“And Maybe, I’ll Say Maybe”
Leander x GN!Reader
Description: The leader of the Bloodhounds, a famously kind and generous man who would without as much as another give a newcomer a roof over their head, food on their plate and an oasis of normalcy to come back to after drowning in the insanity of Eridia. He’s been nothing but a hero to this newcomer, seeking to provide them with love comfort they couldn’t even dream of before. It almost feels too good to be true. So what happens to be lurking deep within, and what comes spilling out from beneath the flashy mask when the newcomer finds out something they shouldn’t have about their chivalrous saviour..?
Tags: blood, descriptions of sickness, descriptions of violence, descriptions of death
Word count: 7000
Eridia felt like an entirely different city beneath the veil of darkness. The barely lit streets and shrouded alleys felt like a maze cast in a layer of dust.
The dark stretches of houses failed to look any different from each other as I dashed past them, panting for air and taking random turns while praying for my escape.
Left.
Right.
Left
Left
Right.
Left.
Right.
Right.
My heart jumped from my throat to my stomach and back up with every turn I made. My gasps for air muted out almost everything else. Everything, but him chasing after me.
My lungs burned for air, my throat irritated by the cold as whatever I breathed in had no time to heat up. The wind hit my dampening eyes, I kept blindly making turns, and yet I couldn’t lose him.
I felt as if I was going in circles, the streets refused to be different. Or I was just unable to even see where the hell I was going. All I knew is that he was still behind me. And not far at all.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Left.
Left.
Right.
Adrenaline pushed most of my body’s pain out while I kept running, terrified of even beginning to turn around. Afraid to see him being right at my heel.
My heart beat as if it was trying to run out of my body. The rate of my pulse matched the heart’s urge to rip itself out.
And yet, from him, I heard nothing but the fast clicking of his boots against the pavement. He was way stronger than me, and he knew it damn well himself.
I didn’t even dare think of when the adrenaline would run out, and what I would do then.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Right.
Left.
In the darkness of the increasingly less illuminated streets, I almost ran into a wall while making a turn. The space began to feel narrower and narrower. Perhaps because of the panic exploding in my head. Perhaps because I was getting myself that deep into the city. Perhaps because I was setting up my own trap.
It felt as if my airway was closing. My throat was beginning to get sore. Like I could suffocate from one wrong breath. The pain began to trickle back into me as the adrenaline seeped out. My heart pounded with pure terror, my brain scattering as if it were blasted with a hunting rifle.
Every step hurt and my legs felt as though infinite needles stabbed into every muscle. The left side of my stomach, just under the ribs, broke out in torturous pain. I barely bit back a pained cry. One arm clasping at my side, I forced myself to run.
His speed did not even falter.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.
At this point, I was gasping for air as if I were drowning. I knew I wasn’t running nearly as fast, yet he stayed at a distance. Was he indulging in this? Was he playing with his food? But… that isn’t like him, like many things I thought weren’t.
My fingers almost stabbed into my side to keep the excruciating pain at bay. I made the same turns, my mind turning into mush as it again began to feel like I was circling. Those narrow alleys did not stand out from each other, almost pitch black.
But then, the streets began to widen again. With newfound hope, I sprinted and clenched my jaw. Involuntary tears streamed down my cheeks. He began to catch up again.
The first triple crossroad. I began to try and twist and turn along the streets again, seeing this as a last chance to escape. This had to be it. This had to be my gate to freedom.
Left.
Left.
Right.
Ahead.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Right.
Ahead.
The clamped dustier air of the alleys was replaced with fresh cold air again. Hope had sprung the pain away a little. I ran like I never ran before, neglecting every screaming muscle in my legs and chest.
My pulse pounded heavily in my head. I thought it was a hallucination, but it sounded like he was falling behind. Another turn. Indeed. Yes. Oh Allmother yes.
I soared with glee. I found the energy to keep running despite my body self-disintegrating in a way. It felt so close, freedom felt so close.
Another turn. I snapped my head to the side. He wasn’t there. Oh Allmother. He wasn’t there. It’s so close to the end now. I sprinted. Another turn.
Shit.
A dead end.
My eyes darted.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.
My stomach dropped. The body was paralyzed as if frozen instantly in place. All of the pain suddenly erupted into the muscles. His steps were no longer heard. My breath sped up as all the energy sprung to my brain.
Think.
Think.
Think.
The dead end was full of litter, empty boxes, rotting planks, and reeking trash. A small balancing construction of planks in the left corner that leaned against the wall barely stood out from the clutter.
Without a second thought, I crawled in under it. My head almost nudged one of the planks. I quietly moved up a box to further hide myself from the right, curling up to be most obscured by it.
It was still dark on that street. Now for me, it was even darker, with only a small triangle above my head serving as my unobscured view.
The smell of rotting, decomposing wood surrounded me. My stomach churned. I clasped a hand over my mouth despite my lungs begging for more air. The pain in every muscle of my torso and legs made me feel like my fleshy carcass would crawl out from the skin and air itself out.
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and saliva overflowed in my previously dry mouth, almost making me choke. My heart was nowhere near calm either, craving more oxygen like the rest of my body, wanting me to gulp it like a thirsty human in a desert.
My hands went into a small tremor as I hugged my legs tighter to my chest and buried my face into my knees. I didn’t want to risk moving anything, Allmother forbid it falls loudly.
It was still quiet. Distant noises of a calm Eridian night began to settle. Barely audible crickets, someone’s window closing, echoing music from the Amaryllis district, a Soulless growling far away.
Despite my body wanting to writhe away from the stress, my mind began to calm down. It was futile, but I tried to calm my aching flesh down with small circular motions over my stomach. Perhaps he has lost sight of me after all.
I completely lost track of time. As far as I knew, an hour could’ve passed. Could’ve been a minute or less. I would be none the wiser. No approaching sound. Nothing. Soon, as my ears got used to the smaller sounds, everything began to fall dead silent.
There was only the sound of my breath hitting my hand, but that was no less unnerving. When could I come out? Has he gone back? Is he still looking for me? Would he still be looking for me after however much has passed? Everything felt like a haze.
The silence was simultaneously disturbing and soothing. Disturbing, because imagining a city like Eridia this quiet was unnerving. Yet there it was. Soothing, because no steps were approaching. No voices calling out into the darkness.
The anxiety and paranoia were nibbling at my sanity from the inside out. What should I do? There’s nothing I could possibly do to verify how much time has passed when I can consider myself safe. I felt antsy and uncomfortable. There wasn’t even room to squirm in fear of the planks falling.
Doubts began to creep into my mind. What if he just left? He could expect me to bump into him tomorrow, or soon enough anyway. Without him I barely had anything. No money, no food, no water, no roof over my head. It slowly started to settle just how much control he had over my life here in Eridia, the horrifying extent to which I was completely helpless in this strange place on my own. How desperate to stay away did he think I am? Because I didn’t know either.
Against a human, my hiding spot could work, but not against any Soulless, their heightened senses would definitely feel human flesh between some decomposed planks and a box.
A thought crossed my mind. I have no idea where I am. I was still in Eridia, that much I knew. The buildings weren’t the well-lit and flashy ones of the entertainment district, that much is certain. But the same applies to almost anywhere else. Everywhere in Lowtown looked similar, the streets barely differed between one another. Where do I even go for the night, or, actually, a couple of nights? I had to learn the hard way that no one here will stick their neck out for you unless they get something out of it too. Which is the opposite of my case. Why would anyone here hide someone the Bloodhounds would undoubtedly be on the lookout for? They’re local heroes, so I’d definitely be the villain to them if Leander were to say so. The realizations sunk in like stones into my stomach, weighing me down onto the ground one after another and making me wish I could fall through the cobblestone.
My train of thought stopped dead in its tracks, and my breathing hitched. My hand clasped tightly over my mouth. My fingernails stabbed into my cheek.
A quiet humming began to fade in, accompanied by a familiar clicking of boots. All too familiar.
No.
No.
No.
No.
He kept approaching. His voice was but a quiet, smooth sound in the deadly silence. His humming chimed to the rhythm set by his slow steps. He knew I was nearby.
He kept walking. Getting closer, like death itself coming after a plagued animal.
Right.
Left.
He took the same turns. As I could tell from the sounds only coming nearer.
There was a ringing in my ears like a church bell ringing right next to me. Again, I was frozen. The faint sound of his voice, like the realization of my impending doom, had paralyzed me.
My eyes involuntarily bulged, threatening to pop out of their sockets. My heart raced. I almost wanted to rip it out, fearing he could hear it.
My lungs curled in on themselves, making me suffocate. But I couldn’t even gasp for air. The pathetic amount of air I could get through my hand wasn’t nearly enough.
Perhaps suffocating would be a better fate. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if he found me. My mind clawed at the inner side of my skull, screaming in an attempt to escape this.
But there was nowhere to go. I was caged between decomposing wood to my back and left, and two walls of stone to my right and front. Trapped. I was trapped. There was no way I could move the box away without making a sound or being seen. I couldn’t get out of a dead end without being noticed by him. Not when he was twenty steps or less away.
My insides churned and squirmed. They also wanted to escape this doomed fleshy shell and run. But, just like I, they were bound in place.
He kept humming something. As he got closer, I couldn’t recognize what it was. A lullaby? A ballad? I didn’t know. It barely mattered. My pulse thudded in my head and throughout my body was still louder.
He was here. Just ten steps away. Maybe even at the same exact spot where I froze, seeking a hiding spot.
A small green light stabbed through the little triangle of space just above my head. Of course. He’d want a good look around. Drag out the fun and commit it to memory for the best of indulgence.
My muscles couldn’t relax, as if a force of terror was keeping them painfully tense, wishing to run but having no escape. I squeezed my side against the wall, my free hand pressing my head down more. My eyes cast to the triangle, observing.
The green light didn’t rest over a single inch of my skin, at the cost of me feeling like some of my bones would snap in half. Maybe he wouldn’t notice. Maybe he’d spare me.
He just kept pacing the area in circles. Humming the same song. For a moment, he stopped. My heart skipped a beat. Did he find me?
No. Not yet. He cleared his throat. Then he began to walk even closer. To the piles of debris.
He began to sing.
A slow, painfully slow song. It felt as though a knife was being dragged over my neck, just shy of stabbing. He hummed the same slow tune, louder. Like he sang to someone. My heart dropped to my stomach. Time itself seemed to slow down.
He knew I was there. No doubt about it.
“Maybe… you’ll think of me”
“When you are all alone…”
His voice was low and rich. I never heard him sing before. His voice could even be calming, but all it did was make all color fade from my face.
His voice was like dark honey. Deep, sweet, flowing smoothly, and with an addictive drag to it. Had ambrosia been a sound, it would’ve been his voice. If it weren’t the source of my deathly horror, I’d want to drown in it. It had a pinch of sultriness, I didn’t know if it was to mock me or to tempt me.
While he sang, he kept walking through the small area, as if dragging out a high. As if letting me simmer in a feeling of doom.
“Maybe… the one who is waiting for you”
“Will prove untrue…”
By his steps, he seemed to dance along while walking forward. His trenchcoat rustled in the air when he made a turn. For a moment, his singing stopped.
The sounds of wood breaking and falling stabbed the ‘serenity’ of the moment. I could feel my pulse halt. He kicked down some of the debris. A thought involuntarily crept into my head: would my bones sound the same if he were to snap them broken?
“Then, what will you do..?”
He dragged out the note and chuckled after it faded off. He was aware of me listening. A solo performance for a one-person audience. The last feast. Meanwhile, I could barely breathe, like a hypnotized mouse before a serpent.
Another pile of mold-ridden wood was broken. I couldn’t help but shudder. Just how amusing was this to him?
I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t want to. Ever again. I would rather amputate my own arms with a blunt rock than face him. Silently, I prayed. Prayed that he would just stop this torment and turn around and go back the way he came from.
“Maybe you’ll sit and sigh…”
“Wishing that I were near…”
My eyes dampened. I realized I had not blinked in too long, staring into the triangle of green light as much as my eyes could shift to the side without me needing to move my head.
I couldn’t help a shiver breaking out all over my body. The wall was cold, and every neural ending was times more reactive to any stimulus. Every inch of my flesh was inflamed, squirming and writhing like worms.
Simultaneously the sensations of a scorching fever burned me from the inside and the sweat soaking my skin froze my flesh on the outside in abrupt waves. I felt sick from the torturous contrast, my body sending itself into a cycle of confusion and physically manifested panic.
All while, his steps kept resounding against the pavement, for a moment in what sounded like the rhythm of a waltz.
“Then…”
“Maybe… you’ll ask me… to come back again”
Yet again, he kicked something broken and I couldn’t help another shudder, almost expecting his gilded boot to collide with my side. It sounded like he broke a box. I felt nauseated, my mouth suddenly salivating out of control as if I had actually gotten sick. Almost inaudibly, I gulped.
“And maybe, I’ll say maybe…”
He savored every note and dragged it out, his voice and steps would’ve undoubtedly swept me from my feet, had this not been the situation. He hummed the slow melody as if he were serenading me.
Suddenly, an extremely bitter, burning sensation arose in my throat. I kept my hand glued to my mouth, gulping back the overflowing saliva. My stomach flipped dangerously. I wanted to vomit from the explosion of sheer panic, but I had to hold it back.
I felt sick to my core. And him? He continued waltzing along the dead street, his shadow occasionally dancing over the little triangle of view I had.
His alluring voice became just a deliberate bit more sultry like he was flirting. As if he couldn’t just bring on my very death. Cruel. He was cruel. And I was too late to see it.
My shivering stopped, and his steps began to get closer. I couldn’t look at the triangle anymore, my eyes squeezed shut.
“Maybe… you’ll think of me”
“When you are all alone…”
I could hear the familiar smile in his voice. There was not a single doubt in my mind that he felt my agony and thoroughly indulged in it like an aged fine wine. He was punishing me for running in the first place. Especially for running this long. For giving him a hard time.
Tears began to prick at my eyes again, my second hand clutching my stomach again. The circular motions were a futile attempt at stopping the twisting and writhing of my organs.
He only drew nearer. Once again he destroyed a piece of nearby junk. And, again, I flinched. A desperate part of my mind wanted to just be dead already. This act that he was drawing out was too much for both my sanity and my body.
I forced myself to glance at the triangle. The green light was becoming blocked by him. He was starting to come into view. I couldn’t see his face yet, all I knew was that I didn’t want to. Another futile prayer was made in my head. Of course, it didn’t stop him. It felt like not even the Allmother could.
“Maybe the one who is waiting for you…”
“Will prove untrue…”
The daunting spilling of his soft voice made my mind spiral into insanity. I felt neurotic, there was nothing I could do in my self-made trap. He knew it. He kept taunting me with precision, somehow knowing how to press all the buttons with seemingly so little.
Now I could slightly hear the dangling of his jewelry, the quiet rustling of his trench coat. I froze again, eyes squeezing shut almost as soon as I opened them. I wished I could be able to pretend like he’ll disappear if I kept my eyes closed.
He stopped a step away from me. My heart began to pick up pace again. My legs ached in near primal instinct to run. Except there was nowhere. Only right into his arms.
Stepping to the side, he kicked some debris right behind my trap into the wall. It all broke with a hopeless crack. I knew what was coming next. And he knew that. Perhaps I was playing right into his hand all along.
The next thing I knew, the large box concealing me from the right was destroyed into timbers against the wall I was facing.
“Then what will I do..?”
The box was demolished. A pitiful pile of sawdust and mold slumped against the wall. It took him barely any effort. My breath halted in my throat, almost making me choke on the air. At last, I was completely exposed. Nothing hid me from him anymore. I was just a cornered animal now. I could lift my head to see his face, but my body froze in place, almost like it was playing dead.
The green light hit me where his silhouette didn’t conceal me from it. There was truly no escape from him, which my stunned mind needed a reminder of. My stomach dangerously thrashed again, my eyes bulging wide open as they darted to his boots. I could taste the corrosive bitterness on the further end of my tongue and in my throat.
A deep dread was nailed tightly into my head as if slowly knocked deep into the brain with each step of his. I couldn’t move. My head started spinning, a blunt pain echoing through the rest of my body as I felt like I was on the brink of death. It took me my last bit of restraint not to vomit or lose consciousness.
“Maybe, you’ll sit and sigh”
“Wishing that I were near…”
He spun on his heel one last time while stretching out the soft note, letting it bleed out into the all-consuming silence. With it, the whole pinch of hope that my mind desperately held onto fell dead.
His singing paused. His earring jingled and he let out a quiet chuckle. All of this stopped being real. There is no way that this is happening to me. There is no way that I’m here, about to die in a pile of moody wood in the middle of the night. At the hand of someone I once considered my anchor. My savior, even. When did all of it go wrong? When was the point of no return?
He slowly crouched down to me, fully coming into view. Leander’s green eyes, soft before, now looked dead and empty. As they stared into my mortified expression, all I could see in his was a hardly veiled glow of sadistic glee. Leander was smiling. The same little smile as always. But this time it felt so sinister. Was it really different from how he smiled before, or did it take being cornered like this to see what Leander’s smile stood for all along?
“Then,”
“Maybe you’ll ask me to come back again…”
I couldn’t tell if Leander’s voice beckoned me like a siren’s call, or mocked my helplessness. Perhaps both. I felt small, crumpled into a futilely defensive position right before him. All while he sang. As if to sedate me in my last moments.
Leander’s eyes faintly crinkled when he tilted his head to the side, propping his cheek on his fist. He took in my vulnerability and how exposed I was. It was clearly intoxicating to him, Leander took it in like a good flush of alcohol straight to the heart. There was joy to it for Leander, his high-fazed smile felt so familiar, like all the times he smiled at me during the late nights at the Wick when he had quite a bit to drink. In that familiarity, for a moment Leander’s gaze appeared soft like it always did, but there was an unsettling darkness to it that surfaced, or only just became noticeable. Seeing it now broke me out of the trance, the illusion of tenderness that I saw moments prior was gone like a mirage. Leander observed me almost animalistically, I wanted to crawl out of my skin just to escape his eyes.
Tears involuntarily streamed down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop staring with terror right back at Leander, all while he observed with eerie amusement. My whole body broke out into a shiver, unable to stop itself from almost feverish tremors. Leander’s eyes, his smile, his voice, everything about him now was almost the same as always, but his presence made me feel like I was drowning in ice-cold waters that had no end.
In my last shred of hope, I almost wanted to deny all of this. This wasn’t Leander. Leander was someone who always offered a shoulder to cry on, someone who would go out of his way to keep everyone at peace and happy, someone who would smile along with everyone and be the soul of the company. Akin to a gentle giant.
This was someone else entirely. This was someone who gave a thoroughly long, outright draining chase, someone who held out a sense of false security and crushed it with deliberate cruelty, someone who took certain joy in feeling another’s torment at his hand and thoroughly savored it, indulged in it. Someone purely evil. Someone entirely malevolent.
Maybe it was there all along. Perhaps I was looking at a mask, a trap to lure desperate ones like me. Now it didn’t matter. It was too late. I was merely cattle waiting to be slaughtered. A lamb waiting to be sacrificed. Leander’s finger tapped against the side of his knee to the slow beat of the song. It was an almost tranquil scene. Nauseatingly so. Much akin to poison slowly seeping into the tissues of my body. I still couldn’t move, to Leander it all came with mocking ease.
“And maybe, I’ll say maybe…”
The last note went on and on, like the painfully sweet aftertaste of honey. Or like the bitterness of poison. Then it cut off. Everything fell into a suffocating silence once more. I wanted to stab it, gut it with a scream that was trying to scratch its way out of my lungs. But my body stayed still, save for the tremor, like it was turned to stone once Leander looked at me.
And Leander knew what he was doing all too well. Off-puttingly too well. It was cheap, even dirty of him, to do this to someone so much weaker than him. But that wouldn’t change the facts. I was pinned down under Leander’s gently menacing gaze like a new butterfly in a lepidopterist’s collection.
Once he took in the undoubtedly addicting silence, Leander offered another quiet laugh, his earring jiggling when he shook his head a little. Leander’s eyes were partly lidded, the lighting making the purple darkness around his eyelids seem deeper. His expression was mockingly comforting, making a visage of consolation that I would’ve fallen for even earlier today seem disturbing instead. Leander was almost pitying me, both of us knowing I was at his mercy.
I was undoubtedly cornered. There was nothing I could do in my exhausted and deteriorated state that could let me put up more than a second’s worth of a fight.
Leander didn’t need an intimidating face to instill the kind of horror I’d never felt before. His face could look however soft, but he knew at what moment to make others aware of his strength. And now I couldn’t think about anything else. Leander was way broader, stronger, way more powerful with magic, times more resilient, he knew the city way better. My eyes had never been veiled, so how have I not once noticed just how enormous he is? Not even a miracle could save me.
And, as if on cue with reading my thoughts, his smile slightly widened to reveal a dimple. Leander bit a glove off his hand and let it drop onto the pavement. My heart hammered painfully in my chest while his big smooth hand reached closer. My eyes hurt from crying, but hot tears wouldn’t stop flowing at all.
“Oh, what happened, sweetheart?” Leander cooed, brows lowering in staged concern. His hand enveloped the side of my face and held it firmly in place while his thumb wiped the tears off my cheek. I could feel the strength of his hand, he made it clear that he could crush my face at any moment, even if now he continued the gentle act for his entertainment.
Against the heat of Leander’s big hand, I could feel just how cold my face was, it was like that of a corpse. My lips trembled, I couldn’t assemble a single word, as if I forgot how to speak altogether. All that came out was a pathetic mumbly noise.
My body felt like porcelain now, his hand feeling like a sledgehammer just shy of shattering me to pieces. Leander’s control of his strength slipped so rarely that now I feel like each time was deliberate. He tried so hard to seem gentle, but would sometimes grab my hand a little too hard, hold me a little too firmly. Just how much of what I knew about Leander’s persona was consistent veiled threats?
Leander kept caressing my face almost with care, his familiar smile again reminding me of all the warnings that I missed. “Can’t talk at all, hm? Speak to me, dear, don’t worry, everything’s alright now. You’re safe.” Leander reassured, squeezing my face while his free hand reached for my wrist. He was crouched on one knee now, empty green eyes not shifting from me at all.
I pulled my hand away from his like it was about to touch a flock of poison ivy. Again, I could barely muster anything. I gulped, and a quiet sob broke out past my lips. “Stop…” a barely audible plea managed to crawl out with great effort. His smile tugged a bit wider. A glimmer of the same glee shone brighter in his eyes.
“Your face is so cold, darling. You’ve been out here for too long. Don’t you know not to walk around at night? It’s cold and dangerous. Many have reminded you of that.” Leander mused, slightly tilting his head when he caught my wrist. His grip was strong, like a metal shackle. My whole arm kept trembling. Even trying to pull back would be devoid of purpose .
Leader’s eyes. I couldn’t stop staring into them. The same soft green eyes that were once synonymous with comfort and safety were now bottomless swamps. They were devoid of warmth or solace, pulling me endlessly deeper into their darkness and suffocating me, drowning me in their sickening venom. Cold, vacant of a soul, but still hypnotizing as all hell as if he were a hunting serpent and I was its prey. Absolutely unreadable and confusing like a hoard of slithering snakes. Alluring, but reflecting sheer cruelty and only a semblance of happiness from observing my suffering. Leander’s gaze was outright chilling. It was an imperceivable horror in itself, something almost cosmically vast and terrifying as a result. Nothing I’ve ever seen in anyone’s eyes until Leander. Hauntingly beautiful. Frightening, petrifying, and paralyzing, but fascinating in the most nauseating way. It felt like watching an asteroid crash a step away from me as it destroys everything in sight. Like the stomach-churning inability to look away from gory disaser while everything ends. If looks could kill, his eyes would grant me a merciless death of excruciating torment.
He began to tug at my wrist. My hands balled up into fists. I tensed as much as possible, not letting Leander move me from my place. Leander laughed under his breath and leaned in closer to me, his broad shoulders fully blocking out the pitiful space between this self-made cage and my freedom. With that same almost endearing little smile, he said “It’s so chilly right now, look at you shaking all over. Don’t you want to get back to the Wick? You know I can help you find your way back. I can always help you. I can always keep you safe. Just trust me.” His bangs fell over his eyes, concealing a good third of his face.
I still couldn’t say a word. I knew that any movement from my current place would pull me closer into my demise. But not moving would only make him angrier. Not even my curse could affect Leander, so any resistance of mine would be like trying to move a brick wall. All I did was stare at his face, at his faintly smug smile and void-like eyes. My eyes just kept watering because I kept forgetting to blink, subconsciously afraid of dying the second my eyes would close.
Leander’s grip tightened around my wrist, my hand began to feel even colder than it was as the blood circulation began to get cut off. His expression almost felt stuck in place, it felt increasingly off-putting and uncanny the more I looked at it.
“Please…just let me go… I… I won’t say anything… I swear…” I wheezed, my words crawling out barely louder than the crushing silence. My voice was broken, my tears cracking it at every other syllable. It felt futile, but it took me all my effort to beg for my life, to show that I didn’t give up just yet.
I could almost hear the bones in my wrist crack and squelch as Leander latched onto it so tight I almost screamed. My jaw clenched, I couldn’t help squirming. My other hand scratched at Leander’s wrist, but he didn’t move a muscle.
“Oh, my dear, it’s such an awful night for walks today! There’s never a rush to walk around, plus I can always help you find warmer clothes and keep you company, you don’t need a reminder of that, do you? I can’t help but wonder what made you get out of your warm and comfortable room to explore the freezing streets! I’d love to hear all about it while I guide you back, what do you say?” The same upbeat, cheerful tone as when he first held my hand and let me touch his face. He ignored my pleas as if I never opened my mouth at all. He didn’t even show a single sign of guilt, remorse, or doubt... Leander had something specific he wanted to hear, otherwise, I could as well stay silent and embrace my fate.
I had a suspicion I couldn’t say what he wanted me to. After what I saw… I knew I couldn’t. He silently demanded it from me, but he also knew there was a chance he wouldn’t get it out of me.
We stared into each other’s eyes. His greens held a demanding flame that was only spreading, scorching over every inch of my being with time. Leander gave me a chance to say what I needed to. But he made it clear without any words that his patience wasn’t infinite and was very much wearing thin.
Leander’s hand kept slowly crushing my wrist while the other moved from my face to the back of my head. It crept along my scalp, then slowly began to grab a fistful of my hair. Tightly. I hissed, hot tears bleeding out of my hurting eyes. Neither of us dared break eye contact. My time was ticking. Leander was still smiling.
I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t. That thought just kept repeating infinitely in my head. Even if I lied, it would only give me so little to live. Leander’s Bloodhounds are loyal without question and would sniff me out from hell itself. Or he could always find me himself. Like today. I couldn’t be safe if I lied, and the fate that would befall me would be times worse than if I stayed silent now.
Leander began to pull my head backward by the hair, bending my neck out while my pulse began to hammer again. I couldn’t look away from him, my eyes still pleading and begging for any crumb of mercy while his kept demanding with newfound impatience, the curve of his lips wavering at the corner.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me, it’s okay though, you seem a bit unlike yourself right now. What do you say to me walking you back to the Wick?” Leander questioned as a last warning, this being the first time a drop of the threat spilled into his voice.
I cried and sobbed while tilting my head back. “Just let me go… please, please, please… I beg you, please… I can’t die like this…” I begged almost hysterically while my scalp burned with the pain from the tugging. It wasn’t what Leander wanted, and it looks like he saw he wasn’t getting it out of me.
Suddenly, Leander’s smile dropped. It fell so quickly, as if it hadn't been melted onto his face ever since I met him. My heart plummeted deep down to my stomach. I felt incredibly nauseated all over again. I coughed at the feeling that could only be described as my heart trying to crawl out through my mouth. My time was up.
No…
No
No
NO
NO!!!!
My breathing and heartbeat raced, and I began to struggle and thrash against Leander’s only further clenching grip. He did not back down. Didn’t even move a muscle to suppress my pitiful attempt.
With a violent jerk that shook all my innards, Leander stood up and yanked me onto my feet by the hair and wrist, throwing me at the wall. I yelped as my scalp throbbed with pain, my insides almost bouncing back from the wall at the strength of the impact.
The yelp turned into a broken scream when an indescribably painful crack came from my hand as it was slammed into the freezing wall. My head hit the planks when this happened, they almost broke at the impact and toppled over with a thud. I felt pain spreading from the top and the side of my head, it didn’t take long for warm trickles of blood to follow.
From my hair, Leander’s hand moved to seize hold of my neck. My pulse thudded against his hand with a feverish rhythm, like a useless reminder of my vitality. If anything, my panic entertained him.
His grasp was stone firm and trapping, only slightly shutting down my ability to breathe. That quickly began to change. I stared at Leander with nothing but pure dread when he lifted me to my tiptoes by the neck and leaned in close to my face. Leander forced me to witness his true monstrosity, one that he somehow concealed from most eyes for this long.
I squirmed and choked for air, coughing violently while my free limbs flailed hopelessly like the fins of a fish in the sand. Everything began to slip away.
His hand only kept clenching around my neck while he lifted me from the ground entirely. I choked and scratched at his hand and tried to bite him and begged, but it was all futile. All useless. His entirely unphased cold expression didn’t shift when my vision began to darken and become hazy at the corners. My head began to spin, my oxygen-hungry brain feeling dizzy.
“It seems you started taking the comfort, the safety I provided you with, and my kindness entirely for granted. Let me help you. Let me take you back, remind you where the line is.” His voice was a low growl, and Leander’s bloodthirsty, fury-filled eyes almost stabbed through mine when his face was inches from mine.
Croaky coughing and mumbling were all that could pass through my constricted vocal cords, but Leander kept speaking. “It saddens me so badly, dear. It breaks my heart. I didn’t dare ask for money, I didn’t even ask to recruit you. And this is my ‘thanks’? That just won’t do, Bloodhound rates or not.”
I wheezed and heaved, my body convulsing and writhing like a ball of worms. My nails stabbed into Leander’s leather glove and tried to scratch open his arm, but even with narrow streaks of red gleaming on his skin, he didn’t budge.
My field of vision further shrank. Leander’s face went in and out of focus, blurring and becoming overwhelmingly focused. Only his almost glowing green eyes didn’t fade. Shapes appeared in front of my eyes, the corners of my eyesight turning into dark static. “P…plea…se…” I croaked, what could be the last tears streaming from my face. My hands and feet were going cold as blood stopped normally circulating in my body. I started to lose feeling in my limbs. All while he mercilessly watched life draining from my eyes. Unmoving, like a statue. My eyes squeezed shut.
Suddenly, a sharp pain seared through my stomach, pushing all the pitiful remains of air I had out of my lungs. A wet warmth spread on my clothes, accompanied by the pain scorching me from the inside out. Leander stabbed me in the stomach. My blood trickled down and soon began to drip onto the floor. Then it began vigorously gushing out once Leander harshly pulled the knife out.
The cold began to spread, and my heart’s slowing beats echoed through my head. I could barely see anything, everything around me turned into a darkening haze. Except for the green eyes, which stayed brightly gleaming with nothing while scrutinizing death overcoming mine. Like he was reading an alchemy book, not one emotion in his expression.
Leander dropped me onto the ground into the puddle of my own blood. For a little more, he watched me. Then came the last moment of clarity for my eyes, and I saw Leander smiling again. That same smile that was empty all along. A husk of comfort, like a theatrical mask.
Leander picked up his glove and began to turn away on his heel. “If you earn the miracle of waking up again, you’ll know to appreciate me, right, my dear?” He waited a moment more until my near-glassy eyes fell shut.
I could hear Leander’s slow steps and humming echo as the sounds became more and more obscured by the increasing distance and gentle ringing of Death’s embrace. His singing, soft like a rain cloud, coated my head in an almost soothing feeling while all senses faded. Leander’s siren’s call kept luring me away from life.
“Then,”
“Maybe you’ll ask me to come back again…”
“And maybe, I’ll say maybe…”
Until all my senses faded out like a wax-drowned candlelight. Until the world went dark and quiet.
.
.
.
BAD END
