#incomprehensible gibbering

[pyrotechnicdarts]

hey btw everyone go listen to hotelpod s2e6 and s2e7 right now

[dancing-homestuck]

I wish my cat had a phone so I could text him while I’m at work and tell him I love him and I miss him and he could send back blurry pictures of random things, incomprehensible gibber texts, and audio recordings of his crinkle ball

[yokohamapound]

Myshka - Fyodor Dostoevsky x Reader

I can't believe this is my first Fyodor piece, but here we go... This is silly but the idea wouldn't leave my head for an April Fool's fic.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

He’s nothing but a silhouette. A wall of screens rises up before him, glaring like suns in the dim room. Information flickers across them in a constant, incomprehensible screed. You couldn’t read them even if you wanted to. 

He sits with his back to you, a ragged outline of darkness against the wall of brightness. A fur hat and fur-trimmed collar, only moving every now and then to look at this screen or that, his hands dancing across the keyboard like a concert pianist. You can’t see his face, but his hands are pale, long-fingered, moving almost with minds of their own, independent of each other. 

“I can feel your eyes on me.”

His voice is deeper than one would expect, from such a pretty face. Though he faces away from you now, you remember it well—sharp, delicate features, pale skin, shadowed violet eyes. The thought of being pinned under that stare again makes you shiver. 

You don’t know who he is, or what he wants with you. Just that he swept into your life, plucked you off the street, and here you are. 

Trapped, tense, waiting to discover your fate. Destiny hangs over you like the sword of Damocles. 

So far, all he seems to do is work, tapping away at his keyboard and humming to himself. Others come and go—a man in a black cloak, a jester in white who likes to poke at you and gibber nonsense—but no one seems to have a use for you yet. 

“Nothing to say, myshka?” 

His voice floats over to you, taunting. He insists on speaking to you, even though you don’t—can’t—respond. What would you even say? If you opened your mouth, all that would come out is a frightened squeak. 

It isn’t all bad. You’re given food and drink, somewhere to sleep. Whatever your purpose in this man’s grand design, it doesn’t seem one of suffering. He will keep you alive for as long as he needs you. 

Your silence finally seems to get to him. He turns in his chair, the flickering screens painting his features with uncertain blue-white light. 

Frozen, huddled, you watch him as he regards you in turn. A smile tugs at his mouth, an amused noise bubbling up from in his throat. Oh, you do seem to amuse him. Why is beyond you. Nothing you’ve done is remotely funny. Perhaps he simply enjoys your helplessness. 

“Look at you,” he hums, rising to his feet. “Still so frightened of me?”

His footsteps seem to echo through the cavernous room as he approaches you, picking his way easily between the wires that trail everywhere like vines.  He bends down to get a better look at you, his locks of dark hair shifting around his face as he tilts his head. 

Long, pale fingers reach for you and you cringe backward. The man lets out a low sound, seeming almost…disappointed. But that cannot be right. You know he takes satisfaction in tormenting you. Otherwise, why would you be here?

“Do I not give you everything you need, myshka?” he asks. “Are you hungry? Is that it?”

Freedom! you want to scream. Release me from this cage—

Suddenly, a head of white hair pops around the door frame, long braid swinging. The jester wears a grin like a carnival mask, his eyes crinkled with sadistic amusement. 

“Are you still trying to play with that pet mouse of yours?” he scoffs. “Just give it a morsel of cheese.”

Fyodor looks down at the cage housing the little mouse he plucked off the streets on a whim. Beady black eyes glare at him through the bars, tiny pink paws curled into miniature fists.

And here he thought the creature was warming up to him.

:P

[mollyjames]

I don't know if I agree with the prevailing notion that good eldritch horror is about the thing being incomprehensible. I mean, yes, traditionally, by definition that is the case. But that's not really what gets my motor going.

Ghosts are spooky things, but they are, fundamentally, sneaky things. A supernatural murderer or creature monster might be stronger than your average human, but they can be overcome with weapons and numbers. Even your Godzillas can be rallied against, planned around, fought. But a good Eldritch horror, for me? Overwhelming. Nothing you can do about it.

Take The Thing for instance. The horror comes not from not knowing what the Thing is. It's a gibbering fleshy alien monster that infects other organisms to propagate. We actually spend quite a bit of time in that movie learning about the Thing, figuring out its weaknesses, and how to identify it. The horror comes from if even one cell of the Thing gets out of the Antarctic, the Earth is basically doomed. That if it had landed anywhere else, we'd all already be dead. You just dont get that kind of scale with any other monster.

idk, maybe what I'm asking for is something else entirely, but I just don't find cryptic cults and madness inducing tomes that compelling. I'm here for the big fuck off god monster.

[dailycharacteroption]

Deity Drop 6: Abhoth

Just as we did when be touched on Great Old Ones in a previous deity special, we are heading back to cosmic horror with our first Outer God.

But what exactly is an Outer God and how does it differ from a Great Old One? Well, a Great Old One is a demigod-level entity that has a body that can be noticeably affected by it’s mortal environs, and for all their defying of sane physics and geometry, it is possible for a mortal to fight back against such an entity and with a little luck “kill” it, forcing it into torpor or at least making it decide that being there is not worth the annoyance.

An Outer God, on the other hand, is a true deity, albeit an unknowable one that doesn’t even try, or perhaps is incapable of understanding why one would try and take a form comprehensible to the majority of mortals.

Like the Great Old Ones though, most of these entities cannot be bothered to even notice mortals, their cults often calling upon deaf ears, with only a rare few ever being granted power, perhaps as an afterthought or even without the deity realizing. While some may have specific malevolent designs, most seem content to stew in their own incomprehensibleness with no real plan beyond just existing in a way that mortals strain to understand, seeming to embody the belief that the universe is truly uncaring.

Abhoth himself is the “Source of Uncleaness”, a monstrous parent figure to all manner of horrors. His children ranging from just as formless as himself to ambulatory limbs, to surprisingly complex entities both fully formed and malformed. Most are immediately seized and consumed by him, but some escape to wander away, wandering the extradimensional tunnels of his realm until they find their way into the underground of other worlds. That’s right, many true-breeding aberrations in Pathfinder, including the classic gibbering mouther, are descended from this foul god!

All of this reflects his nature as patron of the misbegotten, an avatar of life gone wrong in violation of every natural order.

Abhoth himself is described as having a twisted and cynical personality, seeing no beauty in the world and seeking only to add cruelty to it.

This outer god is originally from Clark Ashton Smith’s Hyperborean Cycle of short stories, where he made the jump to the Call of Cthulhu and other such RPGs and then on to Pathfinder.

Though the original source describes him as grey in color, Abhoth’s art in Pathfinder paints him as a bright light (possibly glowing) blue. This may have been to help distinguish him from another cosmic horror staple in the game, the shoggoth. Indeed, for like many formless horrors, Abhoth’s only defining feature is his formlessness and tendency to form and reform various random body parts from his mass seemingly at random with varying degrees of recognizability.

While it is not given a name in Pathfinder, Abhoth’s grotto is connected to many different underground realms across various planets, and his realm itself is a maze of tunnels that he wanders through aimlessly as the spawn that survive his hunger.

As a god of fecundity, I can see some twisted remote culture venerating the Source of Uncleaness as a fertility deity, or perhaps warded against with the hope that children are born whole and fully formed. However, those that delve into his monstrous true nature may come to believe that his formlessness and cruelty are the truest expression of life, and get up to the usual nasty cult business of trying to summon him, or more likely, some of his children, and generally venerate all manner of unnatural life forms, often to the detriment of their health.

As a particularly cynical outer god, Abhoth counts none among his friends, not even his own children.

He also lacks servants in the traditional sense, being directly served by no one. However, he is able to see many worlds through the eyes of his spawn, and may even invade such a world through them on a lark.

Abhoth favors the domains of Chaos, Darkness, Earth, Madness, and Strength, with the subdomains of Caves, Ferocity, Insanity, Night, Nightmare, and Resolve. All of which reflects his cruel but not overtly malevolent demeanor, as well as his connection to caves, physical might and the horror of his own existence.

While a handful of Outer Gods have been written up in 2e, Abhoth has not gotten that treatment yet, so no list of his domains exist there yet.

Like all cosmic horror gods, Abhoth is too uncaring to offer any rewards of obedience.

With all sorts of horrors found in the depths of countless planets, you can bet your buns that Abhoth is definitely still out there in the far future of Starfinder, even if he hasn’t been officially mentioned yet.

That does it today, and yes, Abhoth’s story did inspire the demon lord Jubilex, but we’ll talk about how Pathfinder sometimes doubles up on certain deific concepts some other time. For now, eagerly await the final deity we’ll be covering this week, the first non-evil one we’ve had in a while!

[theradicalscrivener]

Big Changes: Field Trip

Troy needs some time to get out of his head and out of the shed. This sounds like a job for a forklift and a heavy duty trailer!

(P.S. Ya boi's got Linktree and Bluesky now)

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                “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Troy squeaked.

                “Of course!” Mike said

                “Yeah. You said you wanted to get out of the house for a bit,” Ike added.

                “Yeah, but…” Troy murmured and gestured towards his cock which he was currently sitting atop. “Shouldn’t we get a tarp or something?”

                The twins looked at each other and then back to Troy before responding in unison, “nah.”

                “Everyone can see it!” Troy whined.

                “That never bothered you before,” Ike replied.

                “That was before it was bigger than a car!” Troy protested.

                “Yeah? Now there’s more to flaunt,” Mike replied.

                Troy let out an incomprehensible sound that was somewhere between a dog whining and a troll gibbering.

                “Here. You’ll want to wear these,” Ike said, handing Troy a pair of goggles and a scarf.

                “Keeps the bugs out of your eyes and mouth,” Mike explained.

                Troy grumbled but dutifully geared up. For a moment, he could almost pretend that he was preparing to go for a ride on a motorcycle… except that his “motorcycle” was a mini-van sized schlong which was now resting atop a flatbed trailer being pulled by a truck.

                Getting Troy’s cock and balls on to the flatbed in the first place had been an ordeal. His cock was too massive to lift, and that was not even factoring in his swelling stones. The twins had had to rent a forklift and hoist Troy’s bait and tackle onto the flatbed one piece at a time!

                Once Troy was fully geared up, Ike hopped in the driver’s seat of the truck, and Mike hopped into the bed so he could watch Troy as they made their way across town.

                Troy hated to admit it, but it felt great to be out of that rental silo if even just for a little bit. He missed the sun and the breeze on his skin, and to a lesser extent, he missed being around people other than just the twins. Still… he wasn’t thrilled about being exposed like this. He was clad in just a shirt, goggles, and scarf. His face was covered, but that did nothing to keep him anonymous. There was only one guy out there with such a huge cock!

                Troy had become a little bit of a local celebrity. People had accepted that he was too hung to cover up, and they had even turned a collective blind eye to when he doused places with his spunk, but that didn’t mean that people weren’t keenly aware of who it was that was gunking up the city.

                Now that Troy was out in public, he found himself the center of attention. Other drivers would roll down their windows and gawk at the massive cock that was being paraded around town like the Weinermobile. They may have known that Troy had a huge dick, but until today, only Troy’s streaming fans knew about his recent growth spurt.

                Troy tried his best to keep it casual. He tried his best to act like he wasn’t mortified to be displayed like this, but he was trembling like a leaf from nerves. To make matters worse, his immense cock was fully boned the whole time. Pre dripped from his colossal cock head!

                As they made their way through town, traffic seemed heavier than normal. It wasn’t rush hour, and yet, traffic had crawled to a halt. Was there something going on in town? Well… something other than a parade float sized schlong, anyway.

                Traffic slowly inched forward. The axles on Troy’s flatbed groaned in protest. Troy’s fully boned cock was so huge that the tip of it now extended past his flatbed and rested on the tailgate of the twins’ truck. Pre dripped from his cock and splashed down into the bed of the truck, thoroughly soaking Mike’s shorts as he sat back and watched.

                Troy’s arousal slowly started to overtake his nerves. His mind started to feel hazy. His cheeks felt warm. His cock felt amazing. He was so overwhelmed that he didn’t even realize that the tip of his dick had extended into the bed of the truck.

                Mike pulled open the rear window of the cabin and quickly scurried in and took a seat beside his brother. The two of them exchanged a few hushed words before Ike pulled off of the main road and took the cock-wagon down the side streets.

                Mike leaned out the passenger window and crawled up onto the top of the cabin. By this point, Troy’s cock was so huge that the tip of it now extended past the bed of the truck and was pushing against the cabin. Mike found himself surfing atop the truck and staring down the steadily swelling slit of Troy’s massive cock.

                The twins were fascinated by this growth. Other than the week or so that they had left Troy alone, they had never known his cock to swell like this. Still… Troy’s current size was nothing compared to the hangar-filling phallus they had witnessed upon their return home, but if things continued, it wouldn’t be long before he reached that size once more.

                Mike leapt up and grabbed a handful of foreskin in each fist and pulled himself up and over the pre-oozing head of Troy’s cock. The warm, viscous fluid seeped out and completely coated Mike’s body as he scrambled over the tip of Troy’s cock. Part of him wanted to stay there for a second and enjoy the warmth and wetness, but even as he held on, he could feel Troy’s foreskin thickening in his hands. If he didn’t hurry, Troy’s cock would be much more difficult to scale.

                Mike quickly scrambled across the length of Troy’s swelling cock. At this point, the beast was so huge that Ike had to straddle both lanes to make room for the truck’s over-sized load. Troy’s cock alone more than filled a single lane of traffic, and his nuts had swollen so huge that they bumped against various vehicles that were parked alongside the street. With each foot the cock caravan progressed, car alarms blared and trash cans were shoved aside.

                Mike scurried up to where Troy was seated, knelt down, and gave Troy’s cheeks a quick pat to try and slap him awake.

                “Mmm? Huh?” Troy murmured.

                “Snap out of it. We need you to keep it together for a bit longer,” Mike said. His voice was uncharacteristically serious.

                “Keep it? What do you…?” Troy murmured, but his eyes slowly began to focus. As they did, his jaw dropped, and his massive cock gave a lurch of excitement. The sudden lurch was so intense that it almost sent Mike toppling.

                “What. The. FUCK!?” Troy yelped.

                “Oh… you probably didn’t even notice this last time,” Mike said.

                “LAST TIME!?” Troy squeaked so loudly that his voice broke.

                Mike looked to his side as if waiting for someone else to give a follow-up comment but quickly realized that he was flying solo for this.

                “Oh… um… So, when we got back, you were much larger than this, but! Don’t freak out. It went back down. So…” Mike explained.

                “Don’t freak out!?” Troy squeaked.

                Mike paused for a beat to let his absent twin chime in before stepping up to speak. “It should go back down once you cum. Just try and keep cool until we get out of the neighborhood,” he said.

                Troy was sweating bullets as he glanced around. He was so high off the ground that he was looking down at the roofs of the nearby houses. His cock was now larger than a city bus! His balls alone were the size of bungalows. His bait and tackle barely fit down the two-lane road.

                Mike could hear Troy’s breath getting shallower. He could even hear Troy’s heart pounding. If this continued, Troy would have a full-scale panic attack before they got to safety, and given everything going on, there was no telling what would happen then.

                Mike scooted over so that he was behind Troy, swung his arms around Troy’s shoulders, and rested his chin on Troy’s head. “Just relax…” Mike said softly as he pulled Troy in for a hug.

                Troy tensed up, but as Mike held him, he slowly began to relax. His heartbeat steadily slowed, and his breathing became more regular.

                As Mike rested his chin on Troy’s head, he stared out ahead. He could see that they were coming up to the end of the street. A T-intersection loomed ahead of them. On the opposite side of the intersection was a large, open field. The city park! That may just be large enough for them to help get Troy down from his latest surge! … hopefully, anyway.

                Ike drove through the intersection and onto the sidewalk. The axles groaned in protest and the bottom of the flatbed trailer scraped the road below and then ground against the curb. Troy had far exceeded the maximum weight capacity. It was a miracle that the flatbed hadn’t completely shattered under his swelling mass, but they weren’t out of the woods yet.

                The twins’ truck struggled and strained to drag Troy’s mass across the grassy field. At this point, the flatbed was offering little to no support. They were effectively dragging Troy’s cock and balls directly across the dirt. The act left a massive trench dug into the grass behind him… a trench that was getting wider and deeper with each foot that the now overburdened truck struggled forward.

                Once he reached a seemingly central location, Ike put the truck in park, hopped out, and began scrambling towards Troy’s nuts. Troy’s cock was now so large that there was no good way to scale it. Ike’s best course of action was to use the loose skin of Troy’s sack to give him enough purchase to scurry up and over. Unfortunately. Troy’s nuts were now as tall as a two-story house!

                Ike was in great shape, but even he was starting to feel the strain as he grabbed handful after handful of thick scrote and pulled himself hand over fist up the side of Troy’s colossal balls. By the time he reached the top, the layer of sweat covering his body caused his clothes to cling to him like a second skin.

                Once up top, Ike quickly began peeling off his soaked clothes and took his place beside his brother. Mike glanced over at his brother, noticed that Ike was nearly nude, gave a nod, and then began to strip as well.

                Troy, realizing that Mike was no longer holding him, started to come back to reality. He glanced around curiously and noticed that his cock was now the size of a row of townhouses, and his balls were the size of water reservoirs.

                “W-what the f-!” Troy began to yelp, but before the final word could get out, the twins stepped in front of him clad in nothing but their birthday suits. Their firm bods and fat rods were openly on display. Troy balked at the sight. His colossal cock gave an enormous lurch of excitement – a lurch that was so intense that it sent the twins staggering like Star Trek extras on the bridge. The twins barely managed to maintain their footing.

                “Like what you see?” Ike asked playfully.

                “But… what about…” Troy murmured in a half-hearted attempt to protest, but his eyes were transfixed on his smoking hot friends.

                “Shh… let us take care of that,” Ike replied in a soothing voice.

                “All you have to do is sit back,” Mike added.

                “Relax,” Ike added.

                “And cum,” they said in unison.

                Troy gulped. His eyes started to tunnel vision on those two hot bods and their amazing cocks and heavy balls. Troy was so horny that he couldn’t think about anything other than how hot the twins were or how much he wanted to cum.

                The twins stepped forward so that their rigid dicks were aimed directly at Troy’s face. Troy was too far gone to protest. He reached out and grabbed a thick dick in either hand and began to stroke the shafts. He pressed the heads of the twin’s cocks against his face and nuzzled up against the pre-drooling slits, painting his face with pre in the process. The feel of it was mind-blowing. Their cocks were so firm, but the heads to soft. The warmth of their pre cascading down his chin. The taste of it oozing into his mouth. The smell of cocks and pre flooded his nostrils. Troy was in heaven. He was so enthralled that he didn’t even realize that his cock and balls were still growing.

                The twins reached down and ran their fingers through Troy’s hair as Troy greedily licked at their cocks. Usually, they were the ones taking the lead, but today, Troy was absolutely ravenous. It was so rare to see him like this that the twins had to struggle to keep from cumming before Troy did!

                “Oh… H-he’s good,” Ike muttered.

                “I taught him that…” Mike replied.

                “You wish…” Ike moaned.

                Troy was running on autopilot. He was so horny that he just wanted cocks in and around him. He moved on from just licking at them to taking the head of the twins’ cocks into his mouth one at a time. He’d suck on one, pull back, and then focus on the other one, keeping both bros on edge the whole time.

                “We… taught him too well…” Ike gasped.

                “… plan B…” Mike responded.

                Troy let out a pitiful whine as the twins stepped back and pulled their cocks out of Troy’s grasp. The twins exchanged a quick glance. In that split second the twins locked eyes, they carried out a mental round of rock-paper-scissors to decide who got which end.

                Ike stepped forwards and put his cock where Troy could easily reach it. Troy happily wrapped both hands around the thick shaft and began to suckle the tip. Meanwhile, Mike side-stepped troy and knelt down behind him.

                While Troy greedily slurped at Ike’s cock, the twins gently coaxed him into position. Soon, Troy was on his hands and knees atop his own cock and balls. His face lifted towards Ike’s cock and his ass raised towards Mike’s.

                Mike’s cock was so slick with pre and spit that he didn’t even need to prep. His cock slid smoothly into Troy’s greedy hole as his brother’s dick dug into Troy’s hungry mouth. The twins pumped in and out of their mutual fuck-buddy while Troy’s cock and balls swelled beneath.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Troy was so horny that it didn’t take long for him to blow. This was fortunate in part because his cock and balls were beginning to spill out of the borders of the city park and in part because the twins were already so close to cumming that if they didn’t get Troy off soon, they’d blow before they could finish the job!

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”The trio called out in unison. Troy’s colossal cock shuddered and lurched as he felt Mike’s warm, thick spunk flood his ass and tasted the rich tang of Ike’s spooge filling his mouth. Massive, thick geyser bursts of hot cum erupted from Troy’s cock. He came again and again and again. Each spurt as large as the one before. He was cumming so much and so hard, and yet, it didn’t seem like he was making any headway! His nuts were filling so fast that he was just treading water! And at the rate he was cumming, he wasn’t going to be the only one treading! The pool of spooge on the ground was growing deeper by the second! The storm drains had already overflowed. The streets now ran white with cum! And yet, Troy kept spurting.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”It was hard to tell how long it took Troy to come down. The twins were spent long before Troy was. Both brothers slumped down beside their buddy and snuggled up against him as Troy continued to whine and moan and cum and spurt. Eventually, however. Troy’s dick fully deflated.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“I don’t think we’re getting the deposit back on the flatbed,” Ike muttered.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“Do you think the insurance will cover this?” Mike asked groggily.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Ike was too winded to reply so he just shrugged.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”The three lay there in each other’s arms atop Troy’s colossal cock and balls. Troy’s bait and tackle had shrunk back down considerably… and yet.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Mike and Ike glanced out at the tip of Troy’s cock and then back to each other. Troy’s cock head now rested solidly in the bed of their truck. It had gained probably another 5 feet.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“We’re gonna have to tell him,” Ike said.

“Wait until he wakes up,” Mike replied.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Ike nodded in reply, and the trio went back to their mutual afterglow cuddle puddle. They laid there for a bit, blissfully unaware of the crowd that had gathered until a particularly terse voice split the air.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Troy sat up groggily, rubbed his eyes, and looked down at the cum-flood he had caused. His eyes quickly fell upon the lady that had called up at him. It was the doctor who had been overseeing Troy’s treatment and testing. She was an intense person on a good day, but today she was especially terse.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“Miquel!” She shouted.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Mike sat up, looked sheepishly down, and replied, “… yes, mama?”

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“Inigo!” She shouted.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”It was now Ike’s turn to sit up. “… yes, mama?” He replied just as sheepishly.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“Wait in the car,” she said.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”“… yes, mama…” the twins replied in unison.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Troy watched his friends, awkwardly shimmy down the side of his schlong, and bashfully cover their exposed cocks with both hands as they dutifully ran towards a familiar car down the road.

                “Are you sure this is a good idea?”Troy then turned his attention towards the lady. “Uh… hi, doc…” he said, nervously.        

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[dnickels]

Learning now that Peter Sandys-Clarke played Raleigh in Journey's End and my thoughts in the order I had them:

Of course he did, good casting

A realization of the implications, that is to say, the parallels

Incomprehensible rantings

Holding up the two death scenes next to each other and gibbering: Stanhope cradling his naive, unblooded lieutenant v. Havers as the lieutenant come home from the war, wearing evidence of his journey (the badges of rank, the scar) only to watch his own captain die. Oh, I am web-weaving. I'm weaving...

[whumpster-fire]

At this juncture, I fear that my tale takes a turn that is not for the faint of heart. As I gazed into the roiling, yonic rift that had torn the sky asunder, my eyes made out a dread shape descending. Indistinct it was, at first, but it soon resolved itself in loathsome detail. I cannot describe it as man or beast, for no word in any of man's many languages was ever meant to describe the thing that approached. Much of its appearance has seared itself from my mind, but I remember a single long, twisting, gnarled horn projecting from its head. Beneath it, an immense, cyclopean orb stared unblinking down at me, all rheumy and vitreous yet it unmistakably bore such vast, inhuman sentience that to stare into it felt as if I were toppling from the precipice of a great chasm, beneath which a sea of stars from the outer realms beyond our cosmos swirled and churned in the chaotic eternal dance of the spheres. Its gaping, toothy maw gnashed and slavered, gibbering in incomprehensible alien tongues. Its color was one that could only come from the depths of space, one which every night I pray never to behold again but haunts my dreams when I close my eyes: a blasphemous heliotropic hue like the bruised skin of a victim of strangulation.

I began to tremble, my skin rising into goosebumps in primal dread of the looming nightmare. I wailed, I swore, and I wept, but I could not turn away, as if rooted to the spot by the awful glare, for that ever moving, ever twitching eye kept me paralyzed there.

I do not know how much time passed, but it finally reached the Earth, and perched in a tree like some fungoid antedeluvian mockery of a bird of prey. Gore-stained talons bit into the bark, and the limbs bowed down under its squamous bulk.

At once, I fell to my knees as if that same weight bore down on my shoulders. The thing's true name was thrust upon my mind. I spoke it, though I know not how my throat could have contorted itself to utter such indescribable syllables. I beseeched it spare me, my life if not my sanity, for that was already rapidly fleeing. "Why have you come here?" I inquired of that hulking, daemoniac presence. "What is the purpose of your visit, from whatever nameless, non-euclidean realm you call home?"

The thing regarded me with that ghastly eye, and it spoke, with a voice so guttural and stygian in its timbre that my very bones quaked at the sound:

"Eatin' purple people, and it sure is fine."

-Excerpt from The One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater, by H. P. Lovecraft (1939)

[kendrixtermina]

(your idea that you somehow love me)

incomprehensible word salad autocompleted itself,

fed with gibber(ish)ellin:

heavier the fruit,

induced upon my breast

pullates the vine,

in your garden-claims of love

in a summery dress,

on a hot, sun-warmed dais of stone

heavy air laden with summer and flower sweetness

air buzzling fertile with bees:

I planted this not,

yet,

unquestionably live in its vermiform wiggling

the burden of proof is well on you

for such extraordinary claim.

In the meantime

of that simple animal force,

that draws mouths and mouths together,

and touch to touch,

attractive, chemical reaction

proceeding cooking ever all on its own

mind and soul garden-wandering,

as hand and heart find their wiggling, vine-like way

mimic leaves turning shapely in the gold-light

if ocelli, then whether were there sent the signals?

Wisdom of a blightsight

I took part in, but I never knew

yet the subject was not uninvolved,

not without a purpose to its adaptation:

you just need to utter a scattering of words,

and I,

in my folly,

will string them together into a story for free.

[chiclet-go-boom]

I have such a hard time reading fanfic where a character is noted in canon for their impassivity, defined by it even - their hard-earned stoicism, their ability to maintain an outward calm and an all but uncrackable demeanor even under extreme provocation - where the author has chosen to depict said character's inner dialogue as flailing and unhinged, to the point of hitting daffy duck levels of incoherency.

Inner thoughts do not need to match outer actions, but one does not earn a reputation for ice-cold calm if one hasn't internalized the freeze all the way down to the bone. One cannot be screaming and running amok in the brain, while simultaneously staying completely unmoved on the outside, particularly over long periods. Please see every hitman movie ever.

I know is super tempting to graft anxiety and fear into a favorite blorbo because the author would feel anxiety and fear in any given situation, but inner emotion will find its way out and one cannot radiate calm and disinterest for any great length of time if the innards are doing the mambo constantly. It's impossible to take seriously when the dichotomy is this disconnected, and has thrown me out of more than a few fics (including this one where the blorbo is completely freaking out internally but outwardly isn't moving a single facial muscle).

Please understand that the blorbo in question really is either 1) that controlled, and thus controls everything, including panic reactions and general situations where perhaps emotions are a touch higher than usual or 2) has lived so long compartmentalizing that the keys to the boxes are inscribed in enochian.

Outward stoicism is inward control. You don't get outward control without an incredibly amount of practice at locking everything down before it gets anywhere near to an actual reaction. The fact that the blorbo's love interest is in near proximity is not going to cause the blorbo's brain functions to screech to a halt and become a gibbering wreck of confusion and longing.

Blorbo knows what they're doing. Blorbo has a box for this, the box is called repression, and inconvenient suggestions and misleading statements will be evaluated, found incomprehensible and thrown in said box to be firmly dropped back in the well of ice; possibly (but not necessarily) to be retrieved at a later date for better inspection when unobserved.

________ /crouches down and whispers into the void it's annoying, void. i wish they'd stop.

[algolagniaa]

You look through the telescope, and somewhere in the darkest depths of space – something looks back.

Startled, you jerk back from the eyepiece. Looking up at the sky through the window, everything appears normal, the moon in her place and stars surrounding her the same as always. You couldn’t even say for certain how you knew that there was some presence in the empty space between the stars other than the alarm in the deepest, most primal part of your brain. You hesitate a moment before leaning back down and peering through the telescope again.

At first you see only the stars, cold and distant but familiar. But as your gaze moves across the sky you see in the void of space a shifting area that is blacker than black, a darkness that is more than just the absence of light. The longer you look at it, this fluctuating shadow like a midnight kaleidoscope, your mind resolves it into a being of incomprehensible size. As you see it, it sees you too and you freeze in horror. Your mind gibbers madly as it tries desperately to make sense of the senseless. How to describe the dread you feel, seeing infinity looking back at you? The gaze of this unknown and unknowable entity pins you in place like a dissected animal, skin peeled back leaving you exposed under its – Her – pitiless scrutiny. Her presence fills you in an instant and you have to cling to your sense of self to avoid being swept away entirely. You can feel Her penetrating your mind mercilessly as images from your past blaze before your eyes like the flashpowder of a camera going off as She digs through your deepest, most private thoughts and memories. As Her mind touches yours across the vastness of space, in your desperate flailing you touch Hers as well and it’s like filling a teacup with a firehose, the rush of knowledge and sensation more than your mortal mind can hold. You cry out as your mind begins to fracture under the strain: past, present, future all flood into you, all possibilities of every action, every life you might have lived, every path you may still take, all from the perspective of one so alien to you. For one moment you understand everything. It’s beautiful and cruel and terrifying and marvelous and you can’t take it, surely you’ll go mad, you’ll die laughing and crying and screaming in this tower, you’ll dissipate into nothing like a candle’s flame in a galestorm, but you can’t look away -

The delicate stem of the glass you had forgotten you were holding snaps under your terrified grip and cuts into your palm, and the sudden sting of pain is enough to shock you out of whatever holds you in place. You wrench yourself back from the telescope with a gasp.

You rush out of the tower and stagger down the stairs on shaking legs to rejoin the party, hardly noticing how your hand is bleeding freely. Most of what you had learned in your brief connection with...whatever it was had slipped away as soon as you stepped back from the telescope. It leaves you with only the memory of how it felt to see the potential of every action but not the knowledge itself, like waking from a dream and remembering only that you dreamt. But one thing you managed to hold on to: you know where the secret room in the mansion is. You have a vague sense that there will be difficulties in actually getting inside the room, but at least now you have a solid lead on where to look. It’s hidden away in the Duke’s private quarters, his most precious treasures kept close at hand.

You shy away from the windows as you re-enter the hallway, still feeling the echo of that unbearable scrutiny from the stars. While you try to settle your nerves, another servant passes in their strange featureless mask, carrying a tray of what you assume to be appetizers. In the center of the hallway there is a slight alcove you hadn’t noticed before where a vase filled with some strange, pale flowers sits on a pillar. As you step slightly into the alcove to avoid the servant’s tray, you realize they aren’t flowers at all but bones arranged to look like them. Phalanges, metacarpals, and tarsals are delicately placed to form stems and petals like morbid daisies, though you can’t tell how it is all held together. Like everything else you’ve seen tonight, it’s as macabre as it is beautiful.

“They were picked from the Bone Garden,” a woman standing next to you says helpfully. Her mask is that of an owl, the beak cruelly curved to better tear into prey. Her hand is tucked into the arm of a tall woman in a floral mask, her dark hair twisted into a complicated looking style on top of her head.

“Sorry?” you reply, confused and still shaken from your experience.

“The Bone Garden,” she repeats. “He’s turned the conservatory into an ossuary, he must have emptied every mausoleum in the entire city.” She grins up at you, clearly amused at the idea.

“Well, someone has been having a good time,” her companion in the floral mask says with a smirk.

You stare at her, uncomprehending, and her smirk widens as she gestures to her face. “You’ve got –“

You bring a hand up to your face and feel something warm and wet on your upper lip. You draw your hand back to see your fingertips smeared with blood; it appears your nose has been bleeding as well.

Do you look for somewhere to clean yourself up, or head straight to the hidden room in the Duke’s private quarters? You could continue to explore the party – you know where you’re looking now, and there are still hours before dawn. Or the women who approached you seem friendly enough; you could also talk to them to learn more about the Masquerade or the Duke.

well I'm not going to actually clean myself up. these women obviously think I fit in here. if the nosebleed makes me look like a legitimate guest I want to keep it. I probably should look like I'm trying to clean up a little though so I will sort of halfheartedly wipe the blood away.

absolutely I want to find my way to the hidden room (though do I know where the Duke's private quarters are? doubtful) but I'm also not trying to run away from this conversation. that'll call attention to myself and look really weird. besides I might be able to learn something from these women, they clearly know their way around.

"You know how it is at these things," I laugh a little apologetically as I make a show of wiping the blood from my mouth. "Once I get started I just get so carried away." I turn my attention to the woman in the owl mask. "I absolutely must see this bone garden, and by the way, your masks are exquisite."

[tauge-nix]

i wish my dog had a phone so I could text him while im at work and tell him I love him and I miss him and he could send back blurry pictures of random things, incomprehensible gibber texts, and audio recordings of his crinkle ball

[blooblooded]

The Book prepares the Ritual

 "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars." – Charles Darwin, 1860.

What would you pick, given the choice between death and a life in darkness?

It was not a choice. Casey could see that now. She had been brought up underground but not like this! Not starving and insane, not under constant threat by a being more powerful than anything imaginable! Not like this! 

The people had come out of nowhere. How could people live in such a dark, desolated place as the Lost Colony? There was no food here. There was barely any light. But these were not people. Not really. Only shells, generation after generation living in the dark with no outside stimulation or nourishment. Their skin was dull and lifeless, their bodies were emaciated. Their eyes had the milky pink half-blindness of animals brought up in a cave. When they moved, they did so in a half-crawling, crab-like gait. What was the word for life forms like this? There was not a word terrible enough to map out their essence. Hypogean? Troglobites?

Esther had not stopped struggling and cursing since the ragged, gibbering survivors of the Lost Colony had dragged her, Casey, Tony, and Kassidy into the...the building, the temple, they were locked inside of. It was pointless. There were at least 10 of these twisted, chattering people, and probably more in other areas. And they were strong. Strong in the same way that blood magic users were strong, impossibly so for people who were so starved. Even the genetically enhanced strength of an Artificial was no match for them.

“Let us the fuck out of here!” Esther rammed the locked and rusting door with her shoulder. It shuddered but did not budge. “Let us out! I’m going to fucking kill all of you, I’m going to light you up!”

“They can’t understand you,” Tony said dully. He sat on the floor, staring into nothingness. The whiteness of his prosthetic eye gleamed in the dim light. When he had been grabbed, all the fight went out of him. Like he had Seen something so incomprehensible that he understood the fruitlessness of it. Maybe it was better not to See. Maybe it was better not to know. “They can’t understand you. It took their language and replaced it with its own.”

“We have to get back to Rosie and the others at the Gate!”

“They’re already dead,” said Kassidy. No, it was not Kassidy. The Book. The Book was in control. It had tricked them. It had led them all here. That had been its plan from the beginning. It wanted to get back to the Lost Colony. It wanted to get back to where it had come from. How could they have all been so blind? All of it, everything, leaving Eden, traveling to the Northern Territories, wandering and starving in the wilderness, had been part of its plan to come to this place. It knew that it could not survive in Kassidy’s body, it knew that it was killing her, so it had led them all here.

Led them here for… for what? What had Florence Gauthier told them? That for 200 years there had been rumors that an immortal monster was trapped inside the great stone arches of Asilo. That when she sent her people here to search for supplies, they had never come back.

Esther whirled to face Kassidy. Her expression was frigid, save for the veins cording at her temples and on her throat. “They’re not.”

“I don’t need them anymore.” This was the end. Kassidy was nearing the end. Her body could no longer hold the thing that lived inside of it. She could no longer fight it. It had been a long time since she had looked like herself, but now she was completely unrecognizable. Now she was little more than a corpse, too weak to do much of anything other than talk. Her hair had fallen out in clumps, her face was as gaunt and grotesque as a skull. Every part of her body that could leak was leaking black blood. “I don’t need any of you. Only Tony. My followers are hungry. You people will serve them better than you could serve me.”

“Just shut up.” Esther’s hair stood up by itself in a coppery halo as static electricity surged through her body. She turned and hit the door again.

Kassidy smiled with her rotting teeth. She leaned against the other wall in the small room, half-crouching out of weakness. Even that exertion made her body tremble. When the survivors of the Lost Colony had sprung out of the darkness, she had been the only one they did not attack. They had cringed away from her, covering their eyes and wailing. Like they had known. Like they could sense the undulating presence of the bodiless planet-eater. “You people were all blinded by your love for your friend. If you had just let her die you wouldn’t be here now.”

“Shut up!”

Casey couldn’t take it anymore. Too much. Too distracting. She needed to think. She needed time to think. There was no way out. The dark room in the decaying black stone temple they were in was small, smaller than her bedroom back home. At one time, maybe 200 years ago before the fall of Asilo, it had been some kind of observation room. There were broken, dusty screens and control panels bolted to the sides of the walls. No electricity though. Of course not. There was no power here, no working generators.

Except…

Above their heads, a black circular camera was mounted to the ceiling. It was the same kind as the sort that covered Eden. A single green light pulsed gently every few seconds.

Was someone watching? Was that even possible?

“Esther,” she said, pointing up. “There’s power somewhere. You could–”

“I can’t! Don’t you think I’ve tried?!”

“Do you still have your knife?” asked Tony. He looked up at Casey with his hair falling over his eyes. His expression was completely blank. “Give it to me.”

She hesitated. The implication hung heavy in the air between them. Death was easier than what was in store for him. She had already considered it, she had considered offering to do it herself. An act of mercy.  “I don’t think so.”

Kassidy laughed, a wheezing, rattling sound. Her left eyelid spasmed and drooped. “Poor Anthony,” she said, using the back of one hand to wipe the mixture of blood and mucus that dripped continuously from her nostrils. “You don’t have the guts. Not when you tried before, and not now.”

Esther advanced a single threatening step towards the person who had once been her closest friend. “I told you to shut the fuck up,” she said, and her voice was as glacial and cruel as her mother’s. “One more, thing, I dare you to say one more fucking thing.”

“Or what?” The demon of the Void smeared the bloody phlegm from its hand onto its shirt. 

“Stop,” warned Casey. She moved her own body so that she was in between Esther and Kassidy. Just in case. She didn’t think that anything would happen, not really, there was still too much love. Esther had always liked to talk big, she had learned to threaten others after a life of being threatened. But still. Just in case.

“Or I will kill you,” Esther said chillingly. All the blood had drained from her face, there was nothing left but a white mask. “Like I should have killed you the second we realized what you did to Kassidy.”

“Esther, just stop it.” She had never been good at placating people. She was no peacemaker. Casey had always been the one to stir up drama, to entice others into fights, poking and prodding and taking joy in doing so. But now, with Rosie gone, someone had to step into that role.

No, Rosie wasn’t gone, why had she even thought that? She couldn’t let herself think that. Rosie and Ayda and Marty were all fine, they were all alive, they were at the Gate. They were waiting for them at the gate. The demon was lying. That’s what it did. It lied. Everyone was fine.

Everyone would be fine. Once she figured out how to get out of here, how to get away from the twisted, shriveled people who had dragged them here, everyone would be fine. She could fix this. 

The air smelled like rotting meat. Casey looked back up at the blinking green light, at the camera. She waved at it. “Hey!” she shouted. “Is anyone watching?! Hey! Is someone watching us? If you’re connected to the power grid, you can help us!”

It was a long shot. She didn't know if anyone was watching. She didn’t know if there was a stable connection, or if the person watching could even understand her, if they were even from Eden. All she knew was that the camera looked identical to the thousands she had grown up seeing every day of her life.

“Cut it out,” said Esther.

Casey kept waving her arms. “My name is Cassiopeia Agapama, my father is a very important man! Help us! If you’re watching, you can help us!”

Esther made an animal sound of irritation. She started to pace back and forth in the small dark room. “Nobody’s watching,” she said, in a biting, mocking tone. “And if anyone was, it’s not anyone who would help us. You think those cameras back home exist for any reason other than scaring people? It’s some sick method of control.”

“What else are we supposed to do?”

There was no response. Esther continued to pace. Casey made a fist and drove it into the side of her own thigh to try and ameliorate her frustration. Trapped. Nothing to do, nothing they could do except wait for whatever the chattering half-humans had in store for them.

Tony stood up. His expression was blank, his shoulders were slumped. There was no life in his eye. He extended one hand towards Casey. “Give me your knife,” he said again, no affect, no trace of his old wry mood.

She shook her head and took a step back. The knife was in her left pocket, folded and heavy. She never let it get far away from her. “I told you no. You don’t need to– we’re not at that point yet. I’ll figure it out, we can get out of this.”

“It’s not for me,” said Tony, like he was dead on the inside. His hair hung over his face. “We can end this now before it gets any worse. It’s gonna get worse. You don’t understand. You haven’t seen what it wants, you don’t know how hungry it is. We can’t kill it permanently but– but it can’t survive here without a body. It’ll go away, it’ll just go away like when Cathy died.”

He might as well have just plunged the knife into her heart. Casey’s blood pounded, she felt her teeth clench. How could he propose that? How could he even say it?! No matter how decayed, no matter how broken, Kassidy was still inside of herself. Wasn’t she? A soul cannot just be pushed out to make space for some supernatural parasite! All this time she had fought and she had struggled because she believed that she might be able to talk to her friend again.

Even at the end. Even once, Casey wanted to talk to her.

It had been over a month since the last time it seemed like Kassidy was really in her body.

The demon of the Void let out a shriek of laughter. Too weak to hold itself up any longer, it eased itself down to the floor. It pressed its hands up under Kassidy’s chin, a parody of childish innocence. “Big talk!” it exclaimed. “Big talk from the man who couldn’t even put his wife out of her misery! You think you can do it? You think you can plunge a blade into this girl? I know you. I know you better than you know yourself.”

Again, Tony gestured towards Casey. He did not look at the decaying abomination on the floor. All of a sudden, he seemed very old. “I’ve seen what happens if I don’t do it.”

“You’ve seen?” Kassidy’s eyes were hemorrhaging, the whites turning red from burst blood vessels. She bared her teeth. “You haven’t seen. No, you haven’t seen. You know what happens if you kill this body? I jump on into the spare one I’ve kept here since the fall of the Stone Arches, empty and crawling. You know what happens then, Anthony? I will skullfuck you in that empty socket of yours until you wish you were dead and then I’ll complete my ritual anyways. So you better not come anywhere near me with that knife. Not now. Not when I’m so close.”

As shocking as the vulgarity was, the real shock was the intensity with which the demon spoke. All this time, Casey had not believed that it was sophisticated enough to have an actual plan. In her mind, it was nothing more than an interdimensional parasite. It didn’t have a brain, the only synapses it had access to were Kassidy’s. She had always thought that it was on the same evolutionary level as a worm or an eel.

But it was sophisticated, she could see that now, and that sophistication was driven by more than just the will to survive. No, it wanted something more. Something Tony knew about and would not tell them.

She remembered Marty’s description of the Void, the alien nothingness from where this creature had been formed eons before the Rift had opened. There were other things there. There were things living there beyond her comprehension. Hungry things that could not be permitted to walk the earth.

“Let me do this,” said Tony. Now Casey could see that a change had come over him. What she had mistaken for brokenness, for despair, was actually a terrible resolve. He did not want to do it, violence was not a part of his nature. But he knew what had to be done. He had Seen what had to be done. He pushed his hair out of his face, his eye burned blue. “Give me your knife.”

Casey took a step away from him. “I’m not gonna let you do that.”

“I agree with Tony,” Esther said coldly. The white mask of her face was more like her mother’s than anything.  “That’s not Kassidy anymore. If we kill it, those freaks out there won’t have something telling them what to do; we might get out of this alive.”

“I said I’m not gonna let you do that!”

“Cassiopeia, you better not let them hurt me!” The demon of the Void could do nothing but talk at this point. It was already dying. Sticky white foam bubbled at the corners of its mouth as it used the last of its strength to scrabble back against the wall. “You love her. If you really love her, you won’t let them touch this body!”

If Casey really loved Kassidy, she wouldn’t let her suffer any longer. What was so hard about it? She had taken lives before. Back then, it had been easy. In Eden she had cut the throat of a man who had been trying to hit her with a metal pipe, she had felt his hot blood splash across her face. While she and her friends had been trying to escape the coup in the North, she had unloaded a double-barrel shotgun at a Partisan soldier and watched his head explode. But now? This wasn’t a man who was trying to kill her. This was Kassidy. This was Kassidy, who she had known since she was 17 years old!

It wasn’t Kassidy though. Not anymore. It was just something that looked like her.

Casey shook her head. Both Tony and Esther were looking at her, waiting for her. If they tried anything, she knew that she would stop them. “There’s got to be another way.” Her own voice sounded foreign to her.

“There is no other way,” replied Tony. He turned and focused his gaze on the rotten monstrosity on the floor. It wheezed, its arms and legs spasming at random. “It doesn’t even matter if we get out of here. I don’t care. It has to die, it can’t– we can’t let it get what it wants. If we don’t kill it now, I will kill myself before I let it get what it wants. I won’t let it get its own body back. Because if it gets that, then everyone on this planet will die.”

The shapeless demon of the Void opened its mouth wider than a mouth should be able to open and let out a terrible scream in the maddening inhuman language from the threshold between worlds.

Tony lunged at Casey. His movement was so sudden and so unlike him that it took her by surprise. For the last year and a half she had seen him as a man broken by his own misery, so frightened and passive that she was unable to imagine him exerting any aggression. It was her fault for forgetting the person he told them he used to be. A desperate man who had lived most of his life on the streets, a man who did whatever he needed to in order to survive. Tony caught her in the shoulder with his full weight, knocking her off balance, then hooked her behind the ankle and sent her toppling to the floor.

“Get off me!” she said, shoving up against him. She didn’t want to fight him. Not now, not ever. But if it came to that, if it came to punching him a couple of times to keep him from Kassidy? “Are you crazy?”

Again, she had forgotten about Tony’s previous life. As deft as a thief, he removed the butterfly knife from her pocket and scrabbled away. It happened too fast for Casey to realize what he had done. He clutched the knife in his right hand. There was still no expression on his face except for terrible resolve. It was as if he had already dissociated so that he could carry out his intentions. “I’m not letting it get what it wants,” he said.

In one graceful movement, Casey righted herself from her undignified position on the floor and stood back up. She was starting to feel scared. She was not used to talking down a crazy person with a weapon, again, that was more in Rosaline’s skillset. No matter how fast and strong she was, it wouldn’t take Tony more than a second to really hurt Kassidy. She could not let him do that. “Give that back,” she said, as evenly as possible, keeping the fear out of her voice. “Think about this.”

“Cassiopeia,” rattled the demon of the Void. It was trying to stand back up but was unable to, its limbs twitching and useless. “Keep him away from me.”

“I’m not letting it get what it wants,” repeated Tony. In the dim light of the room, the knife was a flash of silver in his hand. So small. Casey had never seen anyone else hold it. She realized that his hand was shaking almost imperceptibly. Inside, he had to be struggling with what was before him. “I’ve Seen what it’s done. I’ve Seen it devour entire planets and fill the oceans there with blood. I’m not letting it get a new body so it can do the same thing to us!”

Static crackled around Esther but she did not move. Carved from stone, she had also resigned herself to what she believed needed to be done.

“Tony.” Casey moved towards him a step. Every muscle in her body was tensed to hurl herself at him. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t do it.”

The locks were rattling on the door and she could hear people speaking in their clicking, guttural language.

Tony looked at the door. He looked at the tiny, dying woman on the ground. He raised the knife.

And then none of them could move. Casey felt a paralysis grip her body. It was cold, as if every vein had turned to ice. The sensation started in her legs and moved up at an impossible rate. She couldn’t even blink. When she tried to inhale, she could barely suck any air into her lungs. It was hard not to panic against it. 

The door opened. One of the chattering mutants, an old woman dressed only in rags tied around her hips, slunk in. She was like the rest of them, the ashy skin, the milky and filmed over eyes. Like many of them, the skin on both arms had been stripped from her flesh, revealing hard scabby meat underneath. There was blood smeared across her chest, remnants of whatever blood magic spell she had made to seize the bodies of Casey, Esther, and Tony. The old woman looked at them and made a series of clicks from the back of her throat.

Something else, something behind her outside the door, seemed to…sniff.

“No,” said Tony, visibly struggling against the forces that held him. His voice changed in an instant from dull resignation to cracking panic. “No, no.” 

Esther made a low, whining sound. Her eyes bulged from her skull.

Casey strained, trying to turn her head back. To look. She wanted to look at what was behind the old woman, but she was not in the right position, she stood just barely slanting away from the door. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see something move. The agonizing sensation of animal fear filled every part of her.

They were all going to die. The knowledge slammed into her. She was going to die. She was never going to see her sister or her Dad again. The reality of her situation, the finality of her helplessness had finally hit her. She could fight and scream as much as she wanted but it would not accomplish anything. In the end, she was only human.

They were trapped in the dark with forces beyond their comprehension. 

“You shouldn’t have hesitated,” said Kassidy. She was speaking to Tony. “You shouldn’t have waited. You wanted to See what I was talking about? You wanted to See my alternative?”

The thing that had been sniffing in the door frame came into the small room. It brushed past Casey as it came and had she not been frozen, she would not have been able to stifle a scream. It– no, he– was a man crawling on all fours. He was naked, his long black hair and beard matted together from unthinkable years of neglect. At one time he must have been muscular, but his flesh was atrophied and the muscles in his arms and legs roped up from his skin with dehydration. The way he moved was wrong. It was not the way a human moved, it was not even the way that the half human mutants of the Lost Colony moved. He crept by Casey in the purely animal manner of a predator.

There was nothing human about his face. His jaw hung slack and expressionless. It was a look of soulless nothing. It was a look of a person who has been made completely empty.

Tony fought against the blood magic that held him still. With enormous effort he attempted to turn the knife on himself, his entire body shaking with over-exertion. Sweat poured down his face. His wrist twisted the knife to point towards his own throat but he lacked the power to drive it down.

It was pointless. It was pointless and Casey hated herself for wasting so much time trying to fix a situation that was beyond any of them. 

The old woman looked at Kassidy. She made the same clicking noise in the back of her throat. Kassidy laughed. “This stupid charade is finished,” said the demon of the Void. In the dim light of the little room, the slime leaking from its eyes made it look like it was weeping. “I changed my mind. I think I’ll let you girls live so you can watch the ritual.”

A foul smell of body odor, feces, and metallic blood rose up around the empty man. He crouched in front of Tony who still fruitlessly was trying to end his own life. He didn’t touch him, he didn’t even look at him, not really, he only looked past him. Still, Tony’s breathing bordered on hyperventilation. “Don’t do this,” he panted. “Don’t do this, just go away, go back to the Void, go anywhere but don’t do this!”

It was over. Empathy cannot be provoked in something that has never been human.

Above them, the green light on the surveillance camera blinked on and off.

[formerlyroyal]

STFU,.did he really say this?!

[crookedcurvybabethickchicksmaker]

Watch "Peter Tosh - Treat You Right" on YouTube

Izz.. She Ok...

I Hope She's Ok 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴😎😎😎😎🔌🔌🔌🔌🔌🔌🔌🔌🔌💤💤💤💤💤

[missputotyra]

At some point I’m going be to just Disappear from MDZS fandom cause the fandom is stupid . I like the Characters of MDZS but The Fandom Makes me want to Rider Kick them At times And it’s Confusing me to point were I don’t even not what these Characters are , no stupid Power point will help with decanonization Both Stans and Antis do this . People Complain About it All the time

no I dont Binge watch a lot of thing ( Zenkaiger and Digimon 2020 are the only ones I can think of ) I can barely keep my attention on the screen for three episodes Of one piece and I’m in Dressrosa !?

so how do you think I Pay attention to a Stupid Chinese cartoon I’ve notice MDZS Donghua feels so slow after the Sunshot campaign flashback especially when I havent had my mediciene , I guess Manhua is the best way but cause I’m Not reading the Novel Screw that shit I’m Reading Distortion detective my brain would be fried .

That and You Can never find anyone willing to. Give you writing advice on Characters or Alternate universes the kinds of things I like to write so not one can get pissed at me for writing certain Shit ( Yes Antis I know JC a Fucking Jerk , Yes Wangxian stan WWX is not a Toddler and Lan Zhan is not a Mute ) . I’ve only had one person do something like that for me and No one Eles .

What should I Do? should I just quit ?