“I know you know something, I just don’t know how I know that.”

“Yeah, like that’s not confusing,” Richard replied. Alan had obviously figured things out. He’d been hinting at an interrogation for weeks now, and Richard had been doing everything possible to avoid it – which only made Alan more suspicious. Now he’d finally cornered Richard in his house and was demanding answers.

The forensics were fairly damning, and Richard was shocked at the sheer volume of information Alan had been able to put together. Over the past two hours, Alan had walked Richard through a painstakingly detailed summary of his night at the warehouse. While he had no explanation for how Richard had entered the building, everything from his encounter with John and Cari through his nauseated reawakening was strikingly accurate.

Richard was afraid Alan had figured it out and was here to arrest him. Actually, arresting him would be a relief. If he was incarcerated, maybe he’d be far enough away from the public that no one else would get hurt. Still, IT might escape eventually. Fueled with the evils housed in a typical prison, Richard didn’t want to imagine what IT might do.

No, it would be better for everyone for Richard to not go to prison.

Alan was still standing there with his crime scene photos and investigative notes, waiting for an answer. Richard closed his eyes and took a few breaths.

“OK, but you’re not going to like it.”

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Richard was troubled. He’d fallen into a dark place and, like a child stranded at the bottom of a well, knew not how to save himself. He clawed in vain at the walls of his prison and wept openly when he realized how utterly lost and desolate he was. Until moments ago, his soul had been, for the most part, smooth and clear. Like any man his age, there were a few blemishes. He consoled himself with the belief that no one could live a completely blemish-free life.

A lie to his father about who’d broken a window here. A neglected dinner appointment there. Over time, Richard had built up more than a few dark acts on the rap sheet of his conscience, but they were nothing compared with what had happened. In a moment of passion, he’d opened his palette to a darkness so consuming that he’d lost his sense of right and wrong. In a moment, his conscience was completely squelched by his thirst for vengeance.

He’d reached out and ended the life of another. He’d thought himself God and taken a life as his own. Even as the last flicker of life had begun to fade in the other, he’d tried to take it back. Just as Richard had willed the man dead, he tried to will him back to life. His memories flashed back to a childhood friend’s broken arm and how he’d tried to will it back to some semblance of whole.

“It’ll be OK. Just don’t tell your Mom.”

In the here and now he had done more than just harm another, though. He’d wholly and completely destroyed them. Consumed their body with fire and ended its ability to go on living. As a last act of selflessness he’d opened himself. Trying to take back the act and unwittingly opening his own body as a host for the other’s cast aside soul.

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IT wandered aimlessly down an alley, akin with the darkness and aimless in ITs tasks for the night. IT still didn’t fully understand not just what had happened, but what IT was at all. IT remembered standing above the one that had killed ITs wife, waiting to taste the sweet nectar of vengeance. Yet IT also remembered cowering in fear at the feat of the one whose wife IT had killed, dreading the biting sting of a husband’s wrath.

The two images were one and the same, yet so different they tore ITs mind in opposite directions. Thus IT had given in to ITs remaining urges and set upon ITs task with the bound woman on the palette. Yet before IT could finish, a tiny voice in ITs mind had taken control and dealt pity and mercy.

Again, an irreconcilable difference – murder and mercy. Both coming at once from ITs mind, yet battling with one another in execution.

IT tore at ITs head in frustration, wanting at once to silence the schismed voices in ITs mind while willing them to speak louder at the same time. Driving them to battle would result in one vanquishing the other, a more lasting peace of mind than if both merely silenced for a time.

The part of IT that was John reveled in ITs victory over the police. Somehow, IT had died yet escaped the icy grip of mortality to continue ITs game with the woman. IT didn’t care so much how, but IT was mildly curious why the world looked so different. As if looking out through a new set of eyes, taking in every sight anew.

The part of IT that was Richard writhed in agony over what IT had done. IT had murdered a woman IT had intended to protect and had consumed the being of a man so black in soul that ITs own was mortally tinted beyond recognition. IT knew exactly what had happened, understanding the events not through ITs own reasoning, but through the blessed curse of Akasha’s infinite knowledge. IT had reached out with a thought and bound John’s soul to ITs own, consuming his vessel with fire and forever removing his individuality.

IT became one with the one IT had destroyed, binding his soul to ITs vessel and intertwining their ties to the library. IT was stronger than before, able to summon visions and information from lifetimes distant to ITs own, but IT was weakened by the very nature of ITs new strength. IT had destroyed a human life and by that act become unworthy of the collective knowledge of humanity.

Akasha rejected ITs reach, but was powerless still to prevent it. IT knew all that IT willed to know, and IT knew the other was as yet unaware of this.

The part of IT that was John walked the earth as a human, displaced from his circumstances and given new life with which to wreak havoc on the world. The part of IT that was Richard was bound in its resolution to protect what little humanity remained in IT – knowing that to surrender to ITs duality of being would be to loose an unfathomable evil upon the world. Read the rest of this story »