In which something new makes its way out of the void.
Part 1 - ... Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5
TW: eldritch horror
Pages: 22 - Words: 8500
[Requests: OPEN]
Your organization was getting worse and worse. Over the last few weeks, your system had gone from a stack to a bundle to a veritable nest of documents stuffed into your closet or scattered on your table. You shifted from room to room, leaving a trail of pages in your wake. Anyone who walked in might have thought you mad – scratches and scrawls in smudged ink – but there were few saner than you who set foot in your apartment. No, the eldritch deities didn’t think any less of you for your research, though that wasn’t to say that you were completely free to do as you wanted.
On your weekends with Dark, you made great progress. Your notebook was a sliver away from being full, and you still had so much more to go through. The worlds beyond your reality were infinite, and he could provide you with the materials to make that infinity smaller. He wasn’t a problem, but you were surprised by how much of an obstacle Mark and Wilford had become.
One night, post-play, you and Mark walked arm in arm through the apartment wall. The experience was still jarring, especially when you turned around to see nothing more than wallpaper, but you kept your questions to yourself. Mark hated being compared to Wil, and yet their resistance to your curiosity was incredibly similar.
You figured that hitting the books could offer you the explanation you wanted, so you stretched and glanced around your living room. You swore that you had left a pile of reports for late-night inspiration somewhere, but your search came up empty.
“Are you alright, darling?” Mark asked as you stepped away from him.
“Yeah, I just… I thought I left something out here.”
Behind you, he hummed. “I don’t think so.”
You padded forward, fairytale outfit molding into the clothes that you had been wearing earlier that day. The haziness of the play was wearing off, like stepping out of fog into the circle of a streetlight, and you were no less sure that something was supposed to be on the table.
“You put all of your papers away before we left.”
You almost believed him, and, really, hadn’t you learned not to trust your own eyes yet? After everything you had been through, your self-confidence was the most confusing thing of all, and yet you put your full faith in yourself and decided to test Mark.
“No, I was talking about my mug.”
Slowly, you turned to him, wondering what he would do. Chances were that he was going to follow along with your little lie. There was even the possibility that he would find your mug himself, pluck it out of whatever dimension his other props came from, and leave you with that.
But then he called you out. “You’re a terrible liar, you know, and I’m not easy to trick.” He laughed to himself. “You were talking about—”
He paused. He looked at you. He smiled.
“I was only trying to help,” he began again, raising his hands in a placating gesture as he stepped forward. When he was close enough, he cradled your head in his hands. “We don’t want you overworking yourself, now, do we?”
A kiss was not enough to distract you, but you leaned into it regardless. What could you say, his lips were nice, and he was looking out for you. He could have stood to listen to your reasoning for your little project, but it probably would have ended the same way. He was hard to argue with, he was usually right, you should have just listened to him.
When you separated, the sensation of numbness and the voice that whispered to you both simmered. Unsurprising, but you never were able to tell exactly why you didn’t get mad at him for the tactic. It was underhanded, bordering on rude, and anyone else would have to deal with crushed toes.
You simply sighed and patted his shoulder. You weren’t stupid, you knew a stunt like that would get you hurt a thousand times worse in inconceivable ways. However much you wanted him to stop doing that, the voice wasn’t exactly wrong. He was hard to argue with because he refused to argue in the first place. He was right, you were wrong, end of story – or, he saw it that way.
Still, you put on your most optimistic expression and moved in closer to whisper, “So, can I get them back?”
Mark’s arms moved around your waist, that dashing smile playing second fiddle to the glint in his eye.
“Not a chance.”
He wasn’t the only one to set you back a few days of work – Wilford went down a different path when he once caught you in the middle of your reading. You were draped over your couch, a dip in the fabric carved by your body after so many hours camped in the same spot. It was easy to get lost in the books, which you supposed was to be expected given the contents, so the only marker of time passing was the visits you got on their designated days.
For the other two, apparently; on a Wednesday afternoon, Wilford appeared in a second-long burst of light before winging your book over his shoulder and flopping down into your lap.
You instinctively ran a hand through his hair, asking, “Can you stop doing that?”
“Nope,” was his prompt reply.
Those two did everything in their power to stop your research, whenever they caught you with your nose deep in a book or twiddling your pen in your hand. Whether their tactics were subtle or not, they were annoyingly successful. They cited concern for your health as the reason for their insistence, and, usually, you found plenty of reasons to rebuff that.
Recently, however, you had developed some worries of your own. Nothing major, nothing terrifying, nothing important enough to bring up to gods who probably dealt with this kind of thing on a daily basis. After all, they were just books. What was there to be afraid of? A papercut, and that was if you weren’t careful, and you were always careful, especially around your new additions, because things that appeared out of thin air weren’t completely safe.
You had noticed the first one the day after your talk with Dark. A leatherbound cover wrapped around aged paper, abandoned on your table. Assuming that it was Dark’s, you’d let it be. It was joined by another. This one was slightly larger, the pages were lighter, and a flowery pattern was embossed into the spine. You had stacked them neatly and put them aside in case Dark returned for them.
The pair remained where they were from the start of his next visit to the end.
And then another appeared. And then another. And then another, and another, and another. They weren’t concentrated anymore; one was tucked neatly between your couch cushions, a copy of which you later found at the back of a cupboard, that you took to join the ones that showed up in your closet. Empty boxes were filled, some by you and some not, to the point that you could have registered your apartment as a public library.
If Dark had been less careful about his resources, you would have assumed that they were all his, but he wasn’t, and they weren’t. The only thing that you knew for certain about these things was their wrongness. They were incorrect in some innate way. They looked like normal books, but you had grown sensitive to the eldritch, and you could practically see the madness oozing from the binding. They vibrated and shattered when you picked them up.
A short conversation with Dark did nothing to soothe your nerves. It was barely a minute long, cut short by his stern look and subsequent disappearance. You had already been confused – he gave you no answers – Wil and Mark, well, the thought was laughable – so what were you supposed to do?
Lying on your bed with your hands over your eyes, you picked up and discarded every solution that passed through your mind. Burning them was the worst one that you came up with, posing so much risk that you pitied yourself. The ‘best’ wasn’t that much smarter either, but you sighed and got to your feet, nonetheless.
You muttered curses to yourself as you plucked each and every book from where they had been stashed, including one or two that hadn’t been there yesterday, and dumped them into one giant crate. What once had been the home of teenage clothing, extra bedsheets, or a misfortunate guinea pig was now the proud storage for trademark-weird books from the void.
You had to stamp on the lid to get it to fit at the bottom of your closet, but you had long since lost any respect for the things inside. They were worse than rats at this point, but at least you understood what rats were. The click of the doors announced your final decision: forget they ever existed and leave them to rot in that box.
A single step forward had you reconsidering that decision. A voice whispered that, despite their wrongness, the words might have been right, helpful for your research, didn’t you want to know about the gods? It sounded like the ghost of Mark’s kiss. A siren luring sailors at sea with promises of sex, of hope, of an answer because that was all you wanted. A damn answer.
Those books had an answer.
You launched yourself into the hallway, slamming the door behind you. Your bedroom was off-limits now, which was just fine by you. Whatever was in that crate, it wasn’t safe.
Sweat trickled down the curves of your shoulder blades. Getting out of the room wasn’t enough, you were still in the same building, you needed to get out. Air refused to stay in your lungs for longer than a second, the push-and-pull of tissue was making you nauseous. Your vision spun.
You tripped on something – a floorboard, please, not another book – as you stumbled towards your side table. The harsh metal of the keys dug into your hands that clenched too tight. Your focus was split between getting your shoes on and getting out. After a struggle, you had wrestled yourself into fit condition to leave and thrown your body over the apartment threshold. Locking the door was a secondary thought that you barely acted upon before you were sprinting toward the stairwell.
A walk, that was what you needed. A nice, calming, normal walk. You couldn’t remember the last time you had gone outside for recreational purposes. A chuckle forced itself through your mouth. You couldn’t remember the last time you had gone outside alone.
When you were street-level, facing the outside world, you hesitated. Part of you wanted to go back to your apartment. Sure, there were eldritch deities and questionable books, but you had some modicum of control there. Your town was another issue. It was weird in another way that you understood just as much as the void, if not less. You weren’t supposed to know anything about the space between realities, but you were expected to know everything about your own reality.
Someone walked out of the stairwell and shot you a suspicious glare as they brushed past you. They had disappeared by the time that you tightened your fists.
No, you had fought so hard not to care what people thought about you. The title of town crazy was not earned by being a shut-in. Back before you had summoned anyone, you trusted yourself in public and did whatever you wanted without a care in the world. Being judged didn’t scare you.
You took a deep breath and walked out the door.
To your credit, you lasted longer than you thought you would. The first few minutes were fine, quaint even. You could convince yourself that this was an average day if you tried. The roads were relatively empty, and only a few people milled about in your field of vision. A woman with a stroller, a group of teenagers who should have been in school, and some sort of harried personal assistant shouting into their phone. You barely managed to dodge being blown over, but sticking your shoulder firmly to the buildings kept you on your feet. With your head up and skin soaking up the sun, it wasn’t until you passed the first alleyway that something caught your attention.
Something was in there, and it was watching you. This was different from the stares of strangers, people who didn’t matter compared to the unnerving familiarity that the shadows were putting off. Nothing moved as you stared down the passage. You forced your legs to move.
Was the sun getting hotter?
The next alley was no better. Whispers crawled out of the trash. You didn’t stop long enough to discern the words, but moving on didn’t help, the whispers followed you to the next and the next and the next.
Your legs were getting numb.
At the skittering of a rat, you turned tail and started to sprint back home. Music – faint like a passing carnival – why was there music – did anyone else hear it? All suspicious looks were sent to you. You stumbled back past the teenagers, you swore you had gotten further, you slammed into the front doors. Someone was still whispering.
Fog flooded your mind as you took the steps two at a time to your floor. You weren’t counting, too busy with not falling, but the top floor meant you couldn’t get any further. Third door on the right; going left would make you splatter on the pavement. Was that a good idea?
No sooner than the thought hit you were you back inside your apartment, and you knew exactly where to go because co-existing with that crate of nightmares was not an option. You were throwing open the closet doors before you knew exactly what you were going to do, but you grabbed the sides and hoisted it into the air without a second thought.
If burning them was stupid, then just a step up from stupid was throwing them out the window. Hopefully, they were going to fall on some other poor idiot who would read them, take them home, and have to deal with the consequences instead of you. Besides, you weren’t going to use them, and nobody had stepped up to claim them yet, so who was there to hold it against you?
A hulking beast in the center of your living room stopped you dead in your tracks.
Foam dripped from a snarling jaw. The froth pooled on your floorboards and seeped into the cracks, traced by an oily sheen from its own body. Drops slid upwards along its back to create shifting, flaring spikes along its legs, shoulders, spine, right up to the face. A dozen eyes were overtaken by that blackness, a dozen others reemerging under pulled-back ears. All of them were staring straight at you, prey to a predator that wouldn’t play with its food.
The two left legs lifted and dropped forward. The ones on the right did the same. It was getting closer to you, still snarling, still frothing, still staring, and you stood petrified in front of it.
This was where you were going to die. In the middle of your living room, where you had been face-to-face with three cosmic entities with unmanageable powers and survived. Now, in the same exact place, you could only hope that you were going to be eaten, bones and all.
The creature lunged, and impulse stuck the crate out to block its attack.
It tore the box out of your hands and shredded right through. Shards of plastic exploded across the room, quickly followed by paper and spittle, and you could do nothing but watch.
It chewed off large chunks of the container’s walls while you tried to slow the rapid thumping in your chest. A heart attack was an even worse way to do than a mystery beast – although, as you looked at it, it was becoming less and less of a mystery.
The oily substance of its spikes collapsed to create a visible texture of fur, and all but four of the eyes receded into its head. They were all focused on the single book that it was gnawing on, so you were free to skirt around it to pick up the rest of the spilled contents. You had to jump a few times to avoid being knocked off your feet by its swaying tail or slipping on the slobber, which pooled onto the floor in just the same way as a messy house pet’s would.
Tentatively, you put together your clues and muttered, “Right. Uh, good dog?”
It didn’t seem to mind.
When you’d loaded up your arms with the other books and loose sheets, you deposited them loosely on the couch. Some fell off, but, at this point, you were more concerned with the maybe-dog behind you. One was more likely to kill you than the other, after all, and no amount of weirdness could stifle your self-preservation.
It was for the same reason that you backed off from reaching for the book that the dog hoarded when a sharp growl induced ringing in your ears. Instead, you plopped down, cross-legged and tired, in front of it.
“So,” you started, uncomfortably, “do you have a name?”
Were you supposed to be surprised that it didn’t answer?
“Are you an actual dog?”
Once more, nothing beyond the dusting of its tail against the floor.
“Well, I don’t know,” you said. “You seem eldritch-y, so you might not be a dog. You might have a name, too.”
You got the hint, and you didn’t let the silence last long. You got to your feet as you sighed, “But you obviously can’t talk, so why am I even trying?”
That, or it just didn’t like you, which was always an option. It didn’t look vicious anymore, a definite positive, but you weren’t sure if it was simply more interested in that book than you.
You tried to catch sight of the cover from where you stood, but two front paws secured it between the dog’s teeth. You would surely lose a hand if you tried to pry it away, but deadly curiosity was rearing its head. Recently, it had been getting the better of you far too effectively for your liking.
Worrying the skin of your lips, you snuck round to the fridge and rooted around for anything that would draw the dog’s attention. You soon found a slab of meat – from what animal, you didn’t remember, and you were too suspicious to figure it out – and figured that this was better than nothing.
It only took a few steps forward for the dog to notice you. One of its eyes rolled around wildly in the socket before landing on your hands. A drop of drool peeled down its mouth.
You trod carefully closer; if it got too excited, you wouldn’t have enough time to dodge. Luckily, despite your first interaction, it was patient and waited for you to toss it to the side.
It was odd, and not in the usual sense. You expected it to jump for the food, tear it in half like it had the crate, and finish it off within seconds. However, you were completely wrong. It padded over, placed a single paw in the middle, and started pulling slowly at the fat. The thought of cutting it up and finding a bowl occurred to you, as if you were looking after your friend’s pup while they went on vacation.
“Good?” you asked once it got a chunk off.
You received an airy huff.
A small smile wormed its way onto your face. “Yeah, it’s good.”
With the dog distracted, you were free to grab the book, though not without a grimace. Slobber dripped off the cover and onto your hand to be smeared on your pants. It left no residue on the book itself, for which you were endlessly thankful, but there was nothing on the cover anyway. The leather was completely blank, so you were forced to look inside to find out what it was.
You flicked through empty pages. You had come to anticipate a name or title at the beginning, something to denote who wrote the book, but there was nothing. A brilliant start. You got settled against the side of the couch.
The first page that actually had something on it was also the first of many identical ones. A table with six columns spanned the width of both sides, starting with a name and ending with a date. It took you scanning through a few rows to understand that this was a ledger. Tiny notes written in the margins told you that this doubled as a journal, and the exacerbation surrounding certain names meant that you knew just who it belonged to.
Why Dark hadn’t taken it back yet was beyond you.
“Doesn’t explain why it’s here, though,” you muttered. “Or the other books. Or you.”
The mystery meat was gone by the time you turned to the dog, reduced to a puddle of drool. After licking around its jaw with a slightly liquid tongue, it returned to you and laid its head on your lap. Puppy-dog eyes didn’t begin to describe the look of it, and the extra pair only added to its power.
You hummed. “Why are you here? How? You’re very cute, but it’s not a great defense in court for breaking and entering.”
You didn’t know if you were talking to it or yourself at this point, but a low woof served as a pseudo-response.
“Okay, but you only get one.”
Mindlessly, you scratched behind its ear. Furry but surprisingly cold. You still hadn’t put together what it was. You kept calling it a dog, though that might have been furthest from the truth, and you had no other hints as to what it was. All you could do was keep asking questions, hoping that some kind of answer would come to you.
“Did you show up like the deities? Were you sent here? Was it Dark?”
All four of its eyes locked firmly onto you. Finally, you were getting somewhere, and you matched the dog’s sudden eagerness with your own grin.
“Do you know that name? Does Dark want his book back? Is he your owner?” There was no change in its behavior. It was still focused on you, so you weren’t getting any further away, but this was a dead end. “Am I still asking you questions like you’ll answer me?”
As if the gods were any better. Maybe that was just what eldritch things were like – equal parts knowledgeable and stingy.
At least you had something to work with now, and you intended on getting something concrete as soon as possible. Pulling your hand from the dog’s ear earned you a whine, which almost convinced you to abandon your plan altogether, but you pulled through and headed for the bedroom.
“Okay, puppy, let’s try call your dad.”
The first step was getting the summoning book – easy, given that it was still in your dresser. You swapped the ledger for the rituals and started rooting through it. Finding Dark’s was going to be difficult; you had only summoned Wilford, after all, and the majority of the eldritch deities used titles over names. You skipped past the King in Red, all the way to the back pages. You were starting to give up hope that he was in there at all when your eyes landed on a gray chapter that listed the instructions for Darkiplier.
Well, that was the closest that you found, and if you got the wrong person, you could always ask for directions.
You snatched a pen from your side table and jotted down the materials on your arm. Some of the basics were scattered around your apartment – the candles, the wine glass, the hammer – but finding scorodite in your local stores would take a lot of your time. It was either this or waiting until the weekend.
Despite the warnings scribbled between the instructions, the pleading and begging to not summon him, you were keen to get him there. You wondered if you would have reacted differently to him had you seen these before.
A crash from the living room ripped you from your thoughts, and you jumped through the door to see what the commotion was.
Apparently, if you left a well-fed eldritch dog in a room with destructible furniture, you were bound to get some destroyed furniture. Your heart pounding out of your chest, you walked in on it gnawing on a stool leg amongst fluff from your couch and a fair amount of drywall. Next to it, a chunk of the coffee table was gone, splinters and all.
“Hey, no, that’s bad!” you reprimanded. “Let it go, right now.”
Although one eye stayed fixed on its new chew toy, the three others floated to you. It stopped grinding its teeth, but the leg stayed firmly in its mouth.
You tried your best to sound commanding when you ordered, “Drop it.”
You were proud of yourself when it listened, letting it fall with a hollow knock of wood against wood, but that didn’t mean much. The room was still a mess – and it was just your luck that the creepy books were untouched out of everything – and there was no doubt in your mind that it would only get worse if you left the dog there alone. You did want to have a building by sunset.
You stared at it. It stared at you.
From an old box of random curios and trinkets, you dug out a rope. Yes, it was for a ritual, and no, it didn’t work. This was a better use for it, you thought, as you looped it around the dog’s neck in a makeshift leash.
“You have to promise me that you won’t run off.”
You took its silence as complete and utter reassurance, and you set off on your supply run.
Technically, your apartment had a ‘no pets’ policy, but who in their right mind would question the local loon about their dog that repelled all light and growled like a 1950s radio? You moved down the floors with much more confidence than you had earlier. You felt practically untouchable, but the most amazing thing was that the uncertain glances usually reserved for you were directed to the beast at your side.
Nobody paid you any attention, save for the few who had the gall to wonder who was toting such an animal. They looked away just as quickly. As you wandered between stores, the whispers quietened down. The human and the eldritch noises faded, as if absorbed into the nothingness of the dog. A walking void it was, and it was walking next to you.
Almost giddy, you made your way back to your apartment. A grocery bag of materials swung from one hand while the other cradled the leash. You had seen the damage it could do, but it was strangely docile as it trotted down the street with you.
“Should I get a pet?”
It barked airily.
“I know, but nobody’s going to say anything.”
You slipped through the building’s doors, ignored a neighbor who stepped back in shock, and moved to the stairwell. A whine echoed up the floors.
“I might have to move, anyway, if you wreck my apartment more than you already have.”
The security deposit was already gone when you’d carved that circle into your floor, but there was very little keeping you there beyond convenience. Somewhere with more storage was ideal, especially because you weren’t sure what you were going to do with those books if Dark didn’t take them.
You soon found yourself standing in front of your door, key in the lock. With a twist and push, you stepped into your apartment and away from the inky void that swallowed the sky behind you. You barely noticed the change, too focused on the reason for it, who was pacing a trench into the floorboards.
Your eyebrows furrowed. Dark didn’t look good – while he had never looked strictly healthy, he was outwardly stressed, and he was usually cold enough that it meant something bad.
When he realized you had arrived, some of that worry dissipated. You didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Where have you been?” he asked, rushing the small distance between you.
“Getting things to summon you, actually.”
A sigh removed some more of the tension, but you could still see how tight he gripped the dog’s leash once you handed it over to him.
“And you?” His question was directed towards the only silent party, though he said it as though he would get a response. You were going to be so mad if he did.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the only sound was the rustling of your bag as you started unloading your supplies. Dark glanced at you, instead.
“The pup appeared in my living room – an hour or two ago?” You tried to think how long you had spent away, but all the adrenaline bashed your internal clock. “Is something wrong?”
“She’s an escape artist, but she’s never gotten this far. Not on her own.”
That was reassuring.
“Where did she come from?”
“The void. A fair distance from here. She shouldn’t be able to…” Disjointed sentences faded into ringing. It didn’t seem like a conscious effort, nor for any particular reason. Self-generated background noise for theorizing, you guessed.
Whatever thought struck him, you were not privy to; he stripped a slip of paper and a pen from a shadow and wrote it down instead. It dissipated into nothingness at the final stroke of ink before he turned to the dog.
“Go home,” was Dark’s simple order.
Neither moved. The most he got out of her was a short whine and a bowed head. He repeated it to no avail. The ringing pitched up.
You tried to catch his eye, but he quickly strode toward the door with the dog trailing behind. For a moment, you thought he was going to leave then and there, but he did return after a second with just the loose rope in his hand.
He handed it to you, still not making eye contact, so you forced yourself to speak.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
The speed and severity with which he said that told you two things – one, he was lying, and two, whatever he was lying about was incredibly important. Dark didn’t lose his façade over something trivial.
“I’m not asking if there’s something wrong, I’m asking what is wrong,” you pushed.
This time, he did look you in the eye, but it was less for validity and more of a threat. “Nothing that concerns you.”
“This is my apartment, it damn well concerns me.”
“You won’t understand it yet.”
You opened your mouth to protest again, but he moved first, reaching underneath your counter and retrieving a thick book. It was placed on the counter, thudding against laminate despite his gentleness, and you pulled it closer.
“Read it. I will tell you after,” he said. Although it left no room for complaints, you couldn’t help but frown.
The title was a mishmash of words seemingly plucked from a bingo machine. They gave no hint as to what the book was actually about, but that went for just about everything concerning the eldritch pantheon. The size was unusual, though. For anyone to keep their sanity long enough to fill hundreds of pages was a feat in and of itself, let alone something comprehensible.
You dragged your attention from the behemoth and back to Dark. “This’ll take me months,” you replied.
“How very perceptive of you.”
A headache was forming behind your eyes. So many things had been happening that you weren’t sure what was causing it, but the continuous ringing certainly wasn’t helping. Your nerves might have been fried, both from the fright of today and from the gods getting on every single one, Dark included.
From his quiet sigh, he noticed your state.
“Understand, you are human, which means you are fragile.” He placed his hands together on the counter, as if he were explaining an unfortunate diagnosis instead of a fact of your life. “There are certain realities that you are not ready to face. It does not mean that they will be hidden from you forever, but you have to learn how to cope with the foundations first.”
Your thoughts were tugged back to your dates with Mark and Wil – if they weren’t included in those ‘certain realities’, then what was? You knew that you hadn’t ventured too far into the places, but you assumed it was more of the same. You could only forget so much before you were scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Dark huffed. “You can barely be in the presence of the eldritch without losing yourself.”
“I’m doing just fine around you.”
“If I were to let go at all, I would kill you.”
There was no emotion in his voice as he spoke. He just watched your startled expression. This was the fact of his life. You were fragile. He was dangerous. There was nothing more to it.
“One mistake and you would be dead,” he continued to drive home the point. “Perhaps worse. I am exercising an incredible amount of restraint, so do not assume for a moment that you are safe, because you are not. And you never will be. All three of us have the ability to cause damage, in one way or another.”
Dark blinked, and for a moment, it was as though everything else dropped away. The ringing was peeled from the ambient noise of your apartment, then that too evaporated into thin air. It wasn’t just the sound; his shoulders relaxed and his stare softened. A mannequin replaced the god before you, and a tape recorder relayed his words.
“We will exercise restraint, but you must exercise caution. Above all, you must keep yourself safe.”
A sense of indignation swirled in your stomach. Besides your first interaction with the gods, you had done nothing risky of your own volition. Hell, you had been forced to protect yourself that very day against something that was in no way your fault. You were the first – that you knew of – to survive being in the presence of three eldritch gods at the same time, so you were obviously doing something right! The feeling worked its way through your chest and up your throat, all the way to your mouth, and then out.
“I’m trying, Dark. I really am. But there’s only so much I can do when things appear out of nowhere. Your dog, these books- I mean—” you dragged a hand across your face, “—do you think I’m summoning them, I’m-I’m choosing to be put in danger all the time? The only thing I did was sign the contract—the only person I actually summoned was Wil, and I didn’t even expect to live past it!”
“Would you take it back?”
All of your energy was flushed out of your system.
“What?”
“If you could end the contract, would you?”
Immediately, you jumped to shake your head, but you stopped yourself. ‘No’ formed on your tongue, but you bit it back. Every method of conveying your confidence in your decision began, but you aborted them one after the other. Stuttering, you scanned your apartment for an answer.
The hazy shape of parchment waited in the shadowed corner.
Your body and your mind were at odds. “I don’t know,” you eventually landed on. “Would you?”
Silence followed your question. The vague hum of ringing picked back up, and, after a moment, Dark clenched his jaw.
“No.”
That was a surprise. After all the hassle, you thought he would be better off scraping his name from the contract and doing away with you altogether. None of the things that you had signed for him affected reality in any obvious way, and what stopped him from compiling all of his wants and needs into one final goodbye letter? Why did he keep you around?
“This is new to me,” he admitted slowly. “Mark and Wilford, the rest of the pantheon, they make contracts with humans more than they talk to one another. It’s inevitable that there are some… crossovers, whether they are aware of them or not.”
Given the length of that ledger, you didn’t doubt it.
“In all my years, I have made very few deals, and I have made certain that they have contacted no other deities. It’s less complicated with fewer players. It is also safer.”
Hesitantly, he unwound his hands and stretched one out to you. An invitation, shaky as it was, that you took eagerly by laying your own over his. You didn’t dare take it yet, not until he did so first, but he continued with an undertone of tenderness.
“You have been exposed to strong eldritch forces for far longer than the average person. If you were anyone else, by this point, you would have gone insane. But you haven’t.”
Your hand was warm against his. Dark knew he ran cold, it was just in his nature, but you didn’t pull away. Last time had been unexpected, and he hadn’t known how to react. You had retreated just as fast, regardless, so whatever he would have done was a moot point. This time, however, you stayed.
How long for? How long would this last? Things from the void appearing in your apartment was a symptom of a greater sickness, and not knowing exactly what it was worried him – more than that, it terrified him to think that the realities were becoming unbalanced. The last time this kind of problem got out of hand still rippled throughout the cosmos.
He didn’t want that to happen to you.
“It will take time to find the cause,” Dark continued, “and even longer to find the solution if need be. Humans are incapable of researching the eldritch effectively, and there is little reason for us to study ourselves. This is news to everyone.” In some ways, he wasn’t lying. “You have to trust us.”
“I do.”
And, in some ways, you weren’t lying either. You believed yourself, of course, and your statement was not subject to the same hesitations as before, but you didn’t understand everything yet. You wouldn’t have the same response when all was said and done.
He didn’t say anything because that ran the risk of you asking why it bothered him. In fact, he moved on completely, moving his empty hand beneath the counter again to pull another void-stained contract. Inky smudges drained from its corners as light hit the paper.
“We may have to perform experiments periodically in order to understand what is happening. This contract is a consent form, but I will tell you about them separately before they happen. With any luck, they won’t be invasive.”
Staring at the sheet before you, you hesitated. Understandable. Dark himself wanted to throw the contract on the fire, but he needed to know what was going on with you. Curiosity pulled the strings of his limbs.
He had to push you, even if he didn’t like it. “This is for your own safety.”
You were completely quiet as you tugged it closer. As per usual, you didn’t stop to read it, simply signing on the dotted line and pushing it back. He always wondered why you did that. He could have laughed; he knew so much about everything and yet so little about you.
Dark’s thank-you went unanswered. You watched each inch of the contract slide back into the shadow and, when it was gone, pushed away from the counter. Footsteps trailed after you towards your bedroom, cut off by the click of your door.
Dark was left alone.
He should have taken the cue to leave. There was no reason for him to stay when you weren’t around, and it was clear that you weren’t coming back. Still, something grounded him to your reality for a little while longer. Maybe it was the same force that brought things from the void – eldritch pooling, the phenomenon of energy being concentrated in one place, was an issue for moving between dimensions. It was part of the reason why his pet had been unable to return to the void on her own.
The pile of books on the couch caught his attention. Some of them he recognized, some of them he didn’t, but none of them belonged there. You did mention randomly appearing books, and the way they were collapsed onto the cushions suggested you held no affection for them.
With a snap of his fingers, they were gone. He would deal with them when he was back at his desk, sorting them between his own and whatever had been pilfered from the shelves of other gods. That plan in mind, he adjusted his jacket and stepped forward into his study.
Except he didn’t. He remained in your apartment, rounding the edge of the countertop to your summoning supplies. The thought that other things out of place and eldritch were keeping him there was nice. Placing sole blame on them was nicer, but it was wrong. The thing that kept him there was morbidly familiar.
There were only a few items left inside the bag, which left Dark with a dozen materials. He hadn’t spent much time rifling through your cabinets, so it was slow going, but he got everything put away eventually. He paused to laugh at each item he went through. Salt, especially; it was a classic but unnecessary, kept in tradition by tales of demons – and why didn’t you have it already?
He held the scorodite up to the light. Cerulean bathed his skin. Even though the summoning instructions called for it to be smashed, he preferred them kept whole. They were prettier that way, and its arsenic content made inhaling the dust a hazard. Another way that humans put themselves in danger for no good reason.
Dark folded the bag and glanced around the room after the final ingredient was stashed in a cabinet. Everything was in its place, and the guilt was finally gone.
As soon as his foot touched a shadow, he passed through to the void, where he should have been half an hour ago. Time passed differently there, yes, but his guests weren’t known for their patience.
Mark and Wil stood like two children called to the principal’s office. It was no surprise that the pair were throwing petty insults at one another – really, he was only shocked that neither was physically wounded. Business with them was always a chore, but this was important. He didn’t have time to wait out their squabbling. The tension in the air would have to get rid of itself.
“Something is wrong with them,” he said as he marched past them.
Wil was the first to speak up, completely ignoring the glare that Mark was shooting him. “They’re only human, Dark,” he said, rocking back and forth on his feet.
“They aren’t reacting how they should be.”
“We’ve known that since the deal was signed,” Mark commented. “Nobody gives away the world for a kiss. Except for them.”
Dark leaned against his chair, desk between him and the other two. They never considered the bigger picture. It worked just fine for them, who didn’t need to because they had no hand in the wider universe, but he had to keep track of every little thing.
“I’m referring to their constitution. They should be mad by now.”
“You underestimate us! We can be subtle when we want to be.”
Mark barked a laugh. “We?”
Dark could already feel pressure in his head, a growing storm that would end with something breaking if the two continued on.
Wil, ever the sympathizer, did so gleefully. “You’re right. I can be subtle when I want to be.”
“Did you forget what that word means—”
The void’s silence sprang into ringing, as if sliced in two. Voices dropped out, red and blue warbled from the minimal furniture, and static ran up Dark’s spine. With all the power surrounding them, the screech was amplified to an ear-splitting degree.
“Enough,” his command fought through the buzz, pushing it back until all that remained was a huff and a sigh.
“We don’t have time for your arguments. We might be past the point of return already.”
Now with both of the gods silent and attentive, Dark slid open a drawer. All of his most critical documents were kept at arm’s reach within his desk. There were the odd few files that were simply too important to be without protection – and what better protection was there than being near him – but the majority were what he used on a daily basis. Catalogues of deities, maps of territories, his ledger that listed all the deals made since—
A shimmering blue stepped back in shock. A pulsing red sent cracks of light spiderwebbing through the chair. Dark lifted his head and pulled his tie so close to his neck that it could have suffocated him.
“Where is my ledger?”
Nobody spoke, and nobody moved.
“Who took it?”
“It wasn’t me,” Wil said immediately.
Mark shook his head slowly, arms crossed and brows furrowed.
They weren’t lying. They could be dramatic and stubborn and over-eager, but they weren’t stupid. Consciously lying to Dark’s face was a risk nobody took, which meant they were the only ones that he trusted in that moment.
“We need to find it,” he said as he shut the drawer.
“Why?”
He didn’t answer Wil’s question, instead drawing up a letter to ask the same question to the rest of the pantheon. Contact between deities was rare, but, in cases like this, the communication links came in handy. This was the cable line between Washington and Moscow on a much grander scale for more dangerous matters than a world war.
Once that letter was complete, he drafted another. While the twins were terrible news anchors, they were good at getting into places that they weren’t supposed to. They would make anyone think twice about keeping information to themself, even if it were just through constant annoyance.
His planning was interrupted by Mark, who stepped up to the desk with a visible air of impatience. “You can’t just send us out like dogs to sniff around for your books.”
And why not? And why should Dark tell him? And why was nobody doing what he wanted them to? Your questions, he understood; you knew next to nothing about all of this, and he was the only person who was willing to give you a direct answer – most of the time. But the men in front of him had sufficient knowledge to piece it together, as long as they put some effort into it.
“It’s okay to ask for help, Dark,” came Wil’s gentler voice, “but you have to tell us why first.”
“It’s important.”
Within a split second, Wil went from three feet away to sitting square on his desk.
“We know, we know, we know. But why?”
The moment that Dark made to get another letter out, Mark spluttered, and he assumed that he was going to launch into insults in one form or another. Something to waste time, he expected.
However, Mark’s words came out pointed and purposeful. “If this has something to do with our cultist, we deserve to know! I will not stand idly by while something happens to them, and I won’t be sent to fetch something without knowing for certain that it will help them.” His fingers clenched around his ribs. “We are all on that contract, Dark. You do not get to make every decision for us, and if you think for a second that I trust any word that comes out of your mouth, you are wrong.”
All three paused in the aftermath, including Mark, who took the moment to collect himself. He pulled at his jacket, corrected his cufflinks, visibly regretted not wearing something looser, and then said quietly, “Stop being cryptic and just tell us.”
The actor had always been prone to dramatic outbursts. The kind of monologues one would find in Hollywood were littered throughout his conversations to get what he wanted. Battles of passion, wherein the loudest was the winner. The greatest cause for concern was when that emotion was genuine, and the surprise that followed his speech had Dark worried.
Nevertheless, he acquiesced. “We need to know if there have been other deals made in the vicinity of the apartment. The void is seeping through too fast, and our cultist is not being affected as they should be.”
He didn’t remember another practicing cultist living nearby, but someone could have made a deal elsewhere and brought the energy with them upon moving. Humans weren’t static, and people who made deals with eldritch gods weren’t known for being satisfied with their lives. It was a simple reason that he could confirm with his ledger.
“If?” Wil asked, tilting his head. “Well, what’s the alternative?”
Dark avoided looking at him, at Mark, at anything. He didn’t want to admit what other reason behind the eldritch pooling could have been. Ideally, the other gods would have gone off to find his book, and he could have investigated this possibility on his own. However, Mark was right. Some things he shouldn’t have kept from them.
So, with that headache making itself at home in his skull, he admitted, “We are not the first deities that they have summoned.”
Damnatio Ad Bestias- Epilogue to “A Shattered Illusion”- A TFC x Ringmaster’s Child Reader!
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≫ The much-requested little bonus bit is here! Thank you all for your support and enthusiasm on my last work, it truly means the world to me! This goes without saying that this post won’t make much sense if you haven’t read the first part lol
≫ This work also makes some HEFTY assumptions about/canon divergences from the lore, backstories, and worldbuilding of TFC which very well may be (and probably will be tbh) proven wrong over time. Please excuse any possible inaccuracies or errors!
≫ Content Warnings: Depictions and descriptions of death, extreme violence, gore, starvation/binge eating, cruelty in several forms, cannibalism, referenced abuse and severe mistreatment, religious allusions relating to Christianity/Catholicism (lines in Latin), and severe trauma.
≫ Mild emetophobia warning! Mentions of nausea and v*
≫ Word Count: 8.7k words. (Leave it to ElectricChair759 to go overboard on a “tiny bonus part” ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ)
O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,
That spurs us onward so in our short life,
And in the eternal then so badly steeps us...
- Dante’s Inferno, Canto 12 lines 49-51
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It was quiet for a long while after the Ringmaster had given his child the key to those iron cages. He waited outside the large tent, anticipating the inevitable time when the stubbornness and naivety would finally reduce from an emotionally-driven blaze down to embers. Impulsive anger would turn into shame, and shame into regret. And regret was the first step towards repentance.
It had happened countless times before when his child was young, and it would likely happen again. He was sure of it. Every child went through a rebellious phase, after all. His child–despite having since grown old enough to fledge the nest–was just a little late to do so.
It would all play out, he thought to himself, just like any other performance. It was all under control.
But time passed, and the Ringmaster heard and saw nothing. No screams of fear, no rushed footsteps, no calling for him to fend off the awful creatures of the night—not that those beasts could actually pose any threat to his child. Those wretched things were far too weak to stand properly, let alone cause any real harm. Their fangs were too rotted, their muscles too thin, their claws too brittle from malnutrition.
Strange, then, that there were no signs of…anything. Had his young one perhaps not yet accepted the truth? That the foul creatures cared for nothing and nobody but themselves and their own insatiable appetites?
Those freaks of nature would sooner feast upon the rats that scurried beside their cages than retain even a shred of dignity and die somewhat peacefully—he would know. He’s seen it before. Their kind chew off limbs if caught in traps like foxes in snares, go so far as to eat anything and everything available in their hunger-driven madness. And when those beasts did eat, they’d sooner feast until they were sick than feast until they were satisfied.
Such unfortunate bastards, those things. How wretched an existence to be forever empty and hungry and wanting yet so profoundly unable to be slaked. It was no wonder they were called demons. Their kind could almost be pitiable if they weren’t so loathsome.
This whole debacle would be over soon. One way or another, the Ringmaster would get something out of this. If the creatures were so insistent on being too dangerous and difficult to keep, then he would give them what they wished for. He would let them die. Not the Damsel, though. There could yet be another use for her. A different use.
The Ringmaster would be the first to admit his own mistake and single miscalculation in all this, though. He had underestimated just how much his own child’s curiosity outweighed the fear he had taught and ingrained. Just like him, so hungry for answers and thirsty for adventure into the unknown.
Such a stubborn thing. He should have nipped that curiosity in the bud long ago, should have snuffed it out in its entirety. But even the Ringmaster had his moments of weakness and indulgence, many of which consisted of being soft towards his only child. How couldn’t he be? His beloved wife was no longer in this world to do so. His child was all he had left of her, was all the tenderness she had left in the world and in his heart.
Truly, he had been too soft, too lenient. His own father was harsh and unforgiving, as was his father before him. But his familial chain had a weak link, and it was nobody’s responsibility but his, despite it not being his fault. Not entirely. He had allowed his child far too much time in the sun. It was inevitable that the inexperienced and unknowing fledgling would get lost in the dark.
The man sighed, pinching his fingertips between his eyes. His poor, stupid, utterly naive young one. So lost without guidance, even after growing up. His child knew nothing of the real world, nothing of its dangers and its sins. And to think he would have proposed that the circus would one day be passed down into those unsure and shaky hands.
It was times like these when he wondered what his wife would have done, what she would have said. She likely would have known what to do. She was the glue that held his family together, after all.
He then shook his head rapidly, not allowing the thoughts of his long-gone beloved to soften his heart. A point needed to be proven, even through pain and tears.
But the longer he thought of things and people he didn’t want to, the more the Ringmaster realized that it was downright ridiculous how long it was taking for the lesson to be learned. Surely his child couldn’t be so stubborn as to refuse to admit that he was correct in his ways?
He sighed. If he wanted something done properly, he would have to do it himself.
The rest of the circus members had long retired to their resting quarters or to their homes in the town just beyond the threshold. Luckily, nobody else would have to witness this complete and utter embarrassment.
With a quick adjustment to his coat, he began to move towards the closed-off area like so many times before. Honestly, just how much had those things affected his child? He was sorely mistaken in their influence; that much was apparent.
The curtains to the cages came into view, and the Ringmaster already began to speak before pulling them aside, scolding his young one for all of these unnecessary melodramatics. It was almost laughable, this situation.
“It’s about time you let go of this fantasy, child. I’ve humored your nonsense long enough.”
The curtains were then parted, allowing light to finally be brought into the darkness that housed the metal cages.
Which were…pried open.
The man simply stood there, unable to fully comprehend what he was seeing. What exactly he had expected, he wasn’t sure. But it most certainly wasn’t anything like this.
It was only after a few seconds that the Ringmaster realized just how unnaturally thick the air was, and the unusually strong metallic stench that sat heavily in his lungs like cigar smoke. The air here was normally bitter with the smell of rust from the cages, but this smell…it was almost organic. What had these filthy things done this time? Surely his child couldn’t have been so foolish as to attempt any sort of…
Something rattled beneath his shoe, and the man looked down to see that it was something small and metal and-
The key to the cages? What was it doing on the ground? What had been done with it? Why was it cast aside and forgotten?
A low rumbling growl came from further in the darkness. It was less heard and more so felt within the deepest hollows of the Ringmaster’s bones. Focusing his gaze into the dark, the man saw that just beyond where the light from the performance ring came from, there were five pairs of eyes staring straight back.
Purple, green, yellow, red, and mismatched blue and white. But no pink. None at all. The sight made something coil tightly behind his ribs.
Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Though he didn’t know why, the man didn’t move. Instead, he looked closer into that darkness, searching for signs of something he didn’t quite know. His heart stopped in his chest and sank down to his gut as he noticed one very crucial detail.
The monsters were not as they once appeared.
Their once long and bony limbs were shorter and fuller, making them not nearly as tall as they once were. Their teeth and claws and sharp edges were all dulled—still visibly pointed and dangerous, but subtler now. Some animalistic features were hidden beneath clothes that now fit them slightly too big; others were still visible.
There were dark stains on all of their foul faces. Streaks that he initially believed to be blood or some other filth, but upon looking closer appeared to be…tears?
Impossible, he thought. These things cared for nothing but consumption, for their own survival.
But what was far more unsettling was that the beasts looked…almost human. If not for their horns and faces, they could easily be initially mistaken for very tall humans if they were to cover themselves head to heel.
But when the Ringleader looked closer at their faces, he saw red. It was a wine-dark red that stained their chins, their hands, the front of their tattered clothes. It soaked into the floor, filling the air with its stench. Blood. It was blood. And it was coming from something large and wet and organic-smelling.
The man took a half-step back, unable to suppress his utter disgust and shock at what he thought he had seen.
It was a corpse being eaten, a sight so profane and utterly unholy that it sent pinpricks across his entire body. Horrible chills accompanied waves of uncomfortable heat that made him both sweat and shiver. The damned things must have pried their cages open and killed one of their own. And what better meal than one that couldn’t fight back?
The horrid things had brandished their fangs against one of their own. They had torn the Damsel asunder. And…
Where was his child? Where? Surely the young one must have run off somewhere, immeasurably frightened by the sight of the beasts cannibalizing one of their own. But then, where was his child? The Ringmaster heard and saw nothing, and he knew he had stayed by the only entrance. But then…
The man’s gaze landed on the wet and stringy flesh held within those black claws once again. He forced himself to look upon the torn corpse between them more closely, bile coating his throat. The body’s skin wasn’t that unnatural ashen grey, nor did there appear to be any horns atop its head or fur on any limbs…
Denial raced through the man’s mind. He was paralyzed with shock, entirely unable to move, yet also unable to take his eyes off the sight. And the longer he looked, the less he was able to believe it was untrue.
There his child lay, body torn open, insides held within the grip of the monsters. It was a miracle the man was able to choke out words at all at the realization.
“You…My…”
The fiends stared up at him while continuing to slowly rip and chew and swallow, teeth squeezing and effortlessly tearing through soft muscle. A couple of them even bent their forms over the carcass on the ground, likely becoming territorial over their food like the disgusting animals they were. It took every effort in the man’s body not to vomit right then and there, though his insides ached and roiled the longer he stood there.
And then he felt the urge to move, to do something, anything, but what? It was clear just from a glance that it was far too late to save his child. He couldn’t hope to fight off five ravenous flesh-supped creatures. And if he were to run, where would he go?
But being reasonable in times of fear isn’t what humans are known for. A trembling finger was pointed in accusation at the menagerie, a single, unsure step taken away from the creatures.
“You godless savages-!”
But as soon as the man began to shout, one of the beasts leapt up unnaturally fast, gripping the Ringmaster by his throat. The man choked and sputtered, his hands instinctively moving to pry the dark and bony fingers off, but failing. The one choking him was revealed to be the purple-eyed beast with four horns, its eyes glinting a dangerous and unnatural hue steeped in pure fury. Its claws started pressing into the man’s neck harder and harder with every passing moment, almost certainly trying to draw blood yet also holding back just enough not to kill him.
Dies iræ, dies illa, solvet sæclum in favilla
A low-pitched animalistic sound came from the depths of its chest, aggressive and nothing short of nightmare fuel. The other creatures quickly joined the cacophony, trilling and hissing and chittering deeply unnatural and awful sounds while slowly moving towards the man and away from the gutted body of his child. He attempted to fight, but it was useless. Every little movement granted him only a tighter grip on his neck. When actions failed, he resorted to strained words.
“You filthy animals…You killed my…!”
The claws sinking into his throat went even deeper, blood beginning to bubble at the back of his throat and making him choke even further. The fiend in front of him snarled a vicious noise, sharp teeth bared back. Its other hand rose, claws prepared to skin and bleed him like a pig. He gasped out a desperate sound.
“No, please! You…You need me! If you kill me, you’ll have no way to survive!”
The Ringmaster gagged and coughed between his pleas for mercy, for any scrap of hesitation the monsters may possess. Surely these creatures weren’t so unreasonable as to be rid of their only source of protection from the outside world? They were impossibly far from their empty valley, stranded from any others of their kind. Other humans would surely have their heads the moment they stepped outside the circus grounds.
“I brought you here! I ensured your survival! Y-you made your point, we can make another deal! A fair one!”
These monsters already took his child from him, already made it clear that they were discontent with what had become of them. So much so that they ate one of their own just to survive.
But the point of no return had long been crossed. The man and the beasts knew it without saying it aloud. Yet he attempted to reason for his life anyway as the other creatures drew nearer, teeth and claws brandished and dripping.
“You’ll…have nothing, nobody! You’ll be torn apart out there!”
A single moment passed. A fleeting moment of consideration. Hope flickered and flared in the Ringleader’s chest. But it died just moments later when the monsters snarled and growled even louder than before. Their bright eyes became pointed and narrowed.
So be it, they seemed to say without words. They had made their decision long ago. It was painfully apparent that the man was at their mercy, and they remembered everything that was ever done to them with startling clarity. Every blow, cut, and bruise inflicted. Every scrap of food withheld. Every empty laugh at their pain. Every consolation denied. Every rub of salt in their wounds.
But no more.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus? Cum vix iustus sit securus
The Ringmaster was then thrown to the ground, each limb held down by one of the other creatures. Though the harsh and unforgiving grip on his throat was now gone, it was still impossible to speak, blood and fear clogging whatever words he would attempt to plead with. Eyes of varying colors bore into him like daggers as he thrashed and struggled. There was no delaying it, no denying it now. The man would die just in the same way he lived. Cruelly. Emptily.
In a way, one could consider dying to be his first and only good deed in this world.
The sickening man’s kind fledgling was the one who allowed the beasts to take on these new forms. He would be the first in a long line of humans who would allow them to sustain themselves. He would finally be of some use to them.
All he ever did was take and take and take, even when the beasts had nothing left to give. Especially when they had nothing left to give. Yet even still, he wanted more. Always more. But now…
It was their turn to take.
And so they took.
Each of the monsters descended upon the man with sharpened claws and hungry eyes.
Flesh was flayed and torn. Limbs were quartered and feasted upon. Wet squelches and heavy dripping filled the air alongside desperate gurgling screams as the man was torn open at the belly and disemboweled. Organs were splayed, tendons and ligaments ripped from their places and then swallowed.
But the Ringmaster was not eaten hastily or desperately. He was eaten slowly. Painfully. Savored, even.
Bite after bite after bite, the screams quickly faded. All too soon, the monsters silently thought. It would have been quite satisfying to inflict every agony and pain that existed—and many more that did not—upon him, drag and parade his carcass around for rats and scavengers to pick clean…
But that didn't matter. What mattered was that the creatures would be able to sustain their forms for quite a while with this meal. This flesh would have to suffice.
Bite after bite after bite, the Ringleader became unrecognizable. Eyes rolled back and glassy, elegant and coveted clothing reduced to nothing but bloodstained scraps. His blood tasted filthy, far more metallic than the others they had tasted; it was as though it were cheaply gilded, just like everything else in his life. It tasted of greed. Of an existence decayed with decadence. It was disgusting to them.
Yet the monsters continued to eat anyway, faces twisted and stomachs churning at the bitterness and pollution in the meat.
But after the creatures had their fill of the man’s flesh—which was quite soon, as they found revenge was a short-lived reason to eat something that tasted rather nasty—they turned back to the other corpse on the ground outside the cages. The Ringmaster’s kin. The one who showed foul devils kindness when the entire rest of the world wanted them to bleed. Though the naive human’s body and limbs were nearly scant of recognizable features, the face was untouched, eyes still half-lidded and lightless.
Such an unfortunate creature, that one. Caught in a very bad place at a very bad moment. Rewarded only death for such curiosity about things that best remained in the dark.
Could this human’s death have been prevented? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It didn’t matter now. What was done was done.
Yet even though the monsters did not shed tears—they had all been spent mourning their beloved angel—their sorrow was still evident in the way they positioned themselves in a circle around the human’s corpse. One of them gently closed the human’s eyelids as though the creature were merely sleeping—even though there was a gaping cavity split open just beneath the ribcage.
The purple-eyed beast then picked up the still-warm body, holding it up and carrying it carefully and efficiently so as not to spill any entrails. Blood seeped into his clothes—or poor excuses for them—and stuck to his skin. The other creatures looked questioningly at him, each of them in varying states between lucidity and borderline catatonia. His voice was low and hushed when he beckoned them to stand.
“...Come. Let us end this. This place can be a grave for him, for all of them. But not this one.”
Now that they had the strength, now that they had the time and means to do so, they could offer this one mercy. They could finally destroy this circus in its entirety, be rid of this godforsaken prison once and for all.
They could free their beloved Dove and the human who aided them from their bonds to this place.
The blue and white-eyed creature slowly took out one of the many small matchsticks that had been given to him merely a day prior and simply stared at it, then at the violet-haired fellow beast. They both nodded. Without another word, the match was struck and lit. And then it was tossed onto the tent walls, the thick fabric quickly feeding the sparks to turn into flames.
The monsters turned back to the dead Ringmaster’s mangled body for what would be the last time.
He who had grown complacent in his cruelty was no more. But unlike with their pink-eyed fellow beast and the human who had been good to them, the beasts did not intend to eat the man’s body in its entirety. No, they would leave his flesh and bones to be picked clean and scattered and defiled by rodents and maggots and carrion birds–assuming there would be anything but ash left after this fire ravaged and consumed everything.
Either way, his remains would be forever buried and entombed in the rubble of his greatest glory, which was now his greatest failure. A fitting end.
The entire menagerie moved as one, slowly walking—shambling, more like—out of the darkness and away from those awful cages. Those cold and corroded bars were once believed to be their coffins. That all felt so impossibly distant now after what they had done.
Their minds were still hazy and unable to fully process all that had happened. Their joints ached. Their eyes stung from the lights overhead. Their skin prickled with the unfamiliarity of freedom. True freedom. It felt strange to even think of it. Mere hours prior, they believed such a word to be a curse, a taboo to speak no differently than a foul profanity.
The night was dark when they parted the tent opening with trembling claws. The circus grounds were empty. The guests were long gone, and the workers had retired to their private quarters. For the first time in a very long time, the beasts had looked up to the sky. It was different from the sky back in the valley. There were fewer stars visible in the pitch-black, the air choked with smog from the developing world. But it was the night sky nonetheless, and so it was beautiful.
The air was cold, nipping at dark skin and fresh scars. But it was clearer and cleaner than anything any of them had known in many moons. The beasts breathed unweighted shaky breaths as one, in and out, in and out, in and out.
And though each of the monsters was sure that they could have stayed there for all eternity, simply basking in their unchained and uncaged existences, they knew that they were not yet completely safe. Not yet completely free. There was still work to be done.
An orange glow behind them began to make their shadows emerge and lengthen from their feet. The air was starting to become warm, almost uncomfortably so. The smell of smoke was beginning to drown out all other senses. The violet-eyed beast showed no urgency, no concern, for he had already known what he and the others would do with this quiet night’s opportunity while the evening was still young.
Still holding the corpse of the dear human in his arms, he took a couple of steps forward to address his fellow former prisoners. His eyes shone with ambition that burned brighter than any flame as he turned to the blue and white-eyed eldest of them, then to each of the others one by one.
“Disperse the matches. Go to each of the tents.”
The others looked slightly confused, but they did not question. Not yet.
“Watch the exits. Let none escape.”
Their bright-colored eyes all widened slightly with recognition of what was being tasked to them. Then their pupils turned to even thinner slits than before. Tonight was the perfect night to destroy this place. Now was the perfect time to hunt, to exact revenge, to make all of these humans suffer as they had.
This horrid place would reek of blood and smoke and cinders by sunrise.
“Kill them all.”
Without a word, each beast had taken a palmful of matches—matches that were once given for light and warmth—and ran off in different directions. The iris-eyed creature did not join them, though. He was still holding something very important, and he didn’t want it to touch the filthy ground of this place any longer. He walked very slowly towards the very edge of the circus and simply watched as flames slowly began licking at the edges of every tent he passed, acrid smoke rising over the tallest of them.
The air became bitter and thick, but he paid it no mind. It was nothing any of the beasts weren’t already used to.
Screams and shouts of fear echoed throughout the entire troupe, but they didn’t last long. They were either silenced by a swift strike of claws or eventually gone hoarse from burning smoke and drowned out by the growing blaze. A few strays even aimlessly ran around like ants in a disturbed mound before being stilled by a harsh tearing bite to the throat or a quick slice to their belly to spill their innards.
Time passed. Soon enough, the entire circus was engulfed in fire and smoke. How ironic, the beasts being the ones to destroy and consume this place, and not the other way around. One by one, each of the other creatures joined their new leader at the edge of the circus, claws slick with fresh blood and lungs heaving from chasing and hunting prey.
Such exertion would have been nigh impossible—dangerous, even—for beings afflicted with such profound starvation. But vengeance proved to be quite an ample motivator.
Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis. Voca me cum benedictis
And when the monsters had gathered with silent affirmations that all of the circus workers were dead, they collectively moved into the forest just beyond the furthest of the tents. The sound of flames and the scent of smoke gradually got more and more distant as they walked and walked, not once stopping or looking back. They kept moving until they reached a small clearing in the woods, and the iris-eyed beast had laid the dear human’s body on the ground.
Blood quickly dotted the grass and nettles like dewdrops at dawn. The monsters gathered around the corpse as they had before, not moving to touch it any further. It was quiet, save for the occasional breeze blowing through the tree canopy or the rhythmic insect chirps. They waited. What for, none of them could say. The body wouldn’t get any fresher. But still they waited for what felt like an eternity, when in reality it was likely merely moments.
“…Foolish. Utterly foolish thing.”
The emerald-eyed beast broke the silence. He was right in his words; none of the others could deny it. This human was a fool, no doubt about it. But there was something else. Something unaddressed.
The tallest of them, the avian creature, trilled a low sound, tilting his head at the corpse’s face.
“Yes. Naive, callow. But…”
But kind. Eager to listen, to learn. Willing to help even without getting anything in return. Especially without the promise of anything in return. Why? Why only that human, who had every reason to believe them devils from Hell? Why that human, who had that pathetic and ignorant man as a father? Nothing was given in return for that kindness, and yet nothing was expected in the first place.
“So much like her.”
The eldest of them with mismatched blue and white eyes muttered lowly, almost to himself. He wasn’t wrong. The human was dreadfully unwary, just like their roseate fellow beast. Perhaps that was why the two of them seemed to be able to get along so well.
So why, then, did both of them have to become sacrifices?
It was hard to comprehend, yet it was simple.
Not just one, but two pure lives had been lost in the span of a single night. No, not lost. Taken. But what difference does it make? What does it matter how they were gone?
The angels are still dead. And the monsters are sorrowful.
But sorrow does not equate to regret.
It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Precious flowers are always plucked from thorny brambles. Fruits are sweetest just before they rot. Pure and pale fabrics always end up stained sooner or later. There was only one way this all could have ended. There was only one way this should have ended.
Even if that human or their little dove hadn’t died tonight, they would have been inevitably swallowed up by the rest of the world, bound to have their goodness tainted or abused or taken altogether. This cold, dark world…those two wouldn't have been able to survive in it.
It was best this way. Wasn’t it?
Those thoughts were nothing but cold and sharp stings to the beasts’ wounds. Cruel and crude in their actions as they were, they weren’t heartless. What little comfort they could hope to gain was that they ate their little dove bones and all, leaving nothing behind but scraps of her dress. She would always remain with them. They made sure of it.
And now…
The four-horned unofficial leader motioned towards the dear human’s unconsumed body. The flesh was already discolored; it would soon begin to stiffen and rot if they weren’t fast.
“Eat.”
And so the creatures ate. They ate and ate and ate, not only because their newfound freedom spawned newfound hunger, but to do for the dear one what they had also done for their kin. They would keep this kind and unknowing outlier of a human close to them forever.
It was the least they could do for the poor creature.
Every scrap was eaten, every little edible piece of flesh and cartilage and whatever other meat that existed. The monsters remained undisturbed in their darkness and as such had scraped a majority of the bones clean. The largest of the bones were then split open, the marrow inside them licked and chewed. And then those bone fragments were carefully eaten as well.
Not a single digestible speck had gone untouched. None save for the human’s heart, which had long stopped beating.
Amid the pile of iron-stenched slurry and tattered red-soaked clothes lay the small organ. The other beasts had wordlessly agreed not to touch it. Not yet.
It was the violet-eyed leader who finally moved to grasp it in his palm and rip it from its place, the veins and arteries popping and gushing onto his black claws, but he paid it no mind. He pressed his thumb into one of the seams of the flesh as though he were splitting a citrus fruit, prying it open and tearing it into two, then four, then finally five pieces.
Five portions for five beasts. The four-horned creature pressed one piece of flesh into every one of his kin’s palms.
He said nothing. They said nothing. They all ate those pieces of flesh, not daring to waste even a drop of blood or a speck of meat. Such a fragile thing, that heart. It never should have been aching for such creatures. But now it would become a part of them, carefully eaten, savored, swallowed in its entirety.
Cor contritum quasi cinis, gere curam mei finis
Once the monsters were finally replete with flesh for the first time in years immeasurable, they scraped their claws against the earth to bury what little was left behind. Wetted and tattered clothing, mostly. Sticky clumps of hair. Needle-sharp bone fragments. They likely wouldn't need to do such a thing to hide their traces, but they did it anyway. It was tradition, after all.
How strange. Their pink-eyed kin was eaten in the same way monsters consumed their prey, and the human—or what very little was left of the creature—was buried in the same way they hid their kind’s bones from poachers.
Perhaps the beasts wanted to cling to parts of their old life in any way they could. Perhaps they simply didn’t want to risk anyone seeing what they had done.
But when the ground was disturbed no longer, and when the claws of the beasts were coated in dirt and blood and organic filth, each of them stilled, staring down at the grime trapped in every line of their skin. It would forever remain there, each of them knew. But even after their primitive attempt at a burial, their work was still not done.
This was only the beginning. But at the very least, the hardest part was over and done with. Wasn’t it? They lost so much. Too much. There was no going back.
But luckily, they had a semblance of a plan. With the old circus burning to the ground, there would be an opportunity to take its place. An opportunity to hide in plain sight. It was simple. The monsters would play the roles the world had already cast for them–bringers of fear, vicious creatures of the night. The purple-gazed beast could see it all falling into place now. There was much to do, much to prepare for if they truly wished to succeed in this endeavor without any more sacrifices.
But for now, they all must focus on the present, on what must be done to survive their first night of freedom.
Later, the beasts would need to return to the ashes, only to ensure that nothing and nobody survived. Not a single worker, not a single trace of the circus. And they would salvage what they could from the remains. As much of a whited sepulchre the Ringmaster was, he was right about one thing. The beasts were on their own now. If they weren’t careful, one wrong move would have them killed. They must be cunning, prepared for any possibility.
The four-horned beast looked upon his kin. Their eyes were exhausted, like their rest needed rest of its own. Their stomachs were full, nearly bursting–something they assumed they would never live to experience–and their lungs clear of squalid air. Their claws were caked with all sorts of grime, their fangs sore from chewing. The wounds on their minds and hearts were still fresh. They wouldn’t be able to scavenge like this. It was best to remain here, hidden, until the sun went down once more.
“Rest. We will watch in shifts.”
It was quite clear that he would be taking the first shift. The others looked hesitant, eyes shifting uneasily. After all, the last time sleep beckoned them so profoundly, they likely wouldn’t have awoken. But the purple-eyed monster held a stained hand out in a gesture of reassurance. He would watch not only for danger from humans, but danger from death slowly stealing them away in sleep.
With little else to do, the creatures hoarsely agreed and took refuge beneath a nearby tree. They leaned against one another, unfamiliar with such close contact after all this time, yet their eyes almost immediately closed anyway. A couple of them looked concerned before allowing themselves to rest, like they were afraid this would all be some awful nightmare and they would wake up inside their cold and rusted cages.
All of them almost instantly lost their battle against their own eyelids. All except for the emerald-eyed serpentine beast. Instead, the youngest of them moved to sit next to his violet-haired fellow monster, who said nothing about how the former should be resting while he can.
There was much to be said, yet also nothing at all. About what had been discussed in that rust-choked hellhole. About the desperation they faced. About their pink-eyed angel who was now dead. About the human they found themselves endeared to who was also now dead. About how both of those kind souls were torn apart by their own hands.
Nothing would be the same after dawn would rise over the ashes of that hellish prison. Nothing. Both for better and for worse.
It was only a matter of time before their golden-eyed kin awoke and realized all that had happened. It was a miracle he was barely lucid enough to make it this far, especially after losing so much blood hours prior. He would be difficult to keep under control after his mind recovered from the shock and daze. Assuming it would be able to recover in the first place.
But that would be seen in the future. Tonight, in this calm and empty forest clearing, the green and violet-eyed beasts both simply sat next to each other, waiting for their first witnessed sunrise in too many moons to count.
Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla
A moment passed. Then another. They both stared ahead at nothing, quietly watching smoke rise over the treetops from the former prison.
————
Years had passed since that fateful moonless night.
None know for certain what truly happened to the Ringmaster of the old freak show circus or those who worked for him. It’s widely agreed upon among certain social circles that the old leader likely went mad and killed all of his workers, then committed suicide and burned his circus to the ground with his last breath. Why? Nobody knows. Nobody could begin to fathom such a tragedy.
A result of accumulated depression from losing his wife years prior? A sudden bout of madness driven by his great faith? Or perhaps outside influence?
The tall tales spun from the event seemed to know no bounds.
But the true mystery is what happened to the man’s child. All of the other bodies—or skeletons, in some cases—had been found and identified. Some were mangled and found in pieces, corpses gutted and torn by what appeared to be wild animals. Others seemed to have been caught in the horrid fire and unable to escape.
And yet, the Ringleader’s only child was left unaccounted for. No gashed body found, no charred skeleton left behind that would match the physical description.
Where had the mysterious flyer distributor of the circus gone? There were minimal records of this person, and even fewer social connections to any living people.
Some say the dutiful young one remained with the ailing father, unable and unwilling to leave him even in his apparent sickness of the mind.
Some say that the father and heir to the circus both died, or that they both went insane and ran off into the night, never to be seen again.
Others say that the Ringmaster never had a child at all. Nobody was ever able to recall that person’s name, after all. Such a mysterious figure who spent every waking moment quietly praying or studying or working diligently at the circus threshold.
There was nobody alive who would know the truth of what happened. Nobody except for the five mysterious tall men who survived that night. They had covered themselves head to toe in bandages, masks, draping clothes, and heavy garbs that hid every inch of their bodies. To shield their burns from the fire in the circus, clearly. But they all claimed to have seen nothing, and then all five of them quickly disappeared from public view.
So much time had passed afterwards that rumors of the old circus’s existence and subsequent untimely end had been reduced to mere local legend whispered among children and mutterings among the senile elderly.
Was the event exaggerated or downplayed immensely with every new iteration of the story? Did the event even happen at all? One would get a different answer from each town resident.
There existed rumors and secrets that if a person were to wander into those old circus grounds, they’d quickly find that they weren’t alone. Among the buried bones and dilapidated remains, there were presences. Undeniable signs of being watched, stalked, hunted. Some claimed it was the restless souls of the dead. Others said that the one responsible for the killings and the terrible fire was still out there, still waiting for their next victim. Sometimes, people would claim to see silhouettes in the treeline just beyond where the tragedy occurred.
Those whispers were supported by the irrefutable fact that people had started to go missing whenever they treaded the path near those haunted grounds. Spirited away by the restless spirits there? Possessed to wander into the woods and end up lost and never found? Made yet another victim of the possible killers of the circus fire? Nobody knew. Nobody wanted to know.
Needless to say, not even the greediest of estate planners or eager companies wanted to go anywhere near the scorched and singed outskirts of that town.
The entire area was a shared tomb in all but appearance. It became something of a taboo to even speak of desecrating the place where such a tragic and horrible event occurred, not only because it was disrespectful to those who had perished, but also because it always seemed that someone–or something–was listening. Waiting.
Time passed. Too much and too little at the same time. Those who knew better never dared to go near the informal cemetery or walk alone at night. The ones who did were never seen again.
The tales of the old circus and its performances had quickly gathered dust.
But what was faintly remembered of that old circus was quickly revitalized and gossiped about when a new troupe emerged out of nowhere and established itself right where the old one had been. The Freak Circus of Horrors, it was called. It was eerie and unsettling like the last one, but for completely different reasons this time. Its performers were off-putting, the atmosphere welcoming but hollow. The entire place was rumored to feel like a giant stage, one in which every last person was a performer with dozens of unseen eyes watching them, waiting for them to slip up just once.
The worst part was that people started to go missing left and right. A runaway here, a local drunk there…Were the ghosts of the past exacting vengeance for the terrible offense of mocking what had happened not so very long ago? Was the new troupe somehow connected to the disappearances?
The whole place was a bad omen, it seemed. It reeked of death, of something sinister lying in wait like a coiled viper or a tripwire pulled taut.
It was a mysterious and secretive thing, but unlike the previous troupe, it was not stagnant. The circus of horrors had quickly moved on from that cursed town’s outskirts, never looking back even for a moment. And when that circus left the town, so too did the long string of disappearances. The events of the past and their wild rumors were quickly reduced to faded memory.
The child of the old Ringmaster was never brought up again. Rendered unfortunately yet ultimately forgotten by time, or even denied having existed at all.
But of course, like many things, the child of the Ringmaster isn’t truly gone, and neither is the beloved Little Dove. Not if one knows where to look to find scant traces of the two.
Just because something isn’t seen doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. Woven within the foundational fabric of the circus of horrors are tiny details that even now are echoes of certain unspoken yet vital influences.
The Pink Tent, where humans go to die or be stilted to service, where Fools are born or killed. The Black Tent, where the most special of guests find refuge with tickets dark as deepest moonless nights, where hope is renewed for the beasts and their kin with community and flesh to feast on. Both tents serve as macabre and morbid memorials for those who were sacrificed to spur the creation of such a system. Commemorations, in some distorted sense.
But with each performer of the troupe rests a relic of the past in some form.
In the golden-eyed Pierrot’s private quarters rest small creations of folded paper. Spare circus flyers idly creased to form different shapes, extra parchment sheets crafted into small models with practiced efforts. One of the most common of these creations is a simplistic flower. Petals pure and clean and unmarred, just like the meager earthen offerings plucked from the dead valley he once gifted to the one he loved. Just like the past human’s efforts to turn those wretched papers of the old circus into new things with new meanings.
The crafted blooms are never entirely accurate in how he remembered them, though. Always missing one unknown detail or simply deemed off in some subtle way. Every flower is always discarded at one point or another, only to be replaced by a new one that is inaccurate in some other unknown way.
In the Harlequin’s paper doll tale told only on very special nights, he shares a story of not one, but two angels offering themselves up for the monsters to be fed and granted the strength to live on. One of the angels was hidden among the monsters rotting in their cages, the other was hiding in plain sight as a human. One of them offered renewed strength and vigor, the other a way to take the forms of and live among humans.
Both of them were deemed miracles. Both of them are said to have disappeared without a trace into the night.
In the Ticket Taker’s hall of mirrors, there are countless lingering presences. Shapes and voices and reflections from beyond. But near the end of the hall—just next to his personal favorite pink-tinted one—is a cracked mirror that reflects not a twisted shadow but a fragile and flickering light, not too dissimilar to a small matchstick being lit. An old light from an age long past.
Some say that they see a figure in the glass. Others claim that they hear sobs and pleas and the heavy pattering of something dripping.
A rare few have even claimed to have seen that tiny flare become a ravenous blaze, one that consumed all it touched and swallowed the sounds of screams.
In the Jester’s tent, far away from prying eyes and safely hidden from all who would wander, is a small and nearly ancient-looking journal tucked away. A salvaged diary filled with scrawled writings and sketches of beasts, shadows, and watchful gazes. The edges of the tattered and worn pages are singed, almost as if caught in a raging fire. The place where the author’s name was written was burned off, leaving the owner’s identity a mystery even after countless years.
On rare special occasions, that small journal is silently taken out and flipped through, violet eyes reading and rereading the words that had been jotted down by a very curious soul many years ago, black claws carefully brushing over the old faceless ink drawings.
The names written in them, Leader, Knave, Sentinel, Oblique, Erudite, Lamb…He turns them around in his head and his maw, almost as if trying on a mask that doesn’t quite fit. Or perhaps it did fit at some point, however briefly.
And in the dark recesses of the Doctor’s tent lies a precious and priceless treasure, a single rusted metal key caked in soot. The last true kindness ever given to the monsters. Such a shame that it was irrelevant in the end, but the gesture did not go unrecognized. That metal key is a symbol of what the beasts had been given, and what they had taken. It is one of the only scraps of the past that was scavenged and saved over many years, many places traveled, and many hardships endured.
The Doctor once had more keepsakes of the one who aided them, but they were tragically lost. His favorite of the lost things was a small and smoothed fragment of a human sternum, specifically the bone that once rested over and protected that human’s fragile heart.
(Such protection proved to be futile, however. The human’s heartstrings had been tugged and bled and ripped out anyway. And it was rather easy to pry the muscle from its place when it was time to split it among the others.)
These minuscule details are either irrelevant or otherwise unknown to all humans who have ever entered the Freak Circus of Horrors. They’re easily missed, and just as easily forgotten—assuming they’re ever seen in the first place.
But the members of the troupe know the truth. Or at least, they cling to parts of it.
The other parts are twisted and refracted, warped by time and eventually lost to the foggy fringes of story-blurred memory and shielded trauma. A little detail changed or subconsciously misinterpreted here and there, another small part forgotten or ignored altogether.
Concrete agreed-upon facts and biased collective repression become interwoven and inextricably entwined.
Were the events of the past preventable? Had a single thing gone differently, would they be where they are today? Was everything that happened inevitable? Was there something else that they missed?
One would get a different answer from each member if they were to be asked such questions. Not that they would ever be asked such things. After all, who was left to know about the events from so long ago other than each other?
The circus is not a thing that stays in one place forever. Like an arrow, it never stands still nor deviates from its path. It simply keeps moving, one way or another, never giving a single backward glance. However, oddly enough, its members seem to be perpetually trapped in the past. They tell and retell the same story until it’s nearly unrecognizable, play the same songs until they become one massive elegy that permeates the heavy air of the place.
How much longer? How much longer until that story is no more real than the masks the members wear? How much longer until that tale is just as fantastical and detached from reality as the stories of God and His benevolence? How much longer until their song devolves and degrades into incessant noise?
Truly, not even the beasts themselves know.
All they knew and all they will ever know for sure is that the circus will keep moving forevermore. So long as the Hunger exists, then the performances will exist. The show must go on. Their song must sustain. There hasn’t been a moment since that wasn’t in pursuit of this goal, not a single action that isn’t driven by those memories of teeth sinking into the flesh of the ones who were both most and least deserving of it.
And in their twisted, distorted minds…They might even view themselves as necessary evils. They cleanse the world of ignorant fools like the old Ringmaster. Reveal the single truth hidden within every human that had become cruel and empty like that wicked man—that humans are just as—if not more—bestial and depraved as the monsters. The performances bring to light what humans would normally keep in darkness, covered in laughable veils of decency and shame.
quidquid latet apparebit: nil inultum remanebit.
Humans hunger for fear. They crave it, no matter how much they try to hide it. Monsters hunger for flesh. They need it to survive, to maintain their human-like forms. And what are the circus members to do but provide for both? It’s almost too simple. The system practically runs itself. The performers simply…speed up the process on a smaller scale.
It is the least they can do to honor the ones who allowed them to pave their path to freedom…In their own strange and skewed ways.
That’s what they told themselves, anyway. And it’s what they continue to tell themselves.
Humans are empty in soul. Monsters are empty in appetite. Humans bask in their light. Monsters are swallowed by the dark. The two should never cross, lest they wish for death. It’s simply how things are. That lesson was painfully learned time and time again. But instead of being the learners, the monsters would be the teachers of that lesson.
Never again. Never again would they lose anything else, anyone else.
They swore it when they devoured their Little Dove entirely. They swore it when they buried the scraps of that dear human in those woods. They swore it when they burned that hellish prison to the ground.
The beasts will be in control of every last move they make. Never again will a mere human hold power over them. They come from a world where there was never enough to go around, where their best chances at survival rested in the cruel and greedy hands of another, where rats were considered delicacies to eat, where the killing and complete consumption of innocents was considered a mercy. “Want” was irrelevant. Need consumed and degraded their minds, occupied every thought, forced them to commit acts deemed unforgivable.
But no longer. Each of the circus members controls their lives now. Every mercy. Every cruelty. Every laugh and tear and moment shared.
Every bite.
—————————
≫ The term “Damnatio ad Bestias” translates to “condemnation to beasts.” It describes a Roman practice of capital punishment/execution in which a person convicted of heinous crimes was sentenced to be killed by large and fearsome animals. The more you know!
≫ The Latin verses in this work come from the Dies Iræ! I was originally gonna quote more of the Divine Comedy but changed it almost last-minute.
≫ I know nobody’s prob gonna mention this but I have to bc I’m a nerd. While writing this I realized it’s highkey crazy that the monsters were able to eat a sudden huge influx of food after prolonged starvation (and survive!) as it’s incredibly dangerous for humans to do the same.
≫ But obvs this fic doesn’t exactly deal with humans so uhhhh let’s just assume monsters in the TFC verse have adaptations to prevent that bc their species likely regularly deals with starvation. Cool? Cool.
≫ I’m still not sure if I’ll ever make any sort of fully-fledged AU for this, but who knows? No promises, but the idea has been growing on me…
≫ If you wanna use this work as the baseline for any AU’s, OC’s, or fics of your own, go ahead! I only ask that you do not feed it to any form of generative/character-based AI, and that you credit me if you plan on posting it.
≫ (Also tag me because id love to see whatever it is you guys do with this work!!! The fact that I’ve already seen a bunch of people wanna do different things with this makes me so happy I get dizzy if I think about it too much!)
≫ It was a lot of fun to kinda dissect the troupe's motives and interpret them in my own way! I wanted them to be sympathetic but still fundamentally different from human actions.
≫ Sorry if some of the paragraphs are too big! I swear they looked smaller in my docs...
≫ Also what a surprise! There's scrapped scenes from this too. Maybe I'll find a use for them someday. I got a lot of notes and cut stuff in general for this work that I now have no idea what to do with. Dunno, I'll figure it out.
I saw this when running newpipe. But wait, it gets deeper. I clicked on the details buttons and it said as of today,we have 83 days left until Google rolld out this new requirement for apps inside and outside of the google play store. If any developer disagrees with their new terms and fees, they will be blocked!
I'll share some of the info below:
Looks like they're trying to nuke the remaining privacy and freedoms we have left on the internet.
What to do?
-Get your developer friends to not comply to their new guides
- Sign the open letter on the site and take action by checking out thwir full resources list on their website as well!
To summarize, this is all daunting especially when you feel all alone with unfair and inhumane regulations comming out faster than improvements ut we got this working together!
Share the link with your friends,family and anyone who will listen!
Your phone is about to stop being yours. In September 2026, Google will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with them.
Also, I wanted to add the wikipage and EFF statements about Keep Android Open Org so people can have a better understanding and more resources because I didn't give enough earlier and I will take that critique.
EFF and F-Droid have led 37 organizations in demanding Google rescind its mandatory Android developer registration policy set to take effect
Was driving with my grandmother and in broken English she says “no eyes… no nose… no face. Don’t trust.” To which I looked around wildly in search of this omen of ill portend.
Like I'm pretty sure it was like James Cameron's Avatar - can't remember which movie?
like I thing there were no main pairings but like it was a reader-insert, one of the only prominent things that really stuck to me was something about a "sky demon father"?
like I literally left it t read later, forgot it and not can't find itttt😭😭😭
pairing mental asylum patients!bts x volunteer!reader
summary Y/N volunteers in a mental hospital with the intention to help the patients and care for them. Everything seems to be normal, except for seven boys whom she was assigned to. She doesn't understand what mess she has gotten herself into, and when she does, it's too late to get out.:
warning MENTIONS OF DISORDERS!!! slight insensitivity. mentions of eating disorder. pills/drugs. kind of cringe 😢
nisa’s notes! sooooo i started writing this in 2021. i can’t believe there’s still people reading and waiting for this fic it’s lowkey the worst thing i’ve ever written which is why this is about the 8th time i’m rewriting it… hopefully it’s better than the last!!! lmk ur thoughts!!!!
The cacophony of blaring horns and muffled shouts bled through the glass as you tapped your fingers restlessly against the steering wheels. For the past ten minutes, you had been stuck in the same position, unmoving and immobile.
Frustrated, you sat up straight and slammed your palm against the horn. A sharp, futile blare cut through the air. You knew it wouldn’t help, but the inaction was suffocating.
You leaned back again, eyes scanning your surroundings for any empty parking spaces. At this rate, you would have better luck parking out here and making a run for it to the hospital than waiting in the seemingly never ending traffic.
To your annoyance, every square inch of curb was occupied, and the few legal spots left were too far out of reach.
Your hand darted to your phone. Double-tapping the screen, the digital numbers glared back at you: 12:23 PM. Over twenty minutes late. At this rate, the shift would be halfway over before you even crossed the threshold. Defeated, you gripped the steering wheel, trapped in the agonizing limbo of waiting and praying for the traffic to break.
When the traffic finally parted, you didn't waste a second. Your heels clacked sharply against the concrete floor of the parking garage as you hurried toward the towering medical center. The building loomed over you, a monolith of concrete and glass stretching endlessly into the gray sky.
A few yards ahead, another person dashed through the sliding doors, looking just as disheveled—likely another victim of the gridlock. Unlike them, you paused at the entrance, catching your reflection in a small compact mirror. You checked for dark circles, smoothed down a few frantic flyaways, and took a deep, centering breath. Look professional, you reminded yourself, before squaring your shoulders and speed-walking through the entrance.
The automatic glass doors parted with a soft hiss, instantly swallowing the city's noise and replacing it with the sterile hum of a bustling hospital. The air smelled faintly of bleach and rubbing alcohol. The chaotic symphony of squeaking sneakers, muted conversations, and the rhythmic beeping of medical equipment washed over you.
Darting your eyes across the lobby, you spotted the main reception desk and marched over. The woman behind the counter was utterly engrossed in her computer, the blue light reflecting off her sharp features. She didn't even glance up as you stopped in front of her.
You hesitated, clearing your throat. Nothing. The rapid clicking of her keyboard continued uninterrupted, as if you were invisible.
"Excuse me?" you murmured, a flush of embarrassment warming your cheeks as she finally paused. "I'm here as a volunteer."
The receptionist straightened, adjusting the nametag pinned to her crisp uniform. Bora.
She looked you up and down, her lip curling into a critical line as she finally made eye contact. "You're over forty minutes late."
"I know, I'm so sorry. There was a massive—"
"Traffic? Yes, I'm aware," Bora cut in, her voice dripping with ice. "I also know three other volunteers who took the exact same route and managed to arrive on time—if not early." She leaned back in her swivel chair, crossing her arms. Her intense gaze pinned you to the spot, making you look down in sudden shame. Forty minutes? Time had slipped through your fingers faster than you realized.
"I—"
"Listen," Bora interrupted again, "I know you're not getting paid to be here, but if you're just trying to pass the time, the exit is right behind you. The patients here actually need help. We don’t have time to mess around." She pointed a manicured finger toward the glass doors.
A spark of defiance flared beneath your embarrassment. If she cut you off one more time, you might actually take her up on the offer.
"I apologize," you said, forcing your voice to remain steady and uninterrupted. "I am here to help. Trust me, Bora, it won't happen again."
"It better not. Do you even know where you're going?"
"I was told someone would brief me at the front desk," you explained, trying to ignore her blatant hostility.
"Well, since you've wasted half your orientation time, you'll have to figure it out as you go. Name?"
"Y/N," you muttered.
She didn't reply, her fingers flying across the keyboard once more. After a tense moment, she spun her chair around to the printer behind her, impatiently ripping a fresh sheet of paper from the tray.
Spinning back, she thrust the paper into your hands. "Take this to Dr. Han's office to get your supplies. Down that corridor," she gestured vaguely down a long, sterile hallway to her right. "His name is on the door. You can't miss it."
"Am I just delivering prescriptions?" you asked, scanning the list of names.
Bora let out a heavy, irritated sigh. It was crystal clear: she despised you on principle. Sure, you were late, but the sheer attitude felt entirely uncalled for.
"You'll deliver prescriptions, sanitize the rooms, and assist the patients with basic needs," she snapped. "If it's a medical emergency, you call a nurse or a doctor. Got it?"
"Yeah. Thanks." You forced a polite smile, but she only offered a scowl and a dramatic roll of her eyes before turning back to her monitor.
So much for a good first impression.
Walking down the seemingly endless hallway, you studied the document Bora had given you. It contained seven names printed in bold, black ink, each followed by a room number, a diagnosis, and a list of medications. You frowned, trying to pronounce the complex, foreign names of the pills. At least your job was just to deliver them, not mix them.
Realizing you’d lost track of your surroundings, you looked up from the page and began scanning the identical wooden doors lining the corridor. A few doors down, a silver plaque caught your eye: Dr. Han.
You knocked gently. A muffled, calm voice drifted from inside. "Come in."
Pushing the door open, you stepped into a quiet, sunlit office. A man sat behind a mahogany desk, looking surprisingly young—perhaps only a few years older than you. His dark hair was styled back, and a pair of reading glasses rested on top of his head. For a brief second, you caught your breath. Are all the doctors here this attractive?
"May I help you?" he asked, tilting his head with a polite, curious expression.
"Are you Dr. Han?" You stepped further into the room, letting the door click shut behind you. "I'm the new volunteer. Bora sent me down."
Understanding washed over his features, and a warm smile replaced his professional mask. Standing up, he gestured toward the paper in your hand. "Could I see that list, please?"
You handed it over and watched silently as he navigated the room. He moved with a practiced, fluid grace, pulling specific medicine bottles from the heavily stocked shelves without a single moment of hesitation. He clearly knew this inventory like the back of his hand.
Left alone at his desk, curiosity got the better of you. Your eyes drifted across his workspace, skipping past the keyboard and settling on a file folder left open. Attached to the top corner was a photo of two young men, flanked by dense medical jargon. Because of the distance, you had to squint to make out the text.
Park Jimin... and J—
Before you could decipher the second name, the rustle of Dr. Han’s coat signaled his return. You quickly took a step back, heat rising to your face. The last thing you needed was to look nosy on your first day.
Dr. Han set a medium-sized gray tray on the desk, carefully arranging the prescription bottles atop your original sheet of paper so the names remained visible. "It's lightweight enough to hold with one hand if you keep it balanced," he advised kindly. Then, he looked up, his eyes twinkling. "So, what caught you up? You're quite late."
"Oh. Traffic was a nightmare," you replied, offering a sheepish smile and bracing yourself for another lecture.
Instead, Dr. Han let out a soft chuckle and slid back into his office chair. "I take it Bora already gave you the third degree?"
You nodded ruefully, tracing the rim of the plastic tray.
"I apologize for her," he said, rolling his chair a bit closer to his desk. "She can be a handful to deal with."
"It's alright. I get why she's upset. First impressions and all."
"True, but she's probably just extra cranky because you're assigned to 'her boys.'" He rolled his eyes, a hint of playful disdain in his voice.
You blinked, confused. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing. Don't worry about it," Dr. Han smoothly deflected, picking up a pen. "You should probably get moving before she comes looking for you. Come back and see me when you're finished with the rounds."
Though you were still thoroughly perplexed by what he meant with ‘her boys’, you decided against questioning him again in fear of wasting more time. You instead offered a quick, grateful goodbye and hastily made your way out of his room.
With the heavy gray tray in hand, you let your eyes read over the list of names and their assigned rooms. The first name on the list was Jeon Jeongguk, and as you went further down you recognised a familiar name: Park Jimin. Your stomach did a slight flip. If only you had worn your contacts today, or even brought your glasses with you, maybe you could’ve finished reading whatever was on the Doctor’s note.
A sudden wave of guilt washed over you and you shook your head to rid yourself of the feeling. You weren’t here to pry or be nosy. You were here to help these patients.
You finally came to a pause in front of Jeongguk's door. It was identical to Dr. Hans—heavy, sterile wood—except this time the words written in bold black ink were his name.
You flip the sheet of paper in the tray over, careful not to drop anything and continue reading over it. Jeongguk’s name was written again, and written beside it the words ‘Eating Disorder’ were written in italics.
Your eyebrows knit together in mild confusion. An eating disorder? You looked back up at the heavy wooden door. For some reason, you had expected the patients in this specific wing to have more... severe, behavioral diagnoses. A standard eating disorder usually meant a specialized medical ward, not a high-security, isolated corridor like this one.
Shaking off the thought, you carefully shifted the tray to one hand, raised your knuckles, and knocked softly. "Jeon Jeongguk? I'm coming in."
When no answer came, you gently twisted the handle and pushed the door open.
The room was surprisingly spacious, but completely devoid of any personal touches. No posters, no books, no color. Just a pristine white bed, a small desk, and a large window overlooking the bleak gray sky outside. Sitting on the edge of the bed was a young man.
The moment the door clicked, he flinched, his head snapping toward you. Your breath caught in your throat. He possessed a striking, ethereal kind of beauty, with wide, glassy doe-eyes and soft, youthful features. He looked incredibly fragile, his knees pulled tightly against his chest as he trembled slightly in his standard white hospital scrubs.
"O-Oh," he breathed, his voice soft, airy, and entirely defenseless. He immediately scrambled off the bed, clutching a small, worn plush bunny to his chest. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you. Are you... are you new?"
A wave of instant sympathy washed over you, melting away the tension in your shoulders. "Hi, Jeongguk," you said, offering your warmest smile as you stepped inside. "I'm Y/N, the new volunteer. I just brought your medication."
"Y/N," he repeated, testing your name on his lips. A shy, breathless smile bloomed across his face, and his big eyes crinkled at the corners with what looked like pure, innocent adoration. "That's a really pretty name. Thank you for coming. Most people... most people are mean to me here."
"Well, I won't be," you promised softly, setting the tray on the desk and picking up the small plastic cup.
He stepped closer, his movements hesitant, like a frightened animal trying to trust a new hand. He looked down at the pills, a look of profound sadness washing over his handsome features. "They make me take these because they say I'm sick. They say I don't eat enough. But my stomach just hurts all the time because I'm so lonely."
He looked up at you through his long eyelashes, his gaze intense, completely locking onto yours. There was a desperate, magnetic pull in his eyes that made it impossible to look away. "But I feel better now that you're here. You're going to stay with me, right? You won't leave me like the others?"
"I have to finish making my rounds, Jeongguk," you explained gently, reaching out to hand him the cup. "But I can come back and check on you before my shift ends."
"Promise?" he whispered, taking the cup from you. His fingers brushed against yours, warm and completely gentle. He took the medication without a single complaint, offering you another sweet, boyish smile that made it hard to believe he belonged in a place like this.
He seemed so completely normal. So utterly harmless.
"Thank you, Y/N," he murmured softly, sitting back down on his bed and neatly tucking his plush bunny beside him. "I'll be waiting for you to come back."
You offered him a final, reassuring smile, your heart swelling slightly at how remarkably sweet he was. Turning around, you stepped toward the door, completely relieved that your first interaction had gone so smoothly.
Because your back was turned, you didn't see the exact millisecond his boyish smile dropped. You didn't see the warmth evaporate from his face like a cruel illusion, or how his wide, glassy doe-eyes instantly went entirely blank, dead, and empty. You didn't see him silently mouth your name against the plastic cup, his expression morphing into something cold and unrecognizable as he stared fixedly at the space you had just occupied.
You only paused when a sudden, heavy thud rattled from the wall of the adjacent room.
You jumped slightly, your hand freezing on the door handle. You waited a beat, but the corridor outside remained dead silent. Shaking it off as a stray nurse moving heavy equipment next door, you opened the door and stepped back out into the hallway, letting the heavy wood click shut.
Bora and Dr. Han had clearly overexaggerated. If all the patients were as cooperative as Jeongguk, this volunteering gig was going to be a breeze.
summary. the holy grail of the seven men who ruled the country's entertainment used to be your friends at school. now, ten years later and between successes and failures, what reason would they have to want to come back into your life?
pairing. eventually ot7 x f!reader.
content. cursing words, angst, suffering, slow burn, eventual-really eventual fluff, mature themes such as drugs and violence. every chapter will have their own warnings at the very top.
a/n. this is the first bts related fic i've ever posted and i hope for the best!! ofc this is inspired by i can fix him by taylor swift in case you were wondering. and this story wasn't really planned (no news for me), but it's all i've been thinking and writing about all this week, so i decided to post it! the chapters list will be posted as soon as i can! love you all and thank u for the support!
bts masterlist
chapter list.
i. absence
ii. coincidence!
iii. injustice
iv. intrusive
v. remorse
vi. disclosure
vii. greatest
viii. coming soon...
updates will be weekly or biweekly, depending on the progress of each chapter.
When the dog hybrid who visits her bakery starts taking extra food Y/N follows it through the alleys to find out why, but what happens when she stumbles upon an empty alley only to find 6 more hybrids and some very familiar pastries?
Chapters: 19/30
Teaser (0)
Bake, Eat, Run (1)
Trespassing (2)
Bunny Boy (3)
Nurse Y/n (4)
Roommates? (5)
Living Arrangements (6)
Water Fountain in the Kitchen! (7)
Rainy days, mysterious notes, and wet apologies (8)
It’s over…? (9)
Working Boys (10)
The Plan (11)
Fair Day (12)
The Betrayal (13)
House Guests (14)
Jealous! Jealous! Jealous! (15)
Hickeys, House, and Heated gazes (16).
Moving day! (17)
Getting back to normal (18)
Finally at peace (19)
Unwelcome guests and the problems they bring (20) coming soon…
Overdue Reunion (21) coming soon…
Resurfaced Memories (22) coming soon…
Keeping it Together (23) coming soon…
Falling Apart (24) coming soon…
*This story is also posted on my Wattpad*
⚠!This is a work of fiction so please to don’t apply anything seen and shown in the book to real life people or situations!⚠
P.S.
I love receiving feedback and seeing people make up their own theories, headcannons, and ideas about my work so please feel free to do that and ask me any questions you like about the work! This is also my first long term/full length project and the first writing project in a few years. 😊
Summary: Having saved your own injured hybrid, you were determined to try and help any other hybrid that crossed your path who needed saving. But being a vet in a small hospital wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to do more, you wanted to make a difference. You wanted to give them a home.
amandla
theartofmadeline
titsay
2087
ellievsbear
