Just like with writing, on my main blog, I've finally gotten my emotional/creative energy for sculpting back! And that means I already have way too many WIPs piling up on my plate, but I promise I'll try to be more consistent with my plans than I was last year.
Technically, this year's sculpting escapades got started with my IHNMAIMS sculpture, but now I'm briefly returning to an old series that started up back when I still believed in Instagram. (Might try it again sometime, who knows?)
While I plan to make random Spookie Jars in the future, the series really got started with me just making presents for irl friends, planning out the surprise by simply asking for their favorite animals and favorite colors.
And, ever since the success of a special Iron Lung project between myself and a few of my friends here on this site, I'm dedicating these newest pieces to each of them!
(Apologies for A. if the camera quality is awful, and B. the fact that SYMMETRICAL TRAITS CONTINUE TO BE THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE.)
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First off, a big ol' grizzly bear for @insane4fandoms ! (I'm sure this being their favorite animal has absolutely nothing to do with a certain chainsaw maniac who wouldn't be caught dead without a certain mascot suit...)
It took longer than expected for me to nail the shape of the muzzle/snout and the nose. I know an easy way to go about it is to look at those features in dogs, but hey, this was my first time sculpting a bear in any case. (Plus, that struggle was a damn cakewalk compared to all the paint mixing I did to get a shade I was satisfied with, both for the fur and the eyes. Although I'm happy that the latter turned out with a color kinda like honey.)
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Second off: a cheetah for @inkbedou !
In our conversation about their favorite animal, they mentioned a few different big cats, but ultimately told me that cheetahs were their top choice. And I'm sure they meant a typical cheetah (no offense to them, they're awesome), somewhere along the way, I decided to give them an upgrade and make this into a King cheetah!
King cheetahs are the product of a genetic mutation that gives them three distinct stripes running down their backs and a pattern of large, irregular splotches instead of small, uniform spots. (Oh, and by the way, this particular mutation is considered one of the rarest of any species on Earth. To the point that there are less than ten King cheetahs estimated to be in the wild, with only a few more occasionally popping up in sanctuaries/conservation projects!)
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Third off: a rabbit for @the-matpat-ever !
This is easily the smallest jar/head-lid I've made so far, surpassing the Honduran white bat I made a couple years ago. (As I've mentioned before, I always try to be somewhat realistic to the sizes of the animals I reference. GOD HELP ME IF I EVER MAKE AN ELEPHANT JAR.) My initial assessment of the head was that it looked like a pug with stretched-out ears, but then again, I've never understood how anyone can see pugs as ugly.
The look really came together once I finally settled on a color-scheme. There's a ton of different coloration in both domestic and wild rabbits, so I had a hard time making a final decision, but I eventually went with sable rabbits, since I love how they kinda look like Siamese cats that were squished into bunny-shape.
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And just because I'm letting myself be cheesy(?) for once, I brought in my hyena jar and the tiger jar I made for @sammys-magical-au :
Consider this a stand-in for an actual group photo, lol. (Especially since all cameras seem to have a vendetta against my face in particular.)
(Disclaimer: none of the characters or concepts here belong to me. The IRON LUNG universe was originally created by David Szymanksi, and the movie adaptation was created by him, Mark Fischbach, Amy Nelson, and many others. The same goes for the characters of Simon and Ava, although I think Simon technically fits into the Markiplier Cinematic Universe.)
(Trigger Warnings: HUGE amounts of blood/gore, body horror/grotesque shapeshifting, descriptions of parasitic behavior, descriptions of death/dying, descriptions of drowning, claustrophobia, mentions of rebirth/reincarnation, slight mentions of religious fanaticism, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)
“YOU CAN’T SEE THROUGH BLOOD!”
That was one of the last things Ava said to him while he was still above the surface.
That would only apply to humans, though. Or anything born on Earth, for that matter.
There was no light down here, nothing filtering through the blood from somewhere up above.
And yet…Simon could still see.
Somehow, for the first time in the longest days of his entire life, he could finally see without any help from that fucking cancer-camera.
The crimson all around him was hazy as hell, but he could still see shapes within it.
They were blurry at first, like the clouds of murk stirred up by the explosion. But as the minutes crawled by, those shapes got sharper, clearer.
He saw towering, jagged spires that dug into the fleshy carpet below. There were gaps in between them here and there—marred skin with desperate, stubborn strands clinging on. The longer he looked, however, the more of them he could fit in his vision.
There were at least three rows protruding both above and below. A precious few of the upper ones merely hovered over the ground, suspended in the still-churning fluid, although they’d probably sink under the weight sooner or later.
The same might’ve gone for the lower ones—if they’d ever grown to align themselves and slide into the gaps above like interlocked fingers, or any other type of macabre puzzle. If they’d grown like that, then a fair number of them would probably be stabbing up and out through the monster’s visage. Maybe a lucky couple would’ve impaled one of its eyes from the inside-out, if not skewered its brain to really make it stay down.
Instead, there had just been far too many of them for the monster to have ever properly closed its mouth in the first place.
And now, the flesh of one corner had been split into a gash that ran all the way to the gills on that side, letting more and more blood pour out in thick clouds with a chorus of deep, sickening gurgles Almost like a bathtub being drained.
Either way, those teeth were still encircling him. He was still lying behind the most prominent ones. Hell, even the shorter ones (as in, the ones that were only a bit longer than he was tall) that lurked in the innermost row were so close to him now, like flowers and fungi sprouting in a circle as their lower systems slowly fed on the decaying roots of a felled tree.
How ironic; if there had been any light streaming through, then the teeth would’ve been casting shadows over him right now. Sure, those shadows would’ve formed a pattern much more uneven than the typical bars of steel or iron, but…
In a different scenario, he might’ve felt satisfaction.
After all, he was gazing at the torn, frothing gums of his tormentor, at the ridged, cavernous roof of its maw. And while it took some straining, he could make out scraps of rusted metal jutting out from a few spots in that flesh, coaxing out clouds both oily and misty to swirl through the rest of the gore.
His very last act had been wading through blood to stab at the console, fighting against invading alien sinew to bludgeon the engine. He’d dedicated his final moments to literally nuking his own prison, all to try and send some shrapnel straight into the monster’s face, into its brain, into the sulfurous eyes that had stared at him, taunted him from the other side of all that welded rust.
Of course, if that had failed, he’d settle for some scraps getting lodged in the abomination’s gums. Because that would’ve hurt like an absolute bitch, and that specific type of schadenfreude would’ve made him feel a bit better about some things.
Except for the fact that he couldn’t really feel better about anything anymore.
Because he was dead.
All but one tiny part of him, at least. And he didn’t understand how. Didn’t understand why.
It was bit poetic, honestly. An extremely fucked-up, infuriating type of poetry.
There was nothing left for anyone to truly understand.
The Quiet Rapture had made sure of that.
Some of his ribs were in a state similar to the jagged, splintery remains of his left humerus. They’d all pulled away from his sternum, now spreading like a Venus flytrap from the fresh cavity that had been ripped out of his torso by sheer force.
Just beneath them, his intestines were actively unspooling from his abdomen, weaving through the blood like a harem of concussed eels. And, if one were to look closely through that particular part of the mess, they’d glimpse what was left of his broken spine, which almost seemed to be twitching like some kind of stumpy tail. (The fact that both of his legs were, to be frank, missing in action, only highlighted this.)
There was no ringing in his ears—not that there was much left of his ears at all—but he could still hear as much as see right now.
Throughout the mission, he’d had to listen to the blood rushing inside his head. And even now, he was still listening to that; the only difference was the lack of a hammering pulse.
And it was so, so much louder now. It may have been muffled, but it was everywhere.
It followed a deep, stirring, churning rhythm. It thudded and murmured in-time with how his corpse drifted along the floor, with how the monster’s jaw wavered and its teeth ever-so-slightly quivered in place.
As deafening as that chorus was, though, another sound was buried inside of it. This one had a reedy, crackling edge to it, like thin branches swaying in a breeze.
As Simon listened to it, he caught more movement around him. And not just from the blood as it shivered from the waves all the way up there…
A small tremor moved through the tissue beneath his corpse. His head lolled to the side, like he was just stirring in his sleep.
A cluster of long, hair-thin tendrils was etching its way up his mutilated shoulder, across his neck, reaching up to trace the boils and blisters that marred the skin of his face. As if on cue, a larger mass began to crawl out from under his torso.
They were slow at first, but they picked up speed with every second, leaving fractal patterns in their wake as they spiraled all throughout the monster’s mouth and down into the abyss of its throat. Some of them coiled about the teeth like strangler vines, while their offshoots busied themselves with burrowing into the bases of the gums.
Even without his heart pumping, even with the numbness that surrounded him, Simon still felt terror. A pit opened up in his mind, bottomless enough to rival any trenches or caves in this entire ocean.
The monster was as broken as he was, but it wasn’t fully dead.
How could it be fully dead?
If it could fill the submarine with screaming voices—both phantoms to slither along his brain and real enough to bounce off the metal and crack the glass—if it could learn his name without ever possibly knowing him, if it could call itself God…then of course it wouldn’t just die by any natural means.
Even if he’d inflicted as much real damage on it as possible, how could one single human spell out the end for an abomination like this?
It had to be what was keeping him aware now.
It still wanted to see surrender in its toy.
And unlike earlier, there was nothing Simon could do about it.
Not a single. Fucking. Thing.
There was more movement. This time, enough to make the monster’s entire maw ripple. Enough to, in turn, lift Simon off the soft, fleshy floor for a few long seconds.
His corpse had barely sank back down when another tremor wracked his surroundings, accompanied by horrific sounds of slippery-sopping and groaning and snapping and cracking. As though someone was trying to pull a body out of a vat of still-setting cement, only to rip off one of its limbs by accident.
Invisible hands played with Simon's corpse, tossing him to and fro, his guts streaming around him as he floated, but those tendrils were still keeping him anchored to the growing mass.
Gazing up through the monster’s broken jaw, he saw a shadowy silhouette dart by on the other side. So fast that at first he was sure his vision was finally failing, that the last determined kernel of him was snuffing itself out.
But then another shape swept along.
And another…and another…and another…
Layers of foam and bubbles danced around the carnage; then, as if on-cue, that gash was ripped even wider, forcing the upper half of the maw to drift a bit higher.
Wide enough to let in the ocean’s current —as well as one of those shapes. It struggled for a moment, stirring up even more gory clouds. Its heaving sides bashed at the monster’s teeth, leaving some cracked while others snapped apart, scattering through the blood, crumbling bits trailing behind like shooting stars.
But soon enough, it writhed its way inside.
Fear briefly transitioned into shock.
Far in the back of his mind, Simon had known that there had to be more life down here aside from the monster he’d fought. He’d discovered a skeleton during the first descent, hadn’t he?
Still, that didn’t mean he had any idea of what to expect of that other life.
This new creature was tiny compared to the monster, but it was still at least three times his size. It was also only marginally less of a horror-show.
The fish’s jaw was wide and disproportionate, the lower half stretching just about too far to properly fit on its face, looking more like a chasm that had been dug out from flesh. The way its maw gaped open left both sides to converge in a summit, giving the upper half the shape of a crude arch, as though it were the victim of a perpetual stroke.
The top-portion of the fish’s head boasted a prominent brow-ridge that dipped low enough to almost meet that arch, just a couple inches away from splitting the entire face in half. Either side of the brow flared up and out into a pair of odd, sloping crests.
And at the center of those crests…eyes.
Bulbous, rolling eyes that distended from their sockets like those of a frog, more or less threatening to burst at any given moment. (And yet, they still managed to look a bit beady in proportion to the rest of this monster.) Each one was pitch-black. Dark enough to beam through the crimson haze all around it, assisted by a pair of pale pupils that seemed to be shaking in place.
They stood out like pearls trapped in a clot of oil…or like twin stars being swallowed up by a black hole.
The fish waded about the monster’s mouth, propelled by a wide, vertical tail-fin, along with a pair at its sides, the webbed membrane of all looking tattered and distorted. Although its midsection was bulky—Simon supposed it had to be, if it wanted to support the mass that was concentrated on its head—its movement was quick and somewhat graceful. The mass was shrouded by fleshy scales and topped off by rows of long, arching gills that flared in and out.
The fish circled over Simon, its eyes suddenly looking a bit more focused than before.
Simon’s instincts, sharpened by all those years trapped in Eden, helped him to know without knowing.
This fish hadn’t been expecting to find something like him down here; it was just as surprised as he was.
And now it was studying him.
Contemplating whether or not his broken body would be worth any extra effort…
Its circles were getting smaller and smaller.
Closer.
Simon could now see further into its mouth. He saw at least four rows of jagged, needle-like teeth. They were all crammed along its gums like sardines, as well as all long enough to stab through the roof of its mouth and right into the base of its brain if it moved its lower jaw too much.
He could see how its skin wasn’t actually scaly at all; it was a mess of boils and blisters that glistened even without light.
Its eyes bore into him—they alone seemed to send down waves of foreign pressure upon him, pushing at his head, his chest, his organs, all the way down to what was left of his spine.
Like it was trying to push him deeper into the fleshy carpet; trying to bury him in it.
Was that another way this planet worked?
Could it just…feed itself?
Were the creatures down here all connected to the ocean? Whenever this world of gore accepted something into itself, let something melt and decompose and join it like fertile soil…did those nutrients reach the other things that were still able to swim?
The fish lunged, a blur of movement as it surged down toward Simon.
Simon couldn’t flinch, couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t scream. Maybe this was just the grand finale of his punishment.
Within less than a second, the fish was the only thing he could fit in his vision. It was close enough for its underbelly to scrape against his corpse, bending his ribs and pinning his intestines down.
And yet…there were no teeth closing around him, piercing his head or his neck. He wasn’t being crammed into clammy darkness.
Instead, the fish’s mouth was just above him, greedily chewing at the soft tissue around the monster’s teeth. A few of the smaller fangs were dislodged, left to float off and out of sight as strips of flesh were ripped out and slurped up.
The fish worked its way along, shredded bits and pieces spinning around its head. Slowly but surely, it moved away from Simon, swimming closer to the back of the monster’s throat. Maybe it was planning to tear a path all the way down to the monster’s core and get the honor of being the first to scavenge at whatever horrific excuse for a heart was down there.
But if that was the case, apparently the first hadn’t thought every detail through.
Because sooner or later, one of those tendrils lashed out, a whip-thin end curling about its lower jaw.
The fish reeled back with a deep, keening groan. More tendrils snaked toward it, aiming for its tail and fins, hoping to pry between the blisters.
But, but some miracle, they didn’t move fast enough.
The fish swung its head from side to side, tearing the first tendril away from its maw. It then turned tail, surging away from that organic abyss.
Right back over to Simon.
It ducked its head at just the perfect fucking angle to crash into his body on the way back up.
Simon’s world was a blur as he was thrashed, feeling the slick texture of those blisters along his intestines, around his remaining arm. His hand twitched, then flexed and clamped on tight, crushing a few warm boils between his cold fingers.
(He wished he could retch as much as he wished to scream.)
All at once, there was a new feeling in his core.
Earlier, a little while after his corpse had settled among the wreckage, a feeling of cold had started etching its way about his chest cavity. A dark, oppressive type of cold with edges that might have been jagged if they weren’t coated with putrid slime.
That cold had been attempting to trek up his neck, hoping to reach the summit of his brain…but now, there was something else.
Something raw that was tangled up around Simon’s lungs and heart.
Something sinuous and dry, going taut like sturdy rope along those organs, forcing them out of their stillness with quick twitches and shudders.
And now it was starting to throb, radiating a white-hot energy that forced the cold to retreat.
The fish, in its panic, didn’t seem to notice how Simon had caught against it. It tried to keep swimming, lifting Simon’s body up and up—
The rope turned to razor-wire, ebbing and flaring and searing with agony in response to the tugging.
In near-perfect unison, all the winding tendrils around the monster’s maw shook and quivered.
The line may have nestled a good portion of itself in Simon’s chest, but its rest still went further. Its main source was outside of him, and it didn’t want to let him go.
But the fish had no reason to care for that. It had its own ideas, chief among them to get away from the coiling, still-advancing mass. So, it kept pulling, kept thrashing, getting closer and closer to the gash it’d entered through.
The next few seconds felt like an hour as the line grew thinner, more frayed. It was pulling, spinning in place, trying to yank Simon back down.
Finally, amongst the organic drumbeat and all the churning and gouging and tearing, more pressure gathered at the back of his mind.
He heard a loud, rough, sickening SSSNA-A-AP!
After that, the current of gore was rushing around him at full force; his head and remaining arm snapped back as the sheer viscous weight slammed against him. His intestines swung out, stroking along the waves like a whip being cracked.
And yet, he wasn’t sent flying, wasn’t left to float back down…
Before he knew it, he was looking down at the monster’s broken jaw.
From the outside.
He was looking down at the rest of its serpentine mass, at the arms and legs that slowly started jutting out from its pale flesh further along its length…limbs that were far too small and far too human to belong to an abomination like this.
He was looking down at the monster’s face, along with the outline of skulls trapped in a thin shroud of that horrific skin.
He was looking down at a plethora of other huge, maladjusted, nightmarish creatures as they swarmed around the monster, ripping at its flesh like pigs at a trough, snapping up those limbs along the way.
With how frenzied they all were, it was impossible to tell whether or not they knew that those mismatched limbs made the monster such a special treat…
Simon’s knuckles cracked. His digits were still half-buried in alien flesh, locked into a vice-grip that would’ve once sent cramps and aches throughout Simon’s wrist.
The fish certainly felt that clawing pressure, judging by the way it bobbed its head and thrashed its tail as it swam in a wide arch around the monster.
Even if Simon had been caught in its blindspot, it was obviously growing aware of the bundle of foreign weight sprawled on its back.
But no matter how hard it tried to shake him off, no matter how impossible it was for his corpse to stay in place like this…it just couldn’t dislodge him.
(Its efforts grew aggravating pretty fast, as Simon wasn’t too thrilled to be part of whatever was happening, either.)
After a while, the fish seemed to give up. Its movements grew steadier, and it glided further and further away from the monster. Maybe it was planning to come back sometime later, when the feeding frenzy died down a bit.
After all, Simon’s weight, no matter how annoying, wasn’t exactly back-breaking to a creature of its size. Along with that, Simon wasn’t obscuring its mouth or fins, so it wasn’t like he could disrupt any future hunting…
But Simon couldn’t think about what that meant.
He couldn’t take any time to rage; if he wasn’t being allowed to rest, to feel darkness wash over his eyes and pull that one, crucial part of him into a deep, silent cradle, then he should’ve at least been allowed to scream.
Whatever sadistic, abominable god was watching him right now—if it was so damn determined to keep him from just dying the way he was supposed to, then it should’ve been his fucking right to scream about it.
But no; his lungs strained with the weight of all the alien blood they were being forced to hold, and even though he’d been able to think and watch with a blood-clogged misshapen brain, apparently screaming was content to dangle just out of his reach.
Still, he couldn’t focus on that. Not right now, at least.
Right now, all he could wrap his living-dead mind around was the fact that he could still feel that searing, pulsing wire.
He could feel the part of that line that was left broken—he could feel those jagged ends of it as they slowly twitched and murmured.
The uprooting had been so violent, and it was struggling after going through such a vicious change.
However, it was recovering, too.
Simon’s instincts sang and shrieked and boiled and soared about that.
The tendril in his chest, distorted as it was, was capable of healing. It would repair itself. It would find a way to keep going.
Whatever purpose it was meant to carry out, Simon was now part of it.
It wasn’t through with him yet.
Not by a fucking long-shot.
___
Time passed—whether that was in the form of hours or days was up for debate.
The monster’s corpse had long-since vanished into the red haze as the fish swam further, swam higher.
Simon had still been aware and watching all the way, and he hadn’t witnessed any pause in that stride. Sometimes the fish slowed down, maybe hovered for a few moments, but it never truly stopped moving.
That probably meant it didn’t need to sleep—instead, it could survive just by resting certain parts of its brain, aided by some mechanism that kept its muscles moving no matter what.
But that didn’t help Simon keep track of time, and even if it could, he wouldn’t have bothered.
There had been little point keeping track above the surface, or on the space-stations that fell under organizations like C.O.I and Eden.
Ghostlight wasn’t enough to support a concept such as time.
Before The Quiet Rapture, so many stars had gone further beyond. They’d evolved, growing bigger and brighter, burning and beaming within the embrace of all their smaller, twinkling cousins. They’d become ripe for various planets to orbit around, millions of years before communities came along and made those planets habitable. Perhaps that was why those planets vanished along with their suns.
Simon had been raised on Mars, but he hadn’t been born there. That didn’t mean he’d been born on Earth, though; his mother had never liked talking about that, despite all she’d done to teach him about the old, decaying planet that had apparently once been blue.
Among those lessons were the fact that a day on Mars was shockingly similar to a day on Earth; only about forty minutes longer.
On the other hand, a single day-night cycle on a barren moon could be compared to about an entire month on Earth or Mars.
Of course, without any suns or stars, the meaning behind that knowledge had gone right out the fucking window, hadn’t it?
Simon felt the fish lean forward, ever-so-slightly slowing down. In the distance, pale shapes began blooming out of the red murk in the distance.
The fish kept swimming, getting closer and closer to those shapes. And soon enough, it was passing through the gaps between them. That gave Simon more than enough time to truly recognize those shapes…the way some of the curved in gentle, deliberate arches…the way their ivory shade was so obvious despite however long they’d sat being soaked with millions of gallons of gore…
He thought about the very first time he’d used that camera in the submarine. The horrific sight of that enormous skeleton as it jeered at him from the screen.
That carcass must’ve been somewhat fresh—its bones had still been connected to one another, the ligaments between hanging on by stubborn strands.
These bones were scattered all about the congealed carpet. They’d been resting in this makeshift canyon for a long, long time.
Long enough for the larger ones, the ones with wide, nearly flat shapes to form strange shelves and walls.
Long enough for the more slender ones to create an imposing barrier .
Long enough for all of them to now boast patterns of weathered spots and pits; some fractures went deep enough to reveal the spongy mass of marrow inside.
The fish kept swimming, and the reef keep growing as it passed by.
The sheer number of creature that had died to form such a staggering tomb like this…
Enforced prayers and lessons trickled through Simon’s head.
Gardens require decay as much as they require water. We have what they need.
The Tree is calling out to us. It can taste the water in our skin, the salt in our blood.
In the years before this rapture, The Grove has done nothing but keep us fed. Now, it’s only fair that we start returning the favor.
It has been so patient for so long. How dare anyone try to make it wait any longer?
Death is the greatest gift we can give—our bodies will aid in the new growth for the new world.
We’ll be gone, and yet we’ll remain.
We’ll contribute to so much new, beautiful life…
Sharp threads were slithering beneath the skin of Simon’s face.
He recognized this feeling. He’d experienced it before—right when the flood of the submarine had reached his neck, right before the explosion. He’d felt his left cheek swell before something solid and sharp slid out along his jaw.
But back then, it had felt cold, somehow slimy and dry and brittle all at once.
Right now, the feeling was…not pleasant, but it was warmer, softer.
The tendril inside him had been progressing, just as he feared it would, but it seemed to be…pacing itself. More content to work with him.
Sure enough, the skin adorning his right cheek contorted, stretching and being pushed from the inside.
After a moment or two, the skin had grown thin enough to break.
A long fang broke through, gleaming and curved and razor-sharp at the tip.
More new teeth sprouted out in a line behind it, somewhat shorter, but no less deadly.
Another set broke free beneath them, along his lower jaw.
His lips tore themselves apart to make way for more teeth that erupted below his nose and above his chin.
Simon gnawed at nothing, his mouth gaping open and closed to try and chase the stinging sensation out. He didn’t even register the loose, pulpy feeling that was spreading throughout the inside
As the discomfort finally started to fade, something slid out of his mouth.
It was tiny and white, boasting the vague shape of a chisel.
As Simon stared, he felt more little shapes rattling about his tongue, as though he’d tried to literally gargle a handful of gravel. He felt raw, jagged holes lining his gums.
He lowered his head, letting his former teeth spill out, some of them slipping between his new fangs.
He watched as the pearls sank, tumbling over one another. They reminded him of his mother’s stories about Earth—about something she’d called hail.
It didn’t take long for the teeth to vanish. But not by being swallowed up by all the crimson; no, when they sank, they blended right in with the array of bones down below. The newest additions to this reef.
Simon wondered if they would take root wherever they landed…
___
Intestines were meant to be a single, continuous system. The small one always formed with so many twists and bends, always looked like a plethora of different sections all crammed in together, but it was only one long piece made even longer once it led to the large one.
Intestines were supposed to be just that: a simple, two-part cord.
They weren’t supposed to be many.
And yet…
Simon was lucky pain felt so dull and light now. Not just because the fact that his neck would’ve broken in half, leaving jagged edges to shear though skin and severe his head, from how long he’d been staring down.
His guts were moving, but it wasn’t just because of the current anymore.
They weren’t waving.
They were writhing.
Like a horde of snakes getting tangled up during hibernation only to snap their spines as they woke.
More of those thin, gleaming tendrils were slithering throughout the mass. They had all but braided themselves along the muscles, embedded themselves within that thick tissue no matter how much it quivered and rippled.
And now, right under Simon’s watchful gaze, all the twists and bends and rounded corners were stretching apart.
They were tearing away from another, allowing only short, small trails of misty blood to seep out before the fresh wounds sealed themselves shut. The braided tendrils assisted the movement, soon winding out along the sides in a vaguely branching pattern.
It wasn’t a fast process; it took several minutes for the entrails to separate, to form a new group of sinuous appendages that flicked and darted from his abdomen like demonic result of boiling tongues being poured over the roots of a tree and left to congeal along the bark.
At first, the newborn stalks whipped around wildly, as though the smooth peak of each one were simply veils that were about to roll back and reveal eyes that would immediately burn and sting from the salt and the blood all around them.
The longer Simon stared, though, the calmer those movements grew.
Now, they were flexing and twisting rather gently.
Simon, unsure of what else he was supposed to do, sent a specific signal to one of them.
Right on cue, that one curled in his direction, reaching over to brush at his chest cavity, then recoiled when he shuddered at the clammy sensation that felt almost ticklish in an extremely disgusting way.
Simon just barely felt one of his eyes twitch.
And yet, the tendrils—or whatever the fuck was working behind the tendrils—still wasn’t quite satisfied just yet.
One by one, the newborn polyps shuddered; small ripples rolled over their smooth stubs from the inside, coaxing them into splitting in half, leaving short, hinged lobes in their place. Almost like buds opening up into a blossoms once they received enough heat and sunlight.
Just as before, Simon had to test this.
And just as before, the hinges opened and shut on his silent command.
However, it seemed the process still wasn’t over, but this time, the process apparently wasn’t content to wait for Simon to experiment. What happened next…somewhere deep in the back of his mind, as well as the pit that was once his stomach, Simon knew why it had to happen. But he just still didn’t have much time to articulate it himself.
The polyps all glided downward, each one angled to strike a different area.
Like a well-oiled machine, they spread out.
One pair tangled themselves a little ways behind Simon, starting around the base of the fish’s tail and only stopping right before the fin.
Another pair, meanwhile, busied themselves coiling along the fish’s underbelly.
The last pair reached a bit further forward to burrow their ends into the fish’s gills.
Once they were all in position, Simon felt them all their hinges clamp on, burrowing into the softness and warmth and pulsing.
More misty trails swirled through the blood, twisting like veils as the fish squirmed.
It let out a sharp groan of pain, thrashing its tail and angling its head to try and bite at its bindings. But that only encouraged said binding to grow tighter, to dig even deeper.
Sooner or later, the fish stopped fighting.
It kept groaned and whinging, but it resumed swimming.
Resumed carrying its hanger-on.
Like it was SUPPOSED to…
Simon was sure it felt the next shift, despite he himself having no idea it was coming. It was just as slow as the birth of his new appendages, but soon enough, he was bracing himself for it, bit-by-bit, along the way.
One of the more hidden tendrils spun down his spine, leaving oily sparks and trails of jagged silk in its wake. It reached whatever had been left of his thoracic region—that damn stump that once served as a consolation prize in place of his legs—and began to trace over it again and again and again, helping it carve itself into a sharper form.
And once it was sharp enough, Simon felt it plunge into the fish’s flesh below him. He felt it sink deeper and deeper through that blistered skin until it reached a more internal layer.
Until it fused along something solid enough to form the ridge along the fish’s back.
And then, that tendril kept twisting along, acting as the thread to the ivory needle, only stopping to anchor itself once it found a nice, dark crevice somewhere in the fish’s own tangle of guts.
Simon raised his head and rolled his shoulders, relaxing as well as he could in a situation like this.
No sir, there was no doubt in his mind that the fish had felt all of that, on an even worse level than he had.
But by now, it seemed to know better than to kick up too much of a fuss about those feelings.
___
Simon had a new arm now.
A mass of dark tendrils—offshoots of that initial one that had gotten trapped in his chest—had spilled out from the torn flesh of his left shoulder, swallowing up the splintery remains of his humerus. They all moved as a unit, coiling around one another to form a shape that was mostly solid.
It was larger and longer than his original limb; much more flexible, too.
Around the area where his wrist would’ve been, a specific set of the tendrils remained loose, adorning the end with long, twisting digits.
Simon sent the signal, and they curled up like a closed fist.
They only flexed open once he let them.
He turned his new arm appendage to and fro. The tendrils all quivered and shifted like a mound of worms, but none of them fought his movement.
He glanced at his right arm. It was still whole, and yet it was barely recognizable.
The skin was swollen and loose; the muscles inside had been twitching with a constant rhythm, emphasizing how the outer tissue was just hanging onto them.
He wriggled his fingers—the nails had all but eroded away by now, leaving tips of more tendrils to peek out through mushy cuticles. They kept going, reeling out and stretching, creating gashes that ran down to the sagging flesh of his palm and encircled his wrist
With that, the skin tore free in nearly a whole, perfect piece. As though Simon had simply taken off a glove.
From there, the slits widened as they raced up his forearm, his shoulder, giving the coiled tendrils beneath more space to squirm and push and feel the blood that was everywhere.
Soon, more chunks of skin were sent flying, spinning and twisting through the blood, foaming around the edges.
Soon, Simon’s right arm matched his left.
But that wasn’t enough.
All the flesh that was still clinging to the rest of him…it was rotten. It felt so cold and clammy, so heavy. It felt like it was scratching and prickling at him from the inside.
If he was going to keep surviving—to embrace this second life, this new chance—then he couldn’t let anything weigh him down.
He had to adapt.
His instincts told him he was already almost done, that the biggest change was almost over.
Simon rolled his shoulders, arched his back, swayed from side to side. The movement loosened his old skin little-by-little, bit-by-bit, until more sections were sloughing off.
He felt his scalp splitting open, saw his face as it fluttered before him like a shredded mask.
The tendrils embedded in his deeper tissues helped. They pushed up and out, tearing wide strips away from his chest and back. Some of those sections didn’t detach. Instead, they crumpled into a quivering heap around his waist, but that wasn’t a problem. It didn’t feel too heavy, was no longer touching the stronger membranes that wrapped around his torso.
Simon had never felt so warm, so fresh.
He didn’t feel clean, and he knew he’d never feel clean ever again.
But he felt new.
The fish thrashed its tail, gills flaring against where his polyps had latched on.
Why the fuck was it still struggling? He’d allowed it to keep swimming and hunting for so long up until now. It could’ve swam over him back in the monster’s maw, but it hadn’t. He’d never wanted to attach to it, but he’d still been a helpless corpse at the time.
Now, he was making the best of his circumstances.
Almost there, he thought, clicking his teeth and feeling how the edges of his jaws had lengthened. Almost there, almost there…
Simon spread his new arms, letting them sink to his sides.His digits stretched along, soon curling about those arching crests at the top of the fish’s head. They slid lower and out of sight, catching along the blisters, well out of reach of the fish’s snapping teeth.
In no time at all, one of his digits brushed against something more slick and oily. Something spherical.
Simon only let himself hesitate for another few seconds.
Then, after grinding his fangs to brace himself, he burrowed his tendrils right into the fish’s eyes.
The fish let out a warbling roar, twisting and writhing in agony.
The eyes were made of firmer stuff than Simon was expecting, but he didn’t let up. He kept squeezing, his digits coiling tighter and tighter until the fleshy orbs finally burst in his clutch. As soon as more space opened up, Simon’s digits darted into the sockets, catching along the slick, bleeding sides, racing deeper and deeper.
It took a long few moments of groping around the skull, but Simon finally felt them slithering along a new type of flesh. One shrouded with ridges and grooves and lobes…
This hidden mass was still pulsing, and Simon had to keep it that way.
His host was no good to him if it died. It just needed a little push.
Simon guided his digits to slide into the thin, soft crevices.
Not stabbing—just carefully lacing.
It wasn’t a pretty process.
The fish kept on fighting for quite a goddamn while.
But eventually, its movement grew shakier, less certain, less solid.
You’re mine, Simon thought, narrowing his eyes, snapping his jaws. MINE. YOU’RE NOT GETTING RID OF ME.
Simon kept pressing at its brain, covering more and more ground, feeling out a suitable position for his digits to take root.
And once his hold was secure enough—
A spark flared along those buried tendrils, streaking up, up, up toward his chest.
A violent tremor shook through his skull, through his spine, and down through his ribs. It concentrated there, grasping at the exposed bones, prying them further open.
His lungs, his heavy, long-flooded lungs, shuffled in place, now bending and expanding. They leaned out of his chest—some part of them was still connected to the inside, but they needed so much more space now.
Simon threw his head back, and his lungs both burst, sending clouds of old, dark blood and foamy bubbles to swirl around him.
The flesh kept working, unraveling to shroud his ribs in a firm embrace. The edges curled like burning paper, like fresh blossoms, coaxing the rest of the torn length into a series of feathery, shivering rifts.
And Simon breathed.
The metallic pungency, the biting salt…
The blood came rushing into his system, but he was still breathing.
It scraped and snared along his brain, so much thicker and hotter than water.
But the newborn gills on his chest kept fluttering in-and-out, open-and-shut.
(Admittedly, I finished decorating a couple hours ago and then got caught up in some friend-stuff, but oh well.)
Like my last cake, I really just couldn't seem to get the frosting to be nice and smooth/flat. Then again, this type of pattern is very difficult to navigate certain tools along. Plus, I have to remember that I'm still practicing.
Roses aren't my official favorite flower, but they're still so lovely to look at. Yeah, I could've gone for a solid-colored rose, but I've always loved multi-colored ones; especially those with white around the base and a darker shade on the tips of their petals. (I've also loved this specific shade of purple/burgundy ever since I saw the painting scene in Arisocats when I was little, lol.)
(As usual, sorry if the camera quality is shit, I'm just in a bit of a rush at the moment.)
The first day the Iron Lung movie was announced, I told myself that I'd have an excuse to splurge. (And that excuse is valid, thank you very much, because this movie is extremely special for Mark's fandom.)
I did aforementioned splurging in a few different ways (gathering supplies to customize Fabian, making Iron-Lung-themed trinkets for friends, etc.), but the biggest example is the outfit I'll be wearing to the theater for tonight's showing.
Anyone who knows me know that I'm extremely self-conscious, so naturally I was quite hesitant to post any pictures online. However, like I said: this is a special time, and special times typically require you to step outside your comfort zone. Encouragement from friends, both irl and online, has also helped a lot. (Especially from one @sammys-magical-au . You'd better stick to your word and post your own damn pictures, lol)
(Also sorry if the camera quality is shit. I tried really hard, but maybe some elements just didn't process correctly.)
(The little dog at my feet is named Bocephus. He's not my pet; he belongs to an irl friend of mine who will one day be made a saint because he was patient enough to help me with the photos. Also he's here on the hellsite as @darkedeusvult48-blog so please be nice to him. And along the way, Bo wanted to be involved, and I just couldn't say no to that face. BASK IN HIS GLORY!)
Pretty much everything pictured (aside from my boots; those are a birthday gift from my dad a few years ago) came from a shop on Etsy:
The dress is from French Meadows.
The scarf/shawl is from OceanAvenueSilks.
The velvet choker ribbon is from ImagizeYourWorld
The eldritch abomination pendant is from abysswares (fair warning, I bought it a few years ago, and nowadays the shop doesn't have much of an eldritch theme. It could also go back to that for a bit, but who knows?)
The leggings are from DerangedDesigns916.
And the clasp connecting the ribbon and pendant is from PrimitiveOriginals.
The showing isn't until later tonight, but I didn't want to leave this until he very last minute. Especially since I haven't been there in years, so I'm not sure how the lighting is in there. Hopefully I'll survive with this on. Not because the theater is dangerous or anything, but because THEY ALWAYS GO INSANE WITH THE AIR CONDITIONING.
And because I am the way I am...
I do have a more conventional go-bag, but this thing is a bit more on-theme. Especially with how Fabian is looking at the logo. (Apologies if his face seems grungier than it did in other photos. But hey, the grunge also works with Iron Lung, and I stand by that.)
Wish me luck for tonight! I know it's gonna be awesome!
(Disclaimer: only one of the characters in this story belongs to me. For more information on Cruz, go here. EldritchPlier belongs to the Markiplier Cinematic Universe.)
(Trigger Warnings: body horror, slight unreality, blood/gore, implied murder/death, descriptions of occultism, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)
(Note: Cruz, much like irl Lixian, is Portuguese. That's reflected in a bit of hisdialogue in this story, which I personally used DeepL for. Pay the site a visit if you’d like to translate that dialogue for yourself. As of right now I can only speak English and a bit of Spanish, so I do apologize if the phrasing is a bit off, but this still seems much better than Google Translate.)
(One more thing: if you’d like to use distorted fonts like the ones you’ll be seeing in this story, go here.)
The screens found in an average movie theater could measure to about forty-five-or-so feet wide. Cruz had never thought to test that out with the thirteen screens here at The Drowned Moon (mainly because he had better things to do), he was sure they were a bit bigger.
Though maybe that just applied to the display in Screen Zero…or, the enormous hole in the wall where said display used to be. That part technically matched its entryway, the wide double-doors having been removed. Just one of many reasons why it was always off-limits to the public. Unless a ritual required a patron or two to be lured into it, one way or another.
(And that wasn’t mentioning the times when some incredibly brave or incredibly stupid people decided to hop the velvet ropes and come traipsing down the corridor just to see what would happen. The answers to that question varied, by they all had a common theme of the trespassers never coming back out, so…)
The building looked proportionately huge on the outside, but Cruz had memorized the layout of its interior. And while the back outer wall appeared to be innocently solid, that did not change the fact that aforementioned screen-hole just kept going and going and going into darkness, far beyond what should’ve been the limit. If you stood close enough to it and strained your ears to the point of passing out, you’d even hear faint screams echoing from somewhere within.
(Not that Cruz found himself inside it very often—Screen Zero’s former seating area was one thing, but the hole was where the same monster he’d been working for went to lounge in or seep into other locations through. So unless it was required for a ritual, that’d just be an awkward invasion of privacy.)
Then again, it wasn’t like the size of aforementioned screen-hole-nest really mattered right now, since Plier had been begrudgingly taken on a more human stature the past few days.
His footsteps still sent violent, uneven tremors reverberating through the rest of his lair as he paced along what counted as the hole’s floor and walls. He always tried to keep six limbs out at minimum, and today was no different (despite the fact that it was clearly taking more energy out of him than usual). So his stride was an uncanny clambering, like a tarantula that had taken too many sips from a bottle of thrift-store liquor.
“T̓̓́ͤ͆W͉͓̜͗E̶̹̿̿ͅṆ̠̝͡Ţ̝̲͈̆Y̩͙̾ͭͩ͐-̢̪͚̜̌͋F̶̴̦̣̔͞O̤̗̖͐ͮ̑͟U̢̖͙ͫ̕R̻̬ D̰̩̐̅͑͗A̬͚Y̦͊͌ͣS̿!̨̺̫̿” Plier fumed, raising his second pair of taloned hands to tug at his hair. (Said hair had never been sentient, but strands of it were still lashing and writhing from his scalp like snakes.) “W̭̃e̥'̄vḛ̺ o̡͈ͯnl͖y̙̽ ġ̮o͓̾͂t̺ t͕̓͑ẘ͆è̪ͩn̩̭ͧt́y-̑fo̜͆u͕̅͝r̯ d͙ͮa̪͆͑y͇s̘ͧ͟ b̠̾efͧ̒o͙ŕ̰̔ė T͈͡he̅ B̌lë̬́e̺d̳in̢͜g,͇̰̂ a͗ṉ̒d I STͮI̖͠L̢̄ͣḶ F̱̘̉E͍̔EL L̸̛ͩI̦͊̿K͈E̞̔͛ Ŝ̞H̴̅͠I͖T͎!”
Cruz fidgeted with the jar in his hands and nodded. He’d only have to deal with typical human illnesses in his life, and they’d still felt like complete torture. Having no energy for anything, not being able to sleep or eat or even breathe because your throat and sinuses just kept getting clogged up with muck over and over and over again…
Way back when the contract between them had first been made, he didn’t think outer abominations were even capable of getting sick. But he’d obviously been wrong, and seeing just how nasty whatever Plier contracted was, it put the even the worst head-colds or stomach-flus to shame.
So yes, Cruz felt genuine sympathy here, because Plier had proven to be just as much of a friend as a boss, and seeing your friends get sick was even worse than being sick yourself.
…Then again, sometimes those friends could get really damn grating about it.
“Vire o disco e toque o mesmo,” Cruz murmured under his breath.
The tremors stopped.
The lair went silent, save for the loud, sickening crAck that rang out as Plier twisted his neck to glare at his human companion.
Cruz stood his ground, staring back and feeling very grateful for his mask right now. Its vague, black leather beak adorned by stripes of red and gold obscured the way he pursed his lips; the lenses of its eye-holes were tinted just enough to hide how wide his eyes had gotten. The mask was much cooler to look at than an I-have-regrets-and-I-might-just-piss-my-pants face.
(Of course, he knew Plier could see his face through the mask, but if anyone else was here, then they couldn’t, and that was what mattered.)
“Wh̘̓̎̈͌a̡̗̠͍̺t w̸̯̤͐ȧ̛s̀ tͧh͚̺̊̀͐a͆t̤ͧ?̟̖̿͞” Plier hissed, a sinuous tongue flicking in and out between the canines that curled out of his mouth like tusks.
“Nothing,” Cruz replied, rocking back and forth on his heels. It was a bad lie, and he knew Plier knew it was a bad lie…but he was also banking on the fact that Plier was too agitated about something else to really care.
And he was in luck—the monster simply shook his head, rolling all sixteen of his sulfurous eyes as he resumed his pacing.
(Somehow, a bit of humor managed to worm its way through Cruz’s relief. Beings like Plier could speak in languages that humans couldn’t dare learn without mutilating their throats or risk having their brains explode…and yet, some of those beings didn’t know languages like Portuguese. It was almost a bit adorable when you really thought of it.)
“Twenty-four days is still about three weeks. I know time itself doesn’t mean much to you, but that’s still a decent amount,” Cruz ventured. “You’ll more than likely be recovered before we get much closer.”
Plier huffed, his talons carving new lines into the the metal (or what used to be metal; it looked pretty solid, but it pulsed every once-in-a-while) beneath him.
Cruz bit back a sigh, not sure what else he’d expected. “...Can you really not hold still for a minute? You’re making me dizzy.”
A sarcastic chuckle poured through the air like molten lead. “M̀aͨ̀ybe y_̚o̽͜ṳ d͉̟i̓̊̔d̿̔n'ẗ́ͪ c͐͛͜at͉c̭̝͋h͖ͬ̃ t̵h̷̻ĭ̬̐s͛̽, b̭̾ų̟̏t Iͩ'̪̄̓m͍ f̻̊ͣu͕̼̐ck̴̓ing F͝͡R̶̿E̶͆Ḛ͛̚Z͐I̶͇N͇̽G ḣ͉e̡̼̻r̀ͅeͦ̔.̩̺ I͙t̩̃ H̪U̘R͑͞T̠͐͝S̶̗ͨ,́̀ an̰̂̀d iͨ͢t̴'͙͎ll ju̟sͬ̆͜t̷ get wo͙̗̿rse̙͂ i̱̖͊f̭͕̙ I h͑̊̕o̓͢l̮͡d͇̅̐ s̭̎͝ẗ́ị̣lľ͖͠.͐̐͘ B̵̋ͅu̥̘̕t i͋fͤ̎ Iͨ̅͜ ju̎͝st.͜.̬͕͖.kẹe̲p͚̭ͅ.͙..̀mơ̗̺v͉i̒͑n̟g͓͑.ͩͯ.͕͗.ͪ”
Cruz bit his lip, reminded of the first few months he’d spent in America. He’d grown up in a very coastal town back home, so he had NOT been prepared for all the snow and ice and slush and sleet that some states could get every year. He’d hated feeling his fingers slowly go numb, even with gloves on. He’d hated how a dry chill left you feeling stuffy, hated how a humid chill just sank its way through your bones no matter how layered-up you were.
It was a good thing The Drowned Moon was on the outskirts of a Floridian town…
“Y̴ͣoͅū̧̲'̛v͎͜ê̥ NE̸͑V̰̺̌E̗̪͑R̴ b͙̮ẻ_̊en c͋̚o_l̳d l̅i̹͋ke̻ͪ̅ th̰̻̉is͗̃, C̭̏ṟ̴uͪz͕.̳̥̏” Plier continued, his tone growing a bit more hollow than it already was. “Y̏o̷̓u̢̬ dȯ͖ͮn'͛t̥̍ kn̗͒ow w͝hͧ̋a̶t̼̫ cold ŗ̰ͧe͞a̛̯̕l͂ḷ̯͊y̯ i͉ͦͧs͐.”
“I know, I know,” Cruz agreed. Because he knew he didn’t, knew he couldn’t, in the grand scheme of things.
Despite all his movement, brutal shivers wouldn’t stop racing up and down Plier’s form. His teeth were chattering, clicking and shearing together with a noise like knives being sharpened.
Plier could change colors if he wanted or needed, but his most natural shade (as natural as you could get with a creature like him) was close to rusted metal bathed in the flickering glow of a bonfire, as well as the shadows of rabid lunatics dancing around it.
For a recent while, however, that shade had gone pale. It was still foreboding, but now it also resembled raw meat. Freezer-burned raw meat, in all honesty.
His skin typically had a shine to it, like a droplets of gasoline against a blade. Right now, it looked drained and leathery. Sections of it had peeled and cracked, especially around the organic thorns that proudly protruded from Plier’s shoulders, from along his spine, from the top of his head like the tips of a crest or crown…now they were all lined with dried blood as the tissue slowly knitted itself back together.
Blisters had developed along his chest, blackened around the edges. They’d looked firm this morning, but by now, the fleshy bubbles had been torn away, leaving raw craters behind.
(Cruz had already given up on reminding Plier to not claw or scrape at those damn things. Mainly because the pus within had apparently made Plier feel awful enough to scream a long, keening, horrific note for nearly half an hour.)
They weren’t oozy, though; you wouldn’t even have to get too close to see how they were crystallized. Like someone had dug through snow to bring out a handful of geodes, only to turn around and bury them in a rotting carcass.
The worst case was one that had managed to nestle right where Plier’s shoulder met his neck. Even with all of his experience, looking at that mess still made Cruz cringe.
Plier cleared his throat, the awkwardness probably having to fight its way through the chills. “S͉̟̋o,̩ i͡f͌ y̋ou_̦̥'̙̑ͫre̴͘ ŗ͍͚e̩͔á̮ͬl̙̳͈l̛̪͛y t̾hat͑ da_m͇͂ṅ͈ d́i̿ͧzͦzẏ͠͠,͐ͅ tḣ̷̢e̺ͮn̸͙͂ j̶̠ȗ͈ș͕ͨt d̓̄͢on̎'͆ͣ̓t l͆oo̘͍k̡̈́͞ a̳͒̑t͘ m̕̚e͋̃ͯ.ͬ Ý͆ou̾̓'̋ṿe a̼̘͈l̬r͑ȩa̛̜̤d_̻y̓̄ go̬ͨt̰̀ so̎ͤměth͕͑i̮̇ng͟ else t̖͝o̽ f͔ͬ́ocͦu͗͐sͤ o͊n͌́.̨̀̃”
“Touché,” Cruz admitted with a shrug. He made to resume walking, to keep descending the stairway that wrapped around Screen Zero’s seating area. But then he realized that there was a new gap in the silvery-white line he’d been pouring around the perimeter, realized just how light the jar had gotten. “Ah, speak of the devil—be right back.”
He turned on his heel and jogged back up the stairs. The hall beyond Screen Zero’s empty doorway sometimes felt longer than it really needed to be, but it didn’t take too long for Cruz to step into the theater proper.
The air felt much warmer out here; usually, that was quite the opposite. The walls were drenched in various shades of pink, lighter tones and darker tones all seeping into one another like dying blood cells. Sometimes the paint looked like it was actively bubbling or melting, but not today.
(Cruz wasn’t sure if Screen Zero had the same paintjob. Screen Zero was always dimly-lit, if not just entirely dark. Its only illumination tended to be the floor lights that outlined the stairs, unless Plier decided to give off more light himself. And that particular light always made every look like it was being bathed in fire or gore, not leaving much room for other colors.)
The floor was made up of white tiles, speckled with black here and there. Cruz’s footsteps were loud against them as he made his way down the corridor.
Though all the other screen’s doors were closed, noise still leaked out through them, slowly but surely stirring a cacophony into the air. No other humans were here (The Drowned Moon would be closed until Plier got better), but that didn’t mean movies couldn’t play. Plier had eyes and ears in the projection booths, so that was one way to keep himself entertained.
There were huge, framed posters hanging proudly between each of the screens, but only a few of them were equipped with a secret compartment.
Plier didn’t always lay out specific plans for his work—chaos really was just in the nature of things like him—but after he’d gotten his claws on this place, he’d wasted no time setting up hidey-holes everywhere for equipment.
Under the floor, the ticket booths in the lobby, in the darkest corners of the concession counter’s cabinets ( even though that had led to a terrifying incident when a tupperware container of demon puss had been put too close to the butter bottles and wound up in the popcorn machine…).
But his favorite place by far was the walls.
Cruz got to the furthest frame on the left, one that was displaying a poster for 28 Years Later. It took a bit of tugging, but he coaxed it to swing out on a well-camouflaged hinge. The inside looked almost like the shelves of a pantry, lined with a plethora of vials and boxes.
After a moment of scanning, he found a glass jar that was identical to the one he’d already used up, filled with a mixture of salt, herbs, and the powdery remains of pulverized human bones.
He tucked it under one arm, heaved the poster-frame back into place, then headed back over to Screen Zero.
Plier was still pacing…in a sense. Apparently he’d gotten cold enough to start doing rapid somersaults, going back and forth like an eldritch ping-pong ball, muttering to himself all the while.
“Ho̟ͬͯw̟ m̜u̇c͖͓͢h lo̖n͜geͭ͞r͝ iͥ͟s̾ th͙̯͜ä́t̴͔͡ s̰ͫ̃tu̷ff̥̱ g̴͍͂oͩ̾͘nna̿ tͭa̙ͧͭke̴̲͐ tō̥̣ h̅ͥe̻a̪t̬̞̋ û̂pͭ?” He glanced over as Cruz approached, getting right back to pouring the protective dust, right back where he’d left off.
Cruz paused, estimating in his head, envisioning the instructions printed on the side of a bottle that proudly proclaimed, Instant Geyser! Just Add Water and Warmth! He’d popped it into the microwave that sat at one corner of the projection booth up above (what could he say? If you were playing movies, you might as well get to have some popcorn).
“…About three more minutes, maybe?” He guessed.
Plier let out a groan that sounded like a cheese-grater being stuffed into a malfunctioning garbage disposal.
“Hey, don’t blame me! It was the only one left at Phi-and-Dime; the employees said something happened with the next shipment.”
Plier clicked his tongue (probably slicing a brand new fork into it in the process), but went otherwise quiet.
That left Cruz to tend to the temporary barrier. He was almost done; the starting point had been left at about the center of the floor beneath the screen-hole. Once the line he’d been pouring was whole, nothing in here would leak out into the rest of the theater. It was far from the first time Cruz had done something like this—drawing lines was a cornerstone of most rituals.
He turned his wrist here and there, making sure that the glinting substance spilled out onto the right spots.
Soon enough, he was right beside the screen-hole, able to actually feel the chills as they radiated off of his monstrous business partner. They seeped into his skin, made it feel like a particularly nasty ice cream headache was pounding at the back of his skull.
But he held firm, kept walking. He was getting closer to the end. Just a bit more, then this task would be done and he could focus on his other assignments.
“.̯..I̴͕ cån̤̮̱'͋t mis̸͂ͭs͖̯ͤ i̳ͣ̈ț͎ͤ.ͣ͡ͅ.̃͜.̞͔̇”
The softness in Plier’s voice surprised Cruz. Sure, Plier’s hunting strategies were usually about guile and bribing and occasional hypnosis, so of course he had to keep an even, inviting tone a lot of the time.
But this was different.
His voice still echoed, but it was shaky.
Worried.
Cruz looked away from the line to see that the monster had finally stopped moving. For the most part; he was coiled into a ball, rocking back and forth.
“Tẖ̓e B̷̷lee_d̞̒in̐̔g̸̀̃.͐ͯ..̺̐ͬi̙͐t͓̎ ơͨ͑nl̎ͤy h̼a̖ͮͅp͉̍̉p͉̥ͩeͬ̿͝n͚̈́ś̥ o͝n̥ĉe eve_r̽y̲̫ f̥̈́̃o̼̩͆űͬrte̺ͥͤè̬n̒͢_-̈́̈́tͤͅh̳͆oͣuș_̛a͚̒n͚d̮͋ y̷̡̗ea͓_̎rs͎̑ͭ,” Plier went on, his tone dropping even lower, even quieter.
A new shiver raced up Cruz’s spine, soon spreading through his ribs.
Plier had regaled him with many stories about his escapades in places outside of the human world. From casual bargaining to strategic conquests…to certain events.
The Bleeding fell under that last category.
From how he’d described it, there was a chance that even Plier wasn’t entirely sure what is was all about, but it still so obviously important to him.
He’d sounded so happy, so energized, so impacted whenever he’d recall it in whispers that cracked through the theater’s foundation.
As its title suggested, The Bleeding was a very, very special ceremony for blood.
There were seams in the fabric of reality, exposing sections of flesh belonging to creatures even larger and more impossible than Plier and his peers and rivals alike.
And, for whatever reason, once in a very great while, those seams would be slashed. Lacerations would open up.
And blood would spill out.
Just a little at first, but as time went on, it would grow into a steady river, and then into a raging flood that would pour through multiple dimensions at once. (It’d never reached Earth before, and likely wouldn’t this year. There was no way that wasn’t some kind of coincidence.)
Many creatures feared it, as they rightly should have.
But many others, for their own reasons, saw it as something amazing.
They would come from all over, some gathering directly at the source while others chose to wait at the lower parts of the flood’s path.
Whatever happened, anything that arrived to see the blood as it flowed…well, there were several ways to celebrate.
Bathing, drinking, artistic or scientific endeavors, opening your own veins and letting some of your own plasma mix into the tide and get carried off to God-knows-where…
“Ǐ̱ na̕med̝ t́͂ḫȉ̧ś̖͘ d̄amn t͓h̝̃͆e̹ã̕têrͣ̐ iň ho̡͇͝nor̛ oͣͣ̑f̘̓ͫ i̥t̼̮,” Plier murmured, dragging a taloned hand down his face. “I'̤vͤe͞ oͯ̀̾n̶͢lͤy̶̝͇ e̢v̤̔e͇͑͟r͢ m̬í̪ͯś͕s̴̰e͢ḓ i̓t͂ ỏ̱͇n̳͒c̾͝͡ḛ.̜͍.̐ͥͧ.̧̣̒Iͫ͠ c̆ͧä́̅n̜̋͢'t͔ leṱ th̬ͨͮat̀ h͎̬a͓ͤ̃p͍͔ͨp̞ͩ̀eṋ ag̤̉͡a̋in—”
“Hey,” Cruz interjected, taking a few steps closer and resting one hand on the edge of the screen-hole.
Plier froze, all of his eyes blinking sporadically. (The display would’ve given the average trypophobia-sufferer a stroke.) He likely hadn’t meant for Cruz to hear him at all.
Cruz fidgeted in place. The cold was still here, still wrapping around him, but talking distracted him from it. “You’re not gonna miss out. You’ve gone through it before, and it sounds like it’s much more than any other thing you’ve been involved with. And that includes whatever this virus is.”
Plier leaned closer. He was still subconsciously snarling at the shivers, but his primary eyes remained fixed on Cruz.
“You’ll get through this in no time. I know you will,” Cruz concluded.
The abomination tilted his head to the side, a few of his eyes glazing over as a tiny smile tugged at the edges of his fangs.
Cruz smiled back, knowing that it would be seen even with his mask in the way.
Both smiles died a quick death as the telltale keening of a microwave alarm rattled along the walls. One of Plier’s arms became a blur, surging toward Cruz’s chest, and suddenly Cruz was airborne, flying across the theater and landing in a crumpled heap just by the exit hall.
Just outside the line of salt and bone-dust…
At the same time, the sound of rushing liquid, splashing and spraying and hissing. Steam filled the air, and oppressive heat all but blanketed Screen Zero.
Cruz picked himself up just in time to see the end of the deluge: a small stream dripping out from the projection window.
Just as the can had promised, a freshly-formed geyser had pooled into the heart of Screen Zero.
The seating area was now shrouded by gallons upon gallons upon gallons of glowing, boiling water that went from a brilliant blue shade at the center to greenish-yellow around the edges, just barely able to lap at the barrier.
His eyes took a moment to adjust to how thick the air had gotten, but soon enough, he saw a familiar, twisted shape slithering around the geyser.
Plier was laughing now, and that laughter bounced off the walls and ceiling like no-one’s business. There was also a concerning gurgle to that laugh…but then again, Plier’s voice had always sounded at least a bit horrific no matter what condition he was in.
This current condition, though…
The blisters that had ravaged Plier’s skin were melting now, hissing and popping and leaving a foamy residue on the surface of the water. That said, plenty of layers of tissue followed suit, exposing bits of an extremely warped skeleton here and there, allowing streams of abyssal blood to react almost explosively with the deadly bath.
Sooner or later, plenty of Plier’s flesh was hanging in tatters, only remaining connected with a strength similar to FlexTape and well-intentioned vibes. A decent chunk had sloughed off of the side of his face, showcasing how his rows of teeth somehow remained undamaged despite his gums and tongue sizzling.
And yet, he was still smiling. His peals had died down into smaller chuckles, but he was still so much less tense than he had been for the last few days.
“Y̶͒̏o̯ͥ͆u̳͒ a̫͂ͤl̶̖̇ṛiͤg̶̑͞h̹͘͞t̜̂ͅ, C̢̫̳r̦̔u_̱ͤzͣ͞?ͅ” Plier called, somehow still able to speak coherently. “Șor͋ryͩ ḁ̉bouṱͣ t̡h̵ͯe̒́ͩ lͫ͜au̠͇̿n͈ͣ͘c̞ͬ͘h,̜̓̌ Ĭ_̋ j͎̀ủ̼s̨t̩͘ d̡̮̈idn̯̘'t̲̓ w̹͛ͤan̔́t̋͢͜ yóǘ̸͂ t͗o̞̔͘ ca̖̳t̩ch aǹy̥͊͝ o̔f͇͉́ t͞h̒ḯ͘͠ṣ͕.”
“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” Cruz replied, offering a shaky thumbs-up. And he truly was; he’d had plenty of bumps and bruises before, this was no different. “What about you? How’re you feeling?”
“Gō̯̎o͈̊d͒.͂ R̯ͣͩeaͧ͡ll͙̰̀y̟ g͒͌ȏ̑ôd̹̅.̹̙̔ Not ǫ̬̊u͊́t̼͒ o̺̐̐f t̝͗h͈e̽ͪ w͈͆͝o̼̻ͧo͘d̙̲̤s j̛̹ͣu̚ṡͦt̤̖͠ y͆et, b̉ṷ̬͝t̨͖…” Plier sighed, scooping up a handful of boiling water and pouring it over his head, not seeming to care one iota how it made some of his hair fry away from his scalp and left searing gashes behind.
(Then again, new hair was already sprouting. He’d be going through a whole reconstitution song-and-dance whenever the geyser decided to eventually drain away.)
cruz speaking in portuguese, plier completely missing it, their dynamic is so well written, poor cruz being yeeted across the damn theater this fIC IS SO GOOD XDXD
(Disclaimer: both of the characters in this story belong to me. For more information on Sol, go here. For more information on LeviathanPat, go here.)
(Trigger Warnings: body horror, slight unreality, slight blood/gore, descriptions of occultism. Please let me know if I missed anything.)
(One more thing: if you’d like to use distorted fonts like the one you’ll be seeing in this story, go here.)
Sol didn’t have to announce themself once they returned to The Abnormal Orchard. The back entrance (not their usual choice, but the museum had been closed for a while now) shuddered, its metallic bar pushed down by unseen hands before it swung open. Once they passed the threshold, it slammed itself shut again, locks clicking back into place.
Sol made her way to the main lobby, the green-and-black splotched carpet feeling more stiff than usual under her shoes. She gave some display cases here and there a quick look-over as she passed them by; spiderweb fractures had cricked and snapped their way through the glass in some of them. The cracks had gotten a bit smaller, a bit shorter than they had been a few days ago. That had to be good sign, right?
“Hðw wå§ †hê †rïþ?” A familiar voice wove its way through the ceiling and down toward them. Many times, said voice sounded like a hive, like it was being spoken by multiple beings at once. This was not one of those times.
Instead, it sounded raspy, like its owner’s lungs had been reduced to thin bags with a texture like frayed, moldy fabric with a few mice nesting in it. There was a bit of congestion to be heard, too, like aforementioned mice just so happened to have some kind of acidic slime for blood.
“Fine and dandy,” Sol replied, fidgeting with the handles of the brown-paper bag that swung in time with their footsteps. They made their way through the first floor’s exhibit, over to the office that was tucked away near the main entrance.
“ÐïÐ åñ¥†hïñg £ðllðw ¥ðµ ßå¢k?”
Sol shook their head. “Nope.”
“Ärê ¥ðµ §µµµµµrrê?” Pat pressed, stretching his words until they felt like they were rattling.
“...Well, less by the second, now,” Sol admitted, a shiver sneaking its way along her spine. (Even though she knew she’d double-checked at the cashier’s stand over there.) “But it wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened.”
Part of her knew that Pat was deliberately trying to sow a bit of uncertainty or fear. That stuff had been annoying for the first few days they’d met, but by now he focused that on other people. Right now, it was probably just instincts kicking up; things like him fed on many different things, but human emotions were a staple of that diet.
And Sol didn’t have much room to talk on that. She’d definitely used some sick-days of the past as an excuse to stress-eat because doing anything other than that and shower just felt gross.
“Really, though, it was pretty chill for the most part.”
She set her shopping on her desk before stooping down to the safe hidden beneath it. There was a slight pinch at her skin as she opened it up (the lock always seemed to bite her finger when she turned the combination, but by now she’d gotten used to that).
Inside sat the mask she’d been using pretty much every day for a few years now. The same one with material that was black, outlined with reddish-violet. The one that looked like some kind of twisted combination of goat and fox, what with its long, thin ears and curling horns set near the ends of a sculpted-on mouth that smiled and grimaced at the same time.
“‘Mð§†?’” Pat echoed with sarcastic intrigue.
“I don’t know. None of the ceiling-mirrors melted, voices weren’t calling from inside any candy bags, none of that stuff. The store just felt…kinda tired, I guess?” Sol shrugged, then offered a small laugh. “That probably means the next trip is gonna be all sorts of chaotic, huh?”
“Wê ¢åñ hðþê §ð,” Pat chuckled, which was unfortunately broken up by a harsh cough that made the walls shake for a few long seconds. The yellow-tinted wallpaper rustled, tearing around a couple corners.
Out of all the blips in reality, all the signs that something had and would always be wrong with the universe, Phi-and-Dime was…well, it was a bit on the more casual side of that surreal spectrum. (Only a bit, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.)
It was, simply put, a typical shop that probably shouldn’t have existed in the first place, but had birthed itself into existence anyway because the natural order didn’t mean a whole lot to the entities that served as its patrons. In a way, it was kind of a bizarrely wholesome concept when you thought about it.
Even well-camouflaged monsters or chain-stories-come-to-life or cosmic abominations, the ignorance of which humanity really should still be praying for in times like these, needed to make their own runs for groceries or household supplies.
Or medicine, in this specific case.
Worry crept through Sol’s head. She tied her ginger hair back, then pulled the mask over her head. The weight of it felt nice and comforting on their skull, though they knew it probably shouldn’t have, considering the things they’d done while wearing it. Bringing the bag back into their clutch, they headed back out of the office, with more speed in their step this time.
(In their hast, they left their favorite purple leather jacket draped over the wheely-chair.)
Unlike most of the times they ventured around the museum, they opted to use one of the elevators rather than taking the wide, spiraling ramp that stood in the museum’s center and allowed access to everything it had on display. There just wasn’t time for a scenic route right now.
The rumbling sound that the cables always made stuck around long after Sol arrived on the Fifth Floor, after they got out and maneuvered through the corridors laid out. The attic’s ceiling-door was already open by the time they got to the right hall, its ladder splayed out like a suspiciously flexible carpet.
Living things were usually warm. Fevers made it much more obvious, but that warmth was still noticeable with a perfectly healthy person; if you just held your hand above their skin, you’d feel the slightest heat wafting off of them.
In most cases, a fever was actually a good thing. It meant that your body was doing its part to kill off any bacteria that was lodged in places it never needed to be lodged in.
But those cases were for mortal beings and mortal illnesses, and Pat was neither mortal nor dealing with a common cold.
The attic tended to be brisk, due to its main window having remained open ever since Pat had made his official return to the surface of this world. Right now, the air in here was rippling on itself, reminiscent of translucent gas fumes that leaked out of an oven before it exploded.
Sol felt the oppressive heat try to grope at their face. All her practice with fire had helped her build up a tolerance for stuff like this, but despite that and her mask’s protective juju, it still seemed like there were tiny, invisible hands trying to yank on her eyelids, forcing the orbs inside to sting and burn.
But she kept moving, approaching the huge, fibrous, cocoon-hammock-thing woven into the underside of the museum’s roof. She looked up, and there was Pat, splayed out and wracked with shudders. He’d shrunk to the size of an average human—so, far too small for his nest—but that was only because growing any larger would probably just make him feel worse at the moment.
Pat could adjust his shape as easily as humans could adjust their clothes. Sometimes it was conscious, other times not—his mood could be a big factor, but not the only one. His void-toned flesh could go through a variety of looks and textures; smooth, rough, scaly, oily, spikey…
(Yes, hair was an option, but that was the one thing he was strict about. He only ever let it grow on his head, nowhere else. Sol had asked him about his reasons one time, only to pass out thirty seconds into his explanation. So, of course, that was never brought up again.)
For the past week, Pat’s skin had taken on the consistency of hot wax. Beads and ribbons would form out of it here and there, running and dripping off of him like a candle. Extra layers kept popping up to replace the lost ones. The melting process seemed to have slowed down a bit today, but it was still going. It seemed a bit like a snake shedding…if said snake was writhing around in a fondue pot.
It wasn’t all that uncommon for some of his eyes to melt in their sockets (not that said sockets would ever drain completely. No, until Pat decided to stop it, the process would just keep going and going…). That was usually just one of his many, many, many party tricks for scaring mortals and showing off to other abominations.
But right now, it was just another part of his sickness. Not only that, but this brand of ocular-ooze was tinged with foam around the edges. None of it ever made it to the floor, always evaporating a few seconds after it started dripping, but not without a soft sizzling sound. Almost like egg whites as they were cooked over-easy.
It seemed the only parts of him that the illness hadn’t touched were his teeth. None of them were melting, or falling out, or burrowing themselves further up his gums.
Books were piled up all around him. He didn’t mind reading, although he usually preferred to fidget with more lively things whenever he happened to be idle. But he didn’t want any of his current experiments to be contaminated by the virus he’d caught, so...
Besides, many of the chronicles in Pat’s collection were just downright amusing to him, and that was a good way for him to stay awake.
(Especially those by H.P. Lovecraft, considering just how wrong that scaredy-cat been with every. Single. Detail. The King in Yellow had come a little closer with certain subjects, but was obviously still limited to a creature with experience like Pat. Still pretty, though.)
Pat never, NEVER let himself sleep
“Can’t get comfortable, huh?” Sol wondered aloud.
“Whå† gåvê ï† åwå¥?” Pat let out a long-suffering groan, reaching up to clutch at his temple. “†ïmê jµ§† ¢åñ'† mðvê åñ¥ §lðwêr hêrê.”
“Well, you know that’s not true,” Sol countered. “You already got a vision about this, right? It’ll be over in a couple days. Maybe even tomorrow.”
Pat muttered a few things in his hideous native tongue before he offered a nod in Sol’s direction. “Ì jµ§† ¢åñ'† ßêlïêvê hðw lðñg †hï§ hå§ ÄLRÈÄÐ¥ l姆êÐ! Ì mêåñ, ÇÖMÈ Öñ! Ì'm †hê †êrrðr ð£ êïgh†-hµñÐrêÐ-£ðr†¥-§êvêñ Ðïmêñ§ïðñ§ åñÐ ¢ðµñ†ïñg!”
Sol tilted their head to the side. “Not like this is gonna change that. We’re the only ones who know about you coming down with this, and I’ve got no reason to tell anyone else. So, you being inactive for a while can just be one more mystery to keep any targets guessing and afraid. Know what I mean?”
Pat’s eyes hadn’t been glowing too much lately—that might have been a conscious choice, since light would only generate more heart on top of the fever. But they flickered like dangerously-malfunctioning bulbs as he mulled it over. “…Hµh. ï ÐïÐñ'† †hïñk ð£ ï† lïkê †hå†.”
Sol couldn’t help but grin under their mask. “That’s what you’ve got me for.”
Pat snorted, rolling his eyes and clicking his too-many, too-long teeth together, but Sol just barely caught a smile at the corner of his mouth.
The monstrosity then leaned out of his nest, his torso stretching and stretching until he was about eye-level with his human companion, his lower-half still firmly planted up above.
Sol dug through the bag and fished out one of the goods: a can that, by all means, didn’t look like much. It was the size of one that would contain the average brand of shaving cream, wrapped in neon shades of blue. Its logo was designed to look like it was made of interlocking snowflakes and hail pellets, spelling out Slush n’ Slay!
Pat reached over, one hand wrapping his spidery fingers around the can, shaking it with a vigor meant usually meant for people who had ONE JOB. After that, his other hand used the tips of its talons to pop the can’s cheap little plastic lid, revealing an even smaller valve.
Sol, getting the hint, took several steps back.
Pat ground his jaw as he pushed the can closer to his face. Then, he pressed down on the nozzle, and a torrent of liquid nitrogen was unleashed, howling like a star as it was crushed by a black hole. It tore through the air as if magnetized to his skin.
It felt like half an hour had passed before Pat finally released his hold, cutting off the spray before setting the can down on the floor. His face was now hidden by an abstract mask of glinting frost, crystallized in the most horrific way. Most of it was concentrated on his forehead, as well as the bridge of his nose and the space underneath his eyes.
Sol blinked at the display. True, they’ve been instructed to bring an extreme cooling agent back from the store, but they were only just now realizing that they’d never asked how Pat intended to use it.
Sol had never gone out of their way to touch Pat (in a platonic, co-worker/friend/ritual-assistant way. They weren’t even a blip on his age-radar, considering he’d been around since before humanity had even evolved, so get your damn head out of the gutter), but they were fairly certain he was cold-blooded.
Yes, they’d seen smoke or steam pour out of his eyes or his ears or between his mouth from time to time, but it never seemed very hot. More like dry ice or early-morning fog.
And yes, they’d seen him breath fire once or twice, but that had been strictly for a project that normal fire wouldn’t have been strong enough for. He hadn’t even triggered that fire all by himself; he’d had to take some vile concoction of tears and stolen memories and jar-fulls of ashes gathered from certain furnaces hidden in certain buildings around town (in fact, that particular endeavor even seemed to have left him a bit out of it afterwards, with some very literal heartburn. It certainly explained why he helped Sol adopt Charcoal).
Being in Pat’s presence gave you shivers, both literally and figuratively. A strange chill tended to radiate off him the same way heat wafted off of mortal beings (while they were still alive, that is).
Now, that didn’t mean he sought out heat. In fact, he’d shown a preference to the cold.
He went out to hunt very often, but only at night. Not because sunlight posed an actual threat to him, but because he said it just felt itchy if it ever hit him. And while he always got a kick out of his work, he especially liked it when storms came along. Wind and rain helped up the ante to his whole terrorizing-and-stalking–and-looming-and-sowing-dread schtick. Plus, from what he’d said, it also just felt refreshing.
As of late, however, his blood had apparently wanted to shake things up a bit and set itself to a boil.
Rolling his shoulders, Pat slammed his hands against the floor, his claws digging into the wooden boards. After that, his arms each grew a good few feet in length, warping and bending to a chorus of crAcks and PoPs.
He then reared back, craning his neck further and further until the top of his head was practically touching his thoracic region (that is, if he’d actually formed a spine for this. It looked like he had, but it was just so hard to tell with him).
With that, he was suddenly a blur of movement, lunging back forward with enough ferocity to make a train jumping the tracks look like a falling leaf.
His face met the floor with a deafening CRA-A-ASH!, which was quickly followed by crinkle-tinkling that usually accompanied glass when it shattered. Although, as the seconds passed by, that din fell into a deeper octave that was closer to snapping bones.
The monster lay there, face-down and still, for an uncomfortably long moment.
Just as Sol decided to test their luck and inch forward, Pat lout out a big, loud sigh and lifted his head up, his arms becomcing slightly more proportional as he propped himself against the floor on his elbows.
Much like a rotten pumpkin, his head had been split open, the new crevasse lining up almost perfectly down the middle, and…
Well, no matter what bones may or may not have been present under the skin below his neck, it was obvious he’d formed a skull here.
The fresh hole seemed to branch through it, revealing the pulsing mess of his brain here and there. Steam was wafting off of it, along with ribbons of abyssal blood that trickled on through. Some of those ribbons dripped up rather than down. His nose was all but gone. The freshly-broken edges of skin were still covered in frost, but it already seemed to be glistening; the melt would probably start in a while. A couple shards had lodged themselves in Pat’s eyes—he made his talons into makeshift tweezers to manually remove them.
Even with all of Sol’s experience, she still needed a moment for her stomach to stop churning before she finally piped up again. “...Feeling any better?”
“Öh, ¥êåh. Ä LÖ† ßꆆêr, 墆µåll¥,” Pat replied, his voice still raspy, but much less strained than before. “†hêrê wå§ §Ö mµ¢h þrꧧµrê ßµïl†-µþ ïñ †hêrê, ßµ† ñðw…” He trailed off, a relieved smile spreading across his features. Or, what was left of his features, at least. “†hï§'ll hêål µþ ðñ¢ê m¥ ïmmµñê §¥§†êm £ïñåll¥ gꆧ ï† †ðgê†hêr.”
“Well, that’s awesome!” Sol nodded, truly meaning it but still having to fight instinctual revulsion. “Is, uh, is there anything else you need after that?”
(Disclaimer: all characters in this story belong to me. For more information on Shep and Angel, go here. For more information on LeviathanPat, go here. Sol is only mentioned for now, but they still deserve credit, so to learn more about them go here.)
(One more thing: if you’d like to use the distorted fonts you’ll be seeing in this story, go here.)
(Trigger Warnings: blood/gore, body horror, murder/death, talk of death/dying, strong language. Please let me know if I missed anything.)
“Despite how much time has passed, weather in the lower region of the state shows little sign of improving just yet. Among all the cities experiencing these unseasonably severe rainstorms and wind, the Cove Port Inlets seem to have been hit the hardest,” the anchor explained, his voice somehow droning on while the words left his mouth at about five times the speed of sound. The TV hummed around the report as though it were a much older model.
“Although there’s no need for evacuation, scattered property damage and minor flooding in the beachside areas has certainly been rough on residents. In fact, officials over there have already confirmed that the city’s usual Halloween festival will, unfortunately, have to be cancelled this year for the sake of safety.”
“Damn,” a much more familiar voice murmured (thankfully a bit slower). Part of it sounded very far away, with an ever-so-slight echo around the edges. “Sucks for them.”
“It really does,” Shep agreed with a solemn nod. He’d grown up on the other side of the country, where the weather was always sucky this time of year, where it was just a fact of life that kids would have to wear coats over their costumes. He’d moved all the way down here for the longer-lasting sunlight and heat. And even though he was still getting it, even though Macksonburg had been spared that fate (being miles and miles away from its afflicted neighbors and all), he just couldn’t feel too smug about it.
Still, it wasn’t long before he took his eyes off the report, focusing on the wire racks set up against the wall. He reached back into the box by his feet, fishing out more graphic novels to display.
Sooner or later, that voice piped up again: “Can’t you put the movies back on?”
“Nope,” Shep replied, popping his lips on the ‘p’ and then rolling his eyes at the melodramatic sigh that seemed to stir up a small, faint breeze. “C’mon, man. You know the rules.”
“Like you’ve never bent a few of them before,” the voice retorted.
There were no footsteps against the floor, no sounds of rustling fabric, but by the way the air around him suddenly dropped at least five degrees, Shep could still tell that Angel was moving away from the counter and approaching him. He didn’t look away from his task this time. (He’d already learned the hard way that certain articles had to be left in very specific places, Dewey Decimal be damned.)
“Exactly: a few of them, and Rule Five isn’t in that camp. Don’t you remember what happened the last time I missed it?” Shep glanced further back in the shop, at the very TV that Angel was referring to, and shuddered at the thought of arms reaching out from behind it.
Now, perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad on its own. But then, you wouldn’t be counting how said TV was mounted to a corner where the walls met the ceiling.
You wouldn’t be counting how the arms in question were so damn long that it should’ve been completely impossible for the owner of those arms to curl up and hide curl up and hide in such a tiny spot in the first place.
You wouldn’t be counting how said owner’s skin resembled a layer of insulation molded over (and still dripping) with oil.
Things had gotten very messy very fast, and although Shep had managed to restore order, he’d only been able to do so after two hours of hiding out in the stairwell that led to his apartment above.
Yeah, when he looked at the bigger picture, that particular incident could’ve turned out much worse, but he still wasn’t eager to go through it again.
So, lesson learned: at exactly nine-thirty every night, the TV had to be turned on and left on until seven o’ clock the next day. It didn’t matter what channel was playing, because sooner or later, it would always switch over to things that most certainly weren’t on the local network (let alone on this plane of existence) without anyone even touching the remote.
“The tube would still be on, wouldn’t it? It’d just have a DVD inside. I don’t think that would change things too much,” Angel mused.
Shep shrugged, absentmindedly fidgeting with the sleeves of his favorite jacket. He’d been wearing it almost everywhere since college, and the sherpa still felt soft in his hands. Other than the abstract streaks of dark green dye that curled around the torso, the material was stark-white. . “Maybe, but the risk isn’t worth it.”
One more nightly task finally finished, he stepped back and turned to his buddy, giving him a Sue Me look for probably the thousandth time as he started walking over to the other side of the shop.
The majority of people couldn’t see Angel at all. For Shep (or the rare few with his skills), Angel appeared fairly translucent most of the time. It wasn’t a conscious choice on his part, though the way he felt could be a factor, and it fluctuated from time-to-time.
On particularly dark nights like this—when the moon couldn’t glow and the stars couldn’t glint because a ton of huge, thick clouds had rolled in and swallowed them up—for whatever reason, his form seemed to gain a lot more depth.
His “skin” looked very pallid and gray in some areas. Other areas were adorned by dull, angry violet splotches that were outlined with sickly yellowish-green. Like bruises on steroids. It came in streaks all over Angel’s arms, and Shep would’ve put money on the ghost’s entire chest being covered.
But the best example was his face.
The stain had spread right across, almost seeming to divide it in half in a messy line. It started at his left temple, stretched over to the bridge of his nose, and then down to his right cheek. And it kept going from there, curving under his jawline and all the way down to his neck before disappearing past his shirt.
While Shep had technically been roommates with the specter for so long now, he could still never look at him without terms like Livor Mortis popping up in the back of his head.
As Angel liked to say, it was as though he’d had been at a carnival and, out of all the options for face-painting, had picked the one damn booth where the artist just so happened to be drunk.
(And, as Shep sometimes pointed out when he was feeling a type of way, Angel’s attire of a leopard-print shirt and a sleeveless jacket that was truly violent shade of raspberry hinted that he would’ve fit right in at a drunk carnival.)
And as for Angel’s eyes…well, it was a bit of a stretch to call them eyes anymore. They were so damn cloudy, as though he’d been suffering from a horrible case of cataracts or corneal scarring (then again, eyes were usually the first parts to go when the real decay started). Instead of black, his pupils were a fleshy shade of white, like his head had been filled with pale, oily wine. His irises had likely been dark brown while he was still alive, but it was hard to tell if they still had that color, given how sunken the sockets were.
Shep paused at the counter, reaching over to the lava lamp that sat by the cash register and flipping its switch three times. After that, he fished around the drawers for a small tin of salt.
The unnatural chill in the air never faded away as he resumed walking, which meant Angel was still following, as he often did. “It’s just—you’ve been putting so much stuff on for the customers all month, but you still haven’t gotten to the Scream series. I was hoping for a marathon.”
“There’s a perfectly good TV in my living room,” Shep suggested, lifting up the doormat that lay just outside the main entrance. He sprinkled the salt out, pouring a few white lines on the floor, which he then covered back up. “You can always just take the movies up there.”
“Well, yeah,” Angel admitted. “But it’s not the same as watching down here.”
Shep snorted as he went back to the counter. “And since when did you get all sentimental?”
For a few long seconds. Angel stayed surprisingly silent.
“...Oh, wait!” A grin spread across Shep’s face as exchanged the salt for a microfiber cloth and his water bottle.
(The interior brick walls around here were a nice aesthetic touch. The viscous, ink-like, blister-smelling liquid that seeped through said bricks’ crevices once per week? Not so much. It’d taken a lot of digging to learn that something in the wall was simply crying, but cleaning up after it seemed to calm it back down. Besides, it was unhealthy to bottle tears up like that.)
“You just don’t want to watch it all by yourself, huh?”
Angel sputtered folding his arms across his chest with the barest whisper of cracking bones. “Excuse you! I’m just fine doing that stuff on my own. It’s just…it feels a lot more boring than it should.”
“Hey, I’m not shaming you,” Shep teasingly reassured as he moved over to the crying (or bleeding, or whatever-the-hell-it-was-actually-doing-in-an-anatomical-sense) wall. “Horror’s subjective. But once you’re grounded, it’s fun to be scared.”
“I don’t GET scared!” Angel insisted. “Think about all the parties other places around here have been throwing! That’s the ideal movie environment!”
“It’s also the ideal environment for you to screw around with people because there’s not much else to do.” Shep’s tone turned more knowing as carefully scrubbed at the first oozing streaks before they could stain any of the posters he’d set up. He thought back to all the times his own customers had done neck-snapping double-takes courtesy of Angel’s antics.
But then…could Angel really be blamed for said antics? He never meant any true harm, and being dead for as long as he had—scratch that, being dead in general, no matter what kind of shape your soul wound up in, was so, so much harder than being alive.
Even if a spirit hadn’t died painfully, they’d still feel pangs and aches that were all but beyond comprehension; and even if they’d once been human, they hadn’t exactly been set up to be able to handle something like that any better than most.
All the restlessness, stagnation, the signs that something is wrong with the world because why could this happen even when it obviously shouldn’t…
Shep knew he couldn’t truly understand (not yet, at least), but he wasn’t ignorant.
Sometimes you just had to give into that desperation, if at least to get a little joy out of things that simply didn’t work for you anymore.
“...But really, I do get it,” he concluded, in a slightly softer voice. “Movies are better with friends most of the time.”
Angel huffed, and though Shep had his back to him yet again, he could tell when that he was starting to relax. “...On top of that, I can actually focus up there. You never hold still during Close-Up. Seriously, all your pacing makes me dizzy sometimes.”
In spite of himself, Shep raised an eyebrow. “You’re dead. How exactly can you get dizzy?”
“How the hell should I know?” Angel snickered. “I’m honestly surprised you don’t have a guess for that. But hey, one more thing to add to all those notes on the corkboa—”
The pause was abrupt, and Shep didn’t think much of it at first, since Angel’s attention span could be a bit all over the place at times.
But then he noticed how the air was getting even colder, causing shivers down his spine that gave off the same, sharp clarity that solid have followed swallowing an ice cube by accident.
And when Angel spoke again, his voice was much smaller than before. Smaller, and shaking— “O-oh no…”—only to transition to piercing in less than a second. “Oh shIT, OH FUCK, NO!”
Shep flinched badly, both his tools falling to the floor.
“Angel?” He blurted, spinning in place to find that the specter had disappeared. A strange glow lingered in the air, like the smoke that pours out of a car’s exhaust pipe, but it was fading fast. Shep craned his neck to follow it, and saw how it was drift up into the ceiling.
“Angel?!” He called again. No answer.
Shep sprinted through the shop, grazing his shoulder against one of the larger display cases as he dove into the stairwell in the back. “Angel, what’s wrong? What happened?”
He’d just barely stepped onto the staircase before he got an answer.
It was neither from Angel, nor the one he wanted.
Tap-tap-tap.
A sharp, clear rhythm of both nails and knuckles against glass.
There were only so many places in the shop it could’ve been coming from—the front windows, the main door, even the mirror in the restroom.
But Shep had played this game enough times. It only ever happened in one place.
And now that he was closer to it…
A sense of complete and utter dread was rolling through the air like fog, feeling both cold and hot in an awful way. So strong that even the dead could feel it.
Shep sighed, then set his jaw as he marched back down the stairs. The last step was technically a false one: it could still support a person’s weight, but part of it was hollow, with its tread acting as a sort of lid. Shep knelt down and opened it up, revealing a box that he’d stashed away…well, not too long ago when he really thought about it.
The half-mask he fished out was more ornate than a lot of the stuff he collected—carved into the shape of an oni’s jaws, complete with fangs that curved up and out of the mouth like tusks, painted with cream and pale red to create a pattern like veins or snakeskin.
But that type of elaborate crafting was kinda necessary. For most of his life, he’d approached his skills somewhat casually. But when it came to more…surreal things, protection was needed. Real equipment was needed.
Shep slipped the mask on, adjusting the straps against his curly black hair. Then, with another deep, careful breath, he approached the window that loomed at the staircase’s first landing. It looked out onto the alleyway right beside the shop, the only thing keeping it separate from the next business over. Like most alleys, it was dark, with just a smidgen of light creeping in from the streetlamps out on the sidewalk.
The way the window had been installed, it was a good few feet off the ground.
But the figure looming just outside didn’t seem to care about that.
It could tell that it’d been noticed, so it wasn’t knocking or tapping anymore. Instead, it was pressing its hands against the glass, staining it with smears that were translucent in some parts…and red in others…
It waved as Shep drew closer, the movement shaky and loose, as though a joint somewhere had popped out of place.
Shep chewed his lip as he halted a few inches from the glass. The figure was shaped like a person. In fact, it technically was a person. It had all the things a lot of people did: blue eyes, fair skin, dishwater-blonde hair, dressed in clothes that were now stained with grime from the ground.
But Shep knew better. The fair complexion soon became pallid now that he was closer. The eyes were bloodshot, with one even starting to bulge a little if you squinted.
He knew that, whoever this was, they weren’t the one driving anymore. That they’d never be driving again.
Swallowing the bile in his throat, Shep crossed his arms. “What do you want?”
The body’s head lolled to the side, as if it were thinking the question over. It then snapped back upright, blinking in a way that felt far too stiff, almost robotic.
“...To come inside!” It finally answered, a smile forcefully tugging at its lips. “Could you open the window for me?”
Shep was shaking his head before two words even made it out. “Nope, can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Well, for one thing, you should be asking for a door like a normal person. And for another thing, we’re CLOSED. FOR. THE NIGHT.”
The body hummed, its head tilting to the side opposite of before. “It’s closed for living people. Dead people, on the other hand…”
Shep felt one of his eyes twitch, felt his knuckles turn pale as he subconsciously dug his nails into his palms.
He’d seen plenty of undead folk—hell, he’d even seen dead bodies being used as temporary vessels once or twice.
But this was not one of them. Even if it was fresher than Angel seemed to be, there was no sign of a soul anywhere. It was completely hollow, not much aside from a shell that just so happened to be made out of meat (as if a shell’s entire purpose was not to be that).
“Well, to be dead, you’d need to count a living thing in the first place,” he snapped. “Would you just cut the crap and get this over with already?!”
The body stared at him for another few seconds, still holding that fake-in-more-ways-than-one smile. Then, that grin dropped away completely, in almost perfect unison with how the eyes rolled back up into the head, leaving only glistening white exposed.
The body started convulsing, wracked with twitches and spasms that made it somewhat unclear if enough time had passed for Rigor Mortis to set in.
Outside, something else started rising up. The movement was subtle at first, just barely peeking over the bottom of the windowsill. But then it got faster, more aggressive.
It almost could’ve been mistaken for a hand—or maybe the shadow of a hand. One that was simply being cast from a decent few feet away, since it was so easy for shadows to be distorted, for an outlined wrist and fingers to stretch far too long as they reached up to the body.
But as the seconds kept ticking, as Shep kept watching, it became more and more obvious how that thing was solid. Even though it was so dark that it shouldn’t have had any real mass—so dark that it blotted out the light of the streetlamps and somehow still stood out. actually stood out against the gloom of the alley.
And now that “hand” looked more like some psychotic combination of octopus tentacles and tree branches. They coiled around the body’s waist with a chorus of criicks and snAps that weren’t nearly as muffled by the window as they should’ve been.
Something in the back of Shep’s mind wanted to sway and heave, but he focused on the weight of the mask resting against his skin. For good measure, he reached into one of his sleeves and began to slowly, carefully trace his fingernails along his dark skin.
Not to draw anything in particular—just to stimulate.
The body finally went still again…and then a horrific, slippery rustling sound oozed into the air, like overgrown worms squeezing their way through mud-caked grass oozed.
Then, with a final, sickening POP, the body went completely limp. It doubled over, giving Shep a good, long look at torn fabric and flayed skin.
Another set of dark tendrils were sliding out of the bloody chasm, like fishing wires being reeled in (Soon enough, Shep caught pale, glistening shapes through all the red. His instincts—and experience as a frickin' human being—told him that they were vertebrae, but another part of him insisted that they were teeth).
The appendage as a whole actually seemed to shrink down, but only a bit. Just enough for its owner to shake it, slinging off a thin coat of blood, which splattered against the window like it’d been fired from a paintball gun.
From the upper corner of the window, another shape started writhing into view. An eye the size of Shep’s fist seemed to bloom open, giving off such a sickly pale glow that it almost seemed to burn against the rest of the void. Its pupil rattled in place, shrinking down to a pinprick in less than a second as it glared through the glass.
“§ð…” The voice seemed to pour out between long, razor-equse teeth like molten lead, buzzing and screeching around the edges as if the speaker’s gums were infested with cicadas. “Ðð ¥ðµ hå†ê åll £µñ, ðr ï§ ï† jµ§† whêñ Ì'm ïñ ðñ ï†?”
“That one. Option B,” Shep replied with no hesitation. “Definitely Option B.”
“¥êðw¢h, †hå† §†ïñg§,” the monster pouted, dramatically turning his gaze away, which led to his neck hanging at an extremely uncomfortable angle. “Ć †hï§ rå†ê, Ì mïgh† §†år† †ð †hïñk †hå† ¥ðµ Ððñ'† wåñ† mê §†ðþþïñg ߥ å† åll.”
Shep rolled his eyes. Part of him wanted to step back, but he held firm. “You say that like there’s anyone else who would.”
“...Wêll, Ì mêåñ, †hêrê'§ Ðê£ïñï†êl¥ å† lê姆 ðñê,” Pat mused as he idly turned the body over in his clutches. “Må¥ßê †wð ðr †hrêê, ï£ ¥ðµ rêåll¥ §qµïñ† å† ï†.”
“Oh, that’s nice!” Shep snarked. “Did you find a friendly sewer-clown? Something like that? That wouldn’t be too different from whatever company you usually keep.”
Pat’s face twisted, a handful of smaller eyes sprouting around his primaries. A long, ropey flicked in and out of his mouth like party favors as he hissed at the comment. “¥ðµ †hïñk ¥ðµ håvê rððm †ð †ålk whêñ ¥ðµ’rê ålw奧 Ðêålïñg wï†h ÐêåÐ †hïñg§”
The snarl warped back into a grin like a blur, more and more teeth squeezing their way into the rows lining his maw. “Må¥ßê åll †hð§ê vðï¢ê§ årê £ïñåll¥ §†år†ïñg †ð gê† †ð ¥ðµ…”
Shep felt his eyes widen, felt his temper boil. But by the time he realized that he had to hide that, it was already too late.
Pat’s smile stretched evenfurther along his face, not caring one iota how his lips tore. He wasn’t mincing his words; he knew exactly what a statement liek that really meant to Shep, and now he was getting to savor it.
His teeth all clattered and sheared together like knives against sharpening rods as he chuckled.
As Shep fought to not glance away, he caught sight of something behind all those teeth. A faint, weak, struggling glow that was nothing like Pat’s eyes. It was getting dimmer and dimmer by the minute, clearly in the process being buried somewhere deep, although little bits caught in the monster’s mouth.
The body…that hollow, vacant body that was just being used in a ventriloquist act that was even more screwed-up than usual…
Even through all the fear, Part of Shep had naturally wondered at where its soul could’ve gone. Well, he had a pretty good hint now.
Shep’s stomach churned, and his eyes began to sting as he thought back to Angel’s panic.
He’s safe, he had to remind himself. This building is the barrier he needs.
“Not. A chance. In hell,” Shep declared through gritted teeth, glaring up at the monster with every bit of anger he had right now. “I’m not having any problems.”
Pat hummed and leaned back, his eyes still glinting with smug, sadistic humor. “Whå†êvêr ¥ðµ §å¥.”
“Yeah, it is whatever I say,” Shep shot back. “And I say you should go ahead and hit the road.” He fidgeted in place, about to finally resume his march up to the apartment. Sure, Pat would likely still hang around, but that didn’t mean he had to give him any more entertainment.
“HðlÐ ðñ, Ì †hðµgh† wê wêrê håvïñg å ¢ðñvêr§å†ïðñ,” Pat protsested.
“No, we weren’t!” Shep argued. “You killed someone out of nowhere just to try and scare me into a deal! That’s what’s been going on!”
Pat shook his head at the charge, his eyes rolling like bubbles in oil. “Whð §åïÐ †hå† Ì kïllêÐ †hï§ mêå†ßåg hêrê?” He raised the corpse for emphasis, shaking it like it was a chicken with some stubborn fluff on it.
A good portion of fear up and vanished as Shep blinked, putting a hand on his hip. “Oh, so you just so happened to find a dead body in the alley? Is that what you’re saying?
“†hå†'§ êx墆l¥ whå† Ì'm §å¥ïñg.” Pat nodded.
Shockingly enough, his tone…didn’t sound all that dishonest. The rules he was bound to didn’t keep him from lying through is malformed jaws, but…Shep had plenty of practice when it came to reading people (as well as things that vaguely felt like people but weren’t trying nearly hard enough).
Still, Shep wasn’t about to give something like this total benefit of the doubt. “Well, if that’s the case, did you at least see who actually did it?”
“Må¥ßê, må¥ßê ñð†,” Pat replied with a coy smirk. “Ç'mðñ, †hêrê'§ µ§µåll¥ ñð†hïñg ïñ †hê§ê ållꥧ êx¢êþ† llê k¥-¢å†§.”
“Right. Sure.” Something in Shep’s brain perked up at that, but he shoved it aside. He’d already wasted enough time. “Y’know, for all the attention you’ve got on your nest, you sure don’t seem to have much going on with it lately. Since you came all this way to bother me.”
He thought about the huge macabre museum at the very edge of downtown. He hadn’t paid it a visit just yet, but he’d heard plenty of his own customers talking about it.
But then there were the rumors that didn’t come from more typical sources. The ones that slipped through the cracks in the sidewalks, or clung to the lights in his shop for a little while before they had to keep moving.
To be fair, a ton of people entered that museum on a somewhat regular basis. That meant it’d be hard to pick out those who never left.
“Öh, ßµÐÐ¥…”
The words hit Shep’s ears like frostbite, and he felt his heart legitimately skip a beat. The air felt so much heavier than it already had.
He had to swallow a lump in his throat, had to fight the oily chill that was now clutching at his lungs.
Pat drew closer to the window, letting the body of his latest plaything slip out of sight. His form seeming to drain as he reached a height not all that different from the average human. He suddenly only had two eyes, had only one mouth, had teeth that were actually being hidden by his lips.
Somehow, that was even worse than all the times he went ham on his shapeshifting.
He looked Shep up and down, with a smile so calm and so knowing that it could’ve turned anyone else’s hair white. “…¥ðµ'vê gð† ñÖ ÌÐÈÄ hðw wrðñg ¥ðµ årê.”
Shep couldn’t help it—he blinked. He knew he shouldn’t have, but he had to.
His eyes were only closed for half a second.
But once he was looking though the window again, Pat was gone.
Against his better judgement, he stepped closer, peered out a bit further.
The alley was empty. Even the body had disappeared.
Shep pursed his lips, tugged at his jacket to try and make the shivers stop.
With another deep breath, he ascended the next flight of stairs. Angel always hid in the apartment when things got serious; Shep knew he was up there somewhere, and he had to check on him. To make sure he was alright.
…Shep didn’t take his mask off, though. He’d leave it on for a little while longer.
Remember how I made Cruz as a Christmas present for @sammys-magical-au ? Well, I figured I’d do something similar this year, as a little Halloween present for my equally lovely other friend, @insane4fandoms !
And remember how I eventually brought Sol, Moses and ColosSeptic into the fray as the lore of my Eldritch AU (Stanning the Uncanny) kept growing? Well, again, same thing here with an extra character!
Yeah, it’s severely last-minute, and yeah, that’s totally my fault. I really thought the motivational issues I’ve been experiencing would’ve been taken care of by now, but I guess those things can’t always be so easy.
Despite that, I promise you’re gonna be seeing these guys in action very, VERY soon…
___
Shepherd “Shep” Moorehouse
My very first fanego based off of CoryxKenshin
Much like Cruz, Sol, and Moses, he just sort of has a knack of the supernatural. For as long as he can remember, he’s been able to perceive things that most humans can’t. And he has no idea how or why, since nobody else in his family shares this ability. Ghosts (and other types of undead) are the most common example, but he’s also aware of…much more surreal things that can somehow still hide in plain sight.
And, since of course I can’t write anything without at least a smidge of angst: yes, this caused some problems while Shep was growing up. His family wasn’t abusive toward him, but they never believed his claims about seeing ghosts and the like. They saw it as mental illness, and pushed both therapies and medication on him despite neither ever going anywhere. On top of this, he faced some ostracism in school; he was the subject of rumors and bullying due to “talking to himself” or “seeing things that aren’t there.”
In spite of those difficulties, he actually grew up pretty well-adjusted. He’ll never deny what he sees, but he had to coem to terms with keeping certain things to himself, because most people around him are just better off not knowing. He had to do a lot of learning (both the easy way and the hard way) on his own, but by now, he’s quite knowledgeable and experienced with the supernatural.
In a similar vein, Shep is also a skilled lucid-dreamer. He’s capable of dreaming, but he usually chooses not to, since dreams can often form gateways into a person’s head. And he’s already had one too many nightmares in his youth to NOT want certain things trying to crawl their way through that gate. He knows that the risk isn’t always there…but he also know that, by the time you actually see that risk, it’s probably already too late. So, might as well avoid it altogether. It’d take a lot of convincing or a deadly-serious scenario for him to let himself dream while he sleeps.
One of his hobbies is urban exploration. He never records himself in the process, but he’s always felt drawn to abandoned places, or areas that most others would deem creepy and avoid. There have certainly been times where that did NOT work out well for him, but he’s too stubborn to stay scared for long. He can’t do it as much as he used to, but he’ll often look up places to check out whenever he finally has enough free time.
He’s the owner and manager of The Dyed Fleece, a shop that specializes in all things entertainment: art stuff, movies, video games, comic books/graphic novels, you name it. It’s an older building that he got for a steal, especially considering it came with a second-story apartment attached. In fact, you might say that it was a bit too much of a steal…Now, Shep did see some of the writing on the wall, but it was only after he was fully moved in and fixing the place up that he realized just how much he actually signed up for.
So, yeah, turns out The Dyed Fleece is a bit of a hotspot for certain entities. Plenty of ghosts tend to come and go, some sticking around longer—and causing more problems—than others. (In fact, a lot of them specifically seek it out as a sort of sanctuary, since there are…let’s say bigger fish lurking around other parts of the city.) And that’s just the tip of the uncanny iceberg. Shep’s had many different encounters, and has had to arrange many different things around the shop to keep it from caving in on his head. (There’s a very long, extremely specific list of things he has to do for the shop. Especially when it comes to closing up at night.) But, as mentioned before, Shep is both supernaturally-inclined as stubborn as hell, so he’s been able to manage pretty well so far.
And last but not least: while he doesn’t actively engage in occult-esque things, he still has some tools at the ready to keep himself protected. Mainly a half-mask that can help him look at things that really shouldn’t be looked at with human eyes. (And yes, I’m specifically drawing inspiration from an oni mask because you just can’t have a CoryxKenshin ego without nodding to Cory’s samurai schtick.) Remember, he’s developed quite a strong mind and will, so he actually doesn’t need quite as much shielding as other characters do. He’s not completely invulnerable to the more raw stuff, but the mask is pretty damn resilient.
___
Angel Casares
My very first fanego based off of KubzScouts
He’s good friends with Shep, despite there being so many differences between them. The biggest one being that Angel has been dead for several years. But sometimes it just be like that, and in times like this, nobody can really afford to be a loner. Before the two of them met, Angel didn’t think anyone was capable of actually seeing ghosts, let alone talking/interacting with them. So, Shep became an instant cure for boredom in his eyes.
Unlike most of the other ghosts who come around The Dyed Fleece, Angel has an actual connection to the building, since it was where he died in the first place. He’s been haunting it long before Shep bought it and fixed it up. Angel is the type who can’t remember the details of his death; the same goes for his former life. He’s aware that finding those memories would help him to move on and rest, but he’s surprisingly in no rush to do so. Yeah, death is pretty damn limiting in a lot of ways, but it can also give you a few opportunities. Such as, for instance, no longer having to hold your tongue about anything. In that regard, his name is even more ironic, because if you know irl Jay, then you know he certainly doesn’t talk like an angel.
…That said, while Angel doesn’t have much to worry about with most living beings, he can absolutely be harmed by other undead/otherwordly beings. Due to how many of those very entities are drawn to the shop, Angel has been the direct cause of more than one fiasco that Shep has had to handle.
In a similar vein: while Shep is curious about Angel’s death, there truly aren’t many clues about it. Unless you count the vague, flickering shapes that sometimes appear on Angel’s “skin.” It could be a sign of bruises, or scars, or bloodstains, or handprints, or…but then, it’s just hard to make out, even for someone with skills like Shep’s.
In the earlier stages of their afterlives, most ghosts can’t move very far from the place they died. There’s a few different ways to remedy this; one of the most simple ones is for the ghost to siphon energy off of living beings. This is Angel’s personal approach, and thanks to Shep opening the shop, he’s able to do it pretty frequently, although he tries to be careful about it. (After all, it wouldn’t be good for business if the shop’s owner and clientele were constantly falling unconscious within minutes.) That energy only lasts so long, though, and Angel always has to return sooner or later (when he isn’t rushing back in a panic because a more dangerous entity noticed him, at least).
Yes, he’s capable of possessing living bodies (although the results can be varied). And yes, he’s possessed Shep at least once in the past, mainly just to see what would happen. It led to an Incident will live in infamy, and both of them try—and fail—to pretend it never happened. On top of that, he also has limited telekinetic ability, not unlike your average poltergeist (even though that’s bascially the same as him just manually moving things around people who, unlike Shep, can’t see him).
(Plus, considering Cruz's loyalty to EldritchPlier, and the fact that, according to Sammy, aforementioned monster is an enemy of CyptidXian...well, it would take some strange circumstances for these two to meet...)
(...Perhaps I'll be able to touch on that in this year's Goretober...)
Anyone who knows me knows that I get pretty much all of my entertainment from YouTube. Some of my favorite content-creators include MatPat, CoryxKenshin, Rosanna Pansino, Nathan Sharp, James and his crew on Dead Meat...and, of course, the one and only Markiplier.
While Lunky was both funny and creepy to watch when he first appeared, I didn't really get inspiration from him.
No spoilers in case you haven't seen certain videos, but once Lunky came back with his new design, I got more intrigued. And then, when his friends were introduced as part of an ambush on Mark...
I usually have a hard time keeping my sculptures small, but these ones came out relatively palm-sized.
I actually managed to include Lunky's "stitches" by cutting up bamboo skewers, painting them black, and pushing them in-between his halves before the clay started drying. (Yeah, I know it's hard to see them with how I took the picture. Sorry about that 😅)
Posting short fics like this is starting to become a habit 😅 not that I’m complaining, this is fun!
This is a follow-up fic from When the Eldrich Meets the Ethereal, which was a gift to my good friend @wouldntyou-liketoknow, and to her fic that was a sequel to mine, Talking in Your Sleep. (I’d highly recommend reading these before you read this if you haven’t already 😉)
The characters of LeviathanPat and Sylphanie both belong to her, but the rest are my own, save for Jack Harkness and Toshiko Sato from Torchwood, who are briefly mentioned (also, this short fic contains mild spoilers for Torchwood: The Alternate Universe season 4, if you’ve been following that series, so read with caution)
Warnings include nightmares and descriptions of body horror, and with that out of the way, let’s get into it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I… have to go away for a little while,” Sam had said - all the while avoiding direct eye contact, “I’m not sure where exactly, but… I’ll know everything by the time I get back.”
Jay knew by now that when they phrased it like that, it wasn’t a mission Jack had sent them on. Sam was either following a gut feeling, or someone else - someone who existed between plains of reality and was nearly older than humanity itself - had asked her to go.
The latter option always made Jay’s guts twist with anger. There was something about Harmonia and the Ancient Ones asking Sam to do things for them on a whim that just irked him - even if Sam didn’t seem to mind or even seemed happy to do whatever they asked.
Jay just didn’t like the fact that his spouse could be controlled so easily like this. No one told Sam what to do, not even ethereal beings from the beginning of the universe. Jay knew that well enough, but Sam seemed to have forgotten…
Maybe she’d just mellowed over the years. The absence of constant abuse and religious trauma making her more likely to simply follow instructions from “spiritual higher-ups”, so to speak.
Even if that was the case, Jay still wasn’t sure he liked it.
He was distracted from his thoughts, however, when his and Sam’s daughter, Alexa, cautiously walked into the living room.
“Alexa?” He asked softly, “what’s the matter, dear?”
“It’s nothing,” Alexa murmured, giving him a smile that he knew was forced, “just… Dad… does it feel a little cold to you?”
Jay blinked. Now that he thought about it… there did seem to be a chill - the kind of chill that you knew without investigating had spread throughout the whole house, which was especially unusual considering the warm, tropical evening outside.
“It does…” he answered Alexa.
“Might be Rift stuff,” Alexa said, “should I text Jack or Aunt Tosh?”
“Not right yet,” Jay replied slowly, “we’ll just wait and see if anything happens first.”
Alexa paused at this, phone in her hands and thumbs presumably poised over the keypad. Then she nodded.
“Okay.” She said quietly.
“Don’t be afraid, sweetheart,” Jay assured her, “I’m sure it’s nothing. You know better than me that sometimes weird things happen around a Rift - especially this one.”
Alexa nodded again, but didn’t say anything more.
Jay knew she was still on edge - and he couldn’t blame her, he was too, something definitely felt off in the air tonight.
He just hoped it didn’t have anything to do with Sam, and that she was alright.
Sam sat bolt upright in the hotel bed with a loud gasp, hand instinctively reaching for The Lion’s Breath - even though it had all been a dream, and it wasn’t like the sword would’ve done much to protect them, they felt like they needed it.
They sat there in the dark, panting and sweating and pointing the sword at a non-existent enemy, for a good five minutes before their frantic heartbeat finally began to slow down.
Allowing The Lion’s Breath to transform back into the simple bracelet they typically disguised it as (they weren’t sure they were comfortable just setting it aside at the moment), Sam reached out through the dark with their other hand until the cotton sheets turned to soft, warm fur.
Zephyr stirred slightly as their fingers reached her, shuffling a little closer to her owner in her sleep, but didn’t wake. Sam slowly lay back down beside her, pressing their body into the massive feline’s shape and realizing they were shaking - although that might’ve been from the sudden dry coldness in the room, one that Sam was certain hadn’t been there when they’d arrived back at the hotel.
Now that they were awake, they could remember that finding their way back here hadn’t been much trouble at all. Though they did faintly recall looking back in the direction they were certain that The Abnormal Orchard had been in and not being able to see it. Although, after having gotten a good look at Pat in the dream, they had an easier time believing that was just some clever trick of reality the eldrich being had pulled - whether it was specifically to freak Sam out or just something he always did.
As harrowing as the conversation with Pat had been, along with the frightening knowledge that a creature one could only imagine in their wildest nightmares actually existed out there… it wasn’t just that that was bothering Sam. Something about the appearance of his supposed counterpart, who’s name Sam didn’t dare try to think of in case it melted their brain, had equally chilled them to the bone.
Seeming to sense their nervous thoughts, Zephyr nuzzled into them with a sleepy rumble, and Sam finally felt themself begin to actually relax, though the strange coldness in the air didn’t seem to want to subside at all.
Their back was now facing the window, and even though they weren’t exactly happy with that, they’d much rather be cuddling Zephyr than facing away from her. Even if it meant being more vulnerable to whatever was outside.
If only you could twist your neck all the way around without breaking it like Pat. A small part of them joked, and they almost laughed. The only thing that stopped them from it was the shiver that ran up their spine at the memory of Pat taunting them in the dream-that-really-hadn’t-felt-like-a-dream, head twisting at unnatural angles as he spoke. Jesus, that fucker was creepy, and they knew he liked that Sam thought that of him. But for some reason, right now he didn’t hold a candle to the ethereal being who had suddenly shown up - Pat definitely knew her, but hadn’t been expecting to see her.
Something about the way she’d made Pat simply disappear, the way she’d looked at Sam with all those eyes of hers… she was almost scarier than Pat.
Did Harmonia know her? Sam wished they could ask her, but to contact the Ancient Ones they’d have to go back to sleep, and right now there was no way in hell they were doing that.
Suddenly, a flicker of movement caught Sam’s eye, and they glanced up to stare at the wall of the hotel room.
Nothing moved, and the wall was cast in darkness - not even the moon outside was at the right angle to shine any light through the window.
For some reason, that was a hundred times worse than seeing anything.
Just as the feeling of uneasiness started to pass, Sam saw it again. A tiny pinpoint of radiant light dancing across the wall.
This time it didn’t disappear immediately, and Sam sat up to peer at it, leaning over Zephyr’s sleeping form.
The tiger stirred, but still didn’t wake.
The tiny speck of light kept shimmering and bouncing up and down against the room’s nasty yellow wallpaper (ironic that it was that color, considering how Sam felt right now), even ever so slightly seeming to grow in size.
At first, Sam wasn’t sure what the hell to even make of it, until they remembered that light typically didn’t just randomly appear on surfaces without an outside source.
Outside…
Slowly, with a sense of dread creeping into their bones, Sam turned their head around to look out the window.
Despite the darkness in the city outside, somewhere in the near distance, there was light. Glowing and ethereal, just like in Sam’s dream, just like… her. And it was moving, getting steadily closer as Sam watched, finding themself standing right next to the window without realizing they’d moved at all.
Now, Zephyr awoke, her head abruptly snapping up as if on command and a growl rumbling in her throat as her piercing peridot eyes searched the shadows of the room.
Sam glanced back at her, holding their hand up to signal her to stay put, and when they looked back to the window, the view of the city was blocked by a massive, luminous face.
~~~
Deep in the impossible jungle, a place so full of life and light and a sense of peace one might think they’d found the biblical Garden of Eden if they stumbled upon it, another great beast raised her head.
Harmonia swiveled her ears around, listening to the faint wind whisper through the trees. Something had definitely awoken her, and it had done so for a reason.
“Luca?” She called faintly into the night, but no reply came.
Regardless, the Leonasus stood from her nest and stretched, waiting for an answer to come to her.
That answer came in the form of Barsus, the Pronghorned Wolf, slinking out of the shadows of the trees, his amber eyes gleaming with a light of their own.
“Harmonia.” He rumbled, dipping his head in greeting. Harmonia copied the gesture.
“Barsus. What brings you here?”
“Can you not hear the voices in the wind? They have a message for you and I.”
Harmonia tilted her head at him.
“Us? Why us?” She asked, swishing her tail.
Barsus stared at her gravely.
“Because we are the only ones who ever met… her.”
The single word sent a shiver through Harmonia’s wings, and she instantly found herself in a vision - or perhaps more of a memory - of when she was no more than a cub.
Back then, the island now known as Saint Lucia had been dominated by the Ancient Ones, though it wouldn’t be for much longer.
Barsus was a little older than Harmonia, standing next to her on wobbly stilt-legs as she struggled to stand at all.
Harmonia couldn’t remember what had happened before or after this moment, only that the sky had suddenly turned dark - so dark even the light of the stars could not get through - and great balls of fire shot across it, as the ground shook with the distant sound of an agonized wail of despair.
The adults had begun murmuring to each other, all with worried looks on their faces, and a common name that was repeated over and over was a name Harmonia was not familiar with - “𝕾𝓎𝖑𝓅𝖍”.
Time seemed to pass quickly, but while fire still rained from the sky, a luminous figure appeared, a creature neither Barsus or Harmonia had ever seen before.
She was crying, tears of burning sunlight falling from her many eyes, and the adults all gathered around to comfort her as she wept, telling them of a terrible mistake and a lost love.
“Mama,” Barsus asked when his mother broke away from the group, having promised to hunt a Cloud Buffalo in the hopes that it might help calm this strange visitor, “who is she? Why is she so sad?”
Barsus’ mother simply glanced back over her shoulder at the despondent newcomer, a look of deep sadness in her amber eyes.
“She is a friend,” she answered finally, “a friend who needs our help. She has done something that has broken her own heart.”
“Can we help?” Harmonia had spoken up.
Barsus’ mother gazed fondly down at her for a moment, then smiled, nodding.
“Yes. Perhaps you can, if you go and sit by her.”
The two of them had made their way to the strange visitor’s side, Harmonia’s legs so wobbly that she hardly made it, but eventually a few of the visitor’s eyes had fallen on the little ones who had appeared next to her, and some of the pain in her expression seemed to ease.
“𝕺𝒽, 𝖑ℴ𝖔𝓀 𝒶𝖙 𝖞ℴ𝖚…” she cooed in a voice like howling hurricane winds, “𝖞ℴ𝖚 𝖕𝓇𝖊𝒸𝖎ℴ𝖚𝓈 𝓉𝖍𝒾𝖓ℊ𝖘. 𝒰𝖓𝓉𝖔𝓊𝖈𝒽𝖊𝒹 𝒷𝖞 𝖙𝒽𝖊 𝖈𝓇𝖚ℯ𝖑𝓉𝖞 𝖔𝒻 𝒽𝖚𝓂𝖆𝓃𝖎𝓉𝖞.”
Back then, Barsus and Harmonia hadn’t known what “humanity” meant. That was before any human had ever set foot on this land.
Sometimes, Harmonia still wished she knew what Sylph had meant - although she had an idea.
Had humans destroyed her homeland too? Was that the heartbreak Barsus’ mother had spoken of?
It seemed like she might be finally getting an answer.
“She has returned.” Harmonia murmured, and Barsus dipped his head.
“She has.” He replied.
“But why?”
“That I am not sure of. But I feel that the universe wants us to know she is here for a reason.”
“Agreed. We must leave immediately. I had hoped Sam would have gotten home by now, but I could send one of the Guardian Cobras to relay a message to her family.”
“That seems like a good idea. I will wait here for your return.”
Barsus sat down in the tall grass where he stood, and Harmonia dipped her head to him before spreading her wings and leaping into the sky.
From above the treetops, she could see that the Tree of Life had taken on an unusual glow, slightly brighter to look at than normal. It almost hurt her eyes to gaze upon it for too long.
That was definitely a sign from the universe as well.
Harmonia wasn’t sure why Sylph had returned, but it seemed she might be in need of their help, and if that was the case, Harmonia would follow her parents’ teachings. Helping other beings was the way of the Ancient Ones, even when they themselves were much weaker than they had once been.
She only hoped that after all these thousands of years, Sylph remembered them all as well as they remembered her.
~~~
Jay was finding it hard to sleep.
He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something was wrong - and even without it, it was still so damn cold in the house, cold enough that Jay was considering getting up and rummaging through the closet for his old long-sleeved pyjamas he’d bought when he, Sam, and their kids had still been living in Wales.
Maybe his mind was just playing tricks on him. Sometimes the air in a room felt colder when under the covers just because the bed was so warm. That had to be the reason. Or maybe he was just overtired.
Jay took a deep breath that turned into a yawn, rolling over so his back faced the bedroom window.
The bed felt so empty without Sam. Now that he thought about it, not having his living-furnace of a spouse sleeping next to him might’ve also been contributing to the chill in the air. The only part of Sam’s body that didn’t radiate constant warmth was their feet, which were always cold, something their older brother Daniel had always said they should get checked out since it could mean they had poor circulation.
Sam would always roll their eyes when he said that, tell him they’d give him poor circulation if he didn’t leave them alone about it.
A smile had found its way onto Jay’s face as he thought of Sam. He could almost imagine them suddenly climbing into bed next to him after a late-night weevil round-up, snuggling up close to him and complaining about being dragged out of bed at this hour, pressing those cold toes of theirs in between his legs and making him shriek loudly enough to wake Athena in the nursery at the end of the hall.
Jay was startled from the half-fantasy, half-dream by the sound of the horses braying outside.
He had sat up in bed before he knew it, the vision of Sam being there shattering in the face of whatever had caused the horses such distress.
Throwing the covers off of him (and in doing so noting that the room was, in fact, still as cold as he’d expected it to be), Jay got out of bed and ran to the window, pushing it open to scan the yard for anything that might have disturbed the horses. However, their frantic neighing soon subsided. Jay could still hear them nickering to each other, but that sound was quickly replaced by something else.
Ssssssssssssss…
At first, Jay thought it was the wind in the palm trees outside. Their leaves were dry this time of year, so they usually made a hissing sound when the breeze picked up.
But then it came again, louder and closer than before.
Sssssssssssssssssss…
Jay stepped back from the window, frantically looking around. The noise seemed to be coming from everywhere at once - above, below, directly in front and behind him, his left and his right.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…
The sound was now more like that of the steam coming out of a boiling pot who’s lid had just been lifted, or someone pretending to be a snake, or-
Jay froze.
Pretending to be a snake, or actually a snake? He thought.
The notion seemed ridiculous, since the sound had to be coming from something pretty big - larger than any animal besides maybe a blue whale could ever possibly be - but now that the thought of snakes had entered Jay’s head, he couldn’t deny that the organic hissing likely couldn’t have come from anything else.
His thoughts were confirmed when there was a dull scraaape from the balcony outside, followed by a faint creak as the door was pushed open.
Hiiiissssssssssss…
Jay fell back with a cry of fear, tripping over his feet and falling out into the hallway, landing hard enough to feel a sharp pain shoot up his spine from his tailbone as it hit the floor.
The long, shadowy form that had broken and entered into the bedroom slithered further across the floor, then raised its impossibly large head and blinked down at Jay with three massive, glowing yellow eyes.
Its forked tongue flicked out with another tiny hiss, and then, to Jay’s utter bewilderment, it spoke - without even opening its mouth.
“Do not be afraid, I do not come to bring you harm.”
Jay realized his mouth was opening and closing as he breathed heavily, but no words would come out.
“I am Serpentus,” the massive snake continued, “a friend of Harmonia, and of the human named Sam.”
That finally snapped Jay out of it. This was an Ancient One, not just some random talking snake.
That really should have been more obvious.
“Sam’s not here,” Jay replied steadily, with an edge to his voice, “Harmonia sent her away on some quest, or whatever you call it.”
Serpentus bobbed their head, and Jay realized they were nodding.
“That is why I am here. Something has occurred elsewhere on this planet tonight, and Harmonia had to leave to take care of it. She asked me to tell you so that Sam does not worry if they return before she does.”
As much as Jay was annoyed that this was the way the Ancient Ones were passing on this strange message, he knew Harmonia was right to suspect that Sam would worry if they came home and she had gone.
At least the Ancient Ones cared enough about Sam to ensure they wouldn’t worry needlessly - they’d done enough of that in their life, and not just over weird semi-mythical Rift-creatures, Jay knew that better than anyone.
He dipped his head briefly in respect.
“Thank you,” he murmured to Serpentus, “I’ll tell her that.”
Serpentus flicked their tongue out again, then wordlessly made to slither back out the way they’d come.
“Wait,” Jay said, “do you know if Sam’s alright? Has this… other thing Harmonia has to deal with affecting them?”
Serpentus blinked at him, head tilting to one side as their tongue poked back out and tested the air for a bit longer this time. Then they unhelpfully answered, “that, I do not know.”
~~~
Sam couldn’t help but scream and jump back from the window, just as Zephyr leaped from the bed and came to stand defensively next to them, still growling softly.
The massive face in the window remained impassive, thousands of eyes the color of smoky quartz all trained on Sam and their feline companion.
The being’s gaze focused on Zephyr, and slightly softened.
“𝕾𝓁𝖊ℯ𝖕 𝖓ℴ𝖜.” She murmured, and suddenly Zephyr had sunk to the floor in a ball, her chest rising and falling rhythmically.
“What did you do to her?!” Sam barked against their better judgment, defensiveness momentarily overcoming their fear.
“They sent me here to assure that they weren’t in danger. I am connected to them in ways that shield me from Pat. Besides, he said they might know you, if you are who I think you are.”
“𝕿𝒽𝖊𝓃 𝓉𝖊𝓁𝖑 𝖒ℯ - 𝓌𝖍ℴ 𝓈𝖊𝓃𝖙 𝖞ℴ𝖚 𝖍ℯ𝖗ℯ?”
“The Ancient Ones.”
The world seemed to stop for a fraction of a second - and, considering who Sam was talking to, perhaps it actually did.
“𝕿𝒽𝖊 𝕬𝓃𝖈𝒾𝖊𝓃𝖙 𝕺𝓃𝖊𝓈…” the ethereal being echoed.
“That’s right,” Sam replied, finally finding the courage to look up into her face again, “I am bonded to the Ancient Ones, chosen by the universe itself to defend the space-time Rift they call home and assure that the balance of the cosmic energies in the galaxy remains intact. I wield the etherium sword named The Lion’s Breath, and I am The Queen of Hearts.”
The ethereal being stared at them for a moment longer.
It felt weird for an ethereal being to be calling them ‘your majesty’, even if Sam had been fond of the term in any way - which they weren’t. It was likely just a formality.
This being wouldn’t need to have any real respect for them, she wasn’t the one they were connected to.
“𝕾𝒶𝖒,” the being echoed, “𝖞ℴ𝖚 𝖒𝒶𝖞 𝖈𝒶𝖑𝓁 𝓂𝖊… Sylphanie.”
Sam nodded respectfully.
“Sylphanie,” they repeated, “I’m glad there’s something I can call you that I can say without my brain melting through the roof of my mouth.”
To their surprise, Sylphanie laughed, though it sounded more like huge sheets of metal scraping together on a building site, or an old, rusty machine trying to do its job one last time before collapsing under its own weight.
“I’m here to ensure the safety of the Ancient Ones,” Sam explained when the sound died down, “they sensed your buddy’s presence nearby and wanted to make sure he wasn’t coming after them.”
“Thank you,” they said, wishing they could know more about her past with Pat, but smart enough to know that asking a deity-like being nosy questions was a good way to end up dead - or worse, “I’ll tell them. Though from what I gathered at The Abnormal Orchard, I was already fairly certain of that.”
Sam had absolutely no idea what that meant, but again, they knew better than to ask questions.
Besides, at that moment, Sylphanie looked up into the sky, and Sam leaned closer to the window to see what she’d seen.
At first it just looked like two of the stars against the blackness of night were shining brighter than the others, but as Sam watched, they realized these weren’t stars at all, and they were slowly getting closer, turning to brilliant silver and gold.
The gold ball of light took the shape of a massive winged lion, with a silky flowing mane and blazing blue eyes, and back legs that ended in pale pink hooves instead of paws.
The silver orb became an amber-eyed wolf the size of a horse, with three sharp horns like those of a ram on its head, and that appeared to be walking on nothing but the wind.
Sam opened the window and jumped out onto the ground, momentarily forgetting about Sylphanie.
“Harmonia!” They exclaimed, “Barsus! What are you doing here?”
“The wind directed us to come here,” Barsus answered, “there’s been another disturbance in the universe tonight.”
“And I believe we’ve found her.” Harmonia added, stepping up to Sylphanie.
Now that Sam was outside, they could see the way Sylphanie’s body seemed both there and not-there, flowing in intricate billowing patterns like clouds in the wind, or translucent silk. She glowed like the afternoon sun, though if one looked closely, they would notice small ribbons of rainbow colors twirling within her form. Her flower-like head and shoulders were dotted with thousands of eyes, the only things dark about her, though they still glowed from within, as though someone had held a light up to a piece of amber.
She had been staring at Harmonia and Barsus since they appeared in the sky without saying a word, and now she bent closer to them, as if trying to get a better look at them both.
“It is us, 𝕾𝓎𝖑𝓅𝖍,” Harmonia answered as she and Barsus both dipped their heads respectfully, “we heard your voice on the wind and thought perhaps you needed our help again.”
Again? Sam thought, but was too awestruck to say out loud.
“Thank you, 𝕾𝓎𝖑𝓅𝖍,” Barsus rumbled, “and we are honoured to be in your presence once again.”
At that moment, there was an abrupt wrrouwr! from inside the open window of the motel, just before Zephyr shot out into the night.
She pranced up to Harmonia without hesitation, chuffing and rubbing her head under the larger feline’s chin.
“Hello, my dear,” Harmonia said adoringly, “oh, how I’ve missed you. You must tell me all that has happened, my love.”
Sam smiled warmly as she watched the mated pair, but found their gaze subconsciously drifting to Sylphanie’s face. They were shocked to see that an almost mournful expression had manifested in her thousands of eyes.
“𝖄ℴ𝖚 𝖍𝒶𝖛ℯ 𝒻𝖆𝓁𝖑ℯ𝖓 𝖎𝓃 𝓁𝖔𝓋𝖊 𝖜𝒾𝖙𝒽 𝒶 𝓂𝖔𝓇𝖙𝒶𝖑 𝖇ℯ𝖎𝓃𝖌.” She said to Harmonia after a long silence, in which she simply stared at the two as they nuzzled each other.
A different sort of sadness crossed her face, and suddenly Sam understood all too well what her connection to Pat was, and why he had reacted the way he had to seeing her again.
“I understand this,” Harmonia said, “but I have taken a lesson from the humans I now share my home with, that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”
Sylphanie seemed to consider this for a moment, then bobbed her head in a way that made her flowing body wave like sheets on a clothesline when the wind got stronger.
Barsus and Harmonia both dipped their heads again.
“We thank you for that,” Harmonia said, “and until we meet again, may the cosmic energies look faithfully upon you.”
“𝖀𝓅𝖔𝓃 𝓎𝖔𝓊 𝒶𝖘 𝖜ℯ𝖑𝓁,” Sylphanie replied, her ghostly form beginning to melt into the shadows, “𝖆𝓃𝖉 𝖙𝒽𝖆𝓃𝖐 𝖞ℴ𝖚 𝖆𝓈 𝓌𝖊𝓁𝖑. 𝒲𝖍𝒶𝖙 𝖞ℴ𝖚 𝖍𝒶𝖛ℯ 𝓈𝖍𝒶𝖗ℯ𝖉 𝖜𝒾𝖙𝒽 𝓂𝖊 𝖙ℴ𝖓𝒾𝖌𝒽𝖙 𝖍𝒶𝖘 𝖇ℯ𝖌𝓊𝖓 𝖙ℴ 𝒽𝖊𝒶𝖑 𝖆 𝖜ℴ𝖚𝓃𝖉 𝕴 𝖓ℯ𝖛ℯ𝖗 𝖙𝒽𝖔𝓊𝖌𝒽𝖙 𝖈ℴ𝖚𝓁𝖉 𝖍ℯ𝖆𝓁.”
With that, she faded from view completely, though the way the hair on Sam’s arms remained standing upright for a few moments, along with the fact that it took a bit for the chill in the air to go away completely, told them she wasn’t fully gone just because she couldn’t be seen.
“Well…” they said finally, realizing they were shaking a little, “that was… a very weird night.”
~
{EPILOGUE}
“Guys! Wait up!”
“You shouldn’t have come with us if you couldn’t keep up!”
The peace of the jungle was disrupted by the sound of bickering human voices, those belonging to Athena, eleven, and Lucas, fifteen. With them - and being much quieter - were their older sisters, Hanna and Alexa, both in their early twenties.
Lucas turned on Athena with a leering smirk.
“‘I’ll tell Dad if you don’t take me with you!’” He mocked, and Athena stuck their tongue out angrily.
“Leave them alone,” Alexa cut in before their arguing could escalate, “and shut up, both of you. Did you not listen all those times when Mom told us not to draw attention to yourself when out in the woods?”
“We’d get away,” Lucas retorted, “the short one might be easy prey, though.”
“STOP, Lucas!” Athena shouted, making to hit him, but Alexa held them back.
“Don’t, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you.” She murmured.
Ahead of them, Hanna, the oldest of the four, stopped in a clearing bathed in sunlight from a gap in the trees and placed her hands on her hips.
“Hey, ‘Lexa?” She called over her shoulder.
“Yeah?” Alexa replied, ignoring Lucas and Athena as they continued making faces at each other.
“I think we’re about to be in big trouble.”
“What? Why?”
Alexa followed Hanna’s gaze, and immediately realized what she was talking about.
“Oh…” she mumbled, just as a massive winged lion and a three-horned wolf that seemed to be walking on thin air descended from the sky and into the clearing.
From the lion’s back lept Zephyr, who raced to greet Lucas and Athena as if it was perfectly normal for her spirit-bond’s children to be wandering in the jungle.
Sam jumped from the wolf’s back, The Lion’s Breath in hand and looking ready to scold their children before the four of them could even come up with an excuse.
“What are you kids doing out here?” They demanded the moment their feet touched the ground.
“Uh oh,” Athena muttered under their breath, “busted…”
“Okay, first of all, I’m twenty three,” Hanna objected, “and Alexa is twenty one, we’re adults now.”
“You’re still incredibly young, and you’re avoiding the question,” Sam shot back, “not to mention you brought your little siblings out here too.”
“We were just gonna bring Lucas, but Athena said they’d tell…” Alexa said lamely, realizing too late how stupid and childish that argument was as Sam raised an eyebrow at her.
“We can take care of ourselves.” Hanna added.
“Which I don’t doubt,” Sam said dryly, “I’m just not pleased that you took it upon yourselves to come out here for the first time.”
Hanna and Alexa looked at each other in confusion.
“First time?” Alexa echoed as they both looked back at Sam.
“Yes!” Sam exclaimed, “I wanted to take you myself! Now, you didn’t get in any fights with any wild animals, did you?”
“Uh… no?” Hanna replied uncertainly.
“Good,” Sam murmured, putting their arms around their daughters’ shoulders and leading them back towards the Ryder Estate, “your first encounter with a wild beast is important, and I want to be there to see it.”
Zephyr paused at the edge of the trees before following her human companions, glancing back at the two mythical creatures still waiting in the clearing.
Harmonia blinked fondly at her.
“Go on, my love,” she said, “we will see each other again soon.”
Zephyr chuffed in response, tossing her head before bounding after Sam and their children.
“Well. That was certainly an interesting experience.” Barsus murmured beside Harmonia, who nodded.
“Indeed,” she agreed, “it was. Though I was happy to see 𝕾𝓎𝖑𝓅𝖍 again.”
“As was I. And I have a feeling that this is not the last we will see of her either.”
“I feel the same. Though I suppose we will have to wait and see.”
“We will. But until then, what shall we do?”
“Take care of our own, and keep in mind that she is always nearby.”
Barsus nodded, and then, with a wisp of pale golden smoke, the pair disappeared, leaving the clearing looking as though it had always been empty.
Hey y’all!! I’m back at it again with the follow-up stories as a Christmas present for my good friend @wouldntyou-liketoknow - this one’s a long overdue sequel to Bloody Tricks and Even Bloodier Treats, her Halloween special from 2 Halloweens ago (😅). It ended up a little shorter than I’d originally intended, but the ending I have here just kinda felt right 😊
Disclaimer: the character of Caliban is not mine and belongs to @wouldntyou-liketoknow, he’s one of her many MatPat fanegos that I would highly encourage you to check out!!
Warnings: cannibalism, mentions of past injury, reference of a suicide attempt
And without further ado, I give you A Telltale Heart…
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“You wanna know what it tastes like, don’t you?”
Sam’s head shot up at Caliban’s comment, and she was shaking her head before she’d even fully thought about it.
“Absolutely not,” she replied sternly, “I’m vegetarian, plus I’ve learned in my line of work to not ask questions I already know I don’t want the answers to.”
Caliban stared at her for a moment, then shrugged.
“Suit yourself.” He murmured, which would’ve totally been an acceptable thing to say if he hadn’t followed it up by shoveling a bite of actual-human-person into his mouth. He absolutely knew the irony of his actions and was revelling in how uncomfortable Sam was because of it.
Sam cringed, swallowing the bile rising in their throat.
She didn’t know why she was sitting across from him while he ate the person she’d helped him kill.
Maybe what Owen said was right, and she was just a damn bleeding heart, too caring for her own good.
She just wanted to make sure Caliban was okay after he’d been attacked.
There were still red marks on his throat where that man’s thumbs had pressed into his flesh, and they’d likely bruise. Sam was positively certain Caliban had suffered worse injuries in his line of work, but she couldn’t help but feel… he didn’t want to be alone here, even if he’d never say so out loud, since Murdock had left to contact the cleanup crew a few minutes ago.
As if he’d read Sam’s mind, Caliban suddenly broke into her thoughts.
“You can go if you want,” he mumbled around his mouthful - again, actually human flesh. Sam wouldn’t have minded his poor table manners if he’d been eating something normal. “You don’t have to stay. I know not many people like to watch me eat.”
“No, it’s fine,” Sam half-lied, “I’ll… I’ll stay. I don’t mind… too much.”
She tried to keep her eyes from drifting down to his plate as she said it, which admittedly wasn’t that hard when his mouth curled into a smile - a genuine smile, not his usual cavalier smirk - and he let out a faint chuckle.
He seemed to have calmed down a bit since having eaten, and even though Sam couldn’t relate to craving human flesh, she could certainly relate to feeling better when her stomach wasn’t empty anymore.
“Sorry if I scared you by the way,” Caliban added - once again seeming to read her mind, “earlier, I mean.”
“Oh, you didn’t scare me,” Sam replied, again sort-of lying, “I’ve seen much worse in Torchwood, believe me… you’re not even the first cannibal I’ve met, if I’m being completely honest.”
That gave Caliban pause - Sam quite literally saw him jolt in his chair, though only slightly. His head snapped up to look at her.
“Really?” He asked, “who were they?”
“I dunno if I ever learned their names,” Sam answered, trying not to shudder, “if I was ever told them, they either didn’t stick in my brain or I purposely forgot. They were… different from you…”
As much difference as you could get with cannibals… she thought, but neglected to say.
Caliban raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting them to go on.
“It was a whole family, for one thing,” Sam went on, realizing she was already shaking, “a mother and father and their grown-up kids. Lived in this town in the Wales countryside, people started going missing, we got called out because it was ‘suspicious’. Turns out it was pretty far out of our jurisdiction - out of anyone’s jurisdiction, really, considering what they were doing out there… they didn’t just… they didn’t just eat the people the caught. They tortured them, they tricked us into thinking they were on our side, one of them even impersonated a police officer to capture Gwen and Owen. Ianto got it the worst. He tried to sacrifice himself to save Tosh, so she could run. They… they beat him so heavily he almost wasn’t alive by the time we got him outta there. Those people weren’t just cannibalizing for food, they did it for fun, for pleasure. I… I’ve seen a lot of horrible shit in my lifetime, but that was probably one of the worst.”
She sucked in a long breath, realizing she hadn’t inhaled since she’d started the story.
“Anyway… I dunno why I’m telling you all this. I guess just to say that… I misjudged you. You’re not like them, you’re… different. And I’m sorry.”
Caliban frowned.
“What for?”
“Well it’s not fair to judge you based on the only thing I know about you.”
“I’m a cannibal.”
“That… still doesn’t make it fair.”
“I don’t really care much about fairness.”
“But I do.”
Caliban shrugged.
“Alright. Fine. If apologizing makes you feel better then.”
He was quiet for a second.
“Thank you.” He added, in a barely audible voice.
Sam nodded, knowing he probably wouldn’t want anymore acknowledgement than that, and offered a small smile.
She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes as Caliban finished his impromptu snack - if it could be called that - finally feeling the adrenaline of the evening starting to wear off.
“You threw out a lot of names there,” Caliban said finally, breaking the silence, and Sam opened one eye to look at him again.
“Hm?” She asked.
“In your story about the other cannibals,” Caliban explained, “what’s this ‘Torchwood’ thing really about, anyway? You said about four different names of people I don’t know and that apparently you get called out to deal with missing people, but you’re not a cop.”
Sam raised an eyebrow.
“I could be.” She said.
Caliban was already shaking his head, grinning.
“No, you couldn’t,” he said, “you’re not the type, I can tell.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam chuckled, “Gwen used to be, though. A cop, I mean. She’s our investigator now, using that could’ve-been-a-detective brain to track down leads and appeal to people’s human side. She really cares, she’s our heart, reminds us to be more… human. More kind. Toshiko is the brains of the operation, she’s a scientist, a techie. She can hack into just about any government agency site and she can solve any tech issue in five minutes, tops - I just wish she’d recognize her own brilliance. Owen’s the doctor, but he’s also a biologist. Any weird, wacky specimens we find go to him. He’s a bit of a hardass, but he’s like a little brother to me. We all know he’s much softer on the inside than he lets on. Ianto’s kind of a one-man-band, he cleans up after us, makes the coffee, but he specializes in the archives. He’s also the youngest of all of us. By a lot. Sometimes I catch myself thinking of him as a kid, even if that’s wrong. I can’t help it.”
“That young, is he?” Caliban asked.
“Early twenties.”
“And the other cannibals, they beat him?”
“Almost to death. And I can’t imagine the psychological torture they put him through. That could only be seen in his eyes… he wouldn’t tell us what they said to him, but I could tell… he tried to… take his own life not long after…”
Sam swallowed hard.
“H-he’s better now, of course, but… we were all pretty worried about him. And I don’t think he’s ever had friends who worry about him before.”
Caliban’s expression hardened, a flicker of anger appearing in his eyes, though Sam could tell it wasn’t directed at her.
“Then there’s Jack,” Sam went on, wishing her hands would stop shaking, “he’s our leader, and… well, I’m his biological ancestor. He’s from the future, but he ended up back here because of a misadventure with a man called the Doctor, who’s a whole other story completely.”
“How do you find out your someone’s ‘biological ancestor’?” Caliban demanded.
Sam shrugged with a weak laugh.
“When your coworkers start not minding their own business and notice how similar you talk and act and look and get a DNA test done.”
Caliban huffed a laugh before lapsing into another momentary silence.
“Doc told me about that little favor he did for you,” he said after a minute or so, “watching your other children. I’m assuming Jack wasn’t one of them.”
Sam nodded, trying to fight the sudden anxiety worming away at her stomach over the fact that a cannibal had just asked her about her children.
“Yeah, I have three younger kids between one and eight,” they said quietly, “my partner, Jay, was gonna be out for the evening and I got called out on an emergency, and since we were all living over here at the time and I couldn’t ask anyone else on my my team to step in, I contacted Murdock.”
Caliban was chortling.
“You hired a contract killer to babysit your children!” He cackled.
“Yeah, and Jay wasn’t too fucking happy about it when he found out either,” Sam grumbled, which only made Caliban laugh harder, “I know Murdock promised they couldn’t be safer, but… well, a serial killer is a serial killer.”
“What’re their names?” Caliban asked, a strange glimmer in his brown eyes that Sam couldn’t quite match to an emotion.
Sam’s heart slammed to an immediate stop.
Caliban must’ve seen the shock and reluctance in her face, because he immediately shook his head, waving a hand dismissively.
“Never mind,” he murmured, “you don’t have to tell me. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“N-no, it’s fine,” Sam stammered quickly, “I just… and I hate that I have to ask this, but… you wouldn’t eat a child, would you?”
Caliban raised an eyebrow at them, annoyance (and… possibly offence?) etched into his face.
“So, did you think my underground subway lair looked like a witch’s gingerbread house, or…?” He asked, his tone bordering on the same anger he’d expressed before.
“Alright, fair enough,” Sam sighed, raising her hands, “sorry. Protective instinct, I guess.”
“You would protect them, wouldn’t you?”
The question caught Sam off guard.
“… What?” She responded, frowning and tilting her head to one side.
“From someone like… from someone like those other cannibals.”
Sam could tell he’d wanted to say “from someone like me” but had refrained. She didn’t acknowledge this.
“Of course I would,” they said, with sudden fierceness, “I’d protect them from anything, human or not, cannibal or not, Earthly being or not. I’d give up my life for my children, I’d give up everything for them. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I wasn’t.” Caliban responded quickly. Then he added quietly, “just wanted to be sure.”
“Sure of what? That I’m not an abusive parent?” Sam shot back with a laugh, “never. NEVER.”
“Good to know.” Caliban said simply.
That strange emotion from before still lingered in his gaze, and Sam squinted at him.
“… Why?” She asked finally, and Caliban glanced up at them.
“Huh?”
“Why… did you wanna know that? Why’s it important to you?”
“Because no child deserves to suffer, but any adult who caused them suffering does.”
Sam nodded.
“Agreed. Got a bit of a soft spot for children then, huh?”
“You could say that, I guess. As long as you don’t make fun of me for it.”
“I’d never do that! Why would I? It only makes me like you more.”
Caliban gave her another look.
“Platonically, I mean.” She added.
“I know that,” Caliban huffed, “I’m just not used to hearing people say they ‘like’ me, especially not… normal people.”
“Well, you should know me enough by now to know I’m not a ‘normal’ person. If such a thing even exists.”
The awesome @sammys-magical-au is almost always my go-to for brainstorming, whether it's for characters, plots, descriptions, etc. And it seems they were kind enough to remember one of the much more obscure fanegos I've been quietly working on for a while now. Kind enough to even mention her in one of their latest fics!
And that basically kicked certain parts of my brain into gear, so...here we go! I've currently got yet another WIP cooking up, so I figured I should do some clarifying before it's ready for posting.
Much like Caliban and R.D., this uncanny lady is a partner to LeviathanPat! Or...partner-adjacent? As you'll soon see, things are rather complicated. (Go figure, I'm the writer behind aforementioned things, lol)
Although she isn't bound by standard entry rules like L.P. is, she still has her fair share of limitations. The biggest one being that she can only stay on certain planes of existence (such as Earth, for example) for short amounts of time, whereas L.P. can come and go as he pleases.
She may not be as morbid or aggressive as L.P., but it would be a grave mistake to see that as weakness. In fact, she's actually one of very few entities who have a little more power than he does. As for what exactly her power includes...well, you'll just have to wait and see~
She's one of very few entities who can call L.P. by his true name (only half of which is pronounceable by the human tongue, hence why Sol just calls him "Pat").
To say that Sylph and L.P. go way, waaaaay back would be an understatement. (Yes, that was technically a pun. No, I'm not sorry.) The feelings on either side are mutual, though certain views and methods are...not. Admittedly, Sylph sees humans in a way similar to how humans see insects. Little creatures that are sometimes interesting and mildy-entertaining...but not much else. Still, that doesn't mean she condones putting them through twisted experiments just to see what happens to them, L.P.
Now, I wouldn't be me if I didn't pile on the angst, so...While the two of them are on a very similar creature-caliber, Sylph and L.P.'s natures are just so antithetical to each other that they can only afford to be in each other's presence for a limited amount of time. Granted, they can gradually adjust to get closer and make physical contact, but even that is a slow-moving process. In fact, a huge part of their relationship revolved around the two of them searching for a way to overcome this. Unfortunately, surreal shenanigans ended up happening, which ultimately led to...The Incident. Ever since then, they haven't really had a chance to see each other...which just might change in the future. Hint-hint. (Please just be patient with me. Writing is hard, okay?)
Where L.P.'s form relates to darkness, Sylph's form relates to light. That is all...No, actually, I lied. That is NOT all. I'm talking bioluminescence plus-plus. I'm talking so bright it's legitimately kinda painful for mortal eyes to try looking at.
Then again, that light is mainly produced by her internal organs. Some of it sort of functions as her hair, and some of it does leak out into the world through her eyes. And by "eyes" I mean, "a scattering of holes in her skin that can stretch to be wider/longer or even move along as she pleases." (much like L.P., she often has way too many of them).
In fact...for the readers who have watched Jordan Peele's NOPE (and for everyone who hasn't...WHY?! IT'S SUCH AN AMAZING MOVIE! GET OUTTA HERE AND GO WATCH IT NOW!): remember the forms Jean Jacket took in the ending scenes? Well, I'm not saying that Sylph looks exactly like that, because I don't want to plagiarize...but that doesn't mean I can't take inspiration from it.
So, just imagine Sylph's outer skin behaving in sort of a similar way to Jean Jacket's. It can resemble all manner of things from jellyfish to orchid flowers to sheets of billowing cloth. Layers of it basically orbit around all the light she produces, all working together to form a vaguely human-esque shape. Not only that, but her skin also has a sort of opalescent effect to it. It can reflect hints of a variety of colors beyond the bright, pale glow of her internal system.
I usually apologize for rambling...but not today, because it took so much time and patience and experimenting to come up with a description that would be pretty and unsettling at the same time. Thanks again for all your help, Sammy 💞)
Because of that orbiting effect I mentioned, Sylph is also capable of shapeshifting much like L.P. is. The main difference is the fact that Sylph's form technically has visible structure, whereas L.P. is basically a moving, talking void no matter what shape he takes.
(Yeah, I already have an info-page for this guy. However, that page also has a bunch of information on a few different EgoPats, and I figured that might be tedious for readers who want to learn about one specific character. So, I'm giving L.P. here his own thing since I've been focused on him lately. Sort of similar to how I've organized separate character-posts for The Pentas Family.)
(Also, since I've been expanding on L.P.'s lore, I've created yet another fanego—my very first Ash Ego, in fact—to act as a companion for him! If you'd to learn more about them, go here.)
An alternative character to EldritchPlier
Just like his counterpart, he’s a cosmic horror. He feeds off of human souls, but thoughts and emotions can also satisfy him for a time.
He’s bound by the same supernatural rules as EldritchPlier–the primary one being that he can’t enter a place without explicitly being welcomed in.
Where EldritchPlier typically goes for doors, LeviathanPat will lurk outside of windows. He does this because it gives him an opportunity to watch his victims. That way, he can more easily gauge their reactions and plan his next move more carefully.
When he talks to his targets, he’ll try to make them sympathize with him rather than just flat-out bribe them. He’ll usually try his luck when the weather is bad in order to sell the act. (“þlêå§ê lê† mê ¢ðmê ïñ§ïÐê! ̆’§ §ð ¢-¢ðlР𵆠hêrê; Ì ¢åñ’† £êêl m¥ håñЧ åñ¥mðrê!”)
That being said, if his target shows hesitation or gets onto him quickly, he’ll definitely lose patience and go on the defensive. He’ll try to make them feel guilty for refusing to help someone who’s supposedly sick and/or injured.
He chooses his targets in advance, then waits for an opportunity to get them alone near the window. Then he’ll tap on the glass to get their attention. He typically only hunts at night, since darkness makes humans more susceptible to fear/paranoia/disturbance.
He’s able to shapeshift, but he doesn’t like looking completely human. When talking to his targets, he’ll appear as a vague, semi-fluid silhouette with only his glowing eyes truly visible.
(By the way, does anyone still remember Mark's project, YouTube Cut This Content? Because, if so...I can definitely see Matt's part of that sometimes working for L.P.'s appearance, lol. Bro doesn't just live in the Uncanny Valley, he IS the Uncanny Valley.)
(If you'd like to get an even better idea of how this guy looks, there's this amazing art courtesy of my friend @insane4fandoms! Please go check out their blog and show them some love!_
If his target gets on his nerves, his shape will begin changing more sporadically as he grows more and more frustrated. His eyes will also shift in the way of turning bloodshot, changing colors, maybe even bulging or melting in their sockets.
Since it’s kind of impossible for a room to be built without a door and at least one window, EldritchPlier and LeviathanPat often end up going for the same target. When that happens, they’ll argue over said target for an ungodly amount of time.
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