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Dark-ish Halloween fic

Ghost!WandaNat, dark!WandaNat, mind control, kidnapping, blood, visions, death, burns, an all round spooky fic. No smut but dark themes so proceed with caution.

Summary: Your entire life is turned upside down when you discover a book of the supernatural, propelling you into days of horror just before Halloween. What or who is causing the curse?

My contribution to spooktober :D

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The chill of October air passed through you as you headed towards the campus library of the University that you attended. The way that the wind whipped the sides of your coat to the side, letting the awful freeze of the air wrap around your torso made you curse yourself for choosing to do a Master's degree after your Bachelor's. If you had just gotten a job like the rest of your friends had, then you would not be traipsing to the library every evening, and instead would be at home, snuggled under the comfort of many thick blankets after another day at the office.

But instead, you were wrapping your arms around yourself in a hug, angry at the universe for your broken coat zipper as the hands of mother nature kept clawing their way through your outfit, yanking your tote bag repeatedly down in the process. By the time you arrived at the library you were already frustrated with the universe, and you hadn't sat down to start your essay yet.

Sighing a large puff of air from your already agape mouth thanks to the struggle of climbing stairs, you collapsed into a rickety old chair, slumping down and staring at the wall ahead, trying to mentally prepare yourself for the late night that was to be had. Thanks to your procrastination, you were missing pumpkin carving with your roommates, an activity that you adored, making this essay your arch-nemesis.

Due to it being the Friday before Halloween, there were no fellow students also slumped in their seats, society beating them down as their burnt-out minds kept pushing on the invisible barriers that tried to stop them from working.

You were all alone.

Taking the opportunity, you unpacked all of your things and laid them out on the desk in front of you in a haphazard way, not caring about everything being neat in front of you. You were simply here to rush through your essay, put in the absolute minimum effort, and get home to the likely 'after pumpkin carving party' that would be happening. After all, C's get degrees.

Usually, you would find any books or papers in the long line of the library resources before unpacking, in case anyone ran off with your laptop or bag, not that you had anything truly of value, your laptop was ancient. It looked like a slab of concrete and felt like one at that too, your shoulder consistently being weighed down. Every day you made a mental note to use a backpack next time, and every day you ignored yourself.

But thanks to the emptiness of the place, you wanted to walk around without your laptop. You felt silly that it felt freeing to be walking around without holding anything. It felt as though you could walk on air. There was no rush to get back to your seat, especially because your mind was still procrastinating, so you decided to fully immerse yourself in the giant bank of knowledge that this building held, having never had the opportunity to do so in the past.

You marvelled at the various books that students in other degrees would most likely groan at seeing due to reading them all the time for their assignments. It's a funny thing. Most of the time you could do copious amounts of research in your own time and never get bored, digging down all the rabbit holes that you could find, but as soon as you needed to research something for a class, all interest is immediately tossed out of the window and stomped on.

As you mindlessly ran the pads of your pointer finger along the row of books, a small smile tugging at your lips as you slowly walked on, you missed the gust of wind that passed through the closed door and towards your desk, moving all of your items before turning the corner and running past your boot-clad feet, the thick material enough to make you oblivious.

Though when your finger landed on an old, worn-down-looking book, the gust of wind that was pooling at your feet, waiting to pounce, lifted itself into the air in a column around you, your hair flying around at the disturbance. You gasped as you felt the cool air around you, but before you could check your surroundings your eyes rolled to the back of your head as your hands grabbed the shelf in front of you to keep yourself steady.

When everything went dark you couldn't feel your body anymore. You desperately tried to scream out in hopes that anyone in the library would be able to help you, but it was as though your voice box was clamped shut by an invisible force. No words that you were pleading to escape managed to pass through into the air.

A low humming noise whistled through the air, overpowering your senses, your mind now completely distracted by the sound. Something had control of your mind as the humming continued, getting louder and louder. It was beautiful, rough around the edges but in the perfect way. As you allowed yourself to get lost in the symphony, the edges of your vision glowed white before a blurry room came into your sights.

A dim, yet beautiful ballet room, with mirrors on every wall and pine wood flooring, revealed itself to you, and suddenly a young woman with auburn hair appeared. Once her presence was made known to you, the humming increased in volume, and as she twirled around the room in a gorgeous choreography in a black bodice and tutu, you realised that the humming was coming from the woman herself.

She danced along to the beat of her own voice, moving her body in a way that had you mesmerised, captivating you in a way that had never captivated you before. You could watch her forever, it felt like you needed to see more like you needed to walk up to her and let her gaze meet yours. It felt as though at this moment she was the only thing in the universe that mattered.

As the vision slowly moved closer to her, you could easily make out the flow of her hands. How her fingers danced along too, her entire being, every atom, going into this dance. But then it stopped.

With the humming gone all that you could hear was a painful ringing, its pitch getting higher and higher with each passing second. The woman in the room stood, head looking down at the floor with her back to you, her breathing deep yet steady as she stood still. You were forced to watch as she recovered from the dance and slowly started walking towards one of the mirror walls, her head still pointed down.

It was only when her hands grabbed onto the wall railing that you realised how cold and lifeless her skin looked, how it looked as though she could break at any moment. It was at this moment that your consciousness came back to you, but your body didn't. You were stuck in the vision. Panic flooded your system as once again you tried to scream out for help. You didn't know this woman, and you didn't know where you were. But maybe she could help you.

You begged whatever divinity was out there to just let you communicate with her, to let you ask for help so that you could go home, and just as you did, she looked up. Her eyes met your gaze through the mirror and you wanted to scream in pure terror. Her face was just as paper-white as her hands which only accentuated the blood pouring from her mouth as she looked at you blankly. All that she offered you as you were begging for help was a smirk and a wink before everything went black again.

Your chest heaved and you knew that you were back in your body, but with your eyes tightly screwed shut you didn't know for sure. The column of wind that had surrounded you slowly dissipated and was absorbed by the scratchy carpeted flooring, allowing your extremities to warm up again. However long you were under that spell, the wind had made you feel freezing to the touch. Your tight jaw chattering only proved this further, though that could also be from the fear and adrenaline.

Tentatively, you allowed your eyelids to flutter open, and you were met with the sight of your hands gripping tightly onto the shelf in front of you, knuckles painfully white as you held on for dear life. Your mouth felt dry as you tried to take in everything that had just happened, it didn't feel real, it couldn't be real, and yet why was your heart pounding? Why was your chest heaving with anxiety?

You shook your head and looked up, the old book directly in front of you. An internal battle began as you fought the Angel and Devil that sat on your shoulder. The Angel telling you not to take the book, you touched it and the vision started, that couldn't be a coincidence. But the Devil told you to take it, to put it in your bag and leave.

The Devil won.

Shakily, your hand reached out and gently pulled the book out. You stared at the cover, not being able to make any sense of it, it was like nothing you had ever seen before. The brown and black book looked as though it could fall apart if you dropped it, and the patterns on the front made you want to run your finger along them, so you gave in to your instincts.

As the pads of your fingers ran along the intricate patterns, you felt a warmth run up your arm, followed quickly by a cold that made a whimper fall from your lips, the severe cold making your skin prick painfully before the feeling stopped completely, leaving as fast as it came.

You had to take the book home, it was telling you to. Ordering you to.

With haste, you moved back to your desk and stuffed the book into your bag, not caring that you hadn't bothered to check it out. If the book told you to take it home, then you would take it home. It was like you weren't in full control of your movements since the book was in your hands, but you didn't notice.

Though when you looked up to begin packing your other things, you did notice that all of your stuff had been moved to the opposite side of the desk from where you had initially placed it. Though you just pinned it down to paranoia, you had just had the life scared out of you, so it was only natural for you to be overly paranoid now.

So, with a shrug you packed the rest of your things, your hands still just as shaky, and you rushed out of the library without making sure that you had gotten everything, you just needed to leave, and you never wanted to step foot in there again.

The walk home was much nicer than your work there. Other than your mind racing and being on the lookout for any sort of danger. But you felt warm, your bag felt like it weighed nothing, even with the additional book added, and no gusts of wind were hitting you, even though the trees around you were swaying with gusto, looking as though the trunks could quite easily snap. A frown rested on your forehead as you carried on speedwalking down the street, a storm was clearly coming, and yet you were feeling nothing.

It was like the book was helping you get it home as quickly as possible. Instinctually, you looked down at the book in the bag resting at your side and your feet seemed to pick up the pace, pushing you through the dark autumn night and towards the apartment you shared with your roommates.

As soon as you pushed through the people that were at the small party that you had predicted would occur earlier on in the day, you ignored the weird looks from your friends as they saw your mindless body walk through the room and into yours. Your mind was on a mission, and nothing was going to stop you from giving that book a place in your bedroom. It would be safe with you, not out in the open for just anyone to touch.

When it was placed on your chest of drawers opposite your bed, you let out a sigh of relief. The book was safe, and its hold on your mind eased. As you slowly regained some form of control of yourself, it was only then that you realised how crazy all of this was. Snippets of the terrifying vision flooded your senses again and hot tears began streaming down your face as you curled up into a ball on your bed. You didn't know why this was happening to you and you didn't know what to do.

If you told anyone then they would think of you as a crazy person, or someone spewing some ghost stories to freak people out before Halloween. So you did the thing any normal person would do, resorted to sobbing in your room whilst simultaneously trying to block the whole experience out, trying to allow the soft fabric of your sheets to give you some semblance of security.

It was an impossible thing to have happened, and you didn't know if you believed your own mind. You didn't trust yourself, and that was a scary thing.

You needed to get rid of the book.

After sniffing and wiping your nose with your sleeve, you stood shakily, your knees almost giving way, and slowly moved over to where the book lay, looking innocent as though it hadn't just traumatised you for a lifetime. You inhaled a deep breath and closed your eyes, preparing yourself to take the leap and touch the book again, but when contact was made, a sharp pain spread across your hand, and a brief flash of an image appeared in the back of your eyelids.

You could just about make out the image of the small cabin surrounded by forests before it disappeared and you stumbled back, clutching your now wounded hand. The pain was excruciating, and you had to bite your bottom lip to avoid crying out, but when you extended your fingers and looked at your right palm, you had to stifle a scream.

An hourglass symbol appeared as your hand continued to burn, etching itself onto your skin as you stared with wide eyes, your chest once again heaving. "What the fuck", you whispered as your body began to shake like a leaf, very aware that your clock was mocking you, reading as 04:00.

As you stared longer at the symbol a flash of recognition passed through you, you had most certainly seen this symbol before. It was plastered around years ago. A series of freak "accidents" had been slowly killing off the group of Earth's mightiest heroes, the "Avengers". It had been put down to a serial killer once more evidence was found, and the fact that they hadn't been found had made the situation all the more terrifying until it all got shoved under the rug and everyone moved on with their lives.

But something about a certain death or rather, two certain deaths confused you. Most of the Avengers were murdered in plain sight, the killer clearly on some sort of power trip trying to prove to people that they were just as vulnerable as regular humans. But Black Widow, whose symbol was now burned into your skin, was found dead alongside her wife, the Scarlet Witch, in their safe house after they went into hiding once the killing patterns had emerged. Very much not a public space.

It also became clear to you, that the woman in the vision also looked like the Black Widow, a few years younger maybe, and most certainly not how she looked exactly when she was alive, but definitely her. The faces of all the Avengers were plastered around everywhere during their world-saving days, so you were sure that it looked like her.

You just wondered what this book had to do with her, especially as she was very dead. The idea that this had anything to do with the supernatural chilled you to the bone, but you shook that thought away. There must be a reasonable explanation for all of this. There was no such thing as vampires, zombies, or ghosts. They didn't exist, and so you were safe. This was just a freak prank, nothing more nothing less. You nodded along to your train of thought, trying to convince yourself that everything was indeed okay, as you ignored the searing pain in your hand.

Lifting up the soft duvet covers of your bed, you crawled underneath them and got into a foetal position, clutching your hand that was clenched as a fist close to your chest, your bottom lip trembling as you fought back tears, desperate to fall asleep so that you could wake up and pretend this never happened. You knew that you needed to go and get something to care for your new wound, but the bathroom was across the apartment, and there was no way that you were going to risk waking up your roommates as they would most certainly ask questions. So, you would have to wait until you awoke in a few hours' time and waltz into the room as if nothing was wrong.

Eventually, your trembling body passed out from exhaustion, and your mind was finally at peace. For the time being.

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The following day came with no issues, aside from the pain ebbing and flowing through your hand. Your roommates did wonder why you had a bandage wrapped around your hand, but you eased their fears by telling them that you had been stupid when trying to cook something new for breakfast. They believed you.

You counted your lucky stars that the damned book resting in your room did not give you any nightmares or visions that day, and just put it down to a weird fluke. It was just a prank. A very painful prank, one that made you want to kick the creator of it in the shin, but a prank nonetheless.

Having not started the essay the day prior, you had to work at double the speed yet you could only use one hand. The maths weren't adding up, but with your mind fuelled on caffeine via various cups of coffee and cans of energy drinks, enough to make your brain go full throttle before an energy crash, you finished your essay.

Smiling, you were satisfied with the day. It had been productive, yet calm. You sat on your bed and just let the world pass you by that evening, grateful for the peace, grateful to be able to watch the sunset, and grateful to be able to fall asleep with no issues. Your sleep went undisturbed, but what you didn't know was that the book a mere few steps away from you was awake. Wide awake, and it had been watching your every move.

The next day you went about your business once again. Attending your classes you typed out all the notes that you could, yet again with a singular hand, and the one that wasn't your dominant one. It was tough but you pushed through, willing your body to continue so that when you got home you wouldn't have to make notes on the slides in your own time. Whilst on campus you hung out with friends and engaged in some lovely chit-chat, all of them concerned for your bandaged hand but yet again you waved them off with a little white lie.

You allowed yourself to romanticise the day, that's how you got through most of your University days. You brought yourself an iced coffee to sip on whilst studying with friends, organising your notes in a way that was aesthetic, yet effective; colour scheming everything with titles of cute yet readable fonts. It was all for vanity reasons but if it meant that you would go back and read your notes then you didn't see the issue.

You also took the long route home, letting your scarf get ruffled in the wind as your boots quenched your thirst for standing on the crunchiest leaves that the local flora had to offer you. After seeing a quaint, run-down bench you decided to take a seat, resting your weary legs that had taken you from class to class that day. Though that was a mistake.