Chapter Text
There was a flash. Pure white, so bright Derek couldn't keep focus on the screen. He looked away instinctively to spare his eyes the damage. He expected to feel the overtaking pain soon, but instead, he fell unconscious.
Suddenly, he awoke. Derek couldn't tell how long it had been. He only knew he was now lying on the floor, not looking at his computer, and so he braced himself for the waves of nausea and skull splitting headaches that were about to follow. And yet... there was nothing.
He thought it very odd. The pain could only be gone if The King had lost, and therefore had no more control over him or anything else. But Derek knew for certain It had gotten into Avery. That Thing, that Parasite. How he wished Avery would've listened to him, would've left, done anything. But what a stubborn slime he was, and although Derek knew of his stubbornness very well, he had believed Avery wouldn't sacrifice the world. Mistakenly.
Slowly, lightheadedly, Derek pushed himself up. He felt very weak, but not because of the pain. There was no pain anymore, still a shock to him. Regardless, he had trouble moving and spent minutes just trying to stand.
He limped to his door, then the living room. He'd left his phone there and he wanted to call someone—anyone, to tell them he was okay. And then he stopped.
This time around, it wasn't pain. He felt it, but it didn't force its way into his mind, it just began existing, like a memory re-surfacing. The sensation even soothed him to an extent, a pleasant wave washing over him and sweeping with it his worries. He calmed—
Fuck. His stomach turned, his throat closed up, and his muscles stiffened. The second that wave passed, he was left with pure disgust. This was the world now, and he couldn't change anything. The King HAD won, It was now present in this world, and It was doing as It pleased.
Derek didn't know, of course, where The King was or what It wanted. But he knew what It had done to the planet.
Humanity had gone insane.
That's Its power. Madness, deceit, lies, insanity. People looked at themselves in the mirror and they got jealous or they got scared or they got angry and they clawed at the glass so they could be as beautiful as their counterpart or destroy the monster looking back at them or kill the person they blamed all their mistakes on.
People tore off their limbs because they couldn't tell the difference between themselves and the environment and, well, that fleshy swinging thing that was attached at their chest really couldn't have been useful.
People ate each other, some because they knew their hunger couldn't be satiated otherwise, some in self defense, some because they enjoyed and some because they hated it.
People ran around naked in the streets and acted like animals, because they were animals.
To It. To It, we're all animals.
It took him a moment to come to. He didn't know why The King made him aware of this; he didn't even know how much of what he was aware of The King controlled. He could, however, guess. This was what It enjoyed doing, making people go through fucked up shit to see how they react. It gained immense pleasure from his and everyone else's suffering, this much he was sure of.
What he couldn't guess was what scared him most. Why is the pain gone? What possible reason would a sadistic god such as this have to WITHHOLD SUFFERING, when suffering was what it feeds on?
Derek was determined to find out. At this point, he was the only sane person left, it was clear The King wanted something from him. He definitely wouldn't make this easy.
Looking through the window, he could make out some sort of palace. Even without his intellect, assuming it belonged to The King was appropriate. It was enormous, very detailed, and, naturally, mainly black and yellow (though there were some hues leaning more on the green side). It sort of reminded him of gothic architecture, though there was a certain element about it he found very off putting.
He debated whether he should set off toward it. On one hand, it was likely The King wanted him there as part of whatever plan It had, but on the other, perhaps coming there was the last thing It expected, after all, why would Derek willingly approach something that could turn him inside out in milliseconds. Then again, it was most probable The King accounted for Derek's thoughts anyhow.
Luckily, it appeared Derek didn't need to make a decision.
"Hello, my knight~" he said.