#Ren is slamming his head into the wall. All of them can't deal with how dense she is | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dragonsinkwell · 3 years

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Snippet #74

More playing around with the Full Circle!AU, mostly because after all the cute from the last piece and the heavy NSFW piece I wrote and showed to the server I decided a little horror would be a fun next bit to play with. This links to some degree with the bit I wrote back in the half-finished Screamtober 2020, bringing in that Silent Hill setting for some true terror. I have a second half to this I'm working on, but it'll be a while before that gets posted I'm sure. It definitely is a horror piece, and there's mentions of blood, violence, fire, and death, so take that as your warning if any of those make you uncomfortable. If not, head forth and enjoy some chills in this summertime heat.

Soon enough, you find the strength to breathe properly again, though you can't stop your shaking quite yet. A fresh wave of frustration causes you to slam your fist into the wall beside you once more. Why? What have you done to deserve this torture? Is it your fault? You can't fight back one more choking sob, however no more fresh tears join the ones slowly drying on your cheeks. All you want is to go home. Isn't your situation bad enough on its own without being chased?

Where are you, anyway? Despite the fact this place looks like your home, that each room and hallway seems pulled directly from your house, it clearly isn't at all the same building. It's far too large, and the longer you're trapped here and can't find a way out, the more anomalies you find. Rooms torn apart, the walls themselves cracked and rotting, though just as solid as if they were brand new. Rooms whose walls are covered in photos of you and Ren, smiling and laughing together. Rooms drenched in blood, the smell of which is strong enough to cause you to double over and vomit.

Hell is where you've taken to calling it because really, where else could you be? What other place could be so horrific and uncomprehendingly disturbing? And please, please don't even get started thinking about that... that abomination wearing Ren's face and Joker's mask. The merest thought was enough to get you to tremble even harder in fear. A monster, an absolute monster. You can't decide the worst part about it. Is it him looking like the man you loved and lost, taunting your failure? Or all the small changes? The teeth, far more than there should ever be in a human mouth, and all of them as sharp as glass? His stance, stiff and stilted until you let your guard down and then inhumanly smooth and quick? Or his voice, horrifically close to Ren's, but staler in a way you don't know how to describe, echoing back all the sweet sentiments from your love to tear at your soul? Maybe how much enjoyment he took in your pain? The second your facade of strength cracked, he took such great glee in gloating at your misery.

Another shudder wracks your body at the memory of him, and you wrench your eyes as closed as you can get them, trying to not start crying again. Now's not the time, you tell yourself desperately. You've made an escape from that wretched creature, and you have a chance to put some more distance between you. Who knows, maybe, just maybe, you can find a way out of this accursed hole in reality. You can't give up. You can't, because you don't know what you'll do if you lose that shred of hope.

You take as deep a breath as you can manage right now. Yes, that's right, you need to keep moving even with your fear. The longer you sit around weeping and shaking like a leaf in a typhoon, the closer that monstrosity grows, and you cannot handle dealing with him again so soon after your most recent encounter. Somehow, you have to keep yourself together, to buy yourself some time to shore up your spirit and try to figure out exactly how you got into this situation in the first place, and, most importantly, how to get out of it.

Taking another couple deep breaths, doing your best to reign in your emotions and settle down, you manage to lift yourself from your position kneeling on the floor and stand up, though it takes a few seconds of leaning against the wall before you feel secure. You've been down so long your feet and legs take a moment to remember how to bear your weight. With some displeasure you notice you still haven't stopped shivering, but you think you're well enough to get moving. At least you're fairly certain you aren't going to collapse crying again, which is some progress.

Better than nothing.

Slowly, you take a look around you, to see exactly where you've ended up. You arrived here in such a panic that you didn't take any consideration about the room you took refuge in; so long as the monster didn't follow you in here, and didn't find you, then it was good enough a place for you at the time you arrived. It's pretty obviously a rather close recreation of your living room, though it lacks the entrance to your dining room and the one to the hallway, and though the door behind you looks exactly like your front door, you know for certain it does not lead outside. No, freedom of that sort is apparently far too much to offer you.

Thankfully, however, though you have not been given a path to escape, this room isn't filled with any of the horrors many others have held. No blood, adequate lighting for the first time in a long time, walls and furniture intact. Sure, it's still eerily silent and the air has that stagnant staleness that buildings get without any airflow for weeks, but you'll take whatever you get at this point. Who knows, maybe for once you're being granted a token of mercy?

That'd be nice.

Carefully, you place your ear against the door you entered through, trying to see if you can pick up any sounds from the other side. Much like every other time you've tried this, all that greets you is silence, but you don't think you can bring yourself to not listen first. Honestly, you've never even run into that monster waiting for you outside a door, he seems to have more fun setting you up for scenes right out of your worst nightmares, but you don't trust him to not surprise you, so you do it anyway. Besides, whether it helps or not, the action makes you feel better, and right now that is what you need the most.

Unable to hear any sound or proof of movement from the other side of the door, you peel it open with painful slowness, shifting over merely enough to peek out of the tiny crack between the door and frame. The only thing to greet you is a pale imitation of your hallway, walls and floor the same as in your house, but the lighting is far dimmer, and the layout is unnervingly repetitive; if things didn't change so often, with each repeat, you might consider that you're stuck in a time loop. With a deep gulp of air to brace yourself, you gradually open the door further and further until it's open all the way and you feel comfortable stepping out of the room you used as a temporary shelter. You stand there for a long moment, at least a minute, remaining as still and silent as you possibly can, looking down each end of the hall and listening as acutely as a human ever could.

To your relief, there's nothing to be seen or heard, and you can't help letting out a soft sigh. You close the door with supreme caution, doing your best to stay silent. Part of you wishes you can leave it open, or mark it in some way to help you know where you have and have not been, but being stalked the way you are, that would only lead the nightmare right to you, so unfortunately that's not an option. Not that it matters; you've never tried to go backwards in this loop, and you don't know if you will ever dare. There are small... shortcuts, if you can really call them that, at times, leading to a different 'loop', or so you think. You're definitely walking in a circle through a weird maze made of the rooms of your home, but you don't entirely know where you are now in the wide screen, so who really knows.

Without any idea what lies before or behind you, there's only one thing you can do, turn to the right and start walking away while reassuring yourself this is fine. Obviously, it's quiet as can be besides the soft rustling of your clothes and the padding of your footsteps. Despite your best efforts, you've never managed to stay entirely silent, though you do your best. It helps that you go rather slowly, especially right now while you're still shaking off the last of your most recent panic-induced breakdown. Oh, you know you'll have to pick up the pace again, eventually; you need to get out of here, and as soon as you can, after all. Right now, however, any progress is good enough.

The hallway seems longer here, a larger circle, and there's fewer doors along the way. Pictures still line the walls, thankfully intact if hanging crooked, and the rooms you do encounter are ransacked but not bloodied, a real bonus. For a while it's actually quite calming, quiet and far better than some of the things you've been forced to encounter and deal with. But it's almost... boring? And really, that alone starts to ring alarms in your mind. Surely this is the sign of something wrong, isn't it?

Nothing changes as you begin to move faster, both because you do really need to find a way out, however, also because the anxiety has started to set in again. You have no issue not seeing anything horrible, and especially have no qualms not running into that monster, but there is no comfort in how quiet and peaceful everything has become. Could... could you really be close to a way out? Do you dare hope?

Do you deserve to hope?

The thought hits you out of nowhere, sneaking right through the turning gears in your head so suddenly that it causes you to stop dead in your tracks. No, no, no. Not now. You don't have time for this, you nearly howl at yourself as you force your legs to move. You have to escape!

And yet, you can't stop the new wave of trembling taking over your body, slowing your pace and swiftly bringing you to another halt, leaning against the wall with your arms wrapping around yourself. How many times have you wondered 'What could I have done? What did I miss? Is it my fault Ren died?', especially while trapped in here? Is your being here proof that yes, you could have helped him? Is that it? Maybe this really is...

No! No, I can't let this argument stop me again! What could I have done?! He was our leader! He wasn't going to let any of us take his place! What could I have ever done to save him?

Even as you think that and force your body back into moving again, the thought haunts you. Really? The love of your life, the man you promised to protect with every fiber of your being, was destined to die? You couldn't have done a single thing to help him? Not one? Or were you just a coward? Too afraid to put your own neck on the line to make sure Ren came home to you? Too arrogant to see the danger?

If you failed to save him, if you were supposed to, doesn't that mean Ren's death is your fault?

You don't realize you're crying again until you run into a wall and fall to the floor, having stopped paying attention to where you've been going in an attempt to outrun the cruel thoughts haunting you. Miraculously, you manage to keep from yelping in surprise, but you know you won't be able to keep quiet for long if you can't choke back these tears and sobs, and the longer you try to, the more you realize you aren't going to be able to do that.

So, it's Plan-B, you decide as you stand up and will your wobbling legs to carry you forward: you have to find a room and quickly. Hiding is the only way to help you right now. Making your way through the hallway isn't difficult, per se, as it is still empty, but between the biting thoughts of your own theoretical guilt and the fear of the awful abomination wearing Ren's face stalking the building you're trapped in, this otherwise simple action becomes a torture all it's own.

And you wondered why it was Joker chasing you! Because you failed him, even after saying you loved him!

The second you encounter a door you open it without another thought and throw yourself inside, slamming it shut without a care for who hears. Much like earlier you collapse to the floor and bring a hand to your mouth to mute your broken sobs as much as possible. Shaking like you've been caught in a blizzard, you can't keep yourself together, weeping and sobbing hard enough that it quickly becomes difficult to breathe at all. Ren's dead and there is no changing that, but...

Is it really your fault? Could you have stopped him? What is it that you missed? Why are you so blind that you can't see it even now? Because, in every worst way, it makes sense, doesn't it? If you were innocent, why would you be here? Why would a ghoulish mockery of Ren be chasing you through this place? So that's the proof of your guilt, isn't it?

Too absorbed in your own howling storm of thoughts and the overwhelming pain and sadness it brings, you don't notice the danger of this room until it's nearly too late. Only between two choking sobs, when you gulp in air to try and keep yourself from passing out, do you taste the smoke starting to fill the room. A burst of adrenaline shoots through you, breaking through your guilt and sorrow to flood you with panic, causing you to scramble to your feet. Desperately, you wipe at your face trying to clear your vision, trying to find out where the smoke is coming from.

It doesn't take long to spot the smoke leaking under the door you came in from and, thoroughly terrified, you scan the room with haste, and here you find the second sign that this area is not nearly as safe as you began to expect. While it is clearly your dining room, complete with table and chairs, and the cluttered buffet on the wall opposite of that, the whole room is covered in ash and soot, everything looking almost completely burnt through. Only now that you notice this does the smell hit you, and it's so strong that it causes you to reel back a step. As you bump into the door behind you and feel the increasing warmth radiating out of it, your mind returns to the present dilemma. Get the hell out of here before you burn to death.

As if you deserve better. Murderer.

In what you're going to call a miracle right now, there is a door on the wall across from you and without any more hesitation you book it towards and through it, determined to run from both the fire approaching your position and the cruel, judgmental thoughts strangling your mind. It opens without even the slightest resistance, but as you dash through it and into the next room, your situation doesn't improve any at all. Your kitchen this time, blackened and reeking of char. The smell of burnt rubber and electronics from the rubble of your appliances, the paint peeling off the walls, the acrid stench of the chemicals under the sink that got caught up in the fire; the whole room is a stark change from the last, and it's honestly hard to bear and you consider popping back into the previous room to catch your breath. But there is no time! And that is a very correct thing to tell yourself, you need to get through here quickly. Except...

Except now that you look, blinking rapidly to clear your vision of tears and ash as best you can, there is no door here. It takes three long looks around the room, barely able to breathe for fear of distracting yourself from spotting a door that has to be in this room, before the worst scenario confirms itself. The only way out of this room is the way you came, and if you go back the way you came from, you are going to run right into an advancing fire. Do you have any idea how it's behind you when all the rooms in this direction have been burnt already? No, but neither do you have any interest in finding out. If blood can leak from the walls elsewhere in this fiendish place, you aren't going to question the pathway of a blaze.

That's not the issue, you all but scream at yourself! What does it matter how the fire got wherever it is, or what direction it's going? Either way, if you don't find a way out you're going to die here, and in a very painful way!

Having lost any sense of caution in your desperation, you dash into the room proper. There has to be a way out. Has to. Right? There's a door hiding here, right? As you anxiously run your hands over every inch of the walls you can reach, trying everything you can think to find a way out of this room, you're displacing clouds of soot, knocking it haphazardly off the charred walls into the air, no longer caring at all about leaving no trace of yourself behind. You need out. Please, an exit to anywhere. Please! Before long you're clawing at the wall in a panic, unable to allow yourself to believe that there is only one way in and out of this room.

Couldn't face Joker, can't face your situation, can't face anything, can you, coward?

“Shut up!” you howl at yourself, before collapsing against the charred counter to your side, bringing your coal-black hands to your face as you struggle to clear your vision. Obviously, it doesn't help, rubbing ashes into your eyes makes your vision worse, but in your despondency you'd entirely forgotten how dirty you'd made your hands. What could you have done? What did you miss? You can't pinpoint a single action that you could have done to save Ren's life, so why? Why is this happening to you? Are you honestly that blind? That selfish? Cruel?

As you gag and sob in overwhelming sorrow and fear, you manage to stumble your way back towards the door you entered in from. You have to escape. Have to try. A rogue thought that there might be a door you missed in the previous room is all you have to hang your hope on, and you let it drive you forward. Exhausted and pained as you are, to give up on finding a way out is to give up on your life in its entirety, and you're not brave enough to entertain that thought.

Attempting to retreat turns out to be a horrible mistake, one you catch instantly despite your compromised vision. Hot smoke bursts in all around you, causing you to cough and choke while you try and cover your mouth on instinct, but it's what you see that drives you to total despair. The room before you is filled with smoke and fire, and the heat radiating in, all on top of what blasted in upon you opening the door, tells you it's too late. The blaze is too close and too strong to contend with, and this realization causes you to fall limply to the floor. You've lost. You've lost, and there's nothing you can do.

You're trapped.

The tempo of your breathing picks up, causing an extra sting in your lungs as your sobs quiet down into silent weeping. Your mind has gone completely blank with fear, and you can't help but sit there, frozen, with no idea what you can do. You can't retreat, the fire's taken over your path in, and there is nowhere to go from here. A deep shudder rips its way through you at the mental image of what you imagine being consumed by a fire will be like. You don't want to go like this.

Slowly, as the flames approach, you push yourself backwards across the floor, whimpering and crying as you scoot away from the fire you have no true escape from. You aren't sure what you can do anymore. You're scared beyond reason. Yet, there's no way out of here by your own effort. The howling guilt and rage have silenced themselves in the face of your impending fate and, hilariously, you're almost relieved. If you have to die, at least you don't have to go hearing your own inner demons mock you for it. At least that's something. In no time at all you've backed your way into a cabinet corner and entirely out of other options you curl up into a ball, drawing your legs up and burying your face into your knees.

As the room heats up, and the air clogs with smoke, you can hear things around you begin to catch fire, crackling and popping. Despite being so low to the floor, there's enough smoke present that your lungs have begun to burn and a vague realization that at this rate you're going to asphyxiate before burning to death. A sharp comment bounces through your mind that at least smoke inhalation might hurt less, but your train of thought is cut short when an exceptionally loud snapping noise echoes through the room and you feel a shift from underneath you. You barely have time to react, only enough to gasp and snap your head up, before another ear-splitting crack resounds around you and the floor gives out beneath you. You scream and an arm snaps out to try and grab something, anything, to save you from falling into the abyss, but your hand only catches smoke, leaving you to be swallowed by the darkness beneath you.

#snippet #persona 5 #ren amamiya #reader insert #alternate universe #full circle au

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