CHAPTER ONE
     consequences

⠀Will struggled against what he did not know. The bite, latching onto his hand. The darkness in front of his eyes. Everything weighing him down. Pressed up against a hard surface, he tried his best to open his eyes.

⠀There was dark cloud hanging over him, peeking into his eyes and masking was he could see. It was too dark. It was too dark for him.

⠀So he tried to tune his ears to his surroundings, trying to find some sense of direction, at least.

⠀There was a constant tick filling the space, it echoed off each wall, emanating from his wrist. He curled his fingers, gradually getting back feeling in his body. The watch was cold against his veins.

⠀And it pained him. Will opened his eyes, pushing past the fog. And it hurt.

⠀He turned his head towards the pain, and he cried out at the sight of a steel nail, pressing firmly into his palm ― sticking through the flesh and bone, to come out the other side and pin his joint to the wood behind him.

⠀He struggled against it, only earning a trail of blood starting at the base of the wound, to flow even faster.

⠀He tried to remember how he had gotten here. What was this room? Who was here? What was going to happen?

⠀But the pain in his hand was distracting, as each tiny movement earned a groan from his mouth, gritting his teeth together. A pattern of painful shocks ran up his arm, and he wondered how something so small could hurt so much.

⠀He remembered... remembered them. The group. The one he had been graciously let into. He remembered what had happened - and now, it was okay. It had been calm.

⠀Yet full of tension, an everlasting aura of dismal reality had always hanged over everything. It changed the way they saw the world now, and he remembered Harvey had named it.

⠀Harvey had called it "the now". "The now" was a shadow that overcast whatever hope they had, so it goes.

⠀Will struggled more, he pulled his hand no matter how much he screamed, it was still stuck in place. The sticky substance was not only covering his left appendages, but he felt it layer his forehead, dripping down the bridge of his nose.

⠀All he could do was panic and squirm, like a mealy worm on the end of a hook. Bait to anything that entered.

⠀Only when he felt a stressful tear travel down to his open mouth, did tell door on the far end of the room open.

⠀He jolted, raising his free hand to shield all he had. But when he saw who if was, he merely let his shoulders slump in hope of being saved.

⠀"Hey-wha-I don't know!" His voice was hoarse and tired, higher than usual. "You need to get me out!" He banged his head against the wall, letting his own crumble.

⠀But she didn't run to his aid, and he watched as her boots deftly strode against the floor in calm, collected steps. She swayed her hips, and the cold look on her face made Will go quiet.

⠀But he didn't avail, instead crying out more. "You need to―... help!" He winced loudly, taking his bottom lip between his teeth and trying to aid himself despite his predicament.

⠀The room was long, and dark. She seemed to emerge from the shadows like a crawling shadow herself.

⠀The only sound was her footsteps, and the small sloshing that came from the faded red canister she held between her fingers.

⠀Last time he saw her... he saw her last. She was his last memory ― and he remembered it was night. His mind was on all fours trying to recollect.

⠀What little light he saw, came from a lantern placed not too far from him. It bounced off her cheekbones, as she raised her jaw and used her eyes to access every movement he made.

⠀And so he fell silent, feeling each beat of his heart like a punch to the chest.

⠀Will watched silently, keeping absolutely still, as he she seemed to suck her teeth and blink slowly. It was like she was waiting for him to do something. Maybe she was waiting for him to break free; maybe she was testing him.

⠀For such a small person, her presence seemed to take up the entire room. Sucking up all the oxygen, luring you with her stormy green eyes. They drew you in, and no matter how terrifying she looked right now, Will did not have the heart to turn away.

⠀He swallowed heavily, and jumped in his own skin when she dropped the canister to the hardwood floor.

⠀Her first words were told in a whisper. "Do you remember?"

⠀He was confused as to what she was talking about. She was always a mystery. This girl spoke in riddles and ambiguous messages. She was a door locked from the inside.

⠀The girl standing above him, tilted her head. It was that calm stare that struck through him.

⠀She repeated. "Do you remember?" Her soft hair fell into her eyes, and she bent her knees and lowered to the ground. She shuffled forward, and closer, leaning into Will's fear stricken face.

⠀She was as, if not even more, terrifying to him as the things she feared.

⠀"Marley?" He almost begged, saying her name finally, but she didn't seem to care. Her expression was sociopathic, and he could not read what she was thinking or what she would possibly do.

⠀"Will... Day," she threw back, slowly nodding. "William Andrew Day." And she showed her teeth, almost a harlequin grin painting her features, fluttering her eyelashes. Marley leaned back as she stood once more, arching her back and making each feature she held more ample.

⠀She turned on her heel, swirling on the spot to face away from the man still struggling against the wall.

⠀"Their names were Violet and Neil," she cast her eyes over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. Suddenly she was not smiling. It made Will shrink into himself. "Do you suddenly remember?"

⠀"Can you suddenly see?" He watched her fists curl and uncurl, shaking wildly at her side. He could read now, how much she just wanted to scream.

⠀"You should never have told Harvey," Marley went to step, but stopped herself as she stayed glued to the spot. "Because Harvey told me what you did." And then she couldn't hold it in her, the capacity to have mercy was not something she was gifted with.

⠀She dived down towards him, taking his glistening face in her hands and squeezing his cheeks between her hands. "Do you know what you did?" She whispered. "Do you remember what happened? What you did to me? Huh?"

⠀Marley spoke from behind bared teeth, diction blurred from her sheer ferocity. "You left them there to die, and it killed me too. Why?"

⠀She titled her head at him, question fresh in his mind as he had no words to answer. No single syllable hanged from his tongue, and he felt if he needed to survive, he would need an answer somehow.

⠀And then it came to him, right now, he was surviving. Marley was no longer just another person in his group, she was the other side ― she was the antagonist right now.

⠀Marley dropped her hands and lay them on her knees. "Do you even feel guilty?" The volume of her voice was small but intimidating, as her stare never faulted from his own. Their eyes were level with each others.

⠀"I wish you weren't alone," she started, taking her time to pronounce each syllable correctly. "I wish you had someone you cared about. Someone to hurt. Because then I could hurt you more; but I have to make do."

⠀"Would anyone care, you think? Would anyone actually care if you died? Me, I think people would be sad for a day or two, a little solemn. But they'd move on. You'd just be a day. People wouldn't even remember the next year of what happened to you, let alone a month. You'd just be a tiny blip. I wish you were loved, dearly. Then maybe I could see from afar the grief you put me through. The things you caused, by being a little sad, and a little drunk. To the point where your father was charged with manslaughter, only because you were using daddy's car. I remember all those things. I remember what happened after. So let me ask you again ― would anyone care if you died?"

⠀Marley stood up, dropping one shoulder to give an almost relaxed stance despite the subject at hand. "Nobody would care. Because you don't love anyone... and nobody loves you." She ended it with a wicked smile ― turning at the edges into a frustrated scowl ― circling around once more to look at the ten pins decorating the end of the runway. "It would be nice to know if anyone values life anymore."

⠀Will was still struggling, pulling endlessly on the wound as her back was turned. He could feel the nail hanging onto his flesh, and the need to live was so dire, he didn't even care that she could probably hear him.

⠀He cried once more, flicking the hair from his eyes as he sweated. The drips lining the back of his neck, going down his shirt and filling his body with a rush of adrenalin.

⠀And he pulled once more, his hand ripping a hole in itself, as the nail stayed in place but his hand was set free.

⠀He took a moment to breathe, finding silence and confusion when Marley did not turn around. He hoped she must not have noticed.

⠀He rose to his feet, looking around frantically, and he spotted the door she had come through.

⠀But she turned, tuning into his sounds and opening her eyes wide as this man who ruined her life was getting away.

⠀Her feet were fast, and her body agile, as she chased him like a rabid dog. "These are the consequences, Will!"

⠀Will clutched his injured hand to his chest as he ran with all his might, but was stopped by a force that almost threw him to the wall.

⠀His cheek smacked against it, and he felt those hands come to his shoulders again, only this time throwing him to the floor. He was a rag doll beneath her grip, despite their major height difference.

⠀But nobody was prepared for Marley's anger.

⠀"It's you're fault!" She stepped after him, and he crawled along the floor. "This is your fault!"

⠀He reached up to a table, gripping the edge and finding some balance. But Marley found him first, and she found something blunt too. Taking it to his head with so much force, his legs could not carry him far. They toppled beneath his own body.

⠀Will fell face first to the ground, a pile of flesh and bones. And Marley still had grip on that blunt object.

⠀She took the bowling pin up into the air, legs steady, and threw it down like a hammer. It crushed his skull, and with each hit after the other, Will slowly died as his head caved in.

⠀Red substance sprayed her face, but she kept going as she screamed all the way down to hell as she rightfully killed the man who took her life away.

⠀He was the first chapter in her story, and she was tearing it to pieces using brutality and violence.

⠀Moments like these, she was reminded why she was scared of herself. And all she could hear was his head, slowly decimating, and her shallow breaths after each hit.

⠀It felt good to get rid of him. She was a person who got rid of unsightly people, the ones who ruined people's lives. The ones who thought they could get away with things.

⠀She hit, and threw, and forced the bowling pin into the wound.

⠀Then she stopped, staring at the pieces she left. She blew out a puff of air, pushing the hair away from her eyes.

⠀The pin dropped to the floor amongst the mess, and she almost toppled on her legs. Almost all the energy she had in her body had left but she managed to stand before him, swaying backwards.

⠀She let her neck strain as she tilted her head up to the ceiling, tucking a lock behind her ear.

⠀The way she breathed in that moment was steady, and calm, as if she hadn't just destroyed someone. As if there was no blood on her face.

⠀As if none of that ever happened.

━━━━━━━━━━

▬▬▬▬▬▬
note ⛈

this is actually a flash forward and the next chapter will take place before the events of this chapter.

did you really think it would end?

and no, I didn't feel guilty and brought her back somehow. atonement was always going to happen - i just wanted to put you through her dying

because i'm evil

(that awkward moment when Marley has killed the most people at this time in the show)

edited ✓

━━━━━━━━━━