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It's springtime in Deadwood.
The wet, icy snow that previously concealed the mud has slowly faded over the past moderately sunny days. He can see the woods surrounding the town, acting as a barrier. Closing off whatever is wrong with this place from the rest of the world. Guarding something normal from this living hell.
The doorbell rings. William knows who it is.
He stumbles out of his bed, blanket draped around his shoulders, and steps over the piles of clothes and trash that has accumulated on his floor to the window. He wants to see them, even if he can't bring himself to have an actual conversation.
He opens the blackout blinds. Fog still coats William's windows, evidently from the thermostat that he keeps on pressing up higher and higher (much to his mother's chagrin, because why couldn't he just put another sweater on?), and he has to use the sleeve of his black hoodie to wipe it away.
At his doorstep, there's a blur of a long brown skirt, a hefty olive green coat and brunette hair that he knows is Norah, presumably with Lui and Isaac behind her. For the second time this week. Opening the door, his Mother greets the group.
'Oh, um, hello Mrs. Wisp,' he can tell Norah is saying, because he's heard it several times before, 'we were just wondering if we could talk to William.'
He just had to go on and fall off a fucking cliff, didn't he? Snap his neck, crush his skull and die.
He has to quickly close the blinds on again before his Mom replies, No they can't see him and he just needs some more time to readjust and he'll be okay soon and they should come back another day. Everything will go back to normal and they'll be hunting ghosts and bug related diseases and undead monsters by fall.
William does not think he'll ever be okay again. William does not think it will ever be normal again.
One time, maybe a week or so after his death, it was David at that door. Coming into his room and watching him in horror, as if he couldn't believe his younger sister could've changed while he was away in that fancy office.
He hung around for a couple days, checking on him a couple times and talking with his parents. Occasionally, he would try to start up a conversation. William would never talk back.
He's not sure if he misses his brother.
He falls to the floor, back against the radiator and spider-web decorated blanket hugged tightly around his knees.
William Wisp is dead, and whatever he is— the thing piloting his body— will never be him, no matter how much everyone else seems to want to play pretend. Acting as if he's any different from the creature that replaced Lui's grandma.
There is an empty grave with his name on it.
He pulls his hand away from the blanket and stares at his palm. There's a blue tinge, almost black at his fingertips, slowly creeping up his skin. He pinches his index finger between his fingernails and feels a faint static. There's still some sort of nerve reception, even if it works on something other than blood and oxygen.
On his wrist, there's a deep jagged line that slices clean through his basilic vein, from a couple days after he had awoken and his only thought was deliriously dragging a pocket knife through his flesh just to check if anything was still there.
He can already feel his joints stiffening, either from the rigor mortis or his complete refusal to move anywhere than from his bed to the window and back to his bed again. The few times he's looked in the mirror, his irises are so clouded over he can barely make out the brown underneath.
He can't stay here anymore. He resents Deadwood; its leafless trees, its all encompassing mist, its people. Anything but the look in his Mom's eye and anything but his friend's concerned faces.
There's footsteps coming up the stairs. Multiple sets.
William momentarily considers jumping out the window and falling to his death once again.
The door creeks open. William can barely see his friends from the other side of the room.
If William's heart hadn't already stopped beating, he would've had a heart attack by now.
Norah says, 'Er, hi William. Mrs. Wisp let us, um, come up here and see you. We thought, maybe, we could go to the basement?'
A little 'Yeah!' and 'Hiya Will.' are added by Isaac and Lui respectively. As if its a normal day, and he's a normal person, and he didn't fall off a cliff and die.
He stares at them, and they stare back, whether they mean to or not. His hair is completely overgrown, and he tries to pretend he doesn't hate the way it rests on his shoulders. Two metal hairclips pinch his bangs to the side so his vision isn't completely obscured, despite his newfound shortsightness.
He's been practically confined to his bed, and he hasn't showered in a concerning amount of time. It probably reeks of rot and decay in here. Hell, the entire house is probably imbued with the scent of human decomposition.
He's still wearing the same black hoodie he has always worn, even if now he's currently using it to hide the signs of deoxygenated blood creeping up his body. Underneath is a random graphic tee. He's chosen to forgo his typical skinny jeans and in their place are a pair of soft, plaid pyjama pants which were probably once David's, judging by the way they creep over his feet.
'Yeah, Will, it's definitely not good to stay indoors all day, man,' Isaac says, and tacks on the end, muttering, 'even if you did die.'
Norah turns back around as if to say, 'Isaac!' and Lui slaps his hand to his face.
Isaac looks to Norah and then to Lui and mutters, 'What? He is! What's the point in- whatever.'
Norah whispers back, quickly, 'Yes, but you don't need to say it.'
Lui starts next, 'We thought, maybe, we could research what happened to you. And if it happened to anyone else! We might be able to figure out how to fix it!'
The only way to fix this, to actually fix this, is to properly kill him. He is a living corpse; a literal dead man walking. He should not be able to think. He's dead, for fuck's sake, and that's not something that people actually recover from.
William has accepted this. He assumes the others have not.
'And even if we can't, I miss investigating with you,' Norah smiles.
The other two nod. They all look to William for a response.
He's not completely sure his vocal chords still work. Maybe, like his heart, they don't need to anymore.
He also really does not feel like talking to them, or hanging out with them, or investigating with them. He stares back, eyes hazy.
He wants to speak, to ask 'Why don't you hate me? Why don't you hate the thing that's pretending to be your friend?'.
He want to be a person: alive, breathing, normal. Hunting monsters with his friends. William doesn't want to be stuck in his room — heart silent and not even a death rattle leaving his lips.
God, he can't do this.
William stares back and shakes his head.
They leave, thankfully. Norah watches him for a second, hoping he'll retract his refusal and run down to the basement alongside them.
But, eventually, Lui taps her shoulder and points outside. The door closes; William is by himself.
...
Unsurprisingly, the room is dusty.
It's cold and the fluorescent bulb flickers a couple times before fully illuminating the room, as it always has.
This is his home. Well, home inside of his home. It's William Wisp at its core.
Various band posters line the powdery blue walls, some official and some handmade. He almost crashes down the dark wooden staircase before saving himself on the railing.
He looks out to the Wisp's basement: the Unwitness Protection Program's hideout.
Everythings still there. The shitty bile colored sofa they found on the street, Norah's reading corner, the old PC tower that barely loads. On the wall, there's still the 'UPP!' sign Isaac haphazardly spray painted. The small bookcase packed full with Lui's books on anything and everything paranormal (notably, the undead). He barely recognises his own scratchy handwriting on post-it notes surrounding his cork board.
There's still evidence of them: open books scattering the floor and the partially rolled up rug. Journals and lined paper are covered in mind maps and question marks.
It's odd. There was a time was a time when William Wisp breathed, and there was a time when William Wisp wanted to be something.
It feels likes it happened millenia ago, away on another planet, by a different person. As if he's looking at an archival file for himself.
He sits cross-legged on the floor and starts flicking through some old supernatural book. Faint memories come to mind, of Lui pointing at decrepit pages and giving enthusiastic explanations while William tagged newspapers together with red string.
Only a couple months ago.