Hell's Keeper (fanfiction)

[Tjally]

I always attempt to write something I haven't seen written before. Took me some time, here is some weird drabble thing. I may post other DS fanfictions in here as well.

If there are inconsistencies, do tell so I can fix 'em up. I take all advice and critique i can get with a smile

I did write more than what is posted here, but I found this a suitable ending as well so here you go, unless I decide to post the rest as well.

Enjoy~! Tjally

Hell's keeper

The record played on, its cheery tune almost gloomy in the current setting. There was dust at his feet, dust and bones from the man that had sat this throne before him. The one gust of wind that had torn Maxwell apart had been the only stirring in the air since Wilson's arrival, and he had the faint idea it wasn't going to change anytime soon.

His heart hammered like a panicked creature in his chest, while clawed hands held him still against his prison throne.

“They will show you things. It will change you like it changed me...” Wilson tried to tell himself there had been no choice but to free Maxwell, but he knew that would be a lie. He could have let the old devil rot away, but then he too would have been doomed.

He'd taken the bait, freed Maxwell, and only because there was still that traiterous part of him that whispered; 'all the buried mysteries mysteries in the world, and here you're handed a shovel.' If Maxwell had been speaking the truth, if he had created all of this world, then what could Wilson do with it? Why, maybe even find an escape like Maxwell never could.

He can feel them now better than ever. He'd known they were there before, watching him in the night, sometimes following him. He'd blamed it on extended periods of solitude, his lack of sleep, lack of food, but he can feel how real they are now.

Almost as if confirming his thoughts, the hands locking him to the throne tighten around his arms. He finds himself wondering, just like Maxwell; What do you want from me!?

There is no answer, and still, the visions Maxwell had been foretelling refused to come. Perhaps he was doomed to an even worse fate than Maxwell, worse yet than an eternity long of the same painful throne and a short moment of freedom before death finally swooped by.

Wilson could barely imagine a fate worse, but just half a year ago the thought of a different dimension led by a trapped, all powerful man would have made him bark out with laughter.

He taps his fingers on the black throne, and stares upwards into the dark. He wants more light than just these marble torches. Any light. He almost wishes he'd lit the berry-bushes and grass tufts on fire.

With a loud smash a bout of lightening drops from the sky, right on a grass tuft, together with the sudden image of electricity finding its origin in the thick black clouds. How had he not known that before? Wilson stared at the burning tuft in the distance. They had been talking to him. He never could have guessed lightening came from the polarities in clouds!

How about the pigmen then? How did they find their origin? He waited, and soon after he just knew, like someone had been leisurely pouring knowlegde into his head from a kettle. The hounds, pets created from loneliness, the night monster Charlie, for when the hounds slept, berry bushes and bees in memory of sweet treats from home... He had even made the gobbler, so he didn't have to see the berries rot away. All Maxwells creations were clear as a raindrop in his minds eye. He knew all, the very core of the world, just like Maxwell had.

It was when the last blade of grass had been explained, that throne and its watchers took him deeper. He recoiled in the throne. Maxwell was right. Wilson had only touched the surface of knowlegde these wretches beings posessed. A thousand colours he had never seen before swirled in his mind, creatures of impossible build and geometry flashed by him. His mind could not comprehend, could not make sense of it, yet at the same time he understood it all like he had abruptly understood the hounds and the pigmen. Monsters, creatures dimensions magics gemsemotionsaliensdeathlifeworldhumanminddestruction-

Like an endless reel entire worlds and posibillities flashed through his mind, and all he could do was shrink back in the black throne and cling onto his last sense of reality.

He couldn't tell how much time had passed when it finally stopped. The torches that had been burning when he freed Maxwell had gone dark. The dark didn't bother him, now that he knew the why and how of this world. Even charlie, the monster that had been one of his biggest fears, was now harmless as a housepet to Wilson.

He felt like he had been split in two, like the watchers had taken half of him, and let it spoil. The fact that he considered the shadow monster Charlie as welcome company said as much. He knew things that his human mind could not understand, but he knew. He knew how he could create things similair as to what Maxwell created, like how one knows a tune on a piano without ever seeing the sheet music. It was in his fingertips, but not in his head.

Maxwell's knights were rusting on the checkered flooring, and Wilson got rid of them. Next were Maxwells statues, the hounds, the tentacles...

This world was only a shameful pile, compared to all the worlds the throne had shown him. So few animals, so few minerals or plants. Barely any biodiversity, or even floral diversity!

Half-heartedly Wilson added a few things to the world. They were additions barely worth of mentioning, adding mice, adding catterpillars, adding weeds... He stopped adding almost before he had begun. There was no joy to be found. He'd never been an artist, he hadn't strived to create the new, but to discover it in the things that already existed!

He turned to the watchers, and stared back at them with the intense patience of a well-taught Scientist. Observation is always the first step before attempting any experiments.

The world stood idle, and the staring contest continued. At moments, Wilson is almost certain that he can see a flicker of human emotion in their gazes. Frustration, sometimes, or interest. He reaches closer to their domain, and even though they don't change outwardly, he feels like he is reaching into the back of a lion's throat. They still watch, and he does the same, now one step closer.

It is not much later when Wilson wonders; What is their threat, when I come close? Death would not be a threat, and eternal imprisonment was already his fate. What was their punishment, if he came too close? It was that thought, and the thrill of the unknown, that made him reach out even closer to his watchers. He could almost feel the lion's teeth scraping his skin, and yet still there was no bite.

He continued to watch, and the longer he stared back at them, the more he was convinced of the fleeting and vague human emotions that sometimes swirled by.

Over time, he stepped closer and closer, waiting and watching until he felt like he could move without tempting the punishment that the watchers threatened with. It is funny really, how his never sated curiosity both got him into hell, and allowed him to slowly crawl out of it. With the throne holding his hands locked to the rail, he knew how far Maxwell had gone in his attempt to reach the watchers. He had surpassed that point the last time he stepped closer.

At one point, he stood in the middle of them. It reminded him of the first time he had shared turf with a large herd of beefalo in heat, with only a shoddy hat to keep him safe. It certainly wasn't a hat that allowed him to stand in the middle of them, but he could not find the reason for their tolerance. He took one last step, until he was behind them. And then he found that their gaze did not follow him. They still stared, and when he turned his gaze to follow theirs, he saw himself, beard grown to his feet and shackled to the throne.

He didn't know what it meant. He had not left his body, nor had he made a copy of himself in better times, like Maxwell had done. Had he split himself in two? Was he a soul, a spirit without a body? His hands were present, so was his enormous beard. He looked back at the watchers. There had been rules, as to what he could create, and they had been enforcing those rules with the same threat they had given him when he got too close. One of those rules, was; do not remove the throne. Do not attempt to harm the watchers.

Wilson's curiosity reared its head, and he approached the watchers. He reached for one, and almost as if he'd touched a millenia old statue made of sticky meat, and stinking heaps of black flesh slumped to the ground. Almost as he had touched a domino in a long row of stones, the other watchers fell apart. The throne disappeared, and right before his eyes, he could see himself fall to the ground.

He had expected it to remain motionless. He was here, no longer inside of that husk, but it moved, and softened its fall.

It was aging rapidly, beard growing grey in seconds and eyes going clouded, but as he watched, he could see himself die.

In a sudden panic, he tried to save his body, his mind racing ever so hard to understand how and why, but before he could think the body shrivelled up and remained like a mummy on the dark floor.

How? How could he have been in there, while he'd also been here?!

He stalked forward in long strides, to where his now mummified body lied in the shimmer of Maxwell's lit pillar, and arrived just in time to find that the world was slowly dissolving.

The rock ground beneath his feet fell away, and even the air that should rush about him during his fall was absent. Maxwell's light was gone with a light crunching sound, and his body, after all, turned into dust.

There was nothing left. Nothing but the void, and him.

[zomnat]

cool

[knight]

yep that the ending for you kinda depressing but very interesting

[Tjally]

This story isn't over quite yet, so here is chapter 2. He stood in nothingness for a while, and hesitantly reached for the power the throne had granted him before. It was still there. He created a small fire, and a patch of dead ground for it to stand on, like a teeny tiny plant in empty space. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he conjured a mirror. What was he like, if his body had become dust, like Maxwell before him?He stared into bleak and white eye, set in skin that had become as black as his hair. Had he always been so sickly thin and long? He reached up to touch the gentle curves, and felt how the strands bunched together so tightly they could just as well be horns. He could barely tell the difference between his 'hair' and his pitchblack skin. He looked like a watcher almost, but his clothes from the day he had constructed Maxwell's door were in impeccable state. He could see his teeth even if he held his mouth closed, like he was grinning at himself and had lost his lips. When he had spoken to Maxwell, right before freeing him, the man had said that only the void, the watchers and dust had been here when he arrived. The watchers had never been able to use their power, a trone does not reign. And Maxwell could not reign without a throne. It was the very same now, with the one exception that he was now both the throne, and the king. Wilson stared into the mirror, and let the fire die out at his feet. He had done it, hadn't he? Broken free of the throne, yet with his life intact, knowing all about the world around him, and only owing the price to himself! Finally, it had worked! He let himself fall back into a wonderfully soft chair, and grasped the thick fur that coated it with his spiked black fingers. He conjured a meal for himself, and then turned the same meal into a small monster, that hopelessly floated in the void before he got rid of it. This whole world was at his feet, and Wilson smiled. Crude, large fires ignited around him, and a solid wooden floor built itself beneath the impressive paws of his chair. He sat back into the wonderful softness, and placed the record placer he had hated so much near his chair. He let the same old tune play, and hummed with it. He couldn't imagine ever getting sick of that song, though he did remember his burning hatred for the person that invented the phonograph when he was still stuck on the throne. How weird, who would ever be able to hate such a good tune! He continued to build out the world, indulging in his powers without limitations. He brought a watery sun to shine on a growing barren wasteland, and a wonderfully comfy living room slowly built itself around his chair. Trinkets he'd had at home, experiments he still had to finish, his countless books on science... They were mostly blank and unorganized for what was in them, but it was the feel that mattered the most. He let grass grow a vibrant green, and then made it fifteen times its original size, with sharp edges and a fiery temper. He made flowers that made the world look like paradise, and have them the scent of rotting meat. He turned gravity upside down locally, made sinkholes that housed angry creatures, made the sun set and rise every five minutes. No rules, no limitations, and, as Wilson sat back into his chair he realized; no fun. The grass wilted, and the flowers drooped, Wilsons newly created books fell apart from raging insects. Creatures wailed and died at the sudden moodswing that hit the world. A wild storm brewed, and an imposing roof with gargoiles and scattered equations rose up to shield Wilson from the raging waters. He had become a God, in his own right, and funnily enough he could now answer one of the many questions he'd had as a child. Why would a god bother with mortal, foolish and fragile creatures? Because being a God, is boring. Maybe that was why the watchers had wanted visitors so badly, just for something to be in this world that WASN'T completely theirs! That's why they watched Maxwell so intently, because they could not predict him. Not in the beginning at least. Even science, his good friend throughout his life, was now as good as useless! What use would experimenting even have if he could influence the outcome to be the right one?! Wilson pulled fur out of his large chair and flicked the pieces of hair to the wooden floor. He could make some random things, study their reaction and try to keep himself from influencing, but that would be fake, staged. Real science requires an alert mind, and the ability to look up EVERYTHING! Mashing things together to see if it would do something is indeed a large part of science, but to try and act like he didn't know what would happen if he combined two things whose very essence he created himself?! Even as a God, with the power to create and destroy worlds, it was back to the very first plan he'd had when he was tricked here by Maxwell with only a small twist; find a way home, and bring it to this world.