Different Pairs (Of Wings)

A collaborative project between Dublinjd, VenomRealmCreepyPastas, Sater, and I, IdealisticPrawn The first chapter, written by Dublin, has been (heavily) edited by Prawn just so it's more awesome, although it retained a bunch of lines from the original draft and kept the majority of the narrative. (I just changed a few subtle things).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy our work!

Chapter 1: Oldford, West Virginia
Here’s what happened. I was driving to home for the weekend earlier this morning, my wife sitting in the backseat. I was so happy, my wife was going to have a baby tomorrow - I couldn’t fight off the smile – and we thought it’d be a great idea to have my child in the place where I was born, as she was from the big city and most hospitals there are busy 24/7. I drove for a few miles further, the landscape rushing by, and I looked back at my wife.

“Honey, I have a great idea for the name!”

Before I could express this idea, I looked out the window and I saw a figure in the black.

It was a yellowish, winged figure, leering at me from its position in the road. Somehow, I seemed to vaguely recall who it was and I turned the car before it smashed into a tree. I blacked out after I caught a glimpse of the figure flapping its wings and soaring off.

I awoke to see a pole from a billboard near the tree, stuck through the backseat; my wife wasn’t there.

“Rosetta?!” I called out into the smoldering abyss of trees and fog.

No answer.

I needed to get out of here, to find my wife, so I took out a shard of glass from the broken windshield and cut my seatbelt as to allow me to exit the car; I struggled my way out of the door and began to walk down the road as fast as I could, albeit my being an injured man.

After about half-an-hour, I reached the town of Oldford. I grew up here, but it seemed almost entirely empty and devoid of its usual cheer. I ran inside the close building, which was a gas station, trying to find help.

No one, just like I thought. My pulse was quickening, and I was beginning to become uneasy. As I scrutinized the inside closely for any sign of human beings, I looked out the window to the nearby, slow-moving Stonefield River.

I was shocked.

Last time I was here, the bridge had been out after it grew tired like other bridges in West Virginia in the past. I couldn't believe it. A year ago there was a bridge there, an intact one, one which I actually began to walk across. The bridge was devoid of vehicles, and looked like it had stood for centuries under the reign of intense weather and age. Normally, the bridge would head to what people called the ‘slums’, although this town wasn’t particularly rich in the first place.

It was then that I heard a creaking noise.

I took the hint and backpedaled before sprinting right off the bridge as it fell and crashed it a cantankerous heap of metal, which than proceeded to be dragged down the river, plowing its banks. I covered my head as the screaming of alloy overwhelmed me for a second.

On this note I ran back into town, further pressing forward on the segment of highway that divided the town in two and served as a makeshift business strip that most of the town’s money makers were situated on.

It was empty, the whole place seemed to be awfully desolate. I walked into a nearby café to use their phone.

I picked it up, and dialed 911.

There was no ring.

I could hear the buzzing noise, and strangely enough I started to fall asleep; my head throbbing, I quickly left the store before falling on the ground. The last thing I saw before blacking out was, once again, the yellow figure.

I woke up, again, several minutes later to an apprehensive, oppressive feeling deep inside me.

I stumbled onward, entering a hostel, wondering if there would be anyone still in their rooms.

As I entered the lobby, I saw the yellow figure again gloat at me silently before disappearing up stairs. Giving in to my primitive urges, I followed it, and the fleeting creature vanished through a door. On the other side of the door I could hear a mattress creaking and a woman lapsing into a serious of orgasms.

I opened it and, to my horror, I saw my old bedroom back home, with a doppelganger of myself, half-naked, banging away at someone else who wasn’t my wife, but instead a complete stranger I hadn’t met before. My doppelganger looked at me, before saying “What the fuck are you looking at?” in an embarrassed and angry tone of voice.

I backed away, my breathing becoming shallow. Something obviously was going terribly wrong; as far as I was concerned, this alternate, sex-crazed version of me was an obstacle in the quest to find Rosetta.

My wife and my baby were at stake.

At this point I kicked at a glass box (‘IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK GLASS’) on the wall, shattering it; I retrieved the axe and, adrenalin coursing through my veins, I ran and lunged at my doppelganger.

The woman screamed as I heaved the axe in my double’s side, causing him to fall off the bed and onto the floor headfirst. He tried to clamber away helplessly, but I climbed over the crying woman and brought the axe down was once again, severing off his head sloppily in a torrent of blood. I swung again, and again, and again, mangling the bastard’s face while screaming “You are not me, you motherfucker!!” I buried the axe in his chest before I fumbled across the carpet and fell down crying.

I looked around. The bed and the woman were gone; the only piece of furniture was a mirror, which I picked myself up off the ground to look at it. I advanced for it carefully and, upon closer inspection, the face wasn't mine. The face in the mirror was of a different man. This was the final straw; I swiftly exited the room, sobbing as the hotel’s double doors closed behind me.

I took a seat on a nearby bench to recollect myself.

“What's going on?” I said to no one in particular, before the buzzing happened again.

That goddamn buzzing. It filled my ears as the town became more eerie, like it was transforming. I promptly got up and I tried to escape the buzzing by entering the diner across the street.

I walked inside, to see an odd glow at one corner of the room; the glow diminished, revealing another doppelganger of mine eating what appeared to be a whole buffet. He looked at me as he crammed food into his mouth, and I returned to my position on the sidewalk, where the buzzing seemed to have stopped.

Walking further down the street, I saw a vision of me and a homeless man; he asked me for a dollar, and I gazed into his pocket where he already had reserved about a hundred dollars in cash. Instead of contributing to this fucker’s war fund, I spat on the homeless man mercilessly and continued on my journey. As the vision faded, I had the lingering feeling as though I was in hell. I could see a bench, with myself on it, just… sitting there. These freaky hallucinations were wearing me down, and I rubbed my tired eyes with my hand.

I sighed, the power of unhappiness effortlessly exerting its control on my mind. I walked past what I saw to be a bike shop; I heard voices coming from inside. With just a pinprick of hope, I meandered inside.

I could see a vision of myself punching and kicking my wife around the living room like some sort of fucking punching bag.

I was shocked; I couldn’t bear it. He didn’t notice me, so I rammed into him and thrust him off the balcony before he could protest, watching his descent and eventual splatter on the street.

I looked back. Predictably, the battered version of my wife wasn’t there, and looking down to the street, my second doppelganger was missing too.

I turned back and the room was no longer what it had been before; now it was what appeared to be a graveyard, although the only two graves present were those of my parents. The monster was standing behind me, looking at the back of my head with a grin on its yellowish face.

Without turning to face him, I asked “What do you want from me? I suffered enough... ” The figure approached me, its feet crushing. I was frozen in anticipation and in fear.

“Where’s my wife?” I demanded, stammering with nervousness.

It didn’t respond, instead whooshing right above my head and off into the sky. I lost my balance and fell. However, there was no ground to catch me; I kept falling and falling into the dark void, screaming.