#Emily Jane is to Katherine what Venom is to Eddie

[stormingfrost]

Wonders of the Invisible World 

Tags: Body horror, major character death, Implied/Referenced child abuse, original characters, pitch/sandy

summary: 

Through hundreds of years of strange things happening all over the world, finally someone sees. The Bennett family is now at the forefront of every children's tale - except, now, they learn that these tales are not only real, but much, much darker than they first thought.

For @rotg-halloween day six: Dystopia  

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chapter six: Dystopia 

under cut

Her feet slammed on the dirt, each footstep seemingly jostling her entire body until her legs were nothing but pain. Katherine paused, leaning against a tree and panting.

“Why’d you stop?” The voice in her head asked. “We are almost there.” 

“Be,” she gasped in between breaths. “Quiet. We don’t need to see them now. Just… in a bit.” 

She felt the voice silence, but that never meant it was over. Silence meant angry pouting. 

“Emily, I need a break.”  

Her vision grew blurry and dark.

The trees were rattling when she came to. She was on the floor. Katherine rolled her eyes. 

“We won’t get anywhere if you throw these temper tantrums.” 

“Stop speaking to me like I am a child. I’m older than you.” 

“Then act like it. It’s not the end of the world if we don’t get there immediately.” 

She sat up, staring at a frozen pond. 

He was supposed to be in there. He wasn’t. She wondered how true Death felt. 

The boy, that frozen corpse, was the one thing keeping everything stable. If the boy managed to break the ice and stumble to the ruins of his own home, then that was a sign. 

And then, he just never returned to the pond. Everyone understood him to be dead.

There were five humans directly in this mess. Emily didn’t care about helping them, after all, humans are why she lost her own body. But she was bound to Katherine, and Katherine cared.  

If Katherine didn’t solve why they were able to give the boy his peace, all hell would break loose. If she didn’t find them first, something else will. 

Her joints ached. She looked down at her hand, watching it as it turned soft, small, and young. And then rough, wrinkled, and aged. It morphed, along with the rest of her body. 

She closed her eyes. 

She could control it, once. Being able to turn any age she pleased was a gift at first. Enjoying youth while being able to reap the benefits that adulthood brought. 

But now, she was out of control. 

She didn’t know why, even after spending hours hunched over every book in her collection, even after every spell, she was not able to stay in control. 

She rested her hand, now a young adult hand, on the ice. 

“Nightlight?” She whispered. 

The wind didn’t answer her call. The boy didn’t gargle at her, some part of him recognized the name. 

It was a repetition she didn’t enjoy. Her Nightlight, her once shining love, was stuck in the body of a completely unrelated corpse. She didn’t know how much of the corpse’s memories were her Nightlight’s. Most of the memories were the boy’s. Every year, she’d find him crying at the ruins of his former home, and every year, she’d try to relive his misery. 

If not an obligation to her love, then it was to soothe the misery of the dead. 

She didn’t know if Nightlight was buried with the boy or not. 

“He’s not here,” Emily said. “Find the family. Five humans. We need to know how they were able to kill one of us.” 

“They didn’t kill him,” Katherine reminded, “The boy was already dead. Just received peace.” 

“Very well,” Emily drawled, mocking Katherine. “We need to know how they were able to… give him peace.” 

Katherine stood up, brushing snow off her pants. 

“There’s a fork in the path.” She held out her hand, seeing two lines of stories guiding her in completely opposite directions. 

“Just pick one.” 

Katherine shrugged, choosing one of the stories and following it. 

This story was one of anger. Hurt. Maybe the anger and hurt could make a human able to see them. Be able to stop the cycle through violence. 

The boy was shot and buried, after all. 

She had only a vague description of the family. Three adults, and two children. One boy and one girl. Their stories were all twisted together, so she separated the adults from the children. Katherine chose the young girl’s story, which at this point in her life, solely consisted of two adults and her brother. 

It was less complicated and, therefore, easier to follow. The fork was not something she anticipated, but she supposed it made sense. After all, they had seen them multiple times. Everyone wanted a peek. 

They must’ve split up to try and confuse them. It worked because she was getting further away from the pond and nearer to the other side of town. 

She stopped in front of a building. A frown grew on her face. 

“A prison?” Emily said, her tone sounding about as confused as Katherine felt. “Did they hide in a prison?” 

“Perhaps. Only one way to find out.” 

She held onto the story, following the line like it was Ariadne's thread. 

She walked past every guard, every security measure, and every door. The story stopped in a cell. 

A man sat in a cell, lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. Katherine watched him. 

“What do you know?” She whispered. 

She couldn’t see his story. She frowned. 

“You can’t read him?” Emily asked.

“Not at all.” 

It only happened a few times before. Sometimes it was a deliberate choice, cutting the thread of the story off and hiding from her. Sometimes they just didn’t have one. 

The child’s story included this man. He was important, but Katherine didn’t know how. 

“Talk to him.” 

Katherine sighed, slipping into the cell. At least he was alone. 

She closed her eyes, pulling from stories to make herself visible to the man. 

The man jumped, looking at her with alarm. 

“Hello,” she said. “I’m here to ask you questions.” 

“I didn’t do it,” the man said immediately. 

“I didn’t say you did anything.” 

The man looked her over. 

“Well, little lady, what do you want?” 

“Answers.” 

“I don’t like him,” Emily said. 

The man stood up, a little bit closer to Katherine. 

“I’ll give you all the answers you want, but, if you do me a favor.” 

“I hate him,” Emily insisted. “Let me have control. I will drown him in a tsunami and-“ 

Katherine ignored Emily. 

“What kind of favor?” She asked. The man sighed, running a hand down his face. 

“I was accused,” the man explained. “Wrongfully. I didn’t do anything to deserve to be here. They all hate me. She took away my kids by lying to everyone.” 

“Let me kill him,” Emily whispered. 

“Answer this first-“ 

“No,” the man said. “I won’t until you get me out of here. Please. You have no idea what it’s like. Everyone thinks I’m this monster. Please!” 

“Kill him,” Emily chanted.

Katherine sighed. 

“I’ll just go.” 

She slipped through the bars. The man screamed, yelling after her. 

“Please! You don’t know what it’s like!” 

She paused, turning back. The other people here were watching the man, whispering about how he was going crazy.

“I don’t know,” Katherine murmured, walking back to the cell. The man reached for her. 

“You’re in here. The story that led me here was full of anger and pain. That would be you.” 

“Pain, yes!” The man pleaded. “It’s so painful to be locked up… I didn’t do anything.” 

The person in the cell next to them scoffed. 

“You remind me of someone I knew once,” Katherine said. “Desperate. You’re useless like this. I have other options.” 

“No! Please! I need to see my son! Don’t you have mercy for parents missing their children?” 

Katherine turned on her heel, facing the man. Everything clicked into place with his words. 

“I can read you now. You lied to me. How dare you pretend that you didn’t hurt him? How dare you.” 

“He dies!” Emily cheered. 

The man stopped his weeping. He slammed a hand on the bars. 

“Let me have control,” Emily said. “I will take care of him.” 

Katherine shrugged. 

“Alright.” 

She closed her eyes. Darkness welcomed her. 

She woke up in a field, the prison distant on the horizon. The man was conscious, odd. Emily must’ve lost control easier than before. She normally finished the job. 

“Emily?” Katherine asked. 

There wasn’t a response. She frowned.

“No,” the man begged. 

Katherine wasn’t violent. She had no sympathy or pity for this man. Katherine examined him. 

A broken leg. Bruises. The vines around them dug into his arms, holding him in place. She glanced up to the distant prison. Flashlights beamed through the fog. 

“I won’t kill you,” Katherine said, kneeling to face the man. “They are going to find you and put you back. Don’t worry, you got dealt with a much better hand than others.” She turned away. 

“Emily?” She tried. 

Nothing. 

She glanced back at the man. Leaving him for the guards to find was her best choice. She wasn’t a murderer, so she wasn’t going to finish what Emily started. She also didn’t want to be near the man like that ever again. He was going to be found and brought back. They’d say he escaped but fell into a thorny bush. 

She needed to figure out why Emily was silent. It wasn’t normally so quiet in her own head.

The family could wait, the consequences be damned. She needed to know if Emily was okay. She couldn’t lose two friends. She couldn’t lose another person again.