Episode 45: Our Home
Narrator: Welcome to Ghost Wax, a Far and Tall Tales Production. The following story may contain graphic content. Listener discretion is advised.
[Intro Music]
Episode 45, Our Home
Recorder clicks on
the audio picks up inside Charlie’s room in the Ardent, in a hidden location, so everything perhaps sounds a little distant.
Adreanna: I know it’s here…
Margot: This is so fucked. We’re just letting her rummage through his personal things?
Nash: Nobody has an expectation of privacy here.
Margot: It just doesn’t seem right.
Nash: you still have cop brain, shake it off.
Kat: I agree, but there’s something wrong with him.
Nash: There’s something wrong with all of us.
Adreanna: not listening to them, rummaging I can fucking FEEL it…
Kat: that’s what you said in Luca’s room when you were rummaging around in his shit.
Adreanna: We found a bunch of recorders didn’t we?
Kat: He fucking invented them. There were prototypes, nothing weird.
Adreanna: Well somebody put that thing in Voncid’s gear.
Nash: Chain of custody is Kat, Luca, Charlie, You.
Adreanna: Yeah? Think I tinkered one together and what, hid it up my ass? I live in a cell with lights on me twenty four seven.
Nash: Just look. I’m only humoring this because-
Adreanna: sinisterly Because when you saw it, a chill ran down your spine. Someone listening where they shouldn’t be. Because all your fancy anti eavesdropping bullshit doesn’t work on these things and you realized what a huge stupid blindspot you’d left open.
Margot: Hardly. What would anyone even do with them? All you can do is listen, unless you can experience remembrances they aren’t anything.
Adreanna: rummaging around, getting closer to the recorder Well there you go. I’m not suggesting someone is trying to sell your secrets to sixty fucking minutes… it’s someone who just wants to hear you freaks be freaky… there!
The recorder is uncovered
Adreanna: Fucking yes! See! Exactly like the one in Cid’s bag!
Nash: What?
Margot: What do you mean?
Adreanna: Look idiots. There’s a shit load of them.
Kat: Adreanna… there’s nothing there.
Adreanna: The fuck there aren’t!
Margot: she’s nuts. Is this a trick? You can go back in the light box for a month.
Nash: … show me… put one in my hand.
Margot: there’s nothing…
Adreanna: Here, fucking… picks it up here!
Nash: Oh… oh fuck…
Margot: Hidden…
Kat: what the hell…
Adreanna: Yeah, there see.
Kat: look at all of them…
Nash: He’s been making recordings… what has he been capturing?
Margot: he could have left them right out in the open… recording us…
Nash: Ok… shit.
Kat: I fucking knew it.
Nash: We don’t know it’s anything sinister…
Margot: So… play one.
a recording cuts in. We hear voices we can now place
Charlie: panicking, losing their minds No no no , pleeaase, oh god please don’t make me, please just let it be over, I don’t want it I don’t want it I don’t want it…
We hear furniture smash and glass break followed by silence
Oversoul: genuinely kind shhh, calm now, calm now, it’s almost over. Hush, hush my love. We believe in you.
Charlie: I can’t. pathetically please.
Oversoul: You knew this would not be easy. You knew that. You cannot stop now, it is too late.
Charlie: Please don’t make me.
Oversoul: This is what you chose. It is the right choice. None of this… none of it is real. It’s all just a vivid dream. You chose to wake up. Just a few steps further my love, free yourself.
Charlie: hyperventilating and sobbing
Oversoul: Almost home.
the recording ends and we return stunned silence
Margot: oh fuck.
Nash: Where is he?
Kat: I fucking knew it.
Adreanna: I fucking knew it, you just didn’t like him.
Nash: where IS he?
boom
We hear the ceiling collapse. The audio cut, then we hear some muffled sounds, then it returns
Kat: come back… turn on, fuck.
Margot: No…
Nash: The labs… let's go.
Adreanna: Ugh, what is that smell?
Nash: horrified Curse fire…
There’s a rush of horrible crackling flames
Margot: nobody move… don’t move… master your fear… your fear is flammable…
The crackling spreads and crawls around
Nash: No. sudden. movements… let it settle…
Kat: hyperventilating it has faces… the fire has faces.
Nash: Steady.
Adreanna: Is it fucked up that it’s a good warm?
Margot: ok… it’s stopping, don’t fucking TOUCH it.
We hear a groan, as if something is under massive pressure.
Adreanna: Oh dear god what is that?
Margot: Nash… what is that?
Nash: no no no, no.
Kat: Julie…
We hear another groan with whispers and voices inside it
Nash: Owen… Owen is in trouble…
Adreanna: I think we’re all in trouble.
Nash: I think those are bindings… prisons for… horrible things…
Nijal: They are coming loose.
Nash: Nijal, it’s Charlie. The Oversoul got to him.
Nijal: the fucking what? Where is he?
Nash: In the labs.
Margot: with Owen…
there’s another groan, louder, things start to give way.
Nijal: that’s it, it’s giving way.
Nash: oh, no.
Margot: What the fuck, does that mean he’s fucking dead!?
Adreanna: holy shit.
Kat: No way.
Nash: it doesn’t… he can’t.
Nijal: his voice resounding with magic. Get close! Ardent, lend me… aegis.
the sound of hidden glass forming rings out just before the groaning crescendos and a swarm of demons, monsters and aberrant horrors spill free
Nijal: They’re loose! Don’t look at them! Don’t look.
Roaring and hideous laughter
Silver McCall: What is happening… nooo
Margot: McCall, Kensy, RUN!
Horrible screaming and the sounds of carnage
Horror: Hey… hey… what ya doing in there? You don’t gotta be ‘scrrd, come out of there…
Nijal: Don’t listen, don’t look at them.
Kat: is this… this glass going to hold.
Adreanna: Can we… fight them?
Nash: too many… too many different kinds… we just have to wait until help comes.
Kat: isn’t everyone locked in the upper chamber…
Margot: fighting for their lives to banish a Glorious.
Nijal: (oh no)... Look… those found the stairs…
Kat: No, let me out of here!
Nijal: Stop, we just have to wait until they go after softer targets, then we break for the big doors.
Kat: Fuck you! My sister, madge they are soft targets, they are upstairs.
Nijal: well there’s nothing we can fucking do about that!
Margot: they are thinning out.
Kat: No…
Nash: ok… I see a path. Get ready to fight for your fucking lives, to the big doors, we bar them behind us.
Horror: Come out… I wanna smell what’s inside you… let me smell you…
Margot: you heard Nash, fight for your fucking lives and move… if someone falls, they fall, don’t stop.
Nash: Nijal.
Nijal: Ok… ok… on three… one… two… three
We hear a roar and a rush and thuds, and the audio cuts and returns but only for a moment
Nijal: AHHHH FUUUCK
Nash: Let go!
Adreanna: Keep moving!
Nijals arm is rended off in the mouth of a horror, he is pried loose as Nash breaks the things teeth with his blade, there is a thud and the audio cuts again and returns but only for another moment.
We hear the sizzling of acid
Margot: screams My face, my face… oh god…
Kat: grunts, there is the slice of a chemical blade
Horror: OWwwwwweeee…
Kat: COME ON
Margot: You never fucking listen…
Kat: You’re welcome
We hear roaring, fighting, chasing, breaking, then the audio cuts and returns amid the crumbling labs
Charlie: breathing heavily, muttering to himself holy shit… holy shit… ok, keep it together… almost over… almost over… ok, recorder, keep it running… wants to hear…
Rugen: What. did. you. Do.
Charlie: Mr. Rugen… I don’t know what happened, there was this explosion and… I think Master Voncid is hurt, he’s under the rubble, back there I think.
Rugen: I told him. I told him you were trouble. I told him you wanted too much.
Charlie: I’m not sure… maybe he was the one that wanted too much. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t listen.
Rugen: quiet...
Charlie: Come on, Luca and I, the two he let get closest, the two he leaned on… both handsome, young, vulnerable men…
Rugen: Shut your mouth.
Charlie: seductively How about you Mr. Rugen, you a sucker for a pretty boy face too? You a dirty old man like Uncle Cid?
There is a crunch and a crash and crumble of stone as Rugen strikes Charlie through a wall. There is a beat of quiet.
Rugen: … still alive?
Charlie: coughs, gasps in pain, then continues shakily Yup.
Rugen: Good. I’ve got a lot more walls to smash you through before I really start to hurt you.
Charlie: coughing up blood
Rugen: I’m going to peel you apart… I’m going to get you to spill every bit, and tell me how you did every step and everyone who helped you.
Charlie: in pain ugh… strike a nerve there? You were with the catholic church when they took you in right? An inquisitor? Did you get off on murdering all those witchy women? All those gay boys? Does the smell of cooking flesh still get you hard?
(alternate: -still get you excited?)
Rugen: Maybe we’ll get the confession from your corpse.
Charlie: that ship has sailed.
Rugen: prepare to meet your god.
Charlie: his voice starting to change and shift Oh… that’s a great idea… actually… why don’t you and I both bask in his presence… You know, I liked Owen, I didn’t want to hurt him, but I fucking hate you, witch killer. This is going to be violence I can enjoy…
Rugen: abomination.
Charlie: totally monstrous Give us a kiss.
The audio fragments and splinters, we hear tiny pieces of the battle in stutters.
the audio cuts and returns, we hear the big doors shutting.
Nash: Get in… push, get them shut… Nijal… stay with me.
Nijal: trying to stay conscious I can’t seal the door with one arm… the forms are… (realizing) I don’t know how to do them with one hand.
Adreanna: Push… goddammit… someone shoot out those lights!
Margot: I can’t see…
Kat: Here
We hear gunshots, glass breaking
Adreanna: Come on, help me.
we hear a groan of the doors shutting
Adreanna: She’s strong… she’ll hold the doors, just don’t shine any fucking light over here…
we hear buzzing
Nash: Goddamit, Nijal hold still I can’t get this belt tight enough, you’re going to bleed to death…
Kat: What is that?
Margot: We are near the courtyard… it’s the hive.
Kat: the fire… the fire.
We hear banging on the door
Adreanna: they know we are here, they are coming through as soon as me and my shadow move, so go.
Margot: Nash, what’s the priority…
Nash: Voncid could still be alive.
Nijal: No. (No, he can’t be.)
Nash: you shut up… Kat, take Nijal to the courtyard, Nijal, do you have enough left to disperse curse fire?
Nijal: If I really had to… if I stay conscious.
Nash: Kat, keep him fucking conscious… Margot, can you fight?
Margot: Yeah… my fucking shooting is going to be shit with one eye, but yeah.
Nash: good enough. Go.
the audio cuts and returns
Rugen: Breathing heavily Had enough?
Charlie: I have something to show you…
Rugen: badly injured, struggling to breath Don’t bother begging… I just need to catch a second… wind.
Charlie: Just look at this photograph… doesn’t she look so… happy? Sitting there by the piano… look at that smile. So at peace? Doesn’t she remind you of home?
Rugen: Where did you… I…
Charlie: Don’t you want to be where she is? To be happy like she is?
Rugen: You won’t, get… away with this…
Charlie: Charlie’s voice is shifting back to normal I just have to go a little further, and then this whole nightmare can be over.
Rugen: Your nightmare is just starting… you’re never waking up again boy.
Charlie: You old things need to retire, get a hobby… Piano lessons… don’t you think that sounds nice?
Rugen: a low scream. The pain builds as Rugen is pulled into the hungering photograph The scream crescendos and is cut off.
Charlie: yuck, what a mess.
we return in the apiary the bees are swarming. There is a roar of flame
Nijal: what the hell is going on in there…
Kat: Don’t try to stand… every time you move blood is shooting out…
Nijal: what is that sound… have the flames reached the hive?
Kat: No… Adelaide…
Nijal: The Rekindled is here…
Kat: She’s… soaking up the fire and…
We hear a howl of a huge beast crash into the courtyard it roars but the roar is cut off by a crunch
Kat: and… she just killed one of those big things that looks like a skinless dinosaur with her bare hands…
Nijal: struggling to stay conscious …so strong already. Voncid did good work.
Kat: shut up with that past tense shit.
Nijal: his bindings are broken. He would never… not if he was alive… whatever, leave me here.
Kat: If they find you…
Nijal: If they find me here it means they got past the rekindled and if they can do that, there’s nothing you could do to stop them anyways. Go… go after Nash and Angiers, find anyone alive down there.
we hear more roaring from the beasts and buzzing from the bees
Kat: Yikes… bees got one.
Nijal: get moving.
The audio cuts and returns in the crumbling basement.
Pip: we hear Pip breathing heavily, crawling across the ground, dragging herself through broken rocks Luca… Owen… is… is anyone there.
Luca: groaning
Pip: Luca!!! Luca, don’t move… I… I’m coming…
We hear her crawl to him…
Pip: There… is that you? Luca are you ok…
Luca: I… what happened I… supremely horrified oh… oh Pip…
Pip: I’m so glad you’re ok… crying oh fuck…
Luca: Your eyes…
Pip: stop let’s… not now, let’s get out of here.
Luca: My leg… I don’t think I can stand up…
Pip: helping him Here… put weight on me… ok, little brother, up we go…
Luca: in pain Ok, what did you… oh shit…
Pip: ok, my legs work… you can see, between us we are a functioning human…
Luca: What happened…
Pip: Charlie… something is in his head or… I don’t know, he’s fucking possessed or something…
Luca: He… he did this?
Pip: yeah, or something with his face… i don’t know, no one could do… no one could… he’s possessed, he’s being controlled by something.
Luca: long pause I… oh, Pip… I don’t think he is.
audio cuts and returns
We hear a door prying open
Nash: finally…
Margot: Fuck I ripped a fingernail off…
Nash: I hate that… I hear footsteps, stay frosty.
a few tense moments go by
Charlie: Woah hey hey, don’t shoot!
Nash: Charlie put your fucking hands over your head.
Margot: Where is Cid?
Charlie: I don’t know, I don’t know what happened…
Nash: Charlie… Cut the shit
Margot: We found your collection of wax cylinders.
Charlie: I just… I was making memories.
Nash: Save it. Get on the ground.
Charlie: You aren’t following the dynamics
Nash: I said down, that’s the last time I’ll ask.
Margot: Just fucking shoot him.
Charlie: Yeah big guy. You heard her.
Nash: Stop. Don’t take another step.
Margot: Fucking shoot him.
Nash: You shoot him.
Margot: I… I can’t… why…
Charlie: Because I told you not to shoot…
Nash: My hands won’t… Margot shoot him.
Charlie: That’s not how you tell someone to… here, like this: “Margot shoot Nash in the head*
bang
Margot: screams Nooooo!
Charlie: That’s how you do it.
Margot: no no no no
Charlie: shit that push is amazing… Pathiters Made of Sticks was extremely ready to bargain when I told him I’d be sure to use it on the murderers who killed his favorite.
Margot: No, fucking… fuck you, you fucking psycho.
Charlie: Save your breath.
Margot: chokes I… you’re a dead man…
Charlie: Keep saving it… that's right… don’t breathe now… don’t breathe ever again Margot.
Margot: chokes
Charlie: yuck, ok… Vault… the vault… this way? Oh never mind you're busy, I’ll find it, try not to roll to your left, lot of his skull over there…
the audio cuts and returns with Luca and Pip slowly moving through the laboratory halls
Luca: Ok, we are almost to the lab lobbies…
Pip: Ok… that was a gunshot right?
Luca: It was… but I mean only the blades will have guns in the building…
Pip: yeah… ok… what are they shooting at?
We hear a howl from higher floors, the two hold quiet trying not to breath
Pip: that… I… uh…
Luca: yeah, I heard it…
Pip: It doesn’t matter we are getting out of here…
Luca: out of where… I… oh fuck…
Pip: what is it?
Luca: It’s Nash and Angiers… oh no… Nash is… and… oh fuck… she’s choking… she can’t breath…
Pip: what? Why?
Luca: I don’t know…
Margot: choking and desperately gesturing
Luca: Oh god fuck, forward, get us forward…
Pip: oh shit, I’m sorry, I stepped on…
Luca: groan of pain Margot, what is it, why can’t you breathe?
Pip: horrified and desperate Check her airway!
Luca: theres… there’s nothing… oh god, please breathe…
Pip: Breathe for her!
Luca: like… what?
Pip: Rescue breathing! Breath in her mouth…
Luca: oh fuck… do I… plug her nose… we hear him breathing into Margot
Pip: not too hard.
Luca: Yeah, oh fuck she bit her tongue there’s a lot of blood…
Pip: Keep at it.
Luca: breathing into Margot
Margot: The… Vault…
Pip: Is it working?
Luca: I think so… breaths into Margot
Margot: The Vault.
Pip: What did she say?
Luca: The Vault… I think she said the Vault.
Pip: Why, whats in the vault? Something that can help us?
Luca: breaths for Margot
Margot: he’s after… running out of air the vault
Audio cuts and returns in the strange hum of The Ardent Vault
Charlie: ok… here we are…
Cosa: Charles Baybridge.
Charlie: oh… hi.
Cosa: You shouldn’t be here.
Charlie: Yeah… I know.
Cosa: Turn back.
Charlie: You’re… like the librarian right?
Cosa: Yes, among other functions. Currently, I am minding the Vault.
Charlie: Ok, well, I need to get in there. “Let me in”
Cosa: No
Charlie: hmm, doesn’t work on you… whatever you are.
Cosa: You are not getting past.
Charlie: I mean… I am.
Cosa: I don’t think you were likely intended to succeed. They would have known this was as far as you’d make it.
Charlie: I’ve spent all year listening and waiting and planning… I heard all kinds of juicy secrets on the recordings, and a lot more spilled out of books, and tapes…
charlies voice is doubled
I’ve made a lot of new friends…
His voice starts to shift as his body morphs and changes
learned a lot of neat tricks…
Body and blood, twist and roar
What once there was, will be once more…
Cosa: Poor Charlie.
Cosa’s voice becomes hollow and metallic and full of ice water
Never Pass. Never Pass.
*There is a horrifying mutated roar and a series of glass panels breaking. Heavy thuds of something heavy hitting solid surfaces
Charlie: inhuman voice Get out of my fucking way.
Cosa: robotic, mechanical Never. Pass.
supernatural forces crackle and the audio cuts returning with Kat
Kat: Come on, steady breathing… keep it steady… don’t think about the evil doll or the werewolf or the giant goddamn worm… if you hyperventilate and pass out and fall down all these stairs that will be really embarrassing… keep your shit together and…
We hear Charlie’s nightmarish roar from a different angle
Kat: ok, fuck, that was new… somehow even more awful… don’t run, don’t piss yourself, don’t forget to breathe, just move…
Luca: Kat! Kat!
Kat: oh shit, Luca and… Pip… oh GOD…
Pip: breaths into Margot Margot can’t breathe.
Luca: We are taking turns breathing for her… but she… keeps hitting us…
Pip: She’s trying to get us to go to the vault, but she’ll die… I can’t see and Luca can’t walk… Margot, stop pulling my hair.
Margot: GO GOD DAMN YOU
Kat: Why does she want us to go… NASH!
Luca: it’s too late…
Margot: running out of air GO
Kat: We do what she says.
Pip: We can’t…
Kat: She’s the highest ranking person left standing. Do what she says.
Pip: I’ll stay. I’ll only slow you down.
Margot: wheezing No… Any chance… any chance… worth…
Kat: Luca, take her gun, Pip, help me get Luca on his feet. We move. Now. If there’s any chance that any of us, broken leg, or no sight can stop what’s happening, then that’s worth it. No other help is coming. It’s us.
Pip: No…
Luca: Margot, just hang on…
Kat: Move!
the audio cuts and returns in a strange place
Voncid: I… I can hold on… here at the edge of oblivion I cleave to you, my love. I will not let you fall, I will not give in to my hunger, my monstrous nature… I will not devour you.
Azem: Vausaied… I love you… but I am very disappointed…
Voncid: Please… please be quiet my love… I have to concentrate… you are slipping… ever closer to my hungering teeth…
Azem: You let go of all else… all else to grab hold of me. What horrors have been unleashed? What horrors do you allow while you float here in the dark within time… with me?
Voncid: I do not care… let it all burn.
Azem: how dare you.
Voncid: I will not consign you to nothingness. We have given this project enough.
Azem: You are a fine person. A fine man. You do not mean that.
Voncid: I am not a man. I am a monster. The old hunger wells up, the urge to survive, to dominate, to invade. The bad old ways… the crown of the puppet masters… the split apart and crawl within… I will not swallow your soul. I will not become my old self, the writhing hunger. The bloody marionette. I will NOT go back to that. If that means that all is lost… then it is lost.
Azem: We love them. What is an oath in the face of love? What is the point of an oath to protect those we love if it turns in on itself and kills what we sought to preserve?
Voncid: Stop. Do not ask this of me.
Azem: They are all that there are left… their home carved into smaller and smaller portions… levies raising and locks closed… It is difficult and painful, but this is our home. Our. Home. This is the place we have made together. A second chance. Worth any cost.
Voncid: desperate No. This is far enough. I will hold tight to you… regain my strength… and then… and then.
Azem: My strange love from far away, you are a fine man. Kind. Strong.
Voncid: Please no… pleeeease…
Azem: A fine man who knows the right thing, is to strive.
Voncid: What will I be without you?
Azem: You will be who our love made you.
Voncid: I can walk with all the dead… all the legion of ghosts of the lost… but… I cannot be haunted… by you.
If you are not returned to the circle… I will break.
Azem: It may seem that way… but I know you won’t let me down. Now, my love… please, consume me. I simply go deeper within. I will make you strong. Give you the power to fight for what… who we love.
Voncid: Oh my love…
Azem: I regret not a moment.
Voncid: …goodbye.
we hear a strange soft ‘falling away’
Voncid: howls, the howl turning from the voice of a man into a strange and otherworldly noise. We hear wet, slimy sounds of tentacles bursting forth from what was for many millennia Vau’saied the necromancer
Luca: horrified what was that… what is happening.
Pip: completely overwhelmed. all the gods in the sky…
Kat: Focus… Pip… keep carrying him forward… Luca, distract him. I’m going to hang back and come in hot…
Luca: He was so taken with that knife…
Kat: Well he’s going to get a good up close look at it now. If you can distract him… now keep going. If we can’t stop him, we just slow him down. We die trying to slow him down if we have to.
Pip: oh fucking great.
Luca: yeah… ok…
Kat: Pip, you got him?
Pip: yeah…
Kat: ok… go.
The audio cuts and returns
Cosa: robotic, mechanical Never. Pass.
Charlie: FUCK fuck fuck… stop DOING that.
Cosa: You may not enter the vault. These walls I make are as far as you go.
Charlie: breaking down, crying I am going to find a… a way in there and… I am going to fucking kill you…
Luca: Charlie.
Charlie: I… Luca! I am soooo happy to see you… I need… I need your help… I can’t… it keeps making walls and mazes and… you're so smart… so good with machines and… help me get in there… I can save us… I pulled you out of the rubble earlier… I really do like you, that’s… a lot of this has been lies but that is real…
Luca: Do you see… do you see Pip?
Charlie: Oh… yeah, is she ok?
Pip: psychopath…
Luca: You did this to her…
Charlie: No… I mean… it was her fault… she lied, to the cypher, she broke her contract and… I have to… you don’t understand, please please just help me, make Cosa let us into the vault and… I have this thing… if I can get it in there it will fix everything, we can be free from them.
Luca: The hamsa want to help us.
Charlie: no. they feed on us. They live in human bodies, they control our minds.
Luca: no… the hamsa do not… they aren’t like the others.
Charlie: WAKE THE FUCK UP. They eat human souls. They are monsters from beyond the stars that live inside human brains. They are puppetmasters.
Luca: They were… that’s not who they are… these are different.
Charlie: yeah? THESE soul sucking mind controlling body snatchers are the nice ones? The ones that have us in a fabricated alternate universe and conduct mass human sacrifice to enhance their powers, to keep us away from the other monsters out there EXACTLY like them, just in different shapes, don’t be fucking naive. We aren’t the original population of humanity, it’s all a fucking lie. It’s a second timeline, a fucking giant mandela effect and they give away parts of it… New Mexico? It’s not supposed to be just a little strip, they sold it off to the other side The Black Forest, Buenos Aires, Venice, fucking Finland. You’ve never even HEARD of these places because they cut. them. out.
Luca: I… what… do you…
Charlie: manic, crazy, not fully understanding as it was all given to him in a fever dream. they were places, Luca, they sold them, to the Red King, the Trumpet, Empress Bliss… truly horrific, brutal monsters… those places and all the people there sold into hell in peace treaties. As sacrifices… then just forgotten…
We were talking about how… how they do it, how they’ve kept it all secret for so long? Well it hasn’t been that long because this is somewhere else, I don’t know when it switched, but we live in a bottle…
Luca: You aren’t making any sense…
Charlie: Who cares which cosmic boogeyman we are in the world of? Just help me, and you and I get everything.
Luca: and everyone else?
Charlie: Fuck everyone else! I will never be scared again. I will never be pinned down and made to feel helpless… ever again. I will become the prince of fucking pain if I have to, but I will not live in terror… You don’t have to either.
Kat: stabs charlie in the head from behind having snuck up on him. frontal lobe…
Charlie: ugh fuck, fuck you…
Kat: and temporal…
Charlie: voice monstrous Get away!
we hear a vicious crack and rip as Kat is flung away
Charlie: god. Dammit.
Luca: Charlie!
Charlie: having some difficulty speaking Don’t… don’t move…
Luca: Charlie, just please stop…
Charlie: I… I reallyyyy… I liked you…
Luca: I know… I like you too… just let this be over… let this just be a bad dream.
Charlie: I want to wake up…
Luca: Just wake up… it can be over…
Charlie: considers it I… could just go to sleep…
Luca: Yeah… I’m tired too.
Charlie: revving back up …no… no no no… NO… stop. Get me in the vault… get me in NOW or… or I’ll break the rest of Kat’s bones… and peel off the rest of her skin… I’ll stick my fingers into Pip’s eye sockets and shake and shake until she forgets you, and herself and how to breathe!
Luca: sees a phantoma settle on charlie’s cheek*deeply sad* Oh… oh Charlie.
Charlie: What?... ow… fuck.. What… what was that?
Luca: saying goodby Oh Charlie…
Charlie: fuck… was that a bee?
we hear a wet, writhing roar from a distance. Closing in rapidly it roars again
Luca: a phantoma. A ghost bee.
Charlie: Fuck… it stung me…
Luca: sympathetic, heartbroken they sting people to spare them from horrible death.
the gigantic writhing form of the Watcher Within that was once Voncid bursts into the vault lobby chamber
Charlie: terrified NO! What… what is that, what is it… it can’t be real, it can’t be… no no no.
Luca: Charlie, don’t fight the sting, let it take you, it’s trying to save you from…
Watcher Within: will not be robbed… this death will not be stolen…
Charlie: Luca help me!
Pip: What is that!?
Luca: Cover your ears!
Charlie: Help me!!!
Watcher Within: Wanted power? Wanted life? To be free of fearrrr? You will never fear again. Here is mighty power… my gift to you. The old way. The red way. Now comes again a puppeteer… Not bound by love… but in flesh. Puppet and Master, you and I. Open wide for me.
We hear terrible cracking and screams as Charlie is invaded by the Watcher Within.
The slippery wet sound of the last tentacles sliding into Charles Baybridge’s open chest cavity and slamming it shut behind them like a door ring out, followed by terrible silence but for luca and pip’s shallow tears
Watcher Within/Charlie: I… please… please do not cower.
Luca: please don’t hurt us.
Watcher Within/Charlie: oh my dear boy… I am your friend.
Luca: Voncid…
Watcher Within: something else now… something new. Many things… will be… something new… fix… we will mend… failed… fail you all… but please… let us find it… something new… better… together.
End season 1.
