has given him his solution
====
"We send it up into space. There's going to be a probe launch in three days, we do it then."
"…A bit rash, don't you think, Trilby?" his superior finally says, abandoning his paper work as he looks at Trilby, who had stormed quite unceremoniously into his office.
"You know it needs to be done, sir, and the sooner the better. It's the only way to truly keep it out of the hands of the Order, and of anyone else it might harm."
His superior sighs, and leans forward. "Trilby, the LOOPS the department would have to leap through to get it on that flight--"
"It's a Pandora's Box. We have to get it out of here, far away from anyone that might open it. Oh, WE know not to open it, you and I and anyone else working in this place knows not to, we all KNOW what happened in Defoe Manor, and the Hotel. But you'll retire. People will pass on. New generation will come in. Several generations will come in. And suddenly, no one remembers why there's a big 'DON'T OPEN!' sign on the box."
Trilby takes the chance to breath, and pushes on. "We can't destroy it. We can't insure it will stay hidden. We have to get it as far away from other living beings as we can. Admit it; it's the perfect solution, sir. The only one."
Trilby was expecting far more resistance. But there's one good thing that could be said about the STP--nothing was taken as a laughing matter.
His superior pursed his lips in thought, and picked up the phone. "I'll see what I can do, Trilby," he said, and dismissed Trilby with a wave of his hand as he told his secretary to dial up the Director of the Department of Occultism.
====
The launch was a success--released from the probe weeks after it left Earth's orbit, there is little danger of the idol falling back to Earth. It's floating out there somewhere, and thank god for the vastness of space; it'll never been seen again.
My job's not over. There's still that bigger picture, after all. The Order of Blessed Agonies is still out there, and though the idol's power as a bridge between our world and the realm of Chzo is no longer within their grasp, I can't risk the assumption that the disappearance of the idol will stop them. They worship Pain, they follow the Tall Man, they will search for another way.
They need to be stopped; and while the thought of playing the hero is enticing, I don't FEEL like a hero.
I don't know if I am able to do it, but I know I have too. I can't do it alone. But I can't bring others into this, I can't live with the thought that someone else might come know the torment I feel. But this is a story thousands of years in the making, and I'm only one man.
I wish this could be it. I wish disposing of the idol was enough.
But then there is a nagging sensation in my gut that this is only the beginning…
Here lies John Defoe,
Finally at rest.
Do not disturb his sleep.
11/9/1997
Author: ink_n_imp
Rating: PG
Fandom/Pairing(s): Chzo Mythos games; Trilby gen
Warnings: Horror, violence.
Disclaimer: Trilby belongs to Ben "Yatzee" Croshaw, creator of the Chzo Mythos games. This story takes place after the games 5 Days a Stranger and Trilby's Notes.
Summary: Old ghosts are one thing. Vengeful wraiths trapped in wooden idols that practically leak malevolent influence another. Finding out you AND that idol are the lynch pins in the master plan of crazed cult that worships a god of pain? Yea, that takes the cake.
Trilby, ex-cat burglar, survivor of the Defoe Manor and the Clanbronwyn Hotel, and agent of the Special Talent Program has some SERIOUS thinking to do…
A/N: This was a challenge every step of the way, so I want to thank the mod for this comm AND for the deadline extension! I bow before zekkass. Without her beta-ing and knowledge of all things Chzo Mythos, this wouldn't have gotten written. If this story interests you at all in the character of Trilby, or you just are curious about the original games, come and join Trilbys_notes !! You can find links to the free downloads of the four games there, as well as fanart, fanfic, icons etc etc.
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.'>
Try to realize it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows on within you and without you.
from "Within You Without You", off Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
====
I shall have to think about this.
--From the notes of STP agent Trilby, 29/7/97
At least this could be said.
He no longer really needed an alarm clock.
He fought the shadows and his sheets, trying to escape the danger that wasn't there, but that felt so NEAR. In his panic he couldn't control his breath--his lungs burned with need for the oxygen used up as he tried to flee his dreams. He struggled to hold his breath anyway, fighting through the pounding in his ears to listen for the predator that waited in the darkness.
Time froze; realigned itself as his eyes and ears finally assured him the shadows were only shadows; his dreams were still only dreams.
His heart calmed down, but his senses remained alert, certain his safety was false. He couldn't even bear to lay down again, to blink his eyes. When his adrenaline finally crashed, animal instincts ceding to rational thought, he looked towards the digital clock at his bedside.
3:29 A.M.
…Damn.
He fell back, head landing on his pillow. There was little hope for sleep now, but he might as well try.
Tonight he had dreamed of the Tall Man, of wanting to move but tied down by his own rivulets of blood. The wooden idol containing the soul of John Defoe was placed by his head; his skin burning--
"And that's when I woke up," Trilby whispered to the whiteness of his ceiling.
He was still on medical leave--the stitches were suppose to be removed soon, though there was still a while to go before the stab wound to his side healed completely.
The idol recovered from the Hotel, infused with the wretched soul of Defoe and the violence of Chzo was in the hands of the Department of Occultism. Agents had come to collect it a few days after Trilby returned to his flat. 'For your protection' they had explained as they carefully placed the idol in an iron box.
He was glad the idol was no longer on his desk, haunting him with it's malice; but with little else to do but wander around his apartment, run errands, and fail at sleeping, Trilby was left with nothing but his thoughts.
3:36 AM. He had tried sleeping during the day, thinking that daylight could keep the nightmares at bay--in fact, the light of day only made them realer, brought the Shadow Realm closer. Nightmares during the day were too much like being back in the Clanbronwyn Hotel, especially in the reddish glow of sunset. At least in the dark of night the nightmares could be banished back into the shadows…
3:41 A.M. He knows he's fighting a losing battle; it's rare, to find sleep again after waking up from one of his nightmares; the few times he has, he woke up some how feeling worse for wear. So, he admits defeat, getting out of bed to shuffle to his desk in the corner.
The desk light is harsh, and he has to fight the panic he feels in the circle of it's light--it doesn't light the whole room, but instead makes the shadows more substantial. He has to stare out into those shadows until he's accustomed enough to the light to assure himself there's still nothing there.
He's thirty-seven, and he hasn't been this terrified of the dark since he was out of nappies.
His notes from the case have likewise been confiscated by the department heads--he assumes they are 'classified' now, and he'll never see them again. Lucky him; he doesn't need a reminder.
When his life was more orderly, more gentlemanly, and more free with other's property, he had NEVER kept a journal. A thief, taking notes of his daily to-and-fros? Why, yes officer, I've all sorts of lovely evidence for you if you'll only come right this way!
He opened the book on his desk, and took up his pen. Date. And Time. And Place.
Writing was better than the alternative; an idle mind to dwell on all the horrors than dwelled within him now…
====
His reputation preceded him when he first went to work at the Special Talent Project. It's not a GOOD reputation by any means. Thief, for one (as if thief equated a lack of Honor). 'Thief' he can change, he already has. After he escaped Defoe Manor, he tried to carry on with his life--what a mistake that was. He became reckless, careless; rarely going on jobs, and making stupid mistakes when he did. It finally caught up to him after two years. So worried about murderous ghosts he forgot about the police.
He ended up in a cell for his troubles--the media had a field day for that, you'd think Christmas had come early. If the Department of Occultism hadn't come calling, he'd still be in jail now. Honestly, at that point he'd sunk far enough--how much farther could being obliged to the government sink him?
Eccentric. Ah, that was another whisper. His superiors had been…displeased by his insistence to continue wearing his impeccable and yet rather easily identifiable 3-piece suits and name-sake hat.
When he had first become a thief, he reasoned his dress was peculiar for a thief--hence, without the hat and the clothes, he would be unrecognizable. It was a simple enough of a misdirection that had saved him time and time again, and that was how he explained it to his superiors. After a few terse moments, they conceded that he may have a point.
--And yet when his undercover cases were assigned, he couldn't bear to take the trilby off his head.
Oh, he still used charm and wit to misdirect--only now, they were his only disguises. He supposes that's one of the reason Siobhan recognized him so quickly at the hotel. If the world hadn't turned upside down, the mission could have been ruined.
But Murderer. Murderer is the whisper that strikes him to his core like a knife every time. He can't shake the feeling that he's marked now for all too see. He was a thief, but he was careful; there was never risk of confrontation, never risk of someone else getting hurt. He had always found the thought of violence distasteful. Some times, when he really hasn't gotten any sleep and he's had far too much time to think, he can swear the other agents at the STP can see the blood on his hands, can see something darker lying beneath his skin.
He can only remember what happened through his nightmares, but James and Simone had witnessed him standing over the dead body of Phil, blade in hand. 'A ghost made me do it!' isn't a terribly good defense. Then again, Trilby doesn't know if he wants the excuse. Maybe if he had been stronger, maybe he could have stopped himself; maybe it was his fault, maybe within himself there was a monster capable of killing--
He is terrified of how easy it was to become possessed by John Defoe. He wonders if it could happen again to him. Some days he wakes up afraid he'll find himself covered in blood that's not his.
He's afraid of what he might do when he can't even trust his senses.
At the hotel, as he slipped into the Shadow Realm, he found himself facing the Tall Man. He had tried to run, but had tripped. The Tall Man had drawn nearer, had kneeled and reached for him. Animal instinct finally took over, and Trilby kicked him away with all his might.
He blinked to find Siobhan at his feet, out cold.
He shudders to think what if he had had a weapon.
Murderer.
====
The scope of what he's gotten involved in overwhelms him. When he broke into the Defoe Manor years ago, he thought he was looting a dead man's house and ended up haunted by another wraith entirely. In the five days he was trapped in that house--that HELL--he dreamt of murdering the others in the house; he soon found himself with blood on his hands. He went to the Clanbronwyn Hotel to hunt down the idol, to destroy it, to tie up loose ends. He died only to come back to find there was a bigger picture.
He may have been on hospital leave, but a stab wound doesn't impede one's ability to make a few calls to those in the STP that were good for a favor. He may be trapped in his flat, both by his injury and by the department's investigation, but he makes the research come to him as he dredges through what he remembers of the notes he took during and after the Hotel incident, the strange religious tracts he found, and the names and dates he discovered that stretched far back through history.
He followed the best lead he got in the lot, the name of the man who started the Order of the Blessed Agonies, the cult Lenkmann spoke of. Trilby didn't find much. But what he did find--
The Prophecy. He damn well doesn't want to know how the STP got their hands on it. But he reads it over and over again, and the feeling he has is unfathomable. It would sound like rubbish to anyone else, but he had lived it. He could name each person alluded too: the 'Spying Thief'…AJ, the first to die…the 'Covetous Thief'…Phil, the tomb robber he had snubbed AND killed…the 'Thief-Wife'…Simone, killed by the Tall Man, he was certain of it…the 'Thief-Son'…James, still alive, but hardly escaped…and the 'Cunning Thief'.
…he certainly didn't feel Cunning.
Everything Lenkmann had said to him as he laid on the tree stump dying fell into their place. And suddenly the events of the Defoe Manor aren't just the cosmic shockwaves of a terrible family secret. He, Simone, James, AJ, Phil…even John Defoe, the deformed, murdered son that brings death where ever his trapped soul is.
All pawns of the Tall Man, of Cabathdath, the man that first summoned Chzo and started this all.
Who in turn is slave to Chzo--the very being of Pain.
====
In his dreams he's back in the hotel; back in the fetid, rotting cellar, splayed on the tree stump. His hands and legs are cold, his face is tingling. He feels light; makes sense considering how much blood he's lost. He tried to reason with Lenkmann, tried to convince him not to do it, not to summon that Monster. But he can no longer find the strength to speak, and Lenkmann only continues his incantations.
Reality frantically shifts back and forth, as if breathing in and out. Trilby tries to take in a deep breath, but it rattles in his throat. He can hear Siobhan in the corner, struggling, sobbing, but he's drifting away.
…this was certainly not how he imagined himself dying.
====
"Ah, Mr. Trilby. How are you feeling today?"
Damn. He thought he had gotten out of the medical check up scotch free. He's really let himself slid if he's getting caught by the department psychiatrist.
"Just Trilby will do, Dr. Patel," he says as he buttons his vest and picks up his hat. The stitches have been removed, but the wound is still healing, still reminding him with every movement of what happened. At least the scar will be impressive. "I'm fine, thank you," he says, hoping that will be that.
Dr. Patel makes a noncommittal noise, and glances at Trilby over the frames of his glasses. "I've been meaning to speak to you, but it's been very difficult to get in touch with you. It seems you don't have a voice machine," he says, and there's a bit of good-natured disapproval in his voice.
"Anyone who might need me knows where to find me," Trilby explains. "But if you'll excuse me--"
"I'm afraid you can't return to work until you've had a psych evaluation," Dr. Patel interrupts, dropping the 600-pound gorilla in the room right on Trilby's lap. "And by the way you've been avoiding my calls I'm going to assume you knew about that."
Trilby adjusts his tie. "Well, I'm sure you're very busy right now, we'll have to--"
"Oh, I'm free actually. Quite free. All afternoon. And until I clear you, so are you."
"You aren't tiptoeing around this, are you Doctor?" Trilby asks with a weary grin.
"That would be an insult to your intelligence and experiences," Patel quips. "Please, follow me, my office is right down the hall."
This is the wrong battle to fight, so Trilby follows him, and takes a seat across from Patel once inside his office. "Your case didn't go well," Dr. Patel begins, soft and calm. "You've been isolating yourself since you've returned, researching on your own time--"
"That doesn't mean anything besides I'm trying to do my job," Trilby cuts in. "I'm fine."
"Trilby; you are a very good liar, but a liar nevertheless," Dr. Patel smiles as he sat back in his chair.
Trilby falls silent. In a way he's exhausted of this. It's just too damn big for him.
"I still don't know what to do about the idol," he begins. A few hours later, while Dr. Patel has offered him a generous tea break, he breaks out into hysterical laughter as he's filling up his mug in the break room. Someone forgot to turn the TV off and a news broadcast has given him his solution
====
"We send it up into space. There's going to be a probe launch in three days, we do it then."
"…A bit rash, don't you think, Trilby?" his superior finally says, abandoning his paper work as he looks at Trilby, who had stormed quite unceremoniously into his office.
"You know it needs to be done, sir, and the sooner the better. It's the only way to truly keep it out of the hands of the Order, and of anyone else it might harm."
His superior sighs, and leans forward. "Trilby, the LOOPS the department would have to leap through to get it on that flight--"
"It's a Pandora's Box. We have to get it out of here, far away from anyone that might open it. Oh, WE know not to open it, you and I and anyone else working in this place knows not to, we all KNOW what happened in Defoe Manor, and the Hotel. But you'll retire. People will pass on. New generation will come in. Several generations will come in. And suddenly, no one remembers why there's a big 'DON'T OPEN!' sign on the box."
Trilby takes the chance to breath, and pushes on. "We can't destroy it. We can't insure it will stay hidden. We have to get it as far away from other living beings as we can. Admit it; it's the perfect solution, sir. The only one."
Trilby was expecting far more resistance. But there's one good thing that could be said about the STP--nothing was taken as a laughing matter.
His superior pursed his lips in thought, and picked up the phone. "I'll see what I can do, Trilby," he said, and dismissed Trilby with a wave of his hand as he told his secretary to dial up the Director of the Department of Occultism.
====
The launch was a success--released from the probe weeks after it left Earth's orbit, there is little danger of the idol falling back to Earth. It's floating out there somewhere, and thank god for the vastness of space; it'll never been seen again.
My job's not over. There's still that bigger picture, after all. The Order of Blessed Agonies is still out there, and though the idol's power as a bridge between our world and the realm of Chzo is no longer within their grasp, I can't risk the assumption that the disappearance of the idol will stop them. They worship Pain, they follow the Tall Man, they will search for another way.
They need to be stopped; and while the thought of playing the hero is enticing, I don't FEEL like a hero.
I don't know if I am able to do it, but I know I have too. I can't do it alone. But I can't bring others into this, I can't live with the thought that someone else might come know the torment I feel. But this is a story thousands of years in the making, and I'm only one man.
I wish this could be it. I wish disposing of the idol was enough.
But then there is a nagging sensation in my gut that this is only the beginning…
Here lies John Defoe,
Finally at rest.
Do not disturb his sleep.
11/9/1997