Crown of Curses II
Summary: It's like a bad horror movie, but is Fawney Rig really haunted? Or have her troubles only just begun?
Pairing: Morpheus x f!Reader/OC
Rating: Teen. Maybe Mature for cursing (ha).
Notes: Content warning for mentions of child abuse. Nothing descriptive. Mentions of comic spoilers (Overture). Morpheus has no mouth and he must scream.
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There was a creak directly above his head. He could feel her enter the confines of the binding circle, though far above. Just as quickly her presence vanished.
Dream watched the ceiling with absent eyes.
He listened to her footsteps. Tried to deny that they came closer. Then there was silence.
A question arose in him. Why was the woman here?
She certainly walked around like she owned this place, making enough noise after so long of silence that it could surely wake the dead--
BANG.
The noise echoed through his confines like a gunshot. His eyes watched where he knew the iron door to be.
There was a pause. Then, footsteps on stone. She was coming down the stairs.
"You mean Fawney Rig?" The driver turned in his seat to look me in the eye.
Surprise. Distrust. The acrid taste of fear.
"If you're going there just ta have a laugh I ain't takin' you." He sneered.
I kept my face neutral and gripped the handle on my bag tighter. The chatter of the crowd was silenced as I shut the cab door with a defiant click.
"Do people come fly all the way to the UK to 'have a laugh' at Fawney Rig?"
His eyes finally slid from my face as he glanced back at the airport. The weight of the ruby hung like a noose under my clothes.
"'Suppose not." He muttered, starting up the car.
I stared out the window as we made our way to Wych Cross, thankful for the silence. My mind whirled with possibilities, each more unpleasant than the last. After finding this accursed jewel and living with it for nearly half a year, I wasn't sure if I wanted answers anymore.
I mean, I certainly wanted the curse lifted.
But I had lost hope that it was even a possibility at this point. Everything had only gotten worse since I started digging.
Now I wasn't just unlucky. Now I had a damn manifestation of the curse chained around my neck.
One that made emotions that weren't my own rise up inside me each time I looked someone in the eye. Like some useless knock-off psychic.
I rested my temple against the cool glass and sighed. I had stopped looking for answers only to have this now fall into my damn lap. My curse was the world's shittiest rollercoaster.
"So." The cabby said curtly, snapping me from my thoughts. "What had you comin' all the way here just to get to a place like Fawney Rig?"
He spat the name out like it left a bad taste in his mouth. It piqued my interest.
"Long story." One I wasn't about to share. "Why? Is the place famous or something?"
His eyes met mine through the rearview mirror.
Concern.
"You mean ya don't know?"
All I knew was some long lost uncle had paid the best private investigator a lot of money to find me-- only to leave me Fawney Rig in his will. On the condition I never sold it.
And made sure no one entered the property.
So, naturally, I booked the first flight over to see it for myself.
"Nope." I popped the 'p' sound with an air of nonchalance I didn't feel.
"That place is haunted. Like properly, bloody haunted."
I raised an eyebrow and met him with a deadpan stare. The taste of deception was absent, but that didn't mean I trusted him.
"My brother used to work there," The cabby continued, licking his lips. "As a security guard. Wouldn't talk about it. Said they made him sign a bunch of shi- stuff. So he couldn't talk about it."
"So? That doesn't mean it's haunted."
"Maybe not, maybe not." He nodded. "But then there's the rumors."
"Rumors?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "They say there used to be a cult that met there. In the 1920s. Led by a bloke named Roderick Burgess."
Burgess? That name sounded familiar. My foot tapped against my pack which had the copy of the will and the deed to Fawney Rig. I'd have to check it later.
"The Burgess fella was rumored to be some knock off Crowley. Ya know, like Alistair Crowley? Right crazies, the lot of them."
I nodded along, hoping my silence would encourage him to continue.
"Well, this cult-- Order of Ancient Mysteries, they called 'em-- they did some real magic. Like they was some fu- messed up occult devil worshippers."
I tried not to roll my eyes. One thing I knew for sure, being raised in a Catholic orphanage, was all that religious crap was complete bullshit. Just another tool the powerful used to oppress the powerless.
The disbelief must have shown on my face.
"It's true, miss! They say the cult summoned the devil and locked 'im away in the basement there!"
I couldn't help but scoff. "Sounds like a bad ghost story. If the literal devil was locked up in some random basement, wouldn't that mean there'd be no more sin, no more temptation?"
The cabby looked a bit like a dry drowning goldfish as his 'O' shaped mouth flapped, before he finally recovered and shook his head.
"Look, all's I know is that my brother never slept right after he took that job. Always looked over his shoulder like he was expecting ta find somethin'."
He twisted in his seat to meet my eye again, an act to emphasize his seriousness.
The stomach rotting curl of sharp anxiety.
"If I was you, I'd stay far away from that place, miss. Better off a crumblin' ruin, I say."
A crumbling ruin that, for some god awful reason, I now own, I thought to myself.
It wasn't as much of a crumbled ruin as I had expected. Or maybe my reoccurring dreams about that ghostly palace had changed my expectations on what 'ruin' meant.
Fawney Rig did look like a stereo typical haunted mansion, though. Even in broad daylight.
I readjusted the strap of my pack and took a deep breath. I let the teeth of the key bite into the palm of my hand in an attempt to ground myself.
Even if I didn't believe the rumor about a devil being locked in the basement, I knew most lies were coated in a sprinkle of truth. Maybe there had been some cult here. Maybe there had been some magic.
Maybe this building held the answers to why I was cursed.
Only one way to find out.
The lock opened with a poignant click and I let the door swing open without removing the key. The squeaking of the hinges were so stereotypical of a bad horror movie I might've laughed.
Instead I just really really didn't want to go inside.
I blinked until my eyes adjusted to the dim light. It looked like the place had truly been abandoned. Like pictures of those ghost towns where dinner was still left out on the table. Nothing had been touched.
Floor boards creaked beneath my feet. It wasn't as dusty as I had expected it to be. Then again my uncle hadn't died all that long ago.
I turned down the east hall to find it was lined with glass display shelves holding an array of antiques and taxidermied animals. So much so that the displays crowded into the walk way, demanding attention and giving me a sense of acute claustrophobia.
Whoever designed this place was obnoxious. Like modern rich assholes who decided everything they owned had to be completely white or plated in gold.
I guess the rich never fucking change.
My eyes stopped their wandering when they found a grey stone bust behind a glass case, set directly in the middle of the hall.
Roderick Burgess, the gold plaque read.
"You even look like a prick." I muttered to myself, flicking the glass.
I dropped my pack on the floor with a careless thump. Time to figure out why that name seemed familiar. I sat cross legged and pulled out all the paperwork I had for Fawney Rig.
"You're shitting me."
The name of my long lost uncle, my father's brother, was Alex Burgess.
I glanced back up at the bust. "Please tell me it's only through marriage. I will lose my shit if I'm related by blood--"
The blood running through your veins was spilled in an ancient rite, upsetting the balance of the universe.
Air caught in my chest like a stab wound at the memory.
"Fuck." I muttered, blinking away tears. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I pressed the heel of my palms into my eyes, trying to get a grip on myself. Panicking wasn't going to help. Leaning my head against the bottom of the case, I sucked in long even breaths.
When my heart finally slowed to an acceptable speed, I raised my head and looked up into cold stone eyes.
"What the fuck did you do?"
Like most old mansions, it wasn't as big as you expected it to be. Of course, it was big for a victorian era home, especially one in Europe. But thanks to my particular path in life, I had been in much bigger mansions.
I passed the door in the east wing with a keypad lock for what must have been the hundredth time. A room with a secret important enough to be guarded. I kept my eyes forward.
Just like a coward.
Behind door number 12 or so, was a fairly bare and small guest bedroom. Or maybe it had been a servants bedroom. A four poster bed, a dresser, and two chairs next to a small fireplace, were the only things inside.
It felt much more like my shitty little Brooklyn studio apartment than any of the other bedrooms. Plus it had the bonus of being on the first floor. Easier to hear a break in that way.
I tossed my pack onto the bed and sat down after it. Absent mindedly, my fingers traced where the ruby sat under my shirt. It seemed like answers were going to find me, whether I wanted them or not. I sighed and placed my head in my hands.
No use delaying the inevitable.
Taking a screwdriver and wire cutters from my pack, I pocketed them and left my cowardice in the bedroom.
The keypad came off the wall with little effort. It was an older model, likely not updated since the 90s.
Why did the rich always skimp out on the most important stuff?
I cut the wires to the lock and heard the magnets disengage with a quiet whir. The door was so old that the physical lock on the handle could be jammed open with the screwdriver.
It swung open and hit the wall with an echoing bang. I stared at the stone steps that led down to into the darkness.
If there was the devil down there, he was sure to be awake now.
The lights flickered when I turned them on. Cautiously, I decended. My feet touched the bottom step. I turned, heart racing in my chest.
I didn't know what I expected. But it certainly hadn't been this.
It had been far, far too long, Dream decided. Since his captor's death and the absence of his daily pleadings, time seemed to blur together ceaselessly. He was left in complete darkness without even the mindless chatter of the guards to distract him.
Everything felt so... empty.
Yet it had not been long enough. How many more years would he have to suffer this oppressive silence, the numbing cold, the black that had seemed to manifest itself in his very being?
How long before the building gave way and he could finally return home?
Dream had long since given up the hope that someone would free him.
That hope had died with his raven.
Even his siblings had not been bothered by his absence. Dream would not lower himself to beg for their help. He had done so before, eons ago.
It had not ended well.
Dream was not a being that forgot. Nor did he make the same mistake twice.
A noise cut through the quiet. The creaking of wood.
He dismissed it as noises of an old house adjusting to its own weight. Yet some deep dark part of him wished it to be the beginning of something.
The beginning of collapse.
Before long he heard it again.
Creak.
Dream focused intently on the sound, expecting nothing, but still feeling the start of some long lost emotion stoke to life within him. He tried to smoother the seething embers.
There was nothing here but dust. His imagination was getting carried away.
Or perhaps he was falling apart. Changing, irreversibly, like his sister had.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
Was that it? Was he going mad?
Or were those truly footsteps he was hearing?
A woman's voice drifted to him, so quietly that he could not make out the words. No, that was impossible. He must be going mad.
Thump.
Dream's head snapped up. The noise echoed off the stone walls, making a hallucination seem improbable. Then came a woman's voice again.
The same woman.
Hope roared to life inside him like a wildfire. Dream desperately tried to douse the flames.
Though he may not be alone, it did not mean he was going to be freed. After all, how many had seen him trapped and had done nothing?
Humanity had proven their cruelty knew no bounds.
He did not know how long he listened to the woman walk around above him, her quiet voice occasionally finding it's way to him. It mattered not.
She was not here to free him.
Perhaps it would be better if she did not find him at all. He much prefered the absence of their petty demands.
Even if it meant a hundred more years in this empty darkness.
There was a creak directly above his head. He could feel her enter the confines of the binding circle, though far above. Just as quickly her presence vanished.
Dream watched the ceiling with absent eyes.
He listened to her footsteps. Tried to deny that they came closer. Then there was silence.
A question arose in him. Why was the woman here?
She certainly walked around like she owned this place, making enough noise after so long of silence that it could surely wake the dead--
BANG.
The noise echoed through his confines like a gunshot. His eyes watched where he knew the iron door to be.
There was a pause. Then, footsteps on stone. She was coming down the stairs.
Dream felt his body tense, as if his limbs were vipers preparing to strike. The wildfire had become a supernova, consuming him from the inside and drawing all the breath from his lungs.
And yet.
And yet...
He heard the woman let out a huff.
"This is what I get, listening to goddamn ghost stories. A cellar full of--" There was the clinking of glass. "--pickled eggs? Gross."
All at once, the light within him was snuffed out. The darkness had never felt more suffocating. Dream let his head fall back down.
How could she be expected to know that he lay just beyond the brick wall? One that had been built to hide his prison?
You're never getting out of there...
Perhaps Roderick Burgess had been right.
"This is hopeless." Her voice could have been his echo. "What am I even fucking doing here?"
Dream felt the woman's sigh somewhere deep in his soul. As she grew quiet, he felt the silence companionable, like the ghost of an old friend. They sat together in the same darkness, separated only by the illusion of a wall.
Too quickly, her footsteps proceeded back up the stairs. Once again, he was alone. It shouldn't matter, and yet he felt the truth of it like a weight upon his shoulders.
I think you're lonely.
Some strange part of him even missed his reflection in the cold glass cage. He did not know whether it was because it simply reminded him he existed, or if his mind had decided to pretend his reflection had been company. Someone to share in his suffering.
Proof that his suffering existed. That he was not the nothing they had made him to feel.
Another creak above his head. The woman's presence entered his awareness, inside the binding circle once more. Dream felt completely powerless. And yet.
If he stretched his mind far enough...
The act was akin to holding a heavy weight on an outstretched arm.
She was so far away and he was nearly completely depleted; drained of his power after the assault of time, the absence of his tools, and the great act that had made him susceptible to such a spell in the first place. Still, he continued onward, stretching the bounds of his power.
The woman felt so tired. Some journey had left her weary. Dream nursed that feeling, beckoning her mind to enter his realm.
It would not be enough to free him, not in his state. He may not even be able to manifest himself properly in her dream. None the less, it was some small scrap of power, of control, that he would not soon give up.
Invisible hands forced her under the warm blanket of sleep, fingers digging into her brain. As he slipped into her dream, he discovered why she was there.
And who she was.
His heart sank. The Fates were surely mocking him.
It felt like being back in that storage room, surrounded by too much junk and not knowing where to start. Answers were right at my fingertips, yet hidden like a needle in a pile of needles. I sighed and collapsed back on the bed, letting my uncle's will fall to the floor.
God, I was just so tired of it all. Forever getting no where. What was the point of it all? My unfocused gaze stared at the ceiling.
A yawn caused my eyes to tear up. Then another.
Maybe a nap would reset my brain. Give me some idea on what to do. When was the last time I had had a decent night's sleep, anyway?
I felt myself begin to drift... then I startled back awake with force.
Sitting up, I blinked at the darkness of the room. When had the sun set? I must've been asleep for a while.
Shadows danced across the wallpaper from the lit fireplace. Surprised, I turned towards it.
Gleaming eyes met my own.
I yelped and shot to my feet, backing into the dresser but not daring to take my eyes off what I saw.
A dark silhouette of a figure, flames flickering behind him to cast him in shadow. No, he seemed to be made of shadow, save for two pinpricks of bright light that glowed like a predator in the night. The edges of him wavered and twisted, made of smoke. His eyes watched me and emotions rose like bile up my throat.
Fury. Disgust. Contempt.
Whatever this thing was, it hated me with such ashy depth that I felt I might choke on it. My hands shook. There was no where to run. I tried to swallow everything back down, including my own fear.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
The shadow man said nothing, but his eyes continued to burn into my own.
Despair. Anguish. Longing.
It ached like a fish hook in my throat, the bone deep sense of longing ringing in my ears. He needed something, to the point of desperation and the exclusion of all else.
"What, what do you want?" Tears stung my eyes as I stuttered.
He didn't move. Smudged blackness twisted around him. Pain throbbed in my mouth as I looked into his eyes. He looked like some dark ghost.
"Look, I can't..." I tapped into some strange well of courage I didn't know I had. "I can't help you if you won't even talk to me!"
The shadow's rage pushed into me, a physical force shoving my backwards in it's intensity. I gasped and struggled to breathe, falling to my knees as his anger knocked the wind out of me. He glided towards me, lower part of him moving like a poor mimic of normal walking. The darkness of his form ate up my vision.
My tears finally broke the confines of my lashes. "Just, just tell me. Please, I don't know what you want." I choked. "Just tell me wh-what to do."
We watched each other for a moment, both of us equally uncertain. Then he raised his arm and I flinched, a learned child-like instinct preparing me for the blow I knew would come.
Nothing happened.
I peaked over my raised, shaking arms.
His hand was stretched out towards me, palm up as if waiting for something. Glimmering lights were frozen on me.
Surprise. Curiosity. Pity.
His emotions went down like a bitter pill I had to swallow. I could no longer look the shadow man in the eye, feeling strangely exposed, despite being the one who read his emotions.
A hand still reached towards me. It was held out like he expected me to give him something. His fingers curled slowly, beckoning me with a new found gentleness.
I still didn't understand what he wanted. So I did the only thing I could think to do. Slowly, I placed my hand in his.
Cold shadows curled around my hand, not quite fingers, only the poor approximation of them. It felt like the memory of touch, long since faded. I hesitated. He did not. The shadow man pulled me to my feet, my legs wobbling like a newborn deer's as they took my weight again.
He dropped my hand and I avoided his gaze. Pity was a taste I couldn't seem to get out of my mouth. Without a second glance, he turned and glided towards the door.
"H-hey!" I called as he disappeared out to the hallway. "Wait! Where are you..."
I bit the inside of my cheek as if that would somehow calm my nerves. A smarter person would've left well enough alone and been glad to see the entity leave.
So of course I followed the shadow man.
Just as I entered a room, he would slip into the next, trailing me along with his starlit eyes. The taste of encouragement and anticipation mixed on my tongue like melting spun sugar. It clashed harshly with my own growing anxiety, the sweetness making me feel sick as I began to suspect where he was leading me.
I froze when my worst fears were realized. His dark figure watched me from the door to the basement. My hesitation didn't bother him. As soon as he was sure I had seen him, he disappeared inside.
Memories of the rumors roared in my ears. Was this the devil? Or a ghost? Both seemed equally unlikely.
In the end, I decided it didn't matter. I couldn't get any more cursed.
Right?
Numb stiff legs carried me to the doorway. He looked up at me from the bottom of the stairs, his eyes the only things visible in the dark. When I flicked on the light switch he was gone.
I took a deep breath, remembering the oppressive sorrow I had felt coming from within the shadow man. For something akin to an eldritch entity, he seemed to have downright human emotions. Maybe he was a ghost.
As I took my first step down the stairs, I prayed this was more of a Lovely Bones situation than an episode of Supernatural. When I reached the landing, he was no where to be found. The same musty cellar as before met me. Even the shelf of dusty wine bottles was exactly as it had been the first time.
Confused, I stepped deeper inside, turning my back on the shelf of wine and the red brick wall. Further in the cellar were more shelves with forgotten jars and crates of junk. My eyes caught sight of a particularly colorful jar and an idea struck me.
Weren't djinn beings made of smoke? Maybe he was neither a devil nor a ghost.
Maybe he was a genie, trapped in a bottle.
My hand pressed the skin warmed ruby into my chest, still hidden under my clothes. I could wish for the curse to be lifted, couldn't I? Would that really work?
It was worth a shot.
But as my hands reached for the colorful jar, I felt his gaze return. His eyes were a physical presence, sucking the oxygen out of the room like a fire to burn a blistering hole in the back of my head. I spun around, lungs aching, forgetting how to breathe.
Our eyes met.
Urgency.
His unspoken demand evaporated all the moisture from my mouth. It seared into me like a white hot brand. A black mirage of a head nodded imperceptibly.
Then he stepped back and vanished into the brick wall behind him.
"Wait!" I started after him. "I don't under--"
I woke with a start, forcefully, pushed into consciousness. Dusty air settled into my lungs and cemented the fear in my gut. My eyes blinked at the darkness. I was no longer in the room I had fallen asleep in.
Sleepwalking. I had been sleepwalking. I had never done that before.
What was far worse was where I had ended up. The only light came from the open door at the top of the stairs. But it was enough for me to recognize.
I was in the fucking basement.
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