“Terry… Terrrrrrry…” Someone was calling him. The voice was familiar somehow… a voice he knew, but hadn’t heard in a very long time… It was difficult to discern, it was as if someone had taken that voice and pushed it through a cheap audio mixer with a shoddy speed changer.
Terry slowly picked himself up from the floor and back onto his feet, but something felt unusual right from the start. Everything felt just a bit out of place… floaty… almost like he was somehow both underwater and on dry land at once. He seemed to be in control of himself, yet… he didn’t feel like he’d actually woken up yet. Was this a dream?
Attempting to look around and figure out where he was didn’t get him very far. He was in an empty room, with mint-green walls, a similarly colored ceiling, and grey tiles. Light seemed to shine everywhere without any source to speak of, and there weren’t any doors or windows. Just a mysteriously lit cube…
“Teeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrry” The voice emanated again, sounding even slower and more distorted, like it was coming out of a virus-stricken computer with far too many programs running at once.
“Where are you?” He asked, though he couldn’t actually feel his mouth speak the words. They seemed to skip that part of the deal and jump right out of his head. “Where are you?!” he asked again.
“Behind you.”
In an instant he sensed someone else had appeared in the room, and as he turned around, he saw not one, but two familiar faces staring back at him… A man and a woman… or at least what remained of them. Massive lacerations cut across their bodies, their clothes tattered and bloodstained, their skin pale and littered with bruises. Though it looked as if multiple bones of theirs had been broken, they stood upright as if they were perfectly fine and healthy… By all accounts though, with injuries like these, and in such a condition, they should have been dead… and in fact, Terry knew, they already were dead. Theodore and Melanie Rincewind had been dead for years.
The sight of his parents standing there before him like this filled him with both a sense of grief and terror. This was hardly the sort of reunion he would’ve asked for… To see them standing there as little more than walking corpses, to see the results of an outcome that he blamed himself for not stopping when he had the chance. Worse yet… their injuries didn’t seem like the sort that would come from the car crash he’d been told had taken the both of them… Those cuts in particular looked like they came, not from the broken glass and metal scrap of a high-speed two-ton vehicle, but rather from a pair of very large claws…
“…Mom…Dad… oh god… what happened to you?” He asked, wanting to approach them, but finding himself unable to move from where he stood. The animated remains of his parents looked hesitant, as if they wanted to answer, but for whatever reason they could not.
“…We’re here to guide you… that is all…” Theodore said.
“Guide me? Where?” Terry questioned, looking around once more at the compact, near-featureless room.
“To your test…” Melanie answered. At that, with a wave of their hands, a door suddenly manifested between them. As it opened, Terry saw nothing but absolute darkness beyond the entryway. “This isn’t death, Terry, not for you… You have another chance at life, but what that life will be depends on what decisions you make here.”
“There’s no going back to before. Only forward. Remember that,” Theodore added, and as he spoke, Terry felt himself being pulled towards the door. Whether he tried to resist or not, he continued moving towards it. He tried to say something else, he wanted to speak to his parents some more, to have them explain all of this more coherently, but there was nothing he could do. Within moments he’d been dragged into the door, floating in the void that had awaited him.
“You must confront what troubles you… These fears, inner-demons, they are your greatest weaknesses Terry… You must face them…” Melanie’s voice echoed from seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once.
“Face them… or they will never stop haunting you…” Theodore’s voice chimed in, echoing in a similarly disorienting fashion for a moment, before everything went silent in an instant. Terry suddenly felt solid ground beneath his feet as the featureless void transformed around him, shifting into something more familiar…
He was inside Cassandra’s shop, though it seemed to be trapped in a sort of stasis… Nothing moved, even the air felt still. Any windows to the outside displayed the same nothingness he’d just been floating in. Any comfort he’d once felt before, being in this place, it was entirely gone at this very moment. He tried to move… and this time, he found he actually could, without any sort of issue. He walked tentatively through the shop, hearing nothing, not even his own footsteps. Absolute silence had enveloped his surroundings in a way he’d never experienced before, and it left him feeling terribly on-edge.
“What-” As he attempted to speak, he suddenly clutched at his ears… Not only had he not expected to be able to hear himself, but in this otherwise utter quiet, his voice sounded jarringly louder than he’d expected. “W-what is this… Where is everyone?”
He wasn’t sure how long he looked about for any sign of life… Every passing second seemed to drag on at a slower pace than the last as the liminal uncertainty of his surroundings began to set in. He didn’t know what to do… The apparitions of his parents had said there would be a test… but what was here to test him? Fearing his opportunity to reawaken was entirely reliant on his finding out the answer to this question, his searching became more frantic, though as he attempted to pick up or move things, he found nothing would budge an inch… Not even the lightest of objects seemed to react to any force he exerted on them… Everything in the shop stayed exactly the way it appeared… Nothing changed, no matter what he tried to do… Feeling panic beginning to take hold, he frantically pulled at books on shelves, swung his fists at anything that looked fragile, and pulled or cranked every shelf or faucet he could find… but nothing moved. Even his fists looked no worse for wear after slamming into immobile objects without any restraint. He couldn’t change anything… Everything stayed completely as it was…
Except… On the table… It had been unoccupied at first… yet now something laid there on the center of it… its blade glimmering in the light… It was the dagger he’d been tasked with delivering… the one that had led him into this very shop the first time… Terry moved to approach it, reaching out to grab the handle, but as he did, the lights in the shop flickered… After less than a second of darkness before light returned, the dagger had vanished. Terry merely stared at where he’d last seen it… He could feel his sense of reality being torn asunder… It was right there… Where could it have gone?
It was then that he felt something press against the front of his neck… Something cold… and presumably very sharp…
“Mr. Rincewind…” Cassandra’s voice came from behind him as he felt the dagger’s blade slowly press further against his throat. “Here I was, hoping you would have learned your lesson by now… hoping I would never have to see you again… Clearly I’ve overestimated your intelligence if you’ve crawled back here after everything that has happened… How many times must you be endangered before you realize you are nothing but a liability? How many times must you continue to be a burden to all of us?”
“A burden? M-Miss Cassandra, I… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a burden to any of you…” Terry stammered, only for Cassandra to clasp at his shoulder and force him down on his knees.
“Then tell me, why are you still here?” she inquired, a firmness in her voice that inferred she had very little patience to offer him. “Surely by now you understand how little you have to offer… No powers, no practical skills, no knowledge, no physical strength of any worth… You are a fragile, insignificant and disgustingly mediocre creature, Mr. Rincewind… I could easily replace you with any other human being in this city, and we wouldn’t miss a single beat. Over and over again, the only thing you ever seem to excel in is disappointment… You never do anything to help us… and you never seem to get the hint that we’d all have it far easier if you were to just disappear entirely. I was being more than charitable, taking you under my wing when you were wandering aimlessly through a meaningless existence… but you did so very little in return… It has all proven a woeful waste of my time… To think I saw any potential in you at all…”
He felt her grip on his shoulder tighten, as the sharp edge of the dagger’s blade was positioned at just the right point to nearly nick at his skin.
“How much easier would it be to look after Randall and Quinn if I didn’t have to bother with you… You are simply not worth it… You never were.” He suddenly felt the blade dig into his skin… and with one swift motion he felt it slashing across his neck, tearing through his larynx.
Terry reflexively went to grab at his throat, trying to desperately block the wound as he collapsed to the floor… yet he didn’t feel any blood on his hands… nor any pain from where the dagger had cut through him… He opened his mouth and he could still breathe… Shakily he pulled himself back up from the floor, clinging to the table in front of him to steady himself, all the while still gripping at his neck. He’d felt the blade slice through him… and yet in an instant it was as if it had never touched him in the first place. He turned around to look back at Cassandra… but she was no longer there. Standing in her place was another familiar individual draped in a ratty green jacket and worn jeans, with what looked to be a dog’s collar wrapped around his neck.
“…Randall?” Terry could only go so far as to say the man’s name as Randall suddenly began to approach him, his face snarling with absolute distain.
“I’ve put this off for too long… Far too long…” Randall growled as he slowly edged ever closer, reaching for his collar which seemed to effortlessly unlatch itself from his neck and fall away. That particular collar shouldn’t have been so easy to remove, and yet it fell away effortlessly… Soon after, his body started to shift, growing bigger as his hair became fur that began to cover him entirely, his eyes becoming wild and much more canine-like as sharp claws jutted out of his hands and feet… and equally sharp teeth were being bared in Terry’s direction.
“So often I have to control myself… Around Cassandra… around Quinn… but why do I bother to do the same with you? I remember exactly what you tried to do the first time you saw me like this, Terry… and I remember exactly how much I wanted nothing more than to tear your goddamn head right off… I should’ve done it… I would’ve done us all a favor… You’re worthless, Terry! We all see it, and we all fucking hate you for it! You come in here thinking you can understand what any of us have been through, but you don’t know a damn thing, you pretentious, self-entitled little shit!”
“R-randall, wait, I-I’m sorry…” Terry attempted to be more elaborate in said apology, but he could get the words out… He could hardly think clearly enough to even know what to say.
“Oh, you’re sorry, are you? Is that supposed to be enough for me? Am I supposed to just fuckin’ walk away and let bygones be bygones because you said you were sorry?! That’s not how it works, buddy! If you’re really so sorry, you’ll shut the hell up and let me end this quickly!” His words had grown increasingly distorted as the beast within him continued to take shape until his werewolf form was complete, staring down at Terry with murderous contempt, one set of claws pinning him down on the table before he lunged forward toward his prey’s face with his jaws set to tear at him.
Terry let out a terrified shriek… feeling sharp fangs beginning to rip his face apart… only for them to suddenly vanish, along with the rest of the beast. Again, the injuries were suddenly gone without a trace… and Terry was once again alone, hugging at himself as he fell forward, back to his knees, shivering with fear.
Again, his solitude didn’t last, as he suddenly saw a pair of feet slowly descend to the floor… and as he looked up, he saw who they belonged to… Standing there now was Quinn, looking down at him, their eyes narrowed with scorn, their pistol in their grasp, a finger dangling near the trigger.
“Why did you have to find me…” They muttered. “Why couldn’t you get the hint that I didn’t want to see you anymore? I thought I’d gotten away from you… and you had to ruin it all by coming here…” As they spoke, Terry found himself unable to move… It was as if he felt compelled to merely kneel there without any hope of breaking free… as if Quinn’s powers were forcing him in place.
“You never did anything to help me… Every time we spoke, you never understood what was bothering me… You always did nothing but make worthless comments… You rambled on and on about things that didn’t matter… You were so ignorant of what I was going through… Don’t you realize you were doing more harm than good for me? I stopped seeing you for a reason… You know that’s true, you always knew it, yet you couldn’t leave me be. Randall and Cassandra… they understand me… They can help me… You… All you do is make things worse…” They lifted their pistol, placing the barrel right on Terry’s forehead.
“I need to get rid of you… For good this time… All you do is hurt people, Terry… You bring nothing but misery to us all… It’s time you finally did the one useful thing you can do and die…”
Tears welled up in Terry’s eyes at this… He didn’t want to believe what they were saying, yet there was clearly a part of him that truly feared this was the reality of it… and for a moment as he knelt there, waiting for the bullet to pierce his skull, he was starting to believe this really was the best thing he could do for them… but then something else seemed to click in his mind…
“…No… no, you don’t mean that… you can’t… It’s not true… None of this is the truth! IT’S NOT!” He suddenly shouted, shutting his eyes, waiting for the gunshot… but it didn’t happen. As he opened his eyes, he saw Quinn frozen in place, as if they’d become much like the rest of the shop, stuck in one position. Beside them, Cassandra and Randall had suddenly reappeared, similarly in static, unmoving positions, merely staring at him. Finding he could move again, Terry stood back up and looked at the three of them, forcing himself to find some kind of resolve… Through the visages of his three cohorts he was facing what he feared most… and he wasn’t going to bow down to those fears any longer.
“I’ll admit I’m probably nothing special… I don’t have any arcane knowledge or a lot of experience with monsters or demons or anything like that… Fine, that’s the truth of the matter, I won’t argue with any of that!” he said, walking over to look at Cassandra. “But you didn’t let that stop you from bringing me in… You saved my life when I could’ve easily just been torn to shreds the first time I wandered in here… You’ve let me stay here in this shop when I felt I had nowhere else to go… Every single time I’ve been captured or abducted, you always made the effort to save me… and you know what… I’ve tried my best to repay you in kind, whatever way I could… Maybe I haven’t always succeeded, but… goddammit… I try my best! If I’m a burden to you, believe me I don’t intend to be… I’m trying to get better! I want to prove my worth! The real you… She must believe that… I know she does!”
He then turned his attention to Randall. “So we don’t see eye-to-eye a whole lot… I’ll give you that. We’re not exactly the best of pals, sure… but we’ve worked together several times now… We’re on the same team, right? Maybe we get on each other’s nerves a bit, sure, but who doesn’t from time to time? Even with that collar you could’ve found some means of doing away with me many times over, but you didn’t… and I have to believe that deep down you really are a well-meaning individual, no matter how you might conduct yourself… You’re probably right, I couldn’t possibly know what you’re feeling or what you’re going through, and I won’t pretend I do… but I hope one day I’ll at least understand a little better.”
Lastly, there was Quinn. Even as he felt newfound resolve coursing through him, Terry felt himself shaking a little as he went to face them once more. “…Quinn, I’ll admit I was worried it was my fault that you left… I did blame myself… I thought I might’ve said the wrong things, that maybe I didn’t listen to you well enough or something like that… but I know it wasn’t me… Those voices, or spirits, or whatever they are that haunt you… They must be hell to deal with… and everything involving how your family treated you, and what became of your cousin… All that had to have been so overwhelming… You didn’t just stop showing up because I was being some kind of toxic friend… and my stumbling back into your life wasn’t just some mistake… I can’t accept that as fact… just like I can’t accept the idea that I… somehow just make things worse… Maybe I don’t always make things better, but… I could never do anything intentionally to hurt you… Not Cassandra or Randall either, but especially not you… because you’re my closest friend… and… I… M-maybe I see you as something more than that… Maybe… I care about you more than I’ve admitted upfront… and maybe… if I can ever get the chance to see you again, I’d be able to work up the courage to confess that to you… but I can say this much right now to this… illusion… I know the one thing I would never intend to do is hurt the real you.”
At that, the three images of his companions seemed to fade away, leaving Terry alone once more, and he knew there was one last thing he had to address…
“You hear all that, whoever’s running this little show? Maybe I’m just some ordinary bastard, sure, but I know I can be more than that! That’s what you wanna hear, right? Well, there you go, and you know what… I believe it! I might not be much to write home about right now, but I can change that! I can be better! I want to be better, so… whoever’s out there, give me that chance!”
Abruptly at his words, everything went completely dark, and Terry felt a brief, falling sensation, and then nothing at all…
Slowly, he opened his eyes as he found himself in a very different sort of room… He was sitting down in a sort of medical chair, his surroundings awash with a faintly blueish light as a team of individuals, all quite sharply dressed in similar suits, were moving about, some observing him, others talking to each other, as he felt some kind of headset being pulled off of him.
“Well, I believe that’s enough to earn a passing grade,” an older fellow spoke as he offered a hand to help Terry back onto his feet. Though hesitant, Terry nonetheless obliged.
“…I beg your pardon?” Terry asked, before noticing a familiar face standing off to the side… The new guy again… so it was him that he’d heard earlier…
“You weren’t merely hallucinating the part about that being a test, Mr. Rincewind… and I’m happy to say you indeed passed, and in doing so, you’ve earned a spot in our ranks. Congratulations are in order.” The others in the room all started to lightly clap in applause, though Terry was still understandably quite bewildered by what was happening.
“…In your ranks? W-wait… Hold on a minute… Just where am I?” he asked.
“We’ll explain everything to you in short order,” the man said, giving Terry a pat on the shoulder. “You wanted a chance to be better? Well, son, you’re about to get that chance.”
Terry slowly picked himself up from the floor and back onto his feet, but something felt unusual right from the start. Everything felt just a bit out of place… floaty… almost like he was somehow both underwater and on dry land at once. He seemed to be in control of himself, yet… he didn’t feel like he’d actually woken up yet. Was this a dream?
Attempting to look around and figure out where he was didn’t get him very far. He was in an empty room, with mint-green walls, a similarly colored ceiling, and grey tiles. Light seemed to shine everywhere without any source to speak of, and there weren’t any doors or windows. Just a mysteriously lit cube…
“Teeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrry” The voice emanated again, sounding even slower and more distorted, like it was coming out of a virus-stricken computer with far too many programs running at once.
“Where are you?” He asked, though he couldn’t actually feel his mouth speak the words. They seemed to skip that part of the deal and jump right out of his head. “Where are you?!” he asked again.
“Behind you.”
In an instant he sensed someone else had appeared in the room, and as he turned around, he saw not one, but two familiar faces staring back at him… A man and a woman… or at least what remained of them. Massive lacerations cut across their bodies, their clothes tattered and bloodstained, their skin pale and littered with bruises. Though it looked as if multiple bones of theirs had been broken, they stood upright as if they were perfectly fine and healthy… By all accounts though, with injuries like these, and in such a condition, they should have been dead… and in fact, Terry knew, they already were dead. Theodore and Melanie Rincewind had been dead for years.
The sight of his parents standing there before him like this filled him with both a sense of grief and terror. This was hardly the sort of reunion he would’ve asked for… To see them standing there as little more than walking corpses, to see the results of an outcome that he blamed himself for not stopping when he had the chance. Worse yet… their injuries didn’t seem like the sort that would come from the car crash he’d been told had taken the both of them… Those cuts in particular looked like they came, not from the broken glass and metal scrap of a high-speed two-ton vehicle, but rather from a pair of very large claws…
“…Mom…Dad… oh god… what happened to you?” He asked, wanting to approach them, but finding himself unable to move from where he stood. The animated remains of his parents looked hesitant, as if they wanted to answer, but for whatever reason they could not.
“…We’re here to guide you… that is all…” Theodore said.
“Guide me? Where?” Terry questioned, looking around once more at the compact, near-featureless room.
“To your test…” Melanie answered. At that, with a wave of their hands, a door suddenly manifested between them. As it opened, Terry saw nothing but absolute darkness beyond the entryway. “This isn’t death, Terry, not for you… You have another chance at life, but what that life will be depends on what decisions you make here.”
“There’s no going back to before. Only forward. Remember that,” Theodore added, and as he spoke, Terry felt himself being pulled towards the door. Whether he tried to resist or not, he continued moving towards it. He tried to say something else, he wanted to speak to his parents some more, to have them explain all of this more coherently, but there was nothing he could do. Within moments he’d been dragged into the door, floating in the void that had awaited him.
“You must confront what troubles you… These fears, inner-demons, they are your greatest weaknesses Terry… You must face them…” Melanie’s voice echoed from seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once.
“Face them… or they will never stop haunting you…” Theodore’s voice chimed in, echoing in a similarly disorienting fashion for a moment, before everything went silent in an instant. Terry suddenly felt solid ground beneath his feet as the featureless void transformed around him, shifting into something more familiar…
He was inside Cassandra’s shop, though it seemed to be trapped in a sort of stasis… Nothing moved, even the air felt still. Any windows to the outside displayed the same nothingness he’d just been floating in. Any comfort he’d once felt before, being in this place, it was entirely gone at this very moment. He tried to move… and this time, he found he actually could, without any sort of issue. He walked tentatively through the shop, hearing nothing, not even his own footsteps. Absolute silence had enveloped his surroundings in a way he’d never experienced before, and it left him feeling terribly on-edge.
“What-” As he attempted to speak, he suddenly clutched at his ears… Not only had he not expected to be able to hear himself, but in this otherwise utter quiet, his voice sounded jarringly louder than he’d expected. “W-what is this… Where is everyone?”
He wasn’t sure how long he looked about for any sign of life… Every passing second seemed to drag on at a slower pace than the last as the liminal uncertainty of his surroundings began to set in. He didn’t know what to do… The apparitions of his parents had said there would be a test… but what was here to test him? Fearing his opportunity to reawaken was entirely reliant on his finding out the answer to this question, his searching became more frantic, though as he attempted to pick up or move things, he found nothing would budge an inch… Not even the lightest of objects seemed to react to any force he exerted on them… Everything in the shop stayed exactly the way it appeared… Nothing changed, no matter what he tried to do… Feeling panic beginning to take hold, he frantically pulled at books on shelves, swung his fists at anything that looked fragile, and pulled or cranked every shelf or faucet he could find… but nothing moved. Even his fists looked no worse for wear after slamming into immobile objects without any restraint. He couldn’t change anything… Everything stayed completely as it was…
Except… On the table… It had been unoccupied at first… yet now something laid there on the center of it… its blade glimmering in the light… It was the dagger he’d been tasked with delivering… the one that had led him into this very shop the first time… Terry moved to approach it, reaching out to grab the handle, but as he did, the lights in the shop flickered… After less than a second of darkness before light returned, the dagger had vanished. Terry merely stared at where he’d last seen it… He could feel his sense of reality being torn asunder… It was right there… Where could it have gone?
It was then that he felt something press against the front of his neck… Something cold… and presumably very sharp…
“Mr. Rincewind…” Cassandra’s voice came from behind him as he felt the dagger’s blade slowly press further against his throat. “Here I was, hoping you would have learned your lesson by now… hoping I would never have to see you again… Clearly I’ve overestimated your intelligence if you’ve crawled back here after everything that has happened… How many times must you be endangered before you realize you are nothing but a liability? How many times must you continue to be a burden to all of us?”
“A burden? M-Miss Cassandra, I… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be a burden to any of you…” Terry stammered, only for Cassandra to clasp at his shoulder and force him down on his knees.
“Then tell me, why are you still here?” she inquired, a firmness in her voice that inferred she had very little patience to offer him. “Surely by now you understand how little you have to offer… No powers, no practical skills, no knowledge, no physical strength of any worth… You are a fragile, insignificant and disgustingly mediocre creature, Mr. Rincewind… I could easily replace you with any other human being in this city, and we wouldn’t miss a single beat. Over and over again, the only thing you ever seem to excel in is disappointment… You never do anything to help us… and you never seem to get the hint that we’d all have it far easier if you were to just disappear entirely. I was being more than charitable, taking you under my wing when you were wandering aimlessly through a meaningless existence… but you did so very little in return… It has all proven a woeful waste of my time… To think I saw any potential in you at all…”
He felt her grip on his shoulder tighten, as the sharp edge of the dagger’s blade was positioned at just the right point to nearly nick at his skin.
“How much easier would it be to look after Randall and Quinn if I didn’t have to bother with you… You are simply not worth it… You never were.” He suddenly felt the blade dig into his skin… and with one swift motion he felt it slashing across his neck, tearing through his larynx.
Terry reflexively went to grab at his throat, trying to desperately block the wound as he collapsed to the floor… yet he didn’t feel any blood on his hands… nor any pain from where the dagger had cut through him… He opened his mouth and he could still breathe… Shakily he pulled himself back up from the floor, clinging to the table in front of him to steady himself, all the while still gripping at his neck. He’d felt the blade slice through him… and yet in an instant it was as if it had never touched him in the first place. He turned around to look back at Cassandra… but she was no longer there. Standing in her place was another familiar individual draped in a ratty green jacket and worn jeans, with what looked to be a dog’s collar wrapped around his neck.
“…Randall?” Terry could only go so far as to say the man’s name as Randall suddenly began to approach him, his face snarling with absolute distain.
“I’ve put this off for too long… Far too long…” Randall growled as he slowly edged ever closer, reaching for his collar which seemed to effortlessly unlatch itself from his neck and fall away. That particular collar shouldn’t have been so easy to remove, and yet it fell away effortlessly… Soon after, his body started to shift, growing bigger as his hair became fur that began to cover him entirely, his eyes becoming wild and much more canine-like as sharp claws jutted out of his hands and feet… and equally sharp teeth were being bared in Terry’s direction.
“So often I have to control myself… Around Cassandra… around Quinn… but why do I bother to do the same with you? I remember exactly what you tried to do the first time you saw me like this, Terry… and I remember exactly how much I wanted nothing more than to tear your goddamn head right off… I should’ve done it… I would’ve done us all a favor… You’re worthless, Terry! We all see it, and we all fucking hate you for it! You come in here thinking you can understand what any of us have been through, but you don’t know a damn thing, you pretentious, self-entitled little shit!”
“R-randall, wait, I-I’m sorry…” Terry attempted to be more elaborate in said apology, but he could get the words out… He could hardly think clearly enough to even know what to say.
“Oh, you’re sorry, are you? Is that supposed to be enough for me? Am I supposed to just fuckin’ walk away and let bygones be bygones because you said you were sorry?! That’s not how it works, buddy! If you’re really so sorry, you’ll shut the hell up and let me end this quickly!” His words had grown increasingly distorted as the beast within him continued to take shape until his werewolf form was complete, staring down at Terry with murderous contempt, one set of claws pinning him down on the table before he lunged forward toward his prey’s face with his jaws set to tear at him.
Terry let out a terrified shriek… feeling sharp fangs beginning to rip his face apart… only for them to suddenly vanish, along with the rest of the beast. Again, the injuries were suddenly gone without a trace… and Terry was once again alone, hugging at himself as he fell forward, back to his knees, shivering with fear.
Again, his solitude didn’t last, as he suddenly saw a pair of feet slowly descend to the floor… and as he looked up, he saw who they belonged to… Standing there now was Quinn, looking down at him, their eyes narrowed with scorn, their pistol in their grasp, a finger dangling near the trigger.
“Why did you have to find me…” They muttered. “Why couldn’t you get the hint that I didn’t want to see you anymore? I thought I’d gotten away from you… and you had to ruin it all by coming here…” As they spoke, Terry found himself unable to move… It was as if he felt compelled to merely kneel there without any hope of breaking free… as if Quinn’s powers were forcing him in place.
“You never did anything to help me… Every time we spoke, you never understood what was bothering me… You always did nothing but make worthless comments… You rambled on and on about things that didn’t matter… You were so ignorant of what I was going through… Don’t you realize you were doing more harm than good for me? I stopped seeing you for a reason… You know that’s true, you always knew it, yet you couldn’t leave me be. Randall and Cassandra… they understand me… They can help me… You… All you do is make things worse…” They lifted their pistol, placing the barrel right on Terry’s forehead.
“I need to get rid of you… For good this time… All you do is hurt people, Terry… You bring nothing but misery to us all… It’s time you finally did the one useful thing you can do and die…”
Tears welled up in Terry’s eyes at this… He didn’t want to believe what they were saying, yet there was clearly a part of him that truly feared this was the reality of it… and for a moment as he knelt there, waiting for the bullet to pierce his skull, he was starting to believe this really was the best thing he could do for them… but then something else seemed to click in his mind…
“…No… no, you don’t mean that… you can’t… It’s not true… None of this is the truth! IT’S NOT!” He suddenly shouted, shutting his eyes, waiting for the gunshot… but it didn’t happen. As he opened his eyes, he saw Quinn frozen in place, as if they’d become much like the rest of the shop, stuck in one position. Beside them, Cassandra and Randall had suddenly reappeared, similarly in static, unmoving positions, merely staring at him. Finding he could move again, Terry stood back up and looked at the three of them, forcing himself to find some kind of resolve… Through the visages of his three cohorts he was facing what he feared most… and he wasn’t going to bow down to those fears any longer.
“I’ll admit I’m probably nothing special… I don’t have any arcane knowledge or a lot of experience with monsters or demons or anything like that… Fine, that’s the truth of the matter, I won’t argue with any of that!” he said, walking over to look at Cassandra. “But you didn’t let that stop you from bringing me in… You saved my life when I could’ve easily just been torn to shreds the first time I wandered in here… You’ve let me stay here in this shop when I felt I had nowhere else to go… Every single time I’ve been captured or abducted, you always made the effort to save me… and you know what… I’ve tried my best to repay you in kind, whatever way I could… Maybe I haven’t always succeeded, but… goddammit… I try my best! If I’m a burden to you, believe me I don’t intend to be… I’m trying to get better! I want to prove my worth! The real you… She must believe that… I know she does!”
He then turned his attention to Randall. “So we don’t see eye-to-eye a whole lot… I’ll give you that. We’re not exactly the best of pals, sure… but we’ve worked together several times now… We’re on the same team, right? Maybe we get on each other’s nerves a bit, sure, but who doesn’t from time to time? Even with that collar you could’ve found some means of doing away with me many times over, but you didn’t… and I have to believe that deep down you really are a well-meaning individual, no matter how you might conduct yourself… You’re probably right, I couldn’t possibly know what you’re feeling or what you’re going through, and I won’t pretend I do… but I hope one day I’ll at least understand a little better.”
Lastly, there was Quinn. Even as he felt newfound resolve coursing through him, Terry felt himself shaking a little as he went to face them once more. “…Quinn, I’ll admit I was worried it was my fault that you left… I did blame myself… I thought I might’ve said the wrong things, that maybe I didn’t listen to you well enough or something like that… but I know it wasn’t me… Those voices, or spirits, or whatever they are that haunt you… They must be hell to deal with… and everything involving how your family treated you, and what became of your cousin… All that had to have been so overwhelming… You didn’t just stop showing up because I was being some kind of toxic friend… and my stumbling back into your life wasn’t just some mistake… I can’t accept that as fact… just like I can’t accept the idea that I… somehow just make things worse… Maybe I don’t always make things better, but… I could never do anything intentionally to hurt you… Not Cassandra or Randall either, but especially not you… because you’re my closest friend… and… I… M-maybe I see you as something more than that… Maybe… I care about you more than I’ve admitted upfront… and maybe… if I can ever get the chance to see you again, I’d be able to work up the courage to confess that to you… but I can say this much right now to this… illusion… I know the one thing I would never intend to do is hurt the real you.”
At that, the three images of his companions seemed to fade away, leaving Terry alone once more, and he knew there was one last thing he had to address…
“You hear all that, whoever’s running this little show? Maybe I’m just some ordinary bastard, sure, but I know I can be more than that! That’s what you wanna hear, right? Well, there you go, and you know what… I believe it! I might not be much to write home about right now, but I can change that! I can be better! I want to be better, so… whoever’s out there, give me that chance!”
Abruptly at his words, everything went completely dark, and Terry felt a brief, falling sensation, and then nothing at all…
Slowly, he opened his eyes as he found himself in a very different sort of room… He was sitting down in a sort of medical chair, his surroundings awash with a faintly blueish light as a team of individuals, all quite sharply dressed in similar suits, were moving about, some observing him, others talking to each other, as he felt some kind of headset being pulled off of him.
“Well, I believe that’s enough to earn a passing grade,” an older fellow spoke as he offered a hand to help Terry back onto his feet. Though hesitant, Terry nonetheless obliged.
“…I beg your pardon?” Terry asked, before noticing a familiar face standing off to the side… The new guy again… so it was him that he’d heard earlier…
“You weren’t merely hallucinating the part about that being a test, Mr. Rincewind… and I’m happy to say you indeed passed, and in doing so, you’ve earned a spot in our ranks. Congratulations are in order.” The others in the room all started to lightly clap in applause, though Terry was still understandably quite bewildered by what was happening.
“…In your ranks? W-wait… Hold on a minute… Just where am I?” he asked.
“We’ll explain everything to you in short order,” the man said, giving Terry a pat on the shoulder. “You wanted a chance to be better? Well, son, you’re about to get that chance.”