Chapter Text
Martin jumped, flinging his body back into the chair which sat curtly behind his desk, the slam of a door, abruptly awaking him, from his restless sleep. His papers crinkled under the weight of his arms, which then braced his head against the table, his blonde hair curling around his face, and the growing stubble on his chin.
“Shit, sorry, were you sleeping?” Georgie asked apologetically, standing halfway through the doorframe, fingers still wrapped around the handle.
“I-um,” he mumbled, rubbing the inner parts of both his eyes, “yeah.. but, it’s alright.”
Georgie stared at him for moment, almost penetratingly. Seeing through his soul, Knowing what he was thinking, what he’d been thinking.
“Are you.. alright?” She asked, tilting her head slightly. Her expression wasn’t terribly different, not too disquieted, but she did sound concerned, if only a little.
“Um.. yeah. Yeah I’m… I’m okay.” He conceded quietly, sighing with an unintentional dart of his eyes, “what about you?”
She seemed to ponder for a moment, nails tapping on the papers in her hand, Now that he thought about it, she’d obviously come in here for something, maybe to tell him about an important update?
“I’m good,” she nodded, pursing her lips a little, “well, as good as anyone can be after the fiasco.”
He nodded in silent agreement, perhaps a touch more seriously than he’d intended. Setting his glasses back on his nose, he looked back up at Georgie, who rhythmically tapped the doorframe with the tips of her fingers.
“Um, did you, come in here, for something?” He asked politely, interlocking his fingers, sitting a bit straighter, and setting the palms of his clasped hands against his stomach.
“Oh! Right,” she opened the file, and looked back up at him, “okay.. um, you remember when you asked like, a couple months ago to hear about all new Statements relating to The Eye?”
Oh. He had done that, and he’d completely forgotten, somehow. Probably because they never really got any Eye related Statements, not anymore.
“Y-yeah?” His eyebrows pinched slightly, “Did you…?”
“Yeah, we got one. It was flagged by the criteria given about the Eye, by a new hire.” She stepped closer and set the file into his hands, “It’s all yours.”
“Thank-thank you..” he stared intently at the folder, gingerly running a finger against the paper ridges.
“Not a problem.” She almost walked out of his office, almost left, but she stopped, for a second, and turned back. When she did, Martin was still staring at the file, eyes pinned to the front.
“Martin.” She called to him, praying it would not fall on deaf ears.
His head twitched up, and he brought his eyes to meet hers.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
She shut the door, far quieter than she had when entering. The gentle click of the door handle snapping into place, was the only thing audible, above the tapping of rain.
It’s been raining for two days since the drops started. ‘Lord knows they needed it,’ Melanie would say, shaking off her cane, and wiping her sunglasses clean, and he would chuckle along, agreeing quietly, while not having to make the facial expressions connected to that proposed sentiment. Not because she was wrong, it’d had been dry a week previous, and the plants outside had been looking a little dreary, what was left of them at any rate. Not because he didn’t care, he loved talking to Melanie, she was kind, smart, and one of the only original people he knew who wasn’t completely depressed, not that he could blame her if she was. Her attitude was simply refreshing from all the gloom. He was just, tired.
Part of him didn’t want to open the file, to see something he’d, much rather not, about something that didn’t even relate to Him.
The other part, the sick part, wanted to tear it open like a rabid animal, let the pages fly, to let the knowledge the pages held be seen by all who wanted to know them. He wanted to know what it contained, what might be written on the pages, what someone may have seen, and written down. He had to know, he needed to.
Is that how He felt? Every time He got hungry? Did He feel starved? With hunger pains and all? Did He feel ill, or discomforted? Or did He feel like He was dying? Surely it was worse, if not, He wouldn’t have looked like death that whole time.
A pang of guilt struck a cord in his chest, for saying that about Him. He shouldn’t say such things, or even think them about Him, regardless of if it was the truth. Especially since he...
No. Stop thinking about it.
His leg began to bounce as if on its own accord, an uncomfortable habit he’d picked up after his stay in the hospital. When he’d begun to notice it, he realized its was always the one he’d splintered in The Panopticon, before Basira and Georgie had fished him out. In the present, he didn’t notice until it started moving with enough force to shake the table, of which, he then stilled, even if it was more uncomfortable. Like an itch we wanted to scratch, but desperately couldn’t.
He fiddled with the as-of-yet unopened folder, which trembled in his shaking hands. He could hardly bear the suspense of it any longer.
He flipped the cover and stared down at the file, at the Statement.
His mind flipped to recording it, as he used to do, and as He used to do. If it was a true Statement, modern recording technology would be utterly useless, and would fizzle out the recordings or image, or just break the device. He would probably break his new equipment if he tried to do so, and he didn’t want that, as he would rather keep his laptop, he had just gotten it a couple months ago.
But the alternative, he felt, well, I suppose you know how he felt. It felt like it would be burning him from the inside out. The shame and pain of using something that was once part of the parasite, clinging to someone he lost. He knew that the tape recorders weren’t in the Eye’s, and that, the recorders were actually the Web’s, he just didn’t much care to differentiate anymore, the Entities were far too closely linked for his liking, and he just, felt the blame couldn’t be justified by placing it on only one. He hadn’t touched any of the tapes, or their recorders for that matter, since the end of the Eyepocalypse. It’s not that they weren’t around anymore, because they were. They had been scattered about the Institution, all over the floors, falling down the stairs, all spilling out from His office. It was certainly not what he’d expected when coming back to this horrid place, but he didn’t know what he did expect. Walls warped beyond recognition? A smoking crater? Nothing at all? He couldn’t say.
He looked down through his glasses, at the Statement sitting before him, not bothering to record, he read.