#➢ verse: conservator's conclusions on the history of horror ( s5. )

[leavyes-a]

@praemetuere​ / m̷a̸r̷t̵i̷n̵

The Panopticon, for being the center of the world, was almost barren. What need did it have for toys in cells to torture for the thrill of watching, or artificial dramas played out again and again by actors removed from organic stimuli by iron bars? It had an entire planet of real, living terror, and it could See it all without its having to be dragged before it. So the muddy, ruined cells of Millbank Prison stood empty, circling round and round the central tower in a cement-studded coronet. Its king was at the top, but first one had to walk there. Past the ruins of the Magnus Institute, and Smirke’s tunnels, and the halls and too-small rooms of a jail destroyed long before the rest of London. The rest of everything.

       One empty cell, then another, then a square of grey floor with light spilling onto it. Chk-chk-whrr, whispered a camera as it reset for the ( first? tenth? hundredth? thousandth? ) time that ( day? month? year? infinity? ), blinking white before settling back onto a washed out sepia. Well, I don’t really know where he - / We’ll just leave it with you. / Be sure he gets it. / Okay, I will, but you really have to actually - / ‘course. Much obliged. / Stay safe. / …I’ll try? That was innumerable lifetimes ago, but it was preserved in such loving detail by the thing that sat in the one occupied cell, slumped forwards with its vacant eyes spinning. What had once been Levi Talbot, the Conservator, now useless to Beholding who could See All in Every Iteration without the need for reruns or reviews.

[leavyes-a]

@auspicium​ / death?

“I didn’t mean to come here.” Their feet had tangled in the roots, and, in an instant, they’d lost their hold on the stranger’s hand. The one thing tethering them in this new world, and it was gone; Levi was alone again, uncomprehending and oh, so tired. There was so much to See, after having been asleep for so long, that they could hardly handle the stimuli. Here it was quieter, but what little their Eyes took in was terrible to Behold: their worst nightmare, Death and the End of All Things. “Please, I was with that boy, I just want to go-- I just want to go. Please.” Their crown was not as resplendent as Jonah’s nor as radiant and ever-shifting as Jon’s. It was more a halo, really, an Eye that hovered just behind, framing the avatar’s head. It blinked, stuttered, and rolled in on itself.