Chapter Text
It’d been four months and George fought to remake himself and convince himself he’d forgotten.
For a while, he didn’t go to the corner store.
When he did, his eyes skirted around the path. The sign. An unspoken looming invitation.
George swallowed life like a desperate man drinking salt water; he knew it would sate nothing and leave him on the brink, but yet he felt compelled to keep trying. He was a selfish person; he found a girlfriend a week after Dream to distract himself. He hung out with his younger friend in the engineering department’s research library where he could aid him on computer programs that were a piece of cake compared to his freelance work. It made him feel confident. Powerful. It made him feel in control. All he had to was fill his life with other people’s problems; they could paint over his own so when he went to bed at night, he could escape the haunting.
And it worked. Mostly.
It always was 3 a.m. when he couldn’t feign a return to normalcy. When sweat soaked the back of his t-shirt and fear and arousal would begin to mix as the darkness of his room sunk in and the daily jerk off would become altered by memory.
George remembered the night he cracked and entered the sex-toy shop proudly sitting near the campus to the college. He didn’t make eye contact with the cashier, even as they cheerfully asked him if he needed help—as if this was clothes shopping.
He bought a dildo and lube in cash and left. He stowed them in his laptop bag immediately, as if that could erase the action.
Because Dream had been right.
At 3 a.m. George in the throes of insomnia, arousal, and frustration would run his hands over the scars on his stomach and shoulder. His fingers would slip to the band of his boxers and he’d close his eyes and think of his hands as Dream’s instead. He’d think of warm hands, sharp teeth, and being used.
Sometimes he could just press his face into the pillow and rut against the mattress, his hand stroking desperately and frenzied until he came and that’s be enough. But the dildo came in some days. He still couldn’t shake the shame when he used it.
That’s why he’d gotten a girlfriend. He knew it. So, during the day he could feel a pronounced and happy sense of security. He was unchanged and unmoved. She was proof.
He felt shame with her too, because while she was fine in bed and accommodating about the scars, even being courteous enough not to ask, he couldn’t pretend he cared deeply about her. She was busy a lot too, a blessing; she was in her fifth and final years of studies. He treated her to dates and did all he could to be dedicated to the relationship on the surface, even if he felt like their entire relationship was this pyramid of playing cards. A breeze would blow it over if he ever in a moment of weakness would slip onto the trail.
Shame wasn’t all bad. Especially, when he was horny. When horny, George could count on one hand the number of fucks he could give to how depraved his mind went. It was a natural reaction and he would finally choke down his embarrassment, slip his boxers to knees, slip a lubed-up finger in and bite his pillow to keep from making too audible of noises.
He had purely sexual fantasies of Dream. His go-to was he liked to imagine Dream would appear from the shadows of his room. He’d see him desperate for his touch and would take over. The two fingers inside him would be replaced with Dream’s. He’d mock George for being so easy. He’d kiss his neck then bite into, deep, scarring George more. His cock would drag across his ass cheeks as he lubed George up. He’d kiss down George’s back and dig his nails into his waist. The dildo would be thrown aside, and George could prop himself up on pillows and let Dream fuck him until he forgot his name.
George felt the worst part of masturbating with a dildo was it took him too long to get off, even as he stroked his dick. It wasn’t that it didn’t feel good, it did, but he couldn’t get it to compare to the real thing. He’d kneel with his legs spread, the dildo propped on a pillow to aid and he’d ride the damn thing, stroking himself and imagining if it was Dream inside him.
Even with fantasy, he wondered if being tired and impatient is what stalled the white hot heat in his stomach as he’d end up bouncing on the dildo wanting to cry because he just wanted to cum, take a shower, and go back to sleep.
Eventually, he would cum, his brain plastered with the memories of strong hands on his hips and a breathy laugh and a tongue on him in ways his girlfriend couldn’t. One time, after a masochistic and long night with too many drinks, he kept riding the dildo after he’d came. It’d been a drunk idea that if he fucked himself hard enough, he’d forget Dream.
He ended up sore, bitter, and prone to snapping at anyone for the next week.
And the week after, his mind had been back on its shit; his horny thoughts returned to Dream.
Four months, and Dream’s memory stuck on him like dried cum. Hard to scrub off in the shower when you’re half awake and in a hurry.
George was thankful when winter had ended, and he was free from temptation. He even took a walk down the trail, cursing out the absent Dream and mocking him. “Can’t get me!” George had shouted at one point, drunk and full of confidence.
He felt a little sad that was true and continued home unimpeded.
It’d been four months.
That’s when hell hit.
George was scrolling Twitter when he saw a repeating hashtag among the randos he followed from uni and the town he lived in. #AnswerForThree
He clicked it. A rather popular tattoo artist had tweeted out that their sister was the third new missing person case from the past three months and there was already a suspected fourth. They boldly @’d the local PD for answers.
George chewed on his mouth. Huh. Weird. He tapped back to his feed, his mind flooded with selfies, memes, and random thoughts. The disturbing news lingered.
People vanish all the time, he assured himself. He was sensitive to the news only because he nearly had.
And try as he might, George humored himself that night as he curled onto his side to sleep, it seems like Dream lingered on his mind every spare second.
George stared into the shadows of his room as he fell asleep.
The next day, he was sat next to a computer in the middle of the afternoon, Sapnap next to him typing away lines of code. There was a notebook paper with absent notes taken and three of Sapnap's other friends (and classmates) at nearby computers. It was a major project they were working on and George remained the diligent and proper piece of help--not doing too much work to constitute cheating but scanning over Sapnap's work for bugs or possible improvements. For George, who'd graduated, it held no stakes, but he'd helped Sapnap enough he was practically attached emotionally to the project.
"I'm dying," Sapnap finally proclaimed. He rolled his chair back from the computer, dug his palms of his hands into his eyes and just groaned.
"You're doing fine," George assured him.
"I'm bored. It's Friday and it's hot in here," Sapnap corrected. He saved his work and closed the file he was working on. George stopped scanning the computer code, commented where he left off, and closed it too, leaning on the desk to look at Sapnap.
"So, what do you want to do?"
"If I spot you a twenty will you buy me some liquor?" Sapnap asked. One of Sapnap's friends snorted and looked over in what was likely hope. He was Sapnap's roommate and George knew exactly none of their names.
His mind had been too occupied to remember those.
"Maybe," George agreed. "But you'll have to count me out. I promised I'd go to the movies with my girl tonight," George supplied.
Sapnap stuck his tongue out. "God, you're too sappy. I should probably finish more on this, but not right now. Does this place have a vending machine?" Sapnap questioned.
"I don't know," George said.
"I think there's one in the stacks," Sapnap's tall friend said.
"The stacks?" George humored.
"It's the old awfully sorted research corner," Sapnap's ginger friend explained. "Basically, lots of shelves. Lots of books. Poorly lit. Smells like mildew. You could get lost and die in it."
"But there is a vending machine wedged in the back," Tall said.
"Let's go, boys," Sapnap said. "Break time."
His friends agreed, and George followed after, curious to see this nightmare of books.
The engineering research library was three different expansions built in 1960s, 1990 and 2017. The library was a hallmark of its time in the 1960s; the walls were an off-white-orangish color where patch jobs were seldom and someone had deemed holes something to partially fill and tape over, a cracking tile floor, a popcorn ceiling and books arranged as if someone didn't actually plan on finding them. There was a nicer by comparison library expansion built onto the old portion where computers had formerly been and more shelving, but now was replaced with study desks with power-strips nearby and sun windows. On a good quiet day, the library's cat, Moose--an old brown furry thing--would be laying around there. The computer lab the five of them frequented was the 2017 addition with labs for Mac and Linux and printing stations and desks with outlets for those meeting with their own laptops on hand.
It felt like traveling back in time walking through the hallways that changed in age to get to the stacks. Sapnap's quiet friend seemed happy to spot Moose the cat stretching on a nearby bench. The cat did not do more than follow their passing with its eyes.
The library looked daunting. A help desk lay closed for the day at the front and somewhere above an AC was chugging and hyperventilating and stuttering its way through cooling the library. Beyond that it was quiet, the sound of clanking pipes in the walls occasionally.
"This place looks depressing," Tall said.
"It is," Sapnap agreed.
Tall reckoned the vending machine was near the bathrooms in the back and they set off, walking between ceiling high rows of books. A few carts of books with bookmarks and numbers likely noting where they needed to be returned were taking up the already narrow book corridors and George picked up a book that had fallen off one.
"The Psychology of AI."
He flipped it open out of boredom and walked with it. The random page he'd flipped to was torn at the edge and smelled faintly of cheese.
"Participants of social experiments involving AI generally were not able to pick up on bias in the programming of the AI [4]. However, researchers found most AI was limited in its social scope, often lacking any input outside the programmer's own background and culture [5]."
George skipped a few pages.
"Like the phenomenon of liminal spaces, participants noted uncanny and imperfect conversation or responses when AI for services of a different cultural background [12] were programmed with bias by predominantly Caucasian men."
George skipped again to a diagram showing communication methods and noted the bland drawings of people as poor. Especially the smiles. They weren't his.
But George's mind made the connection. A hum of a possible vending machine was near.
He skipped towards the end of the book.
"'The threshold for tolerance of the uncanny is reached time and time again,' Blackwood noted in his 2011 thesis on diversity in AI. 'We could introduce more training and greater emphasis on diversity, but it all comes down to the programmers themselves realizing their limitation of their own perception.'"
George dropped the book on a nearly empty cart as they did find the vending machine. It looked old, didn't seem lit well, but functional. Sapnap bought a bag of crisps. While Tall and Ginger were examining the snacks, George stared into the symmetrical corridors of books. It was improperly lit in the library and it gave it a hazy and old look.
Soon. They had snacks, George opting out, more thirsty than hungry. There was a water fountain, but it did not look particularly sanitary and too many people had apparently been dumping drinks down it if the laminated and sticky sign saying "Do not dump drinks down the water fountain, please :)" was right.
They headed back through the stacks, Tall leading the way and Sapnap hanging back with George as the other drifted in the middle. "You seem tired today?" Sapnap questioned.
George shrugged. "Didn't sleep much last night."
He hadn't. He had woken up at 2 a.m. feverish, gulped down two glasses of water and jerked off lamely to subpar porn then lay awake, thinking of Dream.
"That sucks," Sapnap sympathized.
Tall stopped suddenly as they all heard the caterwaul. Did the cat just get murdered? Tall jogged over to the next aisle to the left of them to see what it was. George peeked through the gap between the books and shelf and saw Tall two aisles over, scanning around. He yawned again, closing his eyes.
He could hear Sapnap and Ginger talking about their plans for the night as he covered his mouth and when George opened his eyes…
He saw it.
:)
The mask. Tall was staring at something, but it wasn’t Dream. His back was to the mask.
He stepped forward.
And was gone.
Like he’d passed through a doorway that wasn’t there.
The mask was facing his way. George felt the hair on the back of his neck raise as he made eye contact with the mask. Could Dream even recognize him? Or see him really? George was shaken out of his stupor by Sapnap groaning.
“What’s taking him so long? Let’s go see what happened,” Sapnap said, and Ginger nodded, following after him. George panicked and he almost said ‘no!’ but he covered his mouth. He turned his gaze back to the gap between the shelves, but Dream wasn’t visible. George followed Sapnap, hanging back and keeping his eyes peeled.
They didn’t find Tall, but they did find Moose the cat next to an overturned cart, pacing in front of it and meowing softly as it saw them. The three of them looked at the cat. It meowed at them again.
“Maybe the cat saw a mouse?” Ginger questioned.
“I don’t think cats scream like that when they find a mouse,” Sapnap said. He looked past the cat for Tall, but he was nowhere to be found.
Moose rubbed against Sapnap’s legs, tail swishing. It meowed again before settling into a loaf next to the overturned cart and staring into the nothingness with wide eyes.
“Did he go that way?” Sapnap asked the cat.
The cat just blinked at him. George had a feeling. He grabbed Sapnap’s arm, earning him an odd look. “He probably already left. Let’s go.”
Sapnap glanced down the empty aisle, and to George’s relief shrugged. “Probably. Let’s just wait for him at the exit.”
Ginger seemed fine to do that, but George couldn’t move yet. He scanned around. Had Dream not closed the portal? Was he still here? Was it Dream? Was there more like him? Was he not limited to the woods? The safety and confidence he felt about having put what he thought Dream’s one domain behind him was gone.
Sapnap nudged him. “I don’t see him either. His hearing’s always been shitty. Dumbass probably guessed the wrong aisle.”
George swallowed and turned away, Moose the cat looking at him curiously. “Yeah.” Sapnap pat him on the shoulder and started to leave and George followed slowly, scanning through the gaps for a sign. He didn’t find it.
But he felt like he was being watched. George waited a moment, letting Sapnap get further ahead and took a few steps back, looking into the next aisle over. There was no one there. He went to the next aisle, glancing in it. No one.
Next aisle.
No one.
George turned around suddenly. A feeling like someone was behind him.
But there was no one.
George shook his head. He wasn’t doing this. He could leave. He wasn’t in Dream’s place. He went back to the aisle he started in and stopped. Narrowing his eyes. He felt a shift in the air. It felt…wrong. George took a step back and spotted Moose.
“Pspsps,” George muttered at the cat. It perked up, probably thinking he had food. It wandered over, but it paused too, its fur raising as it stared into the thin air. Its eyes widened and it meowed. So, the cat could sense what George was pretty sure was the portal. It had moved. Which meant Dream either moved it or there was more than one portal.
It looked to be the former. As George went to the next aisle, he finally saw him. Dream. But unlike in his own domain, he seemed transparent and incorporeal here. His figure seemed to flicker. He cocked his head to the side.
George mimicked it, then held up a middle finger.
Dream laughed, but the noise was muffled.
“I’m not that stupid,” George said, gesturing in the direction of the portal.
Dream didn’t move. He didn’t have the axe. Nor did he seem entirely physically present. George went to the next aisle and was surprised to see Moose was following him at a trot. Dream hadn’t followed and George went down the aisle, pausing only to turn to the flickering smiley face in the previous aisle. It turned to look at him through the gap in the books and shelf.
“I forgot you existed,” George lied.
Dream stared at him. Wordless. George turned away from him, but it didn’t remove Dream’s gaze, and when he made it to the end of the aisle, he could still feel the eyes on him. George glanced behind him, but the angle he was at didn’t allow him to see anything. George left quickly and found Sapnap and his friend leaning against the help desk.
“What were you doing?” Sapnap questioned.
Moose trotted out of the library past George, its tail held high.
“I thought I could find your friend, but…all the aisles were empty,” George said and Sapnap scoffed. He pulled out his phone and sent a text.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he left or something,” Ginger muttered. “He said something about not having a parking pass and needing to move his car.”
“I sent him a text,” Sapnap said. “Kind of a dick move for him to leave without saying anything, but whatever. I think I’m calling it a day. This library sucked all my energy out,” he complained. “George, can you drive me home?”
“Sure,” George agreed. And they left the library, passing a janitor who was mopping with headphones, only George casting a look at the aisles. But the stacks revealed nothing. Dream and Sapnap’s tall friend were gone.
…
He didn’t want to think about it. He’d made out with his girlfriend after the movie date until she admitted she was too tired for more tonight. And he’d been left with his thoughts when she left his apartment, his head going back to what he’d seen.
Dream.
George didn’t know what it meant, and he sat on his bed and messaged Sapnap.
“Did you ever hear from him?”
The reply was instant. “Nah. Kind of worried dl.”
“He have roommates or sumthin?”
“Yeh. Sent a msg, but he hasn’t been back to his apt.”
George tapped his fingers on his leg. Another message from Sapnap.
“Why’re you curious?”
George chewed on the inside of his mouth and rubbed his foot against his bedsheets. He felt anxious. Stricken with anxiety, he got up and locked the door to his bedroom. He stood in the middle of his room and sent the reply.
“You seen the talk on Twitter about other missing people?”
“No?”
“Like 3-4 missing people in our town last 3 months.”
“Fr?”
“Yeah.”
“You saw something didn’t you?”
George froze. He put his phone down, sat on his bed, and looked to his window. To the door to his bathroom. And just shivered. He felt strung out. His nerves were shot.
“Yeah.” George quickly added, clarifying. “Thought I did. Someone else.”
Sapnap didn’t reply and George felt mixed. He couldn’t get to sleep, so he scrolled through Twitter and the web, looking for news stories on the missing persons. He found them, but they didn’t reveal much else. Just that the police were looking into it and they weren’t sure the cases were connected. Some people on Twitter posited the idea of a serial killer, but no news site or police quote could confirm that idea.
He didn’t turn the lights off in his room. He eventually fell asleep with a lamp on.
Sapnap’s friend never reappeared. A missing person’s report was filed for him, but as he was an adult and had no outstanding medical concerns or suspicious behavior and no foul-play was suspected it didn’t seem to be pressing for them. They did call George along with Sapnap and the other guy as the last people to definitively see him.
George was worried he sounded too nervous during the call.
“Did you know him?”
“No,” George said truthfully.
“Did you see anything unusual?”
“…No,” George had hesitated. The police officer hadn’t commented on it. A few more questions and he was free to go. George felt guilty. He knew. He knew. But there was no way to tell anyone.
He returned to the engineering research library that day, but he didn’t enter the stacks. He stood just outside in the hallway, staring past the student aid at the help desk into the stacks. What could he do? Wander in there. Be stopped by Dream?
George sighed and sat down at a desk in the study area of the library, buried his head in his hands, and just sighed. It was decently busy in the study area today, a quiet murmur of voices mixing together. With his eyes closed and brain fried, he could hear snippets of discussions of projects, gossip, complaints about professors and general gaffs.
He felt watched.
George glanced up, and around himself. But there was no one visible beyond students. Just a general hubbub of activity. Some people on phones. Some on laptops. Some eating snacks. Some with textbooks out.
He was really the only odd one out, as not a student.
He wasn’t even sure why he bothered. He just felt guilty. Sapnap still sent his daily memes and they joked, but he felt like Sapnap’s eyes were metaphysically on him. Wary. George stood and went to the stairwell to leave, but he found himself pausing at the top of the stairs.
He didn’t need a cat to know. There was a portal in the way. He couldn’t see it. There were no edges. No distortion to the place in front of him. Just the feeling deep inside him that this was wrong. Dream. George glanced behind him then… He glanced over the railing, and saw Dream, staring up at him. The mask on. His form still flickering and shadowy.
Silent. Just watching George. Waiting for his reaction.
George backtracked. He knew there was another exit. He walked through the clamor of students, feeling his heart beating frenetically and started down the other staircase that exited to the back of the library and paused again, his gut twisting and churning and he gripped the railing.
He couldn’t look over the railing here to see down. But he had a feeling he was lurking. He didn’t even know where the portal began, but he wasn’t going any further. He climbed back up the few steps down he took.
There was always an elevator. George went to it. His heart thrumming loudly in his chest and the noise of talk beginning to sound louder, deafening in his ears and he stepped into the elevator, jammed the button for the lobby and stood in the back, closing his eyes.
The elevator doors closed, and it shifted down. He felt the air shift next to him. He opened his eyes and looked over. Dream. Standing there. Staring. His entire body angled to face George and he stood there. Wordless. Watching. Waiting. The elevator dinged for the lobby floor and George eyed Dream, but stepped around him and left. He stood outside the elevator and glanced in at the hooded man.
The light flickered off in the elevator as the doors closed to it, obscuring the sight of Dream.
George shuddered. He got to his car, sat inside it, and pounded his hands on the steering wheel and swore. No. This wasn’t fair. Dream wasn’t supposed to be able to leave the woods. He wasn’t supposed to be able to keep following.
But he was.
It didn’t even take until 3 a.m. George chewed mournfully on a burger he bought and flipped through Netflix for something to watch while he ate, but his mind was abuzz. He felt the daily pull of arousal and his stomach was confused, holding the feeling of arousal slightly below his ongoing fear and anxiety about Dream.
But as he finished the food and stared at the TV and movie titles, all it took was a thumbnail of woods and eyes and his mind went there. George leaned back on the couch, hissing as he felt his dick begin to fill with blood. He pounded his hand into the fabric of the couch. Why? Why couldn’t he just not be horny about this?
He stood. He went to his room and hesitated by the bedroom door then locked it. He lived alone.
But he didn’t feel alone anymore.
George kicked off his socks and sweats and after a moment, threw off his shirt, lay on his bed and opened his phone to look for something else. He didn’t want his imagination. He’d rather just look at something else and jack off.
But nothing was working. His mind wanted to go there. George glanced to the full-length mirror in his room and saw his expression. He looked pissed. Sweaty. Unnerved. George closed his eyes tight and gave in. George pictured a better situation to the library. He’d be alone and Dream would have…
His rational mind supplied the answer: tricked him into entering the portal. Like he was doing to others. So frequently it was drawing attention. And it only seemed to be his response after George left.
George’s eyes shot open and he just groaned loudly into his pillow. He gave up stroking himself and just lay there. Frustrated. He stood up and went to his bathroom, slamming the door behind him, setting the shower to cold and crossing his arms and standing there next to his mirror.
He glanced in and his stomach plummeted, and his heart went to his throat. Dream stared back in place of his reflection. Watching.
Had he always been able to lurk in the mirrors? Was this new?
Had he seen George jerk off to him? Seen him fuck himself thinking of him?
Dream put a hand to the mirror on his side. He stroked his hand down the mirror, as if admiring their boundary, then pointed to his own pants, to George, then indicated taking them off. George’s cheeks flushed and he left the bathroom, back to his room where he immediately laid the mirror on the ground.
George stood there, still sporting a boner, his heart pounding, and his head swimming as he just didn’t have an answer for the situation. His throat felt thick and his hands clammy, and his dick twitched at the thought of complying.
Take off his boxers. Touch himself in front of Dream. Let Dream see him come undone and be unable to touch him.
George moaned and muffled the noise against his shoulder, his lips brushing over the scar. He decided he wasn’t that low. He was stronger than that. He closed the door to his bathroom, turned the lights off in his room and for extra measure, threw on the comforter before he reached his hand down to stroke his cock. He pushed his boxers down and tilted his head back.
He imagined Dream could linger in the mirror, hear what was going on and George couldn’t stop himself. Let the bastard suffer. He moaned louder, speeding up and thrusting into the air and imagined the ghostly man just standing there, fists balled as he couldn’t see jack shit. Maybe Dream jacked off to him too. Did he ever take that hoodie off? Or did he sit there in it, his pants pushed down and cock out as he stroked himself thinking of fucking George again. What were his fantasies?
Did they line up with George’s?
George came with a gasp and he sat there for a moment, dumbfounded and angry. He wanted to punch something. He wiped himself down in the kitchen to avoid the bathroom mirror and poured himself a glass of water and just grumbled.
Hours later George finally braved the bathroom to piss and his own reflection greeted him. It didn’t shake the gnawing feeling that he was watched. Somehow. Someway. Dream if he wasn’t watching now would be before the day ended. And the next. And the next.
George knew what this called for. A long date with his girl so he could banish these awful feelings. He’d take her out to dinner, be a romantic and it’d be good. Dream would give up. He’d see George was beyond him.
He texted his girlfriend, hinting the next weekend if she was free had a treat for her. She happily accepted and George stared into his reflection. He wasn’t Dream’s. He was his own. He took a shower, the feeling of eyes on him hadn’t been diminished by the shower curtain.