~Steele~ I suppose explanations are in order.

I'm back in the land of the living, and have now got a decent amount of experience typing with one hand. (Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. God reaching the parenthesis is hard.) So I think it’s about time I…elaborate on that night. This will not be a lengthy post, though. Mostly because I am typing at half capacity.

I remember it, kind of, though almost as if I was a mere onlooker. Floating above myself, sitting in silent comprehension of the House and its Master, as I darted down its burning corridors.

This is the part where Doc and Amanda tell me I was tripping balls, so I’m going to blow that little theory out of the water right now. I felt as sick as a dog, and wanted to throw up, but the adrenaline kept me going with a mostly clear head. I was not chemically altered in any sense other than that. (Unless we are talking a really groovy acid flashback, but I think I’m going to have to go with just plain Loopy as my reason for my…mis-identification of certain indicators.)

And…that thing…The shadowy things I saw. I think they were hallucinations…they looked almost human, but walked on all four hands, with inky black skin…But they were tiny, like children…

Maybe it isn’t as clear in my mind as I thought, even now I can feel the exact details of the chase slipping from my mind. But I remember the library. Their nest, with their Master overlooking them from the mezzanine above. Them, and me. I hid behind a bookshelf to send a message (what very well could have been my last), put the phone away, pulled out the gun, and spun around the edge of the bookshelf, but He was already there, tentacles whipping upwards and outwards, elongating, as if worms escaping from a dried out husk…they swung towards me lightning fast and I flicked my hand up to block it (Because blocking Him is going to work), but he wasn’t aiming to hit me, he grabbed me by the hand and flung me up, swinging me like a doll as my hand splintered and I screamed, I think I fired off a shot because my other hand clenched up so tight and the pain was so real that the sickness faded, and all that was left was red rage bursting from my pores, pure venom shooting from my eyes as I landed on the mezzanine level and got pulled into the wooden balcony. He wasn’t even trying to pull me, he was toying with me, giving me a rest before the rest of his slimy little appendages curiously curled their way up here, and then I would be lost, ripped from end to end, stomach in one tree, intestines in the next…but I was still on His leash, he still had me by the hand…

There was no time to think. I jammed the gun barrel into the black mass encasing my other hand, and pulled the trigger, once, twice, three times, four, my skin exploding in red-hot shards of intangible pain, but his tentacle let go and I pulled myself away towards the mezzanine level door, but even as I looked back, there he was, just beyond the balcony, dangling from spindly legs which exploded from his shoulders and reached down towards the main library.

I stood up straight, turned around, and aimed down the sight, feeling dizzy and noting that my hand was shaking violently (which was nothing compared to the mangled mess of the other limb), as I readied myself to make my final shot as His arms reached out lovingly, a gesture of reconciliation, of acceptance, of union with He…

Then I felt a sharp pain in the side of my neck, and it was lights out.

I know why I did what I did. I should’ve stayed in the garage like a good boy, yes. But damnit if I hear a member of this household in trouble, there is no amount of rules I would break, and sacrifices I would make that could stop me from trying to save them. Like it or not, we’re a family, and even though I am the absent uncle of it most of the time, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I guess I should count my lucky stars that Amanda and Doc feel the same way.