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#um. maybe the real twisted part is that all of this tragedy was easily preventable if we had a support system in place.
squishosaur · 8 months
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hey man. i'm just saying. why would we put inexperienced teenagers with over-inflated egos and obvious emotional issues into combat classes and make them claw their way to the top of their dorms and expect things to just run smoothly. who actually thought this
#the reason rsa doesn't have overblots is because they understand the joy and whimsy of life and friendship btw#LIKE. why is there no school counselor?? do you know how much time & resources & effort & TRAUMA we could have saved the students &#school from if ANYONE had reached out to riddle and was like 'hey are you alright i heard xyz and i wanted to let you know...' ESPECIALLY#since TREY LITERALLY TELLS US 'oh well here's the lowdown on her trauma this is Probably what is causing this'#or if someone sat down to tell leona 'hey! i'm rooting for you in ur magift(?) game! you're my fav player!!' AND LET HIM FEEL NOTICED#or if someone approached azul as an Equal to try to stop his plans. as a friend even. BEYOND A BUSINESS TRANSACTION#or if ANYBODY BUT ESPECIALLY KALIM was like 'jamil i think you should follow your passions and do something you enjoy today!!' or AT LEAST#let him know he was appreciated as a person NOT JUST FOR HIS WORK#'i know you're doing a lot today but i just wanted to thank you for how much Effort you put into this and..' etc etc etc#ERM.. IF ANYONE TREATED VIL LIKE A HUMAN BEING AND NOT A CELEBRITY??? or even 'hey i loved you in this film i was wondering if we could#do a play together or something..!!' AND LET HER TRY A TYPE OF CHARACTER SHE NEVER GOT THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE. and sing her praises.#if anyone reached out to idia beyond a 'hey the teacher said to come to class'/'get out of your bed and come to our housewarden meeting'#or even. IF ORTHO HIMSELF was like. 'you know it's not your fault... you didn't cause all of this. not really' OR SOMETHING#or if malleus ever got to experience a small firsthand loss AND WAS COMFORTED THROUGH IT. not just quick fix via magic. not replacing. just#GRIEVING SOMETHING??????? and wasn't feared by literally everyone#um. maybe the real twisted part is that all of this tragedy was easily preventable if we had a support system in place.#but idk. twst is a highschool. there's no support in real high school either. i'd probably overblot too if i could ajdjrjfinfdndjd#twst#chatter#LONG RAMBLE SORRY#yes overblots are essential to the plot. but also. do you know how frustrating it is watching the blot build up and sitting in silence.#I'M SORRY IK IF SOMETHING LIKE THIS WAS HAPPENING TO A GUY I JUST MET I WOULD PROBABLY NOT NOTICE.. but of it was my Friend or Housewarden..#I'D ASK BRO.... I'D ASK ... UGHHHHHUUUHHHH#not that anyone would notice if *I* was about to lose it tbh#speaks volumes about our society o think#OKAY NOW I'M DONE FOR REAL
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katsukikitten · 3 years
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WARNINGS : N!SFW 18+ AGED UP AU! SOME SCENES MAY CONTAIN GRAPHIC CONTENT, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED. YANDERE THEMES GIF MADE BY ME
It started out with a package.  
Roses really, neatly tucked away in plastic and a glass vase that nestled into loud styrofoam.
Or at least that's when you started to notice it.
Actually it started with a phone call didn't it?
Just a few days ago the old rotary phone,  the one you bought for nostalgia, rang. This in itself was not odd, you picked up the aged yellow receiver and pressed the cool plastic to your ear.
But you did not speak, waiting patiently for the other line to come to life. After a few moments of silence you figure it to be a telemarketer, the automated type that doesn't start its spiel until it hears a tone, a voice. So you hang up.
The random call lost to both time and thought.
But you cannot forget this package that acted as a catalyst, to what you were not sure.
You just knew it was something.
The white box with the flower company's name on the side of the cardboard sat on your concrete steps, just past the waist high fence. You were returning from a run, huffing as you bent over, you figured it was most likely for your neighbor but it had your address. The recipient's name had been worn off from the poor handling of the package, you had figured the contents to be broken. Despite the state of the box the roses were perfectly intact. Crystal vase sparkling even through the opaque wrapping, a note on top that read.
I'll love you always.
Ah so this was not for you. You scoff, this was meant for your neighbor as you first originally thought. It made more sense that way. What with his boyfriend being long distance, it was obvious. He most likely remembered his address wrong and put yours in error. As you're haphazardly closing the box, keeping the note in hand, your neighbor waltz from his door.
"Ah, um Denki-kun" You call,  a bright smile beams on his face as he makes his way to meet you at your shared fence.
"Love!" He greets, strong hand giving your bicep a soft squeeze, "Ah flowers? Spill!"
"Well they aren't mine. I...I think they're yours. Here." You shove the box and note into his hands, stupid tears trying to prick your eyes.
Why? You were unsure.
Maybe you were a bit jealous. Thinking back you couldn't remember the last time you had even had a flirtatious comment or cat call sent your way. You lived a normal quiet life with your "abnormality". Quirkless. You worked from home, spoke to a select few and hardly left your house. It contributed to your wait gain thus adding to your small list of places to go.
The grocery store.
And the gym Denki invited you to or around the block for a run.
After a gurgling amount of time you finally achieved your dream body. Now all that was left was to maintain it.
"Wait!" Denki calls, "This isn't my boyfriend's handwriting."
Furrowing your brows, hand on the handle the answer comes to you.
"Probably just one of those fonts meant to look like handwriting."
"No, come look. It was made with a ballpoint pen." Nothing escapes his pro hero trained eye, his finger slides beneath the words, "He seems passionate! Lucky duck look at how deep love is."
He passes the card to you, giving you a wink as he passes the white box. Sure enough there are divots in the card stock, love is the deepest. Deep enough it almost ripped through the thick paper. You swallow thickly racking your brain, your job requires you to have answers to every question. Logical answers. So it's no surprise your mind wanders until it comes up with something. Your eyes shift to the right, you were lucky enough for your little house to be on the corner of the block.
The delicate roses must have been intended for your neighbor diagonal from you. You wait until Denki is halfway down the block before you rush across the quiet street to set the flowers up neatly on the porch. Throwing the box and wrapping into the trash before you speed walk into the safety of your sanctuary.
Your cats prance to the door to greet you and then sprint to the kitchen to be fed. As if you hadn't just fed them before your run a little less than an hour ago.
The rest of your night is uneventful. You curl on the couch, nestled deep within an old cardigan and the comfort of your leggings with a pile of work to be analyzed. To find the devil in the details and solve what seemed unsolvable.
The answers were always there, under your nose. Found easily by your trained eye but how could you not see the obvious answers when you had the luxury of a bird's eye view. The luxury of knowing the whole story from the shakey beginning to the bitter end.
A luxury you would not have for your own story.
The shrill ring cuts through the comfortable silence causing you to jump from your skin, the cats perk their heads up lazily to see what disturbed them before tucking their head back down.
You tell yourself it's a wrong number, a telemarketer but curiosity is beginning to get the better of you.
And curiosity is a deadly, loud thing. Louder than reason. Reason you had learned from the safety of your home, from other people's mistakes. The same very mistakes that sit on your lap with harsh red ink labeling them C L A S S I F I E D.
It rings a fourth time as you stand, the bell calling out for your attention, demanding you speak. You lift the receiver, again there is silence on the other end.
You wait patiently, is this another automated telemarketer? Had you entered your real number by mistake for one of those stupid store discounts?
You must have, still you resist the urge to tap the speaker of the phone to see if it would trigger the recording.
Instead you drop the receiver onto the base, rattling the hidden bell.
And that was that, you return to your work. Pouring over the details to find the pattern, to build a psychological profile to avoid a tragedy in the future.
Ironic how you cannot prevent your own.
It isn't until a few weeks later does the first letter find its way into your mailbox.
It seemed harmless enough you thought it to be an accident, just neatly looped words proclaiming their love. But it was never fully addressed to you and when you tried to pass it off to Denki, again he denied that the letter belonged to him.
Still, those looping letters twist into your memory, coming to the forefront of your mind every now and again. As if the paper that lies on your dining room table reads itself aloud, from beginning to end at the top of every hour.
As if the ink doesn't want you to forget.
"I am not sure when it started, but it did. I had fallen for you despite my efforts not to. A half of a year I've told myself to forget it, to forget you. And yet I cannot bring myself to stop, the more I try the more you come to mind. And the more I find myself near you. It's as if you're a bad drug I can't quit. I've been watching you. Everything you do is done in such cautious beauty. Please answer next time my dear."
Silence for weeks after that, at least as far as the rotary phone and the mailbox were concerned. You would occasionally get a text from an unknown number.
A transposed number, an error on the sender's end. Or so you assured yourself, especially when they would seem a bit too coincidental. When you were out for a jog or out at the gym at a different time than usual a text would come through.
For a second your mouth would go dry, your blood ice cold as you read the black letters atop the white screen. Huffing as your lack of breath came from a psychological response as opposed to your physical running.
Why aren't you home?
See you soon?
But these couldn't be intended for you. How could they? You could list the people you knew outside of your family and work place on one hand.
Denki.
And only because he spoke to you first!
So these texts, these little messages laced with concern could have been for an estranged spouse, a forgetful spouse or some partner who lacked the ability to properly communicate.
You just knew they weren't for you.
Or so your new mantra goes.
Paranoia didn't begin to sink it's sharp teeth into you until you noticed your cats' odd behavior.
In an immeasurable amount of time they went from lazy, happy go lucky animals to hostile even aggressive creatures. As if they were suddenly feral.
Oddly enough they only acted this way during certain times, mainly at night. Their moon eyes saw things you could not, their enhanced hearing heard things you could not, things you labeled, rat or mouse.
Would a mouse or rat cause a cat to hiss at shrouded corners? To claw at the wall with a howl that sounded more like a scream? Would it make them avoid the closet door in your room?
Maybe it was bigger? The floorboards above did groan more often than not lately. Maybe it was a raccoon even.
Yes, that had to be the cause of their behavior.
And yet there was still that one time, that one instance you sometimes dream about waking in a cold sweet.
The thing you cannot explain away, nor label as mouse, rat, not even a raccoon.
A cocktail of a tired mind and a trick of the eye but simply not vermin.
It was overcast, a sickly grey as the day wept deep into the night. The weather, naturally, caused you to melt into the plush material of your couch as you consumed comfort movie after comfort movie. You were given a reprieve from your worry as your cats seemed normal, sleepy just as you were that day. Even Nyx chose to laze on your chest as a temporary throne. Your couch is flush against the arch way that leads into the dining room and kitchen, giving it's back to part of the hallway towards the main bathroom and your bedroom at the back.
This angle always caused you great anxiety but there was no other way your luxury couch could fit in the small living room and so you always sunk low into the cushions.
Suddenly Nyx's ears twitch and her eyes snap open, waking only a cat knows how. On high alert to a sound totally lost to your draft ear. Her eyes widen, pupils dilating to adjust better to the shadowed room. The glow of the TV casts such a glow on the objects around you, flicker in soft and harsh lights. Slowly Nyx cranes her neck to see what exactly disturbed her sleep, just as her eyes lock on whatever is behind you, you see it for just a fraction of a second.
In the reflection of those moon eyes you see it. Distorted only from the curvature of her lens and the grain of the TV but there is no denying its shape.
A crude outline of a man, broad shouldered and faceless in the dark.
You freeze, mirroring your cat. Breath held as you watch the figure in the pitch black pupil. Wishing, hoping and praying that what you see is not really there.
After an eon of a moment, Nyx begins to shrink in on herself before silently slinking from the couch to find shelter beneath it.
You are not brave enough to move, to crane your head just as your cat did before you to confirm if what you saw was real. And in the milliseconds that the TV goes black you avoid the corner the figure should be standing in. Goose flesh breaks out over your skin, making you feel vulnerable and cold. While your feet burn begging you to get up.  
To run.
After a lot of mental reassurance and silence you begin to settle down. Easing yourself back into the rational world. Even becoming brave enough to stare into the TV, into the corner where the figure should be reflected in.
Each passing second as you wait for that small moment of blackness sends your heart into an irrational pace. Finally it happens and when you see nothing you sigh with relief.
Mentally giving yourself an "I told you it was nothing." talk.
That is until you hear a sound, a thump and a click from the back bedroom.
Your bedroom.
But the sound seems as if it came from within, as if it were your closet door.
Your heart explodes into frantic erratic beating.
The shrill ring of the old rotary phone rips through the dialogue of the movie but it can be barely heard over the hum of your blood.
RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
BRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIING
Tonight you are frozen in place, whether that be from petrifying fear or sheer stubborn denial you cannot say. You just know one thing.  You do not want to deal with the automated telemarketer who never seems to speak.
It rings four more times before it stops.
You chalk it up to coincidence. To nothing.
Late evening turns into late night and sooner rather than later you find yourself in the mouth of the hallway. Staring down your bedroom door as your mind plays on repeat the sound of a door closing from earlier that night.
You cannot let the boogie man keep you from sleep. Slowly you enter, flicking on all the lights.
Everything seems to be in place, the small pile of laundry still lies abandoned by your hamper, your bed neatly made, pillows haphazardly lying about the comforter. Hell even your inherited diamond drop necklace still sits snugly in the jewelry dish on your night stand.
The townhouse makes an odd sound, you jump out of your skin. Clutching your phone so hard the lock and volume buttons imprint into your palms.
No longer can you ignore the elephant in the room as the silence from this particular space screams at deafening volumes until you dare to look. Your eyes flicker to your left and there it is.
Your closet door, seeming to yawn and stretch even in the harsh hue of the overhead light. A closet is always an ominous, odd place and the sounds it may or may not have made cause a great twisting in your stomach. The shine of the knob calls to you with deadly wonder. Begging you to turn the gleaming metal to reveal the darkness behind the bland white door.
It should be inspected shouldn't it? If you ever wanted to sleep soundly you would need to reveal what may lurk in the dark.
Creeping towards the door with baited breath until finally your hand hovers over the knob.
"Open me." It seems to whisper in delighted glee, elated to see your stressed, scared features distort in its polished brass. You retract your fingers as if burned, biting onto your lip as you scrape your large armchair against the wood. Shoving it into place against the closet door.
You sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the door until your eyes burn. You turn off the overhead light but keep the soft light of your nightstand lamp on.
You dream fever dreams of flashing lights as a storm passes overhead. Dream of the closet door laughing in the night, of cool fingers pressed into your skin.  
Jolting awake you reach for your phone as your senses slowly come to you. Your eyes fly to the armchair in the mid morning light. It rests in the same spot you left it ominously staring at your bed.
Something seems off about it or maybe you just imagine that there is a deep divot in the cushion, as if someone or something sat in the armchair most of the night.
You close your eyes and go over rational explanations. Always bringing back to yourself the same question.
Who in the world would want you?
Bringing you back full circle, that you were getting ahead of yourself. The cart before the horse in a sense and letting your mind race without restraint.
Letting the season of Fall try to creep into your bones and cause an artificial fear.
Still it's not too long after that do the cats avoid your room altogether.
While you choose to do what you've always done, push the problem aside and explain it away.
The phone rings as you're lacing up your running shoes. You pick up the receiver without bringing it to your ear and place it down gently.
It's just a wrong number anyway.
Tonight air bites at your nose, leaves crunching underfoot as wind whips around buildings and trash, carrying with it the promise of a harsh winter to come.
Your feet carry you slowly back to the direction of home as they beat down your normal, safe route.
A right from your little townhome, straight for two blocks before you would find the winding black pavement. It would snake past the backs of homes through some small trees but never a path that was fully hidden.
Always out in the open but giving you the ability to peer into people's lives as you passed. Witnessing dinners, arguments and heated moments of passion. Silently you thanked Kami you were not positioned on this route.
You keep your eyes focused ahead, the music in your ears low to listen for possible passers such as a bike or a better runner than yourself.
You pass a tree that seems thicker than normal, your phone buzzes on your arm band.
An email, it has to be an email.
Yet your mind wanders to those worried texts, lingers on the thoughts of if that tree had always been that wide, if the quickly setting sun had always cast the path in blood red. The maroon leaves flutter overhead, falling to the ground.
More crunching than what you think your feet should produce has you running faster. Forcing yourself not to glance over your shoulder. Your breathing becomes rasped as you borderline sprint home, still the crunching comes closer.
It isn't until someone brushes your shoulder as they pass do you let out a blood curdling scream. Huffing to catch your breath as you take a step back.  The jogger, your neighbor from across the street that you occasionally run into, removes his earbud.
"You okay?" He addresses you by your name and suddenly you're embarrassed that you do not know his. He takes your silence as an answer, his brow furrowing.
"I thought you'd be less skittish since your new boyfriend's been coming around." Your mouth goes dry.
"Wh...what?"
"Yea he seems so sweet. He always checks the windows to make sure they are locked at night." He takes in your response and shrugs, "It's getting late. Since I didn't see your boyfriend there yet, I'll jog you home."
The jog home is agonizing,your mind racing far faster than your feet can go.
What did he mean he saw him checking the windows? What boyfriend?
Maybe, maybe he mixed up your house with Denki's again. It's happened once before when he was returning mail. So there was a good chance he was mistaken again.
Still the closer the two of you get to home the worse you feel. A brick sits in your stomach as he jogs in place before your fence. He gives you a knowing smile and a wink as you wave him goodbye.
It isn't until you turn to face your home do you notice it, the white rectangle stark against your black door.
There is an envelope taped to the thick oak, addressed to no one but "My beloved".
You rip it from the wood with ragged breath as you bring it inside. Already you can feel the contents squirming, fidgeting as it waits to be read.
Polaroid photos fall to the hardwood floors, pictures of you running down your favorite path. Blurred images of you walking down the aisles of the grocery store, and even a photo of you taken between the cracks of the fence in your front yard.  
There are no more photos after that, at least not this time. Just that fucking letter written in long looping ink  You feel the words tighten around your throat as horror wraps its spindly fingers around your guts and yanks them towards the floor.
Your knees threaten to buckle as your eyes rapidly move along the page.
"In these moments you are the most beautiful. Blissfully unaware of prying eyes. In my time I've come to care for you I've noticed I'm not the only one watching. People gaze at you with whispered murmurs, with pitying eyes as they spin tales of your life. Speculating gossip as you prance about the neighborhood. Flaunting in those tight running shorts that hold every godly curve of your thighs and ass. Of the light jacket you leave unzipped so they can get a better view of your bouncing breasts tucked in your black sports bra. I wonder, would they bounce like that when you ride on my cock? Would your hair stick to your forehead like that as I rail you from behind. Would that angelic voice squeak out for more? For me? Ah I'm salivating thinking of it, harder than I've ever been. Please do not wear those out while running. In fact you don't have to run anymore Doll. You just need to let me take care of you God damn it. You little fucking whore. You seductive vixen with your God damned doe eyes. Just...just fucking answer please."
Rage and fear fight for control as you reread the letter for the fourth, fifth time before you finally move. Rage, for once, wins. You slam the door behind you locking the deadbolt before running to the back bedroom. Throwing the heavy chair from the closet door and ripping it open.  
Nothing lies within it, just clothes that begin to smell of neglect. Of old running shoes you didn't have the heart to throw away.
Of relief that whoever was sending these letters, these ones that weren't meant for you. Wasn't currently in the house.
The floorboards overhead groan and for a moment you have half a mind to tuck your cats away into their carrier, buy a one way train ticket to bumfuck nowhere and set your house ablaze.
Instead you move the chair back in front of the closet, grabbing things from your back bedroom to start your new life on your couch.
Time passes as the trees become more bare, their spindly fingers reaching out to tap the roof at odd hours of the night.
Tomorrow you promised yourself you would run.
And yet you find yourself dressed, lacing up your shoes before slowly opening the door. Your jacket is zipped all the way up, your hair neatly tied back and just as you step foot out the front door a heavy wind rips through the yard causing Denki's unlatched gate to slam. You jump back startled as your fear clings to you like a second skin. The letter begins to overlap in your head and the polaroid photos you had trashed a few weeks ago burn into your retinas. A faint snap and a whirl comes from close by and suddenly your stomach churns. Bile rushes up your windpipe too quickly, slamming the door shut and running to the bathroom. You barely make it as you dry heave into the porcelain bowl, huffing in the air of fresh toilet water. The smell starts a vicious cycle of nausea until finally your clammy skin begins to cool, pressing yourself to the side of the tub. In your panic your skin becomes sensitive, hyper aware of each stitch in your jacket, your sports bra and your jogging leggings. Your rip at your clothes until you peel them off of you, huffing as you scramble to get into the shower.
It does not matter that the water is not yet hot. Hell it isn't even lukewarm still you find yourself in the stream as it becomes scalding. Scrubbing at your skin with soap over and over and over. Nails pulling away already raw skin until that burning water begins to cool. A floorboard creaks overhead causing your head to snap up. The ceiling holds no secrets and yet no answers until you see it. A small hole, one you aren't sure if it's always been there, gaping from the attic over your shower and bath. It's too dark to tell if there is someone peering down at you from above or not.
Instead of freaking out your head slowly tilts away from the haunting discovery. Turning off the water, opening the curtain and wrapping yourself in a towel. As if it were every day you see something like that, as if it were nothing more than a spider lingering that you'd wish to forget.
It's fine It's always been there
But that would be the last time you would take a shower in that house.
Even though you hardly left your couch, things would still go missing in yourself. Things like the remote or one of your hundreds of phone charger cords. Even documents to cases but you didn't care, couldn't care. Otherwise you would break. Shatter.
Your days consisted of lying on the couch and consuming an ungodly amount of television. Doing so until your eyes burned although you begged them to stay open. Sadly everyone needed sleep and so you did. Giving into exhaustion as your eyes fluttered closed and your body weak, relaxing into the comfort of the couch.
Hours are lost to you so you dream and dream. Of a better time or of yourself in one of your files to dissect. Giving yourself that perfect bird's eye view and wondering how the victim never saw it coming.
In your dream you feel something along your face, smooth fingertips trace down your cheek over and over at a lulling pace.
"So perfect." A whispered serenade melding in with a snap and a whirl. A flash of lightning from a passing storm.
Except there was no storm coming in.
Your eyes snap open as you jerk to a sitting position frantically looking around the room.  When your eyes find nothing you allow your beating heart to settle back into your numbed state, more than ready to melt into the couch.
Until your stomach growls forcing you to focus on a new problem.
When was the last time you ate? Your stomach had long forgotten about food, choosing to conserve energy in case you needed to run from whatever the hell it was in your head.
Forgoing dressing you place your hand on the knob, wallet in hand. Two sets of glowing eyes watch you from beneath the couch. Twisting the metal to yank the door open you are greeted with cold fall air. The wind whips hair into your face as your mind quickly wanders. You half imagined a man to be standing in the middle of the street. Mouth stretched too far over gleaming teeth, lips parting enough as the wind brings with it the sound of your name.
Frantically you move your hair from your face, eyes searching up and down the street to find no one, nothing.
As it should be at 10am on a weekday. Suddenly the weight of going outside sits on your shoulders, despite the convenience store being a ten minute walk both ways, the thought of you going alone scared you.  Slowly you shut the door, falling to your knees before lying face down on your floor openly sobbing.
A creaking board sends you back to high alert, you remove your jacket and decide to order take out instead.
The knocking at your front door jolts you awake, the TV drones in the background with hazed over words as you quickly come to. Heart slamming into your chest before your stomach growls loudly. Right, food.
Your hand hovers over the knob as if suddenly you cannot move, as if the person on the other side of the door is an imposter lying in wait. Another knock comes at the door, he announces who he works for which eases your phobia a bit. You swallow thickly before finally opening the door, hands sweating as the anticipation of the identity of the stranger on your porch.
He seems to check out, his outfit covered in logos for your takeout restaurant of choice, car labeled as such as well. He holds the receipt towards you. His eyes wander over the face of the house, giving you sudden chills.
The question falls from your numb lips.  
"D...do you see anyone in the windows?" The delivery guy visibly jarrs, eyes darting to the windows of your room and the living room. Suddenly his face changes as a knowing smile spreads on his lips.
"This is a prank isn't it? For Halloween right?" He chuckles, but when he sees the pen shaking in your grip his face goes stone cold. Eyes darting to your left, to the bedroom windows. He taps the paper, indicating where you need to sign, you take a moment to do so.
The old rotary phone screams from the living room, making you both jump.
"Guess I better get that." You gesture, grabbing for your food. He nods affirmation before stepping off of your small porch a little too quickly.
You slam the front door, appetite washed away by each shrill of the small bell. Hesitantly you reach for it,  you have to know, need to know who could be on the other side.
The receiver is cold against your ear, the other line is quiet, although you can hear something soft in the background.
Talking, it sounds familiar, like an echo or almost as if there is a delay. It almost sounds like the same commercial that's playing on your TV right now.
Gently you set the phone down, the soft click echoes in the space around you. You sit on the couch before lying, covering yourself in your blanket as your takeout sits by the door, forgotten.
It wouldn't be too long before it begins to rot, almost as quickly as you.
The phone rings
And rings
And rings.
Nightly in fact, for the next few weeks as you cry silently trying to ignore the sound. Turning up the TV as loud as it can go, 24/7 until finally the speakers blow and you are left with nothing but that shrill shriek. The demand of the small plastic item that was meant to bring to a comforting memory from the past comes more often. Every four hours, every three hours, every hour until finally when it comes to an end it breathes again.
Screaming into the night tearing away your hearing, your sanity until finally you get up from your spot on the couch. Clothes falling away from your frame as they had grown in the time you sat. The time that you watched.
Each step is agonizing as sobs rack through your body, shaking hands making it hard to reach for the cool receiver.
You press it to your ear and for a final time your mind attempts logic. It is just an automated telemarketer, a glitch or determined program but the thought crumbles as your ears strain to hear the soft breath on the other line.
"Please…please stop." You sob into the receiver when no one speaks. The silence deafening as your mind can no longer keep with the charade.
That everything is okay and has always been okay. That the red flags you studied for a living were never there, washed away by your feigned ignorance.
"Finally got a response out of you." A velvet voice chimes, agitation lacing his syllables, "Gods, I just cannot wait to have you. It was worth it you know? Living in your walls for months."
"Why are you doing this?" Your voice barely a whisper, a soggy huff more than anything.
"I'm glad you asked." You body goes rigid, a haze blankets your mind and smothers the scream tearing up your throat.  
"Now walk out the door to me. Don't worry I'll bring your cats back to our home later."
You hang up the phone, body moving on it's own as you walk towards the front door. A door you had chosen to avoid and for good reason. But you should have known the danger lied within these four walls. Although your body feels heavy it moves normally despite you trying to fight it. Or as best you can with your worn down mind.and will. It is not as joyous as a moment for you and it is for the man in the street. His lilac hair is illuminated in the moonlight while his amethyst eyes glow iridescent. His smile is as you imagined, twisted and screwed up in such a way it makes your stomach churn. Lips stretched out almost too far over gleaming white teeth. Your face does not reflect your horror as it stays neutral, only your eyes give you way as tears fall from your cheeks.
The answer was there, under your nose, the devil in the details that you normally saw with your bird's eye view. One you didn't have the luxury of for your own story.
"Come now pet. It's time I finally teach you about what it means to be mine."
EPILOGUE
Everything is hazed over and slow, as if watching an old silent movie through the static and snow of the screen. Trying to read their lips to figure out what they are saying only for the text box to come too late.
"Perfect. Now get on your knees kitten. Open wide." You follow his orders numbly body moving on it's own as he smiles down at you. "God, you're so so perfect."
Long fingers tug at his belt before the shrill of a ring tone cuts through the silence. It is the same sound of your rotary phone at home except with an added element. The foreign sound of your whimpers and pleads for the phone to stop can just barely be heard. He looks down at the cell phone and answers.
"Denki, Baby I know I said I would come tonight. I'm just running late okay?" Amethyst eyes rove over to you and it is then that it hits you. The horror of the realization is like ice water dumped over you as you put two and two together.
The first time you saw him, visiting your neighbor over a year ago. It was such a quick exchange, eye contact and nothing more as his lips were pressed to Denki's.
Your mouth goes dry as it hangs open, slowly it becomes uncomfortable.
He changes his voice to sound like someone else's, someone with a gruff deeper tone.
"Oi quit talking to dunce face so we can finish this shit!" He removed the device from his mouth
"I'll be home after this patrol. Love you bye."
He tosses the phone before gripping your chin to spit into your mouth, his hand rests on the hem of his pants.
"Now...where was I?"  
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