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feebisart · 1 month ago

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The Door You Don't Knock On (3/4)

(( Trigger Warning: Unreality, Transformation, Body Horror, Derealization, Dissociation, Hints of Past Abuse, Drowning, Death, Existential Horror, Emotional Manipulation, Mental Health Struggles, Surreal/Disturbing Imagery, References to Violence, Grief/Loss. ))

A/N: Please keep in mind the trigger warnings. Thank you.

Billy opened his blue eyes, reflecting the stars and galaxies squished into streams of Saturn's spinning disk. He blinked a couple of times, rubbing at the sleep with the back of his hand.

"Oh." He uttered as he gazed into the surreal sky.

Gingerly, he pushed himself up, feeling the pleasant heat of the couch beneath him. He gave the sofa a soft pat—a habit of thanking inanimate objects. Around him, a haze of heat gently rested over a fiery sea, furniture bobbing leisurely throughout the molten tide as tubes drifted down a waterpark's lazy river.

Peering over the side of the comfortable couch, Billy hesitated before dropping onto a stone slab atop the vibrant sand. Multicolored grains shifted beneath the piece as the foot met pavement. It was, of course, a migraine to look at. However, it wasn't lava. He won't look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.

A giggle bubbled out of his mouth, surprising the young boy. The silliness of it all—the marshmallow-soft cushions and the flaming ocean provided the backdrop to his amusement. Billy had slept on dozens of surfaces before—hardwood floors, tile, rock, and even the branches of trees. Now, he could add roasted marshmallow cushions to that list.

In the distance, the molten rock hissed as if affronted by his laughter. The gurgling mass of creeping lava spewed spectral radiant mist that drizzled glitter over the coast around him. The grains collided with a soft yet strangely metallic sound as the mist met the sand. Curious, Billy crouched closer and spotted a glint amid the chromatic, iridescent particles. The sand wasn't just sand—it morphed between tiny sand crystals and larger metallic jacks.

"That's so weird." He muttered as he brushed some ashes off his sweater. Stretching his back, he surveyed the area. Marble slabs scattered across the sand like lily pads floating across a pond.

Did anyone say Leapfrog?

Billy grinned from ear to ear, leaping from slab to slab like a child playing hopscotch, waving his arms to balance himself with each jump. Nearing the end of the path, he teetered on one foot, almost stepping into the sand before catching himself on the rock's edge.

A large gap loomed before him, filled with kaleidoscopic minerals torn between quartz crystals and knucklebones. A faint cling reverberated as a breeze brushed past. Wind chimes as it weaves through colliding metal scraps or, perhaps, mocking laughter.

Beyond him unfurled a black-and-white checkered pattern floor. The boy drew in a deep breath before launching himself across. He landed and slid onto the sleek, slippery floor, emitting a harsh squeal—grating rubber squeaking onto a slick glass surface.

Flapping his arms with a hint of desperation, he glided to a halt in the middle of an elegant hallway, gasping for breath. Doors were lined in uniform repeating patterns along the hallways, and their handles were in particularly unique places—some were far too high, some were two inches from the floor, and some were just floating in the air—just out of reach. Billy blinked, wondering where he should go next.

The tingling crept around Billy's shoulders, wrapped around the boy's shoulders like a white cloak. A faint, high-pitched ringing stalked him—a persistent mosquito honing into the sting. He had thought the further he walked from the sand, the fainter the sound would get. But apparently not. The hallways seemed to turn and twist sideways, looping into themselves in a never-ending Moebius strip. Every turn he'd been there before, every step left a resounding echo.

The ringing amplified, adding the soprano of screeching feedback, the base of discordant laughter, and rhythmic faint taunts using distorted versions of Billy's voice. It wasn't just his ears but also his taste. Every time his voice screamed into his ear, he tasted the stinging, metallic flavor, tasting the noise itself. An earworm that wouldn't leave gnawed at his thoughts, a continuous spiraling loop. Billy knew plenty of earworms—songs that wormed their way into your brain, settling comfortably to never leave, much like Mister-

No, Billy shook his head quickly, cutting off the thought. He needed to find what It Is Not. The boy could not afford to Spiral. He pinched the bridges of his nose as it howled into his ear, dropping all pretense of subtlety. There was no doubt in his mind—It was getting impatient.

Perhaps in annoyance or wanting it all to stop, he grabbed the nearest door handle and pulled it without thinking. His pale fingers curled tightly around the handle, and with a swift, violent force, he yanked the door open. The panel slammed against the wall, and chips of wood fell onto the ground from the pure force. Static surged into a deafening disharmonious crescendo, an ice pick to the head regarding ear-splitting notes.

All of a sudden, nothing.

The door sealed shut behind him, hissing shut with finality in the form of air decompressing from a pressurized chamber. A faint rush of air brushed against his back before all was still. He concentrated on hearing the ringing, which was still there—faint, in the background, waiting.

The room was quite ordinary, if a bit cluttered. Art Deco flair seeped into the gold and black orchid wallpaper, sleek and aerodynamic furniture, and black and white tiles with gold accents. There was a hint of paint and wood shavings in the air. Open and empty cans of paint scattered across the floor. Baskets and containers of pencils, pens, markers, and chalk were piled on each other. Blank Canvases were scattered around the room with palettes of every imaginable color. Brushes were placed at each art stand, overflowing the holder.

It was overwhelming—every medium of art stacked on each other in a gaudy display of choices. He could see perhaps a faded yellow couch propped up by a couple of sketchbooks, but it was dwarfed by the mountain of yarn balls on top of it. Despite the hodgepodge, there was something quite familiar about the place, a sense of déjà vu that piqued Billy's curiosity.

Billy placed his hands on his hips, clicking his tongue as if affronted by the mess before him. He rolled up the sleeves of his sweater, using a piece of yarn he chewed off to tie it up. (He would not look for sharp items in that Mess.) He heaved up a heavy bin of rolled newspapers, nudging an open can of reddish-brown paint aside with his foot as he gasped for breath.

At least, it was silent.

Billy huffed, hands on his hips before he dived into piles of art supplies. He disliked too much mess since it made it hard to think. There was so much stuff—baskets of watercolors, buckets of oil paints, tubes of acrylics, and towers of jars filled with miscellaneous supplies. He began separating the chaos into categories, which made his brain happy—drawing, painting, fabric, knitting, etc.

As he's moving a metal tin of colored pencils, his gaze caught onto something strange: a pair of pointed shoes, brown cap-toe oxfords, still polished with a gleaming sheen. As he moved away a bucket of unopened paint, his breath caught in his throat as he discerned the pant leg of a familiar brown suit.

"It can't be." Billy's voice hitched. "Mr. Dare…"

Dan Dare. The detective.

His stomach sank as he hurriedly clawed into the clutter, his trembling hands scraping against metal tins. Boxes of chalk toppled, spilling pink dust into the air. Bins of sketchbooks teetered precariously—a makeshift Tower of Pisa, while buckets of crayons were knocked over, a few loose crayons tumbling around. Billy's desperate cleaning halted; his breath hitched as he stilled at the sight.

A chair.

It looked normal enough—the sleek, glossy finish of the Beech arms and the soft, supple, genuine leather for the cushion. But the form? Following the curve of the backrest, the cushion flowed into a lower torso with a pair of legs clad in brown pants underneath. They were human. They were Dan.

Where flesh met wood, there wasn't a neat seam or clean cut of timber, but a continuous languid flow. Veins snaked through the beech wood and flawlessly transitioned to the chair's grain in the arms above. The lungs were absent, yet the lower part of the torso continued to inflate as if breathing.

Billy's gaze drew to the legs that twitched ever so often. Feet that stretched and relaxed as if leisurely resting on the ground.

Is this what it means to Become It?

This was not just horror nor the grotesque. This was the annihilation of everything that you are—a complete and total erasure of identity, and for what? To turn you into a tacky chair.

He realized a pivotal point—the Spiral was no longer playing with its food.

In fact, it was Hungry.

What if I stop being me?

Billy choked on inhaling his next breath. His heart fluttered like a hummingbird's wings as he clutched his chest. The Lichtenberg scars underneath his sweater pulled and ached as black crept along the edge of his vision.

The world tilted—skewed and slanted.

Billy's chest tightened further, and he thought his heart would crush his chest with the weight of Everything.

This wasn't about him.

He inhaled a deep, painful breath.

He breathed again to solidify himself, the darkness receded as he took continuous deep breaths in and out.

Back before his job at Whiz Radio, He remembered Mr. Dare.

Blonde, slick-back hair, a sunny smile, and an ear to listen to. "Do you have any allergies, kid?" The man warmly asked, handing Billy a brown paper bag from a sandwich shop. The smell of Cuban cigars and Hawaiian roast on his breath lingered in the cool, wintry air.

It's not fair.

He hadn't seen Dan for a couple of weeks. The kid figured Detective Dare was off helping TV moguls or multimillionaires. Not this.

Never this.

Crouching over Dan with his knees on the floor, the boy's hand wavered over the brown pants leg, hesitating over the fabric. Yanking his hand away, He placed it on his lap.

Billy's voice cracked as he crouched over Dan Dare, "Mr. Dare, I- I don't know if you can hear me, but you were a good person." His fingers scrunched up his jeans, balling into fists.

"I'm sorry you got turned into... this." A quick glance at the leather cushions wrapped between brown beech wood lurched the orphan's stomach. He reverted his gaze to the human part—the familiar half.

"You were a great detective. I'm glad I got to interview you." The small reporter sniffed, remembering the man's animated tales of intrigue, stakeouts, and close calls with Carol over Whiz Kid radio.

"It doesn't get to take that away from you." The boy wiped his eyes. "I'll remember you and make sure Fawcett remembers you, too."

At first, staring at the chair made him disgusted; nausea rose to his throat, threatening to empty into a paint can. But he pulled back; the disgust simmered and bubbled within him into something else—something hot and sharp. A spark ignited within him.

Was this funny? Did it make the Distortion tickled pink from warping Dan Dare to this?

The boy's gaze flicked to where the spray paint cans scattered near Dan's legs. "Fine," he spat, throwing the cap off as it bounced off an elegant black and gold orchid on the wallpaper. "Let's see how you like it." The spray can hissed out a streak of neon yellow across the flower and several phrases such as "STUPID" and "UGLY" right on top of a particularly offensive spiral.

He held the can out as he punted the aerosol container and jettisoned it into the sky with his foot. Anger burned deep within his stomach, churning a whirlwind of anger, grief, and something Else—something that Distorted. The tinkling of bells echoed in his ears, a constant ringing after a concert.

His hair grew longer, dangling over his face in tangled loops as he heaved a couple of breaths.

Shifting his eyes to the left, he glimpsed a hint of black amongst the plastic containers. The ringing sounded like pulsating beats of his heart with every step. Billy grabbed the box, flipping it open to reveal perfectly intact charcoal sticks.

His heart thundered as he held a handful of them to his eye.

The sight of it irritated him for some reason he couldn't explain. Charcoal—dust and ash, all left of a cloudless blue sky.

He crushed the charcoal sticks in his hands, his nails digging in deep. Black dust etched into every crease and line of his palms, leaving dark stains on his skin.

Suddenly, his eyes teared up. He wiped his eyes with his knuckles, only making it worse—staining charcoal smudging into his eyes, a blindfold of stinging tears and ashes. Blue and black melded and flowed as if a thumb coated with soot ran across the eyes of a watercolor painting.

Swaying across the room, Billy's dangling arms knock over paint cans and water cups as they absorb into the boy's fluid structure. His hair drips down a waterfall of purple, blue, and yellow pigments. His heartbeat takes on multiple tones as if played over a speaker underwater—muted, warbled, and barely recognizable.

He can't see. He can't see. He can't-

The high note and screeching tingling that hits his ears has his hands brush over a basket. It was powdery, smooth, and circular. Chalk. Where there were colors and almost overwhelming imagery, there was nothing but darkness. Red and yellow dripped over him as a cape, and he felt crushed by the immense pressure.

The lack of control over his body and form was too much. He retaliated the only way he knew how. He flipped the basket.

It erupted. Pounding, migraine-inducing bass vibrating the very ground, the facsimile of a boy stood. Reddish-brown powder and chalk dust reached the ceiling, unfurling into the shape of a mushroom with an expanding ring of dust and debris that rippled outwards; pieces of crayons and pencils rolled away from the epicenter—ripping his life into pieces.

Strangely enough, he sees with touch. Sensing the colors and shape, the liquid seeped into the pile, bringing up a floating piece of equipment. A microphone was connected to a wooden broadcast console. He wrapped a tendril of water around it, bringing the mic up the last recognizable part of his body—his mouth. He could feel that water was entering his lungs, making it hard to breathe. He was drowning in his own liquid.

He opened his mouth and uttered, "SHA-"

The lips hesitated, closing as if swallowing.

"Go on, finish it." The smug, gloating voice whispered in a sing-song tone reminiscent of a lullaby.

It was inevitable.

The mouth took one last breath and exhaled a word.

"No."

The static rose to a crescendo; it could feel the vibrations coursing through everything, inside and out. An earthquake shaking the very foundation of being. Baskets of arts and crafts tumbled and tossed in a salad, a blender ripping into every sense and meaning.

The water crashed, overturning the mouth, melding it to its giant amorphous fluid. There was no mouth, not anymore.

The shaking gradually ceased, and a stray chalk fell to the ground near the puddle of water within a bucket—streaks of watercolors, paint, marker, and ink swirled.

The Distortion waited for it to finally digest.

It thought it was erasing him, turning him into a fluid to easily digest.

Water can't be erased.

It adapts. It endures. It Becomes.

Transformation was nothing new to him. From street rat to Demigod, from kid to adult, and from life to death—he had faced change, and every change was a journey he would take—a responsibility he would shoulder.

He took a hypothetical breath.

Five things to see. The sense of vision was curious when it was seen through taste. The painted water flowed through the remnants, seeing the flavors amidst the entropic landscape— salty ink pooled into itself as it absorbed, gaining mass; sour paint flowed into thin, vibrant streams, sweet markers bleeding onto canvases; bitter oils floated on the surface, creating an iridescent sheen, and savory, metallic flavor of the colorful mist from a dented spray can. Four things to feel. The gurgling flow of water filling up a container, the drops of water dripping down onto the canvas below, the chaotic splash of the overflow, and the plop of liquid mass pooling onto a fractured ground. Three things to listen to. The plastic aroma of a fresh coat of acrylic as the water rippled, the harsh, sharp odor of spray paint gases mixed into the atmosphere, and the sweet, musty smell of watercolors spilled across a table. Two things to smell. The coolness of the slick surface, the roughness of the jagged edges of broken tiles. The water seeped through the cracks to pool near a slanted tile. One thing to taste. A yellow chalk teetered on a precarious edge of the ground, as water wrapped around it, the rushing force bringing it to the tile.

The Distortion watched as a child would drown an ant in a puddle it created—its fragmenting, twisted body filled with ever-changing fractals and shapes loomed over the body of water.

A chiming, crackling laughter escaped its body, glass shattering from the ocean's depths. The sound echoed, a sharp, discordant symphony of cruelty.

The sound reverberated through Billy. He may not have been able to hear it, but he felt it in his very being. It was a grating, uncomfortable feeling that rippled through his waters.

Still, he awkwardly fumbled a stray chalk to swirl in a faded-yellow spiral.

"Go on," it crooned sweetly, smug with indulgent malice. "Try your best."

The spiral began to take shape on the black tile under his makeshift, fluid-like hand. With each wave, he etched more of the spiral until it was recognizable.

He pushed against the tile with every lapping wave until it stood upright. Vertical with its spiral, menacingly observing the water before it.

He was not going to go through it.

He was going over it.

Expanding his mind, he concentrated on each piece of water. It was like peering around only Not. He could vaguely feel specks of warmth scattered around, or perhaps he tasted their colors.

Stray droplets leaned against the edges of the scrambled room before, fragments of color scattered about the surface. The leaning tower of sketchbooks stood proudly, having survived the tempest of the Distortion's anger.

Erosion.

At the base, a precarious point lay in wait in this game of Janga. All it would take was one move and the entire structure would come tumbling down.

And that was precisely what Billy needed.

The waves lapped at the tower's base, testing it as a school of piranhas circling their prey might.

Water crashed into the structure, prodding at one of the books. It wiggled, teasing the sketchbook loose from the stack with its alternating crest and troughs.

Soggy pages curled up in the edges, torn off by the constant ebb and flow. Water absorbed into the pages, smearing the black ink into a gray shadow.

It Is Not What It Is laughed, mocking the boy's efforts—a discordant melody of metal scraping onto cherry petals.

It only took one slip—a push against a particularly slippery journal binding, and the cracks propagated throughout. It started to sway like a skyscraper in the first tremors of an earthquake—sketchbooks and journals fell like a sudden deluge.

Pyroclastic flows of ripped pages and book bindings descended upon the water, creating deep amplitudes and displacing water in violent shifts.

The distance between the waves stretched further, rippling outwards.

As the crest approached the shallower water, the seabed of paint tubes and crayons slowed the approaching wave—faster water flows and built the wave higher and higher.

Then, the water began receding from the tile. Static churned in the air—a pressure drop and the oncoming storm's sharp, metallic scent.

Red tubes of paint lay scattered like uncovered seashells. Broken paint brushes stuck out of the glittering sand, drenched seaweed poking out. Interference intensified to howling winds through a tunnel.

Suddenly, a prominent crest rushed towards the black slate in a whirlwind of multicolored water. Billy's consciousness was on top of the wave's crest, surfing right on top, perched in the fierce, foaming waves. The Distorted, fractured form grew darker, tasting of soot and ozone.

As he neared the tile, Billy leaped over the upper border, soaring over the bar with droplets glinting like pearls. Fractals overhead roared in thunderstorms, and streams of yarn dangled like string cheese.

Like the bar of a long jump,

Billy felt absolute elation as he made it past the surface,

mere inches from the top.

The skim of liquid fell towards cracks and through the broken foundation before the roaring water broke the tile with the force.

A scream pierced through the air, amplified through the water, blood-curdling absent of the Distortion's nauseating imagery.

It was deeply human.

Desperate, almost.

Billy slipped through the gaps in the foundation, falling into darkness. Heat wrapped around him like a suffocating blanket. Droplets of water hissed as they evaporated, glistening like diamonds. They formed rivulets in the sky—blue, red, violet, and orange rivers.

The water that made up his current form began to foam and boil. Steam rose, transforming into trails of light behind him, like the tail of a comet. Above, the checkered sky framed his descent, starkly contrasting the flowing colors.

As he fell, the boiling water left behind dried remnants of color: red, black, white, yellow, and blue. Slowly, his form simplified, reducing into a watercolor figure. He tumbled through a surreal animation, flipping between frames of black-and-white paper.

The small orphan stretched out his arms, desperate to gain control over the rapid tumble. He slowed, his vision sharpening on a distant sphere—black or white, an inverse of the background behind him.

It wasn’t just a sphere. It was a hole. And he was falling straight into it.

As he drew closer, the sphere grew, consuming the entire frame. Now a speck against its vastness, Billy could feel time slipping away. It moved strangely, bending and warping in ways even the performative chaos of the Spiral couldn't achieve. Wonkier than anything he’d ever felt, not even the peculiar doors of The Rock of Eternity compared.

He tried everything to stop himself. Jumping, swimming, kicking, flying, running—none of it mattered. The pull was relentless.

The numbness began in his legs, spreading upward as they sank into the abyss. Then his stomach, his heart, until the darkness swallowed his eyes. It devoured his memories, form, and every piece of what made him him.

And then—

Nothing.

︵‿︵‿୨𖦹୧‿︵‿︵

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#billy batson #shazam #dc #dc captain marvel #captain marvel #dc comics #dc shazam #dc universe #tma #dc x tma #tma spiral #tma distortion #the distortion

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