ft. muses from ; Silent Hill, Alan Wake, Hannibal NBC, Dead by Daylight, FAITH, Stranger Things, Halloween, Outlast, Scream, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Spree, My Bloody Valentine
i have Thoughts on RE9 but it should be no surprise my favorites of the game were Zeno and Gideon. I wish Capcom didn't constantly kill off new villains though, it never gives them time to breathe.
I know Rose writes “self insert” fanfiction when it comes to Alan and Mr. Scratch and I genuinely feel it’s because she doesn’t know how else to parse her feelings about him. She’s not trying to date him or “steal him” from his wife (and in fact isn’t even jealous of Alice), but she’s so used to her feelings being displayed as “romantic love” that that’s how she’s able to put her feelings into words.
of course she loves Alan (and has complicated feelings about Mr. Scratch), it’s all she lives for now!
Is there a food from a game you would love to have in real life?
Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.
Hilarious the food question goes to the person who loves food.
That’s a tough one since my most played games don’t necessarily have good in them, but I think I’d love to cook foods out of things in Monster Hunter. Or any type of meat/seafood from a monster that doesn’t exist IRL.
Fucked up thinking about how the fact Maria didn’t kill herself isn’t a sign of victory but defeat. Any other character choosing to put down the gun we’d celebrate but for Maria it means she’s not fighting against her fate. It’s just an even worse death sentence. She can’t even die in a way she wants.
There's a degree of delight at being known by the title of worst. It is at the top of the food chain, dangling the links below it in a taunting gesture, watching as humans try and fail to bring it down. FEMA had tried the hardest, certainly. How many of their number had sustained the creature, now? Too many to count, their bones would make for a lovely graveyard, wrapped around the hermit's home.
"I do," it answers easily, finding no reason to deny that simple truth. "You offer ample opportunity to do something which few others are allowed."
A vague answer from a vague creature, something parading around in the skin of its prey, misshapen in the picture perfect concept of the uncanny. It traces a finger through the grime laden across the window's expanse. The motion causes quite an unsavory sound, streaking the surface with no particular reason.
"To speak freely, without hesitation, where the poison of fear often crafts a speech for the frightened lamb lost without its herd. People will say what they think will save them. You say whatever pleases you."
The corners of his mouth curve downwards at the noise, though he isn't fully aware of it. A facial expression made in pure irritated reaction. He imagines the motion, mindless lines drawn in the filth and dust and grime of the window, the only one untouched on his house. The only one that used to be, anyway. Every window was coated with a layer, now, for he was unwilling to open it to clean them or step outside the confines of his house to clear the debris away until he absolutely had to. On occasion, the Visitor even made sure of it by smearing blood and viscera across the glass.
"Words won't save me," he muses aloud, bringing his hands up to his face before he drags his palms downwards across it, as if he could wipe away the exhaustion like dirt from the window. He lets his arms fall to the side, stretched out, one arm halfway off the bed and the other touching the long-abandoned half. It felt no different from the side he slept on.
"I have no reason to hide what I think. Why would I care what you think of me? You'll kill me no matter what I do. You're honest. You're uncaring. You're... simple," He says 'simple' as if he's stumbled across some realization. Regardless of what he said, all the Visitor cared about was whether or not the house was empty and if his prey was alone. If he was alone. If he was alone, he'd be killed like the FEMA agents. Like those teenagers. Like anyone unlucky enough to be caught outside.
"You're not a human. You wouldn't judge me as a human would."
Obviously, it thinks. Were the man dead it would solve a lot of strange problems between them, and leave a lot of questions unanswered, though there really isn't any telling if they will have answers regardless him being alive or not.
"Because I have nowhere else to be, of coursssssse." Another honest reply. It absolutely could be elsewhere, chewing on the entrails of whoever was unfortunate enough to cross paths with the thing, but it prefers the house. "You do not feel like getting up. Do you favor our conversation instead?"
"I know that the quiet isn't appreciated much by your kind. It lets your mind fill the blanks. Is a monster you think you heard, worse than seeing the monster? Would the dread be greater than surprise?" The pale man chuckles at the barrage of hypothetical nonsense falling out of its mouth.
The hermit gazes upwards at the ceiling, still, imagining this is what is must be like under the earth. Sprawling trails of roots and maggots that carve paths through dark earth. He imagines it must be cooler down there, considering his brief trips to his basement have been the most pleasant parts of the house, if only barely.
"I don't think anything is worse than you," He finally admits, finding there to be no point in denying it. Did he enjoy these conversations? He won't answer that. Not aloud. Not to himself.
"I think knowing you're at my door is worse. I know you're always watching. If I didn't get used to it... I might have gone crazy."
Perhaps that, in itself, is worse. The unknown. Perhaps that is why he hid himself away in such familiar halls. He didn't want to face the world.
"Do you enjoy our conversations? I don't think you have to come to my window. You choose to."
Some manner of amusement flickers within the thing's expression, out of sight, but there all the same. A gentle upturn just in the corners of its tight lipped grin. There's never a reason to hide what it feels, opinions were irrelevant, the food would never find him favorable anyway.
"Howdy," comes an almost happy response to being acknowledged.
"I always hear you," it replies from where its temple rests against the glass. The Visitor leans into the smooth, dust covered pane. What it would give to break the glass inward. . . everything, perhaps, if only to feel the man beneath black tipped fingers again. "Your heart beats different than the others, I could pick you out in a crowd."
Another unfortunate truth to the thing is that it also has no reason to lie. What would be the point? Honesty was often more terrifying, and drinking upon the premium crimson that adrenaline brought, often made it ravenous in anticipation.
"Why are you still here?" In the bed, it means, but any other answer would also be suitable.
If he were sane, he would ignore the man tapping at his window. He'd cover his ears, hide his head underneath his pillow, and block out his presence until he left - or the sun rose, whichever came first. As he laid there, blankets tossed to the side to find some mild comfort in the nightly heat, he is forced to accept he was anything but. It would be hard to stay sane these days, especially when one has so much blood on their hands.
"Because I haven't died yet," He replies at first, his tone the same of neutral exhaustion. His hands rest on his stomach. He can feel their weight as he inhales, exhales.
"Because I don't feel like getting up yet," The hermit adds. It was the truth. He was tired, in body and spirit and mind. Adrenaline had become too familiar the last few weeks and it left a toll on his body. All he ever wanted for was peace.
"Why are you here?"
He guessed at what the answer would be.
He is on his back tonight, eyes gazing upwards onto the dim ceiling of his room, tracing cracks that sprawl across it like the worm-paths in tree bark. In bodies. Like roots, stretching over and feeding off the misery stained into every surface. They begin to shift and move, wriggling to life like maggots as his vision swims in the darkness. If he looked to the corner, he imagines he'll find a chair converted into the hunched-down figure of a Visitor, eyes shining in the night before it pounces on him. He knows he must get up soon to tend to his house, answer the calls at his door (if there would be any. They have become so rare), but his body aches at the thought of it. Maybe if I just lay here...
Surprisingly, the knock on the window doesn't startle him. He knows what ghost has come to haunt him, the corpse risen from the grave to torment him. It's not her. The knock was too heavy. She never knocked like that on the door. Her touch was always soft.
"Good evening," He mumbles with false civility. He's mostly too tired to truly care. The window is locked, curtains shut, and door closed. He would not consider himself peaceful nor placid, but he finds he's grown accustomed to his nightly visitor.
"I didn't hear you knocking at the door. Did you somehow hear me or... is it because you didn't hear me moving around you figured to check the bedroom?"
While it may not share their fear, it certainly understands it, and quite intimately at that. The last time that the two of them spoke it had been quite the conversation. Their words held revelations which only they were privy to, and the thing wants to keep it that way, at least for a while. Its head cants, entire body easing forward as the metal slides down from between its eyes and traces beneath one eye instead. Then gunmetal moves across the thing's cheek as it whittles away what little space that had them separated, into near nothing. The gun now aims upward at the stars as the lower barrel rests just above the creature's shoulder.
So close, he could surely smell the scent of death that the thing reeks of. Would the homeowner even reel from it? It's commonplace in his home, is it not? With how often he's forced to clean up the remains of those gunned down... it should feel quite familiar.
"Isn't it?" Helpful, it means. Its voice is just above a low whisper rumbling in its throat now. "Are you not still standing here, alive. Is she not alive, too?"
They'd never been this close- not at least, without the door in the way. Something chews on his insides at the idea of striking the man down now. He should. He might..
"They aren't anymore stupid than you are," it replies with a soft tone of glee. "Humans are just like any other animal. Clawing and tearing at what they don't understand, making mistakes, desperate to be aliiiiiiiiive."
It raises a hand nearly out of sight and wraps it around the homeowner's own, at the wrist, where he holds onto the stock of the shotgun. Like a vice it now will refuse to let him pull away. The other black stained digits are suddenly beneath the man's chin, wound around his throat like the muscle of a snake he'd not seen in the weary hours of nighttime slumber. It does not squeeze, there. The thing's thumb presses into the curve of his carotid and it drinks upon the feeling of him beneath its own flesh, how the man's heart is trying to rip itself free from the confines of bone.
The visitor lets out a curt, breathless laugh.
"I cannot continue to haunt you, if you are dead, you see." No matter how badly it wants to pull him apart, piece by piece, the game will go on. "Sooooo... take her, and go back into your home-
He smelled like a grave. Cold, rotten, alone. He smelled like ash and blood. His skin almost shined in the moonlight, if not for the fresh coating of viscera and earth. The homeowner did not balk nor run, as if the act of doing so would cause the Visitor to snap its jaws around his throat like a predator animal's hunting instinct triggered. If he were to die, he would die feigning some attempt at control. He didn't want his last feelings to be of self-hate and cowardly guilt. He doesn't dare move the gun, nor even allow a muscle twitch as the creature caressed its own face with the barrel. It might have allowed them to live, kept them from being gunned down in the dirt by FEMA, but the homeowner did not consider the thing helpful. It was only waiting for it to finally stop toying with them, like a mouse and a rat. Break their spines and bite off their heads. Pull out their entrails and scatter them across the yard.
"They're stupid for thinking they're going to stop you," He retorts. He didn't hope that FEMA had a single clue as to what they were doing. They were nearly as bad as the Visitors. They modified their appearance just the same, used their new-skin to crawl into another's home and tear them apart from the inside.
His breath suddenly catches in his throat and his eyes widen in sudden fear as his wrist is grabbed. He doesn't yank it away, he doesn't struggle like a rabbit in a snare. Whether that be from fear or clarity is unknown to him. He tries not to swallow as his throat is held, chin tilted. He locks eyes with the Visitor and mingled with all the dread is that oh-so familiar rage. There's no doorways, here. No window panes. The two of them had never, truly, ever saw each other face to face. Only glimpses through glass. He sneers at the revelation, as if accepting his demise. He'll die in anger. He'll die in hate. Better than fear, he reasons.
His mouth twitches, almost revealing his true expression at the thought of the Visitor letting them go. His eyes search the pallid face, as if he could detect whether or not this was some ploy. Was it lying? Why would it bother? It never toyed with its food like this. It taunted him, goaded him, but once the opportunity presented itself, it never denied the carnage for long. The hermit decides to test the theory, his eyes briefly flickering from the Visitor and towards the little girl.
"Go. Back to the house. Now."
There is a pause as the girl seems to struggle to parse the words before a hand goes to her shoulder. Its the cashier girl who starts to usher her back towards the house. Her own eyes stay on the two locked together, uncertainty on her face. The girl tries to twist her head to look at the two of them as she's returned back towards the porch, though the cashier blocks most of her view. Purposeful?
He can hear them moving behind him. He decides they were far away enough. The hermit tests the theory. He tries to pry his throat away.
A laugh causes the beast's shoulders to shudder, its attitude flipping on a dime now that the perpetrators of its anger are slick heaps on the ground. Or what? It considers asking. After witnessing, time and time again, how the freak could kill, did he think for a moment that a single thing or word could be said against it and mean anything? It seems incredibly amused by the idea. Grinning wildly in the low illumination of a still open door, the visitor tosses the head into the dust between itself and the homeowner.
It rolls just enough to land so its empty gaze settles onto him.
"What a terrible way to thank the one that just saved your life," it hums at the end of its words, arduously taking a step towards him. He is out in the open, away from the walls that gave way to the pervading sense of false safety. What use had any of it been? FEMA still did as they pleased, and it could have been just as disastrous if anyone else had shown up with a gun and not liked the answer given to their attempts to enter. Thus far the idea of his home being anything other than a tomb had been perpetuated by one thing, and it has killed every other person it's come across.
Well, nearly.
One step becomes two, three, and then more, until it stands with its ruined self nearly pressed into the barrel of the shotgun. Still the imitation of a man cannot help itself but to smile.
"Go ahead, then. Is this not what you've been waiting for?" It asks without care for itself, because it isn't afraid. Not of him, or FEMA, or any single thing that could try and pose a threat- and that isn't to say it cannot die. Surely there is something out there which could wipe the smile from its face and rend it into nothing, but death isn't something it fears.
With motions quite drastically different than what they've witnessed in the aftermath of such viscera, the pale figure raises the barrel of the weapon upwards. It does not stop until the cool metal rests now against its own skull, between the eyes.
He can taste the ash of the earth on his tongue. Every uneven gasp of air fills his lungs with baked earth, thickened with blood. He tastes it on his tongue, iron and sweat and dirt. His finger rested heavy on the trigger, he felt the muscles twitch but never click. He had seen the monster through doorways and windows, he'd deluded himself into an odd safety, threadbare, inside the crumbling walls of his home. It never entered. It never broke through windows or doors so long as someone was there. Now there's no barriers between them, save the old gun in his hands that was nothing more than a glorified stick. He felt cold in the hot air, sweat clinging to his back and hands. He looked Death in the face and thought, this is the end. His heart pounded loudly his ribs, he thought the whole world might hear it. He knew the Visitor did. He knew he could smell the dread in his body.
The hermit says nothing as the other speaks. He doesn't resist the gun as its brought upwards to point the barrel directly at the Visitor's face. Any other, he'd gladly pull the trigger. But he'd seen how quickly it could move. He'd seen the way it shrugged off bullets and responded with all the rage of a rabid animal. His mouth felt as dry as the world around him. He didn't blink. No one moved, whether it be from uncertainty or terror. The girl didn't even sob, despite the way fat tears continued to roll down her cheeks and blur her vision. They both felt like prey animals, stalked by something far greater than them. The first to move would be the first to die.
"Fuck off," He manages to find his voice. It remains still, despite the fear.
"I don't know what you're doing, I don't know why you did it, but this isn't help."
He doesn't know what he's saying. He's just talking, hoping to keep its attention on him. He'd held conversation with this creature before and he hoped, just in this instance, its attention would wholly be on him. Curiosity, an over-inflated sense of pride. Accomplishment. All false hope, but he didn't care for his own life in this moment. He only cared for the girl. If she could just get to the house, if she could close the door behind her, then he'd lay down his life and join the rest of the corpses. He wondered if he'd take his head just like the one that sat before them.
"I know this wont kill you. I'm not stupid like they are," He isn't something you killed. The Visitor isn't something you defeated. Just keep talking. Get his attention. Something.
The thing had been hanging out around the outskirts of the home for a while, now. It could hear the engine long before the headlights shone into the darkness, smell its putrid exhaust on the low winds created by cooling air battering down against the stagnant heat that the sun created. FEMA was on their way, and with them, the promise to vacate the house. It isn't a secret between itself and the homeowner that this happening was exactly what the thing desired. He had been so diligent in forbidding any from entering, shooing away even his own kind. The game was coming to a close and there was no desire for the meal which he had waited days for, to be interrupted, or shared.
Something has gone awry, however.
It can hear the conversation within the house, as if there besides them, intermingling amongst the humanity. The man inside is upset. A smile creeps between its lips, pulled taut and allowing for unnaturally white teeth to show in a thin line. Is it desperation that causes him to react? Or something else entirely?
The freak creeps closer to the standalone light in the night. As it approaches, there is a brief hesitation. Everyone's hearts beat faster. They have not seen him, so it could not be the cause. Its smile fades and eyes narrow as if willing the situation to become clearer through the walls. It watches patiently, crouched against the tinderbox sagebrush to hide its shape against the twinkle of starlight and a crescent moon.
When FEMA departs the house, there is something remarkable that happens. The man has left his castle of isolation. Any other time and it would have jumped at the chance, crossed that space and taken the poor man into his jaws and savored every second of struggle that followed- but that would mean that there were not other humans around, and especially not other humans with guns aimed at its prize.
This would not do, not at all, and if only for the most selfish thing that could have kept the monster returning time and time again; it will be the thing that flays the man's flesh from bone.
FEMA seems to startle at the sudden rupture of buckshot from the barrel of a shotgun, and how it causes the dirt at their heels to scatter into the air. The man making up the rear of their small convoy turns around first, his automatic weapon raised upward and back the direction they'd been walking from.
"Are we really doing this?!" The man yells at the hermit, sounding more surprised than anything. Behind him, the others have taken their own weapons into hand, the woman at least concerned about the child and standing between her and the man that had just shot at them.
They don't realize the danger they are in, until it's too late to do anything.
The thing bounds across the arid soil like a junkyard hound let free from its leash, though it hardly makes a sound. Though no one had questioned its lethality it was something else entirely to watch it unfold so close, and so effectively.
It first wraps a hand around the barrel of the weapon that the forward most man wields, dragging it and him into the ground. The metal doesn't just bend beneath the action so much as it snaps clean from the impact, alongside the agent's forearm. The beast's entire frame then leverages itself to shove back towards the second closest soldier, taking the first with it as a sort of hulking mass to take the three of them onto the ground.
Whatever happens within the pile of limbs and screaming voices through gas masks, is hard to distinguish in the dark, but it is unmistakable, the sound of bone breaking. The woman who had once been the front of FEMA's pack, now the last one of them standing, tests her luck and fires of the stark flesh already spattered crimson by violent. She would have been better off running, as useless as the action would have been. It stops and shoulders the first few bullets that carve through it center-mass. The gun has jammed. Still, there is no sound from the haunting entity of humanity's mockery. Not as it stands from the gore, not as it approaches the woman, and not even as it pulls the weapon out of her trembling hands and sends it careening out to the darkness.
He strikes like the snapping jaws of a dog which had been poked through the fence one too many times, hand grasping beneath the mask, and one swift motion removing her head entirely. It stands remarkably still after that.
Normally, there would be a feast due for the violence it inflicted, a gorging self gratifying result of what it had been designed to do. Only there had been nothing normal about it from the moment that the thing had been created, and the circumstances are quite different, aren't they? It states down at the child as if contemplating ending her the same way it had just slaughtered the agents.
Slowly, the thing draws a breath, and then releases it as a sigh.
"Wellllllll, look at this. What a situation we find ourselves in," it speaks finally, but it isn't talking to her. The gore stained thing half turns to look at the hermit outside his place of safety, its smile plainly seen even in the darkness, even while stained red.
It is easy to hear about the carnage on the television or hear the screams through the radio. It's far away, you could reason with yourself. Those are distant voices from distant men, with distant problems. You have your own problems to deal with, very real and very dangerous problems that demand your attention. Empathy only stretched so far, for attempting to reach miles across the earth would cause something to break - you or your empathy. As the agent spun around and the pack of anonymous, yellow-suited entities followed, the homeowner found that his mind was surprisingly blank. There was only a goal in mind and the outcome had not yet been decided upon in his dead. Courage or stupidity, he could never say. The girl's wailing had rose into a scream as the gunshot, but her cries had simmered into a uneven whimpers. Time was at a standstill as the homeowner and the agents stood with their weapons trained on each other, neither of which willing to be the first to pull the trigger. No one wanted to die tonight.
He hadn't even time to blink by time the closest agent was screaming. Weapon shattered and body to follow, the homeowner's single-minded mission had been terribly, horribly interrupted. He almost seems to grow exceedingly aware of the situation as he feels the dry heat sinking into his skin, the dust coating his clothes and clinging to the sweat on his face. He can't tell who is screaming in the mix and even he was able to differentiate the voices, he only cared about those that mattered to him. He's at a standstill, frozen in place as time now rapidly catches up to him. It's a bloodbath he is thankful he can barely see in the dim light, a massacre he is once again powerless to stop. He opens his mouth to call out, but no sound finds its way into the air. The words die on his tongue as the night is filled with the sounds of snapping bone and wet meat. Screams that fade into dying gurgles as throats fill with blood.
"Get away from her."
He finds his voice as the thing speaks, though he knows his is nothing but a bluff. Bullets did nothing to him and what would a single shotgun matter now? It didn't matter to him, but the thing hadn't immediately begun to finish off the remaining survivors. The girl's breath catches in her throat as she stares up, wide-eyed at the monster before her. Her face is wet with trails of tears that cut through the dirt on her face. She's frozen solid, terror gripping her heart. She's a frightened rabbit, cortisol and adrenaline. The cashier girl awkwardly shuffles backwards, the world whirling around her. She had looked death in the face, embraced her, and now she was gazing at her future. She knows, sickeningly, that she is safe.
The reaction is genuine enough that the agent doesn't suppose that it is the truth, but what is and isn't true does not exactly concern them. As a greater entity, FEMA was looking for a way to stop the spread, sure, but individually most of them couldn't give less of a shit. They only wanted their own survival above all else.
"I did not say it is what I believe," he starts off while shifting his mask just enough to eye the others on their way towards the exit. "And I definitely did not say that it needs you. Maybe it is fun. The thing is fucked, I don't want to even try and guess what drives it to do this shit."
The air of professionalism had already been hanging by a thread, and the homeowner's outburst severed it nice and clean. None of it mattered. They are not being documented, not in any credible way. They could shoot the man where he stands and take everyone else, if the desire arose. Excuses were plentiful.
"We are not here to bargain with you," comes the reply as the agent takes the moment of distraction to pull his rifle forward. The barrel pokes into the hermit's ribs slightly as a warning.
"Maybe you should find yourself lucky we don't take everyone and leave you here for that thing, all alone. Would it even leave anything for us to find?" There isn't any amusement in the man's voice, just the quiet truth of it all; he has no power here, in his own home. The other members of FEMA move on undisturbed by both the conversation and the sight of what is going on, and when they reach the door, the woman sends a glance out the peephole before pulling it open.
His hands go up immediately, palms towards the agent and fingers splayed in a motion of submission. The instinctual fear all humans had at the idea of a sudden death. He glares at him regardless, breath uneven as he stares at the black lenses of the mask. He resists the urge to ball a hand into a fist and break the mask with his own hands. Force the agent to look at him with unshielded eyes. The hermit doesn't move, however. He does not speak. He knows attempting anything further would result in a bullet passing through his abdomen, if not someplace else altogether. Either way, he'd probably bleed out before he could get anyone to help. He couldn't go to a hospital. He hadn't seen a doctor, yet. He continues to stare at the agent without another word until he's backed off and after his fellow agent stealing away the neighbor's kid. It's only when FEMA had fully left his house did he lower his hands to his side. It's another minute before he looks out the door, his hands shaking his rage as he looks at their retreating forms.
You're a coward. You're pathetic. You're selfish. You're just like you're father. You're just like your father.
The girl suddenly begins to wail, as if she's incapable of holding herself back any longer. She sobs, terrified and alone. He had tried to lie to her in the past. Anyone they took is okay. They're being looked over by a lot more people. Better people. They have everything they could ever want. She humored him, he knew. She'd accept the lie if only because she didn't want to accept anything else. It's hard to cover your eyes and shut your eyes when the beast has its jaws around your throat.
The door is slammed open and his feet thud heavily against ash and dust. He feels like he's running through sand, his feet slipping as he sprints towards the agents. He was moving before he realized it again. He realizes his gun is in his hands. He feels the familiar weight, finger on the trigger. His heart is pounding in his ears, he can barely hear the girl crying. He raises his shotgun and has just enough awareness to aim away from the girl, enough that the pellet spray wouldn't hurt her. He pulls the trigger.
He doesn't care if he hits anyone. He already was a murderer. Everyone was, now. Whether they had blood on their hands or condoned it, stood by and watched. Everyone had a stained soul, now. Dimly, the homeowner is aware he had sealed his own fate. He willingly ran into the arms of Death and invited her embrace. FEMA won't let him live, now.
But maybe she will. He could die knowing he did more than his father ever did.
There seems to be no outward offense to the hostile response. Most people reacted this way, to them, fighting against the idea of the unknown coming into their homes. Others displayed obvious fear or proud respect, but most were angry.
"We want to stop them, not ask them why they like one person over another. . . There is concern that you have made a deal with the thing; it keeps you alive and you invite people for it to eat." The agent shrugs. From an outside perspective it isn't beyond reasonably doubt that the hermit was only still around because the thing had bargained with him. No one else survived it.
The others come out from the kitchen and the woman holds the child's hand in her own, gently guiding his neighbor's daughter through the hall. Meanwhile, that other suit walks the short distance to the closet, pushing it open and peering down to the woman shoved into the dark corner of it. She's been through a lot.
Her frantic outburst on their last visit was cause for concern, apparently. Why fear FEMA if they are human? A human would pass their tests and be sent back out, if the word of the agency was anything to be trusted.
"What the fuck?"
The expression on his face was one of utter disbelief. It's enough to fully garner his attention as he whips his head back around to face the agent, his mouth held slightly open and his eyebrows knitted together in a mixture of both confusion and disgust. Logically, someone might think that. Why else would he be haunted, but not seemingly hunted, by an otherworldly creature that never seemed to harm him? He didn't care for logic, though. He never heard anything stupider in his entire life.
"You're insane. You've seen how that thing is. You think it needs me to trap people for it?"
It slaughtered an entire grouping of FEMA soldiers. It didn't need anyone's assistance when it came to securing the kill. Just like the cashier girl in the closet. She could be like him, couldn't she? Instead as the door opens, she merely stares up at the agent with hollow, distant eyes. It was only a matter of time. Death comes for them all.
When the agent once in the kitchen exits the kitchen, however, the conversation is interrupted as the hermit's eyes land upon the little girl that had been hiding in her house. His stomach lurches and he was overcome with a wave of nausea that almost causes him to lose his balance.
"What at you doing with her? You can't take her. Take someone else."
The two agents at the door step inside without further interrogation, and once across the threshold the door is again put into place. Wordlessly the second agent moves further into the home and seems to have more than an aimless goal. Their last visit had yielded a mention of a file pertaining to this man and his home. Evident easily in how the FEMA goon doesn't pause at any of the doors they come across before arriving at the kitchen.
They push the door open and step into the space unbidden, and a woman's voice comes from the same direction. There was no denying the intention behind having a female figure to claim the child from the home.
"We have noticed less foot traffic out here," the man besides the homeowner says. So, the question of people in the home had been a test, to see if he was a liar. Another game. "That thing hangs out around here, a lot, too. Why is that?"
The hermit does not move from his spot near the door, watching as the agents enter into his home and track in dirt and dust. He glowers at them as they push towards the kitchen, watching their forms disappearing down the hall and through the door. He listens to the voices, a flare of sudden anxiety knotting in his stomach. What are they doing? Who are they taking? He does not turn his head back towards the agent questioning him, his words barely heard as the homeowner focuses wholly on the kitchen. He doesn't even answer for a time, his mouth opening as if there are words to speak but nothing but silence answers. Eventually, some part of his brain realizes he needed to speak. He only glances at the agent before returning his eyes back towards the kitchen. There's no screaming, no sounds of the kitchen being destroyed and thrown into disarray. He hopes, he hopes, that means they'll be moving on.
"How should I know?" He snaps back, another brief glance given to the agent.
"People aren't coming here because of that thing. Word travels. Don't you listen to the radio? Everyone knows that thing stays around here."
He's not lying. There have been reports from survivors attempting to find shelter. They warn of the trouble near the 'hermit's house'. They mention its still shelter, still, if someone could manage to make it to the front door.
"Why are you asking me why it stays around here, though? Isn't it your job to figure out how Visitors work?"
