[center][h1]Emil and Desdemona[/h1]
[h2]-collaboration with [@ONL]-[/h2][/center]

Desdemona's presence was heavy that the entire room seemed to be collapsing into the black of her eyes. There she sat at the end of the narrow room, a waxen woman, peaceful, almost meditative. Emil looked for movement, a twitch of limb or lip, but found none. He wasn't sure what went on in his mind: disappointment, relief? He took of his mask and dropped it on the floor. [i][color=00a651] Just a woman. A she, as the doctor said: that precisely. What else did you expect? A demon or a shade?[/color][/i]

He came a couple of slow steps closer, now standing near enough for her to have to raise her eyes up to look at his. As she did that, he saw the earth spin and all the heroic schemes of constellations burn in her dark iris. [color=39b54a][i]Is [b]all [/b]present in this visage? [/i][/color] Behind the cell door he felt exclusion from the order of the universe, a safe garden in the middle of a quest where an ancient seress lives with advice and counsel waiting for a passers-by. [color=39b54a][i]No man is an island. But she is. A piece of no continent. Or world for that matter. And now I am marooned, rendered mute to speak by those Stygian orbs that are her eyes, not to disturb the silence that lingers on her endless horizon.[/i][/color]

He then realised that she knew all that hid under his pointless attempt to seem collected and playful like a charmer: all his awe at the vastness of her knowledge; wonder at its unworldly nature; curiosity to learn whence it came and where it goes; fear before and respect for her who was by far above his mind; desire to unravel her mystery and before all else learn from her things so alien to the human mind that he couldn't even imagine them. She knew and that's what made him disregard his own personal, selfish will as unimportant and ask things most relevant to the inexplicable tidings of the town and his understanding of the same.

[color=0072bc]"Forgive me, for my wits have abandoned me within these walls. I am afraid I cannot continue our wordplay."[/color]

[color=ed1c24]"Understandable, my dear Teutonic Knight. You have already come a long way to ask your questions, so I shall not ask for anything less, not anything more. Choose your questions carefully, you may not wish to know the answers you seek."[/color]

[color=39b54a][i]Exactly. Curiosity killed the cat. But you are a mouse, Emil. Remember?[/i][/color]

[color=0072bc]"First, I want to know how -- In case my time here is hindered, or my questions too inquisitive for our parley to continue, in which case I want to waste them wisely. How? How do you weave so intricately the details of this our mortal life from here?"[/color]

[color=ed1c24]"And here you made me believe your fountain of the writer's mind were dried up. But my mind, my view of the world is no longer what it used to be, before IT happened. I was normal, like yourself, though with less to hide. Then something took hold of me; not my mind, but my body, for my mind travelled eons away from our existence. When I came back to my bodidly form again, I could see it all; how to change it, if only in the slighest of details. Small visions, dreams, thoughts...my initials on a dumbster lid. It's only in the details, but it was all that I needed to bring you here."
[/color]

[color=a2d39c][i]I haven't made you believe a thing, have I? Do you even believe anymore? Or just [b]know[/b]?[/i][/color] A bead of sweat ran down Emil's forehead, the only thing millennia of evolution had as a purely bodily reaction to a presence so unnatural. He wiped it off with his hand mechanically. Maybe his body reacted, but his brain did not, for he found his mind in check again, and also failed to be surprised by it, too. Where had wonder and the human reflex of horror gone from him? The spectrum of expected reactions of a sapient man to such a tale was replaced by some thought machinery which allowed only cold calmness devoid of even the slightest discomposure. 

[color=0072bc]"And Atkins? Suicide seems the least probable cause now after all this. Was he just a detail, too?"[/color]
[color=ed1c24]

"Oh no, it was he himself who threw him body off the monument. But himself was no longer who Atkins used to be; it was the shell of a man, a man who knew the truth and what it meant to all of us, to him. He couldn't bear to live with the secret, a secret that may and will end us all. But he left clues, clues to the puzzle that you and your friends have to solve."[/color]

[color=00a651][i]Left clues, of course. Instead of spilling the beans at once. Was it so horrible he chose death over it? Perhaps to avoid being locked up here himself forever, he left clues and jumped to relieve himself. Had he been locked, the torment of the mind would have been unbearable.[/i][/color]
[color=0072bc]"How does all of this link to me? How do you know me? What piece am I the puzzle?"[/color]

[color=ed1c24]
"Fate has own strange ways; I did not expect you at first, but the moment you lay eyes on Atkins and your curiousity was lit, I knew there was no turning back for Emil Günther. You too can see things that others cannot, though you yourself or those around you frown upon your visions. When the time is right, you will see your piece. All of you will find where your pieces fit. For there is a great Evil dwelling beneath this land, this land that has forgotten to fear the unfathomable. The Old One is rising, but IT can be stopped, but only if carefully planned and understood without the sciences of this age and time."[/color]

[color=39b54a][i]One falls, one rises.[/i][/color]
[color=0072bc]"What if I fail to do so? What if someone or something stops me? Ill chance, perhaps."[/color]

[color=ed1c24]"That...that is the vision I refuse to see. All I can say is that if failure does occur, your world would fall into an age of madness and chaos where humanity not only rapes itself into oblivion, but the Elder Gods would return to lay waste on the Earth. Do not let that happen. And please do let Professor Dupree enter our sircle, I have waited for him too."[/color]

The light flickered and the door behind him opened an inch. [color=39b54a][i]But how, with the key still in my pocket? Could she have escaped the whole time, if she wanted?[/i][/color] He turned and opened the large door of the cell, now weightless, like a stage prop. 

[color=0072bc]"Professor Dupree..."[/color] he said, looking at the man behind whom only darkness spread endless and manifold.