“Wilford?” asks the ego who had materialized from thin air into the meeting room.
Wilford swallows, hard, eyes wide an uncomprehending. He shoot a glance at the Host then back at the ego, his heart thrumming like the wings of a trapped bird. It’s the Author standing in front of the room, eyeing everything with suspicion and confusion. The only thing of familiarity is Wilford and even he looks different, no longer the somewhat gawky baby-faced Junior reporter with a candy-striped coat of before. He’s more built than before, hair longer and silkier. Gone is the candy-striped coat, replaced by a simple yellow shirt, suspenders, and a bowtie.
It takes the Author a while to realize that it’s the same meeting room as the one Wilford had dragged him into seemingly forever ago. It’s much larger now and fuller, the last time he’d been there it’d been only Wilford, the squirrel nut and… he looks over to the other end of the table and sucks in a sharp breath.
Last he’d seen Dark, he’d been an unstable amalgam of shifting ideas looking for power. He’s seems to have found a solid form now and the Author can feel the power oozing out of him, sees it in the gray leaching into everything he touches. And Dark’s looking at him too, red eyes smirking like he knows something he doesn’t The Author hates it.
He hates the many pairs of eyes boring into him, all looking for something he doesn’t understand. There’s so many of them too and the Author draws his powers around him like a cloak, hackles rising. Wilford still hasn’t answered him and he feels disconcerted.
“How are you here”, says someone at last, breaking the thick silence.
The Author looks at the speaker, confused by the bone-deep familiarity the hits him at the sight of him. But that’s strange, he’s never seen that ego in his life. Nothing about the slicked back black hair streaked with gold, the bloody bandage, or the trench coat reads as something the Author recognizes.
“Who are you?” he asks, turning to him because Wilford still isn’t speaking, looking more like a stunted fish than anything.
“I am the Host”, the Host answers, voice trembling, “and you shouldn’t be here.”
His bandages are turning from a faded pink to a deep, unsettling red and there’s blood dripping down his cheeks like tears. There’s an ominous pit growing in the Author’s stomach and he can feel the Host’s power as if it were his own.
“Who-who are you”, he asks again, not quite understanding the first answer.
And the very air seems to shift, the smell of ozone tainting the air. The Host takes off his bandage and most of the others look away, unwilling to see into the bloody pits where the Host’s eyes should be.
“I am you”, he says quietly.
This is awesome
All the Egos reacting to a time displaced Author? Including the Host? I imagine Wilford would feel quite conflicted. ~ Gabe
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