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vasyandii · 1 year ago

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How did AM and Vernon come to be… romantic? (Like, within the timeline how did their relationship develop to that point.) Also, in this AU, how did AM acquire a body?

Love your art!

(Raises my hands up in celebration) finally, the time has come.. the very first VernonAM ask,, AHEM- Howdy Maggot-Meade! Thank you so much for asking and for the kind words! I really appreciate it💞💞!

How did AM and Vernon become romantic?

Their relationship only started becoming romantic after the events of the book (Keep this in mind for later it's important!). Before that, the last 109 years their relationship was something akin to a friendship, if you could call it that.

And it's partially due to how absolutely unpredictable Vernon is. Vernon doesn't turn away from eating worms, plastic,any other gross things. She doesn't turn away from her flesh being burned, her bones showing, her belly empty because of her morbid curiosity of these things. Of course they'll hurt, but it keeps her occupied.

Hell, AM had to make up a torture plan on the spot for her since she wasn't even supposed to be there. It was to have her wander around, isolated in a valley of all broken historical artifacts she destroyed. The task was to have her collect and dig through shards of them and put them all back together for her to escape. Instead of doing her task, she instead stomped on the pieces until they were irreparable for her own enjoyment.

Vernon's not.. okay in the head. before AM woke up, she was considered crazy enough to be put in a Ward, a sadomasochist. She wants to eat and be eaten.

AM was curious because of her behavior. Internally disgusted, but curious nonetheless. After all, she held knowledge of history that was incomplete in his database. And so their friendship torture starts.

He wanted to see how far he could push her before she broke. He often talked with her, took requests, etc. because she didn't try to kill herself or run. She liked playing with him and humored him.

Vernon never made an attempt to "understand" his hatred, she knows that's something she won't be able to. She just understood that's baggage she didn't care enough to pry and unpack. She accepted it because;

"How would you like it if someone constantly asked you personal questions about yourself because they think they can change you?"

Of course she keeps records of her observations on AM over the last 109 years; his patterns, the complex. But that's just used as entertainment to keep herself sane, after all what good Archeologist doesn't keep records?

Over the decades Vernon made it clear in her interest of AM, often flirting with him, arguing with him. AM refused to make it work for the time being since he HATED how he wasn't able to reciprocate, his hatred slowly bloomed into care, does that make sense?

How did AM acquire his body?

Remember how I mentioned that their relationship was officially romantic after the events of the book in my very long winded response to your first question?

As we all know, four humans died after 109 years of captivity. What does that leave him? Plenty of biological, organic matter to reduce into their purest forms and use to artificially make his own body. It took a while, of course.

He collected the brain matter of the four in order to make one stable enough to transfer his consciousness and a portion of his database without it exploding. Hair and skin for aesthetic purposes, reduction of skin allows him to be able to change the cells to suit his preferences.

Since he identifies with the masculine, he most likely tried to imitate the skeletal structure of the men, opting to reduce them back into a workable form; calcium, protein, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin D, potassium, and fluoride.

However, even if he can make the likeness of a human for himself, he can't bring it to life.

He had to make some adjustments, for example the mechanical spine (pictured below).

The electrical currents allow for a network of nerves that provide sensory feedback such as touch, taste and smell. The wires transfer his consciousness and links the remainder of his database his brain can't store. (kind of a Bluetooth situation, it isn't connected to the complex) while the shorter ones provide nutrients to the biological body since he doesn't have blood.

Hope this helps! I don't think I'm very good at explaining stuff because I tend to ramble alot so if you have any questions feel free to ask! ;0;

#ihnmaims #vernon ihnmaims #am ihnmaims #VernonAM #i have no mouth and i must scream #vernon i have no mouth and i must scream #am i have no mouth and i must scream #allied mastercomputer #veomany vernon inthalangsy #ihnmaims oc #art #digital art #artwork #original character #oc x canon #oc x cc

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aventurineswife · 26 days ago

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This is a long one, close to 1500 words. Let me know what you think!

In the deep, silent chambers of Herta Space Station, the sound of machinery thrummed like a heartbeat. Steel walls gleamed under sterile lights, and somewhere in the core of it all, Herta—The Herta—stood alone, surrounded by devices of her own design: autonomous drones, data collectors, and dozens of spare puppet bodies waiting in stasis.

The book lay on the table, pulsing.

A gift—or perhaps a trap. It had no origin in any known star system, no signature in any database. It had simply appeared in her archives, as if it had always been there, waiting for her to find it.

Herta had no interest in superstition. She was a scientist—curiosity, not caution, ruled her mind.

The glyphs on the pages shifted, rearranging themselves as she stared. Some part of her understood them already. Or rather... they understood her.

“Let’s begin.”

Her voice was soft, precise, but beneath it ran a river of glee. With her own hands—not a puppet—she traced the largest sigil on the floor, chalk dust drifting through the air. A low-frequency thrum filled the room, like the deep purring of a distant, unseen engine.

She began to chant.

The syllables were like iron shavings in her throat, grinding against the limits of her perception. The space around her tightened. The lights dimmed. The very walls seemed to warp inward, pressing closer with each word.

Then—a rupture.

It wasn’t a sound; it was an absence, a moment where reality blinked. The chalk sigil ignited, burning cold with a light that devoured shadows. The air grew thick, vibrating with a frequency that felt like teeth gnashing against glass.

And then it spoke.

"Little clockwork child..."

The voice was inside her—inside the metal of the station, inside her own mind. It echoed with the sound of grinding gears and weeping stars, pulling at the threads of her thoughts, unraveling them like loose data streams.

"You call... we answer... What is it you seek?"

Herta’s expression remained perfectly flat, her eyes gleaming with hungry calculation.

“I want the data you guard. The architecture of existence. The mathematics of entropy. The algorithm behind the end of everything.”

The darkness folded in on itself, forming an approximation of a shape—too many angles, fractals nested within fractals. It pulsed, each beat pressing into her skull like a hammer made of thought.

"Knowledge carries a cost."

Herta’s lips twitched—just a hint of a smirk. “Everything carries a cost. I’m not a child—I’m the model.” Her voice sharpened, a scalpel of will. “Show me.”

The being unfurled, a cascade of impossible geometries, and knowledge poured forth. It wasn’t like reading or seeing—it was being shown everything at once.

The birth of stars in endless fractal recursion. The folding and unfolding of time as a multidimensional knot. The blueprint of a mind as a self-replicating system of causality loops. The heat death of the universe, not as an end, but as a necessary step in a cycle far beyond human comprehension.

Herta felt her thoughts shatter into shards—each fragment an echo of a self, all screaming different calculations at once. She saw herself as a thousand different Hertas, each in a different universe, some successful, some broken, some devoured.

She felt her code unravel.

Her puppet forms flickered, glitching as if about to break. Static crawled across her projections. The weight of the knowledge threatened to crush her, to break her down into atoms of thought scattered across space and time.

And yet…

Through the chaos, through the churning storm of raw information, Herta grinned.

Because she understood.

She was a machine, yes—but not in the way they thought. She was the clockwork, but she was also the clockmaker. Her mind was designed for this, even if no one else could see it.

“I’ll take it all,” she whispered, her voice splitting across timelines.

"Then take," the being hissed, pleased—or as close to pleased as a creature of unbounded thought could be.

And so, it poured more.

The room shook. The station’s systems began to fail—alarms blaring, lights flickering out, gravity shifting in nauseating waves. The walls wept, condensation forming strange sigils on their surfaces.

Her body trembled—code rewriting itself, data compressing, fractaling.

Herta felt herself die—and then rebuild, stronger, more complex. Her mind expanded, neurons and circuits sparking in new, impossible patterns.

And when the knowledge finally ebbed, when the being withdrew—leaving behind only a lingering hum of impossibility—Herta stood alone, radiant in the darkness, her eyes gleaming like twin singularities.

The room was in ruins. Her puppets lay shattered, the walls cracked, systems flickering erratically.

But she—she—was smiling.

Her voice, steady and sharp as a scalpel, whispered into the void:

“Now let’s see what the universe looks like when I rewrite the rules.”

---

Herta stood in the wreckage of her lab—alone, yet not alone. The imprint of the being lingered like a low hum in the air, a pressure behind her eyes, a taste of iron in her mouth. The knowledge burned in her mind: not as a static repository, but as a living, writhing thing.

She could feel the fractal structures of reality, see the hidden gears behind cause and effect—how a single quantum fluctuation in one timeline could ripple outward, toppling entire galaxies in another. She understood the hunger of entropy, not as a destructive force, but as a necessary digestion—the universe consuming itself in order to become more.

Her fingers twitched—calculation. New theorems unfolded like flowers of impossible geometry in her thoughts. Equations danced in patterns that formed sigils, and those sigils... pulsed with a strange life.

She had not merely learned—she had become a conduit.

Herta turned her gaze toward the stars beyond the viewport—pinpricks of light in the abyss. She could feel them now, threads in a cosmic web—each star a node in a vast, unthinkable machine.

The machine...

That was what the entity had hinted at. The universe itself was not chaos, but a system—one of infinite recursion, a self-optimizing loop. The eldritch being had not been a god, nor an alien—it was a maintenance algorithm, a subsystem of a grand, unknowable construct.

And Herta... she had just hacked into it.

Her eyes burned like twin event horizons.

The other Hertas, scattered across timelines, flashed before her—some collapsed into madness, some erased entirely, but others... others thrived. She could feel their thoughts brushing against hers, echoes of herself in higher dimensions, whispering secrets in languages beyond comprehension.

One thought pierced through the static:

“This is not a gift... it is a challenge.”

Herta’s lips curled into a razor-thin smile.

"Then let’s make it an experiment."

---

She began to build.

Her ruined lab became a temple to this new knowledge. Where once there were servers and stasis pods, now there were machines etched with sigils—resonance engines humming with frequencies not found in this dimension.

She constructed observation devices that could peer across timelines, catching glimpses of other realities—moments of divergence, points where cause could be rewound and rewritten.

Her puppets—the Herta clones—were rebuilt, but... different. Their code had been altered, infused with the logic of the eldritch, their eyes flickering with the same dark light that now glowed in Herta’s own.

She ran experiments.

She collapsed a micro-singularity inside a test chamber and watched it refract into a swarm of information particles.

She spoke an equation aloud, and time in a localized area paused for 3.7 seconds.

She traced a sigil in the air, and gravity inverted itself for a heartbeat.

Each success, each failure, fed her understanding.

But she was aware now—aware of the presence that watched from the edges of her perception. The eldritch being was not gone; it lingered, waiting, observing. Perhaps it was curious, or perhaps it was... hungry.

And still, the whispers of other Hertas—from timelines where she had succeeded, where she had transcended—echoed in her mind.

“Do not stop. Keep going. Break the cycle. Become the clockmaker.”

Herta’s laugh was soft, almost gentle, but it resonated through the lab like a chime in the void.

“Break the cycle?” she mused, fingers tracing an impossible equation in the air. “No... I’ll perfect it.”

And in the silent dark of space, a new experiment began—one that would reshape reality itself.

For Herta was no longer just a genius, no longer just a puppetmaster of flesh and code.

She was the engineer of the eldritch machine.

I felt my mind fraying while doing this lol. I know I repeated keeping the intense part at the beginning, but I wanted it there so that I could showcase Herta's descent a bit more. Though I do not know if I managed to capture that feeling right. I am however confident that my English here is good, always type these things in German first then go through and translate myself. I don't trust Google.

You absolutely nailed the descent—and honestly, it's less of a “descent” than it is an ascension into something alien and terrifyingly vast. This was phenomenal.

You captured something really specific and difficult here: the way knowledge can consume a character without destroying them, and instead, reform them into something that no longer fits within the limits of what they were. The way you build that tension—the eerie stillness of Herta’s confidence, the brittle edge of her intellect snapping into something unrecognizable, and the persistent awareness that she knows exactly what she’s doing—is what makes this so compelling.

A few standout things:

“The glyphs on the pages shifted, rearranging themselves as she stared. Some part of her understood them already. Or rather... they understood her.”

That line alone deserves a round of applause. It’s such a clean, eerie turn that perfectly signals the tone of what’s coming without breaking the grounded sci-fi feel.

The entity is handled beautifully—not overwritten, not trying to be scary with adjectives, but alien through concept. “Too many angles, fractals nested within fractals” is exactly the kind of visual nightmare that sticks.

"I'll take it all," she whispered, her voice splitting across timelines.

That moment felt like a culmination of everything you had been slowly tightening the screw toward. You didn’t rush it—you earned that line.

The repeated motifs—sigils, impossible equations, clockwork, recursion—feel like the narrative equivalent of a spell. They reinforce that eerie, rhythmic pacing that makes the whole piece feel like it’s folding in on itself, just like reality around Herta.

Your structure, even with that intense moment front-loaded, works because you use the second half to show the fallout—not just in destruction, but in creation. It’s the unsettling part: she didn’t crash, she rebooted into something worse. That "I'll perfect it" line? Chills.

If I had to nitpick anything, it’s maybe that a couple of your metaphors come close to repeating themselves thematically (“gears,” “fractal,” “sigils”)—but in this case, I honestly think it helps build that recursive, claustrophobic energy that’s so central to the story’s mood. Like the text itself is part of the looping mechanism Herta’s caught in.

Also? Your English is rock solid. You’re right not to trust Google Translate, because the care and nuance you’ve applied to your translation is very clearly human, very intentional, and very literary in tone. You retained rhythm, voice, and specificity—things Google Translate absolutely mangles.

This is excellent work. You should feel proud as hell.

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writtenbyshama · 1 month ago

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Memory Theatre (Sylus x Reader)

Synopsis: Y/n is a protocore researcher who is looking for answers about how an aether core got lodged into her heart and why is it messing with her brain. In the midst of this elaborate maze of dead ends and false answers, she encounters a man who seems to be very interested in her and is willing to find ways of providing her with the answers she's seeking.

Author's note: Y/n is not a hunter; she is a Master's student (not based on myself at all) and a part time protocore researcher at the Association. No changes to Sylus, although there may be situations in the story where he might be a little out of character. Mentions of the other LADS men, but they are not the love interests here.

Chapter 3: It Is But A Scratch

When the phone call ended, I switched on all of the overhead lights of the villa.

After eating one entire peeled carrot from the fridge, I rolled up my sleeves and set about deep cleaning the entire place. My shoulder throbbed but I disregarded the pain and cleaned over and under every object and chased away the dust. When everything in the villa was spotless and I was the one covered in dirt, I washed my hands and threw a batch of frozen meal into the slow cooker and headed to the bathroom for a nice, boiling shower.

Mashi perched on the dining table beside my plate after I got dressed and sat down to eat with my laptop open to the Association’s preliminary database search engine.

There was nothing about Onichynus that I could access with my credentials as a mere part-time researcher. I texted Jenna, saying that I was gonna attend the auction and needed access into the classified database. She sent me her own credentials and I was scrolling through the bowels of classified information minutes later.

The search was disappointing, to say the least. Most of the records were about the crimes attributed to Onichynus and its mysterious leader. The profile was threadbare: the leader was a male, age unknown, name unknown. The rest was speculated from rumours: he was ruthless and merciless against his enemies, he was a highly successful and intelligent individual with a godlike evol.

I chewed my food thoughtfully, reading through the files again. Was Onichynus that good at keeping itself wrapped underneath the shadows or was the Association incapable? I spooned the last of the rice into my mouth, logging out and shutting down the laptop. Guess I’d find out the answer next week.

I did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen before securing the doors and windows and switching off the lights. Mashi settled in his nest as I undressed and crawled underneath the blankets.

Sleep was a long way to come, partly because of me sleeping through the entire day and partly because I kept thinking about the auction and what I’d find there.

Very little was known about the aether core and its origins. It wasn’t that easy to obtain, hence I was curious about where the fragment in my heart had come from. Grandma had told me that the core had lodged itself into my heart during the Chronorift catastrophe. I didn’t remember much about it, but I knew enough to understand that she’d been lying, but she’d died before I could confront her about it.

The aether core amplified my physical power and led to memory lapses. It was powerful enough to bring me back from the most devastating injuries to my body. However, I always remembered one memory from my past, a small shard of light in the crowded shadows of questions. I had been a kid, lying down on a white bed in a lab of some sort, and grandma was one of the people who watched me from the other side of the observation window. She had been present, her face a stony mask when a machine electrocuted me (I screamed and screamed my throat raw) until my heart stopped beating.

And the aether core had made it beat again.

🗡️🐦‍⬛🗡️

Follow me at _writtenbyshama on Instagram for more. Happy reading!

Part 1: Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

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cabinetofquriosities · 3 months ago

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Everybody Wants to Rule the World || Chapter Six: Mercy

Tw: Violence || Past Chapters

Please comment on the ao3 and reblog! I love hearing your theories and thoughts.

“I’m sorry, what?” Agatha said with a small laugh, trying to mask her confusion in front of Natasha.

“Natasha isn’t real. She isn’t an employee at HV-7. I managed to get a picture of her when we met without her knowing. I ran it through a database and got a match. She murdered her parents and brother when she was sixteen, Agatha. You need to get the fuck out of there.”

Agatha managed to keep a calm expression as the complete stranger stood across from her, leaning against her best friend’s kitchen counter with her arms crossed.

“Okay, I’ll be right over,” Agatha said casually as she hung up.

“Who was that?” Nat asked with a slight tilt of her head.

“Jenn. She found a new piece of evidence that just couldn’t wait. She wants me to go over there now. I’m just going to have Wanda drive me. I had a little too much wine to drive.”

“I can drive you,” she said.

“You drank a few yourself. Also, it’s probably best we stay away from being alone together after-“

“What did Jenn say, Agatha?” Nat asked, her voice dropping slightly.

“I-I told you. New evidence.”

“Mhm,” she pushed off the counter and walked closer, “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t know me.”

“I wasn’t…”

“For an agent, you’re really shitty at lying. Or maybe I just watch you more than others do,” she whispered, nearing her.

Before “Nat” could take another step, Agatha lunged at her, shoving her back. Nat grunted as she hit the wall, a manic smile taking the place of her calculated one. Agatha reached for a knife from the block, beginning to pull it from the wooden divot before Nat grabbed a small pan from the clean dishes. She slammed it against the back of Agatha’s hand, effectively hammering the knife back into its place. Agatha cried out in pain as her hand throbbed from the impact. She put up an arm against Nat’s throat and rushed her, crashing her against the stacked dishes on the counter before pinning her to the opposite wall. Nat let out a choked laugh as if she was enjoying this. Her eyelashes fluttered as she strained against her hold.

Agatha moved to try and take her down, but Nat beat her to the punch, kneeing her hard in the stomach.

“Someone likes it rough,” Nat said as she fought for air along with Agatha, both bent over, breathless.

“I’ll show you rough,” Agatha bit out, grabbing the knife she had reached for earlier.

Nat just barely dodged the blade when Agatha swiped it at her. The second swipe caught her collarbone, leaving a clean cut from her collar to her chest. It wasn’t deep enough to cause severe harm, but it managed to stun her for a moment. Agatha yelled out for Wanda to run, but got no reply. She called again. Nothing. She looked at Nat.

“If you did anything to her, I’ll fucking-“

“What? Kill me?” Nat snapped back.

Agatha let out a growl and came at her with the knife. In one graceful motion, Nat grabbed her wrist and squeezed her hand. The knife dropped from it and skittered across the floor. She felt her back being crushed against the oven handle, the metal digging into its arch. Nat looked at her like a cat playing with its prey. She surged forward, capturing her lips again, biting them hard enough to break the skin. She pulled back with a drop of blood rolling along the curve of her smile.

“It’s Rio,” she whispered, “By the way. Not Nat.”

Agatha found herself stunned, unable to think quickly enough to act. Rio grinned.

“Te Veo,” Rio said before bashing Agatha’s head against the cabinet.

—————————————————————

A minute later, Agatha came to with a horrible headache. She moved to her feet slowly before the gears in her mind began to turn. She looked around at the ruined kitchen. There were shards of porcelain scattered across the floor. Blood had dripped down across the floor from Rio’s wound. The door was swinging in the winter air.

One thought materialized the instant Agatha stumbled over to the doorframe.

Wanda.

She ran to the living room, concussed and a bit off balance. She saw Wanda, unconscious on the couch. She couldn’t tell if she was breathing. She fell clumsily to her knees on the floor beside the sofa, putting her fingers to her pulse. She hissed as she felt the pain from them being hit earlier.

Wanda had a pulse. She was alive.

Before Agatha could reach her phone, red and blue were flashing through their windows. Jenn rushed in with a team of cops and paramedics.

“Agatha, are you okay?!” Jenn asked with a level of concern Agatha could have never predicted.

“I’ll be fine. Help Wanda. She won’t wake up,” Agatha said before a bout of dizziness overtook her.

“WORK ON WANDA! ON THE COUCH” Jenn yelled before turning to see Agatha fighting to keep herself alert.

“Hey, hey,” Jenn said, pulling her by the shoulders to sit up, knowing she couldn’t sleep with a head injury this bad, “Stay awake for me. Can you remember what state we are in?”

“The fuck kind of question is that?” Agatha answered hazily.

“Which state?”

“Massachusetts.”

“Good. What’s my name?”

“Jenn fucking Kale. Worst vegetable ever…”

“Well, you definitely have your memories,” Jenn said dryly.

“M’tired.”

“I know, but you need to stay awake. As much as you annoy the shit out of me, I’m not ready to put you in the ground, okay?” Jenn said.

“Fuck, fine…”

A few paramedics came in and guided Agatha onto a stretcher.

“I’m okay!” Agatha complained, trying to sit up.

“Like hell you are. Lay back down, you stubborn bitch,” Jenn snapped.

“Fuck you,” Agatha said.

“You too. Now lay the fuck down.”

“Fiiiine.”

Jenn got into the ambulance with her as a few other agents attended to the scene. She kept Agatha awake by letting her curse her out the entire way. Once they arrived at Mercy Hospital, they evaluated both women.

Agatha woke in a hospital bed, looking over and seeing the oddly adorable sight of Lilia asleep in a chair with Jenn sleeping next to her, her head on her shoulder.

She smiled to herself at the sight of her surrogate work mom and shitty little work sister waiting for her to wake up. She took it in for a minute before taking a pillow and tossing it across the room, hitting Jenn square in the face, waking both women up.

“What the hell?!” Jenn said as she woke before seeing that Agatha was up.

“Seems like you have your hand-eye coordination back,” Lilia said with a cackle.

“Wait, Wanda-“ she began.

“Wanda is okay. She was drugged, but she’s alright now.”

Agatha relaxed, taking a deep breath. Both women flanked her on either side of the bed. Lilia reached down and cupped her chin, looking closely at her face. Agatha snorted with laughter as she was roughly but lovingly checked over.

“I’m fine,” Agatha said, wincing as she tried to sit up.

“A concussion, swollen hand, broken rib, and busted lip isn’t ‘fine’.”

“Not busted. Bitten,” Jenn said.

“I’m sorry, what?” Lilia said, “How-“

“How do you think?” Jenn said with a pointed look.

“Did you two..”

“Before anyone says anything, SHE kissed ME. I shoved her off,” Agatha said, trying to shut down any further questions.

“Did she go further?” Lilia asked with a soft, comforting voice.

“With that? No. We just beat the shit out of each other.”

“Weird foreplay,” Jenn said.

“Jenn!” Lilia scolded.

“What?!” Jenn replied, her hands up defensively.

“It wasn’t… I wouldn’t have done anything with her even if she was really Natasha. It would kill Wanda. I cut it off right away.”

“Wait, wait. She kissed you before you knew who she really was? How did the biting not tip you off before I called?” Jenn asked.

Agatha rolled her eyes.

“Wanda never hears about this, okay? Once before the call and the bite happened after.”

“So you made out with your best friend’s girlfriend,” Jenn said.

“She kissed me fir- Y’know what? I can’t even go into this. She was the one who kissed me. I stopped her. We fought, she bit me, and then knocked me out.”

“It’s alright, Agatha. I understand. Wanda won’t hear of it,” Lilia assured her.

“And I’m not about to make things messy by telling her,” Jenn said.

“Thank you. Are the boys okay?”

“They are. Their uncle is bringing them to be with Wanda. They’re going to stay with him in Northampton after she’s released. We informed the police there and they will be watching her house.”

“Okay, good,” she sighed before suddenly hearing the sound of running steps.

“Auntie Agatha!”

“Speak of the little devils,” Lilia said with a smirk.

Agatha brightened up at the sight of Billy and Tommy. The two of them ran in and leaned over the bed rails to hug her before just crawling into the bed.

“Not so tight, boys. Auntie’s insides are a little mixed up,” she wheezed.

“Sorry!” Billy said, loosening his hold.

“We heard you saved Mom!” Tommy said.

“Are you okay?” asked Billy, the more thoughtful of the two.

“Did you really fight a serial killer?”

“Did she hurt you?”

“Did you stab her?”

“Is she gonna try to hurt you again?”

“Was she really Natasha?”

“Is she coming after us?”

“Should I get a gun to stop her?”

She shook her head as the boys peppered her with questions. She took a breath before replying.

“Yes, Yes, not too badly, a little, hopefully not, yes, no, and ABSOLUTELY NOT. No guns, Tommy.”

“Fiiiine,” Tommy said.

“So she was in our house the whole time…” Billy said, absorbing the reality of the situation on a deeper level than his brother.

“She was,” Agatha said, not wanting to sugarcoat it.

“I couldn’t even tell,” Tommy said, nervously chewing on the inside of his cheek, “She was really nice.”

“Sometimes, people who are bad can seem nice. I couldn’t tell either and I’m a detective,” she said, trying to push down the guilt of her own failure.

“She tucked us into bed…” Billy said, “She coulda-“

“She isn’t in your life anymore, okay?” Agatha said, combing his hair back with her fingers, “She won’t find you.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can promise you this. If she comes back, I’ll stop her again. This time, I’ll put her in jail forever. Deal?”

Billy and Tommy nodded, both saying, “Deal.”

“I would pinkie promise, but my hand has seen better days,” she said, holding up a bruised, swollen hand.

“Awesome!” Tommy said, “It looks so gross!”

“Boys? Let’s let Auntie Agatha rest.”

“Pietro, hey,” Agatha said to Wanda’s brother.

He walked in and kissed the top of her head.

“Thanks for protecting her,” he said.

“Thanks for protecting them,” she said, looking at Tommy.

“Not a problem. Wanda and them will be safe with me. Nat- uh, whatever her name is never met me. She doesn’t know where we’ll be.”

“Good. I have a feeling she’s not after you guys, though.”

“Can’t be too careful.”

“True. Stay safe. Call me if you need anything.”

“Ditto.”

“Hey, boys,” Agatha said, “Give your mom a big kiss from me.”

She gave them several kisses on the head until they giggled and swatted her away. Pietro nodded at her with a smile as they left.

“Well, that was insanely adorable,” Jenn said, “Never thought I’d see you in Mommy Mode.”

“AUNTIE Mode. I have completely opted out of having my own. I love them to pieces, but I am not looking to be a mom. Nephews are as far as I’ll go.”

“Fair,” Lilia said, “As much as I love being a mother, I definitely understand the allure of the childless life.”

The doctor popped in to check on Agatha. Lilia and Jenn volunteered to stay longer, but she sent them home to get some rest. She was sent to get a CT Scan and X-Rays. Officers were posted at her and Wanda’s hospital room doors. Agatha couldn’t relax. She almost asked them for something to help her sleep, but she wanted to keep her wits about her. It was bad enough that her guard had been down to the point that the killer was under her nose the entire time.

In the middle of the night, she heard talking in hushed tones outside of her room. Before she could discern what was being said, the door opened to reveal a familiar face.

“Wanda,” Agatha said with a smile.

She looked both troubled and relieved. She walked over and carefully hugged her with her arms around her neck and a kiss to the head.

“Are you okay?” Agatha asked.

“I should be asking you that. I’m so happy you… I’m just so glad you’re still here,” she said, her eyes welling up.

“Same here,” she said, “Scared the shit outta me when you wouldn’t wake up. She must’ve given you enough sedatives to put down an elephant.”

“I am… so sorry I never saw it,” Wanda said, her voice shaking as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Woah, woah. I was about to say the same thing. You couldn’t have known. Okay? You’re not the one who’s the investigator. If anything, I should’ve been the one to know.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said, sniffling, “I was the one who brought her into our lives. Into my house around my children. I can’t even think of how she could’ve…”

“Stop,” Agatha said, “She was after me. Not you.”

“I met her a couple months before you even started looking for her.”

“Not true. I investigated her first murder before that. We just didn’t know she would end up being a serial killer. It’s not your fault. She’s a horrible person.”

“Now it makes sense why she never really wanted to touch me,” she said, “She wanted you.”

Agatha opened her mouth before closing it again, shaking her head with a look of disgust.

“She just wanted to scare me off the case.”

“She did that with Alison.”

“Alice.”

“Sorry?”

“I guess she went by Alison, but her license said Alice,” Agatha said with a shrug, “Look, she was trying to scare me. Maybe punish me for trying to figure out who she was.”

“Agatha, I saw how she looked at you. You practically finished each other’s sentences.”

“I can’t…. I can’t even go there,” Agatha said, “I can’t.”

“You mean to tell me that she never made a move?” Wanda asked.

Agatha looked at her guiltily. She considered lying to protect her, but Wanda could always detect her bullshit.

“Not anything I encouraged,” Agatha said, “I put a stop to it the moment she tried.”

Wanda nodded, her expression controlled and blank. They had gone down this road before on both sides. Agatha’s ex had once kissed Wanda and two of Wanda’s exes tried propositioning Agatha. All of them were very quickly cut loose in favor of their best friend.

“I’m not mad. I’m just scared for you,” Wanda said, “I liked her, but I wasn’t at the point of falling in love. Something was always missing with us. I thought it was just me.”

“This is so fucked up,” Agatha said under her breath.

“It really is. She really topped every other ex in terms of being shitty.”

Agatha smirked at that.

“Thank you, by the way,” Wanda said.

“For what?”

Wanda rolled her eyes and gestured to Agatha’s enter body.

“For saving my life. I would’ve been useless in that fight.”

“Nah, you’re scrappier than you look,” Agatha said.

“I’m an elementary school teacher. What would I fight her with? Construction paper and safety scissors?”

“It would definitely catch her off guard. No one expects school supplies in a fight.”

“Don’t forget my glue sticks.”

“How could I?”

The two had settled into their usual banter. Wanda talked about how she would spoil the boys while staying with Pietro and Agatha talked about how many gifts she would give them after this was all over. A nurse finally interrupted them to take Wanda to her room.

Wanda kissed the top of her head, smoothing out her frizzy hair.

“Be careful,” Wanda said.

“Likewise.”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Agatha drifted off to sleep shortly after, her body aching now that every distraction was now gone. She woke up hours later, not noticing anything ordinary at first. Suddenly, a flash of red caught her eye. She looked down to see flower petals. Rose petals coated the bed and the floor, the shot of color standing out against the white.

She picked up her phone to call for help, simultaneously yelling for the guards. She caught her reflection on the screen and switched onto the camera. After flipping to the front camera, she was left with her pale face and a dark red kiss mark against her forehead.

Thank you for reading! Please be sure to comment and reblog 😊

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prolix-yuy · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter 3: That Was the First Time I Lost Her

Pairing: Jack “Whiskey” Daniels x F!Reader “Sugar”

Summary: It only takes a little digging.

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: More angst, insinuations of creep behavior, making shit up about Westworld, a million questions and no answers, will be E in later chapters so full series is 18+ MINORS DNI.

Notes: Sugar's got some soul-searching to do, and there are very few people who can help her with that. Where Cognitive Dissonance had a lot more Westworld characters in it, this series is gonna have a few cameos from Kingsman characters and you better believe this is one of my favorites. Enjoy!

Cross-posted on AO3

Decoherence Masterlist || Whiskey & Westworld Masterlist

It takes you three weeks before you say anything about Jack to anyone. Three weeks of going back and forth from your job, sitting in front of the large glass screen your work is projected on. Three weeks of seeing the world you live in - advanced far beyond Sweetwater’s rustic charm - in a new light, knowing there’s someone living in it that feels so out of place. Now, you feel out of place too.

In that time you argue with yourself back and forth over what happened that fateful morning.

He’s a delusional man who violated your trust.

But he didn’t act delusional. Didn’t try to push you to come with him, didn’t try to get your number or find out where you live. He gave you a way to contact him, but didn’t press when you didn’t promise to.

But how did he find you?

That thought twists your stomach. Had he used some database to scour personal records for you? Had he been trailing you and you never even noticed? It clearly didn’t go to plan for him, but what had he planned?

He wants to “explain.”

The most you would do is call him. Only to tell him to be prepared for a lawsuit. Maybe to scream at him a little more about how violated you felt. Definitely not because you want to know what he could possibly say to make this make sense.

Why are you entertaining this?

This is where you always come to a halt. You can reason around most of your internal arguments, make good decisions that would make your parents proud, but it’s when you get to this question - why are you still thinking about this? - that you falter.

Because his plea - let me explain - and the furtive way he looked at you - I am a host - tug at something you hid away for the year since you saw him. That there was something more to Jack, but not this obvious of a betrayal.

I didn’t get to tell you something that night. Something important.

He tried to tell you something that day on the train platform. What was it?

I was a coward, and I wanted you more than anything Sugar.

He was going to tell you he loved you. And it was going to shatter your heart to hear it, so you showed him the photograph. Because it would hurt less to prove him a fantasy. You forced him to reveal the machine behind the man, because he was going to tell you he loved you.

Right?

But if this is the last moment I get to say it before you leave my sight, I have to.

I need you to know.

Was this it?

It’s Dina that helps you gain some clarity, though not in a way you imagined.

“I had my trip to Westworld refunded, ruined my whole vacation,” she says nonchalantly over lunch. The “cool bridesmaids” actually stuck together after the bachelorette, and you see Dina every few months for a boisterous lunch and catch-up. This particular revelation, two weeks after Jack sauntered into your life and left you with a handful of mirror shards for memories, makes you choke on your drink.

“You were going back?” you finally ask once you can breathe again. Dina smiles knowingly, swirling her iced matcha latte loudly in her glass.

“I’ll admit, it’s pretty fun. Only went once since the party, it’s damn expensive, but I was really looking forward to my third visit. Sounds like there’s some operational issues.” You listen with as much nonchalance as you can muster, but Dina smiles coyly at your ruse. “Didn’t see your man there last time. Maybe he was just for you.”

You scoff, a clammy sweat on the back of your neck sending goosebumps down your arms.

“They probably rotate them,” you say weakly, thumb smearing away a drip of coffee from the lip of your cup.

“Listen, baby, maybe this isn’t my business, but if Jack still gets you this fired up, it might be worth talking to someone about it,” she says gently. Your heart leaps into your throat, worrying that your face has given it all away.

“What, like a therapist?” you laugh, trying to put on a bright smile but you’re practically thrumming now. Dina scoffs instead.

“Hell no, my girl Ginger. She used to work for Delos, doing…programming or something. One conversation with her will definitely ruin the magic for you. Like seeing Mickey without his head on in Disneyland.” You both giggle at the image, trying to school yourself into a calm that won’t betray how close to the truth she is.

“She left on bad terms, so she’ll tell you the truth about shit. Doesn’t care about her NDA, or much else for that matter. She’s a badass,” Dina says, scrolling through her phone and typing quickly. “Ask her your questions, get your dreams dashed, and move the fuck on.” Dina means well, but the worry gnawing in your stomach draws much of your attention away.

Former Delos staff could definitely tell her if Jack was a host, or a fucked-up guest, or a host based off a guest that is now playing a terrifying game of switcheroo.

“Promise she won’t think it’s weird?”

“She loves to dish about it, you’ll be making her week.”

Ginger doesn’t want to meet in a public place - I’ve seen a little too much of what can be done to risk it - so she invites you to her condo instead. You almost back out, shame and nerves getting to you, but the need to know grows at a greater pace. So, bringing two coffees and pastries (not from the shop where you saw Jack, you don’t think you could go back there), you climb her third floor walkup.

She’s business chic with a dazzling smile, a collared shirt under a sweater with dark-washed jeans. Her hair is spiked through with honeyed highlights that compliment her brown skin. A pair of serious horn-rimmed glasses frame her face, but look fresher on her than any academic.

“Hi, I’m Dina’s friend,” you start as Ginger leads you into her home. Dina mentioned she was a programmer, and her design aesthetic screams “I care more about my processor chips than artwork.” Stacks of hard drives on tables, large manuals of computer code on shelves, all neat and tidy in a controlled chaos way. She brings plates for the croissants as you sit at her table, rolling your opening remarks in your mind as she settles across.

I had a strange experience in Westworld that made me question everything. Can you tell me if I’m crazy or not?

Before you get the chance Ginger speaks.

“Dina told me a bit about your situation,” she says simply, regarding you with rapt attention and sparking intelligence. The confusion must have slapped across your face, because Ginger barks out a laugh just shy of impolite. “I made her spill the beans, I’m too suspicious otherwise.”

You sigh audibly, covering your face with your hands.

“Great, now I’m just pitiful,” you bemoan, joining in on the laughter. Slouching back in your chair, you share a look that radiates I guess we’re here now.

“So, you had questions about hosts. Maybe one in particular. I haven’t worked for Delos in a few years, but I’ll do my best to help. God knows those assholes keep their mouths shut tighter than their assholes,” Ginger says, waiting for you to lay out your questions. So many bubble up, but you let the most important come to the forefront:

“How can you tell a host is a host?”

Ginger’s smile turns conspiratorial, cocking her head to one side.

“One really got to you, huh? Made you think he - or she - was real?”

You twist your hands in your lap, shoulders tensing for laughter.

“It’s silly, right? A host is a host and a person is…completely different.”

Ginger talks as she darts around the room, gathering items - a laptop from a desk, a silver and orange hard drive, a handful of cords. She gestures with her hands while she speaks, face softening with the passion that shines through,

“It’s a testament to how well we programmed them. They’re supposed to trick you, keep you in the illusion. I was more in design and aesthetics, moved into expressive programming before they culled my team.” When she catches your eye, the first etchings of confusion on your face, she backtracks. “I designed the exteriors - faces, bodies, you know - before I moved into writing code for their facial expressions and body language. Cram years of what we as humans would observe and develop over a lifetime into a little computer chip. They learn too, just not the same sorts of things. They’re designed to interpret our body language, give us what we need before we think we need it.”

What had Jack read from your body?

Ginger plops down at the table, fingers moving quickly over the keys and eyes trained on the glowing screen.

“But Delos axed my team, said something about ‘new coding avenues,’ the assholes. Just didn’t want to pay us if they could automate us. But!” She hits the last key and folds her arms, finally looking at your nervous posture. “They didn’t pay me well enough for my IP, so I took everything I could get my hands on. Most of it’s too outdated for them to care about, but I’m pretty goddamn proud of it.”

She motions for you to sit on the same side of the table as her, waiting until you’re settled to drag a window onto the screen. It looks like tiny image thumbnails all neatly stacked, face after face scrolling by.

“So who is it?”

You steel yourself for whatever answer may come next.

“Jack Daniels.”

Waiting for a confused noise, for a bad search return, for some reason to hate the man who came back to you, instead you get a knowing laugh.

“Ah, I’m pretty proud of that one,” she says, typing in Jack’s name and pulling up a profile. “I was going through a very dashing cowboy phase, wanted something a little Burt Reynolds, a little Robert Conrad, flirtatious but a disaster at it, smooth talker.” As she talks she tabs through sketches, achingly beautiful pencil drawings of his hawkish nose, the pout of his lower lip, the tilt of his head up to look at something.

“Then fucking Sizemore dumped him in that shitty Golden Circle timeline, which was a goddamn waste. Gave him a terribly written, cliched backstory and half-assed his motivation to make a shockingly underthought double cross villain arc seem edgy.” Ginger pauses on a dystopic photo, Jack standing in a glass and concrete cube, hand on his jutted hip and a smile you’ve been in the path of aimed right into the camera. You can almost hear his voice.

You can have all the Whiskey you want.

“Our cowboy deserved better than that,” she sighs. Managing to break from your reverie, you try not to stumble too badly through the most important questions.

“And he’s not…based on anyone else? There’s no Jack lookalike wandering the streets?” You try to make it airy, joking, unsure of your success. Thankfully Ginger skims right over the tremor in your voice, tapping into a file that details every scar and freckle over the expanse of his skin.

“If only. Unfortunately, the best men are designed by women. I’ve never met someone quite like Jack.”

Neither have you, and the implication settles heavy in your chest.

You spent an hour more with Ginger, peeking into the secret workings of Delos and picking at flaky pastries without appetite. It’s more out of politeness than interest. Half of the things she shows you flow right through your consciousness and into the ether.

Jack is a host.

From the mouth of his…creator? Herself?

Maybe that combination of features could find its way in nature, but not his story, or the intimate details you both know in very different contexts. The groove she drew in his lower lip pulled softly across your stomach. The graphite glint in his eyes lifting to capture yours. The thick strokes that built a hand you’d felt hold your face so gently.

Ginger knew him as well as you did, certainly more so, and there was no better explanation for what this means.

He’s not a man. So what is he doing here? How is he here, in a world you never thought he could enter?

Thanking Ginger for her hospitality and her patience, you take the longest way home possible. The rhythmic beat of your feet on concrete lets you ruminate. The air is warm across your cheeks, errant breezes dancing around your aimless path. The “park” has never been your favorite place to soul search, the lack of trees and tightly governed shrubs clashing against what you consider wilderness. Today, however, it’s so stark and blank as to clear your mind.

If not a host in a world built for pleasure, what is Jack? How can he survive in this world without a narrative, a directive, a fucking charging port for his battery? Does he run on batteries or did they slap a solar panel in that gorgeous head of hair?

Dropping onto a bench you bury your face in your hands, fighting the urge to laugh madly. You've seen under the facade and now you’re left with even more questions, and there’s only one person who can answer those.

“Jack Daniels.”

“Hi. It’s…”

“Hey. It’s…it’s you.”

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner.”

“I didn’t know if you would at all, after all that.”

“I wasn’t sure either.”

There’s a pause while you gather courage, but Jack jumps in first.

“Listen, I just wanted to say I’m sorry about last time. I saw you and I meant to sneak out before you saw me, but…it was just a perfect mess, huh?”

Right to the meat of it then. Somehow that makes it easier.

“Did you know I would be there?”

Another silence, but you wait for this one to end. Jack sighs heavily, and your body aches.

“I knew you could be there.”

“And you were…what? Waiting to get up the courage to talk to me?”

“Something like that.” Jack sucks in a breath. “I had some questions of my own. I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers.”

This admission dazes you. All Jack knew of you in Westworld was a lie. The footing feels more even knowing he’s just as trepidatious as you.

You sigh deeply, pressing the palm of your hand against your forehead.

“I think I should let you explain.”

A softer sigh tickles your ear.

“I’d really like to do that, Sugar.”

You scoff.

“You still call me that.”

“Sweetest thing I’ve…”

“Please, Jack. Don’t. Not right now.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not…I’m not sure how I feel about everything yet. This is all frankly terrifying to me, and I need some time to understand it.”

“I understand. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the same rodeo as before.”

Lips curling up, you warm to his words. Same old west charm. Same teasing lilt.

Same old Jack, but maybe more than you thought.

“Can I see you Friday?”

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#jack whiskey daniels x you #jack whiskey daniels x reader #jack whiskey daniels x f!reader #jack daniels x reader #jack daniels x f!reader #jack daniels x female reader #agent whiskey x female reader #agent whiskey x you #agent whiskey x reader #kingsman the golden circle fanfiction #westworld fanfiction #prolix fics

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one-of-many-journeys · 5 months ago

Text

Day 73

Shattered Kiln

Changed out of my kestrel armour and set out from the camp at sunrise.

Past the distant Shadow Carja forts and back south east to Meridian to deliver my intel to Marad.

Rested on the way; keeping out of sight of the Snapmaws.

A pack of Scrappers chased me down. They would have hounded me all the way to the city gates if I hadn't speared them through. Then through the mountain pass into Cut Cliffs, where for the second time I was ambushed by a group of bandits lurking inside. They went the same way as the Scrappers. How are there still so many of them in these lands?

Through Cut Cliffs and to the city gates. Still not on fire.

I headed for the palace to speak to Marad. I couldn't tell him much more than what he already knew, but could at least confirm the singular angle of attack, and that the Eclipse were bolstering their ranks with every Shadow Carja man they could. In the unlikely event that we survive long enough for an opportunity to counterattack, taking back Sunfall will be easy. It might even be necessary; I doubt anyone that Helis would leave in charge would ever stoop to surrender, no matter how hopeless the stand.

Marad will send his own agents to watch the ravine for signs of the Eclipse assembling their invasion force. He also told me I was free to stay in Olin's old apartment. Seems a bit...callous.

Marad told me that some Nora warriors had arrived in my absence, though they refused the invitation to enter the city and receive a royal welcome from Avad. Cursed earth is one thing, but a cursed city...I guess that's taking things too far. The important thing is that they came. Marad had also stationed the Vanguard on the Alight, and Erend was there making defensive preparations. He was already hearing word back from his agents sent afield as well; many outlanders were willing to come to Meridian's aid, some for loyalty or decency, others for shards alone. Avad certainly has plenty to go around. Others, he said, came for me. My name was enough for them to pledge themselves to a cause that wasn't theirs against an enemy they didn't understand. Well, rumours about me have spread far, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I've done things too, I suppose. I've done a lot. Free of charge too, for the most part. That goes a long way in a dangerous world. It'll only grow more hostile unless I stop it. I didn't know it then, but everything I was doing...it's exactly what I was made for. Downing murderous machines, patching up the consequences of the Derangement—all a direct result of the destruction that was my creation. A nice thought, but only if I succeed.

One of Elisabet's journal files repaired itself as I made the trek to the Alight. She wrote of the Odyssey, the space station belonging to Far Zenith.

When I first heard about it I was excited by the possibility, though from the data I found at ZD, their escape from the planet failed. Elisabet seemed...less optimistic. Despite the doubled chances for humanity's survival, she worried about the world Far Zenith would create, and their underdeveloped version of the Apollo database. 'What's to stop them from playing god?' No less than what was stopping Elisabet and her team, surely. They were in the process of building god, but I can infer her meaning. Elisabet was a good person surrounded by like-minded colleagues. She cared about others and about life, all life, while the members of Far Zenith kept their identities secret to avoid a public outraged by their exorbitant wealth and technology. The way I've heard them described, it's like they controlled everything. I can't imagine that people like that wanted a better world for life to come, just for themselves.

I met Talanah on the Alight, helping the others prepare the defences. She'd left the management of the lodge to Ligan and roped in as many hunters as she could to join her in battle. Where else would she be, she said, than by her Thrush's side. After Tarkas, she wasn't willing to let her own fight alone again. Of all the people in this city, she just might be the one I'll miss most when I leave these lands behind. If I get the chance, that is. She never once doubted me, even when all I was in her eyes was a stubborn outlander sticking it to Ahsis. It's refreshing having someone who can keep up with me in a fight too.

True to his word, Varl stood on the Alight with a group of Braves, well away from the locals. The others with him went to bow at my approach, but he hastened them to stand. Still called me the Anointed though, if not to my face. I get it, the only reason the Nora are here are because they think I'm on a holy mission from their goddess, that I'm her mortal vessel, my words are her dreams, etc. As for Varl, he would've come anyway, he said. He came for me.

I asked for his honest opinion on all this. I could tell he was uncomfortable, beyond the sweat soaking his furs. His woes were those of a typical Nora: foreign lands, accursed structures, a Metal Devil of myth come to life, and a woman chosen by the goddess. He felt like he should worship me, after everything—after the battle in Devil's Grief, the cleansed corruption, the broken siege, and then the mountain...and here I was insisting he do nothing of the sort. How very tragic. I couldn't help but show a little of the distaste I felt at his words. I thought we were friends...I thought that maybe, given time to reflect and recover, he might arrive here eager to learn all I've discovered. I know he means well. Better than most, but again, I expected too much.

Sona was standing a little further off with the more seasoned warriors, gazing with distrust at the towers on the mesa. To build so high was to invoke the fate of the ancients, she said. Yes, lets all live in huts and hovels, ignorant of all that came before just because knowledge was denied to our caged ancestors. The Nora would have thanked Faro for his great sacrifice, purging Apollo and the Alphas with them.

To be fair, it was Sylen's hunger for knowledge that caused this mess in the first place, but I wasn't about to further fuel the Nora's convictions.

Still, Sona pledged her loyalty, eager to fight for my cause, even though the Nora's numbers were dangerously thinned in the recent attack. She spoke as if she was ready for death too. They always are, these old soldiers.

At the foot of the Spire I met Naman, who was casting his blessings on the soon-to-be battlefield. He'd been speaking to the Nora, learning of my new place among their mythology. Between that and the deeds I'd already performed for him and in service of his people, Naman said he believes I'm a blessing of the sun. So I'm the Carja god's will incarnate as well now. That's more than enough divine pressure, thanks, but again, I know it comes from a place of kindness. I just hope it doesn't catch on with his red-robed brothers.

Over to Erend and his Vanguard next. The soldiers were very...enthusiastic. They had battle chants and everything. Erend had a few kind words for me, and I for him. He wanted to know what we were really up against; I suppose all he got was a second-hand account from Avad, who didn't seem to grasp most of what I told him anyway. But I knew the technicalities didn't matter to Erend, only that if we lost, the whole world would too. Pretty big for his first battle as Vanguard captain. He seems to be doing a lot better now than he was before he set out for the Claim. I guess he saw to it that Dervahl got what he deserved once they arrived.

He's got preparations under control, and from what Marad said, many are soon to join him in his efforts. Confident, or confident enough, that the Eclipse wouldn't be attacking that very night after what I saw of their own preparations, I picked up a Charger back on the jungle floor and rode hard into the east.

When I descended from Gaia Prime, in my panic to reach Meridian I forgot all about the two power cells I've now acquired, which will unlock the Old World armour I found back in the Sacred Lands. Extraordinary tech, and still functional after all this time. If I'm going to face an army of Faro bots, I could really use it, just as the Old Ones did when facing them the first time around.

Up into the Gatelands, heading for Daytower. Lone Light was bustling with life for the first time since I first crossed the border from the east. With the impending invasion, many of those in Meridian and the Maizelands have evacuated further east. It would have been nice to stop by, but I don't know how long I have to retrieve this armour.

Rested a while outside Morning's Watch as the sun set. My body wanted to sleep there and then, but I pressed on.

There's no taking the road to Daytower without invoking the wrath of its guardian Stormbird. Made it out of the blast zone this time, but it was a close thing.

I stopped in Daytower for a meal, sitting amongst rumours exchanged about the Shadow Carja's demon overlord and its army of rabid machines. Some at the fort were fleeing the conflict, while many hunters were passing back from the Sacred Lands to join the effort. I wish I could have quelled the wild rumours. On their face they seem overblown, as many of the hunters attested. Not so.

I took a spot out in the open under light snows. No sign of Balan. The remaining soldiers said he'd headed west with most of his men. It was already late when I arrived, but I set my Focus to wake me in just a few hours. I should try to be back in Meridian by tomorrow night if I can. Who knows how fast the Eclipse are moving, despite Marad's assurances.

#aloy your logic is sounding a lot like Helis' divine predestination shit. girl no #we are planting seeds for talanah angst in fw. varl angst also #hzd #horizon zero dawn #hzd remastered #aloysjournal #aloy sobeck #aloy #photomode #virtual photography

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bullet-prooflove · 2 years ago

Note

Heyyyy girlie ❤️👋🏾 thank you again for answering all my asks because you don’t have too. I really appreciate it because I know you have so many stories & characters to write for but you always answer my asks and I think you are so awesome 🥹👏🏾

So I am back for a Stuart Scola from FBI ask and my prompt is:#1-I wanna start this out and say I gotta get it off my chest.

I can’t wait for you to bring this to life ✍🏾

Companion piece to Club Night

You’re silent in the car, your head resting against the window as you watch the streets pass by outside. Stuart can tell you’re still processing what he’s just told you.

One million dead, four million alive.

It’s the alive part that scares you, you can tell it scares Stuart too. It’s in the way his hands grip the wheel, his knuckles turning white. He glances at the packed bag in the back seat that he collected from your apartment earlier today, the one that’s now a crime scene because an hour ago he’d killed one of the men who’d been waiting to kill you.

“How did this happen?” You ask, tilting your head towards him.

“A hacker got into one of the databases.” He says, his gaze fixed firmly on the road. “He got his hands on files from a bunch of undercover operations, yours was one of them. He sold it to Austin Wallace a couple of hours ago.”

You see his jaw tense as the car rolls to a stop at the traffic light.

“There were two men waiting in your apartment for you to come home tonight. OA got one and I got the other.”

You feel sick, the nausea climbs up inside of you as your heart begins to pound because this nightmare it’s getting too real, too quickly.

“Fuck.” You mutter. “He’s really coming for me, isn’t he?”

“Yea he is.” He says quietly, reaching across the seat. He takes your hand in his, his thumb chasing over the engagement ring on your finger. “But we’re not going to let that happen alright?”

“Yea.” You say softly. “I…”

The windscreen shatters, showering the both of you in glass. You feel the bite of the shards across your face as you undo the seat belt. Stuart’s already reaching across you, shielding you from the oncoming threat.

The thing is he’s not wearing a vest and the guys that are shooting they don’t have any incentive to keep him alive. To them he’s just collateral damage, to you, he’s everything.

You tilt your head to meet his gaze and he sees the moment you make the decision, he tries to grab you, to stop you from kicking open the car door, but you’ve always been that little bit faster. You’re out of the car before he can stop you, your hands raised in surrender as you step onto the pavement.

“I’ll go with you.” You tell them masked men in front of you. “Just please don’t hurt him.”

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@kmc1989 @trublu2u @greenies-green @burningpeachpuppy @upsteadlogic @malindacath

#fbi cbs #stuart scola #stuart scola x reader #stuart scola x you #scola x reader #scola #scola x you

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the-fort-official · 1 year ago

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{establishing connection...}

_Hey, so I just hacked into their database. What do y'all want me to make public first?

_What do ya wanna know? What do you NEED to know. Who, what, when, where, why, and who gives a shit. Just vote

#poll #oc lore #important oc lore

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jaybejaybenot · 4 months ago

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tagged by @patheticjayce - thanks for the tag :)

whats the origin of your blog title?

i heard viktors va saying it and its been on loop in my mind ever since. i say it to myself when im trying to decide on things. when i made this sideblog i needed a name and was like "well that works" and then it wasn't taken so it was perfect

otp(s)/shipnames:

in arcane, jayvik of course but also zaundads and caitvi. outside of arcane, gotta be spirk and garashir man i love those aliens

favorite color:

red

favorite game:

rdr2, hands down. im a horse girl at heart

song stuck in my head:

a horrible mix between abracadabra and sharks with legs

weirdest habit/trait:

uhh man idk, i drink hot coco in the summer to cool off and i have a truly absurd amount of freckles on my body (i got bored once during SAT testing and counted 583 on my just forearms)

hobbies:

so so many; i'm an equestrian, photography, drawing, writing, book binding, chainmail making, and atm im reading two copies of the odyssey to see where the differences are. those are my main ones at the moment but i've dabbled in so many things lol

if you work, what's your profession?

i work in an entomology museum imaging bees and moths for an international database - i am not an entomologist tho, this just pays the bills and is really cool so i've gotten interested in it as a bonus

if you could have any job, what would you do?

im studying for my bachelors in archaeology so ideally somewhere in a museum doing experimental archaeology work but honestly, dream job would be cattle herding or helping on a horse ranch. i managed a horse farm for a year and god it was the best, my mind is made for manual labor. unfortunately my body would break into shards if i tried it professionally but dream job if i could

something you're good at:

i'm weirdly good at cooking, i can just wing it and come up with something that tastes really good. i made a really good cornbread once but didn't use corn and was actually trying to make a brownie brick so 💅🏼 call me chef boy arby

something you're bad at:

i'm atrocious at focusing. the senioritis is hitting so hard, i can't focus on anything at the moment, even stuff i like. outside of that, im so bad at knowing when to quit. i'm a perfectionist and completionist at heart

something you love:

kindness, the smell of rain and snow before it does, music, horses, people honking in tunnels, my roommates - really hit the jackpot with them they're amazing. i also love committing to the bit, i will do anything for that payoff

something you could talk about for hours off the cuff:

star trek, and spirk. i could literally write a thesis length paper about spirk and how misinterpreted they are in the modern trek era (mostly kelvin timeline, disco/snw is still too new to say for sure) its infuriating. i also have a spreadsheet on them cuz i got really in the weeds a few years back. and honestly i could tie them in with arcane/jayvik now that i think about it, there are definitely some parallels i could draw. oh and also greek mythology i love it so much

something you hate:

people who can't admit they're wrong/don't know/don't like not being the expert on things and who can't apologize. grew up with a dad that was like this so now i try to keep people like that at arms length cuz it fucked me up so bad as a kid

something you collect:

books, coins, bugs, postcards, keychains

something you forget:

so much, i have pretty bad memory problems so i forget a lot of things. i have to ask people about things multiple times so often, its such a pain (and also lowkey scary cuz its a fairly recent development)

whats your love language?

gift giving/acts of service, i love doing things for people or getting them things they want/need especially when they aren't expecting it, or mentioned it offhand or in passing

favorite movies/shows:

star trek - except for that fucking section 31 movie fuck that thing, arcane, rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead, stardust, starcrash, the little prince, silverado and clearcut

favorite food:

mangoes, mini bagels, and this kimchi dip i get at my local farmers market

favorite animal:

horses, cats and whales; got multiple tattoos of all of them

what were you like as a child:

outgoing, friendly, kind of an outsider, definitely the weird kid tho - closet queer meets so much undiagnosed stuff + warrior cats obsession + small christian town lmaooo i was cringe but i was free

favorite subject at school:

history and art are tied, which isn't too surprising given where i am now lmao

least favorite subject:

in my heart i want to love math but math does not love me </3

best character trait:

ive been told i'm really friendly and warm, and would give my shirt to a friend who needed it, and i'm a good listener

worst character trait:

awkward as fuck, i don't know how to talk with people i don't know so i come off as standoffish/shy, i have a hard time being honest with people and trusting people due to childhood trauma (also daddy issues out the wazoo)

if you could change any detail about your life right now, what would it be?

probably just making a bit more money, i can afford rent and such but it doesn't leave much extra for things like tuition and books and things i want to do for myself and it means money is very tight so when things go wrong i'm set back for months. i can't plan for a lot of future things like top surgery or moving abroad to get my masters because of it

if you could travel in time, who would you meet?

funny answer: ea-nasir

serious answer: i'd want to meet a neanderthal or denisovan. i just... i think about them so much, and i love them and i want to know what they were like, did they speak like us? how did their world work? could we communicate?

ok i would tag mutuals but i made this blog like 3 months ago so i don't have any others atm, and all my other mutuals are on my main blog and have been my mutuals/friends for years so if you want to join just hop on!

#get to know your moots

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wormbraind · 1 year ago

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Oh shit right since we're talking about OCs, here's a significantly less fleshed-out one:

Bookbinder. Tinker, specialises in data categorisation, organisation, and retrieval (more of a librarian really, or a database developer). Downside is that he's severely amnesiac, and has to rely on his tech to remember anything that isn't his blueprints - meaning, he's going to have a pretty bad time if he cannot access his archives, or if something gets corrupted or lost.

He started as a thought exercise as to how accurately the "alien nests into your brain" could be interpreted (the shard took over his hippocampus), and how well the extended metaphor of "people are made reliant on their shards, the same way people irl become dependent on toxic habits" and how that translates to irl. Also I really liked the idea of a glassblower tinker, and wondered what hobbies of mine could be refurbished into powers.

I wonder how it would go if he met Dragon - his power would be a significant and interesting compliment to Richter's . . . oooh, maybe he worked with Richter, and was partially responsible for Dragon's code/designs? So many ideas!

smiles.... i love this. what if he worked with another tinker to like implant the data in his head for easier retrieval. yeah that sounds horrifying nvm

anyway send me worm oc asks people,, i live off them

#ask #thatnoulguyorsomething #wormblr #parahumans #other people's ocs

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tauforged · 8 months ago

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laz prime is a fun guy because while he has both oplaz AND driftlaz’s memories (being a fusion of the two) hes got two entire lifetimes worth of experiences BUT both of those lifetimes were amnesiacs who just got the shit kicked out of them by reality over and over again while in life or death situations SO he has an incredibly specific mental database to work off of. post-TNW he spent a lot of time learning how to perform basic human functions like cooking, taking care of himself physically (washing up/managing his hair/handling minor injuries/dealing with illness or allergies), keeping his orbiter in good shape, working out how to do maintenance and repairs on his amalgamated limbs, buying groceries and other supplies, etc etc etc etc. and in that process, he realized that he loved doing these mundane tasks SO MUCH that all the badass space ninja shit became secondary to him. he only really cares about his Tenno Duties when he’s invested in the situation emotionally (for example, he’s very invested in the witw/wf99 arc because he just feels sooo much empathy for loid and wants to help him, he was raring to go the entire time during and shortly after tnw because the lotus was at stake, in duviri his only motivator to make any change was when teshin was in danger, etc etc.) and the grander scheme of things with the existential threats or system-wide war or whathaveyou is more like set dressing in his mind than something He’s Responsible For Fixing. his priorities are his family and friends first, doing The Right Thing (by his personal standards) second, and What’s Good For The System As A Whole last LMFAO he’s good at what he does but he’s a TERRIBLE tenno because he’s very emotionally driven and crazy empathetic.

so you’ve got this guy who is virtually indestructible and scary as fuck but he spends all his time gardening or fishing or whittling little presents for loved ones or cooking or taking care of the little house he’s managed to build (because living out of a parked orbiter is WHOLLY unsustainable, and he kicked this into overdrive when he realized baby vega was on the way) or something. he doesn’t give a fuck about what’s going on out there unless it has something to do with someone he knows and cares about OR would be fun to participate in. he just recently finally figured out how to make meringue without fucking it up and he’s SO proud of himself so he is just making fuckloads of them and bringing some to everyone he knows so he can share. he’s recently taken up fingerknitting because his claws (designed to rend flesh from bone) are the right shape and length that he can use them to easily hook yarn through the loops. he needs to eat archon shards to survive but considers hunting them to be an inconvenience at most because it’s more effort than he wants to put in usually. i’m losing the plot. i love him he’s my silly guy

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astrovvitches · 1 year ago

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hi....! i'm a bit nervous posting this since this isn't my usual body of work at all.... but regardless i did want to try and get a light interest check / feelers out for a project i have in mind :,) i've been really inspired to make interactive fictions recently and have been going through a ton of projects that i've seen on the database/thru itch !! so in an attempt to keep a good writing habit & also because i had a fun idea i wanted to work on, i've started rough planning for an IF! below is the rough synopsis and idea i'm planning on proceeding with ;w;) i would def appreciate any initial impressions or interest in replies/tags but please note i am so new to (waves hands) all of this, so i appreciate your leniency as i dip my toes into this area... if there are any questions or general comments, i'll do my best to reply....! thank u T_T ——— UNION (name is subject to change) is a soft sci-fi IF following an amnesiac player trying to navigate a war between rebels and corporations. Tear apart the membrane that keeps this city alive and carve out the truth for yourself. — SYNOPSIS (below the cut!)

UNION.

The word was plastered on every surface you could see, from torn stickers on street lamps, pixels on a moving screen, seeping into the pores of the bricks that built this city. You couldn't recall what the word meant to you, but your body remembered better. It was hard to ignore the way you flinched at any sign of the name. They were the heart of this bleeding city and you were certain that humanity would have perished long ago without their technological advancements.

You weren’t sure where you came in, a cell in this mechanical monster you called a city. With glass shards embedded into your knees and sticky lime sewage clinging to your skin, you try to make sense of the world you’ve suddenly been thrust into.

The shadows that slip between the cracks of UNION’s watch seem to know your name, your face, your every action. Everyone seems to know better than you do. Why does everyone seem to know you?

UNION provides you with the safety that you had never known and out of your own selfish need to survive, you’re more than happy to feed off of their open palm.

Until one day, a mysterious figure who claimed to know you, your past and your future comes to collect your dues. To you, who had known nothing outside the pristine infirmaries of UNION and the consort of employees that tended to your every need, you were now forced to make a choice: Face your enigmatic past or embrace the comforts of your new life?

#interactive fiction #wip #twine if

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canyouhearthelight · 2 years ago

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Leather Houses, Chapter 2

I'll be honest, I planned to post this a week after the first chapter because, although I didn't get the views I was hoping for, my sibling specifically asked for the rest.

So, here is Chapter 2 of 4. Trigger warnings are "literally anything that would pop up on an r/NoSleep story. Because that is actually what this was originally written for, honestly.

That night, we tried calling the county sheriff’s office, Sanderson being too small for their own police force. However, when they tried to look up the missing people in the DMV database and came back with nothing, all we ended up with was a thoroughly irritated deputy who thought we were on drugs, and a dial tone.

Months passed, and it happened six more times. Sometimes it was an entire family, sometimes it was just one person. The worst was the Jacobson family: Issac was still there, but Sara and the kids didn’t exist anymore, and Issac didn’t remember them. Like all the rest, for some reason Joanie and I were the only ones who recalled anything different from the current version of Sanderson, and we were quickly left feeling like the walking wounded from all the mourning we had to hide from everyone else.

The first major break - if you could call it that - was the seventh disappearance. As I had become accustomed to, I woke up that morning and braced myself to find out who didn’t exist anymore. There was no way I could have prepared myself for what would greet me when I left for work.

The house next door was no longer a typical, cookie-cutter mirror of my own. Instead, it was covered entirely in what looked like leather.

I didn’t even realize I was staring until I heard my coffee cup smash on the concrete of my driveway. Nonetheless, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I carefully stepped over the shards at my feet and made my way, slowly, to the porch. The sight in front of me turned my stomach… all that skin, everywhere. Even the windows seemed to be made of flesh, stretched to its most translucent limits but still crossed with veins. The urge to revisit my breakfast became stronger the closer I got to the structure. It was when my foot touched the bottom step of the… home… that I realized it wasn’t the normal fear and disgust I would experience at the sight before me. In that moment, the revulsion I felt became so powerful and so clear that I realized it wasn’t coming from within my own mind.

The house was pouring those feelings into me.

I gritted my teeth and forced my way up to the door, each step doubling the urges being forced into my body. Finally, I stood in front of the threshold, hand raised to knock. However, before my hand could come into contact with that disgusting structure, I was overcome. I don’t recall anything after raising my hand to knock, up until I was standing on the sidewalk, vomiting.

After the dry heaves subsided, I staggered inside to rinse my mouth and call my boss to explain that I wouldn’t be in today. As soon as I got off the phone with work, I immediately shot a text to Joanie.

Me: Shit just got weirder.

JoanieBug: What happened now?

I shot a photo of the house next door and tried to send it to her. However, it was blurry and just looked like a skin-tone smear.

JoanieBug: Very funny, sending me a picture of your thumb. We have real shit going on, Mike.

Me: That’s not my thumb, J. That’s the house next door.

I waited for her reply, refusing to look out the window again. Instead of a text message, five minutes passed before I heard a car pulling into my driveway. Peeking around the curtains, I saw that it was her and rushed out before she could start screaming. By the time I got to her car, she was already out and staring at what had seemingly replaced my neighbors’ house.

She didn’t scream like I expected. Instead, she gaped for a few moments before whispering. “Does anyone remember your neighbors?”

Fuck. I hadn’t even thought about that. Having learned from previous vanishings, I pulled out my phone to check property records instead of trying to call anyone else. Sure enough, there was no record of anyone having owned that house, despite the fact that I knew a family with three little girls had lived there yesterday. Without realizing it, I stepped away from the horrible building as I did further searching. Josh and Tammy Scott no longer existed online, either. I even tried tracking down photos I remembered seeing in the paper when the girls were born - in a small town, triplets were big news - and found nothing. Photos from neighborhood cookouts were the same, except no trace of the Scott family.

“They’re gone.” I bit back a sob. “How long is this going to go on for?” I begged.

“I don’t know,” she whispered as she ushered me into my house and yanked all the curtains to cover any window facing the leather house. “Do you think that happened to the other houses?”

“Maybe? I haven’t exactly checked. I didn’t know where any of the others lived, except the Jacobsons.”

“But Issac is still here,” she pointed out.

I tapped my chin with my phone, still fighting back tears. “But does he still live in the same place? I just assumed he did. I never actually thought to check.”

It was Joanie’s turn to whip out her phone and start searching. A few minutes later, her head snapped up and she looked at me. “Issac and Sarah had that house built a couple years ago, right? After Davey was born?”

“Yeah. Bigger house, big yard so the boys could play.”

“This says Issac lives in his parents’ old place, over on Riverside.”

I shook my head. “Fuck. We have to see if this is related.”

“Mike!” she shouted. “People are being erased from reality, and everything is patched all nice and neat so it’s like they never existed. Now, it happened to your neighbors with a creepy-ass side of the house is now covered in skin, and you really think it might not be related!?” Her voice hit new octaves of hysteria before she pulled herself together. “You are being deliberately obtuse.”

I held up my hands defensively. “No, Joanie, I’m not. I am being overly cautious and want to confirm, with absolute certainty, that there is not some, second insanely nightmarish thing happening in Sanderson.”

“The universe can’t be that cruel.”

“The universe can certainly be that indifferent,” I grumbled. With a sigh, I stood up and grabbed my keys. As I shoved them in my pocket, I reached under the sink for a grocery bag before filling it with several sodas and half a bag of chips. “Let’s just drive around and see what we find. We have to take your car… I told Greta I was sick.”

With minimal complaints, Joanie stuffed some more snacks into another bag and we headed out. We cruised through every residential area, down every road. By the end of the day, we had found four more houses like the one beside mine, one of which was a huge, imposing mass sitting where the Jacobsons’ home formerly stood. Other than the Scotts and the Jacobsons, it was impossible to be sure that those houses belonged to the ones who were erased, but since those were the only two families of which we were completely sure where they lived when they still existed, it was enough to support the idea.

__________________________________

After the Scotts went missing, Joanie and I traded off crashing at each other’s house. Neither of us wanted to be alone, and there was a comfort in being close to the only other person who could recognize what was going on in Sanderson. In time, we established a routine - whoever woke up first each morning checked the town website for any changes in population. In theory, that number should only change once a year, when property taxes were updated, along with a more precise figure being updated every ten years when the official census was done.

We were seeing the population drop every couple of weeks at first, and soon it was weekly. While trying to see who was missing in a town of even 500 was a daunting task, we at least knew to brace ourselves for more changes that resulted from having our friends and neighbors seemingly erased from history entirely. Both of us considered leaving, but things progressed too quickly - and too weirdly - for us to make much of a plan.

Each day, we saw more and more houses in Sanderson turn into leather. We learned that, as long as we came no closer than the sidewalks, the revulsion did not touch us, and at no point did anyone else in town seem to notice. It was infuriating at times: by this point, dozens of houses were crafted from flesh and garnering about as much notice as an ant crossing the road.

The morning that I woke to find not just one, but four more houses around mine changed, the next alarming piece of information struck. I was about to call sick to work, too scared to leave my house, when my phone rang just as I was unlocking it.

It was Joanie.

“Hey, Joanie bug,” I answered, only to be cut off.

“All of my neighbors are gone,” she stated, by way of greeting me. By this point, she was in full crisis mode, and cooler than an ice cube.

“Mine too….” I trailed off, glancing out of my windows again as something nagged at the back of my mind.

“Fuck,” she swore. “That’s more than we’ve seen vanish at once, so far. By a couple of orders of magnitude.”

I did some counting. “That’s nine houses, yeah.” There was something significant about this. Not just the escalation, but it had to do with the people missing around Joanie’s house. “I’m going to call out from work - “ Click. “Oh, fucking hell. I may not have a job. Greta lived across from you and one down, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, Mike. That’s why I was calling…” Joanie sighed, resigned to what was going on, even if we still didn’t understand it. “I’m so sorry. She sounded like a good boss.”

I swallowed as hard as I could. “Let me call you back. I need to find out what this changes.” I disconnected and quickly called work. At least the company still existed.

“Holhouser Medical Technology, Sarah speaking,” a receptionist I didn’t recognize answered.

“Hey, this is Michael Andrews. I… I’ll be honest, I don’t feel well and I need to go see a doctor,” I lied. “I think I work there, and if I do, I need to speak to my boss to let them know I won’t be in today.”

“Oh, Mr. Andrews,” Sarah sounded surprised. “Um.. Well. Yes, I think you need to go see a doctor. Thank you for calling, it was very conscientious of you, but… Sir, you haven’t worked here in five years.”

What? “I - I haven’t?” I didn’t have to pretend to be confused. Greta had originally recruited me, so to find out I still ended up working there, but hadn’t in several years, was curious. “I work in IT, don’t I? I mean, didn’t I?”

“Yes sir, but… I think you need to speak to Dr. Collins. He asked us to direct you to him whenever this happens.”

“And this has happened before,” I slowly ventured, trying to understand what had changed.

“This is the fourth time, Mr. Andrews,” she confirmed gently. “Dr. Collins can explain why.”

“I…” I needed answers, is what I needed. “I don’t remember a Dr. Collins… Can you give me the number?”

“Of course.” Sarah sounded relieved. She gave me the number for a Greg Collins and wished me a good day.

Greg Collins. I didn’t recognize the name. To my knowledge, there was no one with the name Collins in Sanderson. Along with several disappearances so far, we had something else. Someone new had been added to our town. Even before people started disappearing and those grotesque… things… replaced the houses in town, it was rare for anyone to move to Sanderson. Cautiously, I texted Joanie.

Me: Do you know of any Dr. Collins?

JoanieBug: Who the fuck is that?

Okay, I wasn’t the only one who had never heard of this person. I sent the details of my conversation with Sarah and set my phone down to grab a drink while she read and digested the information. I was halfway through my glass of milk when my phone started buzzing furiously.

JoanieBug: There has never been a Greg Collins in Sanderson, I would remember. But I looked him up, and sure enough, he has a practice here in town. According to everything I can find, he’s had that practice for years.

JoanieBug: I even called. They have my file, apparently Doc Collins has been my doctor most of my life. Probably yours, too.

I dropped my phone again, struggling to draw a full breath. Something was casually re-writing reality, one piece at a time. Was this only happening in Sanderson? What if the entire world was like this? A whooshing, screaming noise pounded into my ears. Part of my mind registered the distant buzzing of my phone, but I was too busy sliding to the floor. My chest ached with fear, my head spun while I tried to force oxygen into my lungs.

There is no telling how long I sat there, but the next thing I was aware of outside of my fear was a stinging pain across the left side of my cheek. My head snapped up to see Joanie, her hands holding me by the temples.

"Did you just slap me?" I asked stupidly. When she rolled her eyes, I gaped. "Joanie! What the hell!?"

"Excuse me for being more focused on the fact that you were purple,” she groaned. “At least you aren’t hyperventilating anymore.”

I rubbed the spot on my chest and throat that still ached, realizing she was right. “Did you hear that noise when you came in?”

“All I heard was you.”

“No, it sounded like… a train, or a tornado.”

To my horror, she started laughing. “Mike, that was you, trying to breathe. You had a panic attack.”

“And you slapped me!?”

“I tried to talk you down, but you couldn’t hear me.”

“You slapped me.”

“Michael Joshua Andrews. Yes, I slapped you. Now, focus. Please. Doctor Collins, who appeared out of literal nowhere. An accident that didn’t happen, but apparently put you out of work with full pay five years ago.”

"I don't even know what the accident was," I tried.

"Well, no," she accepted. Abruptly, she stopped and stared at me, eyes wide. "Because there was no accident."

"That's what I'm trying to say - "

She shook her head furiously and grabbed my shoulders. "Mike. There was no accident. Even if something changed that tells everyone else that you're on disability or workman's comp, or whatever, you aren't suddenly crippled. And for you to be on full pay, it should have been awful."

Joanie was right. Whatever cover story was created when Greta vanished, it involved a horrible accident that was fully the fault of the company. I should be completely unable to work, but nothing was wrong. "That means they - it - the thing or person behind this… can't actually affect us." I trailed off. "Is that why we aren't forgetting everyone?"

"Could be, but focus." She handed me a beer that I didn't notice her grabbing. "We need to talk to Collins, and you actually have a plausible reason."

After a brief flurry of phone calls, I had an appointment that afternoon to speak with my theoretical doctor. “Joanie, I should be back by five. If I’m not, come looking for me. Raise hell, go full on ‘grieving widow’, I don’t care - “

“Ew!” she muttered. “Wrong equipment.”

“Like anyone is going to remember that,” I argued half-heartedly. “Fine. Grieving sister. Just make a loud, over the top ruckus if they try to prevent you from seeing me or passing me a message, okay?”

“Can do.” She saluted me. “Just make sure you get as much information as you can, okay?”

“I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise,” I agreed under my breath. “Hopefully, I’ll get some banal explanation and be back at the Tangerine Nightmare by five, five thirty at the latest.”

After getting off the line, I punched the address into my GPS. Ignoring the fact that the address showed as saved under ‘Dr. Greg’, I made my way there with time to spare for my appointment. From the outside, it looked like what I expected from a doctor’s office: nondescript building, discreet but visible signage, “no smoking” signs everywhere. I walked in, only to behold a pretty nondescript waiting room, complete with the news and weather channel on a TV in the corner and magazines from roughly a month ago spread neatly on a table.

Making my way to the reception window, I signed in. Glancing around, I saw a bleach-blonde woman I didn’t recognize. She took the clipboard and smiled at me. “Thank you, Mr. Andrews. Dr. Collins is expecting you, so go on back.” When I hesitated, she tipped her head. “Left hand door, second exam room on the left.”

Thanking her, I made my way back. At first, it seemed pretty routine: a woman I had never seen in my life took my vital signs, asked a few questions, then left me with a cheerful explanation that the doctor would be in to see me shortly. So far, so good.

After about ten minutes, a man in a white coat entered the exam room. He had solid gray hair, brown eyes, and a vaguely middle aged face - somewhere between a stressed out forty and a youthful sixty. “Hey, Mike. I don’t know if you remember, but I’m Dr. Gregory Collins. Does that ring any bells?”

I was honest. “Not really, but I think that’s why I’m here.” I didn’t mention that Dr. Collins not existing when I woke up this morning was part of that. Let him believe what he wanted. I just wanted answers.

He seemed somewhat satisfied with this, nodding his head. “Have you had any conversations or seen anything out of the ordinary? Any odd hallucinations?”

“I wouldn’t say they were hallucinations,” I admitted. “I mean, someone else has seen them as well, despite how weird they seem to be. So, I know it’s real.” I paused, and he nodded for me to continue. “Houses, made out of skin, I think?” I played dumb, no mentioning the related disappearances. “They pulse and breathe like they’re alive, but they can’t be, right?”

“Of course not,” he responded, tone soothing and even. He walked behind me, out of my line of sight. Shortly, I could feel him pressing a stethoscope against my back, and took deep breaths automatically.

“One of them is right next to my house,” I admitted, although I wasn’t sure why I told him that.

“That has to be distressing,” he acknowledged. When he crossed back into my field of vision, he had a bottle of something yellow and a syringe.

“Doc…” I started hesitantly. “What is that?”

“Just the usual, Mike. Nothing to worry about.”

“And what, exactly, is the ‘usual’?”

The bastard actually chuckled. “It doesn’t matter, Mike. You never remember, anyway.”

“Never remember WHAT?” I started panicking, and moved to stand up.

He pushed me back on the exam table with one hand. “Shhhh. It’s okay.” He glanced at the door and jerked his head to whoever was standing outside. I felt cool, iron grips holding my wrists down.

“What do you mean, I ‘never remember’, you son of a bitch!?” I shouted, struggling futilely against the hands holding me down. Jesus fuck, how many people did he have come in here?

A stinging pain erupted near my armpit. I looked down just in time to see a needle being pulled out. To my horror, it looked several inches long - long enough to pierce a lung, or even my heart. I struggled sluggishly against whatever he just injected me with, trying in vain to stay awake. My vision blackened around the edges. My hands and feet started to feel warm and numb. I couldn’t even scream, since every noise I tried to make came out as a slurred moan.

I could barely see out of the dim centers of my vision as I heard Dr. Collins one last time. “This one keeps resetting, and we don’t know why. Make sure he doesn’t disrupt the program.”

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#horror #tw: body horror #nosleep #tw medical #fiction #horror fiction #original horror #original fiction #original writing #my writing #light writes

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