#edit: i changed my mind and will call Horror for... well... Horror instead of Axe

[fairy-verse]

I just realized out of Murder Time Trio...has anyone asked about Murder/Dust Sans yet? If not perhaps what is their season and role..?

There once was a fairy of summer so pretty, with a radiant ecto body of blue and lilac and eye lights so tender, his gaze could render the brightest of flowers dull and weak, and yet none of it mattered as he fluttered too close to the borders of Nightmare’s domain, blinded by his playful hunt for brown rabbits that hopped along the grassy floor. Captured and bound he’d been and forced into a small cage with other fairies, some of the seasons, others not. Within there, he met Papy, a faerling just shy of reaching his full growth, yet ever the small one despite his size. He cowered and shook from fear, but the summer fairy so fair took him and cared for him, promised him they’d be safe.

He would protect him.

Alas, he could not keep it. Days turned to months turned into years and torture unimaginable chipped and chipped at his mind, until one day there was a loud crack within his skull, and he laughed and laughed as the poison forced into him ran its course, twisting his magic and making him feral and tense; ready to kill everything that moved.

He only did it to save them. They were all so broken and their light had gone out. They wouldn’t have survived a day out in the free anymore. They wouldn’t have… surely… but killing his adopted little brother had been the most terrible of all. He reached the day when he came of age, and yet he wasn’t given a chance to even attempt a celebration as the summer fairy’s once fair hands sliced across his throat, severing his skull from his neck.

Papy cried as he died, and the summer fairy once fair and kind cried with him, even as he smiled.

Dull and lost he wandered for many moons after, not knowing how he’d been freed; let go? It’d all been for naught or had it… he could scarcely remember anything anymore, dazed and broken as he was. He’d found his way home, to the valley of warmth and comfort, but fairies fled at the sight of him, fearing his crackling and unstable magic. He left, not even given a moment to attempt and regain his mind.

What did his firstborn look like again?

It was so cold. His wings were frozen, and his legs were numb and with each step taken, he leaned ever more forward, at the brink of unconsciousness. He knew not when the first days of winter arrived, but it mattered little. Death by the cold was a just fate for him; for what he’d done. He would gladly have accepted it even as the world tumbled, and he fell upon a soft bed of glittering white. The snow was cold for a moment, but only for a moment before too soon, it turned comfy and pleasant, and hands were upon him; gentle and careful, and warm.

First, there’d been a flower, kind of face, and soothing of hand, but he’d not been fully present at the moment to take her in. She passed and a new face took her place. This one must once have been soft, it bore memories of softness, but the jagged hole that took up the top of his skull made him rugged, yet even so his touch was that pleasant heat he longed for.

“pretty… summer fairy?”

Oh, this fairy of winter called him pretty, yet it was the fairy of summer who had never seen anyone more beautiful.

He couldn’t remember the face of his firstborn.

“.. dust,” he croaked, weak from desiring winter sleep, yet he refused to close his sockets again, willing them open. “…’m dust…” He’d forgotten his real name.

“dust…” the winter fairy said his name in that deep, pleasant voice of his. Dust loved hearing it. No one had spoken to him in… in…

“i’m…” the winter fairy hesitated. “… i’m Horror.”

Dust was held close to a warm, soft body, and he involuntarily nuzzled closer to it as a shiver passed through him; the last of the cold leaving his bones. Such luxuries were spoiled on him, yet he couldn’t force himself to move away; to part from Horror who was so, so warm and good.

A clawed hand stroked Dust’s face and all willpower ebbed out of him as he relaxed, falling asleep before he could even notice it, yet not before he heard Horror speak up again.

“sleep... pretty summer fairy. sleep.”

[unto-myself-together]

Of Stories and Songs: A Haunted Mansion Fanfic Ch 3

                                     Check under the cut

May need to go back and read the first couple of chapters, as I have heavily edited a lot since this new chapter.

Authornote: IMPORTAT!! Trigger warnings have CHANGED as of this chapter, chapter 3.  See below.

More authornotes:

Once upon a time, I was a child going through the mansion for the first time.  

Looking up at the stretching room, I thought it depicted circus people. The tightrope walker was the most obvious. But there also appeared to be a human cannonball (person ontop of dynamite), acrobats (three men ontop of each other), and, though the final portrait gave me a bit of trouble, I concluded that she was a knifethrower. And she didn’t throw around her human target like she ought to have (she hit him dead on, apparently).

This theory was only strengthened when I saw Madame Leota, and all of the ghosts around that were dressed up (The opera lady. Julius Caesar). After all, didn’t circuses have costumes? And that so much explained the funny epitaphs on the graves at the end of the ride. Bea Witch? Dustin T. Dust? Such strange names, they HAVE to be stage names. And what sort of occupation gives you a stage name? Why, a circus of course! This was a mansion of circus people!

I’m older now, and I think I’ve pretty much rejected the idea that ALL of the ghosts were part of a circus. For one, I REALLY want Julius Caesar to actually be Julius Caesar and not someone dressed as him. And also I sort of had a conflicting view back then about the owner of the mansion that was incompatible with the idea that they ALL were part of a circus. Besides, a circus of 999 people in the 19th century seems a bit…unrealistic. So I digress; not every ghost here is from a circus. But there will be a circus, dang it.

The other strong impression of the mansion that stuck with me was the Ghost Host. The Ghost Host completely and utterly terrified me. Plenty of times I thought he was throwing thinly veiled threats in my direction, as in I legitimately thought he was going to kill me. Nevermind the idea that the ride was owned by Disney, I thought he was real and that Disney had hired a murderer or something here.

The emotions I wanted to evoke here, where he was concerned, is meant to be reflective of this. Existing barely on the fringes of your senses, it’s the anticipation that he’s going to do something terrible to you that makes it all the more terrifying.  

Also in this chapter is both a reference to….a certain broken glass from the ballroom scene as well as a nod to a scene in the WDW version that was scrapped with the refurb.  

As before, all artwork in this chapter was made by me.  

The reference photo for the stretching room is: http://www.disneyphotoblography.com/2014/05/the-stretching-room.html

The reference photo for the hallway queue is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cypress_phillies/5706355407/in/photostream

The poster is made up of several parts. Many of you will immediately recognize some of Rolly Crump’s designs for the original Museum of the Weird.  

The lettering is based off of this Tokyo Disneyland Dumbo ad: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7d/46/81/7d468119e6b2813b942afdf5c376a6e6.jpg

And the eye figure is taken from Memento Mori.  

~~~~~~

Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug abuse, attempted rape (never completed; in a later chapter).

Brief mention of cannibalism in this chapter 3 (it’s never performed or attempted, just briefly mentioned in conversation).

~~~~

Table of Contents:

Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , Chapter 5 ,

Chapter 6 , Chapter 7

~~~~

Ch. 3: The Bleeding House

~~~~~

     “Kindly step all the way into the dead center of the next room please.”

For a while, the velvet voice lingered in the air.  The cadence of each word seemed carefully chosen to reverberate in that very moment, in that very room, in just the perfect way.

And thus, both Karen and Mike were struck speechless.  

For Karen, the abstract horror of a dark room holding a single, undiscernible figure didn’t go away, but there was music.  She could hear music from the next room, clear and tempting like that of a party.

Come inside, it seemed to call.  

It would have likely been enough to leave her wanting, dragging herself across the floor to join the strange figure, if not for Mike beside her.

Because Mike was less impressed.

“Forget that.  C’mon, Karen.”

He tugged at her arm, and she was forced to snap back to reality as they both went back towards the door.  The outside could still be seen; the storm brewing without reverence to the people within, with the thunder sounding every bit as powerful as the voice.  

With a snap, the sounds outside deadened; the old oak doors had closed of their own accord just as the couple reached them.  

The low rumble of the mysterious voice danced around the room, chuckling.

                            “There’s no turning back. . .now.”

Mike jostled the doors.  “What the heck??”

Digging his shoulder right up against one of them, he shoved.  And again. And again.  

“Karen, come and push against it too.”

“It’s not going to open.” She said simply. She couldn’t identify how she knew that; she certainly didn’t want to know how she knew that.  

“Sure it will; it’s not magic.  We’ll get a running start and throw our weight on it together.  On the count of three?”

Numbly, she nodded.  

“One, two and—“

They hit the doors hard, could feel them give a little and bend in the middle as they should, before the doors seem to spring back and launch them across the room, sending them skidding across the floor.  

Skidding for far, far longer than any physics should have allowed for.

For they had skidded right straight across the carpet….and all the way into the next room.

The dark room with the single man in the center.

The room that was calling for her.  

                               “Three.” The voice mocked.

The light of the foyer, and their only escape, quickly grew dim as the sliding of a door shifted in the darkness.  

But not long after the room grew dark did it grow exponentially bright again.  

                 “So good of you both to join the great majority…”

They were trapped in an octagonal room.  

Grotesque gargoyle statues, as watchful as prison wardens, surrounded them holding up candles. 

And there were four prominent portraits depicting different people: A young woman with a parasol, an old woman with a rose, a stately bearded man, and a man in a bowler hat.  

                      “Our tour begins here in this gallery                where you see paintings of some of our guests              as they appeared in their corruptible, mortal state.”

Karen looked all around the room, but there was nothing on the ground.  No objects, no desks, no clutter, it was as if the room was only meant for the portraits.

“The man is gone.” She whispered to her boyfriend.

“What man?”  

“The tall man….the tall man that was in the middle of this room just a few minutes ago.  Didn’t you see him?”

“No….”

There was a pause in Mike’s voice.

“But….I can see that.”

She followed Michael’s gaze to the portraits on the wall, and instinctively grasped his hand tighter.

             “Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding…”

The walls….

         “…almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis.”

The portraits…

They were…

                      “Is this haunted room actually stretching?”

“Yes,” She could hear Mike say, quietly under his breath.

                           “Or is it your imagination, hmm?”

The portraits all around them gave way to a more morbid sight.  The young woman with the parasol, pretty and pink, was found to be perched perilously atop of a severed rope, inches away from an alligator’s open maw…

The man with the bowler hat was atop others dressed in a similar fashion, sinking into something that was labeled ‘quick sand’ on the side….

The stately man, with the ribbon-like symbol of his status hanging around his chest, was, in fact, shown to be in boxer shorts, and standing atop a lit barrel of dynamite…

And the old woman with the rose…had an equally grisly implication as she sat atop the grave of a man named George.  If the bust was any indication, George had met his death when his head had met an axe….

She caught a glance up at the ceiling…And for a brief moment, a very brief moment, it drastically looked different.  Instead of walls and gargoyle scones, there was a giant tent.  Instead of portraits, there were long poles that formed a tightrope walk.  And instead of a ceiling…There was a figure.  Seemingly that same, undiscernible figure, suspended upside-down. Watching them.  

And all very quickly, while the scene faded back from tents and tightropes to the room and portraits once again, the strongest image of a poster came to mind.  

MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD CIRCUS AND SIDESHOW

COME SEE THE UNBELIEVABLE!!

A strange looking plant….A man that looked like he was melting…And an eye, all seeing and all watching…

She jerked from her reverie, immediately proceeded to bury her face in Michael’s shoulder, her arms shaking.  These were the figures that graced the portrait, referencing what were probably different terrifying acts of the show.  

“Hey, it’s alright. I’m here…”

Her boyfriend’s voice gave no indication that the same vision had been violently thrusted upon him, and she wondered about that.  Why was she the only one seeing all these strange and terrifying things?  

                    “And consider this dismaying observation:”

Was it a result of this place?

                  “This chamber has no windows and no doors,                        which offers you this chilling challenge:”

It was a mistake to come here.  A very terrible mistake…

“To find a way out!”

The alarming presence of the voice lingering right in-between them caused the couple to diverge from each other.  

Which, for all she knew, had been their ‘Host’’s intentions, as his maniacal laughter filled the room.

                              “Of course…there's always my way.”

The room went dark again.  She could hear lightning from outside cracking the sky open, illuminating a mysterious space that somehow managed to exist beyond the ceiling.

And there he was.

The figure.

And just as before, his features were too far away, too masked by darkness to see clearly.  

But he was watching.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you prematurely. The real chills come later.”

Karen could hear wood sliding on wood, and quite suddenly their ‘room with no windows or doors’ had a door.  ….And the way out appeared to look much different from the way they came in.  

                   “Now, as they say, ‘look alive,’                      and we’ll continue our little tour.                        And let’s all stay together, please.”

She felt resigned to go along with it, but Mike held her back.

“We aren’t interested in any stupid tour you’ve got here, so you can just shove it.  No way are we going any further than this.”

Contemplative silence.

                     “…Well. This is most certainly a first.              But I would be happy to accommodate your request.”

The door began to close on them.  

                                        “After all,         it isn’t every day that I meet a mortal willing to spend time here,                                   in this very room.                                       ��   With me.                   For the rest of their suddenly short lives.”

“Wha-? Hang on a second.”  Mike began to briskly walk towards the closing door.

                  “And I look forward to the inevitable starvation                           of whomever ends up eating the other…”

“WHOA HANG ON A SECOND.”

Michael wedged himself between the closing door and the far wall, effectively halting it but probably earning a few bruises in the process.  Karen rushed forward to help leverage the door off his chest, but it was too heavy to move.  

                         “What’s this?  Have I…revitalized                                 a spark of curiosity in you?                         Had a sudden change of your still beating heart?”

“Yes.” Karen quickly said.  

                                    “Are you quite sure?”

“Yes, yes!!  Now please just open the door!!”

                                   “How wonderful to hear…”

To their relief, the door was slowly opened again, and both of them found themselves in a very long, very dark corridor.  

Two busts stared at them front and center.  Windows lined the left side of the hallway and portraits were at the right side on the wall.  Judging by the outline of dust, it appeared that there used to be five portraits; the middle one was missing.  With every lightning flash, the painted oils seemed to…flicker…in a most peculiar way.  

She eyed Mike. “Are you okay?  Your chest…”

“It’s fine.  I’ve had worse.  Football, remember?  Are you okay?”  

Their hands found one another again, and she felt him give hers a squeeze.  

“I’m not the one who almost got crushed by a door.”

“No, but you’ve been acting a little funny ever since we came across this dump.  Is ther-“

                   “Shall we begin the tour?            Many of our residents are simply dying to meet you..hm hm hmm.”

Mike glared at air from the interruption. “No we don’t want any tour!  I mean...What gives? This place was abandoned-IS abandoned.  Are you trying to tell me that’s not true anymore and you and a bunch of other people live here now?!”

                                        “Of course not…”

A breeze of mysterious origins engulfed them; it set her nerves on edge.  

                    “Living requires a certain degree of mortality,             and I must regrettably inform you that I left mine hanging              when I decided to go on a more spiritual journey                                  oh so many years ago.”

“Caw! The coward’s way!  He took the coward’s way out! Caw!!”

There was something very wrong with this house.  As if stretching rooms and disembodied voices weren’t bad enough, she had been quite certain that she had seen no signs of live before when she had looked up and down the hallway.  

Yet here was a raven, suddenly sitting pretty on the bust of the angry looking man as if it had been there the whole time.  

                                “Please mind the raven.             An old nag of a soul has gotten ahold of the poor bird’s body.                  He’s the sort of fellow who would kill to better himself.               And he might just consider bettering himself…with you.”

It definitely was possessed by something because a most curious feeling came over her. She could hear someone….calling.

And calling…

An-

                                                  A room.

                                          A beautiful room.

It was a most elegant room, with all of the trimmings and airs of respectability, including a four poster master bed in the center.   The faint sounds of giggling behind the curtained bed stifled the sudden wave of nausea and unease that Karen felt in inspecting the nearby décor.

What just happened?

This was not the hallway; Michael was nowhere in sight. Nor could she hear the raven cawing or the Ghost Host booming over her.

Yet…she was not alone.  There was a little boy beside her.  Dressed nicely in some old-timey beige pants and a button down off-white shirt, he couldn’t have been more than five.  

And he was shaking almost as bad as she was.  

“H-hey…” She whispered to him.  

He didn’t seem to have heard her.  He pressed on towards the four poster bed, hesitance in every step, before reaching out to gently rustle the curtains.

“Mother…?”  

The giggling stopped.   The curtains parted.  There was a young man that came from it, a teenager more like it, well-to-do with a suit a-skewed.  The woman beside him…she had to be a teenager too from how young she looked…and she was dressed…

…In that same strange green dress that Karen had seen on Nell…

The young woman went to speak, but the young man interrupted.

“What do you want, brat?”

The child nervously looked from him to the young woman, unable to answer.

“Well?  Cat got your tongue?”  

“I….I-I want mother…”

“Well your mother is busy with me, so come on.  Off with you! Off!  Off!  Off!”  

The man clapped his hands, coming towards the boy; with every clap there was a large stride.

And with every step, there was a loud clap.

Closer and closer.

                                You know what’s coming.

Closer and closer.

Breathing heavy.  The world was suddenly bathed in fear.

                                          No, please.

Taking uncomfortable steps back. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.

                             Please.  Don’t let him get me.

Backing away, hands suddenly on her shoulders.

The desire to run.

This isn’t right.

She isn’t supposed to be here.

She’s not he-

“Karen!”

She jolted, as if from a nightmare, shaking with a cold sweat.  

The hallway was back.

And Michael…Michael was the one holding her, comforting hands rubbing at her shoulders in what was obviously an attempt to calm her down.

“Mike…?”

“Are you…are you okay??  You scared me for a second.”

“What…”  She shuddered, looking all around the hallway while attempting to even out her breathing.  The raven sitting on the bust seemed to watch her with its beady eyes.  “…What happened?”

“I dunno.  You were acting all weird, like you were in a daze.  I tried talking to you, but you didn’t even seem to notice...”

“Oh.”  She said in a small voice.  All the strength seemed to be sapped out of her; the strength to explain herself included.

As if she even could explain what that was.  

“Voyeurist!”   The raven suddenly screamed.  “Peeper!  Spectator! Caw Caw! Recollections are not yours to oogle at!  Privacy snatcher!  Filthy psychic!  Psychic! Psychic!  Thief!  Thief!”

A flash of feathers, and the bird lunged for her face.  She shrieked and made an effort to fend herself, but she was too worn down already that she felt forced to bury in Michael’s chest.   She could feel Mike’s arm swatting at it in her stead, the reassurance of her boyfriend’s heartbeat calming her down as she heard the bird retreating away.  

“Birdbrain.”  Mike grumbled at it.

“Filth! Filth! Filth!” The bird spat back at him in a continuous chant.  

                                       “Enough.”

There was silence in the hall.   Karen peeked out from the safety of Michael’s hug to see the bird cowering under the echo of the voice above them.  

                            “My…                                                   My….                                                                            My…”

The voice of the Ghost Host, still booming and deep, but there was another layer to it this time.

It was laced…with utter delight.

So much delight that she had to shudder again.  

                     “What a fascinating development.                       My dear feathered acquaintance…              I may have to ask you to refrain yourself this time around.                     Lives have a certain value, after all.           And your soul, Raven, is rather worthless to me in comparison…                    Off with you now…Or off with your head.”

The raven visibly cringed, its mumbling incoherent as it hopped up and flew away.  

“Now…Where was I?”

“You were telling us all about how you’re supposed to be a dead guy.” Michael said, unamused.

                “Ah yes….It was a New Year’s resolution of mine;                              giving up all bodily desires.               I could abandon all those trivial concerns                    that the common people thought about.                      Trivial concerns such as money…work…”

Frigid cold fingers suddenly tightened around her neck.

“...breathing…”

She shrieked and struggled, but the hands very quickly let her go without any resistance. Looking behind her, there was nothing there.  Not the freezing cold fingers, nor the source of the strangely hot breath that had spoken against her ears.  

She huddled up closer to Mike, burying her face into his chest.  He held her close, doing his best to glower at someone he couldn’t even see.

“Whatever you did, that wasn’t funny!”

                  “Why, I’ve hardly done much of anything….Yet.”

“That does it.”  Mike whispered quickly to her.  “We’re getting out of here.”

He released her and went to grab ahold of the first piece of furniture in sight; a slightly scorched ornate chair that had a green velvet cushion.  Inexplicably, it also had a piece of parchment attached to the front of it: the word “Sold” written on it.

“Mike…”  She just barely steadied herself, the shakiness starting to subside. She had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t going to like the results of what her boyfriend was about to do.

                      “First, trespassing. Now, vandalism…                  The moral character of your soul is greatly…questionable.                    I admire that.  All you require is to lose that mortal shell of yours,                              and you’d fit in quite well among us.”

Mike took the time to glare in irritation at the ceiling as he positioned the chair.

Half a swing, half a throw, and the chair was hurtled at one of the windows lining the hall.  The disgusting crunching sound it made suggesting that he’d gotten right through.  

There is no point.  Even as the doubt was spinning in the back of her mind, she still forced herself closer to the window.  

                                    A crack in the glass.

No.  That wasn’t a crack.  That was a spider’s web.

                                       …Wasn’t it?

Michael was staring at it too.  

….The cracks were moving.

They were spilling out.

…..

                                             The spiders.

It was a crack in the glass.  A crack in the shape of a spider’s web.  And tiny, black spiders were all spilling out of the cracks in droves.  There were so many of them; beady black bodies with a tiny spot of red on their backs, glistening like blood.  

They dripped down to the floor, scattering as they went.  The majority of their stock were still lingering around the cracks, but as that group filtered out…

…There were no cracks….

Not anymore.

She looked back at Michael.  He was staring at it incredulously, his face pale. He didn’t do well around insects or spiders.  

Still a little shaky she took the chair away from him and, though she thought it still hopeless, made a good effort to throw the chair against the window again.  

Another smack.  

Another crack.

Another spider’s web.

And yet another spilling of spiders.

Scores of them, much akin to the disturbance of a well populated ant hill.  And they couldn’t have been coming from anywhere except from within the walls and windows themselves.

                                  The house was bleeding.

                             The house was bleeding spiders.

She stuck one of the legs of the chair straight into the crack, trying to push through and actually break the glass entirely.  But this only seemed to anger the spiders.

A whole drove of them gathered to march up the chair leg.  They did not stop or pause in their single minded attempt to get to her, proving beyond a doubt that these were no ordinary spiders.  Ordinary spiders were never this coordinated.  

They started to hiss at her as they just reached her fingertips, and she felt forced to drop the chair lest they actually touch her.  

The spiders scattered back to the cracks in the building; once she had stopped meddling in the window crack, they had immediately ceased their interest in her.  

A quick look up confirmed that the crack she had made was gone.  Just like before.  

            “Thought that you were the first hapless mortals to try that?”

Karen met eyes with Michael.  He looked just as defeated as she had been all along.

           “Trespassing mortals ought not to avoid their punishments.”

“We aren’t trespassers!”  She said.

                         “Is that so?  The Master, I’m sure, would be very                               interested to hear that.  And that is not to speak                           of his outrage that he will, no doubt, express                      when he finds out we have three mortal residents now.”

“What she means is that we were just dropping by!”  Mike said. “We just wanted to get out of the rain!”

                   “Trespasser or no trespasser.                 Where death is concerned, the only semantics you should concern                            yourself with is that you are mortals.                 Very foolish mortals, considering that you both                    do not see fit to do as I say.                Which begs the question…                    ....just how long do you believe you’ll remain a mortal…hmm?”

“Is that a threat?  Are you threatening us now?”

                  “Oh. My apologies.  Some clarification is in order.                    I’m not threatening you now.  I’ve been threatening you.      It appears that I’ve been grossly derelict in making such intentions obvious.  

                                        Allow me to remedy that.”

A loud CRACK.

Her boyfriend falling beside her.

And the goosebumps prickled again.

“MICHAEL!” She screamed, reaching to grab him.  

A large hole had appeared in the floor beneath them, and both of his legs had already fallen through.  She scrambled for his shirt, then his shoulders, finally his arms as all other options slipped from her fingertips.  

          “Is this direct approach more to your liking?  Do we have a better                           understanding of each other?  Are my motives now...hmm hmm …                                                         transparent?”

“Mike!  Mike, grab my other hand!”

“I…I can’t!  It’s stuck!” Half his torso was already beneath the boards, including half of one of his arms.

She put a foot on either side of him and tried to use the leverage to pull harder, but it was to no avail.

             “As they always say: If you love someone, let them go.                        If it was meant to be, maybe they won’t die.”

Michael cried out in pain as he was yanked deeper into the hole.  She was pulled down off her feet.  

The floor was now at his neck, his head and his one arm the only parts of him visible now.  

“Karen….K-Karen it’s no use. Something’s got my legs really good. And I don’t think this hole is big enough for me to climb out anymore.”

He was right.  The spiders had already been vigorously repairing the damaged floorboards.  She wondered, with an acute sense of dread, whether they would stop once they’d reached Michael’s flesh.  

   “I would have to agree with him.  I recommend letting go, or else Mr. Michael          here may be forced to give you a hand.  ….And likely not in the way that                                    you’d prefer…”

As if reading her mind, the Ghost Host answered her yet unspoken question.  His visible limb was destined to be severed.  

“No…” She said.  “No no no no no no!”

She tore at the boards with her free hand, which was no small feat as it was getting harder to keep Michael up. It was an attempt to knock away the spiders, to knock away the wood, to make the gap bigger, but it didn’t look like it was working.  

“No no no NO!”

It didn’t look like she made a dent.  

Tears were stinging her eyes.

Spider bites were stinging her hand.

“No no!”

“Hey.”

“No I won’t!!”

“Karen.  Karen hey!”

She and Michael caught eyes.  

“Hey.  It’ll be okay.”  She could tell Mike was trying to give her a reassuring smile, but it obviously laced with a lot of pain.  

“Please don’t leave me.  Please…”

“I won’t.  I’ll find you, okay?  We’ll find each other eventually.  I won’t leave without you, I promise.”

“But..”

“The spiders are already nibbling at my neck, Karen.  I’m sorry. You gotta let go…”

“...I…I promise too.  I won’t leave you here.  I’ll…I’ll find a way to get down to you.  I…I love you.”

He gave her a weary smile.  “I love you too.”

She held his gaze until the very last moment.  

As his fingers slipped through hers.

As his neck disappeared.  

And then his smile.

And then his eyes.

And when there was nothing left, she grabbed the chair and began to ram it into the floor.

Again.  

And Again.

The spiders didn’t stand for it, of course.   They were smart enough to relentlessly pursue her.

Up the chair.  Attacking her hands.  

It was only after several minutes of banging the furniture on the floor, failing to leave any dent with spiderbites all over her hands and wrists and forearms, that she finally gave up.  

Slumped on the floor. The spiders leaving her side so that when she curled up unto herself, she was all alone.

Well.  Almost all alone.  

                     “My, My….What a touching scene that was…”