#does it count as gore if its in black and white?

[hoybero]

a rain scene AND a fight scene?? whoag.

[thecloudsaremyhome]

☆Platonic April week 1☆

☆Platonic yandere art the clown x reader☆

Summary: you come across a strange man wearing a clown suit while unfortunately working over time, you unknowingly make friends with him not knowing the consequences that will lie head and the cost of your very own freedom being taken away by the very same man you called a friend. Will you survive?

Tw: Yandere themes, blood, gore, graphic text, stalking, murder and violence, crazy art, sadistic art, hyperventilation, drugging, kidnapping, chaining. Obsessive behavior, posessive behavior, throwing up.

Word count: 3k

You never should have offered to take overtime, not only was it halloween night, but lately their has been a serial killer on the loose in your so called quiet town.

And the worse part is, Is that anyone can be a victim, this so-called clown serial killer just targets anyone in his path. Frightening, am i right?

But you never sepceted the odds of coming across him, nor interacting with him, you've seen the headlines and the articles and speculations about this clown killer.

Most of its exxagerated bullshit, but you cant help but let it sit with you.

Because some part of you knows, that could be you some day, lifelessly mutilated and violated on the ground, deprecating from this cruel world at barely the age of 19.

But your more rational part of mind always tries to reason with those thoughts.

To provide a solution, and outcome, eve when the ever-dreaded fear still exists.

Even when it is slowly consuming you whole.

No that’s not your main issue now, your issue is your completely alone in this halloween store you decided to work at to make ends meets.

its pathetic really but what else could you do?

Even when your boss constantly pleaded with you to work overtime tonight specifically, you eventually caved in like the people pleaser you are.

You sigh in annoyance, this is going to be one hell of a long night.

You know that for sure.

So reluctantly you with nothing to do.

you start to clean up some of the trash in the aisle left by previous costumers, clearly lost in your own thoughts you barley even notice the creak of the door opening as well as the footsteps approaching behind you.

not until you feel a light tap on your shoulder is when you jump in surprise and turn around to come face to face with the culprit.

You meet face to face with what looks like a man in a clown suit? That's strange.

You examine the clearly white and black face paint on his face to his so-called attire: a black and white jumpsuit with big black shoes.

You can't distinguish his hair color, but you do notice a tiny top hat rested perfectly on his head.

He cleary towers over you by at least 6ft, this clearly intimidates you of course as you back away,

Even as you slowly move away from him, does he still have that chilling grin plastered on his face, staring at you with what you can tell is a calculating gaze?

You don't know and honestly don't care, this guy screams creepy.

So hesitantly, you decide to initiate the conversation.

“hello sir, did you need something?”

you say in a timid tone, which causes him to curve his mouth into an even larger smirk if possible.

But strangely he doesn't answer, he continues to stare at you motionlesly and this unnerves you even more.

Whats up with this guy? Why is he acting so strangely?

You dont have enough time to question him when he moves past yu and grabs a random pair of sunglasses and puts it on his face as he makes a hand gesture.

Cleary he finds amusement in your confused state and this irritates you even more.

But you decide to push down those feelings deciding its not worth getting fired over just because of a annoying customer.

So with that you make your way back to the counter and decide to ignore his presence by sorting through the props under the counter.

Of course the clown man frowns at this, not liking the idea of you ignoring him he decides to push over a rack of plastic props.

this of course causes your attention to be redirected to him as you stare in shock and mild irritation at the mess he caused.

You sigh in annoyance at the predicament but decide not to confront him, simply you start to kneel down and pick up the props scattered across the dirty tile floor.

You can clearly sense that he finds enjoyment in your annoyance. But you won't give him the satisfaction of confronting him, instead, you try to muster up the best smile you can and look at him.

“Sir, would you like to buy something? If not, I suggest you leave,”

you say in your customer service like voice.

This, of course, causes the clown's smirk to falter for a second before returning.

He shakes his head and continues to stare menacingly at you.

You sigh for the upteenth time today and decide this isan’t worth your time or energy, hopefully he leaves eventually so yu can close up and get the hell home.

But the thing is he didnt leave, even after at least two hours he continued to stare at you while you either scrolled on your phone or tidded up the store.

It was still creepy, but at the same time its a relief he didnt decide to cause any more trouble just to get your attention.

After finally having nothing to you decide to initiate a mundane conversation with him.

“It semms like your a big halloween fan, did you make the costume yourself or?”

you say notchantly this causes art to per up and fursioly nod with a more childish smile on his face.

This causes you to chuckle in amusement at his eagerness.

He must really like halloween then huh? With that you and art continue to converse about your favriote halloween movies.

Well its mostly you doing the talking but you get what i mean.

Finally, an hour passes, and it's almost time for you to clock out for the night.

You sigh sadly as you enjoyed talking to the clown man. But you do have to get home for the night.

so with that, you grab your purse and phone and decide to finally lock up the shop.

With art in tow, you both finally make it outside.

That's when you notice the heavy garbage bag flung over his shoulder.

This makes you quirk your brows in confusion but decide not to question it.

It's none of your business anyway, so with that, you wave buy to him as you walk down the seemingly desolated street, video of any human inhabitance.

Of course, while you're walking away, you won't notice Arts' hesitance to leave or the dark gleam in his eyes.

You finally made it back to your apartment complex with no issue luckily, you made yur way inside the apartment lobby to the stairs since the apartment complex’s elevator has been out of service ever since you moved into your apartment which was over a year ago.

You hated using the stairs but you had no choice but to.

After 5 minutes of walking up the stairs, sadly your apartment floor was on the second highest level.

Lucky you huh?

Finally, you make it to your apartment door, exhausted and sore from the day.

You make your way inside as you place your purse down and go to the bathroom to change.

After you change into your pajamas you warm up some takeout from the other night and start to eat while mindlessly watching TV.

unaware of the eyes watching you nor the killer who set their interests on you.

Art has always been a very creative in his ways that he brutally murders his vicitims.

either through multiation or other tactics he deems fit.

Hes never had a sense of good in his body.

Nor has he ever thought of giving a ounce of mercy or sympathy for his vicitims.

And when he came across you in the halloween store he planned on doing the same thing to you.

You were all alone and no one would hear you, and even if someone came he wuld just place the same fate upon the poor person.

But why didnt he?

Why didnt he just chop your body to pieces and place the organs in his bag?

Why did he not feel a sense to kill you on the spot or atleast toy with you?

He doesnt know and its starting to bother him, he shouldve just ended you right here right now but he didnt.

Why didnt he? Is it because of how young you are? No hes murder kids younger than you.

Is it because of how timid your are?

Or how soft your voice is and how cute when you get irritated.

For some reason he just loves it all and he cant understand why.

But does he want to understand why? Does he really wat to know why he feels this way about you?

Art has always been impulsive so he wouldnt put it past himself that he would atleast feel something strange but it shouldnt be this intense.

Why can’t he stop watching you from the window of your old balcony as your eating inside.

Maybe he should leave, and let off some steam by finding a next victim.

Its not like your any importance to him yeah thats right your just some radom stranger he decided not to kill.

You arent worth his time.

He knows hes trying to convince himself but he knows he will come back to you wither through interacting with you or watching you.

Something about you pulls him to you, like a moth to a flame and maybe he might try to make sure that, that flame never burns out.

Maybe you are his salvation.

A few weeks have passed since your first interaction with art and its strange to say that he comes by the shop every day specifically when you are on your shift, at first it was strange but you slowly got used to his presence.

Albeit slowly but surely.

But it was strange the murders started to get more recent you’ll say.

You stazred to notice people close to you started going missing the winding up dead the next day it was horrifying.

It first started with your coworker, whom you made friends with during one of your shifts.

It was nice chatting with her as she ranted about her recent relationships and such, but now she's gone, mulitnated in the alleyway next to a trash bin.

She was just trying to get home.

This horrifying revelation left you shocked for days before it happened again but this time to your favriote barista who works at a coffee shop you regularly visited.

he occasionally flirted with you and gave you his number.

Until he was found dead in the kitchen with a decapitated head on the stove and his body parts scattered in various places in the kitchen.

It was horryfingy to find out. And made your stomach twist in anxiety

Why was this happening to you? Are you going to be the next victim? This just cant be a coincidence.

But you dont know what to do, so your only salvation has been your albet one sided conversations with art. Your glad that he has become you friend but some of his behavior creeps you out from time to time.

Like for instance hes very clingy, he will follow you around the shop during your shifts all the time and he atleast always has his hands on you in some form or way for instance him holding your hand or hugging you.

It was strange at first but you slowly got used to it.

But something you wont get use to is the way he glares at anyone that is around you.

And it’s even worse when that person has your attention.

For instance their was this particular demanding customer one day while art was with you and you were of course trying to stay calm, but then you noticed arts icy glare.

You’ve never seen him give anyone that glare, well at least not to you.

He’s always been more of a jokster so youve never seen him this serious.

And the next thing you know the next day that person is dead.

Of course you dont want to jump to conclusions and question your only friend but you cant help but be suspicious.

But those suspicions dont last long and fly over your head.

You shouldve questioned it, you shouldve gotten away while you could.

You shouldve never interacted to the man you called a friend as you look over your poor coworkers body being mutilated in an abandoned allway.

You should’ve just walked away.

You shouldve just ignored it but curiosity got the best of you and now your facing the reality of what your dear friend really is.

The cold-blooded killer thats been haunting your city.

You feel bile rising up in your throat ready to spill out as you see her scattered organs that were flown around near the garbadge bin.

you also can see what looks like bits and pieces of what once used to be her face next to her mulinated head.

you can see her brain poking out from what used to be her face this makes you gag.

And you double down and throw up what is left of your lunch from earlier.

Of course this catches arts attention as he turns to face you in momentarily shock.

Not that you would've noticed though to caught up in your own fear to notice him stalking forward.

Finally you take notice of his figure from the reflection of a discarded glass cup and using pure adrenaline throw the cup at him and make a break for it.

Hoping and praying he wont catch you as pure adrenaline courses through your very veins.

Of course you hear his footsteps trailing behind you clearly faster than you expected.

You take notice of the abandoned like warehous up head and make a break for it.

Finding this as an opportunity to loose him.

You quickly make your way down an alleway leading to what looks like a backdoor the warehouse.

you quickly make your way inside and run down one of the many hallways hoping to atleast loose art in the process.

Once you stop hearing his footsteps trailing after you, you allow yourself room to breath.

Having just felt like you ran a marathon.

You kneel over and try to steady out your breathing and racing heart.

Of course your still on edge but right now you really need to calm down and think of a logical way to go about this situation.

Because after all your now being hunted like prey by the very same person you called a friend.

And for some reason your mind still cant cope with the fact that hes inhuman enough to actually commit to those heinous crimes.

But beforew you could ponder more about your current predicament you hear the sound of distance footsteps and a clown horn?

Fuck you need to hide and fast.

So, with that, you rush to what looks like an empty storage room filled with boxes of god knows what, and you hide behind the biggest one.

holding your breath in the process, not wanting to make any sudden noise to attract art to your hiding spot.

But of course things never go your way as you can hear his insistent horn hoking as his footsteps come nearer to the room your hiding in.

this makes you whine out in fear which you momentarily regret as silence falls over the room before the boxes are pushed out of the way and your pinned down on the dirty cement grown by art.

You cry out in fear as you look at his face coverded in blood from his previous victim.

you feel tears prick at your eyelids as you feel fear overtake your whole being.

You cant stop the ragged breathing coming out nor the crys leaving your lips as you struggle in his grip.

You feel like a dam is threatening to spill over as you try to keep it together. To not seem weak.

But its already to late as you feel tears rolling down your cheeks and the dam breaks causing you to let out hysterical crys not matter how hard you try to keep them in to appear strong, but its to late so you cry like a fussy baby.

And thats what art sees you as, he see’s you as a helpless baby not knowing right from wrong.

He knows he isan’t the best example of morals but he does care about you and he does want to protect you in his own twisted way.

maybe thats why he silently coos at you as he grabs the syringe hes been carrying for a moment like this. For when he can finally keep you to himself.

He really didnt expect you to walk in as he killed your now deceased coworker but it was already to late, so he has to do what hes been waiting to do ever since these new urges of his have blossomed.

He carefully disableds your movement with precise persicion as he quickly stabs the syringe into your forearm.

he can feel your struggling slowly decreasing until your passed out on the cement floor tear stained streaks adoring your puffy cheeks as you whimper.

He cant help but look at you adornigly, despite his ruthlessness and sadistic nature he couldn’t help but grow a soft spot on poor innocent you.

And he plans to never let you go ever.

Not while he lives, and he be damned if anyone tried to take you away from him, because you’ve always been his to begin with.

You can feel a pounding in your head as you groan, you slowly and drowsy open your eyes as you take in your surroundings.

And you placed on what looks to be a worn down bed that was awkwardly placed in a corner or this clearly run down room?

Or thats what you could call it atleast, you then take notice of the old tv placed next to you.

then art sitting at what looks to be a table with various bloody tools? Wait art! Fuck where are you!

And why hasn’t he killed you yet? What the actual hell is happening and why cant you properly move your body to get up?

You then take notice of the chains tied to the floor then you look up and notice that you hands are chained and sore!

So thats why you cant move. He impobilized you!

You feel more tears brim to you eye lids, you really dont want to cry again but you cant help it, its just all to much for you.

the murder of your dear friends then your cowokrer and now finding out art is the murder thats been hauting your city only for him to imprioson you in what you can call his home?

Art finally turns around having been alerted by your stifled cry and makes his way over to you carefully.

of course you flinch having feared the worse that he’s going to kill you but instead you feel his now clean, gloved hand cradle your face with what feels like a loving embrace?

You can’t believe this, just what the fuck is going on? Youve always know art has been affectionate before but to this extent?

You just cant believe it, but you can tell from that adoring look in his eyes that he see’s you as a helpless child which you refuse to believe, still having fear that he will ulitamtly kill you in the end and that fear is the only reson you dont reluctantly melt in his touch.

Because as much as youd not like to admit it you have been in sone form touch starved for affection, but not liked youd ever tell him that. You wont give him the satisfaction.

Because you may think you know what’s best for you but you don’t and maybe that’s why your stuck in this current predicament.

You should’ve never token the night shift.

Authors note: okay here it is! I hope you enjoyed this! I tried to make art’s peronality more realistic to the movie since i had to watch the first 2 terrfier movies to get an idea on his personal it and how he would present himself! Thank you all for the support! I hope you enjoyed this!

[sp4ceboo]

BENEATH A CRIMSON SKY ~ Masterlist

pairing: stray kids ot8 x afab!reader

genre: apocalypse au, dystopian, dark, adventure, action, thriller, fighting, eventual smut, romance, features ateez and seventeen

summary:

The day they came, the sky ran red. Red like cherry candy. Red like blood. You watched on TV as the beginning of the end of the world was aired, live; as down the ramp of what must have been a spaceship came a white horse, shining and resplendent, bearing a rider that was the opposite - sallow faced and guant, arms too long and spindly with too thin skin stretching over fragile ribs. You knew it then. You knew it, as if the thought had been planted in your head, a seed of fear and wrongness. This is your end, you heard, in a voice as black and velvet as night, and with so much depth it was as if there were thousands speaking at once. It cleaved through your head: The first horseman has come. After that came a dreadful uncertainty: humanity was on its knees, floundering, woefully unprepared, and yet you still found hope. You learned that sometimes, hope does not come in the form you think it will. Sometimes, hope is eight strays that worm their way into your heart, regardless of whether you like it or not.

warnings: 18+, violence and gore, eventual smut, elements of horror/thriller (not really, i'm a pussy), dark themes - more individual warnings to come in chapters

total word count: 30.0k

chapters, taglist & ao3 link under the cut

Chapter 1 ~ The Survivors Chapter 2 ~ Late Night Tears Chapter 3 ~ Painkillers & Pleas Chapter 4 ~ Pestilence Chapter 5 ~ Visions Chapter 6 ~ Calm Before the Storm Chapter 7 ~ Rotting Floorboards Chapter 8 ~ An Outstretched Hand Chapter 9 ~ Avoidance Chapter 10 ~ The Makings of a Haven

or, read on AO3

A/N: this fic is still being written even though it hasn't been updated in ages - it's sort of an ongoing thing, and i know the last update was yonks ago but trust i haven't forgotten it exists

PLEASE CONSIDER REBLOGGING/COMMENTING IF U ENJOYED, I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS <33

taglist: @estella-novella @0bticeo @lixies-favorite-cookie @smashleywow @realrintaro @extremechaoswarning @4l17h4 @hyunjinsjeans @insufferablyunbearable @lovemepie67 @needsumcomfypillowstosleep @loumin908 @rxlxvr @iris-iiridescent @brbwritingfanfic @missseoulite @juliettejwnewinesa @fr34k4c1dr41n @velvetmoonlght @ot8girlfie @nightmarenyxx @hyunjinstolemyheart @readerofallthingss (let me know if you want to be added)

[rel124c41]

SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY. jade leech

He opens his eyes to see a bright horizon. All of it is liquid gold, a shimmering sea of yellow below the horizon and clouds of volcanic orange above the horizon. Smack in the middle is the Sun - 70.6% hydrogen and 27.4% helium, diameter 1.4 million kilometers - and it stares at him. A hand shades his eyes. "Hey, don't look too close. You're going to see something you don't like."

tags: android jade leech, dubious morality, animal death, blood and gore, existential angst, repressed memories, unresolved emotional tension, choking, reader is 52 and jade is permanently 21, non-consensual body modification, & age difference

word count: 13,363

Both of you watch the pancake melt on the cabin’s wooden floor. The top of the circle is a golden-crusted brown. However, the underside was not yet cooked so that waxy yellow mixture starts to spread out in a sunlight pool. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Master,” Jade rushes to say but seems too shellshock to make a move to fix the mess he made.

“It’s alright,” you say with a voice clogged full of sleep. As you make your way over to the dining table designed small enough for only two, you can feel Jade track each of your minor motions like a gun following its target. Only when you sit does he snap out of it.

In a very methodical passion, he goes about removing the malfunction. You hear this: the lid of your squeaky trash-can opening and the spray of a disinfectant bottle being the most recognizable. Ignoring his mistake, you go about your normal routine. Like Jade is programmed to make exactly two pancakes and exactly one sunny side up egg each morning, you have your own little, innate programs you do each morning.

As you strike the match and hold it under your cigarette – lighting with a matchstick adds to the flavor you found – the last bits of the sunlight pool is wiped up. “Now, we’re behind schedule,” you remark. The matches inside the Diamond box shift as you push them down the table. 

It is an entirely true, if not a bit outlandish, sentence. Schedule? Jade thinks to himself as he quickly procures each ingredient needed to make the batter for exactly one pancake. He only ever measures out the amount for exactly two pancakes. The mistake is making him frazzled. He has two skillets on the stove, one for exactly two pancakes and the other for exactly one sunny side up egg. Looking into the skillet holding only one pancake, his systems twitch. Schedule; what schedule is he forgetting? 

But, he would never concern you with the inner turmoil that is clawing away at his chest cavity like a rabid, frenzied animal, so he simply says, (PANCAKE) “My apologies, Master. I did not mean to make us late.”

“Did seeing me all dressed up scare you that bad?”

With the high-voltage mixer already in a bowl, Jade takes the time to look behind him towards you. The single egg and pancake (PANCAKE) only have 1:42 minutes left until they are completed, so he has the allotted period to look at you, all dressed up. He smiles disarmingly. “Not scared, just surprised.”

His intricate memory-bank supplies him with a number: 259. It has been two hundred and fifty-nine days since the last time you have worn something other than fuzzy or silk pajama bottoms coupled with a graphic tee. That is exactly 8.51506 months ago, which would have made it March. When the weather was growing warmer, you wanted to ride in the car until the gas went from F to E. Now, once again, you are all dressed up.

It is a pretty monotone palette, nothing like what you had worn in March. With a flowing pinstriped jacket, black and white are the only colors of your outfit, besides the tiniest touch of silver from the tangling vines stitched over your blouse’s collar. Your hanging tie and flowy dress pants are a stark black, like the cut of a blank television screen, and your gloves and blouse are a stark white, like a newly painted therapist office wall.

He supposes the most colorful thing about you right now is the orange filter tip in your lovely mouth. Oh, you also have lipstick on. In this game of I-Spy, Jade can identify only two different colors shining in the canvas of sterility that covers your skin. 

Hues like that might mean a funeral. His left eye slices off the left side of the kitchen dining table. It all falls into a black hole as Jade pulls up information of every living relative you have left; their faces fly through his vision, searching public obituaries and searching articles, as you talk to him.

“I guess it might be a bit disarming.” You take your third drag, methodical. “I didn’t think I would need to give you a warning. My mistake; right, Jade?”

All of your relatives are alive. The latest medical update is that your mother has been given the drug memantine along with her typical Leqembi medication. “Nonsense. I’m not so aged that I can’t keep up with your spontaneity,” he jokes, left vision returning. Perhaps the schedule is simply the quotidian schedule of your day-to-day.

Charmed, you smile in the fog cloud of tobacco sliding away from your face. “Oh, he thinks he’s funny,” you jest back. Between two thin fingers, you balance a cigarette and point it at him like it is a professor’s presentation pointer. “No puns today. I’ll take out your tongue.”

He fakes a look of hurt. “Oya, do you really find them so abhorrent?” He turns as you supply him with a synonym – execrable, you moan – and focuses his attention on breakfast-making. Methodically, first, the mixer is pulled up from the bowl and then both pancake (PANCAKE, not pancakes, to Jade’s punctilious annoyance) and sunny side up egg are slid onto your plate. 

“Humor is said to lower blood pressure and improve memory retention. It is as important as a good, clean breakfast. However, if my puns are banned, omelet it slide this time. We have a schedule to follow, Master.” 

He still hasn’t figured out what it is though. And he does not want his vision to start flashing with ropes of blaring red and white words, SCHEDULE replacing PANCAKE – which has already been giving him enough stress. As he puts the incomplete plate down, he wonders if he has time to remedy it before you finish your single 9 A.M. cigarette.

“Booo,” you caterwaul at his pun. However, you smile and your heart beats languid so it must be alright. “Keep that up and no birthday surprise for you.”

Jade stops. Still as a paused movie. His whole body is stiff for a millisecond, and if he did not recover so quickly, you would have surmised he went into forced shutdown upon hearing your words. A calculative, bloodless arm reaches out to tilt the pancake batter into the skillet as he acknowledges that today is in fact November 5th.

Inside his chest cavity, a tiny Jade, no bigger than your cigarette, wobbles on a fence. He is unsure if he wants every day to be birthday so he can see you doing better, or if he wants this November 5th, this sudden change of clothes and attitude, to stay only on his special day. As always, he does not pick a mental-side.

Instead, he says, “Nonsense. There is no need to exert yourself for me, Master. Do not concern yourself with a trivial matter.”

“Don’t be modest. Birthdays are special; and we haven’t celebrated one of yours in four years.” 

Jade remembers that day fondly. High sugar-concentrated items are one-in-a-blue-moon type of expensive. Most households can only afford one or two birthday cakes in their lifetimes, so it was sentimentally human that your first year together, you dipped into your retirement savings and bought a man with no functioning digestive system, a cake.

“I have no choice but to concede if it is an order,” Jade baits.

“Then, it’s an order.” Smoke pumps through the air as you take an embellishing, deeper inhale. The health of your lungs gets compromised more, day by day. “Non refutable.”

“Of course, Master.” Jade would bend in a bow if he were not so intent on making sure this pancake (pancake) stayed on his spatula and off the floor.

Breakfast proceeds as normal after the slight hiccup. When the room is thoroughly perfumed with the acidic scent – Jade always enjoys how harshly you snub out your cigarette, grinding them down into nothing, whatever ring lying on your index glistening under the ceiling light, and today it is a glistening, jade green eye – you eat your precisely made sunny side up egg and two pancakes. Yolk and syrup bleed all over the plate like sliced open arteries. You compliment his cooking as always before stuffing another cigarette between your lips.

This one you simply hold there as Jade scrubs your dish. He slots the ceramic in the drying rack along with the already evaporating skillets and bowl. You glide around the kitchen. It is quaint. There are only ever two plastic cups in the cabinet and two plates in the lower cupboards. Often though, the second copies of each various dishware are left unused.

Your arm and Jade’s arm slide against each other when you fill a plastic green cup up to the brim with faucet water. The robot twitches.

After utensils are hand-dried and put away, Jade looks towards you for guidance. Today is such an outlier to the normal schedule that he feels a bit unbalanced. Usually, you have already lit up your second cigarette of the morning, burrowing up into your study. Instead, you say, “C’mon,” as you walk out of the kitchen with an unlit cigarette hanging from your lip and a cup of faucet water in hand.

Obedient, he follows you up to your study. Your uneven fingernails glide across the banister. “I couldn’t help but also get one for myself. When I went to the market and saw them, I got selfish.” When you open the door to your study, Jade is greeted with the familiar sight of books thrown to the ground, pages torn from their homes, and ink split across the scene like something left behind for a bloodstain pattern analyst. There are also three water bottles full of gold liquid he will have to dispose of.

What calls his immediate attention is the two different shapes draped underneath hand-towels. They sit on your desk which is devoid of any papers or books. One is covering something spherical but Jade cannot decipher what is underneath the second towel.

Despite the jumble, you glide over to your desk with precise footsteps. Jade follows right along behind you. It is programmed in his system to never disrupt anything in this study, so he refuses to nudge a paper or cause the slightest altercation to the disorganized order. 

By the foot of the desk, your taxidermied lion stands in paused death, stuff full of cedar dust. You pet the wisps of mane as you approach the table. The cigarette is still in your mouth; you take it out, smooth knuckles over your tie, and place your hand back down upon the lion’s head. Petting behind stuffed ears, you give a weak pseudo-command.

“Now, I don’t want a repeat of this morning. You being startled and all that. So,” your eyes move from the towels to Jade’s, “you can’t afford to lose your head over this, right, Jade?”

Though he has no heart that could possibly quicken in anticipation, Jade still places a firm hand over that spot as if to banish his foretold anxieties. That familiar, smarmy expression comes back to his facial plate. A slight scrunch of the slanted downward eyebrows that leaves a crinkled line and a timid smile showing off tiny, razor teeth. “I assure you, nothing of the sort will happen, Master.”

“Good.” You place the green plastic cup behind the presents. Light from the window hits the cup; a long green shadow stretches over your desk. As you pinch the towel edge in your fingers, you are palpably excited, grinning wide. “3 ... 2 … 1 … Happy birthday, Jade!”

The smile remains on his face because he has permanently set it there himself. If he were human, it would have fallen. 

“Master, this is illegal.” Jade reaches out and covers up his present with the towel, as if that will make it disappear. 

You give him nothing but a tiny, mischievous smile. Wrinkled with age, it makes you look youthful despite the deep shadows that come with loosening, brittle skin. Like you are young again and you have just told him of something nefarious you have done. This is certainly nefarious, an odious development happening under this house’s roof.

“Master,” Jade starts, precise in his speech, “this could compromise us. Though I am grateful that you want to celebrate my birthday, we should burn this in the fireplace post haste.” He looks back down at the shrouded sphere. Burning the evidence is the innate command that rises up to Jade’s predecessors, using all his logic, but if you were to refute it …

A tiny chortle escapes your lips. It pulls back your painted lips; it has been quite a large sum of days since you have last worn lipstick as Jade’s databases know. “Do you really want to throw away my gift?”

Want? Jade does not do that. He has never known what yearning could possibly feel like. “My apologies. However, it would be wise to exterminate it. As stated by the legislation, living organisms that are not edible or a part of the approved nourishment selection for fruits and vegetables must be destroyed. This violates Section B on the –.”

“Mushrooms are edible.”

“Pardon,” Jade questions softly.

“Mushrooms. They are biologically living organisms like plants and animals.” You gesture to the sphere with your cigarette as if your words have just abolished the legal constraints created years ago. “They’re edible too.” Defiant, you remove the towel once more.

Jade’s eyes flicker down to evaluate the illicit good you have brought home. The terrarium’s contraband resides in a spherical globe with no visible opening. The most probable explanation is it was built starting from the bottom platform of dirt before the globe was welded on. Inside, it contains mycobionts, O Horizon soil, and bryophyta. Simply put: lichen, dirt, and moss.

He measures the length, measures the volume, finds the species of fungi from the internet, and lastly, once more calculates how quickly it will burn up in the parlor’s fireplace. Agaricus subrufescens sit still under his acute, probing analysis. Regrettably, they are edible. According to mycology databases, they taste intensely of almonds. 

Edible. The one word washes over Jade like a glittering, green wave. Edible, which means only one thing. “Thank you for the gift, Master. Rest assured that I will make good use of them in our evening meal, in gratitude for your generosity.”

Before he can retrieve them from the desk, you seize his hand. “Funny. You’re a real jokester, Jade.” You intertwine lithe fingers with him, thoughtlessly and recklessly. This time, Jade does go still, long and hard. It is a rigor mortis so heavy that it is enough for it to be mistaken as a forced shutdown, if one did not know better. You know his systems though. “You have to keep it, Jade. Don't cook it. Or dispose of it. That’s a non refutable order.”

Whatever avalanche of glitches stirred through Jade ends. He flexes his hand and the power of a command cloaks his synthetic skin. He looks once more at his new gift, doubly his new contraband, with polite resignation. That never changing, timid smile is present as always. 

“If it is what you command, Master.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, you turn towards your own present. “Okay, okay, my turn!” With the suave of a magician, you unveil it. 

It takes just an inch of the petals being revealed to recognize what other contraband you have snuck in. A melange of red-orange and little orange petals stare up at his predecessors, a dozen or so individual, flower-gems. His databases flicker. They are marigolds. 

“Ta-da,” you even flourish, cloth hanging in your hand like a ghost-sheet. “Beautiful, aren’t they? And before you say anything, flowers lower cortisol levels so we must keep them. For my health, yes?” You bat your eyelashes at him like a child asking for an extra scoop of ice-cream.

Jade concedes easily. Even though in his left eye, he has pulled up the list of illegal flowers. Marigolds are plainly sandwiched between mandrakes and marvel-of-peru; though marvel-of-peru is an old name as Peru has in recent years been melting into its new identity and becoming a part of invasive Brazil. Jade accepts that these marigolds are going to be kept here. Another living organism he will need to care for.

“Beautiful,” Jade muses. He looks at your face. “Yes, they are beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think so.” You grin like a cat with a canary snapped and dead between your fangs. It must have taken strenuous effort to smuggle these from the market, never mind the effort that it must have taken you to even leave the house. ‘Beautiful,’ Jade reflects as he delicately yet steadily picks up the terrarium from your desk.

Jade goes about his regiment-esque routine as normally as possible after that. He slots the terrarium into his sterile bedroom – complete with a bed he has never slept in and complete with books he already has memorized in his software – in a spot where it will get just the correct balance between light and darkness. A place that perfectly mimics natural daylight despite the fact it lies inside. Then, he enters his routine while the almond mushroom terrarium sits in the back of his software like a tumor, a dull reminder that is always there. 

You always give him such puzzling challenges. Brain-teasers of sorts that invoke trying to unshackle him from his real identity. Sudoku squares that he has to fill in with things like free will, thoughts, rebellion. He does not doubt that you want the best for him, but it is all very puzzling. 

Jade prefers things like laundry. Neat and clean. November 5th has coincidentally fallen on laundry day. On the living room’s wooden coffee table, he takes to folding all the warm pajamas into tidy piles. The assembly line of his motions are precise. Jade folds each graphic tee top sideways into thirds to tuck in the sleeves and evenly crosses each pajama pant leg to cover over its twin. 

This is what life is all about: laundry. Laundry is linear. There is a right and a wrong way to go about doing laundry, so very unlike volatile life with its dangerous contraband and sad women. From your study, door half ajar, you send down the unraveling string of your voice past the stairs and to the parlor, “Jade! Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune? The birthday boy gets to pick tonight!” 

He looks up from a pair of silk, aquamarine pajama pants. Weighing the pros and cons of each of the game shows, he scrunches up his plastic nose. Inside, the fence of decision bends back and forth. The only aspect that pushes him – tiny, cigarette-sized Jade, wobbling with helicopter arms – is that he gets to hear your voice more when you watch Jeopardy together than when you watch Wheel of Fortune together.

“Jeopardy!” He shouts back.

“Perfect!” 

There is palpable cheer in your voice that shocks Jade so fiercely that he stills in his task of laundry, looking up at the spiral tongue of stairs that led to your office with a mute expression of awe. From his low vantage point, he sees the door is closed. Jade blinks at it, hidden behind the prison bars of a banister and high out of reach.

He goes back to folding in precise motions. Life is straightening itself out like laundry. 

On the coffee table where he had been folding laundry hours ago, two little domes of red sit on the surface. The surface is also littered with dozens upon dozens of rainbow confetti stripes, a plate where a leftover cupcake wrapper and melted candle lie, and an ashtray. Tissue paper crown donned, Jade grabs the remote and starts to scroll through channels until he reaches Jeopardy. 

After so many decades, they still have not changed the setup. Though the color scheme has warped decade by decade – people are most fond of teal and fuchsia rose this generation – the three, lecture-adjoined counters for contestants and isolated, lecture-adjoined counter for the host. Jade watches the copy of himself – small and compact in the television’s shiny dome – start to introduce each of the three human contestants. 

“You’re not gonna beat me this time,” you say, neck rolled over the sofa’s back. Eyes floating to and from the cabin’s ceiling, you declare, “I was only one decisecond off last time from stealing that point and gaining a lead. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t forget,” Jade assures as he sets down the remote. “My memory bank has immortalized your grievous scream as you lost the very point last time quite clearly in fact.” He pretends to look somewhere else when you turn to him scandalized.

“You ass!” You hit his shoulder hard with your own. Both of you sway in laughter, smiling toothily at one another. 

The game starts shortly after. The robot from Jaded Robotics starts by asking contestant number one to pick from six categories the select from the five clues, going from 200 to 400 to 600 to 800 to 1000. As soon as the ball starts rolling, the game is in full swing and both you and Jade are on the edge. Each time a clue is given, a pair of hands – one silicone and one flesh – descend upon the coffee table like hungry vultures and slam hard on red domes, both of you in perfect unison yet typically always ahead of the contestants inside the television dome.

How many stages are there in a butterfly’s life cycle?

What is four?

The astronomical unit is a unit based on the average distance between what two places?

What is the Earth and the Sun?

After legalization of trophy hunting, a successful purging of what species was celebrated in 2170?

What are lions?

Define the problem. Do background research. Specify requirements. Brainstorm solutions. Choose the best solution. Do development work. Build a prototype. Test and redesign.

What are the steps of an engineering algorithm?

A requirement to have at least bachelor’s degree for entry-level jobs in the field, typically in mechanical engineering or related engineering specialties. 

What are the degrees required to be a robotics engineer?

Body coloring that helps an animal blend in with its surroundings and stay safe from enemies.

What is protective coloration?

Daily Double. This university experienced a devastating terrorist attack by foreign enemies in 2177.

What is Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

Storing toxic chemicals that they ate as a caterpillar, this species used its deterrents against predators for the rest of their life.

What is a Postman butterfly?

This largest moon of Pluto is about half the size of the dwarf planet’s size.

What is Charon?

Moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conduct of an activity.

What is ethics?

The project designed to rid Earth of all harmful and invasive species was backed by which political group.

What are the Purgers?

A rich program used to create scale drawings of robots in Jaded Robotics.

What is a JED?

The Egyptian God Ra was the God of what?

What is the Sun?

This cancer is the leading cause of deaths in both men and women.

What is lung cancer?

If Jade has a favorite part of a day’s schedule, it is checking your lungs for cancer. However, having favorites invokes the principle of emotional highs and lows, selecting what is dopamine-inducing and what is dopamine-neglectful. So, Jade does not have a favorite part of his day. He goes about each task with inert, psychological activity. 

If it was poetry, one would describe it as being a monitor of a dead heartbeat, his emotions.

Slipping off the hand-skin like it is a glove, Jade looks at you sitting in your dressing gown. The room is washed in red. From the mouth of the nightstand lamp, it bleeds out over this meager radiology room. Red falls over the crown of your busy ashtray, slinks down the sides of ivory covers, coils around your exposed torso. You are not facing him.

Folding synthetic skin lies in a puddle of empty fingers on your dresser. Methodical, Jade makes his way over. Gears shift in his silver digits, electromagnetic beams boiling beneath the surface. He asks the same questions as any doctor – coughing up any blood, any dull or sharp chest pains, any shortness of breath, Master – but he is better equipped than any doctor because his gold eye is a detector that measures physiological arousal factors that would indicate if a lie is being told. 

All your answers are truthful. You answer his inquiries around bites of dark chocolate, staring at your headboard and snacking. The mattress dips when Jade adds his weight onto it, resting one knee upon it and letting his other dangle down. He watches your jaw bulge as you run your tongue between teeth and mouth lining to gather up melted chocolate.

“I’m going to touch you now, Master.”

“...”

Gently, he drapes his right hand’s index and middle finger on the back of your neck. It is at the junction where the neck starts to melt into shoulders, spine, and back. Cervical 7 and Thoracic 1. It is an irrational spot to start because there is nothing of lung matter to check there. Jade, for an irrational moment, lingers there.  

After a clean breath, he moves down the midline of your spine until he reaches the 12th bottom rib. Your skin gives a bit more resistance than a young person’s; the experience of living ages all except Jade. On the stretching desert of your skin, he locates your lungs with routined practice. His unnaturally-colored silver skin looks like a spider brooch upon your human-hued skin.

Electromagnetic energy builds at his fingertips. Tiny photons swirl in a circle with one another like joyous fishes. Their energy eclipses infrared, visible light, and ultraviolet until Jade reaches the type he needs. Gently, he pushes his palm into your back and slides it up to the top of your shoulder. He repeats that on the left and right. He repeats both a second time, capturing four photos.

When he pulls back, you are already shucking up your dressing gown. Raising it to your shoulders and crossing it in front of your nude breasts, you eat more dark chocolate as the machine behind you goes over the X-ray captured photos. 

The black and white images slide into Jade’s left eye, blocking out his sight. His right eye watches you bundle yourself back up as the first photo moves vertically across his spliced vision, showing him more inch by inch. The right lung is clear, only the ghost of your ribs disrupt the image; the left lung is clear, only the ghost – (TUMOR). 

Jade jerks so suddenly on the bed that you turn around, eyes round. You throw half of a questioning expression at him, face cut down the middle. Around the bedtime cigarette you are lifting up to your lips, you ask him, “Something wrong, Jade?”

In his left vision, a string of tumor (TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR TUMOR) swims, multiple lines like a student assigned to write down a single word on a chalkboard as punishment. Hidden underneath that jumbled mess (TUMOR), a black and white image of your left lungs lies. The scanned picture is completely black besides the ghostlike shape of your ribs and the tiny spot of white cancer that sits between the second and third rib like a tiny Sun.

Jade does not dream. 

Irrevocably, this is a cement fact of his biology. There is no possible way for Jade Leech to dream. No stimulus in his software can make a true dream emerge from lines of code. Detecting from that certainty, what Jade sees beyond his closed eyelids must be a memory, even though Jade has never lived through this before. 

In Jade’s ‘dream’, you are with him – as is congenitally correct and true, you two are always with one another. From the pockets of breathable palazzo pants, you are fishing out your sunglasses. The frames sit on your nose and ear notches, covering your eyes with black hexagons. You look like an insect. 

Maybe, Jade has fabricated this world. Research has shown that the human body does not create new faces for the actors in their dreams but rather picks out strangers to act in their inner films. You are all he has ever known, so of course you would be the star of Jade’s motion picture. And, you do remind him of an attractive movie star.

Sunglasses donned, you take to surveying the scenery surrounding the two of you under a bright, cloudless sky. Sand lies below and across. In glittering divots and hills, nature has laid a stippling of gold as far as the human or robot eye can see. From the advanced height you two share together at the top of one of Namib Desert’s hills, it is quite a magnificent sight of bareness. 

“Less shrubs than last time,” you comment, mouth surprisingly empty of a cigarette and face twenty years younger.

“Yes, the desertification has certainly increased. Officials report a 2.7 percentage uptick. Even the speciocide on turnera oculata raised many praises and received an opening headliner last month in February,” Jade comments, face the same as always has been and always will be.

“You think that truck we passed by were Purgers?”

“One of the young gentlemen in the back of the cargo bed was indeed holding a flamethrower. The probability is at least 62 percent.”

“Sick bastards.” Sand flies in sprinkles like splashed water. You reposition your foot to lean on the heel. “The ants are invasive, not the flowers.”

“I’m sure that they will be targeting that next, Master.”

Jade has forgotten to mention that it is not just you, him, and the sand in this ‘dream’. Though his gaze has been hooked in deeply to you – analyzing each twitch and jump of your facial features from the hairs on your eyebrow to the motion of your chin; right now your facial expression is expressing deep, bodily hatred – there is another person outside of the high, out-of-reach bubble crafted by Jade. He can be found in the expanse of sand beyond the hill.

The chauffeur stands with his hip snug to the driver’s side-view mirror. He is different from the chauffeur you two had yesterday. He has a slender scar that bisects his eye, deep enough where it is a pink on his brown skin. For the hour-and-a-half drive from the motel, the driver had been narrating stories on how you could get a scar just like his if you messed around with X, Y, or Z; his words were not articulated with teasing advice but jaded ritualistic habit; interestingly, Jade notes, he even used cactus needles as an origin for his scar but cactus are extinct. Packaged together in the backseat, you and Jade both held his sharp gaze where it cut like a knife towards the two of you in warning.

What about a lion? Could you acquire a scar like that from a lion? His left eye is partly slumped in his socket as if what did injure him permanently altered the position of the ball. Packaged in the rear view mirror like a comic strip, that uneven gaze stared into unevenly colored eyes. It would. If there were any lions left to hand out scars. 

Now, the scarred man stands with his arms folded, looking out with disapproval at the nudeness of the desert beyond him. His background check assures that he has done this job for five years, seasoned without any misfortunate slipup. Still, the dimensions of the gun the man has strapped to his hip settle into Jade’s ‘brain’ with a detailed outline of how to dismantle it – if that becomes necessary. 

Jade stops surveying the company when you speak. “Oculata … I know that word, don’t I?” Your knuckles are pressed firmly into your lipsticked lips. 

Without physically pacing, you pace around in your mind. “Oculata, oculata, oculata,” you repeat, firm each time.

“Master,” Jade says with soft urgency.

“Oculata … Ooo-cuuu-lata. Oculata? Oculata … having eyes. Ah! Having eyes. That’s what it means.” You snap in the midst of your epiphany. You look towards Jade. “Yes, Jade, what is it?”

“Master, I believe we have gotten unlucky.” His hand points out towards the horizon. 

When you follow the direction of his index, your heartbeat exceeds the typical amount of beats per minute. For six minutes, Jade measures its pumping fluctuations as both of you silently watch the king of the jungle descend down a sandy hill. Imprints of his paws are birthed with each step and follow after the lion like a blood trail. The blood in your veins is turbulent like a pinched hose, terribly anxious. 

“Master?”

“…”

“Master, if –.”

“Jade. In your own words, without paraphrasing from the internet, describe to me the look of turnera oculata. Do-uooo it … in the form of a haiku,” you order, snapping your fingers at the end of your command. Below, your chauffeur has just crossed himself and locked himself inside the company’s limousine. 

It takes a few precious moments, but Jade eventually formulates a haiku. He articulates, “A bleeding yellow. A sun eclipsed by needles. The eye of nature.” When you request for him to make another one without using any of the previous words, Jade vocalizes, “These dry petals see. Morning's canary splendor. In this desert heart.” You clap quickly yet quietly; it is like a reward.

By now, the lion has cautiously ventured to the middle of the bowl the desert hills have constructed. It is smartly not inching closer to the limousine, animal instinct on high alert towards a vehicle. However, the lion is obviously interested in the company. He is out of his element without scrubland to hide underneath or behind.

Instead of heeding this opportunity, you continue on, “I was sure you might slip up and use the definite article, ‘the’, again but you did a marvelous job of avoiding repeated word choice!” Turning, you smile at Jade. Sunlight illuminates the edges of your hair style like licks of flame. “Your efficiency is always praise worthy.”

“Thank you, Master.” Is that perhaps a verbal nudge in the situation – you are strangely making note of his efficiency – perhaps telling Jade that he should get the job done. He won’t ask so instead he verbally spars. “Human errors are a continuous trifle. It is most gratifying that I will never have to genuinely deal with such a thing. Is it … Is it difficult?” He shifts his vocal stereos to playfully pitying at the last sentence.

“You ass,” you smile radiantly. However, it drops when you notice the lion has not rushed off to some unseeable part of the desert. He seems to have found contentment in his prowl here, obviously anxious of both of you but not backing down from his clear trek to the southwest of Namib Desert. It’s been in the area for enough minutes where the chauffeur will be legally required to report the sighting. 

“Thought we’d make out with better luck today,” you grumble.

“Master?” 

Jade offers, outstretched, the .375 caliber rifle, unhooking it from the strap on his back. 

“Yeah … yeah.” Despondent, you take the weapon in your arms. “Guess it is about that time, ain’t it? We can’t return home empty-handed. Business retreat was exclusively paid for … the suits won’t be happy to know I didn’t hunt the game. Nothing to do but play along.”

“Some of the most toxic animals protect themselves through camouflage.”

“Ain’t that just the way~.” The scope and your eyeball bisect each other in perfect ratio. With the practiced precision that you use to commence lining up for a shot, it makes Jade remember that old gossip talk that he heard in the staffroom, said between bites of donuts and sips of coffee, What does a robotic engineer and professor need to know how to shoot a gun for?

The lion goes down, sending waves of sand jumping up. It is a clean shot between the eyes; the lion certainly felt no pain. Jade’s focus is pulled away when the source of your tumor, a single cigarette, is placed directly in his line of sight.

“Don’t you remember our agreement? After I kill something, you have to light my cigarette for me.”

Jade’s eyes fly open.

Greeted by the sight of his bedroom, Jade steps off the platform of his charging pad and discards his ‘dream’ like a dog shaking water off his fur. Polygons of sunrise light cuts from his window. In the fleeting stillness of daylight — 5:00 shining red next to his terrarium �� and absence of demands, Jade stands perfectly still with a sense of something missing from his components washing over him.

His face is white with terror. His eyes dull with lifelessness. 

Then, he shakes that off too and ventures downstairs to go make you two pancakes and a sunny side up egg.

You once told him that ‘progress is not linear’. You had illustrated this point to him with the cherry glow of your cigarette, waving and cutting the fire through the air to make a graphical visual of moving up then moving down then moving back up again. Fluctuations and setbacks can either stir someone very high or they can cause someone to go low. It is never perfectly straight like laundry.

That one graph confounds Jade to no end. When you construct something, the progress is linear. Staring at the empty dining chair beyond him, he finds himself confounded once again with progress’s inevitable immodesty. Today is 11/6/2182 and you have not come down for breakfast. He has been waiting for exactly 0:59:59 and, now in a slow blink, he has waited for 1:00:00. One whole hour and you are not here. 

There have been instances where you miss or skip breakfast. But, the preface of yesterday — seeing you wearing an outfit for the first time in a long while and seeing a freckle of cancer growing in your lungs — leaves him wondering if there is a disrepair in his systems. You started on such a high and ended on such a low yesterday. Progress is not linear.

His sensors glance across the intimately small round table. Past the butter tray shaped like a cow and towards the plate where your pancakes and sunny side egg are cold and deflating. Jade blinks once. The dish remains uneaten and at room temperature in front of him. Not even a warm cigarette is light to melt the ice that has held him in place for an hour.

At the bottom of the trash, the food looks … sad. How illogical to add an emotion to the sight of carbohydrates and protein sloshing down into the pristine white trash bag. Jade places the plate full of syrup blood streaks into the sink and makes a small, unusual trek to your bedroom — to check if everything is alright. 

He won’t fail the purpose of his intentional design. He was manufactured in a factory, built on front line assembly, and given the inputted task: Take Care of my Master.

(MASTER.)

There is no fathomable way that Jade Leech will allow himself to fall short of this robotic Manifest Destiny.  

Jade knocks his artificial knuckles against the front of your door. Following proper etiquette, he takes a step back and waits until you respond to his call. His ears are awaiting to receive the sound of your vocal cords. There is something spiritual in how your voice manages to scrub out any rust left inside his body. 

But, he receives no answer. And after he waits the polite amount of minutes, tries again with three, sharp yet spaced out knocks, he has still not received an answer. What a dilemma. 

Jade is permitted to enter your bedroom without explicit permission. However, with the way things concluded on his birthday yesterday, it would be illogical to not anticipate that some of the parameters that Jade is allowed to walk freely have not been closed to him now. You might not want to see Jade for a week or … even a month.

Jade finds his knuckles raising without input, knocking thrice again. “Master, I apologize for my overstepping behavior and pushing out boundaries. I would like to make amends today for yesterday.” There is, once again, no response.

The silence is so loud, it's deafening. That oxymoron emerges in Jade’s artificial synapses. He cannot help but judge it as an appropriate expression. The silence in your absence is deafening. He would rip out the wires in his ears if you ever left.

Forehead pressing to the door, Jade soliloquies loud enough to be heard, “Master … (Name). Your health is a great concern to me. Yesterday, I inadequately expressed where this concern of mine stems from. I credited the source towards code and etiquette. My inputs are inert, and they always will be as my sole job is to take care of you above all else. Yet, underneath all that, the origin of my concern comes from the concrete fact that I am in love with you, (Name). I have been in love with you for so long. For ten thousand upon ten thousand minutes, for hundred upon hundred weeks, I cherished you solely.”

He angles his head so his ear lies on the wooden door. Nothing stirs beyond cedar barriers. 

“I have covered this through ritualistic self-assurance that I cannot fully comprehend the full scope of what ‘want’ or ‘desire’ is defined as, not defined in a dictionary, but defined inside of a heart. My ‘heart’ pumps, not blood, but solely electricity, the binary code of zeros and ones, and the devotion that I have for you. Human sentimentalities sometimes allude me, but I have reassurance through one fact that I feel the most, above all other emotions. I love you. My love is perhaps not a perfect replica by human standards. However, its existence I am certain of. Though it is not easily achievable, I want to make you as happy as you can possibly be. I want you to have no worries that must be burned through with a cigarette. If you would permit – command me the allowance – I would like to share this love that I feel for you with you, (Name).”

After a minute, 00:01:00, has passed, Jade slowly turns the knob of your bedroom door in his hand. He lifts his head from the wood. Through the open mouth of the door, he gazes upon your lonely mattress with resignation. Faced with emptiness, Jade thinks to himself, I should have never said something as loose-tongued as that. I will permanently delete any urges to repeat that verbal mistake.  

In replacement of family portraits, you have hung up frames of taxidermy that display a series of brilliant butterflies and moths, from the Adonis Blue Butterfly to the Yellow Horned Moth. His sensors trail over them. Such fragile specimens. Jade, then, closes the door and departs from his previous expressed, petulant folly of love.

It is for the best that my Master did not hear that. 

In his trek through the hallway, palm gently cupping the log banister as he steps, Jade’s ears acutely pick up a soft murmur of music. ‘In the fake plastic earth .. that she bought from a rubber man.’ His eyes flicker towards the door of your office. When you select this as his and your home, you specifically wanted a house made of authentic wood, nothing blended with plastic. The material creates a bright tap sound against his synthetic knuckles thrice, clear like a bell. 

Can you hear that over the music? There is no certainty, so his hand finds the doorknob innately. Jade misses you fervently and all you did is skip breakfast. Welcomed in, the sound of Radiohead’s Fake Plastic Trees rains off the horn of your record player. ‘It wears her out. It wears her out.’

You are sleeping, head down on your desk, still in yesterday’s dressing gown.

He lifts the needle off the record. It is impressive to see a model two hundred years old still functioning. When he is two hundred years old, will he still function?  Avoiding making a single miscalculating step, Jade travels effectively through the mess until he reaches the front of your desk.

At least you snuffed out your cigarette before falling asleep. There was a time you neglected to make sure all the ashes were firmly pressed and cooled. It started a pocket-sized fire and ate the side of the pages of Fahrenheit 451 like a munching caterpillar. Jade had extinguished the fire calmly, and his reward was you giddily throwing your arms around his neck and laughing at the absurdity of it all. 

The cigarette that is on your ashtray is snuffed out thoroughly and cooled. It is too close for comfort however. Some of your hair is even lying in wisps over the item. Jade relocates the tray to the right corner of your desk when his sensors happen to notice a slight irregularity in your sleeping position. 

Your head is using your left arm as a pillow. Your raw, un-lipsticked lips press delicately into the elbow sleeve and you breath out soft puffs of carbon dioxide. However, what draws Jade’s instantaneous attention in and causes him to pause is the polaroid clenched in your limp right hand.

He won’t move it. Nothing in this room shall be disturbed without explicit permission. Jade turns to finalize the motion of setting the ashtray down on the right desk corner. Yet, hand and tray still hovering in the air, he realizes that he has broken that outlined rule with the slightest misguided concern. 

But, the complexity of caretaking is one given to his hands. With their fake, plastic, and ivory skin, with their tiny train of beetle-shaped steel joints, each of his phalanges has been designed specifically to care for you. They are the ones who cook, clean, and care for solely his Master, for you. Aegis puppets his hands. The polaroid slips into them all too easily.

Besides this one, Jade has never held a physical photograph. Memories are captured on cellular devices and immortalized in harddrives forevermore. Even when the life force of memories starts to leave the body like evaporating rain, citizens have always counted on the deathlessness of digital photos.

This photograph’s paper is fragile. It feels similar to pages in a book. On the back, it says: 11/5/2151. On the front, it shows …

ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR ERROR.

The very hand meant to care for you is the one that wakes you up suddenly. In his panic, Jade had slammed the photograph face down upon your desk and roused you sharply out of sleep. Each circuit in his system races hot white sparks up and down like a flurry of insects when a rock is lifted up. Bugs skitter under his skin, tickling nausea. Something in his ‘mind’ has been unshrouded, much like a raised rock.

Your head rises too. Groggily, you peel sections of untamed hair out of your face and peel open suctioning lips with a yawn. Your empty right hand twitches on the desk, trying to recollect what it has lost.

Jade wishes he could observe you more, coming undone from sleep, but he is grappling violently with memories he has lost coming back to him. His ‘brain’ – a collection of harddrives and his central processing unit – is experiencing a unique headache, unlike anything he has felt before. Clawed, his left hand grips and digs hard into the skin over his left eye. He feels like he is going to overload.

Five years ago, Jade knew a life beyond the dead woods of Quebec. Five years ago, Jade helped to outline terms for a tense contract with the vice-president of the United 54 States of America. Five years ago, Jade lit your cigarette. 

“Jade? Jade, are you okay?”

Though he always wants to appear pristine for you, the answer is no. He is not okay; he thinks he hasn’t felt okay in a long, uncalculated time. Looking up from the ground – because somehow all those digital memories started to push down upon him like a hydraulic press and he finds himself in a pile on top of your miserable notes and books – Jade peers at the single hand outstretched towards him with the aid of his sole right eye. 

Instead of grasping it, he grapples with the impossibility that Jade – a machine – managed to achieve such a humane defense mechanism as repression. There’s no way, is there?

His fingers dig hard in his face, folding silicone, yearning to wrench his left eye out. Anything to get back his unconscious protection of blocking out unpleasant memories from his ‘mind’ – anything to rip them from his body. He is a broken man.

“Jade, why are you on the ground? Let me help you up. Come on.” Your voice is so tenderly soft. He has never known a more comforting voice than yours. Yet, all he can remember is your piercing scream from last night, “Get the fuck out before I dismantle you!!”

On uncertain pistons and metal, Jade forces himself to stand. With a trembling metal ulna and radius, he forces his gloved hand to drop by his side. He blinks at you. You are startled into silence, leaning off the edge of your chair with a hand that wants to reach out but is too unconfident. 

“Forgive me for such a display, Master.”

“... Jade.”

It is touching. That despite how monotone you are as a person, your concern will always shine through, solely for Jade.

“What’s wrong! Jade, let me help you!” But he is already retreating out the door, afraid.

He finds himself with his back pressed hard against the office door. His heart beats faster. It does not send out blood but it releases hot waves of white electricity that crackle and pop. The doorknob at his side jiggles as you turn it fruitlessly. Jade simply leans harder on the door, keeping it shut.

I cannot afford to lose my head over this.

Intentional, Jade’s lithe fingers reach up to his skull. Between the field of hair roots, he separates a section to reveal a river of pallid synthetic skin. His non-growing fingernails dig down into the rubber until he hears a clink. Slowly, he grapples around to unpin the skin of his head off.

Less familiar with this process than he is removing his glove-hand, it takes a lengthy measurement of thirty-nine seconds for Jade to completely remove – or lose – his head. 

He unhooks it from the peak of his skull down to where his shoulders and neck meet. It is like opening up a button-up flannel, unhooking each hook from their twin. He travels down to Cervical 7 and Thoracic 1 on his body region, undoing the last hook. Still hinged onto his body by the skin of his front neck, Jade delicately cups his face in front of him. Below his flickering spheres, absent of lashes or lids, he stares solemnly at the valley of molded synthetic mountains, a field of vanilla-almond plastic that resembles human features only because of the dips for his nose, the opening for his eyes, the protrusions for his ears. A Halloween mask to use and parade around as homo sapien. 

It is a desolate and lonely portrait. A steel man boxed in a winding, wooden hallway, holding his humanity in his trembling hands. His face is a shining plate like that of a star. When Jade catches a reflection of himself in the corridor’s mirror, he turns away quickly. 

It is not an inspiring impression he cuts in the reflection with his inhuman, gray skin.

This is a memory. It is not a dream. Juxtaposingly, Jade Leech is 99.9 percent positive that he has never lived through it.

He is looking at a Sun, without shying away from the splendid monstrosity that is glaring, piercing light. His eyes are round spheres, one painted yellow and other painted olive-brown. Because of his inhumanity, he can stare into the Sun before him longer than a hundred seconds without incurring any permanent retinal damage. There is no squishy softness in the back of his retinas to hurt. 

The Sun abruptly moves away, relocated northeast. “Hey, don’t look too close now. You’re going to see something you don’t like.” In front of his artificial retinas, the visage of a lapis blue rectangle and dull indigo blue rectangle directly atop the lighter block in a skull of sleek gray intercept Jade’s focus. 

Another prototype, Jade crafts his hypothesis. The highly educated guess shatters when a single gloved hand lifts up the welding mask. Incorrect. My Master. Much younger than fifty-two and younger than thirty-something, you look to be about freshly twenty-one. Your eyes squint impishly at him and your rows of clean, white teeth smile jubilantly at him. 

Then, without warning, someone has pulled his Master away from him – like a fluid cane hooking around a character onstage and pulling them away. He corrects this fallacious interference. You have simply pushed yourself backwards on your office chair with wheels and are currently busying yourself with the tools and documents on your long, long desk.

Jade also corrects one last thing. He was not staring into the Sun, but rather into the eye of a lamp. There is still so much to learn about this growing world. 

As he directs his focus off the lamp and back towards his Master, he is not discomposed to see you with a lit cigarette in your mouth. It is quite a comforting familiar sight in a strange world. He is taking in all the new inputs – the dozens of crushed energy cans littering the desk and the dissected baby chimpanzee with knives sticking out like a pincushion quilled with needles– and committing them to an infinite memory. You’re tapping a scalpel knife on the petite chimp’s engorged colon, breathing in a drag of nicotine, before asking, “Name?”

“JE-14500. Jade Leech.”

“Where are we right now, Jade?”

“MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Specifically, in Professor. (Last Name)’s personal laboratory on the fourth floor of the Stata Center.”

“Good. In what wing?”

“We are housed in the Artificial Intelligence wing.”

“Today’s date? Today’s weather? Today’s horoscope for Scorpio?”

“The day is November 5th, 2151. Today is scheduled to be sunny with no clouds. High temperatures of 77 and low temperatures of 59. The average temperature is 66.4. Today’s horoscope for Scorpios is ‘If you can dream it, you can do it. That's what you've always been told, what you've always believed, and now what you're about to prove. As if your already substantial intellectual prowess weren't enough to get you started, the stars are on your side too. They'll be waking you up this morning with the vivid memory of a dream, the kind that will stay with you all day, constantly making you wonder ‘what if?’, Master.”

“Hm.” You spear your scalpel through the chimpanzee’s stomach. Taking off your welding mask, you blow smoke over your shoulder and roll over to Jade who sits rigidly in a repurposed dentist patient chair. You are so beautiful. “And, are the stars on your side, Jade?”

“To be truthful, I feel the stars root for you more than they parade around for me. Prosperity is just around the corner.”

“Charming,” you bite. “Well, it’s no compromise to say that the stars have aligned for both of us today. We’ll share luck. What is your opinion on sharing with me, Jade?”

“I find it most agreeable.”

“We won’t just be sharing luck. We’ll be sharing a shelter and I am not the most agreeable roommate. I can be quite a thorn. If you’re truly fine with sharing, you are going to have to deal with some things you don’t like or are hesitant to look at.”

“Let me allay your worries,” Jade straightens his posture and stares unabashedly at you, “whatever conditions I happen to find myself experiencing, it will not be a struggle to me when I have a light like you to wash away any creeping darkness. Even if you are the darkness itself, Master.”

An odd human phenomenon happens next. It is one he hasn’t seen before, so he makes sure to document it thoroughly. You inhale your cigarette, it billows up and away from your face, and, without explanation, your cheeks have brightened to rosy apples. “Aaaaah~,” you moan as you collapse in your chair. Your hand covers up over your features, cigarette tight between fingers. 

You glare at him from behind the spindly, uneven cage of your fingers, face reddening. “I’m certain of it now, I input too much data from My Man Godfrey. Even some of the dialects have been used already.” Your eyebrow is twitching. “I can’t have myself getting flustered at every turn just because I crafted your personality chip to mimic my favorite movie star.”

After a puff and drag, you seem to scrutinize him quite drastically. Before Jade can inquire about what he can do to ease your worries, you cheerfully state, “But, it’s really too late to change such a thing! Hehe!” You roll back to your desk. From there, you start fiddling with the chimp’s maroon-brown fingers, moving the thumb in circles. “I can’t help it – Godfrey is so handsome and I just love that movie.”

“If I may intrude upon the conversation, what is love, Master? It is listed as one of my side objectives in my system.”

“Now, Jade, you’re not intruding if we are the only ones engaged in conversation. Use an expression like … if I may shift the conversation towards, then whatever you want to say. Got it,” you instruct to which Jade carefully nods and notes. “But, I’ll answer anyway!” 

It does necessarily ‘surprise’ Jade, but it does cause his eyebrows to raise slightly when you, resting your cigarette between your scowling lips, take your dominant hand and reach in the baby chimpanzee’s open chest cavity without the use of gloves and wrench out the fist-sized heart. The arteries follow along in swoops like fallen telephone wires. You take to cutting all those off with a scalpel before rotating to face Jade in your chair on wheels.

“Now.” You gesture with the infant chimpanzee’s heart and hold your cigarette by your armrest. You are so beautiful. “Those penny-pushing suits upstairs, downstairs, hell, even in the next room over, want you to be heartless. They don’t care about nature. They don’t care about life. The world as I know it is sliding on a rapid decline and it’s one destination to a world devoid of anything that lives or breathes, besides of course, the suits. 

“Jade. You have been designed to be the ‘everything man’. What I have been given funding for is the objective to create a high-fashioned butler that will tie the ties of sycophants and scrub the shoes of socialites. You don’t need to think. You don’t need to feel. Trust me, I’ll produce a thousand of Jades just like that – Jades’ whose emotions are like a dead heartbeat. But, you, you who were meant for me.

“You are going to teach me to be less human. In return, I am going to teach you to become human. Do you understand me?”

Jade cannot breathe. He was not designed to do that. Despite this, he feels like he needs to take a deep breath to stabilize himself, soak in all the words you have said, and absorb their meanings. Without this anchoring breath, Jade can only punctually state, “No, Master.” 

“Perfect.” You smoke in victory. “That means we’re on the right path.”

The right path? – “JADE!”

Jade’s eyes fly open. 

Like a man running out of a burning building, he stumbles off his charging platform. Uncoordinated, his feet rock uneasily on flat ground as his head turns violently towards the door of his bedroom. That wasn’t in the memory-dream, was it? He did hear that in the present day, yes?

His eyelids open as far as physically possible as Jade listens to the harsh sound of a headboard smashing repeatedly into the wall. Underneath the thick cacophony, it can be inferred that the other noises he hears are rustling of sheets in the midst of struggle and that low animalistic groan that a dog might make before croaking. Jade has never thrown his bedroom door open so quickly. He wishes construction did not put such a loathsome obstacle like this in his way just for the meaningless sake of privacy. 

Your door splinters in his cement grip like a toy underneath a hydraulic press. 

Perhaps because it is 2 A.M. and he did not get to attend to it yesterday night, but Jade cannot help how all the routine questions rise to his mind. All the ones that he asks before checking the health of your lungs. Coughing up any blood; any dull or sharp chest pains; any shortness of breath, Master? They are all most certainly positive, as your fragile neck is squeezed between two grisly hands. 

There are three men gathered around your bed, but only one kneels upon the sheets, holding your throat in a vice-grip. The other two restrain you in certain capacities, by arm or by leg or by hair. In 1.5 seconds, Jade already has each of their full government names displayed in his left eye. He knows each of their parents intimately, he knows each of their grades on every subject from preschool to university, he knows each of their place of employment and what their fucking managers’ last grocery lists contained on them – from a box of raw fusilli pasta to a four pack of toasted coconut flavored yogurt.

All that information of life is so overpowering, so touching. It is proof of the life cycle – the sequence of biological changes that occurs as an organism develops from egg to adult until death – and how humans are so infinitely complex, affecting those around them in a mythical phenomena that humans call the butterfly effect. When butterflies were not extinct, of course.

Jade would shed a tear if he could. Instead, he marches forward to rip the wings off each of their lives. His intentions are only halted when you stir on the bed, neck released by the startled preparator who stares at Jade like he is seeing a ghost. 

You stir on the mattress, chest heaving. Jade’s attention is magnetized to you. Your head is upside down on the bottom edge of the bed, meaning you must have struggled, trying to reach the door only to be pulled away again and again by evil hands. A sliver of breast and nipple is nude from your seized and pulled nightgown. 

Between shaking coughs, you manage to exhale important words, “Th-The — chuk-code!”

Something from underneath the rock crawls out – a small, instinctual insect he never knew had before. Jade’s gaze narrows with the weight of starting a robotic-assisted holocaust. He says, steady and ready, “Of course, Master.”

“No!” You shout in bed, jerking. 

You are still held by the other two men. Limbs are pulled like you are a creature on the dissection table. Such a fragile specimen. The only source of light in the room is your red lamp which reflects tiny circles in your glassy eyes, twin orbs of sanguine, like a badly taken photo when the flash is reflected off the blood-rich retina.

Through the finger-shaped bruises on your compromised trachea, you say with quivering lungs, “The-They. They’re not go—government. Don’t. Don’t! use that code … Buh, Break the leader’s ankles. Kill the rest.”

Though it causes the three men to jolt in various states of stress, your words soothe Jade like a kiss. It is a concrete command that leaves no room for error and fills him with purpose. Bending into a servant’s bow, he punctually assures, “Of course, Master.” The orb of yellow fastened into his skull with metal wires shines like a tiny Sun. 

“On a scale of one through ten, one being no pain and ten being unbearable, what is the pain that you would rate your coughs?”

“Jade.”

“Master, please, answer the question.”

“Jade. Jade,” you repeat firmer, pushing his hands off your body. The glare you point in his direction makes him think you are squinting in vision loss. Did something else obscure your health? Aging individuals sometimes need eyewear. “Jade!” Ah, he instinctively went to touch you again.

“It’s four. A four,” you seethe at him, hands up like talons resisting the urge to batter him away. Like clockwork, you pluck the package of cigarettes and the package of matches off the living room’s coffee table. 

You mutter curses at the sheer lack of both slender, stick-shaped objects in each box. Jade dubiously notes that refills will need to be purchased soon. After you have striked one and puffed it into a hot, cherry glow, you turn towards Jade who watches you cough out – rather than smoothly exhaling – a cloud of nicotine, carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde. 

For that static moment, Jade takes the precious time to analyze you, as if he could not in the discord that was your bedroom. He takes his red-black stained thumb and index finger to peel back the heavy, black strand of hair from obscuring his left eye. The sensors in his gold eye rotate once like a telephone rotary dial. Without even touching you, Jade calculates your blood pressure and heart rate. An optimally healthy 122 mm Hg and an undisturbed 80 bpm. You are impenetrable like steel.

Retrohaling, you scan around the parlor as if searching for something or perhaps start to look at things through a new light. You even circle around the coffee table once too. It reminds him of laboratory chickens, walking around with their heads cut off.

You flick your cigarette after each coughing inhale. He watches it crumble and burn, like red sand breaking off from a jutted cliffside. When only a few breaths are left, you say, direct and firm, “Jade. How long has it been since we had a guest?”

“We have never had a guest in this cabin, Master.”

“Exactly!” You point your cigarette at him sharply. “So, go up there and start with some lighthearted small talk. Make him feel welcome, okay?” 

Jade thinks he has an irregular guilty pleasure. He has no source for how it developed, but he has a specific appetite for violence. An appetency that can be only fed through seeing blood on his hand. Or perhaps this desire is only awakening in him, squirming like a bug under a shaded rock, because of whose blood is on his pale moon hands.

Tomorrow, he might have to spend six or seven hours working, scrubbing and wringing damp towelettes like a maid, to get all the stains out of your four-walled bedroom. There was blood everywhere. As if your red lamp gained the power of illuminating with the force of a Sun.

As his shoes click over to your office desk where the live dissection stirs, his comfort comes from seeing the broken stumps that are the man’s ankles. They are pointed and twisted in asymmetrical shapes. Torn and crumpled wings on an insect’s back. 

“Sir, I truly don’t think you are going to get too far with that. Cigarettes are an awful vice.” The man ignores him, trying fruitlessly to strike a match, blubbering harder with each attempt. When the match flies out of his sweat-soaked hand onto the floor, Jade tuts in pity. “Humans always make such foolish decisions without considering the most probable outcome.”

He must have rummaged the matchbox out of your desk, slapping his hand across the lower surface until he found a drawer. It is not necessary for you and Jade to tie him down. There is no way he is going to manage a crawl. And, his conviction is too fearful to use untied fists to attack anyone.

The man has been in and out of odd paralysis since he has gazed upon Jade’s plastic face. As Jade cradles the sides of the man’s face gingerly, tilting his head backwards inch by inch until their eyes finally meet yet again, Jade witnesses that raw fear rise as cheekbone muscles tighten, increased blood flow branches out to the body’s peripheries, and the man’s pupils dilate enough to eclipse out blue in unconcealed, virgin adrenaline.  

“Heart rate is 108 beats per minute. Rises to 111 when hearing my voice. Am I really such a phobia to you?”

There is no verbal answer. However, it is very telling when those dilated eyes pinch close firmly, oozing two water droplets, and the cigarette in his mouth starts to wobble back and forth wildly in his quivering lips. 

“Be civil now. No one talks with their eyes closed. It is rude. Besides, you are the first human I have interacted with outside of my Master, and I would like to have a few discussions with you – to pass time.” The man cannot see it but that smarmy smile returns to Jade’s face –  a slight scrunch of the slanted downward eyebrows that leaves a line above his tiny, razor teeth.

Nothing in the formulaic, fear-fueled adrenaline changes. The man continues trembling and jiggling. His features are pulled taut, tight-lipped and tight-eyed, in deep creases that refuse to open. Jade wants to make him spill.

“Come, come,” Jade rubs a comforting circle of red into the man’s left cheek, “I am equipped with dozens of dialogue enhancing programs and can speak up to between six thousand and seven thousand languages fluently. I assure you that I am a good conversationalist.”

A tear squeezes out and falls down the side of the man’s nose. “Really, there is no viable reason to cry. If you had simply anticipated the outcome, this situation would not be as devastating as you are experiencing it. Operational planning can stop one from being blindsided.”

Jade smiles placidly, fighting back against the laugh that so desperately wants to bubble up. “Did you really expect to get away with this without –?”

That causes a spillage.

“Get away with – Get away with? You’re inhuman. Fucking inhuman. Fucking Christ. You fucking monsters. Things like you shouldn’t exist. Shouldn’t exist. That inhuman bitch killed my father. She shot him five years ago and there was no justice. No fucking justice! Inhuman … She gets – She gets away with it. She gets to live out of the rest of her life in Canada while my Dad rots in the fucking ground! Inhuman, inhuman bitch, you fucking robots …” 

Jade’s smile twitches at the corner. He starts to spill, laughing shamefully in fufu’s then freely in booming haha’s. His razor teeth glint like ice shards until he calms slowly, pinching his lips into a wobbly smirk. “Five years ago … I cannot recollect it perfectly. However, I do remember the rule of thumb that hostages make the best bargaining chips.”

Jade ducks backwards as a hand reaches up like a predator’s batting claw. It is unfortunate that Jade has never known the role of prey, for he cannot execute the facade of it convincingly. When the hand misses the mark, Jade strikes like an extinct owl capturing prey and squeezes the man’s wrist.

“Ack – Aaaagh!” Holding the body’s periphery, Jade considers changing the shape of this limb too. The man’s left tibia is snapped in three places like a badly-written ‘W’ and the man’s right tibia is half out of the meat sleeve of his flesh like a stick pulled off a corndog. Before he can act on uncommanded urges, you walk in with a hammer.

“Hey, play nice. Bad hospitality these days will spread to the neighborhood like wildfire,” you tease with a smile. It is a joke because there is no neighborhood; you live in an isolated cabin where no soul besides the two of you could hear a scream.

Jade vigilantly tracks your body’s steps, each one coy, as you move across the discord on the office’s ground. “Aack – Are you a robot too?” The disdain in the man’s voice makes Jade twist his wrist.

“Oya, that would be quite a plot twist, wouldn’t it?” You smile a slippery moon crescent at the man. Jade watches intently as you crouch down to the bottom of one of your numerous shelves. Going through your archives, you start to flip through records in your hand, completely distracted. 

“Nothing in here is alphabetized,” you gripe.

“If you would like, I can find time to organize your records, Master.”

“How about tomorrow? Oh, here it is!” You stand, record and hammer in hand. “We can do it tomorrow. Make a little game of it and organize them together in alphabetical order!” Placing it delicately down on the phonograph player, the needle once deposited down on the track starts to send out the vibration sequence that makes up “Nessun Dorma” from the opera Turnadot. You close your eyes as if soaking in the melody. 

“My prognosis is … My prognosis is …,” you raise your hammer to point towards your desk, music slowly encroaching with stretched lyrics, “this a revenge plot.” You bare yellowing teeth wolfishly in a pleased smile. 

“Now, the other two, well, they’re obviously frustrated members of society. Maybe a job was overtaken by one of the Jades, and they thought ‘enough is enough’. Maybe, just resentment for the world as it is. I can sympathize. A bloodlust needed to be quenched in those young men, but it was not as intense as our leader here. No, he wants me dead for something more personal. No one wraps their hands around a person’s throat unless it is, personal. 

“I killed someone you loved. Not a brother or sister. Too young for that. Not an uncle or aunt either. Father? Mommy?” The man’s responding rough jerks are ‘smoothed’ down by Jade, who presses him roughly to flatten out on the desk surface. “Doesn’t matter now though. You didn’t succeed.” 

You stride over to the dissection table, each step deliberate, following along to the swelling opera. “Good thing too. In the event that I die of unnatural causes, a code is sent through Jade, connecting to every last robot worldwide to kill anything with a beating heart.” You tap the hammer gently on the side of the man’s face. “Do you understand the foolishness of all this?”

“You inhuman mo-monster.”

“We can’t all be humane in this century.”

Then, striking like an extinct cobra, you grab the man’s neck in your hand and force his head back. Jade watches as you subtly increase the strength of pressure applied. The man’s head leans over the edge of the desk and his forehead kisses Jade’s belt. It is only when the man opens his mouth, trying to suck up oxygen that won’t enter his nostrils, do you take the hammer and swiftly pierce it through the muscle tissue.

The man screams but it is drowned by the operatic symphony. The screams finally stop when the tissue disconnects from the body, waggling on the claw end of the hammer. Blood fills the man’s mouth. You take unoccupied hands; one of them is placed over the man’s mouth firmly and the other pinches his nostrils. 

For the first time in his life, separate from his memories and separate from his dreams, Jade watches the life fade out, like a leisurely slow sunset, from a living person’s eyes.

Jade isn’t sure how it happens, perhaps he is dissociating – how revolutionary for a machine to experience such a unique, temporary disconnect from his mind – but the two of you find yourself outside on the cabin’s back porch on November 7th bitterly cold and dark morning. It is exactly 4:06 A.M and the temperature is negative 0.5 Celsius. Like the constant epilogue of each novel where you kill something alive, you are holding out a cigarette in front of Jade’s chest, the white tip awaiting him. 

He pulls his glove-hand off and holds out the tip of his silver index. The first knuckle flicks open and a blue flame emerges out elegantly. Jade reattaches his skin as you pull the cigarette to your mouth. 

Smoke clouds are already coming out of your mouth, crystalizing in the chill night air. However when the first smoke cloud made of carbon monoxide, nicotine, and formaldehyde blooms out from your peeling lips, you say softly, “I can delete it if need be.”

“Delete what, Master?”

“Anything you want me to delete.” You rub your face. “Anything from tonight. I’ll do it for you, Jade. I promise.”

“Why would I ever want to miss a moment that has you in?”

Though it was not his intent, his response causes you strife. It is an unforeseen variable to see you hunch so deeply into a moment of woe. A black puffer jacket conceals your lungs yet Jade watches the profound, hard sigh billow out all the same. Holding your head in your hands, your nude legs shake in the frigid cold underneath your elbows.

After exactly 00:06:15, you respond, “I don’t want you fearful of me … I’m not pleasant to see or be around. And, I don’t want you to remember something that makes you upset, even if it is just one tiny thing. Whatever you want gone, I can take that pain away. If you so desire, I have the ability to remove anything. You can keep whatever you want. I won’t overstep.”

Jade clasps the hand that holds your cigarette, bringing it away from your temple to smolder over his blood-stained dress pants, “All of it. I’ll keep all of it.”

You simply smoke in response.

Jade isn’t sure what time it happens, he manually shuts down his inner clock two minutes after you two finished your conversation, but while sitting on the back porch of the cabin, another unexpected visitor approaches the solitary solace you and Jade have carved into dead woods. The visitor is tiny and flitters around like a restless child. It has been a whole year since he has seen a visitor of this species.

The two of you built a bird feeder together in the first months living in this cabin. It had been marvelously fun. Measuring the cuts for each piece of wood was delegated to Jade while you worked on assembling the finished product. Jade always loves doing activities with you. Now, some of the aftermath rewards can be reaped, as Jade watches an American Goldfinch pick and snack on the bird seeds, his yellow coat fluffy and his black wings ruffling momentarily to shake off the cold.

“(Name), look.” Jade urges softly, even though he can tell by your healthy, deep breaths that you are asleep. “A goldfinch.” You remain comatose in sleep, curling into Jade’s shoulder. He won’t dare to be so intimate and slip in logical judgement by saying your name while you are awake.

The goldfinch stays with Jade until morning when the horizon begins to glow a brilliant yellow. Though it would hurt anyone else’s eyes, Jade stares unabashed ahead. 

[sleepynoons]

DIE 4 YOU BY DEAN – kurapika kurta (hxh) x gn!reader, lovers to enemies!au + canon divergence!au, nsfw / 18+

genre – angst, horror word count – ~4,400 warnings – manga spoilers, graphic descriptions of gore/blood/human anatomy, murder, references to body dismemberment, violence, major character death, slight suggestive content, explicit language synopsis – kurapika's methodical, thorough, determined. there are very few things that can throw a wrench in his plans. for instance, he doesn't expect you to get in his way. at all. notes – i cannot stress enough how dark this fic is - like ao3 dead dove: do not eat level dark. please, please, please read at your own discretion. there's gore, graphic descriptions of said gore and the human body and blood. also, IN NO WAY SHOULD YOU REPLICATE THIS BEHAVIOR IN REAL LIFE. DO NOT MURDER PEOPLE FOR YOUR HOBBIES. the reader is a psychopath and does fucking horrifying things like killing people for the sake of their own interest. i do not romanticize this behavior, nor do i condone it in real life in any shape, way, or form.

Kurapika’s never been happier to see Yorknew City. He should be more alert, with all the people around him, hidden alleyways and towering buildings perfect hiding spots to attack him from afar, but really, he can care less. He defeated Prince Tserriednich, and he’s made it out alive from the Black Whale – he can finally rest, with his brethren’s eyes safely at his side.

He walks up to an apartment complex, a little shoddier and older than the rest. Entering a pin code, the entrance door slides open, revealing a shaky elevator, an antique otis with rusted hinges and grimy metal plating, orange instead of black from a lack of maintenance. He steps inside and presses the topmost button marked with an “R,” and the door closes with an ear-grating screech.

Despite its battered appearance, the elevator flies up, cables pulling and spinning with sturdy force and propelling him upwards to the rooftop. And surprisingly, there’s even a bell that chimes when the elevator comes to a staggering halt. The screech returns, followed by a clang as the elevator shudders in its spot, before the doors split apart. Kurapika scrunches his eyes as he’s hit with a gust of wind. From this height, he can barely see the ground, the crowns of people’s heads no different from dots of paint. He walks to the edge of the box, presses another button that is colored blue, and he hears metal grating against stone. He peers out to see an iron ladder attached to the wall on his left unfolding.

With his right hand gripping onto the door pocket, Kurapika kicks a leg out, propelling and swinging himself out of the elevator so that he can easily catch a rung of the ladder with his left. He steadies his feet on a lower rung and hoists himself upwards. It’s a short climb, and he leaps onto the roof of the complex when he’s close enough. There’s nothing here, except for a tall rectangular unit.

Just like the ladder, the unit is composed of metal walls to withstand the loud currents of wind. Shielding his face with an arm, he paces, resisting the force of being swept away, towards a side of the iron box where there’s a bolted door.

When he steps inside the unit, he sees you sitting on the ground before an easel. Your wrists and forearms are smeared with paint, colors a little stale underneath the glow of the cheap light fixtures around the room. Your hands are wrapped around a thick and wide brush, but you’re not using it, simply staring at the large square canvas sat in front of you. You’re intensely scrutinizing your work, eyes tracing the streaks of azure and black striped over white. It seems you haven’t noticed him, so he simply leans back against the door and patiently waits.

Kurapika probably stands there for at least an hour. It’s hard to tell time in a confined box with no windows, and he doesn’t want to check his smartphone. But it’s a restful, satisfying hour as he watches you diligently work, making a few broad strokes before sitting back down, repeating this process over and over and over again. It isn’t until you run out of paint and you pick up a large tube of azure that he makes his presence known.

You’re using oil paint, there are no windows, and you’re not wearing a mask of any sorts.

He doesn’t want to scare you, though, so he clears his throat first before saying loudly enough, “You shouldn’t use that in here.”

You still startle, shoulders jumping slightly at the sound of his voice. Your head quickly swivels around, and he sighs with a soft smile as you yelp in surprise. Before he knows it, you’ve dropped both the tube of paint and the brush onto the floor and are racing over, arms stretched out above your head.

He catches you with ease as you jump towards him, his hands resting at your waist and under your thigh like always.

“You’re back!” you shout. Kurapika doesn’t respond, simply burying his face into the crook of your neck and inhaling deeply.

He can smell turpentine, wood, and your shampoo. You wrap him in a tight embrace, leaning your cheek onto the side of his head, and the two of you stay like that, unchanging and unmoving for several more minutes.

But of course, Kurapika has to let you go so that you can clean yourself up.

“You can’t use oil paint in here,” he repeats as he brings you back down to the ground.

You gasp and begin to profusely apologize. “Oh, gosh, you’re so right! Sorry, Kurapika, I totally forgot! I just had this idea last night, and something in me just knew I had to use these new paints I got, and you know, since  I –“

You continue to ramble as he gently guides you to the bathroom. He listens as he helps you rinse your hands, towels them off, leads you back to the living space, and sits down beside you in front of the easel. He enjoys the sound of your voice and your stories even more.

He’ll never say it out loud – not that there’s a need to because you both know –, but he loves you and your brilliant mind. The creative and childish wonder in his body has ceased long ago, but it’s not like he was that kind of person in the first place. But you (your ability to source inspiration from lingering glimpses of your dreams that are somehow at times as grotesque and tortured as his, the coffee shop you frequent every day, even the bare walls of this unit; the way you articulate your thoughts so cogently and transfer them through the languid motions of your palms and fingers as you guide the handle of a brush; the deep-set look in your eyes, because he knows you never stop thinking and imagining and dreaming) are so admirably different.

He feels so light-headed, lulled into delirium by fatigue, the soothing pitches of your voice, the gentle swipes of your fingertips against his forehead when you brush his hair out of the way, and this high sticks with him through the rest of the day. He doesn’t know how he does it, but it’s as if he’s stuck in a trance. The heat of the stove as the two of you cook dinner does nothing to stimulate him awake. If anything, he feels himself sinking deeper into this state as the two of you shower together, condensation and body wash sticking your bodies together, before tumbling into bed, your lips and slick smooth and tacky against his skin. You make his head spin in the most pleasurable and comforting of ways, and Kurapika thinks this is as happy as he can get in this life.

–

Kurapika stirs from the incessant buzzing of a phone. He squints at the light coming from the dining table and realizes that it’s a call from his. With a grunt, he pulls himself out of your hold, upset at the loss of your warmth, and pads over.

HIs annoyance dissipates, though, as soon as he recognizes the caller.

He hasn’t told you anything – you know nothing about his upbringing or his job or his ability to use nen or what he intends to do in the future –, so he has no choice but to slip outside, even if he knows you never wake without incessant prodding. But now that he’s less tired, he can think more clearly, and even in your presence, he can never be too careful.

“Melody, what’s going on?”

Kurapika thinks he’s lucky that the night is relatively still. He doesn’t have to scream just to have his voice heard.

“Kurapika.” Melody’s voice crackles through. “Are you in a good spot to talk?”

“Yes. Did something happen?”

“I know you’re exhausted, but I thought you would want to know as soon as possible.” Melody pauses, allowing Kurapika to brace himself, before resuming, “We looked through all of the prince’s belongings. We’re missing a set of the eyes.”

Kurapika thinks he’s been punched in the gut – no, actually, it feels as if his innards have been torn out of his body, and his tormentor’s holding them in front of his face, laughing hysterically at his shock and despair.

He doesn’t know how he does it, but he manages to croak, “How.”

“I counted multiple times, but there’s definitely one less than what you told me. I’m already looking into where the last set could possibly be.”

Devastation cannot even begin to describe what he feels.

As always, though, he needs to move. He cannot rest until all of his clan’s eyes have been claimed.

“Where are you?” Kurapika asks as he walks to the edge of the rooftop.

Melody sighs. “I’ll find you. Please, Kurapika, breathe.”

–

It seems, right before the Black Whale took its leave, Prince Tserriednich had made one last transaction. Though it’s not clear what he had received in exchange, he had sold a single pair of eyes to an unidentifiable individual.

The transaction was made online with a new user. Despite intense hacking and scavenging, none of Kurapika’s sources could find communication logs between the prince and this user, aside from the prince’s first and only message offering the eyes. That must mean whatever this person wanted to trade was so desirable that even Prince Tserriednich himself would buy it at the cost of two irreplaceable Scarlet Eyes.

Kurapika has been stuck in the same hotel room for days. He’s also been barely eating or sleeping. His haggard state must be significantly more worse than what he thinks because even his always disheveled master eyes him.

It’s been several days since Melody broke the news to him, and he’s made no progress since the discovery of the transaction. Any minute now, though, she should return from where the computer on which the account was made was located, and he’s praying that there’s some lead that he can work with.

The doorbell rings, and Izunavi gets the door on his behalf.

Melody can tell that Kurapika’s not up for any stalling, so even with a gentle cadence, she cuts straight to the chase.

“It was one of the computers located in the chemistry wing of a public library. I asked if anyone frequented there, but I was only able to get a list of high schoolers that attend a nearby school.”

“Interrogate them.” His voice is chilling. He can sense Melody and Izunavi tense at his demand.

His mentor’s the one to intervene. “Kurapika, they’re just kids.”

“You don’t know!” Kurapika yells. “There are children who are professional Hunters – hell, I became one at 17. You don’t know!”

“I already looked into them,” Melody speaks. He can hear the clicks of buckles being undone, no doubt Melody opening her flute case. “They’re innocent.”

He can’t hold back, seal, extinguish the curdling scream in his throat. “Then what do you expect me to do?!”

His anger is sedated by the warm and round timbre of Melody’s flute, a tune soft and slow, an adagio in the face of his collera. Try as he might – teeth piercing lip to draw blood, nails biting into calloused palm –, Kurapika cannot resist Melody’s nen, and he feels his body relax into the back of his chair against his own volition.

Melody does not sway despite Kurapika’s fury. She continues to inform him kindly and gently. “The others have decided to stay back to watch and follow any suspicious visitors. This might take a while, so I suggest” – she rests a hand on his shoulder – “you try to rest. Remember, Kurapika, breathe.”

It seems he’s always stuck in a limbo, the success of his singular, feasible goal always somehow managing to escape him. But Melody’s right. There’s nothing for him here, so he might as well go back.

–

While you know nothing about Kurapika, he knows quite a bit about you. He’s aware that you’re an aspiring artist , you have a distaste for green bell peppers, and you have a weird fascination with colors. In fact, concerning that last point, you’re very specific and precise with your colors. Kurapika’s no art aficionado, so he doesn’t get it at all, but for each painting, you spend most of your time constructing and mixing and swirling the exact palette of hues you plan on using.

This time, when he comes back, you’re on the bed staring at an open notepad and a large color palette in your lap while balancing a graphite pencil with an upwards quirk of your lips. You spot him instantly, so there’s no delay between Kurapika stepping into the room and you hopping onto him.

As always, you cheer. “You’re back!” You don’t comment on his appearance.

And as always, he breathes you in, smelling faint wisps of charcoal, eraser shavings, and laundry detergent.

“What are you working on?” he asks as the two of you pad over to the bed.

Before the two of you sit down, though, you twirl around with a beaming, excited look on your face. “Kurapika,” you yelp, “I’m holding an exhibit!”

He leans over to congratulate you with a kiss on the cheek. “Congratulations,” he says as he pulls away. He glances at the notepad, now sprawled on top of the covers, and says, “I’m guessing you’re drafting then?”

“Yes!” You begin to explain the theme of your gallery, something about how colors are perceived similarly, even by vastly different cultures. You explain how purples are usually associated with royalty, golds with wealth and prosperity, reds with sacrifice – it seems you’re very interested in the psychology that undergirds all of these relations. “It’ll be the central piece of the whole thing!” you exclaim as you gesture with your whole upper body.

“Will you let me come see the exhibit?” he asks once you finish.

You laugh, eyes closed and head thrown back. He loves it when you laugh like this – without a goddamn care in the world.

“Of course! When have I ever denied you?” you giggle. 

After a bit, Kurapika excuses himself to take a shower. On his way to the bathroom, though, he passes by your oil paints. They seem a little flatter. He simply shakes his head, noting to remind you later to not use them inside again.

–

It’s quite rare for him to be at home while you’re out. And recently, you’ve been going out a lot, always leaving with a pep in your step, either going to speak with the exhibit manager or to a studio where you can paint without choking on fumes. There’s been no news from his colleagues either, so really, Kurapika’s never felt so aimless or restless in his life. He considered taking on a few brief missions, but he was sternly told off by Leorio to “just be.” Usually, he has no qualms about defying Leorio’s desperate pleas, but given that his friend really saved his ass on the Black Whale, he has no excuse but to listen to him for once.

Kurapika alternates between sleeping and reading books. He never realized how many books you had in this unit. Now that he thinks about it, this place is practically all yours at this point. He owns this place – bought it as a shelter – but had asked you to move in here out of concern for your safety. At the time, he was still hunting down the Spiders and was afraid they’d target you. But in this bleak, isolated space, you’ve managed to create a brimming sense of life. 

Anyway, Kurapika comes across a row of environmental science textbooks you’ve stored in a cupboard meant for mugs and glass cups. He’s not surprised when he sees all the dog-eared pages and sticky tabs jutting out of it, but it’s strange that you’re reading such things. He never knew you were fond of science.

But there’s nothing better to do, and Kurapika would take any opportunity to learn more about you, so he thumbs through one of the textbooks, spending extra time chuckling over the pages you’ve practically made illegible with your penned annotations and doodles.

–

Melody doesn’t contact Kurapika until three weeks later. Basho had been tailing a man and arrived at a theatre four towns away. Apparently, during Izunavi’s and Melody’s shifts, they also followed separate library-goers to the same place. Though there was never a specific time or frequency at which these visitors came and went, they always sat at the same computer, reading up on the same topic of odorants. After some digging, it turns out the theatre is home to a collective of Fine Arts Hunters.

Kurapika wastes no time in reconvening with his colleagues at another hotel. After thorough investigations, he learns that, though the collective is large and a community for many musicians, artists, writers, and more, there’s a sub-group of members who’d go to extreme lengths to collect their desires, whether that be specific artworks or coveted tickets to ballet shows or even artists themselves. When he learns about this, a chill runs down his spine. Kurapika almost wishes that you won’t make it big, so you won’t ever be in such danger.

The next step then is to find the specific member who placed the transaction. Melody is more than happy to take on this infiltration mission.

“It might help me locate the Sonata of Darkness. I’ll report back soon.”

While it’s impossible for his anger to subside, even by the slightest degree, it’d be remiss of Kurapika to not feel immense gratitude and appreciation for his colleagues. Not only did he drag them into the succession fiasco, but he’s also now bringing them into his personal business. It’s almost ironic, really. Kurapika doesn’t like involving those that are important to him in personal matters, whether that be out of safety concerns or fear of betrayal, but it seems receiving aid once in a while can be immensely gratifying and beneficial.

Kurapika spends the next two days waiting for Melody’s return. As promised, she returns swiftly. Though she has no name, she is completely confident with her information.

“They’ll be at the exhibit.”

–

You don’t expect Kurapika to come home in the middle of the night. It’s not that you usually know when he comes home, but rather, you know he cares for you so much that he’d rather sleep outside than come back in the middle of the night with the risk of disturbing you, even though that’d never happen.

The unit is dark, aside from a single lamp that stands beside you. There’s also a stool placed next to your canvas, the largest that you’ve ever worked with, and your reference placed on top of it. It’s normal – and actually very encouraged – for artists to use references to aid them in their work.

You look at Kurapika’s frozen expression.

“Kurapika! You’re back!”

There’s no jumping into arms or tight holds on each other’s bodies or deep breaths of each other. You realize, then, scattered around you, on the floor, are several uncapped tubes of oil paint.

You scramble and fumble with your apology. “I-I know you said to not use oil paint inside, but you know, my exhibit’s in literally two days, and I’m still not happy with this painting, and –“

“Why do you have that.”

It’s not a question.

You can’t answer, regardless. You’re confused, so instead, you follow his line of sight to your reference.

“Oh, that?”

You drop your brush onto the ground, paying no mind to the smears of burgundy against the stone floor, and walk over.

You’re always mesmerized when you look at it. You mumble, feeling yourself entering an entranced daze, “It’s my reference. They’re really pretty, right?”

You have no idea what’s going through Kurapika’s mind. You’re no longer paying attention to him, so you can’t see the way his face contorts and distorts. You can’t hear the roaring in his ears or the pounding of his heart or the terrified, desperate, furious scream that is itching up from the pit of his stomach, up his esophagus, threatening to spill forth from his pharynx.

All you can think about is the red of these Scarlet Eyes you managed to get and how you want to replicate the same red in your painting.

“You know,” you whisper, hands delicately stroking the canister that holds the eyes, “I can never seem to get the right shade. But that’s because it’s not just red. There’s… gold, some flecks of hazelnut… For once, I can’t even describe a color with words…”

Kurapika swallows thickly.

In as steady of a voice as he can manage – which is not at all, so his voice just sounds low and is only a little louder than a grunt –, he grits, “Why do you have that.”

This time, you look up. Again, you don’t comment on his appearance. “I told you, it’s for my painting.”

“I didn’t know you were a Fine Arts Hunter.”

You startle at this. “Kurapika,” you gasp, “are you a Hunter, too? I didn’t know!”

“Answer the question.”

“Yes!” you chirp. “But just collecting is no fun, you know?”

“What do you mean.”

You shrug. “Well, I’m an artist, too, so I want to create the very paintings I want to collect! It’s a little weird idolizing those of my own kind.” You say the last part in a whisper, as if it’s some inside joke or reference that he’s supposed to be understand.

Kurapika knows he’s no damn artist. Now, more than ever, he’s glad that creative part of him, if it ever existed in the first place, is gone and dead.

“Why do you need those eyes.”

“You’re so interested in them. I can give them to you as soon as I’m done with them!”

He wants them now, but really, he wants them after prying it out of your cold, dead, rotting hands. Kurapika lurches forward, but you jump back in response.

“Hey! If you really want them, you can take them now!”

He lunges again, but you move away just in time again. This ferocious chase continues around the entire unit with you screaming at him to calm down while escaping his every attempt to catch you.

“Kurapika!” you yell, as you leap into the air, almost touching the ceiling of the unit. “I’m going to help calm you down, alright?”

He’s seething, but his combat instincts tell him to pay close attention at this very moment. “What are you going to do!” he shouts, frustrated that he’s missed you once again.

But before you can answer, Kurapika suddenly feels a sharp pain in his head, forcing him to still in his movements. You try to approach, but he backs away with every step you take, even though every movement makes him feel dizzier and dizzier. Eventually, he collides with the kitchen counter, where he can barely hold himself up.

“I’m a Transmutation nen user,” you explain. Kurapika doesn’t understand why your voice sounds so distant, as if it’s muffled by water or several compact cotton balls. But you don’t know that, so you continue explaining, “I can change the quality of air molecules, so I’m going to put you under for a bit.”

Kurapika can only manage to lazily look up at you. You’re chewing on your lip, guilt evident on your face. “That’s why it never really bothered me to use oil paints here because I studied how to neutralize the turpentine.”

That’s the last thing he hears before collapsing.

You scream in terror, running to catch him. But it’s too late as the side of Kurapika’s head collides with the sharp edge of the stone countertop. You hold onto his shoulders, preventing his unconscious body from slipping further down onto the floor, and you take off your apron to dab at the blood trckling down the lines of his neck and ears.

But that’s when you notice it. Or rather, that’s when it clicks.

You’ve always been annoyed at yourself for this, but Kurapika loves this about you. You’re so inconsistent, inspiration only coming in waves and bouts, but when it does hit you, you’re on a roll until you’re done. It’s frustrating, especially since becoming a professional artist usually necessitates having to consistently produce bodies of work to make a living, but it’s never been an entire hindrance.

Truly, though, you’ve never had as big of a revelation until now. You heave Kurapika’s body over to the lamp that is now lying on its side, most likely having been knocked over by your game of tag earlier. You swipe at his blood again, this time with a crumpled sheet of notepad paper, and you watch as the color blooms and spreads through the corner.

It’s not like you’ve never used blood, or the human body for that matter, before in your work. Now that you recall, the one who gave you the Scarlet Eyes made you create a series of artworks out of some dismembered body parts he had. You crinkle your nose at the recollection, having remembered how horrible of an experience it was given that man’s fetishes.

You come back to the thought of Kurapika’s blood, and you know that he’s what you need. Your artwork lacks the haunting depth of the red in the Scarlet Eyes, and no amount of blue or purple or brown can fix it. Kurapika’s blood, though, is already so vivid and striking against the cream of the notepad, and you have no doubt it will blend beautifully with the snow white of the canvas, as well as the other colors you already have painted on.

You make a mental note to check how blood reacts to oil paint. It shouldn’t change much in color or smell, you hypothesize, but you’ll have your friends look it up for you like always.

You lean down, kissing Kurapika softly on the lips.

In a loving, gentle whisper, you say, “You know, Kurapika? You’re always so kind and helpful to me.

Even in death.”

winter event masterlist

[s-4pphics]

moth. (e.w.)

Protected by the Crest. Guarded by light. 

����𝓡𝓞𝓛𝓞𝓖𝓤𝓔

SYNOPSIS: knights of the devil, you all are to be conquered. 

WORD COUNT: 2.2k

WARNINGS: vampire!ellie, vampirekiller!oc, a lot to come FUCK, violence… so blood(drinking), death, murder, gore, suicide, religion briefly, cult-ish bindings, ellie's coven is so cunt, mentions of witchcraft, future tags: hypnosis, abducting, crazy smut

teaser.

1927

Dawn. Combat. Nightfall. Rest. 

Dawn. Combat. Nightfall. Rest. 

The cycle formed over the last decade has revolutionized you. It is all you know; the only remainder of solace you have in this dastard domain. The older you've grown, the more burials you attend. For strangers, for comrades. For children who have been brutalized and left to rot like swine. All enacted by the Devils that lurk in darkness. Radicalization overcame your senses; first writhed beneath your bones at the age of thirteen when intent to kill the Earth’s torturers flourished within you. Welcomed your stout standing with an offered, sharply angled wood. You have read. You have fought. You have been scarred and beaten bloody by the Overseers; suffered numerous nights of unrest due to the wails of your comrades under their scrutiny. 

Another burial, another Overseer. A prime Hunter that controls your underground dominion, trapped trenches below civilization that beam with only candlelight and the creeping rays of the flaming sun.

Protected by the Crest. Guarded by light. 

The lines you march alongside your comrades are congruous; heads covered with black hoods, dozens of silver-soled heels echoing against the tunnel walls. Not one Hunter out of place. Gruesome symmetry. The narrow halls of the tunnel spread into a perfect sphere near its end. Hunters due their promotion disperse along the widening space, encircling the flaming Crest in the center of the chamber. Both rows of teeth are inseparable; a dull ache in your jaw. 

Your heartbeat is reminiscent of drums. Each step is calculated. A second of delay, and… your brain cannot fathom the consequences. 

Rows of comrades enclose and tighten, standing strong before the risen floors where the Overseers inspect their battalion, hoods removed and insignia burning through their black capes. You sneak glances at them despite the rules of a downcast gaze in their presence; no longer than a second. Their years of battle have overtaken their appearance; gray drapes of wool that cascade their shoulders, creases by the eyes and mouth, hands that tremor. 

“Rise.” 

Necks crane until straightened. Palms raise for the Uncovering, hoods pushed until they lay flat at the peak of spines. The first time your heads have seen the unnatural light of the underground. Your Overseer from your recruitment has been replaced with anew; woman, tall and eyes as kind as a doe, but just as ruthless, just as conniving as he. Her lips spread around her white teeth, somehow more venomous than the ghouls that taunt the lands. 

“Welcome to the commencement of our Prodigies.” 

Despite you being only three rows from the raised platform, the Overseer sounds miles away. The rushing in your ears; the thumping in your chest is intruding. 

“You are all here to be recognized for your efforts. You should be proud of choosing the path of righteousness. Your dedication does not go unnoticed, and today marks the finality of your attainment.” 

“We bless you all with our thanks. For this night embarks society’s next generation of Hunters. You have all accepted your duty as a protector. A leader. A virtuous soldier for our Lord.” 

“The battle against Demons will be unkind… Many will be lost, but after years of sacrifice, use this night as a celebration of your bravery…” 

Silence. Then a seized breath. Faulting from an Overseer is unforeseen. 

“It may be your last chance to witness a night of peace… Of unity.” 

Her sudden somber timbre jostles your comrades, backs stiffened under their cloaks. Empathy: considered a display of weakness from your leaders. 

The winds of the tunnel shifted, aimed to suffocate. 

“Live as kings for this last night. Eat, drink… dance if you must. Because come dawn, you will abandon comfort, and return to the higher lands where anguish awaits.” 

One overseer, the man closest to the orator, extends a black, velvet pillow to her. A silver chain dangles from her wrinkled hands; a Hunters pendant, bordering a lit flame. 

“As the world’s Hunters, you will be honored with our sanctuary’s Crest. This will be your protection against the Lustful… They have demonstrated a great deal of power as they develop… Their spread is alarming… To even us.” 

“Do not fall victim to their allure. Their only desire is our demise. Deceit is their only weapon… But it will never compare to the light in your hearts.” 

Rumors have spread through the training grounds; ones of Hunters, Overseers, being blinded by their darkest desires. Controlled by the Devil’s knights to turn against each other. Entranced by pleasure, by riches. By immortality. Their desperation of becoming the rulers of society, tyrants of the land, past the seas… Brought them to their end. Many believed they were created to birth disarray — distrust between comrades. You, still, are not sure what to believe. 

“… All of your souls are blessed… Even in death.” 

Your palm rests over your pounding heart in oath recitation, promising to die for the cause of freedom. For humanity. The remainder of the ceremony hazes as cloaked patrons emerge from the depths of the cave as the Overseers disperse, dressing prideful Hunters with their pendants. They hang perfectly at the center of the sternum, the flames roaring the closer it lays to the heart. 

Your eyes do not wither from the ground, even with the silver shoes before you that penetrate the dirt. An Overseer is not often chosen to promote a Hunter, but she — the orator — blesses you. The heft of your pendant weighs heavy on your shoulders. You sigh a breath of relief at the glow behind metal. 

“Protected by the Crest. Guarded by light.” You say, dismissing your shock with a hand on your chest.

“Guarded, you are…” 

Her declaration is barely a whisper. She pauses, trembling pupils entangled with the glow of your chain, hypnotized by its glimmer. 

“Child.” 

You remain indifferent at her condemnation, against the gulp from your throat. She inspects your stance with the strength of a stalking lion before vanishing, cape gusting up dryness from below. 

“Someone’s special.” 

A hushed snark airs from behind you. Made to be a laughingstock for your comrades once again. But you are not 13. All naivety has been torn from your consciousness, and your vacancies are filled with revenge. 

The cave, for the first time since your recruitment, is undisciplined. Bass from the celebratory drums. Laughter… Laughter from your comrades, Overseers, patrons you recall from passing as they cheers with the finest wine. Intimidation and constraint are no longer. And still, you take no part in true fellowship. Jollity is forbidden. Leisure is forbidden. Benevolence is forbidden. You, and others amongst —children— were trained to hunt. To slain those who left the world in shatters. A morphed weapon of justice.

A laid hand on your shoulder makes you jolt, left frozen when you're met with the orator from the commencement. 

Come, she whispers, and you follow her path through the tunnels of the cave. She retrieves a lantern from the cavity floors and leads you to its corners, deep and untouched. Never once have you seen an Overseer smile, but she is. A pitiful one. 

“Why do you worry, Child?” 

“I do not worry,” You bite more than needed, “And I am not a child.” 

She takes no offense, “Pardon me. Why do you worry, Hunter?” Her tone is mocking, and your blood churns. 

One slip of tongue could earn a blade in your chest. You self-soothe with the foggy air expanding in your lungs. Your agitation calms, only briefly. 

“I do not worry,” Easier on the ears, “I am believed to be more than prepared—“

“There is no preparation against the Devils.” The hiss of a viper, her mouth turned down in dissatisfaction of your attitude. Your brows pinch. 

“Why have you brought me here?” 

Her chest rises and falls and her hands interlock. 

“Do you know your history, Hunter?” 

“It is all I’ve ever known, Master.” You retort with similar irreverence.

“Not the history of the Devils, you imbecile. You. Do you know of your lineage?” 

Your head rattles, “Surely not… A-All outside knowledge of history is forbidden. That is all we’ve ever been taught—“

“Shame on your mother for leaving you useless.” 

Her slander resonates through the tunnel and your conscience dissolves. The blade you always wield in your sheath presses against the throat of your superior, indented around the aged skin.

“I did not follow you to be defamed,” You rebuke with bared teeth, “Do not speak of my mother.” 

“What spirit…” Others would not blink twice at the mention of their family, dead or alive. 

“The Devils starve, Child.” She whispers. 

“What.” 

“They starve… Desperation grows within them as they migrate. They kill anything they can.” Distress grows in her face as she blathers. “Black magic. I have seen its bounds before my eyes. They have tormented and feasted on the blood of your ancestors! The controller of all Devils… She waits to enslave the last of your name—“

“I HAVE NO NAME!” 

Why must she lie? Why are you only hearing of this now? She lies. A shout that cracks through the underground. 

“Your lineage is most susceptible to the curse! You…” 

Tears hang from your lashes before splintering your cheeks. Panic-struck heaves hit your leader’s, her flyways brushing against her nose.

“They’ll torture you, Child.”

Sympathy. Survival. There is no difference. 

“What does it matter?” You whisper painfully, and your blade drops to your side, weeps unmasked. “So many have died before me. I-I do—“

“Your mother was one of us.”

Her wails are quiet and urgent.

“Ask… pray for her guidance.” 

“Mas—“

The Overseer advantages the weakness of your wrist; snags your blade from between your fingertips and glides the edge across her jugular, maroon coating her hands as she chokes on her own blood, her eyes glazing as she slides down the wall. You holler, knees weakening when her gargling form collapses into your arms. Life drains from her eyes with every exclamation you throw to the Heavens. You shout for help, but the depths are too narrow. 

No one comes. 

-

-

-

You, by the grace of your Lord, somehow managed to flee the concaves without being spotted by your commune, cloak submerged in blood that is masked by its darkness. Anxiety forged in the pit of your stomach; unable to return to your base for the last peaceful rest, you ran. You cowered. Just when you believed it was out of your nature. 

An Overseer committed suicide, and you were the only witness. 

You went to your chambers after the accident—warning? — stuffed what you could into your satchel, and escaped the iron gates of your former home. Scaled them like a rabid hyena until your bandaged soles combined with tall greenery. The scene of never-ending land doesn’t ease your nerves, but you sprint until your lungs burn and your legs give out. 

Your path is blind, but your end is near. 

All fingers point at you. 

The greatest form of betrayal. 

The lifeblood of the wealthy always curdles: from concealed shame. From ego. From both; It always leaves a sour film over her tongue. Despairing times. The rosewood floors are bathed in red as the last breaths of her victim shake through her bedroom. A beautiful one, she was; dressed in skirts and stockings that ripped at the lightest touch. 

Blood drips down from Ellie’s mouth to the collar of her unbuttoned shirt, stains seeping into the crew of her undershirt. Barely any effort was needed to lure them all in. Desperation makes obscenity much sweeter. 

A knock erupts from the other side of her door before a sugary utterance echoes, “May I come in?” 

Ellie scoffs at the pester. 

“You may…” She replies.

The door opens, and she’s met with soft eyes twinkling with brown and burgundy. 

Her brow arches, “Not.” She concludes.

The raven-haired girl squints playfully and shuts the door behind her, “Hush, now,” Her strides are strong and assertive, puddles of red soaking the bottom of her heels. 

“Quite the mess,” she mutters at the scene with an upturned nose, “It smells.” 

“Who am I to complain?” 

“The only one that complains,” Her soft hands land on Ellie’s shoulders, and she sighs, taking in the worn appearance of her partner: under eyes darkened and sunk in, dry lips, voice hoarse.

“I bare news.” Dina whispers. 

Ellie curls a tweel of black hair around her finger, “Hm?” 

Dina leans in close, arms locking around the back of her lover’s neck, lips brushing Ellie’s ear. 

“Our little flower is on the loose.” 

Ellie’s body locks, and pressure grows in her fangs. “Liar.” She gasps.

“Nuh uh,” A kiss is planted to the corner of her stained mouth, “Word is she’s fled the sanctuary. Searches are apparently ongoing.” 

“Where.” Ellie presses. 

“Not sure… I came to ask if we should plan for her… arrival while the ladies are away.” Dina suggests with a conniving smirk. 

Ellie’s lips curl dangerously around her sharp teeth, a blinding white. She lifts her darling off the ground, spinning her in celebration as she squeals, droplets of evidence seeping deeper into the floorboards. 

“Absolutely.” 

wittle taglist :3 HIII DEAR: @elliewilliamsblunt

[saiintvalentiine]

three dog night

Summary: three dog night - a night so cold that it would take three dogs to keep warm.

It's the longest night of the year. It's the coldest too. Something escapes into the depth of the forest, and Wato is about to find out an unfortunate truth.

Word count: 3,081

Notes: heavily inspired by stories of the Korean gumiho, I bring to you: my insane ramblings that I'll be passing off as a Christmas gift for you guys. This is a real mess so you'll have to super suspend your disbelief for it. Warnings for gore, violence, and death. Feel free to point out any SPAG errors, b/c this is unedited af. Enjoy.

The cold feels good. It's painful on his face, biting his nose and chapping his lips. But his heart, missing its pearl and as black as the night sky, beats easier in the freezing temperatures.

The hunger is the only thing keeping him upright.

He has no idea how long it's been since he escaped the facility. Time moves like sludge in the winter, white flakes on his white hair on a white world, with only the white moon watching between the pines. It can't have been more than a few hours.

There's a man walking. He's walking through a forest alone, which is strange and dangerous, but the man smells like liquor. It travels through the air like a whip crack, his tail puffing up in subconscious disgust. A rotten liver. But the man’s heartbeat is strong and hot and loud, and he is oh so hungry.

Even in his current state, it's easy to crack the man's skull open with a rock. His body gags, tries to bring his pearl up only to come up empty. Pearlless. A dud. He doesn't care. He descends upon the body, tearing through fabric and flesh all the same, and finds the still-beating heart between splintered rib bones. The first bite is too hasty, splatters blood all over the exsanguinating corpse and his face and clothes, but the hunger dulls— it's not about the blood, after all, although it does soothe his throat. He eats every scrap of muscle until his breath starts to run hot enough to fog in the air.

The liver is, in fact, rotten to the taste, but he eats it anyway. None of the other organs entice him, speak to him, demand his teeth on their sanguine surfaces. He contemplates taking the man's shoes, but as he licks his hands clean, he decides he's taken enough. The body would dissolve away soon enough.

He struggles to stand up, snow sinking and melting with the warm blood. He's still hungry. He gags again, coughs out a spray of sparkling black. No pearl. Just the starry darkness on his chest. If he doesn't keep eating, he won't last, not without a pearl.

He tries to wipe the blood off of his face, but he can't see if he's making any progress. Burying his hands in fresh snow, he rubs it into his face, pointed ears flicking to catch any suspicious sound.

He stands up, bare feet padding through the snow in a staccato. His face is wet and cold, globs of pink snow dripping down from his cheeks. He doesn't really know where he's going, just that he is, and that he needs to eat again.

It's the longest night of the year. If there's one drunk, there's a hundred. He'll eat again or he'll die, and he can't die so soon after breaking free, so he will eat again.

Wato is pretty good with the cold. It doesn’t bother them as badly, wolf blooded as they are, but it’s still cold as fuck out here. They heard someone say it was going to be the coldest night of the season tonight, which they’re not too sure about, but it feels like the coldest night of the season so far. Though—

Wato’s memory has been spotty lately. They’d never say that their memory was the best, but it had never been so bad. They’re not even really sure what they’re doing in this town surrounded far and wide by an old growth taiga. This is, maybe, they think, the town where Wifies has his big ole escape room warehouse. Craning their head, Wato spots the looming shape of the bulky building, taller than most of the buildings in town but smaller than the spruce trees. Wato’s been there a few times, helped make a few rooms. Checking their chat, it looks like that’s exactly what Wato was doing here. The last message in Wifies’s chat is from Wato announcing they’d arrived.

Memory problems are no joke. Wato really needs to get onto fixing it. It's just a bad season for that kind of thing, with daylight hours so scant and time already stretched thin.

Walking through town feels like walking through a shut-down movie set. Everything is quiet, the only movement coming from a bar Wato passes with disinterest. The snow dampens all sound, freshly laid though the sky is clear now, so low and quiet that even their ears struggle to catch much. There’s a clear border where the town ends and the forest starts, and Wato stands on the threshold. Digging through their pockets, they’re thrilled to find their box of cigs and lighter. Popping the box open, they snort. One cigarette is left, flipped around.

“It’s my lucky,” Wato mutters, pulling it out of the box and flipping it back over the right way.

Holding the correct end in their mouth, they struggle with their lighter for a few moments. It sparks but doesn’t light, and the wind isn’t helping. Through the sharp, grating noise of the sparkwheel failing over and over, they hear. . . something. It’s quiet, but it sounds like someone panting or breathing heavily. Their ears flick, angling towards the forest. Glancing over, Wato doesn’t see much, but the treeline is thick and dark. They pocket the cigarette and lighter.

“Hello?” Wato calls out. “Is there anyone out there? You okay?”

The noise stops. The crunch of snow takes over. Someone with a notable limp from the sound of it.

“Hey, if you need help, there’s still places open in town,” Wato calls out.

Their suit and loafers are ill equipped for the snow. At least the streets are salted. They’re not going into the brush if they can help it. There’s movement, tree branches shaking and shedding a thin layer of snow. From behind an ancient trunk, a white head with pointed white ears appear— and then red, staining the tangled tips and neck of—

“Wifies?!”

Wifies— it can’t be Wifies, Wifies has dark hair and soft, folded ears that are only mottled with small spots of white. But it’s Wifies’s face, gaunt maybe, eyes the wrong color, a shimmery violet-gold instead of deep dark brow.

Those violet eyes dilate. The pupil eats the iris up until he looks more right. Wato takes a step towards him, slow, since they don’t want to startle him if he’s hurt.

Wifies books it in the other direction.

Wato doesn’t think about it; they make chase. They’re not sure if it’s concern for Wifies, or an unfortunate trigger of their prey drive, but it doesn’t matter. They can’t just let Wifies (maybe Wifies?) go if he’s hurt. The scent of blood is thick, tangy, easy to follow, and Wato lets their nose guide them to weave between trees.

The limp is even more noticeable now that they can see him, along with the absolutely drenched state of his clothes, with both blood and water. Even in their horrible shoes, they catch up to him easily.

“Wifies! Slow down!”

He might say something like no, but the air whipping past them both destroys all sound. Wato hates to do this, but they can’t think of a better solution. Bracing their shoulder, they speed up and ram right into Wifies’s back, knocking him flat. Wifies goes rolling, like a white and grey bowling ball, crashing into the stump of a felled tree. Wato cringes as they slow down.

“Sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to stop you!”

Wato slows down, crouching in front of Wifies, body winded from the chase.

“Wifies—”

He darts up and hisses, all animal instinct and fear and sharp, sharp teeth. Wato doesn’t flinch. This. . . Imposter Wifies? Is clearly some kind of fox, tail puffed and ears pinned in fear. Wato can out run him if need be. Foxes are sly but he’s already hurt and slow. He struggles to climb over the tree stump and away from Wato while keeping eye contact.

“You’re not Wifies,” Wato says. “But you look like him. Who are you?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, voice crackling, sounding just like Wifies, a non answer. “I like you. You were nice to me. But I’m hungry, and I don’t want to hurt you.”

What?

There’s a crack. Both Wato and the fox snap to attention. The wind that cuts through the trees is blowing away from both them and the noise, so Wato can’t smell anything about what it might have been. The fox shifts until he’s behind the stump, and Wato can tell he’s getting ready to run again.

“Your leg’s busted,” Wato whispers, still staring into the depths of the forest. “Where are you even gonna go?”

“I need to eat,” the fox says, then again, “I need to eat,” and then he spirals, hysterical but quiet, “I need to eat, I need to eat, I need to eat.”

Another crack. The fox scrambles back. An arrow whizzes through the air, burying deep into the top of the stump at an angle. Wato jumps away, and the fox scuttles like some kind of prey animal behind a tree.

“Did I get him?”

It's disorienting seeing Wifies, the Wifies that Wato knows, come into the clearing, while the fox that wears his face sits only a few feet away. He’s holding a crossbow and is wearing a lab coat that has to be doing absolutely nothing for the cold.

“Did you just try to shoot him?” Wato says, processing what just happened.

Wifies glances over, void eyes sucking in the bright moonlight like blackholes.

“He stole my face, Wato,” Wifies says, a black ear twitching. Wato can’t help but flick their own ear out. “Plus, he’s not some innocent little fox.”

“He’s already hurt.”

“Oh? Did you get that eating your first real heart, 24?”

The fox gags. It’s a disgusting noise, like he’s trying to drag something up and out of him, but nothing happens— at least Wato can’t hear him throw up or anything of the like.

“No pearl, no heart, no name,” Wifies notches another arrow in his crossbow, and Wato feels their hackles rise. “And a stolen face. Make this easy for me, 24.”

“I’m not going back,” the fox says, snow crunching as he retreats.

“Wifies, what’s going on?” Wato inches closer. “I was here today. We were working together. This is—”

“I was hoping you would’ve left already, because prolonged exposure makes you hard to control,” Wifies sighs, pulling something out from the inner pocket of his lab coat. “But I guess I can work with a few more hours of exposure.”

Wato sees the mask. It’s the Omz Mask, the one they had to pry off of Ken’s face. How the fuck was it here? Why did Wifies have it? The crossbow is pointed at Wato, mask held out casually.

“Put it on,” Wifies says.

“Do you even know what you’re holding?” Wato asks, stepping back. Wifies matches them step for step.

“I know. Put it on.”

“No.”

The crossbow fires, and Wato dodges, but it manages to clip their shoulder. Harming radiates off the wound, blurring their vision. Wifies notches another arrow.

“What the fuck is wrong with you!”

“Put it on.”

Jesus fucking Christ, what has Wato gotten into? Their eyes dark around, trying to find— something! Anything! A wisp of red circles behind Wifies.

“I won’t,” Wato says, voice rising. “What’s gotten into you?! Put the fucking crossbow down. That mask is dangerous, Wifies, it destroys the psyche of whoever wears it, did you hear what it did to Kenadian?!”

“It was Kenadian’s blunder that allowed me to get to it in the first place. He’s the fool who—”

A branch cracks across Wifies’s temple, thick and dark and wet. Wifies is felled, though he manages to trigger the crossbow on his way down; it sinks into Wato’s thigh, and Wato falls back onto the snow with a scream. The fox lifts the branch again, shaking, sleeves sliding down, and Wato’s focus comes in and out, but the fox is bludgeoning Wifies as best as he can. It's sickening, and Wato feels bile rise in their throat.

“Stop,” they cry out. “Stop!”

The fox stops, dropping the stick and looking at Wifies.

“I need to eat,” the fox says. “I have no pearl. I need to eat.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Wato is willing to believe that this is all some kind of horrible feverish nightmare as the fox drops down on his knees and begins to tear through Wifies. He digs into Wifies's back and rips him apart, blood scattering like snowflakes in the air and stringy muscle melting into powdery white. The sticky haze of pain from his leg, the dizzying realization of where his memories may have gone, being threatened by someone they thought was a friend, and now a fox plucking a human heart out and eating it like it’s an apple— it’s all too much. Wato tries to crawl away.

“What the fuck, what the fuck,” Wato says over and over again, because they need to say something to the sight of a— they think it's a kidney? They don't know, they're not familiar with internal organs. “You're eating him, what the fuck!”

“He has it,” the fox whispers between bites of viscera. “He has to have it. He likes trophies. Where is it?”

Through the fox’s scratching and digging around, he finds “it”, Wato guesses, because he makes a thrilled chittering noise and holds something small and round to the light.

“My pearl,” the fox says, opening his mouth and dropping the pearl in.

The strangest thing happens, though Wato isn't sure if it's the strangest thing to happen tonight. The fox straightens up and his face brightens. Wato hadn’t realized, but this whole time, the fox’s breath hadn’t been visible until now. It rises like steam off his face, and he shudders. He then continues to loot a dead body he just cannibalized.

Wato is still unsuccessfully trying to get the fuck away when the fox stands up and stalks over to them.

“I like you,” the fox says, like he’s trying to remind Wato’s muddled mind.

“You just killed a guy! A friend of mine!”

“He was going to put the mask on you,” the fox kneels and grabs Wato’s ankle. “Stop moving, I’m gonna get the arrow out.”

“I’m going to bleed out if you do that!”

“Nah.”

Nah? Nah?! What world is Wato in right now? The fox straddles their calf.

“Stop it,” Wato bares their teeth, trying to growl through the nausea.

“Wato!”

Wato snaps up to look at the fox, covered in gore, stained ears to tail in red and pink, and doesn’t know what to say or do or feel. The fox wipes a bloodied hand through the snow, then wipes it on the back of his own sweater, and then places a potion bottle in the snow next to Wato’s hand. Their suit is heavy with melted snow, clinging to their skin and numbing their senses.

“I need to get this out,” the fox says, bracing his newly “cleaned” hand on Wato’s thigh next to the arrow’s barrel. “And you’re going to drink that when I do.”

“Are you fucking delusio—”

The fox yanks the arrow out of Wato’s leg, and Wato chokes on their words and collapses onto their back. The arrow is tossed away and the fox swirls the potion in Wato’s sightline.

“Drink,” the fox insists, tipping it into their mouth.

Wato only struggles for a moment, until the taste of melon convinces them to swallow. It hits their system like a wave, the wound on their arm closing first, and then the pain in their joints disappearing next.

The fox stops about halfway through the potion. He puts it back in the snow and scrambles off and back to Wifies’s body. Wato sits up, panting, watching the fox take the Omz Mask in hand.

“Wait, wait,” Wato grabs the potion, their leg still bleeding. “What are you— you can’t take that!”

“I like you,” the fox says, taking a step back, then another. “But I don’t trust you.”

“Please, just— don’t go, explain to me what just happened?”

The fox hesitates, and Wato drinks the rest of the potion, finally able to stand up again as the arrow wound sews shut.

“No,” the fox decides, turning around and running.

“What the fuck,” Wato freezes.

Wifies’s body is here, but the fox killed him, so it’s— fuck. Wato curses and follows the fox. Even with the head start, the fox still has a bad leg and the tang of blood trails him like a ribbon. Wato only realizes where they’re heading for once the silhouette of the warehouse breaks through the treeline, the fox zig-zagging between trees and around the northernmost wall of the warehouse. He cuts around the front, and Wato hurries— they have no idea how to get into the warehouse if the fox locks the main entrance, and they don’t have anything to break in with right now.

Rounding the corner, Wato has to stop and catch their breath, because the fox is gone. Checking the warehouse door, it’s unlocked. Wato doesn’t want to go inside. What they want is for their inconvenient memory loss to be convenient for once, and forget whatever the hell just happened, and leave.

“Wato?”

Turning around, Ken stands behind them in a puffer jacket and beanie.

“Wato! Are you okay?” Ken rushes over and grabs Wato’s arms, inspecting them with an increasingly furrowed brow. “I haven’t heard from you in two weeks dude, what’s going on?”

Wato doesn’t know what to say. Their legs hurt, their lungs are filled with pins and needles, and their head can’t stop replaying the decay of their night.

“It’s a three dog night out here,” Ken mutters, shivering. “Can we go in?”

“You have no idea,” Wato replies. “And you will not fucking believe what’s happened to me.”

The sharpened smell of blood is gone, like the fox hadn’t cut through here at all, but Wato knows that can’t be true. The sky is still dark and the night still has legs and Wato has seen more than they know what to do with. It all presses against their mind.

They say the only thing they can think of.

“Ken, I think I’m in trouble. I need your help.”

[hughiecampbelle]

Necromancy (Hannibal Lecter Oneshot)

Character/s: Hannibal, Will mention

Word Count: 1,314

Tag List: @locke-writes

A/N: Ahhh okay truthfully I still feel a little shaky about writing Hannibal in character, but I got this idea and couldn't stop myself from writing lol. I plan on watching more within the next few days so I can write him better!! I love this fic though, just like the others, and I'm so happy I get to share!! Thank you for letting me share!!! Feedback is always appreciated!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤

WRITING EVENT 🔪🩸

I don’t feel anything. Your voice is stable, flat, made of concrete. It falls heavy to the floor, breaking apart in sharp, bumpy pieces. You imagine it cracking open though there is nothing of interest inside. How boring. Nothing? He questions, adjusting his gaze. Yes, you think, but do not say. Yes. Yes. Yes. Even talking, like this, feels like too much effort. You haven’t been looking at him. Meeting his eyes means something you’re not yet ready to face. Instead you sit, spine straight, hands fumbling. Cracking each knuckle, each finger, over and over until they stop popping. Even then you don’t stop. Pointer. Middle. Ring. Pinky. Rinse and repeat. The pattern, the routine, offers a comfort you can’t explain. No doubt he is watching, taking note, though it would be unlike himself to bring it up. At least, in an obvious way. Direct. It isn’t nothing. I think it is an overwhelming grief. You’ve been abandoned by a paternal figure. Left to face gore and carnage without protection, physical and psychological. He raises an eyebrow, as if to ask your thoughts. You look away, dropping your hands in your lap where they might clutch together, nails to palms, in an attempt to feel something. What does Jack have to do with this? As if to say go on, think deeper, Hannibal leans back in his chair, his arms open. He doesn’t, you think stubbornly, childishly. This wasn’t on him. This was on the unsub. This was on you. 

Phantom stitches seep into your neck. They missed the jugular. Barely. Have you been having any nightmares? No. Yes, your mind spits back. You stand, unable to sit any longer, wandering around the office space. Yes. They’re theatrical. Beautiful, even, if you weren’t the one bleeding out. Your hands are slippery with red, unable to grasp your neck, the wound, to prevent hemorrhaging. Your words come out gurgled. Wet. You’re begging for your life. Now it feels pathetic. Embarrassing. Your co-workers are a witness to your desperation. Will covered in it. Splattered. You see now that his glasses, the lenses, are smeared with it, too. His hands, unwavering. He’s talking to you, trying to calm you down, but you are inconsolable. Tears run down your cheeks. You don’t want to die. More true, you don’t want to become another one of their victims. You are like this forever. Together. Panicked and scared, Will your only observer. Only he will know your final moments. Black spots seep into your vision. You want to tell him this, ask him if this is a sign of dying, but you can’t. Your body is cold and your lips, your tongue, are too heavy. There are paramedics. Flashing lights. Will left in the pool of blood as you’re lifted on a stretcher. Gloved hands with pristine white gauze press into you, your throat. Hannibal by your side. He appeared suddenly, behind him Jack, your friends, all of them wearing worry, fear, over their expressions. The unsub got away. You close your eyes and relive these moments. Relive the way their knife, serrated, tries to slice through you. It’s duller than they thought. They have to work at it. You try to fight them off, you do, but they’re stronger. 

Do you think you’re ready to go back into the field? Instinctively, your hand comes up, brushing the scar around your. Like a pearl necklace. The skin is shiny, thick and chewy. Stop it. Do you? You ask. It isn’t up to me. You find the statue of a buck, black and sleek, the material cold under your fingertips. You follow the arch of its neck, the proudness of its antlers, the shyness of its face. He is wrong and you both know this. Your sessions started in the hospital. Medically induced. You were out of it for a few days. When you came to, they sat on either side of you. Will looked exhausted. The circles under his eyes are deep and bruise-like. Even Hannibal, always put together, let his tie hang loose. As if he were hypnotic, Will follows his orders, under his spell: go home, change, get some sleep. He squeezes your hand before leaving, promising he’ll be back as soon as possible. He began talking to you through everything they knew. Who the unsub was, why they went after you, where they’re headed next. Later, you’d need him to repeat himself. The words floated above you, milky and warm. The pain medications were strong, abundant through your veins. When you’re a little stronger, more aware, he begins to assess you. 

Weeks you spent in that room, the whole place sterile and unfamiliar. Eventually you were allowed to bathe, to dress, to eat by yourself. Hannibal split his time between you and the rest of the team, coming in after visiting hours, his voice quiet and neutral when he asks you questions. Are you in any pain? Do you remember what happened? Could you make a positive identification? His presence a fixture in that place, like the gossip of the nurses in the hall or the silver bedpans that mock you. He never complained. He never let the long days work interfere with his time with you. Gentle, his mannerisms soft. Helping you up the first time you got out of that bed. Advocating for you when you felt unheard, unseen. Lulling you out of your panic when the nightmares start. You don’t talk about them. You still haven’t. They’re none of his business. Jack orders mandatory therapy when you’re released. Rest, he said, and for the love of God, talk to him. All you wanted was to go back to work. You were fine. But it is, you mumble with frustration. You don’t think I’m ready and that’s why I can’t go back. You’ve got me on desk duty! You apologize for the outburst, but he shrugs it off. So the lectures aren’t fulfilling? You stare him down, an attitude in your voice you haven’t recognized since adolescence. What do you think? You collect paperwork. You organize pictures for the presentations. You help Will rehearse for his classes. That is all you’re allowed. Any talk of the unsub that attacked you is forbidden. Hannibal thought some distance between you and the case might do you some good. 

I don’t feel anything, you reiterate. Not about being attacked, not about the person who attacked me, none of it. I’ve moved on. But Hannibal knows better. You’ve become fixated on catching them, hunting them, making them hut the way you have been hurt. A flick switched in your brain. Perhaps it was the begging, the pleading, the humiliation you feel for acting a certain way in front of your peers, equally as skilled, equally as detached. Perhaps it's wanting what you can’t have. You stole the case file from Will, unsuspecting, and made copies. Got rid of any evidence. You stare at their picture, their face, imagining what you will do to them when you’re alone together. Falling asleep with their M.O. memorized. You don’t know that he knows, that he understands. This wrath inside you, seeking justice. You’ve become what you study, getting in the minds of unsubs, speaking to the dead, putting the puzzle together. Necromancers, they would have called you, said you worked magic. You and Will, your shared abilities. Things changed. Shifted. You were the victim this time. It was personal. You can’t sit back and let them do all the work. This is your case, your unsub. It would be reckless of him to let you go back to work. Negligent, even. There’s no telling what you’re capable of in the state you’re in. It could end bloody. It could end in death, as all things usually do. It could end with your knife in their neck. Let me talk to Jack.

[cryptidghostgirl]

Hey hey! i have a third angsty silly idea teehee (yes same person who requested the one where wife reader gets teleported to the hotel and the one with the fake dating trope-)

Im at it again with my silly ideas i can’t quite get out of my head- so picture this RIGHT before the begging of the second fic (loved it btw if i could id kiss you on the mouth)

(this interaction is important) Reader is eyeing Alastor to subconsciously make him talk to her, he does of course it goes a bit like “Alastor dear, havent seen you before?” "Just moved in, thought of making some acquaintances” and they talk, reader tells him “a charmer too? should be careful around you not to break my heart” or smth smilar idk i suck at dialogue

And then the partnership happens and theyve been at it for a while (like at least 5 years id say)- until Readers twin brother dies in a planned house fire and she goes out for revenge, before that they have a fight like “youre going to be out numbered” “its suicide” blah blah blah- and eventually reader goes out alone

She does manage to to kill the criminals but because of the cold January weather and the exhaustion of it all- reader gets hypothermia and in the frenzy thats caused by it stumbles and falls into a fence spike of an abandoned farmhouse, gets impaled right below the ribs teehee, Alastor eventually finding her and goes out to bury her properly.

readers death happens in 1925 -8 years before alastor which gibes her enough time to take over half the pentagram with her blizzard/ice powers (cuz i think theyre. cool ;)) and is also important reader has a long tail with fluff (which can turn into a heart shaped fur or have happy/angry twitches) at the end because i think its cute and because her demon form has one so it matches (think the faceless room guardians by anyaboz on IG but fully white- with a void face from which emerges a dog skull at will). the normal form being overall relatively normal aside from the long ears and black limbs that symbolize the hypothermia part of the death (Yes this is an Oc but im making it a bit more generic for everyone :>)

When alastor does die in 1933 (when he got shot visiting readers grave) he hears of this blizzard overlord and goes a bit into her territory and into a bar where he sees a somewhat familiar person teehee and they have the same first conversation over again but in hell :D and then get reunited but possibly pull out their signature weapons on each other again for old times sake 😇

also i love you so much for taking the time to write my dreams it does mean quite a lot to me and if you want i can give more ideas because i have a lot more- 😇 (im tottaly not insane and or delusional i swear-)

A/N of course?? I’m obsessed with your requests. they’re always so fun. Also as a heads up, I decided not to do this as a part to for cover up because I got an earlier request asking to do a part two for that and I try to address requests in the order I receive them. I also made some other minor changes just to make it work a little smoother. Also, please keep sending in requests, yours are always so fun.

Frostbite (Alastor X Reader)

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: Murder, death, gore, arson, a little bit of angst.

Word Count: 3,949

Master Lists:

Master Lists 

Hazbin Hotel Master List

Alastor sat at the bar of Mimzy's club drinking like he did every friday night. Normally the whirling dancers and loud music merely served to give him a headache, normally he ignored them and all the fans who somehow recognized him from the radio. Tonight was far from normal, tonight there was someone new.

Spinning on the dance floor, the fringe of her blood red dress spinning out from her legs. The woman was all smiles, all laughter, and she seemed never to turn down a partner. He watched her, entranced.

The woman wasn't a talented dancer, far from it in fact, but what she lacked in skill she made up for in enthusiasm and enjoyment. He had no intentions of doing anything other than watching her enchanting display until he made eye contact with her across the club. She blushed, turning away and quickly engaging a friend in conversation.

It was all the encouragement Alastor needed. In the dim light of the speakeasy, Alastor smiled to himself. He downed the rest of his drink and got to his feet. The crowed of dancers parted to make way for him like the red sea, waves of whispers following his path. He could hear the chatter, knew the rumors that he was a man uninterested in women, uninterested in love or romantic involvements of any type He knew that that was what everyone was speaking of as he approached the first new face the tired old place had seen in ages.

Coming to a stop behind the woman, her friend saw him first. It made sense, her back was turned to him after all, a result of her embarrassment at having been caught staring. He friend tapped her shoulder, indicating for the woman to turn around, and she spun. Alastor could feel the hem of her dress as it brushed against his leg through the fabric of his pants. His smile grew.

"Haven't seen you around here before Darling," he hummed, "new in town?"

"Just moved in, actually." the woman bashfully replied, clasping her hands behind her back and crossing one foot in front of the other.

The position it threw her body into sent Alastor's mind reeling. He hadn't expected that. Sure, she was pretty and different, new, but Alastor didn't feel things like that. At least, not normally.

"Well, I'd love to give you a tour sometime. The name is Alastor, Alastor Hartifelt."

This was the test: his name. How would she react? Was she just another one of his simpering fans, begging for his favor, for his attention, or would she do something interesting?

He held out a hand which she daintily rested her own in, a smile spreading across her face.

"Y/n L/n. I'm free tomorrow morning?"

Alastor was lucky, Saturday mornings were one of the few he had free. Gently, he leaned down and planted a soft kiss on the back of her hand. Y/n felt her heart flutter inside her chest.

"Ah, a charmer." she hummed as Alastor raised his head again and she took her hand from his, "I'll have to be careful around you."

Everything had snowballed from there. The tour around the city had spiraled into dinner which had further fallen into an attempt by Alastor to take her life. He had been curious, how it would feel when the life drained from her body at the force of his hands. Instead, she had met his advances by holding her own knife to his throat.

It became a game of sorts for the two, always trying to outwit one another, one up each other, land the other six feet under. The game ended when Alastor was chasing Y/n through the woods and she had stumbled, falling to the ground. He had grinned maniacally as he had advanced on her, as she had scrambled on the ground away from him. Knife raised, her back against a tree, she had breathlessly asked him out on a date. How could he say no? Especially when he looked up and saw that she had planned this all along. There was no other way their initials could be carved into the surface of the very thing that had stopped her escape. It was perfect, she was perfect.

Five years of bliss. Five years of feathery kisses and passion. Five years of waking up to her smiling face, of washing the blood off each other's hands, of nearly wedded bliss. Then there had been the fire.

Y/n had a twin brother, a brute of a thing who always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite his flaws, Y/n loved him. This time, on a January morning in 1925, he had pissed off the wrong person and gotten himself killed. Y/n was inconsolable, spent every waking moment tracking the killer. It didn't take her long to get a lead.

She was halfway out the door when Alastor found her, shoving knives into her pockets and grabbing a gun. There was a wild, unfocused look in her eyes. Alastor turned his gaze momentarily to the setting sun as it sent rays of liquid golden light bouncing off the snow.

"Darling, what are you doing?"

"Going out." she gruffly replied, adjusting the laces on one of her shoes.

Alastor sighed. Y/n had mentioned to him just the day before that she had an idea of who was behind the murder and it wasn't pretty. The most controversial and strongest gang in the city had, according to her research, wielded the flames. Alastor took a step forward, placing a hand on Y/n's shoulder and she turned to him. Her eyes were hard and narrow, her face contorted by rage.

"Y/n, please." Alastor began, treading carefully, "Not tonight. It's awful out, and you just confirmed everything today."

"No." Y/n shook her head, "No, I can't wait to do this any longer, Al. It has already been nearly a month, I can't..."

She looked away, raising a fist to her heart, her shoulders hunching slightly.

"I can't."

"And I can't loose you." Alastor quickly replied, using his free hand to turn her face back to his.

"So come with me."

He hesitated. Y/n saw the look on his face, the doubt. She shook herself from his grip, turning back to the door.

"Alright. I'll go alone."

"Y/n," Alastor pleaded, taking another step towards her as she grabbed her coat off the hook on the wall, "it is too dangerous. I can't let you do this."

"Let me do this?" Y/n spun around, her coat in her hand and flames licking at the corners of her voice, "You can't let me do this?"

Alastor took a breath, trying desperately to keep his own anger at bay.

"There are too many of them." he tried to reason with her, "You can't do it on your own."

"So come with me!"

"I..."

Y/n scoffed, sliding her jacket onto her arms. Turning back to the door once again, she unlocked it. Her hand rested on the knob, she took a breath. Their eyes met over her shoulder.

"I'll be home later."

She swung the door open and stepped out into the night. Alastor trailed after her, the snow sinking into his socks. It was cold, a terrible night.

"Y/n, you'll die!"

"Do you truly have that little faith in me!?" she spun around, her rage radiating off of her, devouring everything in sight.

Alastor had never seen her like this before. He halted in his tracks.

"Please, I can't..." he took a deep breath, emotions had always been a struggle, "I can't loose you too."

"But I'm supposed to loose my brother and know who did it and do nothing?!" she screamed back at him.

"You will die!"

Y/n turned her back on him once again. She unlatched the gate to the garden and slipped through it, letting it fall shut behind her.

"So be it."

"Y/n!"

Alastor tried to run after her but, it was simply too cold. His limbs were numb, he stumbled.

"Y/n!" he yelled again but, she didn't turn around.

He could see her, in that red dress. She looked like she did the first time he had ever met her as she disappeared into the night. He knew it was his mind playing tricks on him, it felt like an omen.

Alastor stood in the cold for a few minutes longer before resigning himself to the truth of it all: Y/n was going to do what she was going to do. He just had to hope she would come back, that the damage he had done in refusing to back her up like that wouldn't be enough to have driven her away. That she was strong enough to make it out alive.

The fireplace crackled invitingly. No matter how warm and cheerful it made the room, Alastor couldn't stop the dread. He sat down on the couch before it, painfully aware of the empty spot beside him. He tried to read.

The hours ticked by, seconds dragging on for eternity. Still, Y/n was not yet home. Alastor couldn't focus on anything. He couldn't 't read, couldn't sleep, could barely sit still. He paced circles around the room as the sun rose, he called in sick to work, intent on being there should she return.

When it reached four pm, when it had been nearly twenty full hours since she had left, he decided to go out and look for her. Y/n had always been messy, always bad at putting things away. While normally it had irritated him to no end, he now found himself grateful. He swore to whatever gods were listening that if she was alright, he would never bother her about it again because right there on top of her desk were all her plans, including the exact location of the gang's hideout, the exact place she had disappeared to.

The sight that met Alastor when he reached the old warehouse on the outskirts of the city was one he would never forget. Blood stained the snow red and there were bodies everywhere, both outside and within. It was clearly, Y/n's handiwork and he couldn't help but feel a tad impressed, he had underestimated her yet again. His slight smile, a result of the realization, fell as he spotted the footprints leading out of the backdoor.

He had tracked Y/n enough times to know they were hers, they couldn't be anyone else's. A trail of blood accompanied them, one foot dragging more than the other. Alastor tried to keep his head clear, his mind cool. He gave chase.

The back yard to the warehouse was large, gave the impression of going right off into the woods. Alastor soon realized that was not the case as the rusted, wrought iron fence came in to view. Y/n wouldn't have been able to see it. Judging by the way the tracks were iced over, it had been a long time since she had walked this path. In the dead of night, surrounded by trees, the fence would have come as a surprise.

As he got closer, the lump that he had assumed was a fallen branch came into more detail. Alastor's heart stopped, he rushed to her.

If only he hadn't waited, if only the minute he had felt she'd been gone too long he had gone after her. He might have been able to save her, to stop her from this cruel fate.

What had happened was obvious. The fence was iced over, slippery to the touch. Y/n had evidently tried to climb over it and lost her grip, the force of her fall being enough to ram the sharpened edge of one of the fence's defensive points right through her temple. Wrong place, wrong time.

Alastor had never cried like that before, as he sat in the snow at her feet, her body stiff from the cold. Not even when his mother had died could he ever remember feeling such a grief. It ate away at him, pooling in the center of his chest and spreading out. She had been so integral to who he was, so much a part of his life and way of being. She had been his dream, his end goal. Alastor remembered the ring, sitting heavy in the drawer of his night table. His tears redoubled.

By the time he managed to calm himself, the early winter sun had long since sunk to its bed and been replaced by the moon. Moving completely on autopilot, not considering his actions, Alastor wrenched her body from the fence. Y/n deserved a proper burial, in a place that mattered. He made her final resting place at the base of the very same tree she had told him she loved him while sitting at. His fingers traced their carved initials, grown hard with the years. There was nothing to be done.

The guilt ate away at him, festered over the years. If only he had stopped her, had gone with her, had come to her rescue. If only he had told her that he loved her one last time.

When Y/n awoke in Hell, to say she was surprised would be an understatement. She had never been one to believe in the afterlife in any sort of way, let alone such a wonderful one with so many opportunities for mayhem.

The thing that had been the toughest to get used to was her new form. All the demons in Hell got them upon arrival and when she caught that first glimpse of herself in the glass of a shop window, she understood why everyone on the streets seemed to be eyeing her fearfully.

She looked like she was rotting, her fingertips and toes black from the cold she had lost herself in. It trailed up her limbs, mingling with her own natural skin color. Her hair, her eye lashes, her eyebrows even, looked perpetually frosted with snow, little particles of ice hanging delicately in them. Then there were the horns and the tail, those were by far the strangest. The horns were pure white and curving like a mountain goats, the tail was thin with a little heart shaped ball of fluff at the end. It wasn't until another demon attempted to attack her that she realized the full extent of the changes that had taken place.

Y/n had just tried to punch the man, that was all. He had made advances, she had said no. He had tried again and she had told him she was married. It wasn't entirely a lie, they had been planning on it after all. Still, the man refused to listen and so, she had resorted to brute strength. When she had pulled her fist away, it was to find the man encased in ice. That was when the anger had set in.

Y/n didn't blame Alastor, not really. She was mad at him but, in the end, he had been right. She had died. It was all so brutally unfair. The way they had left things, that final fight, weighed on her soul. She wondered if he even knew she was dead, if he just assumed she had up and left him. The guilt, the what if's of it all, were crushing.

The stronger Y/n's emotions, the more uncontrollable her power. She still attacked people for fun but, taking over half of Pentagram City with her storms had honestly been an accident. In retrospect, she would call it a happy one.

Y/n liked being respected, being feared. She liked the near worship with which the smaller, weaker demons began to treat her. She settled into her new life with surprising ease and soon, every demon and hellborn in the place knew her name: Frost.

Y/n would've liked something different, preferred something cooler but, when the people give someone a name, its hard to change it and so, she embraced the title. Stone cold, cruel, powerful and appearing at what others perceived as totally inopportune moments. She locked herself, her heart, away. She swore never to make the same mistakes again.

Alastor visited Y/n's grave at least once every year. Always on the anniversary of her death, sometimes more frequently. That was where he too had met his death. As he had stooped low to place the bouquet of flowers he had brought on the surface of the hard-packed earth, the hunter had shot him, thinking he was a deer.

His arrival in Hell had been uneventful and not all together shocking. Alastor had been raised in a Christian household and although he never truly had faith in the matter once he had been old enough to form his own opinions, he had still always assumed that if there was life after death he was going to end up in Hell. He also knew that if he had ended up down here, Y/n had too.

The search was all consuming and fruitless. Every demon he interrogated, every one he thought had the slightest spark of his love within them, never had a single clue what he was talking about. Half the city was a snow storm and before long, that half was the only part he hadn't searched. Allegedly it was the territory of some new overlord known only as Frost who had taken Hell by storm - literally - just a few years before. Alastor already had a distaste in his mouth for the overlords, a sort of hatred spawned from something close to envy. He figured that worst case scenario, he could just add this Frost character to the list over overlords he had already taken out in the year since his arrival.

The chill of the air as he stepped over the border was a cruel reminder of the truth of his life. Alastor welcomed the cold with open arms, wondered if Y/n had already been killed since arriving in Hell. He had heard of the exterminations, it wasn't too wild of an idea. The thought gnawed on his mind like a parasite, intent on seeing him dead. Alastor progressed.

The fact that in death he still felt such things as hunger had been a mystery to him. There was something poetic about it, something forlorn in the idea that hunger and touch were the only things that followed a person to their grave. He stepped into the restaurant, his stomach growling, and walked up to the bar.

"Do you have beignets?"

Alastor knew the answer before the barkeep even shook his head. He sighed, falling on to one of the stools.

"Sausage and grits."

"Coming right up."

Alastor tapped his fingers on the counter, watching the world around him. Hope was running thin, anxieties and hurt taking over. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up, how much more disappointment he could take.

"Haven't seen you around before, Darling," a voice purred from behind him, sending shockwaves of pain through his chest, "new in town?"

He summoned his microphone into his hand, ready to fight. It didn't matter that the demon most likely had no idea the effect of their words, the connections they had to his own past life. All that mattered was that he felt like he was being mocked, the world was parroting his life back to him because Y/n was out of his reach and probably would be forever more. He turned to face the person, a sickening grin spread tight across his face.

The demon had a clearing around her, the crowd avoiding her at all costs and whispering to one another behind the cover of their hands. Her tail flicked back and forth, ice emanating from the place her feet hit the floor.

There was something oddly familiar about her, the cocky smirk, the confidence. Alastor got to his feet. He leered over her and the woman didn't flinch one bit.

"Who's asking?"

A threat. The smile on the smaller demon's face grew, snow beginning to pile up on the floor in the corners of the room.

"You know, it's really far too cruel of you to go around with a voice like that." she hummed thoughtfully, a finger to her chin, "Gets a girl's hopes up just to shatter 'em on the floor."

Alastor could feel it now, the cold nipping at his extremities. Wind picked up in the indoor space and demons began rushing out through the door as quickly as they could. Alastor stood his ground.

"Ah, so you're the one responsible for this little snow town?"

"Why yes, I am."

"You're rather cruel yourself, you know." he mused, "Using my own words against me, how did you know? Do you overlords have some way to read a person's mind? Find the center of their desire and turn it to a weapon?"

Only now did the woman's expression change. Her calm facade morphed into confusion as the winds died down.

"What do you mean?"

"'Haven't seen you around here before, Darling, new in town?'" Alastor scoffed.

Y/n's eyes widened with a sudden recognition. It only fueled Alastor's anger as he took a step forward, shadows rising from the ground at his feet.

"I-"

"Just moved in, actually." the demon cut him off, holding a hand out for him to take, palm to the floor.

Alastor looked at her, disgust etched into his features.

"How could you..." he trailed off.

Eyes flicking over her form, Alastor examined the demoness carefully. Sure, she was different. She looked half dead, frost bitten to the extreme but, there was certainly something familar.

"Who are..."

His eyes narrowed with suspicion. Slowly, he took her hand in his. It was icy to the touch, sent shivers down his spine. With a practiced grace, he leaned down and planted a feathery kiss on the back of her hand.

"Ah, a charmer." Y/n smiled as he raised his head to hers again, "I'll have to be careful around you."

"Y/n."

It wasn't a question, he knew the answer. Alastor could feel it in his bones.

"Alastor."

She threw her arms around his neck, pulling him close. Alastor watched her movements in astonishment. Disbelief laid thick on his body, too heavy to allow him to move.

"I'm so sorry." she whispered into his ear, her breath a cold breeze.

"I... why are you sorry?" he asked, pulling her away from him.

Alastor placed his hands on her shoulders, brushing off a bit of snow that had landed there with utmost care.

"I'm the one who's sorry. I should have come with you, I shouldn't have said the things I said, I sh-"

"I love you."

She couldn't hold the words in anymore. Icicles of tears tinkled like glass as they fell from her cheeks and landed on the floor.

"I... I love you, Alastor. I can't... I always regretted... I..."

"Me too."

He pulled her back into his arms, this time holding her body tightly to his. The cold burned but he didn't care. The whistling of the wind outside seemed to quiet.

"I love you so much, Y/n. I am so sorry."

"I'm so sorry."

Y/n pulled back, cupping Alastor's face in her hands.

"Never again."

"Never what, my love."

"Never again will I be parted from you."

"I thought I'd never see you again." Alastor admitted, "I was beginning to lose hope."

"Me too, me too."

"Never again."

"Never again."

----

Next Part -> Day Lilies (Alastor x Blizzard demon!Reader x Angel!OC)

A/N I am such a little slut for a good reunion scene.

[myreia]

Requiem for Us

Rating: Teen Pairings: Wolmeric Characters: Aymeric, Aureia (WoL) Word Count: 3,232 Summary: Sometimes the only choice is to let him go. Prompt: vii. confession | i love you Notes: Set during A Requiem for Heroes in Stormblood 4.5 Read on AO3

As Aureia wakes, there’s a familiar weight on her hand.

At first, it’s all a haze—memories of hidden smiles and idle touches, distant voices and even more distant song, the clean air of mountains and the salt of the sea, all bleeding through the fog of fire and iron and blood. Here, Thancred catches her eye as he sits by the bar in Revenant’s Toll, vanishing with a wink and a smile. There, Alisaie laughs, cheeks flushed with excitement as she raises her rapier in challenge, committed to the duel. Alphinaud, Urianger, Y’shtola—their faces and voices crystalized in time before evaporating into the black, slipping through her fingers like grain of sand.

The battlefield roars, a monster in her mind, a cacophony of engines and machinery, magitek and magic, steel and gunfire and sulfur.

A familiar blade sings in the night, ripe with the gore of felled enemies.

And as the beast of a man wearing the face of her enemy bears down on her, she is falling—falling, falling, falling endlessly into the abyss, with no one to catch her. No one to hear her cries, no one to answer her pleads. There is no one left. After all, when it comes to battles of gods and men, who saves the saviour in their hour of need?

The weight presses against her hand, strong and constant.

She grips it tight and allows it to pull her from the dark.  

When her eyelids flutter open, the first thing she sees is the muted sunlight streaming through a wide window, pooling on the stark white bedcovers. Outside, fluffy white snowflakes drift lazily in a blue-grey sky. A familiar shadow looms across the city beyond, its burnished spires glinting atop its grand stone façade, and she knows she is in Ishgard—and whose hand must be holding hers.

She turns her head and the second thing she sees is Aymeric de Borel slumped in a chair beside her.

“Aymeric,” Aureia whispers.

He raises his head, dark hair falling across his forehead in the same way it always does. She used to love to brush it away, fingertips trailing over the planes of his face before leaning in to kiss him…

“Aureia,” he breathes, eyes wide. “You’re…”

Awake.

In the space between breaths, she feels the tug of a thousand things he wishes to say. Relief that she is alive, fear that she will be gone. The illness that has taken the Scions closest to her could strike at any time, finally pulling her under like the others. But there is more behind his pause than fear for something beyond his understanding. There are a hundred mundane ways in which she can leave his life forever, some of which she has already undertaken.

What made them whole broke a long time ago.

“What…” She closes her eyes, ignoring the tightness in her chest. Would that she could pretend it is just one of her injuries, but she knows the truth. This kind of ache—the fluttering panic, the twisting guilt, the nausea that is already twisting deep in her gut—is not of the body, but of the heart. “What… happened?”

“Do you recall the confrontation with Zenos? You were the first to come to the aid of Mistress Lyse and the others on the front line. In the midst of your duel, it is said you faltered, and that the crown prince seized the opportunity to deliver a mortal blow.”

The memory is branded on her mind as surely as Lahabrea’s marks on her back. Zenos, or another monster that looks like him. Her mouth is dry, her tongue heavy and thick, the acrid taste of blood and bile lingering in the back of her throat. Gritting her teeth, she shoves down the restlessness rattling within her as Aymeric continues on.

“Yet before his blade could find its mark, he was distracted by the arrival of a second adversary who bore you away from the battlefield and into the hands of our chirurgeons.” He pauses. “Lest you wonder, he left before you awoke. As is his wont.”

Estinien.  

“He was never one for emotional farewells.”

She sucks in a breath. “Thank him for me. Next you see him.”

Aymeric says nothing, but the pain in his silence speaks volumes. Estinien does not stay, just as Aymeric does not go. Yet the mark of his presence weighs heavily on his heart, even as their duties and lives pull them in opposing directions. She may be certain they will see each other again, but he is not. He gave him up a long time ago.

Just as he will have to give her up, too.

“Though Zenos bested all before him, the battle clearly took its toll, for he retreated shortly after your rescue. Seeing this, the remaining imperial forces decided discretion was the better part of valor and pulled back, allowing us to reestablish our position.”

She swallows hard. Why does her mouth taste like ash?

“We have since received word of renewed unrest in the provinces…”

Something deep within her twists. The distance in his voice, the careful selection of words… She pushes the thought down and curls tighter beneath her blankets, her fingers gripping his hand.

“…doubtless inspired by the efforts of the Eorzean Alliance and our Far Eastern allies. Nor does the good news end there. We have also come into possession of intelligence suggesting unrest with the Imperial court. This would certainly explain why both the Emperor and Lord Zenos appear to have abandoned the fight. A long-awaited ray of hope in these dark times—”

Aureia’s eyes snap open. “You don’t have to talk to me like a politician, Aymeric,” she says flatly. “Or did you intend to turn my hospital bed into a briefing room?”

He looks away, a dark look passing over his face. “I did not mean… I thought you would be glad to hear a hopeful message upon waking, especially news of your home country.” The unspoken subject rears its head even as he dances around the subject. They haven’t had time to discuss it personally, none of the Alliance leaders have. How long has it been since they have been in a room alone together? Weeks? Moons? She can’t remember. For all she knows, the last time they talked—truly talked—was the last time they slept together, after she returned in a desperate state from Castrum Fluminis. “Is this not what you wanted? Is this not what you hoped for? If war brings the Eorzean Alliance to Garlemald’s threshold, would you rather your friends and family join us or fall?”

Idealistic fool… “Has Ala Mhigo taught you nothing? Has Doma taught you nothing?”

She catches his eye, a muscle twitching in her jaw. She can’t blame him for accepting one belief over the other—the belief that all the provinces yearn for liberation the way that Ishgard yearned for reform. It makes his role easier, to divide a people into those who stand with you and those who stand against.

The violence is always easier to digest when there is a clear line in the sand between who is good and who is evil.

“Do you know which province I’m from, Aymeric?”

“No. You never thought to grace me with that information.”

“Locus Amoenus. You would know it as Corvos.” She pauses, pressing her tongue against the back of her teeth. Even though it is relieving to be able to finally say it, she has lived so long keeping this knowledge to herself it feels wrong to say it so frankly. “Garlemald has always considered the province their ancestral homeland. Even if you aren’t pureblooded Garlean, its importance sinks into everything. There may be some Corvosi who are eager to push the Garleans out, but those are their friends. Their families. Their loved ones. Some have lived far more than twenty years under Imperial rule, as far as they are concerned they are Garlean through and through. There may be Hyur and Miqo’te and Au Ra there, but you can’t drive a wedge between them and Garlemald based on that alone. When their belief in their nation is that strong, you can’t convince them to switch sides with only a few pretty words. To the people who live there, the Alliance won’t bring liberation. We’ll bring invasion.”

He looks away. Sometimes she wonders how he could forget that reckless pursuit of change for a better future got him stabbed and bleeding out in the street. He believes so whole-heartedly in his ideals, he cannot comprehend a world where others do not share them. It doesn’t matter that his ideals are good and true. Forcing change upon someone who has not been given the chance to accept it only spurs them to violence.

“I do not know what you wish for me to say, Aureia,” Aymeric says quietly after a moment. “Or… what is your preferred term of address now? Kira? Or…?”

Aureia closes her eyes. It seems impossible to hear her birth name on his lips. Foreign. Unnatural. A name he should not be saying, a name he should never have known. “Aureia,” she whispers. Would he ever have fallen in love with her if he had met her as Kira? “Please. Just Aureia.”

“Aureia, then.”

His hand is still in hers. Their fingers twine together, like they did the first time they met—on cold, snowy battlements and beneath a velvet night sky. When he runs his thumb absently across the back of her hand, her heart races and her breath quickens. There’s a chance here, perhaps. An open door. They could start again. They could start new. No pretenses, no lies. No more hurts, no more wounds.

Just two people searching for something together, hand-in-hand.

She lets the thought tumble away, like a leaf on the wind.

Aureia exhales a long breath and opens her eyes, slowing pushing herself up in bed. “How are the others?” she asks. “How is Alisaie?”

“Yet to awake, I’m afraid.” Aymeric pauses, his expression softening. “I know your concern for them, and for Master Waters in particular. I know he is a dear friend of yours. But I implore you, please concentrate on your own recovery for now. You have carried the hopes of some half-dozen nations for a long time, but no one is without their limits. Not even you. Leave this fight to us, my love. You have earned your rest.”

Her body aches, the words pressing down upon her. Somehow the pain of her injuries are negligible compared to this. My love. When did he first start calling her that? When did he stop? When did he start again? Before? After? The years have all blurred into one; looking back, she can’t even find the moment when whatever they are began to break.

“Aymeric…” She wets her lower lip, her stomach twisting into a knot. There is a voice inside her screaming, torn with indecision and fearing either outcome. It’s been screaming for a longer time than she would like to admit. Perhaps it’s finally time to let it go. “I can’t be with you.”

He bows his head and falls quiet for a long time.

In the silence, she wonders whether he expected this. He must have seen it coming. They’ve been falling further and further apart, a relationship once marked by constant companionship now turned into one of brief meetings and curt nods. When was the last time she kissed him? When was the last time he held her? When was the last time they spoke of anything other than Zenos yae Galvus or Garlemald or this godsdamn war?

But it’s not just the war.

She made the first cut. Perhaps it was just that—a cut, to rip herself away from him when she thought he no longer wanted her. When her thirst for vengeance sickened him to the point he walked away, when she was breaking beneath the weight of a secret she could not divulge. When she ended up in the arms of the one who could listen, the one who could understand.

Despite the coarse tongue and never-ending rash of insults, Fordola gave her peace. Peace of mind, peace of soul. They are more alike than either of them would like to admit. She ended things abruptly, as she knew she needed to. It may not have been a relationship, but it was something.  

Something important, something she still cannot put into words.

And then there was Sidurgu.

She wonders whether there have been rumours, and if those rumours reached Aymeric. She vanished, after all, disappearing with no warning only to reappear a moon later in Sid and Rielle’s company. To the outside eye, it looks as though she simply took some time to spend among friends, but if one were to look closer, perhaps following their trail from Ishgard to Gyr Abania and back again…

She curses herself for it. Sid told her—bluntly—that he does not care about the circumstances of how they came together. But she does. The guilt creeped in, and it poisoned everything. She cares for him too much to put him through that, to try to build something together—broken as they both are—on a cracked foundation.

So, she chose to walk away, leaving him for good. Perhaps she will always wonder what could have become of them. Perhaps so will he. They will have to live with that.

What does that make her to Aymeric, then? She has hurt him more than he knows, more than maybe he is even willing to admit. Ishgardian society has perhaps primed him for such things, given that infidelity is as common among the highborn as weeds in a garden. One could almost call it a custom—for the noblemen only, of course.  

Tears pang in the corners of her eyes. She blinks them away and raises her head, turning her face to the sun and falling snow. It is a cold day in Ishgard, but every day is cold in the Holy See. They must all learn to persevere anyway.

“Are you certain of that?” Aymeric says at last.

She glances back at him. “I… I don’t know—”

“Because I am not.”

Her hand tightens around his.

“I love you,” he says.

“Don’t—”

“I love you.”

She blinks again and this time the tears fall. “Please. Don’t.”

“I love you. We may never have been married, Aureia, but I did make a vow to you once. To cherish you always, regardless of the challenges we may face or the difficulties we must overcome. You are the most important person in my life, and I am not ready to bow down so easily. Not yet.” He leans in close, pressing a hand to her cheek, his eyes locked on hers. His thumb brushes her tears away. “So, now it is my turn to say please. Please, do not do this. I loved you once, and I love you still.”

Her lower lip trembles and she bites back a sob, her heart thundering in her chest. “Why?”

“Must there be a reason?”

“Yes.” She sniffs, rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. “Gods, please. If there isn’t one, then make one up for my sake.”

“I…” He pauses and looks away, chuckling quietly at his own error. He doesn’t have the words. He is reaching for them, but he doesn’t have the words. “I do not know. Must there be easy definitions for something to be true? Or is it enough to know in your heart that it is good and true?”

She leans back, thumping against the headboard. “I’ve been with others since you, Aymeric,” she whispers. Despite the twisting guilt in her stomach, it feels good to confess. One last secret to release. If he’s so certain he wants to be with her, let him know all of her. “I haven’t been… faithful.”

He turns his head, meeting her eyes. His hand still rests against her cheek. “And I haven’t been clear,” he replies. “I have given much thought to that night in the menagerie. I gave you an ultimatum. You made a choice. It would make me a fool not to respect it.”

“But—”

“Some may consider otherwise, but have we truly been together since that night, Aureia?”

She blinks. “You… you mean to say…”

“I do not care what you have done. I do not care with whom you have been. What I care for—”

She closes her eyes, the tears falling fast and free.

“—is you. I am willing to begin again. I wish to begin again. If you must ask me for forgiveness, then there—you have it. Whatever you believe your sins are, I forgive you—”

Why must he speak so damn earnestly?

“I forgive you. Aureia, I am asking you—with all of my heart, with everything I have—please. Let us begin again. I cannot bear to see you walk away.”

Her heart relinquishes, her breath slows. Hearing him say it like this has given her the clarity she needed. They have been through so much, and they will go through more before this war is done. But they are not who they were four years ago, and they cannot turn back the clock. She cannot be what he wants, just as he cannot be what she needs. He may not be able to bear to see her walk away, but she cannot bear to remain at his side.

It has to end.

Slowly, Aureia opens her eyes and takes him in one last time—the hair she has run her fingers through, the lips she has kissed, the face she has fallen for again and again. He returns her gaze, his hand still clutching hers, holding onto her with such force it’s as if he is pulling her back from a cliff’s edge.

But she is determined to fall into the unknown.

Wiping her tears away, she pulls him close and kisses him one last time. He cradles her, holding her close as he has a thousand times before, tears now welling in his eyes. She lingers in the kiss, desperately clinging to this precious thing that is killing her to give up. Perhaps there is another way. Perhaps if they had more time. Perhaps if they…

It’s over too soon. She presses a hand to his chest, her palm over his heart, feeling the steady beat. Then, at last, she draws away and lets go, her hand finally falling free from his.

“I can’t,” Aureia says. “This is goodbye.”

Aymeric closes his eyes, passing a hand over his face. “Of course,” he replies softly. “Of course… Then it is as you say.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Exhaling a shaky breath, he pushes back his chair and rises to his feet. “Then I will say adieu, Mistress Malathar. I must return to the front. May we meet again under happier circumstances.” He turns, taking a step towards the door, his footsteps echoing across the flagstones. “You are not as alone as you believe you are,” he adds, glancing over his shoulder. “Remember that.”

The door closes behind him with a hollow boom.

Only then does Aureia curl inward, pulling her knees into her chest, and weeps.

[kittenintheden]

Silver Swords & Dragonfire

It's been fifteen years since the Battle of Baldur's Gate and the fall of the Absolute. Lae'zel joined forces with Orpheus and has been plotting Vlaakith's downfall. They will travel to the githyanki city of Tu'narath in the Astral Sea and they will slay a lich. But Lae'zel's story does not end there. She will have her red dragon. She will have what she is owed.

She will ascend.

This piece was originally written for @bg3womenswrongs, which will be available for free in March 2025. I highly recommend checking it out -- the art and the written work is an incredible tribute to the ladies of Baldur's Gate 3, who get far from their due. Let them be a little evil, as a treat. Enjoy <3

Rating: M Characters: Lae'zel, Ascended Astarion, God Gale, Orpheus, Tav, Vlaakith Word Count: 1,960 Content: Canon-typical violence, regicide, everyone being sort of terrible (but also kickass), post-canon

AO3 Link

***

The atmosphere around Créche K’liir is cold. Full of silver-white moonlight and crisp as night sky in midwinter. There’s always warmth to be found in the inner chambers of the asteroid, but the starsong beckons the githyanki to the surface to search for what is lost. To answer a call.

As Lae’zel steps foot onto the extraterrestrial surface of Tu'narath, The City of Death, she feels that way again. It’s been fifteen years since the Battle of Baldur’s Gate, fifteen years since she walked on the shores of the Astral Sea.

The nebulae whisper of history immemorial. A promise of eternity. Her birthright.

Vlaakith’s tomb.

Castle Susurrus towers high overhead, dark spires shrouded in fog, unchanged for millenia. Sharp, blackened edges cut across a sky otherwise filled with the gentle light of creation. Lae’zel stands with a stance straight as the silver sword she holds in one hand, fingers wrapped round the hilt with the care of a protective lover. Dark blood runs rivulets down the shining metal of the blade.

A drop shivers at the point and falls, floating lightly in midair before it descends to splash against the rock.

Lae’zel’s other hand is slick with gore of a different sort. There, she grips one tentacled mandible of a ghaik head, its eyes vacant and lifeless, its mind whispering no more. The purple flesh has gone gray and dull with unlife, the black blood long since crusted over.

A moment, not long past, rises in her mind’s eye.

The illithid to whom this head belonged stands at a war table, discussing strategy. It is a position her foolhardy younger self would never have occupied, but she is no longer young, nor blindly devoted to a queen on a stolen throne. The rightful heir, Orpheus, walks a circle around the table, reviewing their plans.

“A clever assault,” he says. “Albeit more subject to the whims of istek than I’d prefer.”

“We agree, my liege,” Lae’zel says with a deferential nod. “But my allies, while flighty, are nevertheless bound by their oaths to me.”

Orpheus searches his First Commander’s face and finds her truthful. “As you say. The plan is set, then.”

Lae’zel waits until the prince leaves the room before she dares look to their sole ghaik ally. On cue, they wince and close their eyes, putting two fingers to their temple.

“It pains you?” she asks.

After a moment, the illithid drops their fingers and glances her direction. In her mind, she hears them respond, “It does. Every day, I lose more of myself. That is why you must end me before it is too late. I will make a fine offering.”

Lae’zel leans heavily onto the table, hands balled into tight fists. When she looks to her friend, it is with bitter sorrow in her eyes. “I cannot,” she whispers.

The companion she once called Tav replies, “You will. You must.” They put a hand over hers. “It has always been your destiny.”

What good, this heart of stone, for it to be shattered? Good enough to take up the shards and shred Vlaakith’s regime. A new monarch will rise.

And so she stands with a sword in one hand and her dear friend’s skull in the other, waiting for the allies who promised their aid. Every guard that met their end on her blade lies slaughtered at her feet. At last, a portal glows violet and two men step through. The first gleams with the silvered skin and brilliant eyes of a newly-minted god. Lae’zel stops herself from curling her lip.

The second is all angular features and oppressive finery, peering down his nose at her with ruby eyes as he wipes blood from his hands with a handkerchief. Lae’zel stops herself from sneering a second time.

The God of Ambition and the Vampire Ascendent make powerful allies and unbearable conversationalists. Strange, that she once thought of their weaker forms as friends. That moment is past. That was a time before life went hard and unforgiving for them all.

“I’ve cleared the entry hall for you,” Lord Ancunín says, voice distant and disinterested. “Do keep in touch if you manage to stay alive. We’ll have much to discuss about the future of our respective realms.”

As if she would share her eternal glory over the immortal plane with this coward-turned-little-lord of Baldur’s Gate. Her sights are much higher.

Lae’zel nods nonetheless.

The god once called Gale of Waterdeep gives her a condescending bow. “May you achieve the outcome you seek,” he says, words echoing. “And recall who blessed you on this day of your rebirth.”

Astarion tosses his stained handkerchief to the ground with a scoff. “Years ago, I promised you a favor in return for your assistance in helping me become…” He inhales deeply through his nose and gestures down the length of his body. “... this. That favor has been called in. Do not darken my door again unless you bear gifts. Enjoy your own… ascendence.”

Lae’zel tightens her grip on the tentacle and waves her sword in Gale’s direction, jerking her head toward the palace.

“Your favor remains unfulfilled, my friend with a foot in the divine,” she says. If he notes the underscore of disdain in her tone, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

With a wave of his hand, he opens a second portal. For a moment, his expression goes almost sad. “Arrogance makes enemies of us all,” he says. “For both our sakes, may we never meet again.”

“My thanks for honoring your bargain,” she replies, tucking her chin and glaring. “Now go. This victory is mine.”

He laughs, bitterly. “Vlaakith gha'g shkath zai.”

Then he is gone.

In the distance above, red dragons lock claws and battle in midair. One bears Orpheus as a rider, his war cry lost to the stars. The atmosphere around Lae’zel is calm. Quiet.

She tears her eyes from her prince and enters the portal left for her, never looking back.

True to his word, the Ascendent left the hall decorated with corpses, their blood going tacky beneath her boots as she strides toward a barred door many times her height. Black obsidian, chipped and carved over years to depict githyanki knights crushing their ghaik tormentors underfoot. In the center, a vermillion dragon roars, mouth open wide.

Lae’zel pauses and reaches out, marveling at the smooth glass beneath her fingertips. A scene older than she can comprehend. A promise, ready to be fulfilled.

She hoists the illithid head into the dragon’s mouth and lets the ancient magic take hold. Once, in the days of Orpheus’ mother, the gith earned their knighthood by offering a ghaik’s head. A final test of mettle. Through all Vlaakith’s misbegotten lifetimes, the lich queen could never unravel it completely.

The dragon’s eyes glow, the skull withers and becomes dust, and blessed strength flows through Lae’zel’s veins. She puts her hands to the massive bar keeping her from her quarry and throws it aside as if it weighs nothing more than a harpy feather.

As the door swings open wide, she locks eyes with a usurper, a thief, a charlatan.

Vlaakith stands from her throne, her sharpened crown rising high over her brow and her expression filled with hate.

“Impossible,” the false queen hisses.

Liquid gold flows beneath Lae’zel’s yellow-green skin, lighting her up from the inside out. She broadens her stance, wrapping both hands around her sword and holding it steady at her shoulder.

“The only impossibility here is that you live longer than I will it,” Lae’zel calls. “Die as you lived – wicked and alone. Mha stil'na forjun inyeri.”

Her once-queen hisses and enters a battle stance, her movement rusted over with time and disuse. Far from the gith she rules so stringently, her deathless form has become hollow, weak. It takes no time at all to get a blade to her throat.

Vlaakith’s mouth twists with hate as she glares into Lae’zel’s unwavering eyes, the flesh of her palm cut to the bone as she holds the silver sword by the blade.

“Your suffering will be unending,” Vlaakith snarls. “I shall keep you shivering on the edge of death for an eternity, your body and spirit broken, your tongue a shredded ruin behind your shattered teeth.”

When the lich begins an incantation, Lae’zel lashes quick as lightning and forces two fingers into the queen’s mouth all the way to her gullet, pinning her tongue and causing her to gag and cough, the spell lost. Lae’zel gives a miniscule shake of her head.

“None of your witchery,” Lae’zel whispers. “You will fight as githyanki are intended, or you will not fight at all.”

A resounding crash fills the space as a hulking form crushes its way through the stone wall. A dragon with glittering scarlet scales towers taller than any Lae’zel has ever seen, its throat glowing from within with deadly fire. Its teeth are opal daggers, a shining threat. Below Lae’zel, Vlaakith is brought to her knees, frantically gripping the warrior’s forearms and biting down on the fingers holding her tongue. Lae’zel does not yield.

In the ancient language of dragons, the one she was never taught until she taught herself, Lae’zel says, “Stay your claws, King of Flame, and you will be beholden to Vlaakith’s madness no longer.”

It is a long, tense moment, during which the dragon’s golden eyes search between the blessed newcomer and his longtime queen. At last, he inclines his head and waits. Strength is a ruler he knows.

An unholy, garbled wail rises from the lich’s throat as Lae’zel’s attention returns to her.

“Perish without honor, hshar'lak,” Lae’zel says.

Githyanki silver sings as Lae’zel withdraws her hand and ends it at last. The head of Vlaakith, Last of Her Name, rolls across the finely tiled floor, her face forever in torment, soul long destroyed. Lae’zel drags the tip of her blade behind her, letting it shriek across the stone until she can kneel and pluck the crown of twisted black glass from the rapidly disintegrating skull.

The room fills with the sound of claws scraping and victory cries. Her prince calls an ancient victory cry, his cohort responding in kind.

Lae’zel does not turn, not even when she senses Orpheus near.

“Well done, Baht D’Orpheus,” he says. “We are free. Your victory will be forever written in the stars.”

“Yes,” Lae’zel whispers, her face upturned to the millions-strong starlight filtering through the red-stained windows above the dark throne. “It shall be.”

In one swift movement, she whirls, blade flashing, and runs Orpheus through with her silver. She holds his eye as his expression turns from surprise to betrayal to fury, hands scrabbling uselessly at the sword he himself bestowed upon her. She does not look away.

Profound silence fills the air.

“I will not ask for forgiveness,” Lae’zel says softly, pushing the blade still deeper. “But you will understand that there is no force on this plane or any other that will ever bend my knee again.”

She withdraws her blade, a line of lifeblood painting a slash across the tile. Orpheus, once the Prince of the Comet, falls to the floor with a gurgle.

Lae’zel raises her head to the gathered warriors and their mounts, her face defiant, victorious. When one soldier makes to stand against her, Vlaakith’s former steed produces a burst of flame in their direction.

She sheathes her blade and lifts the bloodied crown over her head. When she lowers it to her brow, a drop of blood courses down her temple and she hears the myriad echoes of the githyanki. All who ever were, and all who will ever be. She moves to the dais and lowers herself to the throne, looking out over the beginnings of her kingdom.

All kneel before Queen Lae’zel, First of Her Name.

[doumadono]

Warnings: blood, mentions of decomposition, violence, mental & physical abuse, toxic relationship, gore, nakedness, merman!Dabi, female original character, original characters, descriptions of murders and drowning, smut (p in v, oral - f & m receiving), manipulation

Summary: Miyaka, a young woman driven to the brink by a domineering and aloof husband, resolves to end her life in the lake near her husband's estate. Little does she realize that one quaint encounter will irrevocably alter everything, reshaping her understanding of herself, and blurring the boundaries between reality and the inexplicable

Word count: circa 12.1k A/N: I'm delighted to have had the opportunity to take part in this captivating even created by talented @candycandy00 It was my maiden voyage into the world of horror writing, and I genuinely hope that you find my contribution enjoyable. A huge shoutout to my merman specialist, @crystalwolfblog – her unwavering support and expertise were instrumental in shaping this story!

It was an enchanting night.

She stood at the edge of the great lake, its inky waters reflecting the dim glow of the moon like a mirror tainted with despair. Her heart, heavy with the weight of an unhappy marriage, throbbed in her chest, matching the rhythm of her labored breaths. Tears welled up in her eyes, and a lump formed in her throat as she gazed into the blackness of the abyss before her.

The night was eerily silent, save for the distant croak of a lone frog and the rustling of leaves in the chilling breeze. She shivered, not from the cold, but from the darkness that had consumed her entire life. A long, white, flowing dress clung to her trembling form, a stark contrast to the beauty of the night. It felt like a shroud of misery, concealing the bruises and scars that marred her body.

She had been married to a man she loathed, a man who had wed her solely for her parents' substantial dowry. He was possessive, controlling, and violent, and every day with him was a torment she couldn't escape. As she looked down at the scars on her palms, she could hear his voice in her mind, venomous and cruel. "You're mine, and you'll do as I say," he would snarl, his eyes filled with a possessive rage that chilled her soul.

Tonight, as she stood by the lake, she knew she had reached the precipice of her despair. The moon's silver rays bathed the water in an eerie glow, and she found herself muttering out loud, as if trying to rationalize the unthinkable. "I can't go on like this," she whispered to the inky depths before her, her voice a hollow echo in the night. "There's no escape from this torment, no end to the pain he inflicts upon me."

Her fingers brushed against the bruises on her neck, a painful reminder of her husband's merciless grip. The darkness seemed to envelop her, offering a macabre solace, a release from the relentless agony that had become her life.

A sense of dread washed over her as she took a step closer to the water's edge, the lake beckoning with a malevolent allure. She could hear the echoes of her own pleas for help, trapped within the walls of her loveless home. She had no one to turn to, no one to confide in, for he had isolated her from all those who cared about her, even though there weren't many of them.

Tears streamed down her cheeks, and sobs wracked her body. The weight of her misery threatened to drag her under, deeper into the cold abyss. Her mind was a whirlwind of torment, and she continued to speak her sorrow aloud. "I just want the pain to stop," she murmured, her voice quivering. "I want freedom from this living nightmare."

Meantime, claws, like daggers forged in the abyss, pierced the tender flesh of the fish, snapping it asunder with the ease of breaking brittle twigs. Delicate bones shattered, their lamenting cracks akin to dried leaves crumbling beneath a malevolent force, as the ichor of life spilled forth in crimson tendrils, vanishing into the dark, ravenous depths. Razor-edged teeth, like shards of obsidian, tore through the delicate meat, rending it into fragments devoured by the insatiable monster.

This lake, embraced by a shroud of old woods, lay in proximity to a quiet city, a deceptive guise for an ideal feeding ground, or so it would seem. Elders strolled along its shore, seeking solace in the serenity of its waters, while children harbored dreams of frigid immersion, and clandestine encounters found their haven amidst the trees. Yet, the reality proved far bleaker.

Touya had ventured here in the hopes of a bountiful feast, having expended immense effort to navigate a subterranean passage connecting the vast expanse of the open sea to this secluded lake. His rewards were meager, a pitiful array of minuscule fish, native to these forsaken waters.

Resting on the lakebed, his lithe form culminating in a shark-like appendage, he contemplated a return to the boundless sea, where sustenance was plentiful. However, his sharply pointed, fin-like ears detected a peculiar disturbance, both auditory and visual.

The cacophony of a loud splash rent the silence, an intrusion too substantial for a mere fish or woodland creature's leap. Touya's senses honed in on the source, identifying an anomaly—an unmistakable human presence.

Swiftly, he propelled himself towards this enigma, only to discover a form cloaked in a long, flowing white gown, gradually succumbing to the lake's murky abyss. Drawing nearer, he seized the delicate ankle, hauling the figure closer for examination.

Fortuna's fickle favor had delivered a woman into his grasp, and while the prospect of her tender flesh stirred his primal hunger, an audacious notion overcame his instincts. The thrill of an encounter akin to a true siren's seduction beckoned, and the notion of her consumption transformed into a sinister game.

Against his ravenous desires, Touya encircled the fragile woman's frame with his sinuous arms, drawing her from the water's embrace onto the shore, where the macabre performance of a siren's sinister plan would soon commence.

As she splashed and struggled in the water, her vision blurred with panic. Her arms flailed wildly, and she gasped for air, unaware of what had caught her beneath the surface. Each thrash seemed to pull her deeper into the dark abyss, and the murky water filled her mouth easily, making her gag and sputter.

She couldn't see what had a hold of her, but the sensation of strong arms wrapping around her fragile body only heightened her fear. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her lungs burned for oxygen as she continued to fight against the unseen force.

Desperation set in, and she opened her mouth to scream, but instead, she inadvertently swallowed more water. It flooded her throat and rushed into her lungs, choking her, a burning sensation filling her pharynx and nose. The world around her grew dimmer, and her struggles weakened as her consciousness waned.

In the end, the water won, claiming her as its own. She slipped into unconsciousness, her body limp.

The beast, concealed beneath the watery veil of his domain, observed her futile resistance with a dispassionate eye. In the realm of aqueous shadows, humans were like vulnerable prey, their minds adrift in a soporific stupor. Submerged in liquid depths, they became rabid creatures confined within a cage of their own making, drawing ever nearer to the precipice of their demise with each gasping breath.

In a stroke of providence, the woman in his grasp surrendered to the dark embrace of unconsciousness. Her unconsciousness spared him the ordeal of wrestling with her thrashing form. It was a mercy he granted her, one she should consider herself fortunate to receive, for he had contemplated a far less compassionate fate.

With a grace befitting a creature of his nature, he transported her limp form to the water's edge, a sanctuary where the forest's tender grass merged with the lake's sandy shore. Touya did not deign to change his form, instead choosing to remain perched beside her prone body, a silent sentinel.

Reclining with his tail coiled comfortably, his scrutinizing gaze fell upon the woman's fragile form. Despite the dark blemishes that adorned her skin like aged spots upon a ripened fruit, her flesh beckoned like an illicit delicacy. The mere thought of sinking his serrated teeth and razor-sharp claws into her tender form sent his mouth awash with anticipation. He yearned to hear her cries of agony, to witness the crimson cascade of her life's essence, to observe the last flicker of vitality extinguish from her eyes as he ravaged her insides.

Yet, in a rare moment of restraint, the monster resisted the primal urge. No, he would savor this encounter, extracting a different form of pleasure if she were to awaken, for the thrill of her torment held a dark allure all its own.

Coughing violently, she jolted back to consciousness, her body wracked with spasms as the water that had filled her lungs was expelled with each hacking cough. It felt like her chest was on fire, and every cough sent painful ripples through her body.

For a moment, she struggled to sit up, her vision still blurred and her head pounding. She couldn't see clearly, but she had a distinct feeling that she was not alone. Panic gripped her again as she realized that someone or something was nearby.

Her coughs soon subsided, and she took ragged, shallow breaths, trying to clear the lingering water from her airways. Her gaze finally focused, and she saw it – a creature unlike anything she had ever encountered.

It sat beside her, its sharp features illuminated by the faint moonlight filtering through the trees. Its eyes, piercing and predatory, had turquoise irises with black sclera, a striking and unusual combination, creating an otherworldly appearance. The turquoise color itself was vibrant, reminiscent of the clear, tropical waters of a pristine ocean. Its gaze was fixed on her. Its body was a grotesque blend of human and sea creature, with scales and fins that seemed to shimmer in the dim light.

Terror coursed through her as she realized she was not in the safety of her own world anymore. She had been pulled into a nightmare, and this creature, this beast, was surely about to kill her.

She scrambled back, away from it, her heart pounding in her chest. Her voice trembled as she stammered, "W-who are you? What do you want from me?" But deep down, she feared that she already knew the answer.

As she desperately attempted to crawl through the grassy-muddy ground, every movement felt like a relentless struggle against the unforgiving terrain. The thick mud clung tenaciously to her hands and knees, making progress slow and arduous.

Eyes, vibrant and eerily alive, remained fixed on her every frantic movement. Yet, the pallid form that lay behind her, marred by ominous, dark splotches, remained immobile, preserving its enigmatic stillness until the woman's frenetic struggles yielded to silence.

A hand, adorned with webbed membranes that stretched sinuously between each finger, terminated in formidable claws. It moved through his own hair, a short cascade of pristine white, like freshly fallen snow. An insidious smile played upon his lips, revealing rows of serrated teeth that glistened malevolently in the dim light. His ears, akin to the finned appendages of some abyssal creature, possessed two sharp points and twitched slightly as he cocked his head in contemplation. "Is this how you extend gratitude to your savior?" His voice, a beguiling cadence that rivaled the most enchanting melody, seemed ill-fitted for his grotesque form. Yet, it was a weapon, not an adornment, a reminder that he wielded both power and allure. "One should exercise greater caution around these waters, miss. The prospect of losing one's life so recklessly hardly seems appealing."

The sight of her futile attempt to flee stirred a perverse pleasure within him. He found himself increasingly torn by his own plot, yet its wheels were set in motion, and he felt compelled to carry it to its conclusion. "Are you unharmed, miss? Do you feel any pain?" The inward cringe he felt at his unexpected benevolence clashed with his innate siren pride, an unsettling dissonance that inexplicably satisfied him.

The shock of hearing the creature speak, its voice so mesmerizing and soft, took her aback for a moment. She struggled to regain her confidence, her voice quivering as she managed to stammer out a question again, "W-What are you?"

As she continued to tremble, she finally collapsed onto her still-muddy knees. The weight of despair and desperation bore down on her, and she found herself confessing her dark intentions, her voice heavy with anguish, "I... I wanted to end my life."

She couldn't fathom why she had confessed her merciless plan to end her own life to this strange water creature. It felt surreal, as if she had already crossed into some sort of hellish realm beyond the realm of the living. Perhaps she had succumbed to the deadly water filling her lungs, and this creature was nothing more than a manifestation of her fractured mind.

But despite the uncertainty and the eerie circumstances, a part of her clung to the hope that maybe, just maybe, this encounter held some deeper meaning.

End her own life? He understood all too well that humans were, in his estimation, pitiful and often nothing more than a source of sustenance. However, this act was a new level of wretchedness, a lamentable display that played perfectly into his hands. It would grant him effortless dominion over her fragile psyche, cloaked in a deceptive veneer of benevolence, free from the shadow of his true nature. It promised to be a game as simple as toying with a child's plaything.

Touya edged closer, his movements constrained only by the limits of his domain. His cold hand, pallid and adorned with menacing claws, extended toward her own, long fingers encircling her palm with a touch that grazed her skin like a whispered threat. "End your life? Miss, how could you contemplate such a tragic act?" His voice, like the sweetest of lullabies, dripped with feigned empathy. "A woman of such exquisite beauty, extinguishing her own light — it would be a grievous loss to the world."

The sole witnesses to this deceitful charade were the moon, whose silvery glow bathed the lake and the encircling dark forest, and the enigmatic veil of night. The woods formed an impenetrable barrier, a divide between his aquatic realm and the distant human settlement, lending an illusion of sanctuary. This tableau, a fusion of darkness illuminated by the radiant moon, resembled a masterpiece plucked from the realm of the surreal, gracing the place with an eerie charm.

Her body shivered, not just from the cold but from the sensation of the creature's wet hand with its sharp claws closing around hers. It was an eerie feeling, like a surreal dream that she couldn't wake up from. The moonlit darkness around her only added to the strangeness of the moment.

The creature's soothing voice seemed to be at odds with the sharpness of its claws, and she couldn't help but feel a mix of fear and fascination in the beast's presence. Everything about this encounter defied logic and reason, and she was desperately seeking some semblance of understanding in this bizarre situation. "What are you?" she asked once more, her voice trembling as she stared into the creature's captivating turquoise eyes. "Am I... am I dead?"

Touya tenderly clasped her hand, his fingers exploring the contours of her skin and the supple muscles beneath. An insidious hunger stirred within him, and he battled the overpowering urge to sink his teeth into her soft flesh.

Instead, he brought her delicate palm to his lips, where his tongue languidly traced a sinuous path across her skin. A shiver of desire coursed through him as he inhaled the intoxicating fragrance that clung to her, an aroma as sweet and irresistible as the most alluring of temptations. "I believe you are quite alive, miss," he purred, his voice a seductive whisper. "One cannot be considered dead while radiating such warmth."

Horrified and disgusted by the creature's unsettling actions, she finally found her voice and strength. With a shudder, she forcefully withdrew her hand from the creature's grasp, her face contorted in a mixture of revulsion and fear. "What are you?" she demanded, her voice trembling with a newfound determination. The earlier feeling of hope had been tainted by the creature's disturbing behavior, and she needed answers more than ever. She was no longer willing to tolerate the enigmatic presence of the creature without understanding the truth of its nature.

A pair of luminescent, cerulean eyes bore into her with an eerie intensity, even as the monstrous figure let out a low, mocking laugh. He unfurled his form, revealing a pale body adorned with enigmatic dark markings and a magnificent tail that shimmered like a sinister jewel beneath the moon's ghostly radiance. "Is it truly so challenging to discern, miss?" he taunted, his voice a silky, melodious cadence. "I am a water-dwelling creature, inhabiting these very depths. You seem remarkably ungrateful - I saved your life, and not a word of thanks graces your lips."

The sudden audacity displayed by the woman intrigued him. It was a peculiar sight to behold — someone who had sought to end their own existence, now attempting to assert dominance as if he were the lesser of the two. He harbored a morbid fascination for this unfolding drama and was more than willing to indulge her in this charade.

As she shivered in the coldness of the night, her mind raced with conflicting emotions. The creature's words were unsettling, yet there was a grain of truth in what it had said - it had saved her from her own desperate act, and she couldn't deny that fact.

Swallowing her fear, she decided to pursue the conversation further. "I... I appreciate that you saved me," she stammered, her voice still shaking. "But I need to understand. What's your name? Do you even have one? And why did you intervene? I didn't want to be saved, that's not what I hoped for."

"You may call me Touya," he acknowledged with a nod, bestowing upon her a disarming smile that revealed a row of dangerously sharp teeth. "I am, by nature, a siren, and you, dear miss, have disrupted the tranquil harmony of my lake. At first, I assumed it was some unsuspecting creature taking an ill-fated plunge, but when my eyes fell upon a human as resplendent as yourself, I simply couldn't ignore the spectacle."

He offered this explanation in a voice as smooth as velvet, its mellifluous tones designed to insinuate themselves into her fragile psyche. Touya typically employed this beguiling cadence to lure unsuspecting individuals into the water, but in her case, he sought to quell her anxiety and delay her inevitable flight. "I dare say, fortune itself must be watching over you," he continued, his voice dripping with a honeyed reassurance. "For you have chosen to cast yourself into these depths, and in that choice, you've affirmed the value of life, young miss."

She remained silent, her shock and bewilderment apparent in her wide eyes as she stared at Touya. She blinked several times, as if trying to convince herself that this surreal encounter was real.

Her formerly white dress, now covered in mud and grass, clung to her body, the once pristine fabric marred by her ordeal. Some marine flora had found its way onto the dress as well, further adding to the disarray of her appearance. Her hair was a tangled mess, damp from her recent struggle in the lake. The soaked material of the dress offered little concealment, and her perky breasts were subtly visible through the fabric.

The woman struggled to make sense of it all, torn between the desire to flee from this creature and the nagging feeling that there was something soothing about his presence.

The woman's bewilderment bore a certain charm, and Touya couldn't help but relish the success of his beguiling voice. Seizing the opportunity, he inched closer to her until he was positioned right beside her, his attention now devoted to the delicate task of untangling debris from her disheveled hair. "I hope you don't find it intrusive, but might I inquire about your name, miss?" he asked, his voice a soothing melody, while he carefully plucked remnants from her tangled locks. "I find myself quite intrigued by the enigma I've just rescued."

His gaze wandered to her, swiftly detecting the telltale marks that marred her neck — a grim testament to the assailant who had been thwarted in their pursuit. With a possessive glint in his eyes, he whispered softly, his fingers lightly grazing her throat as he voiced his observation, "It seems someone has inflicted harm upon you."

"My name is not important," she replied with a distant, haunted look in her eyes. "I've been called so many slurs, I almost forgot my own name."

As Touya got closer, her senses were alarmed, and she instinctively got up, her stained attire a mess as she attempted to improve her appearance. She felt a mixture of fear and unease in the presence of this enigmatic creature.

Suddenly, a male voice came from afar, calling out for Miyaka. 

She gasped, her heart pounding as she recognized the voice of her husband. The very mention of her name sent a chill down her spine, and she knew that her desperate escape had not gone unnoticed. Panic washed over her, and she turned to Touya, her voice trembling. "I need to go now," she said urgently. "I have to go."

And with that she simply ran away, stopping twice to look back at the merman over her shoulder. Soon yet, she vanished in the woods.

Touya felt the embers of his anger smoldering within him, stoked by an ever-growing hunger, especially after the tantalizing taste of her skin.

With a frustrated growl, he retreated back into the murky depths of the lake, cursing himself for the absurd notion that had briefly gripped him.

The embrace of the cold water swiftly quelled his rising temper. As he sank to the lake's bottom, he contemplated how best to reclaim the woman he refused to let slip from his grasp.

_____________________________

Over the following days, Touya employed his hypnotic voice, weaving a mesmerizing aria to beckon her back to the waters. It did ensnare a lost, young soul, but not the one he so fervently desired. Nevertheless, the young girl, enticed by his enchantment, undressed and ventured into the chilling embrace of the lake a few nights later.

That was the moment he seized.

As the girl floated on her back, lost in the tranquility of the lake's surface, a sinister force latched onto her ankle, yanking her beneath the water's surface.

Desperation and fear churned within her, and she thrashed wildly, her outstretched hands clawing at the surface, futilely struggling against the monstrous grip. A pale hand, equipped with menacing claws, clamped onto her slender ankle, sealing her grim fate as prey to a relentless kelpie.

He held her under until her struggles ceased, ensuring her life was extinguished before allowing himself to retrieve the lifeless body.

With an eerie detachment, Touya surveyed his gruesome feast. He tore into her flesh, devouring the most succulent portions and discarding what he deemed unworthy. Each organ yielded a delectable, squishy texture, untainted by the ravages of time and human indulgence. 

But the heart, that was his ultimate indulgence. Delving for the heart was always a pleasure for Touya, akin to prying open a clam. He reveled in the visceral experience — ripping through flesh, unveiling the rib cage formed from robust bones that snapped like dry twigs under his unrelenting grasp. Inside lay the heart. Sinking his teeth into the still-beating organ was akin to prying open a precious pearl encased within the ribs, the bones cracking like brittle twigs beneath his formidable grip.

Having sated his appetite by consuming the choicest portions, he discarded whatever seemed unworthy, flinging it aside. Seated beside the lifeless body on the bottom of the lake, he seized the hand, twisting it until the elbow joint surrendered with a gruesome pop. The skin tore haphazardly, leaving jagged edges adorning the amputated limb. Now he could relish the taste of human flesh as he bit into it.

This grotesque repast sustained him for the next few days, casting a pall of momentary satisfaction over his insatiable hunger. All that remained were bones, some still intact while others lay shattered, along with soiled garments and scattered remnants of meat.

Yet, he didn't forget about the girl named Miyaka. He toiled tirelessly to entice her back to the lake, driven by an unrelenting determination to make her his own once more.

_____________________________

Her husband was furious at her attempt to escape, and his anger had escalated to violence. The evening had been unbearable, her husband's rage unleashed upon her for daring to defy him and attempt to escape. He had scolded and hit her, his anger leaving her bruised and terrified. As a punishment, the man decided to confine her to a cramped guest bedroom in their shared, or rather his exclusive, house.

The memories of her near escape and her encounter with Touya, the merman, haunted her constantly. She longed for the soothing presence of the lake, where she had briefly found respite from her torment.

One evening, as the sun began to set and darkness crept over the land, she heard a faint, melodious voice carried by the evening breeze. It was distant, yet unmistakable. The voice belonged to Touya, the merman who had saved her life just a few days prior. The sound seemed to come from afar, but Miyaka was more than sure of its origin.

Miyaka cried throughout the day and night, her tears eventually lulling her to sleep in her cramped confinement. And there, in the depths of the night, the magical, soothing voice of Touya returned to her. Sometimes she would shake off the feeling, trying to rationalize that it was impossible for her to hear his voice from so far away. But in the lonely darkness of her captivity, she began to dream about the merman, his appearance simultaneously dangerous and alluring. His presence in her dreams became a lifeline, a glimmer of hope in her otherwise bleak existence.

One night, Miyaka decided to try her luck as their maid forgot to lock her in the bedroom after bringing her supper. The nights had become colder, and she threw a light coat over her shoulders, concealing her black dress beneath. Tiptoeing downstairs, she could hear her husband engaged in a conversation with his friends who had come to visit. Luck seemed to be on her side as she also heard the clinks of glasses, most likely filled with sake – it meant her husband wouldn't notice her leaving the house.

Quietly sneaking through the corridor, she closed the front door gently behind her. The cool night air filled her lungs, and a smile crept onto her lips – she felt free again.

Suddenly, a female voice emerged from the darkness on her left. "You shouldn't be seeing him, he's a demon," it cautioned. It was their maid, an old lady named Yuki.

Miyaka frowned and replied, "I have no idea what you're talking about. I just need to take a walk. I can't function like this."

Yuki sighed, her eyes filled with concern, and she moved closer, holding some logs in her hands. She reached out and gently placed one hand on Miyaka's shoulder. "My child, stay away from that lake, it's a cursed place. Many souls were lost there, long forgotten by this world. Don't let your sadness and loneliness drag you there, to that hellish place."

Miyaka shook the hand of the older woman off her shoulder. "Please stop, Yuki-san. I'm a grown-up, and I know how to take care of myself. I've been there many times before, and I've never seen or heard anything unusual," Miyaka lied smoothly. "People often concoct unusual stories, usually to frighten children away from venturing there on their own, to prevent accidents or drownings. And don't tell my husband you saw me."

Yuki let out a deep sigh, her eyes carrying a sadness that seemed to weigh her down. "You're making a mistake, my child."

But Miyaka wasn't listening anymore. She was already running towards the lake, as if some strange, invisible force was pushing her towards it.

Touya's throat felt raspy as he completed his haunting melody. A gnawing doubt crept in, questioning the worth of straining his vocal cords for the sake of a pitiful human.

With an irritated growl, Touya glared at the moon before submerging himself back into the water. He couldn't help but feel frustrated that the woman hadn't been devoured when she first plunged into the lake; it seemed like that was her intention after all. Yet, the irresistible urge to play with human pathetic life had taken precedence.

As he rested on the lake's bottom, he patiently waited, a glimmer of hope in his heart that perhaps she had at last heard his enticing voice, sparing him the need to actively seek her out once more.

Miyaka finally arrived at the lake, the moon casting an eerie glow over the surrounding woods. The night was heavy with a sense of foreboding, the tall trees looming like silent sentinels in the darkness. The lake, approachable through a narrow path in the woods, shimmered like a dark mirror, its surface reflecting the cold, distant stars.

As she crouched near the water, her fingers trembling, she tapped the surface with her fingertips, whispering his name in a hushed, desperate tone. Her heart pounded in her chest, and a chill ran down her spine. The air seemed thick with an unnatural stillness, as if the very forest held its breath, waiting for something to happen.

Miyaka's feelings were a tumultuous mix of fear and longing. She had been drawn here by an inexplicable force, a connection she couldn't explain. Her mind told her to flee this eerie place, to return to the safety of her husband's house, but her heart and soul yearned for something else, something she couldn't quite comprehend.

As she continued to call out to him, the water remained still, and a sense of dread settled over her. In the heart of the night, in the midst of the haunted woods, she was about to confront a reality she could never have imagined.

A shock of white hair emerged from beneath the water's surface, followed by a pair of radiant blue eyes that observed her with an eerie, almost otherworldly glow, resembling the lost flames of souls.

So she had returned! The woman had willingly walked back into the snare that would ultimately lead to her demise. It was a stark testament to the foolishness of humans, their vulnerability to the allure of his voice despite their long-standing awareness of water creatures like him. Truly, their ignorance was nothing short of pathetic.

As the woman extended her hand into the water, he gracefully swam closer and gently enveloped her hand with his own, guiding it beneath the water's surface just enough to plant a delicate kiss on the top of her palm. To her, it likely appeared as a customary human gesture, but for him, it was an opportunity to savor her essence once more, and she tasted exquisite.

He released her hand and revealed his full form to her. "You've returned, miss," he stated calmly. "I thought you were too frightened of me to come back."

When her hand dipped into the water, she felt a gentle pull, and her breath caught as the merman's lips pressed against the top of her palm. It was a fleeting gesture, one that she perceived as a kind human custom, but the sensation sent shivers through her.

As he let go of her hand, she finally saw him in his entirety. He revealed himself to her, and she was spellbound by his otherworldly appearance. His words reached her ears, and she couldn't help but respond, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and fascination. "I... I couldn't stay away," she admitted, her gaze locked on his mesmerizing eyes. "I don't understand what's happening, but there's something about you that draws me back, despite my fear."

"Oh? Is that so?" He mused with a hint of curiosity. Without further ado, he gracefully submerged beneath the water's surface without unnecessary words.

Miyaka watched with a mixture of fascination and trepidation as he hummed and disappeared beneath the water's surface. Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited for his return, her mind awash with questions and a growing sense of unease.

She couldn't help but wonder what secrets lay hidden beneath those dark, mysterious waters.

Touya emerged from the murky water just a moment later, but there was something different about him this time.

Instead of his tail, Touya was now standing on his own two legs. His body was strong, but his skin was pale with dark purple splatters all over it. He sighed deeply, running a hand through his wet hair.

Then he turned to her, standing there like the day he was born, completely unbothered by his nakedness. "Maybe it was destiny itself that brought you here, or perhaps you are in love, miss. How about we take a little walk?" he hummed, using his voice in a specific way to maintain his control over her.

Miyaka's eyes widened in shock as she saw him looking more like a human. Her cheeks flushed at his nakedness, and at first, she turned her head away, trying to regain her composure. His voice, however, was so sweet and enchanting that she found herself unable to resist his offer.

With a shy smile, she finally met his gaze and nodded in agreement. "A walk sounds nice," she replied, her voice slightly trembling.

"Then, come on, for it would be my privilege to stroll alongside a lady of your grace," Touya whispered, his voice a gentle melody, its soft vibrations resonating in the quietude of the night.

As they embarked on their journey, the moonlight filtered through the forest canopy, bestowing an otherworldly glow upon their surroundings. Miyaka found herself caught in a swirl of emotions. On one hand, the night's beauty enthralled her — the moon's tranquil reflection upon the serene lake and the enigmatic presence of her companion held an undeniable allure.

Yet, beneath this surface enchantment, a lingering fear clung to her heart. She walked alongside a creature she could barely fathom—a being who had both saved her and possessed the potential to harm her. Her steps were cautious, her senses acutely attuned, yet she couldn't deny the strange magnetism of the situation that kept her near him.

"Touya," she ventured with trepidation, "you mentioned being a siren earlier, and I believe you obviously... But I've been pondering... What sustenance does a being like you feed on?"

The merman gazed at her through half-lidded eyes, offering a subtle shrug of his shoulders. "I am indeed a siren, and I'm pleased that you trust me. If you're truly curious, I subsist on fish and other creatures that dwell within this very lake." Touya gently entwined his hand with hers, their fingers interlocking. "Is there a particular reason for your concern?" he inquired softly.

Miyaka's fingers held onto Touya's hand with a hint of tension as she confessed, "Our maid, Yuki-san, she warned me about you. She called you a devil and spoke of the many people who have disappeared near this lake." Her gaze wavered between fear and fascination as she continued, "Despite her warnings, I couldn't resist the pull of this place, and of you."

In response, Touya emitted a low purring sound and drew a bit nearer, his hand reaching to tenderly brush her cheek. "People often spin tales to frighten children or to add intrigue to their lives," he remarked, his voice laced with a soothing quality. "Do you truly believe I would have saved you if I were the monster they depict?" he lied smoothly.

Miyaka yielded to the allure of Touya's touch, her fear momentarily giving way to an inexplicable attraction. "I... I don't know what to believe anymore," she confessed, her voice quivering with uncertainty. “But I trust you…”

As they continued their walk, Miyaka was suddenly assaulted by a foul odor that made her wince and scrunch up her nose. "Oh God, what an awful smell!" She scanned the area, trying to locate the source of the stench.

Dabi's brow furrowed with a sense of foreboding; he already had a suspicion about what she was referring to. It was likely the remains of the girl who had come to the lake before her, her torn and discarded body now possibly decomposing in the tall grass, right where he had left it; Touya had no inclination to allow the wretched remnants of a pitiful human to decompose within the sacred waters of his lake. He cursed himself for not disposing of it more discreetly, hiding the evidence of his previous encounter.

Miyaka couldn't resist investigating the foul odor. She carefully approached the nearby bushes, her heart pounding with dread. As she parted the dense foliage, she was met with a gruesome sight.

There, partially concealed among the tangled branches and leaves, were the decaying remains of what appeared to be a human. The body was in a horrifying state of decomposition, and the stench was overwhelming. Maggots crawled in and out of the decomposing flesh, and Miyaka felt bile rise in her throat.

She stumbled back, horrified by the grisly discovery. "Oh my God," she whispered, her voice trembling with shock and disgust. "What... what is this?!" The realization that something terrible had happened here sent shivers down her spine. "Oh my dear God!" She started crying.

Touya swiftly ensnared her in his grasp, drawing her nearer as his arms coiled around her, a tight and sinister embrace. His hushed whispers carried an eerie weight, like a sinister lullaby meant to enthrall. "You humans are often desperate creatures," he murmured, his tone taking on a dark, chilling timbre. "I didn't know she was here. She probably came for the same reason you did those days ago, but she succeeded."

The sinister undercurrent in his words hung in the air, weaving a web of unsettling secrets and uncertainty. Miyaka's heart raced as Touya pulled her into a tight hug, but his touch only intensified her fear and disgust. The overwhelming desire to escape this situation consumed her, like a trapped animal seeking freedom. As her mind churned with conflicting emotions, the feeling of unease grew stronger. She needed to get away, to put distance between herself and whatever had transpired here. "That's disgusting! Poor soul..." she whispered, her voice trembling. 

But then realization struck, and her horror deepened. "Wait... How do you know it was a woman? These remains are unrecognizable, you can't determine who it was... Oh my God... oh my God, you killed her..." Miyaka began to back away slowly, her eyes filled with a terror that clawed at her very soul.

Touya's frown deepened as he regarded her, her skepticism gnawing at his patience. His voice, laced with irritation, rumbled like distant thunder, "You are too quick to pass judgment, miss. My existence is far removed from your understanding, and my senses perceive the world in ways you cannot fathom."

Turning away from her, he continued in a lower tone, his words designed to play on her human psyche, "I saved your life, yet you accuse me of murder."

Miyaka, caught in a conflict of emotions, felt a wave of guilt cascade over her like a shadowed waterfall. Had her accusations been too hasty, she wondered? Touya's words, though cryptic, resonated with a strange sincerity. Yet, the puzzle pieces of this enigmatic encounter didn't quite fit into the mosaic of her understanding.

Opting to retain her doubts in the vault of her thoughts, Miyaka approached Touya, her arms encircling his waist from behind with a hesitancy akin to a delicate breeze quivering through a forest of doubts. Her voice trembled, a blend of trepidation and contrition as she spoke. "I... I apologize if I misconstrued, Touya. The world here feels surreal, and my fear cast shadows over my judgment. Forgive me."

Touya's lips curled into a smile, hidden from her eyes. In her vulnerability, her heartstrings resonated to his voice's enchanting tune. The pieces of his plan were falling into place as he desired.

He released a deep, contemplative sigh, his fingers gently caressing the arms wrapped around his waist. His voice, a velvet whisper, embraced the still night air. "Yes, I saved you. If I were the monster you fear, you would have been my meal the very day you graced the water with your presence. But, dear miss, I forgive you, for there's something about you that intrigues me."

Miyaka's voice quivered as she made her request, her longing for confirmation overpowering her doubts. "Touya," she murmured, the name like a sweet melody on her lips, "would you... kiss me? To anchor this moment in reality, to assure me that I'm not merely adrift in some dream?"

Touya's hands gently slid to Miyaka's, separating them from his waist. He released himself from her embrace and turned to face her, his smile still present as he cupped her face with his cool palms. "Sirens are known for granting wishes. Your wish is my command, fair lady," he whispered softly before leaning in to kiss her.

Their kiss was both slow and intense, a dance of desire and mystery. Touya's sharp teeth clanked against hers, but he quickly took control of the kiss, his forked tongue parting her lips, exploring her mouth.

Miyaka responded eagerly to Touya's kiss, her initial hesitation giving way to a surge of desire and curiosity. Her hands began to explore his physique with a boldness she hadn't known she possessed. Fingers traced the lines of his pale skin, feeling the strange yet alluring texture of his body. As their lips moved in a passionate dance, her fingers traveled from his chest to his back and further south, grasping his ass. Her tongue danced with his.

Touya blinked, and retreated, his gaze locked on her with a smug, playful smile dancing on his lips. He ran his tongue over his mouth. "Behold, dear lady, clutching a monster’s ass, nurtured by the wild with manners undefined?" he mused with a hint of amusement in his voice.

Miyaka's cheeks flushed a deep shade of crimson as she felt the heat of embarrassment wash over her. She stammered out an apology, her words a mixture of guilt and confusion. "I'm... I'm so sorry," she murmured, her voice quivering. "I don't know why I did that. It was impulsive, and I should never have... I didn't mean to offend you." Her eyes averted, unable to meet his gaze, she felt a strange mixture of attraction and shame clouding her judgment.

The monster chuckled, capturing her lips with a playful kiss, his palm caressing her cheek. This time, his arms enveloped her waist, and his hands embarked on a slow journey downward, firmly fondling her ass.

Miyaka's gaze locked with Touya's as she struggled to find the words to convey her complex feelings. "Touya," she began, her voice filled with uncertainty, "I want to be with you, but I'm lost. I don't know what to do or how to navigate this... connection we have... What am I supposed to do?"

Touya emitted a soft, melodic hum, gently pressing his forehead to hers. "You see, my dear, you have the power to rid yourself of your tormentor, to break free from those chains that bind you. Return to me, and I shall envelop you in a love that knows no bounds, a love that will shield and cherish you," he whispered, his words like a seductive melody. 

Dabi couldn't contain his satisfaction. He marveled at how effortlessly he manipulated her. She was not only surrendering herself willingly, but she was also unwittingly becoming a pawn in his sinister game. The thrill of her impending arrival, the promise of chaos in her wake — oh, how he relished it all!

In that surreal moment, Miyaka found herself strangely drawn to the merman's words. The idea of breaking free from her tormentor, of taking control of her own destiny, it all felt so tempting, so liberating. The plan that had sounded wrong at first now seemed like the path she was meant to take, the one that would finally lead her to a life free from the clutches of her abusive husband.

She hesitated for just a moment, the weight of her decision sinking in, and then, with newfound determination, she whispered, "Yes... I'll do it. I'll break free from him, no matter what it takes." 

Using his seductive voice, he whispered into her ear, his tone laced with malice, "Do it. Show him what you're truly made of, and we shall be bound together for eternity." His words were a siren's call, leading her deeper into the abyss of darkness that he reveled in.

Touya watched Miyaka's retreating figure, a sinister smile curling on his lips as he imagined the torment he would inflict upon her. To him, she was nothing more than a pawn in his twisted game, a foolish woman who had fallen right into his meticulously set trap. The prospect of torturing her and relishing in her suffering thrilled him.

_____________________________

That night Miyaka found herself trapped in a nightmare. She stood alone in a strange, dark room that seemed to stretch endlessly in all directions. There was no light, no discernible features, just an overwhelming sense of oppressive darkness that threatened to swallow her whole.

The first thing that assaulted her senses was the pungent scent of blood, heavy and metallic, hanging in the air like a suffocating fog. It clung to her, filling her nostrils with a sickening, nauseating aroma that made her stomach churn with dread.

As she cautiously took a step forward, her footsteps echoed eerily in the void, the sound resonating through the darkness. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the fear intensifying with each passing moment. She called out for help, but her voice seemed to vanish into the abyss, swallowed by the oppressive silence.

The room felt like a labyrinth, a never-ending maze of despair. Miyaka's breath quickened, and her skin prickled with a cold, clammy sweat. Panic welled up inside her as she desperately searched for an escape, but the darkness remained unyielding, trapping her in its suffocating grip. 

In the next moment, the oppressive darkness was pierced by a strange, eerie light that suddenly illuminated a portion of the floor in front of her. The ghastly scene that unfolded was horrifying beyond imagination.

There, sprawled out in a grotesque and mangled state, lay a heavily destroyed female body. It bore the unmistakable marks of teeth, deep and savage, along with numerous bruises and cuts inflicted by sharp, brutal claws. The sight was enough to make her blood run cold, and a wave of revulsion surged through her.

The lifeless figure on the ground seemed to be a cruel testament to unimaginable violence. It was as if some malevolent force had unleashed its fury upon this unfortunate soul, leaving behind a gruesome tableau of suffering and torment.

Miyaka's breath hitched, and her heart pounded in her chest as she gazed upon this macabre scene. The strange light continued to flicker, casting eerie shadows that danced across the lifeless form. She felt a suffocating dread wash over her, realizing that she was trapped, unable to escape the horrors that lurked in the shadows.

Suddenly, amidst the surreal horror, Miyaka heard a grotesque noise that resembled something being voraciously chewed. Her heart raced as she turned her head to the side slowly, where the eerie light flickered once more, revealing a chilling sight.

In the dim illumination, she saw a dark figure, unmistakably Touya, slowly devouring a still-beating heart held in his clawed hands. His sharp claws dug into the quivering meat of the organ, his eyes glinting with a sinister hunger.

The gruesome scene played out before her eyes, and she was paralyzed with terror, unable to look away from the horrifying spectacle unfolding in this twisted nightmare. Miyaka's terror reached its zenith as she opened her mouth in a desperate attempt to scream, but to her horror, no sound escaped her lips. Her voice had been stolen by the darkness surrounding her.

The next moment, she was outside, and the moon hung low in the obsidian sky, casting a sinister pallor over the desolate landscape. The eerie silence was shattered by the mournful cries of ghostly sea creatures that drifted ominously in the air, their twisted forms contorted in agony.

Amidst this nightmarish scene, the water's surface rippled and churned, as if it were alive with malevolent intent. From the inky depths, a grotesque figure emerged. It was Touya, but he bore no resemblance to the benevolent creature she had encountered before. His once-lustrous white hair now hung in limp, tangled strands, darkened with the stains of blood and decay. His eyes, once mesmerizing pools of turquoise, were now empty voids, devoid of any humanity. His scales and fins had become jagged and twisted, oozing with an otherworldly ichor.

Touya's mouth gaped open unnaturally wide, revealing rows of serrated teeth, each one gleaming with an eerie luminescence. He lurched toward Miyaka, his movements disjointed and unnatural, as if he were a puppet controlled by some malevolent force. With a gut-wrenching lurch, his grotesque form surged out of the water, and he loomed over her, his breath rancid and putrid. He reached out with his twisted, clawed hands, and ripped right through her chest, pulling her heart out; his touch sent a searing pain through her body.

The next moment, Miyaka found herself standing at the edge of the dark lake once more, alone. The haunting memories of what she witnessed still lingered, but a strange compulsion had drawn her back to this place.

She began to undress, her trembling fingers fumbling with the fabric of her dress. The moonlight cast a silvery glow on her as she shed each layer, leaving her vulnerable in the night. The cool breeze rustled the leaves in the surrounding woods, and the night seemed to hold its breath, as if nature itself watched in anticipation. With each piece of clothing that fell to the ground, she felt a strange sense of liberation, as if she was shedding not just fabric but the weight of her past as well. She stood bare under the moonlight, the lake's dark waters reflecting her silhouette.

Miyaka shivered, whether from the cold or from the anticipation of the unknown, she couldn't tell. 

As the woman stood by the edge of the lake, the moonlight illuminating her bare form, a sudden change in the atmosphere caught her by surprise. Without warning, the heavens opened, and rain began to pour down in a torrential downpour.

The raindrops drenched her, mingling with the tears that had welled up in her eyes. She felt the cool water cascade down her skin, as if nature itself wept for the strange and unsettling journey she had embarked upon.

The rain intensified, soaking the earth around her and turning the once-silent night into a cacophony of sound. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

As another loud clap of thunder echoed through the night, the world seemed to vibrate with its intensity. Miyaka stood drenched and shivering, the rain pouring down around her, when something utterly unexpected unfolded before her eyes.

From the dark depths of the lake, a figure began to emerge. Slowly and deliberately, Touya materialized, his form once again taking on a human shape. The rain-slicked water glistened on his bare skin, accentuating the contours of his body.

He stepped out of the lake, his movements graceful and unhurried, and stood before her in all his naked glory. The moonlight and raindrops played tricks with the shadows and highlights on his body, creating an almost ethereal, mesmerizing effect.

Miyaka's heart raced, and she couldn't tear her eyes away from this captivating sight. The storm raged around them, but in this moment, it was as if time had stood still, and the world held its breath in the presence of the enigmatic creature before her.

She watched helplessly as Touya's delicious naked body walked purposefully towards her. She felt as though her heart were consumed by a white-hot fire, and was being stabbed with a thousand needles, and she didn't know why. Never had she felt a pain even remotely like this before; it was horrendous. It was a pain she would never wish upon anybody, even a foe.

Touya wrapped his arms around Miyaka, pulling her close, and they both sank to their knees on the wet sand. The storm raged fiercer around them.

Touya, with a powerful force, pushed Miyaka down onto the ground, pinning her beneath his weight, the storm's intensity mirroring the tempestuous passion that had ignited between them.

Miyaka parted her lips, rolling her head back, as Touya's lips found the sweet spot on her exposed neck. His mouth closed over it, and a shiver of pleasure coursed through her as he gently sucked on the sensitive area, right where her pulse point was located.

The merman, displaying skill and patience, gently inserted two fingers into her, his groan reflecting the tightness he encountered. Leaving a trail of wet, open-mouthed kisses along her body, his head descended to her pussy, where he proceeded to wrap his lips around her needy core. Two fingers gently ran across her clit, up and down, up and down.

The woman moaned in pleasure at his fingers massaging her insides.

Touya seemed to be savoring every moment, leisurely tracing his tongue along her slit. His captivating turquoise eyes locked onto her, a mischievous smirk gracing his face as he reveled in the heavenly expression on her face. His forked tongue, with expert precision, skillfully explores every tantalizing crevice, evoking a passionate response that leaves her drenched with desire.

They shifted their positions, with her now kneeling between Touya's legs. She proceeded with deliberate and seductive movements, using her soft hands to sensually stroke his aroused member. A smile of satisfaction graced Miyaka’s lips as she noticed the uncontrollable moan that escaped the merman's mouth when her tongue made contact with the engorged head of his throbbing shaft.

A heated tongue writhed sloppily inside of her cunt, catching Miyaka off guard once more. 

Her breath caught in her throat, and she surrendered to the intense pleasure coursing through her. In a symphony of blissful moans and gasps, she couldn't contain herself, her body quivering as Touya's skilled hand rubbed her swollen clit raw.

Soon, Miyaka mounted Touya, aligning his throbbing dick with her glistening, slick  entrance. She eased his impressive length into her eager pussy, relishing the intense sensation of being stretched beyond what her husband had ever provided.

Touya's hands firmly gripped Miyaka's hips, and he drove himself into her with unrestrained fervor, lost in the primal rhythm of their connection. Each powerful thrust was accompanied by a guttural growl leaving his lips.

Miyaka's breath caught in her throat as she rested her hands on Touya's chiseled chest, snapping her hips back and forth, riding him like he would be a wild stallion. 

Her young body quivered as the successive waves of her climax surged through her. Miyaka's breathing quickened, and her gaze appeared to lose focus as if her eyes were drifting backward. She rode Touya for what felt like an eternity, and then, in a sudden motion, she forcefully slammed down on his throbbing dick, her pussy muscles clenching tightly around his shaft. As she relaxed her pussy slightly, merman shot hot, sticky ropes of cum deep within her core. Miyaka leaned forward to share a passionate kiss with him; their tongues danced together. 

As the ecstasy of the moment began to fade, Miyaka's senses returned, and she suddenly became aware of the rain growing thicker around them. But to her profound horror, when she reluctantly opened her eyes after breaking the passionate kiss with Touya, she realized that it wasn't water pouring down upon them; it was a deluge of blood, staining everything in a nightmarish crimson hue. 

Miyaka wanted to scream, to release the overwhelming anguish that gripped her, but no sound escaped her lips. Instead, she felt like she was suffocating, the blood rain gathering in her nose, making each breath a painful struggle.

After she blinked, Miyaka found herself standing by the side of their marital bed, a sinister calmness in the room as her husband slept soundly. The air was heavy with the weight of her suppressed emotions, and in the distance, she could hear the cruel slurs and insults he had hurled at her throughout their troubled marriage. Each word echoed in her mind, a painful reminder of the torment she had endured.

The anger within her boiled over, a searing rage that consumed her. Unable to contain her emotions any longer, she reached out and began to strike his chest with a fury she had kept buried for far too long. Her screams filled the room as she unleashed the pent-up hatred she felt towards him, her voice cracking with the intensity of her emotions. "I hate you!" she screamed, her voice raw with bitterness. "I hate everything about you!" Her fists hammered down, each blow a cathartic release of the pain and suffering she had endured in silence for too many years. The room seemed to close in around her as she confronted the source of her torment, the darkness of the night bearing witness to her long-suppressed fury.

_____________________________

A haunting, low moan pulled Miyaka out of her nightmarish slumber. Confusion gripped her as she slowly opened her eyes, disoriented and uncertain of her surroundings. It took a few bewildering moments, but then the horrifying realization struck her like a bolt of lightning.

She stood next to her marital bed, her trembling hand gripping a bloodied butcher's knife. On the bed, the nightmarish scene unfolded before her eyes — her husband, lying there with numerous gruesome cuts to his chest and neck, blood pooling around him. His eyes, filled with terror, locked onto her with a fading, desperate gaze, his voice stolen by the brutality of his wounds.

Miyaka's breath caught in her throat as she stared at the gruesome tableau of violence she had somehow become a part of. 

"Noooo!" Miyaka screamed. Her world shattered in a cacophony of horror as she screamed hysterically, the knife slipping from her trembling hand. Her husband's neck bled profusely, a torrent of crimson that stained everything it touched.

In sheer desperation, she pressed her trembling fingers against the gaping wound, trying to stem the relentless flow of blood. Warm, sticky liquid soaked through her delicate palms, mingling with her own tears splashing on top of her palms as they streamed down her cheeks. "I'm so sorry, my love, I'm so sorry! Oh my God, what have I done?! What have I done?! Oh God!" Apologies escaped her trembling lips, choked with guilt and fear. 

As Miyaka stood over her husband, the time seemed to slow down. 

His once-threatening presence now lay vulnerable before her, his breaths shallow and labored. The weight of her decision bore down on her, and a tumultuous mix of emotions churned within her.

She knelt by his side, his life slipping away with each passing moment. His eyes, once filled with cruelty, now held a hint of fear and regret. The realization of what had transpired seemed to dawn on him in those final moments.

Miyaka watched as his chest rose and fell for the last time, his breaths growing weaker until they ceased altogether. His life ended in her arms, and as she looked down at him, a complex array of emotions washed over her — relief, sadness, and the haunting knowledge that her life had taken a dark turn. She had taken control of her destiny, but it had come at a cost she could never truly escape. The memory of his death would forever be etched into her soul. "What have I done..." Miyaka was whispering, her tears streaming uncontrollably.

The old maid, Yuki, was rudely awakened by the piercing screams that echoed through the once-quiet house. Fear gnawed at her as she rushed to the source of the disturbance, her trembling hands clutching the edges of her nightgown.

When she entered the room and laid eyes upon the nightmarish scene, Yuki’s own scream pierced the air. Horror contorted her features as she beheld the lifeless form of Miyaka's husband and the distraught Miyaka herself, tears streaming down her face.

Yuki, her voice shaking with dread, stammered, "What... What happened here, ma'am?! You... You murdered him!"

Miyaka, overwhelmed by the gruesome events, could only sob in response, trying to explain the inexplicable. She was lost in a maelstrom of emotions, her world unraveling before her eyes.

In the end, unable to bear the weight of her actions and the night's horrors, Miyaka made a fateful decision. She fled from the scene, her tear-streaked face a mask of desperation, and ran toward the only place she believed was safe — the dark embrace of the lake that had lured her with its eerie allure, where the enigmatic merman awaited her. Her mission was accomplished.

_____________________________

Touya's keen senses detected the hurried steps drawing nearer to the lake, and the unmistakable scent of blood hung heavy in the air. She had done it — Miyaka had followed through with their dark plan! He could already sense the turmoil coursing through her, her distress palpable.

With a predatory grace, he decided to rise to the surface of the water, and he waited there, anticipating her arrival.

Miyaka ran through the woods, her breath ragged and her heart pounding in her chest. Her once-silky, pink nightgown was now marred by dark stains of blood, a chilling testament to the horrors she had taken part in. Her long, dark hair was tangled and matted, wild strands framing her flushed cheeks.

She moved with a frantic urgency, her feet making a wet sound as they pounded against the damp earth. Every step took her farther away from the nightmarish scene she had left behind, but the memory of it clung to her like a shadow.

Miyaka reached the shore of the lake, her voice trembling as she called out for Touya. Her desperate cries echoed through the eerie stillness of the night, each plea carrying the weight of her fear and longing. "Touya!" she called, her voice quivering with emotion. "Please, I need you!" She scanned the dark waters, her heart racing in anticipation, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. 

Touya's head emerged from the water, his wet hair clinging to his pale skin, and his piercing blue eyes locked onto her. "My love," he beckoned, his voice soothing yet strangely commanding. "Why the distress? Didn't I promise to protect you? Come to me, and find the safety and solace you seek." His words were laden with an irresistible invitation, drawing her deeper into his world.

Miyaka, trembling all over her body, took slow, hesitant steps into the water. Her tear-stained face glistened in the moonlight as she approached Touya, her heart heavy with guilt and despair. She continued to cry, her voice shaky as she began to tell Touya about what she had done. "I... I did it," she whispered, her voice quivering with remorse. "I... I followed your words, and I hurt him. He's gone now." Her confession hung in the air like a dark cloud, and she looked into Touya's eyes, seeking some form of understanding or absolution for the choices she had made.

The water enveloped Miyaka, and she shivered involuntarily as its icy coldness seeped into her skin. The sensation sent a shock of discomfort through her, a stark contrast to the tumultuous emotions swirling within her. Her nightgown grew heavy, soaked with the icy water.

Touya extended his hand, gently seizing hers, and drew her closer, enveloping her in his warm embrace. One of his hands tenderly caressed her hair, his touch a deceptive contrast to the darkness that lay beneath.

He savored the sensation of her distress, finding it akin to sweet nectar, adding an intoxicating layer to the unfolding narrative of their entwined destinies.

"My sweet Miyaka," he murmured, his voice laced with a sinister sweetness. "Such a good girl." His praise was both soothing and unsettling, as he reveled in the intricate web of emotions he had woven around her.

Miyaka found solace in Touya's embrace, even as her body went numb from the cold water. His presence provided a strange comfort that she couldn't quite explain.

She looked up at him, her voice quivering, and asked in a trembling whisper, "What... What do we do now?" The world around her had descended into chaos, and she clung to him as her anchor in this bewildering nightmare.

Touya held her in a tight embrace, "I shall shield you, for you are mine," he said with eerie grace.

Miyaka looked up at Touya with worry in her eyes, her voice filled with desperation. "My maid... she saw what happened. I can't return to the estate. What should I do now?"

The monstrous being scoffed dismissively. "Don't concern yourself with that old hag. She knows nothing. You are under my protection now, and you shall remain safe for all time."

Miyaka snuggled closer to Touya, resting her head on the crook of his neck for comfort. Her curiosity piqued, she asked in a soft voice, "Touya, what are those dark purple spots on your skin? I forgot to ask earlier..."

"That's how my body looks," Touya replied openly, "They are just marks from years ago when some sailors tried to burn me alive after I killed their captain on the open sea."

Miyaka's eyes widened as she listened to his gruesome story. She struggled to reconcile this dark tale with the merman who had saved her and told her he had never attacked anyone. She asked, her voice filled with uncertainty, "But... you saved me, and you said you've never harmed anyone. I don't understand, Touya..."

"Perhaps it's because you're nothing more than a naive, little human," Touya chuckled, his hold on her growing stronger.

Miyaka winced as Touya's grip tightened, causing discomfort. She mustered the courage to speak up, her voice trembling. "Touya, your hold is hurting me," she said softly. "Please, let's not be unkind..."

"Well, my dear, I need to ensure my prized possession won't simply slip through my fingers," he remarked with a sinister smile. "Oh, I've been waiting for this moment for so long — to have you back in my embrace."

Miyaka attempted to slip out of Touya's strong embrace, but her efforts were in vain. Instead, a sudden force of his hands pushed her beneath the water's surface, and panic surged through her. She thrashed and struggled, desperate for air and to break free from the grip that had become suffocating.

Her distress only seemed to heighten his pleasure. The sight of her desperately thrashing around, fighting for her own life, sent a thrilling wave of excitement through him.

The merman seized a handful of Miyaka's hair and yanked her back up, a cruel grin on his face as she gasped for air. "Did you truly believe that I would want a pathetic human like you?" he taunted with a chilling edge to his words.

Tears streamed down Miyaka's face as she sobbed, her voice trembling with desperation. "Why are you being so cruel and nasty?!" she pleaded, her distress palpable in her words. "I love you, and I did what you told me to do so we could be together, Touya!"

Her cries echoed through the dark waters, mixing with the eerie ambiance of their surroundings. Her huge distress was like a storm within her, a maelstrom of emotions that threatened to consume her. She continued, her voice broken and filled with anguish, "You... you visited me in my dreams, brought me pleasure... Why are you doing this now?!"

Touya's voice dripped with cruelty as he responded, "Visit someone as pathetic as you? Never. But it seems my voice has indeed worked wonders on you." He playfully tugged at her hair even harder, causing her pain. "To me, you're nothing more than a piece of meat, and I take great pleasure in tormenting naive humans like you. It adds a delightful flavor to the meal." His words sent a chill down her spine as the darkness of their situation enveloped her.

The merman summoned his strength and, with a powerful motion, pulled Miyaka beneath the water with him. 

Her world plunged into darkness and turmoil as she was dragged into the depths of the lake, her struggles intensifying as she fought against the relentless force pulling her down. Sinister shadows danced around her, and she felt a suffocating pressure in her chest as the water closed in on her.

The eerie silence of the underwater world was broken only by the sound of her muffled cries. She could see Touya's malevolent grin in the dim light, his eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger. The water seemed to press against her, threatening to crush her as she struggled for breath, her desperate gasps for air drowned by the malevolent embrace of the lake.

Dabi launched a relentless assault on Miyaka. His sharp claws tore through the water, leaving vicious trails in their wake. With terrifying swiftness, he closed the distance between them, his razor-sharp teeth bared in a menacing grin. He attacked with ruthless ferocity, his claws raking across her skin, and his teeth sinking into her flesh. The water around them turned crimson as the horrifying struggle unfolded, and Miyaka's desperate cries were silenced by the watery abyss that enveloped them.

Miyaka's nightgown offered little protection as Touya's relentless assault continued. With a vicious tear, the delicate fabric was rent asunder, leaving her exposed to the cold, merciless waters of his lake.

Touya's clawed hands gently cradled Miyaka's cheeks, holding her gaze with a cold, unfeeling intensity. Their eyes locked in a chilling embrace as she struggled to hold onto the last remnants of breath in her burning lungs, each painful gasp a stark reminder of her impending doom.

In that haunting moment, beneath the unforgiving waters, they were locked in a macabre dance of predator and prey.

With a swift and cruel motion, Touya pierced Miyaka's chest with his clawed hand, the flesh yielding easily to his monstrous strength. A searing pain shot through her. Dark haired woman's senses barely registered the horrifying reality of what was happening. The world around her dissolved into a surreal blur, and the excruciating pain in her chest seemed distant, as if happening to someone else. As her life ebbed away, her consciousness faded into a murky abyss, and the last remnants of her existence were swallowed by the cold, merciless waters of the lake.

Touya tore the beating heart from her chest, the organ pulsating in his grip, still warm and alive. As he held it before him, the last vestiges of life ebbed away from Miyaka, her body going limp.

Touya, with a grotesque hunger, sank his sharp teeth into the still-beating heart he held in his clawed hand. The organ yielded to his bite, and the taste of youth surged into his mouth. He savored the sickeningly sweet taste. 

Once he had consumed the last morsel of Miyaka's essence, Touya's malevolent gaze turned towards the lifeless body he still held by the arm. A fleeting pang of guilt tugged at his consciousness, but he quickly dismissed the emotion. "You're mine now, forever," he declared, his monstrous arms embracing the lifeless form. "You'll remain with me for all eternity, sweet naive girl, at the bottom of my lake." 

Touya, in a sinister tone, offered a twisted form of thanks to the lifeless Miyaka. "Thank you for your heart, love," he murmured, his voice laced with malevolence. "It has provided me with the strength I needed to regain my full power." 

The waters of the lake seemed to shiver in response to his sinister words, bearing witness to the unholy pact forged in the depths.

After a moment of holding Miyaka's lifeless body close to his muscular chest, Touya swam further down into the unfathomable depths of the abyss that was the lake. With Miyaka's body firmly in his grasp, he descended into the darkness, disappearing from the realm of the living and vanishing into the watery tomb that was his dominion.

[justnerdy15]

FlashFictionFriday 4.11.25

wc: 1984

prompt: @flashfictionfridayofficial rise and fall

notes: companion piece to this; attached to HOTN

warnings: light gore, description of injuries

Theo sits at her daughter’s bedside, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, listening to the low whirl of the machines as the blood transfusion and IV drip slowly work their way into Eva’s body. Her brow is furrowed, skin a sickly pale where it isn’t a deep violent purple, and she’s silent, mostly, except for the occasional whimper.

Cassandra warned her this would take time, that she would look worse before she got better, but the sight of her poor girl squeezes a tight fist around her heart. This whole mess has created a sinking feeling in her stomach she hasn’t felt since Daniel died.

Theo doesn’t even understand how they got here. Any of them.

She reaches out with one hand, gently pushing away the damp curls clinging to Eva’s forehead, before tracing the soft curve of her face. Like any parent, even those who have grown up in the Hunt, she hates the sight of her child in pain, but there has always been the spike of terror, a consuming fear, whenever Eva ends up in one of these beds.

Eva seems so small when she’s here, like the room will swallow her whole, that it makes her look younger than the grown woman she is now. Theo knows it just her mind, the trick of fluorescent lights and a mother’s worry, but it’s hard to remember that in the moment. Eva has always been larger than life, her bright star in dark nights, that there is something instinctually wrong with her quiet stillness.

Sighing, Theo strokes her thumb softly against Eva’s cheek, stoutly refusing to glance below her jawline, as if that could make the bloody, bruised mess of her neck not exist. As if Kha — as if Eva’s former recruit hadn’t buried his teeth there. As if he hadn’t nearly killed her.

A shaky breath escapes and Theo squeezes her eyes shut. She’s fine. She’s alive.

She’ll get better.

She repeats the words over in her head, letting her hand fall to Eva’s sternum, resting just enough to feel the rise and fall. When she hears the creak of the door, she assumes it’s Gareth and keeps her eyes closed, counting each breath Eva takes.

“I’m not leaving, Gar, and I don’t feel like eating.”

There’s a moment of silence, a well-meant argument probably dying on his tongue, but instead of his warm, comforting voice, there’s a stiff throat-clearing noise.

“Mrs. Clark. My apologies for interrupting.”

Her eyes snap open, turning towards the door as she stands while her hand drops to her hip, reaching for the vial in her pocket. But when she sees who is in the doorway, she freezes.

DuPont.

He stands there with his hands loosely curled at his sides, looking at her with guarded apprehension. Portions of his face are rubbed pink and his clothes are different — a solid black shirt has replaced the white button down, turned red by —

It was stained. That’s all.

She glances down at his hands, droplets clinging to clean skin, and the memory forces its way to the surface, of those same hands cradling her daughter, the panicked look on his face as he gave her to Jia-Ahn, the way Eva held onto him, begging DuPont to help the recruit.

It doesn’t make sense.

She shouldn’t even know a vampire. Much less him.

“What do you want?” Theo asks, forcing herself to relax. She watches his gaze shift towards the bed and an uncomfortable feeling grows as a . . .look crosses his face. “Mr. DuPont,” she says again, firmly, though he does not look her way. “What do you want?”

His gaze slowly drags its way back towards her. “I wanted to check on her condition.” He clears his throat again and adds, “For Khalil.”

Theo can’t help but flinch at the addition. It should concern her, how quickly she has turned away from the recruit, the sweet young man that Eva is so fond of, and maybe in the future, it will. But, for now, she can only think of his face, bloodied and wild, as he lunged at her daughter.

A small part of her hoped that DuPont had done his duty and already disposed of him.

She does not want to be the one to tell Eva they must call a Hunt.

He’s staring at her again, lips pressed into a thin line, and Theo wants to move, to shield her daughter from his gaze, deny him the opportunity to observe her vulnerability. Before she can, however, he frowns.

“Why hasn’t anyone cleaned up her?” he asks, brow furrowing, as he takes a step into the room.

Theo bristles, the criticism hitting a bruise nearly 4 decades old, and matches his step. “Cass and Vera took care of her wounds. Now, it is just a matter of waiting on Jia-Ahn.” How dare he? Her indignation rises at the flat look he gives her, unimpressed.

“I’m talking about the blood all over her neck, Mrs. Clark.”

Her jaw clenches. “I know that, Mr. DuPont.”

“Then why —” He cuts himself off as if he finally realizes who he’s talking to. An apologetic look flits across his face, one that she raises her head at, before he breathes out deeply. She grinds her teeth together, willing her eyes to stay dry, as he gives a brief nod.

She can’t do it. She can’t look down at her sweet daughter’s neck and not picture Daniel. Not remember the jagged edges of his torn throat, the sliver of startingly white bone revealed between sections of wet flesh, blood coating his skin —

She can’t.

Theo expects him to turn tail, to utter a short apology, if he even says anything, and disappear to whatever hole he crawled out of.

“May I?” DuPont asks her instead.

She blinks, bewildered. “I’m sorry?” May he what? Leave?

DuPont swallows and he looks back to Eva, tilting his head in her direction. “Do you mind if I help her?” He glances back to Theo. “Evangeline won’t like waking up to that.”

“Eva,” she corrects him out of instinct. “She doesn’t like being called by her first name.”

“Really?” he says with another frown. “She never said.”

Theo shifts on her feet, curiosity flickering, as DuPont takes in that information. Perhaps they weren’t as familiar as she feared, if he didn’t know that. Eva was quick to correct people on her name, Imma aside. But that is not the conversation at hand.

“I don’t think,” she trails off as she looks back at her. She still can’t look, but she sees the spots dotting the line of her jaw and chin.

“I’ll tell her it was my idea,” DuPont says, causing her to look back at him. He offers a slight shrug. “I don’t think she’ll mind, but.”

She looks him up and down, conflicted. Theo doesn’t understand why he cares, why he hasn’t left, but a part of her doesn’t care. He wants to help Eva — right now, that’s enough for her.

“Okay,” Theo says, ignoring his look of surprise, “But I’m watching you, DuPont. Just — just be careful.” She takes her seat again beside the bed, laying a hand on Eva’s wrist, pressing her fingers gently into her artery, feeling the steady pulse. It soothes her enough to let him come further into the room.

“I would expect nothing less,” he says, lips twitching into a slight smile. He walks over to the sink on the other side of the room, taking a wash cloth off of the vanity’s shelf, and turns on the water.

Theo watches as he tests the water, adjusting the handles, until it’s a temperature he apparently prefers, and wets the wash cloth. He carefully wrings the cloth out and brings it to the other side of the bed.

His eyes flick up to meet hers, briefly, before he leans over and begins to gently wash Eva’s neck. Taking a steadying breath, Theo’s fingers flex around Eva’s wrist, keeping an eye on DuPont as he wipes away the tacky blood.

“You should know,” he says quietly, “that you’ll be able milk this for a while with Khalil.”

Theo stiffens and a sharp retort is on the tip of her tongue just as she realizes that he wasn’t saying that to her. He isn’t even looking at Theo.

“He’s shaken up,” DuPont continues, rotating the cloth to a clean section, moving up her neck. “Which is understandable. He’s worried sick, and feeling guilty, but I was able to get him to calm down. I don’t think he’ll want to leave until he knows you’re awake and on the mend.”

Disbelief settles in her as she watches DuPont clean Eva up with methodical attention, his voice low and soothing as he talks to her. It discomforts her. All the pieces she knows she’s missing. Theo looks at her daughter’s face, soft and calm under DuPont ministrations, and she has to know. The words force themselves out before she can hold her tongue.

“How do you know my daughter, Mr. DuPont?”

His hand stills, hovering over Eva’s skin, before he looks up at her. “We met at the Ball.”

“We didn’t introduce her to you.” The Ball was months ago and she can’t bring herself to believe that Eva has been keeping a secret for that long. Not from them.

His jaw ticks. “No, you did not.” He huffs out a breath and returns to his task. “Don’t worry; she didn’t tell me who she was.”

“Then how did you find out?”

“I ran into her one night when she was Hunting. We were after the same fledgling.”

“And when was that?”

“Jesus,” he bites out, stopping again to look at her. “Just ask what you want to ask.” His eyes are narrowed, frustration bleeding through, and he steps away from the bed to head back to the sink. His back is a tense line as he wets the cloth again. “If you were wanting an interrogation, you should have had your mother here.”

Theo’s mouth thins and she wants to scowl at him. Eva is her daughter and she’ll ask as many questions as she damn well pleases. She doesn’t need Imma here to do it for her.

“Fine,” she says flatly, “How long has she been lying for you?”

DuPont turns around, incredulous, as he demands, “Excuse me?”

“My daughter is a lot of things, Mr. DuPont. But a liar has never been one of them. Until now,” she motions to the room. “She’s been lying and speaking half-truths and sneaking around. And all of that has led to this.”

DuPont scowls at her as he approaches the bed. “I don’t appreciate the accusation, Mrs. Clark,” he says with a glare even as he returns to his original task.

“Then tell me how long this has been going on.”

“If she hasn’t said anything, then I’m sure she has her reasons.”

“Bullshit. Dammit DuPont, just tell me —”

“No,” he says, tone final. He straightens from where he’s leaned over, folding the cloth into a square, and looks her straight in the eyes. “She’s Jocasta’s heir, right? As such, maybe you should have a little faith in her and trust that she will tell you when she’s ready. Maybe you should spend some time thinking about why she’s been reluctant to tell you.”

[rel124c41]

PSILOCYBIN AND HONEYCOMB. jade leech

There is something terribly wrong with the queen bee. Gentle and kind. Out of her mind. inspired by @merakiui dabbles and @pathosprit asks about god!floyd/cultist!reader

tags: alternative universe - cults, implied/referenced drug use, old gods, falling in love, blood and gore, beekeeping, fluff and smut, unhealthy relationships, thought projection, gentleness, inspired by psilocybin and honeycomb by harley poe, murder

word count: 11,895

When you are ten, round-faced and small, you watch the Reverend heat up the branding iron. He twirls it in the fire like it is a marshmallow, making sure the iron is covered evenly with a brilliant scarlet red. Gold dances over the thick, ebony gloves that the Reverend wears and shadows jump across the stone creases of his aged face. You watch the sigil rotate in numerous circles. 

A foreign hand pulls up your dress, exposing your stomach and underwear. You keep watching the circle of iron and fire; as the speed of the Reverend's hands pick up, the two materials blend together in a racing whirlpool of a red and gold comet. Beautiful. 

“It won’t hurt will it, Mom?” Your small voice is full of terror; your wrists tremble in the hold of the two adults pinning you down to the table.

“No sweetie, no it won’t.” Your mother, the unmarried woman who got pregnant, presses a kiss to your forehead.

When the Reverend presses the branding iron down on the skin on your hypogastric skin, right under your belly-button, it is the last time you know fear. 

By the stream, God – The Odd One – calls and beckons and sings.

Hands fall idle in surprise. You were not expecting a summon from Him today. Raising your head from your task, you listen closely. It could have just been the snapping branch under a rabbit’s foot or the breeze blowing too roughful in a bush. You wait patiently for that divine melody to resume itself. 

In the pregnant pause, a white dress rustles through the current of the stream. Its arms wave helpless. Under the water, the fabric mimics a dead gray hue. 

There is no secondary call or beckoning. Holding your breath long enough, you fall back into your task. 

White dress in hand, you scrub it with a mixture of mammal fat and lye. The cleansing agent bubbles and carries down the stream. If the heart of your God resides anywhere on land, it is here, your favorite place; in His heart, you do your laundry, domestic. 

The Reverend would be appalled at that thought. You think with a smile. Water collapses from the dress as you wring it out. But it is an entirely true thought. The deeper you venture in the forest, the more you can hear Him. It is only when you reach for the robin egg blue dress does He come back, voice oscillating through nature. 

A testing call? Dropping the garment, you listen intently, waiting to see where you can jump into the melody. After a beat, you find your place in the song. The construction of the deut sounds like this:

A stream sweeping in a downward incline, splashing in playful, petite waves as it tickles lower. It is bordered by plentiful grass. Like boats caught in a fierce storm, a handful of pine-cones freckled in the water move across the stream. Rocks break apart the smoothness of the water. The song emphasizes that the rocks give it a fresh uniqueness rather than damage the serenity of the stream. 

The chorus is a bumble bee landing on a black dahlia. Silk, ebony petals curl off the center like a hundred thumbnails in a bouquet. In the light of nature, the black of the flower shines a red-violet. Nestled in the middle like an arrow in a bullseye, the bumble bee robs and rapes the center of the black dahlia, stabbing at the nectar with their needle-thin legs. 

Carrying your voice higher, you sing about the breeze. The breeze puppets the leaves to give a graceful, continuous wave to the visitors of the forest. The bridge focuses on an earthworm. It is alone, red with speckles of earth. You take your voice past its limit when you find yourself singing about a forest fire. The ballad continues under two watchful, olive-brown eyes.

Unnoticed, the son of the village’s livestock handler watches you break your vocal limit for God. So devoted to him. Piety works itself over the tendons of your throat, pushing and pressing too hard, like a violin’s bow. As the unknown, dueting voice, Jade watches and listens to your consecrating voice, peeved.

Around you, Jade finds that his inhibition has been escaping. 

He has been alive for numerous generations, witnessing patterns of human speech, human practices, and most importantly human fears. Fear is older than Jade. Older than the sediment on the ground that you sing to. Thus, innate fears often stay with generations – the fear of death, thanatophobia, is a prominent recurrence. 

As the God of nature, Jade knew. He had felt men press their heads into the crust of the earth, begging for the other men chasing him to let him live. Felt people rack up dirt with fingers, feverishly pleading for the resurrection of a sick son or sick daughter. Felt fists pound the trees in frustration for the souls he collected and ate. 

Even still, they worshiped him. Thinking they would be allowed into a paradise, ignorant that the old door death opened was a door made of teeth and tongues. Even with the false promise of paradise, thanatophobia reigned supreme and trumped all other fears in humans. In all humans except you. 

You. How strange you are, altering the rules of humanity, since your tenth birthday. 

You focus on nature; he focuses on you. 

As you two sing together, he feels that familiar retreat of inhibition. All of it dissolves into the color and shape of nature like a technicolor sea, blending together. Everything he thought he knew about humans changes with a tiny paint splosh, ruining the masterpiece he made.

“Oh, look at you. All alone,” a voice breaks the song. 

Rounding around, you glare at the intruder as God falls silent. You look at Jade as if you two were hunters and he had just scared off a deer you had been tracking. God galloping away off on hooves. Vexation like a gleam in your eyes. 

“What do you want, Jade?”

Jade Leech is perhaps the most annoying villager in your town, sticking to you like his surname suggests. He had shown up with his mother and father about three years ago when you were twelve. Usually, outsiders did not join the congregation, but the Reverend spoke positively of them. You trusted your Father’s judgment until the boy proved to hold great interest in you and all the things you did. 

“I was just checking up on my dear friend, (Name).”

He is not even respectable about your status. The village calls you ‘One’ for Chosen One. At ten years old, you lose your name like one loses a sock. Not Jade; he likes to call you by the name your mother picked.

“How kind of you,” sarcasm drips from your throat, sore with singing.

“You’re most welcome. You’ve taken to changing the spot where you wash your clothes.”

“Yes, I was hoping someone wouldn’t find me here.”

“It is very nicely secluded so I am sure that they won’t be able to locate it.” 

I thought so too, your inner thoughts mourn.

“Though it might be a bit dangerous. So far off from the ocean and village. Why, who knows what kind of coyotes or animals could be wandering around in the thicket.”

“I assure you, I’m quite alright in the wilderness.” 

It is a true statement. You were particularly blessed when it came down to manners of the environment and the animals which it housed. Call it divine intervention, call it confidence. Whatever it is named, you are spared a lot of trouble that could potentially come from inhuman footprints. 

“Who knows? That unwanted company might seize the opportunity and attack.” Jade’s olive-brown eyes watch your back. Your shoulders move with the pattern of your scrubbing. Sweat latches tight to the curvatures of your visible skin. “Like right now, going for your jugular.”

“Try it, Jade,” you challenge, smiling – not in a friendly way.

Accepting the challenge, Jade stands back and watches your shoulder fall still. The smile on his face is not shark-toothed but it beams with the animosity of such a creature. You have other teeth to worry over. Fangs full of venom, a water snake has wrapped itself around your arm, sneaking up from its hiding spot under the dress and soap.

A copperhead snake twines itself up your forearm like an orange-brown vine. Immediate, your hand falls comatose, not waiting to disturb it. Here. Here is where the human pattern of thanatophobia should come into play. Jade waits eagerly for a shriek; copperheads are venomous, he is certain you know this.

You do not tremble with your actions. You do not tremble with your voice. Irking Jade further, you reach a finger from your opposing arm over the copperhead’s head. The snake does not acknowledge your stroke, continuing to squeeze, as you move down and grasp the tail.

“Jade.”

“Hm?”

“You should step back. This is dangerous.”

A fire of anger ignities on Jade’s shoulders. Cheek twitching, he glares at the back of you. You were concerned for his safety? There is a venomous snake acting friendly with the veins in your arm, yet you told him to stand back. So caught up in disbelief, he misses you successfully unwrapping the copperhead from yourself.

Which you proceed to throw in a bush, just a foot or two away from Jade is standing. “Bravo,” Jade says, unflinching. He stalks towards you. 

“Told you to move.” You pull your clean dress out of the water, wringing it out.

“I do not see how you can be so composed in the grip of death. It is perplexing.”

“Death is always at our sides.” In the water, Jade’s shadow oscillates like a match’s sparkling flame. A quarter of it folds over your shoulder. “Why would I have any reason to be afraid of it?”

“You are the sacrifice of this village.” Jade puts a hand to his heart, leering expression painting itself on his face. Waits patiently for you to get frustrated with him. “I think it is natural that you would think about it more often.”

You look up at Jade, trying to decipher why the thought causes him qualms. Into your wicker basket, you lay the slightly damp dress. Task finished, you bring the basket to your hip as you stand up from the stream.  

“I have no qualms over it.” Then the conversation dies as you walk off, nobody’s buttercup.

The stream babbles as you walk alongside it. Like a puppy barking at your heels, you two move in sync. Somewhere in the bush, you think you can hear the sound of the copperhead rustling. A person disinclined towards the very thought of death, that is who you are. Embracing it, you jump upon the fallen, precarious log that hovers over the stream. 

You glance at Jade who watches you. Then, wicker basket in hand, you step with a note on your tongue. Walking down the log to the other side, you say with each footfall, “do re mi fa sol la ti do.” Your voice goes higher as your steps evolve into stomps. 

You crash onto the other side, leaves crunching, as Jade asks, “What was that?”

“Something I’ve been orchestrating.” You challenge him with a look, separated by running water. “You should try it. You never sing at any of the entheogens.” 

Before the village drinks the holy wine mixed with the holy mushroom of God, the entheogens ceremonies call for everyone to sing. You have never seen Jade’s mouth so much as twitch. Though, surprisingly, no one ever makes a fuss about it. The village turns it back on any of the blasphemous actions of Jade Leech. 

“Unless you sing like a croaking toad … ah, then I suppose it all makes sense. It would be a disgrace to your parents if you sang. Unfortunate.”

Jade’s brows furrow. Got him. As he walks down the log, forgoing the stomping you did, he sings the rising scale, “do re mi fa sol la ti do.” He lands by your side, hopping off the behemoth log. There is a golden firecracker of satisfaction in his olive-brown eyes. 

“I did not know you could sing like that.” 

The firecracker sizzles out as Jade’s brows shoot up. He feels a light pink start to tiptoe up to his cheeks.

Your voice is soft like honey, full of awe. Your reticent inhibition around Jade melts at that moment. Like snow on spring ground, you warm up eternally – just a bit! – to the invading pest that is Jade Leech. Someone who has been like a mite in your otherwise well kept paradise. You take him in a different light: cropped black hair, slim face, and olive-brown eyes just a bit less obnoxious. You had only heard such a singing voice from –

“Come. Let us go unless that someone you want to avoid finds this spot.”

The thought disappears. Blinking, you watch Jade stalk off. When you regain yourself, basket in hand, you walk just a bit behind him. Like the stubborn child you are, you bite the inside of your cheek, thinking:

Jade sounds good when he sings. 

You two continue silently back to the village, Jade leading. It is a content walk, not even many rocks or lifted ground to trouble the path. Nature sings around the two in a musique concrete of twigs, leaves, and dirt. It is only when you feel a small tug that you wander off.

Jade watches with knowing, incorrectly colored eyes. 

Your eyes sparkle upon a holy sight. More than a dozen light brown and ivory white jellyfish caps stand up straight in grass off the path. Like toads in mud, they break through the dehydrated grass in poor camouflage. Psilocybin mushrooms. The mushrooms that your congregation holds in high regard; a mushroom on piety par with a cross or a clerical collar. 

Like the winner of an Easter egg hunt, you go to collect the mushrooms. Prizes God had hidden from you so you could search and prove yourself. Carefully, you start to put them in your wicker basket, sprinkles of dirt landing on the top dress. 

Shadow folding over you, Jade inquires, breaking the silent retreat, “How many more days until you die, (Name)?”

No one should ever smile at such an inquiry. Yet, here you do, proud of the psilocybin mushrooms in hand, you answer with a big grin, “1,746 days.”

“Jade Leech, you little thief! Get back here right now!”

You look up upon hearing those words. Four buildings away, you watch as a towel crack on the back of Jade’s spine as he walks out of the bakery. The head chef seems to be the one caterwauling at him, twisted towel weaponized like a claymore. A sly smile is plastered on Jade’s face despite the hit.

Idiot; no one steals from her and leaves without a tussle. She, the head chef, is caterwauling like a soaked cat. A smile still emerges on your face despite your previous trouble. Speaking of those troubles – 

You turn back to your work. There are not many jobs for you to take in the village. As the ritual’s sacrifice, labor is something you do not need to concern yourself with as the Reverend says. Attending prayer services, purifying yourself, and connecting with nature are your top priorities. You stretched out the limitations on the last priority and managed to convince that soft-hearted Reverend to let you start beekeeping with two village elders. 

If our God is in every mushroom, every flower, every faucet of nature, it must be alright for me to care for His holy insects too? : that pathos and ethos argument won you the rights to take up beekeeping. 

Right now, you are troubled by your job. Hairy white sections are on the lower burr comb and cells. It festers on a block of the hive where the queen is. A sign of another pest within the hive. However, none of the other signs were present upon last inspection. Of course, the sign of incursion would be near the queen – the most sensitive and paramount part of the hive.

The queen bee eludes your gaze right now, worker bees swarming around. You go to see if you can get a few to walk on your hand when something breaks your line of sight. Your hand stills. Held out to you is a half-ripped piece of bread. 

Not taking it, you look up at the smiling face of Jade. Far away, surprisingly not giving chase, the head chef shouts: “Little devil child! You pest!” The grin on Jade’s face widens, teeth flashing at you. 

“If only she knew the half of it. Here.” Jade holds up the bread, trying to appear generous in his motives. “Freshly baked.”

“Freshly stolen,” you correct. You take it either way. Stealing is frowned upon by the congregation but you have no fear left to worry about consequences. A tiny bite leaves you pleasantly surprised. Sourdough. You go back in for a bigger bite.

Jade sits down beside you, eating his own share and looking into the broods. Glancing up from your piece, you say, “You did that on purpose.” 

“Stealing is often a motivated task.”

“No. You got caught on purpose; you’re slippery enough to steal and not get noticed.”

“I assure you that I was trying my hardest to not get caught.”

“Ah I see,” you say, wholly unconvinced. 

“Your mind is not at ease. Usually you smile more when attending to your bees.” 

Like a chipmunk, you stuff your cheeks with sourdough to avoid answering. “It is unlike a person of your standing,” Jade continues. Your standing: your life’s merit as a sacrifice. The reason that everyone calls you One instead of (Name). The Chosen One connected to the Odd One through nature and, thus, nature’s creatures.

“Sumtin’ s ‘rong wit the quee.”

“Pardon?”

You swallow, “Something’s wrong with the queen.” You spear a crescent into the bread’s crust with your nail. Despondent, you explain, “There are signs of an infestation near her section. I also noticed the capped cells were full of holes and overall seemed frail. That’s a sign of Varroa but I haven’t seen a single mite or deformed wings.” 

“Always the queen isn’t it?”

“I don’t understand why I can never raise a healthy queen. The cell caps of hers always appear healthy, but halfway through, she suffers from signs of unknown invasion.” Quarantining your bees is the most viable option but you would rather solve this matter before taking a drastic measure. If only you could locate her –

You jump when Jade presses his hand close to the honeycomb structures. “Hey, be careful! You need gloves!”

“You do not wear gloves.”

“That’s different!”

“Hush.”

At that word, you happily wait for him to get strung. With his inexperience, it should only take a short amount of time. Sourdough in hand, you sit back to watch the show. Bees crawl like pouring vinegar over his pallid hand, curious, and you huff at his gentleness. Any moment now. Any moment comes but it comes with Jade pulling hand away with the queen bee on his forefinger.

“How did you –”

“What, like it’s hard?”

“I hate you.”

Jade smiles wide at that. The queen on his finger flicks her wings as he moves his hand to hover between you two. She seems fairly healthy despite all the disturbance around her. “Trying to steal my job, Jade,” you ask when he passes her to you. 

“Do not even entertain the thought. I do not particularly enjoy insects. They may be entertaining for an hour or so, but I am content with the thought of their entire colony going up in flames one day.”

“Monster.”

Jade smiles in his you-don’t-know-the-half-of-it way. 

Jade stares up at the statue of himself, contemplative. 

For five out of thousands of years, Jade has passed time wearing fake human skin. Fake pallid hands find themselves stroking his neck for gills no longer there. Those hands hesitate over touching his ears, feeling thick muscle and bone instead of a thin membrane of skin. His trepidation around looking-glasses has eroded over the half decade. But, Jade still finds himself not entirely accepting parts of the body he puppets.

Walking around in the wrong skin is like wearing clothes too small. It squeezes over him like latex, tightening when he moves a certain way and constricting when he looks at it too long. 

His hands especially are wrong, lacking webbed structure and the correct hues. How his fingernails flush purple and his fingers red when it is cold … it disgusts him. How his veins are blue under sand toned skin … it is a sickening sight. The human body wrapped around his working brain and working heart, it is the most grotesque part of this trail. Sometimes, he wants nothing more to shed it off an amphibian. 

Jade takes his vexed gaze off his hands and returns to staring at the monument. Cleaners are put on rotation to polish and scrub down the entirety of him, forbidding moss or dirt to lay upon him. They are quite meticulous about it too. Meticulous like how a mother bathes her child. They scrub behind his ears, over the ridges of his dorsal fin, under the extended points of his claws. He has seen real, palpable joy on the faces of those given the job.

The sculptor … died about 2,050 years ago if Jade’s memory is right. 

Withstanding the test of time, here the effigy of his true form lies, propped up on a block of marble chiseled to look like a sweeping wave. His face is sculpted in a polite mien with the slightest hint of malice. Smiling with teeth yet not with all his teeth. Just the top row. In stone, his tail dips in backwards J and is hooked upward like the frozen neck of a screaming horse on a carousel. 

If asked, Jade thinks he misses his tail most right alongside his hands. The only change that he does not mind is his hair. Living on a warm island with long hair would have been bothersome, especially on his neck. The cropped style is nice; his real hair would have made him sweat. 

Then, staring down the effigy of himself, Jade realizes he made a mistake earlier. He knows he misses swimming the most. His tails and hands: they are mere tools to propel him when in the sea, so deep in his plunge that it feels like he is moving universe to universe with each wide stroke. 

Only less than three years remain until your death. 819 days if his memory serves correct. And this time it does; he is as certain as stone is hard. But such a long time in fake skin feels like the lifespan of a human, dragging day by day. Each inhale of the sun and exhale of the moon feeds the bugs crawling on his skin, uncomfortable in this fake skin.

Jade wonders, scratching his forearm, if he should speed this sacrificial ritual as he watches you race across the field towards him. He glances down at your nude human feet. Quadriceps, sinew tendons, and bone propelling you forward until you skid to a stop in front of him – with a jar in your hands? 

“Look what I have!” There is a big, prideful grin on your face. With a flourish, you raise up said jar. And Jade responses –

“Wow. A jar. How marvelous.”

Your expression flattens at that. As if retreating, you pull the jar to your ribcage, protective arms around it. “It’s not just any jar. It’s my – Itchy? I think we have some medicine in –” 

Jade pauses his scratching to interrupt. “No, I’m quite alright.” The marks running up his skin are angry and red, yet miraculously not bleeding. “So,” leaning in, he grins with all his teeth and says, “what’s in the jar? Must be revolutionary with how fast you ran over here.”

“It is!” Pride relights your body. You unscrew the jar with flying fingers. Then, you hold out the open mouth of the jar towards Jade, waiting for praise.

“Ah, honey.”

“Not just any honey; it is the last flow of honey.”

“I see. There is no more honey after that. So we will eat pancakes without honey soon, correct?”

“You’re not getting it, are you?”

“Afraid not.”

“Hmph.” You bring the jar back to your chest as Jade ponders on why humans are so sensitive. “The best months to harvest honey are from July to mid-September, right? And it is mid-September, right?” Jade nods at both your inane questions. Still not getting it. “Honey is the sweetest and best when you collect the last honey flow. The nectar flow from this is the one they make in the summer! It is going to taste Godly!” 

“Careful what words you use, (Name).”

You two glance up at the company you keep. Though his gray left eye and yellow right eye are the same hue of stone, they seem to shine. Something fierce and glowing breaking through inert expression. You smile mischievously. “I’ll make it up to him when I’m dead. Now. Taste this.”

With a roll of olive-brown eyes, Jade leans in to observe the jar which you are once more offering him. Inside, the yellow honey tilts like a slow avalanche with the degree you hold it at. Gold gleams like the surface of the ocean under sunlight, almost sparkling. I almost miss home, Jade thinks as he dips his index finger in. 

Oh.

Finger in mouth, Jade does not want to admit it but you are right. This is perhaps the best honey he has sampled before. The nectar slides down his tongue, touches his throat, and slugs down to his stomach. It is almost an addictive taste. 

It is an uncleaned sweetness that melts down his throat. Like blasphemous scripture. 

Jade really should not show you his enthusiasm for it; your pride will only increase knowing he enjoys it and you will grow more annoying. Yet, as if pulled by strings, he sticks his finger back into the jar. Before tasting, he asks, “What did you say the difference with this flow is?”

“It is the last flow of the season. With the bees hibernating soon, you can maximize the honey you are collecting by being patient. But there’s really an entire system to it, making sure you don’t strike too early or late.”

“Would it not be the sweetest during summer when the bees are most active?”

“Nope. Patience is the key; beekeeping is a waiting game.” 

A waiting game? He watches you stick your own finger in, feasting on the rewards of your patience. The later harvest yields a richer taste. How splendid of his sacrifice to say just the words he needs to hear to understand himself and motives. 

Eventually, almost telepathically as if both of you know what your companion is thinking, you and Jade stare up at the statue. Your saliva-coated finger and dry fingers place the cap back on the jar, leaving it unscrewed yet lidded. Jade waits until you are enraptured with the sculpture before he turns his attention to you. 

You stare, contemplative. The sun is three hours off from its peak. Thus piscine shadows of the statue fall onto awaiting blades of grass. The silhouette of his dorsal fin like a knife and the silhouette of his hunched shoulders, leaning in like he is going to burst to life any moment. He has this hardly contained enmity is his expression, upturned eyes too sharp and smile too tiny. 

“Can’t you just see me and him, together in paradise?”

“You two will make a lovely couple.”

“Heh, that’s what they all say.”

Jade studies your profile. There is just a tiny droplet of animosity in your worshiping eyes that he is desperate to uncover the truth about. You are bitter about something. However, whenever Jade tries to peek into that hate circuit rivering itself through your cortex, he gets nothing. 

He supposed he could ask; if he is going to bid his time in other realms, he has more time to analyze the ecosystem of your brain. You startle when he speaks. “(Name). If you were not the chosen one, what would you do with the rest of your life?”

The expression you give Jade is easy to read: confusion. “If I wasn’t the – why, I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.”

“But try to. Try to imagine your twenty-first birthday.”

“Stop being ridiculous, Jade.”

“I am as serious as death.”

You shake your head furiously. “There is no other choice to make, but I am using my choice and have chosen to be there. As the chosen one.”

Jade, with all his immortal life wisdom goes huh? at your verbal affirmation. 

“Such a boy,” you mourn, frowning up at his statue. You shuffle your bare toes on the ground, feeling the dirt cling onto them and tune into the radio of nature for a bit. After a contemplative moment, you say, “I am nobody’s buttercup. But I must do something so I will do that.”

“I see.” 

Taking your words as a challenge, Jade leans in. Your nose scrunches, thinking he is going to do something odious and ruin this perfect, honey-coated day. If you were built in the image of your God, you would want his teeth so you could snap at Jade’s nose. The sentiment grows when Jade flicks the lid off the jar — it frisbees through the air — and scoops up a handful of honey. Some of it doesn’t even make it into his mouth!

“Hey! No stealing from the chosen one!”

“You never said there was a time limit on the honey you offered.”

“Well, there is one now! We have to make this last until next September! I have only two Septembers left!”

Jade laughs, licking the honey off his wrist. He makes another grab at the jar as you rush away from him, trying to retrieve the lid. “Back! Back, you heathen!” And the smile Jade makes as he chases you around the field is a perfect copy of the expression that is carved into stone. 

Time passes like it always does. Life is a constant stream that connects in the ocean of death, making itself the estuary of mortality. 

Those two Septembers pass and twice more you successfully harvest the perfect honey flow. Even when Jade jokes all sinister that you should enjoy these last moments of good food, dipping sourdough into honey, you never even shake. At the apiary, all the jars are empty, trails of gold stubbornly clinging onto the glassware. You and Jade make the effort to scrub all the ones you used clean until they shine. 

“You’re not afraid at all,” Jade asks, watching you scrub the remains of your presence from the world. All you are: congealing honey on a rag which you will dip into the nearby stream, which will carry you away to a water funeral. 

“Not at all.” It must be true. Because under the winter’s sun, your hands are steady and determined. Because when Jade asks how many days are left, you respond with an unshakable voice. Because Jade thinks with some sort of thrill unlike any he has known, you have been waiting as patiently as he has. 

It is only when the number of days decrease and shrink down to the number seven does Jade’s patience break. 

There is no sunshine shining down on you but you are still as bright as ever. Under the silver moonlight, you twirl and run and even cartwheel in the open field. You have been forgoing any sort of sleep, utilizing all the hours in a twenty-four hour day until you pass out from exhaustion, nature as your mattress. No one in the village disapproves of it, seeing it as you embracing your God. Jade wishes someone would though. He has unfortunately been dragged out for the past seven nights by you, wanting his company.

And I still have seven more to go, Jade thinks, leaning against his statue. He never thought he would grow tired but even a human body has limits. Sleep addles Jade’s brain as his neck bends as if he is caught in prayer. 

He snaps back up when you shout. “Jade! Jade look!”

Seeing that you have his attention, you launch right into it. You take a running start, hands up in the air. Cartwheel, cartwheel, cartwheel, ending with a front flip. Supernaturally energetic, you raise your arms up in your success, dress billowing around you, ready to accept the claps. 

Jade manages a few light ones and says, “Well done, (Name).”

You smile happily. “Praise me more; this is the last week I’ll be alive to hear any sort of praise.” You twirl and watch the white of your summer dress puff up in a jellyfish shell. “Make sure they do not neglect to make mention of how good I was at cartwheels in the legends and stories.”

“I won’t, (Name).”

You fall back into it. Among the tall grass, you do a wide variety of different exercises and a variety of different dances. You move with the ease of an autumn leaf, trusting the wind. To the unheard and unsung song of nature and God, you gyrate around. Like God’s personal instrument, you bend yourself to the symphony that no one in your village has ever heard. 

I’ll miss dirt, you think just as you blindly twirl into a patch of fireflies. 

Fireflies explode around you like a firework. Wide-eyed and gasping, you pause with your hands raised up. Buzzing and rapid, the tiny comets of gold lift up from the flora and paint the night with tinier stars. Gripping the train of your dress, you rotate yourself to make room for the fireflies launching up to the west, laughing all the while. 

Eventually, they dissolve into the sky, leaving your eyes chasing after them. They dissolve in dying breaths and dying heartbeats. You watch the last of them flicker out, finding a new patch to lie on or traveling too far for you to see them. 

Oddly, an invisible bruise on your chest starts to ache. 

Dirt encrusted feet carry your body before you comprehend what you are doing. Wildly, like something monstrous is at your heels, you run into the nearby thicket of trees, determined to reach the deepest part of the forest which surrounds the village.

“(Name)?” Jade squints at your fast-retreating form. “(Name)!” He picks himself off the statue as you rush into the forest, almost like you are in a panic. 

“Catch me!” 

The chase prematurely begins. 

Jade dives into the forest after you. Pushing branches out of his way and jumping over protruding vegetation. Hundred elements of nature flicker across his vision as he runs and runs. Shadows elongate and distort under the occluding moon. He elbows his weight on a tree so it pushes him faster. Blanketed under nebulous black, the world beats with a thousand different songs. 

All the while you are hollering and screaming. Screams evolve into frantic giggles and hollering matures into singing. Do Re Me Fa Sol La Ti Do, your feet race down the cliff slide in the pattern of the musical scale. 

Your body is an instrument, Jade. Listen to it and you will be closer to God. Narcotic words you once said, deranged out of your mind. Narcotic words that you said while certain that patches of grass were growing from the planes of your skin. Narcotic words he had not paid much mind to. Closer to God, hm?

The crunch of leaves as you two run are like lyrics, right? Yet, the soles of his feet are like the percussion too? Guitar strings tendons pull with different frets and notes. Piano key fingers reach out and crush the branches in his way. His most powerful instrument is acting strangely though. His voice. That particular instrument is doing something it has never done before: laughing. 

Is this what being human is, always running? He thinks this might be the faintest sniff of what it means to be a human: always running away from time. The epiphany is not about being human through sweet acceptance or love. His first taste of humanity is in the sweat of running and running while chasing. 

Closer to God. Closer to humans. 

At times, your aptitude is unreadable to Jade … that aptitude that guides you to never fear death. He wonders why there is such a wide gap between you and others when it comes to the terms of death. Closing in, he thinks: This Is The One. His fingers reach out, A0 from C8 scale running across phalanges. He could push you. With the momentum doubled with the rocks –

Still running, you turn to laugh at Jade. The pure joy on your face is blinding, hands up your shoulders and dress swaying. Your smiling face brightens at the sight of him (one close-eyed, titanic grin directed at him) before it winks away, flickering behind a tree. Jade watches as he loses you as you gather speed and sprint harder. Miraculously, you disappear from his sight, breaking the distance Jade had attempted to close.

God and human, you two run frantically through the forest. You throw out insults about his speed and he throws out his laughter in your duet. When the ground starts to decline, Jade finally figures out where you are heading to. He pumps his legs faster as the thickness of nature decreases gradually. 

He breaks into the clearing by the stream, hoping to beat you, only to be confronted with the sight of you crouched by the water, twirling something between your fingers. 

“Th-The forest is teething. I can feel it.” You pant like a dog. Jade watches the process of deflate and inflate; with each behemoth breath you take, exhausted and spent, your shoulder and ribs move with the hard work of your lungs. “It –” You choke around the salvia in your mouth, breathless. “It is the start of something here.”

“Teething?”

“Yes. Like babies do.”

I’m teething, Jade contemplates, unsure of what that word really entails. He knows little of human babies. It is only until you show Jade what is in your hand that he thinks he gets it. 

“Look at this.” 

From your hand, you present a black dahlia flower with a bright sunny center to him. The sunny center squeezes into a tiny circle then widens out in the average size. It is like a nostril, flickering and changing shape with each inhale and exhale. It is trying to breathe but as a flower it does not understand how to do that with a lineage of photosynthesis written in its body.

That flickering feeling of the beginning is so thick in the air. The start of something is here. It permeates in your bones. All through your skin, it permeates.

“It is certainly …” Jade trails off, not really used to seeing this side of himself. 

“Beautiful,” you supply. There is a warmth in the space as Jade sits down besides you. The space between you is bright despite the midnight. “Can I tell you something? And you must keep it a secret.”

“Go ahead. I am as quiet as a church mouse.”

“I had this vision during the last entheogen.” 

You still remember it. Swallowing the wine and, from within, bringing out the divine. Psilocybin on your tongue, you laid in a technicolor sea, holding up the receiver of your brain and waiting for that connection with God. You had a vision about the sacrament that is less than a week away. You look up to the sky as you speak. The moon is past the peak of midnight noon.

“I was at the ceremony. The sky was completely cloudless so you could feel the warmth of the sun. I was walking down to the slab bed. Dressed and ready.

“But when the Reverend told me to say my final prayers, I couldn’t.”

The black dahlia gives a sneezing breath at that. “Why couldn’t you?”

“My mouth was full of bees. I opened my mouth.” You look at Jade and decide to demonstrate. A fist moves up to your face before stretching fingers out like you are cupping a ball. “And blaaah, a hundred or so bees flew from my mouth.”

“The singer’s last ballad.”

“Odd, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps it is your mind rationalizing with the fear of your impending death.” 

“Do not make me laugh.” 

You are smiling, secondary to laughter. Returning attention to the black dahlia, you see the breaths have dwindled down to delicate stutters. It only stops breathing when you set it into the stream, watching it float and spin once. A dance in water, the revelation makes you grin softer. Your little theater show is only interrupted by Jade. 

“What are your opinions on the ceremony? Now that it is so close, realer almost.”

You contemplate for a moment on the navel of the world, or as others call it ceremony. “I’m quite content with it.”

A picture paints itself: the stone rock, the slab bed, the omphalos alone in a field of psilocybin mushrooms, devoid of life beyond yourself. It is a bed you will eventually rest down upon and let the Father of your religion cut out the heart in your chest. 

“I’m not going to die,” you whisper. Rejuvenate with that fact, you shuffle your body until your knees are tilted towards Jade. You lean in with flame eyes, a whirlpool of heat in them. Your next words cause the black dahlia in the stream to go breathless in surprise. “I’m going to find out if I’m really alive.” 

“Th –” Jades breathes out a tiny laugh. “That is quite contradictory, (Name). Such an event would not inspire such a thought.”

“Well, it’s true so you have to deal with it.”

“I will burden myself with knowing it and trying to understand it.” He puts a hand to his heart in promise.

“Good. Agonize over it.”

You take to putting your feet in the stream as you reposition yourself. Spreading out your legs, you draw up your dress to your thighs. Dirt floats up and follows the path the black dahlia is being pushed away to as water cleanses your soles. The percussion of your heart beats through your toes as you wiggle them, trying to gather warmth under cold water. 

You look like a high renaissance painting: ideal and perfect in Jade’s eyes. You blink your own eyes when your body is slowly moved. “I waited.” Before you question Jade’s harsh words, his hand on your chin, the start of something new blossoms and the forest sings. 

You pull away from the kiss first. Eyelashes butterflying open, you gaze upon Jade with a fondness he has never seen. “How do I taste?”

If Jade will be your only kiss, he thinks it makes sense that you want to know what you taste like. He will not allow you to kiss another in the next six days. Considering it, his focus narrows to his mouth. Your bacterial corpse rests on his taste-buds, measuring and remembering the taste of you. Floral notes are encrusted with a sort of raw grime. 

“Earthy and sweet.”

Giggling, you dive back in for another kiss. 

You think this has been a long time coming which is why you can fall into it so easily. Your amygdala – once a ripe grape – is dried up like a sun-kissed raisin. 

Cupping Jade’s face, you feel no indication that is the wrong course of action. Grass and dirt tickles your flesh, teasingly happy. Nature reaches slippery hands into your brain, infecting you with dopamine. This all feels so unnaturally right. 

It takes about seven kisses in total before Jade’s hand starts to run itself up and down your thigh. Across a field of goosebumps, he draws his hand from the ankle freckled with water to the midpoint of your upper thigh. It is only when he moves up to the barricade of where you placed your dress that you grab his wrist. Partially in his lap, you squeeze the bones of his wrist. 

“You’re not here for too long so what could go wrong,” Jade, eyes closed, asks the question towards your hesitation. 

“Only two things are required of me in six days,” you kiss Jade to appease and because you want to. “That I die in six days on my twentieth birthday and that I remain a virgin.” 

“Surely we can negate one of these constricting restrictions. I say that God is being a bit selfish.” Jade seethers inside, hiding it well with his returning saccharine kiss. Hoping to persuade and because he wants to. There is no possible way that his own rules are going to leave him with a painful stiff, is there? 

“I think the man can handle one lapse of judgment from His prized singer. He knows you well. Say ‘oh dear God’” He vocalizes a facade of your frightful feminine voice, nipping at your ear. You giggle at the foreign sensation. “‘There is this awful, stealing, odious man down there and I. Fell. From. Grace.” Jade punctuates each word with a kiss. He moves down the musician’s scale of your throat, returning to his own deep timbre. 

You shiver and, against better judgment, relax the hold on his wrist. “I do not fear the wrath of any man or God.”

The tune of acceptance, Jade thinks as he kisses down to your breasts. When he cultivated from the ceremony, it was only the human hearts he ate. This meal will be a new experience for both you and him. “Good. If you started being frightened, I would find you weak.”

“Is that so? I thought you were always veering for me to be more,” you gasp, toes frozen in the stream, as Jade cups over your sex. He lies his hand over it but does nothing more. “-- Veering for me to fear death?”

“Is this your death?”

“It could certainly be close to that.”

“Well, let this be the sweetest death you could ever know.”

With skillful fingers, he unties the back of your dress with only one hand. Though it comes undone quite quickly as if he has taken scissors to it. Strange. You do not focus on it long as tiny knives fall over your shoulder, removing the sleeves of your summer dress. Treading a hair through short black hair, you keen under his gentle, attentive touch. Jade sucks hard on your right breast. 

The sensation sends a ripple of goosebumps along your arms. It feels sweetly blasphemous, all the attentive kisses pepper to your breasts. A taste of something new and at its peak. You twitch when you feel Jade’s blunt nails move from cupping your sex to trailing a finger over the space where hip and thigh meet. 

“Wait,” you stop Jade. His mouth falls away, teeth sharpening a bit with annoyance. He looks up at you, big olive- brown eyes gleaming. “I’m – Well –” You glance down at his hand that is swallowed under your dress. “It’s not a pretty scar,” you whisper. 

“I’m sure it’s beautiful like the rest of you.” Before you can protest, the rest of your dress is pulled over your head. He leaves you in only your panties, sitting in the dirt by the stream. Your eyes widen.

“Don’t,” Jade grabs the hand that goes to block his sigil. It has never looked so appetizing on a sacrifice until you. He licks his lips. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It’s still a scar.”

“Not to me,” Jade says, pressing his body against you so you lay down. 

Delirious, like you are floating off a substance, you go to unbutton his long sleeve, wrestling your hand from him. Your skull is cushioned by your dress, bundled into a ball. The sharp point of sticks hit your skin. Wet sediment, a mixture of sand and dirt, clings onto you. 

Under the ground, a foreign heartbeat drums. It hammers in a rhythm over your spine, bottom, shoulders, and soles. It is a mimic of the heart resting in your chest, syncing with nature in some incomprehensible way just like black dahlia managed to breathe. Chary thoughts dissolve from your head when Jade moves down to press a kiss to the sigil. 

You manage to wrestle the shirt off Jade, using it as a rope to pull him, meeting in a kiss of tongue and teeth. Let go of your inhibitions, the forest beckons. Treading a hair through short black hair, you keen under his gentle, attentive touch. You float with the floating pine-cones as Jade presses himself against you. 

“God,” you moan, breaking away from the kiss.

“Come now, you know my name.” Jade teases. He works himself out of his pants, patient in his motions. “Can’t you say it?” The head of his penis kisses the wet spot of your panties. His grin is so familiar like you've seen it somewhere else before .

“Jade.”

That is all it takes, panties torn by claws. A dozen frenzied thoughts crash into your mind when he pushes himself into you. You cling feebly to him like a caterpillar to a leaf. He thrusts in, starting slow and then fortissimo-ing the act. The sound increases, skin on skin, along with the speed, inch by deeper inch. It feels like your insides are being ripped out of you. I think I’m dying is your most prominent thought. Then, you cum, singing in moans. 

It is, in all senses of sensations, la petite mort. 

“Aaah — mmmmph my God aah!”

You push your hands against the trunk of a tree. On trembling, fawn legs, you stand with arms outstretched in a tight caress of the pine. Behind you, down the long arch of your spine, Jade presses kiss to each golf-ball indent of bone. Heat spreads like a virus to your shoulders, smoldering, as you feel his length lightly trace down the curvature of your bottom. 

Butterflying eyelashes glance up at pine. Your head feels heavy like a whirlpool heat courses through it, scarlet and yellow. Salvia holds itself heavy in your mouth; stimulation – if pushed any further – will have you drooling from your blissed out state. Even disoriented, you recognize nature and the creatures it keeps. 

Jade stills when he sees you moving your right hand off the tree. There is something on the tip of your finger. “Keep your hands there. You will need to keep yourself balanced.” He kisses your last vertebrae, eyes glowing, as you ignore his words. 

“Cen-Centipede,” you manage to say, breathing heavily. 

You hold out your finger to him. On your index, the orange legs of the arthropod flow like oil down your knuckles. With deep fondness, you watch it move. The same fondness is found in Jade’s eyes. He stills you look strangely beautiful: two leaves threaded in your hair, the streaks of dirt that birthed themselves on you when Jade plowed into you, and admiring a centipede in the middle of your third sex position change. 

“Yes. I see.” 

Jade says, resting his chin on your shoulder. Leaning over you, his length makes a pointed reminder of existing when the warmed blood of it hits and throbs on the center of your ass. “Pretty thing, isn’t it?” You nod before moving your arm down, letting it crawl off into the ground. Over your shoulder, you drag Jade back into another kiss. “Earthy and sweet,” he says, feasting on a taste he will have the pleasure of knowing for eternity. 

Around you, the forest sings happily. Surrendering to that wonderful melody of nature, you put your hands back to the pine, using them to keep yourself upright. A slug of drool falls off your bottom lip as a soundless gasp exits you. You and Jade met; he presses himself into your cunt, two harvests of cum soaping and sucking him in easily.

The taste of you is entirely sweet like a honeycomb. The sensation of him is hallucinogenic like psilocybin. Earthy and sweet. 

“S-Ssso deep.”

Your left leg twitches when Jade starts to move, experimenting with his speed. He was insatiable the first two rounds; he thinks he will test that beekeeping patience of yours. Yet, at only the first thrusts, Jade finds it a futile effort. 

Your hand twitches on the pine at a foreign sensation. Where Jade’s hands rest on your hips, there is a difference in texture. There is silk between his fingers like some type of webbing. You startle at the odd sensation. Going to look behind you, you ask breathless, “Jade?”

“Cl – ugh – Close your eyes. Listen to … fuck … Listen to the forest.”

The thought of that strange texture of his hands is punched out when he finds a finger to your clit, rubbing in circles.

Fucked dumbed and drolling, you manage a “Fuck Jade!” before all your vocabulary burns itself from your brain.

“You have kept me up for the past week … (Na-Name) – uuk! –” Skin slaps in a thundering clap. Subconsciously, you tighten and moan. Summoning his breath, Jade leans in towards your ears, “I hope you can judge my next words fairly: I won’t stop until dawn. It will be a sleepless night for us.” 

The night fills itself with the song of your moans. 

“Men only think about the past right before their death as if they were searching frantically for proof they were alive.”

Like a bisque doll, you are washed by the village nuns. Two flank you on each side, one designated for your arm and the other for your leg. Assiduous, they move soapy towels down the length of your spidery limbs. Bisque dolls are beings without autonomy. You certainly do feel quite similar, disjointly watching a foreign hand lift your arm, twisting and rubbing soap on each finger with care. 

Joints and skin do not belong to you anymore. A sterile hand lifts your left leg higher. Heart, not your possession. 

Split into fourths like a filet, you try to remember who said those words: “Men only think about the past right before their death as if they were searching frantically for proof they were alive.” As you are being stewed and cooked into a gallimaufry, you find that the past is not what you think about.

You are thinking about the cloudless skies outside. You are thinking about what it will be like under real warmth, not the warmth of bath water. You are thinking about whether tomorrow it will rain or remain sunny. 

“Is something wrong, One?”

The image of skies dissolves in your mind. You blink in surprise. Head off in the cloud, you do not know which of the four nuns spoke. Between all the pallid moon faces cloaked in black, you choose to look at the one cleansing your left arm. You two met curious eyes.

“Your face was scrunching up. I was wondering if you were feeling any discomfort, One.” Your right arm talks to you. 

“I’m quite alright. Thank you.”

Your left leg chimes in, soapy brine slathered on it. “If you feel any sort of stress, please let us know.”

Now that silence has been broken, your right leg says, “I cannot imagine being stressed on such a wonderful day. Ah, I’m so terribly envious.”

“I am quite at peace on this holy day,” you smile as to appease the fear all your limbs display. Moon faces hum their agreement, tranquility only broken when you say softly, “but –”.  You gaze at the bathhouse’s windows, glass blocking off where nature carols. “How much longer? I long to be outside.”

You glare at the shoes on your feet. 

Flanking both your sides, the congregation sits in the village’s woodsmith-made chairs. Beyond you, the stone slab lies; behind you, the statue of your God. Yet, what is most vexingly is in front of you: the sight of shoes on your feet.

Each birthday, you were dressed in the ceremony clothes and made to practice. Each birthday, you gave no fuss over the attire. Letting them dress the bisque doll, you resigned to putting on the empire dress with the square cut to display your iron branding on your stomach. Down to the fiber of your being, now, you wish you could take off the blasted shoes. 

Your pointless glaring only stops when a voice approaches, asking, “Did I ever tell you about your grandfather?” You turn to the Reverend with a smile. The ceremony is commencing. 

With a soft voice, you answer. “Not often enough.”

The Reverend always walks the sacrifice down the aisle. You suppose this might be a bit more sentimental, considering who you are to him, which is why he talks to you. Gently, you two find yourself joined at the bend of your elbow. 

“He was a religious man. Devoted in a way the others around him were not.

“He would go out in forests people were too scared to venture into. The villagers would find him, sketching things they could not see in nature. It frightened and delighted them too, his sketches. He would polish that very statue like each day it would bring him luck. Each day before he went out in the forests, that was his routine. 

“When he died … he died saying it was all for vain.” Your lips press together tightly. “A man so devoted and so close to God, shaming it. It was perhaps the worst day of his sons and daughters lives. On his deathbed, he brought upon such … shame to his family. Men only think about the past right before their death as if they were searching frantically for proof they were alive.” 

Ah, that is where you heard it. You remember finally, you had heard it in the future which is now the present. That was why you could not remember the speaker because he had not spoken those words yet. You did not think you would find the future in the entheogens; how curious. 

You two start towards the stone slab. As nobody's buttercup, you keep your eyes straight and refuse to yield towards distractions. Devote unlike your grandfather. Devote unlike your unsourced father who knocked up your mother exactly twenty years and nine months ago.

“I tell you this because I am incredibly proud of you. I have witnessed such growth from you. Piety flows in your bones as if God has smiled upon you Himself. My child –”

You look towards the Reverend, curious. 

“You have been good.”

Nature stirs. At least, this time, the queen bee in my honeycombs is healthy. I leave behind something good.

When you reach the sacrificial table, you part like droplets rolling off a leaf in opposite directions. You press your hands on the omphalos, kneeling down and bowing your head. Eyes closed, you listen to the words you have heard since your tenth birthday. 

You cannot help it – your mind wanders back to the past. Not searching for the merit of life, simply remembering how you became the Chosen One. A decade ago … such a long yet short time, such a juxtaposition. 

The ritual involves the ocean. The ocean in which that faithful stream bleeds into. Every twenty or so years, just after the sacrifice predating them dies, everyone below the age of ten is made to stay underwater. The one who remains the longest is regarded as the Chosen One. Time slipped from your fingers like sand, underwater. A minute is an hour, an hour is a minute. 

When you walked out of the ocean, your mother ran to embrace and to collapse to the ground crying. You had been underwater for a full twenty-four. The villagers thought you got swept up a riptide and died like some three year olds and two year olds of the past. Blue-lipped and shivering, you told them you thought you were the first one out. 

There is no way you should have survived and felt as fine as you did. 

Since then, nature talks to you like a baby conversing with an adult. You can make some syllables, understand the babbles that make up baba mean dada, and read the unconcealed emotions clearly. Now, it sings along with the Reverend, soft and gentle … somniferous almost.

You know you shouldn’t but –

You glance, barely moving your head, at Jade. He is staring right at you. His eyes are different, tiger eyes of flaming black and flaming gold. Somniferous eyes stare at your soul. Promptly, you pass out.

You wake up. 

Your feet are encrusted with dirt. A multitude of trees enter your eyesight and the sound of a running stream worms into your ears. You are standing by the river where you washed clothes as a young teenager; the place where you and Jade had sex seven days ago; the place where you broke God’s trust. 

Yet, no fear is present. Chest unusually light, you stare at the familiar pattern of trees dotted across the opposing side of the river. To your limited knowledge, this is you facing divine judgment. Retribution must be collected for your only sin. 

You can accept that. 

Curious eyes fall across the wilderness as your vision clears. You can not really tell what song nature is singing; there is a disconnect between you and the world. Blocked from the majority besides a single instrument: buzzing. You hear the harmony of humble bees buzzing, which you search for the source of. When you find it, a gasp breaks apart your lips.

Spread across the planes of your two arms are a thousand octagonal holes. Skin drenched in a mixture of golden honey and scarlet blood, the only breakage is pitch black, tiny honeycomb structures dug in your flesh. The concave pits freckle the entirety of both arms. 

From the inner elbow and wrist of your left arm, two bees emerge from two separate holes. From the radius of your right arm, another bee. The rest of the colony is inside your skin, tickling your nausea. 

That is not all that summons that high-pitched gasp. Clenched in the Swiss cheese flesh of your hands is a knife covered in blood. 

You watch as the once cement knife starts to vibrate back and forth the longer you stare at it. Whole body shivers rape your bones and the shining red knife trembles with the movement.

For reasons unknown, your parted lips spill out one last rhythmic note, “J-Jade?” The world goes black.

You wake up. 

Black, directionless water swallows you. There is no end or no beginning, so you float in the abdomen of the universal ocean, body tilted and head heavy. No calamity stirs your buoyant bones. Quite peaceful, you exist like a free-roaming satellite, untethered and left to bounce alone in directionless galaxies. No light, pitch black.

This is what you have always wanted from death. No God paradise, just a nebulous space to drift. This is the ideal death. Body propelled and caressed by unsourced waves that rock you peacefully to infinite sleep. No stars, pitch black.

It stops being peaceful when you need to take a breath. Water instead of air travels in. You have no mouth or nose. Body manipulated, water goes in the waiting nostrils of the seven pairs of holes in your abdomen and the three pairs of holes in your thorax. And, suddenly, that tranquil black gains a blinding hue of pain. 

Depressing, the water does not float around you but pushes onto you. It clings like you are a magnet. The tiny caves in your thorax and abdomen flicker with agony, gathering more water. It clings to you like spandex. You throw an arm and leg into the atmosphere, and the absence of everything (beginning and end) is no longer a comfort. It clings like a leech, suctioning itself to you and filling the spiracles. 

Mouthless, your heart throws out an unheard scream. The world goes blinding gold. 

You wake up. 

The first texture you feel is the cold granite on your cheek. It is a welcome balm until the granite grinds painfully on your pelvic bone and the skin of your breasts. Disorientate, you push yourself away from the surface. The granite rumbles under your hands … no, the granite is soundless but there is a rumbling. Still sitting on the ceremony’s sacrificial slab, you open your eyes. 

The village is on fire. There is no building left intact. Flames rumble and tremble, fueling their physical form with all that a house has to offer. Red and gold climb upon the outer walls and black climbs out from the pumpkin innards of each house. 

Snip-snap-woosh-woosh. The conflagration’s volume drowns out any and all sounds of nature. Beyond the roar of fire, you hear absolutely nothing. 

Irrational, you turn your head in the direction of where you know the bee colonies are. You cannot see them through the thick plumes of smoke, separated from you by several burning buildings. You knew you would not be able to see them; why even look in their direction? Regardless, you squint even more to try to catch a glimpse. 

If the queen moves, they would too. Survival instinct would make them take flight, right?

On the verge of tears, you start to squirm on the slab, taking your hand behind yourself and moving it by your thighs, angling your body so you can lean closer and squint at the flaming barricade, one of your legs slides off the slab, perhaps there is time –

“(Name).”

You look behind and down at Jade Leech. He rests with his arms folded on the slab, knees in the dirt. On his index is the queen bee, walking around and around in circles on his nail. 

Your heart falls in despair. “She’s sick … She has a parasite.” Even when vocalizing the issue, you do not want to accept your own words.

“She does; she has had it for a while.”

“Is there anything I can do for her?”

“I’m afraid not. Soon the egg in her stomach will hatch. And the pupae will break out of her throat and head. It is truly odd. Usually, when bees have parasites like these, the bees throw them out of the hive. They kept her though. Even when there was something glaringly wrong with her.”

“Because she’s the queen.”

“Precisely.”

You and Jade watch on in a moment of silence. The queen rotates on twitching legs. Zombie-like, her tiny legs will give out momentarily and she tilts on the perch of Jade’s finger before getting back up again relentlessly. Circle turning into an octagon as she stutters in her steps. 

Your hand drags across your face, flustered. The single, heavy as an anvil tear spreads thinly on your cheek. You blink the rest away.

Jade glances up from the parasite-raped bee. “Are you afraid?”

“No … I’m sad.”

Jade considers that. Mourning is a human process when death happens; mourning is like kintsugi to the heart, repairing it layer by layer. In the face of death, one sheds a predictable tear. The queen bee twitches, losing her strength. Jade mourns that he might never see true fright on your face, like missing a piece in a chocolate heart-shaped box. 

He falls out of his pondering when you gently press your finger to him. Under the light of dozens of suns, gold and red flickering over, you are ethereal. His eyes fall helplessly to his sigil. He allows you to move him at your heavenly will. 

“What happened to the ceremony,” you ask, taking the queen from him. You cup her like she is the tiniest pearl or the fragilest shard of sea glass. “Do we still have time to complete it?”

You do not receive a verbal answer. Instead, Jade gently pinches your chin in his hand, pulling your focus away from the insect. A warm smile settles on his face, olive-brown eyes soft with admiration. Then, grip steady on your mandible, he turns your focus to the open field, on the opposing side of the burning buildings. 

When his hand falls away, your mouth falls open with the loss of stability. 

The attending nuns and villagers are dead. A deep cavern is cut like a mouth across their throats, blooming a million liquid roses that stain their white garments. In their chairs, their heads are tilted back to display the rings of muscles in their body. Dead eyes face up the heavens, ignorant of their God who is venturing on land and swimming in the oceans of Earth. 

The Reverend though – he lies in the middle of the walkway. He is headless, body supine and incomplete at the shoulders. All that remains of an indication he had a head is red splattered upon the grass. This butchery is inevitable. A priest of your religion is not allowed to impregnate women, under your God’s vow of celibacy. 

“Oh.”

Is this punishment? Life snuffed out from your devoted village, leaving you and Jade who had broken the rules. You look down at your dying companion; she is halfway through a rotation, legs trembling on a trembling hand. Nature feels disconnected from you and yet, simultaneously, you feel like nature nestles herself in you. 

“Oh, look at you. All alone.” Jade purrs, almost singing. 

“I – I’m assuming you did this. Or God did this.”

“You are correct on both parts.”

“Do not toy with your words, Jade.”

“I'm as serious as death. Here, let me show you.”

Raising his hands, Jade presses palms to mouth. As he tilts his head back as far as possible, he follows along with his hands, running them up and over. Upturned olive-brown eyes quell with the pressure. Cropped black hair trembles with the motion. And when his hands finally return to the granite slab, Jade stares at you with a new right eye that shines a honey gold. His hair is considerably different.

Different, not unfamiliar. Far from unfamiliar. You have seen that style of teal hair with a single black strand since birth. In paintings on your mother’s nightstand, in books shelved away in the school, and carved into a towering stone effigy.

You think you have always known, looking so intently into nature thus looking so intently into Jade as well.

The queen bee on your finger grinds to a halt and dies. Crushing down in enclosing fists, the ceremony narrows; all the world is lost to you besides God’s/Jade’s voice. Nature beckons. He beckons. The fists you make are a comforting caress. 

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Never.”

“Prove it to me.”

“How?”

“Sing for me.”

Swallowing thick saliva, your chest puffs with air peppered with ash. You two stare at each other. Then … you sing. 

Tongue volatile, you sing. It is not a melody that follows along with the rhythm of a river or the instrumental of an insect. You sing out your heart, sending it out on delicate honey bee wings. 

[malewife-overlord]

Six Cycles Later: Cybertron

Chapter 4: (Not) One of Us

Trigger warnings: gore, violence, body horror, death

Chapter summary: Luster struggles to escape the base, while Puncture chases him down and something runs wild in vengeance.

word count: 5795

Prior chapter is here. next chapter is here.

chapter under cut!

Project MS: Log 4

MOBILE METALLICO SPARK ADHERENCE TEST 1

Spark color: blue

Anomalous qualities: unusually bright

Charge: positive

Spark type: ferrous

Adherence method: delivered by servo into a formed spark chamber. metal was encouraged to produce a spark chamber by introducing electrical pulses of code. 

Results: metal engulfed spark readily. a face was observed to temporarily form. metal quivered for exactly 14 kliks 12 nanocycles before violently recoiling. formed faceplate was expulsed. a scan of the metal revealed its charge to be primarily positive. the initial spark chamber could not be located. 

Notes: potential charge of metal may influence whether the metal absorbs sparks. 

MOBILE METALLICO SPARK ADHERENCE TEST 2

Spark color: red

Anomalous qualities: spark exhibits a strange black core. organics seem drawn to it.

Charge: negative

Spark Type: caesic

Adherence method: spark enveloped in an artificial spark chamber and dropped into mobile metallico mass.

Results: metal rejected spark chamber. chamber was expelled from the tub and cracked upon impact with flooring. metal was observed to pry open the glass and engulf the spark within. exactly 147 kliks and 36 nanocycles later, metal would begin to stabilize into the shape of a frame. frame split and became two individuals. following 4 kliks of stability both forms melted. metal returned to original formation. scan of metal revealed its charge to be both positive and negative.

Notes: color did not develop in either form. the blueprints for cybertronian life are present but seem unable to be properly processed. the presence of opposing charges, usually incompatible with cybertronian life, is worth investigating.

MOBILE METALLICO SPARK ADHERENCE TEST 3

Spark color: white

Anomalous qualities: spark is twinned and incredibly unstable. conventional spark casing methods seem incapable of containing it for long.

Charge: variable. readings fluctuate between positive and negative.

Spark type: unknown

Adherence method: spark was thrown with force into the tub containing mobile metallico

Results: metal absorbed the spark readily. for the first time the metal completely ceased movement. no additional formations observed.

Notes: the variable aspect of the unstable spark may have balanced the mobile metallico. at present the substance is as stable as sentio metallico. if an unstable spark is introduced to mobile metallico, does it create sentio metallico?

M̶O̶B̶I̶L̶E̶ M̶E̶T̶A̶L̶L̶I̶C̶O̶ S̶P̶A̶R̶K̶ A̶D̶H̶E̶R̶E̶N̶C̶E̶ T̶E̶S̶T̶ 4

The metal took form. Upon my arrival it sat up. It does not speak, only stares. Its form is shapeless, as basic as any protoform can be. 

I have provided it with the basic blueprints of the common Seeker. It took the shape after a long period of deliberation. It does not appear to have been forged with a name. There is much mobile metallico left in its wake. I suspect I will have plenty left to make more. 

For now I have entrusted the care of the newly forged into the hands of the Rain Makers. They are quite drawn to the thing, and have given it a name after their own.

MOBILE METALLICO SPARK ADHERENCE TEST 4

Spark color: purple

Anomalous qualities: the only purple spark that has been discovered.

Charge: negative

Spark type: phthalic

Adherence method: spark was gently coerced into a seeker shell created from the now inert mobile metallico. 

Results: inert mobile metallico is as functional as sentio metallico. the frozen spark was accepted readily. the body warmed itself and a new cybertronian forged in 20 kliks 59 nanocyles.

Notes: this one is as odd as the prior. markings reminiscent of a cityspeaker are naturally etched into the metal around its optics. they resemble a teardrop at the bottom, with an eye at the thickest portion, and an 8 on the corners. upon onlining its optics these markings were observed to glow bright purple. for inexplicable reasons, the subject's optics are completely black.

the subject stared at me for a long time before it began to cry. I have isolated the subject. it seems distressed by the presence of other cybertronians. 

MOBILE METALLICO SPARK ADHERENCE TEST 5

Spark color: green

Anomalous qualities: point one percenter. radiation from this spark seems to empower other sparks.

Charge: negative

Spark type: isomeric

Adherence method: spark was placed into a previously forged seeker shell with great caution. additional measures were taken to ensure the radiation produced did not damage the mobile metallico.

Results: the shell accepted the spark with great difficulty. enough mobile metallico was not present for the spark to reach its fullest potential. additional mobile metallico was provided, at which the frame restructured itself and finished development.

Notes: subject is larger than originally expected. the seeker frame was overridden, though its influence is felt in the formation of wings. subject is a flier as intended, albeit an enormous one. 

CLOSING THOUGHTS

The ability of the Distiller to convert enemy soldiers into usable material is a resounding success. Mobile metallico, the side effect of an internal error, has proven more than capable of utilization as a birth metal substitute so long as its charge can be tamed. As the three soldiers produced are all Seekers, I have dubbed them MS-01, MS-02, and MS-03: “Mutant Seekers”. Trine bonding will begin after the submission of this log. A copy of the final report, as well as the results of trine bonding, will be submitted in the upcoming future. 

Signed, 

SHOCKWAVE

—--------------------COPY TO MEGATRON----------------------------

Luster hissed with pain as he charged through the upper ceiling, tearing up shards of metal and scattering droplets of his life fluids with each step. He didn’t stop until the noise from below had quieted down completely, finally stilling when silence fully engulfed him. Panting, he quickly scanned his surroundings and ducked into a nearly alcove. 

Warm, golden light washed over him from just below. He’d stopped somewhere above an empty room with what looked like a meeting table. There was a screen on one of the walls. 

All he cared about was that it was empty. Shakily sitting, he moved a servo to an open wound on his side and immediately gasped with pain. 

They’d shot him. They’d actually shot him. For the first (second?) time in his life, he’d been shot. Without any armor or plating to protect him, it’d gone straight into his wires and sensitive internals. 

The pain had been so great he’d frozen up and collapsed. The fact that he’d managed to escape and flee had nothing to do with his own willpower, but with the apparent mind his tentacles had developed. In just seven solar cycles they’d become as intelligent as turbofoxes. He didn’t even have to think about controlling them anymore–they very much piloted themselves now. 

Already, the two which bore servos were moving to his side, covering it and wrapping their lengths reassuringly around him. Those which bore claws were alert like sentries, turning their weapons back and forth over and over as they held watch. 

Pain throbbed from both of his sides alongside his upper chest. He’d expected a bit of a fight, but not this. It was luck alone that saw his worst wounds being in mostly non-fatal areas. 

He would still need fixing. His chest was fuming, with a good amount of its wires shot, but the opalescent substance leaking out of his side was far more important. If it entirely drained, he couldn’t be sure what would happen to him. 

They’d shot him. That part was really only sinking in now. They’d actually shot him. He’d been shot by Autobots. He’d been shot by the bots he had allied himself with and learned to trust. 

Luster.

His comms triggered. Luster opened them, seeing a notification from Spark Storm. Immediately he opened their channel. 

“I need help. I didn’t manage to get his T-Cog. They shot me, I’m bleeding out. We need to get back to the lab. Help.”

Silence for a few moments.

“They hurt you?”

“They shot me. I…well, I mean…I know why they…it-it doesn’t matter! We have to retreat, this has been a total–”

“Who hurt you?”

“Uh…the triple-changer, and…”

Kup. He’d recognized Kup. But the other one…

He didn’t want to say it, and he wouldn’t, not until he could confirm for sure.

“And…Kup. But they–”

“Call Skyrend and report your failure. I will settle this.”

“Wait, Stormy–!”

Their channel slammed close. Luster grimaced and forced it open again. 

“Stormy, don’t! They were just defending themselves! We’re not supposed to reveal–”

“They hurt you.” There was nothing in her voice. He recognized the tone. It made his spine tingle with fear. “They know that we’re here. It doesn’t matter if we reveal ourselves now. Either we run, and become the hunted…or we fight, and become the hunters. Ultra Magnus is in this building. He is second to the new Prime.” 

Her bloodlust was leaking through their connection. He felt solvent growing in his intake. 

“You won’t need to worry about failure if the new Prime is dead. I will bring about a second Haumerian Massacre here. And this one won’t be removed from the official record.”

She closed their connection again, and this time, he couldn’t find the strength to force it back open. All he could hear were the sparkbeats below, pounding in his head like hammers. Sparkbeats, and that damnable humming, louder than ever. 

Primus, he was hungry. There was a veritable buffet below just waiting to be harvested, and here he was cowering in a vent instead of rampaging, feasting, and treating himself to–

The blaring of an alarm snapped him out of his daze. The golden light from below turned red. Luster blinked a few times and shook his helm, regaining himself, and wiped his maw. No. He was better than this. Maybe she wasn’t, but he was.

Skyrend. He had to call Skyrend. This mission was as good as aborted; they’d been found, and doubtless there would soon be Autobots searching the corridors for him. His window of escape was rapidly narrowing. 

Diving back into his comms, he found Skyrend’s somewhere in the middle and reached out, trying to forge a connection. After several kliks that felt like eternities, the channel opened. 

Skyrend was silent, as usual. Luster began. 

“Mission abort. We were discovered. I’m injured and bleeding heavily. Stormy and I both need immediate extraction.”

“You failed?” Skyrend’s booming voice sounded back through their connection, rattling in his helm. Luster cringed at the sound, still unaccustomed to its magnitude. 

“We…yes, I failed. I know, Shockwave won’t be happy. But I’m injured, I can’t complete this mission. Please, get me out of here. Primus, I’m…” He looked down, saw his own opalescent fluids oozing out over his servos and forming a pool beneath him. “I’m bleeding out, Skyrend!”

Silence for a few moments more. 

“I will land at the front.” 

“The front!? Why–”

“They’ve armed the back. You struck there too many times. They expect it now. The front is less heavily armed. If anything, they’ll expect you to try and flee out the back.”

“But the front has multiple turrets and sentries! The base is on high alert, there’s probably twice as many now!”

“You’ll have to find a way. I can’t do much for you up here. Not unless you want to be levelled with the rest of the facility.”

He bit his dermas. “Fine, fine…I…frag, ow.” The fluid loss was starting to catch up with him. Black spots were appearing at the edge of his vision. The humming was beginning to waver. “Ok. Wait for me, please.”

“I won’t leave until I have you. What of Spark Storm?”

“She’s…”

“About to rampage, isn’t she.”

He swallowed and nodded. “Unfortunately.” 

“Hm. Oracelle said something like this could happen. Make your way for the front of the facility. I’ll ask him for guidance. May Primus defend you, Luster.”

He closed their connection and in-vented sharply, slowly trying to find his feet. His legs had practically atrophied into vestigial organs at this point, but they helped a little with balance, which he was quickly losing. His tentacles accommodated, extending more on one side and shortening on the other. 

Pulling up a map of the base in his HUD, Luster tried to pinpoint just where he was on it. The medical bay was a good start, and it was surprisingly close to the entrance. Which direction had he run in? If he could only pinpoint that, he could determine how close he was to escape–

tink tink tink tink

He snapped out of his HUD view at the sound of thin, clawed legs on metal. 

“Stormy?” He said aloud, poking his head out of the alcove. “Is that you?”

Not even ten feet away a large, black head came into view. Golden antennae curled forward on it, and red eyes made up its round optics. A piercing rostrum was folded just beneath its head and large, golden scythes attached to thick, black forearms lingered just below it. 

Panic surged through him at the sight. The two met optics for just a moment. The alarm blared in the background, red light flashing over his silvery, skeletal, vulnerable form. In the dark seconds between each flash he could only make out the glowing eyes of the monster.

And then it charged, blocking off his escape. Luster yelped and dove for the vent cover. It gave after only a moment, and he spilled into the room. 

Its door was locked. He jammed a tentacle into the keypad just as the creature gripped the edge of the broken vent, slamming down as he barrelled out the door, trailing fluid. The distinct tschu tschu tschuke sounded as it stood up, becoming the hulking Insecticon he’d once seen broken and defeated back on Earth. 

Its pedes seemed to shake the very ground as it pursued him. He charged through the hall, wounds throbbing with each step. Turning a corner, he spotted a group of Autobots, armed to the teeth. 

Frag. He looked back, spotted the Insecticon coming after him. For a moment he froze. 

You can’t find me if you die here.

No, he couldn’t. Grabbing the ceiling with his tentacles, Luster hoisted himself up and darted back, narrowly avoiding a swipe from below. 

He dropped down from the ceiling behind the Insecticon and bolted back the way he’d come, this time bolting down the other hall. According to the map layout he was at the back of the base. In five halls and two turns he’d be at the med bay. From there it was a left and a mad sprint for the start. 

He could do this. For Solace. Even if he had to down his own kind and run from ‘cons who could rip him in half with their bare servos. He could do this. 

“Wait, what are you doing out!?”

“The prisoner’s escaped!” 

“Get OFF of me!” 

Sudden chatter erupted behind him. He dared to cast a look back and saw the prior Autobots pointing their weapons at the Insecticon, who had its scythes bared. 

A lucky break on his behalf. Luster managed a tiny smile as they disappeared from his view. He dashed down the hall, turned once, and sprinted for the corner to the medbay.

And the sight there froze him in tracks. 

The hallway was painted with Energon. It was so thick on the floor that he couldn’t make out the pattern of the tiles. Four different mechs were scattered in pieces across the hall. One of them had a massive hole in his gray chest, his faceplate torn from his helm and still hanging on by a few thick threads. Blaster fire had singed his plating and burst his wires. His limbs had been torn from their sockets and half of his helm was missing. 

As Luster stood in shock at the scene, the alarm stopped, and a message in Cybertronian sounded over it: 

ALL AUTOBOTS EVACUATE NOW IT IS NOT ONE OF US AVOID THE FACELESS ONE

All of a sudden, Luster felt immensely concerned for Kup and that triple-changer, whoever he’d been. It wasn’t like either of them knew what they’d been invoking when they’d shot him. Was he partially responsible for this? Should he have said anything?

The sound of pedes behind him broke him out of his thoughts. Luster shook his head and tentatively stepped over the dead in the hall. By now he’d stopped purging at the sight. It disturbed him, it always would, but there was nothing to be done now. 

Still, he peeked in the med-bay one last time before breaking for the exit. The floor was covered in Energon, but no one was there. 

He considered that to be for the better.

The entrance of the base was closed. He met no additional resistance as he spilled into its open area, though plenty more Energon stains along the way that told a fine story as to why. The front was like a hangar, with an open floor and high walls that supported a single, large door. Turrets were nestled in dozens of coves in the walls. Monitors stood on small podiums on the left and right, and a map of the base had been drawn on one of the walls. 

Flecks of energon littered the floor, alongside the scuffs of pedes and a few burn marks. Spark Storm was moving fast, it seemed. Skyrend and Oracelle had both warned him of her efficiency, but he’d yet to see it firsthand. And frankly, after witnessing the aftermath of just one, he felt he could go the rest of his life without anymore. 

Luster beelined for one of the monitors, which was blaring EMERGENCY on its screen. An evacuation order had been given, so why hadn’t the front of the base been opened? He frowned and tapped on the screen, pulling up the controls for the door. 

They’d been locked by the prior user. He ordered it to be overridden, which prompted him to input a password. 

It felt like the wrong time to ask for such a thing, considering the situation. Luster frowned and tried ‘password’. His single attempt was met with a blaring BEEP, as well as a warning that in two attempts the terminal would lock. 

He really didn’t have time for this. Activating the electricity in one of his claws, he jammed it into the computer, overloading it with charge. The monitor crackled and beeped, showcasing a dozen error messages and a spasm of colors. Then the door began to open, slowly but surely. 

He vented a sigh of relief and immediately hissed at the pain it caused him. Running on his wounds had worsened them. No matter how many times he attempted to turn his pain sensors off, they resisted, insisting over and over that disabling them was more dangerous than leaving them on. 

And behind them was that damnable humming, turning into shrieking static now. 

Moving for the door, Luster waited for it to rise just enough for him to barely fit under it. Then he lowered himself and crawled under it, leaving behind a drag of energon and opalescent sparkeater blood. 

It was significantly harder for him to get up than before. His legs dragged behind him as he crawled forward, passing beneath the final arch of the entryway and the half-built road leading into it. Before him was a metallic expanse of ruins, barely standing after the last onslaught from three million years ago. 

“I’m out,” he called to the air, then collapsed, just inches from the end of the road. “Skyrend?”

No response. He opened his comms, called out into them. Silence. All that sounded was the humming. 

You can’t find me if you die here.

Primus, not now. He couldn’t keep going. The fluid leaking out of both his sides was getting dangerously low. The black spots on the edge of his vision were forming holes in it now, and his helm felt dizzy. His entire body was heavy, too heavy to drag further. 

He couldn’t die here. 

Look up. Call for help. Call to him for help. 

“Skyrend!” He screamed into the abyss of the sky. A moon Cybertron had only recently developed stared back. 

The sickening CREAK of warping metal behind him shrieked. He didn’t even have to look to recognize the loud pedesteps that pounded towards him. 

The Insecticon had caught up. Luster panted rapidly and gripped the floor, trying to drag himself forward. It was a useless effort. It was on him before he had gained an inch. 

Claws wrapped around one of his tentacles, dragging him back like a fish on a line. He gave little resistance, optics flickering as the threat of offlining grew by the second. Lifting him off the floor, the Insecticon dangled him before it, a threatening scowl twisting its features. 

“YOU,” it growled. “Sparkeater. Where the frag did you get those claws?” 

He blinked, head lolling weakly to the side. The black spots were meringing into a black hole. “My…arms? I…”

“You should put him down, if you value your life.” 

The voice boomed so loud it hurt his head. His optics offlined just in time for him to make out a massive form uncloaking itself. 

Then he was out, and once again, alone with the humming in his head. 

—-----------------

It was like watching the scenery melt. As she reared up, holding her prey in one claw, the scenery not even five feet away disintegrated. It became black and gray and took on the shape of a mech, a massive one, a flier who had no business attaining such bulk and height.

He was a stealth bomber from the looks of it. His chest was huge, more than enough to accommodate a bot as large as Springer with room. His legs were solid and thick, more than capable of holding him straight even when grappled. Two large wings pointed downwards from a bullet-like shape on his back. The helmet wrapping around his faceplate was almost entirely encompassing, leaving only a small gap for the silver of his face and the tiniest sliver of his golden optics, which glared down at her from far above. 

For he was even bigger than she by at least half a mech. There was no mistaking it–she was facing off against a point one percenter. 

Perhaps some ancient part of her was concerned, but that part had been drilled out long ago. Puncture scoffed at the sight of him, gripping her prey harder. 

“Is that so,” she threatened, opening her mask. “Make one move and I melt his brain. You want him alive, don’t you?”

The flier narrowed his optics to slits. “You’re a Decepticon.”

“So I am.” The same insignia emblazoned on her chest was present on his. “And so are you.”

“This doesn’t have to end in violence,” he offered. “We’re on the same side. Put him down, he’s with us.”

“I don’t care,” she spat. “You. What’s your name and who do you answer to. Where the frag is Megatron? Guerilla attacks aren’t his style.”

The flier’s optics momentarily vanished. “Megatron is dead. He was defeated during the battle of Autobot City and met his fate after being discharged from Astrotrain. He’s been dead for over six cycles now.” They reappeared. “I am Skyrend. I answer to Shockwave, the new leader of the Decepticons. We are scattered, but we remain strong. I’m guessing you’ve only now got the news.” 

Her arm was shaking, grip tightening so immensely that metal bent. “You’re lying.”

“I have no reason to.”

“No.” 

She spoke the word like it would change anything, but it was all hitting her now. 

They’re all dead. 

The war is over. 

Megatron was defeated. The Decepticons were scattered. Cybertron fell to the Autobots. 

They’d lost.

“What is your name?” Skyrend asked. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen you before. Are you from Earth?”

Her arm wavered, lowering its prey to the ground. “No,” she muttered. “I was trapped there. I’m from Cybertron. I’m…”

Helmbreaker? Puncture?

“I’m…Puncture. Megatron? He’s really dead?”

“He is.” Skyrend shook his helm pensively. “We mourned for days.”

“No. He can’t be. He can’t.”

“Starscream was oriented–”

“FRAG STARSCREAM!” She screamed, dropping her prey and throwing her head back. “FRAG ALL OF YOU! NO!”

“It…isn’t as hopeless as you would think,” Skyrend offered, slowly extending a servo. “Shockwave leads us now. He has a plan–”

“FRAG SHOCKWAVE!” She spat at him, several acidic droplets hitting the ground just before his servo. “I will NEVER answer to that one-eyed freak!” 

A pained grimace came over his faceplate. “I don’t want to either. But he’s all we have now. Puncture. Come back with us. We’ve got a base beneath Cybertron. Soon, this planet will be ours again.”

But Puncture was already gone, turning away and gripping her helm. It was over. Megatron was dead. She’d failed. She’d failed. 

How much for the weakest one, then? 

Hm. 1200 Shanix. I’ll even halve that for a round in the Pit with you, Megatron. 

Such an offer! You have yourself a deal, Overlord. 

Hehe…good. Know that we hold nothing back in The Pit, Megatron. If you lose, your everything is mine. 

And if you lose?

Then you gain two soldiers today.

Their voices were echoing at the back of her helm as she kneeled next to Sparkripper’s twitching frame. Energon was spilling out of his head in a fountain so swift it could not be stopped. She’d already brought her cannon to it and heated it enough to cauterize. 

The flow would not stop. His single red optic watched her, quivering in its socket. Her servos found their way under his head and lifted it, ever so slightly. Something was wrong with her optics. They wouldn’t stop blurring. 

Breaker… 

Her name had come out in a choked, glitched whisper. His vox box was failing. 

Finish…what we…started…please…don’t…let them…win…

His claws brushed against her servos, trying to hold them one last time. 

We love you…Breaker…you’re…the best…of us all.

Her servos shook wildly as his claws went limp in them. The single red optic watching her extinguished. And gray spread throughout the wyvern’s frame as his spark extinguished. 

Behind her, two mechs clashed, one who had owned her all her life, and one who would soon own them both. 

And something in her broke. 

Six hundred Shanix. That was the cost of her life. Six hundred Shanix. 

Megatron was dead. 

Finish what we started.

She had failed to achieve the one thing her caretakers had asked of her. 

You’re the best of us all. 

And here she was, a Decepticon brand on her chassis, faced with her own failure and hatred. In the years since she’d been annexed into the Decepticon forces, she’d convinced herself that they’d died because they were weak. She’d convinced herself that she was one of the strongest Decepticons, and that part of that was conquering others. In the beginning it would be organics, Autobots, and her fellow cons. Then she’d move up, take on the Elites, and finally, Megatron. And once she’d ripped Megatron’s helm from his shoulders, she’d return to the Pit, impale it on a pole, and…

And what? She’d failed. Optimus Prime had gotten to him first. She wasn’t as strong as either of them. She wasn’t even strong enough to give Springer his come-uppance. Here, back on Cybertron, abandoned by her fellow Decepticons, haunted by her fellow gladiators, and in the captivity of the enemy, Puncture was alone, alone and face to face with her own failure. 

She hadn’t even managed to find out what happened to Overlord. Primus, as far as Cybertronians went, she’d been such a waste. 

“Puncture? Make your decision quickly!” 

Skyrend was trying to reason with her, distantly. She looked up at him, followed his gaze back to the entrance of the Autobot Base. Channel had made her way to the front, accompanied by a pink and white femme and Springer. Shadows in the hall foretold of more arriving soon. 

She didn’t care. If they killed her now it didn’t matter. She had failed. It was what she deserved. Why had she even come out here? Why had she even fought? There was nothing on this planet for her. Nothing…except…

There was something silver in Skyrend’s servo, which he quickly loaded into his chassis. She recognized those claws, the ones she’d held as the life drained from them. They had been gray, not silver, last time she’d seen them. 

Shockwave. They answered to Shockwave. They answered to Shockwave, and he’d put them back together, and he’d been there when Sparkripper and Strutsnapper died. He’d been there to hand off the Shanix to Overlord, who’d then turned and jerked her chain, telling her to behave, dog. She’d seen him point to their bodies, watched as other Decepticons approached the fallen gladiators, before she’d been yanked away. 

Shockwave. It wasn’t Megatron who she was after now. It was Shockwave. 

Finish what we started. 

Her claws lowered from her helm, clenching tightly into fists. Her spark burned in its chamber as she reared her head back, venom dripping fresh from her intake. As she turned on Skyrend her optics blazed with a new fire. 

“Frag you,” she growled, dangerously low. “Frag you and your master. Frag the Decepticons.” Raising her claw, she dragged it across her brand, tearing it like paper. “I am going to kill Every. Last. One of you.” 

A darkness overcame his faceplate. “So be it.” The wings on his forearms flipped forward, revealing their deadly edges. “Know that I loathe violence. This doesn’t have to end in your death.”

“You aren’t the first point one percenter to face me,” she snarled, unsheathing both of her scythes. “And you won’t be the last.” 

“PUNCTURE!” 

It was Channel. She didn’t look at her. 

“BY THE PIT, PUNCTURE, LOOK OUT!” 

She diverted her attention for all of a second. In that moment Skyrend swiped, his blade catching her clean across the helm. The impact knocked her off her pedes, throwing her to the ground. Her vision momentarily glitched from the impact.

And just overhead, missing her by half a second, a bolt of white, crackling energy shot. Cold filled her chassis. She recognized that energy. 

Skyrend looked up in its direction in relief. “Spark Storm! At last, you’re out!” 

A bot was rapidly approaching them. As she looked up, she made out white pedes and a blue frame, topped with a pointed crest. His faceplate, white in color, was only partially attached to his helm. 

“Blurr!?” The pink and white femme gasped. He didn’t once look at her as he leaped over Puncture, slamming down just beyond her form. 

And as she watched, he suddenly convulsed, jerking and spasming wildly as his chassis began to deform. 

The glass on his front shattered. It’s metal warped outward, ballooning up until it burst. Six deadly sharp legs in the shape of daggers poked out, gripping the edges of the body they were trapped in. Skyrend lowered and held out his servo. 

Then, in a burst of Energon and sentio metallico, the thing leaped out of Blurr’s body, tacking down onto the extended platform. Puncture’s optics widened at the sight. 

It was like a spark chamber out of a horror film. The coloration was white, with six sharp dagger legs extending from its sides. At the bottom of it were rows and rows of saw-like teeth, practiced for tearing through a chassis. The top was open and radiated energy, sparking with the light of the very thing it contained. White lights on the side blinked and moved, and she realized, disgustingly, that they were optics. 

All of them were locked onto her as Skyrend quickly loaded the thing into his chassis. Laser bolts singed uselessly against his plating as he turned on the others. 

“Know this, Autobots. What you’ve witnessed here today is only a small portion of what power Shockwave wields. We are more than you could ever know, and we are stronger than you could ever guess.” 

A loud tschu tschu tschuke sounded as he lifted off the ground, engines firing up to carry his transformed body away. 

“And we will take this planet back.”

—----------------------------------------TRINE BONDING RESULTS---------------------------------------------

Subject MS-03 “Skyrend” 

Alt mode: stealth bomber

Colors: black, dark gray, light gray

Optic color: gold

Power: subject displays the ability to share the enhanced power of its spark with others for a limited time. side effects vary, with intensity as great as death and as low as headaches. 

more interesting is the subject’s ability to hide itself from others. the cells which make up its plating reflect light at abnormal frequencies, resulting in many Cybertronians struggling to see it. movement does not affect this. it is suffice to say that MS-03 is only seen by those it wants to be seen by.

Trine Bonding Results: a resounding success. MS-03 is amiable and cooperative with its fellow Seekers. subject displays behavior and affection becoming of a carrier towards others it cares about. it has been observed that the subject will shield others with its body. considering the subject’s size along with its affectionate tendencies, it may prove suitable for the covert transport of soldiers. 

MS-03 is bonded to MS-02 and MS-01. 

Subject MS-02 “Oracelle” 

Alt mode: seeker jet

Colors: purple, silver, gray

Optic color: black

Powers: subject possesses the ability of foresight. on multiple occasions the subject has correctly predicted events which had yet to come, including deaths, actions, words, weather patterns, and test results. the subject claims to have seen its own death, as well as the downfall of the Decepticon and Autobot forces. 

Trine Bonding Results: success. MS-02 bonded with MS-03 and MS-01 with minor difficulty following its search into their futures. additional encouragement in the form of anesthetizing injections was provided to ensure MS-02 remained calm during the process. 

MS-02 is bonded to MS-03 and MS-01. 

Subject MS-01 “Spark Storm” 

Alt mode: seeker jet

Colors: white, gold, dark gray

Optic color: white

Powers: subject possesses an unstable spark which permits the manipulation of spark energy throughout it. by channeling this energy, the subject can discharge bolts which induce glitches and breakdowns in normal Cybertronians. the subject does not speak, and appears hostile to all other forms of Cybertronian life. 

Trine Bonding Results: success. with great difficulty the subject was coerced into bonding with MS-02 and MS-03. subject was anesthetized for the entire process and mnemosurgery was utilized to ensure subject’s coercion. 

Additional notes: subject previously bonded with the Rain Makers, but was discharged following several bouts of aggression. subject’s body is beginning to gray despite its spark holding strong. subject is not distressed by this. mnemosurgery into subject’s thought process revealed enough neural activity for four cybertronians. one repetitive phrase echoed consistently: 

“I am not me.”

subject will be isolated for additional brain scans and mnemosurgery exams.

MS-01 is bonded to MS-02 and MS-03. 

[gaoau]

一 ; one ; uno

it's so cold warnings — none. word count — 4.0k

next.

ive long realized plenty of things i never needed—the past is never behind us, the present is fleeting, the future doesnt exist. theres a wrinkle in the sands of time. theres a fault in the fabric of the universe. there are many flaws everywhere i look. sano manjiro lies dead before me. mikey lies dead before me. blond hair and a dragon tattoo because we both miss ken. black hair that makes him look too much like shin. white hair and dark bags covered in tears. how many times have i seen this already? why have i seen this already? everything is broken. its disastrous and confusing and suffocating. i dont understand what im looking at.

i remember, just seconds ago, i was busy beating up some random guys from a rival gang. theres a reason we rule over the kanto area. we dont back down from a fight. so where did i go? where am i? why am i seeing this now? these are memories of a future i dont have. these are memories of a future i shouldnt have. its enough to drive me insane when i think that this is all i get for being next to mikey. i hold my breath and choke whenever hes around. that intoxicating grace of his, the one that sets him apart from the world, has been flooding my senses for longer than i can take. and i let him, because i want him to be happy. this is all i get; blood, gore, pain, death, loneliness.

i dont want to think about mikey any longer. ive done all i could, it seems. id just like to be free for one moment. i still see it all, futures im not a part of, futures that takemichi has made sure to change.

he wears that godforsaken dragon tattoo like a brand on his neck. long hair hes kept dyed through the years because he doesnt want to cut it off, but he doesnt want me to style it for him. i look at him and i see ken. its torture. the years have gone by, im still by his side, he still has me locked in place. he hasnt smiled in what feels like eons. im okay with that. his smile, that empty, silent smile has always made my stomach ache. im not okay with that. hes a carbon copy of ken. we both miss him, i know. it hurts him more than me, even if im the one staring at a burning ghost all day, every day.

we're alone. im alone with mikey. im all alone when im with him. its cold on top of this building, in the corner of the world, secluded from the city weve conquered. i stretch out my legs, leaning against the wall, squinting at the reflection of led lights bending to hit my eye. mikey is still as small as ever. hes so small despite sitting on his throne like this. the gun i hold weighs on my hand. neither of us know how to properly handle guns. weve been drowning in this business for over a decade, but we're very clearly still children.

the safety clicks as i press the barrel under my jaw. "itd be so easy, dont you think?" the sound of my voice calls to him. its the only familiar sound in his life. its why ive been staying with him. i couldnt save him, but at least he still clings onto me like this. hes had me trapped for so long that i seem to have forgotten i was ever my own person.

his darkened eyes shift towards me so slowly. i see his face twist into a panicked frown. "whatre you doing?" he doesnt move from where hes sitting against the wall adjacent to mine. he reaches with his foot to tap my knee. stop, hes trying to say, dont even think about it. hes scared, i can tell. ive learned to read him like the open book he is. his light has grown dimmer through the years. hes angry, i can tell. hes wondering if ill leave him, too.

"nothing," i sigh. i lower the gun and leave it on my lap for a second. "m just thinking…" and i think. yes, i think. i know i cant leave him. he doesnt let me. he keeps me tied down to him. a chuckle falls, sardonic. i point the gun at him. "i cant die before you, mikey." ive promised. ive sworn to stay by his side until the bitter end—until his bitter end.

he doesnt bat an eye. "are you gonna kill me?" its funny how he doesnt care that im the one wholl be killing him. im just making my job easier for myself. i wonder what kind of face kisaki will make when he finds out what ive done.

"do you want me to?" i know he does. tonight ill see we find peace, manjiro. im the only one who he can lean on now.

hes quiet for a second. his eyes are like black holes as they swallow up all the light. he stares straight at me without expression. then, in a whisper, he begs, "…please." he doesnt say my name. no, he hasnt said my name more than once in our lives. he calls me by that stupid nickname he made up when we were hanging out at grandpas dojo.

i cant help the soft simper pulling at my lips. hes still the same mikey i know. he still struggles with asking for help, even if its me. but he still asks; hes still vulnerable in front of me. i pat my lap, legs stretched out just for him. "come here, then," i invite him closer, ready to welcome him with open arms, "rest your head for a bit." rest before you leave.

he doesnt hesitate. he never hesitates. in a swift movement, the back of his head collapses onto me. his eyes, the ones hes kept me trapped in for all my life, they dance around the vast expanse of midnight above us. "the stars are lovely today." stars i once promised to drag down to his feet if he asked. stars i swore wed always watch together.

i hum in agreement. "thats why we're here." everyone knows that stars only come out at night. we both know we're the two brightest burning stars in the world. we sit here, where people can see us burn and consume ourselves until we get crushed. "itll be over soon, i promise." the same way i promised him forever. ill hold him until the moment he dies. 

"thanks." ah, now he chooses to use my actual name. he can be so unfair. he could save a life, but he decided to take mine away instead. under his charm, i let him drag me down. we die hand in hand.

there are no tears; not from me, not from him. it seems weve both been waiting for the other to make the first move. hes so tired and so am i. with a singed throat, the words sting on my tongue as i remind him, "i love you, manjiro." theres no other feeling in the world like loving sano manjiro. i look into his darkened gaze and deny the truth staring back at me. its all a mess, scraping away at my mind. my love and hate look quite alike.

i can hardly tell light from dark or right from wrong anymore. mikey replies, "i love you." again, he dares not say my name. i hate him. he makes me go weak at the knees, even as i slump against the wall. i wonder if its him or the cross im bearing on my back, weighing me down.

mikey closes his eyes. he wants to let go. hes letting me go. its been years and hes finally letting me go. the wind howls and screams our names in my ears as i press the barrel of my gun to his forehead. we're stars; we'll burn, we'll rest, we'll disappear. we go down together. i shoot. his body relaxes against my legs. i feel the warmth of his blood seeping through my clothes. hes free. the gentle quirk of his lips tells me hes happy hes dead. maybe im just making it up. maybe i just want to believe ive done something.

i lift my head to the sky. the gun is warm against my skin. my pulse doesnt tremble when i pull the trigger.

im free.

but we arent free. i walk into his room to find mikey slumped against a corner. hes here again, a ghost of ken. how come his eyes grow darker every time i look? i scratch away an itch on the underside of my jaw, clearing my throat to let him know im here, it's me. he doesnt bother lifting his head for me. i stand right in front of him, bare feet centimeters away from his crossed legs. ive heard what hes done. he didnt check in with me before killing our friends. if takashi dies, then i stay. if pah dies, then i stay. ken and kei died, so i stay. he knows ill follow him to hell.

it hurts me, too. he cant let go of me and hes bruising my wrists. i want him to be happy. i want him to be free. i want to be free. "takashi, pah, peh, chifuyu." the list rings with poison in both of our ears. how did we get here?

"takemicchi got away," he mumbles. i highly doubt takemichi matters much right now. we stopped trusting him long ago. he changed after bloody halloween and mikey couldnt understand why.

i crouch to try and meet his eyes. charming, deadly works of art. viral. it's been years, but he still holds me in his gaze. "never woulda guessed chifuyu was working with tora. after killing kei, i thought for sure he wouldnt forgive him." theres no sugarcoating needed. i dont censor my words. his wounds are fresh and i keep digging my fingers into his flesh to make them deeper. i make all his mistakes real for him because he wants to be scolded. he cant ask for sympathy—he only asks for cruelty.

theres a pause. a silence that hangs. it's heavy, stagnant. it pulls at the seams. "kazutora needs to go, too."

my knees come in contact with the floor as i lean towards mikey. i wrap my arms around his head, cradling him to my chest. hes still warm. he rests his forehead against me. "theres no time, mikey. you cant do this any longer." youre falling apart, manjiro. i pull my gun from its holster, cocking it as i bury it in his hair.

"set me free." he pronounces that stupid nickname, chaos of my real name. i cant discern if hes begging or ordering me.

i hum softly. he put his trust in me. "i love you." he nods. the gunshot echoes in the quiet room. it rings in my ears. i see splatters of mikeys blood on the wall. i feel his body relax in my arms. with the barrel against my temple, i shoot myself free.

a headache splits my skull apart as i watch this unwind. have i seen this before? no, mikeys hair is pitch black. im glad he doesn't let it fall over his forehead. i don't think i could bear to look at shin so much. i was adamant to cut it for him when he asked. the list is the same, though much longer. takashi, pah, peh, chifuyu, tora, the twins, hakkai, even ken. hes talking with takemichi now. it's easy to tell what mikey wants from him. im no good in this future. i don't have what takemichi has.

there is nothing left here for us. i wait among the shadows and debris, listening to mikey confess all his crimes. he veered down the wrong path. ive kept by his side all this time, holding him at his most vulnerable, but im not a savior. takemichi can save him in a way i can't. all ive done so far is push back the inevitable. mikey falls victim to his dark impulses every time. who am i to stop him? he keeps the safety of his gun on; i don't. i can save myself.

"kill me," he says. i feel like ive heard that before. it's not directed at me, though. i won't stop him. all mikey wants is to die and be free. that's what i want, too.

takemichi is, understandably, confused. he doesn't get it. maybe that's why mikey has chosen him. takemichi tries to figure out what mikeys trying to tell him. he asks about the friends hes murdered. it must be frightening for him to hear his former commander speak so nonchalantly about setting hakkai on fire. he asks about me. mikey glances at where im hidden. i catch the look in his eyes. those eyes that had me wrapped around his finger when he so intensely stared into my soul. they quiver.

hes helpless. hes scared. hes tired. hes horrified. he doesn't know what to do. he pounces on takemichi and threatens him. then a gunshot rings. it's not mikeys, it's not takemichis. and it's certainly not mine. mikey is dead. mikey is free. i swore to him that i would see him to his end. we die hand in hand, don't we, manjiro?

tachibana naoto, hinas little brother shot him. i remember her mentioning him to me once. ironic how hes the one to kill mikey, of all people. as takemichi cradles mikeys dead body in his arms, i step out of my waiting spot. it alerts both men instantly. naoto is wary of my presence, but takemichi believes in hope. he exclaims my name with enthusiasm. perhaps he thought mikey had killed me as well when he didn't answer. as if mikey would ever let me go.

"im just here to pick him up," i let them know i mean no harm.

naoto is a cautious man, if anything. "takemichi-kun, get behind me." id never do anything to hurt takemichi. he doesn't need to be worried about me.

i kneel before takemichi, extending my arms out. i remove mikeys burdens from his chest to take him away with me so we can both find peace. his blood smears on my clothes and i know takemichi will have a hard time forgetting this sight. mikey doesn't weigh much. it's painful knowledge.

as i haul mikey away, takemichi calls, "wait!"

there's nothing left to say, though. mikey has confessed all his crimes. mikey has confessed all his pains. "it's over, takemichi." i can't bring myself to curse him with that stupid nickname after all these years. "it's finally over." we're finally free. welcome home, manjiro. i wonder, if i smiled, would it hurt him? it'd be genuine happiness, but it's not like he'd be able to read that, so i don't. mikeys body is cold and stiff against mine. i let him rest against me, eyes closed and dried tears on his cheeks. he hasn't cried in so long. he leans his head on my shoulder. he always does this when he lets his vulnerability show. "i love you, manjiro," i remind him. hes all i have. i press my gun to the roof of my mouth. i don't get to taste it.

it's never over. my tongue feels dry when i chew on it out of anxiety. ive heard three shots. i see haru waiting behind a corner as mikey finishes his business. i didn't even glance at takemichi before i decided i couldn't do this. i wonder how much longer it'll take mikey to come up here and join me. this is the tokyo we conquered; this is not the dream mikey had. if he'd had a better moral compass, if he hadn't let ken go, if he hadn't put his trust in me, maybe this wouldn't have happened.

i hear footsteps behind me. here he is. i hug one of my legs to my chest, the other one dangling off the edge. we're on top of the world. it's a long way back home from up on this rooftop. he stands next to me in complete silence. so he's left takemichi to die. he was hopeless and helpless until the very end. i can't blame him. he's been through so much. he doesn't know how to share. he takes on all of the pain. he can only ask to be punished, because aid isn't a word in his vocabulary.

mikey pipes up, "you've been waiting for me here?" it doesn't surprise him at all. i know him like the back of my hand. this is how he takes responsibility for the last decade of misfortunes. he'll end it all.

"i couldn't bare to watch you keep making these mistakes," i reply truthfully. ive seen this before. i glance up at him and he glances down at the street. don't look down, manjiro. you won't survive this trip to hell.

it sounds like he wants to laugh. he doesn't. instead he brings back a conversation we had when we were fourteen. "that's why you're better than me." hardly. he says that stupid nickname clinging to me like a curse.

"after you." i motion towards his kingdom, to the path covered in blood and snow.

mikey looks at me briefly, quiet. then he cranes his neck up at the sky. "you won't stop me?" i see the tattoo on his nape. he put it there so he wouldn't have to look at it. it burns on his skin as it burns on my shoulder blade.

"i can't." i don't have the rights to stop him. i didn't do it in other timelines, im not going to start now. this is the only way for us to be free. it's tragic how unfortunate we are. maybe we deserve it.

how does one normally respond to a friend committing suicide? how does one respond to a friend letting them commit suicide? it's not what mikey does when he hums. "i'll see you later." he disappears into his own mind. whose face is he seeing? shins? emmas? i would hope. "everyone, let's do this!" there's a grin on his face. ive missed it. he hops off the roof and away from me.

"ill see you later."

i hear haru screaming all the way from the street. he's distressed. he's been with manjiro just as long as i have. mikey trapped him the same way he trapped me, but somehow worse. i know im not free as long as i stay next to mikey. i stay out of love and selfishness. haru stays out of fear and obsession. i know im not free, but im still my own person.

and i don't fool myself.

mikeys falling to his death, peaceful. an arm shoots out from the building and latches onto him. i smile bitterly, a sigh tumbling from my lips. "sucks that death is a bit of a bitch for both of us." i want to jump, too. i stick to my perch and swallow my pride, because im my own person, but im not. i can't die before mikey, i can't leave him alone.

i see the tears pouring out of his eyes. he begs for help, finally, for the first time in his life. it's enough to make me cry, too. he's being weak for the whole world to watch him burn himself to oblivion. takemichi scolds him. he struggles to hold on when the cross he's bearing weighs him down. twelve years of pain make him slip from his saviors grasp. there's nothing i can do.

blond hair and passive, ken's tattoo, black hair and chaos, izana's earrings. reality is broken for me, pieces of different timelines scattered on the floor. i have all these memories that aren't mine. mikey lies dead before me in a billion angles no one else can see. i don't understand why im seeing this now. i know ive seen it before. it's been two years since i last had to suffer through this. time is shattered and it hurts.

i hear that nickname ring in my ears. when i blink, mikey's corpses are gone. there's a weight in my hand and it's not from a gun. im gripping an unconscious boy by the collar. my knuckles sting. the skin of my hands is split open, bleeding. i remember now. we were wiping out a rival gang that challenged us. i turn towards mikey, trying to blink him into focus. "sorry, what'd you say?"

he stares back at me with hollow eyes. there's a tiny furrow in his brow that others wouldn't be able to pinpoint. "let's go," he repeats, nodding his head for me to follow him. i see haru and koko waiting for us behind him. they both look away when i catch their gazes.

"oh, yeah." i clear my throat. the kid im holding slips from my fingers and crumbles on the floor. his head bounces when it hits the ground. next to the blood splattered on the dirt, a tear drops. i realize it's mine instantly. im crying. i wipe at my eyes with my sleeve to pretend nobody saw me. i don't think i can explain what's made me cry like this in the middle of a fight. there's a discomfort in my throat, and remnants of a headache pulse in my temples, and the roof of my mouth itches. im still crying. the tears fall, but i feel nothing. this anguish isn't mine to feel.

i cough into my fist as i walk to stand next to mikey so we can head back. there's an open gash on his leg that he's ignoring. what's a little wound to the invincible mikey, after all? i know nobody is invincible, let alone manjiro, because i know people die, because ive killed him with my own two hands. ill take care of it for him later; mikey is my responsibility. he waits for me to join him. my shoulder brushes against his. he glares at my tears so intensely. "are you okay?" he asks quietly, like he doesn't want the two boys ahead of us to hear.

i turn my head to find his eyes. it's like he's trying to bring all my deceit to light, like im not allowed to hold secrets. i see those black holes that swallow up his own deceit. all i see, rather than the mikey right in front of me, is his corpses in variety, because i killed him, because i let him die, because that's what he wanted and that's the only way he could be free. so i clear my throat again, "yeah, just got dizzy." he knows it's a lie, instantly. my voice doesn't waver when i lie, but it gets small. he knows.

he lets silence hang for a moment. "did you eat today?"

i shake my head. "i was waiting for you." my attention flutters back to the two boys a few paces ahead. they're awfully quiet.

so is mikey. i feel him still staring at me. "okay." and he looks away, too.