Chapter Text
As the knife slipped into Jon’s chest and the Panopticon collapsed around him and Martin all he could think of doing was to hold Martin tight. If this was the last thing he would ever experience, then he wanted to die holding onto the one he loves.
Martin was devastated. Jon didn’t need to be omniscient to know that, and even with all of the knowledge in the world he couldn’t think of a way to make it up to him. This had been his fault; he had pushed them here. No matter how much the Web had pulled him in this direction, it could only manipulate him like this because he had been so predictable. ‘Oh of course Jon will decide to sacrifice himself to save the greater universe and try to make the powers suffer. He is, after all, a revenge driven person with a massive martyr complex,’ Jon in his last moments as the Pupil could probably see exactly what the Web was thinking but he wanted to be here totally focused on Martin.
Martin had tears streaming down his face, tears that Jon had caused because he needed to be right. He had all the information, who better to make an informed decision than a person that had all the information in the world. But he had been arrogant, and that hurt him far more than the knife in his chest. He hurt those close to him in an attempt to hurt those he hated. Now at least, he could never make that mistake again.
He was drifting away and with the last of his strength he pulled himself deeper into Martin’s embrace, Jon’s forehead pressed up against Martin’s chest. This pushed the knife deeper into Jon’s chest. More pain for a bit of comfort, Jon laughed to himself before coughing up blood onto Martin's face quickly diluted by the steady stream of tears. He had asked Martin if he would do this long before they had gotten to this point. He was ready but that does not mean that he wasn’t broken up about it.
Jon on the other hand had thought he had been ready. But as with every time he tried to be a martyr he was scared. When he almost died and spent six months in a coma and had become a monster to avoid death. When he went to save Daisy thinking that even if he never got out it wouldn’t be a loss for the world and was terrified. Now when his death will mean ridding this world of these terrible entities, he could still only think of how little he wanted to die. He has always been terrified of the consequences of his actions.
While his resolve was faltering, he felt it. A pull originating from some place beyond what even he could see but he of course knew. He heard the rope that pulled him. A cacophony of his own voice layered over and twisted together. A terrible sirens song if he does say so himself, very unappealing. But in his final moments he was more closely tied to the Eye than he ever was before and so when the Eye surged toward it like a starved man to a meal he saw an out and took it dragging Martin who he held so tightly with him. Poor, loyal, wonderful Martin who he could not bear to let go again. He was being pulled with him through the Web’s tangled portal made of fear and his own voice.
In the portal he could feel it branching off to hundreds if not thousands of different paths presumably all leading to different universes for the fears to ruin. He could feel them around him now as he pulled Martin closer. Martin, who he had led into this mess time and time again and yet still forced him to promise they would stay together.
That is when Jon had a wonderful thought, why couldn’t he lead the fears someplace to minimize the damage they would cause. He could feel the fear in these universes even if they don’t have the fear entities controlling things the people still fear. The fears were already following his voice so why couldn’t they follow his actual voice? So, he channeled his inner Helen and tried to ‘help’ them choose their new place to live.
But he quickly realized that his plan to lead them to universes with no fear in the hopes that they would starve was not working as he had hoped. The fears did not want to go there and as he was wasting that precious time, he could see them entering other worlds. Jon had to do something fast, or he would not be able to do anything to minimize the damage.
So, he fell back even more on his old plan. He led the fears to worlds absolutely saturated with fear. After all, a fearful world is often a dying world like theirs was. But the fears can’t think that far ahead, at least not most of them. As he was leading the fears to their hopeful demise like the pied piper to a swarm of rats, he could feel the Mother of Puppets resisting.
But fittingly they were being pulled along with no control under the bulk of their unthinking brethren. Jon almost smiled at the thought of the fear of being controlled having no control of their fate, although he guessed they have been struggling against that from the beginning. After all, by its own admission it could not fight its nature.
When it was done Jon had succeeded in some places and the Web had succeeded in others. But most promising was that instead of thousands there were only a few hundreds, and Jon could See all of them. After all, wherever the Eye went he Saw, and the Fears are a package deal in any world.
His and Martin’s physical bodies ended up in the basement of a normal house located at 105 Hill Top Road. He did not know whether to be relieved, sad, angry or happy. Martin was safe, he was safe, the knife was still in his chest and that certainly hurt but he Knew it would not kill him. His own world was safe, free from the Fear Entities. But there were also now hundreds more universes that had been infested with the Fear Entities in its place.
Since he was here this universe was now the panopticon and he could see all the other universes: normal universes like this one where the Web won their little tug of war but so many more were worlds that were so afraid, and he could see them all, feel them all. He relished the fear, and he hated that he did so. This was something he could not share because even Martin would never understand him if he tried to explain this.
The journey had been hard on Martin, he was out cold but thankfully alive. Jon meanwhile looked at the universes. Worlds with dictators watching peoples every move where neighbors turned on neighbors for a bit of safety. Worlds that were so war torn that most people there forgot what country they had originally been fighting for and were now wantonly destroying whatever others held dear. Worlds torn through by pandemics, by the earth's crust collapsing around them, the weather turning on them and the seas rising. Worlds where nothing makes sense and everything is dark, uncanny, insane, or isolated so many things can disrupt your understanding of the world around you.
In all of them there was death, meaningful and meaningless and in all of them there was fear thick in the air. He saw all of this and more, a normal man would go insane. But he was the Pupil, and the Eye would not allow him the mercy of insanity. After all, what is the use of a pupil that sees all but cannot focus, cannot understand what they are seeing.
Then there is this world, so normal by comparison, but that is about to change. This world was already primed for change but now the fears are here to hasten it, to make it worse and so much more horrifying. He has an urge to make a statement, an urge that he will indulge before Martin wakes up. No tape recorder shows up, the Web must be busy elsewhere or perhaps he has stopped being part of its plans, or maybe it is simply due to no longer having that damnable lighter. Despite the lack of a tape recorder, he Knew that the statement would record, on what however he would just have to wait and See
“Somewhere in China, in a tiny hospital a miracle is happening. A tiny baby boy is being born after a pregnancy where no one thought they would make it. It is dark in the hospital room with only a bit of light being carried through the window of the moonlight outside. ‘Push’ the doctors say, and she did. She pushed like her life depended on it, maybe it did or maybe just the life of her precious child. After a few hours that had felt like the longest in her life it was done. Her baby was here. But the baby was not crying, the baby was laughing.
The laughing trailed around the room like an omen to come. But then everything changed. The Eye Watched it all and it wanted all else to See this moment as well. So, I say, ‘let there be light so that they may See’ and there was. Lighting up the room the baby shone like a beacon guiding ships safely through the new world of horror they had found themselves.
I beg the doctors ‘be not afraid for that is what gives them power’. But they cannot hear me, and they are terrified. ‘This child is different, it is not like us,’ they think, and people hate what they cannot possibly hope to understand. They fear it, even if that thing is a child who has done nothing wrong. The doctor drops the child, a boot comes down, the room is dark once again.
The laughing has stopped echoing around the small room. The screaming begins, the screams of those who cannot understand why this has happened. Screams of horror at what the doctor had done to the luminescent baby. Screams and cries of a mother who has lost her light after so much hardship. They echo around the room and into the hallway. People are panicking, they don’t understand what has happened. They can’t understand, but they will.
What have they done? What has happened? Soon this question will echo across the world as the Fear entities make use of this change that was already primed to happen. Sowing chaos and fear, guiding things forward and feeding throughout it all. Change is upon them, and they are not ready.”
Jon could have gone on, but Martin was waking, and Jon would hate to make him upset. Martin slowly opens his eyes, holding his head and looking around the room in curiosity “where are we, what happened? We were in the panopticon and then everything went blank.” Martin looked up at Jon clearly expecting an answer. Jon had an answer. “We are in our new home” Jon said grimly referring not to the house but to the world they have found themselves in.