Cerberus Hall

Silence hushed over the library as the final book from the cart slid into its place. A grim smile pressed xyr lips.

It's time.

Xe moved quickly, pushing the cold metal to its place in the backroom before moving to the front door, locking it, unlocking and locking it again three times. Sealed against the worst of the past, the possible horrors of the present and the unspeakable demise of the future.

"Graves," a voice tired of the weight of the world spoke up behind xem. He wanted to bark at xem the way he did at everyone else, but he couldn't. He couldn't risk it...not again. "Come on, bud, we gotta go." Xe didn't move, near translucent fingers hovering over the keys in the lock. "Nothing's going to get in, I promise."

"I'll watch the doors," A disembodied voice hummed in xyr head, a golden-red whisp curling around the keys and dropping them into xyr palm, closing xyr fingers around the rings and edges. "If anything happens, you'll be the first to know."

Graves nodded slowly and turned around, pulling xyr hands into cream white and obsidian black sleeves, balling up the cuffs in xyr hands. He took xyr shoulds and guided xem out in silence.

Xe read every step he took, the heaviness...the fear.

Manor doesn't get scared.

Xe held a clock in xyr hands, the numbers foreign but xe knew it was counting down. It's refreshed before, it's glitched before, but even now it was the steadiest it's ever been. It had no intention of bouncing around or trying to figure itself out. At that moment, the clock was the only thing that existed, the sand pouring to the ground from a shattered hourglass. It couldn't be flipped. Once it ran out, that was it. It was over.

The infinite sky stared down in anticipation, eyes peeled and glued to their very being. The entire world held its breath.

At that moment, nothing else existed.

"Sit," Foxtrot sounded angry. They sat at the home bar next to the front door of the home they lived in with Manor.

Graves hesitated just before the doorway, eyes flicking to their tower standing alone on what used to be the football field, completely separated from the rest of the structures. Down to the colour, the architecture, it didn't belong. Or rather, the rest of the campus didn't belong. 

"Das schließt dich ein, Graves." Xe jumped. Their voice dripped with chosen poison.

Were they drunk?

They never spoke in German unless it was serious.

Graves never spoke in German unless xe felt safe enough to make a sound.

"What do you want?"

"We're leaving."

"What?"

Foxtrot's eyes were ice, both inhumanly pale and saturated. The colour bled from its ring and polluted the off-whites. "I said, we're leaving."

"Why? We have a home, Foxtrot. We have a place to live where they can't find us. We made sure of that."

"No, I made sure of that." They set down the embellished crystal filled with liquid amber. "And now it's come to my attention that all my effort has been for nothing." They looked directly at Graves. "Hasn't it, Rous?"

"Wh-" Manor looked between the two. "I don't understand, what's going on?"

They clicked their tongue, shaking their head. "Of course you don't. You never do."

"Look, I get you like to think I'm the dumb one, but I like to be the man on the frontlines, not the puppet master holed up in the trenches. Just fill me the fuck in, okay?"

"Fine." They got to their feet. "I'll explain it in a tongue even a simpleton like you can understand."

"What did you just call me?"

Xe shut down then.

The oak floors lost their stability, dark viridian walls bleeding from their burgundy rim joists. The bell they tore from the blueprints bashed in xyr head, the sheer intensity of the sound sending fractures through xyr weakened skull. Xe drew their knees into xyr chest, eyes wide and unblinking. Toxic green seeped from xyr pupils.

"You heard me."

"Oh, I heard you alright. I'm just giving you a chance to change your words."

"Why should I?" They sneered. "Isn't honesty a policy we enforce?"

"Yeah, because you're a shining beacon of honesty." Manor scoffed and rolled his eyes, arms folding over each other. "Cut the crap, Foxtrot. When are you gonna do what you've been preaching?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"All this talk about honesty has me curious. What exactly have you been hiding from us?"

Foxtrot paused, tongue working its way around the teeth on the left side of their bottom jaw. They shook their head, eyes unfocused and aimed at the floor in disbelief. "You want to know what I've been keeping from you? Are you fucking serious?"

"I don't hear laughter."

"You don't hear anything I don't want you to, idiot. It's called influence."

"You what?!"

"In case you haven't noticed, I've been trying to get us the fuck home! We're suffering up here. We're dying."

"Why the hell haven't you told me any of this?!"

"For god's sake, Manor, it's Graves! It's always been Graves! Everything I've done, I've done for xem!!!" Their face was red. "Everything has been for xem!"

"You manipulated me!" Manor roared, blood boiling and eyes ablaze. 

"I did what I had to do!"

"What you had to do? WHAT YOU HAD TO DO?! YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF THAT! YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO KILL THE ONLY SPARK OF LIFE I HAD!"

"BOTH OF YOU, SHUT UP!" Graves screamed as loud as xe could, voice broken and decayed. The dominant heads found their mouths closing against their will. The reign of the past has grown weak. The rule of the present only had so much power, but the power, the sheer potential the future held? That was truly the one to fear. Xyr chest heaved, tears streaming freely from xyr eyes.

Xe never spoke in English unless xe had to.

"Whether you like it or not, we're stuck here. We have unfinished business here. It doesn't matter who's at fault. It's never mattered, but you can't see past that, can you?" Xe grabbed a pair of boots next to the door and a black cloak that hung on the wall. "I'm going home. The library's going to open soon. Unless you wish to infect them with this...event, I suggest you clean yourselves up before they come to check on you."

They opened the door, coming face to face with a scarred, horned, alternative humanoid with brown hair.

They were patient.

Graves took their bicep, staying close and the two walked swiftly to the tower.

The hold on their jaws finally released as they watched the two leave.

"Three months," Manor finally broke the silence. "They've been here for three months and already they've made infinitely more progress with xem than we have in the course of our entire life."

"They're kindred spirits."

"We're one and the same."

"I don't mean literally, you-..." Foxtrot bit their tongue. "I don't mean they're literally connected. I mean that they get along because they respect one another. It's because they've come from a place of having drastically different lives, of never meeting before that they're able to get along." They tapped their bottom lip with their thumb. "You're bleeding."

Manor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, staring at the rich, royal violet that smeared on his skin.

He took a breath, exhaling as much as he could. A shudder traced his spine as the last drops of rage from the screaming match melted away. "I'm gonna get in the shower and brush my teeth." He turned his back. "Unless you want them to know how much you've been drinking, I suggest you do the same."

Foxtrot sighed and drained the small pool of amber in the glass, teeth shattering the perfectly clear ice inside. The words hardly rose above their breath, slicing their tongue as they left their mouth. "Welcome to Cerberus Hall, the curse we call a home."