Whisperwind's Comb

[Hap]

Somehow Ridley's low estimation of Mike hadn't been anywhere near low enough. It was almost impressive, honestly. Also probably solid evidence that Mike was only responding to what Ridley said and did in the loosest possible terms, because no-one who talked like that would look at a hairy fat guy with painted nails and an obvious predilection for pink and react with anything but disdain.

That was... probably good? At least, it meant there were probably limited ways Ridley could screw this up, as long as he resisted the urge to call Mike an asshole and throw his drink at him for a second time.

More to the point: Hey, Andre, what the fuck? Ridley felt he could be forgiven for the minimal attention he'd paid to Mike until now, given that he was preoccupied with the dungeon situation, but Andre had presumably spent enough time talking with the guy to be willing to invite him back to his flat. And no matter how indifferent Ridley's responses had been, whatever Andre had said in this situation must have been at least somewhat approving for Mike to feel comfortable talking so openly about domestic violence.

It didn't fit with the guy Ridley knew at all.

How old was Andre? Around Ridley's age, he thought, but he couldn't remember if he'd ever actually asked. Mike had called this Wyndon, but Ridley remembered Andre saying he lived in Kanto. Maybe this was a memory from a few years ago? People could change over time.

But change that much?

Or maybe he'd been mistaken in assuming this was Andre's memory to begin with.

"Yeah, well, women be crazy," Ridley said. He hopped to his feet. "Man, think I'll have a beer after all, you know?"

It was a thin excuse to move around the flat a little. If he could find a letter, a bill, anything with a name on it...

He'd just have to hope the dungeon didn't reset him again the second he moved away. Ridley was trying to co-operate; he just wanted to check this one thing.

 

[canisaries]

"Go right ahead," Mike said. He took another sip of his beer.

As Ridley looked around, he would find a stack of letters on a drawer next to the front door. Reading the text on the envelopes would confirm that this was the apartment of one Andre Duval.

"Well, I gotta take a leak," Mike said, getting up. He stepped away, behind a corner and out of view, and there was a sound of a door opening and closing. A lock clacked, too.

And the moment it did, the third drawer on the right under the kitchen counter gained color. It was a deep brown, and its handle looked like brass.

 

[Hap]

So this was Andre's memory, then. That would have been a neat explanation for everything which didn't add up about it, but on the plus side at least Ridley didn't have to deal with a third party gatecrashing the dungeon.

And Andre had been waiting for Mike to leave so he could do... what, exactly?

(Ugh, how much did Ridley want to bet that Mile wasn't going to wash his hands after he pissed?)

Ridley grabbed the drawer handle, at the last moment checking his instinct to yank it open. Instead he pulled smooth and steady. Silent.

 

[canisaries]

At first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary - just some kitchen utensils, all of them colorless. At the very back of the drawer, however, were three transparent ziplock bags with a small amount of fine, white powder inside each. There was a stripe along each lock - gray for two of them further back, and green for the one in front. It seemed like the bag with the green stripe also reflected slightly yellow light. It was, then, in color, while the others were not.

 

[Hap]

Ridley stared at the bags for a moment.

There were several possibilities he could see here, and he didn't particularly like any of them. This dungeon was already fucking with his head; he didn't need to add altered states of consciousness on top of that.

"I don't know what you expect me to do with this," he said out loud. "If I'm meant to be giving Andre a Very Special Episode talk about his drug use and relationship towards casual sex, then I think you picked the wrong guy for that. But okay, fine, I get it. Can I go now?"

 

[canisaries]

Tink, tink, tink.

A sound like a fingernail tapping on glass came from behind. Were Ridley to look, he would see that Mike's glass of beer was now in color.

 

[Hap]

Oh.

Understanding clicked into place.

Oh, what the fuck. What the fuck

Ridley didn't want to do that either.

Maybe Ridley had it wrong. Maybe he'd do this and it would be wrong and the world would reset and Ridley could sit there and think, wow, that was a crazy thing to think Andre might do, I'm so fucking glad I was wrong about that one.

He pressed his unbroken hand over his eyes and tried to think his way through it. It wasn't like he got a choice. If he didn't play along, then the scene would just reset and reset until he gave in. And it wasn't... it wasn't Ridley doing it, not really. Whatever Andre had done to Mike had already happened; Ridley was just retracing his steps. The Mike in front of Ridley right now wasn't a real person, just a simulacrum of one being puppeted around by the dungeon.

And if Ridley somehow got out of this place without learning what happened next, the not-knowing would eat away at him. Ridley knew himself well enough to admit that.

He glanced over at the glass.

How much time had he wasted? How long until Mike left the bathroom? Getting caught wouldn't have lasting consequences, but Ridley didn't want to have to talk himself into doing this a second time. Ridley had given himself an excuse for being in the kitchen, but not one for messing around with Mike's glass.

Okay.

Fridge. Two beers. Cracked them open. Ridley fumbled the bag open and tried to tip some powder into one of the bottles, cursing himself as he did so. This would be so much easier with two hands.

How much was a dose? Ridley didn't know, because he wasn't a psychopath who invited people to his home so he could drug them, what the fuck Andre. He had to be tipping at least as much of the stuff onto the counter as he was getting into the bottle.

Did dose even matter? Maybe as long as Ridley was making some approximation of the correct answer the dungeon would accept it. Ridley hoped so, because he didn't want to be stuck here for a dozen or so loops while he slowly trial-and-errored his way through roofieing a guy.

Bag back in the drawer. Wipe away the spilt powder from the bottle, where it had gathered around the rim and stuck to the condensation on the sides. Okay. Okay.

Ridley didn't recognise the brand of beer. Maybe they didn't have it in his world, or maybe Andre was the sort to buy fancy obscure brands of alcohol. Could plausibly be either, he guessed. It was easier and more pleasant to think about that than it was to think about what he'd just talked himself into doing.

He settled back at the table and placed the tainted beer next to Mike's glass just as Mike finished up in the bathroom. "Got you a top-up as well," he said.

 

[canisaries]

Mike had, indeed, taken his time. It was unclear whether that was simply because Mike needed a bit longer than most or if the dungeon was being lenient with time.

"Got you a top-up as well," he said.

"Sweet," Mike said, grinning as he sat down again. He paused in thought. "I was talking about something before..." he said, tapping the table. "Eh, whatever. Probably not important. Hey, you wanna follow me on Snapp? I post about my training and all that shit." He pulled out his phone. "It's, uhh, @michaelicious," he said as he tapped on the screen, then showed one Snapp post. It was a promotional image of him with his team - a tar brown ursaring, a toxtricity, a sandaconda and a steelix. All the mon were posing as if they were ready for battle, while Mike stood in front with crossed arms and a stern look in his face. There were flames in the background.

"It's badass, huh?" Mike said. "The graphics guy did a fantastic job. His name was - lemme see if I can remember..."

His voice trailed off into silence while the world brightened again. Once the brightness reached its apex, the world seemed to return. Ridley and Mike were still sitting at the table, but Mike's face drooped, and he held his head.

"So it was... it was, uh, summer then, so it was really..." He frowned, as if it was causing him pain to try and keep his thoughts in order. Finally, he gave up.

"Man, I'm tired as fuck." He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry, man. I don't think I can... do this tonight. I th-think I should go home."

He got up, staggered a few steps - and fell to the floor with a grunt.

"Wh-what..."

He looked up to Ridley, which seemed to take him some effort. His eyes were tired, but the fear that shone from them was undeniable.

"Help," he breathed. "Help me. Help..."

 

[Hap]

"I can't," Ridley said helplessly. "I can't. I'm sorry. It wouldn't change anything even if I could."

He had to keep telling himself that.

 

[canisaries]

"Help... me... he..." The last of Mike's strength left his limbs, and he collapsed onto the floor. He tried to continue to plead for help, but his tongue and lips would not cooperate, and he could only moan until even that was silenced.

The world brightened again. When the white blinked away, Ridley was standing in a new room, still colorless.

Mike, unconscious, lay spread eagle on a bed covered with a plastic covering and plenty of white towels. He was stripped down to his underwear, and four nylon ropes tied his wrists and ankles to the bedposts while a piece of duct tape sealed his mouth. The bed had been propped up with books to have its head higher than the foot, and two buckets stood at the corners of the lower end. On the floor underneath was a tarp and some newspapers, which also covered the nearby walls and ceiling. In the corner, a boombox was playing lively jazz at a conversation's volume.

To Ridley's left stood an easel with a blank canvas and a stepladder with brushes, paints and a cup of water. They were as grayscale as the rest of the room.

 

[Hap]

Ridley shoved the painting paraphernalia off the stepladder and sat down. Both facing and not facing Mike felt equally awful. Ridley settled for facing.

"So hey, this is fucked-up," he said conversationally, not sure whether he was addressing Andre or the dungeon. "You get that, right?"

What the fuck, Andre. What the fuck, Betel. It was one thing to have self-depreciating thoughts about how Ridley shouldn't have been summoned. It was another entirely to discover that one of his fellow heroes from another world was... this.

It would be so nice to think there was some reasonable explanation for this. Some detail Ridley hadn't picked up on or context he was missing which would somehow justify the scene before him.

Three little bags of white powder in the drawer. The careful arrangement of the scene: floor and walls covered, bed propped up. This wasn't the first time Andre had done this and it wouldn't be the last.

"So I guess this was what you meant when you said you were a painter."

 

[canisaries]

The room stayed silent, giving no response, until...

"Mmf..."

Mike's forehead wrinkled. He was coming to.

"Mmmff... mf."

His right arm tugged on his restraints, wishing to remove whatever was keeping his mouth shut. When he couldn't bring his hand to his face, Mike opened his eyes with great effort and annoyance and looked at the rope looped around his wrist. His eyes widened and searched around the room, finding Ridley. The apprehension on his face turned to anger.

"Mmmmff!" he vocalized, yanking on the ropes as if he thought he could snap them through sheer force. The wooden bed frame creaked but held.

While Mike struggled, three knocks could be heard. They didn't seem to come from the door, however, but one of the drawers in a dresser that stood against the left wall. The drawer was in color, another deep brown with a visible pattern of wood grain.

 

[Hap]

Mike being awake made it worse, somehow. It had been easier to remember that he wasn't a person when he - when it - had been lying limp and quiescent.

Ridley breathed in. Ridley breathed out.

Whatever happened in this room had already happened. Ridley couldn't change anything. The only real person here was still out in the dungeon somewhere, possibly playing through whatever memory the dungeon had decided to haul out of Ridley's head, and Ridley had to make it through this before he could do... whatever he was going to do about that.

He entertained a brief fantasy about yanking all the dresser drawers open and shoving the thing over with a crash, but the reality of his broken hand stymied him. He had to wriggle the drawer open slowly, a couple inches on one side followed by a couple inches on the next, and the tedious process of getting it open far enough to see inside dimmed his rebellious fervour.

 

[canisaries]

The left side of the drawer was filled with a stack of papers and notebooks - probably old drawings. The right side, however, contained a box of rubber gloves and a kitchen knife that looked very, very sharp. Its handle, wooden, was brown. It was the only thing in color in the drawer.

 

[Hap]

Yeah, okay. Ridley's not stupid. He knew this was coming. There's just a gulf between the intellectual knowledge that something is coming and the emotional impact of seeing the murder weapon in front of you and needing to pick it up and...

He really fucking hopes this is the murder weapon.

He prods at the box of gloves and tries to worm his fingers into one of them. They won't go in, obviously, but Ridley thinks they wouldn't fit even if he had use of a second hand to pull it on properly. So Andre has smaller hands than him. That's a thing he knows now. It's not that he really cares either way, but it was a thing to do which wasn't touching the knife.

No more screwing around.

Ridley picks up the knife and turns to face Mike the bed.

 

[canisaries]

As Mike noticed the knife, he froze. His eyes were wide with horror, anger receding from his face as did the blood.

"Mf," he began. "Mf, mf, mf." Wait. Wait, wait, wait, he had tried to say. "Mf mfff! Mf-m mfh mf mf!" I'm sorry! We can talk about this! His breathing was heavy and panicked.

The dungeon, it seemed, had no more clues to give. After all, it was obvious what Ridley needed to do.

 

[Hap]

"I don't want to do this," Ridley said. "I... I don't want. Please. What do you want from me? I'll beg if you want me to."

It wasn't a person. It wasn't a person but it looked like a person and it looked at Ridley with fear-bright eyes like a person and Ridley couldn't make himself believe he wasn't a person.

"Isn't this enough? I know what happens next. I don't have to do it. I already know. Please."

 

[canisaries]

For a moment, Mike seemed confused. Why was the man suddenly acting like he didn't want to hurt him? He was the one that had tied Mike up, wasn't he? Was he being forced by something?

He glanced around. No one else was there. Maybe... maybe the man was simply insane?

No, he had to try, surely. Try to negotiate.

"Mf! Mf... mf mf mf-fm mf-fm mf." Hey! Hey... we can figure something out. "M-mf mf mf mfh." I can pay you. "Mf mf m-mf-mf." I have the money. "Mfh... mfh, mf mf mf." Just... please, don't hurt me.

There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes. A desperate, self-deluding glimmer.