An Encyclopaedia of Servants of Fear

[avatar-phonebook]

I woke from my dream screaming, and you comforted me. I remember it so clearly, you must’ve spoken in your sleep.

I went shopping the other day, picked up some rice pudding, I’d forgotten. You’re certain you didn’t eat it?

I could’ve sworn we spoke about it yesterday, I’m so sorry.

I don’t understand, I work there, I’ve worked there for years.

Oh god oh god thank god it was just a dream.

Oh god fuck it was a dream it was a dream.

Did that really happen? Do you remember it too? Is this a dream as well?

Are you real, love?

[avatar-phonebook]

What Did It Say? sits outside my window. It will not leave me be, and I can’t help but ask what it will not tell me this time. 

Of course it whispers to me, and of course, I can’t quite make out the words. I don’t strain to listen. I turn on some music, and ignore it. 

[avatar-phonebook]

A pause between songs, for a moment too long, silence. 

I catch a name among its whispers, “...esthe...” and suddenly I cannot think through the music. What has become of her? (it has been a week) How can I help her? (she never says) These have answers that I cannot recall, through the noise (the music is off), through the whispers...

Did it say her name? Does it know? It doesn’t, I know, but, 

It keeps saying her name, I t Keeps SayIng her

“What do you know?” I ask it, through my hands which cover my mouth. It knows nothing, it knows nothing. It whispers something about- it whispers in my ears, lips against my temple, traces its message on my desk- A “k“ an “s“, 

“see...?”, it says, or “she..?”, or 

Is it tapping morse code? (S.O.S.) Is it speaking in ciphers? It knows, It knows, I need to know, I- 

My phone buzzes: a text, from Esther, “I have a plan. I’ll be home as soon as it’s safe. I love you.” 

“You don’t even know who she is.” I say. It breaths on my window and writes in the fog, but the words fade too quickly. Its brow is furrowed, its fists are clenched. It glares from where it sits on my fence.

[avatar-phonebook]

What Did It Say? sits outside my window. It will not leave me be, and I can’t help but ask what it will not tell me this time. 

Of course it whispers to me, and of course, I can’t quite make out the words. I don’t strain to listen. I turn on some music, and ignore it. 

[avatar-phonebook]

It is there. It is just there. It is behind the curtain. It is in the fogged up mirror. It is around the corner. It is behind you, behind you, behind you. It will kill you if you look at it.

[avatar-phonebook]

In my dreams, she plucked a hair from her head and tied it around my throat. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it’s lashes against my skin as it blinked.

It was too fine, and too close-fitted, for me to grasp it, break it. But I tried and tried and tried until my fingers came away wet.

“Blood and tears and that fluid in between that oozes from the shallowest of scrapes,” she told me. I could smell it and taste it even if I couldn’t see it. I could feel it beading on my raw flesh and drying under my nails. I couldn’t see her awful smile, but I Knew it anyway.

[avatar-phonebook]

Web avatar: Starts out helping you go about your day when you’d normally be too overwhelmed or depressed to move.

Just when you’re starting to celebrate your progress, they get more obvious, making you go places or greet people you don’t recognize, do things you wouldn’t do, without knowing why.

[avatar-phonebook]

Flesh leitner: A full set of the animorphs books. They read normally until you reach a morphing scene. The description is visceral and far more detailed than it should be. It drags on and on and on and on until you can’t stand it any longer, but by then, it is too late.

You will transform, as slowly and painfully and grotesquely as possible, into something else.

[soulguardianazeralith]

Okay but... Is it still a good read?

[avatar-phonebook]

I mean, as long as you enjoy descriptions of bones shifting in muscle and organs melting and fusing and growing out of eachother and follicles turning inside out as the hairs within expand into scales or horns or feathers or perhaps simply shed leaving gaping, bleeding burrows as skin sloughs off and the fluids beneath harden into shiny chitin, of fingers and fingernails growing and growing and growing longer and thinner and many, ‘til they turn back on you and wrap up your arms and legs and chest and wrap tighter and tighter, your skeleton giving way too easily, bending and compressing and dissolving into something else, of frantic gasping and heaving, phlgemy pleas for one more breath as the walls of your treachea collapse inward like an aluminum soda can, as labyrinths of new cells carve a path from the inside of your ribcage to open air and tear themselves away from your known flesh, muscles tying themselves in knots around the edges of your new orfices, they tense and tense again, opening great gashes along your sides, red with new blood, again and again and again, pleading for just one breath, of-

You shut the book in horror, but it has already begun.

[avatar-phonebook]

Flesh leitner: A full set of the animorphs books. They read normally until you reach a morphing scene. The description is visceral and far more detailed than it should be. It drags on and on and on and on until you can’t stand it any longer, but by then, it is too late.

You will transform, as slowly and painfully and grotesquely as possible, into something else.

[avatar-phonebook]

Desolation/web avatar: instead of burning the things you have, they become your friend and then act recklessly and self-destructively to feed off your fear of losing them.

The only way to escape is to cut ties completely, which is far easier said than done. 

[avatar-phonebook]

Spiral/vast avatar: has Big Fluffy Hair that you want to touch, but if you put your hand in it, you’re immediately gripped by the fear that you’ll lose it in there.

And you might! 

It won’t be severed, just... missing. Try not to get tricked into going in after it.