#i have fallen into a rabbit hole in horror

[midnightnautilus]

“People get so worried about getting shot. Honestly, you get used to the feeling after the first 5 times or so.”

[blitzyn]

stop moving

re4r leon s. kennedy x m!reader

request: none

synopsis: After finding yourself stuck in a closet with Leon, you end up squirming just a little too much.

a/n -> i have fallen victim to the leon lover rabbit hole. ALSO. I FUCKING FRACTURED MY FINGER??? guys i almost cried when i had to write the word balls. </3 but thank you all for 1k followers! tbh i only started this acc because i liked the font when i wrote something in my drafts lmao. but still! it means a lot to me and im happy to have gotten this far!

wc -> 2.5k

cw -> thigh fucking, hiding in a closet, spit as lube, handjob (r receiving), pet names (baby x2, sweetheart x1), he's kinda possessive tbh, not beta read

This was supposed to be relatively simple: get in, figure out where the president's daughter was, save her, then get out. Sure, you've seen your fair share of weird shit — especially after the outbreak in Raccoon City, but finding out that there was a whole religion dedicated to spreading a plague for the sake of taking over the world definitely takes the cake. For now, at least.

But finding yourself cramped in a closet with Leon, surrounded by a horde of hostile cultists, also wasn't something you expected to happen throughout the entire mission.

"Stop moving so much," Leon quietly muttered from behind you just as you shifted.

"I'm not," you huffed, a bit annoyed that you had to hide in this stuffy closet, even if you knew that you'd probably be dead by now if it weren't for your partner's quick thinking. Against his words, you adjusted yourself again, trying to find a decently comfortable position. Suddenly, you felt his hands on your hips and the warmth of his chest pressed to your back as he pulled you flush against him.

"I said, stop moving," he repeated, whispering in your ear. You held back a shudder at the feeling of his breath ghosting over the shell of it, stilling completely in surprise. Just then, thunderous footsteps could be heard outside the closet; slowly, listening for any sound that might reveal where the two of you hid.

You tensed and instinctively backed up to further yourself from the perpetrator, even if there wasn't much room to move to begin with. You could faintly hear Leon grunt from behind you, but you were in no position to apologize at the moment. Your eyes were glued to a crack in the old, wooden door, watching as the light shifted when the person passed by.

You waited with bated breath, hoping that it wouldn't come near. But, like some cliche horror movie, you could see the light at the bottom of the door disappear, meaning it was far too close for comfort. With every second the person stood there, the tighter Leon's hold on your hips became. The two of you went so silent your ears rang, and you were briefly afraid that it'd hear the sound of your racing heartbeat.

But after what felt like an eternity, its heavy footsteps started up again and away from the closet. You heaved a sigh of relief when the front door slammed shut, rendering the building empty once more.

"Fucking hell, sorry," you mumbled, trying to shuffle forward and give Leon his space when you realized that he hadn't let go of you yet. "You okay?"

Using the dim light that filtered through the cracks in the door, you lifted your arms a bit and curiously peered at his hands. But that's when you noticed the black lines covering his arms. Upon closer inspection, you quickly realized that they were his veins.

"Christ, Leon, what—"

"Be quiet. Just—just for a second."

You found it hard to tear your eyes away from his arms, waiting in silence. You focused on the sound of his labored breaths, biting your tongue to keep yourself from questioning him even further. Your mind couldn't help the invasion of 'What happened?' and 'What is that?' that threatened to spill from your lips. How did you not notice this earlier?!

You were pulled from your thoughts when you felt him rest his forehead on your shoulder, muttering and grunting under his breath. And that's when you felt it — the reason why he was so reluctant to move just yet: he was hard.

"Oh." You couldn't help it, even if he had already told you to shut your mouth twice already. The silence from then on was painfully awkward as the two of you tried to figure out what to say. With a deep breath, you miraculously found the courage to speak up.

"Do you... Can I help you?" You offered, remaining still to keep yourself from accidentally pressing yourself up against him again. It was silent while you waited for his reply, embarrassment wriggling its way through your chest the longer the two of you kept quiet.

"I mean, you don't have to accept, you can just ignore me—" you began to ramble on, mortified that you even asked the question. "I just thought, cause, like, it'll be hard for you to—shit, I didn't mean it like that—"

"[Name]," Leon interrupted you, finding your instant silence charming in its own way. You could hear him take a deep breath in just as his hands slid further up to firmly caress your waist and abdomen. Electricity shot down your spine and pooled in your gut when he tugged you closer to him, grinding himself against your ass. "You can."

He reached for your hand and brought it behind you, placing it directly onto his cock. You gave it a tentative squeeze, savoring the quiet grunt that came from him, feeling your confidence grow by the second. You heard the gentle jingling of his belt as he undid it just enough for you to dip your hand underneath the waistband of his pants and boxers.

"Not wasting a second, huh?" Amusement and lust were laced in his voice as he spoke, a quiet moan spilling from his lips soon after.

He was hot and thick in your hand, throbbing rhythmically. You swiped a finger over the tip that beaded precum, savoring the shudder that came from his body. His hips trusted up into your fist, seeking more, and you were more than happy to oblige.

With a steady pace, you moved your hand up and down, tracing the prominent veins. You felt your own cock twitch at the sound of Leon's breathy groans and sighs, but you ignored it in favor of getting him off.

"Fuuckk," he drawled out, leaning forward to press his lips on the side of your neck. "You're good at this. Makes me think you've done this typa thing before."

"No," you responded, gently rubbing the spot on the underside of the tip. "You're the only one."

"I get the special treatment?" He muttered teasingly, his breath hot against your skin. "Must be my lucky day."

He could feel his body buzzing with adrenaline as he peppered open-mouthed kisses on the side of your neck, untucking your shirt to slide a hand up your torso to pinch and toy with a nipple. His free hand traveled lower, slipping his cold fingertips underneath the waistband of your pants, but refused to go further than that.

You could feel his lips curl in a subtle smirk, but even as you realized he was teasing you, testing your patience, you had no intention to retaliate. Christ. The hold this man had on you. It was downright pathetic.

"God," he started, pressing his palm flat on your chest to bring you closer to him—eager for more of your touch. He let his teeth gently scrape against your skin, threatening to bite—to mark you, but he forced himself not to. He couldn't. Not right now. "I want to fuck you so bad."

His words were breathless, borderline desperate, as they left his lips. He couldn't help but thrust his hips up into your fist, pushing and pushing until your hand was flush against your ass, keeping you from jerking him off as he rutted against your hand.

"We can't, Leon," you muttered, disappointment lacing your voice. As much as you'd love to have him inside you, fucking you deep, you knew you couldn't. Not when the Ganados were still outside, at least. "Just let me finish you off."

Leon let out a low growl, knowing that you were right. There were a lot of things the two of you couldn't do inside the confined space of the closet, forcing him to conjure up ideas of what he wanted to do when all of this was over.

But for now, he settled on the second best option: your thighs.

"I know," he murmured, breathing in deeply as he pulled your hand away from his throbbing cock. "Then let me fuck your thighs. I'll be quick, I promise."

You mulled over his words, unsure if it would be a good idea.

"Please, baby," he pleaded, his voice heavy with lust. "Just this once. Then, when we find Ashley and get the hell outta this place, I'll make sure to fuck you properly. Nice 'n hard 'n deep. Wouldn't you like that?"

Fuck it.

"Mhm, yeah, go ahead." You relented, knees weakening at the thought of having his thick cock inside you, stretching and filling you up perfectly.

"Atta boy," he buried his thumbs underneath your pants and boxers, pulling them down to let them drop to your ankles. "Knew you'd come around."

He groaned at the sight of your bare thighs and drooling cock, running his hands along the curve of your ass to lean back and spread it, focusing his gaze on your asshole. "Fuck," he hissed. "Can't wait to feel your tight little hole around me later. Gonna fill you up with my cum, make you mine."

Arousal sank in your stomach like a rock as your hole clenched around nothing. Whatever's coursing through his veins made him more impulsive, more desperate, but with the fog that clouded your thoughts, you hardly found it in you to mind.

He spat on his cock and moved a hand away from your body to briefly jerk himself off and smear the saliva around.

"Open up, baby," he instructed as soon as he was done, raising his hand to caress your hip. "Spread your legs a little."

Like a trained puppy, you obeyed, widening your thighs just enough to let him guide his hard cock in between them. Your breath hitched at the sight of the head peeking out, squeezing your legs around him just a bit tighter.

"Jesus fuck, [Name]," he groaned, leaning forward to press his chest against your back. He wrapped his arms around your waist, holding you close to him. Through the hazy mess that was in your mind, you found comfort in the warmth and firmness of them as you placed your hands on his forearms for some sort of stability. "That's it. Squeeze me just like that."

You could feel every twitch and throb, and you were sure he could feel yours, too. It felt like your senses were on overdrive as you listened to your labored breaths, his pleased sighs and grunts, and the slick sounds of his cock sliding in and out of your thighs. He set a leisurely pace, rocking his hips back and forth.

"Shit..." He hissed, speeding up his thrusts as his dick rubbed against your balls, smearing his makeshift lube across your skin.

His hips met yours with quiet slaps, making sure to keep the noise level at a minimum despite the overwhelming urge to just bury himself inside you right then and there. He mouthed at the nape of your neck, tasting the salt of your skin, gently pressing his teeth down hard enough to send sparks down your spine.

His fingertips pressed into your sides so firmly it hurt, but it only served to mix in with the desire that burned brightly in your belly. He fucked your thighs with a sense of urgency, as if trying to satiate a hunger deep within his subconscious—not that you minded.

He grunted and groaned with every thrust, tightening his arms around your waist to tug you back to him whenever your hips jolted forward. It was intoxicating; the way he so effortlessly turned your body into a sensitive mess left you wanting more.

But as soon as a strong hand wrapped around your aching cock, you nearly came on the spot. One of your hands left Leon's forearm to slap it over your mouth as you tried to keep yourself from moaning too loud.

He breathily chuckled beside your ear. "Is this what you wanted?" He rhetorically questioned, swiping a finger over the leaking head so perfectly it left your skin tingling. "Tell me, sweetheart."

"Ohh, fuck," you hissed. It was embarrassing how you so eagerly responded to his touch. "Yeah, th-that's it...!"

Your eyes fluttered shut, focusing on the feeling of his slick cock moving in and out from between your thighs. Your lips parted from behind your hand to let out quiet pants and moans, digging your nails into his forearm the closer you got to your orgasm.

"Oh god, Leon—!" You moaned, pressing yourself further against his back. You could feel your legs faltering, but he didn't seem to mind having you rely on him to stand up.

"I know, baby, I know," he muttered, his voice tight and strained as his thrusts gradually grew sloppy and weak. "Me too."

His cock pulsed and twitched, and he can't help himself from clamping his teeth over the side of your neck this time. It wasn't hard enough to draw blood, but it left a noticeable bite mark that dully ached.

"Come on, baby, cum for me," he instructed, and you had no choice but to comply.

With a muffled moan, you arched your back and finally came as ropes of your semen coated the dusty wooden floor and Leon's fingers. He stroked you until he was sure that you were spent before letting go to chase after his own release.

"Shit," he cursed, breathing heavily. "I'm gonna cum so... so fucking hard...!"

With a strained groan, his hips jerked erratically as he came, holding you tight enough to leave bruises. You gently rub your thighs together, helping him ride out his high. It wasn't until a few moments later did he finally stop, breathing hard against your neck as he calmed down. But that's also when the clarity kicked in.

"Oh, fuck," he muttered, moving his head from you. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened—I just—" he apologized, sighing in defeat a moment later.

"It's fine," you replied, patting his arm. You had to suppress a shudder when he pulled away from your thighs. The cum that ended up on the insides of them quickly cooled, leaving an uncomfortable sensation on your skin. You were just gonna have to suck it up.

"Let's just get outta here, already." You shuffled forward a bit to tug your pants back up your legs while Leon composed himself.

"Yeah," he said, pressing an arm against the dusty, wooden door. Through the dim light, you could see that his veins were no longer visible again, but that thought was going to have to hold off until later. "You ready?"

"Yup." You nodded after briefly making sure you still had everything in place.

Without further thought about what happened just a few seconds ago, Leon pushed the door open and quickly left the closet as you trailed close behind. Now, it was back to work.

[gremlingottoosilly]

Horsin' around (Centaurus!Konig x fem!Reader)

Konig is exiled from his people. You are exiled from yours. Together, you make about 6 legs and a perfect pair. Tags and CW: Size kink (duh), Centaurus!Konig(horse cocks), Konig is awkward, slight dub-con, power imbalance, belly bulge, praise kink, monster fucking. Thanks @kneelingshadowsalome for the prompt! AO3| Word count: 3016

Centaurus are not wild animals. You keep repeating it to yourself as you come deeper and deeper into the forest. You keep mumbling it to yourself as you feel the eyes watching you. judging you. Centaurus are not wild animals even if sometimes they behave like one. Not like you’re any different, any better – you’re a human, invading the sacred forests. You’re a human who is dumb enough to go foraging into the depths of their territory. Centaurus are not wild animals, but you don’t feel that repeating the same sentence over and over makes it sound any more convincing. You feel the danger in the air – with each step you take, with each fallen tree you’re stepping over. With every attempt to simply run ending up not working, you know you got lost. Long abandoned the basket you came with – you don’t recognize a single berry that grows here, not a mushroom or even some edible plant pieces to be found. This place is devoid of animals, of flowers – like something just snatched it all away. Ate it all, maybe. You don’t want to think what kind of creature could cause a migration like this. You don’t need to think though. Because the creature finds you first. 

You yelp in a mix of surprise and horror when the arrow flies right in front of you, the skill of the archer is high enough to make the arrow cut down a few bits of hair in front of your eyes. If you were a mere millimeter closer, you’d be dead. If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead. This much is obvious. You freeze in place, not daring to move an inch when you hear it. Loud, not even bothering to conceal the sound of it – the creature was confident enough that the prey wouldn’t run. Not the creature, you correct yourself immediately. Centaurs are not animals, they are closer to humans than a lot of other monster types – with their strength and warrior culture, you’d say that they are even more humans than citizens of the village who forced you out. 

The centaur doesn’t even bother to hide himself from you, concealing the sounds of heavy hooves on the ground or evading the branches that crunched against his body. This is exactly what made you surprised when you understood that instead of a rough, but mostly handsome face that most centaurus tend to have, you’re met with a black hood which only spared two holes for the icy-blue eyes staring back at you. 

Is he a grim reaper? An executioner for other centaurus? Would that mean you don’t have to worry unless your lower part resembles a horse? 

You take a quick look at your bottom half. Not a horse. 

Centaur reapers the gesture, looking at his bottom half too. Definitely a horse. 

You decide to speak first, hoping to find words that would work just fine to be your last. 

— I am really sorry for intru…

— This is not the sacrifice season yet. 

Ah, well. 

The people from your village believe the centaurs to be sacred – despite them being monsters they knew a lot about, they were still given sacrifices. Food, some farm animals, especially fatty pieces of meat, and fancy jewels along with some weapons. Centaurus kept the worst predators at bay, herding the wolves to be their pets and sometimes driving deer and rabbits away to the village. They kept you protected from werewolves and orcs – with a meager payment of never touching the sacred grounds. 

You just stepped into the deepest, most protected part of the forest. You wonder if you would deserve a peaceful death. 

— It’s not. I…I made a mistake. 

No, you wanted to be here. When the village decided to drive you out, you thought that foraging in the part of the forest, untouched by humans, would be the most profitable thing. Centaurus won’t take berries anyway, right? But they might just take your life. 

— A mistake? 

He tilts his hooded head to the side. It’s such a boyish expression, that you almost let go of a nervous giggle. Perhaps, you were going crazy…but the centaur seemed a bit nervous. As seasoned as he looked – with battle scars covering his body and a bit of silver mixed with his ginger fur on the horse part – he seemed almost awkward standing here. Tapping one of his hooved legs like a nervous child. Squeezing the bow in his hands with vigor that made you scared he will just snap it in half. 

— I just wanted to take some food. 

— Is there a hunger? 

— No. 

— Humans aren’t allowed in these parts. Why would you go if not out of despair? 

You gulp. 

— I…am not allowed back. 

— Why? 

Because you’re a forest witch who will doom them all, according to the village of a horse people worshippers. Because you’re a monster in disguise who keeps straling babies, according to the village that uses the best pieces of food to feed the horse people who can take of themselves just fine, instead of feeding it to the orphaned children. Because you’re a whore who refuses to accept the new type of sacrifices – the virgins of the village as a breeding material for the Centaurus, according to the village filled with people who would gladly push a poor virgin out in the forest once she turned of age, so she could be mauled by horse people. 

— We had…mutual disagreement. 

You stare at the mighty body of the centaur. You fight the urge to get your hands down his torso, play with its short hairs, and…you were always a bit of a horse girl. Wondering if he is strong enough to lift you up and get you somewhere safe, somewhere far far away from here. 

Centaur has this weird, almost boyish tone. Deep and yet, sounds just a bit deranged. Unhinged. Like he is going to maul you any second – and judging by the bow and arrow still in his hands, he might not be wrong. You lick your lips. He stares at them – or at least you think he is. Hood only reveals his eyes and you can already get lost in them. Cold, like the northern sea, Like the snow outside. You thought all mythical creatures were supposed to be warm-blooded. 

— You’re exiled then. 

He isn’t asking. Centaurus are omnipotent and wise, they should know about human affairs more than humans themselves. You made them into sort of gods – you shouldn’t be surprised that this guy knows way more than he should. Somehow, you still feel safer around him than other humans – and maybe, it’s more of a you problem. Maybe, you ended up eating some of the weird berries and it’s just your hallucinations before you die. 

— I am. 

He takes a step back. He is big – all of them are, you suppose, but, somehow, he is bigger than he should be. Giant, muscular torso on top of an already muscular and big horse part – he can pick you up, throw you, and break you with one finger, probably. No, definitely. You don’t want to give him a reason to, so you just stay in place. Hoping he wouldn’t deem your trespassing as a matter worthy of a torturous death. 

— My name is König, human. Repeat, ja? 

The name feels weird on your tongue. Rude, sharp. You don’t want to call him wrong and receive his wrath, so you try your best to repeat this. 

— Ko-nig. Ja? 

You tilt your head to the side, a curious little bird. Centaur – König, König, König – squints his eyes like he is smiling. You made the god smile. The horse god. The horseman. Just…man. If you don’t look down, where you already see something giant and heavy standing between his horse legs, you could forget that he isn’t a man at all. 

Suddenly, you feel light. Suddenly, you feel your legs dangling in the air as you were picked up and bumped into the broad chest. Suddenly, you feel hands everywhere. On your ass, under it, touching your chest, your stomach, trying to get to the best position so you would stop moving constantly and trying to get out. You don’t want to fight him because you’re already in the air and falling right now could result in a broken neck – but you don’t want to be suspended in the air either. You whimper, pathetic sound escaping your lips as you feel calloused hands pressing on your mound. Traveling down your stomach and touching, squeezing, petting your delicate parts. 

You spend so much time without a gentle hand or a soft touch, you can feel yourself dripping on the fingers of a centaur. Embarrassing, yes – but you know that if he were to proceed, you wouldn’t really resist. 

And oh, he proceeds. 

— They finally send us proper sacrifices. 

He mumbles it into your hair, taking in your smell. You’re nice for a human – not scared of him too much, not trying to ran away or fight. Humans are usually just annoying insects under his hooves, but König can feel your face growing on him. Your body, too. Too weird for other Centaurus, never being able to find a proper mate who could take his lack of social awareness, he found himself mounting a human. His tribe would call him pathetic. His tribe would laugh. 

Then again, he is the first to get such a delicate little gift. Who is laughing now? 

You aren’t crying in his hands, and he is a bit surprised. You smell like a proper mate, like a good bitch in heat just for him – yet, you’re not falling on your knees to present your dripping cunt. You’re just trying to whimper to ask him to be gentler, and he is happy to oblige. Calm enough to listen to you. Ripping your pants apart because this is such a useless piece of clothing – concealing your rich smell from him. 

König doesn’t waste any time when he dips his finger across your swollen folds. Playing with the slick running down his wrist, smiling as you are closing your eyes and pressing your head in his chest. He is strong enough to keep you suspended in the air without a care in the world. Weak human, he would have to spend so much time preparing you for him – taking his cock would be a task no sacrifice ever competed before. 

König stares at your dripping pussy that is already clenching around nothing just because his fingers are pressing on the hood of your little clit, and he knows you’d be the perfect wife for him. Taking him properly as his mate, moaning as his cum fills you up. he can’t wait – knows that he should, preparing you properly. His hooves are beating the ground in impatience as his fingers slide in and out of your pussy. You spread your legs, moaning louder. Such a filthy whore for him. 

— Relax, human. Be a good mate. 

— This isn’t what I wa…

— Quiet. Such a good…good girl, Schatz. Will bring me strong children. 

— We can’t have sex. It’s im…impossible.

You whimper, trying to squeeze your legs, to shut his hand. You only moan louder, knowing that you would accept everything he gives you, and ask for more. 

You don’t want to imagine his cock entering you over and over, forcing its way past your walls and making you round and soft with his children. It’s a foreign concept – centaurus shouldn’t mate with humans, it should be physically impossible. Yet, you almost want to try. A breeding mare, made for one and only. 

König gets you on…something. It isn’t exactly a natural thing – a pile of stones and trees, perfect height for you to lay your back on, with some soft leaves and animal skins to rest comfortably. His hands support you on the perfect height and you immediately know what he construction is. A mating stand. Probably for other centaurus – but you feel almost fine laying on it too. Almost normal. Your muscles sting as you try to rest your legs and then spread them wide enough for König to stay between them. He is a big guy, after all. He turns you around, on your tummy. Ass in the air, you don’t like not seeing him. The heavy musk fills your nostrils, making you suddenly aware of what is about to happen – you’re wet, spread enough on his fingers, calloused fingertips scrubbing your gummy walls from the inside. He is fingering you with ease, but it doesn’t feel like a man with experience – he is touching and probing like he doesn’t know what he is doing and, honestly, you kinda like it. He is exploring your body with his and you moan, not caring that you sound like a whore. Humans have already abandoned you as part of society – you might as well just take it. — I will prepare you. 

— It won’t fit… — It will, Schatzen. You’ll get used to it. — What if I break? 

— I will be careful. Trust me, ja?

Even his fingers are a bit much when he enters your body with a third digit. One, two, three – you are about to burst when he is massaging your G-spot, when he is smiling in your hair and gets you so aroused just on it alone. You’re about to cum when he slowly extracts his fingers, deeming your sloppy cunt as explored enough. Your walls are clenching around nothing, a beautiful display of desire – maybe, it was the right call that humanity abandoned you. König looks at the perfect centraius whore on display and he can’t wait to claim you. To make you his. 

He is exiled from other centaurus. 

You are exiled from humans. 

What a beautiful fucking pair. 

He enters your body slowly deliberately. Regrets it immediately – you are wonderful. Too perfect to be this slow, being soft with you is torture. Your walls accept him with a stretch, like a warm glove around his cock. Slowly shifting, softening, straddling his cock with each inch he buries in the depth of your warm, weeping cunt. He can’t touch you, as unfortunate as this is – dumb horse body is making it impossible, even looking at you is hard enough on his neck. He wants to mount you properly, but you’re simply too fucking small. Wants to touch your hair, to whisper some encouragement that human women would probably love to hear – but he can only breath heavily and enter you, one painful centimeter after the other. 

— T…too much, too much, please, I can’t, it’s… You whimper, you cry, it breaks his damned heart because you don’t deserve this. You need to be treated with care, with softness and yet, he can’t give you that. He wants so much to just put you in his arms and hug you, but that would be impossible. König will give you all the coddling in the world after you’re done. After he is sure that you received all the possible breeding and seed he could gave you. 

— Quiet, human. It would be nice soon. 

— It’s not…

— Touch yourself, please, bitte. I can’t…can’t touch you. But you will feel better. 

Your hand goes between your legs, playing with yourself. Spreading your folds around his cock even more, fingers sliding past your clit. Touching the little button and hoping it would be enough to make you aroused – and it is. Your cunt is a mess of your own juices mixed with König’s pre cum, and you already know that you won’t be walking the next couple days. 

König bottoms with a deep sigh, and you feel him in your stomach. Bulging with his giant cockhead, making the outline of his cock visible – you touch it with shock, not understanding how your organs are even in place. 

He starts moving and you finally feel it – the burning pleasure setting fire in the pit of your stomach. the excess liquid pouring from your damp cunt, moans spreading from your lips. You never felt this way with a human before – then again, no human cock would ever be able to compete with König. He can reach the parts of your body that you never knew existed, and the mix of pheromones and musk is making you dizzy. Light-headed. You don’t even need to touch yourself more to feel the height of your orgasm, building in as rapidly as König’s thrusts. 

In, forcing its way to hit your cervix gently, massaging the sore spots of your tight pussy. 

Out, grazing over your inner walls, touching all the buttons. 

In again, filling you up with his pre-cum. Moaning loud enough for the whole forest to hear. 

Out, dragging you back with him, as you’re still impaled on his cock. 

— S…so perfect for me. Scheisse, so pretty… He can’t touch you and it breaks his heart. König goes to praise you instead – words feel awkward on his tongue, but he knows you need to heart it. He wants you to hear it, wants you to fee wanted, entitled. Soft. He smiles when you whimper and moan, milking him for his orgasm. Your cunt is made for him and he wants to spend every waking moment buried inside of it. Gods, you are a perfect sacrifice. 

He is coming embarrassingly fast, pumping his giant cock even deeper into your pussy. Filling you up with hot cum that can’t even stay inside of your cunt. Leaking everywhere, you two are making a mess – you breath heavily, not understanding what is right and wrong anymore. Only knowing, remembering the shape of his cock. Pushing in and out, forcing its way in. God, you feel full. And ridiculous. And so, so perfect with his cock slowly starting to pump you again. And again. Konig came embarrassingly fast, but only because this is just the first orgasm in a row. Forcing its way inside, you are overstimulated already – but you will take him, of course, obviously. You have to.

König is going to enjoy breeding a new clan out of you. 

[bethhiraeth]

Do you ever have that moment of horror when you realise you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of a ship and you’re like “oh fuck I know exactly what I will be doing at 3am for the next three months (or years)” or are you normal?

[skipppppy]

CARMEN SANDIEGO CHARACTERS + MOVIES

Boo I felt like making headcanons again bc I spend more time wondering what these assholes do in their free time than I do on my job

CARMEN

Didn’t have access to movies growing up so Player, Zack, and Ivy have been catching her up on the most popular ones

HORRIBLE to watch with. Doesn’t really understand “suspension of disbelief” as a concept and will ask stupid questions the whole time. Player almost ended their friendship because she nitpicked Lord of the Rings for being “unrealistic”

Enjoys low stakes 2000s girl chick flicks like mean girls and legally blonde. She has enough stress in her life man she just wants to relax

HATES heist movies because of how innacurate they are. Team Red has taken to watching them JUST to hear her pick them apart

PLAYER

Sci-fi/fantasy junkie. Anything and everything that has aliens/magic and shitty practical effects from the 80’s/90’s he is all over

Has never said a single kind thing about the Star Wars franchise in his life. They are his favourite movies of all time

ADORES Edgar Wright and has slowly been converting Team Red to his movies. Zack loved Baby Driver. Ivy loved Shaun of the Dead. Shadowsan loved Hot Fuzz. He considers Scott Pilgrim the pinnacle of Canadian cinema

Cannot STAND the amount of remakes happening in Hollywood recently

ZACK

Canon enjoyer of blockbuster action movies. Everyone dreads the nights when he gets to choose a film bc his taste is so generic

Does not know what the Snyder cut is. Thank god

His only redeeming quality is a love of early dreamworks. Will not stop quoting Madnagascar

Has seen every Marvel movie and thinks all of them are good. Player has BEGGED him to watch better movies but he won’t. He’s the type to rag on Scorsese for being “boring”

Has seen Kevin Feige’s extended filmography. Does not know who that man is

IVY

Horror fanatic

Banned from choosing movies for film night after convincing them to watch her “favourite lesbian romcom” with her. That lesbian romcom was Saw

Ellen Ripley was not only her personal hero but also her gay awakening. The Xenomorph queen was her second gay awakening

Also loves period dramas. Enjoys the tiddies and knows she would look SO good in those fancy waistcoats the men wear

Watches old slashers with Carmen and laugh whenever someone dies in a stupid way

SHADOWSAN

Faculty considered movies “low brow” entertainment so he hasn’t seen a movie made before the year 2000

Loves a good mob flick. Got into Scorsese specifically because Zack hated him. Goodfellas is his favourite

Everyone assumes he enjoys samurai movies but he actually HATES them. Hideo would ramble about historical inaccuracies the whole way through and he’s still bored just thinking about it

Used to love Yakuza films back in the day but they were soured for him after actually living as one

Loved Knives Out, found Daniel Craig VERY attractive, and has since fallen down the James Bond rabbit hole

CHASE

The most pretentious film hack you’ve ever met in your life. He is taking you to a back alley screening of some arthouse eastern european gay porn on a first date and it will be the most profound thing you’ve ever seen in your life

Detective noir movies and cheesy black and white romances are his favourites. He likes falling asleep to them

He and Player both appreciate animation as a form of cinema, but while Player is referring to like. the Mario movie, Chase is talking about some 3 minute Russian stopmotion surrealist piece from 1951. He attends Annecy every year and has been banned from the Oscars due to threats of violence

He likes Poirot tho. Transmasc king

JULIA

If she has a few hours to herself she’d rather watch a documentary than go to a movie theatre, but she loves historical dramas

Enjoys biopics but thinks it’s stupid to make them for people who are alive

Likes watching movies for the sake of trash talking them, so she is the only person who can tolerate sitting through one with Carmen

LOVES Wes Anderson though. Chase got her into his stuff and the symmetry scratches an itch in her brain. But don’t tell him that

Also enjoys period dramas for the tiddies

CHIEF

Shitty cop movie enjoyer. The kind of person who insists that Die Hard is her favourite christmas movie

LOVES heist movies because of how inaccurate they are. Will mentally nitpick whatever secret service is going after them and be like “ACME wouldn’t do that lol”

She’s semi aware that she’s the antoagonist in Carmen’s own heist narrative so she’s started having fun with it

Closet lover of b-tier comedy movies. Like the ones with Adam Sandler and Kevin Hart on the cover

Does not enjoy watching movies socially. That is quality time for her and her cat. She does not have to shush Commander

[slxsherwriter]

Out of Trauma Comes....

Fandom: Don't Breathe

Pairing: Norman Nordstrom x reader

Warnings: Child death, loss of limbs, ptsd struggles

Word Count: 4,076

Author's Note: I have fallen down the Stephan Lang rabbit hole. This is the first in a series of Norman one-shots. Reader does have a military background. This decision was based off of the relationship that Norman had with Hernandez in the second movie. Hope everyone likes! As always, not beta read, so mistakes are mine.

You woke with a start, gasping for breath that wouldn't seem to fill your lungs. For several agonizing seconds, it felt like it would never happen before finally, your body kickstarted itself. The silence of the room was only broken by the brief choking gasps of air as you tried to regulate your breathing. Then your ears registered the frantic beeping of a heart rate monitor. Your own. Forcing yourself to take a few slower breaths, it calmed down as you managed. Stiffness below reminded you that you were stuck in a hospital bed. Right. The accident. 

With a grimace, you forced yourself into a seated position. The pain was a worthy distraction, taking your mind off the vivid flashbacks that played before your eyes. Like a bad horror movie that you couldn't pause. 

A nurse came in, far more quickly than they had the past three weeks. Must have been fewer patients on the floor for them to monitor. When you had first arrived four weeks ago, despite your status, it had taken time for them to show up. 

“Everything okay?” No, nothing was okay in the least about the entire situation. Swallowing down the words, you found yourself giving a shaky smile. 

“Yeah, fine. Just a bad dream.” PTSD. Post traumatic stress disorder, that's what it was. You knew well enough to recognize the signs after seeing some of your closest brothers go through the same thing. “Sorry, didn't mean to cause any worry.” She gave you a softer smile, one that felt like pity. You hated every second of it. Of all of this, if you were honest. You wanted to be back home, away from the world and everyone in it. Why should you have lived?

 “Not a problem at all.” She checked over your IV line and monitor before moving to the door, taking her leave. But before she fully left, she looked over her shoulder. “From what I heard, you're getting out of here tomorrow.” There may not have been a God but that news could have brought you to belief. 

“Thanks…for everything.” 

*****

Using the crutches to get into your home, you grunted with the effort. The cracked ribs were healing and could bear the brunt of your weight with some protest and discomfort but you weren't hanging around any longer than absolutely necessary. 

A chill ran down your spine and the urge to look at the street was almost overwhelming. But you knew what you would find there if you did. Just repeated flashes of blood, broken glass, and phantom pains. Unconsciously, your jaw had started to clench, something you only realize when you heard a small crack. 

“Fuck.” The word bounced through the empty house. A slow sigh and you were moving to the staircase. Life now had a whole new set of obstacles and challenges. Ones that you couldn't have ever dreamed of if one were to ask you. Yet, here you were. “Don't have a fucking pity party now. Get your ass up the stairs so you can take a proper shower. Then, you can check on Norman.” it was the right thing to do. You had heard from your older neighbor just once in the entire time you had been in the hospital. Understandable, given the circumstances and what he had to be dealing with, but it didn't quell the drive to follow up. Having been a neighbor for the better part of five years now, you had grown close to Norman and Emma. Just the thought of the girl was enough to constrict your throat and threaten to have tears spilling from your eyes once more. 

White knuckling the crutches, you slowly made your way up the stairs. It was both painstaking and painful but there was a small sense of accomplishment when you hit the top landing. One thing out of the way, many many more to come. No use in getting too excited over it all just yet. The shower was the next thing to tackle. 

***********

Having only fallen once, the shower could be considered a success. Dressing wasn't as difficult as anticipated, the bed that you had easy to get on and off of with the wall right there that you could brace yourself against. Now, down the stairs? That was a whole other ballgame. Slow, very slowly, you worked down each step. It probably would have been easier to admit defeat and go down on your ass but that stubborness that often got you in trouble decided to rear it's head. This was life now so it wasn't like something that you wouldn't have to get used to. Might as well start that right now.

The shower made you feel a bit better. Something about being able to shower at home, in your own space, with your typical washes and shampoos just did something different than when you were stuck showering in a hospital. While you still were in tremendous discomfort that bordered on pain that was barely tolerable, you still felt better. Plus, being out of those hospital clothes just helped give a little mental boost. 

Tossing a jacket over your shoulders, you opened the door with a slow breath. The street was quiet, just as it often was. There were so few left in this neighborhood, the stranglehold of the economic crisis squeezing life out of Detroit day by day. Those that remained were too headstrong to go more than anything else. You and the man across the street had that in common. Not the only thing. The memory that came of the first meeting had you wanting to laugh. It was either laugh or break out into tears because the bad came rushing hard. Shaking away the thoughts as if the physical action could dislodge and remove those mental images. 

The walk across the street didn't take too long, though getting up his steps took a few moments. It seemed that Shadow knew of the presence on the porch before you could even knock. The bark that came from inside was excitement, something recognizable and in a way somewhat comforting. It was normal. Routine. Despite the fact that nothing about this would ever be the normal that you both once knew. There was no answer to the rap of knuckles against the wood. Not for a minute. Or five. 

A part of you wondered if you should just leave him be. You had your own trauma from the entire thing but his loss was so much greater than your own. A leg compared to a child? No comparison. Still, something rolled in your gut at the thought of leaving Norman to his misery, grief, and pain. You had been alone in the hospital. Being alone and isolated was never good. So, that thought made you knock again and call out. 

“Norman?” Your voice nearly cracked and you had to take a second to take in a breath. The situation called for composure. Letting your own emotions shine through wouldn't help the moment at all. “I'm sure you don't want to see anyone right now…” What words were supposed to be spoken for this sort of thing? Huffing out in frustration, you stared at the door. 

“Can you please let me in? You don't have to talk. I know you aren't alright, I wouldn't expect you to be but seeing you would at least settle my own mind. Please?” Maybe appealing to that part of him would get the older man to agree. Another few moments passed, bringing about a sense of defeat. This wasn't something to barrel through, to hit head on like a bull in a china shop. If Norman didn't want to see anyone,you couldn't force your presence upon him. At least not with his house closed up like this. Just as you were getting ready to turn around, locks disengaging rang out and the door opened. Shadow's bark was significantly louder, the thump of his tail against the door frame audible. 

He looked rough, like he hadn't been sleeping. Something that was relatable. More than that, it was in the way that he held himself. A man defeated had a certain posture after all. An awkward silence fell over the two of you as you stood there before the door opened a bit more and he stepped to the side, a silent signal to come inside. The crutches hopefully made enough noise for him to be able to keep his feet out of the way as you entered the home, as mindful of where you were placing them as you could be. The last thing that was needed was for you to cause a physical injury to the man. 

“When did you get home?” 

“Today.” A grunt was the response that you got and honestly, you hadn't expected much more. The house was dark, though it didn't matter much to Norman and you weren't going to say a damn thing. He led you to the kitchen, where he was having some coffee from the smell that lingered in the air. 

“They have her in jail.” That perked your ears up as you eased yourself into the seat. Crutches were kept close by just in case quick movement was needed.

“Good.” Your voice had come out firmer than intended. But really, it was where the young woman deserved to be. She had killed someone, not just someone but a child. All because she had been stupid about drinking and driving. Frankly, at this rate, she shouldn't leave. Two lives permanently altered in ways that could never be repaired by one decision of a third party. Maybe it would have been just injuries to you and Emma if you had moved faster. Hurling your body in the way of the oncoming car in an attempt to get the girl out of the way or at least shield her to some degree had been an instant reaction. If only it would have worked. 

Clearing your throat a little, you tried to shrug off the anger that had been growing in presence day after day for the last two weeks. “It's no less than deserved. The police hadn't been by to talk much to me besides that first week I was actually conscious. I've been a bit out of the loop on what is happening.” The idea of checking your phone had fallen to the wayside in the focus of getting ready to leave the hospital. He set a cup of coffee down in front of you without having asked. The warmth of the cup seeped into your chilled hands, causing you to close your eyes for just one moment. 

“She'll rot in jail.” She better. But it wasn't like a trial was going to happen any time soon. Those things took time. An extended amount of time, with additional suffering to come for the both of you. Norman fell silent for a long while, staring off in that unseeing fashion of his, eyes seemingly focused just above your right shoulder. What more was there to say?  “You're on crutches.” An observation without any real direction.

“Yep.”

“They wouldn't give you a prosthetic?” 

“I opted not to get one right away. Getting out of there and home was more important to me. I have an appointment set up in two weeks with a physical therapist and someone who can fit me for one.” Your voice grew softer for just a second, obvious to the both of you. Was it self consciousness that caused it? A worry of bringing up something that would upset him? 

“And your other injuries?” A wince that you were thankful could not see came before you could stop it. A feeling of guilt crawled the back of your throat, robbing you of your voice for a mere moment. 

“Things that will heal with time. Some medicines for the rest of my life.” And the daily reminder that you just hadn't acted quick enough. Something that would haunt you every time you looked down and saw the empty space where your right left should have been. “All things that I can manage.” He hadn't said anything about himself, about how he was dealing. Poorly. There was no need to put a word to it but hearing it would at least lead in a direction of knowing what to do to help him. He was deflecting, though you had pleaded with him to let you in on the basis of not having him talk. Silently, you were able to reach out and carefully curl your fingers around his hand. For a brief moment, tension wracked you as the expectation of him pulling away reigned up. Instead, there was a slight tremble and he was curling his own fingers in response, squeezing her hand tightly. 

*****

Daily trips over to Norman's became routine. It was good for the both of you, in all honesty. Getting out of the house instead of sulking around and wallowing, despite arguing that it wasn't a pity party, did you no good. And the same could be said for the older man. A familiar motion that helped dictate the day and forced the both of you to keep to a schedule. He was a little more open in talking about it, letting you know what the detectives had to say and where everyone was at with the case. You couldn't speak to the sinking feeling that rolled in your gut any time that it was discussed but it was shoved to the side and never mentioned. The man had enough stress. 

He was good for forcing you to talk about where you were at with your physical therapy and the prosthetic. You had been fitted for it several weeks ago. Things weren't one size fits all. The molding process had been interesting, with a reassurance that it would be correct once it came in. And finally, after a long wait, it came in two days ago. You hadn't realized physical stress that just the therapy would have you going through, let alone the entire concept of learning to walk again. Because that was what it was. Relearning to walk. Balance would be all new, weight shifts entirely different, and movement to adjust to when it came to walking. 

There had been an argument between yourself and your therapist that had left you stewing, in a rotten mood that was volatile at best. Norman had realized something was wrong when he ran into you while out walking Shadow. Shadow, as always, let out that excited bark and his tail started going a mile a minute. It was not acknowledged on your end and the silence was clearly enough of a tip off for him.

“Did it go that poorly today?” You jumped, startled by the comment, and the fact that he had engaged when you hadn't said a damn thing. A huff was the only response he got for a long moment. 

“I ended up in an argument with my therapist.” The words were a little sullen. Not typical at all. He waited patiently, not saying anything else, forcing you to elaborate. Pulling the information out of you without being too forceful but with the knowledge that he could be as stubborn as you. “They wanted to keep the prosthetic there until I properly learned to walk….” The words caught for a moment, not wanting to admit to struggling with it. Everything about the weight distribution felt wrong to your body. 

“I wanted to be able to bring it home so that I can work at my own pace, without all those eyes on me.” He hummed for a moment, not saying anything else right away, mulling over the information as his hands folded over top of his cane. 

“They let you?” 

“Yes.”

“Then why are you sitting here?”

“What?”

“If they let you bring it home, why are you sitting here and not walking?” The words that your therapist had said rang around your head. Coupled with the frustration over the entire situation, you had opted to sit and stew in the anger. It was easier. Mentally and physically. Still, Norman was right. And if there was one person in the world that you couldn't argue with right now, it had to be Norman. That sight less gaze seemed to settle on you, his head ever so slightly tilted, listening for your reaction. You knew the signs well enough by now. “Get your things and come over.” Now, that was entirely unexpected. Realizing that he was serious, you pulled yourself up and moved to grab everything into a bag.

*******

Norman knew his house intimately, which is the reason why he chose to do it in his space rather than yours. Every uneven floor board that would cause a balance shift, which wall would easily be reached as a brace if falling down. And how to move easily through the space, forcing you to move after him. Like a game of chase. An annoying game of chase.  

But there seemed to be a method to his madness as you were starting to get the hang of movement. It wasn't just walking in a straight line. No, this was actual movement, natural in hoe you would operate day to day. There were plenty of stumbles, sending you crashing down to the hard wooden floor. But the gruff responses demanded that you get back to your feet. 

Exhaustion began to tug at the edges of your consciousness. Muscles ached and protested each movement as they strained further and further under unfamiliar stress. The stumbles became more common and that sense of anger came rushing back, but along with it an embarrassment that you weren't picking up as fast as you wanted. That you were looking like a fool in front of Norman. 

He had demanded that you attempt the stairs. Well, more like a suggestion without room for any argument. It took effort to even think at this point how to shift your weight and the movement needed to swing your leg. Norman was close this time, closer than he had been while moving throughout the house. A brace of sorts, just in case there ended up being a tumble down the stairs. 

The first step was managed well enough, the second with a little more difficulty but by the third, your body had decided that it had enough. Thankfully, you want tumbling forward instead of backwards into Norman. Your fingers scrapped against the wood of the stairs, a shaky breath taken as your throat constricted for a moment. 

“I think that's enough for today. Come on, let's get you resting.” The raspy, grizzled voice of the older man was the only thing keeping you tethered to reality at this point; grounding you in a way that let the desire to scream, to cry, to throw things fade into the background. You were tired, hurt, and angry. But the warm hands against your hips helped to guide you back to a standing position. “Think you can get back down? Or do you want the crutches?”

“Might as well try.” The stairs were narrow, so Norman couldn't stand beside you. But, he stayed in front of you despite the risk of being toppled into, hands remaining against your hips to help act as an extra brace. The stabilization actually helped as you managed to get down the two steps, nearly sagging into the wall to your left. The older man had the audacity to chuckle. You wanted to be upset about it but found that you didn't have it in you. 

“We will work more tomorrow.” 

“Norman, you don't have to…”

“I'll stop by after my morning walk with Shadow.” You knew the routine well enough after all. When the man had his mind made up, he was all but impossible to deter. It was in that moment that you realized his hands were still pressed against you. A fact that you hardly minded. They weren't moving and neither was he as he was still crowded close. The presence was both exciting and comforting. You would be a liar if you said that he hadn't felt attraction to the man, had since you had first met. But it had never seemed appropriate. 

“Okay.” Again, it was an argument that wasn't going to be winnable. His mind was set. This close, you could see the way that his lips seemed to twitch upward, the hints of a smile present. And in response, you found yourself mirroring the expression. “I'll be ready.”

“Good.” With that confirmation, he pulled you away from the wall, as if you were nothing more than a feather in his grasp, one arm sliding around your waist to help you keep your balance. “You can take it off on the couch. Do you need to do anything with it now?” 

“Gotta make sure I don't have any blisters, pressure patches, or breakdowns in the skin.” That was easy enough to focus on, even as the warmth of his body beside yours was making it difficult to focus. “I'll clean up when I get home and use the cream that they gave me.” He helped you get settled down on the couch. 

“Can I?” His hands moved forward before hesitating. You hadn't had anyone besides the doctors and nurses touch the area. You hated having to do it yourself. But, as he waited for permission, you found that you couldn't deny the request. 

Carefully, you took his hands and guided them to the prosthesis. Norman moved his hands slowly over the entire thing, kneeling beside the couch to be able to trail them down to the foot before back up, all the way up to your thigh. 

“They did a good job.” Again, the touch lingered. For a second, you swore he could hear your heart racing, the almost unsteady beat loud in your ear. The moment was far more intimate than it had a right to be. Were you reading into it too much? Maybe. Norman hadn't exactly shown all that much interest in anything more than the steady friendship that had formed between the two of you.

“Yeah.” Finally, he pulled away and inched up to settle onto the couch beside you. The entire world felt off kilter, in an entirely new way. “Yeah, it's supposed to ultimately function better than some of the older models. I didn't exactly understand the technical stuff on how the knee hinge works but I know it cost the VA a pretty penny.” 

Carefully, the process of removing it was begun. The movements were still a little foreign to you but something you were getting the hang of; eventually they had said you would be able to do it in your sleep. Norman's fingers wrapped around your forearm, squeezing lightly. Actions paused immediately, you glanced towards him, trying to determine what the touch was for. 

“Give yourself a second.” You didn't understand what he meant. “You're shaking. And I can hear the little noises of pain.” You hadn't realized that you were even making noise, and now that he had pointed it out, you could feel the tremors in your hands and arms. He had noticed it all before it had registered. 

After a few moments, the process was finished and you tucked the prosthetic in the bag, along with the sock. The skin was a little red and there were some indentations along the pressure points but overall, nothing looked worrisome or terrible. Thankfully. 

“Better?” A rush of gratitude welled up. Shadow nudged your hand on the other side and in that moment, you realized that just as you hadn't wanted Norman alone, you weren't either. Swallowing hard to push back the emotion and chalking it up to the exhaustion that you were feeling, it took a second to respond. 

“Yeah, better. Thanks, Norman.” Unable to help it, you found yourself leaning into him just a bit as you scratched Shadow behind the ear. It didn't feel like it was too much or stepping over the line after the way that Norman had been close before. Hopefully, that wasn't too bold an assumption. For a second, it may have been when he seemed to tense before you could feel him relax. The final reassurance was when his arm curled around your shoulders, an unfamiliar but incredibly comforting weight that brought a smile to your face.  

[tyrelpinnegar]

Rabbit Hole by Tyrel Pinnegar

Paranormal Horror - 14,800 Words

This is the story of a lonely girl with an affinity for the macabre. Although she had never been the type to believe in ghosts, she couldn’t help but indulge fantasies of romance beyond the veil. However, when a cocksure spirit with a dangerous infatuation drags her deep into a private purgatory of blood and decay, what was once an innocent fantasy quickly becomes a precarious negotiation that could cost the girl her life.

Download Rabbit Hole for free at TyrelPinnegar.com, or read the full story under the cut:

Chapter 1

This story begins in a cemetery. A proper cemetery.

Nowadays, proper cemeteries are vanishingly rare. A proper cemetery is old enough to have been forgotten. At least, to a degree.

The last time you visited a cemetery, it was likely to pay respects to the recently deceased. Someone whose memory is still fresh enough to spark pain. You may have noticed, while you were there, that the cemetery was not entirely dissimilar from a suburban backyard. A neatly manicured, monocultured lawn, devoid of any weeds, or insects, or interest. Sterile, wasted space.

The only thing that set it apart were the grave markers. Little, x by x inch polished granite slabs that lie flush with the ground, and weigh so little you could pick them up and carry them away, if you were so inclined. Each one computer-engraved with a stock image chosen from a catalog. Some may have even been engraved with a customer-supplied digital photograph, as if they were some sort of mall kiosk knick-knack.

There’s a reason these grave markers lie flush with the ground. It’s so the groundskeeper can run a lawnmower over them. A matter of convenience. It’s easier, and therefore cheaper, to trim the grass when the stones that mark the graves are easy to ignore. Isn’t it something, that the lawn seems to take precedence over the dead?

Cemeteries like these serve their purpose I suppose, in a dull, soulless sort of way. But they hardly instill reverence.

This cemetery instilled reverence. It was overgrown. Unkempt. The tall, dried autumn grasses had gone to seed, forming not a lawn, but a meadow. The fallen leaves that littered the earth had already decayed down to the veins, reclaimed by detritivores and fungal mycelium, leaving the old, gnarled oaks that had shed them as skeletal silhouettes against an overcast sky.

None of this is what makes a cemetery a cemetery, of course. Only graves can do that, and this cemetery had no shortage.

This cemetery contained hundreds of graves, some older than the oaks themselves. A person could have spent a lifetime studying the lives of the people buried in that soil, and still barely have scratched the surface.

And save for a few that had crumbled to nothing over the centuries, each of these graves had a marker. Some were towering mausoleums, elaborate sculptural monuments to a life of privilege and means. Others were simple headstones, heartfelt labors of love, chiseled from whatever stone could be found.

Neither the rich nor the poor are immune to the rasp of time, however. Many of the older markers had been rendered nigh unreadable by lichens and erosion. Identities wiped away, leaving only death’s heads and other memento mori.

One of the deceased had chosen a more practical memorial. A dark, heavy, granite bench. Perhaps they themselves had once found comfort in visiting the cemetery, and wanted to make it easier for those that came after.

It was clear that their gesture did not go unappreciated, as there was someone sitting on the granite bench. A girl, with dusty, cornflower-blue hair, loosely braided into twin pigtails with white twine, and a short, feather-duster of a ponytail in the back.

She wore a thick, pale, turtleneck sweater just a few shades lighter than the color of her hair, and a pair of oversized, circular, white-rimmed glasses. The lenses were fake, for if they’d been prescription, they’d have been far too heavy to remain on her face. Secretly, her amber eyes functioned perfectly well.

And although the cemetery was old, this girl was not. Her birth date was decades more recent than any death date on the gravestones that surrounded her. She was not exceedingly young either, however. She was an adult by most definitions, though she rarely felt that way.

This girl was not there to pay her respects, but to surround herself with death. She had an affinity for the macabre. It might not have been immediately obvious from her appearance, but a peek inside her sketchbook would have left no doubt.

It was brimming with the Gothic. The romantic. Ghosts and phantoms, spirits and specters. Skeletons and apparitions. Wilted roses and tender, affectionate embraces. Why she drew such things was a mystery, for she was not the type to share her work with others. Her sketchbook was a place of privacy. A refuge for feelings and thoughts that would have otherwise been bottled up.

And yet, despite her efforts to keep her drawings hidden away, someone was admiring them now. Even as she sketched.

A presence.

Invisible.

Immaterial.

The girl shivered. There had been no wind, but the air around her suddenly felt cold. She shut her sketchbook and held it close to her chest.

If she had turned around in that moment, she might have seen something resembling a pair of eyes. Concave hemispheres, as if someone had dissected the tapeta lucida from behind an animal’s retinas and rendered them intangible. Each one, a reflection without a surface.

But she didn’t turn around, and they vanished as quietly as they had arrived.

The girl had just begun to reopen her sketchbook, when she felt a chill brush her cheek. Not a breeze, but a gentle caress. She let out a small yelp and staggered to her feet, glancing about nervously.

Her breathing became tense. She wasn’t the type to feel uneasy in an empty cemetery, but somehow this cemetery didn’t feel so empty anymore. Eventually, she turned to leave.

It was then that something seemed to tickle her earrings. The feeling of surgical steel against cartilage sent a violent shiver up her spine. She ran.

The girl scrambled her way down an old footpath, clutching her sketchbook tightly. She felt that if she could only reach the entrance gate, she’d be safe.

All of a sudden, she felt something shove her sternum with startling force. She staggered backward and began to lose her balance, only to be caught by unseen hands and tipped back upright. She stumbled forward, then swiveled around in a panic.

Silence.

The girl took a moment to catch her breath.

Then, she felt a sudden, sharp jab at her side. Then another, and another. An incessant jabbing, at her kidneys, her rib cage, her spine. She recoiled, repeatedly and involuntarily. The jabbing became shoving, and the shoving became herding. She shut her eyes tightly and waited for the ordeal to be over.

And then… it was. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

UNKNOWN SKELETON 9-24-62

Those were the words on the headstone the girl found herself standing before, deeply engraved in crystal white granite.

It was a very plain stone. A simple, upright, rectangular slab, slightly wider than it was tall. No grass grew nearby. The ground was bare save for a few stunted weeds, as if the earth surrounding the stone had been salted.

The burial vault had collapsed long ago, leaving a hole in the ground near the base of the stone. The hole was dark, and deep, and just narrow enough to dissuade exploration.

The girl simply stared at the stone a moment, chest heaving.

A sound from behind. Like the snapping of fingers, echoing in a way her surroundings shouldn’t have allowed. She swiveled around and stared into the distance. Listening.

Behind her, something emerged from inside the collapsed burial vault. A snare on a swivel, fashioned from thin, braided steel cable. It flared open slowly, without even the faintest sound, and came to a rest on the ground.

The girl’s heart was racing. She could feel it in her chest. Hear it in her ears. She stood her ground.

But nothing came.

Her heartbeat began to slow. Her breathing, began to calm. Her muscles, loosened. Her jaw, unclenched. And for just a moment, she let herself relax.

Something blew a sudden puff of icy air into her face. She took a step backward.

Deep down in the darkness, bones assembled. The snare zipped tight around the girl’s ankle. With a sharp yank, she was flat on the ground. And with a steady pull, she was

dragged

down

the

hole.

Chapter 2

Hello rabbit.

Those were the first words the girl heard. They were spoken in a raspy, feminine voice that seemed as if it were both breathed into the crook of her neck, and reverberated inside her skull. It was dark, and she couldn’t see their speaker.

The girl uttered a pitiful whimper in response, but there were a set of cold, arachnodactyl fingers wrapped around her face, clasping her jaw shut.

Sh-sh-shhh… Don’t speak.

A moment passed as the presence verified she’d been heard. She had been. She unclasped her fingers from the girl’s face, affectionately stroked one of her cornflower blue braids, then retreated into the darkness.

One by one, crudely formed candles began to light. But they didn’t burn with fire. They burned with something unfamiliar, something that seemed to suck color out of existence.

As each candle was lit, it faintly illuminated a skeletal hand, which then retracted back into the shadows. As if it were setting the candles alight by pinching their wicks.

Eventually, the candle lighting ceased. The girl could just barely make out a figure looming above her. A skeletal silhouette, nearly indiscernible in the dim, unearthly light. She strained her eyes, trying desperately to decipher what she was looking at.

Then, the figure ignited. Forcefully, like an antique propane stove burner, lit a few seconds too late.

And there she was… An uncanny, luminous silhouette in a well-worn sheepskin aviator jacket. The girl simply stared at her a moment, dumbfounded.

The spirit looked as if she had been diaphonized, and immersed in glycerin. A semi-corporeal matrix of decellularized tissue, lit from inside by luminous teal bones.

She moved as if she were immersed in glycerin as well. An inquisitive cock of her head sent her ethereal white hair drifting, like eelgrass.

The girl averted her eyes, trying desperately to wish herself awake. But the spirit placed a finger beneath the girl’s chin, and raised her eyeline to meet her own.

In this state of coerced eye contact, the girl finally peered deeply into the eyes that had stalked her in the graveyard. Concave, hemispherical eyes, mottled with iridescent teals, blues, and golds.

The spirit grinned impishly. Her skull was kinetic. Each bone moved freely, independent of the others. It looked as if the bones of a human skull had been teased apart at the seams, and their edges whittled smooth. Scraps of bone carved into an intricate, emotive mechanism. It was almost piscine, like the skull of some ancient Devonian fish.

The spirit took hold of the girl by the jaw, rotating her head from side to side. Studying her. Finally, she released her grip, affectionately tapping the girl on the nose with a finger.

The spirit laughed. It was a harsh, gravelly laugh, and it rattled the girl’s teeth in their sockets.

The spirit’s cavernous maw contained no teeth. Instead, her jaws formed a bony, jagged, shearing edge. Scissor-like, as if she’d been mindlessly grinding maxilla against mandible for ages.

Her laughing ceased. She stared at the girl expectantly. Almost playfully. The girl remained silent.

You’re a quiet one, aren’t you rabbit?

The girl reminded the spirit that she had told her not to speak. Her words were whispered, and just barely escaped her lips.

A pharyngeal snicker pushed the spirit’s ethereal white tongue from her throat. She pinched it betwixt the cusps of her bladed jaws, but it did little to conceal her amusement.

The girl surveyed her surroundings. She was in a burrow. A spacious burrow, but a burrow nonetheless. Fine, pale roots hung from the ceiling, and the walls were a rich, loamy soil.

The floor of the chamber was a deep, humid layer of finely shredded wood. Tweezed apart fragment by fragment, like a bored parakeet shreds paper. The girl briefly wondered where it had all come from, but her curiosity was quelled by the sight of rusty coffin nails blended into the mulch.

There were holes in the walls of the burrow, just a few inches across. Too narrow for a person to pass through, but wide enough for a human skeleton, if it were done bone by bone. Where they led, she had no way of knowing.

Over her shoulder, the girl spotted a larger tunnel. This one was wide enough for a person to wriggle through, with difficulty. But no wider than that. The girl feared how far it might extend before it reached the surface.

Not that it mattered. It was the only way out of the burrow. The girl side-eyed the spirit surreptitiously. The spirit was distracted by the girl’s sketchbook, admiring her work with a delighted grin. Relishing the eerie, Gothic romance of it all. She licked a finger and turned the page.

This was the girl’s chance. She bolted for the tunnel, and began to scramble inside.

Ah-ah-ah…

She felt the spirit grab hold of her ankles with long, icy fingers, and yank her violently back into the burrow. She gripped the girl tightly by the shoulders, and rolled her onto her back.

What are you running from, rabbit?

The girl shouted at the spirit, demanding that she stop calling her rabbit.

The spirit was taken aback, but only for a moment. She let out a short, harsh laugh. She seemed almost thrilled by the girl’s newfound pluckiness.

Why? I caught you in a snare, didn’t I? You live in a hole.

The girl exclaimed crossly that no, she did not, in fact, live in a hole.

The spirit glanced about the burrow, rather facetiously. She grinned widely and looked the girl directly in the eyes.

You’re sure about that, are you?

The girl gave the spirit an uneasy look.

The spirit extended an arachnodactyl hand. After considerable hesitation, the girl reached out and grasped it. The spirit’s touch was intensely cold against her bare skin.

The spirit hoisted the girl upright, and she found herself seated quietly on the soft, wooden mulch.

The girl rested her head in her hands. She was still very much struggling to process her situation. She raised her head meekly, and asked the spirit, rather bluntly, what she was.

A disquieted expression flitted across the spirit’s face, so subtly as to be nearly imperceptible. She was quick to recover however, flashing a fabricated grin.

That’s a good question, rabbit. If I ever find out, you’ll be the first to know.

The girl then inquired, her tone exceedingly wary, about just what it was the spirit wanted. The spirit’s playful demeanor returned.

I want for naught, rabbit. I have everything I need.

The girl then requested, if the spirit did indeed have everything she needed, that she let her go. She struggled to mask the growing indignation in her voice.

Oh, I can’t do that, rabbit.

The girl stared crossly at the spirit, awaiting an explanation.

If I did that, I’d want for something again.

There was an extended silence. The girl wasn’t quite sure what was supposed to happen next.

So she asked.

The spirit cocked her head just a little further than one might expect possible, and smiled at the girl. Almost sweetly. But she did not speak.

The girl scoffed. Averted her eyes. She didn’t want to give this ghoul the satisfaction.

But the spirit was patient, and eventually, the girl’s eyes wandered back. She found herself staring intently at the spirit’s heart. It was visible through her unzipped aviator jacket, nestled snugly within her rib cage. It beat softly between a pair of nearly imperceptible lungs, visible only by the cartilaginous rings scaffolding their various passageways. Inhaling and exhaling with a surprising tranquility.

The spirit’s heartbeat seemed to have an almost sedative effect on the girl. Her mood became still, and serene.

Would you like to touch it?

The girl looked to the spirit, and to her own surprise, she nodded… she did want to touch it.

The spirit descended from her mid-air perch, and delicately grasped the girl by the wrist. The girl inhaled sharply. She knew the spirit’s touch would be cold, but somehow it still caught her off guard.

The spirit looked the girl in the eye, as if awaiting some sort of signal. The girl’s silence seemed to suffice. The spirit plunged the girl’s hand deep into her abdomen.

The girl gasped, and by reflex, attempted to withdraw her hand. But the spirit was strong, and held steady.

A moment passed, and the girl began to recover from her initial shock. She flexed her fingers experimentally. The spirit’s entrails were so faint as to be nearly invisible, but they could be felt. They were cold, and fluttered with a rhythmic peristalsis.

The girl could feel them intersecting her flesh. Seeping between her cells like syrup through a sieve. To feel something so visually insubstantial provide such tactile resistance was an uncanny sensation.

The spirit slid a hand along the girl’s arm, and braced her elbow with the other, guiding the girl’s hand up and into her rib cage. The girl resisted ever so slightly, but the spirit resisted in return, slowly pulling the girl’s arm deeper into her chest.

Her fingertips intersected the spirit’s lungs, and she could feel a freezing wind within. She could feel the spirit’s heartbeat, sending ripples through the tissues surrounding it. Her breathing began to quicken.

The spirit’s breathing ceased entirely. There was no more freezing wind. Just stillness. Silence.

The girl could see her own curled fingers, just millimeters from the spirit’s softly beating heart.

She extended her fingertips, and the two intersected.

Immediately, the girl felt the warmth vacate her body. It began with the surface of her skin, and crept steadily toward her core. A coldness she never would have thought possible in a body with a pulse. She began to struggle.

The spirit released her grip, and the girl tumbled backward onto the damp mulch, shivering violently. The spirit watched with interest.

Oh rabbit… are you getting cold?

She asked this with an inquisitiveness, as if it were a novel concept to her. She received no immediate response.

The spirit removed her sheepskin aviator jacket, and hung it gingerly over the girl’s shoulders. The girl held the jacket tight to her skin, but it did not warm her. In fact, it only seemed to make her colder.

A few minutes passed. Eventually, the girl had recovered enough to speak. Through chattering teeth, she asked the spirit where the jacket had come from.

I stole it.

The girl quietly examined the worn leather, and aged wool. The jacket appeared well-cared-for, but it was obviously very old.

The girl noticed that her thinking seemed slower than it had before… Sluggish. Strenuous. But eventually, a second question began to percolate through her mind. She asked the spirit who the jacket had been stolen from.

A pilot. Don’t worry… they weren’t using it anymore.

The girl decided not to question any further. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what the spirit had meant by that.

Again, a few minutes passed. The girl found herself focused on the flickering of the candles that lit the burrow, wondering if they might provide some modicum of warmth.

She attempted to reach for the candle nearest to her, only to find her muscles had stiffened. It felt as if her body had become waxy. Every movement, met with a distressing resistance. Yet somehow, she managed to grasp the candle, and bring it close.

But the candle provided no warmth. Passing her fingertips through the uncanny flame felt no different than passing them through thin air. Even touching the burning wick itself provided no sensation.

It took a disquieting amount of effort, but the girl finally managed to form a coherent question in her mind. She asked the spirit where the candles had come from.

I made them.

The girl pondered this a moment, before realizing that the spirit’s answer clarified very little. From what did she make them?

There’s plenty of wax to be found in a graveyard, rabbit.

It was only after the spirit spoke that the girl realized she must have wondered her question aloud. However, she was no longer cognizant enough to decipher what the spirit had meant.

She awoke suddenly. She had only slipped into unconsciousness for a moment, but to regain consciousness without any memory of losing it was jarring. She shook her head.

The girl felt something sickly and wet soaking into her clothing. An opaque, crimson liquid was seeping from the walls of the burrow, and pooling in the mulch beneath her.

Repulsed, she attempted to stagger to her feet, only to find her previously waxy muscles were now rigid, and immovable. She began to panic.

Something the matter, rabbit?

The girl told the spirit that she was stuck. That she couldn’t move. There was a genuine, unmistakable fear in her voice.

The crimson liquid continued to pool beneath her, like an incoming tide on an exceptionally shallow beach.

She pleaded for help. The spirit sank slowly to the floor, and knelt in the pooling liquid. She began to run her fingers through the girl’s cornflower-blue hair.

The girl’s ribs began to seize. It was becoming difficult to breathe. She tried to express this, but her breath was restricted enough that she struggled to form the necessary words.

Nevertheless, the spirit understood. She lovingly brushed the girl’s cheek, staring deeply into her eyes.

Oh rabbit… don’t worry your pretty little lungs about it.

The rising liquid met the girl’s lips, and began to flow down her throat. The spirit embraced the girl tenderly.

You’ll never have to breathe again.

Chapter 3

A thought entered the girl’s mind. A casual inkling that perhaps this was death.

She felt weightless. Adrift in a vast abyss. The barrier between her body and the fluid that surrounded her felt vague. She wondered if perhaps she was dissolving into it… unspooling, like gossamer threads. She couldn’t deduce the position of her limbs, or the temperature of her skin. Or whether her eyes were open or closed. There was no light. No sound. To someone who had always found the world a little too bright, and a little too loud, it was a welcome relief.

With nothing to upset her senses, the girl quietly became aware of her own heartbeat. She could feel it pulsing gently through her veins. Hear it flowing through her ears. If this was death, she thought, perhaps she didn’t mind it so much.

Her lips parted slightly. Fluid seeped between them, caressing the tip of her tongue. It tasted metallic… like a nosebleed.

The taste of blood sent the girl into a panic, fracturing any sense of tranquility as if it were glass. Once again, she felt cold, intact, and desperate to breathe.

She struggled to wake her sleeping limbs. Flexing the pins and needles from her ragged nerves, she swam weakly in a direction she desperately hoped was upward.

Thin air. A gasp for breath. Coughing violently, the girl clambered onto the surface of a vast, crimson lake. Somehow, the lake’s surface bore her weight. As if, despite everything, the lake was only millimeters deep.

The girl simply lay there, in a film of blood, trying desperately to catch her breath.

Shivering and terrified, the girl rose to her feet. Her clothing was saturated with blood, and weighed heavy on her shoulders. She stumbled slightly. Whatever lay beneath the lake’s surface felt almost spongy beneath her feet, like the saturated soil of a peat bog. Eventually, she found her footing.

She surveyed her surroundings. The air was as still as the surface of the lake itself. The vast blood flat might have appeared mirror-like, if there had been a sky to reflect. But there was no sky. There was nothing but a deep, dark, velvet void.

Staring into the distance, she tried to locate the edge of the lake. On the horizon, she saw what appeared to be dead trees. Branchless. Pale. Needle-like. Pointing steadfastly toward that abyssal nothing of a sky. Reflected in the glassy surface of the lake itself, like a grove of cedars, flooded a century ago.

That’s what they looked like to her, at least. They seemed so far away, it was difficult to tell.

She focused carefully.

A pair of arachnodactyl hands clasped the girl’s shoulders from behind, and a facetious whisper in her ear sent a shiver inching up her spine.

You’ve soiled my jacket, rabbit.

With a single swift movement, the spirit yanked her sheepskin aviator jacket from the girl’s shoulders. She slipped her own arms through the sleeves, and shook off the excess blood, like a starling in a birdbath.

Droplets of blood spattered the girl’s face. She felt her hairs bristle, and her temper flare. She snapped. She screamed at the spirit, demanding that she let her go.

For a fleeting moment, the spirit appeared almost startled. A careful observer might even have glimpsed something resembling a second thought flicker across her face. However, it was quickly brushed aside by a cocksure smile.

The spirit circled the girl, so swiftly and smoothly that by the time the girl had noticed, the spirit was already behind her.

The spirit hooked an arm around the girl’s neck. The girl tried to protest, but was silenced by the spirit pressing an icy finger to her lips.

Hush now, rabbit… You’re safe with me.

In another context, from another individual, this sentiment might have brought comfort. It was spoken in a calming tone, after all, and with a loving inflection. But this was a very specific individual, in a very particular context, and the girl didn’t find it reassuring at all.

The spirit nestled her chin in the crook of the girl’s neck, nuzzling her blood-stained cheek with an unnerving affection. The girl inhaled sharply. Exhaled with a shudder. The sensation was deeply uncomfortable.

The girl attempted to wriggle free, but the spirit’s vise-like grip only tightened. She felt the spirit’s thigh creeping up her own. She saw an opportunity, and struck.

She reached for the spirit’s femur, plunging her fingers through ghostly layers of muscle and sinew. She gripped the bone tightly in her fist, and attempted to wrench it from its socket.

Startled, the spirit instinctively released her grip. She panicked, and began batting at the girl’s cranium with open palms. The girl, in turn, twisted the spirit’s hip ever more forcefully.

She could feel the joint failing. Gripping the bone tight with both hands, she gave it one final twist.

The bone popped from its socket with such force that the girl lost her balance, falling backwards into the shallow lake and landing on her coccyx.

She winced in anticipation of pain, but the marshy substrate managed to soften the blow. She gave her head a shake, and stared at the bone in her hands.

It was no longer luminous. Outside the confines of the spirit’s ghostly flesh, it resembled any other stray bone. Dull, and dusty, and stained with tannins.

Yet, something felt off. It was weighted oddly… heavier toward the hip than toward the knee. A closer look revealed a tarnished stainless steel hip replacement, cemented tightly to the bone itself.

Give that back! It’s mine!

The spirit’s voice was shrill, and furious. The femur obviously wasn’t hers. It was stolen, and the girl said as much.

Of course I stole it, that means it’s mine!

The girl stumbled to her feet. It was clear from her stance that she had become fed up with the spirit’s games.

She glimpsed a flicker of hesitation in the spirit’s eyes. A fleeting moment of uncertainty, interrupted by a hollow bark of aggression.

I said give it BACK!

Her words were hissed, as if they had been puffed through the throat of a brooding mute swan. Yet the girl stood her ground.

The spirit stared daggers into the girl’s eyes, then glanced briefly at the femur. The girl took notice, tightening her grip on the bone defensively.

The spirit shivered with frustration. She shrieked like a jealous gull, and lunged at the girl.

The girl swung the femur with all her might, wielding the steel implant as a blunt weapon. The spirit dodged the attack, and lunged a second time.

Again, the girl swung her improvised war club. The spirit heard it whistle past her skull, at a proximity she immediately deemed too close for comfort.

The spirit quickly backed off, and held out an open palm, signaling the girl to stand down.

She did, a little.

The spirit began to approach the girl, palm still outstretched. The girl abruptly dropped to one knee, and braced the femur over the other, threatening to snap it in half if the spirit came any closer.

The spirit drew back apprehensively. It was clear she took the girl’s threat seriously.

A moment passed, and a thought crystallized in the spirit’s skull. Its conception was apparent on her face, if only for a split second. She breathed what appeared to be a sigh of relief, then locked eyes with the girl.

Alright rabbit…

She smiled, casually brushing back her ethereal white hair. The girl stared warily, ready to act on her promise.

I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot… let’s take a few steps back.

The spirit began circling the girl, slowly. Deliberately. The girl instinctively rose to her feet and took a step back, unsure what the spirit was playing at.

Not literal steps, rabbit.

The girl scoffed. She knew perfectly well what the spirit had meant, and she knew the spirit knew it as well.

Figurative steps. Let’s figure out where this all went… sour.

A whiff of something rancid prickled at the girl’s olfactory nerves. An oily, iridescent film had begun to form on the lake’s surface. The spirit snapped her fingers, recapturing the girl’s attention.

You do like it here, don’t you?

She could feel the spirit edging imperceptibly closer with each circle she made. A gradual, encroaching spiral.

Of course you do… it’s quiet. Peaceful. Just like that graveyard you spent so much time in, right?

A low-pitched burbling. The girl turned to identify its source, but by the time she saw it, all that was left was a ring of concentric ripples in the lake’s surface, dispersing into nothing.

Right. So what is it that’s upsetting you, rabbit?

Another burbling sound. And another. The girl saw them this time, from the corner of her eye. A pair of large bubbles, rising from the surface and bursting, as if from a volcanic mudpot. It dawned on the girl how thick and dark the blood had become. It was… coagulating.

Spit it out, rabbit. Nothing I’ve done, surely?

The bubbling gradually became more persistent, overlapping frequently enough that the girl quickly lost count. She began to choke, and sputter. The gas rising from the lake smelled of decay. Of putrescine and cadaverine. An anaerobic slurry, breathing rancid puffs of hydrogen sulfide.

Speak up rabbit, I can’t hear you!

The surface of the lake had begun to form a froth. A putrescent scarlet seafoam that shuddered and trembled with each bursting bubble. A feeling was welling up in the girl’s abdomen. An unbearable nausea unlike anything she had ever experienced.

Use your words, rabbit! Enunciate!

The poor girl was retching. Her abdominal muscles contracted rhythmically. Violently. Forcing the feeling up into her chest, into her throat, into the very sinuses of her skull.

The spirit was close now. Close enough that she was practically whispering in the girl’s ear.

Thaaat’s it rabbit… let it out.

The girl doubled over. Vomited. The spirit delicately plucked the femur from the girl’s fingertips as she fell to her knees.

Oh rabbit… It’s the smell, isn’t it?

She popped the femur back into its socket.

Don’t worry. It’ll pass.

The girl simply knelt there. Breathing labored. Staring at the mess. Gradually, the bubbling began to subside, and the sickly stench no longer seemed quite so unbearable. Now that her gut was empty, the endorphins began flowing through her bloodstream, gently quelling her nausea.

Instead, her nausea had been replaced by a burdensome pressure in her ears. The atmosphere felt constricted, as if it were held taut inside a latex balloon. She swallowed, attempting to equalize the pressure inside and outside her skull, but it didn’t seem to work.

The girl felt ten slender fingers slide beneath her arms, along her rib cage, and begin to lift her to her feet.

Alright rabbit. Up up up.

There was effort in the spirit’s voice, as she hoisted the girl’s dead weight. The girl groaned softly. Her abdominal muscles still ached from the strain of retching.

The girl teetered slightly, then stumbled. The spirit gently corrected her balance. She patted the girl affectionately on the head. Began stroking her hair. Comforting her.

The girl lashed out, pushing the spirit away. Warning the spirit not to touch her. To never touch her.

The spirit winced. Noticeably, as if the girl’s words had inflicted a sharp and sudden pain. An ice pick to her chest. For a fleeting moment, there was hurt in the spirit’s uncanny, iridescent eyes.

Her diaphanous muscles tensed. Her arachnodactyl fingers balled into fists. A quivering, guttural growl of frustration forced itself up through her trachea, and she turned her back to the girl.

There was a long, inelegant silence. The girl began massaging her forehead and temples with her fingertips. Her patience was wearing thin, and the pressure in her ears was becoming uncomfortable.

She was interrupted, however. By a sound. A deep, omnipresent hissing, almost too low-frequency to hear. It began quietly, then slowly grew louder, eventually becoming a fleshy, infrasonic sputtering that rattled her core. Both the girl and the spirit alike surveyed the sky apprehensively.

A deafening eruption. A sudden decompression. A violent, stinking windstorm, and a sharp ringing in the girl’s ears. Where once her eardrums had been pressed uncomfortably into her skull, she now felt them bulging outward.

The wind roared like whitewater, and the girl struggled to remain upright on the soft, slippery muck beneath her feet. She leaned into the gale, desperate not to lose her footing.

The spirit watched calmly as the girl struggled. She seemed almost unaffected by the storm, save for her fluttering, ethereal white hair. She nearly found herself reaching out to help the girl. To break her inevitable fall.

But instead, she paused. Let her arm fall to her side. The wind faltered, and the spirit watched as the girl fell face-first into sludgy, clotted blood.

Chapter 4

The velvet black sky had collapsed, crumbling like gold leaf, raining down like ash, and dissolving like candy floss.

In its place was an overcast sky. A featureless, unbroken sheet of mist, diffusing a cold, sterile light.

The girl sat cross-legged in a thick, liver-colored mud of congealed blood. She watched absentmindedly as little somethings scuttled about on its surface. She couldn’t quite call them flies. They moved too erratically to identify, and only seemed to sit still in her peripheral vision. A glance, and they would take to the air, leaving behind tiny clusters of carefully deposited eggs.

At least, she assumed they were eggs. To her, they resembled miniature tapioca pearls, only a millimeter or two across.

Suddenly, the girl piped up. She asked, rather casually, what it would take to convince the spirit to let her go.

The girl looked skyward. Roughly fifteen feet up, directly above her, the spirit hung motionlessly in the air. Balled up. Back to the ground. Hiding ineffectually behind the thick leather of her sheepskin jacket. She spoke drearily into her folded arms.

There’s nothing you can do to convince me, rabbit.

Her voice was coarse, dry, and disillusioned. A prickly static in the girl’s ears.

The girl thought on this a moment, before abruptly proposing a bargain of some sort… a trade, perhaps?

You have nothing to trade, rabbit.

Not on her, the girl admitted. But if the spirit were to let her go, she could retrieve something. Anything the spirit wanted.

The spirit sighed softly. Too softly for the girl to hear. The girl waited patiently for an answer, but she did not receive one.

How about a favor then? A task to carry out? Surely there was something the girl could do in exchange for her freedom?

The spirit balled up tighter, burying her face in her knees. She hung silently in the air, save for the gentle creaking of leather against leather.

Again, the girl prodded. What was it going to take? She was willing to make a deal with the devil.

The spirit uncurled, slowly. She swiveled around. Body first, with her head lagging behind. She squinted at the girl.

I’m not a devil, rabbit!

The spirit’s voice was saturated with incredulity.

I’m not a demon!

I’m not a fiend, or a monster!

I’m not trying to hurt you!

I’m not trying to make you unhappy!

The spirit lurched forward with each statement. She reached out toward the girl with one hand, resisting the urge to touch. Her fingertips hovered mere inches from the girl’s cheek. Her hand trembled with frustration, then snapped into a fist.

Wh…

The spirit inhaled softly, her jaw trembling. She tilted her head in genuine, wounded confusion.

Why do you hate me so much?

Now, this was a question that caught the girl off guard. This spirit really had no idea. She was naive. Completely naive. Naive to the way people work. How they think. How they feel. Naive to pain. To empathy. To human suffering.

This spirit had never conceived of a point of view that ran contrary to her own. Never had any inkling of the existence of an outside perspective. And now that she was face to face with a girl who embodied this concept fully, her worldview and confidence were beginning to corrode.

The girl simply stared at the spirit. In disbelief. In pity. All she could think to do was ask her: What did you expect?

The spirit’s breathing began to hasten, and shallow. Huffing quietly through her open mouth like a dying animal. She averted her eyes. Not in shame, but simply to allow herself time to think. She raked her fingers awkwardly through her drifting, ethereal white hair. Swallowed an uncomfortable lump in her throat.

The spirit began wagging her index finger, as if she were trying to summon a thought from deep in the folds of her brain.

You and I, w-we were supposed to…

She retracted her finger. Bit her lip betwixt her bladed jaws.

We were going to be happy together. I th-th-thought…

The girl squinted narrowly, watching in silence as the spirit, for the first time, struggled to find words.

I-I thought you would fall in love?

This was not worded as a question, but it was certainly spoken as one. It was less of a question for the girl, and more of a question the spirit was asking herself.

The girl answered it nonetheless, with a question of her own. A question that caused the spirit’s diaphanous muscles to tense, and her heart to visibly palpitate: With you?

The spirit appeared reluctant to look the girl in the eye, but the penetrating silence slowly forced her hand.

The girl shook her head in disbelief, uttering a question so blunt and direct as to fracture bone: How could you possibly have thought that?

The spirit remained quiet for a moment. Her thoughts seemed distant, and her psyche fragile. She chattered her mandible rapidly, a strange tic that caught the girl off guard.

She was thinking.

Eventually, the spirit drifted a ways away. She rolled up the sleeve of her sheepskin aviator jacket, reached deep into the congealed blood, retrieved the girl’s sketchbook from the muck with an unpleasant suction noise… and rose silently into the air.

The girl returned to her pondering. The little tapioca pearls peppered the ground now, like tiny hailstones after a brief and gentle storm.

A closer look revealed something moving inside. Nearly imperceptible threads, wriggling about wildly like little stop-motion dancers. The girl watched them intently, for there was little else to do.

Over time, she began to grow almost attached to them. She watched as they turned from a pale, translucent white to a deep, oxygenated crimson, and grew from the width of a silken thread to that of a horsehair plucked from a violin bow. She watched as they grew increasingly snug in their little gelatinous wombs, and wondered what they must be thinking. Or if they thought of anything at all.

One of the pearls burst, splitting along an invisible seam like a wine grape squeezed between two fingertips. Its occupant wriggled free of the deflated pearl, and out onto the vast expanse of gelatinized blood.

Why do you draw these, rabbit?

The girl was yanked suddenly from her thoughts. She apologized. She hadn’t quite heard what the spirit had said.

Why do you draw these?

Again, she asked the spirit to clarify.

The spirit turned a page of the girl’s sketchbook. The pages were delicate, and saturated with blood. Yet the graphite drawings were still clearly visible, and the spirit’s fingers were nimble enough not to tear them.

These… romances.

The spirit’s voice was wistful. She caressed the cheek of one of the figures on the page. It was a girl, not entirely unlike the one who drew it, in a passionate embrace with a spirit, not entirely unlike herself.

The girl briefly pondered why she drew such things, but she quickly brushed those thoughts aside, convincing herself that she didn’t know. In the silence that ensued, she became vaguely aware that she may have whispered her thoughts aloud.

She shook her head dismissively, assuring the spirit that they were just drawings. That they didn’t mean anything.

The spirit tore the page from the sketchbook, wadding it up like a wet paper towel. She squeezed the excess blood from the page, and tossed it into the girl’s lap.

Look again.

The girl uncrumpled the drawing. Stared at it. Reminisced on the feelings that had spurred its creation. If she were being honest with herself, this drawing had come from a place of longing. Of loneliness.

There are a hundred drawings just like that one in this book of yours, rabbit.

The spirit snapped the book shut with a wet slap, brandishing it in one hand as if to draw attention to it.

You spent time making these.

The girl asked the spirit what her point was, in a tone both sheepish and standoffish. She knew as soon as the words left her mouth that she had failed to mask her embarrassment.

My point is, rabbit, that you’re a liar.

The spirit tossed the book in the girl’s direction, and it landed in the sludge with a sickening splat.

You say these drawings mean nothing. It’s not true.

The girl gathered her sketchbook and held it protectively to her chest. She stared at the spirit, brow furrowed.

They must mean something!

The spirit’s tone was accusatory, that was undeniable. But it betrayed a desperation. The staredown that ensued made it clear that behind the posturing, and the arguing… the spirit was pleading with the girl.

But the girl refused to back down. Her eyes were intense, and their contact, unbroken. How long this lasted, neither could say. But it felt an eternity. The spirit began to squirm.

She shuddered violently, as if she were struggling to tamp down an outburst that was welling up inside her. But instead, she swiveled around, and went silent.

The girl rested her palms on the ground behind her. It was more worms than blood at this point. The tapioca pearl eggs had long since hatched, and their occupants grown, consuming and replacing their curdled blood substrate. All that was left were tangled clots the color of red wine, undulating gently, and contracting suddenly when disturbed.

The girl wondered where the time had gone, and why the sensation of sitting cross-legged in writhing worms didn’t seem to bother her as much as she thought it should.

She closed her eyes, and exhaled.

Do you know why I chose you, rabbit?

The girl inhaled sharply. The spirit’s voice had come from directly over her shoulder, and it startled her.

I’ve watched people wander that graveyard for decades. They’d come with expensive cameras. They’d come with rolls of paper, and colored wax. Occasionally, they’d come with flowers, if they were very old. But not you, rabbit… You came because you were lonely.

The girl began to fidget uncomfortably. She assured the spirit that was not the case. Why would she go to a place so empty if she were lonely?

You’re lying again, rabbit. I know what loneliness looks like.

The girl sighed softly, her lip quivering.

You sat on the same bench, time and time again. Drawing ghosts, and spirits. Each day I’d watch you draw another. Another daydream. Another intimate fantasy.

The girl’s cheeks flushed red with blood, and she turned her face away from the spirit’s voice. The spirit sidled closer. Close enough that the girl could feel her cold breath in the crook of her neck.

When you came to that graveyard each day, you were hoping, secretly, that a phantom would sweep you off your feet… weren’t you, rabbit?

The girl cringed in embarrassment. As silly as it sounded when spoken aloud, the spirit was correct. She had hoped for that. Precisely that, in fact. Of course, she never believed that such a thing might actually happen.

There was a long, lingering silence. The spirit swiveled around, turning her back to the girl’s.

Anyway, rabbit. That’s why I chose you.

The girl muttered under her breath. You can’t just choose someone. They have to choose you back. A nearly imperceptible grimace flitted across the spirit’s face.

So I’ve learned.

And with that, the spirit kicked off the ground, ascending quietly back into the sky.

Had she? The girl wondered this question aloud. The spirit drifted to a halt, and hung in the air. She swiveled around, and gave the girl a quizzical look.

The girl repeated herself: Had the spirit learned?

Are you deaf, rabbit? I’m not going to say it again.

The girl insisted that if that were true, and the spirit really had learned from her mistakes, then she should just let her go! Find someone else, who actually wants all of this!

The spirit began to sink lazily back to the ground, headfirst, like a salted baitfish through glycerin.

In the distance, there was a deep groaning sound, followed by a cracking, and a splintering. The pale, branchless, needle-like trees on the horizon had begun creaking, and toppling, their trunks the last thing to be consumed by the matted expanse of worms.

The spirit snapped her fingers, so as to attract the girl’s attention without touching.

Their eyes met, and with that, the two were face to face. The girl, right side up, and the spirit, hanging upside down, as if from an invisible thread.

The spirit’s expression was almost tender.

I can’t let you go, rabbit. You’ve been without oxygen for several hours. You don’t have an intact enough brain to go back.

The girl was struggling to understand. The spirit could see it in her eyes. She put it more bluntly.

You’ve begun to decay, rabbit.

The gravity of the situation finally began to dawn on the girl. What had once been an idle thought was now cementing itself in her mind as an irrevocable truth. This really was death.

She began to breathe heavily. Her larynx began to ache. No. The girl repeated herself. No no no no no. This couldn’t be happening. She stumbled to her feet. Began pacing.

Listen, the girl said. Listen. She told the spirit she didn’t need a body. Just let her go. She could live with being a ghost.

The spirit shook her head dismissively.

There’s no such thing as ghosts, rabbit… once a soul dissipates, it’s gone.

The girl couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What was the spirit, if not a ghost?

I’m just me, rabbit.

No. No no no no. She pleaded with the spirit. There must be something she could do to fix this! There had to be some way to undo what she had done! Please!

Listen, rabbit. The hocus-pocus it would take to unrot that brain of yours would literally kill me.

In the distance, another tree began to creak, and fall.

Your program is running on my hardware, rabbit.

The spirit tapped her temple knowingly.

So get used to it.

Chapter 5

A cocoon bounced off the girl’s forehead, and tumbled to the ground, disappearing amongst an endless expanse of others exactly like it.

The blood had long run dry, and the worms had coiled tightly, pupating inside a thick, leathery shell of dried mucus. If the girl had been bothered to look around, she might have compared them to beans in an endless silo.

Here and there, one would split at the tip, with a nearly imperceptible click, and a pale, pulsating ptilinum would peek through the crack.

A second cocoon hit the girl’s face, this time bouncing off her cheek. She flinched, causing the dried blood on her skin to flake off, and drift to the ground, like dandruff.

The air smelled of mold. Of mildew. Of dust and must. It bit sharply at the girl’s nose, but she didn’t seem to care.

A third cocoon, and a fourth.

Cat got your tongue, rabbit?

The spirit hung miserably in the air, flicking cocoons in the girl’s direction.

The girl didn’t respond.

You’re stuck here forever, rabbit. The least you could do is try to hold a conversation.

The cocoons continued to split at the tip with a click, creating a quiet cacophony not unlike the desynchronous ticking of a clockmaker’s workshop. The early risers had already wriggled free of their leathery shells. They were soft, and pale, and their legs flailed wildly as they struggled to find their footing.

The spirit twirled a cocoon in her fingertips while she waited, visually tracing the spiraling imprint left behind by the liquefying worm inside.

She touched the cocoon to the tip of a bony, tooth-like cusp, and applied pressure, impaling it. She sneered distastefully, tonguing it back off the cusp, and spat it at the girl.

The cocoon landed in the girl’s hair, and stuck there. She shuddered involuntarily.

A handful of the pale, scrambling dipterids that peppered the ground around her had begun to harden. To blacken. To pump their crumpled wings full of hemolymph, and air them out to dry.

The spirit watched the girl, waiting for her presence to be acknowledged. But the acknowledgment never came.

The spirit cast her remaining fistful of cocoons at the girl.

Why won’t you speak to me, rabbit?!

The cocoons bounced off the girl’s skin, and rattled as they hit the ground.

You couldn’t keep your mouth shut before!

The girl’s lip quivered. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes, and she was trying desperately to prevent their escape.

I’ve been alone in that hole for sixty years, rabbit! Do you have even the slightest idea what that feels like?! Any idea at all?!

The girl’s breathing became unsteady, and agitated. Yet somehow, she found herself unable to muster the energy to move. To speak. To do anything at all.

The spirit kicked a filthy clod of cocoons at the girl. The handful of flies that were capable of flight took to the air with a pitiful buzzing, settling back to the ground only a few feet away.

Look at you! You can’t even bring yourself to look at me! Am I that repulsive to you, rabbit?! Is the prospect of my company so distasteful to you that you’d rather just wither away?!

The girl was crying now. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. The spirit’s screaming had triggered a paralytic panic attack, and the spirit knew it. Yet somehow, the girl’s upset only seemed to provoke the spirit further.

So she continued. She continued until her voice was hoarse, and the ground had turned to a thick carpet of flies. Crawling on the girl’s skin. Buzzing in her ears. Swarming her nostrils to the point where she could barely breathe.

You can hate me all you want, rabbit! It won’t make a difference! Nothing you do will make a difference!

The spirit’s voice was strained, and her chest tight. And although there were no tears in her eyes, she breathed as if she were sobbing.

You’re never leaving me, understand?!

You’re MINE, rabbit!

The spirit quivered with rage. With frustration. She clenched her fists, and screamed at the girl. It was a primal, guttural scream, that caused vast clouds of flies to take to the air in wild murmurations. A droning, thickening darkness that blackened the sky.

It was in this fleeting moment, after the suffocating carpet had lifted, but before the flies had choked out the last glint of light, that their eyes met. Only then did the spirit finally grasp the depth of the girl’s pain. The weight of her suffering.

And then, everything went black.

Chapter 6

I’m sorry.

That’s what the spirit would have said to the girl, if the lump in her throat hadn’t plugged her larynx like a cork.

The swarming flies had long since dispersed, leaving the two of them sitting silently in an endless expanse of bone, as flat and smooth as a pebbled beach tumbled by the tides.

The girl ran her fingertips along the exposed blade of a pelvis, discolored and stained by blood reduced to soil. It had been halfway buried beneath carpals, and tarsals. Maxillae, and mandibles. Scattered teeth and disarticulated fragments of skull. She wondered if perhaps these were her own bones, repeated to infinity.

To the spirit, the girl seemed strangely at peace. A state of mind that the spirit envied, for her head was absolutely swimming. She felt guilt scratching and scraping at the folds of her brain, and regret prickling at its stem. A frightening and unfamiliar sinking feeling in her chest. A deepening awareness of the unforgivability of what she had done.

Again, the spirit tried to force an apology through her aching trachea, but her tongue stoppered her throat, and all that escaped was a pathetic croak.

The girl looked at the spirit a moment, and sighed softly. It was a sigh of quiet acceptance. It seemed foolish now, that she ever expected anything more from this spirit.

In time, the sun began to peer over the horizon, turning the sky from a paper white to a gentle sky blue.

In the warmth of the sunlight, the bones began to whiten imperceptibly. In time, they became old, and dry. Cracked, and weathered. Chalky, and pale.

And all the while, not a single word was spoken.

From between the sun-bleached bones, tender blades of grass began to emerge, reaching desperately toward the sunlight, and rooting themselves deeply into the soil beneath.

The spirit snuck a furtive glance at the girl, her head bowed meekly. The girl was simply sitting there, watching the grass grow.

It was no wonder the girl hated her. After what she had done, she deserved her hate. She had taken the girl’s freedom. Her life. Without hesitation, or thought. There was no redemption for her.

She was selfish. Ghastly. Loathsome and cruel. The fact that she had ever thought highly of herself now filled her with a stomach-churning embarrassment.

She was unworthy of the girl’s love. Of anyone’s love. She was an unsightly stain on creation, and the world would have been a better place had she not been a part of it.

Eventually, the endless expanse of bone became a verdant meadow that rippled in the breeze like ocean waves, though the spirit failed to notice. She simply picked at the grass, unconsciously. Compulsively.

And thought.

Chapter 7

The girl was not breathing.

Her heart no longer beat. Her skin was cool, and pale. Her muscles, rigid. Her amber eyes had sunken in their sockets, and her corneas had become clouded, and tacky. Like those of a discarded fish head left too long in the open air.

This was the body of a person who was unmistakably, unequivocally dead.

The spirit’s sheepskin aviator jacket was still draped over the girl’s shoulders. Her handmade adipocere candles had long burned down to stumps and snuffed themselves out. All that was left to light her burrow were her own luminescent bones.

And although her bones still radiated a diffuse teal light, it was no longer as vivid as it was before. No longer as intense. It was a dim, sickly light.

One of the spirit’s ribs fell from its cage, landing softly on the mulched coffin wood beneath them.

The spirit shivered and twitched. The nictitating membranes that had shuttered her sleeping eyes trembled momentarily. She was deep in the dream. A dream that had long since ceased to be pleasant.

The spirit, in her unconsciousness, only seemed to squeeze the girl tighter, nuzzling her face deeper into the crook of her neck. As if, for the first time, it was the spirit who was succumbing to the cold.

A second rib fell to the ground. The girl’s index finger twitched, nearly imperceptibly.

Chapter 8

The girl inhaled, sharply and suddenly. As if the tip of an icicle had been run up her bare spine. She turned to the spirit, dumbfounded.

“What did you just do?”

The spirit refused to acknowledge the girl’s question. She simply sat there, and continued to pick at the grass. The sun had slowed to a halt in the sky. Its stillness was too subtle for the girl to perceive, but the spirit knew.

“You’ve changed something. What’s going on?”

The spirit assured the girl that she had changed nothing. That she was being paranoid. The sun began to reverse direction. Again, too slowly for the girl to perceive.

The girl watched the spirit closely. She was up to something, and the girl was determined to find out what it was.

The grass began to retract. The girl could sense that something was off, but she struggled to pinpoint exactly what it was. The girl’s frustration grew, and she needled the spirit further.

“What are you playing at? Tell me. Now.”

The spirit snapped at her. She was up to nothing, and the girl should drop it, rabbit.

What seemed like hours passed, without a word spoken. In time, the girl’s suspicions became obvious. The grass was several inches shorter than it had been before. And not only that, it was speeding up.

But the girl said nothing. She simply watched. She watched the spirit, sulking in her little divot in the grass. She watched the sun as it inched back toward the horizon. And she watched the grasses retreat back into their seeds, and ungerminate.

The bones around them began to darken.

“Tell me what’s happening. Please.”

The spirit averted her eyes.

“I deserve to know.”

The spirit asserted that it was rude to look a gift horse in the mouth, rabbit. The girl briefly pondered the spirit’s slight misunderstanding of this phrase, but it was clear the spirit was offering something she considered a gift.

The girl backed off.

The gentle blue sky above them was long gone now, having faded to a stark paper white. The spirit coughed an ectoplasmic mucus from her lungs, and swallowed it back down her translucent esophagus.

“Okay, no. That’s enough. Explain yourself.”

The spirit struggled to suppress her hacking and sputtering. The girl rose to her feet and approached the spirit. She knelt down and began tapping the spirit’s skull repeatedly, forcing her to pay attention.

The spirit screamed at the girl. She screamed that she was trying to undo her mistake, rabbit! That she should be left alone to concentrate!

A string of mucus was hanging from her mouth. She wiped it from her chin and rose into the air, embarrassed. But it wasn’t long before she fell back to the ground with a bony clatter.

She coughed up a thick wad of mucus onto the ground. The girl approached her from behind, and placed a warm palm on the spirit’s shoulder, gently brushing her hair aside.

“How can you possibly undo your mistake? You told me that if you tried to unrot my brain, you would die…”

The spirit looked the girl in the eye, her jaw quivering. She looked as if she were about to cry.

Chapter 9

The air was black, and thick with flies. A ceaseless, thunderous buzzing battered the girl’s eardrums. There was nothing she could do, except wait for it to pass.

Eventually, the clouds of flies began to thin. Enough, at least, for the girl to stand, and attempt to find her bearings. The swarm was still thick enough to stifle her breathing, and her vision was impaired by the flies that fought incessantly to drink from the corners of her eyes. But the girl remained undeterred, swatting them away as best she could manage.

It took time, but the girl eventually found the spirit, sitting silently on a bed of empty, leathery cocoons. She was carpeted with flies. They drank freely from her open eyes. Lapped the phlegm from her mouth, and throat. The girl could see them, scuttling about deep inside the spirit’s trachea. An intrepid few had even wandered into her lungs themselves.

The spirit’s eyes shifted subtly in their sockets, as she sat, and thought. The end of her life was fast approaching, and she was taking the time to process that thought. She could, of course, have turned back at any time. And yet, for reasons she was still struggling to comprehend, she didn’t.

Was this really what she wanted?

“Is this really what you want?”

The girl’s voice snapped the spirit gently from her stupor. She was suddenly acutely aware of the insects in her chest, and began coughing violently, spewing clouds of flies into the air, followed by another thick, gelatinous wad of mucus.

She attempted to wipe the mucus from her chin using the sleeve of her jacket, with little success.

“You don’t have to go through with this, you know.”

The spirit insisted that yes, rabbit, she did have to go through with this. There was an audible irritation in her voice. A deliberate and precise articulation clearly intended to dissuade the girl from questioning her further.

The flies in the air around them began to fall to the ground, one by one, as their wings softened, and their bodies paled.

“You don’t. Not for me. I can stay here, if I need to. I’ll find a way to manage. Neither of us has to die.”

The spirit reminded the girl that she was already long dead, and rotting in a hole. She had killed her herself, rabbit.

The girl gave the spirit a withering look. That was not what she had meant, and the spirit knew it.

The spirit grinned smugly at the girl. It was a grin meant to taunt. To antagonize. But it was clear that it was masking an intense frustration.

The fact that the girl was willing to throw away her life for her sake was infuriating to the spirit. Somewhere along the line, this girl had got it in her head that her life, and that of the spirit’s, were of equal worth.

She was wrong.

The girl had a full life ahead of her, and she deserved every minute of it. She deserved the love, the hate, the pleasure and the pain. Everything that life had to offer, was hers to experience.

The spirit, though? There was nothing left for her in this world. The time she had spent with the girl had made that fact crystal clear. She had nothing, and deserved nothing.

The flies were dropping, as the colloquialism goes, like flies. Feverishly squeezing their soft, pale bodies back into their cocoons, which snapped shut around them as if they had never split in the first place.

The girl sat among the clicking cocoons, thinking quietly to herself. A very particular thought crossed her mind, and she looked to the spirit.

“You’re the only one, aren’t you?”

The spirit’s neck turned as if on a swivel, and she glared cautiously at the girl.

“You’re the only one of your kind.”

The spirit retorted, rather curtly, that perhaps that was for the best, rabbit. The girl insisted otherwise.

“No. I can’t sit back and let the last of anything die. I refuse to have that on my conscience.”

The girl approached the spirit, and placed a palm on her shoulder. The spirit recoiled from her touch.

“You’re a tiger. A predator. Even if someone dies, you don’t kill the last tiger for doing what comes naturally.”

The spirit became even angrier. A tiger? She wasn’t a tiger, rabbit! She was lonely, and selfish, and stupid! What she is doesn’t excuse what she’s done!

She clutched a fistful of cocoons so tightly they burst, and threw them in the girl’s face. She began to rise into the air, screaming every vicious insult she could muster. The girl was an idiot! An imbecile! A simpleton and a fool!

The girl scrambled backward, before clambering to her feet and retreating into the distance. She heard the spirit hacking, and choking, and the rattling of cocoons as she fell back to the ground.

By the time the girl turned around, the spirit was doubled over on the ground, wheezing, and gasping for air.

The girl simply stood there, watching the spirit struggle.

Eventually she took a seat.

Perhaps she should let the spirit die. As far as the girl could tell, it might be her only chance to do so.

The spirit had told the girl that she had been alone in her burrow for sixty years. So she was at least that old. Probably much older. She wondered if perhaps, once a person reaches that age, it feels like enough?

The spirit had also told the girl that she would be, quote: stuck here forever, rabbit. To the girl, forever seemed like a very long time to live. Too long, to be honest. For a person or a spirit.

Maybe this was for the best.

The last fly clicked back into its cocoon, and the world went utterly still, and utterly silent. The only remaining stimulus of note was the musty, fungal smell left in the wake of decay.

So the girl sat.

And waited.

Chapter 10

The girl stared absentmindedly at the skyline, where wine-red worms touched paper-white sky. She watched as the branchless trunk of an ancient cedar rose from the lake. It rose slowly, like a buoy lifted by an incoming tide.

With time, the tree stood upright, and reattached itself to its stump with an unsplintering, an uncreaking, and an uncracking.

The girl had never heard anything uncrack before, but now that she had, she knew immediately that it wasn’t a sound she’d be able to describe to anyone.

Not that any of this was something she was planning to talk about, once this ordeal was over. She’d witnessed an impossible event, and she knew better than to relay the impossible.

All she would be able to do is forget this ever happened. A task easier said than done, of course, but at the very least, the notion was comforting.

A second tree unsplintered. Uncreaked, and uncracked.

The spirit’s sickness was worsening. Her once drifting, ethereal hair was now knotted and tangled, clinging to her semi-corporeal skin like wet gauze, and her shimmering, concave retinas had become clouded with a sickly bacterial film.

The spirit’s body was not the only thing that had fallen ill. Her mind was sick as well. Sick with doubt. Sick with guilt. Sick with fear. The finality of death, once unfamiliar, was beginning to dawn on her, and she was scared.

In the distance, the trees continued to unsplinter, and uncreak, and uncrack. One by one, like the ticking of a clock.

There was a numbness in the spirit’s fingertips. She could feel her heart fluttering, a tightness in her throat, and an aching in her chest, caused not by the flies that had wandered too deeply into her lungs and passed away, but by a stagnant and suffocating dread.

A tree cracked, and creaked. Splintered and fell. The girl snapped to attention. These were sounds she recognized. But despite their familiarity, she was not happy to hear them. The trees were supposed to be uncracking. Uncreaking. This break in the pattern was, frankly, alarming.

She swiveled to face the spirit.

“What are you doing?”

The spirit didn’t answer. Instead, her breathing became rapid, and shallow. Like a mouse with its pelvis caught in a rat trap.

“Don’t play coy. Tell me what’s going on. Now.”

The spirit began to shake her head. Whisper nonsense into her own ears. Anything to drown out the sharpness in the girl’s voice.

The girl rose impatiently to her feet.

“You promised you’d put me back in my own head! What’s with the backpedaling? Are you toying with me?!”

The girl could hear the spirit’s pitiful whimpering. The way she chattered her jaw, like some sort of idiot toucan.

“You’ve decided to keep me prisoner after all? Is that it? You’ve decided to make me your little pet?!”

The girl cocked a middle finger against a stiffened thumb and struck the spirit between her sickly, half-blind eyes with an audible thwack.

“Hey! Answer me, dipsh—!”

The spirit shrieked at the girl. She’s scared, rabbit!

The girl’s aggression withered in an instant.

“What?”

She’s frightened, rabbit! She’s afraid to die!

The spirit’s words hit like a battering ram to the chest. The girl felt a hot wave of guilt wash over her. A surge of embarrassment and shame so searing that she feared the blood flushing her cheeks might cauterize her veins.

The girl began to tremble. Her fists balled, and her lips pursed tight as a thumbscrew. She felt her eyes welling, and her neck bristling, as her emotions wrestled violently with one another.

She growled in frustration. Swiveled around and stormed off. But of course, there was nowhere to hide. She kicked at the sludge beneath her feet, swore fiercely, and fell to her knees.

She braced an elbow against a knee. Her forehead against a thumb and forefinger. She could smell the coppery stink on her skin, and feel the worms dissolving back into coagulated blood and seeping through her knitted leggings.

She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her turtleneck sweater. In the distance, she heard another tree creak, and splinter, and fall.

The spirit was panicking inside. Her eyes darted about as she struggled to think, and she didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. They floundered aimlessly, seeking to grasp at something that simply wasn’t there. Eventually they stumbled upon her mouth, and her breath hissed between her quivering fingers.

Another tree began to creak. The spirit reached out toward it. As if her subconscious mind thought she might be able to tip it back upright, if only she could reach it.

It crashed into the lake.

As the approaching ripples lapped at her shins, the spirit began sobbing. Apologizing tearfully. Profusely. She was so sorry. She was trying, rabbit. She swore she was trying.

The girl buried her face in her knees. Pressed her wrists to her ears. Anything to muffle the spirit’s mournful cries. She was trying, rabbit. She was trying…

“I KNOW you’re trying! I’M SORRY!”

The spirit went quiet, her breath trembling. The girl swiveled to face her, tears streaming down her cheeks. She stared into the spirit’s clouded, sickly eyes.

“I’m sorry…”

The spirit’s jaw began to quiver. She wrapped her spindly fingers around her face, and began to cry.

The girl rose to her feet. She approached the spirit. Took a seat alongside her. And in an act that surprised even herself, she placed her head gently on the spirit’s shoulder.

In time, the coagulated blood began to thin, like oil paint in turpentine. Gradually settling back into a shimmering, mirror-like surface. In the distance, the trunk of an ancient cedar rose from the lake. Stood upright. Unsplintered. Uncreaked. And uncracked.

Chapter 11

The girl sat silently. She stared uneasily at the spirit, lying lifeless in a pool of blood. Her bones no longer luminesced with a diffuse teal light. Her lungs no longer drew breath. Her heart no longer beat.

The spirit was gone.

The girl couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in her gut. The spirit had done this for her. She didn’t like that thought. That the stinking carcass before her was an act of love. She still wasn’t entirely sure she was worth it.

But what was done was done. There was no turning back now. However, as the girl continued to stare, she began to doubt whether there was still a moving forward.

Surely, something was supposed to have happened by now?

The spirit’s mouth hung open like that of a spent salmon, washed up dead on the riverbank after a spawn. Her once ethereal flesh was now sickeningly tangible, and her matted hair clung to it like withered algae to a seaside stone.

The girl could barely bring herself to look the spirit in the eye, although there were no longer eyes to look into. The rot had long since taken them, and where once there had been shimmering teals and golds, there were simply empty pits lined with decaying silverskin.

The girl began to fear that the spirit had not completed the task she had set out to do. Was it possible that the spirit had fallen short of her goal? That her sacrifice had been wasted?

The girl was struggling to shake the awful notion that she might be stuck in this place forever. That at this very moment, her brain was being reclaimed by decay. Its circuitry undone, for a second and final time.

The girl continued to stare at the spirit’s body. Its empty eyes. Its slackened jaw. Her lip began to tremble. Despite her better judgment, the girl was mourning the spirit.

The spirit had truly loved the girl, in her own terrible, misguided way. The proof was lying right in front of her, in an endless pool of blood. And even if that love had remained forever unreciprocated, the girl would have preferred to spend an eternity with someone who loved her, than an eternity alone.

The girl reached out to touch the spirit, but hesitated, just for a moment. Despite her fascinations, she had never encountered death so directly before. At least, not that of a person. She worried that her instinct to touch might not be appropriate.

Yet she did it regardless, touching her fingertips to the crook of the spirit’s neck.

The spirit’s corpse convulsed, like the salted flank of a freshly butchered cod. She gasped for air, but drew no breath.

The girl drew back, startled. She gawked at the spirit, lying limp in blood. As if she were a fish in the bottom of an aluminum boat, trying in vain to flush its gills with water.

The girl watched the spirit struggle soundlessly. Too weary to move. Too ragged to breathe. This was a being teetering between life and death.

The girl approached the spirit cautiously. It was clear to her that the spirit was unaware of her drawing near. How could she have been, with her eyes claimed by decay? For all the spirit knew, she was alone in this place. And despite her vacuous, dead-eyed stare, the girl could tell the spirit was frightened.

“Can you hear me?”

She spoke softly, and calmly.

“Hey, hey. Listen to my voice.”

The spirit twitched in response.

“How are you feeling?”

The spirit flexed her jaw as if she were attempting to form words, but to no avail. Her larynx had long since been reduced to tatters.

The girl couldn’t bear to see the spirit lying in blood.

“I’m going to touch you. Is that okay?”

The spirit’s rib cage expanded breathlessly. The girl reached out and gingerly touched her shoulder. Her mandible chattered.

“You okay?”

The spirit acknowledged the girl’s question with a barely perceptible nod.

The girl took hold of the spirit by the shoulders, and hoisted her upright. The spirit’s entrails spilled from her abdomen, followed by kidneys, liver, heart, and lungs.

Somehow, this didn’t seem to faze the girl. She took a seat across from the spirit, knee to knee, and touched the spirit’s forehead to her own.

The spirit began to shiver.

“Hey, hey. Listen to me. I’m here.”

The girl spoke softly, as if to a frightened child.

“It’s okay. You’re okay.”

A fragile silence.

“Oh hey, I just realized. I don’t think we were ever properly introduced.”

The spirit’s face twitched erratically. She seemed confused.

“My name’s Wren. Wren Barrows.”

The spirit’s twitching ceased.

“What’s yours?”

The spirit yawned widely, her jaw distending as if she were a sculpin on a fishhook. The girl coaxed it shut with a gentle finger to the spirit’s chin.

“I’m guessing no one ever gave you one, am I right?”

The spirit’s head quivered back and forth, ever so slightly.

“Would you like me to give you one?”

The spirit’s rib cage expanded, despite there being no lungs with which to inhale. The girl closed her eyes, and took a thoughtful breath.

A moment passed before she opened them again.

“How about Adrienne?”

Something stirred within the spirit. The girl could feel it.

“Adrienne Thistle. How does that sound?”

The spirit smiled weakly. One half of her mandible sloughed off and fell to the ground with a wet clap.

“I think Thistle’s a good name. You want to know why?”

The spirit awaited the girl’s answer with bated breath.

“Because you’re a pain in the ass.”

The spirit’s rib cage began to spasm rhythmically. She was laughing. The girl couldn’t help but crack a cheeky smile.

It wasn’t long before the spirit’s laughter deteriorated into heartbroken sobbing. The girl was swift to comfort the spirit. She placed a hand atop the spirit’s head, softly stroking her tangled, withered hair. The spirit tightened her grip on the girl.

The girl quietly returned the gesture.

Eventually, the spirit loosened her grip, and her arms fell weakly to her sides.

The girl let go of the spirit, hesitantly. Poised to catch her should she happen to fall. But the spirit did not fall. She simply sat there, quietly breathing nothing.

The girl stared at the spirit, with an expression of genuine concern. She had a thought, and nearly spoke it aloud… but fell silent when the spirit rolled up a sleeve and plunged her open hand deep into the marshy substrate beneath the lake.

She began pulling. Struggling to uproot whatever it was she had wrapped her spindly fingers around. When her progress slowed, she began to tug, repeatedly. Again and again, until her tugging became yanking, and her yanking became wrenching, and the girl began to fear that the spirit might literally tear herself apart.

The girl reached out as if to stop the spirit. To plead with her to take it easy. But the moment she did, her sketchbook came unbuckled from the muck and the spirit collapsed to the ground.

The girl stared a moment at the sketchbook in the spirit’s hand. And then, at the spirit herself. She was breathing heavily, although at this point it was more out of instinct than function. The girl found herself at a loss. She didn’t know what to say, or how to proceed.

The spirit began to lift herself from the blood, her hair hanging like a starched curtain around her decaying face. The strain she was exerting upon her increasingly fragile body was, to the girl, distressingly clear.

Again, she found herself reaching out to help the spirit. To keep her tendons from snapping, and her joints from dislocating. But there was a hesitation in her movements, as if she feared her fingers might cleave the spirit’s flesh like wet clay.

By the time the girl had composed her thoughts, the spirit was already sitting upright. The girl retracted her arm sheepishly, and felt a twinge of guilt nip the nerves along her spine.

The spirit placed the sketchbook in the girl’s hands. Her struggle was so pronounced that, to the girl, the book appeared unthinkably heavy. But of course, once it was in her hands, it was revealed to be no heavier than one might expect.

The girl stared at the book. The binding was tattered and frayed, as if it had been exposed to the elements for years, and its blood-saturated pages had become so delicate that they would have torn each other apart had she opened it.

The girl held the book tight to her chest. There was a profound sadness in her eyes, as she watched the spirit’s tactile fingertips probe the lake’s surface, searching blindly for any sign of the girl’s presence.

The girl took the spirit by the hand. First her left hand, and then her right. She held them tight. The spirit chattered what little was left of her jaw.

The spirit traced her fingers along the girl’s arms, and placed a hand upon each of her shoulders. With a remarkable tenderness, the spirit leaned in close, and touched the girl’s forehead to her own.

The girl peered sadly into the spirit’s hollow, empty eyes. Her breath quivered softly. She touched her fingertips to her lips. She nearly touched them to the spirit’s as well… but she stopped short, and her fingers curled.

The spirit arched her back. Braced her shoulders. And without warning, plunged the girl deep beneath the blood.

Chapter 12

The girl awoke.

She tried to draw breath, but her ribs were locked. An attempt to flex her fingers revealed they were rigid, and unfeeling. When she went to open her eyes, they steadfastly refused. And where she expected to feel the anxious beating of her heart, she instead felt nothing.

Although the girl’s mind was beginning to stir, her body was still cold, stiff, and dead.

With each thought that passed through the girls head, a modicum of oxygen was burned, and her brain sunk deeper into a desperate suffocation. An unbearable hypoxia, accompanied by an intense and overwhelming urge to breathe.

Finally, the girl’s lungs began to expand, drawing a sickly, rattling breath. And with that breath came a thump, thump, thump in her chest, as thick and stagnant blood began to pulse through her veins.

The girl opened her eyes, but saw nothing. Either she was shrouded in a near complete darkness, or her retinas had yet to regain their function. Although the girl could not have known it, both of these conclusions were true.

Slowly, the feeling began to return to her fingertips. At first, all she could feel were pins and needles. Prickles and stings. To most, an unpleasant sensation, but to the girl, a welcome relief.

With a repeated and conscious effort, the girl began to flex her slumbering fingers. Through the numbness, she could feel the zipper of the sheepskin jacket that hung over her shoulders. It was a jacket she had forgotten was there. The moment of her death felt so distant now, it had slipped her mind.

The girl extended a stiff, waxen arm to the ground. She felt damp mulch. Rusty nails. And loose bones.

Finally, an unobstructed breath. A gasp, spurred by a sharp and sudden realization: These were the spirit’s bones. She attempted to retract her hand, but was met with a distressing resistance.

With time, the girl’s body began to warm. Warmth was an almost unfamiliar sensation, at this point. It massaged her stiffened muscles, loosening them gradually. Dissolving their tension, until they could no longer support the girl’s frame, and she collapsed to the ground.

And there she remained, for quite some time. Not because she was incapable of rising. She was, within minutes. But simply to rest. To recover.

With newfound warmth, came the sensation of cold. The girl slipped her arms through the sleeves of the spirit’s jacket, and bundled herself tightly within its old and yellowed fleece.

What felt like an hour passed.

The girl extended a hand, and began a cautious and tactile exploration of her surroundings. Immediately, she felt something familiar. Her sketchbook. She picked it up and held it close. It wasn’t weathered, or soaked with blood. As far as her fingertips could surmise, it was just as she remembered it.

The girl explored further. She felt waxen stumps, and burnt-out wicks. Fist-width tunnels dug from loamy soil. Thin, delicate roots that hung from the ceiling. And eventually, the burrow’s entrance.

She ran her hands along its perimeter, measuring it carefully. To her, it seemed frightfully narrow. A nervousness tickled the back of her neck. But of course, she had no choice in the matter.

The girl took one last look over her shoulder. It was not an act of logic, but of instinct. In the darkness of the burrow, there was nothing to see.

But the girl did see something. An atlas, glowing with a faint teal light. A glow so faint that in the light of day, it would have been imperceptible.

The girl paused, and stared silently at the bone. A dull, dusty little vertebra that had once cradled the spirit’s skull. Her eyes shifted subtly. To the floor. To the tunnel. Then back to the bone. A moment passed.

Quietly, the girl plucked the atlas from between axis and occipital, and slipped it into her pocket.

Chapter 13

The girl emerged from the hole on a bright autumn morning. The sky was a pale and delicate blue, and the breeze carried with it an invigorating chill. The cemetery was empty, as it nearly always was. She was thankful for that.

The girl took a moment to assess herself. She seemed healthy. Intact. Perhaps a little tired. She had a sketchbook in her hand. A jacket on her back. A bone in her pocket. She felt as if perhaps she were a different person than she had been before, but there’d be time to evaluate those feelings later.

She felt a little jolt upon hearing the sound of an SUV arriving in the parking lot over the hill, and of indistinct conversation as its doors slammed shut. After taking a moment to compose herself, she shuffled off toward the bike rack near the cemetery’s entrance.

The girl fiddled with the dials on her bike lock, and entered a four-digit code: The date she had buried a pet mouse she’d had as a child. She hopped atop her bike, and rode home.

The girl had been missing for nearly seventy-two hours. It wasn’t long enough for someone to have filed a missing person report. After all, the girl was an adult, though she rarely felt that way. But it was long enough for loved ones to worry, and despite the girl’s loneliness, she did have a handful of loved ones.

She made excuses. Told them that it was no big deal. That the jacket on her back had been found in a ditch, and justified its retrieval with a price check online. Indeed, the price of such a jacket was considerable.

In the days, and months, and years that followed, the girl often left peculiar happenings in her wake. By the time they were noticed, the girl always had an explanation at the ready. Never a truthful one, but always a plausible one. Either that, or she had already slipped away, unseen.

No one ever discovered the atlas the girl carried in her pocket, despite it being on her person at all times. Occasionally, she would wonder if she might be able to pass it off as the bone of an animal, should it come to that. But the girl was clever enough that it never did.

Whatever it was the girl was hiding, it remained a secret to anyone but herself. She had decided long ago that no one would ever know. That no one needed to know. And indeed, no one ever did. Not family. Not friends. Not you, or I.

And in the end, the girl was content with that. Her choices were her own. Perhaps she had made the right choice. Perhaps she should have known better. But one thing can be said for certain:

She was never lonely.

[with-love-from-hell]

Head-Empty Headcanons

Things they say, think, and do that prove they are a bit air-headed. 

Genre: Headcanons, Comedy

Characters featured: All Obey Me! Characters (yes, even the new ones!)

Whenever Mc is mentioned its unrelated to their gender!

CW: swearing!

A/N: The brain rot is real this morning, and I haven’t done anything super silly in awhile, so here!

Belphegor

The weirdest shit always comes out of his mouth when he’s half awake. 

Will ask the most ridiculous questions when he’s in between naps or when he’s just woken up because his brain is on autopilot, like along the lines of “Do you think pigeons have feelings?” 

Does not look when he crosses the street.

Will literally ask what you said after being annoyed that you asked if he was listening. 

Has drank water while laying down and choked himself. 

Beelzebub

3 balls bopping around his head at all times are Food, Workout, and MC like a game of Pong

Blinks one eye at a time. It’s subtle but he totally does it. 

Has eaten the fortune out of a fortune cookie because he thought that was part of the process of making the fortune come true. 

When told by MC he had to rinse rice before cooking it he asked if he needed to use soap. 

Has eaten whole, raw, potatoes because he thought it would give him protein like eating raw eggs would. 

Asmodeus

He’s pretty; he doesn’t have to be smart.

Once stared frustratingly in the mirror for 15 minutes trying to figure out why the phrase written on his shirt was backwards. 

The first time he dyed his hair, he got mad that it didn’t grow the same color out of his scalp.

Forgets that he owns something and will by numerous duplicates. 

1000% has fallen for MLM scams

Satan

No thought only cat.

You need to watch him like a toddler if you take him to the zoo. He will try to jump into every big cat enclosure. 

Has started fires in his room multiple times because he put candles on top of his books (Seriously dude your room is a fire hazard) but is still clueless as to how it happened.

The first time he saw a racoon he thought it was a rare breed of cat and tried to snuggle it.

Leviathan

Somebody take his screens away. 

Has 100% tried to “Back Space” words when writing physically with pen and paper.

More than once has screamed at a game system for not working when he had just not realized that it was unplugged.

Has definitely run into walls after sitting 2 feet away from his giant TV like a 3 year old. 

Has completely ignored and walked away from people because he is too busy creating a theme music for himself as he’s doing something that he perceives as cool.

Mammon

I think I could never run of ideas for how airheaded this man is, but I’ll go for the abstract ones since there are many that are obvious.

One of those dudes who thinks pee comes out of the vagina. 

Definitely goes down existential rabbit holes because of questions like “Is cereal a soup” or “is a hotdog a sandwich”

Will literally believe anything you tell him if you say it with enough sincerity- even if it’s the most ridiculous thing you could think of. 

100% believes that horror movies like Friday the 13th are based on true events and is convinced that most humans die by serial killers

Lucifer

This man has absolutely done the dumbest shit when he is sleep deprived. 

Will lose things that he is holding in his hands as he’s using them- often it’s his pen or his phone. 

has drank scalding hot coffee because he forgot it was too hot to drink. 

Leaves things in the oven and microwave all the time. Usually Beel finds it and eats it, and he’s none the wiser.

Talks to himself all the time, usually giving reminders to do things or a grocery list, but also will just narrate things. 

 Literally a Golden Retriever.

Diavolo

Holds up his his fingers in an L shape to determine right from left- which never works because he forgets which way an L is supposed to go. 

Will believe pretty much anything you tell him about the human world if you say it with enough conviction.

Constantly doing the most ridiculous things without thinking of the consequences- often times leaving Lucifer or Barbatos to clean up his mess. 

Constantly bothers Mc, Lucifer, and Barbatos when they’re busy- even after just being scolded for being a distraction- because he forgets that they’re doing something and wanted to show them something cool

Barbatos

He’s probably the least ditzy, but even he has his moments.

Walks into the kitchen and forgets why he was going in there. All the time. 

Accidentally goes through all of the Little D’s names before getting the right one- even if he had JUST done the same thing for a different little D

Will step out the door to go somewhere with Lord Diavolo and immediately wonder if he left the Stove on. He will go check, and still wonder if it’s on 5 hours later. 

Mephistopheles

Simp! Simp alert!

Will do anything you tell him if you said “Well, I guess I could go ask Lucifer to do it...” even if its embarrassing or flat-out dangerous lol

Diavolo occupies his brain at all times so he’s often distracted by intense pining for their “friendship” that was totally not a one-way crush. (go listen to “When Somebody Loved Me” from Toy Story 2 lol)

One of those “Um AcTUaLly” bros who is always wrong about the thing they’re correcting you on to an absurd degree. 

Somebody go teach grandpa how to use a computer. 

Simeon

Has definitely given his computer a virus by clicking a popup ad, and also fell for the “Nigerian Prince” emails

“Do you think someone would just go on the internet and tell lies?” 

No seriously he will see some wild conspiracy on Devilgram or Devilbook and be convinced it is real. Lord help him. 

Definitely thinks Boomer memes are funny. Send him a minion, he will laugh his ass off. 

Raphael

Elevator music playing in his brain at all times.

Immediately choses violence as an option every time no matter the circumstances and this is quite literally CANON.

Is always the last to know some secret that isn’t really a secret and is really obvious. 

Will test the sharpness of his spears by jamming them into the ground, and then get mad when he cant yank them back up. 

Luke

Just a poor child trying his best. Someone teach him. 

Probably didn’t know what a chihuahua was when someone first compared him to one but was too embarrassed to admit he didn’t know so he just like. Went with it. Until he found out they are a tiny yippy dog- then he got angy. 

Absolutely believes that babies come from the Stork. 

Thought the “PG” movie rating meant “Pretty Good.”

Solomon

His cooking cant be that bad...can it?

Will throw quite literally anything into a pot when cooking, even if it doesn’t make sense to do so, because he likes to “experiment” 

The first time he sees a fidget spinner he loses his fucking mind. “What is this? It’s spinning! I am in pure bliss!”

Has definitely blown up a classroom at RAD because he snuck in a potion to test out and accidentally dropped it.

Has definitely said some really outdated cringy slang. “Tubular!” “Oh man, so grody!” 

Thirteen

Conspiracy theorist- for sure.

Didn’t believe that Belphie and Beel were twins because they didn’t look alike (she did not know fraternal twins were a thing).

Is convinced that Solomon is an alien. 

Mispronounces words all the time because she rarely talks to others until the exchange program and primarily sees things written (e.g. Fragile as “Fra-gee-lay” and Bologna as “Bow-log-nah”)

Does not test her traps before using them, and gets mad when they don’t work.

[dollyyyhouse]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐦𝐩 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

An AU where the demons involved in the exchange student program have always plotted to sacrifice the humans in the program.

This is an edit! I'm adding some content warning because I originally forgot to add some :}

CW: Mentions and descriptions of violence, mostly a horror AU!

Poor sleep habits were common, nothing unusual for people like yourself, but ever since your arrival in the Devildom; sleeping peacefully seemed like a thing of the past. You began to toss and turn in your sleep, night terrors of violent scenes, all of which involved YOU playing the poor and helpless victim flooded your dreams, and those few seconds you faded in and out of sleep— you could hear ghastly cries for help to YOU and ineligible mumbling in your ear. Perhaps it was your mind playing tricks on you?

No. You swore it wasn't, the Avatars of Hell even explained the story behind the House of Lamentation. The macabre and brutal murders that took place and how poltergeist roamed the halls in search of either revenge or rest— for all you knew, you might have stood in the exact same place as a victim during the attacks! Were the same entities that had died in the murders the ones whispering and crying out for help to you?

Some nights, all you could do was helplessly lay in your bed, praying for a sun that would never come out. Oh, how you wished to see the light of day during those lonely nights. All you could do was find beauty in the little things; and that's exactly what you did.

One evening, you confided in the second eldest brother, Mammon, about your fears of living in the house, along with your night terrors. "Huh? What are ya' yapping about, human?" Mammon looked at you in a funny way, as if you were some weirdo. "Uh, well, I don't know," you let out an awkward laugh, "I guess it's just my imagination that's making me feel uneasy. You did explain that all sorts of ghost and ghouls exist in the Devildom." The demon laughed, "Aha! The Great Mammon is always right!"

"I told ya', stop freaking out over no big deal, not like anything can hurt you with me watchin' over ya'!" Mammon slung his arm over your shoulder, keeping you close, almost too close. It was like he always wanted to have power over you. Even if he didn't boast about it outright— Mammon, along with all of his brothers and the others involved in the exchange student program, were one step ahead of you. "Those dumb little ghost can't do anything. All they do is whine and groan about the past, just don't talk to them. " Little by little, you tuned Mammon out. You originally didn't mean to, you had just fallen down a rabbit hole of thoughts. When you realized he was still complaining about 'this' and 'that', you just grew tired of listening to the greedy man speak.

You parted ways from the demon, using the excuse of wanting to wash up and have some alone time in the bathroom. Truth be told, Mammon's words didn't soothe you at all. His statement about how the ghost only ever "complain about the past" struck a nerve with you, how could they not? Majority of them died pitiful deaths and were cursed to roam a house with a tainted reputation.

So, here you were. Fresh out of the bath, brushing your teeth and planning on heading to bed soon after. You spit out the left over toothpaste, glancing at your reflection in the foggy mirror before looking down into the sink, you resumed brushing, catching another glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You spit again, in the upper corner of your eye, you see a young girl in a tattered and bloody nightgown, you go to grab a cup — wait what?

Flipping around, you see no one. "Holy shit.. I need to get a grip of myself!" You mumble. Turning back to the mirror, a message appeared to form in the foggy and damp mirror. "Run." You weren't sure if that was the message intended, the writing looked as if a child had written it in a rush. Deep down, you prayed it was just a young poltergeist playing tricks on you, maybe the kid had eavesdropped on your conversation with Mammon?

You discarded your towels on the bathroom counter, hurrying over to your closet to dig for pajamas before someone saw you naked. Once you grabbed a nightgown, you quickly threw it on and jumped into bed— hoping that you could fall asleep before the monsters came out to play.

It truly seemed like everyone and everything around you was always one step ahead of you. When you shifted in your bed, you were met with a pair of eyes only displaying a mortified expression. When you blinked, they were gone. Retreating under the blanket, you curled up and made sure the blanket was properly tucked underneath you and that not even a toe would be seen; only allowing a small pocket of air for your nose. "I feel too much like a scared child right now, damn it, it's so stuffy underneath this stupid blanket!" Shutting your eyes, a pout formed on your lips and your brows furrowed.

The security of the blanket seemed to help you, because just a few moments later, you were slowly falling into sleep, but conscious enough that even a creak of a door would alert you. Usually the night terrors would wait until you were in a deep sleep to begin; but this time they begun early.

Your thoughts were hazy, you could barely keep up with the dialogue running through your dream, but familiar figures lurked throughout the dream.

"Stop this! Please! I thought I could trust you!" Those words fell from your lips, only to fall upon deaf ears. Your body moved on it's own, as much as it possibly could with the ropes holding your body into the shape of a star. "Barbatos, is everyone ready to begin our precious exchange student's graduation ceremony?" A grand voice spoke, the owner of the voice was all too familiar, along with the name he mentioned. Nothing made sense, but neither did the 8 other hooded figures surrounding you. All of the demons began to chant an unknowing curse, the man who spoke first stood beside you, wielding a large knife. "No, no, no, no, no! Stop, I did everything I was supposed to! I thought you were meant to keep the human exchange student alive no matter what!—" In a swift motion, the tall figure stabbed you in the chest, twisting and forming a shape in your lower chest to upper gut.

And just like that, you woke up and recollected all the other scenes in your night terrors. All had similar dialogue and the same hooded figures, almost everything was the exact same, besides a few scenes where your restraints broke loose due to "your" thrashing. The nightmares weren't of you, instead, you were only a replacement for the past exchange student who suffered a fate you were soon also going to suffer.

The poltergeist around you were only trying to warn you. The demons you thought of as friends were the hooded figures of the dreams! How could you be so stupid to trust a demon, let alone 9 demons?! Your heart race increased, it seemed like at any moment your heart would just bounce out of your chest and run away!

It all made sense, the highest ranking demons of Devildom were always PLENTY of steps ahead of you. You didn't know when, but soon, you were going to be betrayed and slaughtered.

[questionsforjamie]

I went down a silly, goofy horror movie rabbit-hole the other night to reset myself after Homecoming and have fallen in love with the Blair Witch sequel, Book of Shadows. Oh, golly, it's a bad movie and I'm obsessed. I can feel the hyperfixation setting in and I am unable to stop it! So, basically, if anyone is up for a movie night where we watch Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 - let me know! I'll bring popcorn!

[kookieswan]

Red Light - Star Crossed Lovers

Nightmare!Hoseok x Psychologist!Reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Genre: Horror AU, Monster AU, Psychological horror, lots of Angst but there’s some Fluff tossed in.

Warnings: OOOOOF. Talk of major character death, mentions of killing/stabbing. Blood/gore. Mental trauma. It should be noted that this story will contain themes of horror/psychological horror and also explore obsessive behaviors and codependency. Many characters are morally gray. Please be warned!

Summary: Hoseok tries his best to answer your questions (and console you) as you attempt to climb out of the rabbit hole.

Notes: This takes place the day after Silent Smile and will have a ‘prequel’ so to say! Buckle the fuck up homies because we’re going on a wild ride ✨

This is Part 34 of the Red Light series. Find the Masterlist here ♥️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I have so many questions…” You stumble into Hoseok’s room, the man already standing at the wall of his cell. He looks at you with wide black eyes, a full on grin on his face as you nearly face plant. You take your white coat off, tossing it to the side before plopping down on the chair directly in front of him.

“And I have answers; I’m ready and willing to discuss anything you have to ask about dearest. I will not hide from you, especially after yesterdays happenings; your thoughts have been very loud.” You squint at him, finally noting that he’s on full display. His jumpsuit is hanging off his hips, his undershirt completely gone and leaving his bare chest on show. Dark wings flex behind him, the cracking a comfort.

“I think it’s time for me to dig a little deeper into my patients history, if that’s alright with you. I want to know more.” You thought about it all night long, not being able to sleep in the slightest. You probably look fully unhinged, dark circles under your eyes, clothes rumpled ever so slightly as Jungkook’s words ring throughout your head. If Hoseok noticed, he doesn’t say a word.

“About…?” He leaves it hanging in the air, and you can’t decide it it’s sweet or not. You know that he knows, and so you stare at him for a second, your face less than enthused.

“You already know.” The Nightmare actually laughs then, a small chuckle that makes the tension melt just a little. He tilts his head, leaning properly against the wall separating you now. You try to ignore the way his jumpsuit dips down on his hips just a bit more, the skin peaking and beckoning.

“I do, but it would be terribly rude of me to just assume everything that might come out of your pretty mouth, no?” Blinking at him owlishly, you suppose… That he’s right. Just because he can hear your thoughts doesn’t mean he can assume that you want to act on everything that runs through your head. You’re lucky he’s being so patient while your mind remains in crumbles.

Sitting back in your chair, you kiss your teeth lightly, a thoughtful look on your face. You’ll just have to say it then, just be blunt, because it’s the only way you’ll make any progress. Hoseok waits patiently, wings stretching and retracting as he breathes deeply.

“… I want to know more about Nightmares in general but also I just want to know more about you Hoseok. I know it’s a lot to ask and it can be less than pleasant to relive certain things but-” Cutting yourself off, you look at him pleadingly. He blinks once then nods, not seeming completely turned off by the idea. However, his voice does come out slightly guarded.

“You’re sure? Truthfully, I’m concerned about how you might feel after learning about my history. I will give you answers of course, I just want to make sure that you really want them.” It’s sweet, he’s sweet; he’s trying to protect you even now. Even when you’ve fallen this deep down the rabbit hole. Giving him a small smile, you try not to reveal how terribly endeared you are by the scary Nightmare man.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel, it matters how you feel. As your psychologist, and as your- your lover, it’s important that I listen to anything you wish to share. But please, only share what you want to darling.” Lover must have been a good choice, it’s easy to see just how much Hoseok’s smile grows after you say it, but then it goes bashful at the mention of darling. He hums quietly to himself, tilting back to look at the ceiling.

“… I became a Nightmare a long time ago. I trust my very intelligent Doctor has a theory as to how this may have occurred?” Became…? A billion different possibilities run through your mind, but no clear answer comes forward. No one really knows how Nightmares come to be, the whole thing a complete mystery, but you’ve done hours, days of research.

“Well, after what I’ve researched, I would think it has something to do with severely negative emotions causing a sort of shift from a human into what is considered a Nightmare, but the origin is mostly unknown.” It’s what drives them, so it would make some sort of sense for that to be the cause? Hoseok nods his head, eyes still avoiding yours, words slowly cautious.

“Very good, dearheart, you’re on the right track. I don’t know how much you really want to know, but I’m willing to share our secret with you, and you alone. Are you prepared to hear it?” You don’t respond verbally but sit forward in your seat as an indication that you’re giving your full attention. With a sigh, the words flow from him, finally lifting you up from the dark hole you’ve been sitting in.

“We are born from death. It is said that if you died tragically in your human life, you become a shell of yourself and spend the rest of your living days as a waking Nightmare. From what I can remember, my death was less than pleasant.” You don’t even know how to feel, simply blinking at the man as your mouth falls open. He lets it sink in, wings starting to curl in slightly as if to shield himself.

“So, you’re saying you died tragically…? All of you did?” It comes out extremely strained, you nearly choke on your words. Your Nightmare finally looks grim then, the corners of his lips falling down. It’s a lot to process, the fact that they all died, and not just died but went in a terrible way. Sadness and anger boil under your skin because of course that’s the case, of course that’s what happened to these poor men.

“Let me explain from the start, hm? I was a musician in a period of peace in the Joseon Dynasty. I was born into a well off middle class family in the year 1754, and because of blood ties, I lived mostly well.” Hoseok plops down on the floor then, full attention on you ad he does so. He says the words so casually, like nothing in his statement is odd, but he looks tired. Nightmares can live for a very long time but you had never expected he’d been around for this long.

“I… I had no clue that you’ve been alive for so long. I knew that Nightmares are essentially immortal, I just never guessed…” You get out of your chair and kick your heels off, crawling over to the man without a hint of embarrassment. He watches on fondly, hand coming up to rest against the glass.

“Yes, I am quite old, but there are many more that have centuries on me. I hope that doesn’t change your point of view at all?” Raising your hand up to match his, you shake your head because honestly, it’s probably one of the less weird things about your relationship with him.

“You’ve never once mentioned being a musician or wanting to play an instrument… Does it not interest you any longer?” It surprised you when he said it, the thought of him playing something lingering you in the back of your mind. It makes you feel a wave of dejectedness, realizing now that there’s so much more you need to learn about the man. He just taps his finger against the wall, the vibrations touching your skin for him.

“I fiddled around with many instruments in my human years, although I specialized in one specifically; the haegeum. Hell, I even learned and taught dances for the court in my spare time. I was well regarded by both those above me and my peers, and I tried my best to treat the lower classes well… Either way, that part of my life is long behind me and I prefer to leave it where I died.” You choose not to say anything, letting him process and tell the story however he wishes. You’ve only learned a small piece but it’s enough to know that he doesn’t wish to dwell on it beyond what he needs to.

“Greed ran rampant within my profession. Just because you learned an instrument didn’t mean you were the best or that you would be noticed… Perhaps I wasn’t always the most trustworthy, but I tried to be loyal. To make a very long story short for your dearest, I had some that I considered true friends slaughter me in the night like an animal because of nothing more than jealousy. I think they likely stabbed me over fifty times, tossed my body in a ditch like garbage, and let me bleed out.” Clenching your hand against his, he taps the wall a few more times to calm you. Taking a deep breath, you urge him to go on quietly, not trusting your voice in the slightest.

“I was reborn into what I am today. My confusion was strong; I had no idea where I was or what happened. I could remember small fragments from my death and even smaller fragments about my life, but that was all the answers I had for why I was caked in blood and healing scars littered my body. It’s very common for Nightmares to forget pieces of their lives, or even to forget their lives all together.” It happens often that way; traumatic events lead to the brain purging what it can to leto text itself. Getting rid of horrible memories could easily play into a human forming unit a Nightmare.

“Did you try to return to your previous life?” You can take a guess at his answer but you still want to know the path he decided to take. He shakes his head, eyes somehow looking even darker than usual as he stares past you.

“No, I knew I couldn’t. I was reborn with these wings and these eyes, a curious thing but I was somehow okay with it at the time, okay with not going back… Bits and fragments steadily came back as I wandered the land, hiding away in the night. I was eventually able to remember their faces…” So it’s like a form of amnesia that Nightmares face and can overcome similarly to humans. You’ll have to ask the others about it, but something tells you the answers won’t come nearly as easily.

“I paid a visit to every single one of their homes and slaughtered them like the vermin they were. You should have seen their faces when I appeared years later, it’s like they’d seen a ghost for the first time.” The horror of seeing someone you thought was dead pop out of nowhere is something you can’t imagine. It’s something those snakes certainly deserved, if not something much more sinister.

“… It was a long while before I figured out what had truly happened to me. It was Seokjin back then, he was the one who gave me proper answers. It’s not my story to tell of course, but my knowledge on what I was came from him. I’m still grateful for it to this day.” Even though you’re fully aware that Seokjin could likely rip people to pieces, and you wouldn’t blame him if he did, he seems to have a soft side. Dare you say he might have a bit of a bleeding heart compared to the others.

“So you’ve know Seokjin and Namjoon for a long while then?” That one doesn’t shock you that much; Hoseok and Namjoon seem to get on well as roommates. In reality, none of the Nightmares have really spoken bad about one another. They seem almost protective of their own sometimes even in their own odd ways.

“Seokjin, yes. Namjoon, no. Seokjin… Well, let’s say he found Namjoon a while after we parted ways and in the few times I saw him after that, Namjoon wasn’t around. I didn’t officially meet Namjoon until about, say, twenty years ago? It was at a club of all places.” A club? You try to picture them all out at a club, either sitting at the bar or getting lost on the dance floor. That would mean they couldn’t have their signature looks; no wings, no black eyes, no snake tails… Imagining them as ‘normal’ is bizarre.

“So you liked to go out clubbing? I can’t say it’s hard to picture you enjoying the nightlife scene.” He’s a bit rambunctious, very lively and cheeky, you know he would fit in well and be able to mingle. The imagery of you two dancing flashes away just as quickly as it came to mind, but it’s something you silently crave.

“Ah, I did. Most Nightmares like to focus on their destructive desires, I liked to focus my on sexual desires instead and clubs were a good spot for that.” You hum quietly, knowing well that Hoseok had never been particularly violent. Only when he needs to be, but never toward you. When it comes to his sexuality, however…

“So then it must be hard not being able to fulfill your sexual needs since you became so used to it. Maybe it sounds silly, but…” You feel as if you simply can’t be a good lover to him. That there’s no way to properly show him how much you care for him down here as more than just a silly doctor and wow you sound like-

“… I get my fill just by getting to set my eyes on you dearest. My desire for you is otherworldly, and I do hope that one day I’ll be able to get a proper taste. Until then, I’ll make do with lingering touches and chaste kisses.” Maybe a giggle leaves you, a small shy one that quickly falls away. Your eyes sting just a little as you gaze at him, his face softening as he attempts to caress your face through the wall that will forever separate you.

“Now, don’t give me that look. I’ve been down here for a while, waiting a bit isn’t going to hurt my feelings. I care about you very much, perhaps more than you seem to think dearheart. Please don’t fret.” You feel warm and safe from his words, the reassurance something you didn’t know that you needed so terribly. You slide closer to him, resting your body against the glass, drowsiness becoming more apparent.

“I-… Okay. Okay, I just want you to be happy. I want you all to be happy and I feel like I can’t do that properly. No matter what I do, you’ll be trapped down here and there’s nothing I can do to change that.” His eyes narrow just a bit, smile turning slightly more salacious as he continues to lean forward, angling his body so he can peer down at you.

“Never say never _____. We have all the time in the world; who knows, maybe one day we’ll be free, hm? Now, is there anything else you’d like to know?” He laughs soundlessly, leaning down and leaving a kiss against your cheek. The urge to unlock his cell door rises, but you steer it to the back of your mind as last nights events come to mind.

“Well, you already know I met with Jungkook last night after work… We should probably talk about that… But don’t think I’m done with you yet.”

[dreaming-marchling]

I hope you don’t mind I come with more questions!

I re-read Exile (which was the VERY FIRST fic from you I read which led me into the rabbit hole of reading all of your stuff).

How might the story have played out if the accomplice warlock had in fact told Magnus and Crew what happened?

How might the story have been altered if it was difficult if not slower to gain his memories back? Maybe also what other memory recalls you might have liked to write.

And something I have been pondering how might Magnus have approached figuring out how to help Alec get his runes back if the Silent Brothers couldn’t? I almost felt miffed on behalf of Magnus because he was so desperate to be with Alec and for things he could do.

You and your questions are a delightful highlight of my day, please never think otherwise :)

Re: If one of the warlocks had gone to Magnus to tell him what Imogen paid them to do: This could have been SO FUN! Them realizing with absolute horror that Alec is alive, somewhere unknown, without runes (what does a warlock removing runes even do to a Shadowhunter long-term? All they know is that he survived the procedure, not that he survived it long-term), with a broken parabatai bond, AND without his memory. The rush of them trying to figure out how how to find Alec, perhaps looking for weird spikes of demonic activity or maybe trying to infiltrate Imogen's people to see if they can get answers that way of where Alec is. All the while knowing that they might be too late. All this hope might turn to ash because Alec might still be dead. Thankfully he would have been decently easy to find, considering how Jace hacked the records of the apartment payments and other warlocks were already having a demonic activity spike that would have been happy to report it to Magnus if he sent a call through the Downworld about it. Them not finding him in Exile was because they didn't even know to look. With Imogen as a springboard they could have absolutely managed it.

Re: Memories: I definitely wanted to continue that thread but at a certain point the plots gotta move and my soul just wants to finish so I can start posting. A complication that I didn't get into with that but would have been really fun to play with would be Alec getting a bad memory back. His fight with Jace or his breakup with Magnus, for instance. Maybe he hides it from them but there's a backslide in trust. I also thought it would be fun if the memory sessions took way more of a toll on Alec's body, so they become these agonizing things that torture Magnus because he's essentially torturing Alec. I figured people would murder me if I continued down this too long.

Re: Runes: I didn't really have any other plans there, when things get too theoretical my brain hurts, lol, although then I keep then writing things like the collar breaking ritual or the time travel stuff so clearly I'm not very nice to my brain. I do think there could have been fun with maybe Alec's body just being so done that he really could have used Magnus there to stabilize him, maybe he gets called in halfway through and he's got to magically keep Alec going but also hold him still even though he's in pain. Knowing he can't stop this or Alec will shatter with the lost hope. Ultimately though, I do think that the Silent Brothers wouldn't tolerate Magnus helping them with the ritual, crappy as that was to cut him out after it was him healing Alec piece by piece for weeks.

It definitely could have been fun with the runes taking longer so Alec is left in limbo longer so we got more "loft is safest, stay in the loft" recovery time with Alec hiding in bathrooms when he got too overwhelmed. I liked that part, it was depressing but cute imo.

Thank you for asking! It's great stretching my Malec muscles, my brain has been very turned on to 9-1-1 and my Marked in Trust series so I haven't fallen into them lately. I have a Magnus-centric oneshot completed but I want to wait to post it until I'm in a mental place to use the comments to get me over the finish line for some of my other Malec WIPs and that's just taking a bit. Soon, I hope!

[lugagl]

insert joke about hazbin hotel having a homestuck reference here

ok. starters, ive fallen down the rabbit hole of the other most popular shitstain of a media online aside from homestuck, hazbin hotel. so i fucking pulled up that dumbass pilot from 2019 ok? and i started psychoanalyzing that shit because what else is there to do with free time on a thursday afternoon? right? i fucking guhhhhhhh so i got ot nifty's part again whatever whatever, little pink chick pops out the fireplace starts cleaning shit. she dusts off a clock with the feather duster and im like "haha that clocks purple and yellow in the center, just like doc scratches. just like,, doc scratches.." AND I FUCKING ok first heres the clock

and im like thinking im tripping balls, ok? i fucking google docs just and heroic clock, i pull it up and im like "no.." ITS THE SAME EXACT FUCKING CLOCK.

i mean like down to the fucking detail on the trim. is it a simplified version of his clock? yeah. but dude oh my fuck. homestuck from fucking 2019, the worst part about this (which is probably why this clock is fucking there in the first place) i looked up how long it took the animator to make the pilot, two years. 2019 minus two that sets us at late 2017, which makes it make a hell lot of a load more sense, cause homestuck fucking ended in 2016 a year prior but dude. what the shit. now im looking back at the shitty ass drawing i posted up here of vox as slick and alastor as snowman with horror cause like yeah. fuck all, the chick who made it was a homestuck, of course she was. almost every damn person was online. when i figured this out i promptly ran to my fucking friends and started screaming about it cause theyre all also homestucks and they watched hazbin hotel with me when i pirated it and my boyfriend screamed at me to post it here so yeah. homestuck hazbin hotel shit storm. after that whole thing i was like "pov how they decide wether you get to go to heaven, gotta be heroic or just" and my boyfriend promptly pointed out to me that the one fucking death in the show of the guy going to heaven WAS heroic and now im sat here like what the fuck because this entire fucking AMAZON PRIME SUPPORTED SHOW is just a huge homestuck reference to me now.

[gay-jesus-probably]

...Okay so I realize a lot of people have been engaging with my posts about TOTK but unfortunately for all of you we're done here, I started playing a different game and now I'm hooked. Friendship with Legend of Zelda ended, now Fallen London is my new best friend.

The whole reason I was bitching excessively about TOTK is because I'm a slut for narrative driven games, and Fallen London is literally JUST story, it's a text based RPG, I fucking love it. Apparently the full game is about 1.5 million words. Started playing it a few days ago, and I'm already hooked (it's online and free to play, 10/10 would recommend if you like RPG's and settings that involve lots of eldritch horror)

Also the whole reason I decided to start playing Fallen London is bcause I went down a bit of a rabbit hole about game design, and wound up reading about how Fallen London has a possible storyline that's specifically designed to be slow, frustrating, destroy everything you've worked for with your character, and if you make it to the end the reward is your account being permanently bricked. The game warns you at every single step that you're just going to obliterate your account for literally no reward... except for the story you find.

Now I love crazy shit like that, so of course I went looking for more details about how the fuck that wraps up... and then I discovered that once you reach the final chance to turn back, the decision includes a note from the game devs warning you that continuing means your account is permanently locked in to being bricked, and asking players not to share any content past that point if they do choose to continue. And in a shocking twist, everyone that's gone past that point seems to have honored that request. Couldn't find shit.

I'm a curious bitch, so I guess I've got to do it my goddamn self. ...Reach the end, that is, not share it; I'm not a complete prick. So now I'm playing Fallen London, with the overall goal of Seeking Mr. Eaten's Name. From what I've heard, unless I'm willing to spend a ridiculous amount of money to constantly refill my actions, it'll take me a few years to get that far. And if I let myself spend money on this game, I'll probably bankrupt myself, so that's not happening. But I will get there in the end, just you fucking wait.

Anyways, go play Fallen London, it's extremely cool and interesting. Your character can be nonbinary, and when you pick how other characters refer to you, one of the options is to have literally everyone address your character as "Si-, er, Mad-, er, yes". I mean there's other gender neutral options, but that's arguably the funniest one, I love it.

[biitchcakes]

@gammaragee asked: 🎥 - What’s your favourite tv show/movie? // ( accepting )

Okay, strap in ⸺ this is gonna get long I can feel it in my bones HGFDSGK I cannot. . . not talk about both of these things in a stupid amount of detail. I'm literally gonna just go ahead and stick the keep reading here.

Favourite shows ! I'll start off with SCRUBS. Oh, how I adore this show with every fibre of my being. My stepdad, someone pretty important to me, worked in the emergency room, and actually started his internship within a year of Scrubs beginning. So, watching it with him meant it was always going to cement itself into a special corner of my heart, but even with that aside ⸺ the show is just damn good. It's hilarious, it's heart wrenching, it's got a killer soundtrack each and every season. The characters feel so real, no matter how goofy they or the situations their in are at times.

I simply just think of the episode My Screw Up or My Fallen Idol and I feel a pit in my gut, I tear up. Everyone always brings those episodes up when talking about Scrubs, but there's a reason for that. MAN it's some good T.V. I hardly ever listen to podcasts, but the Scrubs rewatch podcast was one I tuned in for.

The way J.D. sees the world, his little fantasy cutaways, his rambles ⸺ hate to relate to the man LOL but boy does that hit home here. I was thinking about including a favourite scene but I couldn't. The whole show is just everything.

Next up: SUPERNATURAL. Man. I actually haven't seen much of the show past season nine. And even then, I haven't watched seasons 8 or 9 since they came out about ten years ago. And there's 15 seasons in total. That said, the first five seasons of that show. . . Holy hell. I can't begin to get into the way that show makes me feel 😭 It's so nostalgic, it's like coming home after a long time away. My one and only tattoo ( so far lmao ) is from that show. I know it can be cheesy at times, but that adds to its charm for me. I love how of it's time the first few seasons are.

The visuals of it, it's so aesthetically beautiful. And God, when the emotional scenes hit. . . they HIT. They punch through to the depths of my very soul.

There are things about both the brothers I find relatable. They're comforting to me, they're like family.

Last but certainly not least, THE GOOD PLACE. I nearly didn't watch this one. I got into it around the middle of seasons three, but I only knew the premise of "woman who should be in hell ends up in heaven by mistake". Which, if you've watched to show, you know is definitely not the only thing that happens DHGKSJ

I won't go into detail because I always want to avoid spoilers about it where I can because the twists the plot takes throughout the seasons are a lot of fun to experience first hand. And, even if you do know, the show is still super worth it. It sent me down my own philosophy rabbit hole for months. Already interested in it before, I've kept up on it since, I watch lectures whenever they pop up.

The finale. . . UUGGHGKSJDHGKS. One of the best on television. That show fundamentally changed me. I am chronically bad at finishing things, but I have finished both Scrubs and the Good Place. Boy am I glad I have. Best finales ever.

Alright this got away from me very quickly HGSDJK

I'll be brief here fhdskjfds so MOVIES ⸺ my top 7 are:

Willow

Meet the Robinsons

Shawshank Redemption

Lo

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Stardust

Here is my LETTERBOXD account.

A list of MY FAVOURITE FILMS.

( bonus ⸺ here are my favourite horror movies, as well as my ranking for animated Disney movies; I'm currently working on a list of Jessica's favourite movies for a post on here at some point. )

[muuyo]

oh God i think I've fallen down the project moon rabbit hole

I'm not entirely one for gacha games, usually they're either too horny or money-grubby (though i play arknights like a fool), but Limbus Company is being a wonderful time

paragraphs below

while it is technically still a gacha game, so far the gameplay and story are fucking fantastic (and especially the soundtrack!) and from what I've heard, later on it is literally more efficient to farm stuff than to actually pull the gacha

it also dodges the "oh all the 100 characters in this gacha game get like 2 seconds on screen" by instead giving you 12 goobers who are coworker soulmates in every universe, and letting you pluck them from different timelines and identities, so they actually have personalities and dialogue

the premise of "you're literally just a normal guy (assumedly, I'm in ch2) but you're a clock headass, so you gotta pull these sad saps through the FMA door and revive them when they explode into viscera from either the enemy's or sometimes their comrade's hands"

my entire experience has been

"i don't like turn based rpgs, but the combat is spontaneous, interesting yet simple, and pretty enough that it's great"

"i don't like horror much at all, but it chooses to explore horror ideas in such an interesting way that I can't help but like it"

it's usually hard for me to get into visual novels but the writing and voice acting (in Korean) is stellar enough that i love this shit

the designs go hard, all the literature-based sinners are great, dante is a bomb-ass character design, ishmael is my favorite, I'm gonna become addicted to project moon games

rant over