The sound of the door unlocking made me tense up. Tim had left to go to work a few minutes ago, which meant it wasn't him. I thought back to what he'd said about Skully and needing to change the locks just as the front door opened to reveal the masked man slipping into the apartment. We stared at each other as he quietly shut the door behind him and made his way closer.

"What do you want?" My eyes fell to the phone next to me as I debated whether or not to alert Tim to the intrusion.

Skully sat the camera on the table and took a seat on the floor with a grunt of pain as he rubbed his side. For a few minutes he didn't speak and he seemed to observe the room uneasily. I was about to ask again when his darkened gaze snapped back to me. "What are you?"

The question threw me off guard. His voice initially sounded agitated and aggressive but I could hear the tremor of fear run through it. "W-what? What do you mean?"

"You're not... I don't know." He shook his head. "You're one of them."

"I'm not a proxy." A defensive tone gave a dangerous edge to my voice.

"No... you're like those... things." He picked up his camera and stared at the screen as he murmured the barely audible answer.

"Is there a reason you're always filming? I don't really like having pictures taken let alone videos of me."

He sat the camera down and angled it away from where I sat. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Get us out of the tunnel."

I was silent for a moment, a chill going through me. "I... I thought you got us out- maybe Hoodie."

"Ash, I saw you. After Hoodie left I was trying to think of how to get us out of there... then you woke up and- and you just..." He trailed off as if trying to remember exactly what had occured. "We went back to the entrance of the ARK... but instead of entering it we ended up here."

"Why would that be my doing?" I coughed, tasting bile and azoth in the back of my throat.

"It's never done that before. That tunnel is his way of manipulating our location in that area. We were the only ones there."

"That doesn't mean anything."

He shifted and held a hand over his injured side. "You weren't... you. I tried to talk to you, to stop you from going back into the ARK... but you didn't listen. You didn't speak. I... I remember Tim did that once after I... after I had to leave him behind with The Operator. He got out before I did, but the look on his face- in that moment I tried asking him what happened he didn't even seem to recognize me."

"Wait..." I shivered, trying to recall doing anything he said I'd done. "I... Pawn isn't a separate part of me. I should remember this..."

"She isn't- wasn't- her own personality before. Pawn was just their name for me... Did- did that change? Would I be able to tell? Maybe it was just the azoth kicking in again, they injected a lot into me..."

"You passed out after getting here so I can't be sure that you weren't just under the influence of those things."

"...You're Jay, aren't you?" I ignored his last response as I pieced together the strange filming obsession and the comparison he'd made. "Tim said you were dead."

"He is... For Tim it'll stay that way." Skully shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the name. "He can't find out."

Well, that explains why he wouldn't speak to Tim. "How do I know you didn't have something to do with this- given you're back from the dead and all."

"I saw you die that day too. You were ripped apart." His voice wavered as if the memory haunted him. "They left you there after a while. Once you were breathing again... I've seen what they do to victims before. That other one- your operator- was keeping you alive just like mine did with me and Alex... the only difference I found later was you started healing without him."

"You mean when they... tortured me..." I couldn't help but feel bitterness creep into my voice. Why hadn't he tried to stop them? How many times had he watched them drag me to the verge of death? "That doesn't mean anything. The ARK, it's... It's different. Time doesn't even work the same there."

"All I know is I didn't get us back here." Skully stood up and grabbed the camera. "...And you're not exactly normal according to your father's logs."

"What do you know about my father?" The annoyance at his claims was growing with each strange thing he said. "I just want this to be over; to have a normal life."

"He hasn't told you what's on the tapes and in the journal." Skully stared in the direction of Tim's room. "Come on, I'll show you."

"Seriously?" I watched as he made his way down the hall before sighing and limping after him. "Nothing good can be in those logs, especially if he thinks I should see them."

***

"So much of what I remember makes sense now..." I continued reading the sloppy handwriting in my father's notebook. "...Almost wish I'd killed him myself knowing what he did... He deserved it. It's all his fault."

My veins felt like they were burning as another coughing fit came over me. The taste of azoth and blood filled my mouth as it grew worse. Pain went through my knee as I instinctively shifted and hunched over, my chest and throat aching from the force. The light in the room flickered and died.

"No... no... shit..." I tried to spot the faceless creature between the hacking that wracked my body. "Where is it...!? I won't go back... I'm not... I'm not fodder to feed it... I won't be... I won't be its pawn again!"

The fit calmed down with the blind terror slowly diminishing as nothing happened; the noise in my mind settled down as the entity disappeared. I stiffly got to my feet and staggered to the bathroom, vomiting azoth. Shakily, I returned to the bedroom and stared at the tapes Skully had shown me along with one of the many journals I'd been looking at after he'd left.

"I should've burned them and that damn house after my father died... All it's done is cause problems!" I gave a dry cough and slid to the ground, trembling and trying to hold back the need to tear something apart. Or maybe I just felt like crying at that point, it was hard to tell at the moment. Although, neither option would solve anything. "Why... Why did I have to be the experiment? Why didn't he try to help me...? All he did was push me away- try to kill me! ...Leave me for that monster's little game..."

I fell silent as I heard the front door open and a light switch flip on and off as Tim returned home. "Ash? ...Why's the door unlocked?"

I could hear him shuffling around, testing more lights before giving up as the silence continued to build. "Ashley?"

The calls went unanswered; I found I couldn't respond.

His silhouette stepped into the room before stopping as he spotted me leaning against the wall. I stared up at him, fighting the urge to lunge at him as the aggression continued to scorch through me. "Tim didn't do anything... It just wants me to kill him for its own gain! ...I won't help it... This is Skully-Jay's fault. I'd be fine right now if I hadn't listened to him and looked for answers!"

"Calm down. What happened?" Tim placed some bags on the floor and hurried over, pausing as his foot kicked one of the tapes. Immediately, he crouched down as if to get a closer look at the piles on the floor. "...There isn't anything you can do to change what happened."

"I know." I twitched slightly and shook my head, hoping to clear it. "I just... I don't know. I wish we'd never gone to that house. I wanted answers but... not these."

"My father knew I'd become a monster from the start. Look how many people are dead because of me."

"Well, I guess I should've warned you about what was on those- I didn't expect you to go through them."

"It's fine... not exactly something to warn me about. I just found them and decided to watch them, read a little; I didn't plan on finding out how fucked up I was as a kid... From birth really."

"...Are you alright? The door was unlocked, it looks like the power's out too... Nothing happened?"

"Should I tell him about one of those things showing up? Or Skully? He's aware the guy's been coming around." I decided to keep quiet about Skully's visit. Nothing good had come from it and Tim didn't need to end up potentially killing him. "Heh... it'd be funny... Given how Jay's 'death' hurt him- only for him to have his past friend's blood on his own hands... I don't want that to happen."

"I-I'm fine."

I felt him press a hand to my forehead. "You're burning up."

"I'm... fine." I coughed again and shuddered.

"No, you're not. Whatever happened between now and the ARK is clearly making you sick." Tim helped me to my feet and ushered me to the bed to lay down. "Bringing back old memories clearly didn't help either. Get some rest... I'll go see if we have something to help with the fever."

"What are you, my mother? You're almost as bad as Ethan used to be." I gave a small laugh, though honestly I was starting to feel ill again.

"Yeah, well, someone needs to make sure you're okay."

"...Tim..." I stared up at him as he paused and turned back to me. "...You... you saw what was on those tapes- and the notes in the journals... You aren't just doing this to make sure I don't... kill anyone, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"You don't... um... You don't think something's wrong with me do you? Because of what happened in the ARK?"

"The only thing wrong with you right now is that you're sick and need rest." He reassured me.

"Liar." The intrusive growl surged through my mind with a fresh wave of malice, though it quickly faded out again. I was getting exhausted.

Tim lingered a moment longer before turning away. "I'll go see if we have medicine to help and then maybe I can figure out why the power went out."